¶ Homestuck Fandom Purity Culture
Hey , this is Jackie aka Jax and welcome back to a special episode of Live Laugh Stuck . Or maybe this is another podcast , i still haven't decided . Maybe it's both . Formatting and decisions are hard . Anyway , i have a very special guest with me here today and we're going to talk about some very special topics . Sergeant Spank , who the fuck are you ?
Well , people most know me from my bro body pillows that I put out and won one-two like Homestuck Contest for , and I'm known in the fandom as the Stryder-cessed chipper of all time . It's pretty much me . My whole legacy is just trashy fan art for fun .
It's good trashy fan art . I still want that , bro . Boob mouse pad .
Oh yeah , well , I'll let you know when it comes back in stock .
Yeah , i Yeah it's just just love it . But yes , so , as you might tell from that introduction , spicy topics here today , because today we are going to be talking about kind of Homestuck , fandom purity culture and maybe fandom purity culture in general .
But let's see if we can keep it laser focused on on Homestuck , because we both have plenty experience in that general area , we sure do That said , if this is an episode y'all don't want to listen to , don't listen to it . Like it's fine , i'm not going to have my feelings hurt . Uh , start to spank , you're not going to have your feelings hurt ?
Not at all .
It's . You know people . People say that they come here for a good chill time and this is a good fun time . Chill might not be it .
No , probably not chill Most part . I mean we're going to get into some heavy topics , i think , but still fun , no less Yeah .
I think . Yeah , um , but yeah , definitely not everyone's cup of tea . So just go on and skip this one , and I might instead of doing every other week I might put this , i might have one coming up next week , just so you don't have to wait too long for a classic episode . Okay , i guess it is kind of a good idea to start with some background .
So I used to be kind of in the whole purity culture mindset . It's really weird because now we have the terms anti and pro ship or anti , anti or there's like a billion other fucking names for it , but anti usually tends to say about the same Yeah . And I never ascribed any of those words to myself .
I was just told that certain things were bad and I felt guilty about liking those things and it was just more proof that I'm a bad person and I just internalized a lot of that . I never really harassed anyone about it .
The only thing I did once was someone posted porn in the not to say for work channel of a hive swap , a friend , some character who was potentially underage , and I said some shit against that . But that's the most I did And this is not to like . I don't know . I'm not saying I was actually one of the good ones , because it still sucked .
It was just more bad for me than for anyone else . If that makes sense Absolutely .
And the whole anti movement is kind of centered around shaming people and to believing that these kinks or the things that they consume in a fictional context is supposed to be pure . And if you don't follow those rules then you are dirty , disgusting , Like that's their whole thing .
So their whole memo is to guilt you if you do not consume nothing but coffee shop AUs throughout your entire time and certain fandoms . So yeah , of course you were made to feel like guilty . Absolute garbage . Yeah , I mean absolute garbage . It's a cult .
So yeah , and I had my you're . are you familiar ? you're familiar with Orna High School host club ? right , absolutely .
So you know it's what got me into incest ships ?
Yeah , absolutely . Yes , of course It got all of us , like 90s kids , into incest ships , absolutely . But you know , at the beginning , as in the episode , they're slowly figuring out , how are we as a girl ? there's like the light bulb start coming on . Yeah , so I had my light bulb start coming on over the course of like some months .
Okay .
Yeah , So the first one was I was in a friend server that just if you wanted to know the dirt on fucking anything in popular homestuck Twitter , you went there and I was there , And so one of the things I got posted there was the problematic zine . Was there a different name ?
because I'm getting it confused because there was a different problem problematic zine with an eight as the B . that was about like characters people considered problematic . Here's the scene about them . And then there was the problematic zine .
that was more about like the character shifts and interactions and stuff that was considered problematic and made a zine about them .
Honestly , god , i could not tell you , because I haven't been super prevalent in a bunch of organized like fan activities until very recently . Honestly , that's fair . So I have no idea . You'll have to tell me all about that .
Yeah , well , this was back in 2019 and the first one came out and it had ships like I'm pretty sure it had like rose dock scratch in there . It had some more vanilla ones too . Like it wasn't just all , it was just like you can do whatever in here , right , but yeah . But like this was not a positive space where it was shared .
Everyone looked at it and everyone made fun of it and would like , why would anyone make any of this ? That was my first life out moment because , like , if you think it's like terrible , bad , immoral , the worst , why are you sharing it and looking at it ?
It's to pick on it People , it's . It's . You know , kids did that shit in high school . Like they targeted certain people to shit talking bully .
A lot of that came from being bullied themselves And so they decided , you know , well , i need to target to if I'm going to be a target , and they kind of take their frustration to lack control they have in their life out on other people , for , you know , no other reason than to feel better about themselves , and it's sad , but , like I get the logic behind
it , their logic behind it . It doesn't make it OK though , you know , like it's , it's free to be nice to people , just be nice .
And I guess a lot of my things is . This was a lesser extent of how aunties will share things they think is literally illegal , but they'll share it and they'll post it and everything And this like well , i don't think anyone said anything and there was literally illegal . It was still like . If you think this is so immoral to like consume , why are you ?
consuming it Right And spreading it and sharing it If you think it's so bad that people are seeing it and experiencing it and having to look at it .
Yeah , like you went out of your way to get this and share it here . And my second light bulb moment was I have to be careful because the the at least one person involved doesn't want to be like brought up in anything ever again , which is fair , absolutely .
But like I was in a group with two friends , in one , friend had posted , or like retweeted , a thing about how , like 16 year old anime characters are made to be considered attractive and not necessarily look 16 . That's the draw . That's why people find them attractive is because they're made to look like attractive adults nine times out of 10 .
Yeah .
And in that group the other person blew up , said we're harboring a pedophile , left the group and I shamefully cut contact with the first person . I have since reconnected and apologized and we're chill now .
That's great . Yes , i mean , and I understand , because you probably feel very pressured . That's scary . You know what I mean .
Yeah , especially not to narrow this down more , but the , the , the person who blew up , carried much more weight in the fandom . It wasn't a fun time .
No , I imagine not .
But I had agreed with that post when I saw it , so that was kind of like my second light bulb moment . My final light bulb moment was someone saying noncon was bad and anyone who liked it was a rapist . And I'm like , oh no , no , no , no . I read noncon in my grandma's Harlequin romance collection in her guest bedroom when I was like 12 .
Yeah , i've researched this . It's fine . You're literally wrong .
Like think about the stripping beauty series that Anne Rice wrote Right .
Yeah , like noncon is so normalized in our culture , like as far as kinks go , yeah , you don't have to like it , but you know .
Yeah , it's literally fine , like it's still on the spicier side of things , but again , my grandma's collection of romance novels had it in it , right , yeah , and so that was my final light bulb and my final switch over to the pro ship side of things . Yeah , and everything went downhill from there until it went uphill and everything's great now .
Oh , it's good . I mean , i completely understand . I never really hit the anti side . I never . I never really touched that personally because I'm 31 years old , you know I grew up in like old fandom shit , you know what I mean .
Like I'm talking like when sailormooncom had like a chat room and an email system And like when AIM was a thing like I , yeah , and was it . Winamp was like a MP3 player or something , a digital MP3 player .
So I'm old as there And so I sort of experienced fandom through friends in high school , people I had met online and I had never in my life experienced people being so like like basing their moral compass on what they like in fandom .
I never really experienced that because to me they were always just fucking cartoons , they were always just Barbie dolls to just do whatever with , and it didn't affect anybody , it didn't ruin anyone's day If I like a certain ship .
