Whenever I've had to explain kink to people my go-to is always "I love Rollercoasters. You get to experience the feeling of falling and flying within the safety of the roller coaster train. I do it with people who also love rollercoasters, and it wouldn't be fun if i knew the person I was with was terrified. AND if you threw me off a building or said that i must want to jump off a building and used my love of rollercoasters as a justification for why, that would be completely fucked up and you would be in the wrong. People claiming that R2 is a dangerous person becuase he is into consensual non-consent BDSM is ridiculous.

"Anti-fandom" is actually the correct term fans and even researchers use! Melissa A. Click has edited a whole academic antology about it: Anti-Fandom: Dislike and Hate in the Digital Age

Speaking as a teenager on the internet, any form of media I interact with, I look up content warnings for beforehand. If a book or TV show or account is marked as mature and I choose to view it anyway, then the effects of that are on me. Expecting someone who made it very clear that their account was not for minors to automatically assume that someone they were interacting with was a minor is absurd. I also think that expecting teenagers not to look at any adult content at all is unrealistic. I 100% agree with the idea that by deciding to continue interacting with a piece of media, I am consenting to seeing things that may make me uncomfortable. If I don't like it, I close the book, or pause the show, or block the account. Just because someone is under 18 does not mean they hold no responsibility for their own decisions on how they use the internet.

Honestly I really related to R2 when they commented on being sexual unapologetically and not caring what anyone said, not their parents, not potential employers... Cause that's a huge insecurity of mine. I love being a sexual person and I wanna share that with people, with consent and in controlled spaces, adults only, of course. But I am scared that that aspect of me existing publically at all could hinder my chances of employment in, coincidentally, the animation industry. It's to the point where I feel guilty sometimes for even engaging with sexual stuff online, out of fear that I can't wipe it away without a trace from the web just in case I'm gonna have to work with a prude. And in comparison to R2, the things I'm into are actually very vanilla. To see an unapologetic sex worker working in a position that I aspire to work in someday is honestly very inspiring and relieving to me.

I'm just going to say it. It is not lost on me that the people that are consistently attacked in fandoms in the manner that Raph was (because he is not the only one) happen to be VISIBLY QUEER PEOPLE and that the rhetoric used to attack them is 100% rooted in bigotry toward LGBTQ+ folk. To the people who have attacked Raph and every other queer artist or creator involved in a piece of media or its fandom, I implore you to do some fucking introspection on why you feel the need to attack them for any minor fault and why you immediately look for evidence of pedophilia or sexual deviancy. You are NOT SLICK. Anyway, thank you Vera for allowing Raph to tell his side of the story. Too many victims of this behaviour within fandom are completely silenced.

About the term "shipping" as someone who has been deep in the shipping side of fandom for 20 years, it was ALWAYS an umbrella term meaning "I enjoy the idea of these two characters in a romantic and/or sexual relationship." The OR there is key, and it comes with a handful of other terms like "crackship" where it's just for fun, or OTP "One True Pairing" which is what kids these days act like ALL shipping is. An OTP is the ship you ride or die for. And inversely, a NOTP "Not One True Pairing" is a ship you want nothing to do with for any reason. But at the end of the day.. we shippers are just chemists. We see chemistry between characters and we latch onto it, we explore it, we experiment with it. Morality is just another ingredient to take apart and examine. And yes, many if not most of us get off on a lot of it, but that doesn't mean we don't respect the gravity of abuse, and we CERTAINLY do not get off on the trauma endured by real people. We are in a sandbox playing with dolls. People who treat all this like it's super serious and says anything of substance about a person's morality need to get their Mormonism out of fandom, because that's all this is about, at the core. People who think that thoughtcrimes are real, essentially. But Darth Vader fans aren't "condoning genocide" and video games don't cause violence, not even when the violence is sexual. We know this for a fact. And on the topic of content warnings, YES, absolutely necessary. I remember the era before fandom implemented them, and I remember when books certainly didn't have any! It was not great! But these pearl-clutchers /actively seek out things to get upset about./ They keep sneaking into private accounts, past paywalls even, and then dump all the ~scandalous~ art and fics they find in full public without proper warnings, and usually specifically to their minor followers, "to warn them." Lives have genuinely been ruined. The thing about alleged minors' Schrödinger's Ages appearing and disappearing is absolutely what these people do CONSTANTLY. Minors WILL NOT leave adults and adult media alone. They refuse. And they weaponize their ages against the adults they harass en masse. They attack cosplayers in public, and record themselves stalking artists in public. They have this sense of entitlement that they can do whatever they want to whoever they want, and adults cannot do or say anything about it because "kids can't hurt you" and "if a 14 year-old is lecturing an adult about sexual media, then the adult should be ashamed because the minor is automatically right by virtue of the dozen other minors who agree with them." I'm so tired. This is literally a daily thing in fandom. Daily. Ugh, anyway, THANK YOU SO MUCH for doing this video, for listening to one of us, so few adults outside of this part of fandom give us the time of day. It really means more than you know to finally be heard and treated like we're human beings who have the right to participate in adult fandom and not cringe weirdos whining about getting cyberbullied by children. This takes an immense toll on a population of pretty exclusively queer artists and writers who really don't need to have our online presence smeared with accusations that we're sexual predators by a bunch of kids who call themselves progressives, just because we ship the wrong cartoons. That has very real, very offline repercussions to our mental health, physical safety, and financial security.

I know you’ve been telling me about this interview but this was fantastic Vera

For the consent of the creation and consumption of art, I often use horror as an example. One can experience scary things while still safe enough to stop anytime. I'm a fan of fictional non consent in that it's not real and I'm still in a safe space. Also I'm AroAce and like the idea of sensual (NOT sexual) pleasure without the romantic connection. There is also a correlation between Asexuality and BDSM as well, it can be a way to explore intimacy without sex.

i think this is the first video of yours i've seen and 'you are the council, i'm just running the meetings' is a HELL of a closing line, queen!

