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ID: #MEDessay

Like the title suggests: this essay will be discussing the topic of sexual abuse (with a focus on CSA) in-depth and how it's treated in society. If this topic is deeply upsetting to you, please proceed with caution.

This blog post will also discuss spoilers for my eyes deceive as well as potential spoilers for the following: mouthwashing, silent hill 2, emergence, shoujo tsubaki, the lacey games series and vladimir nabokov's "lolita."

Also, just as a heads-up: this essay will be much, MUCH longer than my other blog posts so far due to there being a LOT to talk about regarding this topic so buckle in.

If you have plans on checking out my eyes deceive, i would highly discourage against watching a lets play on youtube as most people who play the game spoil it's bad ending in the thumbnail (which is an issue i will discuss in-depth in this post) the game is on itch.io if you wanna play it for yourself.

Horror is a truly amazing genre.

I've been into horror media ever since i was around 8 years old and barely supervised on the internet; five nights at freddy's, creepypasta and my little pony grimdarks were all my jam back then. I remember playing minecraft and constantly looking over my shoulder thinking herobrine was gonna get me, looking out my bedroom window at night thinking i'd see slenderman, watching FNAF theory videos religiously and playing out violent stories with my MLP figures; i was definitely a weird kid, that's for sure. As a now 20-year-old, my favorite subgenres of horror include medical horror, religious horror, 50's B-movies and, relevant to what we'll be discussing in this essay: psychological horror.

Accurate to the name, psychological horror often provides a more grounded and realistic approach to horror; mainly creating fear via focusing on one's mental and emotional state and the deeper, darker parts of our brain that we dare not tread. Something i like about the subgenre is how it often tackles heavy subject matter and the trauma that comes with it; of course, otherworldly monsters and masked slashers are scary, but there's many things about the real world that are far more horrifying than anything you can find in fiction. This is where our main subject for today comes in:

"My eyes deceive" is a short horror game by independent developer nouhidev, the game is less of a traditional video game and moreso meant to be an interactable experience, or "empathy simulator" you could say. I'm sure you've heard of the game before as the game used to have a very popular (though now defunct) fan-remake on roblox and many youtubers have played the original, including markiplier. Though something i've noticed is how most people who discuss the game on youtube almost always play it up as "the most disturbing game they've ever played" which, while yes, that IS an accurate descriptor of the subject matter present in my eyes deceive; when most of these people accompany this statement alongside putting blatent spoilers for the game in the thumbnail, i can't help but feel like there's some sort of deeper issue that needs to be discussed. At first: i thought this was more of an issue with media literacy, and while that DOES have a role in this situation, as i gave it more thought and did a little research, i found that it may possibly, whether people realize it or not, be a byproduct of bigger problems in our society. But before we get into that, we need to explain the plot of my eyes deceive. (Do be warned though that it's been a while since i watched mark's lets play of the game and i may get some small story details off)

The story follows the day-to-day life of a little girl stuck in a basement, she isn't named at any point in the story though for the sake of this essay, let's call her "eve." The main gameplay loop goes as follows: eve wakes up for the day, she takes some (as of now) unspecified medication, she washes her hands, she eats, she showers (which is referred to in-game as "cleansing herself") and lastly waits for an unseen man referred to only as "papa" to come check on her. The waiting process takes a couple minutes which the player can spend in the meantime either watering the two plants in the basement or playing on a gamepad in eve's playroom, it only has one game on it however: a keep-away style game where you have to keep a blank square away from other squares that are following it for a few seconds, with each level in the game adding more squares to avoid the further you progress. Once papa finally shows up, the two have a conversation and eve goes to bed with a surreal dream sequence following suit.

On the first day, papa explains to eve that she needs to take her medication everyday because she has some unnamed illness. On the second, he gives eve a diary so that she could write down her thoughts and tells her that the world is filled with monsters pretending to be human, that he doesn't want them to find her and not to speak to anyone unless they tell her a secret password. The two establish their password to be "apple," eve however doesn't know what an apple is so papa explains to her that it's a "rare" food from "the outside world." On the third day: papa explains to eve that he'll be gone for a day or two. Time goes by and once he comes back, papa gives eve an apple which she appreciates very much, so much so that she even writes in her diary that she wishes he'll find more for her soon. The next day however, eve doesn't hear from papa....nor the day after that; several days go by and all the while eve's diary entries grow less and less optimistic and more depressing and almost nihilistic in a way. Here, the player is given the option on whether or not eve even NEEDS her medication and whichever option you choose decides which ending you get. If the player chooses that eve stops taking her medication: we're given the good ending. Eventually papa comes back after seemingly weeks of abscence and checks on eve for the final time; when eve goes to bed that night: we're sent to the final dream sequence of the game, eve is in a more surreal version of the basement with giant chains everywhere and the basement door open, though going through it only reveals an endless loop of the same basement. Here, eve is able to break the chains, symbolizing her freeing herself from her captivity; once this dream sequence ends, the screen cuts to black as we hear sounds of papa unbuckling his belt as he prepares to rape eve right before something else distracts him and he runs back upstairs. Once eve wakes up (...although it is implied she was already awake to hear what happened and was only pretending to be asleep) she goes upstairs to finally see the rest of the house; here we see newspapers discussing papa's crimes and receipts for sleeping pills strewn about, it's implied that the police had finally caught up to papa and arrested him, eve then goes outside and sees the sun for the first time as the game ends. However, if the player chooses to have eve keep taking the sleeping pills: we're shown the more commonly known and quite infamous bad ending; papa still checks on eve and we're shown the same dream sequence as before, however eve is unable to break her chains. The game cuts to several months into the future and while she DOES go upstairs, we're not shown the rest of the house; the game just cuts to black and it's heavily implied that eve is pregnant with her rapist's child, with text on screen reading "why is my belly so round and big?"

When you look at videos about my eyes deceive on youtube: many of them primarily focus on the bad ending of this game, putting the final line front and center in their thumbnails as a way to sell you on how disturbing and fucked up the game is. Some even saying that you should never play the game and one person i saw even implying that the topic of forced pregnancy was only added in as shock value which just isn't true if you looked a little deeper and took the game's symbolism into account: in some mythologies (specifically norse and northern caucasian) apples are associated with fertility, with there even being a legend in the latter mythology about a magical apple tree that guarantees whoever eats from it will have a child in the future depending on how the apple is eaten. And the plants in the basement are clearly there due to how plants in general are traditionally a symbol of growth and new life, what makes this even more obvious is how eve talks to her plants: as she refers to one of her plants as "little one" and tells it to grow big and strong, making it abundantly clear that the plant represents the "little one" growing inside her. Lastly, while it's a smaller thing in comparison, whenever eve writes in her diary: her handwriting shows that she always draws the O's way bigger than any other letters, which was an intentional choice to represent eve's growing stomach (...though if you really wanted to you could probably also interpret this as being an allegory for how the vagina dilates during labor.) The reveal of eve's pregnancy is supposed to feel like a punch in the gut for the player, and honestly, i find the way so many people feel free to spoil something this big in a game just for the sake of saying "LOOK HOW HORRIBLE THIS IS!!!" Extremely disrespectful to the developer, the game and the message it's trying to convey; it's as if they think that since the game is less subtext-heavy with it's subject matter that nobody will give a shit. To me, this is like if a youtuber made a video about mouthwashing and made the thumbnail a closeup of anya's dead body alongside text summarizing her whole character arc throughout the game; or if someone made a video on undertale and played it up as "the most disturbing game ever made" because of the game's optional genocide route.

This had lead me to really start thinking: why is it that when a heavy topic such as sexual assault is sugarcoated or hidden in some way in media, it's praised and heralded as "good" representation, seen as "good" storytelling and people are able to have civil, mature discussions about it....yet when the topic is inavoidable in the narrative, is the main focus of the story and actively challenges the viewer, suddenly nobody wants to acknowledge it...or when they do: they say it's "gone too far" and sensationalize it as the most horrible thing on earth? Obviously it should go without saying that i don't think media such as mouthwashing don't DESERVE the love and attention they get, or that you can't use subtext when writing serious topics.....but i just can't help but notice a pattern.