Like I never really experienced the anti side of things until my body pillow the borough strider one , that a bro came out and I was definitely targeted after that And it certainly had me questioning for a long time about whether or not I was a bad , a bad , terrible person .
Like breakdowns , breakdowns Like yeah , maybe these people are right , you know , but I never fully subscribed to those ideas and I never will , because there's absolutely no reason to .
It's very unhealthy to base morality on what kind of cartoons and what kind of media you consume , because just because you enjoy Hannibal , for example , doesn't mean that you know you're going to become a fucking cannibal . It doesn't work that way . So it just . To me it's just .
It makes more sense And I'm so sorry that you have that experience with your friend . Yeah .
And I think the reason why it happened , because I'm I just turned 32 . I my first fanfic experience was on your member , quasilla . I do remember Quasilla Yeah , i only read fanfics on Quasilla and I did not go there for fanfics , i went there for quizzes .
And then fanfics happened , right , and every , just about every fanfic I read if it was longer than a couple of chapters eventually had the main character who was basically a self insert . Mary Sue experienced noncon .
It was extremely common And there was like , oh my God , all the band RPF that I read like I started out Phantom in a very like what is now considered a problematic space , but I never made online
¶ Purity Culture in Fandoms
connections . I like would make one or two friends and then not keep in touch with them , and I never made like online fandom friends . I was very bad at that . 2019 is the first time I really made online fandom friends .
It's just they happened to be in this anti mindset and it wasn't something that even came up for like months , right , right , and by then I was just , you know , very good at guilty myself and thinking that I was the problem and stuff .
Yeah , i mean they make it really easy , yeah , to fill that way . You know what I mean .
I can honestly say the same about not having really experienced , you know , like a group of people that really engaged with fandom until I got home stuck I initially got started in home stuck in about 2011 , i want to say , oh , yeah , so I mean I've been around for quite a bit in the fandom And back then Strider Sest was one of the top 10 ships And so ,
and so I mean I think that's why Strider Sest is keen , that's why , yeah , and so , like it's it's .
It's very interesting for the fandom to take such a massive like nose dive because it like problematic ships were just normal lives in the sense that , like , everybody agreed that it was just fiction and they just enjoyed their fiction and went about their lives like whatever , because you know it's it's again , it's cartoons .
So it's very weird how it took a turn And I think it had to be like 2015 when it started , really , because I think it started with a Ralo situation where people like using their shit , ralo .
That is when I started getting those ideas on Tumblr . It's so funny because the Voltron sheath versus Clant stuff happened And I knew that that was done because I shipped sheath Right , i shipped sheath . How can you not see the sheath chemistry ? What do you mean ? they're brothers . What do you mean ? it's pedophile . You're not making any sense .
They're both adults , yeah .
They're . They're both adults , they're not brothers . What are you talking about ? And then the Ralo stuff happened and I fell for that hard . I had only watched the first movie , did not really care , and I fell for the Ray , the anti-Ralo stuff . That's when I saw anti DDLG stuff pop up . I blame everything on Voltron .
I don't know if that's historically accurate , but definitely around then is where I saw like a huge surge in like cool , we're going after everything now , absolutely .
And it was framed in such social justice terms that I started getting into that mindset and feeling feeling guilty for the things I did , like Yeah , and it really did feel like it was out of nowhere .
And then people started like to really subscribe to the idea that you know what you consume through these shows is what you like in real life . You know what you would want from your own relationship . People started believing that artists that had been creating this content for years , that they used to be okay with , were all of a sudden predators .
It really is just sort of a buzzwords and fear mongering type situation . I think . Yeah , and it's also got very high school click Regina George plastic he can't sit with us kind of energy . Yeah , and that's what it is Like .
It's a group of bullies that you know indoctrinates people into this crazy cold where they believe that queer sex is really dirty and bad and wrong if it's not presented in a really super cure and soft way .
But they'll , but they will absolutely be okay with violence And , like they , they don't care if it's violence , but if it's sex , you know they have an issue . That's queer sex .
They have an issue . It's really funny because , like , people who draw a bunch of gore are really into gore . It will be like it's not , like you can drop jack off to gore And I'm like , oh , oh , babe , you don't even know . Yeah , of course you can . Tons of people do , yeah , yeah , it's .
It's also really funny to me because , like Game of Thrones was like alive and strong at that time .
Right , game of Thrones is when I go back to often , one of a lot of people go back to often when it's like there is a mega popular cultural sensation that is rife with incense , incense , incest and noncon and underage relationships and just really heavy themes And these people don't go after .
George R R Martin , that's his name .
Yeah , george R R Martin , they and they barely go after the fans . I think they go after the fans more now because the current series running is explicitly about main characters who are in to incest . Like incest relationships , yeah , but like they're not real . Yeah , They're not real And it's just like the Lannister brother and sister .
Their relationship was not portrayed in that negatively of a light . It was definitely portrayed as romantic in plenty of times .
Oh yeah , she was like in love with him . Yeah , like explicitly Yes , yeah , absolutely You .
That show did not suddenly make everyone think incest was okay .
No , no , they didn't . And consuming media with incest and it doesn't automatically mean that you believe that incest is okay and the real fucking world you know , with real people . That's not how it works . It's like it ties into the like thought crime thing , where it's like you believe that you consume this fiction and you think about this thing .
Therefore , you engage in this thing in real life and believe this thing is okay , like people who have and I think it's really shitty and honestly kind of ableist to apply thought crime to people in fandom , because people with intrusive thoughts they , you know experience pretty awful things when it comes to intrusive thoughts .
It's kind of taking this idea about thought crimes and how , like , if you think about this thing , then you're going to do this thing , and completely negates anything positive to do with people who are working on their intrusive thoughts .
Yeah , and also like this is more anecdotal than anything . I feel like there was one article around but now I'm not sure I could find it off like without a bunch of research . But people seem to be developing POCD , which is a pedophilia OCD , where they are consumed with the fear that they are secretly a pedophile .
Yep , that's a very real thing .
I've seen people talking about it on TikTok and I'm sure there are multiple articles out there about people's experiences with that , and a lot of that has become a very real thing very recently because of internet culture and fandom culture and how people consume their media and how people are demonized for consuming their media in a wrong way .
Yeah , because it's not just about actual underage ships . It's like from my hero academia and hawks , like a ship between two adults that have an age gap , because it's like 20s and 40s or something , and people call that pedophilia , and it's wild . This man can have a mortgage .
Yeah right , hawks can have a fucking mortgage and he can legally drink . This is a full grown ass man . So what is the issue ? I'm sorry , this is how old he said . he said 24 .
I just said he is in his 20s . I think it's early to mid .
He's a 20 year old minor .
Yeah , and it's just a huge issue because partially because they're not just coming for actual underage content , they're coming for short people . They're coming for people who just don't look as adult as they think people should look , or people who like more girly girl stuff . It's absolutely insane .
It is . It's also kind of . I got to say that it's a little transphobic to believe that small people are there . I personally know a very petite , small trans man that often gets mistaken as a child and I think it's really shitty to apply the idea that small bodies equal child .
Yeah , because he's going to be fully grown ass fucking adults with again mortgages , with those to pay , with jobs and kids even . It would not matter to these people because they are small in air quotes and look like a child .
I want to pivot to another problem with purity culture . that isn't just about the kinks and everything . Absolutely . It's something that people don't always ascribe to purity culture because they just get caught up in the sex stuff because that's how they are . That's one of their big problems .