Some of you further down this comment section didn't watch this video with an open mind, much less watch it at all. One of the major takeaways SURROUNDS how blurred the lines of consent are and how some of that translates to Angel's story. Being into cnc and enjoying it through art does not mean that professionalism is lost in R2's work. Why is it that the assumption is "R2 was given these scenes because he has a cnc kink" instead of "R2 was given these scenes because they understand the act and have experience in sex work?" If you need it spoonfed to you that "SA=bad" within the narrative, because somehow you can't tell, then you're also probably not emotionally mature enough to handle the subject matter within the media. This video created nothing BUT a safe space for discussion, and that's coming from an aroace lesbian who has avoidant tendencies to both sex and kink. Some of y'all entered this comment section to whine and satisfy your confirmation biases and it unfortunately shows, because you're loud and uncivil about it.

The "addicted to the feeling...pun not intended" cut slayed me haha

I have seen a lot of call-out posts on Twitter about how the shows depict SA, from both people who find the scene triggering and people who find the scene validating. And they just yelled at each other, shaming people, invalidating other experience. It's just exhausting. From a person who experience SA myself, I really like the episode and how it portrays Angel's experience. But I understand that other victims of SA can find it triggering. Both are fine. People react to trauma in different ways, we are not a monolith.

shipper AND fanfic writer here - AKA THE WORST OF HUMANITY - and proud. hi. I can't even begin to express how validating it is to hear the things I think, believe and say being said by another person so loudly and unapologetically. THANK YOU. I have fics where I put paragraph specific possible trigger warnings up just so people can practice safe reading (I have a whole system, I feel like I'm being very adhd about it lol but better safe than sorry), you do not get to talk shit to me about it if you've continued to read despite the warnings. AO3 has a button you have to click to confirm your age for the higher rated stuff. It doesn't ask for your ID - and I don't think it should - but if you go and lie about it that's on you. And YES, I've been that person. I read my first nsfw hardcore actual NC (arguably CNC, but not really, at a generous best it was a dubcon) when I was 14. I knew what I was getting into, it had it's warnings, I was a (repressed) addict. The early 00's were an adventurous time to be on the internet. It was a goddamn spirit wilderness, that's what it was. Anyway. I will say one more thing. Fanfiction (and generally, fanworks, the shipping kind) were so far the only media that I saw depict bdsm and consent culture in a healthy and accurate way. The first place where I read about safe words, negotiations, the effing traffic light system was actually fanfic. It was how I could tell 50 shades was graphic r-word glorification. And don't get me started on the staggering amount of positive depictions of sex work - I have links if you're ever interested. Don't get me wrong, fandom - especially the shipping kind - can get very toxic very fast, but once you learn how to navigate the deep seas (pun absolutely intended, I have a whole vocabulary about ships, sorry I'm so weird) and curate your experience, you get to meet some of the most amazing, accepting people there are on the internet. Amen. (I am so sorry for this rant, I just... this has basically been my life for the better part of the last 20+ years and hearing someone else talk about it - or a similar experience - with so much passion did things to me. I didn't know how much I needed this.)

I do think it is an absolute curse that the internet has boiled down to absolutely everybody using the same three websites. While it was possible before that minors interacted with creators or content that they were not yet equipped to handle, there still was a hurdle. But the way things currently are, these situations are actively provoked. And the platforms are encouraging it because it drives engagement - after all, we are putting our birth dates in our Twitter profiles, so it would not be any problem to just allow you to make your account invisible for minors.

Thanks for showing this. As a person who was a victim of some bad stuff and found processing it as RPing a victim in safe places, it's good to hear someone take a stand to not burning us at the stake for having different ways of processing. Being a busy body who polices what consenting adults do is giving into the same urge that marginalized people in the past.

I would say that a great example of consent between an author of a work and their audience is in fan fiction! Tagging (especially on AO3) is a such a good way to establish informed consent (when done correctly). "Dead Dove: do not eat" is a common tag that is used to establish that there are tropes/elements in the story that may be deemed morally reprehensible or problematic without condemnation of said tropes/elements. This is usually a blanket tag for a warning of "This could be hard to read for some so here's your warning; leave it alone if you can't handle it." This phrase comes from a scene in Arrested Development where a character finds a bag in the fridge that's labeled "dead dove: do not eat". He opens it, sees a dead dove and is like "huh, don't know what else I expected". It's a great way to basically say this work has some fucked up shit in it that pushes the boundaries; be warned. If you choose to ignore the warning and then get upset; well you were told there's a dead dove, what else were you expecting?

My friends and I have been using our own terms for shipping characters together we don't necessarily think 'belong' together. Jar Ship. This came about when one of my best friends got confused about me saying I shipped two characters I definitely didn't think should be in an actual relationship, I just enjoyed the messed up dynamic. The way I described it was by saying "basically I want to put them both in a jar, screw the lid on tight, put it at the back of the pantry cupboard and see what kind of mould grows." They loved it and we've all been using jar ship for that type of dynamic-enjoyment ever since. The sub terms that have sprung out of that for further details so far are: Brown Sugar Jar - A toxic ship that genuinely looks like it will be adorable but one of the characters is extremely toxic and draws the other one into the jar with them via nefariously sweet-seeming means. Ship In A Bottle - An entire group of characters, usually from across different stories and universes though not necessarily if there are enough in the one, who are so damn toxic in different ways that would be perfect for exploring the worst but most fun kinds of sparks flying that you really really want to trap them all on a tall ship out at sea together and watch the chaos unfold as they torture each other the whole trip. Terrarium - This is not really connected to jar ship things because it's actually used more in a hoping-to-be-positive-long-term way but basically this is for when you don’t know whether or not actually shipping the characters will be healthy or if it'll be kind of cool but also probably need to sort some shit out before it is healthy but also you really really curious so you give them a little environment with a good bit of space to be around each other without being necessarily stuck too close together and try to keep it nice in there while you monitor them and see how they're going in your little could-this-ship-work-as-an-actual-ship-or-will-they-have-to-be-jar-categorised? terrarium. We come up with more all the time for ultra specific vibe expressions but those are the most commonly used ones I can remember off the top of my head. I love this thank you for all your fantastic videos. You've been really educational for me on so many things.

