The Block People Go Brrr

Boundaries are personal and social. They are based on mutual respect. Boundaries are not orders, they are requests, intended to establish a cause and effect: if you do this thing, I will do this other thing. "If you show me ship fic, I will block you" is a boundary. "You are not allowed to make ship fic at all" is not a boundary, that is a rule.

Rules are not boundaries. Rules are based on power and control - they are imposed upon you. This is not necessarily bad, but it must come with understanding of where they can be applied. Rules only apply where the rulemaker has control of what is allowed. And these are how many creators seem to approach what they call "boundaries". Again, this is not necessarily bad - their own twitch chats, discords, and maintags on social media ARE spaces in which they have control (some spaces more than others - maintags are shakier since creators don't have moderation power there, but that can be alleviated by creating a dni tag and asking people to place content there instead), and are therefore places where they can make rules about what they do or do not want to be shown. This is fine. Creators have the right to moderate their own spaces how they wish.

Where the problems emerge is that many creators seem to assume that they have the power to apply their rules (in the guise of "boundaries") in places that are not their own. Non-main tags on social media, archive of our own, private discords - these are locations in which the application (or lack thereof) of boundaries is no longer the choice of a creator. They do not have power; thus, any choices made by individuals in those spaces must necessarily be based only on the social agreement between fan and creator, an inherently parasocial construction. And in this case, the parasocial agreement that actually exists is not "this thing must never be created", it is "this thing should not be created or shared in my spaces".

I would argue that the primary issue in how "boundaries" are approached is a misunderstanding of how all of this works. Boundaries cannot be enforced in private spaces because there is no power relationship there. They can only be requested. As a result, when creators attempt to enforce boundaries in spaces that are not their own, what will actually happen is a series of barely-controlled harassment campaigns aimed towards people who are, by and large, following the social contract of boundaries but not the power-enforced contract of rules. And that harassment is far more of a problem than any person in a private discord writing something against boundaries. One might make someone uncomfortable.

🕯️I will understand how to block tags

🕯️I will have a basic understanding of how a fandom works

🕯️I will not threaten to send people after my fans

🕯️I will learn what a boundary actually is

🕯️I will not support harassment

🕯️I will accept that there is content out there that I don't like

🕯️I will encourage my fandom to be a place where people feel safe

This is from Pyro's discord:

And that's from Maddy's twitter:

i've been a part of fandom for a long time. and inevitably, when an actor, celebrity, creator, etc is exposed as a bad person, the responses from fans are always somewhere along the lines of "i can't believe this! i trusted them, how could they betray me?" that's the thing. they didn't betray you, at least, not personally. it's not your fault for being a fan of a bad person, obviously. but you have to understand, they are not your friends. you do not know them. as legs put it, you know a very small, carefully curated slice of their life. that's it.

something else legs said that really stuck with me (i'm paraphrasing here) is that "you need to be your own role model." you can be a fan, you can connect with them, you can make art about them, but they cannot be the person you look up to, who you base your worldview and morality off of. it has to be you.

do not undermine the affect of such actions by calling it 'drama' or 'spilling tea'/'tea'. we do not need a theme of 'god we can't go one day without mcyt drama can we'; this is NOT drama. i've seen far too many posts joking about mcyt “drama” surrounding this—treat it seriously for fucks sake

I don’t have the time to fully explain but tldr:

i have gone through the avidmc tag to see updates and i. i have mixed feelings. i really don't like that people are saying "let's replace v!avid with a fandom oc". v!avid is NOT their creator. v!avid is not avidmc. v!avid is a character. reclaiming v!avd and every other avid character is far better than replacing him entirely.

as someone with a vsmp au that heavily focuses v!avid, i feel i'm allowed to talk on this. v!avid is separate from avidmc. trying to replace them with a fandom-made oc will only cause confusion and hurt towards many people who are attached to the character and care about the character. (i've also saw people saying 'replace v!avid with jimmy' and i don't think i need to get into why that's not a good idea. no. don't do that.)

this is NOT to say i am in support of avidmc and marma1ade. i am not. they are evidently not good people and i do not endorse any of their actions. however, allowing the actions of two horrible people to change what ARE good stories and good characters is a disservice to the characters and to all of the people who love the characters. it is a disservice to fandom creativity and storytelling.