But also purity in consuming deals with having the correct thoughts about the media , having the correct head canons And of course , i'm going to turn this into June discourse .
Yes , all right , absolutely , and I have a lot of thoughts about this , but continue .
And it's not just June discourse
¶ Fandom Interpretations and Toxicity in Homestuck
. June is the most obvious one where it became very early on , earlier than when June became air quotes canonized by Hussie . Yeah , way earlier than that Did people start saying if you personally do not like June Edward as a head canon , you are a trans misogynist . Yeah , i personally knew a trans man who changed his name .
His name used to be John And then this happened .
And then he changed his name .
Yeah , because he did not want to be associated with John anymore . It became very toxic to many trans mask people .
Yeah , absolutely . And they don't care if it's toxic to trans mask people , they don't . They don't care if , like you personally , like really related to John as a character , they don't care .
They actively made fun of people who had can and John as trans mask .
Yeah , and it's the bully thing .
Yeah , And we'll get back to June in a second . But beyond June there was also . Briscoe was another big one because of the Pester quest route , where the writer at first after came out when people asked , said I'm not holding your hand , You make up your own mind about what I can . And I stood there Right .
And then of course , what pumpkins company line is nothing is canon , You do what you want . But that's not the truth , Because the writer after that , even after saying that the writer in the fandom around Vriska said if you don't think for us because trans femme like was made canon in Pester quest , you're a trans misogynist .
If you don't think for us because it is a lesbian , you're a . You know , you're a lesbian . So if you don't like that . We're changing canonically bisexual characters to be lesbians . You're also a lesbian .
I just I feel like it's very strange to apply , like human gender identity issues onto an alien race where they just are , like they choose their gender regardless , like their genitals are all the same And not not that like genitalia has anything to fucking do with it , but they are literally a completely entirely alien race where gender constructs and shit , they do
not really apply in the same fucking way . And to to apply real life issues and real life identity crisis crisis onto fictional characters that are literally fucking aliens is very strange to me And it's like okay , yeah , absolutely , that first could be trans femme . That's totally fine , that's wonderful And , honestly , let let June be trans femme as well .
That's incredible wonderful . But you also have to understand that you have to let other people have their head cannons and enjoy their Barbie dolls in the way that they want to enjoy their Barbie dolls as well . Like you all have to play nice and play fucking fair .
And just because you play with your Barbie doll as a transmask John , for example , doesn't mean that you're suddenly a fucking trans misogynist . Like trans John and John in general can exist just as much as June exists . It's a multi . It's a multi universe like comic . It's . That's the .
That's one of the biggest things in the whole comic is it's a multi universe , multi dimensional comic where there are other selves throughout the comic . So it just makes no sense to claim trans , misogyny or lesbophobia when there are multiple fucking universes with these characters .
I also want to say , if you cling to canon so much , one I see has canonically set has said that all ships are canon to us He has said that lesbians , like sexual human sexuality doesn't quite exist for trolls . but can ? I is a lesbian in the sense that she has a , that it's a fetish like having a preference for blonde hair Right .
And I'm not to mention the fact that Karkat himself in the comic looks at Dave like he's grown two heads and he's like OK , so like incest is an issue for y'all of whatever , but it's obviously not an issue with trolls . I mean they , they procreate with an incestuous slurry like that's one of the biggest things in Homestuck and other canon .
Like moments of incest and in Homestuck is when Cronus and Eridan go on a date and Dave openly hitting on Rose and vice versa , and and Roxy , like it's just weird to apply purity culture ideals to a comic . That is literally just it's all just garbage ships where everybody is having a spark with with everybody . You know what I mean .
Yeah , About the Dave Rose thing . I have a question because this has been my something that I always miss every time I go through and read . Homestuck is so in act four , whenever the , whenever John dies and the time skip happens and we see Dave and Rose hanging out before Dave goes back and becomes Dave Sprite .
Right Even before the Hussie commentary everyone said , yeah , I can't believe Dave Rose happened in . That . That's so cringe . I never saw that in the text . Am I missing something in my read throughs ? or was there some other cultural context around it .
I don't think so , and here's here's , here's why . Here's why I don't think so . I think that everybody is going to interpret things differently when they read through stuff .
They're going to interpret , interpret the , the comic , differently and no matter what you do like , everybody's going to have an experience with , with the comic And , honestly , it was made to sort of be that way for you to come up with your own conclusions . And I think that , personally , i love Dave Rose . I think Dave Rose is great .
I think there's a lot of chemistry , i think there's a lot of possible possibilities for hurt and comfort within that ship And I think it's a great ship . And I think that there is can and evidence that it was definitely something that was kind of like touched up on and given to the audience like oh , they're very obviously fucking flirting .
I don't , i , i , i hate to say that I can't remember exactly which part of the comic you're talking about , but I can't , i can't remember exactly that part . But if people saw like sexual tension or romantic , romantic tension and that and that part of the comic , then cool , i know , you know I don't see it as cringe at all .
It's , you know , it's just a comic .
It's just funny because , like everyone talks about it , like it's a fact that Dave and Rose got together in the doomed timeline that Dave Sprite came from .
I think that there might be some evidence that you know leads to that being a very high possibility . But you know , it all depends on how you read it , i think . And if people took Dave Rose as being canon for that , then hell yeah , that's the one for me .
Yeah , absolutely . Like I guess that's just what I don't get is like y'all don't want this to happen . Where are you finding the evidence that I someone who does want it to happen can't find right Like I'm the one who should be reading into this ? Absolutely .
They want a reason to bitch , that's all it is . Yeah , they are miserable and it is a topic that they can bring up that is disconnected with themselves , so they can bitch about it without you know having to within themselves as to why this is such a big issue .
Yeah Well , I'm about to come up on that in my reread through with Moosey . Oh good , I'm recording this So I'll investigate again .
Please do And please tell me what you find .
Yeah , I'll tell the world what I find If I I gotta talk to Moosey and make sure it's okay . We haven't talked about this stuff specifically . They're chill . It's just like , just because someone's chill doesn't mean they want to talk about it on the podcast .
Absolutely , yeah , understandable .
There are just so many off topics we could get on to and I could make the whole episode about that , even just focusing on Homestuck as
¶ Toxicity in Fandom Culture
a fandom . There is canon stuff in Homestuck that people don't , but it's like just part of Homestuck . Like , like you said , the uh impor assess And in the fandom Strider assessed is the core part of the Homestuck fandom .
Absolutely , and , despite an interpretation of one of my tweets , strider assessed shippers are the backbone because everyone is in a state of fear right now .
It's not as bad as it was in 2019 , but if you're not on not safer work fandom , or if you're not like in cool places , like like people who are pro ship , or either just don't give a fuck , right , you are in a state of fear . Yeah , i know this . I hear from people who are in that state of fear .
I hear from people who are like like uh , i have a friend who is uh kind of sex repulse , so they're probably not going to listen to this episode , um and so like they don't get into any of this stuff .
They don't get into these conversations because the whole thing squicks them out , not from any moral standpoint , but just because how it is , and they still are afraid for like basic ass things like shipping Karezi and or or being blocked for being my friend .
Oh my God . Yeah , i honestly have a few friends that uh keep being friends with me , like on the down now , and yeah , i completely understand , because I'm definitely a target for a lot of harassment . They don't want to have to deal with any of that shit .
Yeah , Let's , let's , let's go back around . I didn't uh , let you extrapolate on your uh , bro , body pillow experience .
Well , um , there was definitely . Uh , it was well received within the the the the .
So back up and explain the contest and like what , what contest Okay .
