StarLi

Oh, V!Pyro, they could never make me hate you

Oh, V!Apo, they could never make me hate you

I love making arbitrary lists

notes/clarifications (might add if people need, but I think most of these are self-explanatory)

Firstly, I think I've said in a few places that fandom focus on M|M relationships goes back at least to original Kirk/Spock fanfic, i.e. the pairing that coined the term "slash." The more I think about it, the more I think that representation and objectification in this case go hand-in-hand. Why are M|M relationships such a big deal in fandoms? Kinda because they're the most stigmatized relationship pairs in the real world. ("Pair" because poly opens a big can of worms I'm not touching here.) They have a "forbidden fruit" vibe that makes them tantalizing. Another thing thing I have pondered about this for years is that consumption of romance and erotica is overwhelmingly female, and that adds a different kind of forbidden fruit. An M|M relationship is the primary kind that I am incapable of participating in, which makes them appealing to peek into vicariously.

In MCYT, where creators exist so close to fans, creepy fan fetishizing pushes into the world of the creators in ways that make me both sad and grossed out. Fans routinely refer to Smajor's actual real-life relationship with Cambam as yaoi, and that makes me physically ill. Moreover, Scott and Cam have a policy of not engaging in storytelling romances with each other, but I hang out some on Cambam's Discord, and 75% of the fanart posted there is shipping his character with whichever character Smajor is playing. And if Cambam doesn't have a character, then they just ship him as a person with Smajor's character. These men put up with a lot.

Most of the relationships I've seen spring up on SMP stories (in my limited, mostly-POW experience) tend to be what I'm coining as lovebait because they look so much like old-style queerbait, where same-sex relationships are described as friendships while looking completely romantic, and you're left frustrated that the characters never take that last step into acknowledging their feelings for each other -- usually because the the storytellers were either blocked by policy from doing so or because the risk of viewer condemnation was viewed as too great. Our most recent highly popular POW lovebait was Scott Springwell/bf!Nominalgravy on Bannerfall, aka Flowersmiths. That was such a powerful relationship, and I got to wishing our boys would just say the words -- it got me thinking about reasons they might not have. (Arguably Springwell did at the very end, when Nom didn't need to react to it in any way but could still hear it.)

The motivations for this kind of romance-baiting are totally different from queerbait, and I'm pretty sure they're the same for het relationships (if those ever actually happen in POW 😜). I notice that most acknowledged romances don't seem to happen spontaneously. They're either preexisting going into the story, or they're between creators who are used to playing romances with each other, e.g. Apokuna and Cherrifire, who seem to have a cross-universe love affair going with the characters that they play. (Cherri referred to Apo as her Minecraft wife at least once. 😁) Now, part of the reason for this may be practical -- I'm going to guess that improv romance is just exceptionally challenging to play. But also, Smajor and AvidMC taking their character romance canon in VampiresSMP caused a volcanic fan eruption that cascaded into everything they did and ended up being bad for AvidMC's mental health. It might just be safer to stick with will-they-won't-they. (OK, the brutal murder almost certainly contributed to the VSMP shipping situation, but still.) And, really, if it's love or platonic devotion, there isn't much difference in character choices, so let the fans make their own choice in what they see?

But there are some spillover effects here that I think we should call out.

First of all, shipping is objectifying. Shipping real people is objectively gross. There's really no way to address or describe (queer/gender/race/anything) representation issues with shipping. Specifically, I'm thinking about recent fan responses to diversity issues by calling for more/better W|W, enby, or het shipping.

Whut?

OK, folks, sit down at Aunty Echo's knee here, and I'll tell you a secret:

The answer to lifting up underrepresented people is never to objectify them more.

It's just water from a poisoned well. You can't get there from here. If you're going to support representation, you have to get your head out of shipping and support people for reals.

Moreover, we're at a point where we're stereotyping our fetishized relationships. I trained my phone that the word that comes after "doomed" is "yaoi." I see fans all over the MCYT fandom saying things like, "I depressed myself with some yaoi, so I'm going to cheer myself up with some yuri!" Um. And the whole "yuri wins" slogan was cute for a while, but now it's just creepy.