this reminds me of a recent video i watched about the stolas x blitzo ship, in which the user pointed out that, in real life, stolas would be the asshole of the relationship rather than how the show depicts blitzo being the asshole of the relationship. the creator pointed out that, because of this discrepancy, they no longer enjoyed the ship despite previously being a fan of it. to them, the issue was that the show writers were not treating stolas as the Bad one and blitzo as the Good one. i understood and sympathised with their points, and i honestly think their video brought out a good critique that i had not considered, but i think their mindset really showcased a growing mentality among mostly-young folks that is, the mentality that all fictional stories that portray bad things must be depicted in the most morally obvious way possible. if something like sexual assault happens in a fictional story, then the sexual assault MUST be depicted as being obviously bad and wrong with no room for nuance or exploration or even entertainment (such as depicting SA as being, perhaps, a little erotic) and i've been thinking about this a lot because im someone who tends to agree with other folks that, yes, the way we depict things in fiction is important and we should take precautions about how we share these stories (such as providing content warnings), but i dont think censoring these stories or avoiding them altogether is the correct response. because i think the issue at hand is not that fictional stories are depictions of morality, but that the issue is one of media literacy i don't think it should be any surprise that a lot of folks who are upset with hazbin hotel skew young. but i also dont think this means we should discredit the concerns that these young folk have. i think there is a very real and growing concern that young folks have about the content they are growing up with, with many of them struggling to figure out how to make sense of.. everything. a lot of these young folks are growing up during a time when people around them talk about how fictional representation is important, how stories can be problematic, how a work's thematic message could be a bad message. i think that, maybe, young people today are being taught to be paranoid about the morals of fictional media because they are watching adults constantly criticising hidden or implicit bigotry within fictional media i think what may have happened is that, because so many folks have grown up with seeing these criticisms about fictional media, they have learned to copy the tune of making these criticisms, but they dont yet understand the fundamentals of /how/ to think about stories on a deeper level beyond just a black-and-white good-and-bad mindset

A person responds to an NSFW comic on an NSWF page And people got mad that the reply that person got was NSFW? Are we being serious right now?

If a twitter account says something like "minors do not interact", minors SHOULD NOT INTERACT. I would prefer if twitter and similar platforms had better tools for (self-)moderation, but even with the half-broken even minors should be expected to not interact with accounts they should not interact with, OR which would be likely healthier anyway, not be on twitter!

I would also add that there is a specific group of adults actively encouraging minors to harass adults over art and fiction. It’s a deep rabbit hole but we’ve definitely seen cases of adults showing minors NSFW content under the guise of “this is why X is a bad thing” and then getting those minors to harass artists and fans. I absolutely support people of any age finding various types of content triggering or squicky. That’s healthy. Heaven knows there are works that I find triggering or offensive, including professional works that some of my friends have found deeply validating. I’m tired of this mentality of “if it triggers me, it is the same as what happened to me” and “I don’t like it so it must be evil”.

Hearing literally zero problematic things from Raph here.

I’ve noticed a pattern of very personal attacks towards HH creators, primarily attacks claiming to be factual but if you dig, there’s either no evidence to back it up, or evidence that actively contradicts the claim, showing that the people spreading the accusations have done no fact checking. It’s exhausting to witness and I believe harmful overall. I appreciate your approach of actually looking into things rather than parroting accusations and hand wringing for purity brownie points.

I'm so happy to see that this video exists! I really like your videos, and I was so angry about how R2 was treated because of his noncon art. I'm glad to see he's okay, and his story and attitude about being himself unapologetically because of Angel Dust inspires me. I so desperately want to be like that, but my anxiety over how I'll be perceived gets the better of me too often. It's hard for me to fully embrace the "even if someone hates me or I lose opportunities because of my kinks, that's just their loss" attitude and I think it just boils down to rejection sensitive dysphoria for me. Anyway, I agree with everything you said in your Angel video and this one, and I'm SO relieved that you never went "Now, if R2 had this OTHER kink, the GROSS one, he would be in the wrong" or some shit. So many people do that ugh. I also really appreciate you two talking about kink art as sex work and as bdsm scenes. I never considered that art... counts! And it's validating that it does. "I'm sorry you saw my scene" is a really good way to put it. Also R2, if you're reading this, I freakin LOVE your look!! You're adorable oh god.

Thank you for the video, Vera and Raphielle II! As soon as Raphielle appeared in the video, I thought: "WTF?! Are they the real life Angel Dust?" And later, Raphielle explaining how they get in contact with the character and the "Hazbin Hotel"/"Helluva Boss" series was very cool! And I also love how he was able to fulfill the dream of many fans: being part of the creative process in their favorite media work! About the aspect of "shipping", my opinion is the same one when dealing with porn: if the characters and acts are fictional (or fictional versions of real people), regardless how they are problematic or dangerous, it is fine. If something is not for you or makes you uncomfortable, do not engage with it. It really pisses me off how the BDSM (and kinky) community is still demonized, despite they being usually sex positive, and very aware about consent and boundaries between partners. Especially when, at the beginning of the queer liberation movement, they were the first ones to give support to our community.

