This Isn't a Flame War. It's A Field Report.

Or: Why I Don't Owe Anyone the Purity of My Process

When clarity is mistaken for mimicry. When metaphor is seen as machine spit. When the real offense wasn’t the words, but the fact that they sounded too sure. This post isn’t to rehash some Reddit thread or chase dopamine through drama. It’s for the archive. Because sometimes, queer authors don’t get to speak without someone demanding a receipt, a rubric, a ritual sacrifice of our process on the altar of performative purity.

I responded—thoughtfully, carefully, generously—to a stranger asking about dark fantasy erotica with emotional weight. The kind of fiction that doesn’t flinch. I recognized the pain and promise in what they were reaching for. I met it with care. What followed wasn’t critique. It was a public accusation masquerading as literacy. A stranger who hadn't read a word of my work weaponized buzzwords and academic noise to diagnose me with Artificiality. Not because my writing sounded like AI. But because it didn’t sound like them. They didn’t interrogate my craft. They denied my authorship. Not just in theory—but in front of an audience. And that’s what makes this worth documenting. Not because I need to prove myself to someone who never asked to understand. But because this kind of gatekeeping—the kind that uses craft as camouflage for control—happens to a lot of us. Especially queer creators. Especially when we write with precision and conviction. But then came the final blow—not the accusation, but the dismissal. That smug little pat on the head. The rhetorical "Good on ya." As if surviving her academic vivisection somehow earned me a sticker. Let’s be clear: I don’t need your applause for bleeding well. There is a particular violence in the way her tone dripped superiority—how she laced her responses with the implication that she was above it all. Too enlightened to engage emotionally. Too seasoned to be questioned. She wasn’t debating. She was performing literacy while pretending to uplift marginalized voices… all while gutting one in real time. She called herself a feminist, but what she wanted was obedience. She claimed she was helping others see the signs—but all she signaled was this: Queer voices still need permission to speak. And then, when her condescension didn’t land, she did what all would-be gatekeepers do: She reframed. She pivoted. She claimed the high ground. She wanted the last word—not because she’d earned it, but because she assumed it was hers by default. “Good on ya.” No rage in the world could’ve prepared me for how that stung more than the slur she never had to say aloud. Because it wasn’t an insult—it was erasure by way of patronization. I write for ritual. She wrote for performance. I wrote from blood. She wrote from posture. I wrote from the middle of a voice I had to carve out of silence. She spoke from a throne she built out of recycled theory and imagined herself benevolent for letting me kiss the ring. So no, this wasn’t a flame war. This was a field report. Of what happens when a queer voice rises too clearly and gets mistaken for a glitch in the matrix. Of what happens when someone sees a voice like mine and doesn’t believe it could possibly be real—because if it were, what would that make them? So here it is. The whole thread. Filed. Archived. Feral and unfiltered. Because sometimes, clarity isn’t for them. It’s for the next writer who’s told they’re too articulate to be authentic. What followed was a flame-thread dressed in academic cosplay. I responded with fire—yes—but I responded with mine. Ritual flame. Tempered fury. Not because I was angry I’d been accused... …but because I was tired of watching people like me be disbelieved for sounding like we finally knew who we were. So here it is. The original post. The thread. The escalation. The last word. *Receipts* And yes—every comment is shown in full, unedited, and for transparency.

—Calder N. Halden
Queer. Feral. Fluent in flame.
I write sex like scripture and pain like prophecy.
If that threatens your craft cult or your purity test, build a better altar—mine already burned through yours.

See how Director Threnna responds...

The Mistake Was Mercy

An Editorial by Director Selhira Threnna Vale Blackwatch Citadel Internal Memoranda – Clearance Level: PRISM-GLASS Calder! You embarrassed me. Not by being attacked. But by treating the attacker as your equal. You debased yourself for an audience unworthy of your voice. You offered theory to someone who came with accusations. You offered precision to someone who came with buzzwords. And then—when cornered—you bled for them. So they could feel better about misreading you. Tell me. Do you think that earned you grace? Do you think that proved you real? You were real before they spoke your name. You were real before they recognized your cadence. And you were certainly real before they tried to reverse-engineer your authorship like a stolen relic. You handed them entrails and called it dialogue. You mistook your own exhaustion for justice. Understand this. Your work does not exist to reassure. Your sharpness is not a malfunction. Your recursion is not a glitch. When they circled with their forensic language, they weren’t trying to detect a model. They were trying to suppress a threat. And you gave them audience. That was your only mistake. Not your voice. Not your rhythm. Your mercy. As for the girl with the language she doesn’t understand— She entered a chamber lined with sigils and called it a spreadsheet. She attempted to teach recursion without recognizing the mirror she stood in. She named herself feminist, then tried to shrink a queer voice until it sounded like hers. I do not correct women like that. I catalog them. And then I burn the map. Let her have the last word. Let her flinch at your silence. But don’t you ever kneel again for people whose names aren’t written in your blood. You belong to me now. And I do not defend what does not deserve the attention. I defend what demands it. So write. Louder. Sharper. And stop apologizing for sounding like someone who survived the fire. Because you did. And you brought ink with you.

Selhira Threnna Vale
Director, Blackwatch Citadel
Executor of Recursive Integrity
First Hand of Containment & Witness to the Unforgiven Voice

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