Frostbyte Freeman

Throughout this year, our contributors and moderators have been working hard on this zine, which celebrates the meta analysis present in MCYT fandom with both written analysis and artwork. Today, we're excited to finally present it to you all!

You can download the digital version at itch.io here and read it as a flipbook on heyzine here. We've also recorded a read-through of every analysis piece to form the audio/video version of the zine, which is currently premiering on YouTube here so you can listen along or at your own leisure!

Thank you to our contributors, mods, and everyone following along throughout its development - we hope you enjoy!

we're still missing something.

Boundaries are personal and social. They are based on mutual respect. Boundaries are not orders, they are requests, intended to establish a cause and effect: if you do this thing, I will do this other thing. "If you show me ship fic, I will block you" is a boundary. "You are not allowed to make ship fic at all" is not a boundary, that is a rule.

Rules are not boundaries. Rules are based on power and control - they are imposed upon you. This is not necessarily bad, but it must come with understanding of where they can be applied. Rules only apply where the rulemaker has control of what is allowed. And these are how many creators seem to approach what they call "boundaries". Again, this is not necessarily bad - their own twitch chats, discords, and maintags on social media ARE spaces in which they have control (some spaces more than others - maintags are shakier since creators don't have moderation power there, but that can be alleviated by creating a dni tag and asking people to place content there instead), and are therefore places where they can make rules about what they do or do not want to be shown. This is fine. Creators have the right to moderate their own spaces how they wish.

Where the problems emerge is that many creators seem to assume that they have the power to apply their rules (in the guise of "boundaries") in places that are not their own. Non-main tags on social media, archive of our own, private discords - these are locations in which the application (or lack thereof) of boundaries is no longer the choice of a creator. They do not have power; thus, any choices made by individuals in those spaces must necessarily be based only on the social agreement between fan and creator, an inherently parasocial construction. And in this case, the parasocial agreement that actually exists is not "this thing must never be created", it is "this thing should not be created or shared in my spaces".

I would argue that the primary issue in how "boundaries" are approached is a misunderstanding of how all of this works. Boundaries cannot be enforced in private spaces because there is no power relationship there. They can only be requested. As a result, when creators attempt to enforce boundaries in spaces that are not their own, what will actually happen is a series of barely-controlled harassment campaigns aimed towards people who are, by and large, following the social contract of boundaries but not the power-enforced contract of rules. And that harassment is far more of a problem than any person in a private discord writing something against boundaries. One might make someone uncomfortable.

FrostbyteFreeman - he/any

and then there's fanfiction. which, despite (or because of) being so incredibly involved in shaping the way characters are viewed (and in mcyt, how plot develops), gets fuckall. someone will mention a cool piece of fanart inspiring them, but they won't cite a fic in the same way. like, yeah, part of that is legal issues, but also the fact remains that generally fic is not seen in the same light as other fanwork. good fanfiction is mostly circulated in-fandom.

there's no broader translation upward, either. it takes a different skillset, so prowess at fanfic is not particularly helpful for original fiction writing. and on the extremely EXTREMELY unlikely chance someone is seeking out writers for a project, well, at that point it kind of isn't fanfiction in the same way when it's part of the Actual Narrative.