#the image is comically cut off so i have to answer this w/o even seeing it it's really funny NDNNDNDN
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new gerard!!!!
NEW GERARD 💥💥💥💥💥❗❗❗❗❗thank u sm i owe you my life and also a millionn dollars ;v;
#the image is comically cut off so i have to answer this w/o even seeing it it's really funny NDNNDNDN#asked#catcom#(like capcom but catcomputer instead)
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The Truth about Fhujeth vs. Chocho
This isn’t a callout post, it’s a name-clearing and fact-straightening post for @chochomatsu / @domatsu
Before I go on with this post, I’m going to say a few things for the sake of transparency. I have known (or at least known about) both Fhujeth (@totally-totty / @osomi) and Chocho within the Osomatsu-san fandom for roughly a year now. I have had my own share of negative experiences with Fhujeth over that year, not least the Totty Club issues. I met Chocho because of the Totty Club and we’ve been friends since that time. The club is not what this is about though. I just felt I needed to state my relationship with these two people to clear up any potential questions of bias towards one side.
No one in existence is 100% unbiased, one is my friend, the other isn’t. But despite completely different experiences I have tried to maintain neutrality where I possibly can. I already knew there was a past friendship and later breaking of said friendship between Fhujeth and Chocho, and that there was some drama that spilled over into the public domain after that break.
I was told last week that Fhujeth continues to vague post about the situation, suggesting she hasn’t been able to let go. I decided to approach Fhujeth to see what was going on - for the sake of a friend that I care about. Fhujeth knows that I am friends with Chocho but again, for the sake of neutrality, I asked Fhujeth why she sees Chocho as her “abuser”, and what proof there is of this. I am someone who needs proof before I believe. Fhujeth explained her position and gave me some evidence in the form of chatlog to back it up.
After Fhujeth presented her argument to me along with the evidence she had to give, I stated that I wanted to get the other side of the story by talking to Chocho about it. Fhujeth’s nature basically instantly turned more... apologetic? Certainly less fighty. I got the distinct impression she didn’t want me to approach Chocho about this - which to me rang alarm bells.
I then spoke to Chocho about the situation - a story that Chocho has been unwilling to talk about in any detail until now. The reason being that she didn’t want to relive it, hoping that it would blow over and go away. But obviously it hasn’t.
Just to note that Fhujeth (and apparently some of her friends) questioned whether I am being appropriate by mediating between her and Chocho, asking for details as I go. Later on, Fhujeth said this to me:
I try to hear both sides of a story but I also since this summer have been trying not to get too involved in other people's drama. I don't want to because I don't want to get on anyone's badside. I know this is hard to believe but like you, I am someone who sticks up for their friends and fights and often is a diplomat or mediator or a neutral party who tries to hear two sides out. I have been for my friend and someone who wants nothing to do with them who keeps harassing my friend.
My answer is that this is exactly what I am doing here. You are welcome to judge me for making this information public however you see fit.
I have been given explicit permission from Chocho to post the information beyond this point.
I asked for this permission because I feel that it is disgusting that this issue has been going on for so long, an issue affecting a good friend of mine. I am of the opinion that if Fhujeth can go around the fandom spreading chatlogs to incriminate someone, I can use chatlogs to debunk it.
The rest of this post is under a cut - it is a LONG TEXT WALL but it clears up a lot. For those without the time to read a post of this length there is a tl;dr at the end. However you will need to read the post to understand the reasons for the conclusion!
KEY FROM NOW ON:
Normal - Me (totty-chan, Sammy)
[ITALICS] - Chocho’s notes, opinions, etc.
BLOCKQUOTE - Chatlogs - Chocho is normal text, Fhujeth and others are bold
I have been assured by both sides that none of the chatlogs shown to me are edited in any way, except names where appropriate and the occasional note spliced in to better explain certain things. For Jussy, a person unfortunately involved in this, I have replaced their tumblr username with “Jussy” to protect their identity. There is private information (location, etc.) about both parties in the logs which I will replace with “---” for the sake of their privacy. Some chatlogs had images within them - these cannot be shown as they were not logged in the text files and no longer exist. I only sought permission from Chocho to show logs. Anyone who would like to see the evidence shown by Fhujeth will have to ask Fhujeth herself for it.
Both Fhujeth and Chocho mentioned that they used an IM app called “utox”. Fhujeth claimed that this app doesn’t keep logs. Chocho’s logs from this point mostly come from utox (some are from tumblr). This image is proof that logging is possible:
Commissions/Money
The first thing Fhujeth spoke to me about was regarding commissions done by Chocho for other people.
totty You want the chatlogs? I have one that was taken from when her and a friend of mine were talking after my friend found out Chocho had been pretending to be two different people and pleading as both for commissions and I have our last convo that we had before the "we're not talking anymore." That she sent me after I had chosen to stop signing in to get away from her.
Fhujeth gave me evidence in the form of a chatlog about the second issue mentioned here first. I’m going to cover the issue regarding begging for commissions first despite not being given “evidence” about it until a lot later in the conversation. This also involves other people and money which is why it’s the important one.
Fhujeth claimed that Chocho asked people for commissions, claiming that she “needed money for this or that reason really bad.” There was also a claim that Chocho would pretend to be both “Domatsu” and “Chocho” - two separate people - in an attempt to ask for more money from the same person. This person is a mutual friend of both Fhujeth and Chocho.
Fhujeth claimed to have proof that Domatsu and Chocho are the same person but said that Chocho admitted this anyway so it wasn’t needed.
When I asked Chocho about this, she said:
[I never asked anybody for commissions, ever. It's against my morals. I made a commissions promo post on domatsu in order to replace my dodgy old Wacom tablet that was years old, worn down and no longer supported for parts and did commissions for that, people continued to commission me after that, even though I posted when I got my tablet. That was their choice. Fhujeth saying that I squeezed Jussy for tons of money... whilst Jussy did commission me A LOT, she always came to ME asking, I never asked her (unlike Fhujeth who flat out said to me one time that she was going to go ask Jussy to commission her). I never begged Jussy and I never approached her or pressured her to commission me. She always asked first and I always made sure she was okay with the price and knew where all the pricing was coming from in the picture before she agreed to it. I thanked her for all her commissions because she really did help me.]
Chocho gave me evidence of Jussy asking for the commissions:
Jussy Hey, honey~ ^.^ hope you are well? I can't stop looking at my OsoMisha piece~ *u* and I am so happy with it~<3 I would love to commission you again X33 Jussy I will email you again~ ;) with my new idea~
Jussy BTW, when I get paid again, I was thinking of commissioning you again, but for something different ;3 * at the end of the month
Jussy Haha XDD you think you can take on another commission of mine? ;3
Jussy Eeeee, plz let him tumblr XDD and yush~ 0w0 it is <3 such great times X3 Plus, your Kara comic inspired me to commission you for an OsoMisha one X3
Jussy Soon, I'd love to commission an icon X3
Jussy I was thinking of Osomatsu and his brothers surprising Misha on her birthday on the 10th >w< Jussy as a commission
Jussy Hey, ChoCho X3 you up for me to commission you again? c:
Jussy Now I have the urge to commission Misha taking care of Osomatsu in the clothes his wearing~
Chocho also gave me this chatlog between her and Fhujeth regarding Jussy, commissions, the cost of said commissions, and asking for them.
Fhujeth: Jussy wants to pay me 35 (total) for a drawing with 3 chars (dollars) yay or nay Chocho: Fullbody or no Chocho: *? Fhujeth: full body Fhujeth: that's alot less than she was paying Chocho: I'd ask for 40 at least Fhujeth: Did my art value suddenly change Chocho: I don't think so! Chocho: Did she mean £? Fhujeth: Originally she paid 71$ for it Chocho: Or does she not know currency conversion? Chocho: What did she even say? Fhujeth: Cus I'm not sure if I should be insulted and hurt and start crying and just stop doing commissions or think she has no idea about currency conversion Chocho: I'd fall on the last one there first Fhujeth: I really hope so... Chocho: This is Jussy Fhujeth: [9:38:02 AM] Jussy: Yo~ ;3 [10:48:33 AM] Firrymatsu: Hi ^^ I am going to get this commission done fast but is is possible to be commissioned again sometime soon I just had to go to the doctor and my medication was 25 pounds ;.; [10:49:40 AM] Jussy: Okay my darling~ >w< and sure thing my honey~ ^.^ you know, I was thinking I COULD give you back the sketch you gave me, so you can finish it off and I give you 25 $ or more for it~ : 3 [10:49:54 AM] Jussy: Now you have a good idea on Hummingdoe's appearance [10:50:22 AM] Firrymatsu: dollars or pounds :o [10:50:52 AM] Jussy: Dollars ^w^ [10:51:36 AM] Firrymatsu: the one with croc, moosel, and hummingdoe? [10:52:07 AM] Jussy: That's right ^w^ [10:55:32 AM] Firrymatsu: 25 dollars is not very much @_@ [10:56:03 AM] Jussy: Okay X3 35? [10:56:21 AM] Jussy: or 40? Fhujeth: does she even have a concept of money? Fhujeth: I'm taking into consideration the 10 she already gave me... Chocho: I haven't a clue! Fhujeth: I'm too tired for this ;.; Fhujeth: It's 3 full body characters in a style I dunno, one is a fan character with an out of style reference.... Chocho: I'd also consider that you are asking her to commission you and give her money rather than her making that decision herself to ask on her own... Fhujeth: Yeah! I am taking that into consideration. Originally this idea we planned at 70, I think 50 is fair? Fhujeth: or 45 Chocho: Ask her for that! Fhujeth: Ok! Fhujeth: [10:56:03 AM] Jussy: Okay X3 35? [10:56:21 AM] Jussy: or 40? [10:59:41 AM] Firrymatsu: 40 @_@ then you had already paid that 10 dollars towards it, that makes it 50 - I'd normally charge 70 but since I am asking you for help I will go lower?
Fhujeth: i'll reply when i am done with this commission is reluctantly asked if they were willing to commission me again.
[See? She flat out asked/begged Jussy to commission her... and was insulted with the price Jussy was willing to pay. From what I could gather, Jussy wasn't happy with the sketch Fhujeth gave her before so wanted to commission Fhujeth for something else instead of the original pic?]
(Note, Firrymatsu = Fhujeth)
From my perspective it appears Chocho received commission requests - she didn’t go asking for them personally. There is evidence that it was in fact Fhujeth that asked for at least two commissions rather than being approached.
Also (this is just my opinion), what is wrong with commissioning under multiple aliases? Novel authors write books under different names all the time to separate styles - and make money on those separately. It happens in the music world too, songwriters often have multiple aliases or they ghostwrite for other singers or bands, making money as they go. It’s not immoral, it’s just a method of being able to separate different styles of working and still be able to keep on top of things. I do not understand why Fhujeth is using this against Chocho in an attempt to back up the “abuser” claim.
Fhujeth also said this to me regarding Chocho and Jussy:
If you see her collection you'll understand she had no NEED for money, she had a WANT for money. When Jussy found out that not only was her money going towards the same person but also not for needed things like food and health but for buying say, a full set of 45 dollar a piece matsu plush... she was not terribly happy.
I asked Chocho about this and was given this chatlog with an explanation afterwards:
Chocho: We live in a little town. =( Fhujeth: Ahhhh. Fhujeth: That makes it creepier you're so close to Jussy then. Chocho: It's not even that... it's a sub-town? Or village? I dunno. --- is the area, --- is the town... and we're in --- which is considered a part of --- overall so I guess it's a village Chocho: Yeah, we are REALLY close to Jussy Fhujeth: we don't have villages here so I have no idea how to like.... word it. Yeah it seems creepy..... like nothing on her but she is strange... part of me wonders if she is an adult... or a kid.... or an impulse buyer Fhujeth: Like nothing on your fanart I just don't see how someone can afford all that so fast like wow. Fhujeth: That's a lot of artwork of a weird fantasy. Chocho: I dunno. =T Not complaining though, it helped John with his bills this month
Chocho: I finished one of the comms for Jussy Fhujeth: Yay! Chocho: dop Chocho: =image goes here= Fhujeth: you did it!! Fhujeth: cute! Fhujeth: she will love that Chocho: Thank-you! =) Chocho: 1 down Chocho: 3 Chocho: to Chocho: go Fhujeth: are they easier ones? Chocho: Not particularly Chocho: One involves Iyami Chocho: who is a bitch to draw Chocho: And one is hypnotism-esque Fhujeth: from her? Chocho: Well, yeah Chocho: I don't take commissions from anybody but you, John, Jussy and Cathie at the moment Fhujeth: Ahh that is nice and a smart idea Chocho: I really want to help John out. @_@ Chocho: So I'm just having the money sent straight to him Fhujeth: Good idea! Fhujeth: And they have lots Fhujeth: Well, I wonder what Jussy really is she seems to be so mysterious
(And when Fhujeth says that I "didn't use the money on life but on merch instead"... that's not entirely true. I got some merch that I had ordered sent to my friend because I couldn't receive it here and it ended up being way larger than we expected, it was HUGE! If I'd have known they were THAT BIG I wouldn't have ordered them, but they were and we ended up with them. He had to send them one by one and they cost $22.50 to send EACH. He IOU'd me the money and sent them over to me since his house is not very big and they were taking up space. Then it turned out that he was short of funds for personal reasons (I'm not gonna say what because it's private), so I wanted to pay him back ASAP to help with his bills. So I was getting Jussy to send ALL the commission money she paid me directly to my friend (John) in order to pay him back for his kindness and help his bills. So yes, whilst it was not going on MY bills, it was going on my FRIEND's bills. And whilst it was TECHNICALLY going "towards merch", it was actually going towards paying my friend back for the postage it cost him to get them to me. Fhujeth knows this.)
I personally don’t see an issue with spending commission money on merch, or for that matter, anything. In any case, this issue doesn’t seem to be quite as clear-cut as Fhujeth was painting it to be. The obvious conclusion from the things Fhujeth told me would be that Chocho demanded to be commissioned due to a strong “NEED” for money, claimed that it was for “things like food and health”, only to spend it on merch. I’ve seen enough evidence to be able to say that this isn’t the case.
Chocho also gave me further logs about the commissions/money issues:
Fhujeth: I refunded her the 35 when the REALLY EVIL PART OF ME WAS LIKE, "Dude keep it dude, dude, duuude, dude, greed, dude, greed, dude."
Fhujeth: plus the 45 USD she just tossed me for (well, some stuff I paid 3 dollars for basically) Chocho: How much profit are you making off of her? Fhujeth: The camera case/bag was in a super clearance machine I think they put it in there to make it difficult to grab the iyamis and chibitas cus it was big and would catch the claw but I was like, "FUCK THAT" and got all the chibitas and iyamis around it and then pulled it out Fhujeth: and then like there was times I just bulk won tons of osomatsu keychains and she bought 2 of those Fhujeth: cus on golden week they rigged the machines to pay out super crazy easy and I spend like 300 dollars I ended up with like 8 choros and 7 jyushis Fhujeth: contacted jussy about the osomatsu cushion hehe Fhujeth: did I tell you I charged her 10 shipping and her item to ship turned out to be 180 Chocho: 180? Fhujeth: like 2 dollars
Fhujeth: "the keychain and pillow (very huggable) for 65 + shipping (and you already paid for " ya so I know what you'll do with these poor plush so I will charge 15 for the keyring and 50 for the plush juss Fhujeth: me: Well the pillow which I sell for 40 I'll sell to you for 50 and this keychain I sell for 10 I'll sell to you for 15 and I know oyu paid shipping on the other thing you bought but I'ma go ahead and ignore that and combine this all shipping so 15 shipping Fhujeth: yeah I feel bad Fhujeth: but I also am like Fhujeth: she is really Fhujeth: but I Will give her a nicer shipping i think Fhujeth: at least tracking Fhujeth: you: *terrible person* Fhujeth: you're thinking that Fhujeth: a bad person would be if I decided to not refund her that 35 dollars and see what happens x.x Chocho: I didn't say anything! =B Fhujeth: What are you thinking? Chocho: That I'm not sure if Ichimatsu looks right? XD Fhujeth: So you don't care if I charge her for things? Fhujeth: Like a lot. Chocho: Oh, I do, but it's none of my business. =B
Fhujeth: I most def do not feel bad Fhujeth: charging her Fhujeth: because she probably torments many people
[I find it amazing she says about my "collection"! Hahaha! She's shown people her collection what, countless times? She has far, far more than I do and it's not like she needs that any more than I do. XD SHE's the one who doesn't have a need for money, not me, I never inherited anything from anybody! SHE's the one who has a want for money, even though as far as I know, she has a lot already! (She also liked to horrendously overcharge Jussy for things, just because she knew Jussy wouldn't question!)
To be honest, any time Fhujeth offered me something to buy off her it was.... really unnerving... it wasn't like a friendly "Oh yeah, you can buy this if you want", it was always so... like a sharp merchant, not a friend helping another get something. She even said one time that she would only hold a piece of merch for me for "up to a year"... that put quite the unnerved feeling onto me... XD;;; And it was ALWAYS like that... we had to make sure the money was 100% EQUAL AND ACCOUNTED FOR. To be honest, it was scary. She did this with the plush she wanted me to make her too. I didn't really like buying from Fhujeth, it was stressful, but a lot of the time I felt pressured.]
Fhujeth: well, I have one Chocho: One is in 18 Fhujeth: I will sell it Fhujeth: I can hold it Chocho: Oh? =o Well... if you want to... Fhujeth: if you're up for that Fhujeth: I don't mind holding stuff for you up to a year
I’m seeing a “NEED” for money from Fhujeth here - not Chocho. There are also some very obvious nasty and insulting attacks on Jussy from Fhujeth combined with some extremely unfair financial tactics in an attempt to squeeze more money out of her.
Another part of my conversation with Fhujeth involved a claim that Chocho demanded to be commissioned by Jussy to buy a new cellphone:
She threw her phone on her bed and it accidentally cracked and broke (baring in mind this was a phone her dad gave her, had no service, and she used to play games on it). She said she was gonna ask Jussy for help to her a new one. We were also talking about Timezones for another reason. If it wasn't cause the phone broke it was cause she wanted something else but I remember around that part not caring too much.