My eyes deceive isn't the only piece of media that deals with dark topics that's labeled as going "too far," a few i can name off the top of my head are the coffin of andy and leyley, urbanspook's "the painter," the various novels by extreme horror author aron beauregard (though arguably the two most talked about are the slob and playground) and the terrifier film series. Personally, i feel as though saying that something went "too far" in regards to fiction is a really vague criticism and based moreso on subjective thoughts and opinions; i am of the belief that absolutely anything and everything is fair game when it comes to writing and storytelling, and that it's moreso how well you handle the topic that's important. For example: a story revolving around all the different horrors of the world may include things like animal abuse, sexual assault, hate crimes and other such terrible actions and describe them in painstaking detail....but if it's written well and the subject matter is added with meaning, then it can potentially be a powerful work of fiction that helps brings awareness to it's topics. Typically i've found that when someone says a work of fiction has gone "too far," they usually just mean that they don't have the eloquency to explain HOW the subject matter is handled poorly (...or simply the topic just makes them uncomfortable and they think that's a moral failing on the writer's end.) This is part of the reason why i personally don't like a lot of redesigns or rewrites of certain media, oftentimes it feels less like an earnest critique of something that has genuine flaws and moreso someone wanting to show off and act like they're the "better version" of a problematic creator because they dumbed down the story to better fit their own sensibilities; obviously not everyone does this, if i said that EVERYONE who rewrites famous stories was bad i'd be a hypocrite considering i made my own rewrite of the creepypasta "sally.exe" and intend on rewriting more classic creepypastas in the near future as a way to practice my horror writing (right now i plan on rewriting squidward's suicide and mereana mordegard glesgorv.) While i personally don't 100% understand the criticism behind the painter and aron's works, i am able to acknowledge that many people dislike these two examples due to how they both include shocking subject matter but don't linger on them for very long, use them to commentate on anything or ask the audience questions; moreso just coming off as an edgy teenager putting as many traumatic events into their OC's backstory because they think it's cool.

In my opinion: my eyes deceive handles CSA and underage pregnancy in a very respectful manner, it never romanticizes the topic or treats it as anything other than serious and i don't really think it goes "too far" with anything.....it sure as hell isn't comparible with the "fucktoy cory" episode of the painter, anyway. It's clear that the game is supposed to be played twice to get both endings, most players are likely to get the bad ending on their first playthrough (if all those lets plays on youtube are anything to go by) and the game seemingly encourages you to play the game again to get the good ending once you realize what's going on and wisen up to papa's manipulation.....and honestly, i don't know about you but i don't really see a lot of media nowadays that discusses underage pregnancy (...and ESPECIALLY not respectfully); the most i see is boys on the internet using it as an excuse to pick on girls at their school and call them sluts (...or "thots", or "bops" or whatever the new slang term is now.) While we shouldn't ENCOURAGE young people to become teen parents, i feel it's important to bring attention to the topic and let those who've experienced it know they're not alone. Not to mention that studies have shown that up to 70% of people who have gotten pregnant in their teen years are reported to have been molested at young ages, so it's really not too farfetched that something like what eve has gone through, though while extreme, might happen in real life.....and in fact: it has! Many people believe that my eyes deceive is based on a real life sexual abuse case where a man kidnapped a woman, forcibly impregnated her and went on to sexually abuse her children; though when asked about it, nouhidev debunked this rumor and stated that the only thing they took inspiration from regarding this case is the cork walls of the basement. That said though: the fact that someone can play a video game with dark themes and be reminded of this very real and terrifying case is a good step in the right direction. Video games have a much bigger impact on the world than many people realize, and are proven to be powerful tools to educate people on various topics; studies show that people are more likely to feel empathy for many different vulnerable groups after playing video games that simulate and humanize the struggles they go through. While not a video game: there is a song by vocaloid producer steampianist that comes to mind called "secrets of wysteria." The song is about the crimes of infamous child predator and cannibal albert fish through the point of view of one of his victims, grace budd; i have seen for myself how this song taught so many young people, including myself, about albert fish that i even remember watching a video about him years later and there were many people in the comments saying that they learned about him through secrets of wysteria. Even to this day, secrets of wysteria remains as one of steampianist's most popular songs to the point that the official youtube upload for the song has a pinned comment telling people to check out his other music and not just listen to this one song.

Speaking of media being educational: this next section of the essay will go more in-depth on what i meant when i said that people tend to have more civil discussions about the dark subject matter in media when it's played as safely as humanly possible and heavily subtext-reliant, but get reactionary when it's the main focus of the story and/or disrupts the status quo in some way. In a similar vein: when i watched paper will's video "video games about 9/11" for my research, i and a few other people couldn't help but notice that a lot of the games he brought up that use the attack on the twin towers to encourage violence against middle eastern people (...or hell, even play as the terrorists themselves) tended to go over the radar when they first came out; yet games that were made in good faith and meant to be commentary on 9/11 were the ones that sparked outrage, including a game very similar in premise to my eyes deceive called "8:46" where you play as someone inside the world trade center at the time of the attack. Obviously this sort of sensationalism isn't exclusive to things such as trauma, abuse and violence, this phenomenon also sometimes happens with representation of minority groups such as people of color and the LGBT in media or....hell, even just on the internet and in reality as a whole; people say they're such massive allies until a minority does something they don't like and suddenly that person turns into a lolcow, they always tell you they have no problem with gay people until you tell them you ship two characters of the same gender, then suddenly they come up with literally any reason under the sun to explain why those two characters aren't gay and that you're "ruining the fandom/shoving your headcanons down people's throats" by daring to interpret that PERFECT AND PLATONIC relationship into something "woke" (believe me, i've experienced something like this myself...just look at the "debunking misconceptions" section on my kris x ralsei shrine.) I actually kinda hate the phrase "cringe culture is dead" nowadays due to the fact that alot of the people who use that term always throw the entire meaning of it out the window when they find an excuse to make fun of someone they don't like, ironically proving that cringe culture is still very much alive and well (i have a whole 'nother essay planned about the issue with posers in the anti-cringe culture movement, by the way.) Hell....if this essay were a youtube video or something of the like, i'm sure i'd get multiple comments denying the fact that my eyes deceive is anything OTHER than an "edgy gooner ahh diddy slop game" and like, calling me a pedo for liking it or whatever.

To further illustrate my point: i will use a few other media that discusses sexual abuse with varying levels of severity as examples of how we as an audience treat the topic in different contexts, starting with a game i mentioned at the beginning: mouthwashing, an indie horror game about five crewmates aboard a spaceship and their descent into madness as they're stuck with nothing but countless bottles of mouthwash. Around the second half of the game, it's revealed that one of the two main characters you play as, jimmy, raped the only woman in the ship's crew, anya, and got her pregnant which lead to her killing herself so that she wouldn't have to carry his child. While the game DOES focus on anya's sexual assault and the misogyny she faces quite a bit, having the universe itself essentially TELL jimmy that he's a piece of shit and telling him multiple times to take responsibility for what he did in the latter half of the game; there's more to the game than that, for one: there's an underlying commentary on capitalism throughout the story, there's the whole schtick with the mouthwash as i mentioned, the game itself makes it known that jimmy is an asshole to everyone else in the crew and not just anya, all the other characters have established backstories and character arcs they go through, etc. Because of this: people are more likely to have a more civil and mature discussion about anya's abuse, it's not "shoved in your face" so to speak and thus you don't have to focus on it when there's other things to talk about. I can't imagine that mouthwashing would be as popular and well-liked as it is if it took place entirely from anya's point of view.

There's also silent hill 2, a game where a man named james is somehow sent a letter from his dead wife to come meet her at the titular silent hill, a town with strange supernatural abilities that manifest differently for each person. In this game: one of the side characters, a 19-year-old girl named angela, is shown to have severe trauma relating to sexual abuse she endured from both her father and brother as a child; this manifests in silent hill as a monster called "abstract daddy" that terrorizes her throughout her journey. This monster, accurate to the name, is meant to look like an abstract depiction of a man on a bed raping a child. While this is a very bold decision, and a decision that would probably not be made by AAA game studios nowadays (....and i won't deny that it probably didn't go over so well at the time considering the moral panic surrounding video games in the early 2000's), i've been unable to find any outrage over how angela's abuse is portrayed even though the inclusion of abstract daddy is arguably more explicit than anything in my eyes deceive. In part, i feel as though it's because the game came out in 2001 (not to mention the silent hill franchise was still very niche at this time), when the people who played it back then worried less about morals and "hidden horrors of the internet;" a bit like how alt-right grifters complain about things they like "going woke" when they've always been that way, and only think they weren't back then because they didn't worry so much about wokeness in those days. Like mouthwashing: angela's trauma isn't the main focus of the story as she is a side character and there's multiple other things in the silent hill franchise besides her, from what i remember, she doesn't even appear that much throughout the game. This allows players to easily ignore her and focus primarily on james and his marital problems.

