I hope you’re okay with me replying to this as well. I wanted to break down your post with some responses.
“tagging stuff like ship art and nsfw is very important but personally it feels really weird for someone to continue to make art or writing, or even ship people and characters with each other after they stated that they dont want that,”
I think what a lot of fans in the MCYT fandom don’t quite get a solid read on is the point I made in my initial post. Fandom exists because of the content creators’ content but it does not exist for them. Breaking that down, it means that what the creator wants and what each individual fan wants to make is never going to perfectly align, because fans aren’t making nsfw or ship content FOR the creator, or at least they certainly shouldn’t be. To ban or censor (or give fans carte blanche to attack people that make) that content at large is a first step in the fandom becoming a very toxic place, because people love to escalate when they feel like they’re “in the right.”
“there's a big difference between someone saying they dont want to see something specific of their character or them and them not wanting it to be done at all.”
This is a perfect example of the boundary versus ultimatum issue. It’s a frustrating truth, I’m sure, but you just cannot control what other people do. When creators do that, they’re not sharing a boundary. Here are some examples.
Boundary (healthy, places the onus on the creator to ensure they’re not overstepping with their fans and curating their own interactions): “I don’t want to see this specific thing.” > Filters for ship and nsfw tags
Ultimatum (unhealthy, places the onus on fans to A: know that creator’s preference, B: enforce that preference to others who don’t through the threat of public harassment): “I’m not okay with/don’t make content of my character like this.” > End of effort on the creator’s part. Leaves fans to do what they want.
“we're not one of those people that attack other people for doing something like that, but like, if a creator asks people to not draw their characters or themselves in such a way, isnt it... just... easier to respect those wishes? like what are you gaining out of disrespecting a boundary, yknow”
In many cases, it just. Isn’t about the creator, and if the creator is inserting themself into fandom without understanding how it works, and assumes that all fanart is for/about them and not a person half a world away playing with their concepts like dolls, then that assumption is the issue of the creator. You also can’t assume that everyone is going to know every creator’s preferences on fan-content, and to do so is both unfair and likely to get someone harassed when they go against the creator’s wishes.
As blunt as it may be, I think this fandom really just needs to learn two things.
Content creators are not your friends and you won’t get brownie points for being The Good Fan Who Follows The Rules And Calls Out Bad Fans
and to mind their own business.
