#lava vent

Table of Contents:

1. TLDR/Summary

2. Context for recent events.

3. My history with Luiz.

4. Luiz’s bigotry & my conversation with him.

5. Another Brazilian perspective (check reblogs)

6. Conclusion

1. TLDR/Summary:

When I had followed Luiz, I was recommended posts he had reposted which included antisemitic charactures and beliefs. When I checked his following list on Tumblr, he was following Donald Trump supporters, alt-right accounts, etc that were posting & reposting bigotry and n*zi ideology. After communicating with other Hero 108 fans, I was tipped off that he had a recent Twitter account where he reposted transphobic content, including a post joking about the s*icide rate of transgender people. He had also drawn his own comic portraying trans women as p*d*philes. When I confronted him about these things, he did not directly address my concerns. He has also made comics, art, and memes that are sexist in nature, and has also made art/comments about his culture (Brazil), which other Brazilian fans of Hero 108 have taken issue with.

2. Context for Recent Events:

I made a post recently discussing misogyny/sexism in the Hero 108 fandom. This post was partially in response to Luiz’s post joking about Sonia being turned on by Lin Chung doing dishes for her. It was not the only reason I made that post, though, as I had personally witnessed misogyny in the fandom in both posts from other fans and from fans in Hero 108 discord servers. I did not say anything to Luiz directly about this specific matter because I did not think he would listen to my concerns (which I have reason to believe he would not, I will discuss this point later too). I did not feel comfortable unblocking him either.

The article screenshot I used in the picture. It’s a good read: https://www.theswaddle.com/humor-or-misogyny-sexist-jokes-condone-prejudice

The post I made gained a bit of traction. I assume that Luiz ended up seeing my post through someone else and then ended up making a post of his own just recently after that. Because Tumblr has picture limits and I have some important things to show, I will link his post instead of screenshotting it. It is too long to screenshot in full anyways.

https://www.tumblr.com/luidado07/810896903004913664/clarifying-a-few-things

In this post he explains his perspective on the matter, and attempts to apologize for a few of the memes/art he has made. However, he also undermines the sexist nature of his own posts, saying he felt that the “ “misogyny”” claim was exaggerated,” and also used parts of his own culture to excuse the nature of some of his content. Luiz also tried to claim the joke he made was to encourage “boyfriends to be more helpful with domestic chores,” and how “being helpful can mean just as much as gifts and the like.” I do not believe this explanation & because of previous conversations, feel this is a way of dismissing the original criticism. Because I had him blocked, I did not know about this post being made. I was made aware of this post through friends/mutuals, who were upset by the nature of it given his history of bigotry and excuses. This included TWO BRAZILIAN HERO 108 FANS who were upset about him misrepresenting their culture to justify his actions.

I don’t think this post is inherently an issue. He is allowed to respond. But I was not impressed with how he tried to downplay his behavior (again, imo) when this is not the first time he has been shown to exhibit these attitudes. I also do not think he is truly sorry based off of actions he has taken.

3. My History With Luiz:

This part will be a little long, but I feel it is necessary to detail so I can thoroughly explain my problems with his past/current behavior and actions. I also think this is important to bring up to prove he has history of these bigoted attitudes, being given second chances by other fans, and these fans being let down again and again. I first became aware of Luiz years ago when he had made fanart of (the original version) of my Opposite AU, which was then titled “Villain 108.” I never interacted with him (that I remember), but I was excited to see someone had made fanart of my work.

That was, until I found out he was following and making art for Antoons: a creator with a history of N*zi beliefs, alt-right beliefs, harassing users (especially lgbt users), etc. The screenshots below show his post about my AU, his post with fanart for Antoons, me and other users in an old Hero 108 server talking about him supporting Antoons, and a screenshot of Antoons + the kind of posts he makes.

Luiz was not a child when he made this art. He is 24 years old now, meaning he would have made this when he was around 18-19. He was at an age you would know better.

“Lava, this was years ago. Luiz may have changed. Why are you bringing this up now?”

I completely agree. This WAS years ago, and it would be wrong to hold that against him if he didn’t feel the same way now, right? But that’s precisely the issue. He STILL follows these kinds of people, and I have reason to believe he still believes in these kind of things. I can prove it.

If you have followed me since October, you may remember this post I made. This post was ALSO in reference to Luiz. I made this post right after I stumbled across the kind of content he was liking, reposting, and following:

Before I had him blocked we were mutuals. I really liked some of his art and he seemed to enjoy my content as well. At one point, he reached out to me to do a collab in which Opposite 108 would appear in his comic series. We discussed the matter, and I had even given him permission to create his Villain au, which was inspired by the old version of Opposite 108. We were on good terms and excited to collab together. I was a little nervous because I had remembered his support of Antoons in the past, but I didn’t want to hold that against him. It was years ago—people change!

