#sorry for the downer response to ur ask anon youre probably cool i just. didnt know how to acknowledge this

[pixelkip]

hii we used to be pals back when u were drawing hazy river stuff! i think your art is still amazing and its cool to see u keeping up with it!!! :3

-people who have no idea what this ask is referring to please feel free to ignore all this-

Hi anon! First of all id say "keeping up" is a bit generous- i kinda just like stuff i see now and then. Glad you enjoyed my art. I feel like i should take this opportunity to say some things but mainly- if anyone else knows me from when I was doing this stuff please know I AM A CHANGED PERSON NOW. As much as I had a lot of great experiences in that fandom and made some art and music i'm really proud of, there's also a lot of shit I wish I could un-make, or un-be-a-part-of, and people and projects I wish I could un-have-anything-to-do-with! I'm sure anyone else who was in the fandom at the time will know some of what I'm talking about and I don't want to have to recount it all in agonizing detail!

More under the cut my feelings about this are . Lengthy. And probably a bit of a downer. Cw for vague discussion of category 10 fandom bullshit my old hazy moots are probably somewhat familiar with already (though I'd implore you to read this anyway even if you already know)

There were some people in that fandom back a couple years ago that I and others ended up realizing were incredibly gross or shitty or doing things I wouldn't condone in a million years. Again, if you know you know.

Afaik that shits considered sort of over and done with and one person in particular who was quite popular and whose behavior made a LOT of people, myself included, feel deeply uncomfortable or unsafe has long been called out and ousted from the community more or less.

I knew this guy. They tried to defend some of the behavior they'd eventually be called out on to me personally. I was too scared to say anything publicly and starting shit with this person bc they were very popular and really nasty to anyone who criticized them. I regret that to this day and I'm greatful other people came out with actual proof that yea, this guy was a piece of shit. I won't mention them by name because again, if you know you know!

Edit: can't believe I didn't clarify but this didn't happen over text so I didn't have receipts anyway..

That whole incident made me really wary of the hr fandom but moreso its creators since they were friends with this guy before all this and, again, as far as I saw, didn't exactly defend this person but didn't denounce what they did either. Knowing what I know about the situation i still worry about the slim possibility that they knew about it and maybe just didn't care until someone made a fuss but please note i cant in good conscience say thats entirely true. And then one of them just sorta fucked off. I lost track of things at that point so I'm probably missing something. Either way, the whole ordeal still rubs me the wrong way and makes some of the other thing hr's creators had gotten shit for before slightly more worrying for me in context IF im even right in still worrying about this to begin with. But it's entirely possible and very likely that I'm jumping to the worst possible conclusion based on what information I have. My perspective is probably skewed bc this whole thing was deeply upsetting for me and I think it's why I'm still wary of fandom in general ever since.

The only reason I feel comfortable interacting with anything hr related anymore is that a good few people I knew who I know weren't ok with what the person in question did still seem cool with hr as a whole and I can only assume that things were.. resolved more or less. At least that's what I hope is the case.

I think I've for the most part deleted stuff related to anything I particularly didn't wanna be associated with anymore. I might have to comb through some of it again idk.

That being said it's not all bad. Seeing new art of these characters gives me hope that the community is going in a better direction now and makes it feel a little better about the fact that on some level I'm still kind of attatched to them. And like I said, I'm still proud of the art I made in and of itself. I learned better anatomy, got better at music, I made myself learn basic vocal synth skills and pushed the very limited free software I had to its limit.

I don't think many other pieces of media have gripped me the way the hazy river characters did and that makes it even more difficult for me to process all the bad shit.

Tldr- shitty person in the hr fandom made me deeply wary of the fandom as a whole and its creators and I'm still not entirely satisfied with how it all turned out but if the people who denounced what this person did are cool with it, it might be ok? I don't know? I'm still a little worried?? Please tell me if I'm missing something?? Like actually tell me idc if you do it in asks or dms but closure would be nice. I promise I'm not trying to start shit I just wished I had answers idk. Sorry to anyone if this is sort of opening up old wounds for lack of a better term.

And if anyone is uncomfortable with anything I made or was involved with during my time in that fandom- I really am sorry. Chances are it's something I now feel really gross about too. I got caught up in what other people were doing and making and didn't want to question whether some of it was.. kinda not good.

If you read all this thank you. It feels nice to get it off my chest.