SURVEY LINK

During my time in mcyt fandom, I've watched as the fandom's perception of creator boundaries has grown and shifted into a cornerstone of our fandom, and yet we don't actually have any good data on how the fandom as a whole perceives them outside of discourse posts.

The goal of this unofficial study NOT to make a value judgement on whether creator boundaries should be respected - it is to understand how the fandom currently perceives and interacts with them.* Is respecting creator boundaries important to you? Has your favorite creator made a boundary list or spoken about it on stream? Do you find some boundaries acceptable and others not? Have you ever been the target of hate for engaging with boundary-breaking content? Whether you think boundaries should always be respected or you think they're being used as tools of censorship, I want to hear from you. What are boundaries, and why do they matter so much to us?

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This survey is a mix of multiple choice and optional long-response questions. It should take about 15 minutes if you’re only doing the required questions, and much longer if you choose to answer the optional questions.**

If you are able, please reblog and share this survey link around. Feel free to post it on any platform, as I am currently only on Tumblr, which is not representative of the fandom as a whole. In fact, I’d love it if it reached Twitter. The more responses, the more accurate the results will be for the whole of mcyt.*** Anyone in mcyt spaces, including creators, are welcome to take the survey to share their thoughts. However, I ask that for the comfort of content creators and the spirit of good fandom etiquete, please do not directly share the survey with any creator or post the link in any creators’ official communities. Thoughtful discussion is always valued over reactionary comments.

The survey is set to close at 11:59pm EST on August 1, 2026 - I may extend this date if there is still a high volume of responses coming in, or if there aren’t enough responses yet for meaningful data. I will aim to publish the results within a month of the survey’s close, and keep you updated on the timeline if that’s not feasible for any reason.

A huge thank you to everyone who helped beta this survey- you all gave such wonderful suggestions! I wish I could’ve kept every question, but in the end a lot needed to be cut to make this manageable. Please know that I appreciate every one of you, as this survey would not exist today without you.

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* Why I think this data is important to collect: The idea for this survey came to me almost a year ago, and I started developing it around February of this year. I’ve spoken with dozens of people about this topic with diverse opinions, read and catalogued hundreds of tumblr posts, rewatched streams and videos by creators and fans, and watched as opinions have shifted across fandoms in real time. I feel extremely confident in saying that every person on every side cares deeply about respecting others and creating safe, welcoming communities in all mcyt spaces. Where they differ is on how to show that respect, which kinds of expectations they think are reasonable in different spaces, and beliefs on how those in power should be using their influence. I don’t expect this survey’s results to fundamentally change anything - this debate has been going on longer than mcyt has existed. But I think it’s still important to analyze the actual arguments people are making and how they affect our communities, instead of focusing on expected behavior from others based on our own values, so we can see the varying expressions of humanity in each other and work towards a better future for our fandom. I don’t think we’re as different as the discourse may have us believe.

** This survey is designed to encourage all participants to think critically about their position and the effects it has. I am aware that I have my own personal biases, so I have taken steps to ensure that the survey is as bipartisan as possible and also gives participants the opportunity to explain their answers for every question if they feel the need. Because of this, there may be questions that make some participants uncomfortable. While I would appreciate knowing why a question has made someone uncomfortable, participants are always free to skip such long-response questions.

A quick statement because multiple people have now informed us that anonymous messages containing false accusations and armchair "diagnoses" about me and Blastic are apparently being sent around to others.

Please do not spread these messages further or engage with them. They are anonymous harassment and will not be treated as serious criticism.

Neither of us will be responding to these accusations publicly beyond this post. We are focused on our work, our community, and the people who continue to support us in good faith.

Also, a reminder: internet buzzwords like "covert narcissist," "flying monkey," etc. are not clinical tools, and anonymous strangers are not qualified to diagnose people through Tumblr posts.

Creators not being okay with seeing their characters be portrayed in a certain way [especially characters that are so heavily tied to their personality's, have the same voice and face as the creator and often even share names with them] is completely understandable. That includes when the reason for that is tied to something very personal like mental health or other things that we, as fans, frankly have no buisness knowing details about.

But that does not give creators the right to police people's creativity and tell fans what they are "allowed and not allowed" to create. People have always created things that not everyone will like and will continue to do so. Fans have always created fan content that not everyone will like and will continue to do so. Telling someone they aren't "allowed" to do something that isn't outright hurting anyone is just taking away their freedom of expression.

Fans should not, under any circumstances, shove their creations into creators faces, especially when those creators have explicitly asked not to. Your place is the fandom space, stay there.

Creators should not, under any circumstances, tell fans what they are and aren't allowed to create, especially when the fan content has been properly tagged and can easily be avoided. Your place is the creator space, stay there.

