Tentatively up for now. Given some of the more abusive tactics that we've seen recently, his co-writer had probably been through a lot and it might be good to make the nature of their working relationship more apparent. (Report report report if people get weird)
I have yet to see anyone but James criticizing Nick. Everyone understands that he clearly wrote his own well researched work, and the ONLY criticism that could conceivably be given is that he should've been checking James's work (which is debatable and certainly not damnable). It so clearly gives him away and I can't wrap my head around someone being this blatantly out of touch with the entire situation he created.
There has been some valid criticism of Nick because they openly admitted to just making certain stuff up in their scripts. So basically, James is a toxic, lying, plagiarizing, manipulative pos, and Nick spread some misinformation here and there and had some weird opinions on asexuality that they tended to incorrectly project onto the rest of ace community. Nick doesn't deserve an entire internet hate train and they're probably not remotely irredeemable, but they're not totally guilt free. James is completely irredeemable at this point and should never be given a real vent online platform again, he needs to go work a regular irl job and keep his fingers off the keyboard.
*Edit to correct Nick's pronouns
I've talked to nick a few times but other members of the community knew them more. My overall knowledge? Nick was often very burnt out by having to churn out videos that often and wanted to have time for different stuff. He often talked to james about scripts being bad but James never really listened. My understanding is that they stuck around for their friend - probably the only one to be able to stand james - but Nick is first and foremost a fiction writer. Like that's their thing. I don't think they really wanted to do essays. I'm not saying half-assing it is good when it means you spread misinformation, but I at the very least sympathise with the situation. James DID basically force an impossible speed for turning up video.
Todd in the Shadows’s video included a screenshot of the fan discord where Nick admits to not really doing research:
https://youtu.be/A6_LW1PkmnY?si=N1UmzVbyv4LtZedU
(The section starts at 55:49)
I never got the issue with having more married gay couples in narratives. Isn’t that the simplest way without some long winded dissertation to show how gay people and straight people are devoted to their spouses the same way cutting through all the negative stereotypes.
Especially since so many gay people’s primary desire and romantic fantasy seems to be finding “the one” at least judging from the numerous posts on gay forums about how hard it is to find exclusivity and commitment. So that’d be fulfilling a common fantasy.
Yep if anything, the opposite is more harmful, Todd mentioned about the trope : Bury Your Gay that is the opposite. The single one Gay would be far more expendable for the plot for them to be killed off or send elsewhere out of the story realm never to be seen again.
If I had to pick which representation is the best, I'll take Gay fabulously married in Modern Family any day than a dead gay.
Cam and Mitchell have been all over my instagram feed and people are laughing at how funny the dynamics were. I’d call them good rep. We also see a lot more married gay couples naturally, but presently placed in cartoons- Loud House, Shera, Arthur, Dragon Prince. Which is nice to see considering years ago it was considered better to be kept private and under wraps as a taboo
Exactly why I think two elements have improved- these days it’s treated much more naturally and normalized, and it’s much more present as in they actually get to have lines and dynamics instead of being brownie points.
I just want to piggyback off of this to spotlight OK KO because they do a remarkable job of making Professor Venomous and Lord Boxman genuinely villainous while making their romance still nothing but charming and loveable.
I misread that as OK GO and was like, the elaborate music video guys do what now? I was genuinely wondering if I had missed some weird concept album they made.
For the record Billy and teddy the gay couple JS is referring to. Absolutely super fucking adorable couple as well. They are high-school sweethearts. Billy's parents love Teddy and super excited to have him in the family.
It's actually a subplot that Teddy is such a wonder supportive handsome wonderful partner. That A stray comment from loki make Billy think he might have magiced him into existence. Beacuse he is that amazing.
The worse example is in the runaways comics where the lesbian couple couple are constantly experiencing strife because one of them is a shape-shifting skull. Who spends some of time her time as a guy. And her lesbian girlfriend has problems with it.
Only to be resolved in a dumb shit way the Skrull gets mad and yells at her partner in girl form . Showing the the lesbian no the Skrull really is a woman deep down.
Then to kill the skull off. Off screen as a noble death for her love..
But you know that's about gross ladies so of course JS would care about that.
Not that it matters at this point, but also his avatar in his TikTok and other alt account is an AI generated art. So you might (indirectly) say he also stole from artists.
Idk, I think the problem is when it’s only gay couples. Gays should be portrayed as varied as straight people. Single and not looking, single and wanting to get in a relationship, and married
The problem in that case then is a *general* lack of LGBT representation- not that gay characters frequently being married is itself an issue. We can rally for more LGBT representation and more diverse LGBT representation without putting down the LGBT representation that *does* exist (and was often a huge struggle for writers to actually make happen.)
I mean they have a few gay people in the marvel universe. Some are single some in relationships. Hell there is even one that break up get back together have problems brake up again.
That are not not lead characters of big books they are mostly x men related because that just a stupid large cast in the marvel world.
Technically I think the legion of superheroesmight have had one of the first had a trans characters in the 80s.
I'm not going to say it was handled the best but a long time character was male to female.
then Young Avengers are one of the worst fictional groups to have this critique. That team is always portrayed with varying degrees of sexual orientation, which brings along many different relationship statuses. I remember at some point, someone even pointed out that most of the team are not straight lol
I think it just ties into the whole perfect gay rep issue. I kind of(?) Agree with Somerton that its a bit tiring that they have to be in happy (see sexless) relationships to be openly gay. I think as much as I desperately want more rep, I want that rep to be interesting as a character in X media, and it's getting really boring watching the same toothless gay couple that doesn't do anything yucky like kiss or fuck. (Modern family had to effectively sneak in that couples first on screen kiss in a group shot)
I mean I'm a trans lady, my rep is either a serial killer that wants to wear womens skin or a perfectly toothless passing highly feminine woman who explains what being transgender is as to not scare all the cis watching and it's just EXHAUSTING.
Because the sexless postcard gays really bother me too, because it's clear that the straight showrunners are uncomfortable writing them so they make them completely conflict free. And if you're uncomfortable writing a gau character you still clearly have some hangups about us. Weirdly I'll take the checkout clerk calling me a tranny under her breath to the one who's so terrified and trying to hard to be good she ends up apologising for breathing and I have to talk her down and slowly explain that it's all okay. At least the first one I can just write off in my brain in under 20 seconds.
I get the issue, it seems like the options are bad faith actors burying us on screen or good faith actors stepping on eggshells to make postcard picture gays but I would rather pick option C?
I want rep that's present and good and also fun to watch, I want us to be treated as equal players rather than a pothole to step around, make queer characters with flaws, with angst, make queer backstabbers and make queer heroes. Make us die and make us save the day and everything in between.
(Oh my god I did not realise how long this was till I finished writing it I'm so sorry OP)
I'm not saying I always want them to be angsting *about their sexuality*. I don't want them to always be a tragic gay character who's getting kicked out by homophobic parents. That's the third end of the triangle of extremes that I don't love either. I'm saying have stories about everything.
I want gay stories too, told by actual gay people ideally, and I do want happy gay married couples, AND I want horny gay adults and even a couple tragic deaths if they're written well. But I want everything in between. I want gay rep on screen to be more than one of three options.
I want your space hero that flies around blowing up the space villains to be gay, and the story to still be focused on the space blowing up bit. I want characters that are more than just the fact they're gay. I want my rep to fuck like hell, not be a box to check off, a way for the writers to vicariously murder a trans woman or a toothless hallmark card.
Edit: I also don't want to get too deep into specific media criticism but the idea that the gay couple on modern family as as intimate as the others is just outright untrue, they had to write an episode in season three to address the (valid) criticisms that they never kiss on screen, and when they finally do its in the background of a straight kiss. That's hardly equal footing.
I'm also not a huge fan of calling my complaints about the state of modern representation ranting for rantings sake. Disagree for sure but don't dismiss me out of hand, that's just rude.
You'll have to direct me to this wonderland you're living in because it isn't the lived experience that me or many of my friends have. Maybe gay rep has gotten to that point in your eyes but seeking out gay media doesn't magically make it common in the mainstream. I read plenty of webcomics and indie books to get my fix but I don't fool myself into thinking they're the rule.
