Deep Dive - Blog Posts

sue me i LOVE to self-insert w things i love!!! i did a 90’s Versace deep dive just to more accurately make a Golden Wind self-insert!!! 10/10 would recommend!!!

here’s a picture of my cat looking like an alien!!! :p

Wade/Nancy is an artist who's been surrounded by negative opinions. She currently works under the username Grisgrisdoll, but she's widely known as the name that haunts her past, Kastoway.

I've seen many, many accusations being thrown online against this artist, but I noticed that for many people spreading them this knowledge is secondhand. I found her Deviantart account some time after she changed her username to Kastoway in the beginning of 2014 due to my hyperfixation on creepypastas at the time. I never actually followed her, but I visited her account every now and then, so if I missed something important, it was because of that and I will be glad if you tell me. In this post, I'll list the incidents in chronological order *with evidence* and then give my own opinion at the end.

One thing to know about Wade is that she has had many different names and usernames throughout her life. In addition, she is comfortable with people using either "she", "he" or "they" to refer to her. I'll be alternating the pronouns and using both her names.

He was 13 when she created Ticci Toby [1]. He posted her first drawing of him on the 19th of November 2012 on DeviantArt [2] and Toby's origin story one year later on the 23rd of May 2013 [3]. Wade changed the personality of Toby to make him less upbeat, more tragic and more scary. One of the first instances where he showed discomfort with how people portrayed Toby that I remember was in a publication she posted on the last day of 2013 [4]. This situation ended up with a small redesign of Toby on 5th of February 2014 [5].

She took a short break from DeviantArt around July [6]. It was this year when her creepypasta blew up out of proportion. Previously, she had expressed her desire for Toby to only be shipped with another creepypasta character called Clockwork. However, many people didn't like Clockwork and didn't respect this wish, leading her to further getting tired of the creepypasta community. By october of the same year, her Deviantart bio said: "Most people know me as the creator of the creepypasta story "Ticci-Toby"-- which yes I am, but I prefer not to be constantly called out for it nor only recognized or appreciated for it. I do not contribute to the creepypasta fandom anymore so please don't ask me about it. Thank you" [7].

One issue that is frequently overlooked when discussing Wade's actions is her problem with impersonators, as she stated on a status in November [8].

On 14th of December 2014 he made a post trying to solve all the turmoil that had formed because of shipping [9]. He stated that he had asked people not to ship Toby with anyone but Clockwork because that was what he was comfortable with, but he realized that decision was pointless and didn't care at this point. The situation had gone out of control and there were people bashing creators who shipped Toby with others or with their own characters. He apologized to the hurt and asked people to stop the white knighting. In addition, he recognized "I wasn't prepared for my character to become popular on the internet. I really wasn't. I never thought it would happen and I'm still not good at dealing with it. In fact I suck at it, it's true". He was 15 at the moment.

In 2015, they got into Marvel, even having a tumblr blog where she drew Deadpool replying the asks of her followers. At the end of their bio, it could be read: "I will not reply to notes or comments regarding Ticci-Toby or anything Creepypasta related, sorry." [10]. This message was deleted months later, so their profile didn't mention Toby or creepypasta anymore. They kept the folder for her creepypasta drawings in their gallery tagged as "old".

In April 2016, he had to warn the general public that Toby wasn't real and that he was his creator [11]. People had been spreading misinformation, saying that Toby was real or was based on a real person. Wade feared that something like the tragedy of Wisconsin could happen again, it was a serious concern.

In May, Nancy made a post saying that people could still ask her about Toby [12], but later in June that year, she decided to step off the internet with the purpose of trying to improve her life, archiving the majority of her work [13]. Later in 2017, she updated her bio to let people know about her new instagram account where she mostly posts original art. It was at this point when I stopped checking her content completely, as this account, called bonejars at the beginning, was private for a while. She hasn't been very active on DeviantArt apart from the times she announced her podcast.

On the porch: Episode 2, 16 April 2020, started a wave of negativity against them. I didn't watch it at the time and it is now private so I can't say much about it, but they did some clarifications on her instagram stories later. Many users took screenshots of them and they can still be read [14]. In them, Nancy says that they came to terms many years ago with the ships, that they left the fandom because all of the drama made them miserable and that they'd wish Toby to no longer be associated with the creepypasta fandom. Despite this, they don't want people to stop doing what makes them happy, they said they're ok with headcanons and people reinterpreting the character, that they like the fanart as long as people don't profit from it. They said "I know what escapism is like and using fiction to cope with life. I would never wanna take that away from anybody". Later, they had to make further clarifications because people accused them of wanting to take Toby away from the fandom.

On 25 abril 2021, Nancy posted a new redesign of Toby on his Instagram account [15]. This version of him was significantly different from the last one. The character is older, wears different clothes and looks more realistic due to Nancy's art style development. With this design, he looks like a character from a slasher.