So it was uh , it was like the homestuck two or three Just for uh , it was , we love fine at the time , uh or no , no , four fans by fans came second , correct .
I'm pretty sure I think so .
It was for we love fine . Um , they were doing a homestuck contest as they did like before , and I always wanted a first straight or doggie , like I thought it would be hilarious . You know that it would be an incredible joke And the you know the staff seemed to agree when I um sent in my entry .
I worked like 24 hours on that thing and God I wish it could redraw it . So bad . They loved it . It was super well received , right . And then I want , like I was the staff pick , they chose me for the contest . I still have like screenshots of the like photo op thing they did with the body pillows , the aeridine pillow one as well .
Oh , my God .
It was wonderful .
I might need that picture . I might see if that picture would make a good episode picture .
I will absolutely send it to you because I still have it . But it was . It was honestly life changing for me at the time because I'd never like successfully done anything like that before , i'd never won a contest outside of like elementary school , and my art was like finally getting out there to a large audience and it life changing for me .
But with that came the downward spiral of people who hated my content coming after me and coming after my career . One of the big homestuck blogs at the time like had a lot to say about the body pillow on their on their blog And it got to a point where , like , i won another contest , the next one with an Alphabrow body pillow .
Oh yeah , it wasn't up there for long , but it was up there And I you know that also garnered me a lot of negative attention And it was for Alphabrow .
Yeah , well , it's because they knew okay that I was a Strider Suss shipper that created a lot of Strider Suss content And there there was what really just like broke the camel's back for these people that just really hated my guts for no other reason than the fact that I was a Strider Suss shipper and I was being successful at getting my things up on Wheel of
Fine , was posting my Dave Sprite and Little Howl prints on Wheel of Fine to be sold as a as a mouse pad and a like a like a poster right , like a poster print . This person specifically went on to the comments of my products on Wheel of Fine and proceeded to link my Not Safe for Work art Jesus .
Christ .
On Wheel of Fine And like I had multiple people , like their little lackeys , coming in and just dogging on my art and shitting all over it , for for me , being a Strider Suss shipper and I don't think I sold more than 10- of them as a result , because they actively went into my shop page to make sure that everybody knew what kind of adult like fictional
content I created And they were super happy about that . I'm sure You know me , a disabled trans man not being able to make money any other way . I'm sure they were really proud of themselves for that one And and shit like that just continued .
Like there were , there were people that were friends with that person , that would repost my prints and talk to their , their followers , about how ugly my art is and air quotes . Yeah , i've experienced insane things from from Antis and like big name Antis too .
There are a bunch of artists that created actually a group of people on Discord to shit talk me like that was their their favorite thing to do when I won the contests . Yeah , i mean , i don't know about you , but I've , i've , like I've received death threats , suey baiting shit and people wishing death on my cat over these cartoon characters .
And I know I should care more about like a human death , but going after your cat is just a low blow .
It's my and my cat was sick . at the time I had a like a go fund me or donation thing going for my cat , emraus , because he was very , very , very fucking sick . Yeah And yeah they . they look at that picture of my orange bastard son and they decided you know what , while you ship incest , so I hope he dies And that's like look .
this person in particular , i have to tell you , was a creepypasta fan .
Oh my God , Don't you know that creepypastas led people to murder someone ? So it's it's .
it's beyond me how these people like can consume content about , like you know , slashers and shit like that And they're fine . It's okay for them to consume that media or create that media , but the moment it becomes sexual , oh , clutch your pearls .
It's the same puritanical , fucking right wing , conservative , catholic , christian Baptist ideology that being gay and queer sex is bad and evil wrong .
Yeah , laughing at people dying is okay . Getting off to people dying is wrong .
Yeah , it really is . Just it's backwards . It's truly backwards And it's it's subscribed to the same . It's , first of all , it's subscribed to Turf rhetoric 100 fucking percent . And it also subscribes to fucking transphobia and queer phobia in general . Like how dare queer people have been policed on experiencing things in a queer way for fucking ever ?
Like we've been demonized for experiencing queer content for forever , and unless that queer content is 100% fucking wholesome , we're getting the same shit now , shit that we should have left behind years ago . And it's within our own community as well , where we are being ostracized from people near being demonized for consuming problematic media , and it's very sad .
People are losing their careers . A girl was fed a needle .
Oh yeah , Do you ?
remember that .
Yeah , i . I don't think I was around when that happened , but I've heard . I've heard stories of it by now .
I saw somebody bless , bless their heart . They were content creator on on Twitter . I forget what they worked on , but they dealt with some hate as well And somebody told her that she deserved her cancer . Jesus Christ , and I think it was over she , i think it was over her shipping she . They said that she deserved her cancer for that .
I'm sorry she has so much chemistry . If you don't , you don't have to like it , But if you don't see it , you're you're a crazy person .
Like it's and it's . I'm not super like big into Voltron . I did make a passive , aggressive art piece of trans . She , both of them . Yeah , just to piss people off for fun .
Yeah , I only watched the first two or three seasons and then I just forgot to keep up with it . Yeah , Yeah , Just like . Oh yeah , chief , obviously Yeah absolutely .
But yeah , i've , i've . I don't know about you , but I've experienced , i have . I honestly have screenshots of the two . Just crazy amounts of anti hate , and it all started with body pillow . Yeah which fuck it . I mean I'm making mouse pads and standies and shit to now like cry about it . I guess .
Yeah , i I've definitely received hate , but , like , what gets me the most is when it comes from people I used
¶ Navigating Boundaries in Fandom Communities
to be friends with . Right , i had and this is also I want to touch on posting not safe for work in places . That is a boundary where you should not be posting not safe for work . Yeah , that is an issue And I had something similar to that happen where I got into an argument with one of my ex friends .
If I get deeper into it , it's going to it's going to be super obvious what happened And it's not super relevant .
But the point is I made them that on Twitter because of shit I said , because they made me mad , And we got into the DMs and they said , hey , i saw this post you made like , and it had to been like a year prior , right , and I didn't like it And I can't believe you said this And they shared the post with me and it was I . I swear .
Also it was on my not safe for work Twitter and not on my main , and at the time I was trying to keep that , that hidden , because I was did not want to integrate my not safe for work , problematic shit into my main shit . Yet , yeah , and now I just keep them separate because I don't want to police minors finding it from my main .
And it was some rose doc scratch thing I said . And , ok , they said to me one .
I , for context , i was in partial hospitalization for a month after all the drama of 2019 , 2020 , 2020 happened after I was harassed and publicly humiliated and publicly yeah , that , like all that , it took me a while to process and I also had other stressful stuff going on at the time And it just culminated Or baited .
By the way , i'm going to say that for the fucking podcast that I , whatever read the transcript . That's what we call baiting .
Yeah , i'm not sure I've like fully talked about that on the podcast . I'll have to actually do a episode about that at some time , because I was trying to ignore it and pretended it didn't happen And I shoved it down so much that it didn't pop up until fucking like June , like the summer of 2020 .
So , like this person I think was still friends with me or had been friends with me and we weren't like hostile at each other at this point when I was in partial hospitalization , and so they come to me like a year later , like a year after they found this one not safe for work tweet I had and said if you tell your therapist about it , she's going to lock
you back up . Wow , to be clear , i wasn't even in the hospital . It was COVID , it was partial hospitalization , which meant for most of a day I was in zoom calls Gotcha And she said I hope you don't have any children ever . I hope you don't have any siblings . Oh my God , yeah , and I do have a brother , by the way . And then they shared that post .
