Maribat Awareness

It is currently 6:00pm EST, November 29th, 2024, as I am writing this. (7:15pm, December 5th, 2024, for post) This is something I have needed to write for a while, and I finally found the strength to do so. 

What I would like to discuss is the Maribat Tumblr scene and events of earlier this year.

~ As a disclaimer, this is not being made to send harassment or hate. Its purpose is to enlighten the fandom of my personal experiences, including what I have witnessed myself. None of the following will be anything but my own testimony and pieces accessible by members of the fandom. ~

I, the one writing this as well as runner of this account, am Stilly. Otherwise known as ScarletImpulse on Ao3 and Discord and VelveteenShadow on Tumblr. 

Why am I putting this out there with a new account versus using my own tumblr? It, my personal tumblr, was blocked by the blog that is arguably seen the most on this platform. The blocking was due to the following.

Back in February, the 2023 Maribat Awards’ Nominations List was released. One of my pieces was nominated but not accepted due to a relationship being tagged in the piece. A lot unfolded from there and I would like to own up to my side of it.

In the moment, I was saying things with no weight behind them when it came to any words I used. I had said that the event was biased, had favoritism, should have different mods, and was unfair due to the reasoning given for my piece not making it into the category whilst another fic was accepted. 

Someone left a reply to the post right off to get clarification. The reason I did not speak up myself is I was afraid that the reason for my piece not making it into the one category (Rare Pairs) would then disqualify it, thus removing it, from another category (Favorite Fic). 

The clarification given to the person was rather vague. After that, it spiraled into another person asking with rather inappropriate, strong language and the OG blog giving nearly the same energy back. A couple key things were said that were extra that read as rude, there is the use of “favoritism” which most likely was used in reference to my reactionary words, and a specific thing that I would like to specify on.

~ “...I had said that if they changed the tags we would be willing to add them back in.” (Another Mod, February 3rd, 10:01 am)

This part was never said directly before. I, nor anyone, was told that if I changed my fic tags that it could be accepted. The only mention of tags by the blog were these two following ones in separate reblogs.

~ “I do not read all of the fics submitted, and rely on authors tagging their works appropriately.

As a reminder, tagging works appropriately is important for readers so they are not misled.” (Main Mod, February 2nd, 6:45pm)

~ “Instead, I would suggest tagging the Timari in the Additional Tags part of AO3, or even as ‘Minor Tim/Marinette Dupain-Cheng’, that way fic readers and mods alike will not mistake it for something it is not next time.” (Another Mod, February 2nd, 8:44pm)

I was also not reached out to about this problem. A lot of what went down could have been solved by being clear about the tag changing and/or reaching out to me to resolve the issue. Instead, they reference information that could only be known by being in the server I said all of my frustrations through. 

There is no way they should have had access to what I said because none of the individuals associated with the blog at the time were within that server when it went down. (Even so, I should not have said the things I did and I own up to that.) It also shows they were aware of my discord account so I could be reasonably reached.

The blocking itself? That came from them seeing someone share out my Tumblr username through a different discord entirely. At least in that case, the individuals were also in there. 

I was not the only one who got blocked during that stretch. I cannot speak for them, nor will I. However, I can say that the public was blocked in a sense from the situation because reblogs (where the conversation went down) were hidden. They can now only be found through the reblogs of others.

I am accepting and confirming all of that further in this google doc to show versus purely tell and prove I am not free of innocence for my actions during that. It is so important for people in the fandom to be aware that it happened. Both sides of that made mistakes. They need to be held accountable for it. 

There are a couple more interesting things that sprouted that I will mention briefly here but will be expanded upon in the doc. Once again, this is for fandom awareness.

The access to a discord they were not a part of was used to send screenshots of what I said during the heat of the situation to yet another discord which got me banned from it. I was not allowed to even ask for further information or clarification because I was told through a bot message and the one mod I knew had their dms set to friends only. 

“A concerned member sent the [server name] staff several screenshots of you publicly threating physical harm against other members of our server. This is not acceptable behavior in what should be a fun, safe space to enjoy fandom.

This directly violates the rules of our server & is egregious enough to bypass prior warnings. Our mod team has made the decision that it is in the best interests of protecting our server members to remove you. Thank you. This decision cannot be appealed.” (Dyno Bot, February 8th, 8:13 pm)

There’s nothing else for me to speak upon for that. The message is between the bot and I so if the server wished for me to not share that out, perhaps banning without a prior warning would prevent that. 