I think it was the phone.
Chocho gave me this chat between her and Jussy along with comments and chat with Fhujeth:
chochomatsu And my phone smashed yesterday tooooo Jussy B'awww, I am soooo sorry to heat that my lovely ;w; chochomatsu Not having a good time (;m;) Jussy what?? o0o nooo! Anything I can do to help? ;w; chochomatsu Yeah! (;m;) [<--- Note, this is a response to "what?? o0o nooo!", not "Anything I can do to help? ;w;] Some of the glass actually fell out... so... it's pretty much unusable now. (;_;) RIP my phone...I didn't even have it all that long... Jussy Oooh, my...you poor lass ;3; <3 can you get it fixed? chochomatsu And I can't afford to get another one either! At least I didn't use it all that often... (;w;);;; Jussy b'awww ;3; I only use my phone for calling and texting chochomatsu I think it's pretty much gone. (;_;) I don't think you can replace the screens on these... This was my first ever smart phone, I wanted one for years... and I think it lasted... a few months... not even a year! Jussy Ooooh, poopy ;3; what a shame How did it break? chochomatsu It was a really silly thing. (;_;) I went to bed last night and took it with me because I do Japanese study just before bed... I put the charger on my pillow and then gently plopped my phone on top... Jussy b'awww ;3; chochomatsu BANG Glass all over my pillow... Jussy Oooh, my..o.o Jussy goodness it happens darling, don't worry chochomatsu Yeah. (;_;) I feel really stupid... it wasn't even that hard an impact, I guess it just hit it in the wrong place Jussy aww, I am sorry dear ;3; chochomatsu I think we passed your workplace today though! Jussy Really?? 0w0 --- That's where --- is~ chochomatsu Yeah! You work at --- Bupa, right? Jussy I do :D Jussy what time?
[we talked here about completely different things for a while until we had to go, this next part is the next day]
11/23/2016 Jussy Aaaahh, Hey, ChoCho~ X3 I would like to help you get a new phone by commissioning you. I have something in mind and I would like to discuss it ^w^ chochomatsu Hiya, good morning, Jussy! <3 How are you today? And thankyou so much! (;m;) That is so sweet of you! <3 *hugs* Jussy Good morning my darling~ ^w^ I am good, a bit better from my cold >w< <3 and ya welcome, always happy to help out~ ^.^ *hugs*
[In regards to the phone, I never asked Jussy for commissions to cover replacing it. I mentioned it to Jussy because she was my friend and I was frustrated I'd just broke my phone (anybody would be I think), she approached me the next day saying she wanted to commission me to put towards getting myself a new phone, which I was absolutely greatful for. This commission I asked her to send to my BOYFRIEND instead since he'd be the one buying the phone and I wanted that money to absolutely go towards the phone. But before I could get the phone, Fhujeth lied to Jussy about me in order to put Jussy off me and cut me off from any future commissions (knowing that I only ever accepted commissions off of Jussy by that point). Since I no longer had any kind of income, I had to send the entirety of that money to John since he was a priority over a new phone. I still don't have a new phone (but luckily for me, it hasn't fallen apart yet like we expected! Since the crack is right at the button, we expected the button to fall out at any time, luckily it hasn't. I had to stop doing my kanji/kana learning because that involved drawing the kanji/kana on the screen and the sensitivity is basically shot on that part of the screen making it very hard to do anything there.).
(Also, my phone has always had service (you can see that it does, "TESCO" in the bottom corner of the photo I gave Jussy of my phone showing the damage)
It wasn't my Dad that gave it to me, it was my Boyfriend's Dad and I used it to study Japanese with apps because it was too weak to play the phone games without crashing. I tried playing Hesokuri Wars on it for a bit, but it was unreliable and crashed during game play a lot. So whilst I left it on my phone for ages, I didn't open it because it wouldn't load at all eventually (updates made it too hefty). I mostly played things like Hesokuri Wars and Tabimatsu on my PC using an emulator called Andy. It was FHUJETH's phone that didn't have service that she only used for games.]
Fhujeth: My mobile lost service... 3-4 months ago.
Chocho: My phone is too shit to run Hesokuri Wars without endless crashing
Fhujeth: we should find a chat program that works on your phone Chocho: It's like shell shock Chocho: I don't think any will, it's just not powerful enough to be any more than a call and text thing
I don’t think I really need to add to this - the proof is clear enough for me.
Fhujeth also told me this, bringing another person into the issue with Chocho and commissioning:
Cathie had her own experiences with Dexts (commissions being rushed/made poorly).
Like she'd pay 100 for a drawing that was not nearly up to par for what Domatsu usually did. That was one thing she told me
This is Chocho’s response to this claim along with logs to back it up:
Chocho: And Jussy knows I plan to finish hers when it's cooler Fhujeth: Totty: Choromatsu-Niisan is the kind of person who wears..... like... the pads on the elbos and all Chocho: It's okay if I fuck up a background, it's not okay if I fuck up paid art
[The background in this chatlog was regarding the backgrounds I used to draw for domatsus blog updates. All of the art I have ever done on commission for anybody, ever, including Fhujeth themself, was to the best of my ability at the time. I promise that completely, I have no desire to "half-arse" anything. I have no idea where Cathie got the idea that I didn't draw pictures up to par of my others at the time? I always tried my very best... =/ If Cathie said that at all, I wouldn't know! But I honestly had no idea she felt that way.]
Chocho: I don't want to cop out on the story Chocho: That's why it's pissing me off so fucking much Fhujeth: Rush it? Chocho: no Chocho: Absolutely not Chocho: Quality or bust Fhujeth: i mean it's good and i can help you make sure it's in character Chocho: I've got a good reputation I don't want to fuck it up by coughing up half arsed shit onto the blog Chocho: Yeah, it's a matter of pride, but also a matter of respect for my fans
Fhujeth: It's nice to have stuff made by friends! I liked the figure i had from my friend but i was bummed when i realized she made it shitty on purpose ;.; Chocho: did they really though? Fhujeth: I'm 99& sure. Fhujeth: %^ Chocho: i have more respect for myself than to do that Fhujeth: They're those kind of people.
chochomatsu i have far too much respect for my works to do anything less than my best i wouldn't want to crap out a shitty item chochomatsu i never like asking anybody for money
Fhujeth: Apparently I illustrated a book... and it's coming out soonish..... *halfassed all the art they accepted it and took it my mind is blown, all it is I think they changed the cover*
Doesn’t look like Chocho is the one that “halfassed” art for other people. Art is, of course, subjective... but as long as the person drawing it does so to the best of their current ability and with as much effort as they can spend on it, that’s just fine.
An extra note from me... I saw this in the logs I was given and thought it worth mentioning (because it’s just... not right).
Fhujeth: So for a picture I might charge 25 for I charge 50 for to someone who I knew made 6 figures a year and wanted --- KND operatives Chocho: I think my biggest deal is asking for money full stop
Fhujeth is charging higher prices to people who she knows to have more money. I don’t recall rich people walking into a store and having to pay more because they’re rich. This isn’t a variable income tax system.
The Plush
Still regarding commissions and money in reality, Fhujeth told me about trying to commission Chocho for a custom Matsu plush. This is part of what Fhujeth said to me:
She made a Karamatsu plush and it had messy hair, he was supposed to be from her blog. I didn't like the hair but the plush the rest of it came out great. I told her the honest truth about it. Later she made a Choromatsu plush and I LOVED IT and I kept saying how I wanted to commission her for one and she kept holding the thing I said like 4 months prior about the one's hair against me?
We were friends so I wanted to give her my honest answer when she asked what I thought. The rest of the plush was fine but the hair just looked really off on it. She made the Posing Karamatsu too which I loved as well! I really liked the pattern she made for the Choro one but a lot. A LOT of drama would constantly ensue whenever I said, "hey I wanna commission you for one."
I wasn’t at all sure what the real problem was here or why it was brought up with regards to Chocho being an “abuser”. When I asked Chocho about this one it took a long time to explain.
[Ok... this is a complex one that needs a LOT of backstory to explain... so... I can make plush, but I can't make them EASILY because I don't have a sewing or embroidery machine. Everything I do on a plush has to be done by hand using a needle and thread. That includes the face embroidery/embroidery anywhere else. This takes hours and can mess up my hands/fingers because of repeated pressure of a thin, metal stick pressing into them (also because pushing the embroidery needle through multiple layers of fabric and embroidery REALLY hurts. @_@ And you can stab yourself all too easily. I don't like doing it really so try to avoid it and don't take any commissions unless they are specifically for friends. Fhu knew about the faces and embroidery, so she knew it was a hard and painful activity before she even started pressing for a Totty plush later on.]
Chocho: I have a question Fhujeth: sure :3 Chocho: If I were to make Karamatsu plush, should I make it chibi like the official ones or proportional Fhujeth: that would depend on if you want it to be proportional or chibi :O Fhujeth: why not both Chocho: Because it takes a long time to hand embroider the faces. XD Chocho: And I'm limited on fabric. =( Fhujeth: you hand embroider? wooow Chocho: Yeah! Fhujeth: woow that looks like it would take forever Chocho: It does. @_@ Chocho: And it hurts. XD Fhujeth: that is some dedication Chocho: It's the only way I can do it. =( Chocho: Which is why I only do plush commissions for friends. XD Fhujeth: well, otherwise it'd be a lot
[Eventually, I felt like Fhujeth was a close enough friend to me for me to want to make her a plush. So I offered that I could potentially trade some merch for a small, custom demon Todomatsu plush. I was instantly made uneasy by how it all became about "how much are you going to charge me?". What was simply a "maybe you'd like something made by a friend?" had suddenly turned into a hyper-serious TRANSACTION. I was basically put on the spot to give a price for something that I hadn't even planned yet, I wasn't even suggesting actual money, just a merch trade. That felt like pressure and I was a bit unnerved, but I shook it off.]
Chocho: Hey.. I have an idea/proposition Fhujeth: Go oooooon :O Chocho: Would you be willing to take payment for some thing in the form of a tiny demon Totty plush? Chocho: *some things Fhujeth: :O payment for like what, and PROBABLY x3 just what I have here or? like the kara head/buttons? Since I think we're about even on the auction lot Chocho: I think we're about even on the auction, yeah! =D And I dunno, yeah, the merch you get in Japan I guess, yes! XD Chocho: I'm not sure how big he'd be since things always come out bigger than I expect... Chocho: But he'd be custom cos he'd be demon Totty Fhujeth: i'll be buying more blind bags of stuff :O so I can just keep you updated. Yeah @-@ Chocho: I'd have to make a new pattern. XD I can't use Karamatsu's because he is MASSIVE Chocho: Okay! =D Chocho: How much would you be willing to pay for the plush anyways? @.@ If he came out to be about 12-15cm? Fhujeth: What are you charging o_o Chocho: I was gonna make him keychain sized? But I just know he'll end up bigger. B/ Chocho: I dunno because I've never really done it before. Chocho: Well, I've made things for John on commission but yeah Chocho: I know the cost of fabrics and time and pain Fhujeth: Like, how many hours would it HYPOTHETICALLY TAKE Chocho: But that doesn't line up to what people expect to pay so Chocho: Well Chocho: How long do patterns take. =_= Hmm... a few hours Chocho: Making plush can take... over a week Chocho: (It's usually way longer to be honest, but they're usually bigger( Fhujeth: I'm not sure o_o I'd like it but my budget is only as big as what I have ATM. Kara head is 35 + the buttons is 9 (minus one from the doodle just now) Chocho: Watch him end up being half the size of Karamatsu instead of 12-15cm Chocho: We can wait and see! Fhujeth: And as I get more stuff I'll figure things out o_o I'm bad with plush prices. Chocho: It was just an idea. XD Fhujeth: I am interested! And yeah! Fhujeth: If you can give me a number it'd be better!! and you should put a dog squaeky inside it o_O so it makes some sound, if you can, I think you can get that from like... a cheap store and take out of dog toy.... ?? which I can pay for? AHHHH, let's wait till I figure things out but assume right now we're at 42 dollars or something Chocho: Hahaha! XD That's a good idea on the squeaker! Chocho: Yeah, we'll keep it in mind! =D Chocho: (Also gotta remember the face embroidery) Fhujeth: Yeah x.,x Chocho: I wish I had a machine for that. =(
[The idea of the plush stuck around though]
Chocho: I'm really concerned about this plush Fhujeth: Aww don't worry about it too much. Fhujeth: I am not that picky if love is involved. Chocho: Yeah, but you don't want him to be hideous Chocho: I also worry about the quality of the embroidery Chocho: Because I'm not a machine Fhujeth: oh I am not picky on that I will know it is hand made. as long as it wont fall apart. Chocho: It shouldn't fall apart Chocho: But it might be ugly Fhujeth: I got a sculpture from sone, I showed them the example of what I wanted, I showed them a turn around, the got the proportions all wrong Fhujeth: you wont be that bad. Fhujeth: I still kept the loved the sculture Fhujeth: scupture Chocho: Kept the sculpture? Fhujeth: I kept it and loved it^ Chocho: What sculpture? Fhujeth: it was of my knd oc Fhujeth: i commissioned her because i thought she'd do really good Chocho: Was it not so good then? =< Fhujeth: i was disappointed greatly Fhujeth: but said nothing Chocho: Aww.. =( Chocho: I'm sorry about that Chocho: That's what I'm worried about
Fhujeth: I've commissioned some original stuff of my characters and came out really bad, in fact one I think got made bad on purpose.... Fhujeth: But I loved it anyways until one day the head came off because they didn't bake it enough... like the wire just split through the head >< I wanted them to fix it but I moved by then so it's at my dads so it wouldn't break more Fhujeth: And I'll be honest on a technical level and for that person's skill it was atrocious and when I first saw it I felt kind of bothered... Fhujeth: But I thought maybe it wasn't like that on purpose and they did it the best they could so I put it with all my other stuff of that OC
There was a weird situation building up here from what I could tell. Fhujeth wanted a quality plush which is fair enough, and Chocho doubted her ability to match the requirements. Fhujeth saying that they’ve commissioned other people and been disappointed with the result in the past was obviously furthering the doubt from Chocho that the requirements could be fulfilled. Claiming that a past commission had been done badly on purpose was, to me, a step too far. There doesn’t seem to be any proof of that here and presenting that thought to Chocho inevitably heightened the concern about being able to satisfy Fhujeth even further. I know for sure that if someone commissioned me for anything creative and was mentioning past commissions in this sense I would lose all confidence in my ability.
[The concept of a "demon Totty" plush had become a thing and was on our er.... list of things I owe in trade for merch? No merch traded hands though, I liked to pay for them first... but Fhujeth would "put things aside" on the "plush list", though not everything applied. In any case, I eventually decided to try and make a small Karamatsu plush as a test, since Fhujeth didn't like the risk of me making her a plush without seeing the pattern first. I was a little unsure about him, his hoodie kind of pinched his neck because I'd made the opening too small and his hair was VERY fluffy because of the fur I'd used for it. I felt concerned about him, especially since Fhujeth had now set this very high bar in my mind, what with being so money concerned, telling me about how she was certain her friend intentionally made her a bad commission sculpture to spite her and that she was VERY disappointed in the result, but didn't say anything... also with the idea that she didn't want to risk me making it without proving she'd like the pattern first.]
Chocho: Progress Fhujeth: aww that looks adorable! Chocho: NOT WHEN HE HAS A HEAD Chocho: I just placed it there Chocho: I used the long pile fur so it would NOT be that messy if I had used the minky Chocho: OH WELL Chocho: Whatever Chocho: I'm only finishing this really because it'd be a waste of embroidery otherwise. XD Fhujeth: give him bandages Fhujeth: have big Kara care for poor injured baby scruffy kara Chocho: It this particular one worth the effort? Chocho: "He looks retarded because he fell off the roof" Fhujeth: xDDDD Chocho: I guess he's not THAT bad Chocho: but eh Chocho: I don't think he's worth $ Chocho: maybe if the hair was shorter fur but I dunno, can't really tell that because it's not Fhujeth: haircut? Chocho: Nah Chocho: Because once it's cut it can't come back Chocho: And if I fuck it up that's it fucked up further for good! Chocho: But yeah, I don't think I can make you a Totty. @_@ I'm sorry Fhujeth: it is ok ^-^ Chocho: I didn't think you'd like it! XD Fhujeth: you don't seem confident :3 Fhujeth: so it is ok! Chocho: You don't seem to like how he looks anyway though. XD Fhujeth: it's hard to tell with the hair tbh Chocho: It's overall pretty shitty, huh? Fhujeth: Nooo! Fhujeth: The body for sure looks great Chocho: But the most important part is the head Fhujeth: the face is good too! Fhujeth: but the hair is very... wild Chocho: Really? I thought the face looked bad... Well yeah, I used craft fur, minky is like what you have on the keychain plush Chocho: Look at the length on big Karamatsu compared to little here Fhujeth: yeah! that is a hugeee difference Chocho: Yeah
[The small Karamatsu plush's hair kept coming up, even though I had explained that I used a different fur than what I would use for hers....]
