Vect
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2020
Oh that's interesting. I'm sure there was a period in the latter half of the last decade when he definitely stopped giving review scores.
Jim Sterling / James "Stephanie" Sterling / James Stanton/Sexton & in memoriam TotalBiscuit (John Bain) - One Gaming Lolcow Thread
- Thread starter José Mourinho
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2022
I call bullshit on Sterling's claims here.
Nobody with moderate or severe pain(especially if it's musculoskeletal) would feel even the slightest inclination to engage in wrestling, and anyone who tried it would injure himself heavily.
As for being able to "forget the pain" in the ring - that is total shite and if true would make wrestling a better painkiller than morphine. Ha fucking ha.
Most likely he is playing up his pain condition (if any) for sympathy. Loser.
Administrator Flotsam
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2023
I just checked the jimqusition site / blog (which looks like a weird fetish porn site by the way) and he's got numerical ratings for all his reviews, at least for the most recent ones. If he ever did stop it, he probably brought it back just to get on the radars of the special brain-damaged bunch who sperg out about them. I think he did it (and many other more horrifying things like the selfies) because he just craves negative attention. I don't think he can live without it because being a victim of the damn gamers has been part of his identity since even before trooning out and reviewscores are a great way to get the undivided negative attention he needs from a universally condemnable and publicly indefensible audience.
I don't think he hates all games yet but I think he's an intellectual coward when he says he doesn't hate them because what he does love he probably only loves for (a) its political / propaganda message, (b) because its hated by his imaginary oppressors or (c) the ones he ''loves'' are actually just mediocre to OK games that he says he loves because he can't let his hatred show too much.
Whether he hates them or not, he sure loves talking about negative stuff to an obsessive extent. He's like a blackpilled version of the 2013-19 angry reviewers and even meaner for apparently no reason. I also don't understand how he reconciles his statements of "I'm on Patreon so I don't have to worry about getting clicks or what I say" and "Negative stuff does better on youtube"; both paraphrased by me.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
He's middle-aged, enormously obese, takes bone weakening medication and does a sport that causes issues even for healthy and careful performers. It would be surprising if he didn't deal with chronic pain.
Of course, outside of age, he's in control of all these factors. So if he just stopped hurting himself, he could stop whining about the pain, but that doesn't go with his I-do-what-I-want-Mom! persona.
Even if the ecstasy of wrestling makes him forget the pain for a moment that doesn't make the damage he's causing himself go away. That's like an alcoholic claiming that being drunk feels fine: it's sobriety that's the problem!
There's no way a physician has okayed any of this stuff.
Lifting heavy objects and throwing them? Being thrown yourself? Jumping up and down and jumping from heights? Great stuff for the morbidly obese with backpain! If anything do more of that and pick up smoking while you're at it!
Of course, outside of age, he's in control of all these factors. So if he just stopped hurting himself, he could stop whining about the pain, but that doesn't go with his I-do-what-I-want-Mom! persona.
Even if the ecstasy of wrestling makes him forget the pain for a moment that doesn't make the damage he's causing himself go away. That's like an alcoholic claiming that being drunk feels fine: it's sobriety that's the problem!
There's no way a physician has okayed any of this stuff.
Lifting heavy objects and throwing them? Being thrown yourself? Jumping up and down and jumping from heights? Great stuff for the morbidly obese with backpain! If anything do more of that and pick up smoking while you're at it!
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2023
Really think trannies or commies in general listen to physicians? Unless they tell what you want?
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2021
How incredibly fatphobic and ableist!
There was a post buried in the Keffals thread explaining how pain works differently for pill poppers. That once they are used to pain meds and don't take them, every single little thing (a normal twinge that makes regular people go whatever) becomes like a knife in the stomach. That the whole body starts aching in the joints like you're having a growth spurt which normal people just experience as a being a bit stiff. In other words, they become pussies.
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2022
The amhole was with them all along!
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
Jim has posted a final statement on the Justin situation (a). tl;dr apologises for handling this badly by posting the first statement, claims Justin wasn't working anywhere near the long hours he stated, was getting a split of merch sales (which he then embezzled from) on top of his pay, was a genuinely abusive and dangerous person who manipulated some of Jim's fans (which was the final straw for firing him), and twisted the truth on most of the supposed unpaid assistant work he did for Jim - for example, he chose to do the long moving van drive alone so that he wouldn't have to put his cats in a cargo hold.
I will say it is funny to see Jim chastise Justin for "fetishizing someone's transition", forcing sexual stuff into conversation all the time and making people uncomfortable, and "[coming] across as a sweet defenseless victim whose plight pricked at one’s conscience".
A Statement on Recent Events
CW: Abuse, Substance Use, Sexual Content
In the wake of severing ties with my former editor, he made a statement containing a large number of accusatory remarks. In the interest of balance (and because I’m confident of its dishonesty), I’ll be linking his statement in this one. Please do read it if you like, it paints a compelling picture. It’s a very shrewd one too, responding to my reputation rather than the circumstances of his dismissal. Delicious a story as it is though, I wholeheartedly believe it to be a purposefully misleading statement with a number of careful and glaring omissions.
I enthusiastically reject his statement, as has everyone I know who have had firsthand professional experience with him. I’ll go so far as to say, speaking purely for myself as someone who received the allegations that led to his dismissal, I’m disgusted by it.
First, let me apologize for how I’ve handled this whole thing so far.
I acknowledge the criticism that I should not have put a former contractor “on blast” in an unprofessional manner. I am sorry for the way I went about handling this, given that it made private matters public. I don’t know if there’s a sufficient defense but I’d like to share my reasoning - I felt a sense of responsibility to the people who came forward to me with allegations about him, not least because they started out as fans of mine. I knew what would happen if I said anything publicly, because it had been happening privately for a long time. I knew the damage he’d do to my rep, but I felt I was doing the right thing by not allowing him to retain whatever trust came from his association with me. I wasn’t comfortable publishing the full suite of allegations, as they were not mine to make and I did not feel I had sufficient consent to share details, not until my recent confirmation of that consent.
My biggest mistake was pussyfooting around it and making it all about my feelings. I have no excuse for that. I wasn’t thinking clearly when it was important to do so, and I’m sorry, especially to those I felt most accountable to. Since he used that to avoid acknowledging what he did, I won’t make that mistake again.
I’ll speak more plainly than I previously have. In February of 2023, some fans provided me a detailed, receipted account of their relationships with my former editor that alleged emotional abuse, enabling of someone’s alcoholism for the purposes of increasing their promiscuity/availability, a consistent disregard for boundaries and comfort levels, fetishizing somebody’s transition, and manipulative behavior that included convincing people living on disability allowance to send him money they couldn’t afford. I’ve since spoken with others and found they shared a few similar experiences, predominantly involving the aforementioned boundary issues. These people did not feel like they were cared about beyond whatever utility they served him, be it emotional labor, financial support, or sexual validation. Victims note how nonsexual conversation was interrupted to an incessant degree so he could talk about the porn he subscribed to, how he was playing with himself, or his latest sexual fantasies. There was a sense of pressure to accept this as normal behavior, especially since any failure to validate his feelings would lead to accusations of worsening his depression and not providing an adequate distraction from it. I was told that attempts to dissuade him from this behavior would offend him.
One unifying factor in all I’ve been told is his reliance on a story of mistreatment by myself and others to make himself look harmless, helpless, and in need of parenting. One account describes the feelings of sympathy he inspired, how he came across as a sweet defenseless victim whose plight pricked at one’s conscience. He reportedly maintained this pitiful front as he chipped away at their self-confidence, made them feel guilty for not doing enough for him, and consistently pushed at their stated boundaries to achieve creeping concessions. When it came to the insistent sexualization, it was reportedly easier to just let him keep doing it than try to dissuade him or express discomfort.
As it was put to me, he was simultaneously trying to make them his mother and a sex object.
It’s just an incredibly sad situation.
He hurt my fans, who communicated a tremendous amount of shame and humiliation in the aftermath, as well as an intense fear of reprisal from him. I did not want him to make more people feel that way. However, I made such a mess of things that his victims got to see many people sympathize with him instead. He got a free license to engage in a pattern familiar to those with experience in his behavior - present himself as the actual victim, downplay the significance of his own actions, then portray anybody who calls him out as a bad person who betrayed his trust. Fairly basic DARVO tactics, really.
There have been very reasonable concerns resulting from my former editor’s statement. There have also been some incredible conclusions, such as I’m profiting from slave labor, or that I’m worse than Bobby Kotick. The more genuine concerns have been perfectly understandable, however, and I owe my community some apologies for ignoring them.
I’m sorry for letting statements made about me go unanswered for so long. I spent some time in shock and denial, I think. I had no idea how to respond without repeating the mistake of handling things so poorly to begin with. I’m well aware the silence only appeared to confirm his version of events, and I know it has done damage that likely won’t ever be repaired, and that’s on me. I completely understand anyone disappointed in me, or who finds whatever I say now to be too late to matter.
I can’t convince you that I wasn’t brushing this all off, but as avoidant as I’ve been publicly, I cared to the point of worrying myself literally sick. In particular, some messages I received from heartbroken fans both devastated me and finally made me realize I had to stop burying my head in the sand. I’ve had this on my mind every day for months, but in a way I’m glad I took as long as it took to get my shit together, as it’s important to have a clear, rational head this time. Once ready to talk, I needed time to consult with his victims, my legal advisors, and my support network to ensure that I came correct when responding.
One important bit of legal advice I received was that I do not disclose private financial transactions relating to other people without permission (outside a courthouse, at least), but what I am clear to discuss is one of the most crucial omissions from his many obfuscating distractions - the fact he received an equal profit split of merchandise sales, and how his embezzlement of that money wrecked both my trust and a revenue stream designed in a large way to increase his income.
The even split was a decision I’d made explicitly to get him more money while I worked to pay off the six figure debt my financial abuse had left me with (see my original blog post). At first, he had a full 50/50 split despite his artwork having already been effectively licensed. He asserted he could easily run the store himself and I foolishly believed him.
In 2019, he used his position to steal the store’s money. This is something he pointedly neglected to divulge in his first statement, though he would later confirm it himself on Reddit when he saw an opportunity to not only downplay it, but make his actions sound heroic.