This is such a valuable interview so thank you ever so much Vera for creating this video ans hosting the interview. It's a valuable discussion in general as well as for the Hazbin/Helluva fanbase (whether they agree/disagree with the topic itself). I had seen a lot of discussion about R2 on X, screenshots etc and this discussion further highlights the depth to the specific situation and to the general topic of consent and personal interests as well as how we all operate and interact online and how the platform/users have and share responsibility for actions and content online. Thank you to Vera and R2 for taking the time to be a part of the interview and by proxy this video/content- I can imagine it must have been daunting for R2 to discuss this topic given how much tension and negative discourse was already present. And massive respect for Vera since as she mentioned - online discourse can be very heated let alone this topic, so I can very much imagine how daunting it may have felt creating and publishing this content and anticipating the backlash it may generate. Vera you're awesome, I love and appreciate the content you create. I think this video is something people didn't know they needed because it was that for me at least. When I saw what happened on X I felt done with learning about it and didn't feel like I wanted/needed any more of any if it but this video changed things and I really appreciate the points you brought up because I think a lot of these points are rarely discussed and done so fairly and openly as you have done. Thank you. I really hope this video is received well. You don't deserve any backlash for this brilliant discussion.

Yer kids yelling at R2 'wont someone please think of the children' is definitely a mindflip.

Thank you for this! The rhetoric that I’ve seen online especially regarding R2 has actually been pretty scary. Seeing someone being called a monster en masse over something like this without even the chance to speak their truth was pretty awful to see. I’m excited to see an honest conversation, though I don’t think some people are ready for it.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="166">2:46</a> Hatedom. The word is hatedom. And no, Sarcastic Chorus and OwONeko are not part of the hatedom. They are both commentators who are also longtime fans of Vivziepop's work giving HH the good faith criticism that it needs. I know because I'm subbed to them both and have been since before season 1 dropped.

Thanks for this interview cause not only was it nice to hear this artist's side but also it's very obnoxious when ppl won't just hear where folk that have harder kinks are coming from when we stress "this is fiction. We do our best to make sure it's safe and responsible in real world scenes. It's fine if you get off to it you're NOT condoning legit harm to anyone" hope this helps broaden some horizons a little. So many harder kink communities are incredible safe and mature when talking to us

Aweome video! I didn’t know about Raph but as a fellow transmasc sub with similar fetishes to him, I really appreciated hearing his story and your respectful and understanding responses. I felt pretty confident going in that you would be good about it, and I’m glad my trust was well-placed! I’m not really in any online communities for this stuff and I still feel a lot of shame around the more intense things I’m into, so stuff like this means a lot to me.

that's one of the reason I make a distinction between shipping and "fascination with the dynamic". Even though I'm an absolute nobody online not making the distinction both doesn't feel right to me, plus the Fear of potential harassment genuinely terrifies me. If you've been an FMA fan for example you might have been there during the period I would describe as "the RoyEd Purge". So many amazingly talented artists harassed out of the internet...

I genuinely had not considered this perspective on the whole debacle and this video helped me see and understand the broader perspective

Thank you both R2 and Vera. I long wondered why people consumed so many problematic situations and relationships in erotica but now I understand to let others enjoy their hardcore scenes. It's all fictional, and their viewership does not endorse what is shown.

Great interview! Honestly, my view is that if someone under 18 decides to enter a mature space online, then they've forfeited all right to play the minor card if they see something they don't like. Either keep up the lie that you're 18 and act like it, or accept it's too much and leave. In this case, I'd never expect someone to check bios before responding, particularly if they've advertised this is a mature space, in the same way you don't need to make sure someone's an adult before flirting at a bar. It's a bar.

Raphielle is fantastic❤ I love his animations and art He is one of my biggest idols

When I joined fandom back in the 90's, if someone shipped a couple, the way you knew if they were just into the dynamic or wanted the pairing to be "endgame", we called them our OTP, One True Pairing. Because OTPs were never meant to be abusive relationships, and I've talked to many people to help them understand that, but I've stopped engaging in shipping culture because of people have forgotten that on top of the takeover of purity culture.

Because of other fandom communities I have thought about and come to the conclusion that the fan is giving consent by clicking on something that’s NSFW, but I haven’t given much thought that that goes for the creators too. That they have agreed or consented to make the NSFW scene/show, ideally putting aside the fact that they need to make money to live because we are all under a capitalist society

This was FANTASTIC Vera, and R2 if you happen to see this. Thank you so much, this actually lines up with a bunch of stuff I’ve been thinking about lately. I find it fascinating.

If you walk past all the warnings telling you all the reasons why you might not want to engage with it, and engage with it anyway. If you then get angry about your experience and go on the attack, you are then, essentially advocating for that thing to not exist at all. Which is called censorship. It's like if you bought a ticket and stood in line to ride a roller coaster, then tried to sue because it scared you. Don't fucking get on the ride if you can't handle it.

I’m a fight photographer with a huge background in Muay Thai. My photos can (and have) been violent with cuts, broken noses, etc. It’s in my profile. If something is particularly bad, I’ll put a slide that has a warning on it. If people ignore it, it’s on them. I just don’t get grief for it because violence is more accepted (and can be seen as more heteronormative too). I agree with R II. If you go into spaces where there are warnings and you ignore them and then get mad about it, you are clearly not old enough to be looking at it.

If he likes a particular aspect of Val/Angel, you could always give a specific ship name to that dynamic. Eg Radiosilence instead of Radiostatic is one-sided Vox/Alastor.