I am not that active on Tumblr. I don’t see everything the people I follow posts, and I don’t scroll very much on Tumblr either. One day, when I decided to do just that, I found a post he reposted with an antisemitic characature. I was disgusted but I had hoped deep down it was a mistake. I thought maybe I should check his following list, which I did, and what I found dashed any hopes I had.

He was following accounts that were supporters of Donald Trump, alt-right accounts, accounts promoting n*zism, bigotry, and “white nationalism” (aka racism).

4. Luiz’s Bigotry, and My Conversation With Him

Note that I do not have screenshots of all the bigoted accounts he was following back in October when I checked his account, but I do have one screenshot which includes one of these accounts: @/boomer-mythology-destroyer. Remember that this is ONLY one of multiple accounts I had discovered. I unfortunately do not have access to the others anymore.

Here’s what I found.

This isn’t even the worst of it. I cannot check for some of the posts I found because I cannot see his following list on Tumblr anymore, but here is a text I wrote in October describing one of the worst things I saw to a friend. Because it is a screenshot of something I said months ago, I understand if you don’t want to take it as truth. Please stay with me, though, because it gets much worse, and I have indefinite proof of what I will bring up. One of the things in the screenshot is also something I can prove, if you scroll down further.

Some of you may be surprised to find he was following these kinds of accounts, but you also might still have doubt—justifiably so. Luiz may not have known these people posted these things. That’s fair. I even said this about myself earlier when talking about finding the stuff Luiz liked. We’re not technically responsible for the things other people post, you know? That’s a flawed way of thinking.

It could mean nothing, but I believe it is indicative of things he believes. This is because when I talked to some of my friends & fellow Hero 108 fans about this matter, they shared information with me that deeply disturbed me.

Luiz had a Twitter account, and he was posting disgusting, transphobic comics, replies, and posts. There are dates present in the screenshots, but the year isn’t available. According to the (trusted) user I got these from, these posts, reposts, and replies were all made not several years ago but from THE PAST YEAR.

(I had a Brazilian user translate these for me, so everything you're reading is accurate)

A link to a couple sources about the 41% joke. Review with caution:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/41%25

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Trans-Suicide-Summary-Sep-2021.pdf

I was HORRIFIED. I had given him the benefit of the doubt and agreed to collab with him, and I found out he was making these kinds of awful statements. I was communicating with him without knowing he felt people like me, people like my partner, and people like my friends were P*DOPHILES. I was talking with him without knowing he thought PEOPLE LIKE US COMMITTING S*ICIDE WAS FUNNY.

I wasn’t just horrified—I was *furious.* Despite this, I wanted to be mature. I contacted him about this privately. This is how the conversation went:

He was not impolite, but it felt to me that he wasn’t being entirely truthful. It felt like he was purposefully leaving out information and dancing around some of the things I mentioned in my texts.

At the time, I said nothing about what I found out publicly. I wasn’t sure if I should. I did, however, vent about what I found out in a Hero 108 server I am not in anymore. I believe this info ended up spreading to other people, some of which he interacted with much more than I ever did. Once that occurred, I believe others must have brought it up with him in dms as well, because he ended up making a public apology about it. I’ll link the post below and also screenshot it for you to see.

https://www.tumblr.com/luidado07/798854791240581120/my-apology?source=share

He also apologized to me in DMs after I temporarily unblocked him. This happened after his public apology. I cannot add any more pictures to the post (and I cannot find the message anymore for some reason??) but take my word for it that he did. He told me he hoped we could just coexist with no issue, and I agreed at the time. I told him I'm not comfortable being around him anymore, but I do not wish him harm. I blocked him shortly afterward once again. While I appreciated him reaching out, I still had doubts he understood how severe the issue truly was. Like I inferred earlier: at best he doesn't know the weight of his actions. At worst, it feels like he only apologized to people because he got caught.

(DESPITE THE MANNER OF THIS POST I STILL DO NOT WANT ANYONE TO HARASS HIM BY THE WAY. I WILL BLOCK YOU IF I CATCH YOU DOING THAT)

There is more I could add to this section. I could look back at reposts on his Tumblr to see if he has posted anything else that is concerning (and see if he deleted them after he was caught). I could bring up how one of the asks he answered recently about ships appears like he is trying to dance around his homophobia/transphobia. I could probably find some other stuff, too. However, I think I would be repeating myself at this point.