As he told it to me in his confession at the time, he had planned to “borrow” a little without asking to cover for a number of his financial mistakes and debts (including the friends’ medical bills he named as the sole motive on Reddit), but the “borrowing” got out of hand and too big for him to quietly replace. It was the start of an ongoing problem he’d have, where he wouldn’t just be upfront with me and would instead do something surreptitious, foolish and harmful. He knew he could always ask me for help. I was always ready to lend him money, give him both material and moral support, and have his back. In the documentation I received regarding his allegations, there are several instances where he acknowledged the ease with which he could ask me for things, but he often elected not to. This refusal extended to others, such as when Phoenix offered to help him fix merch shipping problems and he actively refused, choosing to save face and struggle with a store he couldn’t manage when doing the simple thing and asking for help would have helped us all.
I’m not entirely blameless here. My hands-off approach and willingness to believe he had it covered without more direct oversight means that I do have to accept some measure of responsibility. It was a mistake I do not make now. Phoenix and Conrad handle a lot of the organizational stuff I’m averse to, and they keep perfect records while ensuring I stay informed (often with a lot of patience as they walk me through the kind of business stuff my brain rebels against).
As a result of his mismanagement and theft, not only did I fail to make any money from the store at a time when we seriously needed it, my investment became a sunk cost that exacerbated an already horrendous financial situation. When he confessed the theft to me, my response was to say that our recent talk of a raise was definitively off the table. It was something we’d been discussing and I was, admittedly, pushing back on at a time when I was coming to grips with how bad things were. I’d hoped the store (that he was tanking) would satisfy his need for more income until the budget was in a healthier place. Given that he had actively undermined that effort, I felt it appropriate to have some boundary on the discussion of giving him more. When he asked for his first ever raise, he led by saying he felt he added value to my business. To talk of raises in the wake of what he did here would go against his own stated qualification for one. However, given his attitude in the aftermath, and his seeming refusal to accept what he did was wrong, I personally believe that he came to resent any sense of responsibility for his actions, a belief that has only been strengthened after seeing how he responds to allegations and how he portrays those critical of his behavior.
It’s worth noting that he’s used the fact I waived his debt after a few months of pay reduction to imply that his theft wasn’t a big deal. I waived it, by the way, while I was insensible on morphine. In his incriminating Reddit post he made a big deal out of driving me to the hospital when my back injury incapacitated me, and while I appreciate him taking care of me when I was at my most vulnerable, the context of my state of mind at this time, as well as the vulnerability itself, is important. Regardless, my sticking to an impulsive waiver when I was in a better place did not mean his actions were a case of “no harm, no foul.” What he did caused harm to us both long term, and it was only because he threw himself on my mercy and portrayed himself as utterly helpless that I let it slide and cleaned up his mess.
It would take a year and a half for Conrad and Phoenix to fix things and relaunch the store, and despite him having no involvement this time, despite the fact he was lucky I didn’t jettison him on the spot for what he’d done and instead waived a chunk of the money he owed me, I still gave him an even profit split on any merch sold using his designs. I didn’t stop wanting to boost his income. Of course his split was now reduced since more people were involved but hey, those people were actually making money.
This is one of the finer examples of how the man simply couldn’t help himself. I can see why he neglected to mention it.
As a note of disclosure: until the remaining stock is gone, any merch we sell using his designs will remain subject to the split. All of us running the store have agreed to honor our commitment, in fact calculating the next one is part of Phee’s weekend plan to tidy up loose ends as part of the stores move to a new back-end system.
So, let’s talk about his actual work. The job was ill defined and it changed a lot. This is another mistake I made, and won’t ever repeat. I can give you a decent rundown of things though.
At first, he was paid a monthly $1500 to not have to work at Target anymore. I liked his graphic design, I disliked how he had to spend so much time at a job he hated, and so we worked out an amount of money I could sustainably (this word is very important) pay him to let him have the freedom he needed. Happy days. He asked for a raise a year later, I was impressed by the moxy, so we agreed on $1600. After this, I wanted to keep increasing the pay and eventually give him a generous full time wage. It felt like a great thing to do, though really it should have been clearer that a full-time employer I was not (and after this it’s obvious I should never be close to one). Unfortunately, I didn’t yet know how badly my money was being handled during this period and how unsustainable the idea was.
As noted, his job changed over time, but for the last few years it was rather stabilized: he was being paid $1800 a month for a schedule that almost entirely consisted of editing Podquisition and doing the first draft edit of the Jimquisition. Based on my own editing experience and various conversations had with him while we worked together, I estimate he worked an average 8-10 hours a week, with the occasional and increasingly rare additional video or podcast adding several more hours on an infrequent basis. He did some basic site management too (mostly posting the videos to it), and the occasional - also increasingly rare - graphic design that usually took him less than an hour. He was free to take time off at will, with very little notice required, and when he did I’d handle the videos myself. I will say that he did not choose to take that time often, but it was explicitly understood he had that option.
I want to make something crystal clear - if I ever hire a permanent editor again, I will start at this exact same rate - $1800 for the same duties, plus the merch split. I think it’s very good. Well above the average I’d spend using a freelancer’s own rates. Contrary to what his account may lead someone to believe, I’m not ashamed in the least of what I paid him. To call upon a corny line from a detective drama - yes I did it, and I’d do it again.
Now, he has argued that if he worked 40 hours a week, the amount he received would work out as a pittance. He also supplied that $28.13 an hour would constitute a “decent” rate for him. Since I can only assume he brought up 40 hours because he felt his pay should reflect such a week, his ultimate idea of reasonable entitlement would work out to roughly $58510.40 a year. This would amount to almost half the Patreon’s annual income before tax, and rather more than I get myself after all the fees, taxes, and payouts besides his are accounted for.
Of course, this fantasy math is contingent on him working anywhere close to 40 hours a week. Looking at said math, I’m bloody glad he didn’t.
There seems to be a sustained belief that I am rich, and that I run a massive business akin to the multibillion dollar corporations I criticize in my work. In the blog post where I detailed my history of being financially abused, I noted how for most of my career I did not have control of my own finances, and how the result of that was a six figure debt racked up without my knowledge and left for me to deal with on my own. It has been made apparent in the discourse following these details that none of this is considered relevant, and there's an insinuation that perhaps the abuse was even my fault, so I have not brought it up very much here, but it’s really quite exasperating to see it ignored to the point of people insisting I’ve some vast well of resources. I don’t want sympathy, I just want there to be enough critical thinking to see that I can’t give what I don’t have. Now, if we want to continue minimizing that aspect, we can do that, but even removing it entirely doesn’t change the fact I’m not sitting on a vast hoard of wealth. I may be a terrible businessperson, but I am not so short-sighted and ridiculous enough to think there’s any long term survivability in a small business giving half its budget away to a person doing a fraction of the work.
And it is a fraction.
One thing he’s been exceptional at is giving an exaggerated impression of what he did for me without ever directly telling a lie. As a result of insinuation and omission, a story has formed that’s offended me to a far greater degree than any accusation of being a bad boss or some wealthy hypocrite - the story that I’ve been lazy and coasted off the back of the long-suffering servant who’s truly responsible for my content. I don’t blame anybody who’s been led to believe this, but it’s an incredibly insulting fabrication.
Time for a very clear picture of my contributions to my own content. It goes without saying that I write and record everything I say and do in my videos. Additionally, I’ve always handled the audio side of every video, including the edit of my vocal track and application of all but a rare few instances of background music/sounds. It might surprise you to know that, for the entirety of its existence, I’ve remained the primary and/or sole editor of the vast majority of videos on the YouTube channel. Always. Every non-Jimquisition video except for the last run of Squirty Play episodes were edited entirely by me, and on top of that I have always performed the final edit on every Jimquisition and those aforementioned SP episodes. Most of the editing jokes that viewers have praised over the past few years were my own work, but because he was regularly presented as the only editor, he often got the compliment.
I know credit is important to him, especially since after all these years it’s finally been brought to my attention that he didn’t get credited for editing one of my podcasts and had been - it now seems - silently resenting it for years. This was a genuine oversight and I apologize that such a huge issue never got caught in the edit.
How he framed his output and the subsequent overestimation of the workload seems to have had telling results. Certain comments have made a big deal about how bad the show looks and sounds now, but many of the things they claim were better when he did them are things I’ve always done myself. I’ve been quite surprised to see people perceive so many differences that literally aren’t there, but once again I don’t blame anybody taken in. The misunderstanding of his influence on the content is partly my own doing, as he took such pride in being The Editor(™) that I saw no need to diminish his contributions, which I must urge were not so miniscule as to be meaningless, but were in no way as comprehensive as many assumed. I didn’t challenge the general assumption, instead just correcting the occasional comment praising him for editing gags I was particularly proud of doing myself.
Colleagues would sometimes exasperatedly ask me why I still did so much editing when I had an editor. They would question the amount he received versus what he did, and while I understood their frustration, I was increasingly hesitant to give him more work as I’d been made aware by this point of his claims of doing too much already. It’s been a strange thing, defending how much I paid him for years, only to now find myself having to defend how much I paid him from the exact opposite end of the critical spectrum. Anyway, the other reason I did the work myself was that my feedback on his edits didn’t consistently take and frequently I’d just get better, more immediate results doing it myself. Why make him do a bunch of stuff I was just gonna edit over anyway? I was already using my final Jimquisition drafts to try and make his edits slightly less of a slideshow.
Did he do bad work? No. Sometimes he’d even do brilliant work. However, he found it all too easy to rely on the same bits of b-roll and excessive recycled assets, and linger on the static images to such a degree that no small number of viewers disregarded the visual aspect and treated the show like a podcast.
While I was still handling so much video work, my overall need for graphic designs had reduced considerably, especially as I focused on written content. Written reviews, for example, have proven a far more successful (and very well received), part of my platform since returning to it, and it’s yet more content that I do completely solo. The bitter truth is that he was borderline redundant these past few years but I didn’t want to let him down. I’d been advised on more than one occasion that I needed to drop him as an expense, but I always pushed back against it because, despite not being his employer in the truest sense of the word, I wasn’t going to do anything akin to “laying him off.”
