karnythia:

quixotess:

Intent is Magic by…Melissa McEwan. At Shakesville. Huh?

Naturally the commenter (swevener) who asked “Have you read genderbitch’s piece with like the same title?” ended up banned for not assuming good faith.

But also because Melissa is all like “genderbitch hates me, hdu act like I’ve read her work”

There’s no attribution given because “intent is magic” is something I first said to an ex about 20 years ago.  And have said in comments here many times in the seven years that I’ve been writing the blog.

Which obviously does not preclude other people having independently conceived the same idea.

I did a Google search before publishing the post, as I do with many posts to check that the title is okay (I was more concerned with “Harmful Communication,” since it’s the name of the series), and so I was aware of genderbitch’s post before publication.

Had it been the source material, I would absolutely have credited it, even despite the way I am told I am routinely discussed in that space.

Certainly it shouldn’t be surprising to discover, however, I don’t read genderbitch, given that its author explicitly thinks me to be an irredeemable transphobe.  An author unread cannot be an influence.

Oh boo hoo you’re such a martyr.

I mean obviously I don’t think she plagiarized here, and it’s even possible that genderbitch got the “intent is magic” line from Melissa given that she used to read Shakesville. But honestly I think it’s still irresponsible not to make a reference to the post, since it was so widely circulated, like you acknowledge previous work done by others if it’s going to have the same name. They’re so insistent on assuming good faith on Melissa’s part, but the fact that she knew about genderbitch’s post with the identical name and didn’t choose to either link to it or change her own line kind of is bad faith. “There’s this post out here but I’m not going to mention it because of drama.”

But more than that this is just so exemplary of how massively dysfunctional Shakesville is. I mean I could tell you stories. I don’t even much care for genderbitch and I can’t believe Melissa’s whining about how genderbitch wrote her off after the Mary Daly obit and ensuing dysfunctional disaster, where everything got centered around how people were making Melissa feel bad like it always does. Always. Everybody’s always attacking Melissa. No one understands how much abuse Melissa goes through running this blog. Maybe she’ll just take it down because this is too much. I don’t even feel like it’s coming from a mean place when I say maybe she should take it down. It is too dysfunctional and insular and the self-care stuff she feels like she needs to do is emotionally manipulative—withdrawal, holding the blog hostage, etc.

Ugh sorry you guys but I used to be right at the center of this emotionally manipulative mess and I feel like I’m two years escaped from a freaking cult.

I always find myself side eying Shakesville. She engages in behaviors that are manipulative of her audience, has a healthy dose of WWS whenever anyone calls her out on race issues, & to be honest I’ve noticed other moments of “not quite plagiarism but really close” on her blog.

I can guarantee you I never got it from her. I read Shakesville from time to time before the Mary Daly thing but she never once said anything close to “intent is magic”.

In fact she often fell back on intent as her excuse for everything.

No this is a pretty clear case of “not quite plagiarism but really close” from her. Sad part is, I don’t even hate her. I just don’t trust her and don’t deal with her due to her denial, cognitive dissonance and privileged whining. Idgaf about Melissa. But apparently she still thinks about me all the time.