Chocho: Be honest, do you want a chibi body like the keychain plush, or a to scale one Fhujeth: whichever you as the artist want. What do you personally thing might look better Chocho: The body pattern I have looks more to scale Fhujeth: I do like the chibi body but a real body, if it translates well, the bunny I got, did you see how it is... Fhujeth: it's like 2.5 heads tall Fhujeth: how is that like... that is ok too... Fhujeth: 3 heads tall Fhujeth: ok Fhujeth: 2 heads ehh Chocho: XD Chocho: I dunno Fhujeth: I like the height of the karamatsu plush but yeah his head (and hair) bugged me Fhujeth: we talk little the big one is fine Chocho: Well, I told you that his hair was not the same fabric. =P Fhujeth: yeah! Chocho: I used craft fur, not minky, cos I wanted it messy Chocho: But yeah, seriously though, no promises Chocho: I've seen a ton of cute plush and I don't think I'm cut out for it Chocho: To be honest, I knew you didn't like it as soon as you said you didn't know if you wanted to trade for it yet Fhujeth: brb my mom got me Chocho: Ok! Chocho: I think for now, it's best to assume I won't be able to do this, ok? The plush. Chocho: To be honest, to make one to the proportions of cute bunny Totty would involve me remaking the pattern all over again, not just the head. And that involves making the clothes patterns again too. It's a lot of effort that to be honest I don't think I'm willing to put in. Chocho: The effort and time to make ANOTHER pattern (especially if it just fails again), considering that I've already made 2 Matsu patterns already, not that one of them was with Totty in mind, but nonetheless... if more time, effort and stress than I think you'd be willing to trade for Chocho: *is Fhujeth: oh the bunny totty is bleg Fhujeth: I like your big karamatsu Fhujeth: bug maybe half the size Fhujeth: but^ Chocho: That would still be making a whole new pattern. u_u And I thought the Bunny Totty was really nice. =( Fhujeth: not just a resize Chocho: The way that big Karamatsu's head is done makes it hard to resize. =( Chocho: Besiiiides Chocho: I'm sure you wouldn't like the nasty darts I had to put in to make his hair work... Chocho: Also, his head flops cos it's heavy, you don't want it Chocho: It's too hot to work on anything plush now anyway. Because I don't have a machine, all the sweat that the hot, muggy weather causes will soak right into the fabric. Which is disgusting. So I avoid it... I also think if I had a machine that would do the face for me in a matter of minutes, it wouldn't be a problem... but I don't.. so every failure is a lot of wasted time and pain and suffering. All in all... I don't think I could make you something you wouldn't be disappointed with. =( Chocho: And not because I think you would rip into it, but because I don't think I have the skills Chocho: Anyways, I better get to bed! G'night! I'll catch you tomorrow! Fhujeth: nooo Fhujeth: i haD TO EAY Fhujeth: eat Fhujeth: so soon Fhujeth: so soon Fhujeth: to when I came back Fhujeth: i was gonna confess eerything to you Chocho: Confess? Chocho: I only send the message a minute ago. XD Fhujeth: AHH YOU ARE HERE MY FRIEND <3 Fhujeth: Yeah but a minute, less than you can walk away Chocho: But really, I do need to go after I've taken my meds, Kirk has to get up early Fhujeth: I love you, I am glad I met you. before we fuss, let me clarify things hsould we get into an argument Chocho: It's probably best we do this tomorrow so I can sleep. XD;;; Fhujeth: please, when we end a day in a huff and you show up not the next day it hurts so bad Chocho: As in, if it takes a negative turn, I can never sleep and Kirk's health tomorrow depends on me sleeping Fhujeth: Affirmative, be well, sleep well. Fhujeth: It was more detailed, that was a summary. Chocho: I didn't think we were arguing or having a huff today. '3' Fhujeth: not today! just anytime~ Fhujeth: like the other day Chocho: I was just expressing that I don't think I'm fit for purpose!
Which way round is this? Fhujeth claimed to me that Chocho was the one that brought up the hair thing and held it against Fhujeth. These chatlogs suggest it’s the other way around; Fhujeth really didn’t like whatever had been done with this other plush’s hair and was holding it over Chocho’s head whenever the idea of the Totty plush commission was discussed.
[I started to pay off the stuff we had on the "Totty plush list" from what I remember, since my first attempt had been not good enough. Fhujeth still wanted a Totty Plush though so that was still in the air. Then there was a set of limited edition... uhhh... lottery official plush I think it was? Of the Matsus in the "I <3 Toto" outfits released. I managed to get the Choro through my friend in Japan and I wanted the Kara (of course) but he was nowhere to be seen. Eventually one popped up on Yahoo Auctions!, but he was expensive, I couldn't afford him. Fhujeth mentioned she wanted it, but would feel bad if she got it (and I didn't), so I figured I'd offer, if she was willing to grab the plush and hold it, I could trade it for the Totty plush (if I could do it to her standards), otherwise she could keep the plush for herself without guilt, or sell the plush off for profit or something since it's limited edition and the value will only go up. She didn't want to "RISK" it, which made me incredibly upset since she, by this point, had repeatedly insisted/hinted that I wouldn't do a job good enough for her to accept and it was getting quite insulting. Why did she keep saying these things, yet keep asking for the plush? =/;]
Chocho: I really want that but it's out of my reach Fhujeth: I like it but I'd feel bad if I got it Chocho: Would you trade me it for a demon Totty plush? Fhujeth: You mean like I buy it, keep it in the package and all and if you design a plush I like we trade or is it I buy it expecting we trade? Because in one regard that is alot of pressure because One I see done, already, the other I don't... so... and then if you make it and there is some issue then I'll feel so bad and obligated to say yes anyways. Like what are you thinking o.x Fhujeth: I mean Fhujeth: what are you thinking/what is your idea Chocho: Yeah. I'd trade you that Karamatsu straight for a demon Totty plush and we would make sure it's a pattern you like. Chocho: Nah, never mind, it was just a thought Fhujeth: Isn't that a lot of work for a plush like that? Chocho: It is Fhujeth: I'm willing to take the risk I guess... I hate calling it a risk but... In the end I guess my biggest fear is you present me with something and I dislike it and then we end in a problem. I'm not picky but my last few non-drawn commissions from people have been all crap. Fhujeth: Not saying you'd do that! Fhujeth: I'm just saying it's like I pay for something and it breaks. Fhujeth: Not that a plush can break, and yours look like good quality. Chocho: You think my plush would fall apart? Chocho: If you think it's too much of a risk don't worry about it! Fhujeth: No, no. Fhujeth: Do you prefer me not expressing just my thoughts outloud? Chocho: I think it's kind of insulting you think that doing a trade with me is a huge risk and you'll probably get something you'll hate... Chocho: But it's fine, don't worry about it! Fhujeth: No that's not my concern! See now I feel guilty ^^;; Chocho: I'd prefer not to do all the work of making a pattern and plush and the face embroidery for one plush anyway Fhujeth: I'll do the trade if that is what you want to do. Chocho: Because it IS a lot of work, effort and, since you seem to think I'd fuck up, heartache for a $55 plush +fees and postage Fhujeth: It's not that I don't trust you I just always jump to the worst conclusions. Fhujeth: Chances are the plush is going to be super cute and awesome. Chocho: I don't really want to make a plush for somebody who thinks I'm going to churn out junk... that is WAY too much pressure Fhujeth: I feel like you're trying to guilt trip me.... Fhujeth: ..but maybe I am misreading it. Chocho: Not really, I just feel hurt that every time I mention making a plush you make it sound like I'm going to make an ugly piece of crap Chocho: You are the only one who has ever repeatedly made me feel like I churn out shit plush... Fhujeth: I really want a plush from you! Fhujeth: I'm just really nervous to buy plush, always. Chocho: I don't want to make a plush for you because you don't trust I can do it Chocho: It's fine, I don't need to spend another $55+ anyway really!! Chocho: And plush take weeks Fhujeth: I do really want a plush from you. Fhujeth; I am patient and in no rush. Chocho: What if I can't make something you like? Fhujeth: You'll make something I like. I'm sorry for instilling fear in you. Chocho: Would you sell it to me in commissions of other kinds or for tutoring/red lining/whatever as long as it's not something I can't teach? Chocho: Or would you just keep it you think? Fhujeth: I want a demon totty plush or I'll keep him, probably... unless there is more art I need i the future. Just take your time. I'm sure whatever you do will be great. I didn't mean to make you feel scared or pressured. I'm just scared of things but yeah...
Wait... what? Fhujeth says here “I feel like you're trying to guilt trip me....” but this whole chatlog continues to read like Fhujeth is almost threatening Chocho that they must get things right if the work is to go ahead. It’s plenty obvious that Fhujeth really wanted a custom plush from Chocho... but at the same time injecting incredible levels of fear and doubt about whether she trusted Chocho to do a good job. I don’t really know why this was the case but I know for sure that if I was in this situation I’d simply say “No, sorry, I can’t do this for you” and refuse the job. Fhujeth obviously couldn’t take this for an answer, though.
[A little while later, I offered to pay off the Karamatsu plush straight and not trade him for the plush so that Fhujeth could have the money since she needed the funds. Fhujeth still wanted the plush though, even though I wasn't sure if I could do it, so it continued...]
Fhujeth: Hey Chocho: Hi! Chocho: I have a proposal for you... Chocho: How much was the postage to get Totty and Kara idols to you? Fhujeth: For both? Well I put them in with some other stuff remember? Chocho: What would be my percentage of it? Fhujeth: Well just the Kara right? o.o Chocho: Yeah Fhujeth: Let me look ;o Chocho: OK! Fhujeth: sorry if eel reallyyy shitty Fhujeth: if you saw my tumblr messages Fhujeth: my mom poisoned me Fhujeth: in short so you don't have to read Chocho: I did and that's why I'm asking this Fhujeth: Okay so he alone was 5500 + Buyee fee 150 + Yahoo Fee 200 + Domest Shiiping Fhujeth: not going to charge for consolidation Fhujeth: it was 3700 yen for all 5 items to be shipped....... the 700 is fine I'll do the other 3000 of that Fhujeth: 5500+ 350 + 1112+ 700 Chocho: Ok! Would you be willing to post him to Kaji too? Fhujeth: Yeah, when I get that other Karamatsu eventually. Chocho: If so, I'll pay you for him flat out (if I can afford to after I've paid Kazuki) so that you can put that money towards getting away from that mother that's trying to kill you. $75.57 he comes to Fhujeth: No, no, no. I want the plush from you. Chocho: We can do the plush later, you need the money more right now
[Eventually I tried again at a pattern, this time a little bigger in a rag doll style with floppy limbs. When I started making the pattern I was already on edge because of the high feeling of pressure, especially since I never know if a pattern is going to work when I first make it. When I had actually put him together, I was really quite disappointed. I felt that I had messed up his body, it was too much like a cylinder and I felt I hadn't tapered him enough to his shoulders so he looked boxy. His eyes also came out wonky (one iris/pupil a little higher than the other...) which I had no idea how had happened since it was straight in the hoop as far as I was aware. I was just incapable of seeing the plush in a good light, I felt like I hadn't hit the standard I was desperately hoping for and I felt the plush was a failure.]
Chocho: he's also naked because i don't have his clothes fabric yet Chocho: yeah i did, but he hasn't turned up in the house yet Fhujeth: Can I see nakey choro? Chocho: i'd rather not... it's... really bad Fhujeth: *it's cool if not* Fhujeth: That's fine! Chocho: i'm just going to make him my hug buddy Fhujeth: I'm sure he's not that bad! Fhujeth: I have Present Jyushi and the one time he showed up I did not be there to pet him Chocho: you thought little karamatsu was bad, this one's not much better Chocho: which sucks because it wasn't easy to make Fhujeth: I did notthink he was bad o.o Chocho: you said you didn't like him, especially his face [<- this here, unless I missed one of the logs, was a mistake on my part. Unless Fhujeth restated at some point that his face was bad too, but I don't remember specifically] Fhujeth: I think the hair through it off for me Chocho: i used craft fur on that one instead of minky Chocho: i did say that... Chocho: craft fur is lower quality and longer pile, but i wanted it to be messy Fhujeth: Yeah, but it made an illusion for me! I think if I saw him in person it'd be different for sure! I am sure it looks great (Choro)
[In the end, after I broke away from Fhujeth and gave my Chocho some clothes, I ended up falling in love with him. The clothes nicely hid the fact that his torso is a tube... XD;;; And I don't notice the eyes now, even though I know they're dorpy. I also don't have that whole pressure over my head to perform any more... So yeah.... this entire thing went WAY past the whole messy hair plush thing... it was the constant being threatened that I better do a good job and the whole air that commissioning/trading me a plush was a "risk" to her and her high set standards etc. had left me feeling hypercritical of all my attempts and feeling at a complete loss. She brought up the hair repeatedly in regards to that one, small, plush. But there were other factors too that made me absolutely want to back out, but I felt too scared to say "sorry, no... I'm not going to make this" because it had gone on so long.]
It’s definitely Fhujeth that brought up the hair issue on multiple occasions, despite using this as part of the “abuser” argument in my conversation with her. There is some context here I’m not 100% sure of but it’s more than obvious that there was a lot of injected pressure from Fhujeth regarding this commission over a period of time. There is no reason for me to believe that this was Chocho being abusive in any way.
The Fat/Slob-love situation
In my conversation with Fhujeth, the subject turned to a claim that Chocho had a thing for “slobbing up characters” which made Fhujeth uncomfortable. This is what was said to me by Fhujeth:
I lost a lot of faith and trust in having close friends because of the way they would make me feel bad if I didn't do something for them or if I mentioned that some of what they drew made me uncomfortable. (example; the drawing in reference to that chat was uhh, Choromatsu, aged 30s where she gave him messy hair as his hair was thinning, laying shirtless on a green arm chair, his gut hanging out, and he looked like a slob)."
"It was more that that was all she drew. I draw some weird stuff but it's never consistent. As you can tell she has some sorta thing for slobbing up characters based on our roleplays and private interactions and literally most of Domatsu and Chochomatsu blogs being.... slob. Our RPs were all about humiliation and Choromatsu being a fat drunk gross slob. It wasn't an occasional thing, it was an all the time thing.
This again had me confused... I couldn’t see where the “abuse” actually came into this. I mean, fair enough, some people find certain things uncomfortable and if that is stated to the person they believe to be making them uneasy with certain types of content, they should speak up and let them know - especially if it is in a one-to-one conversation between friends.
I obviously asked Chocho about this situation and this is the explanation I got:
[See, the fat thing is funny because it was FHUJETH that kept bringing it up. We'd be talking about something completely different, or roleplaying normally and she'd bring the subject in. She KNEW I didn't like it, I said multiple times that it made me uncomfortable, but she just wouldn't stop. I kind of wondered if she was trying to push "desensitisation" of something I don't like on me. And that bit where she said that picture of Choromatsu made her uncomfortable? That's funny too because she sent me this in one of her post-parting ways e-mails;
"There is a common reoccurring theme with your art that screams "slob love" the baggy eyes, messy hair, beer belly/guy, five o'clock shadow. It's okay to like that and I never thought it was gross even though I was well aware you were into that way before we stopped being friends. I never judged you for that because I mean, I'm a fetish artist, lol."
Also, it wasn't ME who drew obese Matsus... that was Fhujeth, I still have some pics she sent me, here.]
For the record, the image Fhujeth was referring to (”Choromatsu, aged 30s where she gave him messy hair as his hair was thinning, laying shirtless on a green arm chair, his gut hanging out, and he looked like a slob”) is this one:
That, to me... isn’t what it was dramatized to be. Dad bod, anyone? “gut hanging out”? Er, nah... if that picture makes Choromatsu out to be a fat slob I really need to sort my life out!! And that arm chair isn't green...(??)
Also, salarymatsu.tumblr.com is publicly visible and the reference for his hair was from canon material (kun).
This is the Osomatsu-kun reference Chocho used for the hair:
It was Ichimatsu with the messy hair (the one with the glasses, last panel)... but this is real canon stuff about the Matsus being 30 years older than their kun age. It’s a bit of a running joke in the series that Choromatsu becomes bald but there’s absolutely nothing here to suggest a “slob” kink.
[Also, she was ALWAYS talking about fetishes. So, so often, more so than anybody I have ever met before. EVERYTHING was(/is?) a fetish to her!]
Fhujeth: The only cartoon network shows that I can argue had any kink content in them was Uncle Grandpa and Kids Next Door and the latter the director told me it didn't.
Fhujeth: Tuttle I think he gets depression after his wife dies and becomes a blob... I really like that video. XD Chocho: Ahhh okay. XD;; Fhujeth: Anyways yes I wanted to share that with you since we talk of kinks a lot and that song is one of my favourite things seth macfarlane's done Chocho: It's not like I choose to talk about kinks! XD Fhujeth: But we do!
Fhujeth: How... how close to "stuffing" should I get before too much is too much because I am not very good at drawing the line between kink and not kink because I have done kink artwork and am 100% desensitized to it
[Another interesting piece of chatlog from Fhujeth is...;]
Fhujeth: I like stupid drunk losers tht are slobs
Fhujeth: Ahh ok! But I like fat slob loser characters a lot, idk why they appeal to me greatly... especially ones that are unaware of how lame they are
Wait... you what?? Fhujeth was blaming Chocho for being into this as a kink and using it in her argument as to why Chocho was an abuser. This is evidence that it was in fact THE OTHER WAY ROUND and the accusation is blatant projection. I don’t get it - why use this as an argument when it’s an obvious lie?? Like I said earlier, if something makes someone uncomfortable, they should speak up. But as proven in the chatlogs it was in fact Fhujeth that liked “fat slob loser characters a lot” or “stupid drunk losers that are slobs”.
There was a LOT more chatlog suggesting Fhujeth liked to bring up fat in random conversations that were, in general, unrelated.
Chocho: Why does Karamatsu go around with his arms crossed in those clothes Chocho: Only in those Chocho: There seems to be no reason Fhujeth: Karamatsu: *feels fat* Totty: OF ALL THE CLOTHES*
Fhujeth: originally a black and white character, is just a fat pig now Fhujeth: Btw this show if you never saw it is brilliant Chocho: Ichimatsu: Actually Todomatsu then Fhujeth: Totty: :// IIRC: She is even depicted as super fat and can't fit into things and like eats an entire car. I feel like there was an episode she gets stuck somewhere from being so fat and she can't get outside to a food mobile that comes every rare time. Chocho: She doesn't look that fat! XD; Fhujeth: They change it for the show, it's very.... cartoonish Chocho: Ahhh okay! Fhujeth: Like, at certain times they make her fatter
Fhujeth:XDD Totty: I'l commission you - Draw Karamatsu really fat and ugly.... and then make his head normal... you know Chocho: XD Fhujeth: Totty, wait, he already is like that Chocho: Karamatsu: ... 8( Totty!