I'm sooo excited to watch this! I love Raph's work on Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss! And I trust that Vera is going to handle any discussion of consent issues or controversy with the delicate care that those subjects deserve! Looking forward to this!

I know you said you werent sure how to tie this video together into a point, but personally I think this is the best, most interesting video Ive seen on this channel. Great work!!

I am so glad that you got to interview Raphielle II! I enjoy hearing their unbiased side of the story!

From what I got from the show was that Angel enjoys sex and drugs (though he has always been an addict) But his contract with Valentino, forces him to be essentially a slave Val is a pimp, and he abuses and exploits Angel like a pimp does... Angel doesn't get consent at work because of the fact he signed his soul to Val The Poison video shows that Angel puts on a mask to dissociate and protect himself, You can see moments where he stares with hatred at Val, and then with fear as everything takes a toll on him He is a performer and acts professional (I should have known when I looked into your red hot eyes, of your red hot lies") We also see several shots where Angel is in pain or panicking, But then, at the end of the song when the cameras are off, and he doesn't need to have the mask on We see him panicking and breaking down, locking his door As he admits he knows that Val is going to be his death and how he wished he had something to live for At no point did I ever see or was shown that SA is good or glorified, I saw the opposite

I wanted to say that this conversation is so important, there are so many facets to different kinks/ genres of many mediums. It’s great to hear open conversations. I’m new to your channel but I’m so thankful to have seen your content. Thank you and great interview/ video!

really glad for this interview. I've been steering clear of the controversy hole surrounding hazbin, but hearing about things from Raph directly made for quite insightful a talk. I've been stepping back from the bird app the past few months, partly because of personal anxiety reasons and partly because of stuff like this. fandom discourse involving adult content and kink has always been a pit, but I feel like ever since tumblr's porn ban, the move to twitter as a primary hub of alot of fandom has made things worse. it's neither a pleasant place for adults who wanna explore more adult themes and fanwork and the minors and other fans who'd rather steer clear of that stuff. I can empathize with the latter side but as Raph said, they don't have to (and at times SHOULDN'T) engage with the stuff, and mechanisms are in place if they wanna opt out of it. part of me values there being places for minors to explore their interests and fandom; because that's how the internet I grew up worked.. but at the same time, it is disheartening that alot of fandom has become so anti-kink and by extension anti-queer because of people inadvertantly practicing conservatism (disgust as a basis for morality) with progressive language.

There's something very fascinating in the meta of CNC. At the highest, most abstract level, it should be completely unsurprising that people need healthy ways to unpack upsetting things within themselves (whether inherent or planted by experiences). There isn't even such a thing as a good story without conflict. At the next level down, there's a massive difference between wanting to _process/experience_ conflict and wanting to _create_ it or force it onto another person. And then when you get down to the actual practices and specific media created, tough questions arise about the nature of the fantasies. Those questions about underlying drives and whether they're being sated or cultivated leave me completely accepting of people with an interest in CNC as the submissive, and very wary of those actively pursuing the dominant role. For myself (in a sexual context), I am actively turned off by any depictions of any aggressive behavior that isn't bookended with enthusiastic consent (and by visual defacement like bruising or smeared makeup regardless). The less sexual (and/or less realistic) the encounter, the stronger my stomach gets, especially as it serves a greater story. This is not _the_ way, but it's the only one I truly understand. We're social creatures who desire community and see ourselves in each other. Causing actual physical or psychological harm to another one of us (without the cover of dehumanization or tribalism-based hatred) should feel like self-harm. At least to a considerable extent. There's an entire other angle to unpack that I'll just I'll summarize as "no pain, no gain."

I remember back in the My Little Pony community. I basically ended up making my own set of OCs that were completely detached from the main series with only one point where they were connected to. It was on the level of something like cupcakes, but it was something where there were discrimination, bigotry, and things of that nature being explored, but with other types of characters that you wouldn’t expect and was clearly labeled. Every so often I would get a very angry, younger man who was mind you on a furry site that was marketed towards more adult things and tell me this is not the scene of torture just made them feel uneasy That was the point That for the most part in the community, it was understood and other fans would interact with them and tell them to like not read or move onto another story and this is what kind of explore journey in sexuality, etc.

"When I was a kid on Twitter." That line just buried me lol. I was a kid on Gaia Online and MSN chat rooms. That's where I found my internet trouble!

Thank you so so much for doing this video- for touching on things that very much need to be talked about! Thank you R2 for coming forward and doing this interview! I learned so much just watching this and I can't thank you both enough for it 🩷🩷🩷

Title idea- hasben hotel and the difficulty of navigating informed consent

With how obsessive the hatedom is around Hazbin and Helluva boss is, I kind it feel its incredibly unlikely the age was listed on that twitter account at the time of reply, because I can't imagine it would have took them 2 months for the hatedom to find otherwise. I'm not saying the account added it malicously either, just that they did. Anyway as long a space is communicated as adult only it is reasonable to assume anyone in that space is adult. Its unreasonable to put the responsibility on each person in that space to verify that person belongs in a adult space.

This gave me a lot to think about. Thank you so much for all the work you put into these topics/videos.

As someone who used to write fanfics, including smut, and is old enough to have started on LJ in its better days, platforms should do better in implementing age restrictions/verification, parents should parent better, and adult-oriented creators should feel safe from underage invasion. Sure, children and teens are always going to do their damnedest to get into adult spaces, but if appropriate steps have been taken to keep them out and there were no reasonable reasons to report them/kick them out, creators shouldn't be responsible for a kid sticking their nose where it doesn't belong.