I don't know if they shared the full content of it or what , but they deemed one of our mutual friends about it the sex repulsed friend I mentioned earlier to like warn them about me . Okay , like they broke a boundary I had with that person because I know they are sex repulsed or , the very least , sex averse And so like we don't talk about that stuff .
I know they don't like the stuff I'm into , so we don't talk about it because that's a normal , healthy thing . Yeah , it is sexually . And they broke that boundary on both of our ends because I guarantee you they didn't ask before sharing it .
Oh yeah , probably not . They tend not to .
And my friend came to me and said this is what was told to me And I said Yeah , like it's some fictional stuff I'm into And they're like cool . I trust you to be a good person . Like basically right . Like I trust that you are not like a bad person IRL I don't personally get it , it squeaks me out to hell and back But I trust you .
Right , because I mean it's , it's fictional , like you're not hurting anybody .
You know what I mean And you know that that person who had it didn't really care about it , or else it wouldn't have taken them an entire year to bring it out . Unfortunately , that person is also big in fandom , especially like fandom creation spaces .
So this is a reason why I think my bringing on creators to talk about their creations is a big deal , because I don't want , because I feel like the current spaces for creators in the fandom are very you . You have to be either in certain groups or explicitly not in certain groups . Yeah , it's clicky .
It's . You have to be like this pure , like wholesome person in order to like fit the bill for these people .
You have to be a part of their little cults in order to participate in certain things And and God forbid you are wholesome and pure and you just don't want to talk to one of the big creators anymore And they throw a whole ass fucking fit about it and ban you from anything to do with the big events and in Homestuck , like , you can literally breathe wrong And
these people will ban you from participating in fandom group things . It's , it's really just , it's insane .
So one of the reasons why I haven't even tried to participate in any sort of like group project for Homestuck because I already know these people hate my guts and that's fine It sucks for me , because the reason not that it doesn't suck for you , but like so the reason I started making friends in the Homestuck community in 2019 was because I joined a voice
acting project , ended up not getting anywhere because not everyone's made out to be a project manager , but , but I made all my friends , some of who are still friends with me . I made some more after it , but , like I made the majority of my friends , i got into the Homestuck community because I got cast in a , a Friendsome voice acting project .
That is awesome Yeah , and it was . It was a lot of fun And I continue to get into other voice acting projects . I and I still like to do a lot of stuff like that . There's actually a podcast that's currently offline But I'm going to start uploading to .
Mine is the doomed timelines which my friend made , where we got voice actors together to read Homestuck fanfic to like I love that ? Yeah , it's I . It is unfortunately offline right now , but I'm trying to get it back up because it was a fun project .
¶ Nostalgia for Homestuck Community and Creativity
And I miss being in Homestuck projects . Right , like I miss submitting to scenes , i miss being in voice acting stuff And I also miss the culture where , like , just anyone could be part of a project . Yeah , like I was a nobody whenever I got cast in the voice acting project .
Like I like had literally been on the Twitter for like a month And then I saw the audition and I put my stuff in and I got it Right . Hell , yeah , and it it sucks . Yeah , that it's so clicky that you have to know the right people , that you have to say the right things .
It's all about publicity and just being like the perfect little fandom robot in order for people to enjoy you as a person .
It's very dehumanizing , honestly , and it sucks because there are wonderful creators in this fandom I mean like incredible creators in this fandom that have been ostracized from big homesick projects because they drew Borostreiter holding Dave's hand once , or Gamzee kissing Terezi or Amporo Sess like they have been ostracized . It really is just . You know , it's sad .
These people are so talented , they're wonderful people and that's the funny thing about it is like . All the people who are denying people a platform in these fandom spaces are terrible .
They are so fucking mean and their their favorite thing is just bullying the shit out of people and talking shit about them , attempting to hurt feeling , shitting on their art Like it's their favorite fucking thing , right , but these people that you know create this problematic content are the nicest , most welcoming people that I have ever fucking met Like and I feel
so safe with , with these creators , and it's just a pity that people don't get to experience that . They don't get to experience the oh , we just love this thing and it's not about like the ships that we hate , it's not about making everything pure and just going for brawny points from representation etc . Etc . Etc .
Like it's about just creating with people that you care about , which was what Homestuck was always about and like creating and enjoying the fandom in your way with other people . I miss the days of Homestuck , like get-togethers at malls and shit . I miss that .
I miss . I'm sad I wasn't around for this like . So here's the thing I was around . I started reading in like 2011-2012 . I started reading before the Kickstarter because I backed the Kickstarter . I just was reading a thousand and one webcomics and I was in a fandom for none of them and I just did not make an exception for Homestuck .
I just did not look up Homestuck people really .
That's fair .
Just didn't get in fandom and it's . It's just very funny . I'm like this is a webcomic . I'm not in a questionable content fandom like . So I was there and I just missed out on a whole lot .
That's . It was wonderful . I can honestly tell you that the experiences I had early on during Stuck's Big Boom were phenomenal .
I was in Houston Stuck for a while because that's where I'm from in Houston and I would go to the meetups , the Homestuck meetups at the malls and they were wonderful , like people would bring food and their sketchbooks and they would cosplay and I went to . It was wonderful . There was a Homestuck prom . I had never been to prom before .
I had never been to prom before . I'm a high school dropout . I just I could not handle high school so I dropped and you know severe bully was the main reason I dropped . That Never got to go to prom . So I got to go to a Homestuck prom with with one of my partners and everybody cosplayed .
You know I was , i was Tavros for it and my partner was Gamtafe . This was back when I was like like oh gee , sergeant Spank era where I just drew a lot of Gamtafe Fantastic Before I came out as trans actually Homestuck , indeed did trans my gender , nice . But I went to prom and there were so many wonderful people there .
Like I had never felt like so happy to be around a bunch of weird nerds that love the same thing as me . It was wonderful , like the , the 413 parties where everyone would bake a cake and you know binge watch shitty fucking movies , conair , you know little monster .
Like it was wonderful and I miss those days and I wish we could go back to truly , because that's what Homestuck was all fucking about . It was like a about community and just having fucking fun with people .
It wasn't about well , you have to be commercially like , palatable to other people and you can't do anything wrong ever or enjoy anything bad ever , or you're gonna make a slick bad . Therefore , you are bad like it wasn't like that .
Yeah , strider says shippers are the canary in the fucking coal mine . If you can't have , strider says shippers out on normie Homestuck Twitter or Homestuck Tumblr or wherever you don't have a good fandom . It was top ten . Yeah , it was literally top ten ships .
One of my friends in a server said that they saw a bro and a dave like make out at like Seattle Pride .
Oh yeah , oh yeah , like it was everywhere , it was so common and and of course , this was before , when there was like fan and bro , like people were really like they didn't know as much as they do now about bro , but it doesn't fucking matter and I will spend hours explaining , obviously not on here and not on this episode , but I could spend hours explaining
my thoughts on burstrider and once shit came out about him in the comic , like people were , just like you know , fuck burstrider , he's the worst . Blah , blah , blah . And yeah , everything felt a shit and anybody who created there were wonderful fucking artists that just left , left the fandom because of all of the drama and all of the like , hatred and vitriol .
It's , it's terrible , yeah me saying , bro , kicking dave down the stairs was like like just the bro day fight was like funny , as it was meant to be , was the start of me losing one of my friends because , like I mean , it was supposed to be funny .