The lacey games series, a digital horror webseries and now video game (though only the demo is out as of writing this) details a girls' flash game website from the 2000's called "laceygames.com" that's revealed to have disturbing secrets hidden in it's games, typically relating to trauma and the female experience. In episodes two and three of the webseries, lacey's diner and lacey's pet shop, it's shown the the titular character, lacey, was sexually abused by her uncle growing up and she has trauma because of it; even flashing detailed descriptions of lacey's thoughts and feelings while it was happening to her. Not only are people able to be mature about the subject matter in lacey games, i've seen the most obnoxious family friendly wholesome uwu sssniperwolf-esque gaming youtubers play the demo for the game adaptation like it were any other horror game. While i do admit that i haven't seen any of these youtubers' videos (...and if i did, it was probably only when i was a kid and i've since grown out of their content) and i'm only really going off of vibes.....and believe me, there's a good chance i'm just saying they're obnoxious because i'm getting old considering i remember people saying similar things about youtubers like pewdiepie and jacksepticeye back in the day (and as a jacksepticeye fan, i know HE'S played some pretty dark games during his green hair era). I still feel like the fact that THESE types of youtubers are playing the game for their channel makes it clear that it's the fact that it has the mascot horror esque "hiding something dark behind something cute and kid-friendly" approach to horror that makes people less reactionary to the subject matter.

On the flipside of things, let's get into some media with more unpleasant reception, starting with emergence (also known as metamorphosis): a doujin manga about a teenage girl named saki who starts to hang out with the wrong crowd while trying to be popular at school and ending up going down a downward spiral of grooming, sexual abuse, drug addiction, ostracism from her peers, homelessness and even teen pregnancy. Something to note about it is that while it IS on websites designed solely for hentai, none of the subject matter within emergence is romanticized or glorified in any way, whether or not this was an intentional choice on the creator's part or if it was just added to the websites SOLELY because there's rape scenes in it is unknown; it's speculated that because of this: emergence is meant to be a subtle commentary on how violence against women is often hypersexualized in media, and how people are quick to defend it because it's "just porn." When emergence came out (....or, at the very least, when people discovered it) it became a meme on twitter for way longer than was really needed; people would share the manga around NOT to bring attention to this heartwrenching story, but as a cheap attempt at shock value. People would recommend it to horny anime fans because of the fact that it's on hentai websites so that they could be subjected to upsetting subject matter against their own will as a "prank," they would share around the first panel of the manga without context as a dumb little way to say either "LAWL REMEMBER THIS FUCKED UP MANGA YOU WERE FORCED TO READ?!?!?!?" Or "LAWL IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S FROM A FUCKED UP MANGA!!!!!!" And it's gotten to the point that barely anyone takes emergence seriously even though it's a genuinely really sad story. There IS SOME good that came from the story's popularity though, for example: there's a popular fanmade alternate ending where after the scene where saki gets beaten up by her old classmates and she ends up losing her unborn baby (a child she was planning to change her life around for,) josuke higashikata from jojo's bizarre adventure uses his stand power to heal her and he takes her in to help her get back on her feet; while i feel this kinda adds to the really unfunny meme shit considering jjba's reputation online, the fact that someone cared about saki that much to draw a comic where she gets better really says a lot.

There's also shoujo tsubaki (localized in the west as "midori,") a japanese animated film about a young girl named midori and her experience with sexual abuse and grooming after her mother dies and she runs away to join the circus. The movie doesn't sugarcoat it's subject matter or shy away from showing you just HOW bad midori's life is in any way, and is FULLY meant to disturb and upset the viewer. If you were to look up the movie on the internet, you'd be met with hundreds of videos spouting alarmist claims about how it's "the most banned anime in the world" when....it's really isn't. While i won't deny that it's probably banned in SOME areas, the creator of shoujo tsubaki has stated that if you want to show the movie in theaters, film festivals, or anything of the sort: it HAS to be presented in a carnivalesque setting, with actors in costume and various special effects to help immerse the viewer and obviously not everyone can (or wants to) put in all that work and therefore it wasn't shown in very many theaters when it came out. This would be like saying that mother 3 is "the most banned video game in the world" because it never got localized in the US and is only playable through japanese cartridges and gameboy advance emulators. Obviously mother 3 isn't exactly comparible to shoujo tsubaki (minus the surprisingly dark moments typical of the earthbound/mother game series despite the E rating) though what i'm trying to convey is that people are more likely to play up shoujo tsubaki as an evil urban legend movie from the dark web that nobody should watch because, to put it bluntly as i don't really have a nicer way to put it, the general public can't handle media that makes them uncomfortable. As much as i enjoy the whole legend surrounding the supposedly "lost" anime "saki sanobashi," i just KNOW that if that anime were real, people wouldn't have the same love for it as they do now and would treat it exactly like how they do with shoujo tsubaki.

Lastly, there's arguably the most infamous example of moral panic surrounding sexual abuse being portrayed in media: vladimir nabokov's "lolita," a novel where a man named humbert (...or at least that's what he calls himself) marries a woman solely just to get closer to her 12-year-old daughter, dolores, eventually abducting dolores after he kills her mother and going on to groom and sexually abuse her. While it's near impossible to discuss EVERYTHING relating to lolita and the massive impact it's had on pop culture since the 1950's, and i won't be able to cover it all in just a couple sentences (not that i really want to considering this essay isn't about lolita); what i will say is that vladimir nabokov had a very hard time publishing lolita in the US as most publishers felt it was too controversial to have as part of their bibliography. When the book finally made it on store shelves, it sparked outrage from the masses (especially parents) because they thought that the subject matter within it was too dark and obscene (ESPECIALLY by 50's standards), some even claimed that the book was made for pedophiles because of the fact that the book is written in humbert's point of view as an unreliable narrator. Nowadays, it's common to find people (including modern publishers) misinterpreting lolita as a sexy tragic love story, that dolores isn't a victim of a horrible crime but a seductive femme fatale or a cutesy vintage aesthetic; and honestly, i'm not 100% innocent with this interpretation. When i was 14 i was obsessed with lana del rey's music, especially her "born to die" album that has songs based on/referencing the novel alongside songs about old money, sugar daddies and vintage glamour; i knew what lolita was about and i remember trying to remind myself multiple times not to romanticize it but i still did so whether i realized it or not, and honestly...i'm glad that the worst that came out of that phase was a really bad age-gap fanfiction i wrote about a fucking 2010S HOMESTUCK FANSERIES.

I feel like it should go without saying that this isn't to say that media meant to commentate on these types of issues HAS to be as obvious as possible to be good. When i say that we should be more civil when discussing darker media, i don't say it to purposefully come off as a pick-me trying to impress those dudes who watch cartel beheading videos for fun and think commiting hate crimes over the internet is a form of vigilante justice (believe me, i'd rather get mauled by bears). What i'm saying is that people shouldn't have to ONLY show the aftermath of a tragic event to commentate on it; while a lot of horror movies DO benefit from just showing the aftermath of the bad guy killing someone and letting your imagination go wild, if that were all death scenes were in horror media, we wouldn't have the iconic shower scene from psycho or the scene from stephen king's IT where pennywise bites georgie's arm off. I don't think the examples i provided of media people speak of fondly are even BAD, i actually think all three do pretty good jobs of portraying their subject matter!! Obviously media that does a poor job at handling SA DOES exist and you can and should call it out when it happens!! Believe me, i was a creepypasta kid back in the day and i've seen many stories that use it as a arbitrary plot device or a superficial attempt at shock value when the authors don't know how to write good horror. Hell, i'm not even saying that people who take these media in bad faith don't exist!! From what i've heard: the mouthwashing fandom is notorius for treating anya like dirt!! There's people out there who were mad they gave angela a more round face shape in the 2024 silent hill 2 remake because they believed they were making her """ugly/transgender-looking for diversity points""" and i've seen many people in the lacey games fandom make really insensitive jokes about lacey's sexual abuse and straight up fetishize her trauma and mental illness by saying they could "fix" her. And most importantly: i'm not saying that you HAVE TO engage in media that's upsetting to you!!! Finding these types of things upsetting is a very healthy human reaction and everyone has their own limits on what they can handle, i for one find body horror involving pregnancy to be interesting but i don't do well with horror involving actual babies. If you can't stomach the topics portrayed in my eyes deceive (or any of the media i brought up) or, hell, even experienced something similar yourself and this sort of thing is triggering for you, i understand completely...that's why i put content warnings at the start of this essay, and i encourage you to do what you need to to protect your peace. That said though: SA (especially CSA) is an serious issue in society and highlighting this is extremely important.

