Ever since this video went vital on writer twitter, I've been looking into the original creator. Originally I was just curious, but the more I learned, the more concerned I was. I've been making tiktoks about my findings, but I think this merits🧵too, so: here we go!
The woman in the video is PK Mancini, aka Pollyanna Brown. She's actively promoting herself on TikTok as an editor and writing mentor for, in particular, YA & SFF authors, and also scriptwriters. She claims to have two masters degrees, one in psychology and one in scriptwriting.
May 22, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
this is an objectively unhinged idea but I'm electing to view it through the lens of comedy for sanity reasons, like. is there a practical exam? what is on this test? "sorry, I've only got my sex learner's permit; I can do handjobs on my own, but BJs have to be supervised."
getting the sex equivalent of a CDL to do anal. gotta take an extra test for that! does the license need to be renewed? is there a points system where you can get penalised for bad sex?
Nov 7, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
the most hilarious thing about musk having to backpedal every five seconds about his new rules is that you can see he has literally never thought about the practical implications of any of this shit beyond I Am A Big Special Boy For Whom The Bird App Should Work Differently
like, he wanted control of twitter in large part because he specifically disliked how he and a select group of his buddies couldn't be total jackasses even though they're Special, but is now learning actual cost of his perfect user experience is potentially All His Money
Jun 21, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
literally six days ago I was saying how conservatism, emboldened by its attacks on trans women and drag going unchallenged, is going to start attacking butch/gnc women; I should've also mentioned that yeah, it's going to come after how femme women present, too. because Decorum
me: [having a normal one]
my brain: hey remember the entire pete/vegas arc in kinnporsche
me: I Am No Longer Having A Normal One
[meme voice] it's about a man's situational willingness to die catching the attention of another man with a deathwish he won't quite act on, who suddenly realises he doesn't want the first man to die, which makes that man realise how his tormentor hasn't been allowed to live
Jun 15, 2022 • 38 tweets • 7 min read
OK. I'm super tired but I'm in a Mood, so let me just lay out a thread explaining, 101-style, why protecting trans people and drag queens/kings is vital to protecting gay rights, women's rights and the rights of kids to be themselves 🧵
not that long ago - within living memory - the cultural norm across the west, as in many parts of the world, was heteropatriarchy: men are meant to be in charge, women subservient. social roles are prescribed according to gender, and everyone dresses for their gender.
Jun 15, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
any minute now, the conservatives who've been so virulently anti-trans and anti-drag, emboldened by the lack of pushback in certain quarters, are going to extend their violent, bigoted rhetoric to butch/non-femme women, and a whole lot of transphobes are about to be SHOCKED
like, just to be clear? the reason we should care about the anti-trans, anti-drag stuff isn't because it starts us down the road to misogynistic attacks on short-haired women in pants - we should fucking care anyway! - but this is absolutely going to be a consequence of it
May 28, 2022 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
There are many reasons why arming school staff to deter shooters is a terrible idea, but one I haven't seen discussed - which also applies to cops, come to that - is the psychology of vigilance and the difference between being willing to do violence vs willing to risk violence🧵
The thing about human beings is that we're not good at constant high-level vigilance; it's actually psychologically unhealthy for us! This is why hypervigilance is a common symptom of PTSD rather than, you know, a desirable trait to have.
May 26, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
it should be crystal fucking clear by now that cops overwhelmingly only shoot at people they think *aren't* armed. they'll claim self defense to shoot unarmed black men at traffic stops, but let children die rather than take on an active shooter. the disparity is STARK.
these assholes want to be seen as Good Guys With Guns while taking on none of the personal risk that distinguishes actual heroism from bullying. if they can shoot first at someone who looks to them like the baddie from a John Wayne movie, fine. but actual bravery? fuck off.
May 14, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
in the west, the success of modern medicine is so great that, paradoxically, an alarming number of people simply cannot fathom how readily we used to suffer and die in its absence. the net impact is so positive, the cure is mistaken for the disease never having existed.
"why do we need vaccines or baby formula or epipens or antidepressants or abortion or vitamin K shots or physiotherapy? why can't we just do what we used to do before all this?" because we died, steven. constantly, painfully, every day, like the tide coming in. we DIED.
May 10, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
just so we're crystal clear: queer rights, trans rights, children's rights and women's rights all hinge on the concept of bodily autonomy, which is why conservatives are trying to violently strip that autonomy from ALL these groups at once. every struggle is interconnected.
why don't conservatives like abortion, trans men or childless cis women? because they think wombs exist to breed. you cannot cut trans men out of this struggle without denying them the same bodily autonomy that conservatives want to take from you.
