is it proship to think everyone dropping Ethan and basically "banishing" him from fan content following poisonjabz getting outted and fired from the show is incredibly silly? like he was one of the most popular SM characters that retained popularity even after the hype for Streber died down and now everyone just hates him. what happened to separating art from the artist?
I didn't even like Ethan before, but now I just feel bad for him. he had SUCH potential as a character looking back, but most people, including his own creator, just used him for shipping fodder and horny bait (nothing wrong with that, mind, I'm just far more into character exploration), and now he's never gonna be used for anything ever again.
(also people are lowkey being hypocrites about it bc they've turned Ethan into a pariah but still use OTHER things poisonjabz made. They were the ones that originally came up with Streber wearing a triforce shirt and [I think] the no-smoking shirt, and yet I still see people draw Streber with those)
I think that's just a normal opinion if I'm going to be honest?? Proship just means 'ship and let ship' and 'I won't harass, callout or try to ruin your life over what you do with fictional characters/scenarios'- Actually wait by that logic I guess it is? I dunno. It's kinda complicated.
But you actually bring up an interesting point regarding Ethan, his involvement in the fandom, and his creator. I myself genuinely enjoy Ethan as a character. I love to pair him with Streber as a close friend.
In my controversial opinion, I think the Spooky Month version of Ethan is a different one from the Ethan created by poisonjabz. They're the same base character, sure, but they serve different purposes. It would be a different story if Ethan was simply one of the background guest characters.
Treating him as a separate from Spooky Month just feels like performative activism atp. Insane thing to say, I know, but I also remember the fact I saw people essentially celebrating the fact they could take Ethan and redesign him to make him into their own OC (I primarily saw this on Twitter. I don't have Twitter but I peek in every once in a while to the detriment of my mental health lol). More people seemed to care about the character than any victims in this situation. I saw the same thing happen when the VA for Streber was outed as a bad person. People were more focused on the character than the person that was hurt in this situation.
And regarding the headcanon of Streber wearing the triforce shirt (unsure about the origin of the no smoking shirt headcanon so I can't say anything about it), I think that's just people not knowing the origin of the headcanon. Maybe some people do and simply don't care since it's not a whole character, just a simple headcanon. Plus it's harder to pin down the origin of a headcanon when there's hundreds upon thousands of fanworks out there.
Also fwiw I doubt Ethan or Streber's other friends were going to get brought up again. But I don't know for sure. Not like I'm a part of the team or anything.