My eyes deceive is a genuinely well made and powerful work of art. While yes, i can see why some people would see a game revolving around a man kidnapping a child to be his sex slave and manipulating her into thinking he's her father, constantly drugging her and accidentally getting her pregnant in the progress and think it's nothing more than some edgy exploitative slop; the message of the game is extremely important: we as a society often fail to protect women, girls and just...anyone, really, from SA even if the problem is just sitting there right in front of us. 1 in 5 women have reported being sexually assaulted, whether attempted or otherwise, at least once in their lifetime; and 1 in 8 have reported it happening before they turned 18. While not every SA survivor has gone through something as extreme as eve did, bringing awareness to these topics and discussing them can do so much for so many people. And honestly, i think my eyes deceive portrays sexual abuse in a very raw, heart-wrenching way when a lot of mainstream media hypersexualizes the topic, often only added to provide fanservice to horny viewers and potentially even perpetuating the various myths and excuses so many people bring up whenever someone says they've been raped; things like "oh what were you wearing?" "are you sure you didn't secretly like it?" "If you were married and had a family by now, you wouldn't have been raped!!" "Oh he has such a bright future ahead of him, why are you trying to ruin it for him?" Etc. Underage girls in general are often sexualized in the media industry, both on and off stage with shows like euphoria, riverdale and so on....and i'm sure you all know the deal with dan schneider and the weird fetish material in his kid shows. A report in 2013 claims that 43% of teenage girls in television are targets of sexual humor, ten times more than adult women.....and have you ever noticed how a lot of western standards for the "ideal" woman tend to be traits associated with children? I mean, think about it: short stature, soft facial features, unintelligent, no tattoos or anything you have to be at least 18 to get, no body hair, virgin, reliant on men for everything, zero body fat, sexless yet objectified, etc...i'm not accusing anyone of anything...but it really makes you think, doesn't it?

Of course, men and boys can be victims too, just like how women can be perpetrators; and while not as common, both are just as important as the female victims and male perpetrators. Male rape survivors aren't immune to discrimination much like how female survivors aren't; the patriarchy has conditioned many to believe that men are purely sexual beings who are pretty much physically unable to say no to sex, and that he should be "lucky" that a woman wanted him THAT badly; people mock men's sexual abuse via things like prison rape jokes or implying that the victim is somehow less of a man for not being able to fight it off and thus he "deserved it." Treating the portrayal and discussion of sexual abuse in media as taboo and hiding it when it disrupts the norm can cause more harm than good, it can discourage victims from coming out and telling their own stories because people care more about their own comfort than the wellbeing of others and will shun them. Not to trauma-dump but while it's small in comparison to everything else i mentioned, part of the reason why the way people talk about media such as my eyes deceive, emergence, shoujo tsubaki and lolita bothers me so much is because i have family who were affected by real life examples of the things these media discuss, family i've never met and died YEARS before i was born, but if these things never happened to them, i wouldn't even be here writing this essay right now.

Media literacy/analysis and intellectualism are becoming exceedingly rare in this day and age. This can be observed through something as small as your grandma finding an AI-generated picture of jesus on facebook and thinking it's a real photo; or something as big as the outrage behind the coffin of andy and leyley, an indie game about two siblings in a toxic relationship, where people thought the developer supported incest because there's an optional incest route in the game, not realizing it's a HORROR game and that incest does actually happen in toxic family relationships sometimes. So many people don't want to analyze the media they consume and look into the deeper meanings of it all and when they DO, they just get brushed off as pretentious and are told "it's not that deep bro, no one cares." Obviously i'm not saying that everything HAS to have a deeper meaning, i sure as hell don't watch my little pony and think the episode about pinkie pie competing with weird al's ponysona to see who can throw a better birthday party for rainbow dash is secretly a deep hard-hitting commentary on the socioeconomical state of the world right now, but i feel it's important to note that being able to analyze media, understand it's themes and make your own interpretations of such are very important skills. Media literacy can help you recognize things made by AI for one, it can help you notice issues in the things you see such as recognizing propaganda and promote healthy behaviours and habits. In a way, i feel like a lot of the poor media analysis we see nowadays stems from the fact that a lot of people don't want to acknowledge that they may be enabling problematic behaviour in their own communities in some way. For example: the internet constantly ignores massive red flags in the internet celebrities they idolize and only care after the celebrity in question gets called out for grooming, hell....even just ignoring the grooming allegations entirely because they care more about their own entertainment over people's feelings. While not a groomer (...that we know of anyway), i always hated mr beast ever since he started his current "giving money to poor people" schtick, i always thought it was extremely performative and that he probably wouldn't be doing this kind of thing if there wasn't an audience...not to mention he supported elon musk, was friends with genuinely terrible people and was a crypto bro....yet for some reason, most people didn't feel the same way; everyone LOVED mr beast for his "altruism" and flashy presentation, if you were to criticize him you'd be met with endless excuses and be shrugged off as just a "hater," hell...on my 16th birthday, my older brother straight up made us all watch mr beast videos on the family TV while we ate our pizza and i remember being EXTREMELY uncomfortable the whole time and just trying to tone it out as best i could until i eventually had enough and asked him to turn it off. Now, after word came out a few years ago about how he mistreats his staff, enabled really shitty behaviour in his videos and a million other things, all the things i disliked him for in the past are now tame in comparison and people are finally able to acknowledge his wrongdoings....albeit it shouldn't have taken until things got THIS bad for people to care. Wherever you get your information from, whether it be the news or the endless amounts of commentary slop youtubers (yes i'm still caught up on that,) there's no doubt that people only care about heavy subjects and platform the worst possible sides of things when they think it'll give them more views, that's been true ever since the news became a thing. If you really think about it, things like commentary youtube and....hell, even websites like kiwifarms, are essentially just modern day versions of tabloids.

The things i've discussed in this essay, such as moral panic, media illiteracy and appealing to advertisers, all can lead to a fear of isolation among creatives. Storytellers often feel the need to play it as safely as possible when it comes to the subject matter they present in their works out of fear that audiences may hate them or that higher-ups will see it as "not marketable enough" to be shown to the public, which in turn can further perpetuate the status quo. This is a theory known as the spiral of silence. As the internet gets more and more ingrained in our society, the spiral of silence only gets stronger when artists are met with harrassment over their work and the need to censor themselves on places like youtube due to the fact that ANYTHING could be taken down for any reason. Believe me, i get it; there have been multiple times where i've included more risky subject matter into my characters and stories and i've worried that i was a bad person for doing so. When sensationalism and clickbait come into play, things tend to get even worse in that regard. Nobody WANTS to be known as "that person who made that fucked up thing everyone hates" but with how divisive the internet is and it's constant desire for a "main character of the week," one can easily be forced into that role within a matter of minutes. Whether you intend for it or not, the things you say and do CAN have an impact. Something as small as an alarmist youtube thumbnail and a couple choice words can be enough to cause a panic.

I understand that some of the youtubers who spoil my eyes deceive in their thumbnails and call it "the most disturbing game you should never play ever" or do similar things with other media just do it because the youtube algorithm favors flashy attention-grabbing videos, i'm sure a lot of them mean well (believe me, a lot of the youtubers i watch aren't perfect when it comes to touchy subjects) and they need to earn money SOMEHOW....but that shouldn't be what youtube is about, that shouldn't be what the internet as a WHOLE is about. At best, encouraging this kind of sensationalism is disrespectful to the creators and the stories they're trying to tell; and at worst, this can cause moral panic and censorship. Now don't get me wrong, this isn't me saying this to be all like "OH THE LIBS ARE TAKING AWAY MY FREE SPEECH AND FORCING ME TO BE LESS RACIST!!!" Or to purposely fearmonger, but no matter who you are or what you stand for, censorship and the violation of free speech in general is a problem for everyone and artists of every medium are always among the first to be effected. Advocating for the banning of things you don't like can lead to the banning of things you actually DO like; the most relevant example of this would be if you were to ban media that discusses SA in a way that makes you uncomfortable, this would eventually lead to ALL discussion of SA banned....including resources that might help victims such as books about how to heal from trauma, or media that might even help people REALIZE that they're in an abusive relationship. It could even ban survivors from sharing their own personal stories or lead to the banning of anything relating to the LGBT, race, feminism or anything remotely leftist because conservatives view those things as inherently sexual or pedophilic. I'm sure you've heard of the "leopards eating people's faces party," it's a very well known meme/metaphor for regretful voters of corrupt politicians; and it's a metaphor that i feel also works for this conversation. You can't just pick and choose who gets their face eaten by leopards and who doesn't, no matter how much you say you want them to eat the faces of that one VERY specific group you don't like, the leopards WILL not care and you will end up getting your own face eaten eventually so it's best to just....NOT vote for the "leopards eating your face" party. While yes, this does mean you'd have to tolerate genuinely gross, offensive things in order for EVERYONE to freely express themselves...it DOESN'T mean you aren't allowed to call it out and you CAN and SHOULD do so, hell, that's what i'm using my free speech for RIGHT NOW!!! Having free speech just means that the government can't arrest you for your opinions. People SHOULD be allowed to say, write, draw and think about whatever they want no matter if it makes people uncomfortable, that goes for ALL sides and believing otherwise is authoritarian. So go ahead and write that story you've been working on even IF it handles dark topics, go partake in every single one of those weird kinks you may have even if others think it's gross, take immense pride in all those identity labels you go by even if people will think you're a freak, take risks, be bold; life is short so you might as well live it to the fullest. No matter what you do, you're never going to be to everyone's tastes so you might as well become indigestable.