Fhujeth: dayon has a big head. Chocho: XD Chocho: yes Chocho: DAYOOOOOOOOON Fhujeth: and on a perspective level that person is tall Fhujeth: and the one in green is tall Chocho: Yes. XD Chocho: Well, I still think the Matsus are short Fhujeth: they were tall as kids Fhujeth: at least in 66 kun Fhujeth: xD they look like giants Chocho: I love that bit before that though, where they call Karamatsu an idiot and he's all hurt Chocho: XD Chocho: Yeah, but in 66 kun they change height all the time. XD; Fhujeth: "I'm not an idiot" :( Chocho: Karamatsu: *wiggly mouth* Fhujeth: i bought those tickets because i care Chocho: And all the merch. XD Chocho: .... something weird goes on with his body here.. Chocho: ???? Fhujeth: Totty: It's the fat inside him Chocho: XD Chocho: It just couldn't take being called an idiot Fhujeth: THE FUCK DID HE SAY JUST NOW Chocho: XD Chocho: "How so"????
Fhujeth: Totty: Hah, if Choromatsu Niisan wants to do that then I'll go to his stinky idol club and make a fool of himself in front of nyaachan. Fhujeth: Yeah! Chocho: Yeah, exactly Chocho: Feel free to get Totty to get Chocho's dick out in front of Nyaa-chan Chocho: And do whatever with it! Fhujeth: So he sneaks back stage using his "Totty Charisma Charm" and makes a fool of himself. OK! Yeah! This is fun :D Chocho: That doesn't involve a knife or irreperable damage, hahaha Yeah Fhujeth: it was an ideaaaaa ;.; Chocho: Totty can do things like join Nyaachan and idol fansites and post dick pics and nudes Chocho: No no, I mean, you can do dick things. XD Chocho: Just not involving knives Fhujeth: Totty: I AM CHOROMATSU MATSUNO I AM A REAL FAT OTAKU WITH NO PRIDE. I HAVE TWELVE BROTHERS SO IF YOU SEE A GUY WHO LOOKS LIKE ME ITS TOTALLY NOT ME BECAUSE I AM GROSS AND NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE EXCEPT TO GO TO IDOL SHOWS :>
[This particular chatlog was about a "bodyswap" event we were going to do between Chochomatsu and Totally-Totty where the two (in each others bodies) go off to try and ruin each other's reputation.]
Chocho: Choromatsu's muttering that he'd like some boobies wrapped around him Chocho: Preferably belonging to Totoko and Nyaa-chan Chocho: Because he's scared of everybody else Fhujeth: Kara's man boobs Fhujeth: jk Chocho: I think that's something that people don't tend to realise with these guys... Or at least Karamatsu, Choromatsu and Ichimatsu... Chocho: They're virgins... they're nerds and they're (deep down) introverted... they're scared of girls.. they're gagging for it, but they don't know what they're doing and it's been so long that when a girl DOES approach them, they panic Chocho: Jyushimatsu's too 8D to be bothered by it I think... Totty's practised with being around girls and Osomatsu is just... XD Chocho: But the other 3 don't have a clue what they're doing Chocho: Karamatsu acts like he's this hot piece of meat, but as soon as he actually potentially gets a date
["Kara's man boobs" was, of course, not in regards to ANYTHING we had been talking about. I ignored it.]
Chocho: Besides how weird that is Chocho: Lice prefer clean hair. Apparently. Not that Ichimatsu's hair wouldn't be clean, it's not even that messy Fhujeth: what a werid ask Chocho: Right? Chocho: *picks nose* Fhujeth: xD Fhujeth: ughhh Fhujeth: Totty: Ok, when I say Kara is fat he's not Chubby. -.- Chocho: Ichimatsu: What's the difference Fhujeth: Totty: He's.... fat... *does motion like pregnant*
[The "weird ask" "lice" part was in regards to an ask Chocho got mentioning about how anon was concerned that Ichimatsu would have lice because of his hair. I answered that one fairly close to the end of when I was interested in working on the blog if you really want to see it. The fat comment wasn't in regards to anything that we had been talking about.]
Chocho: This is actually a redraw of something from 2002/3 Fhujeth: Are those all saying he needs to lose weight? Chocho: No. XD Fhujeth: Oh
Fhujeth: Yeah! "Karamatsu Tax" Totty: He's so fat he has to be charged mroe to be drawn.
[This was in a conversation about somebody young who wanted to commission me, but had no money, who had been passed my details by somebody who had no idea that they couldn't afford to commission anybody. I had a waiting list for domatsu commissions at that point, so I couldn't warrant doing anybody artwork for free in that style (I didn't even have time to draw art for myself!) but the person wasn't taking no for an answer. Just before going to pressure the person who gave the young person a recommendation to come to me, Fhujeth said this. I won't share the rest of the log, because it has details (names/urls) about the young person and the person who pointed them in my direction. It was a misunderstanding from their part, so it's not fair to and I won't put them on the spot. This just had nothing to do with the subject.]
Chocho: ah, they're around Fhujeth: AHH Fhujeth: I'll try to see if choromatsu becomes available Fhujeth: i need Fhujeth: tots Chocho: ded Fhujeth: No sign of Pink Legless man yet! The only way he could lose that weight was cutting it off :( Chocho: who totty? Chocho: i take it the idea of that machine is to push kara off the platform? Fhujeth: Yeah! Chocho: however that is don Chocho: e Fhujeth: just.... poke at hit until his fatass falls off... probablly.... seeing if you can scoop it otherwise just start at one end and try to push it in one direction then flip to the other end x.x it looks money consuming Chocho: there is only one claw Fhujeth: Yeah I mean by one side being his butt and then head Chocho: i see Chocho: i don't care for that one anyway, i only want choros
[This was about that online crane game you can win real prizes from, Toreba I think? Fhujeth was talking about the available prizes and how to win them.]
Chocho: choro's the rude one? Fhujeth: XD No. Totty knows he was wrong, he feels really bad. I think he'll get flung back and remain there like, "X.x" and then when he comes to try to "make it up" to his big brother whether it be getting in the way or mentioning that his brother has some issues with his shirt Fhujeth: or fat
[wait what]
What indeed... why is fat being randomly brought up as a subject in the middle of conversations so much if Fhujeth knew Chocho didn’t like it? If I know one of my friends doesn’t like something I don’t try to constantly push it in their face. This, to me, is an example of abuse in the opposite direction to what Fhujeth is claiming.
Fhujeth: My mom LOVES to watch the fat people shows like about the people so fat that they are like nothing but blobs and then they lose the weight
Fhujeth: Totty: EHHH? *huff* I.... I don't care either. Fhujeth: TottY: I DON'T CARE! (almost wrote cake) Chocho: chocho: sure! Fhujeth: Totty: To prove I don't care I will wear this fatsuit. Chocho: chocho: go on then Chocho: chocho: post photos of you in it to twitter too
Fhujeth: Jyushimatsurepliez took the leaf off Totty and now Totty is a Tanuki I'ma draw him kinda fat but not with big balls Fhujeth: But fat animals are not gross like people
Fhujeth: Finally Totty is fat xD
[By the last month this was what MOST of the conversations were about, it always went back to fat, not because I wanted it to. Where my text is lower case, it's because I was fucking done, I was so sick of this topic, the only way I could bounce it back was using humour.]
I would be fucking done by this point too. If someone I thought was a friend was constantly throwing a subject I didn’t like at me, despite me saying I didn’t like it and I don’t want to talk about it, I’d be seriously pissed off.
Fhujeth: I really like Choro! Actually that was one I paid for too today was the idol choro mascot plush, I wonder if he'll be fat Fhujeth: I'll get him in a few days! Fhujeth: And hopefully he'll... be skinny. Fhujeth: but if he is fat he is ffat Fhujeth: Then we know. Fhujeth: But if he is skinny then you were blessed. Chocho: "blessed"
[This was out of nowhere too. For context with that plush, I ordered a Choromatsu from the second set of the first plush (I think?) that were available? It's the small keychain "mascot" where Choromatsu is in the green flannel shirt with glowsticks and a bandana. When mine came, he was overstuffed which made his face look... wide... I was somewhat upset because he was nowhere near what the first one looked like, I wanted one that looked like the one from the first set. Apparently by getting a "fat" Choro, I was "blessed".]
In my conversation with Fhujeth, she claimed this:
Our RPs were all about humiliation and Choromatsu being a fat drunk gross slob. It wasn't an occasional thing, it was an all the time thing.
Chocho gave me this chatlog to explain that the topic was, again, brought into the roleplay by Fhujeth - not the other way round:
Fhujeth: Totty: All old people have hard candy in their pockets, Choromatsu-niisan... It helps them remember what it's like to feel teeth. Chocho: chocho: no idea what you're talking about Fhujeth: Totty: *finds one* Ewww, it's sticky... Fhujeth: Totty: You should use this... *runs away and returns with a green bumbag/fannypack* Chocho: chocho: why would it be sticky in a wrapper in a bag? Fhujeth: Totty: It must've melted. Fhujeth: Totty: *it's not sticky* Chocho: chocho: if you don't want it, give it back Fhujeth: Totty: I want it... Fhujeth: Totty: *opens and eats it* :3c *realizes this was in his brothers pocket* *smiles still despite realizing how gross it is being in an old man's pocket too* :3c;;;;;;;; *spits it out* Fhujeth: Totty: It tastes good at least! Fhujeth: Totty: Is there a bag of fresh ones? Fhujeth: Totty: *carefully places bumbag on Choromatsu's waist* Hopefully it's not too small~ Fhujeth: Totty: *tightens it all the way, too tight* Chocho: chocho: argh why?!?!?! Fhujeth: Totty: Hmm it seems really tight on you... Fhujeth: *steps back, hand on chin Chocho: chocho: what are you doing to me?! you're trying to kill me Chocho: chocho: again Fhujeth: Totty: I'm giving you this bag to store candy and goods in! Chocho: chocho: stop tying it up so tight, i'm not a child i don't need the child setting!! Chocho: chocho: that HURTS you know! just like if i did it to you!! Fhujeth: Totty: Ah, you're right.. *loosens all the way* There, fat old man setting. *it still fits on him* Chocho: chocho: THERE IS NO "FAT OLD MAN" SETTING Chocho: chocho: todomatsu... *puts his hand on tottys shoulder* i'm sorry to break it to you, but... i'm not actually fat Chocho: chocho: here, let's see how YOU like it! *swiftly takes off the bag, whips it onto totty and yanks the strap as tight as it will go, harshly in a matter of a couple of seconds* Fhujeth: Totty: ... :S *ithurts* AGHHHH >< It's tight Chocho: chocho: hmm? what's that? it's tight? does it hurt? what a shame *huffs and stomps off* Fhujeth: Totty: *teary eyed immediately* Fhujeth: Totty: AHH TAKE IT OFF! *can't find the snappy part to undo it* CHOROMATSU-NIISANNNNNN!!!!! Chocho: chocho: *long gone*
[Just reading this I am so done, hahahaha! This is another example of us roleplaying and Fhujeth making it about how fat Chocho is. As I said, I just shrugged it off with humour. It ended up being about ridiculing Choromatsu and/or him being fat because she MADE it about it. She knew I didn't like it, so it always came up.]
I mean... this RP just looks playful and silly without context... but with all the above chatlogs taken into account, the obsession with fat and slobs evidently wasn’t coming from Chocho.
Chocho sent this to me which was posted by Fhujeth after the end of their friendship:
“Stop talking to other people”
Another part of my conversation with Fhujeth was a claim that Chocho had told her to stop talking to so many other people so that Fhujeth had more time to talk to important people, i.e. Chocho:
It was little things like demanding that I stop "stretching myself thin so I can chat with the people who matter (her)" instead of jumping around from the dozen or so convos I am in a day.
Chocho showed me this chatlog of that event:
totally-totty The second the drama was done that is why I went and messaged you on domatsu to tell you my reply so you could see it in the morning but I was just getting over anxiety attack and stuff. I didn't want to tell you to go away or anything because I liked knowing you were right there... chochomatsu To be honest, trying to guilt trip me into swallowing my feelings isn't fair either really. totally-totty I dunno. I guess I just do the wrong things. chochomatsu It's not a case of telling me to go away, I would have still been there I know what it's like to have something come up where your mind feels stretched thin and you need to focus on one thing at once as it's really important totally-totty I am sorry I didn't consider your feelings. chochomatsu So really, you should have just said something like "hold on, I'm having a crisis with a friend over here, it's serious", I don't see anything wrong with that totally-totty I will remember to do that. I am learning just now I have so much to learn socially and that I am still so socially under developed with dealing with other people and that I am fucking retarded. I'm really bad with other people's feelings. chochomatsu Calling yourself "fucking retarded" is another form of guilt tripping, by the way.. trying to make the other person feel guilty for being hurt by your actions totally-totty No. I am not asking you to feel guilty about it. I need to get better and learn. I know I have flaws I need to work on it. chochomatsu That's why I'm telling you how it's coming across, that's all totally-totty Thank you. totally-totty I'm really sorry about yesterday it just started off hectic with the auction, I am sure you know that is very high pressure. So after that I was all antsy and didn't feel like drawing so I went around and just cleaned my whole room and then I swam and then I finally sat back down and we chatted some and I was sorta spaced out and then the drama with my friend started and I immediately went into that anxiety shock, you know what I mean? That anxiety shock where it's all, "omg, omg." totally-totty When I was antsy I also started a bunch of other chat conversations with people. x.x So I was distracted with those all day. So I was ignoring them all... I jumped around and would forget them all.
But back to us. I'm really sorry. It's weird when you're not on anymore... haha. I didn't mean to make you think you were annoying or bothersome, either. chochomatsu That's why I don't talk to many people at once totally-totty I'm starting to think I need to stop talking to so many people now. It's really mucked with things. chochomatsu The feeling of complete and utter disconnection and lack of care you get from somebody spreading their conversation capability so thin is extremely damaging Especially when it's from somebody you really enjoy or need to talk to totally-totty I agree, and I have noticed this has been happening especially as of late. Which is why I need to stop it. Because I'd rather talk to the friends I care about than other people.
[So... I didn't even bring it up, she was the one who said it. I just gave reasons as to why it might help her (and the people she talks to, not just me).]
Yeah, I’m not seeing abuse from Chocho here either. Chocho may have given a reason as to why she thought Fhujeth was doing damage to their friendship by trying to talk to many people at once, but isn’t this a valid concern? Fhujeth seemed to take it well here and agree with the stance. Also I do see manipulation of Chocho by Fhujeth with things like “I am fucking retarded” in an attempt to get a sort of “No you are not” response.
Another claim from Fhujeth was this:
It was little things that getting mad at me for being friends with some other people that hated Choromatsu.
Chocho had this to say:
[I never got mad at Fhujeth for being friends with anybody. I admit I got frustrated at people who hated on Choromatsu endlessly, but I'm sure anybody who had their favourites get hated on would feel the same way. I vented to Fhujeth about it, but never, ever attacked her over it. Who she's friends with is none of my business.]
Venting is wholly different than being mad at someone. There doesn’t seem to be chatlogs of this event from either side unfortunately.
Chochomatsu = Domatsu
This goes back to one of Fhujeth’s main claims of abuse from Chocho - that Domatsu and Chochomatsu were two blogs run by the same person but that Chocho refused to tell Fhujeth about it despite them being friends. Fhujeth said this to me:
We talked all day every day and we did the ask blog thing together. For me, it felt like a massive breach of trust when she pretended to be someone else to me. It's okay to want to start new but to lie to your friend that you're not someone is.... that feels very unsavoury.
Asking Chocho, this is the explanation:
Chocho: Interesting that she puts Chocho highly already though Chocho: He's existed for what half a month Fhujeth: Yeah you seem really tense Chocho: Yeah. =( Chocho: I have the magazine pic, your body pillow, jussy's commissions, that plush (Bob), THE NEXT DOMATSU UPDATE, chocho's asks, this birthday thing, just paid twice for my birthday present, probably going to have to do that again when Chibita finally shows up... Chocho: I'm trying!
[This is proof that Chocho existed for less than half a month by the time I told Fhujeth. I didn't tell ANYBODY about Chochomatsu at first because I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep the blog. If I had told anybody, even my closest friends, I would have basically had to be committed to it and I didn't want to seal myself in on a blog I wasn't even sure I'd keep. After a week or so, I felt I wanted to keep Chocho, so I let Fhujeth in on it and my other closest friends outside the fandom (I didn't really have any friends in the fandom besides Fhujeth. Funny that, huh?). Fhujeth was the only one who took offense. (Also, in regards to "we did the ask blog thing together"? That's because she always forced her way into my blog stories and pressured me when I wanted to use my own Totty. I wasn't allowed to even concept asking another Totty blog to be my Totty for any particular post.]
So, what, 2 weeks that Fhujeth didn’t know Chochomatsu and Domatsu were the same person? I am again finding myself not being able to see where the abuse is. Even if it had been kept a permanent secret, it’s another case of this multiple alias thing just... being a thing in the creative arts. Why is it abusive?