if you reading this are someone who loves the story of v!avid or tf!avid or any other character created by avidmc or marma1ade, do not feel bad for that. you can't control that you enjoy and/or relate to the story of a fictional character. they are fictional. they do not reflect the real peoples' actions or beliefs.

if you reading this are someone who has written fic or drawn art about any avid or marm character, do not feel bad for that. i am one of those people. there is no wrong choice to make on whether you want to discontinue or delete your works, but think about it before you make a permanent decision. do not allow the actions of two bad people to dull your creative spark.

as many of you know, the work we did for Avid was substantial. the music we made with him has been our lifeblood for the past several months as we have been reeling from the onset of a severe, life changing disability diagnosis that prevents us from working a typical job. music, video editing, streaming, and making our own videos are about all we can do. our disabling dissociative amnesia prevents the timely and reasonable learning of new skills. while we have been working constantly with a dissociative specialist to inch towards remedying this, we do not expect that we will be equipped to work in any other capacity any time soon.

the royalties we received from the music we made together with Avid were roughly 80-90% of our income on any given month for the calendar year so far, and they have helped us stay afloat while we have been trying to go through the rigorous and ill-equipped disability system.

putting all your eggs in one basket is never a good idea regardless, and the fears i had building for the past couple of months only further emphasized this. as such, i have been trying to diversify by engaging with streaming, trying to get my name out there for collaborative work in other SMPs, and reaching out to my creator friends for editing work. i really can't thank two people in particular enough - LeonSBU and NatureOfGaming - for providing me work as they have been able to afford and especially in Leon's case, getting my name out there for other SMPs.

unfortunately, the true extent of Avid's manipulations and lies were more than i could ever have imagined. the fact that my entire understanding of his intentions has been flipped in a matter of no more than 3 days feels like being hit by a truck. for full transparency, i am no longer in contact with Avid, but i did inform them that i was leaving the fate of our music in their hands. in the final messages he sent to me before i cut contact, he told me that he "would never cut [me] off financially". he told me he would never do a lot of things, so forgive me if i have trouble trusting this. regardless, the dropoff in listenership after what has been revealed will be substantial and immediate.

in the best case-scenario, i have a month or two left before royalties catch up to this dropoff, and will see consistent income for that time still. in the worst, i will no longer be able to afford my rent by the end of the month if he does remove the music and disable my royalty splits.

what i need is two things: i need immediate funds to fall back on in case things go poorly, and i need longevity. i have been so lucky to be surrounded by so many truly astounding and generous creators who have been willing to put my name out there for work. i am hoping this comes to fruition. i am already hearing from some about potential editing opportunities which is amazing. but things are still up in the air, and i need to be quick and smart. this is why i am doing something that my fans know i hate. i'm asking for help.

as i see it, there are three pillars to this. all the highlighted text below links directly:

immediate aid - if you have the funds to spare, buying our music on Bandcamp and donating to our Ko-Fi are methods of which we see the funds in a matter of days, if not instantly. this will help us build an emergency fund if worse comes to worse.

supporting our work - by spreading the word about our streaming on Twitch and listening to our music on streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube (and any other platform our music is on), you provide a significant source of consistent income that we can rely on month-to-month.

word of mouth - talking about what we do and why you enjoy it is a surprisingly big help, because it helps us find connections for potential growth opportunities and commission work. additionally, letting people know we have a Discord and are the ones responsible for Avid's music in the first place not only helps us, but it helps the people who loved Avid's music know there is more out there from the person who made his songs possible.

i'm gonna level with you all. i fucking hate writing this. i feel like a beggar. i feel humiliated. these past three days of piecing things together have been some of the worst of my life, and having to once again ask for help is the cherry on top. since i learned about the truth three days ago, this has been constantly looming over me. everything else has been made crystal clear to me, so i at least know without a shadow of a doubt what happened. but with this? i'm terrified. Avid knew my situation, my disability, my reliance on our work together. he has left me in a truly impossible situation. i am taking it as an opportunity to double down on the work i was already doing and try to turn it into a positive. i hope that you all are gracious enough to help me make that a reality. it would really mean the world right now.

Vikings statement

JayDraws statement

Natures statement

Legundos statement

Doovid statement