things and stuff !

By definition you can't accidentally queerbait. Queerbaiting is specifically using a same sex pair from the show to market the show to queer audiences with no intention of ever following through on a romantic relationship.

There is officially licensed Destiel merch signed off on by Kripke. Teen Wolf had a commercial with the actors for Derek and Stiles draped over each other talking about being "on a ship." Both shows actively used scenes between them as marketing while actively mocking fans for wanting them together. Sherlock has multiple characters refer to Johnlock as a couple, including characters we're supposed to believe are never wrong about human behavior and pushed those scenes in marketing. Then they acted insulted when fans saw them as a couple.

That's queerbaiting.

Done on accident it would just be queer subtext. Done because they had no other choice due to censorship is queer coding.

The specific meaning of the word is really starting to get lost and it's a pretty important one to keep accurate. It describes a very specific phenomenon that was done repeatedly and maliciously for decades and is meant to examine that specifically.

i think it's uncomfortable, but often necessary to recognize when we're watching a show or a film or reading a book or playing a video game with different expectations or desires than the story ever promised to fulfill. simply, you can't draw blood from a stone, you know? and I think this idea, however simple, is often very easy to forget when you're in fandom because fanworks are innately transformative. in fandom, we draw blood from stones all the time. we re-imagine characters, relationships, universes in whichever way we deem fit so that we can experience wish fulfillment. but as the fourth wall between fandom and the creatives behind media becomes thinner and thinner, the boundary between what is the job of storytellers (to tell a story), what is the job of the audience (to receive the story or opt out), and what is the job of fandom (to connect with one another over shared imaginative and transformative reception of the story being told) is getting muddied to detrimental effect. coupled with the rise of hyper-individualism and the increasing commodification of fanworks into traditionally published forms, this is where we get a real wave of entitlement from fandom -- this sense that the storyteller owes something to us by virtue of our fannish devotion and that perceived failure to meet our desires is worthy of a host of outrage and abuses. i think this is where paratext comes in and why the notion of what is or isn't canon feels perhaps more debatable now than ever before. i think it's born from a blend of hyper-individualism effecting how we think and behave as audience members, the increasing sense of entitlement that is borne out of such individualist thinking, the vanishing of the fourth wall between fandom and the mainstream as well as the creators of media that fandom enjoys, and a growing inability to accept the story you're being told on its own terms (and go happily and exclusively to fandom to remedy the urge for something more). because, really, what paratext offers is a sense of legitimacy -- usually when it conveniently upholds what you privately wanted in the first place. if the show you love isn't giving you enough to substantiate your ship, you can get your fix through an actor's interviews, their exposure to fanfiction and fan art, and their perceived approval of the ship. their opinion, by virtue of their literal proximity to the show, legitimizes your own. if the movie you love doesn't do enough with a character you find interesting, a scrapped plan for what the character might've done or a deleted scene might do the same. etc etc.

➡️ Not every medium of fiction and storytelling has or is expected to have content warnings or extensive tagging.

➡️ Print novels do not traditionally warn for content in any way.

➡️ Until AO3 came along, fanfiction did not traditionally warn for content in any significant way.

➡️ An author is only obligated to warn for content to the degree mandated by the format they publish their fiction on.

➡️ Content warnings beyond the minimum are a courtesy, not an obligation.

➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is a valid tag that authors are allowed to use on AO3. It means there could be anything in there and you have accepted the risk. 'May contain peanuts!'

➡️ Writers are allowed to use 'Creator chose not to warn' for any reason, including to maintain surprise and avoid spoilers.

➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is not the same thing as 'no archive warnings apply'.

➡️ It is your responsibility to protect yourself and close a book, or hit the back button if you find something in fiction that you're reading that upsets you.

It's been a while since I promised to have this masterpost out, but I think I finally have everything roughly organized together

This is a masterpost compiling most of the information and resources I've collected while researching Modmad's copyright infringement claim and case related to SMG4/Glitch/ZAMination. Some of this information is collected from points I've touched on in previous reblog chains, some are new points I've come across since, and some address arguments/points I've seen brought up by others.

As some of the information or research I've done can apply to a few different points covered within the posts listed below, there may be times where certain pieces of information are repeated.

Just as a note, I've set many of the individual posts in this masterpost as not rebloggable, as I think they'd be missing too much context as stand-alone posts.