May 10, 2022 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
in my experience, the medical emphasis on Breast Is Best has reached a point where new parents are being straight-up gaslit and lied to about breastfeeding issues, seemingly because the belief is that if they're told the truth, they'll just "lazily" choose formula instead. 🧵
when I was pregnant in the UK in 2012/2013, I attended pre-natal classes that included discussions of what to expect from breastfeeding. overwhelmingly we were told it would be easy, hassle-free, the best thing we could do.
May 1, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I have a pet theory that streaming services have done more to de-gender children's TV than anyone yet realises, not because highly gendered shows don't exist on those platforms (they do) but because kids are being allowed to choose what to watch, when to watch without oversight
specifically, it's the combination of streaming services and tablets that makes this work: kids being able to watch in their own rooms (rather than in the lounge on the big, visible-to-adults tv) without adults hovering and guiding their every choice. they can just pick whatever
Apr 1, 2022 • 31 tweets • 6 min read
one of the many wrongheaded TERF/GC arguments I've seen is the idea that trans women are always appropriating womanhood, on the grounds that they haven't suffered through it the same way cis women have, and like. the idea that suffering is inherent to being female? fucking YIKES
there is such a massive difference between "in particular contexts and/or for particular people, the experience of being female can involve suffering" and "suffering is inherent to womanhood." that anyone could think the second claim a femininst statement is truly mindboggling.
Mar 30, 2022 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
innocently watching skz code and suddenly I'm AMBUSHED by lee know lovingly-roughly washing han's hair @casual_cheese please suffer with me!!
Mar 11, 2022 • 27 tweets • 5 min read
re: conversations about unpaid admin loads falling on editorial assistants in the publishing industry vs managers up the line who lack technological knowledge, I'm vividly reminded of my stint as a legal PA, where the same issues abounded
at one temp position, my entire job was to print out every. single. email. that Boss Lawyer received, put it in a three-ring binder for him, wait for him to read it, then type up and send his dictated replies. he'd been away for a week and there were 13 FUCKING BINDERS.
Dec 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
listen, until we've had multiple fully homosexual film adaptations of alexander the great, achilles and every other famous queer person we pretended wasn't, I don't want to hear a PEEP out of anyone about how headcanoning fictional straight men as gay is An Insult To Friendship
listen. I am very much in favour of supporting physical intimacy & emotional tenderness between bros, because western heterotoxicity SUCKS, but until we've had multiple takes on achilles & patroclus tenderly fucking the night before battle, fictional straightness can suck it
Dec 20, 2021 • 25 tweets • 5 min read
here's today's piping hot take: at some point, the left is going to have to reckon with how the concept of tone policing, which was & is its own necessary issue, has been coopted and weaponised by people who want an excuse to act like raging assholes without being called on it.
like!! my understanding is that tone policing arose specifically as a conversation around how WOC in general and Black women in particular were punished for not sounding gentle when discussing their own oppression, pointing out problems or addressing abuse. and that matters!
Nov 15, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
human gender and sexuality are very much like animal taxonomy, in that both look structured and simple on the surface, but once you start investigating, it turns out there's actually no such thing as a fish despite the fact that we all know what a fish is, and that's okay
what this goes to show, once again, is that words are mouthsounds human beings looped around a concept at a given point in history, and that what they represent is not inherently meaningful beyond the meaning we give them, which is still valuable, just not absolute
Nov 12, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I've given the matter some serious thought & on reflection, I am 100% in favour of the 90s being a historical setting for YA and SFF books, because it was absurd and terrible and a hugely significant cultural crossroads between eras and also just hilariously batshit.
Glittery plastic butterfly hairclips were A Genuine Hot Fashion Item. Layered shirts & skirts over jeans! Dot matrix printers alongside big mac desktops with candy-coloured shells! Roller-ball mice! Making plans with friends over ICQ but having to use a physical train timetable!
Nov 11, 2021 • 40 tweets • 7 min read
so much of transphobia is just like, "your existence threatens my idea of womanhood, therefore threatening you is justified!" as though challenging the logic underpinning a belief is a worse sin than causing emotional, legal, mental & physical harm to a real human being
"ah but you see, I am very emotionally attached to my idea of womanhood, therefore threatening it is like threatening me!" I am very sorry to inform you that an existential threat to your sense of how the world works fundamentally is not the same as denying human rights
@casual_cheese please suffer with me!!