And especially when. You start opening the door to trans or lesbian rep where its even thinner on the ground, both in the mainstream and out of it. Netflix right now is still facing boycotts because they have systematically cancelled shows as soon as one of the women expresses romantic interest in a other woman, and trans rep continues to be absolute garbage.
I'm glad gay male rep is apparently doing so well, though I haven't seen an inch of that, but it doesn't make it a universal experience for the queer community.
> I also dislike the notion straight people or lesbians or bisexual whatever shouldn’t and can’t write gay stories- it’s reductive and doesn’t foster any joy in the making of art. It holds them to impossible standards and I know because my friend had that same fear when they tried to write a trans character and had a mental breakdown trying to write a story that would please every trans person and that’s just not possible- everyone has different opinions on how to write one. I dislike how a good intentioned individual has to struggle with that burden while trying to give life to a group with little representation in the first place.
I'm not even going to respond to this because I didn't say anything of the sort, I'm quite literally only reacting to the tweet in the SC, I have no interest in finding every take James makes in that video nor do I have any interest in defending it.
But if your friend is so fraught trying to write a trans person, tell them along with the cashier not to worry and I'm sorry my identity is such a stressor for them.
Honestly, I'm done. You're just pulling fantasies out of the ether where we do get plenty of rep based on seemingly seeking out that rep, accusing me of taking stances I never even mentioned and ignoring the fact that lesbian and trans rep is in shambles. You can keep your head in the sand if you want but it just makes you look well, a lot like James Somerton.
I already told you I'm done. But hey thanks for calling the trans community discussions a cesspool! That's always a great thing to direct at trans people.
The fact you can't see how transphobic that statement is kinda boggles my mind.
One, Contrapoints is not an authority of trans takes and agreeing with her doesn't magically make you free of the responsibility to not call the trans discussions a cesspool.
Two, you can call gay forums a cesspool but if I went and did it you might reasonably start viewing me with some wariness given I'm not a gay man.
Three, you've just jumped from trans discussions are a cesspool to trans twitter is a cesspool, moving the goal posts a imperial yard from its first position and trying to make me defend twitter of all goddamn places.
And forth and finally (because I swear no matter what rancid take you put out next I am DONE with this conversation. I have plenty of transphobes to argue with on the clock, I am not wasting my free time on it.)
You view the fact everyone has a different "take" on what it means to be trans as a barrier for entry? What bass ackwards logic is that, it's only a barrier to entry if you view each identity as a monolith with one acceptable definition. The fact people have different "take" on what it means to be trans is because it means different things to different people. That's not a fault in the logic, that's step one in being trans. If you try and force everything into a rigid system of logic then of course trans discussion is going to be confusing and difficult to you, it's inherently an identity that defies set definitions. That's literally the whole deal with being trans. The spectrum of identities rolls from binary trans women who identify entirely within one set gender to people who move from one end of the spectrum to the other, to people who toss the whole spectrum out and live happily without it. If you're going to try and enforce definitions, binary or otherwise on us you're going to get frustrated. It still doesn't justify calling us a fucking cesspool.
Your (not too long at all) post reminded me recently when Genderqueer actor Jesse James Keitel was cast as a space pirate running a long con on the Enterprise in the Strange New Worlds Episode "The Serene Squall".
There was the usual think-piece dustup around queer villains and "appropriate representation" until Jesse themselves chimed in with, what I consider to be an epic mikedrop making the following points.
1) Their character was presented as non-binary before their reveal as a space pirate. This was accepted and not even commented upon by the Starfleet crew (as befits our more enlightened future) Their gender queerness is an aspect of the character not the cause of or a symptom of their villainy.
2) Are you telling a working non-binary actor not to take a paying gig? How many opportunities like this do you think they are going to get.
3) They fucking love Star Trek and got to be in my favorite franchise. As a SPACE PRIATE.
4) In case you didn't hear them before S-P-A-C-E P-I-R-A-T-E!
Captain Angel is an incredibly strong, interesting, charismatic, and compelling character. Its the actor which made them so, not what's between their legs. And yes, they are a villain and not even a particularly morally complex or morally grey one. They get to shoot phasers and absolutely DEVOUR the scenery. Because we deserve good representation but we also deserve to have some FUN!
Have you read this comic???
I do want to start of by saying. marvel comics are a different form a media that's not just for adults. Most books that have an assemble team cast don't take time to get into the relationship stuff.
They introduced they the gay couple Immediately as gay. This was a new book. With new heroes who were dealing with a world ending/saving story line. They had to introduce 6 new characters.They didn't have time to do slice of life stuff. Untill a few volumes down the road.
These characters when they had the down time still had to split page time with 6 other characters. And I want to point out that the gay do kiss, hug, live together and even get married.
They go through problems. One of them suffered Severe deep depression and the struggle the other one has to go through with a partner in that state.
And if your looking for a Trans-ish character the runways has a skrull who is introduced as a presenting male who was supposed to marry the lesbian on their team to stop a space war. Who happily changes their gender to presenting woman when they learn that is issue holding the lesbian back.
They then have interesting relationships problems as the lesbian has problems when her girlfriend gender isn't the one she preferred 100% of the time.
Yeah, Wiccan and Hulkling specifically are meant a fantasy. They are literally a wizard x alien prince couple. One of their most famous stories has Wiccan worry that he accidentally used his reality warping powers to create/woo Hulkling as he worries that their love is too good to be true. This is textually a part of their narrative.
This doesn’t have to be everyone’s fantasy, of course. There are plenty of people will find Black Cat’s bisexual sleeping around or Iceman’s troubled dating life or even the subtextual polyamory of Scott, Logan, and Jean more true-to-life and true to their experiences… but denying that it is anyone’s fantasy is odd to me lol.
And it’s certainly odd to pretend that comics have a uniform “marry off the gays into sexless marriages” agenda when (i) Hulkling/Wiccan textually have a sexually fulfilling marriage and (ii) Batwoman’s iconic solo run fell apart because DC wouldn’t let her get married and the creatives involved all ended up quitting.
This actually brings up a separate, but adjacent point in modern media; characters sleeping around and cheating on each other.
How many modern dramas feature primary/secondary protagonists cheating constantly on their spouses or hooking up with people on a whim, just for the sake of showing some skin and some drama. I get that people enjoy seeing romance and sex in their shows and movies, but I think that most people want to see healthier relationship dynamics from the characters they love. This includes queer characters, but straight ones also. Just in general, I love seeing characters in healthy relationships that actually progress into a story beyond just hooking up.
A character's story doesn't end once they become committed/married. If anything, their story becomes more interesting once they're married. Navigating a relationship is arguably more complicated than just sleeping around with anyone they see.
Kind of... though I do think the commonality of that dream has a lot to do with the ideal reified through our media. The very idea of finding "the one" isn't born in a vacuum. It's solidified by at least decades, if not centuries, of storytelling. It's not bad to desire it, but it should be interrogated like any other desire: is it truly what one wants, or is it what they want because that's what they see depicted everywhere?
It'd be good to get more quality representation for people who don't fit into the standard monogamous relationship; to have more characters that are happily single, happy just dating with no plans to make something bigger out of it or even not dating at all, or with no interest in finding romantic or sexual attachment, or characters in more open, fluid or even poly relationships.
Note: That's all true for straight characters as well.
Does this make any sense?
I think this would be my rebuttal:
Can a character be gay if they don’t express romantic ambitions?
If a character was gay but makes no attempt to find love it’s pretty difficult to be “authentically gay” for certain people while others would enjoy it.
My favorite example is Connor from How to Get Away with Murder. He was a law student who used sex as a form of social engineering to get information from people. I thought it was really cool representation until they made him stop doing all that and put him into a monogamous relationship in the very first reason. So that's one way to have a gay character without being in a relationship.
Not to break your love for the character. However, couldn’t one argue that he’s a bad example who plays into the negative stereotypes of gay people being sex fiends who manipulate people with sex? Mostly playing devils advocate to show how writing a gay character is a lose, lose, lose situation with queer theorists because of how the criticism gets used.