Still, he had to do something to justify my continuing to pay him, so he kept a minimal set of duties. I do truly regret not having the heart to explicitly and definitively tell him that a low hour job paid like a 40 hour work week was unrealistic. Instead, I tried to fight reality to make it happen. And yes, I failed at that. I gave him the next best thing, a job that exceeded his proposed hourly freelance rate (which was $20 with five hours minimum, until his recent statement inflated the proposition), and I did give him a raise in line with his expectations at the height of our financial struggles.
Knowing he was increasingly unhappy, I’d even offered a full revisiting of our agreements. He didn’t take me up on it. Maybe it behooved him not to renegotiate rates, as that would include discussing hours, and he never liked to discuss those with anybody unless talking in terms of extreme abstraction.
In his accusations, he’s cleverly focused so much on raises it looks like that’s why I cut ties with him. While he seemingly remains unwilling to acknowledge the downright financial stupidity of perpetual raises when no extra money is coming in to cover them, given the things I’d forgiven up to that point, showing him the door over that is just a bizarre idea. When it came to raises, I was always willing to have those conversations, and I was upfront about the difficulties we were facing. It’s not like I hid the truth from him or tried to pull the wool over his eyes on that front. He knew the situation and claimed to understand despite continuing to express anger with me. I am aware that my problems aren’t his problems and he doesn’t owe me compassion but I’d have appreciated some logical thought. While not entitled to sympathy, I think I’m at least owed the acknowledgment that conjuration is not among my set of talents. So no, the raises aren’t why he’s gone, because while his feelings on them may be more of a discussion priority for him than acknowledging his abuse victims beyond his stock dismissals, I couldn’t give a damn about raises in comparison.
In his last full year of working with me, the platform had lost about $4000 of budget a month. In order to not only keep paying him, but continue to give him the perpetual raises he became increasingly angry about, I had to write more and produce more, because ultimately I am the one who draws the support that pays the bills - to give him more, I had to do more. The first thing I planned to do when I was financially clear was start him from $2000 a month, though at that point I’d have to seriously increase my output to keep further raises borderline sustainable while his token workload remained the same.
At some point, you have to start asking who is working for who. We were not business partners, we did not have the same obligations or investment, and I did a lot more work as the one whose work actually drew people to support the content. It’s probably terrible optics to say, but since that horse has bolted already, screw it - I was working overtime to feed an albatross.
Oh, and yes, I’m perfectly happy to confirm I did take home more money than he did as the person who not only ran things and drew the audience but performed most of the labor, and yes I did make some foolish impulse buys that I had to learn to curb as I acclimated to having control of my finances for the first time rather than just a stipend from it, all while the immensity of the debt was becoming known, but then again, I livestreamed, took freelance gigs, I did plenty of work he had literally no involvement with. I refuse to believe I’m a monster for wanting to keep some of the money I earned on my extra gigs, and not spend it all on debts after losing so much. At the very least, I like to think working to fix my problems rather than blame someone else for them deserves the occasional Mighty Max playset.
For the record, not only was he free to take on freelance work, I encouraged it, so while he was technically on call, he was very much not bound to me. I expected his basic income, put in place to free him from retail, would give him enough control over his own schedule to not only be more responsive for my benefit, but to pursue all the creative endeavors he expressed a desire to pursue, be it game design, artwork, or freelance editing and design. That is not what happened, but I certainly wanted it for him. My own reckoning of $1800 for 10-15 hours a week putting him on $30-$40 an hour remains unchanged, and I don’t feel responsible for what he did with the rest of the week. He had talked of wanting to offer his editing services to various places and I supported that. I agreed to be a glowing reference, even. Hell, by the end I prayed he’d finally do something to help himself, but in the end I never saw him apply himself to his stated goals. He instead applied himself to crafting his narrative.
From what I can gather, he’d been undermining me for a long time. Getting close to people in my social circle, or fans of mine, and then telling them how hard I forced him to work. He’d even allegedly encourage people to not engage with my content - a truly genius move for someone whose pay was tied to that content’s success. His version of events never lined up with reality, however. There’s a reason the people he pulled this routine with would eventually warn me about him, even if they were people I’d never talked to before. It’s not like these otherwise unrelated individuals all got the same weird kick out of “betraying” him. It’s because they independently realized something wasn’t right.
Enough time in his company led them to conclude that, for all his claims of doing too much, he spent an awful lot of time doing nothing. Even the few things he did do, he’d procrastinate on, choosing instead to get high to the point of debilitation and then knock a project together at the last minute. He would even contradict himself, on one occasion boasting that his entire schedule was “do this one thing by Monday morning” and that he didn’t know what to do with the “power” of such a light workload.
Whenever someone challenged him, he’d quickly change the subject or get defensive. It was pointed out to him once that, for the hours he himself said he worked, he was paid well above what he claimed he wanted. His response was to tell them he’d rather they not do the math (the math used in his statement, funnily enough, seems based on this very conversation). Ultimately, he would always rather nobody offer him suggestions for changing his circumstances, up to and including just being honest with me. He always preferred to do nothing but wait for me to solve his problems.
“They’d hurt themself to save me from my own fuckups,” he once said. I no longer know if he was complimenting me or making a statement of intent.
All while this was happening, he steadily pressured me to give him even less work to do. He’d dish out praise when a Jimquisition audio file was less than ten minutes long and he’d register his dismay if it was fifteen or more. This was a fairly constant behavior. He was never demanding or rude (not on this subject, anyway), just manipulative, and I would come to feel bad if I didn’t produce shorter videos for his benefit. I’m glad I’ve gone back to an 18-20 minute runtime free of guilt.
Knowing his schedule like I did, I was quite confused as to where his claims of being overworked even came from (alongside anyone who witnessed his daily activities firsthand). What I didn’t conceive, however, was that he’d been taking note of every single thing he’d ever done for me with the aim of misrepresenting it as a full-time job in which every favor, every bit of help, no matter how infrequent, could be construed as part of a 24/7 obligation. As I understand, presenting himself as a personal assistant is a new addition to the list of burdens that grew in accordance with how quickly people sussed him out.
I’m more than happy to admit the guy helped me a lot, mostly throughout 2019 when I’d started living on my own in America for the first time and begun to really struggle with my disabilities. I remain thankful for that. I had believed we were friends at this point, he had certainly told me we were, but I will also admit with hindsight that the lines between friendship and work had been blurred along the way. Even if we want to say it was all part of his job, however, his exaggeration of it is quite genuinely absurd. Even at his most helpful, the amount of free time he had was immense. He’s presented everything he’s ever done, even one-off things, as if they were daily chores, and as grateful as I am for all of it, I reject the notion that it came the slightest bit close to full time personal assistance. I’m especially curious how he was still giving me rides and helping put up shelves in recent years, given that I’ve been living literally thousands of miles away.
After he stopped living rent-free at my place in mid-2020, I would see him increasingly less, to the point that I maybe saw him a handful of times between then and my move back to the UK, so once again, I can only wonder how telling people he was overburdened was in any way true these last few years.
Since he insinuated the free room & board also wasn’t good enough for him, and that he felt the need to demonstrate that by detailing a symptom of my bipolar disorder that I’m very uncomfortable about without my consent, I do truly regret not cutting ties with him years ago. To find out now how much he resented me, how much pretense apparently went into our friendship, and how anything I did - from housing him to lending him money to looking past theft and slander - meant less than nothing to him, well, frankly I wish he’d had enough respect for us both to let me know the truth.
All that said, I hate it being suggested that I don’t pay people for their work, so if he truly feels he was performing the duties of a personal assistant for free, I am willing to negotiate a reasonable, retroactively paid sum upon the receipt of an itemized bill listing everything he did that he considers to be unpaid labor. I am not being facetious - I take this very seriously, and as someone who has always prided themself on compensating fairly, I will not suffer even the slightest, most contrived opportunity to claim otherwise.
Speaking of contrived claims, his tale of driving a uHaul from Mississippi to Philadelphia when we moved is one of the most perfect examples of lying with selective truth. As he’d have you believe, he conceived an altruistic plan to save me money by driving us to Philly before I heartlessly abandoned him to take a wrestling booking instead. He carefully culled the fact that I offered him a plane ticket on more than one occasion out of consideration for his comfort and ease of travel. He didn’t mention that not only did he turn that down, he actually wanted to drive the whole way because he didn’t want to be without his cats. Taking a vehicle kept them close to him instead of putting them in a cargo hold, and I don’t fault him for wanting that. It’s quite sweet really. It’s also completely missing from his version of events, because it can’t fit into the story of what a bitch I am. This is all part and parcel of his methods - if it doesn’t serve the deflective purpose of elevating him to the status of heroic victim, even if its accurate inclusion would considerably change the nature of the story, it’s redacted.
You know what I actually really feel awful about? The mistake I regret most? Not listening to my friends and my family when they saw this person’s behavior before I did. Ignoring loved ones, people who really cared about me. Even when I knew he was saying awful things about me, I was defending him against those who were only trying to look out for me. I scoffed at the notion I was having my trust abused, I pushed back against criticism of his work ethic, I argued with my own husband multiple times in his favor when they foresaw pretty much everything that has since transpired. Looking back, I realize part of it was fear. I knew that when he didn’t get his own way, his play was to blame me and encourage others to do so too. I shouldn’t have let that fear inform my favorable treatment. That’s what I’m ashamed of, and I’ll forever be sorry for it.
There are things he’s said that I will not address in good faith as they’re beneath me. It’s particularly nasty to try and bring my family into this, insulting to downplay my experiences of abuse, and downright pathetic to share his presumptions about my relationship and my move to the UK, a move that he knows has saved me considerable money long term. He littered his statement with pretty disgusting distractions and, as much as I can sling plenty back at him, I’d rather not follow the man into the mud. Am I surprised he’d go there? Not at this point. I could just as easily go over his own spending habits and poor financial choices, or luridly detail every time he made me feel uncomfortable, but I don’t consider it relevant. It’s a slimy way to deflect things. I’m not about to go trawling for every grievance, to publish private conversations without consent, to get exhaustively petty and spiteful. I don’t need to do that.