Which leads me to the second important point here--

If there's anything more stigmatized in the real world than M|M romance, it's M|M platonic intimacy. Fan fetishizing of M|M relationships makes this problem a whole lot worse.

I hung out with some friends years ago who reacted to every M|M friendship that emerged in stories with, "The slash writes itself!" and lots of giggles until I was ready to punch them.

I really got into a "rescue demon Avid" VSMP fanfic a while ago where the primary relationship explored was actually a platonic one between Scott Goldsmith and Abolish Veylocke as they worked together to free v!Avid. Their dynamic in this story was just amazing. I was thrilled to see that there was a sequel. Then I saw that it was tagged Scott/Avid AND Scott/Abolish. In the description, the author explained that they'd been persuaded by fan reaction to expand the story into a poly, "Scott has two hands," romance with both pairings. And.... it's fun. It's well-written. This author writes a great v!Abolish, and I enjoy that v!Avid is a character in his own right -- rescue-Avid stories have a terrible tendency to relegate v!Avid to the status of macguffin or object-of-desire, and the character was very much not a passive guy. But. But. That fantastic platonic dynamic was lost, and what replaced it was... generic romance?

Men are allowed to have close platonic relationships with other men, both in stories AND in the real world.

Fans will ALWAYS want to push a M|M platonic relationship toward a romance. Those are great stories to tell, mind you. I'm writing a gay vampire romance right now (albeit using everyone's favorite canon mcyt ship). But the ship will always be the pressure because the platonic relationship is more stigmatized. M|M romance is not the only story to tell between men. Make sure, if you're the storyteller, that the romance is the story you want to tell, not just the story people are asking for. It's more breaking the mold to keep the relationship platonic.

So, in summary:

Shipping is objectifying. That doesn't mean BAD. I ship. But it's easy to be insulting about it

You can't address representation issues with shipping

Shipping all M|M relationships contributes to its own big social problem. Let men be friends too

Quick Katie painting while procrastinating studying for nursing exams :3

This smp has been a test in terms of me figuring out how armour is painted ngl.

Time-lapse under the cut <3

Katie is genuinely my favorite character it's insane. Like oh my god she's actually so peak. Her talk with 4c. She has learned so much from her experiences and mistakes, she wants to be better and she wants her friends to be better and be safe.

Everything she says is peak after peak and cc!Katie's acting is so good!

She understands things well. She's stuck with wondering what is truly right for her to do. She just wants to protect people, her friends, her loved ones. She speaks with care.

I love her conversations with 4c as a 4c POV. I like their weird little friendship because OH MY GOD. WHAT DO YOU MEAN KATIE IS THE FIRST PERSON HE TALKS TO ABOUT THE TUNNELS?? AND HE'S LETTING HER USE THEM?? They've had rocky conversations sometimes but it helps them grow closer.

I checked out some of her vods too to get a better understanding of things and oh the way she hesitated when chosing between Nom and Kitty. She is always chosing between something huh?

kitkat duo 🙁☹️😭

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People generally find Scott appealing for being so invulnerable, so all-powerful, and so evil. He's such a master manipulator, and oh, how terrible effects he has on his victims' minds. People write about it, draw about it, discuss it; create pairings that exist solely for the psychopathic Sire to torture his victim (majoscythe my beloved).

Then there are people who love to explore how Scott's empathy issues actually harm Scott himself too. How he can't let go of control, how hard it is for him to give and receive love, how boredom and apathy are literally all that dominate his emotions.

But where are the people who think it's sooo hot when Scott Goldsmith experiences horror? I don't know!!

Resurrect Avid for him, but let Avid be an empty shell inhabited by a demon. Scott doesn't care, consciously or unconsciously (your choice) giving himself over to this demon and becoming a victim to be used.

Let Scott visit Oakhurst and, in a fit of nostalgia, go into the crypt where Pyro was killed. Pyro's spirit will latch onto the grieving Sire and leave Oakhurst with him, haunting Scott for a long time, trying to kill him. He will throw knives and forks at Scott, leave bruises on his body, trying to squeeze his throat and strangle him, and send Scott terrifying nightmares. None of this will work without the stake, but Pyro is a desperate, restless soul. And the worst part is, there's no real way to release Pyro's soul to heaven.

