#or 'if you like anything this creator did you're endorsing the shit things they did/are doing' is what i'm getting at

[weedle-testaburger]

i have this little hot take that the real problem with 'miku made it'-ing Problematic Media is not actually 'people are continuing to enjoy Problematic Media', it's 'people are trying to elbow out the Problematic parts of that media or its creator(s) instead of criticising them'

[parasocialitevn]

(I apologize for the mistakes) Hello, sweet Eden~! How are you doing? You love cats, right (as far as I understand)? Do you want me to share with you my most favorite photos of my cat? (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)

Modsu, how are you doing? How is your health? Do you sleep, eat and drink enough water? Recently, there have been serious attacks on VN developers using yandere, so I want to remind you that we love and support you ❤

I'M HIJACKING THIS POST BECAUSE I WANT SO BADLY TO SEE CATS. AT ALL TIMES. PLEASE.

Also I'm okay! I've been spending a weekend out of state with my friends of many years, having a lot of fun! Because of that, I'm also unaware of what you mean? Attacks? Did something happen? If you mean run of the mill anon hate, I can handle that lol. I've been dealing with that for years and years.

I can't understand why harmless interest in a horror trope and indulgence through the safety of harmless fiction earns hate in some people's eyes. The only exception would be properties that write these tropes and mentalities as if they're healthy, or something you should desire in your real life. I'm certainly not the kind of person to go spouting that fiction doesn't affect reality, because the tone and intent of your project can make a world of difference in the message it puts across. But since all of the projects I know of and follow are tagged as horror, and the creators I've spoken to have been considerate, thoughtful and responsible, I would think that implies a level of self awareness that wouldn't suggest that anyone means to promote or justify toxic relationship dynamics like that. Nowhere is writing a dark story inherently equivalent to endorsing it. Even if there's porn in it. And anyone who enjoys it through the safe lens of fiction and fantasy, as long as they understand that fact, isn't hurting anyone. It's like reading a raunchy novel about having sex with a stranger, without all the dangers that come with doing that in the real world. That's part of the reason these accounts do not want minors interacting with their projects. A young and impressionable mind can wildly misinterpret these stories if distributed or consumed irresponsibly, and the results can be catastrophic. Nobody I know of in this community wants to endanger young audiences, and the bad actors that do are swiftly called out and cast out, plain and simple. As someone who's never been able to stomach keeping quiet about people pulling sick shit, I like it that way.

I wrote a thesis back in school about the dangers of romanticizing abusive and toxic relationships, so I feel like I know what I'm talking about; but even still I am always open to considering new opinions and concerns, of course. I'm also free to disagree with you. And in the first place, if you are uncomfortable with the subject matter, I urge you to not expose yourself to it in the first place! I don't mean that in a "Haha, I'm ✨problematic✨, dont like it? leave." type of way, either. Shutting out criticism entirely is never wise. What I mean is simply that you should never worsen your mood or mental state for something that's just not your cup of tea! Horror isn't for everyone! Erotica isn't for everyone! And that's perfectly fine! I don't want you here if you're not going to enjoy yourself! My main goal in all of this is to make something fun and creepy for others who like fun and creepy things to sink their teeth into, but I can't and won't do that unless I can do so responsibly and respectfully. I'm never justifying these behaviors, and I'm certainly NEVER trying to encourage anyone to seek relationships like these out. If anything, I'd hope the narrative I intend to weave with Parasocialite would portray the fear and the horrors of it realistically. I definitely don't want rose tinted glasses to be on for the experience.

Anyway, here's a silly picrew of Eden

[reigenomic-moving]

Wayne's statement on the racist caracatures in last nights stream and the makeship plushie

Image ID's under the cut

hey everybody. last night's stream was a weird one. the things that went down when we tried to play Bullet Roulette were not great. it made us as a team realize that we need to put our foot down and make a statement. about last night, and a lot of other things. what you're about to read is not only my words, but those of the entire team.

the first thing i should get out of the way is this: the caricatures that appeared in Bullet Roulette suck, and we're all disappointed that one of our favorite old VR games has that bullshit in it. we all made the fact that we thought it was shitty as clear as we could last night while we were playing. we tried to reset the lobby 3 times to fix the bug that forcibly made us all be that model. it did not work. we tried to keep playing it for a little while and then give it one last try. which, of course, did not work. what took place afterwards is what we'll be talking about here.

the reaction a small group of you had to these events was disappointing, and in some cases, unacceptable. we are not upset with native americans who were uncomfortable with the caricatures, we are upset with those of you who instantly demonized us for not 'turning off the game immediately'. the reason we as the streamers and the mods repeatedly asked everyone to 'move on' is because we acknowledged what we had just experienced in the game was wrong, and condemned it. we expressed how we felt about the models out loud multiple times. while unproblematic media exists, there is a lot of media that has problematic elements in it. it's not great, but that's the way things are. things are not always black & white. the expectation that the moment an unsavory concept is encountered in something on stream that we drop what we're doing and shut off the program is absolutely unreasonable.