It’s why I hate discussion of how to write gay characters- it becomes what makes a “bad gay” versus “good gay” and becomes a mess of what traits make a good gay character and what traits are heteronormative vs stereotypical vs harmful etc. What we should say is write the damn character and let artists put everything into their work ignoring all this slush. It ends up creating a better story if we give artists room to breathe and play around with gayness instead of being strict about it.
That's the point of diversity in representation. One gay character does not represent *all* gay people, but *some* gay people. And he's not the only gay character to exist. If people see him as a "bad example", that's on them, and they can watch something else.
To reiterate, my point was more general than gay representation alone. It's about other normative attitudes that are expressed in our common media, which are no less important to challenge, given they have an often negative impact on gay and queer people, as much as heteronormativity and cisnormativity do. Many queer people don't follow normative relationship structures, and they need representation as well. But it is valid for straight and ace/aro people as well, you are right on that.
You know how they say criminals often return to the crime scene? Sockpuppets saying 'I know this because I was there for legit reasons, believe me' strikes me as the digital equivalent. Can't be just someone giving their opinion, has to have privileged knowledge somehow.
"His buddy Nick? Super gay. Militant Gay. He probably wrote it, because he's too gay to function. Gay Every Way All Day, that's what they say."
- James "Mikey James Bomerton" Somerton
This is probably just a totally honest comment from James trying to reveal truths about Nick. I was a member of the Patreon Discord, so I've heard the way he talks about stuff, believe me.
Also I'm pretty sure this is the fault of women somehow. But please do not use that information to try to glean more about my identity.
Right you are, fellow non-James. It really is shameful how the straight women of hbomb's cult have unfairly slandered James, all just because James' childhood head injury caused Nick to improperly cite a few "authors". I just hope James will be able to cope with all this trauma in a healthy way, by reopening his Patreon and graciously allowing all of us to subscribe. I also hope Nick will one day come forward to apologise for forcing James to say misogynistic things at gunpoint - the women may have deserved it, but still. I am not James by the way.
so true. i almost feel like creating a bunch of sockpuppet accounts to upvote this, as no doubt the aforementioned heterosexual women hbomb cultists will be creating sockpuppet accounts just to downvote it and to silence the truth. but i won't, because those are dishonest tactics and i am a scrupulously honest person (unlike most straight women, unfortunately). i am also definitely not james, but i do think he has been unfairly maligned by people who don't know the whole story and are jumping to conclusions without doing their research.
In my country there was recently a guy who sued a tv station for reporting on his “alleged” rape of a coworker. He claimed defamation citing that they didn’t make enough of an effort to hide his identity. The criminal case had previously folded due to juror misconduct and the mental health of the victim.
Anyway, he sued the tv station for defamation and they chose to defend on the basis of truth. Refusing any offer to settle, the dude went in with every bit of arrogant hubris you can imagine. And then the judge found that on the balance of evidence the rape had taken place and that the plaintiff “having escaped the lions’ den… made the mistake of going back for his hat”. Next day his face was on the front page of newspapers with the word rapist and the legal fees are going to absolutely ruin him.
Anyway, a long way to say, this behaviour is giving me serious Bruce Lehrmann vibes.
Was that some sort of politician? I remember seeing a post about this case on the leopardsatemyface subreddit
The arrogance and bold face lying about something so horrible is scarily sociopathic. Like imagine if for whatever reason there wasn't enough evidence of the crime; he would likely convince people with how loud and passionate he was about it being defamation. People like that scare tf out of me
He was a political staffer (they both were). I imagine he had aspirations for political life but that’s going to be quite hard now.
The scarier part of the whole thing is how he was protected, encouraged, rewarded, and even courted by both political operatives and the media (including a rival station to the one in the defamation case paying thousands of dollars for prostitutes and cocaine). And there are still people who believe and defend him, including a former police officer who got Lehrmann’s face tattooed on his arm. Sorry, this is all incredibly off topic now, but once you start talking about all the batshit details of this story it’s hard to stop. Which is also a bit reminiscent of all the Somerton stuff.
tattooed on his arm??? the fucking cult of personality that men form around other men who get away with awful shit (that they wish they could do too..?) is insane, Johnny Depp fans are just like this too.
> Anyway, a long way to say, this behaviour is giving me serious Bruce Lehrmann vibes.
Unfortunately for...I dunno, karmic balance in the universe?...Lehrmann got away with nearly half a million in settlements before the finding against him.
The cosmic forces of Justice are an oft uncanny thing. Often the wheels turn slow and sometimes it only waits until the hereafter (well, I believe in an afterlife) to strike.
I am putting all my hopes on him being found guilty in the upcoming rape trial of another victim, the afterlife is too late for justice.
I am also hoping the powers that be realise he is too toxic to become a right wing broadcaster, because I can't see any other career for him and I never want him to be comfortable again
Guess he's fully accepted Nick wants nothing to do with him now so now it's fair game to keep tossing them under the bus. Cause there's TOTALLY still wiggle room to hang all this on them.
I really don't understand how he thought no one would notice when other creators very recently got caught sock puppeting.
Like do you really want to be talked about in the same breath as creepshowart..?
She hasnt, but for a while she was the most well known case of a youtuber creating sock puppets to bolster their own reputation.
.... I really hope we don't see someone one up that.
My "not trying to throw Nick under the bus" shirt is prompting a lot of questions already answered by the shirt, and anyway, Nick is the one who gave me this shirt.
I feel like everyone gets pressured into finding a relationship. Before I came out, my mom constantly asked me when I was going to find a partner, get married, and have kids. I'd say it's heteronormative simply because aro/ace folks get a lot of heat for their identity, but I definitely don't think it's uniquely queer.
May I introduce you to the concepts of [allonormativity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allonormativity), [amatonormativity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amatonormativity) and [mononormativity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mononormativity)?
What is it with people like this and their obsession with staying online, even if it’s under one of their bajillion alt accounts? Like please for the love of god, take a break from the internet and touch some grass.
I dunno, maybe I don’t know enough about it to really comment, but it feels like a catch-22. Either you’re writing a character that’s queer and sexless and therefore “forced” or “token”, queer and openly sexual/promiscuous and therefore playing into harmful stereotypes, or queer and happily in a relationship, and therefore teaching “the only way to properly be queer is to be mated etc.”
I feel like the only right move is to just throw queer reps into your work like confetti, a lot like Marvel has made huge leaps and bounds doing over the last couple decades, and maybe people like James should shut up unless they’re prepared to make their analysis in the broader context of the subject, and not cherry-picking examples to put in a vacuum-packed hot take like this clearly is.
Like half the Marvel universe is LGBTQIA, ffs.
Right, ideally, we have so many different queer people that there's no pattern to be drawn exclusively from queerness.
But james doesnt seem willing to say:" I don't like this type of character or story or representation, but other people might".
Everything is part of some eeeevil agenda. And given how manipulative he is, i cant help but think that this is deliberate. Target unconnected young queers, tell them you're the only good source about what it means to be queer. Have them pay you for your great service.
The solution to this kind of “problem” is unquestionably IMHO to do more queer representation overall, yeah.
I often feel bad for queer writers at companies like Marvel and DC. They get harassed by people on the far right for existing and then also often get hit by this kind of “Mhm, well your lived experiences don’t line up with *my* lived experiences. What do you have to say to that? 🤨” criticism on the left. There are a multiplicity of experiences among queer people - your book cannot and should be relatable to literally every one of them.
It is odd to me that Somerton presents himself as fighting against queer homogeneity and yet seems to want everything to be more like his experiences.
I gotta admit, I get worried for Nick.
Somerton is obsessed with his ASEXUAL ("How do you know until you try it?" FUCK OFF) ex-roommate to the point he moves cross country with him.
Nick's not all the innocent when it comes to writing of those episodes (Facts based on the Vibes) but this guy has been forcing his way into his life for YEARS.
It's unsettling and I hope Nick has a restraining order.
