Jess, explain yourself.

So it’s been established that MCD and MyStreet are separated by a very long time for a while now. If this is the case, then wouldn’t the MyStreet characters know that they share the same name, and look extremely similar to the heroes/known figures of the people in the MCD era? And wouldn’t the history classes in Ru’uan literally be talking about said era 90% of the time? How come we’re just learning about this link in season 6 if this has always been the case? Shouldn’t we have known this since PDH season one?

Jess, you need some explaining to do. Please stop showing off your werewolf fetish and give us the real answers

Dear luke,

In MCD it is heavily implied that the apple store did not exist. Therefore no one had iphones to record history with. They only had disposable kodak cameras and the film was lost because hyria was a bitch and forgot to get it developed and she had one damn job to preserve history after irene and her friends left. kodak eventually died in the great war of Ru’aun and all was lost. Nekoette later creates apple but she dies before the iphones are made so no one has pictures but she gets a movie.

But rlly, the amount of time and “gods” in-between MS and MCD is a LOT that it’s very much forgotten except to the ancients who are still alive

…

also I will never stop showing off my werewolf fetish 420blazeit

The chat: JESS FEED THE DOG

Jess: *accidently leaves the dog sat on the mountain*

The chat:

LMAO! .

....

Yo what....? I seriously had to feed the MC dog...? 

Aw shit

I made the mistake of getting on Tumblr again and...

I STILL CAN’T FIGURE OUT THE FUCKING INTERFACE LMAO

Jess run while you still can

No, I am determined to stay for more than an hour!

Don’t Like That

Why her tiddies so big??? This is boobcinda all over again

Haven’t you seen? They’re posting Monster Prom (which has to be HEAVILY edited)on the channel these days. They’re in their Horny On Main phase

didn’t she write porn of her characters a few years back? She was always horny, she’s just more bold now

Thank you for knowing me so well! 💜 Seriously tho, I’m very open about this stuff esp on streams.

Also I’d like to complain that they confirmed Lucinda and Melissa were dating

And then they killed the gay

And Lucinda doesn’t know

And like that’s a ticking time bomb

We didn’t confirm anything on this.

The poll on twitter wasn’t confirming anything at all.

We used to ask questions about ships before and wanted to ask one about some popular fan--made ships.

I’m also confused on where the queer baiting comes into play.

(I’m so open to discussion on this to understand others prospective)

To give some insight I grew up with friends who were very friendly with their relationships. There were many times where people would flirt playfully with the same or opposite sex.

(For me it wasn’t always comfortable or welcomed… but it still happened. I did my best to let people know via body language or just saying I wasn’t comfortable sometimes.)

Most of the way I try to portray the characters on MyStreet is that they’re all comfortable with their relationships and they will get flirtatious from time to time. If they aren’t comfortable they show it to the audience or say it.  I apologize if it comes off any other way, but I’m trying my best to portray what I’ve experienced.

The Audience of My Channel

Okay, holy hell….

I wrote a freggin’ long history and now that I’m lookin’ through it… it’s a mess.

I’m going to TL;DR this who want the point but if you’re seriously concerned about this and want to understand the history then I recommend reading but understand this post is a mess of explanation but it’s worth the read IMO if you are interested in this history of my MC content and who it’s intended for.

TL;DR: My heavy story content isn’t aimed at kids/younger audience, if that was not evident from S4 alone then there is plenty of evidence from BEFORE and during Diaries days to support this. The heavy MCD implications also show I’m writing for that older audience who grew up with me. I’ve retained a lot of my audience from those days and know that young adults watch my stuff (hence a small reason for my lack of growth due to not conforming to kids content, you’ll see other MC YTers who convert to Roblox taking off in comparison) Some of my content can be found on the YT kids app and if you are a parent/guardian concerned about the heavy material I recommend using the YT kids app as it censors those seasons/episodes. It’s not 100% perfect but the kids who do watch me only know me for the content listed on the YT kids app. Most parents who let their kids have free roam of base YT are already aware of the lack of censorship from all sorts of YTers and have expressed they are aware of the material in my content and allow their kids to watch under their supervision and guidance. Who/What people watch on YT is up to them to decide. I rate my vids in the self rate system to be aimed at the demographic I’m writing for. 