When I confronted him on a call following the allegations and his treatment of me, he never once pushed back. Even with nothing to lose, he never argued in his favor, didn’t try to defend himself, and didn’t tell me to my face what he thought of me. He said that, while he had his reasons and was in a dark place, he had done unforgivable things and he accepted full accountability. His subsequent refusal of even the slightest responsibility for his circumstances indicates that what he said in the call was the last lie he ever told me.
While I regret how miserable the past few months have been, I’m at least a little thankful that he showed me who he was, right at the end. I may have made some mistakes, but I can confidently know that I did the absolute right thing in cutting ties with him.
I also know that I’ve behaved in accordance with my principles and beliefs, and that I can be proud of my adherence to them. I’m proud that those who shared their stories of abuse at an associate’s hands got to feel heard and got to see action taken, and that I acted with their interests in mind, and when I botched the execution I did everything to make it right. Let it be understood that I will continue my work of criticizing abuse in the game industry, that I will continue my worker advocacy, and that I will not allow gross misrepresentation to dissuade me from doing the things I feel are important.
A big part of my value system is in owning and learning from mistakes. With that in mind, I shall never again contract somebody into a long-term position without an actual contract, one that clearly defines what the job entails so there can be no question over what is work and what is friendship. I will handle any professional disputes with appropriate discretion, and seek measured advice on such matters rather than make reckless public decisions. Most importantly, when everyone else in my life is protesting against working with somebody and can give me good reasons why that person is going to be a problem, I’ll listen to them.
I hope that, rather than accuse the people he’s hurt of betraying his trust yet again, he also learns and changes. For as much as he’s blamed me for his problems, I was the only one who had his back right up until I found out about the abuse. I urge him to reread the story of the scorpion and the frog.
I intend this statement to be the last thing I say for myself. I’ve felt terrible about the awful things that person has said and done for years now and he’s taken far too much of my time. I plan to move on. While I once again acknowledge that, for some people, everything I’ve said is too little and too late, at this point my reputation is not as important as making sure his victims are given due consideration. Nobody reading this has to find me sympathetic, but I would ask you to spare them the indignity of having to watch people lionize the one who harmed them.
I want to thank my friends who have helped me get through all this, even when my stressed irrationality made me a difficult person to handle. Thank you to everyone in my community who has supported me, your continuing to do so has meant so much. Thank you to those who came forward with their stories, I not only appreciate their bravery but the continued kindness and thoughtfulness comes across in all they say. I want to thank Conrad for never making me feel like a burden while unflinchingly supporting me with my disabilities and my absolutely terrible organizational skills. I want to thank both he and Laura for supporting me whenever possible and checking me whenever needed. Thank you to Phoenix, my husband and my light, who has done more to help me rebuild myself after years of stressful bullshit than anyone could reasonably expect. I love you, Phee.
Now I’m going back to work.
CW: Abuse, Substance Use, Sexual Content
In the wake of severing ties with my former editor, he made a statement containing a large number of accusatory remarks. In the interest of balance (and because I’m confident of its dishonesty), I’ll be linking his statement in this one. Please do read it if you like, it paints a compelling picture. It’s a very shrewd one too, responding to my reputation rather than the circumstances of his dismissal. Delicious a story as it is though, I wholeheartedly believe it to be a purposefully misleading statement with a number of careful and glaring omissions.
I enthusiastically reject his statement, as has everyone I know who have had firsthand professional experience with him. I’ll go so far as to say, speaking purely for myself as someone who received the allegations that led to his dismissal, I’m disgusted by it.
First, let me apologize for how I’ve handled this whole thing so far.
I acknowledge the criticism that I should not have put a former contractor “on blast” in an unprofessional manner. I am sorry for the way I went about handling this, given that it made private matters public. I don’t know if there’s a sufficient defense but I’d like to share my reasoning - I felt a sense of responsibility to the people who came forward to me with allegations about him, not least because they started out as fans of mine. I knew what would happen if I said anything publicly, because it had been happening privately for a long time. I knew the damage he’d do to my rep, but I felt I was doing the right thing by not allowing him to retain whatever trust came from his association with me. I wasn’t comfortable publishing the full suite of allegations, as they were not mine to make and I did not feel I had sufficient consent to share details, not until my recent confirmation of that consent.
My biggest mistake was pussyfooting around it and making it all about my feelings. I have no excuse for that. I wasn’t thinking clearly when it was important to do so, and I’m sorry, especially to those I felt most accountable to. Since he used that to avoid acknowledging what he did, I won’t make that mistake again.
I’ll speak more plainly than I previously have. In February of 2023, some fans provided me a detailed, receipted account of their relationships with my former editor that alleged emotional abuse, enabling of someone’s alcoholism for the purposes of increasing their promiscuity/availability, a consistent disregard for boundaries and comfort levels, fetishizing somebody’s transition, and manipulative behavior that included convincing people living on disability allowance to send him money they couldn’t afford. I’ve since spoken with others and found they shared a few similar experiences, predominantly involving the aforementioned boundary issues. These people did not feel like they were cared about beyond whatever utility they served him, be it emotional labor, financial support, or sexual validation. Victims note how nonsexual conversation was interrupted to an incessant degree so he could talk about the porn he subscribed to, how he was playing with himself, or his latest sexual fantasies. There was a sense of pressure to accept this as normal behavior, especially since any failure to validate his feelings would lead to accusations of worsening his depression and not providing an adequate distraction from it. I was told that attempts to dissuade him from this behavior would offend him.
One unifying factor in all I’ve been told is his reliance on a story of mistreatment by myself and others to make himself look harmless, helpless, and in need of parenting. One account describes the feelings of sympathy he inspired, how he came across as a sweet defenseless victim whose plight pricked at one’s conscience. He reportedly maintained this pitiful front as he chipped away at their self-confidence, made them feel guilty for not doing enough for him, and consistently pushed at their stated boundaries to achieve creeping concessions. When it came to the insistent sexualization, it was reportedly easier to just let him keep doing it than try to dissuade him or express discomfort.
As it was put to me, he was simultaneously trying to make them his mother and a sex object.
It’s just an incredibly sad situation.
He hurt my fans, who communicated a tremendous amount of shame and humiliation in the aftermath, as well as an intense fear of reprisal from him. I did not want him to make more people feel that way. However, I made such a mess of things that his victims got to see many people sympathize with him instead. He got a free license to engage in a pattern familiar to those with experience in his behavior - present himself as the actual victim, downplay the significance of his own actions, then portray anybody who calls him out as a bad person who betrayed his trust. Fairly basic DARVO tactics, really.
There have been very reasonable concerns resulting from my former editor’s statement. There have also been some incredible conclusions, such as I’m profiting from slave labor, or that I’m worse than Bobby Kotick. The more genuine concerns have been perfectly understandable, however, and I owe my community some apologies for ignoring them.
I’m sorry for letting statements made about me go unanswered for so long. I spent some time in shock and denial, I think. I had no idea how to respond without repeating the mistake of handling things so poorly to begin with. I’m well aware the silence only appeared to confirm his version of events, and I know it has done damage that likely won’t ever be repaired, and that’s on me. I completely understand anyone disappointed in me, or who finds whatever I say now to be too late to matter.
I can’t convince you that I wasn’t brushing this all off, but as avoidant as I’ve been publicly, I cared to the point of worrying myself literally sick. In particular, some messages I received from heartbroken fans both devastated me and finally made me realize I had to stop burying my head in the sand. I’ve had this on my mind every day for months, but in a way I’m glad I took as long as it took to get my shit together, as it’s important to have a clear, rational head this time. Once ready to talk, I needed time to consult with his victims, my legal advisors, and my support network to ensure that I came correct when responding.
One important bit of legal advice I received was that I do not disclose private financial transactions relating to other people without permission (outside a courthouse, at least), but what I am clear to discuss is one of the most crucial omissions from his many obfuscating distractions - the fact he received an equal profit split of merchandise sales, and how his embezzlement of that money wrecked both my trust and a revenue stream designed in a large way to increase his income.
The even split was a decision I’d made explicitly to get him more money while I worked to pay off the six figure debt my financial abuse had left me with (see my original blog post). At first, he had a full 50/50 split despite his artwork having already been effectively licensed. He asserted he could easily run the store himself and I foolishly believed him.
In 2019, he used his position to steal the store’s money. This is something he pointedly neglected to divulge in his first statement, though he would later confirm it himself on Reddit when he saw an opportunity to not only downplay it, but make his actions sound heroic.
As he told it to me in his confession at the time, he had planned to “borrow” a little without asking to cover for a number of his financial mistakes and debts (including the friends’ medical bills he named as the sole motive on Reddit), but the “borrowing” got out of hand and too big for him to quietly replace. It was the start of an ongoing problem he’d have, where he wouldn’t just be upfront with me and would instead do something surreptitious, foolish and harmful. He knew he could always ask me for help. I was always ready to lend him money, give him both material and moral support, and have his back. In the documentation I received regarding his allegations, there are several instances where he acknowledged the ease with which he could ask me for things, but he often elected not to. This refusal extended to others, such as when Phoenix offered to help him fix merch shipping problems and he actively refused, choosing to save face and struggle with a store he couldn’t manage when doing the simple thing and asking for help would have helped us all.
I’m not entirely blameless here. My hands-off approach and willingness to believe he had it covered without more direct oversight means that I do have to accept some measure of responsibility. It was a mistake I do not make now. Phoenix and Conrad handle a lot of the organizational stuff I’m averse to, and they keep perfect records while ensuring I stay informed (often with a lot of patience as they walk me through the kind of business stuff my brain rebels against).
As a result of his mismanagement and theft, not only did I fail to make any money from the store at a time when we seriously needed it, my investment became a sunk cost that exacerbated an already horrendous financial situation. When he confessed the theft to me, my response was to say that our recent talk of a raise was definitively off the table. It was something we’d been discussing and I was, admittedly, pushing back on at a time when I was coming to grips with how bad things were. I’d hoped the store (that he was tanking) would satisfy his need for more income until the budget was in a healthier place. Given that he had actively undermined that effort, I felt it appropriate to have some boundary on the discussion of giving him more. When he asked for his first ever raise, he led by saying he felt he added value to my business. To talk of raises in the wake of what he did here would go against his own stated qualification for one. However, given his attitude in the aftermath, and his seeming refusal to accept what he did was wrong, I personally believe that he came to resent any sense of responsibility for his actions, a belief that has only been strengthened after seeing how he responds to allegations and how he portrays those critical of his behavior.