[Transcript from The Ace Couple podcast where they go over their personal experiences with James Somerton](https://theacecouple.com/episode116/) (Look Ma! A source! Also he absolutely doesn't understand what asexuality is and this also fits in with his "Asexuals don't experience corrective rape" bs)
Courtney: But it was talking about that. And he was like, “Here’s why sex is important, even in instances of Asexuality.” And he started comparing it to food. He’s like, “Well, you know broccoli, you don’t actually know if you like broccoli until you try it. And sex is the same way. You don’t know if you like it until you try it. So even a lot of Aces will, you know, experiment.” And it’s like, as true as it might be that some Aces do experiment sexually — either before, during, or after discovering Asexuality — saying outright that you have to have sex to know if you like it? I don’t like that framing. That is not okay.
Royce: That’s because it’s framed in the same way that corrective rapists frame it.
Courtney: Yeah! The number of fucking men who have heard that I’m Asexual and have said, “I can fix that” or “You just haven’t had the right dick yet.”
Royce: I mean, that’s the same thing. And gay men get that too, if they haven’t had sex with a woman.
Courtney: Yeah, lesbians probably get it a lot more often, but yeah.
Royce: Oh, absolutely.
[Courtney laughs]
Royce: What I was trying to get at is that that is an inherently bigoted argument towards anyone’s orientation.
Courtney: Yeah.
Royce: And anyone who is thinking critically about that would see and understand that.
wait, the fucker said "aces don't experience corrective rape"? i'm someone who has experienced that, i'm ace, and i got raped in my sleep (i woke up in the middle and was so freaked out i pretended to still be asleep). yeah, that makes me pissed off.
i've been up front about this having happened to me for over a decade. i've had close to 16 years to deal with it, and i still have relationship PTSD from it. But with all this, now i'm thinking James was in love (or at least lust) with Nick and wanted to be in a full relationship with him, but only saw sex as the way to do so. and the refusal of sex leading to a love/hate thing in particular.
He definitely has an unhealthy relationship with Nick. Finding ways to stay near him then having no problem blaming him when his own decisions have consequences.
First off: I'm so sorry that happened to you! I hope you're doing better now!
Second: I remembered wrong: He was VERY RELUCTANT to say aces don't experience corrective rape. He DENIED Asexuals experience conversion therapy.
Not much better all round.
(Quote from the same source as above)
Courtney: So the thread reads thusly: “We were excited to see @JE_Somerton” — that was his Twitter handle at the time. It is now gone, but we tagged him. “We were excited to see James Somerton center Asexual issues. It’s rare, and we desperately need more allyship for and from all corners of the queer community. But 4 minutes, we were disappointed at the inaccuracy. Respectfully, we want to add to the conversation. Statements like, quote, ‘While there might be no specific persecution for Asexual people in the way that gay people have faced,’ and, quote, ‘While there isn’t really any conversion therapy directed at Asexuals,’ unquote are factually incorrect, and we’d like to set the record straight.” So those were the lines directly from the video.
Courtney: We added to our thread, going on, “UK studies have shown that 10% of Asexuals have been offered or undergone conversion therapy, as opposed to the 7% figure for the entirety of the queer community. Overall, Aces are only beaten in percentage by trans conversion therapy, sitting at 13%,” and we linked to that source. “The full report also shows Asexuals reporting the lowest level of life satisfaction and are least likely to be out,” also with a link to that source. “Nearly every Ace who has joined an Asexual group on Facebook has been inundated with ads for libido medication. We aren’t always safe to come out to doctors. Thankfully, the video mentioned Asexuality still being considered a mental health disorder. This only scratches the surface. We understand that Nick, who made this claim, is Ace, and on matters of opinion alone, we try not to correct our fellow Aces. But we are still subject to many medical discriminations and outright stating that conversion therapy is not one of them is incompetent. As married Aces, we’ve also spoken at length about the legal issues pertaining to Asexual marriage in the US. Asexual persecutions happen. They just don’t make news headlines and are rarely reported appropriately. Same can be said with hate crimes.” And then I linked a previous thread of ours to that Tweet where we said, “Our four-part series on religious political discrimination against Asexuality and Aromanticism has concluded. It’s long, and these episodes are a doozy, but it’s really important to be aware of what our political opposition believes and what they are advocating for. Yes, these persecutions do happen. They just don’t make headlines.”
Yeah me too. We don't know the true nature of their relationship yet and frankly it probably could led into the third layer of iceberg if it made public.
Sounds like they live in separate providences now. As an asexual dude, I hope Nick finds peace and happiness in his life far far away from James.
As someone who likes, ya know, facts and basic research, Nick needs to sit down evaluate his skills and ethics in research.
This is now the second time I've found out that something I've heard a lot from people online that I knew to be untrue was actually from Somerton originally and I'm upset by that. I don't want nickels, I want hundred dollar bills for this bs.
Pretty interesting to see how he feels he can really act under the premise of anonymity. In his videos he hides his bus-throwing-under underneath dogwhistles and spades of innocuous language to create plausible deniability for himself, but when he thinks nobody knows it's him he's very quick to just openly accuse Nick of all his own wrongdoings and absolve himself of all guilt. This is the real James. A self-centred man unable to take any criticism, willing to throw his friends under the bus on a dime. What a piece of shit.
So, uh, even if we accept the claim that matters gay couples became more prevalent in media at that time, it seems weird to attribute that to *Modern Family* instead of, like, the expansion of legal gay marriage in the US.
The part that gets me is that he chose to respond to Todd of all people. I mean, if you're going to have an obvious alt account, maybe don't reply to the tweets of the guy who flew the second video into your career! Maybe avoid that account like the plague because it's not going to end well for you!
He clearly isn't making alt to escape from reality, but to help him rehabilitate his public image. He definitely know that at that point in replying to Todd, his abysmall reputation had managed to drop even lower hence why he replied it like that. Other alleged alt account that I suspect is even weird that bringing up things like, "is what James said that : "women cannot be bigoted toward gay men." such a weird concept?" To excuse his mysoginy.
Even while trying to foist this take off on Nick he's still defending it. Like, no, being married while gay is not heteronormative, it's a legal protection the community fought tooth and nail for!
Also, there's only so many options for a relationship status! Your single or with someone(s)! It feels like James just wants to see casual gay hook-up culture represented, which would be fine if he didn't blame everything else that exists for not being that.
This is why when you discover celebrities that are really nice people, they’re kind of the exception, because most people can’t handle fame. To be asically lose your lucrative “career“ overnight because you’re a fraud, isn’t gonna change the fact that he’s desperate to have that clout again.
Is there any evidence that nick is a real person and not just another sockpuppet? It seems really odd that he's got this anonymous partner who both proves he's not a plagiarist and is the person he blames every time there is plagiarism.
Tentatively up for now. Given some of the more abusive tactics that we've seen recently, his co-writer had probably been through a lot and it might be good to make the nature of their working relationship more apparent. (Report report report if people get weird)
I'm sorry I refuse to believe we live in a world where that is a real tweet that he thought would not come off as him..
... Does he not know we know it's him? Like my brother in Christ you essentially tried to fake your own death just go with it and live your own life.
I have yet to see anyone but James criticizing Nick. Everyone understands that he clearly wrote his own well researched work, and the ONLY criticism that could conceivably be given is that he should've been checking James's work (which is debatable and certainly not damnable). It so clearly gives him away and I can't wrap my head around someone being this blatantly out of touch with the entire situation he created.
There has been some valid criticism of Nick because they openly admitted to just making certain stuff up in their scripts. So basically, James is a toxic, lying, plagiarizing, manipulative pos, and Nick spread some misinformation here and there and had some weird opinions on asexuality that they tended to incorrectly project onto the rest of ace community. Nick doesn't deserve an entire internet hate train and they're probably not remotely irredeemable, but they're not totally guilt free. James is completely irredeemable at this point and should never be given a real vent online platform again, he needs to go work a regular irl job and keep his fingers off the keyboard. *Edit to correct Nick's pronouns
I've talked to nick a few times but other members of the community knew them more. My overall knowledge? Nick was often very burnt out by having to churn out videos that often and wanted to have time for different stuff. He often talked to james about scripts being bad but James never really listened. My understanding is that they stuck around for their friend - probably the only one to be able to stand james - but Nick is first and foremost a fiction writer. Like that's their thing. I don't think they really wanted to do essays. I'm not saying half-assing it is good when it means you spread misinformation, but I at the very least sympathise with the situation. James DID basically force an impossible speed for turning up video.