OKAY THAT’S NOT TL;DR, BUT CLOSE ENOUGH. The rest goes into detail and is what I originally wrote if you want to understand my prospective. AGAIN IT’S EVERYWHERE.

Alright so I’m in the addressing mood, but let’s start this train with one thing at a time. Today I want to clear up a misconception that a lot of people tend to have about my channel. 

“Aphmau has a kid audience.”

To some extent, this IS true.  These days people naturally associate “Minecraft” with kid friendly content. Especially with YouTubes crack down on what is advertised to kids via search. (Which as a parent: thank you YouTube.)

To another extent, this IS false.

In the early pioneer days of MC a whole ton of adults were playing the game which promoted the popularity of it. These were also the days YouTube didn’t have heavy censorship so everything was free game. There were adults cursing and talking about sex during gameplay, having tiddies in the thumbnail, to adults playing MC drunk. Again totally the early days of both YT and MC. 

During this time a lot of the MC audience was mixed, both young and older. (I was in the older crowd; was watching Shadow of Israphel by the Yogscast at the time before my channel started) Eventually time passed and it was obvious that the game by itself appealed more to the younger demographic and it kept that audience. [I’ll get back to this point later].

Around the time I entered the MC scene it was the untamed wild west. Hell, I remember doing a Cops and Robbers video with Adam about being high the whole time. Around that time I was writing Diaries which had a lot of adult themes, war, topics, violence, death, [babe house, tho that’s not bad], sexual implications, blood, etc. etc. I also had side series going on that were more light hearted [Pixelmon, Mod Mod World, etc.] I also played games such as Saints Row, Hunie Pop, Dead Space, etc.

Again all this was in the untamed wild west of the internet. 

Fast forward to today, all of those youngins who consumed that content have now grown up. They are either finishing up High School or already in College or they have always been adults and are just older (and by that I mean they’re even more cooler now) Surprisingly a LOT of them have been with me from that long ago… and holy crap you guys… thank you for being with me for that long <3

Fast forward to today again, you’ll see MC and YT have been censored heavily.

If you want to be a successful MC YouTuber these days - You gotta make content aimed at kids to get on that YT kids app - and just let me say there’s nothing wrong with that at all! I’m all for peeps makin’ their content the way they want to for the audience they want to consume it. (always disliked when creators would belittle others for the kind of content they make)

Let me say this: Diaries and MyStreet [plus a few other series] have always had heavy adult themes in them. I have been watching my audience grow from the start and know who I am writing for since a lot of peeps who are watching the more intense series have aged with me. 

“But you have kids who consume your content!”

Yes, there are children who consume my content because it is on the Minecraft platform. You will also notice the most vocal peeps in the YT comment section/twitter/insta/etc. tend to be youngin’s who will shame you for liking a certain ship, hate you for your opinions, etc. [they are NOT ALL like that] Understand that these peeps (while I love and appreciate their support, wish they read my PSA’s and were a bit more understanding sometimes) are often in the minority of those who consume the more intense storylines/game play. Of course there are exceptions. Creators after YEARS of experience, data, and analytics will know who watches what content based on statistics and feedback. Some of our decisions are based on the analytics we receive and what people show they want in content by watching it.

Now, where are these “children who are watching my content” consuming it from? The YouTube Kids App. (GOD THIS ISN’T A PLUG BUT IT’S GONNA SOUND LIKE ONE BECAUSE I GET INTO PARENT THINGS, ALSO THIS IS RELEVANT TO WHO CONSUMES MY CONTENT SO IF YOU CARE ABOUT THIS TOPIC PLEASE BEAR WITH ME) 

As a parent, I use the YouTube kids app. The YouTube kids app has a LOT of options to make sure kids under the age of 13 are consuming the content their parents want them to watch. (But the age you can set goes all the way to like 20+ for some reason) There are two options: 

1.) [Younger] More restricted, meant for preschool kids and elementary school kids.

2.) [Older] For parents who think their kids are old enough to be less restricted and it even warns parents that there may be suggestive content, violence, etc. In this option.