I want to take the time now to quickly cover a disgusting LinSonia post he made tapping into Brazilian history, and the “Brazilian cultural context” he gave in his recent post about the misogyny & sexism in his memes/art. This section will be short since I cannot provide anymore pictures, but one of the Brazilian users I talked to about this plans to reblog this post and give his perspective on the things Luiz said and drew. Look for a reblog of this post or another post with his feelings about it soon.

5. Another Brazilian perspective (check reblogs)

This is a post Luiz made about LinSonia being a native and a colonizer. It is still up on his account and I will link it for you to view yourself if you wish. In this post, he depicts Lin Chung as a Portuguese colonizer, and Sonia & Mr. No Hands as Brazilian natives. In the artwork, Lin Chung is asking Mr. No Hands if he can BUY SONIA OFF OF HIM. Bear in mind that this post now has a disclaimer on it, which it didn’t have when he originally posted this artwork.

(I also do not care about the disclaimer claiming this was supposed to be a “joke.” That doesn’t automatically mean the harm these kinds of posts perpetuate are automatically okay because they were jokes)

https://www.tumblr.com/luidado07/788470690224406528/attention-this-is-just-a-joke?source=share

I have a lot I could say about this myself, but it wouldn't mean as much coming from me, as a white person from the United States. I could give info about how disgusting a post like this would be if it were based on Natives of North America and British Colonizers, but this isn't what this is about. This is about the history of Brazil and how it was severely impacted by Portuguese colonization. It would be an injustice to act like these events were the exact same. This history deserves to be known for what it is, and not what it could be compared to.

So, I'll have my partner Nick address this, as he is Brazilian himself. Again, look out for a reblog of this post from him OR a seperate post. He plans to comment on Luiz's remarks claiming his comics are not sexist/misogynistic, but "reflective of Brazilian culture." He also plans to address this comic too.

6. Conclusion

That is all I have to say, for now. If I find more that I believe needs addressed, I will reblog this post with screenshots, links, etc.

As I said in the beginning: it is up to YOU now to do what you will with the information you have been given. Everything has been laid out for you. I have nothing more to hide from what I saw. Now that you are properly informed, you can make an educated decision on how you move forward with this user, and if you want this user to be in your inner circle. Again, please do not harass him. Despite the nature of this post, I do not want him harassed. I made this post to make sure everyone finally knew the things he supports, the true severity of his actions, and how he has not recounted these events accurately. I also made this post to hopefully make him realize that these things are not "funny" or "not a big deal."

Thank you if you read all of this. I'm sorry I kept this info from you for so long. I finally realized that it is not up to me to make sure bigots are comfortable.

If someone knew that someone I interacted with frequently spread nasty bigotry towards marginalized groups, I would hope they would tell me too. I am finally speaking out now.

-

To Luiz, if you end up reading this:

I appreciate that you did make a public apology months ago. I appreciate that you even sent me a private apology when given the opportunity, too.

That said, from your own words and actions since the day I confronted you, I have come to realize that you do not understand the harm much of your content has promoted. It'd be one thing if this was a simple mistake, but the fact you followed SEVERAL white nationalist, bigoted, n*zi accounts on Tumblr was not a mistake. The fact you responded to trans positivity posts with your OWN ART depicting trans women as p*dophiles was not a mistake. The fact you responded with disgust to a woman trying to make something more inclusive for all genders was not a mistake. The fact you replied to accounts playing into s*icide jokes against trans people was not a mistake.

The fact that you were not honest with me about having a Twitter, and then proceeded to delete that Twitter afterwards, was not a mistake. You hiding your likes and following list after I told you about the things I saw you liking, reposting, etc, was not a mistake.

While I want to believe you are truly sorry, the actions you have taken since our conversation does not reflect someone who is apologetic.

It reflects someone doing damage control.

I do not want to push you out of the community or send harassment towards you. What I want out of this is for you to seriously reflect on your actions. I want you to do research into these communities you have hated upon and spread misinformation against, and the effects that hatred has on them. I want you to evaluate what made you think these things were acceptable. I want you to stop sugarcoating your actions to make them sound less severe than they actually are. I want you to think about why these things would make people so afraid and angry with you.

Despite this call-out, despite your long history of believing these things and despite how disingenuous some of your comments have come off..... I still believe you are capable of change.

Unfortunately, you have a lot more work to do to get to that point than I previously thought.

And as much as I (and others) enjoyed some of your past content—some of your art, your ideas, your memes—we are not obligated to stick around someone who has made us feel subhuman.

Seriously reflect on what your behavior does to people, and what it says about you.

NOT because I told you to, or because your actions have been exposed, but because you feel bad and want to make up for it.