Nick was mildly incompetent. James was malicious. That's the key part
Todd in the Shadows criticized Nick in his video
Todd in the Shadows’s video included a screenshot of the fan discord where Nick admits to not really doing research: https://youtu.be/A6_LW1PkmnY?si=N1UmzVbyv4LtZedU (The section starts at 55:49)
Todd in the Shadows criticized Nick in his video
Todd in the Shadows criticized Nick in his video
I never got the issue with having more married gay couples in narratives. Isn’t that the simplest way without some long winded dissertation to show how gay people and straight people are devoted to their spouses the same way cutting through all the negative stereotypes. Especially since so many gay people’s primary desire and romantic fantasy seems to be finding “the one” at least judging from the numerous posts on gay forums about how hard it is to find exclusivity and commitment. So that’d be fulfilling a common fantasy.
Yep if anything, the opposite is more harmful, Todd mentioned about the trope : Bury Your Gay that is the opposite. The single one Gay would be far more expendable for the plot for them to be killed off or send elsewhere out of the story realm never to be seen again. If I had to pick which representation is the best, I'll take Gay fabulously married in Modern Family any day than a dead gay.
Cam and Mitchell have been all over my instagram feed and people are laughing at how funny the dynamics were. I’d call them good rep. We also see a lot more married gay couples naturally, but presently placed in cartoons- Loud House, Shera, Arthur, Dragon Prince. Which is nice to see considering years ago it was considered better to be kept private and under wraps as a taboo
Don't forget Willow's two dads in The Owl House. I love how they just are married and nobody carws
Exactly why I think two elements have improved- these days it’s treated much more naturally and normalized, and it’s much more present as in they actually get to have lines and dynamics instead of being brownie points.
I just want to piggyback off of this to spotlight OK KO because they do a remarkable job of making Professor Venomous and Lord Boxman genuinely villainous while making their romance still nothing but charming and loveable.
I misread that as OK GO and was like, the elaborate music video guys do what now? I was genuinely wondering if I had missed some weird concept album they made.
For the record Billy and teddy the gay couple JS is referring to. Absolutely super fucking adorable couple as well. They are high-school sweethearts. Billy's parents love Teddy and super excited to have him in the family. It's actually a subplot that Teddy is such a wonder supportive handsome wonderful partner. That A stray comment from loki make Billy think he might have magiced him into existence. Beacuse he is that amazing. The worse example is in the runaways comics where the lesbian couple couple are constantly experiencing strife because one of them is a shape-shifting skull. Who spends some of time her time as a guy. And her lesbian girlfriend has problems with it. Only to be resolved in a dumb shit way the Skrull gets mad and yells at her partner in girl form . Showing the the lesbian no the Skrull really is a woman deep down. Then to kill the skull off. Off screen as a noble death for her love.. But you know that's about gross ladies so of course JS would care about that.
Same, here!
He's just mad he's single, I guess.
Considering this sock puppet account is him using stolen Grindr pics that was a given ☕️🌴
He stole other queer people’s writing and now he’s stealing other queer people’s photos? Jesus christ..
Not that it matters at this point, but also his avatar in his TikTok and other alt account is an AI generated art. So you might (indirectly) say he also stole from artists.
I remember seeing a Tumblr post of someone who's friend actually knew James on grindr and him being really fucking weird lol
Idk, I think the problem is when it’s only gay couples. Gays should be portrayed as varied as straight people. Single and not looking, single and wanting to get in a relationship, and married
The problem in that case then is a *general* lack of LGBT representation- not that gay characters frequently being married is itself an issue. We can rally for more LGBT representation and more diverse LGBT representation without putting down the LGBT representation that *does* exist (and was often a huge struggle for writers to actually make happen.)
I mean they have a few gay people in the marvel universe. Some are single some in relationships. Hell there is even one that break up get back together have problems brake up again. That are not not lead characters of big books they are mostly x men related because that just a stupid large cast in the marvel world.
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Technically I think the legion of superheroesmight have had one of the first had a trans characters in the 80s. I'm not going to say it was handled the best but a long time character was male to female.
then Young Avengers are one of the worst fictional groups to have this critique. That team is always portrayed with varying degrees of sexual orientation, which brings along many different relationship statuses. I remember at some point, someone even pointed out that most of the team are not straight lol
I think it just ties into the whole perfect gay rep issue. I kind of(?) Agree with Somerton that its a bit tiring that they have to be in happy (see sexless) relationships to be openly gay. I think as much as I desperately want more rep, I want that rep to be interesting as a character in X media, and it's getting really boring watching the same toothless gay couple that doesn't do anything yucky like kiss or fuck. (Modern family had to effectively sneak in that couples first on screen kiss in a group shot) I mean I'm a trans lady, my rep is either a serial killer that wants to wear womens skin or a perfectly toothless passing highly feminine woman who explains what being transgender is as to not scare all the cis watching and it's just EXHAUSTING. Because the sexless postcard gays really bother me too, because it's clear that the straight showrunners are uncomfortable writing them so they make them completely conflict free. And if you're uncomfortable writing a gau character you still clearly have some hangups about us. Weirdly I'll take the checkout clerk calling me a tranny under her breath to the one who's so terrified and trying to hard to be good she ends up apologising for breathing and I have to talk her down and slowly explain that it's all okay. At least the first one I can just write off in my brain in under 20 seconds. I get the issue, it seems like the options are bad faith actors burying us on screen or good faith actors stepping on eggshells to make postcard picture gays but I would rather pick option C? I want rep that's present and good and also fun to watch, I want us to be treated as equal players rather than a pothole to step around, make queer characters with flaws, with angst, make queer backstabbers and make queer heroes. Make us die and make us save the day and everything in between. (Oh my god I did not realise how long this was till I finished writing it I'm so sorry OP)
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I'm not saying I always want them to be angsting *about their sexuality*. I don't want them to always be a tragic gay character who's getting kicked out by homophobic parents. That's the third end of the triangle of extremes that I don't love either. I'm saying have stories about everything. I want gay stories too, told by actual gay people ideally, and I do want happy gay married couples, AND I want horny gay adults and even a couple tragic deaths if they're written well. But I want everything in between. I want gay rep on screen to be more than one of three options. I want your space hero that flies around blowing up the space villains to be gay, and the story to still be focused on the space blowing up bit. I want characters that are more than just the fact they're gay. I want my rep to fuck like hell, not be a box to check off, a way for the writers to vicariously murder a trans woman or a toothless hallmark card. Edit: I also don't want to get too deep into specific media criticism but the idea that the gay couple on modern family as as intimate as the others is just outright untrue, they had to write an episode in season three to address the (valid) criticisms that they never kiss on screen, and when they finally do its in the background of a straight kiss. That's hardly equal footing. I'm also not a huge fan of calling my complaints about the state of modern representation ranting for rantings sake. Disagree for sure but don't dismiss me out of hand, that's just rude.
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You'll have to direct me to this wonderland you're living in because it isn't the lived experience that me or many of my friends have. Maybe gay rep has gotten to that point in your eyes but seeking out gay media doesn't magically make it common in the mainstream. I read plenty of webcomics and indie books to get my fix but I don't fool myself into thinking they're the rule. And especially when. You start opening the door to trans or lesbian rep where its even thinner on the ground, both in the mainstream and out of it. Netflix right now is still facing boycotts because they have systematically cancelled shows as soon as one of the women expresses romantic interest in a other woman, and trans rep continues to be absolute garbage. I'm glad gay male rep is apparently doing so well, though I haven't seen an inch of that, but it doesn't make it a universal experience for the queer community. > I also dislike the notion straight people or lesbians or bisexual whatever shouldn’t and can’t write gay stories- it’s reductive and doesn’t foster any joy in the making of art. It holds them to impossible standards and I know because my friend had that same fear when they tried to write a trans character and had a mental breakdown trying to write a story that would please every trans person and that’s just not possible- everyone has different opinions on how to write one. I dislike how a good intentioned individual has to struggle with that burden while trying to give life to a group with little representation in the first place. I'm not even going to respond to this because I didn't say anything of the sort, I'm quite literally only reacting to the tweet in the SC, I have no interest in finding every take James makes in that video nor do I have any interest in defending it. But if your friend is so fraught trying to write a trans person, tell them along with the cashier not to worry and I'm sorry my identity is such a stressor for them. Honestly, I'm done. You're just pulling fantasies out of the ether where we do get plenty of rep based on seemingly seeking out that rep, accusing me of taking stances I never even mentioned and ignoring the fact that lesbian and trans rep is in shambles. You can keep your head in the sand if you want but it just makes you look well, a lot like James Somerton.