There are a lot of kids consuming the more tamed versions of my content which they know me for. There are some children I meet at fan meets that don’t even know that certain episodes of Diaries or MS Season 4, 5, or 6 exist or that I even do RP’s. (They seem to like my content for Snipper Clips, Love Balls, MyCraft, etc.) I’m perfectly fine with the app gating off my mature content, rightfully so since it’s not meant for that demographic. With a lot of that being said I cannot control what is and is not seen on that app, but know that a lot of my mature content is off of it.

That being said, my writing is aimed at teens, young adults, and adults. 

The problem is people see MC as being “ONLY FOR KIDS! THIS IS A KIDS SHOW IF IT’S IN MINECRAFT!” which to me… as someone who has been using the platform since the Wild West days… to pretty much tell similar and just as harsh stories since then… is pretty much the equivalent of saying: “IF IT’S A DRAWN LIKE A CARTOON IT MUST BE FOR KIDS!” Or “VIDEO GAMES ARE MEANT FOR KIDS” (which are very ignorant statements because cartoons and games can be for adults)

Again the problem lies in the fact that I’m still using MC as a platform to tell stories. And really, that’s not a problem since I know where my content is being consumed, I know who consumes it, and I know who I am writing for. 

The kids app exists for parents who are active in their child’s lives and make sure my content is what their kids want to consume and I use that as a barrier to entry for younger kids who don’t get the themes in my mature content. 

The people who have grown up with me and know the adult themes in my story often times don’t want to admit to their friends that they watch Minecraft because of the stigma that comes with that statement and often times won’t participate in the community. Btw, side note: For those that are vocal I sincerely appreciate you who have been around forever and help grow the community.

[ADDITIONAL UNIMPORTANT NOTE: We actually did a test run to see if our audience was younger than we thought. I tried doing a ROBLOX RP to see if maybe our demographic was there instead of MC. (…Also I wanted to make something for our kids to watch.) It turned out the feedback from the audience was so overwhelmingly negative on it because peeps didn’t want to see the channel turn into a “kids channel” with kid directed content]

But again… the problem is the stigma that comes with using MC as a storytelling device. A lot of YTers bowed out of MC because they felt they no longer had the creative freedom they once had before censorship happened. Which if I had been completely kid friendly from the beginning I could see where the problem is, however this is not the case and adult themes (be they subtle or not) have always been there.

My content is for those who want to consume it on the main YT site/app. Anyone under the age of 13 SHOULD be using the YT kids app, but that is in their parents hands to decide what is appropriate for their kids. I advise fellow parents when they ask me in person to make sure my content is for their kid(s) and to have open discussions about the topics at hand if they decide to allow their kids to consume my content. I understand parents cannot be there 24/7 but they should not entrust media to be the core source of conversation for a mind that’s still growing and needs a parent/guardians guidance.

I will continue to use MC as a platform and the YT self rating system to make sure my content gets pushed to the right outlets, I cannot monitor who sees my content. Eventually I’d like to move to another story telling platform OR modify MC so it doesn’t look like MC anymore but rather something that looks similar to the unity engine. (We tried this with Ultra Nova but didn’t have people who cared about the project enough to help with it. Jason ended up doing the modeling and it didn’t come out like we had hoped) Jason and I would love to get into animation (2D/3D), but that is not possible at the moment, however we are working on that and maybe later FAR down the line you’ll see that! (you can see with S6 we’re getting a feel for it! Animation ain’t just there for show it’s for prepping for the future)

I will do my best to open up more about my creative choices. 

I understand some peeps are upset about the Ein/Aphmau thing and I plan on addressing that (maybe in another blog post later this week but it might just say what I’m about to say). Peeps tend to get riled up as soon as something negative happens and are on “attack mode” which leads to provocation and just a whole mess of emotions coming from both sides. But since I’m trying to be more open right now I’ll give it my best shot to address it later. For now to give a brief summary: not all stories/characters are 100% planned. My writing for stories years ago was not written knowing exactly where the characters would be year(s) later. Again a topic to get into depth for another time. I know there are peeps out there who won’t listen and will probably see everything I say as an excuse. But hey, I’m gonna open up and if they want to believe me or not is up to them. I understand why they’re upset and I value and respect their opinions, but implying someone’s absolute moral beliefs on a taboo subject through a fictional story is just odd. I think my girl Michaela best sums that up in this post. 