Vera, thanks for this piece of casual journalism (I don't think there's a better name for it) and explaining to the general Internet what Tumblr residents have known for years: unfollow exists. The block button exists. Even in the algorithm age, you need to curate your experience.

What an incredible video. Thank you for all of your hard work and for sharing this. It has inspired me to be a better creator!

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1937">32:17</a> oh god yeah The Harley/Joker thing has been all over the place It was originally a cautionary tale and Harley’s depictions go back and forth over how they want to portray her

I wish I would have a chance to chat with both of you at one point. This video caused me to talk with my dom and how this hit so much of how I feel with CNC and Val/Angel and similar ships.

I'm not sure if I'd ever really have put it into words as such, but I've more or less been of that opinion regarding consent-between-artist-and-viewer for a while. I've seen some *weird* shit online. Some of it I went looking for, some of it I stumbled upon - the latter usually while looking for the former. But...thing is, the vast majority of the time, I know I'm opening up to things that might be beyond my comfort zone, and I know exactly how to exit the situation as soon as that line gets crossed. And I'm quite happy to exit a situation, go "well...now I know that someone's into *that* !" and move on. As long as it stays within the realms of fantasy (that is, entirely obviously fictional stuff, not the sword and sorcery genre or whatever)...sure, you can be into...whatever. I get far more bent out of shape with portrayals of more-or-less reality. If you're doing a real world slice-of-life show, and you're not giving the viewers any indicator that a character is consenting to a portrayed-as-healthy sexual relationship (or even a not-necessarily-healthy-but-just-mutual-fun relationship), then...then I have a bone to pick. Because people take what they see in near-real-life fiction and see it as a portrayal of what is and is not acceptable in real life based on what the show portrays. This is exactly why copaganda shows like Law and Order are so problematic - you get a whole group of people whose primary experience with policing and the courts is through a system where all (or most) cops are good and smart people, where oversight of policing just gets in the way, where the prosecutor's office is always right. And when you've got shows portraying a man being allowed to kiss whichever women he wishes to regardless of their feelings on the matter, especially when doing so immediately flips her mental state to "sexy time now!", you wind up with young men who've yet to have real world experiences of that nature being of the opinion that their desire is the only thing that matters.

Thanks to both you and R2!! it took a bit to get through, but I loved this conversation. Lots of good things to think about!! And yeah, add me to the group of those who found stuff I shouldn't have and lied about my age on websites in the wild west of earlier internet (as well as grabbing books I shouldn't have been reading from my mom's bookshelf or the library), but I also was mostly quiet about it. Definitely was aware that it was on me to curate my own experience and how to use a back button.

This is a terrific interview, thanks to you both for being so open and tackling potentially contentious topics that deserve to be discussed. There's absolutely too much worth talking about in here, I wouldn't really know where to begin. I guess, just to keep it simple, regarding the subject of "shipping" as it currently stands, as a non-shipper who very much loves exploring character dynamics in general, I would actually love either an expansion on what the word "shipping" tends to mean, or developing other terms for kinds of relationships beyond romantic/sexual. Partly this would help with issues like the one described in this video, where people assume that someone shipping something automatically means they think it's cute/healthy, when they might be interested in exploring the unhealthiness of it in whatever capacity they want. That should absolutely have a place in media consumption. But it might also help open up the possibility that there ARE other kinds of relationships that are worth exploring in general, and not everything that someone finds interesting or that they want to sink their teeth into has to be funneled into healthy/cute romantic/sexual arenas. Sometimes there ARE other explanations for how people relate to one another and for those of us interested in talking about that, it'd be nice to have a way to find it.

Absolutely fantastic interview, Vera!

There is a subset of people out there who genuinely think all cartoons should be for kids, and that if a media is animated, it shouldn't contain anything truly adult. Adult stories told through an animated medium is a baffling concept to them and they are very turned around about it, even though we've been making adult cartoons for decades. The thing about kids online is there has to be some assumption people will lie about their age online, granted, but that's _frankly_ on parents. It has to be on parents, and, if anything else, occasionally on the platform to confirm people's ages. We cannot live in a world where every internet space and all social media and every site must be sanitized because a child might lie to look at it. It might not be on the child, but it isn't on content creators either to babysit other people's kids unannounced, their parents should be keeping a closer eye on what they are engaging with and having conversations with them about the content they are viewing and what's appropriate, and especially about respecting other people's boundaries and consent. Content creators are setting a boundary when they mark their stuff as nsfw. They are giving conditional consent to interact with them and their content, with the condition that you be at least 18. If someone is coming up to them and violating those terms/boundaries, that is a failure on the part of the parent not watching their kid. We can't even pretend that the solution is to have separate adult spaces online, because every time we carve out adult spaces and adult platforms, a bunch of kids come on and then the platform starts trying to demand all content be sanitized because it's what advertisers want, even when a platform was created in the first place as an adult space and built on the backs of nsfw content and even sex work, such as patreon. Adults do keep making and building their own separate spaces and then those spaces keep being handed a tiddy ban and advertised to kids. For anyone who thinks that every online space ever should be sanitized and that porn shouldn't exist, I would invite you to consider for a moment what that means for disabled adults who's _only_ social contact with the world can be online, if nothing else. I would invite them to consider what the actual implications of that are for anyone who uses the internet as a safe way to express themselves or explore recovery, or re-socialize themselves, etc etc etc, with the safety provided by a lack of physical contact. Should a certain subset of the adult population _world over_ be banned from having adult interactions with other adults, for their entire lives, because you don't know how to parent your kids? Do you also argue that bars and strip clubs shouldn't exist [because sex should never be in _any_ shared public space] or that it would be illegal to swear in walmart? What's your take on sex not being allowed on twitter, but nazis being allowed to recruit there? We cannot stake out the majority of online spaces as being safe for kids because the kids aren't sticking to the existing kid safe areas for a reason. They are straying into adult spaces because they want the fandom, art, conversation and content created by adult fans of adult shows and the moment you fully sanitize a space the adults don't want to be there and your site/platform will empty itself of adult users, all grownups who like swearing or seeing the occasional tiddy, and all grown ups who are the content creators. That will always just mean the kids then lie some more and flock to the next site or space that adults have staked out as a safe space to act and talk freely like adults in. Contrary to the current corporate belief, sanitized isn't a profitable business model and there is a reason all these platforms crash and burn right after they start in with NSFW bans to try to appeal to advertisers, and there's a reason another site rises up to steal their thunder with the first users often being sex workers and the nsfw artists and trans people first banned in the tiddy raids. And every time a new platform builds itself up on the backs of adult content creators, but in the sense of 'adult' and being grown, and then betrays them when they think they'll make more money by rebranding for kids. We need to stop this carrot and stick abuse/betrayal of the grown user bases of sites and start looking at the responsibility of parents to actually parent their children.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1419">23:39</a> a ship is an imagined relationship yes When it’s your ship either you’re invested or you like it The biggest drive for most ships is character dynamics