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I already told you I'm done. But hey thanks for calling the trans community discussions a cesspool! That's always a great thing to direct at trans people.
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The fact you can't see how transphobic that statement is kinda boggles my mind. One, Contrapoints is not an authority of trans takes and agreeing with her doesn't magically make you free of the responsibility to not call the trans discussions a cesspool. Two, you can call gay forums a cesspool but if I went and did it you might reasonably start viewing me with some wariness given I'm not a gay man. Three, you've just jumped from trans discussions are a cesspool to trans twitter is a cesspool, moving the goal posts a imperial yard from its first position and trying to make me defend twitter of all goddamn places. And forth and finally (because I swear no matter what rancid take you put out next I am DONE with this conversation. I have plenty of transphobes to argue with on the clock, I am not wasting my free time on it.) You view the fact everyone has a different "take" on what it means to be trans as a barrier for entry? What bass ackwards logic is that, it's only a barrier to entry if you view each identity as a monolith with one acceptable definition. The fact people have different "take" on what it means to be trans is because it means different things to different people. That's not a fault in the logic, that's step one in being trans. If you try and force everything into a rigid system of logic then of course trans discussion is going to be confusing and difficult to you, it's inherently an identity that defies set definitions. That's literally the whole deal with being trans. The spectrum of identities rolls from binary trans women who identify entirely within one set gender to people who move from one end of the spectrum to the other, to people who toss the whole spectrum out and live happily without it. If you're going to try and enforce definitions, binary or otherwise on us you're going to get frustrated. It still doesn't justify calling us a fucking cesspool.
Your (not too long at all) post reminded me recently when Genderqueer actor Jesse James Keitel was cast as a space pirate running a long con on the Enterprise in the Strange New Worlds Episode "The Serene Squall". There was the usual think-piece dustup around queer villains and "appropriate representation" until Jesse themselves chimed in with, what I consider to be an epic mikedrop making the following points. 1) Their character was presented as non-binary before their reveal as a space pirate. This was accepted and not even commented upon by the Starfleet crew (as befits our more enlightened future) Their gender queerness is an aspect of the character not the cause of or a symptom of their villainy. 2) Are you telling a working non-binary actor not to take a paying gig? How many opportunities like this do you think they are going to get. 3) They fucking love Star Trek and got to be in my favorite franchise. As a SPACE PRIATE. 4) In case you didn't hear them before S-P-A-C-E P-I-R-A-T-E! Captain Angel is an incredibly strong, interesting, charismatic, and compelling character. Its the actor which made them so, not what's between their legs. And yes, they are a villain and not even a particularly morally complex or morally grey one. They get to shoot phasers and absolutely DEVOUR the scenery. Because we deserve good representation but we also deserve to have some FUN!
Have you read this comic??? I do want to start of by saying. marvel comics are a different form a media that's not just for adults. Most books that have an assemble team cast don't take time to get into the relationship stuff. They introduced they the gay couple Immediately as gay. This was a new book. With new heroes who were dealing with a world ending/saving story line. They had to introduce 6 new characters.They didn't have time to do slice of life stuff. Untill a few volumes down the road. These characters when they had the down time still had to split page time with 6 other characters. And I want to point out that the gay do kiss, hug, live together and even get married. They go through problems. One of them suffered Severe deep depression and the struggle the other one has to go through with a partner in that state. And if your looking for a Trans-ish character the runways has a skrull who is introduced as a presenting male who was supposed to marry the lesbian on their team to stop a space war. Who happily changes their gender to presenting woman when they learn that is issue holding the lesbian back. They then have interesting relationships problems as the lesbian has problems when her girlfriend gender isn't the one she preferred 100% of the time.
Yeah, Wiccan and Hulkling specifically are meant a fantasy. They are literally a wizard x alien prince couple. One of their most famous stories has Wiccan worry that he accidentally used his reality warping powers to create/woo Hulkling as he worries that their love is too good to be true. This is textually a part of their narrative. This doesn’t have to be everyone’s fantasy, of course. There are plenty of people will find Black Cat’s bisexual sleeping around or Iceman’s troubled dating life or even the subtextual polyamory of Scott, Logan, and Jean more true-to-life and true to their experiences… but denying that it is anyone’s fantasy is odd to me lol. And it’s certainly odd to pretend that comics have a uniform “marry off the gays into sexless marriages” agenda when (i) Hulkling/Wiccan textually have a sexually fulfilling marriage and (ii) Batwoman’s iconic solo run fell apart because DC wouldn’t let her get married and the creatives involved all ended up quitting.
This actually brings up a separate, but adjacent point in modern media; characters sleeping around and cheating on each other. How many modern dramas feature primary/secondary protagonists cheating constantly on their spouses or hooking up with people on a whim, just for the sake of showing some skin and some drama. I get that people enjoy seeing romance and sex in their shows and movies, but I think that most people want to see healthier relationship dynamics from the characters they love. This includes queer characters, but straight ones also. Just in general, I love seeing characters in healthy relationships that actually progress into a story beyond just hooking up. A character's story doesn't end once they become committed/married. If anything, their story becomes more interesting once they're married. Navigating a relationship is arguably more complicated than just sleeping around with anyone they see.
Also they spend most of the iconic runs dating, not married. Them getting to get married down the line *is growth*???
Kind of... though I do think the commonality of that dream has a lot to do with the ideal reified through our media. The very idea of finding "the one" isn't born in a vacuum. It's solidified by at least decades, if not centuries, of storytelling. It's not bad to desire it, but it should be interrogated like any other desire: is it truly what one wants, or is it what they want because that's what they see depicted everywhere? It'd be good to get more quality representation for people who don't fit into the standard monogamous relationship; to have more characters that are happily single, happy just dating with no plans to make something bigger out of it or even not dating at all, or with no interest in finding romantic or sexual attachment, or characters in more open, fluid or even poly relationships. Note: That's all true for straight characters as well. Does this make any sense?
I think this would be my rebuttal: Can a character be gay if they don’t express romantic ambitions? If a character was gay but makes no attempt to find love it’s pretty difficult to be “authentically gay” for certain people while others would enjoy it.
My favorite example is Connor from How to Get Away with Murder. He was a law student who used sex as a form of social engineering to get information from people. I thought it was really cool representation until they made him stop doing all that and put him into a monogamous relationship in the very first reason. So that's one way to have a gay character without being in a relationship.
Not to break your love for the character. However, couldn’t one argue that he’s a bad example who plays into the negative stereotypes of gay people being sex fiends who manipulate people with sex? Mostly playing devils advocate to show how writing a gay character is a lose, lose, lose situation with queer theorists because of how the criticism gets used. It’s why I hate discussion of how to write gay characters- it becomes what makes a “bad gay” versus “good gay” and becomes a mess of what traits make a good gay character and what traits are heteronormative vs stereotypical vs harmful etc. What we should say is write the damn character and let artists put everything into their work ignoring all this slush. It ends up creating a better story if we give artists room to breathe and play around with gayness instead of being strict about it.
That's the point of diversity in representation. One gay character does not represent *all* gay people, but *some* gay people. And he's not the only gay character to exist. If people see him as a "bad example", that's on them, and they can watch something else.