Thank you for reading. I know it's a little silly that i wrote a whole 12-page essay solely JUST because a few youtube thumbnails bothered me and that i was somehow able to link me being bothered by youtube thumbnails to authoritarian ideology, but honestly...public outrage regarding fiction has been around since forever and the whole societal aspect of how this happens and why it does is just really interesting to me, i especially find the whole "satanic panic" of the 1980's to be especially intriguing. Plus, as i've spent the few years deconstructing the misguided beliefs i've been taught in my teen years, i've come to believe that occasionally thinking about the things you see online and taking time to figure out why they happen and what you can do to improve the general public climate can do a lot of good for everyone; things can be much deeper than you thought and you wouldn't know if you didn't take time to reflect. If this gentleman is able to make a whole 26 minute video linking AI cat videos to fascism than ANYTHING is possible!! I honestly wasn't expecting to be able to say so much about this topic, i'm sure that i could talk about SO MUCH more since there IS a lot to say and i'm sure i've definitely missed one point or another...and i won't deny that this essay is a little messy in some areas, but i feel it's safe to cap it off here. I hope this taught you something or at the very least validated some thoughts and feelings you might have had. Byeeeeee \(^w^)

ID: #WeirdThoughts

Content warning: mentions of unreality

So i've had this idea for the blog for a little bit now; lots of people have done it before, namely youtubers like JaidenAnimations, which spawned an entire trend in the storytime youtube community for a while (if this were youtube and not neocities i'd make the thumbnail my sona shrugging her shoulders with small things related to the video on the side like everyone else). Here's a list of random things i think about sometimes, some are random anecdotes from my life, some aren't. So let's just JYUMP into it!!!

Number one

So like any other person of culture on the internet, i've watched my fair share of nightcore videos of my time; So during one of my random nightcore binges i remember seeing a nightcore video on my sidebar of the ghostbusters theme song with the art attached being moe fanart of the character dana, specifically her design in the "real ghostbusters" cartoon series and like...in that moment i was genuinely so baffled by it, that's genuinely such a niche thing to make moe anime fanart of. How much of an overlap even IS there between people who like anime and people who like the real ghostbusters? Was that fanart COMMISSIONED by someone? While we're on the topic, why the fuck is the show called "the REAL ghostbusters" if it's a cartoon? Are the ghostbusters in the live action movies the fake ones? Is reality as we know it just an illusion and the cartoon world the real one? I'm so confused!!!

Number two

To be honest, i kinda miss the old JaidenAnimations; like don't get me wrong, i'm happy for her for finding another calling as a vtuber and moving away a little from storytime videos, and i'm well aware that her old videos are still there to watch, but still...i kinda miss when she was still that niche content creator i'd watch all the time during my middle school days (i still remember when she was JUST starting out and would put her videos up as youtube ads) it feels kinda bittersweet in a way. I think it was around when she posted her rhythm heaven video that i realized i was growing out of her content.

Number three

Ngl i never really liked that one meme where it's like, a song from a super girly shoujo anime or whatever and there's someone in the comments going "this is the stuff i listen to when the homies aren't around" cause like......i know it's a joke but if you KNOW your friends are gonna be THAT judgemental about the music you listen to, than just get some new friends at that point; what especially leaves a bad taste in my mouth with this meme is how this kind of comment is often put on like, animation memes made by furries (...or just those with a more animesque art style) or songs popular in that community. And y'know...i have a LOT of thoughts about how artists (especially those in the online art community) are often disrespected by the general public, and i'm saving those thoughts for their own blog post....but honestly considering how often furry artists (...and just indie artists in general) are harrassed and bullied on the internet, this sort of meme becomes a LOT more harmful in my opinion, like it's just a more passive-aggressive way of saying "oh i can't admit this is good because then that means i'm some kind of FREAK like YOU!!!"

Number four

Why are vampires always biting necks? I know that that's usually where the veins are closest to the skin but like....so is behind the elbows/knees, the wrists, etc. (I know this because my mom would always tell me to put ice packs and stuff in those places during summer)...yet when i see vampires in media, i don't typically see them going after people's arms even though arguably that'd be easier to access when you're chasing someone down. Sure, one could say that it's to kill the person they're getting the blood from, like how predators like lions or wolves usually go for the neck when hunting prey, but i don't really see a lot of vampires killing people, usually they're just like oversized mosquitoes in media (...then again i don't really watch a lot of vampire movies and crap) plus, if you're a vampire, wouldn't killing someone you rely on for food be kinda counterproductive? It's not like humans eat entire cows when they're hungry, right?

Number five

I'm not really into watching music videos, i never have been tbh; so the first time i saw the music video for fall out boy's "sugar we're going down" was via a clip of it used in a youtube poop and like...i had no idea it was a music video at first, not to mention i didn't realize the main character had deer antlers so i thought they were just really long shrek ears; so in my head i had come to the conclusion that this was from some sort of indie short film about a teenage half-ogre trying to live a normal life in a world that was discriminatory towards him (like some kind of alternate universe where shrek took place in modern day and fiona DIDN'T have that curse that turned her into an ogre so their kid was a hybrid) and that's genuinely what i believed that clip was for MULTIPLE years....needless to say i was VERY confused when i found out that WASN'T the case...

Number six

So you know the movie "inside out"? I remember watching that movie when i was like, 9-10 and i swear to god it rewired my brain chemistry in some way lol (like seriously, it helped form my own understanding of my mind.) You know how in that movie, every living being just has an entire universe in their brain? You ever stop and think about what the hell your brain-universe would look like if you were an inside out character? I do sometimes, can't imagine it'd look that much like riley's in the movie considering i'm a weird lil freak and have been. Like sure, there'd be SOME normal shit, i'm an artist and a writer so i feel like imagination land would be pretty big in there...but like, what kinda personality islands would i have? Horror island? Media literacy island? Fandom ship island? Thinking-realistic-3d-models-are-creepy island? Fucking TRAUMA ISLAND?!?!??! Are my blorbos just IN THERE RUNNING AROUND?!?!? Are all those jokes i make about wanting to put them in jars and shake them just a REALITY for them?!?!? Are my OCs in there?? In inside out 2, there was a place that was literally just mount rushmore but with riley's crushes....DOES THAT MEAN THAT WHEN I WAS 14, THERE WAS JUST A MOUNTAIN IN MY BRAIN WITH JOKER FROM PERSONA 5'S FACE ON IT?!?!?! WHENEVER I HAVE AN ANXIETY ATTACK, ARE THE EMOTIONS JUST HAVING A FUCKING ADVENTURE IN THERE?!??! DOES THIS MEAN THE DREAM PRODUCTION MFS IN MY BRAIN KNOW WHAT DANGANRONPA IS!??!! So much to think about...

Anyway, i think this is all i have to say....that's all i can think of, anyway. Hope this is insightful i guess?

ID: #commentaryyoutuberant

Content warning: discussions of bigotry (the most in-detail being anti-black racism, fatphobia, misogyny and eugenics) and brief mentions of pedophilia and animal abuse

Due to the current youtube boycott going on right now, i have been using a youtube alternative for the past month or so. Though it doesn't have much of an algorithm and there's no "not interested" or "don't recommend channel" buttons (though i have suggested they add it on the creators' github) so for a while, my watching experience has looked like this:

I'm sure you've seen at least a VARIANT of these two types of commentary video in your feed: the more "sophisticated" ones usually mimic the style of someone like sunnyv2 or turkey tom (thumbnail is a black background, using some sort of filter on the person accused to make them look cel-shaded...probably choosing the most unflattering image they can find on purpose, probably has a black censorbar over their eyes, buzzwords highlighted in red, etc); the more casual ones usually tend to just act like worse versions of 2016 commentary youtubers like LeafyIsHere or pyrocynical (bright colors, unflattering/"cringey"/whatever pictures of the person they're talking about with barely any context as to what that person did in neither the title or thumbnail and it just says something like "THE _____ SITUATION IS INSANE!!!") Whether it have snappy editing of screenshots and whatnot in the background or just a guy talking over marvel rivals gameplay, whoever made the video is always talking about someone you've either NEVER heard of (or at most only SLIGHTLY heard of in passing) spewing the same surface level, nothingburger garbage over and over and over again. I sure have seen them.....and i hate 'em, so much so that i made a whole animatic about how much i don't like them (albeit it was moreso a vent about how being constantly exposed to discourse on twitter as an adolescent messed up my brain, but still...it also addresses commentary youtube) and pretty much seeing them against my will the past few weeks has inspired me to wanna talk about it....because hoo boy, is there a lot to talk about...(disclaimer that this is mostly just my opinion, if you want a source to any claims i make, JUST GOOGLE IT!!! YOU'RE USING GOOGLE TO LOOK AT THIS DAMN WEBSITE SO YA MIGHT AS WELL!!)