I ship Val with the business end of an angelic speer, XD

I have the same issue with shipping some ships that in canon are also openly abusive. Like Hector x Lenore in Castlevania, and Cazador x Astarion in Baldurs Gate 3. Because I can also just work trhough some of my own trauma through those ships. I mean, with Hector x Lenore (where Lenore, the female character is the abuser) there is a big issue that A LOT of shippers do not recongize the ship as abusive. Because they will not accept that a woman can be an abuser. And they will also not recognize the canonical rape of Hector as rape, because it does not look like what they think rape looks like. Which weirdly enough means that a lot of the lashback I get for my depiction of the ship comes from the shippers. But with Cazador x Astarion there is within the text no question about the abuse and about the fact that Cazador forces Astarion into prostitution. And boy, a lot of people get super angry about when I write stuff that involves this.

I'm at the shipping part of the interview and I wonder if the internet forgot the term OTP (One True Pairing) for like, your favorite ship and one where you DO think they belong together. What is described with being fascinated with problematic and fucked up dynamics without wanting them to be together or think it's healthy makes me want to coin the term OFP (One Fucked-up Pairing)

This is such a layered problem imo. The age of the audience, the spoon feeding of the meaning of media many people have become accustomed to, the romantisation of lacking consent in a lot of media, an inherent missunderstanding of kink and the community, the online mob mentality, the fear of being 'cancelled' for not speaking out about sth genuinely problematic, and much, much more It's hard to navigate all this, especially as a teen. I hope at least some people see this and re-evaluate being nasty to people without knowing the full picture.

Took me a while to watch this video, but this is a great interview. You did an amazing job with this one.

I was hoping that it was gonna be Raphielle that you interviewed!

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="61">1:01</a>:47 I feel it is mostly a parent's responsibility. I'm also saying this as someone who would sneak into the romance section of the local bookstore as a teenager back before I could drive there myself and had my parents take me and let me go in there unsupervised (my parents did trust me enough that they thought I wasn't looking at stuff I shouldn't be looking 😅) I turned out alright in spite of it...I'd like to think the same for these wayward youths...hopefully.

Thank you for this - the drama around this show has been so muddy and I didn’t know what to make of it and this helps a lot.

Everyone who already commented said their peace better than I could have but I’ll add to the pile: I loved this interview. This is an important conversation to be having. Thank you, Vera and R2. 💕

The consuming-content-as-consent concept is hard to miss these days if you enjoy consuming problematic content. Like, in fanfiction for instance, you basically need to go back more than a decade to find fics that do not have caution tape plastered all over. I don't actually get involved in (or pay much attention to) the discourse myself, but you can't help but infer a certain amount of it from tags, author's notes, etc. I think it's indicative of how big of a problem it is that it's fairly standard these days for writers to have to asically go into a short rant at the start of every fic to remind haters that *no-one is making them read this*, so they should absolutely pack up their flame comments and decamp. It's not like this is given as the warning itself, but in addition to already extensive tags and content warnings. The lengths some people will go to in order to complain is just absurd.

Your videos are always amazing but this one this one you outdid yourself girl

So great to get to hear from Raph on this topic!! People have been so shit about him for no reason. Does anyone know where to find more of his work than his youtube channel or the shows? I loved his fanart and would love to check it out!

God I am just glad this was explained in an intelligent way that lets me know more. so much of the anti-fandom for this show has me intimidated about getting more invested in a thing I like

Seeing Crichton and Scorpy pop up was such a nice little surprise! (Also really appreciated and enjoyed the rest of the vid. Great interview!)

Very great video with lots of great points being made!

Why is this consent standard only applied to depictions of “mature” content. When two characters are violent, they don’t pause the show and say “do you consent to being stabbed to further the plot?” This is so dumb. We SHOULD all know fiction isn’t real life. Including romance and relationships in fiction. If you’re terrified of seeing depictions of adult content, avert your eyes. Only in this weird puritanical content zone is “adult” content an issue, but getting cartoonishly gored with heads exploding totally cool. Are we cool with putting this to bed yet? It’s the same convo we have been having for like 2 decades now.

