Sascha [they/he/she] @localacedisaster - Tumblr Blog

Jul 31

I no longer feel comfortable being part of the mcyt fandom and creating mcyt fanworks.

Hey to everyone bothering to read this, I'll be taking a hiatus from creating fanworks (fanfics, headcanons, aus) aswell as interacting with other peoples fanworks from all mcyt fandoms for the foreseeable future.

To start this off I want to apologise to those who have been waiting for their bribe fics and updates on my long-fics and planned projects. I'm really sorry but I currently do not feel comfortable working on those works and they will stay wips for an unknown amount of time. I might return to them in the future and get them out there, but not any time soon.

The rest of this post will describe why I no longer feel comfortable writing for any mcyt series. This post was originally meant to be much longer and way more detailed but with the many nights I have now lost sleep over this and rethought things I have decided to just write it down and get it out, for the sake of my mental stability. Fair warning that this post still ended up very long, has a lot of links I recommend looking at and gets kinda personal as I talk about my feelings and personal life a little.

Please note that while recent events are the main cause for this decision, Ive been thinking about this for almost a year now.

Please also note that the later half of this is not proofread. I have wrestled with this text for almost a month and cannot handle it anymore.

[TW: mentions of [child] neglect and emotional abuse, harassment, suicide and suicidal thoughts, sexual predators, slight mention of non-con and rape, grief]

The reason I love both the internet and fandom spaces is that they give me places where I can freely express myself and create any art I want. I joined fandom spaces during the heights of 2021 covid. 2021 and the following years where some of the worst times in my life and I went trough a lot in my real life back then. Fandom spaces gave me a place where I could freely express my emotions, thoughts on "taboo" topics and my queerness, giving me a space where I was free to do so.

The Haikyuu Fandom was the first ever place and community where I felt genuinely comfortable, appreciated and loved and I cannot even begin to explain how grateful I am to the lovely people who expressed joy and interest at my first fanworks, who cheered me on when I came out as any queer label and who did not judge me for my family background. They created what was my first ever safe space.

MCYT did not change any of this. In fact when I originally joined this fan space in 2023 it amplified my feelings on fandoms, largely because of how strong of a sense of community this fandom has, both in the media and between the fans. It reawakened my joy for creating fan works or anything really and helped me during a time were I recovered from something big that happened in my real life. If Haikyuu is the fandom that helped me during the darkest times of my life, MCYT is the fandom that helped me crawl out of that dark time and become better. In retrospect maybe I was naïve to believe this fandom wouldn't be any different to other fandoms, considering how the creators are connected to the characters and how "close" creators interact with fans. You always know more after the fact, I suppose.

Within the past close to 3 years I have been in the mcyt fandom, I have had to constantly redefine my relationship with the fandom over and over again. I originally started out in this fandom in the qsmp corner which reeks of racism and xenophobia and always has. Both the Forever and Wilbur stuff and the reaveals of the truth behind their personas had very negetive effects on my mental health as someone who is trans and a victim of emotional abuse. It lead to me having to redefine my relationship with mcyt and the qsmp fandom as the creator of a character, that had an important part in my favourite storyline [death family for those who are interested] on the server, turned out to be a horrible person.

This lead to me approaching mcyt and it's content creators with a lot more caution and the constant reminder in my head that I don't know these people, I don't know who they are behind the screen. This and the fact that I joined the Hermitcraft/Life Series fan space during the time lead to me putting down a line and rule for myself where I made sure I remembered that the persona the creator displays is not actually the creator but rather a façade they put on for the public. The truth about the workplace abuse and horrid payment and treatment of the workers of qsmp coming out fully cemented this believe, as it made me loose all the respect and love I had left for qsmp and caused me to turn to Hermitcraft, the life series and sos smp full time.

I love the life series and sos smp, by God how I love these series. Ive found so much joy in them and these characters. See one thing that has always kept me hooked on media and is by far what interests me most in fandoms are the relationships between characters, be they romantic, queerplatonic, platonic or familiar. And the life series and sos both have such a plethora of these, with the life series especially I enjoy the way the relationships change over the course of the series and the many messes and important plot lines that have come from that. And well if you like the life series you automatically get stuck in the hermitcraft corner as well, the two are kind of a package deal. While Hermitcraft wasn't a big series for me personally, I have loved putting it on in the background of me playing Minecraft myself.

This is where I had to once again redefine my relationship with the mcyt fandom, when the truth about Iskall came out and he left hermitcraft, Stressmonser supporting him. I struggled a lot with the fact that a creator [Stress] I had enjoyed, supported and claimed as one of my main povs turned out to be a bad person. I felt really guilty for not "seeing signs" or getting a bad vibe like others had. Posts from other mcyt fans who had a lot more experience in this fandom helped a lot, making me understand that I am not a bad person for enjoying a creator, I am not a bad person for enjoying a piece of media. It was a difficult lesson for me, due to the self hatred and the internalised thoughts I carry because of the way I was raised.