My responsibility as a creator is to create. I do take responsibility in who sees my content through the systems that are set in place for that. But there is also a responsibility in the viewer to know the type of content they’re consuming. In the future maybe I’ll add in self ratings since that isn’t completely and transparently done through YT. 

Whew, I hope that sums things up or at least gives an answer to a few things.

Sorry for being all over the place with that post, let me know if you want me to convey anything in better detail for this topic. I’ll address other topics mentioned in here when I have a moment, thanks again for your time! <3 (appreciate if you took the time to make it this far!)

So uh

knock knock

here comes the old school, long term and very annoying Adult fan here.

And I want to say some things about the… well… anger going around. Anger, I can understand why it’s happening and there’s a particular point missing here. There’s also a bit of miscommunication of feelings and assumptions, and let’s be honest, when people get rowdy and bitter, they make jokes that escalate and escalate and sometimes make things bigger than they need to be.

However I think a lot of the upset and hurt feelings of many fans is actually justified.

I want to preface that currently I’m studying literature and actively engrossed in the field of studying pieces of writing (which to an extent I grapple content of entertainment like movies, tv shows and yes your series because you are a writer & at the end of the day, I have affection for a lot of your work), the sort of studying that includes extracting meanings and symbolism and how well a piece of work delivers its message.

The reason for the anger is because a lot of plots in Mystreet are delivered in manners that is… well, ham-fisted at best and at worst, in such an insensitive way that causes a lot of fans to drop your work. Dedicated fans. Fans who love your characters and your worlds but your stories now are lacking some of the cleverness and wit.

The idea of “grown up and older audience” does not mean guns and plot lines where it leaves fans dreading– but not because its cliche or “been done before”.

It’s because you’re taking the worse of “adult” geared storylines.

Do you want my honest truth? Writing stories for kids is hard. Of course it is. But it isnt in the way a lot of people think. Yet I also think some of the best works we had were works that were geared towards children.

Honestly mystreet from Emerald Street onward had potential, but the glitz and the gore and the idea of somehow doing something gritty means it’s more sophisticated dirtied it to a point that nobody can recongnize it.

How does that become offensive? Because there’s that lack of tact with treating the more serious subject.

Nobody is stopping you from writing serious storylines– fuck, I invite that! But it’s how the storylines are delivered. It’s how the storylines are presented. It’s how you take responsibility.

I don’t envy your job because your livelihood depends on fans and the reception of your work and you can’t appease the masses.

But this isn’t what’s happening, Jess.

People are upset for an understandable reason but a lot of people don’t want to give up on you.

It’s like love love paradise again in a way. And the way you dealt with me & other fans displeasure over Travlyn depiction is the way that’s needed now.

The storyline of incest was a mess. It’s supposed to be a twist but it was integrated poorly and it followed the trend of needless shock value. The backlash came from that.

Some people would equate your moral belief to that but a lot of the anger I saw personally was not that. I’m not forbidding you from writing that but it needs to be more… careful.

And the thing is– you dealt with story lines that are incredibly dark in masterful ways.

I will forever and always sing praises over Liochant storyline in MCDs3 and Isabel’s mini arc in S2– the former dealing with microaggressions from Garroth as well as outright xenophobia also from garroth and other residents and… man… isabel’s story line where she is saved from abuse? A+

You can write serious topics to your stories without the MATURE/older audience label on it. All people want is that you bring back the way you use to write these story lines. We seen it before, and we believe you can do it.

At least I do. Deep down, I’m still that middle schooler into your stuff Jess. I’m older and more sensible now, and you know what you’re doing wrong. If you didn’t, hopefully this impulsive essay with no spell checks and awkward phrasing gave you something to think about.

Don’t drink the “everybody is so sensitive” juice. There is a sensible reason and sometimes the reason is hidden behind venting posts. It can be hurtful. I’m sorry, I am but when a lot of fans who are victims or part of the group you are writing about see cases of abuse being written as “if your horrible parent does one good thing, you should forgive your parent and everything is great” or women repeatedly are killed in ways that does nothing but further the plot for men or incest that feels straight out of a Cassandra Clare novel and these fans vent out their disgust & frustrations, it isn’t attack mode.

And honestly for the longest a lot of the fans didn’t even know if you would care to listen.

Make good on your responsibility to create.