Supposed to be funny , that's the joke . He's a fucking fake white boy fucking literally teaching a kid the way of the samurai . That's what's funny about it . He's teaching a child the way of the samurai . Why do you think he's doing this shit that he's doing ?
like people honestly will bring up . Bro hit Dave so hard with his sword that Dave's the record on Dave's shirt broke and I'm like that's not an injury , that's not a real thing . That happens to people . That's fucking Wiley Coyote painting a fucking hole on the side of a giant and then a train coming out of it . Yeah , that's not an injury .
He did not hit his brother so hard that his record broke as like that's not a real thing it's ever the thing about Homestuck is even the serious parts , even the parts that fucking hurt , even the parts that , like , rip your soul out of your body because they are so sad , they are still meant to have some semblance of fucking humor .
It is still supposed to be funny .
Yeah , oh , another . Another thing that was funny explicitly meant to be funny , but was also a step in me losing that friendship was when Friska is looking at the cue ball , at like asking about the future , and it's like I'm about to blow up in your face . And then the next scene is it blows up in her face . Yeah , that's fucking hilarious , hilarious .
Or risk of being hit with her own arm because Ekri is still has control . Yeah , that's fucking funny .
It's funny like the whole thing is supposed to be . One awful and morbid and two funny yeah just like cartoons yes , because they guess what they're fucking cartoons and risk is a great character . I do enjoy Friska as a character .
I love risk is so much .
I think risk is a phenomenal example of a very flawed and also very deep and in-depth character , but the fandom definitely likes to play favorites over who is more problematic and they definitely choose Vriska as one of the characters that is like , oh , she can do , brisket did nothing wrong , but they will shit other characters , like unbashedly , just not care about
these other characters and it's so backwards .
I just , whenever someone makes me feeling just about brisket because they're being too loud about loving her , i just make up more head canons that they would hate .
Oh for brisket , like transmask brisket , yeah ooh , listen , risk is hot in every form , every form brisket's hot in every form . But I am also a gay man so I have to say that I would thoroughly enjoy a transmask . Brisket , trans femme brisket is great . Honestly , transing any of the characters genders is phenomenal and home stuck .
I personally had canon Dave Strider as a trans man and have for years . But also , if people want to turn Dave into dove , then fucking go for it . Hell yeah , they are fucking Barbie dolls . Please play with them the way that you want to .
Absolutely Okay .
¶ Toxic Fandom and Virtue Signaling
there was something else I was going to talk about when we talked about your shit . Oh yeah , like we kind of we touched on this definitely with , like talking about the clicks and stuff for fandom , the very much like this person did something wrong , so you have to unfollow them . And oh , this person still follows them , so you have to unfollow them .
And it's just like spreading out ripples of like so far away from the original person who was quote , unquote . bad that , like you just have like a whole chain of people you have to unfollow because they're not unfollowing based on dumb shit .
Yeah , it's a toxic game of telephone . Yeah , i've definitely been one of those people that's like don't follow Sergeant Spank because of X , y and Z .
Oh , i had someone somehow had been following me for months after I like definitely was out as like pro ship on my verification account , who started adding people and being like hey , uh , uh , jerkification is pro ship , are you aware of that ? you're following them . What was hilarious , you know , getting rid of that . I did have mutuals block me after that .
What was hilarious is they did at my podcast account where I have verification in the bio as like , this is the person who runs it , right . But they did at my podcast being like hey , you follow verification , they're pro ship , by the way . And I was like hi , that's me , that's me . Yeah , yes , i'm gonna unfollow myself .
It's very weird because people like to take pro ship and pro fiction and they really like to bend what that actually means to fit their narrative .
Yeah , what .
I mean , like I am very much . what I say is , I am very much pro leaving people the fuck alone over because people think that pro ship and pro thick are just like , yeah , pro pedophilia , pro Zufilia And it's like that's . that's not how it works .
Just because you watch scream doesn't mean that you're going to put on a fucking Halloween mask and start killing teenagers . Like it does not fucking work like that . And people apply different logic to things that are sexual All the fucking time . I cannot believe somebody was like you should unfollow this person and it was you . I would lose my mind .
I would lose my mind , i would absolutely go crazy .
I took a screenshot of my bio and circled my my name in the bio saying like yeah , this is me . This is me . You did a bad job .
I'm trying to find the one where this person was like oh , you shouldn't follow a sergeant spank because he's a . He's a trans . Oh my God . And I was called a trans folk for drawing trans Dave as a trans man . Yes , that is the most thing you can do .
My favorite thing was dirtification the account that I was called a June skeptic , on the account that people accuse me of trans misogyny for not even openly disliking June , but just not liking the culture around June , and making some mild posts about it and getting into argument with one trans person . Shinigami eyes lists me as green .
Are you aware of Shinigami eyes ?
Shinigami eyes .
So it's an extension that will list some people as green if they are confirmed to be cool with trans people and will list people as red if they are confirmed trans folks .
Okay , so it's really handy to just like discount someone's argument out of hand is like , hey , i don't know if this person like maybe is saying something they don't realize is bad or what , and then they're they're like a red in Shinigami eyes and like , oh no , they're just this is a thing for them .
Is they just go around and make like statements to get you to debate you into arguments , right , right , but my certification account is listed as green , so when people see it they will see a trans ally and I'm so happy about it That's wonderful .
I could not tell you . That is the same for for me , because I draw Dave , bro , you know yeah , but you're not .
You're not on there as either red or green , which is how most people are , oh , but like I don't think the person listens to fandom drama reasons , i think you'd have to actually show like proof of actual transphobia .
I see , i see , i see .
Sometimes I'll just go through my followers and see if anyone pops up as red or if I'm seeing discourse going around . But a lot of them who are starting it feels baby and they're all red and just like block , block , block .
Well , I mean , as is your God given right ?
So many people . I have such a hard time on my main Twitter , like my main home stuck Twitter , because I've blocked so many people that I'm like I need to find more home stuck people . But it's very hard . Yeah there's fear involved .
Yeah , there's fear involved And it's just like I blocked a lot of the main people I don't know if they're still main people and I never will because I blocked them and they blocked me . It was a mutual blocking by almost every BNF at the time . Oh yeah , so I didn't talk about virtue signaling a little bit .
I never really thought about it too much until I was on the home , stuck Reddit , and I get I don't like scroll through there often , i just get I just let Reddit send me notifications and sometimes it was like this person made some fan art and like , oh cool , like the fan art , maybe say something nice about it , right , and people started doing these , these
shipped here lists , and this one was notable because some of the ones included were like Dave bro and John bro and stuff like that . Okay , it's a weird ship here list , because I went to do it and they didn't have like Airden and Vriska as a ship . They didn't , or they did , they did not . And I'm like you have to at least pair all the trolls together .
I love that shit . That's such a good shit , exactly , and it's like canon in the comic , like why don't you have this one ? but you have like , like you have bro dad And honestly like oh , yes , which yeah , not shitting on , bro . Dad is just like but you have like something that that is like crack ship adjacent , but you don't have a cannon ship on .
It's a really weird chip tier list .
Well , people don't like to acknowledge that Airden and Vriska had a lot of chemistry and that they like roleplay together and shit .
But you have bro on it .
I know it's backwards .
Like that's , that's my thing is like I would get it if they were ignoring all all ships deemed problematic , but they weren't .
Not at all . Dave bro is like tops here , like the most problematic ship in the band .
So anyway , but people were posting those . One person posted it and had John Jade at the top or like near the top , and people were big mad about it . Why ? Because it's John Jade .
But there's chemistry I don't understand like .