if we run into problematic content, do not assume we automatically endorse it just because we did not remove it from the screen immediately. we can still experience it as a whole while acknowledging what's wrong with it. take LISA, for instance. I loved what I played of that game, and I know a large majority of you guys loved those streams too. LISA has problematic shit in it. early on in those streams we encountered a character that was a racist caricature of a black man. we acknowledged that it fucking sucked, and we kept playing. and both the crew and chat were able to continue maturely while acknowledging that the content was problematic.

while this is only somewhat related, i might as well also address the makeship situation, and those of you who came after me for deleting their initial statement. I deleted it because it was bad. that e-mail was an apology from the worker to me, not meant as a public apology. it didn't approach the situation properly. I was scrambling to get something up to address the concerns while i was in the middle of a 24 hour multi day road trip (one whose existence I had to hide for the stream gag), I just took whatever makeship would give me. when I actually had a little bit of time to sit down and read it, and read what some of you had to say about it, I realized that it didn't actually mean anything. I deleted it, and spoke to my handlers at makeship, and informed them about the biggest issue with that shitty anti-centrism plush: what was essentially a masked swastika next to a star of david. if you look up the original designs of that stupid ball, you can find that it actually had a swastika on it, and the creator hid that fact from team members at makeship by changing it in the concept art he shared with them. it might be hard to believe, but their team genuinely did not know about this. and they did not consider why that plushie was as shitty as it was. after I informed them and talked it over, they removed the plushie from their website completely and decided to not work with that creator going forward. their team thanked our campaign for bringing them to the realization that they need to more properly vet the creators they work with and the origins of their designs. what disappointed me in this scenario were those of you who assumed the worst about me just because i had not made a statement about it while i was doing my best behind the scenes to work things out.

we also know that being publicly accessible artists & entertainers comes with a fair amount of vulnerability through exposure, however the amount of invasions of privacy and harassment a lot of us have experienced in the past year is worth taking note of. we are people. what if you woke up to dms from people saying they found your name and your phone number? what if you got a text from a stranger saying they found your information? how would you feel? these are questions you need to ask yourself as a viewer even if you've never gone that far. these are things that have actually happened to us.

being a fan comes with as much responsibility as being a creator; just because you are consuming what we make does not make this a one way relationship where you're invisible. what you do and say is being felt by actual humans, and the information you share or try to get not only affects us but the people we know. it has at times been so invasive and ridiculous that some of us have considered stopping completely. as a fan and a viewer, your responsibility is to respect us as much as you would respect any other human being; putting us up on pedestals to the point where some of us get treated like objects or things is the absolute opposite of respect and we've mentioned this a few times. we will be taking much stronger action on these matters from here on out; please observe how you view us and ask yourself if you'd look at a friend or family member the same way. if you wouldn't, reconsider your relationship with what we make.

some of you hold me and the crew on a pedestal in a way that makes us deeply uncomfortable. this isn't the first time we've experienced something like last night. it has happened on other team member's streams. the hostility we are met with when we encounter something unsavory on stream is ridiculous. after shutting down the game, seeing a few of you in the chat screaming at us, attacking our characters, invalidating all of our values and past deeds as a team over encountering unexpected bigotry in a game and condemning it, not perpetuating it ourselves, is infuriating. to all of us. you do not have the right to harass us over something like this. coming into our DM's and repeating yourselves, accusing us of lying about values and calling us awful people is harassment. it is extremely immature. and it is behavior we no longer want in this community. we are human. we aren't meant to be your perfect social/political pillars.

when these things happen, you know it sucks, we know it sucks, we all know why it sucks, and while we will always point it out when we see it, the expectation of us to derail our show and explain to you why its bad and apologize for it being on the screen is not an expectation we will meet. acknowledge, and move on. a statement does not always need to be made. going forwards, we'll be increasing moderation measures in regards to the harassment of crew/staff and the mitigation of events like these in the future. thank you for understanding.

- All of Radio TV Solutions & The WRTV Mod Team

[nunyo-bizznez]

You can like the fictionalized version of a non fiction person btw. Even if the real life personhood of that character you like was and awful person! And it doesn't mean you endorse the real life actions of the real life person!

Hell, you can even be invested in the real world accounts of that real world person and the non-fiction evil shit they did! Sometimes it fascinating stuff, even if its awful! Sometimes trainwrecks are very watchable!