I know you can. You done great before. And I sincerely hope you’ll do better now from this point forward.

Uh I wanted to add an image at the end bc that’s how I respond to posts ahskdk

Oh god, you are not annoying, more insightful than anything. (…and if that’s “annoying” then I don’t wanna know what actual annoying is… ((tho I mean, I’m p sure I know)).)

I don’t think any of the well-expressed feelings are unjustified, as I can understand with where they are coming from. Most of the anger that’s escalated to a unpleasant degree is coming from, uh… the “shipping” aspect as opposed to the actual issue.

I can understand and agree with the aspect of the lack of cleverness and wit.

There are times in my work where it gets hard to deliver a “spot-on” meaning or even elaborate on scenes more. This is mostly due to the consistent upload aspect of the job and that we’re working on such a tight time limit.  

This… is where the problem stems [or some aspect of it].

To SOME degree, I have to appease the majority in order to make a sustainable living for not only myself, but those employed by Jason and myself. This ranges from voice actors, to artists, animators, to in-house peeps.

During the Diaries days, the pressure wasn’t this intense because it was just Jason and I producing it all – if we failed no one else’s livelihoods were on the line. I was motivated to write to the best of my ability and STILL be successful at it. That’s because at the time that’s what people wanted in the MC RP scene.  In depth story and great showmanship [showmanship being the way the show presented itself, though that has changed over time].

But… times change.

This is not just in my content this is in the way the RP community as a WHOLE started to present itself.

Audiences were starting to prefer more faster paced story-lines that got to the point without too much elaboration or explanation. Consistent uploads started to become expected and the worst part, they started to become demanded more frequently. A good example of preferred fast paced story-line was the boom of Samgladiator. [I’ve keep up with my peers and their history since this is my profession, I have founded and researched ideas of what helps a channel be “successful” in this field.]

In the YT space as a whole, you HAVE to be open to the idea of constant change as a content creator.

You have to be innovative, you have to be creative, you have to be “perfect”.

“Perfect” in the sense that people desire their “perceived” perfect of you, not that you actually HAVE to be legit perfect – your audience is there for YOU and they don’t wanna lose the you that they come to love and know. But, it’s a lot of pressure and I don’t think any amount of therapy will ever prepare you for the snide unhelpful remarks ; ;

This explanation is NOT a justification for not tackling certain subjects with wit and cleverness.

We are working hard to get into doing that more and in better ways that convey the subject matter [ex: the examples you gave with Diaries], but trying to evolve presentation style at the same time content is being aired while keeping in mind what makes something “successful”, WHILE trying to tell the story you wanna tell is… almost impossible to do correctly. It’s mentally draining at that. We are on a 24 hour production cycle and it’s been very hard to find people [help] who understand this. Taking breaks is not an option for us. While SOME channels can get away with that, others cannot. When I had to take a physical/mental health break in Aug 2016 [I was in the hospital] it hurt our statistics immensely and we have not recovered from that.

Oh god I have to stop now because I have been trying explain myself for a few hours on this… and I still don’t think this is done properly in this post. I’m going to try to sum what I was trying to get at… (sorry!)

In short:

I totally understand where everyone is coming from and know where the faults of my storytelling/writing lie. I don’t think anyone is unjustified in their concerns and am open to listening completely and trying to find new ways to expand upon that feedback, but understand that I have to both entertain AND learn how to do that at the same time while the platform is consistently evolving. Jason and I won’t be able to make everyone 100% happy all the time, but I can at least clarify our intentions.

I do appreciate the feedback a lot Maddie.

Just know that we’re workin’ with what we got and will always be open to improvements.

[Also please lemme know if I can answer any questions about this. This doesn’t sum up everything 100%.]

Hey. So.

Apparently, creators are not allowed to write about taboo topics anymore without “promoting” them. You can only write things you believe in!

Seriously! It’s such a new trend now to shame writers, artists, and anyone creative for it being CREATIVE in a fictional work! You’re not allowed to write about ANYTHING that may be “problematic” or “disgusting” unless you yourself get off on it!

You write about incest? You MUST ADVOCATE FOR INCEST!

You wanna write about rape? YOU MUST BE A RAPIST!

You wanna write about torture? YOU’RE A SICK SADIST!