But yeah , and didn't have a lot of like because this this person organized it into quadrants And so put a lot of wallower ships into pale quadrants . Okay , and got mad about that , because people will both simultaneously say pale is romantic . So I can't believe you put Karkat Kanaya in the pale and also say I can't believe you put Rosemary in in pale .
they're canonically flush . And he was like this is my , this is my thing , this is what I personally these are my Barbie dolls . Like I can't believe you have a John Jade in in flush and you hate Rosemary . Try to be like you're just a lesbaphobe , you just hate gay people and it's like first verse . First verse , he was also at the top . What do you want ?
But in what I was in response to this was someone use that ship tier list again . But just had a tier one . Just had a tier list at the bottom that was labeled as incest , pedophilic or something else like otherwise problematic . What ?
Yeah , like they included a tier at the bottom for the incest pedo ships so they could put , like you know , john Jade and bro John and all of that down there . Wait , okay .
And what . What is inherently like so awfully disgusting about John Jade besides the fact that it was fucking incest , because this is something that I've talked to with with friends . With those friends , Incest is one of the most basic bitch baby fucking like vanilla problematic kinks that there are . Really truly fucking is .
But people and people love to lump pedophilia and incest together very , very often And it's it's just wild to me that this is what they are hung up on when there is canon incest in the .
Yeah , yeah , no , it's , it's an issue . So and my thing was you don't have to put those ships on there , like the tier list maker does not make you put everything on the tier list .
So this was my like oh , you're just actively virtue signaling , you're just saying , literally , ships I don't like and think are bad , they're gross and icky , and so I'm putting them on here . So you know that I think they're gross and icky .
And I'm a better person because I think they're gross and icky . Yeah , that's literally it . That's what they do Like .
I would have had less of a problem if it was just like an A through F and then on F they just had all the ships they don't like and think are gross and icky , like that's fine , that's what it's for . But to specifically say I think this is pedophilia . Here's the ship . I think it's pedophilia .
They claim that any like guardian with the kid , one of the better kids or the alpha kids , incest and the phantom is automatically pedophilic , despite them being , like , grown as adults And I was actually . I saved a few screenshots and on articles about these issues and virtue signaling is something that they do and it's harmful because they will put in reports .
For you know , cartoon lowly , show bullshit , right , yeah , and there's , there's like an entire article on IWF , which is the Internet Watch Foundation , and it says thousands of images and videos of child sexual abuse could be going undetected because of false reports . And it is virtue signaling .
It's like look at this , look , look at these bad , awful , nasty people , and it's actively harming .
Yeah , because they have to wade through cartoons .
Yep , this says . In May 2019 , the UK's independent inquiry into child sexual abuse heard that reports received by the National Crime Authority from the United States hotline in CMEC included large numbers of non actionable images , including cartoons , along with personally identifiable information of those responsible for uploading them .
According to Swiss police , up to 90 percent of the reports received from NCMEC related to innocent images Like .
Yeah , like that is an actual , like moral , real world , ethical effects , people issue .
It is , but they don't care once it affects real people .
Yeah , And they just they have to . it's like putting like the stuff in in their like freaks D and I like that's virtue signaling . No one knows what that means Like okay .
So sorry that you're bland and boring . Yeah right , Like okay , i will not interact . You have a shitty attitude . Why would I want to ?
Okay , especially queer people , even those who are unrelated to fandom , especially those who are unrelated to fandom , will see freaks D and I and it's like oh , that's about me , though , even if , like the person putting it in their D and I do not consider that there's just a lot of sex negativity . There's a lot of purity around .
another topic we haven't even fucking touched on , but oppression Olympics .
Yes .
Oh my God . Someone on Tumblr posted how , like you guys laugh at the Overwatch oppression chart . But that's how you guys work , yeah , so like they rack up the points based on like their own Overwatch oppression chart and decide who is the most oppressed , and that person is correct .
It doesn't even have to be about something that affects them , but they're just automatically the most correct about whatever it is , unless , of course , they're disagreeing with the person talking about it , in which case they're like a pick me or poisoned or something .
God what I can say about the oppression Olympics , what my personal experience with that is .
there was a point in time during all this anti discourse where people were like , ok , you're allowed to create these things If you openly tell people what you've been through you're exactly like give me your life story And then I will decide whether or not you are allowed to draw or consume this certain type of media .
And a lot of people ended up I , technically , was one of them Coming out about you know , things that had happened to them and like had to express like , oh well , i'm enjoying this shit because it helps me cope with certain trauma , which is completely backed up by therapists .
There are so many fucking therapists out there that have very openly stated that engaging in problematic media can be helpful for people who are traumatized . Right Yeah , but it went from that like they kept changing the goalposts , right , like . So it went from like OK , you're allowed to enjoy this type of fiction .
If you've been through this to well , you still shouldn't create it anyways . And if you , if you do create this thing , then obviously you liked what happened to you , like terrible , awful things to say to survivors .
And then it became oh well , i've been through this and people like you creating this certain kind of content is the reason why this shit happened to me . Do you know what I mean ?
Like I've , i've literally been told that I'm the reason that somebody was sexually assaulted by a family member because of the things that I draw and the things that I create , and it really is just . I've had it worse than you and fuck you for creating this content and I'm better than you because I have been through worse than . I'm just sick of it .
You know what I mean .
Yeah , it's absolutely
¶ Losing Friends Over Beliefs
fucked up . You know , sometimes you'll sit down and do the research for one of these people because they say they want the research and you'll do it and they don't want the research .
Yeah .
No , because they don't . I've talked to my therapist , like it came up , because I'm like yeah , this person's , i'm being harassed by this person , are these people ? they're like why are they harassing you ? and I explain and they're like but that's fine , what you're doing is fine .
Yeah , like therapists are legally required to put you the fuck away if they believe that's something that you are doing is wrong and evil . And like they are legally required to report to authorities if you're doing something fucking illegal and dangerous . They have to , yeah they have to .
It is a part of their fucking job And it doesn't matter to these people because they're afraid . They're afraid that if they agree with this logic , that they will lose whole , entire friend groups .
They are afraid that if they actually start to believe these people that are like they're just cartoons , nobody's getting hurt , that they will be demonized and ostracized as well .
And it sucks because nine times out of 10 , they're right . I lost my whole entire friend group , partially because of the June drama and everything that happened around that .
Why I just don't . I can't understand that the blow up .
What from one friend group that imploded on me was when I said no , i like John , is John not as June . And that ended that whole friend group for me .
That's I mean . But there's multiple universes . They're allowed to love June and you're allowed to love John , Like , yeah it's , there are multiple fucking universes in which you can enjoy a certain character , Cause I like June too . I also like Transmask John . The fucking options are infinite , Absolutely Infinite .
That's what makes it great . But yeah , so I lost friends for that . And then I also lost friends when I started posting more like pro-ship adjacent view And then I started just telling people like , hey , I'm about to be problematic on main , you're probably going to get targeted if you stay friends with me , so I'm letting you know now .
That's awful . I am so sorry . You should not have to warn your friends that you're going to be talking about fictional characters and it's going to be like heavy And like . Your friends shouldn't be afraid of that . But it makes no sense .
Yeah , and like I was going through a whole lot , i was not in a good headspace , so it's stuff . It's an era . I probably would have done different now , right , but I did have some friends drop . I had some friends stick around and then I had some friends drop later when they realized oh no , you were serious .
You are causing conflict with other people , i know because you're doing your own thing over there .
Why is there conflict to be had , is my question .
Like it's all dumb shit . And then I've had people who have had people block them and they still stick around me And I definitely appreciate that . Like That's wonderful . Yeah , it just sucks because some people are becoming disillusioned in the rest of everyone Because , like I tried to keep my shit to myself , right , i don't want to go .
