State of Sterling: On Being Hurt & Cutting Ties (Patreon)

Hello patrons!

It’s been quite some time since I wrote an update blog about your second best Trashgirl’s various doings. For the most part, there’s not a massive amount of exciting stuff going on in my neck of the dumpster. I’m mostly ticking along, been doing some videos I’m super proud of, wrestling is going tremendously. All told, not bad.

That said, there’s one major change, and while the long-term result will be positive, the circumstances are, to put it bluntly, really shitty.

Some of you have already noticed that for the past couple of weeks, I’ve edited the Jimquisition videos myself. That is because I am no longer associated with my former artist and editor Justin McDaniel. This association ended due to exploitative and abusive behavior. I had tolerated this behavior toward me for some time, and didn’t listen to people around me who warned me I was being mistreated. It was not until others came forward toward to tell me that they’d been treated the same way that I accepted what had happened.

I confronted him and cut ties with him over a week ago, and I’ve just been trying to process the whole thing and work out how to talk about it. I can say I put up with a lot over the years. I put up with theft. I put up with manipulative behavior. I put up with being talked about incredibly hurtfully behind my back.

When you find out the guy you pay around $30-40 an hour for an average of two to three part days a week (with breaks literally whenever wanted) is telling people you’re overworking and underpaying him and and taking their money while you’ve been lending him cash without expectation of payback and after he spent six rent-free months in your home, well, lemme tell you it hurts.

I’m not entirely comfortable sharing all the details of his exploitation of others, though they’re largely the same. I was told about emotional abuse, manipulation, objectifying and enabling behavior, and a general pattern of selfishness at their expense.

For the time being, my husband Phoenix is working on the Jimquisition’s graphics (the new work-in-progress logo is theirs, as has been the past two intros and outros). Conrad has taken over editing Podquisition, and I’m doing all of the video show editing like I used to back in the day.

Creatively, I think this is working out nicely - a lot of editing that commenters praised in recent times was stuff I’d done myself, people just assumed it was Justin because he had the main editor credit. I’m also just really, really good at cobbling together this kind of content - I’m not technically proficient or artistically skilled, but when it comes to adding engaging visuals to an audio track with just the right amount of pacing and style, I rate myself fairly highly. The fact our AI episode’s editing got so many compliments has really pleased me.

Long-term, I’m probably going to bring on another editor, at least as a backup. There’s some stuff I just can’t do, and an extra set of hands alleviates a lot of pressure when my weekends are dominated by wrestling bookings. Please be aware I’m not taking applications unless otherwise stated. I’ve got people in mind already.

You might have figured by now, but all this is why the past two episodes have gone up a lot later than usual. The sudden change, the need for new graphics, and overall emotional stress has been a lot to handle. I’m proud to say we still didn’t miss a Monday!

Since we’re here, I might as well get something quasi-related off my chest that I’ve carried for a long time. It’s been dredged up by all this, and I feel I need to get it out.

I’ve never mentioned what I’m about to talk about publicly before: I’m a previous victim of financial abuse. For many years I was in a situation where I did not have control of my own money. I was denied access to bank accounts, what money I could spend was monitored, etc. I was essentially a resource where my agency was not a concern. My value consisted of what money I could bring in, which was never seen as enough.

It’s very easy to take advantage of me, really. I’m too willing to believe in my own incompetence and glom onto someone who is “better” than me. I’m very easily gaslit, and I’m terrible at self advocacy. The short of it is that after I actually got myself out of this abusive relationship, I was left with over $100,000 of debt that had been building up without my knowledge, consent, or control.

Contrary to what some people love to claim, I’m not “rich.” That was never true to begin with (the Patreon figure is never reflective of what I take home after failed transactions, fees, taxes, paying the people I work with, etc), but I can’t emphasize enough what I lost - everything. My grandparents meant the world to me, and everything they ever left me has been lost on this as well. I never wanted to say anything about it, as desperate as it got, as devastating as it was. I can’t tell you why - Phee offered me a list of reasons why an abuse victim doesn’t speak up. I could probably just throw a dart at it.