I've collected and organized most of the information in this masterpost myself, so I'll apologize ahead of time for any mistakes or weird wording I may have missed while writing out these posts - I'm sure there are bound to be a couple, at least. Hopefully a lot of this though will still remain relatively informative

LINKS TO POSTS/TOPICS COVERED

Legal Information

Difference between 'plagiarism' and 'copyright infringement' [X]

Standards of Copyright Law and copyright infringement [X]

Relevant copyright terms and tests [X]

Berne Convention Overview - regards law on international copyright recognition [X]

Potentially relevant copyright infringement cases [X]

Copyright Laws and Standards - Sources [X]

Case Relevant Information

Background and Timeline [X]

Copyright Law and Standards in relation to current case [X]

Outside perspectives noting similarities between RGB and Mr. Puzzles' designs [X]

Argument against 'Common Source' [X]

Relevant Clothing/Style References and Notes [X]

Breakdown of Cube/FM's statement on the matter [X]

Character Information

RGB and Mr. Puzzles - Brief similarities overview, images [X]

RGB and Mr. Puzzles - Isolated differences/design elements [X]

Compiled list of established TV head characters [155] [X]

Spreadsheet comparing relevant shared similarities across established TV head characters [155] [X]

Design and development breakdowns of 'similar' characters; Tenna and Vox [X]

Modmad

RGB - Specific design elements and reasoning behind them [X]

RGB - Theming [X]

Modmad's re-known and popularity in the online artistic space [X]

Modmad popular fanworks compilation [X]

Claims and arguments against or referring to Modmad [X]

SMG4

SMG4's design culture and general reliance on outside IPs [X]

Mr. Puzzles' reception in SMG4 community [X]

(please note - Modmad, at this point, is working with a professional legal team on this matter, so the sole intention of these posts are to provide information and context about this case to those who may not have it yet)

But then when you think about it outside of the context of the sentient toy plotline, Sid's just a creative kid who likes to experiment and modify stuff and that's, in fact, a totally normal way to play (setting aside some of his other problems), meanwhile Andy has a cowboy doll from the 1950's that is somehow still in really good condition and has most of his accessories, and survives until Andy goes off to college with only relatively minor damage and repairs?

Which wouldn't necessarily make Andy's way of handling his toys more abnormal than Sid's, but at least implies that he is just as weird in a different direction?

I often think about this dichotomy in terms of fandom. In one corner you have the kinds of people who are like, yes we must treat our beloved fiction Respectfully, and in the other corner you have the kinds of people who would hot glue robot arms onto Hello Kitty so she could fight Megatron because that's badass, and honestly neither is better or worse it's just different. But sometimes the Andys of fandom think that the Sids of fandom are messed up and committing crimes against their toys, when in reality the toys aren't actually capable of caring, and the Sids are just doing their own thing.

Maybe the metaphor's not a perfect fit but like. At the end of the day, I think the worst thing you can do in fandom is fall prey to the temptation to be a sanctimonious prick about how other people play dolls. "Why would you watch a show if you don't even like canon and only want to write deranged fanfiction about some of the characters?" man I owned like, five GI Joes when I was a kid, and I didn't even like GI Joe. But some of those color change ninjas were cool.

But.

But, in any other show, they would have forced her to die innocent. Not of everything, perhaps. She could be allowed to know she was betrayed before she died; showing her shock and sorrow would heighten the tragedy. But still, it would have to have blindsided her. She wouldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise. Other characters would be able to use “this isn’t what she would have wanted” against Flint. This is all very classic for this type of plot beat.

Which is why it’s so great that the show doesn’t go that way. Miranda dies, yes. She dies quickly and brutally and at the hands of a person who didn’t give a fuck about her as a person. But she does get something; she gets to die enraged.

She is the one who sees the clock. She is the one who puts it together. She is the one who weighs the choice: go along with the reconciliation she pushed for and wanted, or take the violent path, with all the miseries of the last ten years and the risk of death?

And she chooses. She dies for it in the very next instant, but she chose.

Tumblr en concreto es muy anglocentrista y un gran número de los usuarios no habla más que inglés. Si quieres que tus cosas lleguen a gente con gustos u opiniones similares, escribirlo en inglés asegura que la gente por lo menos lo pueda leer. Suma a esto el hecho de que bastantes series y tal son originalmente de habla inglesa (y a veces ni se traducen a tu lengua madre), lo que crea un fandom principalmente angloparlante.

Más allá de eso, también hay que tener en cuenta las diferencias culturales que surgen entre fandoms de distintos idiomas. Por ejemplo, durante mucho tiempo el fandom de Vocaloid angloparlante y el hispanohablante han chocado con respecto a temas como la piratería. En ocasiones es complicado manejar estas expectativas, y si sabes varios idiomas, peor incluso.

A mí me gustaría subir cositas en español y encontrar a gente que comparta mis gustos, pero en Tumblr en concreto es casi imposible. Tumblr ya es de por sí mucho más «nicho» en espacios hispanohablantes que otras RRSS como TikTok o Instagram, y si tus intereses no son muy populares, despídete.

La lingüística de los espacios de fans también está hipercentrada en el inglés. No es una pareja, es un ship; no es un universo alternativo, es un AU; no es destripar, es hacer spoiler, etc. Incluso las siglas: en español es LGTB, pero lo que sueles ver es LGBT. Parece una tontería, pero esta disonancia cognitiva hace que resulte muchísimo más complicado hablar en tu propio idioma en un fandom. Por no hablar de las innumerables referencias a posts o a memes... en inglés todo, por supuesto. Como te atrevas a hacer cualquier referencia cultural no inglesa, no te entiende nadie. Pierde la gracia.