Fantastic interview and I appreciate someone talking so candidly about k1nk because there is a lot more to it than what most people read on the surface. Also Def following R2 and I am glad you got more information on everything around the controversy. PS, Sunstone is a fantastic and healthy introduction to bdsm, massive respect to the Sejics for it

i have heard of contraversies and not being someone very aware of kink i naturally had a negative knee jerk reaction to the way that it was described as someone being into non censensual stuff story boarded poison. I hadn't heard of consensual non consensual so i kinda just assumed the literal worst interpretation- maybe that's on me for not being informed on something that' was perhaps meant to be given knowledge, but i can't recall the videos i've seen but it was definitely framed in a way that came across really badly. It basically made it seem like the storyboard artist liked sa so naturally i was going to react poorly to that because who wouldn't. i appreciate this video for giving the artist a chance to discuss their perspective and not just shaming and judging without even listening.

I want to thank you for the very informative and considerate discussion you have presented. I'm not surprised (although I wish that I was) that there is so much pushback on this topic. When you develop art that wants to explore a subject to its limit, there are always going to be people that say "I didn't want you to go there!", especially when that art is explict or sexual. These people just refuse to recognise that everyone has different limits. I wonder how many people jump up and down shouting "This is too much!", then give their kids Stephenie Meyer to read or watch.

Raph is so talented! Thanks for an excellent interview!

Interesting conversation. I am 45 now and i don't how i would be is i was 15 in 2024. I was certainly looking for edgy entertainment like superviolent horror movies and delving into literature like William S Burroughs. I didn't have the easy availability that the modern internet provides. I could definitely see me trying to get into it with creators like R2 if i had the ability bsck then.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1653">27:33</a> random tidbits: did you know irt sexual fantasies r@pe is the most common one? And people use this fantasy in their head for various things but engage with it in healthy manners

There is so much relatable crossover between this and being a romance author!

Only just started the video, but I've just gotta say - that asymmetrical black top is so cool!!

Thank you so much for this interview. There’s been so much screaming regarding Hazbin/Helluva since the pilots that this was a breath of fresh air.

I enjoyed this interview very much ❤

Maybe weird comparison, but it sounds like the sexual equivalent of what is sometimes called gallow's humor. It's tricky in general to connect something to both pleasure and hurt ig. Working topics connected to traumatizing events/situations into joke routines or pleasure is always going to sit wrong with a group of people who have experienced the traumatizing event/situation. Also definitely feel like pzople not understanding kink at all has to do with the conflict. This was a very interesting interview and it will certainly stay with me. The presented situation is complicated and nuanced, with a lot of pitfalls and questions on responsibility

Thanks for presenting a thoughtful discussion on this topic.

Great and valuable interview!

This was certainly a very informative interview!

I can't believe I have to PAUSE this and go to a doctor's appointment!!! 😭 I will be back!! So excited to hear your interview! Edit: That was really interesting. I very much agree with R2's concept of consent via informed engagement. I don't understand why people interact with a piece of media they don't like and that upsets them. Like, just avoid it. Why do you need to be angry?? Examine that need!

What a fascinating and thoughtful exploration of a very difficult web of topics. I was already a fan of yours, but I made time for this video in particular bc I'm heavily involved in my own corner of the kink community (foot fetish and tickling), create and publish kink art, and am vocal in my niche space about consent in kink media. I'm going to be thinking about this a lot over the next few days and might follow up, but here's my perspective having just finished it. I've been deeply frustrated with my communities for a long time bc noncon is the default in media and very few people even stop to think about that. There are almost never content warnings, and CNC is pretty rare. I'm bothered by something like 60% of the art that I see in the same space that I'm creating art in. It does make me personally uncomfortable, but I'm quick with the block button and that's fine. What really upsets me about it is that I believe kink art that doesn't take the time to establish clear consent in one way or another influences irl behavior, particularly when the context strongly suggests lack of consent. I've had my share of noncon fantasies, but the first time that I went to actually create characters and insert them into those fantasies for an audience, I hesitated and felt really dirty about it, even though I didn't and still don't feel dirty for personally having those fantasies in the first place. So after thinking about it, I adapted those fantasies into CNC / power exchange situations instead, which was not only easy to do and cleared the air for me as a creator, but also turned out to be wayyyy hotter and permanently shifted my tastes. I realized that every noncon situation I've ever enjoyed seeing depicted in media was only enjoyable to me if I could convince myself that all of the characters were actually enjoying themselves. I think a lot of good-natured people who enjoy noncon situations in kink media also feel this way on some level, and bad-natured people who are likely to commit or enable real life consent violations don't feel that way. Allowing explicitly noncon media to be the standard (which again, it is in my communities) gives these bad actors a sense of validation and influences young people (who will inevitably see this media, as you discussed) in that direction imo. I've never seen HH and had no idea who R2 was prior to this video, but some of R2's personal work that you showed did bother me for these same reasons, and I was unconvinced by his rationale for not feeling obligated to establish consent when depicting these kinds of situations. The pressure to do so is astronomically higher when you're depicting characters who are famously involved in an abusive relationship like Valentino and Angel are, or otherwise directly implying abuse. I would have raised my eyebrows at any power dynamic between these two played in a sexy way, but I could have accepted it if I'd seen a dedicated panel establishing the deviation from their dynamic in the show and showing us the consensual nature of their relationship in this fantasy version of them. Just one time, not in every single piece. Even just a sentence or two in the description would be something. I think that's extremely manageable for an artist and reasonable for the viewer to expect of them. All this being said, R2 is *hardly* alone in any of these and is being way more responsible with content warnings than a lot of other artists that I see. I came away from this with a lot of respect for him and really appreciate him being vulnerable like this. I also have huge respect for your careful and balanced handling of the topics and thinking to do this interview in the first place. Bless ✨️

I can’t believe I’m just now noticing the fact that Val is a moth abusing Angel, a spider….

Great video! I'm a SFF fan and I really wish books came with content warnings too. Its great when difficult topics handled well by authors but I'm not always in the headspace to deal with it and I wish I could be forewarned