Thanks to several hugely lucky breaks, losing everything I had, and a massive amount of accounting and sales help from my husband and Conrad, I have somehow clawed myself out of the woods. Those “Gays Can Do Whatever They Want” shirts may have quite genuinely rescued me!

That said, I’m still recovering both materially and emotionally. More than the money, being solely responsible for the consequences of what someone else did to me has been a level of pain I can’t adequately describe.

He knew this. When he told me he wanted to be paid more, when he told others I underpaid him, he knew my past history. It’s probably the part that hurts most. I couldn’t afford to keep him, but I kept him, and never once considered so much as paying him less even when I was advised to drop him. And I’d been made to feel so guilty about not taking care of him that when I was struggling the most, I raised his pay. I felt responsible. I never felt like it was enough.

There’s a lot of shame and embarrassment that comes with finding out someone you trusted was taking you for a ride, especially knowing you weren’t the only one. In fact, it wasn’t until I’d read accounts of his behavior from other people that I accepted what had happened to me. It’s like they held up a mirror when they described how they’d been made to feel. I’m eternally grateful they came forward, as much as I’m horribly sorry they had to be involved at all. They’ve asked to have their privacy respected, so I’m not bringing them any further into this. Once again, I’m incredibly thankful for them.

It’s all just so… sad. I’ve had turns feeling angry, feeling ashamed, feeling afraid. More than anything, I just feel sad. Anyway, all of this took more words than I’d planned. This post was not meant to be dominated by that. In truth, I wanted to say nothing. I wanted it to just go away. But that’s not something I feel I get to do.

I want to thank Phee, Conrad, Jane, and Laura, as well as my friends Ollie and Mark who all supported me while dealing with all this. As much as stuff like this can damage your ability to trust, I try not to let myself be too guarded. This has opened me up to be hurt. It’s also allowed me to have support I wouldn’t ever trade away.

MOVING ON! Alongside organizational change, I think the Jimquisition itself is having a really positive creative step forward lately. I mentioned in our Under 800,000 Subscriber Special that I’d made a concerted effort to have the show be less depressing, with subject matter more in line with what a lot of fans said they preferred. Shockingly, addressing all the “real reasons [I’m] losing subs” except for the reason I’ve put forth hasn’t changed anything. However, since the new year I can confidently say I’ve been doing some of my best work to date.

This is especially true in recent weeks. My episode on Hogwarts was incredibly difficult to make, but the response has been tremendous, with many calling it the best succinct presentation of the game’s problem they’ve seen. It made all of the resulting harassment from transphobes and Rowling simps (same difference) worth it! The -800K Special was a similarly tough episode, especially as I had just had the Justin bomb dropped on me, but the end result was so good and I’m still buried under a mountain of supporting responses from viewers. Thank you so much! Then we did this week’s AI video, in which I really felt the need to prove that I could edit the show better on my own (with a little help from NEON 35-2). Given the response from viewers, I think the multiple stressful days I poured into it paid off.

I’ve had to cope with some shitty stuff lately, but at the same time I’ve felt a fire lit under me. I’ve not been as creatively invested in my work since forever, and there’ll be some cool stuff coming. I can tell you that something recently started stirring in the basement, as a spoon might stir a certain corn-based cereal.

At night, I hear it wail. The pain. The terror. The nutrition.

I think I’ll wrap up our update for now, though. Got some reviews in the works - hopefully I’ll have ones written for Kirby and Octopath II soon.

Also, my current confirmed wrestling dates are:

March 18th, Blackpool: PCW’s Women’s Road to Glory Tournament.

March 25th, Leeds: True Grit Wrestling. I’ll be fighting Priscilla, Queen of the Ring.

There are other dates TBA including some HUGE ones in May and August. I can’t wait to show you.

That’s it. Thank you so so SO much for your support and the so many kind messages I’ve gotten lately. I have struggled to respond, but please know they’re been read and they are amazing.

Thank you all for letting me continue to do what I do.

Stephanie.