First of all, there are times when i look at these sorts of videos and it just feels obvious to me that they don't actually care or even KNOW ANYTHING about what they're talking about and just want to cash in on drama, that's an obvious statement and everyone's pointed that out already so clearly i'm not breaking new grounds with that; though something i've noticed that i don't see a lot of people talking about is that a lot of the time it just kinda feels like they're only making the video because they have an excuse to dunk on a group of people they don't like, especially when they themself are obviously not part of that group. To give a few examples: the way people talked about gacha heat videos back when that was still a hot button topic felt less like they were trying to protect children from potentially getting groomed via these sorts of videos and a LOT more like they were just making these videos because "EW GACHA LIFE, CRINGE!!!!! 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮" especially with how often they focused on reacting to the videos themselves instead of informing others. While this isn't a commentary video in the way i'm talking about, i remember watching an "internet rabbithole" iceberg video a few years ago that had gacha heat videos as part of it; and while i genuinely do not think the guy who made the video had any ill intent, it was abundantly clear to me that he only did surface level research on the subject and it kinda left me questioning the validity of all the other information in the video (then again, i probably should have known when he said item label, an independently-owned plushie company, was possibly an ARG or "a brand trying to be trendy with young people" as if a small business being kinda silly with it's advertising is comparable to nutterbutter making heavily sanitized corporate slop """weirdcore""" tiktoks thinking that'll get young people to buy their products). Like iirc, he said something that implied that these videos are ONLY made by pedophiles to attract children and not y'know.....horny middle schoolers who don't understand internet safety real well; and the part of that segment that really pissed me off the most is that he straight up said, direct quote "the worst part is that some of them call these videos......memes..." cause like, BRO IF YOU ACTUALLY DID RESEARCH ON THE DAMN TOPIC YOU'D KNOW THAT THEY CALL THEM MEMES BECAUSE ANIMATION MEMES ARE A THING!!!! THEY USE THE ORIGINAL DEFINITION OF THE WORD "MEME," NUMBNUTS!!!! I'm sorry, i just really fucking hate when non-artists act like animation memes are a problem because "GRAHH MEMES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY >:((((" Anyway, back on topic, there's also the way people discuss people like kero the wolf or hypnotist sappho: two individuals in the furry community that are infamous for committing/admitting to be into bestiality and defending their actions by saying it's just a lesser-known LGBT label and that people just need to accept them (although with kero it was MUCH worse than that, from what i remember, the dude straight up abused animals in non-sexual ways as well) and of course, what they've done is disgusting....but it's also an extremely widespread stereotype about the furry community as a whole...so when i see non-furries discuss topics such as that, i just can't help but think they're just an anti-furry and are only talking about it because it fits their narrative. On a much, MUCH tamer note, there was also the situation with the youtuber jake doolittle; a commentary youtuber in the "breadtube" genre getting mad because like, 3 specific people weren't talking about the LGBT rights organization he created called Never Stop (at least that's my understanding of what went on, i'd rather go outside and touch grass than know every single detail about a drama i don't really care about surrounding a youtuber i KIND OF like) and people would keep on making video after video after video acting like he was some inhuman monster for what he did....and like, sure, it was probably kinda rude of him or whatever but i genuinely do not think it warranted THIS much scrutiny. To be honest it just felt like they're just conservatives or """enlightened centrists""" who saw an excuse to bitch about a leftist existing and just kinda ran with it. Hell, i saw a youtube channel where MOST OF THE RECENT VIDEOS were just cherrypicked examples of bad people in online communities (ESPECIALLY ones that are known to predominantly contain LGBT people, neurodivergent people or teenage girls as their members such as the brony community and kpop stans) i would've provided a screenshot of the channel but i don't know how badly the image would be compressed if i shrunk it down to fit this webpage (...plus, even though i censored the name of the channel, i kinda don't want this person to get anymore attention than they already have or think i'm trying to start beef or some shit.) This sort of thing is the reason why i'm usually more inclined to listen to someone ACTUALLY in the community they're talking about; i don't know about you, but i'd wager that someone called "wiggles the fox" would have a better understanding of furry drama than someone called "KIWIFARMSKING1776"

On the topic of "people making up excuses to dunk on people they don't like" it really bugs me how much youtubers are STILL talking about that vegan teacher when she literally hasn't been relevant since covid started. She's obviously just rage baiting you all and you're just giving her the attention she DESPERATELY wants...like damn, just let the old coot fade into obsurity already, we're tired of it 😭😭😭😭. It's the same thing with nikocado avocado in a way; he's clearly baiting everyone, presenting himself to be as much as a fatphobic stereotype as humanly possible because that's what gets clicks and views....and it works, because everyone loves to exploit and make fun of fat people under the guise of "CaRiNg AbOuT tHeIr HeAlTh 🥺🥺🥺" (believe me, my bitch of a grandma used to literally put my 600lb life on the TV JUST so she could yell at the fat people on screen, i've seen this shit for myself)

Another issue i have with the youtube commentary genre, while ABSOLUTELY not exclusive to this specific community in the slightest, is the way they so many of them downplay bigotry. When discussing things like say, a content creator getting backlash for doing something bigoted, they always say the same things: "you're not even *INSERT MINORITY GROUP HERE* so why are you offended?" "I've looked at the backlash and i've only seen *INSERT MAJORITY HERE* get offended!!!" "Stop getting offended on *INSERT MINORITY GROUP HERE*'s behalf!!" And yet they themselves seem to only listen to and platform the pick-mes of whatever oppressed group is affected (IE getting mad at a male feminist for advocating for women's rights because they're "getting mad on women's behalf" yet the only women they talk to are tradwives) do you remember that one meme image from the 2016 anti-SJW era of the black woman saying things like "i'm fine!! My life is great!! I'm free!!" And there's a stereotypical pink-haired """SJW""" person shooshing her and telling her how oppressed she is? It feels kinda like that (also sidenote but that image REALLY gives me the vibes that it was drawn by a white person who doesn't think racism is a big deal because we don't have slavery anymore). To me, it feels like it's like, one or two steps ahead of saying "i'm not racist, i have a black friend!!" Obviously, i'm not saying that white people (or just generally privileged people) DON'T talk over minorities a lot of the time; hell, i'm probably not the best person to talk to about this sort of issue, seeing i'm a white, skinny, cishet, ablebodied woman who's TECHNICALLY neurodivergent (i have social anxiety) and i implore you to listen to ACTUAL minorities on the issue, but still...something about it really rubs me the wrong way. Call me paranoid or a conspiracy theorist or whatever but part of me feels as though SOME (not all, but SOME) commentary youtubers purposefully pick white/neurotypical/ablebodied/cishet/whatever else people or those who pass as such (....or y'know, just women/fem-presenting people with dyed hair because they look like the leftist stereotype) when grabbing proof for their videos to make it seem like less of a big deal (i'm not 100% sure this is the case, but that's the vibes i get). Honestly i feel as though saying and doing things like this, saying you can't call someone out for problematic behavior if you're not apart of the affected group is really hypocritical since you yourself are talking over minorities in that moment. Like for example: a few years ago, the youtuber dollightful made a custom doll for halloween based on a creature in native american folklore that you should never say, write or hear the name of as doing so will inflict a curse (i won't say the name of the creature myself as i want to be respectful but the doll itself was named "wendy") later on she rightfully got backlash for being culturally insensitive so she took the video down and apologized. About a week later i saw a video (NOT by a commentary slop youtuber, just a run-of-the-mill artist) talking about it and everyone in the comments was talking about how "OH SHE DIDN'T NEED TO DO THIS 🥺🥺🥺" with one comment literally saying "OH SHE WAS FORCED TO APOLOGIZE!! YOU CAN TELL BY THE TONE OF HER VOICE!!!" And honestly looking back i think that was kinda weird, especially since i don't think a lot of the people saying that sort of thing were native.