If anything these experiences made me love and appreciate this fandom even more. I love how openly we adress issues and how many fans don’t shy away from criticising creators when they are wording things badly or are outright shitty and hurtful towards people. Genuinely, I can't emphasise how much I love this fandom and this community. Which is part of why it hurts me so much to leave it and make this post. Believe me, if I didn't feel genuinely unsafe I would not be even thinking of leaving the mcyt fandom, but I do, so this is where we are at.

It started around a year ago.

This is when Skizzleman, a creator of the Life Series and Hermitcraft and one that I had enjoyed quite a bit, said live on stream, when asked to say "trans rights" that he wouldn't because the topic was "too political" and "polarising". As mentioned before, I am trans and this made me extremely uncomfortable. At the time a bunch of people defended him, saying how we "know" he supports trans folk and how he comes from a red state and just "doesn't know better", to give him the benefit of the doubt. It made me feel like I was a bad person for feeling uncomfortable at what he said [this once again stems largely from my own personal issues of self hate and the way I was raised]. Except then people did some digging and found out that Skizz at that point in time had mods who support Donald Trump, who are most likely long time friends of his, as Skizz didnt just not fire them, he also actively followed them on Twitter. In his apology Skizz then proceeded to claim that he "knew that they were good people at heart". I don't think I need to explain why that makes me extremly uncomfortable.

The thing is, people forgot about it. The fandom carried on as though it didn't happen and once Past Life came around, the Rejects and Skizz got a lot of fanart, as though he was just another creator, as though he hadn't actively said that people who followed Trumps believes were "good people". As though he isnt still friends with someone MAGA. And some people did digging in that period of time. The things I learned from this digging from others and the way the fandom brushes over them paint a rather…ugly picture. As it stands right now, not only is Skizz friends with MAGA, Bdubs Wife actively follows right wing extremists, Grian basically does free advertisement for Harry Potter and JKR (whose proceeds go into anti Trans organisations) while Scar does the same for Disney (who donates their proceeds to Israel)and Docm bans anyone who tries to talk about what's happening to Palestine, despite how outspoken he is about other political manners.

And believe me, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. I have tried to do so for the past year. But every single time someone criticises these things that person is harassed and shit talked to hell and back by fans and the creators keep on going like these actions and condoning them doesn't actively harm people. The fandom basically brushes over the way Hermitcraft and the Life Series soround themselves in this "non-political" bubble, where creators easily partake or condone hate and bigotry and anyone who criticises them is made out to be "the bad guy". This is the climate that I have seen soround this corner of the mcyt fandom for the past year, where we are now at a point where everyone seemingly has forgotten all about it.

The thing is the mcyt fandom has a history of flooding the mcyt discourse tag when something big happens and then a few days later no one talks about it anymore, everybody forgets about it. But I didn't. I havnt forgotten the threats people have received for criticising the content creators. I haven't forgotten the horrid things that are still happening to trans folk, people of colour and many other minorities in the USA at the hand of its current president. I haven't forgotten Israel bombing innocent people, killing thousands of them and destroying their homes. I haven't forgotten JKRs influence on trans laws in the UK and the real hateful rethorik she spreads. I haven't forgotten the way these creators seem to at worse not care about the way peoples lives are in danger or at best be ignorant towards the part their actions have in that.

I have been disliking the way the fandom treats the Skizz situation like it never happened and the creators like they can do no wrong when the reality is so different. But I have been afraid to speak up about the way the mcyt fandom has started to treat creator criticism like it's a death threat, defending the creators with actual death threats under the guise of "giving them the benefit of the doubt" and "not making assumptions". Over the past year I have desperately tried to do just that, but the way things have been going, nothing has changed.

I have never felt uncomfortable with being trans on the internet. As I said in the beginning of this post, the internet has given me a safe place for me to be trans and be myself. But suddenly, a community that I thought was accepting and supportive of me, where I though even the creator of the media was trying their best, excuses a creator saying that people who support Trump are good people. I had never felt uncomfortable with being trans on the internet, until then. I have wips that I stopped working on because they included major trans characters, because I was afraid that it would lead the people who defended Skizz to look over my blog and judge wether I am "a good trans person" or "one of the evil people hating on Skizz for no reason". At that time last year I was afraid to properly talk about the situation, because I was genuinely afraid of being harassed.

And what do I do when I'm afraid? I search for an escape.

Vampires smp is absolutely incredible. It is an incredible peace of Media and created a chracter that got me on a level that Ive never found before [Scott Goldsmith you not so little shit]. I loved this smp and it brought me a sense of comfort to know that this corner of the fandom seemed far more accepting towards trans folk. I got into vsmp at a time where I was doubting if I still wanted to be part of the mcyt fandom at all, especially with how many times I have had to battle with and redefine my realationship with this fandom. The creators did such a wonderful job and the effort and passion that they put into vsmp is so clear. I truly belive that it is a masterpiece of a media and it saddens me to know that the series that kept me in the fandom is now part of what put the nail in the coffin and is making me leave.