And as long as you can live in reality, separate fact from fiction, and think critically about what your reading/watching, being mindful that the person(s) contained in the work was a (sometimes deeply and evily) troubled person, you're probably gonna be fine :)

Its also fine to see the non-fictionalized version of the less-than-good (maybe truly despicable) person and say , "hey, this guy fucking sucks and I'm enraged and disgusted to know of him!" And turn away from that work completely! That is also fine! Everyone has limits! Feel free not to engage with the media that portrays hateful people! Protect yourself :)

What's weird to me it to see a fictionalized account of a 'problematic' person and get mad that its fictionalized. If it was supposed to be an autobiographical work, it would have been labeled as such (i would hope). Its even weirder to me to get mad at people for enjoying the fictionalized version of the real person (who was terrible). Like, yeah, I do get it. A lot of people are morons who get all fuckin weird about the fiction version of the Bastard, but most people are reasonably intelligent. Block the people who can't interact with or interpret media in a healthy way and try to move on. Its the only thing to do, really. No amount of discourse will stop the people who extrapolate the fictional person onto the real person from being fuckin weird about it, sadly.

I just feel like we all should've learned this lesson with Hamilton. Were there fuckin weirdos who projected their understanding of Musical Alexander Hamilton onto the the flesh-and-blood, flawed human man who has an actual physical grave you can go to? Oh fuck yeah, and I didn't like them anymore than you did. But they were a vocal minority then, and while they may be what you most remember about the Hamilton fandom now, they were still not the only component to that fandom.

Was the musical Hamilton about some fucked up real people? I would argue no: it was about the fictionalized version of real people. I dont believe that Hamilton was meant to be a replacement for a genuine historical educational supplement. I dont think lin manuel Miranda set out to make the New Best Ever Biography of Alexander Hamilton. I think he was trying to make a musical. Its a genre that, by necessity, breaks down even very dark and complicated themes and narratives and historical events into something bite-sized, digestible, and catchy as hell. Its not historically a genre that sets out to make in depth, complex, true-life depictions of anything. There are exceptions, but its not the norm. But was Alexander Hamilton a fucked up person? Yea. Obviously. It would've sucked to know him. Movers and shakers of history aren't typically easy to love.

Julius Caesar was a deadbeat dad, a neglectful husband, and a war criminal (!!!). Hes still fascinating to learn about, and compelling to watch fictionalized versions of. Im always eager to see how a piece of media will depict him. Someone's understanding of Caesar, what Caesar, as a symbol, means to a creator is just as fascinating as the real (and terrible) man. If I ever met the man in public I would attack him. It would be good praxis. I really truly hate that genocidal maniac and bossy bottom, and even 2 thousand years later, I do hate the man. Still eat up anything with him in it, though. Inherently compelling son of a bitch.

Edward "Blackbeard" Teach was a pirate. That job description should be everything one needs to know about what kind of person he was. Not good, in summary. Pirates were historically awful people who did unthinkably cruel shit, and they did it for money. Pirates were secondary villains in a time where the primary villains, mercantile colonialists who'd fuck over any person possible for the promise of money, ruled the narrative. The age of sail is the story of the 2 kinds of greedy motherfuckers stealing from and exploiting everything and everyone, and then repeatedly stealing their ill-gotten gains from eachother. All while pretending they were they themselves were heroes and their competitors were the real villains. Historically, there aren't heroes in stories with pirates in them.

I don't think anyone reasonable is enjoying our flag means death and using it as a historical textbook. I'm sure some weirdos are doing it, because humanity is frequently disappointing. But I'm also sure that most people are enjoying the fictionalized version of historical people to tell a certain story, more than anything.

If you aren't the type of person that can set aside reality from your ability to enjoy the fictionalized version of reality, please just dont interact with it and live your life. Please don't seek things out to be mad on purpose. I know its the internet. I know a lot of folks on here are just in a race to be the maddest, rudest, and funniest faceless person online. First one to be witty and unhappy in equal measure wins internet clout, for whatever that's worth. But maybe just take a break? Maybe don't dive head first into something you hate and immerse yourself in it so you can be angry on purpose? This can't be good for you, for any of us. There are so many good reasons to be angry in this life, why waste all the effort it takes to be angry at things unworthy of your ire? Is it improving your life? Please, just be good to yourself. Just be as kind to people as you can stand, or just leave well enough alone. Just please try to enjoy life, instead of finding more reasons to be miserable. This is just another way people waste their meaningful energy of meaningless things. I know there's catharsis and community in being upset about the same thing as someone else. But I also know those communities are built on no love, and that such catharsis is fleeting. Its a sticky trap to get caught in, hating things for fun.

Anyway, this is a long post no one will read. And many people who read it won't read it all the way through, anyway. I made it for me, really. And the reading comprehensive efforts of the denizens of the internet is well proven. Not trying to *change hearts and minds* or whatever. Just taking a long and steady exhale.

Also, sorry for the way I talk. I've read too many leather-bound books.