It’s worth noting that he’s used the fact I waived his debt after a few months of pay reduction to imply that his theft wasn’t a big deal. I waived it, by the way, while I was insensible on morphine. In his incriminating Reddit post he made a big deal out of driving me to the hospital when my back injury incapacitated me, and while I appreciate him taking care of me when I was at my most vulnerable, the context of my state of mind at this time, as well as the vulnerability itself, is important. Regardless, my sticking to an impulsive waiver when I was in a better place did not mean his actions were a case of “no harm, no foul.” What he did caused harm to us both long term, and it was only because he threw himself on my mercy and portrayed himself as utterly helpless that I let it slide and cleaned up his mess.
It would take a year and a half for Conrad and Phoenix to fix things and relaunch the store, and despite him having no involvement this time, despite the fact he was lucky I didn’t jettison him on the spot for what he’d done and instead waived a chunk of the money he owed me, I still gave him an even profit split on any merch sold using his designs. I didn’t stop wanting to boost his income. Of course his split was now reduced since more people were involved but hey, those people were actually making money.
This is one of the finer examples of how the man simply couldn’t help himself. I can see why he neglected to mention it.
As a note of disclosure: until the remaining stock is gone, any merch we sell using his designs will remain subject to the split. All of us running the store have agreed to honor our commitment, in fact calculating the next one is part of Phee’s weekend plan to tidy up loose ends as part of the stores move to a new back-end system.
So, let’s talk about his actual work. The job was ill defined and it changed a lot. This is another mistake I made, and won’t ever repeat. I can give you a decent rundown of things though.
At first, he was paid a monthly $1500 to not have to work at Target anymore. I liked his graphic design, I disliked how he had to spend so much time at a job he hated, and so we worked out an amount of money I could sustainably (this word is very important) pay him to let him have the freedom he needed. Happy days. He asked for a raise a year later, I was impressed by the moxy, so we agreed on $1600. After this, I wanted to keep increasing the pay and eventually give him a generous full time wage. It felt like a great thing to do, though really it should have been clearer that a full-time employer I was not (and after this it’s obvious I should never be close to one). Unfortunately, I didn’t yet know how badly my money was being handled during this period and how unsustainable the idea was.
As noted, his job changed over time, but for the last few years it was rather stabilized: he was being paid $1800 a month for a schedule that almost entirely consisted of editing Podquisition and doing the first draft edit of the Jimquisition. Based on my own editing experience and various conversations had with him while we worked together, I estimate he worked an average 8-10 hours a week, with the occasional and increasingly rare additional video or podcast adding several more hours on an infrequent basis. He did some basic site management too (mostly posting the videos to it), and the occasional - also increasingly rare - graphic design that usually took him less than an hour. He was free to take time off at will, with very little notice required, and when he did I’d handle the videos myself. I will say that he did not choose to take that time often, but it was explicitly understood he had that option.
I want to make something crystal clear - if I ever hire a permanent editor again, I will start at this exact same rate - $1800 for the same duties, plus the merch split. I think it’s very good. Well above the average I’d spend using a freelancer’s own rates. Contrary to what his account may lead someone to believe, I’m not ashamed in the least of what I paid him. To call upon a corny line from a detective drama - yes I did it, and I’d do it again.
Now, he has argued that if he worked 40 hours a week, the amount he received would work out as a pittance. He also supplied that $28.13 an hour would constitute a “decent” rate for him. Since I can only assume he brought up 40 hours because he felt his pay should reflect such a week, his ultimate idea of reasonable entitlement would work out to roughly $58510.40 a year. This would amount to almost half the Patreon’s annual income before tax, and rather more than I get myself after all the fees, taxes, and payouts besides his are accounted for.
Of course, this fantasy math is contingent on him working anywhere close to 40 hours a week. Looking at said math, I’m bloody glad he didn’t.
There seems to be a sustained belief that I am rich, and that I run a massive business akin to the multibillion dollar corporations I criticize in my work. In the blog post where I detailed my history of being financially abused, I noted how for most of my career I did not have control of my own finances, and how the result of that was a six figure debt racked up without my knowledge and left for me to deal with on my own. It has been made apparent in the discourse following these details that none of this is considered relevant, and there's an insinuation that perhaps the abuse was even my fault, so I have not brought it up very much here, but it’s really quite exasperating to see it ignored to the point of people insisting I’ve some vast well of resources. I don’t want sympathy, I just want there to be enough critical thinking to see that I can’t give what I don’t have. Now, if we want to continue minimizing that aspect, we can do that, but even removing it entirely doesn’t change the fact I’m not sitting on a vast hoard of wealth. I may be a terrible businessperson, but I am not so short-sighted and ridiculous enough to think there’s any long term survivability in a small business giving half its budget away to a person doing a fraction of the work.
And it is a fraction.
One thing he’s been exceptional at is giving an exaggerated impression of what he did for me without ever directly telling a lie. As a result of insinuation and omission, a story has formed that’s offended me to a far greater degree than any accusation of being a bad boss or some wealthy hypocrite - the story that I’ve been lazy and coasted off the back of the long-suffering servant who’s truly responsible for my content. I don’t blame anybody who’s been led to believe this, but it’s an incredibly insulting fabrication.
Time for a very clear picture of my contributions to my own content. It goes without saying that I write and record everything I say and do in my videos. Additionally, I’ve always handled the audio side of every video, including the edit of my vocal track and application of all but a rare few instances of background music/sounds. It might surprise you to know that, for the entirety of its existence, I’ve remained the primary and/or sole editor of the vast majority of videos on the YouTube channel. Always. Every non-Jimquisition video except for the last run of Squirty Play episodes were edited entirely by me, and on top of that I have always performed the final edit on every Jimquisition and those aforementioned SP episodes. Most of the editing jokes that viewers have praised over the past few years were my own work, but because he was regularly presented as the only editor, he often got the compliment.
I know credit is important to him, especially since after all these years it’s finally been brought to my attention that he didn’t get credited for editing one of my podcasts and had been - it now seems - silently resenting it for years. This was a genuine oversight and I apologize that such a huge issue never got caught in the edit.
How he framed his output and the subsequent overestimation of the workload seems to have had telling results. Certain comments have made a big deal about how bad the show looks and sounds now, but many of the things they claim were better when he did them are things I’ve always done myself. I’ve been quite surprised to see people perceive so many differences that literally aren’t there, but once again I don’t blame anybody taken in. The misunderstanding of his influence on the content is partly my own doing, as he took such pride in being The Editor(™) that I saw no need to diminish his contributions, which I must urge were not so miniscule as to be meaningless, but were in no way as comprehensive as many assumed. I didn’t challenge the general assumption, instead just correcting the occasional comment praising him for editing gags I was particularly proud of doing myself.
Colleagues would sometimes exasperatedly ask me why I still did so much editing when I had an editor. They would question the amount he received versus what he did, and while I understood their frustration, I was increasingly hesitant to give him more work as I’d been made aware by this point of his claims of doing too much already. It’s been a strange thing, defending how much I paid him for years, only to now find myself having to defend how much I paid him from the exact opposite end of the critical spectrum. Anyway, the other reason I did the work myself was that my feedback on his edits didn’t consistently take and frequently I’d just get better, more immediate results doing it myself. Why make him do a bunch of stuff I was just gonna edit over anyway? I was already using my final Jimquisition drafts to try and make his edits slightly less of a slideshow.
Did he do bad work? No. Sometimes he’d even do brilliant work. However, he found it all too easy to rely on the same bits of b-roll and excessive recycled assets, and linger on the static images to such a degree that no small number of viewers disregarded the visual aspect and treated the show like a podcast.
While I was still handling so much video work, my overall need for graphic designs had reduced considerably, especially as I focused on written content. Written reviews, for example, have proven a far more successful (and very well received), part of my platform since returning to it, and it’s yet more content that I do completely solo. The bitter truth is that he was borderline redundant these past few years but I didn’t want to let him down. I’d been advised on more than one occasion that I needed to drop him as an expense, but I always pushed back against it because, despite not being his employer in the truest sense of the word, I wasn’t going to do anything akin to “laying him off.”
Still, he had to do something to justify my continuing to pay him, so he kept a minimal set of duties. I do truly regret not having the heart to explicitly and definitively tell him that a low hour job paid like a 40 hour work week was unrealistic. Instead, I tried to fight reality to make it happen. And yes, I failed at that. I gave him the next best thing, a job that exceeded his proposed hourly freelance rate (which was $20 with five hours minimum, until his recent statement inflated the proposition), and I did give him a raise in line with his expectations at the height of our financial struggles.
Knowing he was increasingly unhappy, I’d even offered a full revisiting of our agreements. He didn’t take me up on it. Maybe it behooved him not to renegotiate rates, as that would include discussing hours, and he never liked to discuss those with anybody unless talking in terms of extreme abstraction.
In his accusations, he’s cleverly focused so much on raises it looks like that’s why I cut ties with him. While he seemingly remains unwilling to acknowledge the downright financial stupidity of perpetual raises when no extra money is coming in to cover them, given the things I’d forgiven up to that point, showing him the door over that is just a bizarre idea. When it came to raises, I was always willing to have those conversations, and I was upfront about the difficulties we were facing. It’s not like I hid the truth from him or tried to pull the wool over his eyes on that front. He knew the situation and claimed to understand despite continuing to express anger with me. I am aware that my problems aren’t his problems and he doesn’t owe me compassion but I’d have appreciated some logical thought. While not entitled to sympathy, I think I’m at least owed the acknowledgment that conjuration is not among my set of talents. So no, the raises aren’t why he’s gone, because while his feelings on them may be more of a discussion priority for him than acknowledging his abuse victims beyond his stock dismissals, I couldn’t give a damn about raises in comparison.
In his last full year of working with me, the platform had lost about $4000 of budget a month. In order to not only keep paying him, but continue to give him the perpetual raises he became increasingly angry about, I had to write more and produce more, because ultimately I am the one who draws the support that pays the bills - to give him more, I had to do more. The first thing I planned to do when I was financially clear was start him from $2000 a month, though at that point I’d have to seriously increase my output to keep further raises borderline sustainable while his token workload remained the same.
