Comfort post for The Man From the Shadow fans ❤️🩹
(A quick heads up that this came out LONG bc I kinda popped off, but it all comes from a place of love and genuine care <3)
(EDIT: found out not long after posting this that the backstory has been changed lmao 😭 I'm gonna keep the post up tho bc I stand by what I said for just dark fiction in general. But yeah we get a little silly and that's ok💀)
So I've recently been getting back into some minecraft horror mods I heard about awhile ago and I was getting super into our little stalker trio (since I've always liked dark stalker/yandere characters) and I recently heard some of the stuff going on with August's lore.
Now I'm going to come out the gate with a few things 1. I haven't read this for myself, only from the accounts of other people who have translated and read it, 2. This post is intended to be some comforting reminders and affirmations for any fan, especially of the selfshipping or yumeshipping variety that got really into this character specifically and feel blindsighted by the potential lore
while I've heard the potential of his lore being rewritten I've also seen some people saying the creators behavior may indicate the aspect of his character being a child predator may not be excluded.
To be concise, on principal alone I have no issue with this character having such dark subject matter involved. I wish I didn't have to assert as such, but dark fiction, even dark fiction containing this type of subject matter, is allowed to exists in any way its creator wishes. The main issue I've seen others touch on is that to some it comes without warning to people who may have already gotten attached to the character that otherwise wouldn't have if there had been appropriate disclaimers on the character's back story.
To people that feel a deep level of hurt and even potentially triggered because you were not warned at the appropriate time, I am genuinely so sorry.
Now, I am going to remind you that regardless of all of this, it doesn't mean you have to stop liking the character if he brings you comfort. For starters, this is a fictional character and the beauty of the 'death of the author' principal is that their backstory, their personality, and their behavior can be entirely something different from the source material in your head. Canon source material isn't a law you have to follow, once a character is out in the world, it's more like a suggestion. You can do anything with this character that you want. Don't let anyone pressure you into feeling like you can no longer enjoy this character just because it was originally written one way, people diverge from canonical stories all of the time. You aren't stupid for doing so for your own comfort, you are enjoying a character in your own harmless way that hurts absolutely no one. And don't let someone mental gymnastics you into thinking you somehow are hurting someone. I assure you interacting with a dark fictional character in a romantic manner, and diverging from a canon part of their story that you are uncomfortable with and don't want to interact with is not causing any real world harm to anyone.
Also on a different side of this conversation, if you are someone that wishes to self/yumeship with this character as a way of coping with any kind of trauma you experienced that is also completely okay! You do not have to let people make you feel like a bad person because you interact with or create dark media. So long as you include proper trigger warnings before posting content if that's something you wish to do, there is no problem in yet again enjoying a character in a way that causes no real world harm and possibly brings you comfort and healing. Mental heath is a never ending journey that looks different for everyone, and there is absolutely no shame in that. And there is no shame in finding community with people who feel similarly to you.
Don't let a stranger on the internet make you feel guilt or shame regardless of how you wish to proceed with this character. If you wish to stop interacting altogether for your own comfort? That is okay. If you don't want to let the character go, so you just wish to ignore or change the aspect of the character you dislike and continue viewing it the way you did before you learned of it? That is also okay. And as stated before if you wish to interact with what may be the canon story of this character in a self/yumeship manner, that is also okay. No one way is morally better than the other. No one way makes you a better or worse person.
As someone you enjoys a lot of yandere/stalker and other darker media as my own source of comfort and way to cope, this comes out of a place of both sympathy and empathy. Me personally? I'm most likely going to cherry-pick August's lore, take what I like and ignore what I don't. I also hope to see other ways people reimagine the character. (This community made an obsessed knocker mod, a mod of a mod if you will. We can do whatever we want with these characters lmao)
To my fellow wonderful freaks (affectionate) I hope I was able to make at least one other person feel better, as someone who gets very emotionally invested in media and attached to characters I understand first hand the kind of emotional state situations like this can do to people. I just wanted to give the reassurance someone may feel they need right now. I hope everyone does what they need to do to feel most comfortable, and maybe even brings them the most enjoyment. Please be kind to one another ❤️🩹