Do not send hate to anybody involved in this situation. I shouldn’t have to say that.
1. Accusation: Kastoway is friends with La_Mishi_Mish/Sally’s Creator.
Screenshots showing that Kastoway is mutuals w Mishi does not prove that he is supporting a pedophile- it proves that he is a mutual of Mishi’s. Mutual ≠ friend or supporter. Being a mutual with a creator who drew some heinous shit does not make you responsible for their heinous shit. Evidence for their friendship being more than just a mutual follow given by @glass.soup (Zero) on @bvnnybonez was a piece of art1 drawn by Mishi, saying “respect creators.” described as a gift when . This does not prove friendship. A different creator publicly known to have been somebody Kastoway hates (I’ll get into that later) has drawn similar works to this involving Kastoway, and they were never friends. Anybody can draw a piece such as that without being a close friend of that person, and as Kastoway is the author of one of the most popular creepypastas, it could more accurately be described as fanart, from one creator to another.
2. NOT KASTOWAY, but for full disclosure: What Mishi (La_Mishi_mish/sally’s creator) did: She aged up her character (Sally) to draw a number of requested pieces of ship art of her. This drawing and the other requests were NSFW.
These drawings are inappropriate and unacceptable. Ageing a minor to draw porn of them is not okay. She apologised for drawing this when called out on it, stated that she was unaware this wasn’t okay to do, and has never repeated these actions. I do not agree with her actions on this, but given she has apologised, has never repeated this behaviour since, and did not harm any real people, I, as a CSA victim, do not feel the label pedophile is a fair one to attribute to her for these actions alone, and to label it as such feels like watering down the term to me. Other people can have different views of that, but she did not commit a crime in the eyes of the law, and she has made it clear that it was a mistake. Fiction affects reality. Drawing porn of fictional minors is immoral and pedophilic.
3. Accusation: Kastoway defended Mishi. Kastoway’s response to the Mishi situation, summarised: the art was questionable but she apologised, I barely know her, and I don’t believe she is a predator. (Citation: @grisgrisdoll’s videos on tiktok, screenshot shown below, taken from his dms with another user.)
4. Accusation: Kastoway sexualised Toby, a minor. This is based on the idea that Kastoway allegedly stated that he “created Toby to be a sex toy for slenderman.”
The source given was “in his podcast.” This podcast is available on YouTube. It is called On The Porch: Episode 2 “Yes, This is the Ticci Toby Episode.” (This podcast contains some 18+ material in the form of jokes made between adults, please be warned of that if you are going to listen.) Link. I have not found any piece of this podcast to say the accused thing, nor anything resembling it. I am currently taking the time to transcribe the entire podcast, and timestamped for every 5 minutes, for ease of use, if you’d like to fact check this. It is linked HERE. (i want to get this document out as soon as possible so the most amount of people see it, so forgive me for this script not being completed)
The closest thing to this statement that I can find, is in an Instagram story Kastoway posted, shown below, which merely states that Kastoway had “written him to be another proxy for slenderman because [he] thought slenderman was hot” It is quite a reach to extend this to the accusation above. If anyone has any other source on this, feel free to let me know. To my knowledge, this information began to be spread by a tiktok user, who was the one to claim it was in the podcast. This video appears to now be deleted. The podcast is linked above should you want to check for yourself.
5. Accusation: Kastoway lied about Toby being a trauma OC.
People have been accusing Kastoway of lying about his own personal trauma - something that is notoriously kept to oneself, especially in AMAB people - which is incredibly ableist. Anybody, in any mental health space, will be able to tell you that accusing someone of faking or lying about their trauma is absolutely not accepted. Especially when you have no personal connection to the person, nor any knowledge about the actual trauma.
Nobody is entitled to know specifics about Kastoway’s trauma and/or abuse. It is not required for him to disclose his abuse/trauma at any point for him to be believed. (Additionally: it is often unsafe for children to be public about abuse, especially if they may be living under the same roof as their abuser, and Kastoway had a larger-than-your-average-13-year-old following) However, if you would like to hear him speak candidly about his experience with trauma, @serpent_vvitch has an IGTV with Kastoway, which they discuss this in response to these allegations. (Timestamp, approximately: 50mins)
6. Despite the fact that nobody should be accusing him or anybody of faking his trauma, I will address the evidence trying to “prove this.” Zero has used an easily findable post from the creepypasta wiki (this one) that was written by Kastoway, as a response to people saying things such as “I saw Toby in the woods outside my house” and asking if Toby is a real person/if he could hurt people for them.
In the wake of the Slenderman Stabbing, as well as the Laughing Jack murder, Kastoway, who would have been 16 at the time, was reasonably alarmed, angry, and worried by this behaviour, and released that statement to firmly say that Toby is a fictional character and does not exist. The nature of creepypasta is that there is a known fiction, but a narrative truth. This means that often creepypastas are presented as ‘“this really happened” or “this is an urban legend.” To this day, I see comments from people saying they saw Toby near their house. Kastoway clarified very clearly that Toby is a work of fiction, to try to dissuade this behaviour.
