Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So a lot of you know that I have a Patreon. If you didn't, uh... you do now? I originally launched it for my comics, but it kind of transitioned to being mostly focused on my Witchcraft podcast years ago -- because that's where I had extra content I could give folks -- but it's overall just for "me" in general.
Anyways.
My goal for the last year has been to increase the "value" for Patreon patrons, with all paid tiers getting access to a copy of Super Awesome Action Heroes, and the five dollar and ten dollar tiers getting access to my novels (at different times -- the five dollar tier patrons get them on a year delay).
For a while I had been doing Patreon exclusive "vlogs," but those didn't last just because I literally ran out of things to say in them. I mean, I'm boring. The only eventful stuff in my life is the eventful stuff happening to all of us right now. Back in April, I think I came up with something fun that I've now done two months in a row.
And that's record reaction videos to episodes of The Pagan Invasion.
You see, for the April episode of BS-Free Witchcraft I did an episode on the structure of Satanic Panic propaganda, and used the first episode of 1991's The Pagan Invasion as the example to illustrate my points. For that episode I needed to, obviously, rewatch that first episode for research.
Rather than just watch it in private though, I recorded my rewatch as a commentary and reaction video and posted it as a Patreon exclusive video. And even though the podcast has moved on from the topic, folks asked me to react to episode two... so I did that last week. I fully intend to review the whole series on my Patreon now, and each one of my videos ends up being like two hours long. I don't know if I'll get a chance to do one every month, but I plan to get through the whole series.
Honestly I'm not sure why I didn't think of doing something like this before.
So yeah, we're doing fun stuff there. Oh, also, before I forget to say something -- July is the annual Q&A episode of BS-Free Witchcraft, and I need listener questions. If you have something you want me to respond to on the show, just send it in via the show's contact form by July 11th 2025.
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The ship is sailing. I repeat: the ship is sailing! <3
Was it Kierkegaard or Dick Van Patten who said “When you label me, you limit me?”
There’s a wonderful youtube video by my man RJ Aguiar about being bisexual and monogamous and one of the things he covers is labels, like people telling him that since he is committed to this one guy, “Why don’t you just come out and say you are gay?” Sigh. Anyway, he gives very similar advice to what Ruth does: that labels work as a shorthand but the minute they don’t fit, throw them away.
Another trouble with labels, they don’t always mean the same thing to different people. I might say something intended as a compliment, only to have it taken as an insult, or vice versa.
Other Person: Eew! That movie looks weird!
Me: Ooh! That movie looks weird!
I’m really not a fan of the whole identity politics schtick. I think it gets used to divide people far more than anything else currently.
But Lynn’s advice here is the best advice I can possibly imagine and, should I ever find myself stuck in the position she’s in in this scene, I pray that I’m able to offer something as effective.
“I’m really not a fan of the whole identity politics schtick. I think it gets used to divide people far more than anything else currently”
Spoken like a straight white dude who has no clue what it’s like to not be the socially acceptable default.