To follow on from the subject of Totty blogs, Chocho gave me some explanation as to what that meant:
Chocho: If I legit went and made a Totty blog instead, you'd let me rot domatsu? Fhujeth: No, what I meant was more like... Fhujeth: I don't think I could stand a chance against you and I'd probably have to quit myself. Fhujeth: And I'd see it as competitiion, I guess. Chocho: Why would you do that? Chocho: You know I can't write Totty as well as you Fhujeth: Because there is absolutely no way in hell I can compete with your art. Chocho: Character portrayal is more important than art though Fhujeth: well, not really on tumblr people care about art lots ;.; well, in the end of it all I'd be incredibly hurt like, "Errr, there's 6 guys and you legit going to drop the one to pick the one I play even tho we work so closely together now I'm doomed and we can't work together so much and now I guess we're frenemies." Basically I'd handly it all in a very immature and very bad fashion because I have a very childish competitive nature.... But you are more than welcome to I just wouldn't be able to handle it at all like a grown adult. Fhujeth: its not a threat lmao I legit don't think I;d handle it well XD I already get really competitive when I see other Totty blogs Chocho: Well, don't worry, I wouldn't. I only asked since you said you'd only let me if it was to make a Totty blog? Chocho: I think? Fhujeth: Noooo. Fhujeth: I don't want domatsu to rot at all I love it Chocho: *only let me quit Fhujeth: yeah because the immature fraction of my brain would say, "Uhhhhh...... this person who was my friend is now my enemy" Fhujeth: like blanca was thinking of making a todomatsu universe I said, "NO" Fhujeth: Not like that Chocho: Uh... how do you feel about my Totty then? =S Fhujeth: I like him! Fhujeth: But since you don't have him as a dedicated blog... Fhujeth: I'm not like, scared. Fhujeth: That he'll become something I have to worry over. Fhujeth: Since you're Karamatsu to me... Fhujeth: of course I don;t OWN him either I just don't want to get competitive Fhujeth: against friends... because I get really bad. Fhujeth: I am crazy agressive competitive person if I wanna be.... or I give up if I don't think I can do it. Fhujeth: this is a bad side of me... Fhujeth: a really bad side of me Chocho: Even if I gave him his own blog, it'd work in the same way as the rest of them. Fhujeth: Right, that is OK. I mean.... your Oso blog doesn't take asks and all really... Fhujeth: Wow I can already tell I would handle this terribly. Fhujeth: I am feeling my blood pressure going through the roof, God I am so immature :/ At least I am aware of this flaw but still... damn. Chocho: I'm not going to make a Totty ask blog, don't worry Fhujeth: T-Thank you..... Fhujeth: You're allowed to though. Fhujeth: I'd figure you'd go for Choro Chocho: Yeah Fhujeth: I'm sorry....... Fhujeth: For how I just was Chocho: Oh, no, don't worry
Fhujeth: I just hope I didn't make you hate Totty Chocho: No Fhujeth: Did you fall out of love with him tho? Chocho: The only thing is that I feel pressured not to include him in blog things (as mine solo) because you've told me in the past that he's yours Fhujeth: Oh, I don't mean like that you can do that.. Chocho: So if you feel like he's not there much it's because I feel you'd be angry with me if I gave him screen time or his own blog Fhujeth: Hmm, I would feel nervous about his own blog but not screen time.... Chocho: Exactly Fhujeth: Because you do so much better than me... XD;; it's more like Chocho: That's why he's not around Fhujeth: You could basically run me out of business... I guess... Chocho: I really doubt it Fhujeth: Look how fast Chocho grew and he is the same popular as Todo Chocho: Apparently he became one of the more expensive ones, so I don't think that's true... Fhujeth: i dunno. Don't let me stop you from doing what you want. Fhujeth: ^^ Fhujeth: If you run me out of business you run me out of business it's just the way it'd go. XD Chocho: I can't run anybody "out of business", it's not a business. ._. People haven't stopped with Karamatsu or Choromatsu blogs because domatsu and chochomatsu exist for example... Chocho: I managed to get enough for a gacha again and I got red hoodie Osomatsu. =/ Fhujeth: No but if I know a new blog comes out that is doing better than me already and faster than I would up and quit and feel "no point". That is what I got and I was so mad. Fhujeth: But my feelings, please, don't let them influence you. Chocho: And that's why Todomatsu isn't around at all on my blogs Because it would be my fault if you quit Chocho: It's not that I don't like him, more that I'm... not really allowed Fhujeth: Ahh, no, please, don't say that. Fhujeth: Please do what you want. Fhujeth: ==inadifferentveinifeellikeishouldquitnowsighs== why is this all so complicated. can we talk this out just so you can understand where I come from and then you can see that you can do as you wish? :3 Chocho: See? Now I've made you want to quit just by saying that I wanted to separate dematsu into 4 blogs. =S Fhujeth: You can Chocho: I know where you're coming from, you've explained before Chocho: But this is why Totty hasn't been around on my end, that's all Fhujeth: It's not like it's going to be super active or anything like chocho or domatsu .... Chocho: Respecting your wishes Fhujeth: no? Or is it Chocho: It is! You told me you didn't want me to be Totty and that you would feel threatened and annoyed if I did Fhujeth: It would be more active? Please do as you wish. Please don't let me stop you.. Fhujeth: Honest. Fhujeth: But now I feel bad because you want to do something and you feel like I am stopping you. Fhujeth: All I was doing was expressing my feelings but I didn't want you to actually not do something because of me. I am not that selfish. I'll deal with it on my own. Chocho: Nah, it's fine. As long as you know that it's not that I don't like Totty! Fhujeth: I don't know I don't want to prevent you from doing something. Fhujeth: I'm really torn right now. Fhujeth: I'm gonna go away for a while and lay down... x.x I am too conflicted. I do not own a character, so please, by all means, you have every right. Chocho: This is why I didn't do anything! >_< Fhujeth: But you want to!
This is quite an obvious example of gaslighting... “You could basically run me out of business” ... “Don't let me stop you from doing what you want.” ... “No but if I know a new blog comes out that is doing better than me already and faster than I would up and quit and feel "no point".” ... “But my feelings, please, don't let them influence you.” ... “Please do what you want.” ... “I don't know I don't want to prevent you from doing something.” ... “But you want to!”
Seriously... that is some powerful manipulative flip-flopping in an attempt to scare Chocho out of making a Totty blog.
Back to the issue of Chochomatsu and Domatsu being the same person...
[Also, she approached Chocho and pressed for conversation, not the other way around.]
05/19/2016 mr-flag hii ^^ welcome to the ask blog world! I am gonna answer you ask, sorry it';s coming form this blog you only follow this of my blogs <3 I am totally-totty too your choro is super cute <3 I might answer it though in a bit I am not sure yet the timing I have..... I wanna answer it now.... chochomatsu Oh! I thought I was following your Totty blog! I can see it on my dash right now! :O Are you sure? Maybe I need to unfollow and follow again???
[Chocho's blog was started on the 17th of May, 2016. Fhujeth approached the blog on the 19th of May 2016. 2 days after the blog was born.]
Chocho went on to explain that Fhujeth had been accusing her of having a Totty blog before the end of working on the Domatsu blog:
Fhujeth: you are capable of a lot.... i'd not be surprised if you had a totty blog already and I didn't know of it XD Fhujeth: not that you'd be that deceptive Chocho: I'd ummed and ahhed about Chocho for a couple of months before I did him... and I hesitated before I posted him first post even... I felt really guilty about him to be honest. Nah, I really really don't have a Totty blog I have domatsu and it's partner blogs, Chocho and Wakuwaku. And I don't do anything with Waku... since he chills out on Chocho's blog all the time. Fhujeth: Oh I am not accusing you of one...
[She was falsely accusing me of having a Totty blog back before I had even stopped doing Domatsu too. She accused me of a lot to be honest, with no grounds. And how do you prove you don't have something when you don't have something? She always put me on the spot for things I couldn't prove otherwise because they didn't exist.]
“Oh I am not accusing you of one...” Oh really? That’s what it sounds like to me.
In my experience, Fhujeth has been accusing Chocho of running a Totty blog for a very long time. A lot of people in this fandom already know that Fhujeth accused Chocho of being Todomatshu/Shu/Boots - another good friend of mine. This is in fact connected to the Totty Club situation as Shu was the founder and the one maintaining the list of members and such. The Totty Club drama is of course where most of my bad experiences with Fhujeth come from and it is difficult to prove to someone that two blogs are two different people when both people have been scared into not wanting anything to do with Fhujeth at all. I don’t have saved proof, but I have personally witnessed Chocho and Shu in a drawpile session together, working on separate drawings at the same time.
Fhujeth’s words:
totty Like I said too, I wasn't there at the drawpile. I guess one of my other friends was and said something how Chocho emulated Shu's style effortlessly and flawlessly but that is all I know. It falls back down to proof, again. I wasn't there just like you weren't there. I don't know. I'm not going to tell people Shu is Chocho. I don't even bring any of them up in name anymore.
I know which friend Fhujeth is talking about and this is not the same drawpile session I’m talking about. They weren’t there. In fact this friend she mentions is almost certainly the one that leaked chat from the Totty Club discord we had that triggered a lot of the drama with Fhujeth to begin with. I wish I had proof of the drawpile claim but I don’t. I didn’t think to take screenshots - we were all busy drawing and having fun. To this day I get the very strong impression that Fhujeth still believes Chocho and Shu are the same person.
I can’t give chatlogs as proof that they aren’t the same person as no logs I have access to have anything that would prove or disprove anything to do with this issue. The only other thing I can possibly add to this is that in the days of the Totty Club discord I could occasionally see Chocho and Boots (Shu) typing at the same time. Again, no proof, I don’t record my screen!
This entire situation was abusive to all of us. It ripped the Totty Club apart - people were unable to trust other members, Shu in particular, because of Fhujeth’s unfounded claims. As always, Chocho preferred to remain quiet about anything to do with Fhujeth at the time. I have to say I now understand why that was. I also finally understand why Fhujeth was so persistent about Shu being Chocho - she was STILL paranoid that Chocho was running a Totty blog and was attempting to be in direct competition with her.
The Pain Incident
Before I go on with this issue I have to explain why this is the last one I’m bringing up despite it being one of the main things Fhujeth presented as evidence that Chocho was abusive to her. It needs everything that has been explained previously to make sense and to give context, otherwise it comes across as very one-sided and it’s hard to see why the things being said are actually being said. The events of the previous months lead up to this final situation.
First of all, the claim Fhujeth presented to me:
Uhh. Okay, day before is what we're talking about. We were in a convo and she was super into collecting all the Choros for it so the first thing she said was like, "aww I didn't get X choro in the roll" she immediately showed me a drawing after that and I replied with a very stock reply of, "I'm sorry" or something, but as I was sitting down my back just died on me. So I started to panic like, "oh my god I am in so much pain holy shit ahhhhhhafsdgsdfhgdhdg" which obviously caused me to not reply to the drawing cause I was in physical pain and now spazzing about how i'm at home alone and scared and that idk what to do and I can't call anyone and idk where my mom is and i am scared. I was freaking out. She mentioned the drawing again but I just was sorta like.... in freaking out mode by then. I eventually got to the floor, got proper care after laying on the floor home alone for an hour with the anxiety now that my friend hated me and that I was home alone and couldn't move. After my mom came home and I got treated for the pain I came up to apologize on utox and what not and the last message she had written was, "ugh whatever i'm gonna go watch tv"
When I brought this part up with Chocho...
[This is another thing that needs FAR more backstory than Fhujeth gives... but of course she wouldn't give the whole story I suppose... =T In any case, this event happened after months and months of her complaining about her back pain (and other pains, she was just apparently constantly in pain and on pain medication) and shooting down my ideas for ways to get it seen to or ease the apparent pain. Eventually, especially by the last month, I was sick of hearing it and starting to doubt it was actually as bad as she always said it was. It ALWAYS came up, but she was NEVER willing to do anything about it because money and weed is more important.]
Fhujeth: Yeah. I hope I can. x.x I am like, really.... blah. Chocho: Do you think it has to do with the med you had to drop and the lack of weed at all? =( Chocho: Some kind of withdrawal symptoms? Fhujeth: Oh, hey, would you be willing to reblog my promo post? You don't have to... because you probably don't want that on your wall right now, but yeah. Any withdrawl would be gone now. Chocho: Combined with the pain of your slipped disc Chocho: Cos that is not pleasant Fhujeth: I am used to the pain, that is not like, a thing that gets me. Chocho: Pain gets to anybody. u.u Fhujeth: It adds to it but it's not like.... what is angering me. Chocho: Is it the education thing? Chocho: Also, brb!! Fhujeth: Nah, it's the "I am pissed at my friend for not keeping me away from game centers even if I beg because I have no self control and will pile through hundreds of dollars easy because I am mentally sick and can't control myself even tho I begged them the other day to keep me away." Fhujeth: "I am pissed at them too for forgetting that shop exists after I spent a TOOOOON of money on blind bags.
Wow... just to comment here... that’s really not your friend’s responsibility. If you can’t control your own spending don’t put the blame on someone else! You’re saying right there that you have no self control and yet you’re pissed at someone else...
Fhujeth: Ahhh the chronic pain is so... Fhujeth: awakening Chocho: Your slipped disc? =( Chocho: I bet it is! Fhujeth: yeah and then like just pain everywhere else it's kinda messed up Chocho: How are you, besides your disc? =< Fhujeth: Sore xD Chocho: <=( How long have you been suffering this for? Fhujeth: Since I got here for sure uhhh, for the one on the higher part my back, since 2012 I had diagnosed a disc in my lumbar that was out but it is ok now Chocho: Hmm... >_< Can they pop back in place? Fhujeth: I don't have health insurance atm Fhujeth: so I can't get it treated Chocho: I meant on their own. =( Fhujeth: It could I guess Fhujeth: depends on the damage Fhujeth: basically it's really tender at this one spot and then it causes all the muscles to tense around it Fhujeth: and all the walking has been really bad Fhujeth: I get back from going out and the pain is so intense Chocho: Yeah... =( Hmm.. Can you get a hold of heat or massage packs that might help? Fhujeth: I have.... some menthol strips I been sticking on they help a bit Chocho: Mm! At least you have something! ;o; Fhujeth: yeah :D Fhujeth: and ibuprofen Chocho: Ibuprofen is amazing
Chocho: Yeah, came back from the doctor and Zenryoku Batankyu had finally arrived. =D Fhujeth: Ramen is not really healthy and the high sodium must ause inflamation and I am in insane pain today from it!! AHHH Congrats!!!! I should pick up those CDs Fhujeth: so are you ok :3 like from the doctor? Chocho: Ahhh okay. XD;;; Yeah, that's not good... I hope you feel better!
Chocho: *PRIVATE STUFF ABOUT MY FATHER* Fhujeth: Woow!! Chocho: *PRIVATE STUFF ABOUT MY FATHER* Fhujeth: That is already more support than I have gotten @-@ That is so cool! Fhujeth: ahh i feel crappppy Chocho: *PRIVATE STUFF ABOUT MY FATHER* I miss my Dad. =( Ahhh, still bad? ;m; Is there anything you can take? Fhujeth: ahh I am sorry you miss him ;.; Fhujeth: Yeah, weed, but I am waiting on my damn mom to finish with the laundryyyyyy Chocho: I haven't gotten to see him in a few years now, darn lack of money. Ohhh, would weed help then? Fhujeth: it helps me with pain, most. XD; It makes me forget I am in it.
Just to be completely clear, that chatlog has obvious edits to protect the privacy of Chocho and her father.
Fhujeth: Totty: See? I'm a lot cuter, and I have like, a better personality, and my eyebrows are well shaped and maintained. :3 Chocho: Ichimatsu: *holds up another drawing similar to the first except it has "shaped eyebrows" drawn on* Fhujeth: Totty: o_o *pulls out phone and checks self* No, wait, that could be deceiving me *runs to body length mirror in closet* *looks ok* ??? Fhujeth: (ugh my joints hurt) Chocho: Is it all the pain? =( Fhujeth: i dunno they just hurt all the sundde l.l Fhujeth: sudden^ Chocho: Hmm.... have you been tensing because of the rash? Fhujeth: not sure o.o Fhujeth: I'm sooo tired tho Chocho: I really hope the doctor can help on Monday. =(
Chocho: The idol otaku I mean Fhujeth: I am looking for those online @-@ They were lottery prizes too Fhujeth: it looks like there was when I was looking a big set and a small set, only the big set has choro and kara with the jackets and all Chocho: Yeah, I wanted the big set! Fhujeth: they look cute! if i seem weird today it's because I am in intense pain !! Chocho: Okay, I hope you feel better. =(
Fhujeth: like the one in the tv Fhujeth: ? Chocho: I imagine so! Fhujeth: it hurts to moveee ffff Chocho: Like the one on South Park Fhujeth: I might lay down with the tens unit -- yeah! Chocho: Okay! I hope you feel better!! Chocho: Thanks for listening to a part of my teens. XD Fhujeth: Not right now! I need to draw... but it just so distracting. No problem same for me! Fhujeth: You said someone you know how a disc issue right? Chocho: Oh, yeah, my Dad has I think Fhujeth: ok ^^ Chocho: Why do you ask? Fhujeth: if you know how it is like at all :o Chocho: Well, I don't have it personally.. =o Fhujeth: Mine is pretty painful at times! Like, "this hurts a lot I might puke" painful
Chocho: I love all the spinning they put into these intros, hahaha Chocho: Skillz Chocho: ZARD... ;m; Fhujeth: i miss the mid 00 Fhujeth: s Chocho: 8th opening with the dancing. XD Chocho: I don't miss the 00s at all Chocho: It was more of a time of suffering for me than I even realised Fhujeth: For me i grew a lot. if I reply slow right now it is because i wanna finish this art and go lay downb ecause pain
Chocho: I wouldn't want to send out my rare badge and get nothing Fhujeth: True! Fhujeth: ahh i slept really bad on my back Fhujeth: i am in so much pain i can't focus that is why i am on so late Chocho: Did you take some painkillers? =(
Fhujeth: Thanks! Chocho: No probs! Fhujeth: "wh-why is everything distorted" Fhujeth: Heh I wish I didn't have caffiene addiction so I didn't have to drink cofffee this morning! Chocho: How come? Fhujeth: It's a stimulant so it's going to make my anxiety worse too.. Though the inital effects the the pot should be out of my system by now I am confused @_@ Oh well. I wish it would stop. I'll shut up about it XD Chocho: I hope it passes for you, really! Fhujeth: I hope it passes too because it's more painful to be sitting on the computer and being awake and trying to be alive than it is laying in bed pretending I don't exist! I'm fighting so hard to go back to bed and not exist!