Hey , i know your friends with all these people . Well , they were kind of shitty to me .
I think you should , like I don't want to like try to please people's friendships because , like a lot of times is , they were ex-friends that I was friends with And I'm like maybe it was just a me problem And then I'm just watching other people slowly realize that oh no , they are being shitty about things And that sucks .
Like you have , like I became disillusioned with some of my friends and some of Wampumkin people who I did get targeted specifically by And it's just wild Like for having the wrong opinions . And again , initially my wrong opinions weren't even in the problematic fiction era . It was a different type of purity culture that just doesn't get talked about enough .
It was just you don't have the right head canons And I'm like , wow , yeah , i've definitely experienced that too .
People don't like the way I draw striders , which is fine , That's fine . And I've been , you know , shut on for head canning , head canning my striders the way that I do , and it's like here's the thing . I draw these characters a lot of the time . I kind of put a little bit of myself .
This is gonna sound crazy , but I kind of put a little bit of myself into their experiences because I relate very heavily with Dave Strider as a character .
I grew up in fucking Houston like poor broke a shit with not great fucking parents And I just I latched onto this character very fucking heavily because I understand I draw these characters like me to some degree because I relate to them so heavily and people hate that shit .
They will hate that shit , but yeah sorry , i remember the point I was trying to make before and then I ended it at . I ended up forgetting what point I was going at .
Oh , go for it yeah , But yeah so the point is is like yes , you are most likely gonna lose friend groups if you come out as like pro ship , if you like , post pro ship stuff if you like , or anti harassment . Yeah anti harassment . If you stop caring , if you don't like , buy in to blocking everyone who is friends with people .
who are friends with people , right , right , but like .
Yeah , but they're not worth it .
Yeah , they're not worth it . You're gonna find so many better friends on the other end , not that everyone on this side is like great , there's shitty people here , there's abusers here . There always is . Every part of every community is going to have the worst of the worst .
Yeah , just like they're convicted fucking pedophiles in the anti movement . It just is what it is , Yeah convicted pedophiles .
convicted Okay , i will say I prefer saying convicted sexual abusers , because not all sexual abusers are pedophiles and often they aren't . Oh yeah .
So that's just . There have been a few pedophiles caught in the fandom , though , for sure .
Yeah , but like child sexual abusers , i just like to like say that as the term , because like Absolutely . Stuff I'm not gonna get into on this episode . It's a whole other episode . That's another episode that I want research to back me up on .
That's fine , totally understandable .
But as far as like conviction stuff goes But yeah , like convicted , Like no I do remember one person saying , yes , I did rape my sister or my stepsister , or like some person , but at least I'm not pro-ship .
Yeah , I do remember that And he was , I think he . I'm gonna say he .
I think it was a he-team , maybe .
I do remember that . I do remember him admitting that and people just like sucking his fucking ass and like , oh , it's okay . I also saw somebody that was like quoting a anti-harassment individual , like a pro-fiction individual .
They were quoting them like you don't care about real people more than you care about fictional characters , and they were like , yeah , that's the whole point , absolutely . They're like so close to getting the fucking point . Yeah , so close to fucking understanding and missing the mark every single fucking time .
It reminds me of the one post someone made where it's like they just green-shotted something a Republican said Like the thing about Democrats is that they would save a person over the Statue of Liberty . Like they think people are more important than like I don't know , just like some shit like that , where it's like yes , of course .
It's like yes , yes , they are .
Yeah , like oh , you think people deserve housing and deserve to be able to fucking eat and live comfortably and be able to pay their rent with their fucking paycheck , with one fucking paycheck , just be able to pay their full fucking rent . Yes , yes , i do .
I believe that minimum wage fucking workers believe or deserve to be able to feed themselves and pay for their fucking rent . Why is this so hard for you to grasp ?
It's just so funny that like it's those conservatives putting cultural significant things over individual people .
And anti-seize ? the same shit , exactly Well , anti-seize tend to , you know , subscribe with the same ideals that conservatives have all the time .
But they just like put it in some sort of progressive sounding language , which is what fucking got me . Fucking got me for a while .
You've grown as a person , and that's a beautiful thing .
Yeah , you just grow and you self-reflect and you change . I just want people to know that , like , if you're afraid of what your friends are going to say , for like things that literally don't harm anyone else .
Because that's one of the things that really got me when I was being harassed , right , when all my friends were dropping like flies , whenever I was finding out that people I've never talked to were talking about me , that I didn't even know they knew me was like I didn't hurt anyone , right , i've never hurt it .
Well , in this context , i'm not saying I've never hurt anyone , i'm a person . I'm a person I've hurt people , right , right , but , like , in that situation , i was not being harassed and ostracized because I hurt anyone .
No , you were being harassed and ostracized of a cartoon and you should never have to be afraid that your friends are going to hate you for liking your cartoons a certain way and doing certain things with your cartoons and your family . You should never be afraid of that . You should never be afraid of losing somebody over that .
And people shouldn't be police and queer people and how they enjoy fictional cartoon media period , because we've been demonized for that shit for long enough , for just having queer experiences for long enough . it's time to stop that shit .
I need to wrap it up now . Is there any last points you want to make before we wrap ?
up . My last point is I guess basically what I want to say is if something makes you happy and you want to create that thing , do not worry about what other people think about you creating that thing . Create it because , at the end of the day , those people do not fucking matter .
At the end of the day , you have yourself and what makes you happy is more fucking important . Like , you are not anybody's therapist , okay , you are not a fucking babysitter . You are not getting paid to care about these random ass internet people . If you want to create something because it makes you happy and you are not hurting anybody , create it .
Do not stop , do not get discouraged . You are not alone in feeling these feelings and being afraid . I have experienced quite a bit of fear and it has definitely fucked with my brain quite a bit to think about how I've affected other people .
At the end of the fucking day , these are other people , most of them strangers are going to have a problem with you and fuck them . It doesn't matter . At the end of the day , care about you , care about what you like , and you will find people that care about you . Despite whatever fucking shit you like , people are going to care about you , no matter what .
You just have to find the right circles and the right friends . If these people are making you afraid , then you should not be in contact with them . Just love yourself , because it took me a while to start loving myself again and to give myself a platform to create again , because I felt so fucking guilty . So don't feel guilty .
That's great . I don't think I have anything to add on to that , because that's like the whole fucking point right ? Yeah , it really is Cool . In that case , is there anything you want to plug ?
Yeah , you can find my merchandise I have . My body pillow is up for $44 now I've cut the price considerably On Etsy I'm a Corvids horde On Etsy . On Twitter , my not-safer work is Sergeant Spunk . Just one full word no dash . My safer work , twitter is Sergeant Spank .
I'm Sergeant Spank on everything , mostly , for the most part , and you can find me pretty much anywhere . Just search Sergeant Spank on Google , you'll be fine , trust me . Trust me .
Yeah , okay , in that case , thank you very much for coming on . I am certain I'm going to have you on again for one thing or another .
I'm so excited . I appreciate you having me . in general , this was a lot of fun . It was great to get to talk to somebody about this stuff .
It's been a long time coming and coming And it's not going to stop here . In fact , i just might take things we talked about and turn individual parts into one whole episode , and this is just our kind of overview .
Introductory Yeah , yeah , overview Sounds great to me . Okay , awesome , i would love to be back .
Yes , in that case I will see you all in however long . The next episode ? a week , two weeks a time . I'll see you guys at a time . Goodbye , bye .