Speaking of marginalized groups, here's something i can actually speak on with some confidence: the way many commentary youtubers tend to act kinda misogynistic whether they realize it or not. While again, it's not exclusive to commentary youtube, i tend to see it a lot in that genre; several videos about women on the internet doing bad things where, if they're onlyfans creators, that fact about them is displayed front and center in the title even if it's irrelevant to the drama. I've seen commentary videos about women have things in the titles like "SHE NEEDS TO BE HUMBLED!!!" And like, calling them fatherless and crap like that when they never say things like that to the men they talk about. If the women talk a lot about leftist issues they'll say they hate men or some shit, one dude i saw LITERALLY WENT THROUGH A TAG ON TWITTER THAT'S SPECIFICALLY FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE A FETISH FOR PAYING WOMEN A BUNCH OF MONEY AND WAS ACTING LIKE THE WOMEN POSTING IN THAT TAG WERE DOING SO BECAUSE THEY WERE MAN-HATING FEMINISTS!!!!! There was also that time i saw a video of a guy talking about that one stupid ass tiktok of the girl (i think it was bella poarch? I'm not sure, it's been a while) bobbing her head and making faces at the camera and he legit started laughing and mocking her the second he saw that she had the BLM fist as her pfp, saying things like "OH I BET THAT SHE SAYS LATINX!!!" And like, i was around 13-14 when i saw that video and on the tail-end of my anti-SJW phase and even then that kinda made me feel a little insecure....why is a woman caring about people of color funny to you? Another thing i've noticed is how so many people in the community (whether it be the people making the video or the people who like these types of videos) tend to think that you can be as misogynistic as you want as long as you put "white" in front of women (or "14 year old white" if you're feeling fancy i guess) or replace the word "women" with something like "karens" or "emilys". Obviously i'm not saying this in a "GUYYSSSS WHITE PEOPLE ARE OPPRESSED TOO 🥺🥺🥺🥺" way, and it's not like i don't enjoy poking fun of white people from time to time (for example: i STILL think the "white woman jumpscare" meme is hilarious and i reference it all the time) but honestly i feel as though the way people say these types of things (ex. WHITE WOMEN GET OFFENDED OVER EVERYTHING!!! WHITE WOMEN ONLY LIKE HORSES BECAUSE THEY WANNA FUCK THEM!!! etc etc) is really just a thinly veiled way to be misogynistic and have a bit of plausible deniability because "GUYS I DON'T HATE *ALL* WOMEN!!! I'M JUST MAKING FUN OF WHITE PEOPLE!!!"

Something else i've noticed with a lot of commentary youtubers is the excessive use of buzzwords like "degenerate" which i have a problem with, as i have learned that the word "degenerate," when used as an insult, is rooted in nazi eugenics; calling someone a degenerate implies that something about them is holding back or reversing the evolution of the human race, whether that be a physical feature, something about their personality or a hobby they might have. While yes, many of the people who use this word DO use it to refer to actual bad people like pedophiles and abusers, that doesn't negate the origins of the term and using it THIS often could normalize such bigotry. From what i've seen, a lot of commentary youtubers tend to also use the words "gooner" and "soyboy" in a similar way. Though with the word "soyboy," it moreso feels like they just call people that because it's a more socially acceptable way to call someone the F-slur.

Honestly, there are a lot of videos in the commentary youtube genre that are just plain pointless; only focusing on like, ONE SINGULAR tweet that they didn't like, taking a tiktok out of context, etc. I've already spoken about the video i saw about the "girl bobbing head" tiktok, but there was also this one video i saw where literally the whole thing was just this dude bitching about some random black girl's wojack meme he found on twitter (the meme was very very tame btw, all it really said was "LOL WHITE PEOPLE SMELL BAD") at the time, there was a bit of drama on twitter where black people and asian people were making wojack memes about each other (with one person i saw even calling this event a race war) so when i initially clicked on the video, i thought it'd be about that; though what i got instead was a white boy bitching about how a meme he found was """racism against white people""" and how black people need to shut up about racism because """slavery ended a long time ago""" and shit like that. So much of this commentary slop makes mountains out of molehills and molehills out of mountains, they could literally talk about a famous youtuber murdering a random person at a meet-and-greet and the only thing they could say about it is "damn that's crazy" yet can go on and on and on about some rando on an obscure gaming forum saying they didn't like a joke in a TV show. I swear to god these are the types of people to complain about tone indicators on posts yet DESPERATELY need them themselves. Plus, these kinds of videos can be EXTREMELY harmful and despite the youtuber's half-assed disclaimer to "DON'T HARRASS THIS PERSON, OKAY?" It can cause whoever the video's about to end up getting harrassed or worse!! Like for example: the youtuber ACheeto making that video about that one LGBT family account on tiktok, where one of the kids misspoke while answering a question, saying "if i don't turn out to be gay, my mom will convince me to" (he meant "my mom will encourage me to be an ally") and the dude just went on and on about how the kid's mom is grooming him into being gay and how she's a bad person and this, this and that. Cheeto boy even LEFT IN THE PART OF THE CLIP WHERE THE MOM CORRECTS THE KID and admitted he was wrong at the VERY VERY end of the video and like....at that point, WHY EVEN MAKE THE DAMN VIDEO?!??!? Anyway, the clip ended up making it's way to alt-right circles and the family ended up getting HEAVILY harrassed by conservatives because of it. Like, are you seriously gonna risk ALL THAT danger to another person just because rent was due at the end of the month? Don't even get me started on what happened with illymation, that whole drama STILL infuriates me to this day.

All in all, a lot of commentary youtube is just one big KiwiFarms thread; constantly milking drama, downplaying serious issues and overplaying mild ones, borderline stalking and ruining the lives of people they don't like and airing out their dirty laundry for the whole world to see. In a way, it's pretty much no different to how people treat "lolcows." They don't see these people as human beings and only as commodities to exploit and rip to shreds until there's nothing left. I feel like i'm going crazy because i hardly ever see people talk about this topic in much detail, and when they do, it's usually either a joke or just mentioned in passing. Don't get me wrong, i genuinely do not hate the ENTIRE commentary genre on youtube, in fact, there's a few of them i genuinely really like, i just wanted to shine a light on the bad eggs of the bunch. If you've also had issues with this youtube genre, i hope that reading this made you feel validated in some way, or at the very least taught you something new. Honestly, i wasn't expecting this little rant to be THIS long (just slightly over 5 pages holy crap) but god i just GOTTA get my thoughts out there. I don't even really know if what i've said is even valid criticism considering most of my talking points aren't really brought up by others but i mean...hey, at least i'm thinking for myself and not letting others dictate my opinions i guess. To be frank, i do kinda expect at least ONE person to misunderstand this whole rant, saying that i "just want to live in an echo chamber," that i'm oversensitive and crap like that and to tell ya the truth: i don't really care. I'm sorry, but i kinda don't care what people think my opinions should and shouldn't be. So yeah, thanks for reading.

ID: #deltarune3&4review (that's an ampersand between the numbers, the font used on this page is my own handwriting)

As is somewhat obvious to some if you looked at my site for more than 1 second: i LOVE deltarune!! I was a fan of undertale back in the day, so needless to say i've been into deltarune since day one; ya gotta admit, toby fox makes some great stuff!! So when i heard that chapters 3 and 4 were coming out in 2025, i was ALL OVER IT!! Though i got VERY disappointed when i heard that jacksepticeye wasn't gonna be playing them for his channel on account of the amount of harrassment he'd get for the choices he'd make during his playthroughs which i completely understand. That said, i didn't want to watch any other lets plays of the games so i figured it'd probably just be better if i played the game myself, so that's what i did!!! (In case you're wondering: i named my save file "squimble")

I had a LOT of fun with these new chapters, though admittedly it doesn't feel the same without that sense of community and feeling like others are along for the ride with you. I'm generally really picky when it comes to video game genres i like (i mostly like turn-based RPGs, 3D platformers and whatever the fuck splatoon is) but something about deltarune's bullet hell-style battle mechanic just kinda scratches an itch in my brain, it's a bit like playing with a balloon as a kid and trying not to let it touch the floor. Something tells me i'd probably like touhou because of this.

Generally, chapter 3 is sort of an "eh" chapter in my opinion. I simply don't find the TV theming that interesting, and tenna as a character is kinda just...whatever, and he just kinda makes me miss mettaton if i'm being honest; though i'm sure there's people out there that could analyse the chapter and point out all the subtle nuances and details here and there that i missed. That said though: i was BLOWN AWAY by the ending!! That reveal of the knight showing up was so out of left field and it made me SO hyped for what would happen next!!! Plus, it IMMEDIANTLY debunked that stupid ass theory of kris being the knight which i'm glad about!! Also, i feel kinda stupid for not believing that lanino and elnina (who will be collectively be referred to as "the weather" for the rest of this blog post) were the names of the weather characters before the chapters came out...(ALSO I WAS KINDA TAKEN ABACK BY THE FACT THAT THEY WERE DATING, I HONEST-TO-GOD THOUGHT THEY WERE SIBLINGS OR SOMETHING)

Anyway, i knew chapter 3 would have a TV dark world; we all did (like what, did you look at kris creating a dark fountain at the end of chapter 2 and a face showing up on the TV and think chapter 3 would have a dark world based on fucking ICE-E'S P'E'ZZA?!?!??!) That said, i didn't know what i'd be getting into when it came to gameplay other than it potentially having a gameshow feel so i can't say i was dissappointed in that regard (albeit i kinda suck ass at literally all of the minigames...) i like how you can see a glimpse of kris starting to get their own free will outside of the player's control in the quiz sections, with them picking the correct options on their own when tenna asks them personal questions such as their favorite food; it's a nice hint of subtle foreshadowing of what's to come.