Chocho: Karamatsu's enjoying it at least Chocho: Vados wasn't even in the 3 episodes we watched, only the intros for a second or so Fhujeth: Sorry for not talking lots I have weird muscle pain going down my arms -.x Chocho: S'all right! Fhujeth: i've felt shitty I hope nothing is seriously wrong lmao Chocho: It's probably one huge body shock combination or jet lag and coming back from Japan and infection and tiredness Fhujeth: yeah ;.; Chocho: Probably sister and mother induced stress to put the cherry on top
Fhujeth: invisible trauma from being fickin Chocho: that's not a work book Fhujeth: nyaachan fanbook Fhujeth: omg i just sorta fixed my back but I hear if I move my disc will slip back in place Chocho: oh? Fhujeth: Yeah I used a TENS to stop all the pain and decompressed my back and it doesn't hurt right now but I am scared to move Chocho: that's no good Fhujeth: no and i guess i don't qualify for obama care or something so I do not get insurance Fhujeth: ahh well
Fhujeth: No. It stinks bad too. Chocho: as do cat farts Fhujeth: Yes. XD Fhujeth: I cannot stay up at all @_@ Chocho: too tired? Fhujeth: pain Fhujeth: and that time of month Chocho: i seeee Fhujeth: but my back being like a squished sandwich cookie is kinda gross Chocho: yeah... Chocho: i hope you feel better Chocho: wanna talk totty? Chocho: would that help at all? Chocho: cos Chocho: i mean Chocho: it's totty
Fhujeth: I accidentally hit end task when fixing something else - I have a lot to do but I am getting it done I am just freaking out some because my mom is making me do the back porch and I am only a third done, I'm in intense pain and I wanna get Jussy this commission by tonight!
Fhujeth: Are you feeling okay? Chocho: why do you ask? Fhujeth: Because you're my friend and I am concerned about your well being? Chocho: oh i meant if you thought i was acting weird or something Chocho: i have a headache and i'm peeved but otherwise ok thanks Chocho: you? Fhujeth: My back wont get better and the pain is intense no matter what I do and I'm running out of pot and the guy who was supplying me left the country I think Chocho: i remember you mentioning about the pot guy... Fhujeth: So I might be weird a few days after I 100% run out. x.x Chocho: ok! Fhujeth: But I need to figure out more pain managment ideas because it's pretty much at the point where I am unable to do very much. It's excrutiating to bend down to feed the cats and I haven't done hardly any housework in the past few weeks that required hevy lifting and when i was powerwashing the other day the pain was insane. Fhujeth: but yeah! That's how I've been! Fhujeth: Otherwise I've bene okay emotionally! Chocho: there has to be other ways Chocho: my friend goes to massage therapy and accupuncture for his pain Fhujeth: I have something that is like accupuncture! The problem is I don't have health insurance, otherwise I'd be all over physical therapy x.x Chocho: you're gonna be saving a buck by not buying weed Fhujeth: I think a session for physical therapy will cost me half a month's supply of weed Chocho: just go every 2 weeks Fhujeth: When I went they wanted me to go 2 or three times a week (I forget how many times but it was like 15 sessions) for some very specific things (sessions were 45 minutes and were workout, massage, stretch, and decompression, and TENS). I'll see if there is anything the state! I think right now my best option will have to be the way most americans manage pain... XD our ridiculously heavy duty pain killers that kill us slowly and surely.
[This log was nearing the end of us talking. She literally asked me how I was JUST to talk about how much pain SHE was in, then say she's not willing to pay for care.]
Chocho: but he gets bad bad pain Fhujeth: Ah! Ok! I have back pain! I wish had healthcare! I'll look into things more. I was thinking of getting one of those inversion tables! Chocho: heat pad might help too Fhujeth: I use heat, ice, and a mini-tens unit! (also those are great for cramp pain!) Fhujeth: Oh I remember what helped too is that stinky rub Chocho: i think if it's that bad, your pain, you should try these things out, if only a couple of times... like the massage treatment Chocho: it may well super help Fhujeth: I did twice! Fhujeth: err, I did physical therapy twice Chocho: ah well there you go Fhujeth: like 40 sessions! It helped but I went a lot. Chocho: i don't really have any other ideas Fhujeth: It's ok! Chocho: dried cranberries Fhujeth: What do those do :O Chocho: some kind of pain relief, i'm not sure
Fhujeth: I am in. So. much. Pain right now. I'm wanted to stay at the computer and still play sm but I think I'm gonna have to lay down and try to work on my back at the same time. What else do I need to do for Choromatsu and the meds :3
Fhujeth: i am so much pain i can't hardly walk Chocho: maybe you should rest.... Fhujeth: I'm gonna when the game comes try to lay on the floor with my legs up and try to get my spine to at least not hurt... gonna try to get some other work sorted first Chocho: ok! Fhujeth: Sorry for whining I'm kinda scared it's never been this bad and it wont stop Chocho: it's all right Chocho: i hjust hope you can get some relief Fhujeth: I have some vicadin it just recently expired i think...
Chocho: i looked up slipped disc treatment Chocho: "It can take about one to three months to recover from a slipped disc. Treatment usually involves a combination of physiotherapy, such as massage and exercise, and medication to relieve the pain. Surgery to release the compressed nerve and remove part of the disc may be considered in severe cases, or if the pain doesn't settle down over time. In many cases, a slipped disc will eventually shrink back away from the nerve and the pain will ease as the disc stops pressing on the affected nerve. Sometimes the slipped disc will stay pressing on the nerve, but the pain goes away because the brain learns to "turn down the volume" on the pain messages coming from the nerve. " Fhujeth: Yeah ;.; Chocho: i still recommend massages Chocho: once every 2 weeks Chocho: if you're in that much pain, surely it's worth a try? Fhujeth: I have a thing I am going to start to use for massages and start with it... I think mine isn't a slipped disc though it's the next step above that (unless it's the same name) Fhujeth: But massage would def help Fhujeth: I wonder if there is a place here that can do it not as a "spa" Chocho: it would be worth looking into if you're going to not be spending that $ on weed... use it on something else to help the pain Chocho: i would Fhujeth: Yeah I know! Trust me, I know. ;.; I tried doing some other stuff like laying the way you're supposed to but it felt like uhh how to word it..... Fhujeth: I was more sore when I got up
What stood out to me in this one was just how willing Chocho still was to help Fhujeth out with her pain despite everything that Fhujeth had put her through up until now. But it’s being mentioned so much it’s difficult to know how bad the pain really is.
Chocho: good Fhujeth: Ugh I am trying to massage the area and the pain got like 50 times worse Fhujeth: I think Chocho: i think it may well be a case of worse before better Fhujeth: it might wear off Chocho: cos you're shocking the system Fhujeth: Yeah. shocking the system? Chocho: yeah, as in it's not what your back is expecting Chocho: kind of like ice stings before it numbs Fhujeth: I hope! I feel kinda tense now x.x;
[These all lead up to the "day" where I was finally done with the topic always being about how much pain Fhujeth was in and me not being all too sure how much of it was true and how much was attention seeking... turns out the time I was finally done was the worst time to be done.]
[The pain stuff, whether is was a headache, a migraine, rashes, aches after working in the garden, her back or anything else... basically started, at the latest, around April when she was in Japan (condering that we first started talking at the very end of February that year). From that point, talk about pain came up all the time, it was draining and the pain just "escalated" all the time. And it continued right up to when I said I wanted out (Which was the end of November the same year).]
The logs here are just from the utox app and Chocho says these are not all the mentions of pain from Fhujeth.
This is where we got onto talking about the ignored artwork...
[I actually shared the artwork first, then commented about the Tabimatsu event. Her back didn't "escalate" until I mentioned "let's ignore it" about the art (which to be honest, she ignored my art a fair few times before then) which I had been actually drawing out some of our roleplay we had been doing, which I had been doing to try and distract her from the apparent pain. By this point, she had been complaining about "bad pain" so much (crying wolf, basically) that I... have to say, I no longer believed the severity. Here's the chatlog. With that in mind, you can see I'm tired of this same situation over and over, it just happened to be the worst time to make a comment. Either that or she escalated it BECAUSE I made a comment? I don't know, I can't be sure, I was only on the other side of the screen. After a while she went silent, so when I decided to go watch TV with my boyfriend, I left the note saying I was. It was blunt because I was annoyed, which I assume came across as heartless to people she showed. Sadly, timestamps weren't kept, so that context is lost.
Apparently the people who she showed at least partial logs to, she didn't mention that I was drawing the pictures to entertain her and help distract her, nor that I asked if she took pain meds and if they would help. Basically the only part she kept of mine was "thanks for ignoring my pic", I was told. So THIS is the "edited chatlogs" I mentioned. Editing means conveniently dropping details from the conversation too, being that because you've only shown snippits or because you've dropped lines entirely...]
Chocho: *PIC WAS HERE* Chocho: i never managed to get school uniform choromatsu from the event before it ends Chocho: there's no way i can get enough coins for another spin before the event goes, which sucks Fhujeth: I'm sorry >< Chocho: it's okay i guess what can i do? let's ignore it [<- note, this was me hinting about the ignored artwork] Fhujeth: uhhhhh my back is Fhujeth: very bad Fhujeth: atm Fhujeth: i am home alone Chocho: thanks for ignoring my pic can you get any painkillers or do ones like ibuprofen or paracetamol not work? Fhujeth: this is emergency Chocho: or do you have any of that one that worked the other day? Fhujeth: your pic is good I like it Fhujeth: sorry I am panicing Chocho: mmhmm [<- note, this is a response to “your pic is good I like it”, not that she is panicking] Fhujeth i can't move Chocho: have you got any of the one you used the other day Fhujeth: i can't move Chocho: the one that let you sleep well Fhujeth: like my back is that much pain i can't move Fhujeth: i am like leaning ovef in my chait Fhujeth: your picture, I like it! I am really sorry I can't focus right now. I don't mean to ignore it I'm freaking out and in a lot of pain and I can't do anything Chocho: i don't have any advice left Fhujeth: there is no advice Fhujeth: i am stuck here and scared Fhujeth: and hurting Fhujeth: till my mom gets back Fhujeth: i'ma try to fb her Fhujeth: she coming home Fhujeth: im trying t figur out how to get to the floor Chocho: im going to go watch tv
This is the conversation that happened a day before the chatlog that Fhujeth gave me as evidence that Chocho didn’t care about her pain while only being interested in the fact that Fhujeth ignored an artwork. After all of the previous “I am in pain!” claims how was Chocho supposed to know that THIS one was a dire emergency? Anyone who is told about someone else’s pain that many times is going to be desensitized to it and it becomes very difficult to tell what is bad and what is REALLY bad. Because Chocho wasn’t convinced that it was apparently an emergency, Fhujeth accuses Chocho of abuse.
Fhujeth claimed that the question about painkillers was insulting:
I might've forgotten when I worded the story but I rectified that. That was something that to me was more an insult than a concern because if I am in pain OF COURSE I am going to take pain meds.
Chocho gave me these...
Fhujeth: it's just she wants me to clean always at the worst time so I try to get it done in the am Chocho: That's a good idea.. u_u Fhujeth: There, now if I have to do anything it'll be powerwash Fhujeth: which I might do in a few minutes Fhujeth: because also if this pain gets worse I'll be unable to clean at all! Chocho: Hmm.. =( Have you been taking painkillers or..? Fhujeth: I will in a bit if it gets worse it's ok right now :3 Fhujeth: roombas are great (robot vaccuums) ahh Chocho: Okay! ;w; Just don't suffer too much, all right? <3 Hahaha, I bet! XD Fhujeth: oh I wont :3
Fhujeth: ahh my head hurts Chocho: How come? D= Fhujeth: not sure o_o Chocho: Headache? Fhujeth: Yeah ;.; Chocho: Can you take painkillers? D= Fhujeth: Yeah I may... brb gonna do the dishes Chocho: OK
Fhujeth: whch pattern Fhujeth: For kara? Chocho: Yeah! => Chocho: See if it's possible to shrink down Chocho: I doubt it cos it has small parts. XD Chocho: It might not even be worth trying... Fhujeth: I have a badddd migraine Chocho: Did you take painkillers? =< Fhujeth: Yeah not working x.x Chocho: Did you take paracetamol AND ibuprofen together?
Fhujeth: it's ok! also happy birthday again Chocho: Thank-you! ;w; Fhujeth: x3 no problem, I wish my head didn't hurt so bad. Chocho: Did you take ibuprofen AND paracetamol? =< You didn't answer Fhujeth: what is paracetamol? Chocho: It's a painkiller.. =o Chocho: One of the most common... Chocho: You can take it with ibuprofen as long as the ibuprofen you took doesn't have it in it. => Chocho: And it acts like a double whammy because it attacks pain in a different way Fhujeth: Ahhh, no I don't have that Chocho: Might be worth checking your painkillers to make sure they don't have it in already, then getting some if they don't! =o Fhujeth: it's hard to get that stuff here. Chocho: Is Japan really stingy with painkillers or something> Chocho: *? Fhujeth: well you can only get them in a pharmacy Chocho: Cos paracetamol is... the standard painkiller Fhujeth: I will sleep soon Chocho: Okay! ;w; Sounds like a good idea since you're in so much pain! Fhujeth: Yeah... I wanted to finish the bag but I will when I wake up. Chocho: Good idea.. =< Chocho: Don't suffer, you know? Fhujeth: Yeah x.x I am suffering at this point Chocho: You should try to rest! =< Chocho: Especially with a migraine Fhujeth: Yeah, I will sleep now!!!! Goodnight :3
Fhujeth: Back.. are you feeling betteR? Chocho: Yeah, you? Fhujeth: Nope x.x Chocho: Still in pain? Fhujeth: Yeah. ;.; Chocho: Did you take any painkillers? =) Chocho: *=( Chocho: Heh, shouldn't be smiling at that Fhujeth: it's ok XD You seemed pretty pissed at me when I left so... about to! Chocho: I was pissed at the world Fhujeth: I am used to people taking their frustrations out on me XD;; So I sorta knew you were upset about many things but I felt like I was in firing range. Did you wanna post that thing? Chocho: Ohhh no, I might have ranted about things to you but I don't go about ATTACKING my friends
[Any time she was in pain, I suggested/asked about painkillers and usually she hadn't even bothered to take them... so... painkillers were the first thing I always asked about every time.]
So hang on... every other time painkillers were brought up it was Chocho being helpful and it was appreciated... but this one time where ignored artwork also happened to be involved is was hugely insulting? I don’t get it.
And something else I’d like to mention. I’ve never seen Fhujeth mention pain before. There are endless instances of it in the logs from Chocho, but past Chocho saying goodbye to Fhujeth...?? Maybe it’s only ever in private conversations... but just a thought.
Part of Fhujeth’s conversation with me:
Ah, to add, yeah. So that event happened, I didn't log into the chat we used (utox) the next day so that night they IMd me talking just about 'Oh I guess Totty has big balls now" or something cause the yokai set came out... :S and I was like, "Wait are you for real you're not gonna ask how I am after that?"
Chocho gave more logs:
11/22/2016 chochomatsu just gotta say choromatsu is very amused that todomatsu is a tanuki and what that implies totally-totty Yeah. chochomatsu i'll leave you be
totally-totty And. The "icing on the cake" was instead of you sending me something saying, "are you ok? i know you were in a lot of pain yesterday." You had to tell me about Tanuki Balls. I think you're a great person and I like to RP and interact and chat with you but I think you think I don't care about you. chochomatsu tanuki balls? totally-totty Isn't that what your first message to me implied? chochomatsu not really besides the fact that that was trying to start conversation i wasn't even thinking about tanuki balls totally-totty What were you implying in your first message? chochomatsu tanuki's are portrayed/commonly seen as fat that's all are they supposed to have big balls too? totally-totty Yeah.
[The continuation of the "chatlog evidence" that Fhujeth cropped out, revealing that I wasn't actually talking about tanuki balls at all, but actually that tanukis are portrayed as fat, something she kept pushing on Choromatsu (and earlier, when I was working on Domatsu, Karamatsu) that is now Todomatsu instead. Even though I flat out explained myself there and then, I guess she thought that messaging her about tanuki balls was more offensive and better to use as "evidence", so she cropped the rest out.... also, one of the lines in her chatlog is out of order. Here's the true order;]
FHU'S 'EVIDENCE' ORDER;
chochomatsu i don't want to talk about this any more we are getting nowhere i don't think i am wrong for having emotions or feelings, but i obviously am, so i'm sorry i will leave it at that
totally-totty I understand where you're coming from, we are both at fault here or it was a misunderstanding. It was a bad situation where we both felt ignored by the timing of events and you expected me to do something that I didn't do.
chochomatsu here's what you want: i was completely 100% wrong, bad, nasty, horrible and i am sorry
totally-totty I think we're both at fault.
TRUE ORDER;
chochomatsu i don't want to talk about this any more we are getting nowhere i don't think i am wrong for having emotions or feelings, but i obviously am, so i'm sorry i will leave it at that here's what you want: i was completely 100% wrong, bad, nasty, horrible and i am sorry
totally-totty I understand where you're coming from, we are both at fault here or it was a misunderstanding. It was a bad situation where we both felt ignored by the timing of events and you expected me to do something that I didn't do.
totally-totty I think we're both at fault.
So... edited chatlogs? It’s a minor edit but it significantly changes the flow of the conversation in Fhujeth’s favor when read in the order Fhujeth showed it.
Additionally...
Fhujeth: I am back now! I have to try to clean my side of the house that is what I was doing the other day when we were talking when pain got me ;.; now it's all messy again and I am terrified so if I say that I am in very bad pain again it's probably the same as yesterday! I'll try not to "cry wolf" with pain that is tolerable from now on to help clear things up! Fhujeth: the day before^ Chocho: take it easy, ok?
[Fhujeth even admitted she had been crying wolf about her back pain before the fight after the event.]