This does not mean that aspects of Toby cannot be based on real people. This post also states that the story was written for his own entertainment. It is a work of creative fiction that he chose to write, of course it was for his entertainment. This does not mean that Kastoway could not have written this character with the idea of having somebody strong enough to get through abuse/trauma that he, as a 12/13 year old, was struggling with. That is a vent OC. This post does not prove that he admitted it was not a vent OC, it simply states Toby was fictional, and written for himself. It also explicitly states that he is struggling with the topic as he did not expect an audience for this character. There is also a screenshot of an Instagram story saying that he wrote the character for himself and his friends, which, once again, does not prove that he is not an OC made to cope with trauma. Ticci Toby is a story, it has narrative elements and is meant to entertain, because that’s what stories do. His character basis, however, as stated by Kastoway, was somebody who could have helped him escape whatever trauma he was experiencing, or be strong when he couldn’t be. (Citation: IGTV on @serpent_vvitch)
7. Allegation: Kastoway doesn’t have copyright of Ticci Toby because he was written as a proxy of Slenderman, and because he does not have a registered copyright. In the United States, “Copyright exists automatically in an original work of authorship once it is fixed in a tangible medium,” (www.copyright.gov) being posted on the internet is included as a tangible medium as it is highly traceable. The website sourced above also has a good segment on the fact that copyright cannot be released unless a written and signed permission is given, of which there doesn’t exist for Toby. Aside from this, deviantart (where Toby was originally posted) lays out their copyright policy, as well as creepypasta.com. Both are shown below. A good way to summarise the descriptions given is that Ticci Toby is likely copyrighted under a Creative Commons Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Internation (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.. Therefore, Kastoway legally possesses the copyright of Ticci Toby. He can take further steps to secure the copyright, but these processes take time.
He has never publicly stated he will be suing cosplayers or artists, but he has alluded to the fact that people on Etsy and some costume stores and the like have profited from his intellectual property, while he has never made a cent from him, which is unfair and disheartening, given how many people adore the character and that it is his intellectual property. The existence of Kastoway’s intent for Toby to be a proxy of slenderman does not eliminate the copyright law in place.
8. Accusation: some of Kastoway’s friends came out saying some [negative] things about him. This is referring primarily to a situation between Kastoway and a user named Adri/xxamluvsxx. This user has harassed Kastoway and another creator for years, in extremely horrible ways that cannot be gone into here because it is too long (there is a 97 page Google document callout that is out of date, and needs more added to it. She groomed minors as recently as last year, as well as continuing her smear campaign against Kastoway.)
This person has been harassing Kastoway for years. Their experience cannot be trusted because they had pushed Kastoway to emotional extremes, and been manipulative and harassing him and close friends of his for years. I urge you to look for the doc yourself. I am considering creating full videos/documents about Adri. But the point that stands is: Adri was never Kastoway’s friend, and they have a history of lying, manipulating, gaslighting, and faking suicide/self harm to get what they want. Their claims cannot be trusted. (Note: the person who brought up this has agreed to not use anything Adri has said in their argument but has not removed the video, so I am addressing it for those wondering.)
9. Accusation: He’s been unclear about whether or not people can use Toby.
This, I agree with. The wording has changed several times, but the message has stayed the same: Kastoway would prefer if you didn’t, but knows he cannot stop you. He would like Toby to no longer be thought of as a Creepypasta. (Conjecture: I believe the reason he explicitly stated ‘nobody has my permission to use him’ is because, as he has stated many times, he gets messages frequently asking to buy the rights to the character, or it specifically give someone permission to use him, as well as the fact that he specifically told Adri that SHE and SHE ALONE was not allowed to use him at all, due to her abuse and harassment.
10. Accusation: Kastoway is a N*z*. This is based on the discomfort of one or two users, because the redesign of Toby has a dolls face on his mining helmet, which reminded those people of certain headwear worn by n*z*’s. It is valid to experience this fear, however Kastoway is Jewish and it is incredibly inappropriate and disturbing to throw accusations like that at a Jewish person. Toby’s helmet does not resemble N*z* paraphernalia in shape, design, or style. (warning for images of N*z* paraphernalia in the first link. I will not be posting it here and I do not want to trigger anybody with the imagery)
Tobias Roger’s new design, with a doll face on his mining helmet.
I have left the copyright message in the screenshot below as a warning, do not repost this art.
11. Accusation: Kastoway is ableist because he doesn’t care about comfort characters or fictives.
This point confuses me because nobody needs permission from anybody to have a comfort character. If Toby has helped you through things, or meant a lot to you in the past, you can treasure that and him. All Kastoway ever asked is that people stop cosplaying and drawing him, and refrain from calling him a Creepypasta. You can love and cherish a character/comfort character without cosplaying or drawing them, and it would be hurting nobody. Toby Rogers is important to me on a personal level, as well as many people I am close to. We still love him, and we still continue to find comfort in him, we just do that without posting about him online. Similarly with fictives, obviously they cannot be removed or changed like that, but nobody said they had to be.
12. It was never about waffle jokes, about making Toby silly, or about shipping Toby with anyone. That has nothing to do with anything recent.
If I missed any points, it is because the final videos from Zero are not captioned so i'm unable to watch them. My apologies. I will happily respond to any and all points I may have missed, or questions on any of the above.
I am simply collating the evidence and accusations going around, as a lot is being spread as word of mouth gets worsened with every repeat.
I am making this post a victim of CSA who is incredibly uncomfortable seeing the term pedophile be thrown as someone (Kastoway) for inaccurate reasons, and because I am coming from a perspective that has seen a lot of the discourse, as well as all of Kastoway’s posts for the past two years first hand, and has watched Adri come back and try to hurt people and damage his reputation four separate times now.
Disclaimer: Despite recent events with the fandom, Kastoway still wishes to have no association with the Creepypasta and requests that anybody who decides to continue using the old version of Toby, or is interested in using the new one, refrains from tagging it as Creepypasta, and instead tags it more ambiguously as just #ticcitoby #tobyrogers (and #chikadeesprings if using the rebooted version.)
Thank you for your time. Once again, do not send any hate to any person mentioned above.