Since this was my first time playing the game for myself, it may or may not have taken me until AFTER the first weather battle to know how to use ACTs with kris because i didn't realize you could select stuff while there's character dialogue on screen. Story-wise, i wasn't expecting this chapter to start out more serious from the get-go which caught be a bit off guard; and all that talk of the dark world being an illusion and whatnot was honestly mind-blowing and made me feel really existential, i'm gonna need to really chew on it for a little bit. I also like how we got a bit of kris x ralsei fanservice in both chapters; in chapter 3, there's a block puzzle in the desert board with ONE block that's purposely programmed to get stuck. Once the player gets the block stuck, ralsei immediantly turns into a block to help kris solve the puzzle; with tenna then playing lovey-dovey music and displaying a graphic on screen that says "pushing buddies" and in a water puzzle in the island board, after susie and kris switch controllers, susie makes kris' avatar chase ralsei's avatar in circles and tells them to "stop trying to hug ralsei" to tease the two. When i got to that part of the game, i genuinely had no idea that was what's going on and thought kris was doing that themself and i got kinda excited because that meant that it'd SORTA debunk the notion krisei haters have that kris doesn't like when you make them do nice things to ralsei so y'know....egg on MY face...

Speaking of love: that whole subplot with rouxls kaard starting a polycule with the weather was NOT something i expected, it's pretty damn cool that toby pretty much confirmed that rouxls is bisexual ngl; though at first, i kinda wasn't sure how to feel about an openly polyamorus relationship essentially being played as somewhat of a joke, but i went on tumblr and a handful of the LGBT people i follow don't really seem to mind so i guess it's okay (but hey, what do i know? I'm straight and would prefer a monogamous relationship.) Anyway, two more things i'd also like to point out is that it took me WAY TOO LONG to realize that shuttah is supposed to have the personality of a stereotypical fashion photographer (also they remind me of lady gaga for some reason) and also i think it's cute that that one part where you blow away dust bunnies and one of them has like, money or an item inside (don't remember which one) kinda mirrors the snow poff area in undertale, it took a while for that to really click with me.

Moving onto chapter 4: i find it cute how toriel's church outfit is just the robe she wears in undertale, that's a really fun callback. That said: i always thought that a church dark world would be SO cool, but i never thought toby would actually add one to the game!! I swear, if you went back in time and told an undertale fan that an undertale spinoff would confirm that the dreemurr family is christian (or at the very least, a christian stand-in,) i don't think they'd believe you.

In this chapter, we see noelle's house for the first time and quite honestly: i wasn't expecting the interior to be so WHITE!!! Also, that one decoration that was VERY OBVIOUSLY meant to be snoopy was a very cute detail. Here, we also meet noelle's mom, carol, for the first time; and as someone who actually HEADCANONED that she was named carol (and also that she's where noelle gets her blonde hair) before this chapter came out, i feel VERY vindicated right now!! (Yes, i know that it should've been obvious that she'd be named carol, but i've also seen people theorize that it could've also been crystal or clarice, as in the love interest reindeer from the stop-motion rudolph special) that said: after seeing a lot of fanmade designs of her before these chapters came out, seeing her ACTUAL CANON design really surprised me. All the artists i've seen tend to pretty much just make her look like an adult version of noelle (though one artist i've seen made her a gyftrot from undertale which looked SO cool!!!) Though her canonical dull-colored fur/hair with striking blue antlers was an interesting surprise...albeit it will probably take a while for it to grow on me...

While i AM somewhat disappointed with the dark world's lack of actual religious theming (there's only really 3 enemies in-game that are REALLY church themed) in favor of a more medieval fantasy-esque aesthetic, i understand why toby made that decision...wouldn't want to potentially upset any actual religious people, y'know? On an unrelated note, i was NOT expecting gerson returning from undertale and playing such an important role in this chapter; as thus, this confirms that the dead CAN come back to life in dark worlds if you bring their ashes with you....and also unfortunately gives that one bullshit theory JaruJaru made about kris accidentally murdering asriel and ralsei being his reincarnation SLIGHTLY more merit (if by a hair) which i'm pissed about...that said, his almost grand-paternal relationship with susie was really sweet and that note he wrote to his son makes me feel emotional whenever i think about it. It kinda makes me think of my own grandpa and how close he and my mom were before he died.

Overall, my favorite part of this chapter has GOT TO BE the jackenstein battle. My favorite holiday is halloween so the spooky aesthetic throughout was really neat!!! The theme that plays throughout is also SOOO GOOD!!!! the leitmotif of the song "spooktune" from undertale is a really nice touch and the soundfont used makes the whole thing sound right at home next to the soundtracks of many spooky NES games such as castlevania or the gremlins 2 tie-in game. While it was SLIGHTLY annoying to die over and over to this fight, the way the battle mechanics help you prepare for the roaring titan boss fight at the end was nothing if not genius!!! And the references to various youtube poop staples, such as jack quoting ganon from the legend of zelda CDI game and the sentence-mixing of "YOU'RE TAKING TOO LONG" later on in the fight was super fun to see!! I also like how jack's design heavily harkons back to frankenstein's monster and thus could realistically come off as intimidating to some people. Considering the fact that jack was completely covered in shadow the whole battle; i was TOTALLY expecting him to look sorta tumblr sexyman adjacent, something akin to the summerween trickster from gravity falls, so when i saw what he actually looked like, i was quite flabbergasted.

That reveal of the knight summoning a titan at the end of the chapter REALLY shocked me and left me feeling anxious for what would happen next, while it DID take me ages to actually beat the titan (keeping everyone at high health and spamming the "lighten" button is KEY to winning btw) going through the battle felt rewarding and like you were doing something important. Seeing ralsei try to pretend everything is fine thoughout both chapters before finally breaking down soon after the titan battle, saying things about how he has to keep smiling and keep everyone from knowing things that might upset them is something i find REALLY relatable; as i'm a very sensitive person (not to mention i have social anxiety) and i've been conditioned throughout most of my adolescence to believe that's a bad thing, whether it be me getting cyberbullied at age 10 for things such as my art and fandoms (one of which being undertale), seeing people LIKE ME getting cyberbullied through cringe compilations, or just being the "14-year-old white girl who gets offended over everything" that bigoted twitter users would bitch about (which especially hurt me to the point that i would ALWAYS end posts i'd make talking about issues i have with "...but what do i know? I'm just a 14-year-old white girl on the internet" to try and avoid getting crucified) which resulted in me nowadays feeling stupid for openly engaging in my own political beliefs or getting my feelings hurt so i just sorta try not to show it at all and generally just feel helpless. Choosing the "you don't have to keep smiling" dialogue option and seeing kris kneel down to console ralsei in that scene made me feel a whole whirlwind of emotions...it's kinda hard to explain, but it was just so touching in ways i never thought possible. Not only does this scene show that kris genuinely cares for ralsei (if they didn't i don't think they would be kneeling down to the ground with him), but it makes me feel hopeful for ralsei's character growth in future chapters.

At the very end of this chapter, when kris rips their soul out and sneaks out of the house with susie, it made me feel hyped to see how the next chapter will go; how will the game change now that kris doesn't have their soul and thus can't be controlled by the player? Who's that mysterious voice that keeps calling kris throughout the segments of the chapter where they don't have their soul? Who IS the knight and why are they trying to cause the roaring??? That said, i'm VERY excited for what the next chapters will bring us in 2026 and i'm glad i got to experience this amazing story over the years. Thank you for reading my review of deltarune chapters 3 and 4.

ID: #thefirstone

Hey y'all!!! I JUST finished up building my site for now!! And i only had THREE anxiety attacks in the process!! I'm so glad i've got everything done and dusted, who knew webmastering could be so much fun? Expect lots of blog posts from me, a few more shrines (even though i already made all the ones i wanted to make, though i'll inevitably get more ideas lol) more character designs on my art page (i currently have plans on adding more characters to tumblr sexyman high 👀) and more!!!

Anyway, that's all i have today, i gotta scratch some other stuff off the to-do list ^^