[I found out later from others that Fhujeth chased all my potential friends away by spreading tiny nasty rumours about me to people who were other ask blogs in the fandom, in an attempt to keep them away from me. Telling them things like I was SO controlling and had a huge ego/bad attitude. I had no idea this was going on, but apparently she started super early into our friendship (the domatsu days, before chocho existed).]
[I found, after I had broken away from Fhujeth that I realised that she had really... muddied my mind. The way she was so quick to aggression or even a full out argument (which I really did not want) made me just nod along and agree with her nasty comments and tactics in order to defend myself from potential fallout and I felt disgusting about that after I broke away and my mind was cleared. I rarely stood up for my beliefs and morals whilst talking to her. I mean, sometimes I did? But usually I didn't. I dunno if maybe the people who talk to her now are doing that very same thing now themselves. She just had this toxic atmosphere that infects you. After I walked away I found that my mood was instantly more positive, even though she was trying her very best to destroy me publicly and privately. The absolute hell she put me and my name through after I left was actually less stressful than the frustration and pressure I had to deal with daily whilst we were talking, especially near the end.]
[Fhujeth would fight about /anything/. I'm pretty sure she enjoyed arguments (which I really, really do not) and liked to spur drama. So I would try and avoid that at all costs, not calling them out on their poor behaviour or bad morals because I didn't want to argue about things, ever. And the fights took forever, they lasted sometimes hours I think because you just can't be right against her. Even when the argument was as stupid as "what the right way to play DDR is". I could never win because she would never reconsider her opinion/point/stance. Basically the only way out of the argument was bowing down and saying "you're right, I'm wrong, you win". But of course, the response to that is always negative (and insulted) because she wants the argument to continue I suppose. And of course, if you're angry, the way you pitch "LET'S END THIS" is always going to be angry. I'm actually quite hard to anger and yet she managed repeatedly. Possibly more times in a single year than anybody on their own has managed to do (besides maybe my brother if we count my entire life). I can't believe just how many times I say I'm frustrated or angry or peeved or upset in these chatlogs looking back... it doesn't sound like me... <=/;;; Cos I'm not usually angry or peeved or upset... tired maybe... XD;;]
Fhujeth claimed to me that she was the one that tried to get away from Chocho.
That she sent me after I had chosen to stop signing in to get away from her.
Chocho gave me a small chatlog with her point of view...
Fhujeth: You having a good day today? Chocho: Yeaaah, enough. You? Fhujeth: Eh, was ok, Jussy did something minor but irritating to me Chocho: Really? =S What did she do? Fhujeth: she messaged me on two seperate accounts of mine within 5 minutes of each other saying Hi on one and "boop" on the other at 5am XD Chocho: Ugghhh... you might wanna tell her that it was 5am and you didn't appreciate it... Chocho: She probably doesn't think time zones Fhujeth: it was more so the... probably... 5 minutes within each other. I can get after a few hrs or osmething if it is important but just to say hi...... within 5 minutes is.... strange Fhujeth: Cus I know I messaged you twice the same day on different accounts but it was after a fight.... and it was over the span of a day. :S Fhujeth: But this was like 3 minutes or less even.. and not even to say anything.... important...
[By the last month of talking to Fhujeth, I have to be honest, I wanted out. But I could tell that if I told her "that's enough, I'm leaving" that she would... well, do exactly what she did. There were a couple of times after fights where I'd say something like "Is this the end?", hoping they'd say "Yeah, let's part ways" so that I wouldn't have to make the run for it and the parting would hopefully be mutual and peaceful, but every time, they wanted the friendship to continue. (As an interesting point, now I'm looking back at these chatlogs, basically every fight/argument had a "So what do you want to do then? We always fight anymore, should we still be friends??" from her in it. This was from quite early on though, so it looks like a threat, rather than a resoution.) The fallout I could sense scared me into not leaving, but I was completely done/spent emotionally otherwise. If I had just not signed into Tox ever again, I would be leaving behind all my friends on there and she would just come find me on tumblr anyway as always... but after "the back event", I found out about all of the horrible stuff she had been doing in regards to me even from months back, the whole talking about me behind my back and villainising me to others. So I decided that was it, wrote her a message about giving the "closure" that she wanted, that she had told me at the start of the friendship (if I wanted to leave I had to give closure, not just disappear). I didn't block Fhujeth so she could have her say and I got nothing but abuse back which I didn't respond to until she blocked me. I have not said a thing to her since. She even sent some horrible, abusive e-mails in the coming months after, knowing I'd see them. Also, it's probably worth mentioning that she sent my boyfriend of many years a direct malicious e-mail, trying to turn him against me.
She says that she was trying to get away from me for ages, but it was the other way around. I was terrified to leave, I even said so to one of my friends, because I could just tell from the atmosphere that if I left, no matter how I did it, she would follow me or try to destroy me. Which is exactly what she did.]
This is a chatlog of Chocho talking to one of her other friends (name censored for protection):
chochomatsu <name>, I'm scared... if I try to cut ties is she going to try and destroy me? It's pretty much the biggest reason why I've let myself be pushed around by her for so long.... this has been going on for months... chochomatsu I can't do it any more... chochomatsu If she's willing to ruin my reputation over a tiny scuffle/misunderstanding... because that's basically what that was a few days ago. Hurt feelings, not even a fight
And this... is the very last thing Chocho said to Fhujeth. The parting message:
11/26/2016 chochomatsu Hey. I can't do this any more.... I found out what you did regarding Monday/Tuesday. I'm not willing to put up with this any longer. It was fun while it lasted and I can't say I didn't have some good times with you, but enough is enough. This is the closure you asked for... thanks for being my friend.... I hope things go well for you from here on out. Goodbye! totally-totty You mean you hurt me so bad? It was fun when it lasted... What do you wanna do with what is owed? Just be even? totally-totty I think it hurt me that you did not get that you hurt me... And then guilt tripped me... Tried to put the blame on me. totally-totty So yeah. It was great while it lasted. Sans the times youd misunderstand me and I would put up with it. totally-totty But i am not all to blame here. If you cannot see what you did wrong. I feel so sad for you. I only retailiate when i have had enough. totally-totty What did you find out exactly? Just for reference. totally-totty That I told people you abused me tooons of times? That when I have had right to be paranoid and scared you told me not to hold it against you but when ai hurt you youve held it against me ever since. totally-totty Ill miss talking to you. But i wont miss the anxiety and stress of feeling like i was walking on eggshells to make sure i said things properly. totally-totty I wont miss you interpreting everything as either aggressive or ignored either. You have hurt me more than you actually know or probably grasp and all you cared was that I ignored your drawing. "If i was in pain id have done this" ya well im not you And id try to apologize but itd always go to a false ear. totally-totty So I leave you with this. I know it sucks to have epilepsy and other physical ailments but please... You have NHS. For your future... Please seek some psychiatric help. You are lucky enough that you get access to it. Utilize it. Also learn how to take a critique.
...wow. After everything I now know this is just... incredible. Fhujeth is insinuating that everything is Chocho’s fault here. That Chocho guilt tripped her(?), hurt her, misunderstood her... and that everything they ever spoke about in their friendship sparked anxiety and stress. And that final attack on Chocho’s physical illness is just flat out despicable. There is NO excuse for that. (Note: Chocho has given me full permission to include this information in this post)
Perhaps, given everything here, it is Fhujeth that needs to seek psychiatric help.
Past this point, Chocho claims to have not spoken to Fhujeth at all hoping that Fhujeth would eventually move on and not cause further drama over the broken friendship. Fhujeth didn’t do that (as I can back up). Emails were sent to Chocho from Fhujeth for months after the final goodbye...
"Have fun, I guess. You really hurt me. You have no idea how much you hurt me. You're a heartless person. I should've known when I first met you. I have no idea what your issue is..."
And...
“And I can NEVER forgive you for the shit you pulled on Jussy you desperate little fuck."
What... seriously?? Fhujeth was the one bugging Jussy for commissions and insulting her behind her back. If Fhujeth is referring to the two aliases thing... jesus fucking christ get over it! People have aliases, big deal! There is some SERIOUS spite here for reasons I can’t fathom. That Chocho managed to get away from her maybe? If you’ve read to this point you’ve seen the level of manipulation aimed at Chocho from Fhujeth.
And, quite importantly I think, it’s clear that Chocho was the one that wanted to get away, not the other way round. An abuser does not try to get away from their target, that’s what the abused does. The abuser is the one that takes chase once their target has got away.
Among other emails sent to Chocho from Fhujeth, there was also one apparently sent to Chocho’s boyfriend in an attempt to get him to turn against Chocho and reveal information to Fhujeth (this I couldn’t believe until I saw it, it’s a SERIOUSLY disgusting move). I wasn’t shown the entire email but I asked if I could see so Chocho asked her boyfriend to hand over some parts... (name changed to Chocho for privacy - real name was used)
Chocho did some really terrible things to me in the past and I can't say I haven't retaliated but even after I've tried to apologize she has kept it up. I just want peace. I have been trying to move on and it has been literally impossible, even with the blacklisting software and blocking.
I'm not here to criticize her or get mad at her, I just want to ask if you can check on her and what she is doing with ask blogging. I know she has stolen an idea from me now, and this I have records of. I think she is running multiple blogs under different aliases too. If anything I am actually more so worried for her mental health than anything else.
It's not my place to start anything. I just want you to look at what she is doing. Please, I urge you to keep this between you and me. I wouldn't be contacting a complete stranger if I wasn't getting desperate.
I think at this point she is running around four different tumblr "identities" and trying to play them off as if they are entirely different people despite it is very clearly in her art style that it is her.
Yes, really. Fhujeth actively tried to get Chocho’s boyfriend to reveal information to her behind Chocho’s back because she was paranoid about what Chocho was “doing with ask blogging”. Now I can’t speak for anyone else but I find this utterly despicable. Not to mention the continued attacks on Chocho’s state of mental wellbeing.
Extras...
[I had so, so many fights with Fhujeth because she'd take something the wrong way or she'd be rude/disgusting or she'd pick a fight.... and every fight lasted FOREVER and I was SO DONE with fighting. My 2 best internet friends for up to 10 years? I have probably had 1 argument with each in those years. And it didn't last and cleared up quick. My best friend in person that I have known since I was about 8 years old? I have had 1 fight with them EVER and it was because of another person. My other best in person friend I have never had a fight with ever. I had another best online friend who I had known since we were 12, she slowly drifted away over time due to changing interests and I think we lost touch when we were about 24 or older by the time that happened... we had 1 fight in the history of us being friends and that was when we were what... 15? Prime time for teenage friend arguments. In general I think it's natural to have at least ONE fight with your best friends that you know for years. But the sheer amount of fighting Fhujeth started between us in less than a year was just incredible...]
While looking for the chatlogs shown in this post, Chocho found a lot of these fights with Fhujeth... but because the post is already very long I have put these in a separate draft here:
https://totty-chan.tumblr.com/private/172180653683/tumblr_p62b4pvIRS1w7dwde
There are also other subjects of interest in this post although they weren’t strictly related to Fhujeth’s claims of abuse from Chocho that she discussed with me. There are also some logs and comments that extend upon the subjects covered in this post, but again, this post has grown into a monster already
tfl;dr
I (Sammy) have had my fair share of bad experiences with Fhujeth over the past year. I have known about the drama between her and Chocho but not any of the details until now. I approached Fhujeth about it asking for proof because I didn’t like the fact she was STILL going around accusing Chocho of being her “abuser” and I didn’t know why. After listening to Fhujeth’s argument and considering her evidence, I went to Chocho to ask her for her side. Up until now Chocho has been very unwilling to talk about anything to do with Fhujeth because it was a very hurtful topic for her. But when I told Chocho that Fhujeth is still claiming that she is the abused, Chocho decided to break silence and... well.. tell me everything. If you’ve read the post, I’d like you to make you own decision on all of this, BUT, in my opinion Chocho is the one that was abused. And in a big way, for a very long time. Manipulation, gaslighting, fear, uncertainty... you name it, Fhujeth tried it. And when Chocho finally decided enough was enough, Fhujeth took chase and terrorized Chocho privately and publicly for months after the friendship was broken up.
tl;dr of the tfl;dr
Fhujeth’s a manipulative, despicable piece of shit who thought she could frame Chocho for her own disgusting behavior.
Considering my personal experiences with Fhujeth and those that I have discussed with others in the past, this article expert-reviewed by a licensed professional counselor describes this situation to near-perfection. I am of the opinion that Fhujeth is living with Antisocial Personality Disorder, or ASPD.
https://www.wikihow.com/Spot-a-Sociopath
Please read if you can and consider your relationship with Fhujeth and if any of this is relevant to you.
Take care of yourselves.
Chocho, I really hope Fhujeth finally leaves you alone. After seeing the proof you have given me I now believe you have been framed for abuse you didn’t commit and I can honestly say you don’t deserve any of the hell you have been dealt for the last year and a half...
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Why Trump Should Be Thanking Alec Baldwin
New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/why-trump-should-be-thanking-alec-baldwin/
Why Trump Should Be Thanking Alec Baldwin
No one in American politics understands the dark art of ridicule better than Donald Trump. (“Welcome to the race, Sleepy Joe.”) And when it comes to seeing himself on the receiving end, nobody in American politics has a thinner skin. His fury at President Barack Obama’s roasting of him at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner may have motivated his own run for the presidency. More recently, his sensitivity to ridicule has been on sharp display in his seething reaction to Alec Baldwin’s running impression over the past three years on “Saturday Night Live.”
Baldwin has carved out a late-career niche as the nation’s highest-profile interpreter of Trump. For most viewers, his performance, all preening and bluster, has settled into comedy-staple territory. And for most presidents, rolling with SNL’s punches is just another part of the job. Neither is true for this particular viewer-in-chief. The performance gets further under Trump’s skin with each passing season.
Story Continued Below
“Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!” he tweeted on October 16, 2016, three weeks before winning the election. By early 2018, safely ensconced in the White House, Trump was still taking it personally: “Alec Baldwin, whose dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing me was agony. Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch.”
This year, Trump was back decrying the unfairness of it all, to the point of calling for an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. “Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution.”
The SNL season wraps up on Saturday, with many fans wondering whether Baldwin will make an appearance. His sketches are by now guaranteed crowd-pleasers, expertly crafted portraits of the inner boob behind the blowhard. They’re eye and ear candy for the mostly liberal urban sophisticates at whom the show is aimed. But if those viewers think they’re watching an evisceration of Trump, they should look more closely at what the sketches are really saying about their nemesis. And while it’s certainly within the president’s rights to refuse to laugh along, he’s dead wrong in suggesting that Baldwin’s portrayal is politically damaging. In fact, it may be one of the best things he has going for him.
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The sheer relentlessness of Trump’s disdain suggests that Baldwin’s impersonation must go beyond satire into something more subversive—that the 61-year-old actor is spewing poisonous propaganda against a duly elected leader. But to look back over the full Baldwin/Trump oeuvre since 2016 is to realize just how tame it is—and, in an important way, what a favor it does the president. Baldwin’s Trump bears a closer resemblance to the befuddled governor on the old “Benson” sitcom than it does “Dr. Strangelove” or “The Manchurian Candidate” or any other of the darker historical figures to whom he’s been compared. In Baldwin’s hands he’s foolish and self-deluded, all right, but he also sometimes seems abashed by the reactions he provokes and the trouble he accidentally stirs up. (“It’s awful. Everything’s falling apart. Sometimes I wish I had never been president,” he moans at the start of an “It’s a Wonderful Life” parody; “All alone again. No one understands me,” he sighs in a skit on his trip to South America.)
By giving Trump qualities he’s shown little evidence of in public—conscience, introspection, even regret— “SNL” does him an enormous favor. It offers a glimmer of sympathy about his motives, inviting the generous assumption that there’s a better and more self-aware man lurking behind the Twitter feed. In portraying the president as a beleaguered figure, it even allows the conclusion that the real threat to democracy isn’t Trump’s venomous rhetoric or disregard for constitutional norms, but the ruthlessness of the Washington system that confronts this blustering, fumbling uncle.
Now, as House Democrats debate the level of the president’s culpability for a series of actions that might reasonably appear to be attempts to obstruct justice, the “SNL” skits seem like grounds for exculpation. In the wake of the Mueller report, politicians, along with average Americans, are struggling to separate two competing notions of Trump—the fast-talking interloper who just got in over his head on some legal stuff, and Trump the deliberate lawbreaker. For instance, when the new president asked Chris Christie to tell then-FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, how much he liked him and considered him “part of the team,” did he know—as Christie, a former U.S. attorney, immediately did—that the request was inappropriate?
Baldwin’s characterization, as harshly as it may be intended by the actor and the writers who shape it, offers up an answer to that kind of question: No, of course, he had no idea. It’s a picture of the president as an uncomprehending naif. In the high-stakes argument about his fitness for the presidency, it amounts to an exhibit for the defense. Perhaps Trump should be thanking Baldwin, not threatening him.
The hidden influence of this kind of comedy, the widely seen late-night material that ends up as YouTube clips and watercooler fodder, lies in its ability to shape a narrative outside the news, interpreting people’s motives rather than just character. The comedian professes to peel off coats of varnish and reveal an essential but hidden truth. Often that truth is anodyne but amusing, and becomes an instant trope—a predictable laugh line, like Bill Clinton’s lustfulness. Baldwin’s vain but incompetent Trump is well within this tradition, with the audience chuckling along with his every ego-shattering overreach. But the long history of late-night comedy, especially the 44 years of “SNL,” shows that sometimes these comedy missiles really do land on the target. That’s the charge that Trump is leveling against Baldwin and “SNL.” He’s right about the power of late-night hit jobs. He’s just wrong in pitching himself as a victim.
***
Like many great satirical portrayals, Baldwin’s Trump is built around a single mannerism that isn’t so much copied from life as interpreted to express an inner truth. When this Trump messes up, his lips turn into a stupefied O. This gesture of surprise—the signature of Baldwin’s portrayal, which draws the biggest guffaws—usually comes when Baldwin/Trump does something impetuous (such as naming Kanye West his new strategist) or merely embarrassing (picking up a phone and finding Stormy Daniels on the line).
