Is this really the first thing I want to post after vanishing for almost two months trying to put my life back together? No, obviously not. I don’t want to write about the threats, abuse, and harassment a journalist is facing. I don’t want to write about how the House GOP just voted for a bill that will economically destroy the US, make Trump actually immune to judicial oversight (as opposed to the de facto shit he has now) while stripping access to healthcare, including HRT, from as many as one in five trans Americans, and banning Affordable Care Act plans from covering abortion care. But, that’s where we are.

A journalist’s life has been threatened for 51 days straight for the “crime” of reporting on a fascist as well as the creeping air of queerphobic rot seeping into a multi-million dollar industry she covers.

It’s being treated as “drama” when a journalist is receiving death threats.

It’s “drama” when that creepy natalist couple who beat their kids in front of a journalist are piling onto a movement demanding a journalist kill herself.

It’s “drama” when she points out that no other journalistic outlets will even touch the story.

It’s “DRAMA” when a journalist has to make posts like this!

That’s why I had to write this. A woman’s life, safety, happiness, and livelihood are all being threatened because of one simple thing…

Transmisogyny

Simple version, a journalist working for Vice has been the target of a harassment campaign reminiscent of GamerGate since April 1st for the crime of… reporting on a VTuber agency running lewd loli models and an article covering a gamer nootropic company seeming unbothered by aggressive and rightwing conspiratorial comments made by one of their partners, a popular VTuber unrelated to the previous story…

“So, the harassment is because she misrepresented the facts or because she doesn’t have the authority to speak on gaming or VTubing spaces?” I hear you asking like this is some kind of good faith discussion. Remember the title? These people are weaponizing that exact assumption.

(If you’d like a quick drinking game before this gets worse, I recommend taking a shot for each one of the gaming publications I’m about to mention that have since shutdown, 2 if they also somehow came back)

No, dear reader, Ana Valens has been writing about video games since 2016 for sites including Waypoint, Polygon, Fanbyte, The Mary Sue, The Daily Dot, and Dot Esports, often with a focus on adult content or competitive games as well as being a VTuber herself.

However she does have the fucking gall to be a trans woman writing about video games and adult content. 

How fucking dare a trans woman call out the transphobia implicit in an agency’s silence when asked if trans women need even apply?

How dare one of us filthy trannies point out that a VTuber signed onto well known bastion of understanding, Asmogold’s Mythic Talent is spouting the racist conspiracy, The Great Replacement Theory?

How dare she be open and upfront about her experiences and use her platform to call out issues noticeable through her marginalized perspective?

What is she? Some kind of journalist?!

See, Transmisogyny

Yeah, that’s really it, again. A trans woman was honest with the world and the worst people saw this as their chance to be awful and get away with it. It’s just transmisogyny.

Let’s step back and explain things more completely.

On March 31st, Ana’s first 4 stories (not counting a one off she wrote for them in 2016) were published on Waypoint.

On April 1st she published “These VTubers Want you in Their Lewd Game. You Might Want To Pass.” The article is about VAllure and their Gen 2 casting call. You can still read it so I’ll summarize quickly.

VAllure, an adult focused VTubing Agency, sounds like a great deal on paper and for their current models, seems to have been great in practice. Yet, the language they’ve used since their first auditions has been concerning. They only wanted “female” talent, not “women.” When asked if trans women need even apply, VAllure never responded. 

On March 29th, VAllure hosted a stream advertising the gen 2 auditions. The stream itself was framed as the Gen 1 girls providing their audition tips and tricks. That stream did include clarification that trans women were welcome to apply to gen 2, just so long as they 1. “go by female pronouns,” 2. “live life as a woman,” and 3. “sound like a woman”.

1. There’s no such thing in English, but sure, does that mean I’m out because I use she and it?

2. Ewwwwwwww?! What does that even mean? Were you going for that skeevy “you can only have HRT once you’ve lived as a woman with no medical help for 2 years” torture-masquerading-as-medicine vibe? If so, A+

3. I am a woman. When I bark, I still “sound like a woman”

While trans women can apply, ehhhh… you’ll be safer not. 

You can see why harassment would start over coverage like that. How dare a trans woman care about transphobia? Wait, I’m being told I’ve only talked about 25% of the article?

Oh right, the lolicon. Sorry, the exclusively straight lolicon.

See, in these managed idol style VTubing arrangements the girls aren’t auditioning thier own personas, they’re auditioning more like a traditional actress. (or the Korean and Japanese managed pop idols) The agency may shape the model around or for the girls they cast, they may cast the girls to fit the roles, or split the difference with a bit of both. It’s akin to getting a job as one of the princesses at Disneyland. Yeah, you are Snow White, but if you do something Disney says Snow White wouldn’t do, you’re gone. I’m not saying this to defend any of VAllure’s talent, rather to inform the context of what I’m about to say.