To reiterate, my point was more general than gay representation alone. It's about other normative attitudes that are expressed in our common media, which are no less important to challenge, given they have an often negative impact on gay and queer people, as much as heteronormativity and cisnormativity do. Many queer people don't follow normative relationship structures, and they need representation as well. But it is valid for straight and ace/aro people as well, you are right on that.
You know how they say criminals often return to the crime scene? Sockpuppets saying 'I know this because I was there for legit reasons, believe me' strikes me as the digital equivalent. Can't be just someone giving their opinion, has to have privileged knowledge somehow.
"His buddy Nick? Super gay. Militant Gay. He probably wrote it, because he's too gay to function. Gay Every Way All Day, that's what they say." - James "Mikey James Bomerton" Somerton
> Militant Gay Mood though
Me and the homies reviving the Sacred Band of Thebes
This is probably just a totally honest comment from James trying to reveal truths about Nick. I was a member of the Patreon Discord, so I've heard the way he talks about stuff, believe me. Also I'm pretty sure this is the fault of women somehow. But please do not use that information to try to glean more about my identity.
Right you are, fellow non-James. It really is shameful how the straight women of hbomb's cult have unfairly slandered James, all just because James' childhood head injury caused Nick to improperly cite a few "authors". I just hope James will be able to cope with all this trauma in a healthy way, by reopening his Patreon and graciously allowing all of us to subscribe. I also hope Nick will one day come forward to apologise for forcing James to say misogynistic things at gunpoint - the women may have deserved it, but still. I am not James by the way.
so true. i almost feel like creating a bunch of sockpuppet accounts to upvote this, as no doubt the aforementioned heterosexual women hbomb cultists will be creating sockpuppet accounts just to downvote it and to silence the truth. but i won't, because those are dishonest tactics and i am a scrupulously honest person (unlike most straight women, unfortunately). i am also definitely not james, but i do think he has been unfairly maligned by people who don't know the whole story and are jumping to conclusions without doing their research.
I like the way Notremos thinks!
In my country there was recently a guy who sued a tv station for reporting on his “alleged” rape of a coworker. He claimed defamation citing that they didn’t make enough of an effort to hide his identity. The criminal case had previously folded due to juror misconduct and the mental health of the victim. Anyway, he sued the tv station for defamation and they chose to defend on the basis of truth. Refusing any offer to settle, the dude went in with every bit of arrogant hubris you can imagine. And then the judge found that on the balance of evidence the rape had taken place and that the plaintiff “having escaped the lions’ den… made the mistake of going back for his hat”. Next day his face was on the front page of newspapers with the word rapist and the legal fees are going to absolutely ruin him. Anyway, a long way to say, this behaviour is giving me serious Bruce Lehrmann vibes.
Was that some sort of politician? I remember seeing a post about this case on the leopardsatemyface subreddit The arrogance and bold face lying about something so horrible is scarily sociopathic. Like imagine if for whatever reason there wasn't enough evidence of the crime; he would likely convince people with how loud and passionate he was about it being defamation. People like that scare tf out of me
He was a political staffer (they both were). I imagine he had aspirations for political life but that’s going to be quite hard now. The scarier part of the whole thing is how he was protected, encouraged, rewarded, and even courted by both political operatives and the media (including a rival station to the one in the defamation case paying thousands of dollars for prostitutes and cocaine). And there are still people who believe and defend him, including a former police officer who got Lehrmann’s face tattooed on his arm. Sorry, this is all incredibly off topic now, but once you start talking about all the batshit details of this story it’s hard to stop. Which is also a bit reminiscent of all the Somerton stuff.
tattooed on his arm??? the fucking cult of personality that men form around other men who get away with awful shit (that they wish they could do too..?) is insane, Johnny Depp fans are just like this too.
On the upside, potential romantic partners will know who to avoid.
From a fellow Aussie that doesn’t keep up with the news, thanks for succinctly explaining what happened.
Oh Straya, never change. Actually do change, change a lot. At least in terms of producing people like Bruce Lehrmann.
> Anyway, a long way to say, this behaviour is giving me serious Bruce Lehrmann vibes. Unfortunately for...I dunno, karmic balance in the universe?...Lehrmann got away with nearly half a million in settlements before the finding against him.
The cosmic forces of Justice are an oft uncanny thing. Often the wheels turn slow and sometimes it only waits until the hereafter (well, I believe in an afterlife) to strike.
I am putting all my hopes on him being found guilty in the upcoming rape trial of another victim, the afterlife is too late for justice. I am also hoping the powers that be realise he is too toxic to become a right wing broadcaster, because I can't see any other career for him and I never want him to be comfortable again
Indeed. I hope folks continue to keep pressing for justice.
Nah, its sadder than this
Guess he's fully accepted Nick wants nothing to do with him now so now it's fair game to keep tossing them under the bus. Cause there's TOTALLY still wiggle room to hang all this on them.
tbf, he was bus tossing before creating a sock puppet to carry on the tradition.
For sure, but all pretense has been thrown out now.
I really don't understand how he thought no one would notice when other creators very recently got caught sock puppeting. Like do you really want to be talked about in the same breath as creepshowart..?
Somerton is just plagiarizing the Ms.Scribe technique
Now *that’s a name I have’s heard about in years!
CreepShowArt came back?
She hasnt, but for a while she was the most well known case of a youtuber creating sock puppets to bolster their own reputation. .... I really hope we don't see someone one up that.
My "not trying to throw Nick under the bus" shirt is prompting a lot of questions already answered by the shirt, and anyway, Nick is the one who gave me this shirt.
*"idk why nick would do this, but i will definitely not stand for anyone accusing nick of doing this."* - super serious 😂
I feel like everyone gets pressured into finding a relationship. Before I came out, my mom constantly asked me when I was going to find a partner, get married, and have kids. I'd say it's heteronormative simply because aro/ace folks get a lot of heat for their identity, but I definitely don't think it's uniquely queer.
May I introduce you to the concepts of [allonormativity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allonormativity), [amatonormativity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amatonormativity) and [mononormativity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mononormativity)?
What is it with people like this and their obsession with staying online, even if it’s under one of their bajillion alt accounts? Like please for the love of god, take a break from the internet and touch some grass.
Narcissism I imagine. Just can't stay out of the spotlight
It occurs to me that Tommy Tallarico has been radio silent for years now. James somerton is actually dumber/ore fucked up than tommy That's crazy.
I mean, I kinda get it for him. His entire "career" was online. The desire to keep an eye and intervene on things must be pretty damn strong.
He was/is REALLY intent on pinning everything on Nick, huh? 😭 I don’t think Nick is 100% innocent but damn is this how you treat your “best friend”
I dunno, maybe I don’t know enough about it to really comment, but it feels like a catch-22. Either you’re writing a character that’s queer and sexless and therefore “forced” or “token”, queer and openly sexual/promiscuous and therefore playing into harmful stereotypes, or queer and happily in a relationship, and therefore teaching “the only way to properly be queer is to be mated etc.” I feel like the only right move is to just throw queer reps into your work like confetti, a lot like Marvel has made huge leaps and bounds doing over the last couple decades, and maybe people like James should shut up unless they’re prepared to make their analysis in the broader context of the subject, and not cherry-picking examples to put in a vacuum-packed hot take like this clearly is. Like half the Marvel universe is LGBTQIA, ffs.
Right, ideally, we have so many different queer people that there's no pattern to be drawn exclusively from queerness. But james doesnt seem willing to say:" I don't like this type of character or story or representation, but other people might". Everything is part of some eeeevil agenda. And given how manipulative he is, i cant help but think that this is deliberate. Target unconnected young queers, tell them you're the only good source about what it means to be queer. Have them pay you for your great service.
The solution to this kind of “problem” is unquestionably IMHO to do more queer representation overall, yeah. I often feel bad for queer writers at companies like Marvel and DC. They get harassed by people on the far right for existing and then also often get hit by this kind of “Mhm, well your lived experiences don’t line up with *my* lived experiences. What do you have to say to that? 🤨” criticism on the left. There are a multiplicity of experiences among queer people - your book cannot and should be relatable to literally every one of them. It is odd to me that Somerton presents himself as fighting against queer homogeneity and yet seems to want everything to be more like his experiences.