At some point, you have to start asking who is working for who. We were not business partners, we did not have the same obligations or investment, and I did a lot more work as the one whose work actually drew people to support the content. It’s probably terrible optics to say, but since that horse has bolted already, screw it - I was working overtime to feed an albatross.
Oh, and yes, I’m perfectly happy to confirm I did take home more money than he did as the person who not only ran things and drew the audience but performed most of the labor, and yes I did make some foolish impulse buys that I had to learn to curb as I acclimated to having control of my finances for the first time rather than just a stipend from it, all while the immensity of the debt was becoming known, but then again, I livestreamed, took freelance gigs, I did plenty of work he had literally no involvement with. I refuse to believe I’m a monster for wanting to keep some of the money I earned on my extra gigs, and not spend it all on debts after losing so much. At the very least, I like to think working to fix my problems rather than blame someone else for them deserves the occasional Mighty Max playset.
For the record, not only was he free to take on freelance work, I encouraged it, so while he was technically on call, he was very much not bound to me. I expected his basic income, put in place to free him from retail, would give him enough control over his own schedule to not only be more responsive for my benefit, but to pursue all the creative endeavors he expressed a desire to pursue, be it game design, artwork, or freelance editing and design. That is not what happened, but I certainly wanted it for him. My own reckoning of $1800 for 10-15 hours a week putting him on $30-$40 an hour remains unchanged, and I don’t feel responsible for what he did with the rest of the week. He had talked of wanting to offer his editing services to various places and I supported that. I agreed to be a glowing reference, even. Hell, by the end I prayed he’d finally do something to help himself, but in the end I never saw him apply himself to his stated goals. He instead applied himself to crafting his narrative.
From what I can gather, he’d been undermining me for a long time. Getting close to people in my social circle, or fans of mine, and then telling them how hard I forced him to work. He’d even allegedly encourage people to not engage with my content - a truly genius move for someone whose pay was tied to that content’s success. His version of events never lined up with reality, however. There’s a reason the people he pulled this routine with would eventually warn me about him, even if they were people I’d never talked to before. It’s not like these otherwise unrelated individuals all got the same weird kick out of “betraying” him. It’s because they independently realized something wasn’t right.
Enough time in his company led them to conclude that, for all his claims of doing too much, he spent an awful lot of time doing nothing. Even the few things he did do, he’d procrastinate on, choosing instead to get high to the point of debilitation and then knock a project together at the last minute. He would even contradict himself, on one occasion boasting that his entire schedule was “do this one thing by Monday morning” and that he didn’t know what to do with the “power” of such a light workload.
Whenever someone challenged him, he’d quickly change the subject or get defensive. It was pointed out to him once that, for the hours he himself said he worked, he was paid well above what he claimed he wanted. His response was to tell them he’d rather they not do the math (the math used in his statement, funnily enough, seems based on this very conversation). Ultimately, he would always rather nobody offer him suggestions for changing his circumstances, up to and including just being honest with me. He always preferred to do nothing but wait for me to solve his problems.
“They’d hurt themself to save me from my own fuckups,” he once said. I no longer know if he was complimenting me or making a statement of intent.
All while this was happening, he steadily pressured me to give him even less work to do. He’d dish out praise when a Jimquisition audio file was less than ten minutes long and he’d register his dismay if it was fifteen or more. This was a fairly constant behavior. He was never demanding or rude (not on this subject, anyway), just manipulative, and I would come to feel bad if I didn’t produce shorter videos for his benefit. I’m glad I’ve gone back to an 18-20 minute runtime free of guilt.
Knowing his schedule like I did, I was quite confused as to where his claims of being overworked even came from (alongside anyone who witnessed his daily activities firsthand). What I didn’t conceive, however, was that he’d been taking note of every single thing he’d ever done for me with the aim of misrepresenting it as a full-time job in which every favor, every bit of help, no matter how infrequent, could be construed as part of a 24/7 obligation. As I understand, presenting himself as a personal assistant is a new addition to the list of burdens that grew in accordance with how quickly people sussed him out.
I’m more than happy to admit the guy helped me a lot, mostly throughout 2019 when I’d started living on my own in America for the first time and begun to really struggle with my disabilities. I remain thankful for that. I had believed we were friends at this point, he had certainly told me we were, but I will also admit with hindsight that the lines between friendship and work had been blurred along the way. Even if we want to say it was all part of his job, however, his exaggeration of it is quite genuinely absurd. Even at his most helpful, the amount of free time he had was immense. He’s presented everything he’s ever done, even one-off things, as if they were daily chores, and as grateful as I am for all of it, I reject the notion that it came the slightest bit close to full time personal assistance. I’m especially curious how he was still giving me rides and helping put up shelves in recent years, given that I’ve been living literally thousands of miles away.
After he stopped living rent-free at my place in mid-2020, I would see him increasingly less, to the point that I maybe saw him a handful of times between then and my move back to the UK, so once again, I can only wonder how telling people he was overburdened was in any way true these last few years.
Since he insinuated the free room & board also wasn’t good enough for him, and that he felt the need to demonstrate that by detailing a symptom of my bipolar disorder that I’m very uncomfortable about without my consent, I do truly regret not cutting ties with him years ago. To find out now how much he resented me, how much pretense apparently went into our friendship, and how anything I did - from housing him to lending him money to looking past theft and slander - meant less than nothing to him, well, frankly I wish he’d had enough respect for us both to let me know the truth.
All that said, I hate it being suggested that I don’t pay people for their work, so if he truly feels he was performing the duties of a personal assistant for free, I am willing to negotiate a reasonable, retroactively paid sum upon the receipt of an itemized bill listing everything he did that he considers to be unpaid labor. I am not being facetious - I take this very seriously, and as someone who has always prided themself on compensating fairly, I will not suffer even the slightest, most contrived opportunity to claim otherwise.
Speaking of contrived claims, his tale of driving a uHaul from Mississippi to Philadelphia when we moved is one of the most perfect examples of lying with selective truth. As he’d have you believe, he conceived an altruistic plan to save me money by driving us to Philly before I heartlessly abandoned him to take a wrestling booking instead. He carefully culled the fact that I offered him a plane ticket on more than one occasion out of consideration for his comfort and ease of travel. He didn’t mention that not only did he turn that down, he actually wanted to drive the whole way because he didn’t want to be without his cats. Taking a vehicle kept them close to him instead of putting them in a cargo hold, and I don’t fault him for wanting that. It’s quite sweet really. It’s also completely missing from his version of events, because it can’t fit into the story of what a bitch I am. This is all part and parcel of his methods - if it doesn’t serve the deflective purpose of elevating him to the status of heroic victim, even if its accurate inclusion would considerably change the nature of the story, it’s redacted.
You know what I actually really feel awful about? The mistake I regret most? Not listening to my friends and my family when they saw this person’s behavior before I did. Ignoring loved ones, people who really cared about me. Even when I knew he was saying awful things about me, I was defending him against those who were only trying to look out for me. I scoffed at the notion I was having my trust abused, I pushed back against criticism of his work ethic, I argued with my own husband multiple times in his favor when they foresaw pretty much everything that has since transpired. Looking back, I realize part of it was fear. I knew that when he didn’t get his own way, his play was to blame me and encourage others to do so too. I shouldn’t have let that fear inform my favorable treatment. That’s what I’m ashamed of, and I’ll forever be sorry for it.
There are things he’s said that I will not address in good faith as they’re beneath me. It’s particularly nasty to try and bring my family into this, insulting to downplay my experiences of abuse, and downright pathetic to share his presumptions about my relationship and my move to the UK, a move that he knows has saved me considerable money long term. He littered his statement with pretty disgusting distractions and, as much as I can sling plenty back at him, I’d rather not follow the man into the mud. Am I surprised he’d go there? Not at this point. I could just as easily go over his own spending habits and poor financial choices, or luridly detail every time he made me feel uncomfortable, but I don’t consider it relevant. It’s a slimy way to deflect things. I’m not about to go trawling for every grievance, to publish private conversations without consent, to get exhaustively petty and spiteful. I don’t need to do that.
When I confronted him on a call following the allegations and his treatment of me, he never once pushed back. Even with nothing to lose, he never argued in his favor, didn’t try to defend himself, and didn’t tell me to my face what he thought of me. He said that, while he had his reasons and was in a dark place, he had done unforgivable things and he accepted full accountability. His subsequent refusal of even the slightest responsibility for his circumstances indicates that what he said in the call was the last lie he ever told me.
While I regret how miserable the past few months have been, I’m at least a little thankful that he showed me who he was, right at the end. I may have made some mistakes, but I can confidently know that I did the absolute right thing in cutting ties with him.
I also know that I’ve behaved in accordance with my principles and beliefs, and that I can be proud of my adherence to them. I’m proud that those who shared their stories of abuse at an associate’s hands got to feel heard and got to see action taken, and that I acted with their interests in mind, and when I botched the execution I did everything to make it right. Let it be understood that I will continue my work of criticizing abuse in the game industry, that I will continue my worker advocacy, and that I will not allow gross misrepresentation to dissuade me from doing the things I feel are important.
A big part of my value system is in owning and learning from mistakes. With that in mind, I shall never again contract somebody into a long-term position without an actual contract, one that clearly defines what the job entails so there can be no question over what is work and what is friendship. I will handle any professional disputes with appropriate discretion, and seek measured advice on such matters rather than make reckless public decisions. Most importantly, when everyone else in my life is protesting against working with somebody and can give me good reasons why that person is going to be a problem, I’ll listen to them.
I hope that, rather than accuse the people he’s hurt of betraying his trust yet again, he also learns and changes. For as much as he’s blamed me for his problems, I was the only one who had his back right up until I found out about the abuse. I urge him to reread the story of the scorpion and the frog.
I intend this statement to be the last thing I say for myself. I’ve felt terrible about the awful things that person has said and done for years now and he’s taken far too much of my time. I plan to move on. While I once again acknowledge that, for some people, everything I’ve said is too little and too late, at this point my reputation is not as important as making sure his victims are given due consideration. Nobody reading this has to find me sympathetic, but I would ask you to spare them the indignity of having to watch people lionize the one who harmed them.