Yup! THAT’S WHAT THE WORLD HAS COME TO NOW! NO MORE CREATIVE THOUGHT! NO MORE PLAYING IN THE FICTIONAL REALM! EVERYTHING MUST BE FULL OF RAINBOWS AND HAPPINESS OR ELSE YOU’RE A SCUMBAG!

…

…

To ANYONE who thinks this: Get over yourself.

Seriously. I’m pointing at some fandoms right now with my words, but if this applies to you, then you are being pointed at too.

Just because we creators create something with taboo topics in it doesn’t fucking mean we advocate for it. If YOU have a problem with it, then don’t watch/read/look at it.

I’m 100% done with people being so close-minded about creative works and the freedoms it has. It’s FICTION. It’s NOT REAL.

If you cannot separate fiction from reality, then stay away from fiction and I mean this both lovingly for your mental health and aggressively to protect creative works from bullshit censorship.

We use taboos to make unique/interesting stories. You may not like it, but we’re the ones making the story. Not you. We are weaving and carving our FICTIONAL worlds however we want so we can tell our stories in the ways we want to.

Don’t like it? MAKE SOMETHING YOURSELF. The world needs more creatives and if you wanna tell a story then tell it however YOU want to tell it.

But FUCK YOU if you ever think a creator advocates for taboo subjects just because they put it in their works.

Signed, a creator who has written about child/sex trafficking, rape, kidnapping, torture porn, murder, the dark web, Christian mythos, hard drugs, and alcohol abuse.

To clear things up if you’re feelin’ nervous don’t worry. I’m not going to go after someone maliciously for having an opinion that differs from mine. (Especially on fictional characters/story). Everyone is allowed to have an opinion and everyone’s opinion is valid. 

You are absolutely allowed to disagree with my actions [past or present]. There’s nothing wrong with that. If someone is making a false accusation though or doesn’t have the correct information to support their claim I tend to respond to try to clear that up so they have more info understand both sides. I haven’t been vocal on my involvement and some peeps seem to have the wrong idea on things go or the thought process behind things.

Sometimes I may give my opinion on an opinion too but it’s not meant to cause harm to someone, rather to start a discussion with peeps. Even if I may not agree with it, I’d like to try to understand where people are coming from.

OH MY GOODNESS APHMAUS ON

HI! (´・ω・)ﾉ

I find this so funny because I wrote some of the episodes ; ; LOL...

Hm... I’m not sure where the idea that “Jason took control of the channel/series/direction” came from, but I think some peeps are putting a lot of blame on him where it doesn’t lie. At least that’s what it seems like to me. I spoke about this briefly in one of my recent YouTube streams, but I’ll mention it here as well if that helps your understanding! So around the end of S3 I was suffering from major creative burnout from doing a lot of creative projects (as well as mental health issues). I had thoughts about ending the series around S3 but S3 was not fulfilling to me and I felt like something was missing in my story telling ability. I eventually ended up passing off that sentiment as “I just don’t wanna do it anymore” to fans when in reality I just wanted to tell a greater story but didn’t know how to do that. I’m not GREAT intense story lines and structure and that’s something I’ve been trying to focus on, and imo I’ve gotten better over time (Though that’s totally up opinion ofc!) At the time of S3 we had help from others but it wasn’t to the degree that actually helped me mentally or creatively. It was getting harder and harder for me to go in the direction I wanted my characters to go in. Jason asked me if I would like his input. He of all people knows my characters the best, since well... he was there for all of my previous series, helped me with arcs on them, and has a great grasp on the things I want from my characters. We’ve always worked together on all series and if you’re a fan of Diaries some arcs were heavily helped with by Jason, but MS S4 and S6 is where I really asked for help in bringing more than the “Slice of Life” aspect to MS. Regardless, there isn’t a thing being done with the characters/story that I DON’T want because these episodes and everything in them are passed by me. If I don’t like the direction my characters are going in it doesn’t get made and goes back to the drawing board. As for MCD, I put out a statement 8 months ago on the Fantasy Channel (not sure if you saw?) and I would appreciate respect on the fact that I am just not in the place to bring it back. It’s my baby. I care about it. BUT if I cannot give it the love it deserves and I cannot trust anyone else to do so then I’d rather not push it just to push it out.  Hope that clears up any misunderstandings!