Many people weren't pleased with the redesign due to thinking the reason for it was to invalidate the previous one. Consequently, they brought to the surface controversies from the past. Nancy was accused of having supported two controversial figures in the creepypasta community: Laughing Jack's creator Steve Aikins (Snuffbomb) and Sally Williams' creator Shilo (la_mishi_mish).

Steve presumably harassed his ex-girlfriend and talked indecently with several young girls back in 2014 [16]. I haven't found evidence of Wade supporting him and I can't remember exactly what she said. If someone has screenshots of it, I would be grateful.

Shilo used to draw NSFW art of Sally [17]. This character is canonically 8, so she usually aged her up in this kind of content. However, she posted a compilation of sketches depicting Sally and Jeff the Killer having sex in 2015, stating it was ok for them to have intercouse because they were both 13. Shilo was 22 at the time. Several sources indicate that she stopped drawing mature content due to social pressure. Nancy and Shilo follow each other on instagram to this day.

There haven't been more references to Toby on Nancy's part since then.

◇ Ok people, get the pitchforks because now I'm gonna give my opinion!

So, what can we accuse Wade of? Of being an idiot and a hypocrite when he was a teenager, of having bad companies and managing fame poorly. I don't think we can blame them for anything else and feel that a big part of the hate they receive is undeserved.

I think she was a hypocrite because she got angry with an interpretation of Toby that she had at the beginning. What's more, Toby's story uses an interpretation of Slenderman that was invented by the fandom, proxies are not canon. It's like a fanfic of a series inspired by just a couple of photos.

Still following Shilo is yikes. However, we don't really know if they're still close and I'm personally gonna give her the benefit of the doubt. Defending Steve was a bad move, but, as some people have pointed out before, he was a teen when that happened, way younger than Steve and she could have been convinced to think he was innocent. Shilo is older too.

Being that young, she wasn't prepared for facing the bad sides of fame. Ignoring stuff, going radio silent and then saying things in the heat of the moment didn't help her a bit, but it was all that occurred to her at the time. She's tried to explain things in more detail in recent years just to go back to saying as little as possible because at this point, people get angry for whatever she says.

People say they're homophobic. Their instagram account refutes it.

People say he was mean and insulted the fandom. I remember reading a couple of statuses on DA that I thought were insensitive, but that was a long time ago. People grow and he's changed his mind a lot as you can read in his instagram stories. If you say these things referring to the post where he told people Toby wasn't real, I'm sorry, but I think he had all the right to be harsh. People said Slenderman was real, it ended up in a tragedy and now the same things were being said about Toby. Can you imagine how it's to feel you're responsible for someone's death? He was trying to protect people.

People say she went after artists that portrayed Toby in a different way than hers, yet every time she's said something that ended up hurting people, she took responsibility and apologized for it. I don't believe this person could go and directly hurt someone. Remember what I said before about her issues with impersonators and people white knighting? That could be what's happening. Even now she has problems with people pretending they know her, so be careful!

People say they have abandoned the character many times. It's true they've said they didn't want to talk about Toby on four different occasions, but I don't think they did it with that intention. Why did they redesign him then? The design we all know is inevitably tied to the creepypasta community and they want to move on from it, that's why they didn't want to talk about him. Now they made a version of the character that isn't tied to that world, so we have two Tobies, one for them and one for us. I think that's cool!

Many don't like that they can't use the old version to earn money, but I want them to understand that this is a really particular situation. Usually, people making commissions of characters that aren't theirs isn't a problem when the creator is getting money on their own (unless you're Disney, Disney has no chill). This isn't Wade's case, she has never been monetary compensated for creating or drawing Toby and she has the right of choosing not to allow the commercial use of her characters. "Give for free what you were given for free" is a rule that makes sense in this case.

I don't expect anyone to stop disliking Wade, you're free to feel whatever you want, but at least I hope that this post helps people to see that all of this is more dimensional than just "kastoway is evil". At the end of the day, she's just a dude that fucked up many times and I think her experiences can help us to not commit the same errors.

◇ Here you have all the evidence

[1] Wade's age (look at the replies)

[2] First art of Toby

[3] Toby's Origin on Kastoway's DA

[4] Post where Wade complains about the difference between fanon and canon Toby

[5] Updated Toby design

[6] Wade's DA on hiatus

[7] Wade saying he doesn't want to be known just for creating Toby

[8] Wade complaining about impersonators

[9, 11] Nancy clarifying the issues with shipping and people saying Toby was real (look at section "Kastoway and his creation")

[10] Nancy saying he won't reply asks about Toby

[12] Nancy apologizing and saying ask about Toby are welcomed

[13] Nancy announcing her departure

[14] Nancy's deleted instagram stories

[15] Toby's new design

[16] About Laughing Jack's creator

[17] About Sally's Creator