I fear the line between fan and creator space in the mcyt sphere is being used like jumprope by both fans and creators right now, so here's a reminder for all of you:

Tagging systems are your friend, dni tags are your friends, the block button is your friend, literally just closing social media can be your best friend.

Don't like? Don't watch, read or interact.

"Respect creators boundaries" and "don't police your fans and their creations" can and should coexist. But for that we need to be respectful towards each other and if that means blocking someone for "petty" reasons, then for everyone's sake, please block them.

EDIT:

Okay I know I said that I wouldn't talk about this anymore but there are three additions I have after rereading my post and thinking about it a bit more.

For 1, a clarification on what I personally view as "creator" and "fandom space" because the terms are pretty loose and in retrospect I didn't really specify. To me, "creator space" is when it is in a place where the creator is almost definitely going to see it [think comment sections, stream chats, their discord servers, their tumblr ask boxes of they have them]. Meanwhile with "fandom space" I personally think of pretty much everything else, the content and things that the creators themselves have to seek out to see [think scrolling through their characters tumblr tag or searching for fan animatics]. Lots of people have very different interpretations of those terms and I wanted to clarify what I meant.

For 2, I think boundaries, separating creators from characters and the like is very difficult in the mcyt space because of how interconnected creators are with their characters [for the multiple reasons i listed in my og post]. It creates these very unique situations where there isn't really a right or wrong because yeah, you're all kind of right in a way. In the end despite how interconnected Minecrafters are with their characters, those are still vastly different- characters and creators I mean. They're interconnected yes, much more so than in many other fandoms, but they still, are not the same.

And now for 3, harassment is under no circumstances okay. Wether you choose to abide by creators boundaries [which I will, at least in my writing/creations, for anyone who cares] or choose not to, it does not give you the bypass to go and harass people. If you harass the creators by yelling at them for having boundaries, you are a shitty person. If you harass the creators by shoving content into their faces that they have actively said they don't want to see, you are a shitty person. If you harass a fan by constantly pestering them for not abiding by the creators boundaries, you are a shitty person. And if you tell anyone to off themselves for abiding or not abiding by creator boundaries, you are not just a shitty person, you are a straight up asshole.

Lastly, just to fully hammer it home:

The Block button is your friend. Tag appropriately. Don't like? Don't interact.

EDIT 2:

AbolishRegret went live today (09/02/2026) He spoke about a LOT. During the beginning part of the switch to Minecraft (he is building) discussions are still happening.

He spent the previous weekend doing a lot of research about Fandom Spaces, history and the popularization of Creator Boundaries and many many more.

Again, I would recommend you watch this all the way through but timestamps will be found below:

Start of Stream: 00:05:35

Fandom and History of Such: 00:10:56

General Rules of Fandom: 00:14:27

What Changed? (CallMeCarson. Anne Rice and 2019): 00:16:18 "A War On Fandoms" and An Apology ^

Why Do Creator Boundaries Create So Much Chaos?: 00:27:15 Bonus: Death of the Author Clarification ^

"So where is my stance on this?": 00:35:32

What Are Abolish's Boundaries? (And the AbolishRegret18+ Tag): 00:40:46 What is covered by the above -Fanfics -Fan Art -Shipping -Headcanons/Tagging.

Clarification and Accountability: 00:58:16

So Now What?: 01:02:03

Abolish to his Community: 01:08:57

Chat Questions: 01:14:21 (This goes up until around 01:44:00ish)

idk as someone who was around when third life came out the fun of it was that the ‘source material’ (for lack of a better word) was super silly and fun and so taking it way too seriously in fandom had ridiculous implications. same vibes as trying to make teletubbies into some dark story about government and experimentation. it’s funner if the original is super silly, then it becomes a game of ‘how can I make this angsty’ when you’re working with a group thats entire deal is making bad aha!! puns.

I will edit this later to add a transcript (or if someone in the reblogs adds one I'll reblog it).

I cut out some bits that aren't related to the topic (Scott talking about Minecraft Coal) & a message he read out that I couldn't 100% make out the phrasing of (I kept his reply to it in here about helping people coming to terms with their identities!), but I figured this may be important to put here for people who don't follow Scott's VOD channel and/or don't watch his streams.

Whilst this is him talking about something he said as SkyblockKingdoms!Scott, he is talking about all his characters here regarding gender, pronouns and sexuality. So any of his viewers who like to make headcanons, art and fanfiction should hear this I think!

EDIT: Transcript under cut for anyone who needs it for some reason!

it’s like every time I log onto tumblr now it’s just another person yelling in someone else’s face. I joined for artwork, for people just having fun. I didn’t create this account just so I could have all my energy sucked out by people just being rude.

Pyro’s boundaries are his boundaries. will I be breaking them? no. do I care if others break them? not really. will I be consuming fanwork of boundary breaking things? maybe.