Let's say Owen, in the timeline towards the end of the series, wants to kill everyone as always and decides to start with Scott, as the central figure of the coven, without whom all the fledglings are much less safe and lack the authority figure that gives them confidence. Let Owen do something terrible to Scott, let him enjoy the complete control over the situation that he thinks he gains by taking Sire's life. (Perhaps, since Scott is powerfull, Owen himself loses something in this battle, a part of the body?)

Apo. Oh, Apo. Literally write how she kills Scott. Maybe the human side manages to capture the ancient vampire, put him in a silver cage, mildly physically torture him? And then both sides come to some kind of agreement, the humans agree to hand Scott back in exchange for something. But Apo sneaks into the cell and kills him at the last moment in a fit of rage. Not even because Scott is a great threat to everyone. No, this is her personal revenge, and she enjoys it as much as she is horrified that killing someone could be enjoyable.

Nom is doing what's best for Blue Kingdom.

Not for individual people but for the kingdom as a whole.

At some point this cold war was going to break. All it takes is one person on either side deciding they've been insulted too much or something emotionally important being stolen. Someone is going to throw the first punch.

No one is really addressing that *neither side is willing to compromise or back down* which means actual peace is, right now, impossible. Blue refuse to give up the lands they have lived in for a century, Red refuse to move to somewhere that isn't directly in Blue's original kingdom. Neither side is willing to make different territories or concede anything to the other side at all, so *peace is impossible*.

Also, even if Blue decided to back down, Red have some of the sorest losers/winners I have ever seen, resentment has been building for a while between *individuals*. Or if Red decided to back down, we all know that Frogue and Sausage don't listen to anyone and Sausage is very actively aligned with the Creaking King who (assumedly) started the plague/curse.

So you might've seen like a variation of this post from me, that's because I accidentally posted it earlier and deleted it because I hadn't finished typing it out. If you haven't then like hi, this is going to be a post being made in response to Avid's most recent streams and the general state of the mcyt community from the perspective of someone who's kinda been here for a minute.

I very much appreciate him acknowledging and taking responsibility for the role he played in enabling and perpetuating misogyny in the MCYT space by leaning into the "yaoi slop" in VSMP just for the attention and growth it got him. He said himself that he sorta sacrificed a lot of the depth of his character for attention, and he regrets that.

And, of course, I love that he shone light onto v!Avid's relationship to v!Shelby and how their dynamic was much more complex and interesting than his relationship with literally any man on that server.

I didn't expect him to flat out say that v!Avid probably loved v!Shelby in a way, but as someone who has loved their dynamic since episode 1 and started shipping them around episode 4 or 5, it made me really happy to hear the creator himself acknowledge that and seem genuinely upset and disappointed over the fact that the fanbase really just didn't put any kind of focus on them and instead constantly pushed v!Shelby to the side in favor of the yaoi slop.

Also bringing up v!Drift and how, despite them not having much romantic chemistry, they still had a very deep, almost sibling-like, bond that, again, was more complex and interesting than his relationship with any of the men.

Avid has said many times, both in and out of character, that he is more comfortable around women and marginalized genders than he is with cis men (which is something I relate to a lot). In Vampires specifically, his trauma with Elle made it so that he was attracted to and got attached to the women that reminded him of her, namely Shelby and Drift. They were his everything, and no man could ever replace them in his mind.

I will say that one issue I have, which I've already seen others bring up, is how he handled his Bannerfall character. I'm not actually caught up on Bannerfall, so I haven't seen any of the VODs from the day he was on the server, but Avid making his character nonbinary with the express purpose of hoping it would turn people off of flirting with him just feels so... icky. I understand that he's still learning and growing as he discovers who he is and his own identity, but the implications behind that decision certainly rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, myself included. Saying that enby people cannot be yaoi or yuri, saying that they inherently are less likely to be desired, and implying that a straight or gay person cannot fall in love with an enby without being bi or multispec in some way is just simply wrong and, quite frankly, are very hurtful things to say. I'm sure he'll apologize and correct himself once he learns, if he hasn't done so already, but that doesn't erase that what he said was hurtful to a large portion of his audience.