N(SF)W

I'm absolutely of the opinion that good incest content needs a bit of an edge to be compelling, of course, and stridercest as a ship has never been lacking in heavier/angstier works. I love me some good angst. In fact i need angst to thrive. Its like a vitamin to me. I need to take it periodically or i start going funny in the head.

BUT tbh and im gonna be so fr as the youngsters put it. I'm soooo tired of seeing super violent and abusive brodave constantly..... even if that interpretation is more "correct" if you look at canon, its just never been my cup of tea i guess! To each their own and not to yuck anyones yum but i feel like the Standard Brodave (tm) for a long time has been "bro rapes and beats up dave bc hes Evil and Irredeemable" and its just so bleak and one-note all the time.

There was a sharp shift in tone in the fandom around the time when Dave poured his heart out to Dirk abt his childhood in the comic, it was around the same time anti-shipping and vocal condemnation of "problematic" shipping was really gaining momentum. And like, i get it. I do. It was an eye-opening moment both for Dave as a character AND his fans. But uhhhh i'm gonna sound super mentally ill for a bit but like. That update and the resulting fandom aftermath broke something inside of me, and followed by the INTENSE hatred stridercest got as a whole. Like. It was bad. I think if you weren't there you probably don't fully understand.

Stridercest went from one of the top ships in the HS fandom to being almost universally condemned pretty much overnight. Like you need to understand that fully nsfw pics of dave getting bred silly style by bro or dirk would be drawn by big name artists that would go on to have professional art careers, and those pieces would be widely circulated and they would garner thousands of notes. And then Dave drops the truth abt how living with bro was actually like, and in the puritanical fandom climate at the time, that DECIMATED stridercest's (and specifically brodave's) popularity imo. And what brodave fans would be left to tend the crops and what new fans would come, they'd only see the newer "canon compliant" works where bro is basically just an instrument for producing dave whump and showcasing his suffering. I feel like this trend has only been strengthened by HS^2's making Dirk a villain. So yea there you have it bro is horrible and cold and all around disgusting piece of shit bc that's what dirk TRULY is too! And it totally makes sense to make bro a violent pedophile who only uses and tortures dave bc hes the closest person around and bc He's Bad!! Sigh.

When That Convo happened in the comic, i was still pretty young at the time. I had been practically growing up with stridercest as my fav ship during my teen years. That ship was an emotional crutch to me in many ways im not gonna get into here. But yea then i start getting absolutely bombarded with this sentiment that stridercest is the most vile ship to ever exist and everyone who ships it has done REAL damage to REAL people and its GOOD that dave told all those things to dirk, so that those horrible shippers see their gross incest yaoi for what it ACTUALLY is. Idk i was kind of in a vulnerable state of mind at the time, and getting so thoroughly shamed for my favorite ship in the wake of also realizing MYSELF that yea, dave DID have it bad, like no question abt it, it did some real, deep damage to how i think and feel abt my likes.

And boy did i feel bad about it. For YEARS. In fact, i feel like now in the year of our lord 2026 my brain might have finally healed from the psychic damage of that fandom event. Like, I feel like a part of me truly did believe that my sexual attraction to a fictional pair of brothers boning has resulted in real ppl getting groomed by their real life abusers, resulted in real self-harm and suicides and the like. And i felt. So. Guilty. Guilty for "not realizing" sooner that it's a "bad" ship but also for wanting to like it despite the canon events and shifting fandom attitudes. Wanting to see cute striders kiss on the couch despite it all. Felt like a garbage piece of shit who doesn't deserve to have their "sick" taste catered to. Definitely doesn't deserve to see strider boys lovingly embracing and being in love. It felt like antis kinda won there, and their hatred was compeltely justified and my "responsibility" was just to accept that i was rotten and deserved to feel bad. I completely retreated into my shell fandom-wise and was terrified of interacting w/ anyone. At that point i had never even properly started blogging abt my interests bc i was insecure to begin with, and after all that, i definitely felt like i wasn't welcome to. I craved connection and felt so alone with my pointless brocon yaoi pain. Bc you can imagine it's rly hard to start explaining any of this to anyone who's not In The Know. It's such a spesific, niche thing. And it's all abt online ships so it's like. What are we even talking abt here. All of this is completely meaningless.

But i feel better now, after a long, long time!

Idk i guess i just needed to vent some frustfation!!! Obvioulsy everyone can make any kind of content they enjoy, im just gonna skip the bits i don't like. Im not gonna get up in someones business abt drawing my ships in a way i dont like. I'm just rly sad that the atmosphere around stridercest and especially brodave seems to be cemented into a certain kind of vibe, and i just don't rly vibe w/ that vibe. And since pretty much all i see is... that, i feel like nobody would appreciate kawaii striders making out in kigurumis anymore.... :(

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