Regarding Avid and Marmalade
I am fully aware of the entire situation, and my heart is broken. I hurt for all the victims of their manipulation, for the fact that they ruined the relationships, and even the lives, of so many people. It's unfair. It's disgusting. It's horrible. I could go on and on about how disappointed I am.
I won't delete the art I made for Avid's characters, but you will never see anything new from me about them or Marmalade. Ever. These people should be permanently banned from the community.
God.
Okay, I'll say it
I haven't liked Avid for a long time already.
Up until about a couple of months ago, his vibes became, to put it mildly, unpleasant for me. The way he publicly (but vaguely) accused Scott of harassment. And while I kind of understand their feelings, I do, and I have my own issues with Scott, I already thought back then that it was a bit much and should have been kept in private messages, or made a full statement. Not that... vague innuendo.
Then there's the way Avid called the whole Aviscott yaoislop. Look, if you know me, you know I don't car about this pairing. I have soooo no feelings for Aviscott.
But I know what it's like to be a die-hard fan of some pairing and spend hours drawing fanart and writing fanfiction. And for someone whose character you've researched and written into the relationship to simply say you're interested in yaoislop completely invalidates you.
Like, Avid, couldn't you have kept this conversation a little more nuanced? You could have talked about how Shelby's character was downplayed for the sake of the Avid/Scott pairing without using terms like "yaoislop" and outright stating that Avid was in love with Shelby. You know that doesn't make them or your character more interesting or change people's initial reactions to the show, right?
The vampires SMP, both your character and Scott's, have been through endless waves of criticism and praise. Oh my god, shaming people for loving Aviscott and praising other pairings doesn't make it any better.
God, Avid has seemed so immature to me for this.
And then their hasty, negatively tinged statement when it was revealed that POW potentially used AI in the creation of Bannerfall. I have no words. I was so upset.
And while I believed they had the right to free speech and any opinion, I also (and still do) held the opinion that if you're a person with a large following, you should understand that your words can influence people's minds. You can start a wave of hate if you're not careful. And Avid certainly wasn't.
And you can understand one strange-vibe action. You can believe that cc was hasty with his opinion once, was too emotional, and didn't react maturely enough. Yes, you can. People make mistakes, sometimes they can't find the right words. That's normal.
But the things that happened with Avid were one, then another, then three. They just piled up, and I stopped interacting with them and their content.
And I'm glad that I can finally freely say that I felt unpleasant vibes from them a couple of months ago, and no one will look at me strangely or argue much, or outright hate me.
Please, don't take my speech as "I always knew." I didn't know. No one was in the know.
Everyone is in shock and very emotional right now, and my heart breaks for every one of their victims and for Marmalade's.
It's so disheartning, so scary, so disgusting.
I think I'm just still sitting here piecing together the puzzle of why I stopped liking Avid and what went wrong, and I'm writing this to give my thoughts a concrete form.
