skizzleman bias uwu

This is a full timeline of the events that happened in October, to the best of my knowledge and memory.

CW// for mentions of "problematic" fiction regarding age-gap pairings, graphic death threats, rape threats, descriptions of suicide baiting, descriptions of suicide ideations/attempts and examples of doxxing.

A boundary is a personal limitation or set of actions communicated and enforced by a person for their own well-being.

What the fandom thinks are boundaries are actually ultimatums. They are the expectation that people adjust or limit their behaviour to make the boundary setter more comfortable, and that this behaviour will be enforced under threat of public duress or harassment for not doing so.

Essentially, if a content creator says “I don’t want to see shipping stuff.” then it is that creator’s responsibility to enforce that boundary for themself by blacklisting tags or avoiding spaces where they may come across that content. They cannot reasonably expect the fandom to stop creating ship content with their character in it, because then they are no longer sharing a personal boundary, but extending an ultimatum to the fandom.

This doesn’t even take into account the sticky nature of mcyt fandom and how a LOT of content creators don’t seem to understand that fandom exists because of their content, but it does not exist for them.

“tagging stuff like ship art and nsfw is very important but personally it feels really weird for someone to continue to make art or writing, or even ship people and characters with each other after they stated that they dont want that,”

I think what a lot of fans in the MCYT fandom don’t quite get a solid read on is the point I made in my initial post. Fandom exists because of the content creators’ content but it does not exist for them. Breaking that down, it means that what the creator wants and what each individual fan wants to make is never going to perfectly align, because fans aren’t making nsfw or ship content FOR the creator, or at least they certainly shouldn’t be. To ban or censor (or give fans carte blanche to attack people that make) that content at large is a first step in the fandom becoming a very toxic place, because people love to escalate when they feel like they’re “in the right.”

“there's a big difference between someone saying they dont want to see something specific of their character or them and them not wanting it to be done at all.”

This is a perfect example of the boundary versus ultimatum issue. It’s a frustrating truth, I’m sure, but you just cannot control what other people do. When creators do that, they’re not sharing a boundary. Here are some examples.

Boundary (healthy, places the onus on the creator to ensure they’re not overstepping with their fans and curating their own interactions): “I don’t want to see this specific thing.” > Filters for ship and nsfw tags

Ultimatum (unhealthy, places the onus on fans to A: know that creator’s preference, B: enforce that preference to others who don’t through the threat of public harassment): “I’m not okay with/don’t make content of my character like this.” > End of effort on the creator’s part. Leaves fans to do what they want.

“we're not one of those people that attack other people for doing something like that, but like, if a creator asks people to not draw their characters or themselves in such a way, isnt it... just... easier to respect those wishes? like what are you gaining out of disrespecting a boundary, yknow”

In many cases, it just. Isn’t about the creator, and if the creator is inserting themself into fandom without understanding how it works, and assumes that all fanart is for/about them and not a person half a world away playing with their concepts like dolls, then that assumption is the issue of the creator. You also can’t assume that everyone is going to know every creator’s preferences on fan-content, and to do so is both unfair and likely to get someone harassed when they go against the creator’s wishes.

As blunt as it may be, I think this fandom really just needs to learn two things.

Content creators are not your friends and you won’t get brownie points for being The Good Fan Who Follows The Rules And Calls Out Bad Fans

GOODTIMESWITHSCAR (1) nominated from Hermitcraft, Last Life, Create Mod Server, Third Life, Double Life, Among Us, The Crafting Dead, MCC

vs

at least one non-minecraft artist I follow has reported gaining 2,000 new followers with empty blogs and mcyt related urls in the last 24 hours, and is undersandably unhappy with the spam

if you vote against joe I need you to consider that we would be losing possibly the funniest stream conversation ever.

- his minecraft skin is basically just steve with an @ shirt. fanart of him is Not That.

- massive cryptid energy

- gets eldritched very consistently

- ran for a position he made up and won in a landslide

- built a functional model of the evergiven in minecraft

- friend of the gays

- gender (uses all pronouns)

- conquered death

- has way less subscribers than wilbur and still won. he is punching far above his weight in this poll

- joehills fans are like. the most dedicated fanbase i have ever seen

- has been posting shirtless pictures of himself on tumblr

- blazed the swimming pool video

- camapigning for himself SO hard. gotta admire the dedication

- has multiple ghostly alter egos that he becomes when he gets enough donations on stream

[image ID: joe's pinball machine. the side with completed pixel art is shown; the art is made out of minecraft blocks, and shows a section of the jwst's deep field image. /end ID]

this is deep field! it's his pinball machine project! and that art? it's all hand-placed, in minecraft, by eye. he did it all live on stream by referencing a very zoomed-in version of the deep field photograph and deciding, by eye, what block he thought corresponded to the color. the galaxies and stars even glow, as he's been using froglights and sea lanterns for their center. he did it all live. it's one side of the machine; he's going to do another side, as well, and even put to-scale pinball parts inside. but this art is so, so genuinely impressive, and needs to be shared with everyone.

the video where he does this only has 15k views, incidentally. more people should go watch it! the timelapse of this is the last part of the video, but it's also a good video for vibes with joe hills. he even improved his recording setup so he could record it in 4k to do the best justice to the art for everyone to see!

anyway, i just think more people should see this project, because the project is sick and the art is so, so, SO impressive.