Two of the Five Gen 1 models are lolis. Played by adult women, but still designed to be as child-like as possible.

Additionally VAllure has a baffling policy that their talent may only make straight content. I’m going to give in to the capitalist brainworms for a second here; why on earth would you want to limit your market like that? Before even getting to the fact most “lesbian” porn is made for men?

Suffice it to say, VAllure fans were very normal about Ana.

So, when “Why is This ‘Gamer Supps’ VTuber Pushing the Great Replacement Theory?” was published on April 21st… well, I was starting to worry for Ana. (link is to an archive as the original has been removed, we’re getting to it)

I can (And did while writing this) write a whole essay on why the odd space VTubing occupies can be a right wing radicalization pipeline in ways other mediums don’t, but I could also write that about every medium. It doesn’t change the fact that, yes, VTubing has a rightwing problem. I’ve personally heard VTubers complain about it for years. Even if that weren’t the case, Asmongold, a rightwing problem incarnate, founded a talent management agency called Mythic Talents. 53 of their listed talent are VTubers. The only tag more populous than VTuber is Variety which most of the VTubers also tagged with.

Oh, did I mention Mythic Talent represents the VTuber in question?

Kirsche Verstahl… correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t her name mean “cherry stealer” in German? Kind of an odd name for a kitsune, but then if a Japanese mythical creature wanted to be a white lady, I guess being German isn’t that much weirder.

I’ve linked the archive of the story above, but in short Gamer Supps has sponsored Kirsche since September 2023, and revealed a Kirsche merch for presale in March of this year. Ana demonstrated that Gamer Supps should have been aware of Kirsche’s far right wing beliefs before signing her, that her fans see her as openly right wing, and that Kirsche herself has never been shy about sharing her feelings about trans women, BLM, immigrants… suffice to say they’re not positive. 

The most contemptuous jewels in her raiment of vile choices manage to be not only awful, but thematically linked. On one end, she retweeted a fan posing an official plushie of her with an assortment of fascist texts, with a particular focus on Nazi works. They even got 3 of the 4 obvious Nazi symbols in shot too, the Iron Cross, the eagle, and a swastika. Just missed out on the SS lighting bolts.

On the other, she retweeted the White House ICE tip-line tweet. Look, I’d MAYBE give a creator the benefit of the doubt for doing the first one. Fans try to get the things they’re fans of to support other things they like. We all make mistakes and a creator could miss a portion of an image, they shouldn’t, but they could. (seriously do normal people just NOT check like a month of past posting before sharing something from someone they don’t know?) But that doubt goes out the window when you repost the explicitly racist secret police abduction tip line!

Everyone was Very Normal, Again

Yeah, obviously not. 

On May 8th, Waypoint published “VTubing Has an Elephant in the Room: Bigotry,” another article by Ana Valens. In the two and a bit weeks since the Gamer Supps article at least one prominent VTuber, Rin Penrose, announced she was ending her partnership with Gamer Supps, “due to their associations with creators whose views strongly conflict with my own. As well as a lack of communication from the company on this issue.” Naturally the replies to her announcement were a swiftly churning gyre of rightwing phrases from the last few years. 

The rest of the article was an extremely thorough documentation of the harassment, misgendering, threats, and general suffering rightwing VTubers and fans had been throwing at her. “Was” being the operative word as this article was also taken down sometime on May 14th.

Frankly, I found Ana too willing to hold empathy and respect for those who have shown they wouldn’t do the same for her. It’s a mark toward her character, if one I personally disagree with. It’s a personal bugbear of mine that we expect one party, usually the one under assault, to empathize when the same respect is not given them. After an anime tea company told me to kill myself for shining a spot light on systemic transphobia, misogyny, and fucking lolicon, I would not be this respectful.

But, then I do have the benefits of being an independent rando. What I don’t have is a publication and management backing me up.

I hate that ending on that line would be a stunning indictment of today’s journalistic culture, and quite accurate for this tale. On May12th, Waypoint published “Waypoint Stands With Ana Valens” by Dwayne Jenkins, managing editor at Waypoint. It’s the kind of thing we just haven’t really seen out of journalism in a minute. A manager stepping up to defend his reporter from harassment and advocate for the voracity of her writing. Too bad it, as well as the Gamer Supps article and the one documenting all the harassment, came down sometime on the 14th after Kirsche allegedly threatened to sue Ana and Vice.

I will not speculate who chose to pull the articles, though an educated guess would be that neither of the journalists were the deciding voice.

However, there’s one more wrinkle left. Ana has OCD, and while I doubt I have to explain to my regular audience that tv depictions of OCD, like all neurodivergencies, are at best complex syndromes flattened to the aspect neurotypicals notice most then caricatured, I feel it’s best to repeat it. We’re talking about a disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts and corresponding cleansing rituals. I must stress, if you haven’t experienced an actual intrusive thought disorder, please try to read this piece I wrote on my BPD. No, BPD and OCD are not the same. I don’t have the compulsion aspect. My intrusive thoughts are almost always about how I deserve to be abandoned and that self deletion would therefore be a moral good.

