u/inpurpleshadowz

Just recently, and I mean two days ago, I somehow came across one of the users who harassed one of my friends off the Internet. For the sake of context, this person is someone I'm familiar with from BlueSky. A while ago, they harassed a friend of mine who frequently drew Stolas fanart, as well as Stolitz, the ship between him and Blitz. She's a pretty cool user, and while I'm not obsessed with Stolitz in the same way as other fans, she is a fantastic artist. She was also incredibly nice, encouraging me to start making my own fanart, in spite of my poor drawing skills.

However, a few weeks ago, back in April, she started getting sent hateful DMs from people, presumably haters of Helluva Boss, especially those who despised Stolas. To be honest, I'm not the biggest Stolas fan or Stolitz shipper, but I can see the appeal, and it's not like I'm going to harass people who love the ship... which is exactly what these assholes did to her. What's odd is that, she wasn't even a big name in the Helluva fandom. People were sending her gore of Stolas, calling her a rapist. She stated that she already wasn't in the best place mentally, and was struggling with financial troubles. It quickly reached a point where she had to delete her account. Regardless of your opinion on Stolas, this kind of behavior is deranged and evil.

Shortly before deleting her account, my friend DM'd me the usernames of the people who harassed her, so I could protect myself from harassment. So, earlier this when, I saw a post on r/whenthe hating on Stolas. I took a look at OP's username, and noticed it exactly matched one of the names my friend gave me. I decided to confront the OP directly, and called them out for harassing my friend. In response, they snarked at me, proudly admitted that they "won" against the "rapist defenders", and someone else called me a "white knight". Several other people were in agreement with the OP, and it ruined my day. On the very same day, I was verbally abused by my dad, yelling at me that I should've died when I cut myself. It all built up to me having a mental breakdown, and went into psychosis for the entire night.

I'm doing better mentally now, but I'm still upset over how someone who helped me during a tough time, one of the few people who truly supported me was gone, and others cheered because of it. At some point, I really hope haters of the Hellaverse would realize the real-world harm they cause to other people. Behind every cartoon PFP, every artist, every fan of the series is a real person with genuine feelings and emotions. And let me tell you, as someone who was SA'd at the age of 5, seeing a person who actually cared for me being called a "rape defender" made me cry. There are people in this world who hurt others, serial killers, rapists, who are walking on the streets. And yet haters decide to attack victims of said criminals. I'm starting to believe that antis don't care who they hurt. They just want an excuse to bully people who are already suffering. Am I going crazy, was I being too sensitive? Is it that I'm letting my love for an admittedly flawed show cloud my perception of criticism. Was what they said really criticism that I interpreted as personal attacks?

I'm so scared and confused, I feel like the situation was my fault.

No matter what, for the past 14 years if my life, since the age of 5, I've gotten bullied, insulted, and dehumanized for the 'crime' of loving the things that make me happy. I love a kids show, and I get called childish. I enjoy a video game, and I'm labelled a lazy bum with no talent whatsoever. I take heavy interest in anime, and I'm treated by others like scum of the Earth, just because. I find myself genuinely and emotionally attached to an adult cartoon and its characters, and my right to be treated as a human being is revoked.

I can't call out these people, because if I do, I'll be called overly sensitive and unable to take criticism. However, if I just stand by idly, they continue treating me like garbage, and I just cry like a bitch. Even my own family members have started judging me for my interests, things that've brought me joy in this fucked up world. We have serial killers and rapists walking free on the streets, but apparently people are more concerned with a neurodivergent person loving shows with colorful ponies or demons that swear a lot.

Why... why do people have to be so cruel and mean to those who find comfort in stuff considered childish or flawed? It's so much easier to be nice, there's no benefit to hurting others. I also feel even more selfish because there are people in this world who don't have the same luxuries as me. I just feel like one, giant, spineless, piece of shit who hasn't done anything to deserve happiness. All I want is for people to not think of me any differently because of media I enjoy in my free time.

When I ask this, I'm not just talking about what death was the most painful, or who has the highest count of dying. I'm referring to characters who consistently die in painful, unusual, and otherwise brutal ways. I mean, this is Happy Tree Friends, so every character has died in a grizzly way at least a few times. However, some of the Tree Friends receive much less mercy than others, whose deaths frequently rank high on the list.

Personally, I think that Sniffles and Lumpy are tied for having some of the most graphic deaths in the series, even by HTF standards. Most of Sniffles' starring episodes/segments have him trying to eat ants, and as a result, gets tortuously killed by them. A majority of Sniffles' deaths are also caused by injuries to his tongue, mouth, and the inside of his body, which are sensitive areas. As for Lumpy, the methods in which he dies tends to vary, but they're usually drawn-out, with him occasionally suffering amputations a while before death. However, I'm interested to hear what you all think.

So... despite only getting into the series at the start of this year, My Little Pony has been my biggest hyper-fixation since, I don't think I've spent more than six hours without thinking about it. Since my first viewing of Friendship is Magic, I've watched the first seven seasons of the show, collected two plushies, bought most of the main series on DVD, read/watched numerous fanfics and animations, and even began writing a MLP fanfic of my own. Pretty much any fandom activity I have the energy for, I've done so with relation to My Little Pony.

Though, despite FiM and, by extension, Generation 4 ending half a decade ago, I still see a lot of active fans of this particular era. Even though I got into MLP long after the franchise peaked in popularity, would any of you say I'm "late"?

I don't believe in "dead fandoms", every piece of media, regardless of obscurity, has at least a small group of fans. However, since MLP: FiM already reached its conclusion, I have a feeling that I missed out on a lot of what made this fandom so special. I might be wrong on that, but I'm curious on what you think.