The narrative that emerges from three years of Baldwin’s Trump skits is that of an overeager salesman who gets swept up by a political wave he can’t control and washes ashore at the White House, the unintended victim of his own stunt. There he is, armed with nothing but his reserve tank of bluster and bravado, trying to brave his way through a job for which he is manifestly unprepared.
Like the subgenre of political movies in which average guys accidentally end up president, typified by “Dave,” the Trump sketches on “SNL” are essentially fish-out-of-water comedies. The humor comes from watching the imposter fake his way through the White House obstacle course. That may not be entirely flattering to Trump, but it is closer to his own view of his situation—which he once described as “surreal”—than to that of his most worried critics. For the jokes to work, the audience has to sympathize, at least a little, with his predicament.
For a franchise built on having an edge, especially when it comes to culture and politics, it might feel like “SNL” has gone soft. But despite its reputation for pushing boundaries, earned mostly in its early, pathbreaking days, “SNL” has only rarely been a source of political blasphemy. When it comes to public figures, it draws more giggles than gasps.
Over its four-plus decades, the show has cut down eight presidents (nine, if you count its early retrospective Nixon skits) and dozens of candidates, all without drawing much electoral blood. Its skits about Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were built around great comic turns by Darrell Hammond and Will Ferrell, but otherwise tracked closely to other late-night depictions of Clinton as louche and Bush as a dim-witted cowboy; “SNL” only added to the archetypes. That was better than it fared during the eight-year presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, who were their own archetypes. The show failed to produce consistently funny portraits, striking pure comedy gold only once in those years, in the late Phil Hartman’s memorable “Reagan Mastermind” sketch at the height of the Iran-Contra era. The joke then, unlike today, was that the president might actually be a master of self-control.
Dana Carvey’s memorably wacky, way-out-there take of George H.W. Bush remains a milestone of comic impersonation, though it’s arguable whether it had any political impact; the same with Dan Aykroyd’s know-it-all Jimmy Carter.
In retrospect, the show’s most politically lethal presidential portrait was its very first. When what was then known as “NBC’s Saturday Night” went on the air in October 1975, Gerald Ford had been in the White House a little more than a year, and America still wasn’t sure what it had gotten in its first unelected president. The amiable Ford arrived with a barrel full of goodwill from his decades as a popular House leader, but struggled to project himself on a broader stage. “Saturday Night” filled in the gaps. A former college football player (at the University of Michigan, no less), Ford was one of the country’s most athletic chief executives. Assuming the presidency at 61, he spent his vacations slaloming down the slopes of Vail rather than sipping wine on Martha’s Vineyard. But one of those ski trips included a rather mundane spill caught on camera, which combined with another slip when he carried his own umbrella down the rain-soaked steps of Air Force One to make a trend.
Enter Chevy Chase, the floppy-haired, insouciant writer and sketch comedian who became the show’s first star. He started interpolating falls in which the president tumbles within an inch of his life only to emerge with his chin high, his expression a Peter Sellers-like deadpan. Pretty soon, the show’s opening act every week was Ford falling down, and Chase began enacting other made-up gestures of presidential clumsiness, like hearing a phone ring and putting a full water glass to his ear. The message sank in: The unelected president was truly an accidental president.
Ford never quite survived that depiction; Chevy Chase’s falls cut him down to size, emphasizing his ordinariness. They became the physical expression of his illegitimacy and lack of charisma. When Ford lost the 1976 election by 2 percentage points, one could argue that “SNL”’s role in shaping his image had really hurt him.
Nonetheless, the good-natured Ford praised Chase and even appeared briefly on the show, thereby cementing his nice-guy reputation. In so doing, he started a trend in which the targets of “SNL” skits gritted their teeth and pretended to play along with the joke. George H.W. Bush invited Carvey to perform for his White House staff; in characteristic Bush fashion, a friendship ensued that lasted 25 years.
No doubt someone told the stories about Ford and George H.W. Bush to Sarah Palin, the subject of an epic impersonation by Tina Fey that was both as inspired as Carvey’s Bush and as devastating as Chase’s Ford. The real-life Alaskan governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate appeared on the show, looking like she’d rather be elsewhere, and offered a few uneasy one-liners, but the good-sport vibe didn’t carry over: Viewers kept laughing at her, not with her.
Palin’s flop didn’t deter the Hillary Clinton of 2016 from trying her own version of the Ford approach for dealing with “SNL,” appearing as a world-weary bartender while Kate McKinnon, playing Clinton, soaked up her advice. It was a funny moment, and the real Clinton looked reassuringly human standing behind a bar and calling herself Val. But like a dash of spritzer in a very dry wine, it barely reduced the acidity of McKinnon’s years of skits mocking Clinton as power-hungry and insincere. In interviews, McKinnon has expressed her admiration for Clinton, and no one doubts her sincerity. But McKinnon happens to be the most unsparing of caricature artists, a sketch-comedy assassin. Just ask Kellyanne Conway, Jeff Sessions, Lindsey Graham or many other targets of her image-shaping lacerations.
Trump may have been the one grumbling, but Clinton was on the losing end of 2016’s “SNL” primary. A transparently phony, cackling laugh; a finger wave that managed to be both withholding and condescending; an unquenchable thirst for power that provided the undercurrent for almost every skit: This was the Clinton-from-hell of voters’ nightmares, just plausible enough to settle over the campaign like an indictment. (If you aren’t convinced, just compare with the far more flattering, earnest Clinton portrayed by Amy Poehler during her 2008 run.) Yes, McKinnon’s Clinton was better-informed and far, far smarter than Trump—that was the rub, however. Where was her moral core? McKinnon provided an answer: ruthless ambition.
Like Chevy Chase and Tina Fey, Kate McKinnon is a writer as well as a performer, and her characterizations seem to come from somewhere outside her own persona: They’re like a few devastating paragraphs in a satirical novel. Alec Baldwin followed a different path to fame. He was a cinematic leading man who grew into a character actor. He learned in the proving ground of situation comedy how to show glimpses of humanity in otherwise objectionable figures—thus securing at least a winking share of the audience’s affection. That put Trump in the hands of a gentler satirist.
Despite his well-known aversion to the president—he has said it pains him to play Trump, and has described the president as a con man, a stooge of Russian President Vladimir Putin and worse—Baldwin unconsciously allows some of himself to spill over into his Trump. When Baldwin’s Trump listens to a barely coherent ramble from Kanye West in a sketch from late last year, he is in on the joke. “Oooh, this guy might be cuckoo,” he says to himself, in one of Baldwin’s verbal thought bubbles. He compares West to Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un (“and they made a lot more sense than him”) before musing, “He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t listen to anyone but himself. Who does he remind me of? Oh my God, he’s black me!”
***
If these types of self-aware interior monologuesserve a humanizing function, warming up Trump’s image, why is he complaining? One reason is, of course, Trump’s renegade populism, which requires enemies. Trump has to appear as the victim of powerful elites in order to define himself by what he’s up against. His assault on Baldwin and “SNL” is of a piece with his similar rants against Jim Acosta and CNN.
There’s also vanity. Attacks on Trump’s competence and intelligence land on sore spots. For a candidate who scores his best numbers, by far, among the demographic that never attended college, he’s surprisingly quick to assert his Ivy League bona fides. He even ordered Michael Cohen to keep his educational transcripts under wraps, lest any bad grades from half a century ago find their way into the media.
These two possible explanations for Trump’s attacks on Baldwin frame the key question of his presidency, the one people are grappling with in post-Mueller Washington: Is Trump calculating, or is he improvising?
Trump-the-calculator presumably knew that his out-of-the-box praise for Putin during the 2016 campaign would increase his chances of a lucrative score with Trump Tower Moscow, using one of the sacred rituals of American democracy for his business advantage. Trump-the-improviser was just faking his way through, letting politics and business become intertwined mostly because he was acting on instinct and didn’t know the guardrails.
What appears to be authenticity is one of Trump’s greatest electoral calling cards, and Republicans tend to take it at face value. He’s an amateur in a professional game, and that explains why he sometimes breaks the rules. There’s a kind of everyman logic behind his actions, and his supporters want him to shake up the system. Despite their antipathy toward him, there are many Democrats who assess him on similar terms. In their eyes, Trump is woefully, agonizingly, even dangerously unqualified for the presidency, but he’s not fundamentally ill-intentioned, except perhaps in some of his prejudices. This may seem to them like a devastating judgment, which is embedded in Baldwin’s portrayal on “SNL.”
But there are, of course, much harsher assessments of Trump. One, suggested by the Mueller report, is of a man who willfully used the tools of his office for his personal benefit, who demanded illegal and unethicalacts from his subordinates, threatened them and tried to replace them when they refused to go along and shredded legal and political norms in the process. In trying to save himself, that version of Trump isn’t some rogue elephant acting on instinct, but a narcissist who puts his own interests ahead of the country’s. There is, presumably, no twinkle in Trump’s eye when he orders his Treasury secretary to refuse a congressional subpoena of his tax records, no sharp intake of breath when he invokes executive privilege to shield an investigation into his own campaign. His mouth doesn’t twist into a petrified O when he maligns Robert Mueller or calls on Republican appointees of the Supreme Court to protect him.
This Trump isn’t the stuff of caricature, or the hapless figure of fun portrayed on “SNL.” He’s the one who shows up on TV nearly every day, president of the United States despite the disdain of all those knowing elites, bending Washington to his will.
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As the season heats up, Off-Broadway is showcasing plenty of screen stars — or maybe it’s the other way around. Click on the photographs to learn the show and the theater, then check out details in my guide to the Off-Broadway Spring 2019 Guide ,
Uzo Aduba in Toni Stone Lydia Diamond (Roundabout)
Alan Cumming in Daddy by Jeremy O. Harris (Vineyard and the New Group)
Daveed Diggs in White Noise by Suzan-Lori Parks (Public Theater)
Chris Noth and Isabelle Huppert in The Mother by Florian Zeller (Atlantic)
Debra Jo Rupp in The Cake by Bekah Brunstetter (MTC)
Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal in Sea Wall/A Life by Simon Stephen and Nick Payne respectively (The Public)
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
The Neurology of the Soul
If Edward Einhorn has given his play a title that might prove a tad off-putting to anybody but neurologists who read Scientific American, the playwright has fashioned an accessible plot that is more or less a love triangle, which allows him to weave in neurological observations about his trio of central concerns – love, art and marketing.
The Scarlet Pimpernel
There was one thrilling moment in Manhattan Concert Productions’ one night only concert version of Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton’s “Scarlet Pimpernel” at Lincoln Center last night. Norm Lewis as the evil French revolutionary Chauvelin draws his sword on Tony Yazbeck, who portrays a man with a double identity, the masked hero of the title, and the English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney. Yazbeck, looking for a weapon, grabs the first violinist’s bow. He apologizes, and seeks help next from the conductor of the New York City Chamber Orchestra, who just happens to have a sword handy. Lewis and Yazbeck fight gallantly, Laura Osnes as Sir Percy’s wife Marguerite St. Just gets in on the act — and then suddenly, Yazbeck starts dancing. Yazbeck is one of the best dancers on Broadway, and it’s Heavenly. Then Lewis joins him in a soft-shoe routine.
Otherwise, despite a starry cast with great voices, there is unlikely to be much of a reassessment of this musical that critics called “middlebrow,” “wooden,” “pulpy” and boring when it opened on Broadway in 1997, but whose fans kept it running for more than two years. One thing has changed: It’s easier to see the exaggerated foppishness of Sir Percy and his men (in order to escape suspicion that they are the heroic he-men that do battle against the French) as crossing the line into homophobia.
Books:
Looking for Lorraine
Lorraine Hansberry was just 28 years old when “A Raisin in the Sun” opened on Broadway — 60 years ago next month – and lived only six more years, dying of cancer at the age of 34. Yet her short life was extraordinarily full and varied. She was the privileged daughter of an affluent, politically active Chicago family whose father’s anti-segregation lawsuit was resolved in his favor by the United States Supreme Court. She was a radical activist and anti-colonialist who gave speeches on Harlem street corners… She was an intellectual who studied with the legendary scholar and activist W.E.B. DuBois and debated with novelist Richard Wright; a bohemian who lived in Greenwich Village in an interracial marriage; a closeted but active lesbian who wrote short stories about lesbian life under a pseudonym; a celebrity who formed close friendships with both writer James Baldwin and singer Nina Simone…
Fraver by Design: 5 Decades of Theatre Poster Art
Some of the theater posters Frank Verlizzo designed hang on the famous flop wall of Joe Allan’s restaurant. Some hold a prominent place in the homes of grateful Broadway stars. But many are images embedded in various parts of our brain via images in newspaper ads, on the side of buses, t-shirts, album covers, and up and down the Great White Way. Many of those posters appeared in an exhibition at the New York Library or the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, and are now in his coffee table book…
“Just a Homosexual at a Broadway Show”
A passage from Less (Little, Brown), the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Andrew Sean Greer about a middle-aged gay writer living in San Francisco who takes a trip around the world to avoid attending the wedding of his ex-lover. His first stop is New York: “New York is a city of eight million people, approximately seven million of whom will be furious when they hear you were in town and didn’t meet them for an expensive dinner���It is completely reasonable to call none of them. You could instead sneak off to a terrible, treacly Broadway show that you will never admit you paid two hundred dollars to see. This is what Less does on his first night, eating a hot dog dinner to make up for the extravagance. You cannot call it a guilty pleasure when the lights go down and the curtain goes up, when the adolescent heart begins to beat along with the orchestra, not when you feel no guilt. And he feels none; he feels only the shiver of delight when there is nobody around to judge you. It is a bad musical, but, like a bad lay, a bad musical can still do its job perfectly well. By the end, Arthur Less is in tears, sobbing in his seat, and he thinks he has been sobbing quietly until the lights come up You could instead sneak off to a terrible, treacly Broadway show that you will never admit you paid two hundred dollars to see. This is what Less does on his first night, eating a hot dog dinner to make up for the extravagance. You cannot call it a guilty pleasure when the lights go down and the curtain goes up, when the adolescent heart begins to beat along with the orchestra, not when you feel no guilt. And he feels none; he feels only the shiver of delight when there is nobody around to judge you. It is a bad musical, but, like a bad lay, a bad musical can still do its job perfectly well. By the end, Arthur Less is in tears, sobbing in his seat, and he thinks he has been sobbing quietly until the lights come up and the woman seated beside him turns and says, “Honey, I don’t know what happened in your life, but I am so so sorry,” and gives him a lilac-scented embrace. Nothing happened to me, he wants to say to her. Nothing happened to me. I’m just a homosexual at a Broadway show.“
The Week in New York Theater News
Tony Calendar April 25: Official cut-off for 2018–2019 Tony Eligibility. … April 30: 2019 Tony Award nominations revealed. … May 1: Meet the Nominees Press Reception. … May 21: Tony Nominees’ Luncheon. … June 3: The Tony Honors Reception. … June 9: The 73rd Annual Tony Awards, taking place at Radio City Music
.@DontStoponBway, the Michael Jackson musical, has canceled its pre-Bway run in Chicago (due to complications involving the now-settled @ActorsEquity strike) and will now have its world premiere on Broadway in the summer of 2020. pic.twitter.com/DwcV1OhoAK
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) February 15, 2019
@arsnova kicks off its @GreenwichHouse residency w/ #MrsMurraysMenagerie, created by @the_madones (Miles for Mary) March 26-April 27 A focus group probes the parents of the target audience for a 1970s children’s TV show.
Cast replacements
Frozen: Ryann Redmond as Olaf, Joe Carroll as Hans, and Noah J. Ricketts as Kristoff j
Brian d’Arcy James and Holley Fain lead the new (American) cast of The Ferryman
Aladdin: Ainsley Melham becomes Aladdin and Mike Longo Kassim
Odd Calamities in The Theater
Panic at Hamilton in San Francisco
Manhole explosion on 50th Street Manholes exploding on 50th Street forced the evacuation of New World Stages, and canceled performances of “Jersey Boys” and “Avenue Q.” ”Puffs” “A Spirited History of Drinking,” and most appropriately, The Play That Goes Wrong.
Heard FIVE manhole explosions on W 50th St. The first one was right outside Avenue Q theatre. #HellsKitchen #NYC pic.twitter.com/oPa8O51v43
— Renee Xiaoyu Wang (@reneexiaoyuwang) February 17, 2019
How Extra Arts Education at School Boosts Students’ Writing Scores — And Their Compassion
How art creates community by Teresa Eyring
Comedy and Theater
Laughing Matters by Matthew McMahan in HowlRound One can look at almost any comedy, from the irreverence of The Book of Mormon, to the agitprop of the Latino collective Culture Clash, to the philosophic whimsy of playwright Sarah Ruhl, and find a whole host of information about the way a culture thinks and feels and acts….Laughter, then, tells us who we are even when we don’t want it to, and the American theatre would be remiss to ignore it.
Why Comedy Is Eating Theatre’s Lunch by Jason Zinoman in American Theatre A message to the theatre: Comedy is, if not your enemy, then at least a very formidable rival. TV was long seen as the enemy of theatre. A common criticism you would often hear of a play is that it was too much like a sitcom. But TV was always fundamentally different than theatre. Comedy, on the other hand, shares a lot. It is a live art form, and the same romantic defenses you often hear of theatre you can also hear from comics—the beauty of its ephemerality, the present-tense nature of the form in a time when everyone is on screens. People who once went into the theatre are now going into comedy.
“I’m Not A Comedian…I’m Lenny Bruce” will begin an eight-week engagement at The Box (189 Chrystie Street) March 8th.
Yes, who ARE you? Answer: The art work is by Shantell Martin, part of the New York City Ballet art series.
Screen stars on Off Broadway Stages. Tony Calendar. Comedy and Theater: Why you laughing? Just A Homosexual at a Broadway Show. #Stageworthy News of the Week. As the season heats up, Off-Broadway is showcasing plenty of screen stars -- or maybe it's the other way around.
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