Another thing that came from the situation was an account named “Dike” on Tumblr. It put out a nicely written transcript essentially of what happened and the sides of things. 

This has since been deleted. 

This is another example of something that was said in the fandom’s tumblr space that has been forced to live in reblogs of others. However, the person, Dike (who I will not disclose without permission), had asked me as well as one of the individuals associated with the situation to read over the google doc of the mock trial. I saw things from Dike being deleted and took action to make a copy.

This is the copy of the original google doc posted by Dike with all the information perfectly intact from when it was first written. It was given by him to the public once so regaining your access to it should not cause a problem. However, it does make it easy to identify who Dike is, so I am going to link you to a reblog that saved it from fully disappearing instead.

Reblog of Dike’s OG Post

Please check that out for more information on that situation specifically. It does a great job at laying it out.

All of this I wanted to bring up because it is imperative for the fandom to know what a certain blog on Maribat Tumblr with influence has done. This is not to go throw hate on them. It is to give awareness.

The original purpose of the blog (as far as I am aware) was to make calendars for the fandom. Since then, it has evolved to do awards and other events. That’s amazing.

A problem, however, is the sharing of events that can come across as selective. They do their own events then only one other Maribat tumblr’s has been shared by the blog. That would not be inherently bad if they did not make such an effort to get the attention of the fandom.

Finding events run for Maribat as a fandom can be done relatively easily with the tagging feature in tumblr. Only sharing out the two places makes it an even harder time for events run by other fandom tumblrs to get traction though.

It also does not help that the blog blocked one of those other fandom tumblrs. To remind, I am speaking only for myself, so I purely know this because I am the owner of the Maribat Menagerie tumblr and I was searching to see if 2024 awards were posted yet, just to be met with a “ghost blog” message. If there are any others who have experienced the same, it is on them to speak on it.

Once again, this is boiling down to making it harder on others in the fandom getting that traction to more of the fandom. Without a typically checked Tumblr of the fandom sharing things, it gets left to the algorithm which only tends to favor polls.

One last related piece to the topic is a discord server list that was made by the blog. It is yet another case of not being inherently bad in its target purpose but has been used rather strangely.

The fandom may not be aware that the list has been edited throughout the months since its release. There is a note that states “All links posted with server permission prior to adding” which is important to know as I talk on this.

This list is made to help the fandom find discords because minus those with a Tumblr related to their discord, fic links are the only real go to place to find them, which can be a game. 

The problem I have, which may not be one to others, is how the list has changed while still not including more less member-heavy servers beyond their own. I understand and respect the decision to only include those who have given permission. It is just weird that at least one that was originally on the list has been removed then replaced.

In fact, this occurred just days ago as far as I am aware. Originally, the “Daminette” server, that was featured since the list was made, was changed out with “League of Daminette” which you can find out through checking any reblog under the original post with a date before November 24th, 2024. 

Mentioning the servers is relevant because I found that out after making this tumblr and checking the 2024 Maribat Awards. That announcement post was also changed after originally being posted with the only difference being a server link.

Let me preface, having a server link in a post is totally fine. It is how it is in the post that seems a bit unnecessary for an announcement of a nomination form, not a server. Having “Come join us on discord” the same color and font size as the nomination form link is a choice. That is going to catch people’s eyes and they will most likely miss the “Nominations open until January 15th” in small text in between them.

It is also when that is important to mention for that part above. The addition of the link happened after the nomination form was shared around to multiple places. I found out due to it being shared within the Menagerie. Whether or not that was on purpose or just a case of them forgetting, I cannot speak on. However, it is worth mentioning that if it was not, then that is quite the timing and coincidence.

Ultimately, everything I have written out for you here is for your benefit. The Maribatter who decided to read this. Take all of this information as you want. I am not in charge of who, how, why you interact with the fandom. I want this fandom space to allow people to make their own choices.

As a last word, I hope that if any of the persons who may have a problem with what I have brought up publicly consider saying this should have been handled privately, they take a moment to realize that their chance was lost when they put their side out publicly then tried to hide it (whether intentionally or not, I will not assume).

Sincerely, Scarlet “Stilly” Impulse

(Finished: 9:09pm, November 29th, 2024)