Seeing a lot of people talking about the whole Pyroscythe and Milkberry boundaries situation and felt like saying my opinion here. Bc a lot of those people need to, in my opinion, touch grass. Honestly this is just as much to verbalise my thoughts somewhere as anything else.
TLDR: No, Pyro and Milkberry aren't entirely in the right. They're also not oppressing people, there is no panopticon, and they, as content creators, are allowed to say they don't want certain things in their community. Read on for nuance please. Also, Pyro has a literal boundaries doc pinned on their tumblr, so go read that before getting angry.
First of all, there is valid criticism of how they said things and their decisions, as even if they actively don't want people to be harassed by their fans, some fans are just gonna be like that. Additionally, fully banning people immediately isn't a very good idea as a universal, basic consequence in my opinion. So, I don't wholeheartedly think that Pyro and Milkberry's response is 100% the right thing. I'm also not boycotting them over it.
Just saying 'don't like, don't read' doesn't fully work when it's about the person you're saying it to. Asking your fans to please not make something involving a character you made in an MCYT rp series isn't Orwellian levels of censorship, or a panopticon as some people are calling it. That metaphor is blowing things way out of proportion. Because characters in MCYT often have a name that the person playing them is also often addressed by, and also often include a lot more personal attributes than other, more neutral characters do. Not to mention people who just literally make porn about real people who did not consent, and actively ask for that not to be done about their real life selves even if characters they play are fine. That's not nice.
It's not unreasonable for someone to look at art that makes them uncomfortable for those reasons and ask for it not to be made, and it is a request of respect for that art to no longer be made. The simple fact is that content creators are people. And yes, they should not completely control fan spaces, but someone saying that they don't want you to make art of them being romantic or having sex isn't some evil thing. They're not saying that art is morally bad, they're not saying you can't make it about other characters who are either based on people who are fine with that or are purely fictional characters. They just don't want that to be made about them specifically, which is not unreasonable. Shubble does a similar thing, according to a recent tumblr post (look it up if you want I don't feel like cross posting it here), that they block people who make sexual of them or their characters and remove those people from their community. For all those saying that what Pyro is doing will destroy their fanbase, I direct you towards exhibit Shubble, who is, from what I can tell, doing fine.
To be clear, I am also not saying that ship fanart is evil. Not even fics where rape is involved, you're not evil for making that. I wouldn't read it, sure, but that's a matter of personal taste, not morality.
Also, 'shipping boundaries' are often used in the MCYT space as 'guidelines/rules for the art I can make about you'. When someone asks for a creator's shipping boundaries, they're not asking for the creator to tell them what tags they personally avoid. There is very little point in asking about that, and if anyone means that when they ask that question, then they are in the vast minority. They are asking what the rules are. Even if there's no punishment for breaking those rules, or any real way of enforcement. Because some people want to make sure that the art they make about a person they call themselves a fan of wouldn't be something that that person wouldn't want to exist about them specifically. As a person who has done a small amount of linguistic study, that's how language works. The use decides the meaning, not the other way around. So no, Pyro and Milkberry are not using manipulative language. They are using the term 'shipping boundaries' the way a lot of other people in the MCYT space do, which means it is a common meaning of that word in the MCYT space, even if it's not listed on Wikipedia.
It's not like creators setting other rules is seen as so sinful. When Legs says, point blank, 'if you're transphobic, then there's the door', that's pretty much the same thing. If you do x (in this case, x is transphobic behaviour), then you are not welcome here. It's not that far off for Pyro to say if you do x (x meaning shipping me or my characters), then I don't want you in my community. And it's fine not to like that. But them's the breaks, and please don't act like someone setting a rule you don't want to follow is a moral sin. And yes, those rules are stopping two very different things. I'm not saying that making fanart and being transphobic are the same. I'm saying that Legs and Pyro's actions are very similar, but only one of them is criticised, and it's the one that stops shippers from shipping.
There's freedom of expression, which I wholeheartedly support, but I do not support freedom from consequences. Especially not when those consequences have been very clearly explained, even if I can also think that those consequences are more harsh than I would personally set. I also support the idea of being kind to people, and doing something that someone has said hurts their feelings is not kind in the slightest.
Admittedly, as an AroAce person who doesn't have nearly as much of a horse in the whole shipping race, my opinion on this is probably a bit skewed. But, in my opinion, if you hear the words 'please stop shipping me' and think that you can't make any art about that person or their rp characters at all, then that's kind of sad. There is so much wonderful art that can be made without shipping, and if you can't see beyond that, then that is unfortunate for you. But even if you can't see beyond shipping, that's still no excuse. Because you have so many other options. Ship a different character, there are so many to choose from. I believe that we should all try to be kind, and in this instance, the kind thing is to be nice and to not do things that you know would make someone who has made something that you clearly enjoyed a lot very uncomfortable if they knew that you were doing it.
Finally, you are not oppressed. You are not in a police state. You are not in a panopticon, which is not only a place where observation is incredibly easy and done to restrict behaviour, but a literal prison design. You are not in prison. Please remember you are not in prison before you say that Pyro is turning their fandom into a panopticon. Pyro is not trying to turn their community into the gestapo, some of their fans are just assholes who will harass people for doing something they see as deserving it. Most of their fans aren't going to become dogged hunters in the course of a single discord message, and the ones who would would probably be doing it even if Pyro had only said 'please stop shipping me, good night'. Should Pyro have been more mindful about that before setting those rules? Yes. Does it mean that Pyro and Milkberry are the second coming of Avid and Marm, or whatever other MCYT horror story you want to compare them to? Fucking no it doesn't.