I want to thank my friends who have helped me get through all this, even when my stressed irrationality made me a difficult person to handle. Thank you to everyone in my community who has supported me, your continuing to do so has meant so much. Thank you to those who came forward with their stories, I not only appreciate their bravery but the continued kindness and thoughtfulness comes across in all they say. I want to thank Conrad for never making me feel like a burden while unflinchingly supporting me with my disabilities and my absolutely terrible organizational skills. I want to thank both he and Laura for supporting me whenever possible and checking me whenever needed. Thank you to Phoenix, my husband and my light, who has done more to help me rebuild myself after years of stressful bullshit than anyone could reasonably expect. I love you, Phee.
Now I’m going back to work.
I will say it is funny to see Jim chastise Justin for "fetishizing someone's transition", forcing sexual stuff into conversation all the time and making people uncomfortable, and "[coming] across as a sweet defenseless victim whose plight pricked at one’s conscience".
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Matt Damon
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2021
My mom heard about the controversy and bought it on Steam just to say "fuck you" to the trannies. I think it's the only non-phone video game she's played in 20+ years.
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2018
You have a great mom.
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2019
Jim posted their review of Tears of the Kingdom, and it's pretty much what could be expected.
Their opinions on the new things just about break even in quality, and they're naturally disappointed their grievances with BotW (slippery walls and weapon degradation) weren't fixed. Bit of whinging near the end about the people mad at their BotW review. The last few paragraphs just about sum it up:
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2015
Jim is a fat fuck but not yet fat enough to be called they
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2022
Unless I see a diagnosis it could just be his morbid obesity (and HRT) causing chronic inflammation and joint pain etc.
This sort of stuff can go away with activity, but most deathfats won't go through the initial stage of discomfort. Those that do manage to get past that actually have a decent chance to lose weight and even become fit.
Also, it's very possible that he just gets some oxy or fentanyl before the "wresting", and that'll carry him through the event and the day if it's a high enough dose.
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2013
“The only time my fibromyalgia isn’t killing me is when I’m rubbing my micro penis against dudes in the cage in our LARP fight.”
You heard it here, white women. Go out and embarrass yourself wrestling.
You heard it here, white women. Go out and embarrass yourself wrestling.
There Is Light At The End
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2021
And slow march continues. Until under 700k is 87 weeks, until he goes nuclear again about these dang dirty TERFs
Edit: since Google decided to clean up dead accounts, I expect slight increase in unsubscribing
Edit: since Google decided to clean up dead accounts, I expect slight increase in unsubscribing
Last edited by a moderator:
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2021
To go with his statement about the Justin situation, here's a general update from his patreon.
tl;dr
State Of Sterling: An Interesting Minute
Well hello, lovely friends! It’s been an interesting minute since the last update. Rest assured we will be touching on the events of that minute today. There’s a lot going on, and some of it’s even positive! Heck yeah!
Positivity is important. The concept is often fused to platitudinal bullshit (see: games sites that pledge to “focus on fun” during times of uncomfortable industry news), but it’s been pointed out to me enough times that I propagate and elevate a lot of negativity in my community interactions, and it’s helped inform an unhealthy relationship with my job. Taking Phoenix’s advice, I’ve been trying to share nice fan interactions on Twitter and Facebook as I attempt to reconnect with the things that used to make me love my job.
A lot has happened over the years to disillusion me with work, be it the immutably circular nature of the game industry’s problems, the obvious write-off of the YouTube channel, and the run of depressing Jimquisition subjects just over a year ago. I’d been getting quite resentful in what used to be a beloved job, truth be told, but with recent changes and upheavals both professionally and personally, I’ve been taking the opportunity to improve my attitude.
Returning to game reviews and writing in general, as I’ve said before, is a huge step in that improvement. It’s possibly the biggest. Writing is my first love when it comes to making content, and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I’d started again. Oh, and that Zelda review is coming very soon. Expect my thoughts on the sequel to reflect how different Tears of the Kingdom is to Breath of the Wild. That is to say, I feel pretty much the same about it as I did last time.
The subject choices and subsequent critical success of recent Jimquisitions has really helped shape my attitude of late. It’s brought into sharp relief just how dark a lot of episodes had gotten in the past. My video about the term “JRPG” is still getting cited, and it made me want to do more informative and thoughtful work as opposed to pure emotive stuff. I like to think I’ve done that (while still covering some more contentious subjects), and I couldn’t be prouder of the recent run.
Personally I think the year so far has addressed practically every criticism of the show, from how dark it got to the overabundance of “something something capitalism bad” to the fact its visuals had become a slideshow of the same images. Now, I don’t anticipate it’ll actually lead to any improvement of performance, but I’m proud of the work, it’s pleasing folks, and it’s been a lot of fun to do the full edits again.
Speaking of which, the elephant inhabiting my room just slammed its trunk on the table. Soooo, after taking far too long to respond to the fallout of my last State of Sterling, I have a record to set straight. Some deeply wrong shit occurred that I simply let fester. Rather than force it onto those of you who might be burnt out on it, I’ll just link to my statement here. All I’ll add on this post is that I poorly handled these past few months, and I’m truly sorry you had to see that.
Tying into the theme of positive interaction, one thing that’s been made abundantly clear to me lately is the need for a comfortable and safe community space, not just for the audience, but for me. I’ve always been hesitant to have any sort of official group, I didn’t want the responsibility and hassle. Given that existing spaces can get really shit and hostile, with little to no moderation, I want to run something of my own that feels like my Twitch livestream chat, which is the chillest, most welcoming space I’ve ever had the pleasure of hanging out with. That chat is the reason I stream. I want more of that.
I’m going to have an official Discord set up, planned to launch on Monday. It’ll be well moderated with comfort, safety, and obligatory queer merriment in mind (though of course, the straights are welcome
). I was hoping to have it up and running to coincide with this post but we still need to put it all together. If all goes well during my ridiculously busy weekend, we will be good to go in time with the next Jimquisition.
The Discord’s gonna have the expected channels (stuff for Jimquisition, podcasts, written content etc), and we’ll have a channel reserved for patrons too, as while I don’t paywall content, I always feel it’s nice to do something extra for the support. Some of the other channels will be a place for fixations (expect me showing off my Manta Force tat), a wrestling channel that only I’ll care about, and a nostalgia channel to post obscure old media. I guess we might have one for those videoed gamings too.
I’ve wanted this for a while and I’m pretty excited about it. If you turn up, I hope you like it!
The wrestling world has been rewarding and tumultuous in equal measure. As I’ve beamed about in videos and streams, in March I won the PCW Women’s Championship, defeating the prolific (and wildly entertaining) Harley Hudson.
I wanted to make statements as a transfeminine and non-binary wrestler this year. I’d say becoming PCW Women’s Champion is a hell of a statement! While I always prefer fully intergender wrestling, the Commander will choose a division when required. Non-binary means that I’m not binary - it doesn’t mean I’m genderless, androgynous, or that I fully reject gendered terms. My personal presentation carries a lot of obvious femininity, I use fem words to describe myself often, and while my pronouns are they/them, I’ve become increasingly accepting of she/her in my personal life.
Being Women’s Champion doesn’t mean the Commander is the top woman wrestler, it means they’re top in the women’s division! The difference might not be clear from a cishet mindset, but it’s there. Gender is a fuck!
Thank you PCW for having so much faith in me, and to all the promotions I’ve worked with - particularly True Grit & Sov Pro - for not just being accepting but specifically stating that my enby status would not preclude me from any championship divisions. That means so much.
It’s funny watching the terfs get offended at my title though, banging on about how I “beat up poor women” and should only wrestle men. I wonder how many of them know what pro wrestling is
Oh, and the WWF Attitude Era “legend” Scotty 2 Hotty accused me of defamation for suggesting he didn’t want to work with my transfem ass. Wild! He didn’t actually dispute the assertion that my tweeting about my gender is what set him off, and his opinion of intergender wrestling is well known, but he did say that me doing a hypnotism spot (where I sold the fuck out of another wrestler’s gimmick) made me an embarrassment to wrestling that “degrades” the medium. To each their own, but I’d advise any wrestler to not thoughtlessly agree to a match and back out later (after it’s been announced!) when you decide an opponent is beneath you.
I’m really proud of the hypnotism spot, anyway, hence why I posted it in the first place. I put someone’s gimmick over, I did a great little bump, and most importantly, the crowd loved it. God, this year has been surreal, though.
Biiig summer coming up. I am gonna be in two main events (first being Pride of the Ring in Blackpool on June 10th), and in August I’m having by far THE biggest match of my career at True Grit in Leeds. I know and can vouch for my opponent too, so there won’t be any backtracking on this one!
As far as personal life goes, things are hectic but good. I’ve finally got my appointment with a gender clinic in a few days after nearly a year and a half of waiting. I’m nervous about that, as it’s going to determine if the NHS will officially continue my HRT prescription. I’ve been getting my hormones via a bridging prescription ever since moving back to the UK. Researching the place leads me to believe I have a good one that isn’t gonna be a terf nest, but I’m pretty anxious nonetheless.
Viewers and Instagram followers may have noticed I’ve ditched wigs pretty much full time. Since this post has gone longer than planned, I’ll hold off on everything I want to say, but suffice to say I’m really glad I finally feel confident enough to show my real hair, even though I’ve had to really start rewiring my self perception after over two years of wearing wigs thicker than even the fullest head of hair, much less mine. I still need to see a stylist, but the way it naturally looks is turning out nicely!
I had some other stuff I was gonna go over, but this thing is becoming a novella. I shall look forward instead to another update in future. Thank you as always for your continued support of what I do. It really means so much to me, especially at the moment. I hope the moves I’m making will allow me to greater repay that support through my work.
Right, time to reinforce the gates of Fort Sterling before my next review goes out…
Well hello, lovely friends! It’s been an interesting minute since the last update. Rest assured we will be touching on the events of that minute today. There’s a lot going on, and some of it’s even positive! Heck yeah!