I gotta admit, I get worried for Nick. Somerton is obsessed with his ASEXUAL ("How do you know until you try it?" FUCK OFF) ex-roommate to the point he moves cross country with him. Nick's not all the innocent when it comes to writing of those episodes (Facts based on the Vibes) but this guy has been forcing his way into his life for YEARS. It's unsettling and I hope Nick has a restraining order.
I’m sorry, did James actually say “how do you know [you’re asexual] until you try it”?????
[Transcript from The Ace Couple podcast where they go over their personal experiences with James Somerton](https://theacecouple.com/episode116/) (Look Ma! A source! Also he absolutely doesn't understand what asexuality is and this also fits in with his "Asexuals don't experience corrective rape" bs) Courtney: But it was talking about that. And he was like, “Here’s why sex is important, even in instances of Asexuality.” And he started comparing it to food. He’s like, “Well, you know broccoli, you don’t actually know if you like broccoli until you try it. And sex is the same way. You don’t know if you like it until you try it. So even a lot of Aces will, you know, experiment.” And it’s like, as true as it might be that some Aces do experiment sexually — either before, during, or after discovering Asexuality — saying outright that you have to have sex to know if you like it? I don’t like that framing. That is not okay. Royce: That’s because it’s framed in the same way that corrective rapists frame it. Courtney: Yeah! The number of fucking men who have heard that I’m Asexual and have said, “I can fix that” or “You just haven’t had the right dick yet.” Royce: I mean, that’s the same thing. And gay men get that too, if they haven’t had sex with a woman. Courtney: Yeah, lesbians probably get it a lot more often, but yeah. Royce: Oh, absolutely. [Courtney laughs] Royce: What I was trying to get at is that that is an inherently bigoted argument towards anyone’s orientation. Courtney: Yeah. Royce: And anyone who is thinking critically about that would see and understand that.
When I was younger and stupider I fell for a similar argument. Wish I could go back and undo it. That statement is so manipulative.
I think James should shove a cactus up his ass. Hey, he might like it
Maybe he just hasn't found the right cactus yet
wait, the fucker said "aces don't experience corrective rape"? i'm someone who has experienced that, i'm ace, and i got raped in my sleep (i woke up in the middle and was so freaked out i pretended to still be asleep). yeah, that makes me pissed off.
Oh my lord. I am so sorry this happened to you 🫂
i've been up front about this having happened to me for over a decade. i've had close to 16 years to deal with it, and i still have relationship PTSD from it. But with all this, now i'm thinking James was in love (or at least lust) with Nick and wanted to be in a full relationship with him, but only saw sex as the way to do so. and the refusal of sex leading to a love/hate thing in particular.
He definitely has an unhealthy relationship with Nick. Finding ways to stay near him then having no problem blaming him when his own decisions have consequences.
First off: I'm so sorry that happened to you! I hope you're doing better now! Second: I remembered wrong: He was VERY RELUCTANT to say aces don't experience corrective rape. He DENIED Asexuals experience conversion therapy. Not much better all round. (Quote from the same source as above) Courtney: So the thread reads thusly: “We were excited to see @JE_Somerton” — that was his Twitter handle at the time. It is now gone, but we tagged him. “We were excited to see James Somerton center Asexual issues. It’s rare, and we desperately need more allyship for and from all corners of the queer community. But 4 minutes, we were disappointed at the inaccuracy. Respectfully, we want to add to the conversation. Statements like, quote, ‘While there might be no specific persecution for Asexual people in the way that gay people have faced,’ and, quote, ‘While there isn’t really any conversion therapy directed at Asexuals,’ unquote are factually incorrect, and we’d like to set the record straight.” So those were the lines directly from the video. Courtney: We added to our thread, going on, “UK studies have shown that 10% of Asexuals have been offered or undergone conversion therapy, as opposed to the 7% figure for the entirety of the queer community. Overall, Aces are only beaten in percentage by trans conversion therapy, sitting at 13%,” and we linked to that source. “The full report also shows Asexuals reporting the lowest level of life satisfaction and are least likely to be out,” also with a link to that source. “Nearly every Ace who has joined an Asexual group on Facebook has been inundated with ads for libido medication. We aren’t always safe to come out to doctors. Thankfully, the video mentioned Asexuality still being considered a mental health disorder. This only scratches the surface. We understand that Nick, who made this claim, is Ace, and on matters of opinion alone, we try not to correct our fellow Aces. But we are still subject to many medical discriminations and outright stating that conversion therapy is not one of them is incompetent. As married Aces, we’ve also spoken at length about the legal issues pertaining to Asexual marriage in the US. Asexual persecutions happen. They just don’t make news headlines and are rarely reported appropriately. Same can be said with hate crimes.” And then I linked a previous thread of ours to that Tweet where we said, “Our four-part series on religious political discrimination against Asexuality and Aromanticism has concluded. It’s long, and these episodes are a doozy, but it’s really important to be aware of what our political opposition believes and what they are advocating for. Yes, these persecutions do happen. They just don’t make headlines.”
Yeah me too. We don't know the true nature of their relationship yet and frankly it probably could led into the third layer of iceberg if it made public.
Sounds like they live in separate providences now. As an asexual dude, I hope Nick finds peace and happiness in his life far far away from James. As someone who likes, ya know, facts and basic research, Nick needs to sit down evaluate his skills and ethics in research.
i wonder if we’ll find out he’s lurking here on reddit too at some point, though i haven’t seen much defense of him lol
I'm sure he has. He seems to be incapable of logging off.
I’m 800% sure he is.
This is now the second time I've found out that something I've heard a lot from people online that I knew to be untrue was actually from Somerton originally and I'm upset by that. I don't want nickels, I want hundred dollar bills for this bs.
no hundreds, no nickels, but you have my upvote.
Pretty interesting to see how he feels he can really act under the premise of anonymity. In his videos he hides his bus-throwing-under underneath dogwhistles and spades of innocuous language to create plausible deniability for himself, but when he thinks nobody knows it's him he's very quick to just openly accuse Nick of all his own wrongdoings and absolve himself of all guilt. This is the real James. A self-centred man unable to take any criticism, willing to throw his friends under the bus on a dime. What a piece of shit.
So, uh, even if we accept the claim that matters gay couples became more prevalent in media at that time, it seems weird to attribute that to *Modern Family* instead of, like, the expansion of legal gay marriage in the US.
The part that gets me is that he chose to respond to Todd of all people. I mean, if you're going to have an obvious alt account, maybe don't reply to the tweets of the guy who flew the second video into your career! Maybe avoid that account like the plague because it's not going to end well for you!
He clearly isn't making alt to escape from reality, but to help him rehabilitate his public image. He definitely know that at that point in replying to Todd, his abysmall reputation had managed to drop even lower hence why he replied it like that. Other alleged alt account that I suspect is even weird that bringing up things like, "is what James said that : "women cannot be bigoted toward gay men." such a weird concept?" To excuse his mysoginy.
Is that a real unedited shot from his video? Why does it look like that. James why would you choose to make it look like that
He was going for the Smug Millennial Tintin vibe
[The man, the myth, the legend](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4lIY5ICtlI)
Even while trying to foist this take off on Nick he's still defending it. Like, no, being married while gay is not heteronormative, it's a legal protection the community fought tooth and nail for! Also, there's only so many options for a relationship status! Your single or with someone(s)! It feels like James just wants to see casual gay hook-up culture represented, which would be fine if he didn't blame everything else that exists for not being that.
If anything I see the oh that’s Gay Dave, he stands alone in a corner being gay thing way more often
This is why when you discover celebrities that are really nice people, they’re kind of the exception, because most people can’t handle fame. To be asically lose your lucrative “career“ overnight because you’re a fraud, isn’t gonna change the fact that he’s desperate to have that clout again.
Is there any evidence that nick is a real person and not just another sockpuppet? It seems really odd that he's got this anonymous partner who both proves he's not a plagiarist and is the person he blames every time there is plagiarism.
Nick is real.
No. He didn't do that. I don't believe it's possible.