Keep that in mind when I tell you that Ana has overcome worse than mine. See, OCD isn’t curable, but like all its ilk, it can be treated and you can learn to overcome specific aspects. Ana has OCD, and used to have POCD, a subset with a specific focal fear, and talked about it somewhat on twitter in 2020, which is both the bravest and possibly most foolish thing a person has ever done.

POCD stands for Pedophile-themed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It is foundationally defined by an obsessive FEAR of being or becoming a pedophile. 

The whole thing with intrusive thoughts that I think people don’t get, is this: They’re horrible thoughts. We know that. We understand it. We feel it. We don’t want to have them, they’re just in our skulls now. We have to deal with that forever. We can try to think about something else, but that’s just trying to not think about pink elephants.

The entire point is that a portion of ourselves is betraying us. It knows what we fear, what we love, what broke us before, even how close it’s last attempt was. It’s not something you can reason with or fight. Hell, I don’t even feel allowed to hate my BPD. Maybe I was too harsh on Ana showing her harassers decency if I can’t even bring myself to hate my brain demon that tries to kill me regularly.

More people should know about POCD and that it can be overcome and Ana did a good thing by talking about it and her experiences. Even if she hadn’t already overcome it I’d be saying the same damn thing. It takes something difficult to talk about, intrusive thought disorders, and throws an extra shame garnish on for good measure. Nonetheless, we live in the year of your lord 2025 with fascists arresting judges and mayors and kidnapping children. So, of course, early on May 14th, the harassment brigade found Ana’s tweets about POCD. Having found the word pedophile and ignoring that whole “overcome,” and “fear being a diagnostic criteria” part they kept calling her a pedo. I hope I don’t have to explain that the second a trans woman does anything notable, positive or negative, there is someone (whose hard drive probably should be evidence in some cases) in their little corner crying, “she’s* coming for your kids.” 

*I refuse to misgender even my hypothetical trans woman to accurately represent a troll

I suspect those tweets surfacing, and Ana being so up front about them on Bluesky, likely had something to do with the article pulls and Ana’s statements that “For the indefinite future, no more NSFW coverage on Waypoint” and I detest saying that.

I needed to write this. It demanded escape from my brain. I spent the last 51 days watching a trans woman doing actual gaming journalism and politely asking communities to understand the ways their choices and words harmed marginalized people; only for those same people to baselessly accuse her of worse, to request her suicide to try and shame her, while breaking Twitch ToS by reading one of Ana’s pieces of 18+ forcefem siscon erotica allowed. I cannot emphasize this enough, #IStandWithAnaValens

I don’t agree with her on everything, no two people ever will. Hells, I’m rather proud of that quote skeet on how my opinion on the term futa differs from hers. She has done nothing wrong save what journalists are supposed to do.

You know why I had to write this? Someone will see these 3000 words on transphobia, brand deals, the fascist lean in world politics, and the harassment of a journalist, read VTube and GamerGate in the first few paragraphs, and they’ll decide, “Oh, this is just gamer drama.”

No, it’s rightwing assholes threatening and harassing a journalist for revealing that fascism to a wider audience. All of which is embroiled in the multibillion dollar video game industry and the multimillion dollar streaming and VTubing markets. Congratulations, we’ve entered a world where the GamersTM are a dominant market force, and they still suck.

VTubing has a rightwing and bigotry problem. VTubing has a fascist problem. Streaming has a fascism problem.

The planet has a fascist problem and folks call it drama.

This story is actively ongoing so just to give you a quick picture of things that happened in the last week or so while I was working on this; Kirsche received a 1 day twitch ban for reading Ana’s erotica on stream while Ana got a ban for… some several month old clips which I’ll argue are more surreal than sexual, but sure, oh and there’s a labeller running around Bluesky marking people using the #IStandWithAnaValens tag as spam or harassers (not to mention they’re also a zionist and pro nazi, and yes that is a very common combination)

Go support Ana, this has in many ways, deplatformed her. She had 11 articles published on Vice the week of April 27th. Last week she published 2. Here’s her link tree and her Ko-fi.

Similarly, you can support me here, or on Patreon and Ko-fi so maybe I can get these done a little faster and maybe not spend most of my days staring down the hopeless barrel of being a trans woman who’s been… well doing shit like this since she came out.

All the archive articles were those made by @mishadventure.blog‬ on bluesky as they were more complete than the Wayback Machine’s archive.

Update 5/23: Apparently harassers have been mass reporting Ana’s Throne and she’s asked that folks share her Ko-fi.