Positivity is important. The concept is often fused to platitudinal bullshit (see: games sites that pledge to “focus on fun” during times of uncomfortable industry news), but it’s been pointed out to me enough times that I propagate and elevate a lot of negativity in my community interactions, and it’s helped inform an unhealthy relationship with my job. Taking Phoenix’s advice, I’ve been trying to share nice fan interactions on Twitter and Facebook as I attempt to reconnect with the things that used to make me love my job.
A lot has happened over the years to disillusion me with work, be it the immutably circular nature of the game industry’s problems, the obvious write-off of the YouTube channel, and the run of depressing Jimquisition subjects just over a year ago. I’d been getting quite resentful in what used to be a beloved job, truth be told, but with recent changes and upheavals both professionally and personally, I’ve been taking the opportunity to improve my attitude.
Returning to game reviews and writing in general, as I’ve said before, is a huge step in that improvement. It’s possibly the biggest. Writing is my first love when it comes to making content, and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I’d started again. Oh, and that Zelda review is coming very soon. Expect my thoughts on the sequel to reflect how different Tears of the Kingdom is to Breath of the Wild. That is to say, I feel pretty much the same about it as I did last time.
The subject choices and subsequent critical success of recent Jimquisitions has really helped shape my attitude of late. It’s brought into sharp relief just how dark a lot of episodes had gotten in the past. My video about the term “JRPG” is still getting cited, and it made me want to do more informative and thoughtful work as opposed to pure emotive stuff. I like to think I’ve done that (while still covering some more contentious subjects), and I couldn’t be prouder of the recent run.
Personally I think the year so far has addressed practically every criticism of the show, from how dark it got to the overabundance of “something something capitalism bad” to the fact its visuals had become a slideshow of the same images. Now, I don’t anticipate it’ll actually lead to any improvement of performance, but I’m proud of the work, it’s pleasing folks, and it’s been a lot of fun to do the full edits again.
Speaking of which, the elephant inhabiting my room just slammed its trunk on the table. Soooo, after taking far too long to respond to the fallout of my last State of Sterling, I have a record to set straight. Some deeply wrong shit occurred that I simply let fester. Rather than force it onto those of you who might be burnt out on it, I’ll just link to my statement here. All I’ll add on this post is that I poorly handled these past few months, and I’m truly sorry you had to see that.
Tying into the theme of positive interaction, one thing that’s been made abundantly clear to me lately is the need for a comfortable and safe community space, not just for the audience, but for me. I’ve always been hesitant to have any sort of official group, I didn’t want the responsibility and hassle. Given that existing spaces can get really shit and hostile, with little to no moderation, I want to run something of my own that feels like my Twitch livestream chat, which is the chillest, most welcoming space I’ve ever had the pleasure of hanging out with. That chat is the reason I stream. I want more of that.
I’m going to have an official Discord set up, planned to launch on Monday. It’ll be well moderated with comfort, safety, and obligatory queer merriment in mind (though of course, the straights are welcome
). I was hoping to have it up and running to coincide with this post but we still need to put it all together. If all goes well during my ridiculously busy weekend, we will be good to go in time with the next Jimquisition.The Discord’s gonna have the expected channels (stuff for Jimquisition, podcasts, written content etc), and we’ll have a channel reserved for patrons too, as while I don’t paywall content, I always feel it’s nice to do something extra for the support. Some of the other channels will be a place for fixations (expect me showing off my Manta Force tat), a wrestling channel that only I’ll care about, and a nostalgia channel to post obscure old media. I guess we might have one for those videoed gamings too.
I’ve wanted this for a while and I’m pretty excited about it. If you turn up, I hope you like it!
The wrestling world has been rewarding and tumultuous in equal measure. As I’ve beamed about in videos and streams, in March I won the PCW Women’s Championship, defeating the prolific (and wildly entertaining) Harley Hudson.
I wanted to make statements as a transfeminine and non-binary wrestler this year. I’d say becoming PCW Women’s Champion is a hell of a statement! While I always prefer fully intergender wrestling, the Commander will choose a division when required. Non-binary means that I’m not binary - it doesn’t mean I’m genderless, androgynous, or that I fully reject gendered terms. My personal presentation carries a lot of obvious femininity, I use fem words to describe myself often, and while my pronouns are they/them, I’ve become increasingly accepting of she/her in my personal life.
Being Women’s Champion doesn’t mean the Commander is the top woman wrestler, it means they’re top in the women’s division! The difference might not be clear from a cishet mindset, but it’s there. Gender is a fuck!
Thank you PCW for having so much faith in me, and to all the promotions I’ve worked with - particularly True Grit & Sov Pro - for not just being accepting but specifically stating that my enby status would not preclude me from any championship divisions. That means so much.
It’s funny watching the terfs get offended at my title though, banging on about how I “beat up poor women” and should only wrestle men. I wonder how many of them know what pro wrestling is
Oh, and the WWF Attitude Era “legend” Scotty 2 Hotty accused me of defamation for suggesting he didn’t want to work with my transfem ass. Wild! He didn’t actually dispute the assertion that my tweeting about my gender is what set him off, and his opinion of intergender wrestling is well known, but he did say that me doing a hypnotism spot (where I sold the fuck out of another wrestler’s gimmick) made me an embarrassment to wrestling that “degrades” the medium. To each their own, but I’d advise any wrestler to not thoughtlessly agree to a match and back out later (after it’s been announced!) when you decide an opponent is beneath you.
I’m really proud of the hypnotism spot, anyway, hence why I posted it in the first place. I put someone’s gimmick over, I did a great little bump, and most importantly, the crowd loved it. God, this year has been surreal, though.
Biiig summer coming up. I am gonna be in two main events (first being Pride of the Ring in Blackpool on June 10th), and in August I’m having by far THE biggest match of my career at True Grit in Leeds. I know and can vouch for my opponent too, so there won’t be any backtracking on this one!
As far as personal life goes, things are hectic but good. I’ve finally got my appointment with a gender clinic in a few days after nearly a year and a half of waiting. I’m nervous about that, as it’s going to determine if the NHS will officially continue my HRT prescription. I’ve been getting my hormones via a bridging prescription ever since moving back to the UK. Researching the place leads me to believe I have a good one that isn’t gonna be a terf nest, but I’m pretty anxious nonetheless.
Viewers and Instagram followers may have noticed I’ve ditched wigs pretty much full time. Since this post has gone longer than planned, I’ll hold off on everything I want to say, but suffice to say I’m really glad I finally feel confident enough to show my real hair, even though I’ve had to really start rewiring my self perception after over two years of wearing wigs thicker than even the fullest head of hair, much less mine. I still need to see a stylist, but the way it naturally looks is turning out nicely!
I had some other stuff I was gonna go over, but this thing is becoming a novella. I shall look forward instead to another update in future. Thank you as always for your continued support of what I do. It really means so much to me, especially at the moment. I hope the moves I’m making will allow me to greater repay that support through my work.
Right, time to reinforce the gates of Fort Sterling before my next review goes out…
tl;dr
- Jim is aware that Jimquisition became repetitive garbage, reckons he's fixed it now though
- Official Jim Sterling discord hugbox coming soon, up by next JQ episode probably
- He won the PCW's women's championship and that is fine because he is non-binary (competing in a binary competition)
- Scotty 2 Hotty said Jim's hypnotism bit was an embarrassment to wrestling (it was), Link for those who haven't seen
- He's finally got his appointment at the gender clinic, he's scoped it out to ensure its only bootlickers though
- The wigs are on their way out, his beautiful (balding) enby hair is likely all we're going to see from now on
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- Joined
- Dec 13, 2022
When he is getting the chop? i want to be sure that this man can not reproduce.
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2018
@Moja Zemlja I don't see a wall of text, just a couple paragraphs. You sure you posted the whole thing?
EDIT: fixed now
EDIT: fixed now
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- Joined
- Oct 29, 2021
I think it being a quote in a spoiler fucked it up, or I'm just a dumbass who messed something up. It should be fixed now.
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2012
He put out like 2 episodes that were kinda decent after that dude stopped doing his editing but this latest one is just the laziest, most awful shit. At a certain point I said to myself "I bet this video is exactly 20 minutes long" and it's 20:59.
Fluff in this video:
- Jim showing off his beating women trophy belt for several minutes.
- Jim trying to recount lyrics to a song in a bit that feels like it goes on forever.
- Jim reads off user reviews from Metacritic.
- Jim plays a sequence from the movie Left Behind as part of a non-joke.
Probably half of its runtime has absolutely nothing to do with the content.
He could have easily filled 20 minutes by talking about how Blizzard's scandals leading up to the BlizzCon where they were in desperate need of a distraction from the "Don't you have phones?" and "Mei supports a free Hong Kong" shit. When it was announced, they had zero gameplay footage. The game was basically just a concept. It only existed to get eyes off their Chinese relations - and it worked.
Fast forward a few years and nobody is playing the game. He doesn't even mention that. They scrapped PvE because it would have only served to make competing game inside a game that already has a dwindling pool of users where it needs 10 to even make a match. They reduced the play count from 6v6 to 5v5 to save on those 2 players.
Instead of going over the actually interesting history of the game the dude bilks his retard tranny fans for some patreon bux and shits out the laziest fucking garbage imaginable.
This post took more effort than his video. Fat pillhead faggot.
Fluff in this video:
- Jim showing off his beating women trophy belt for several minutes.
- Jim trying to recount lyrics to a song in a bit that feels like it goes on forever.
- Jim reads off user reviews from Metacritic.
- Jim plays a sequence from the movie Left Behind as part of a non-joke.
Probably half of its runtime has absolutely nothing to do with the content.
He could have easily filled 20 minutes by talking about how Blizzard's scandals leading up to the BlizzCon where they were in desperate need of a distraction from the "Don't you have phones?" and "Mei supports a free Hong Kong" shit. When it was announced, they had zero gameplay footage. The game was basically just a concept. It only existed to get eyes off their Chinese relations - and it worked.
Fast forward a few years and nobody is playing the game. He doesn't even mention that. They scrapped PvE because it would have only served to make competing game inside a game that already has a dwindling pool of users where it needs 10 to even make a match. They reduced the play count from 6v6 to 5v5 to save on those 2 players.
Instead of going over the actually interesting history of the game the dude bilks his retard tranny fans for some patreon bux and shits out the laziest fucking garbage imaginable.
This post took more effort than his video. Fat pillhead faggot.