With the timeline that we are currently in in this text, I feel the need to adress the Avid and Marm situation. Out of respect for the victims, who have asked for this to be burried, and myself, who has experienced similar things, I am going to keep this brief. Fuck them. Support and love to the victims.

This situation hit a though spot for me as it reminded me of things that I had to go through at the hands of my abuser and even thinking about it makes me physically ill. This made me take my first ever social media break since…well since I joined the internet. It forced me to once again rethink on if I want to be part of this fandom and if I can truly stomach mcyts turning out be horrible people as often as it happens. Unfortunately I didn't get to fully think this trough, as not even a week of me slowly coming back to social media, Milkberry and Pyro released their new "boundaries".

I think I have made my own stance on creator "boundaries" pretty clear. Creators absolutely have the right to feel uncomfortable with things, anything really. People who knowingly show creators something that will make them uncomfortable do not respect creators as real people and are actively hurting the creators with that. Creators also absolutely have a right to express when they are uncomfortable with something and I actually encourage them to do so, so that they maybe can feel safer in their streams and have a community where they aren't being forced to see things that makes them uncomfortable. The problem comes with the fact that nobody can control what other people do.

Mcyt has this very weird thing where the creators of the media are so involved in fandom that they have a lot more influence on their fans than other creators do. It also has this weird thing were creators seem to see their characters as much more of extensions of themselves rather than actual characters that just happen to have similar features or personally traits. Actors and writers and especially role players share many traits with their characters, but they barely ever express anything similar to mcyt "boundaries". I believe this is largely due to just how involved creators are in the fandom here.

I do believe that it would really help if creators tried to seperate their characters from themselves more and started seeing their characters as what they are: characters. And I do believe separating creator and fan spaces more clearly could help with that. Because the proximity we have in this fandom is not normal and extremely unusual. I think what many don’t realise is how much creators interact with fandom spaces [especially tumblr imo] can harm them mentally. Fans are toxic and messy and make critical points that will upset creators and spew hateful shit and will create things creators might be uncomfortable with. That's just what fandom is like. Fandom and especially the mcyt fandom, is a lawless place on account of it happening on the internet where everyone can create and post whatever they want without being punished for it. That is the nature of the internet.

As such it is on us to curate our experience on here and block anything that makes us uncomfortable to ensure we don't have to encounter it or at least encounter it less. Blocking tags and people is how it should be done and how creators should do it, if they do want to stay so close to the fandom. After all this is how everybody else traverses the internet and deals with things that makes them uncomfortable. And while creators do have a lot of influence, they are ultimately still people on the internet, just like you and me.

Triggers are treated similarly and those have significantly more impact on someone's health than something that makes someone uncomfortable. It is an adults responsibility to protect themselves on the internet, not that of the strangers they meet, especially if those strangers are minors. This, in my opinion, especially goes for content creators, who have a majorly minor audience.

A dni tag can help with this! It is a tag designed to protect both the creators and fans, as tags like this give fans a place to create works they know won't be seen by the creators and creates a place where works that might make the creator uncomfortable can be kept far away from them. It is in my opinion, a great solution! Though, of course this only works if the creator actually doesn’t look at the tag. Because otherwise the creator is actively ignoring the point of a dni tag to begin with. This is something that Legundo has done, showing appreciation for someone who looked at his "dni tag" to see if anyone was breaking his "boundaries" and reported back to him. This feels rather ignorant and hypocritical to me- why would you create an option for people to have a space away from you just for you too [indirectly] look into it anyway?

Which is where we get to the actual "boundary" stuff. The reason I have been putting "" around the word is that creators have been severely

misusing the term. "Stop doing this specific thing" is not a boundary, it is by the very definition a rule. And that causes issues, because while you can tell people that they shouldn’t create a certain type of art [shipping in this case], that will not work as intended. People will not listen to you and continue to create. As said before, this is the internet and ultimately you can

whatever art you would like. Milkberry has apparently said that seeing the shipping is not the issue but rather the knowledge that it exists in the first place. And partially I do understand that, the knowledge that people are out there creating non-con and rape of my favourite characters that I heavily relate to, makes me extremly uncomfortable. What I don't understand is why I am [rightfully, in my opinion] expected to just live with that knowledge and accept that, learn to block and not waste my time thinking about that, while Milkberry doesn’t have to do that.

The difference here is that Milkberry, and by extent other content creators, have an audience that they can easily give rules and, once again, just how close creators are to fans. Wether they know it or not, creators have significant influence over their fan bases, however they do not hold power over fans, as after all fans are still people on the internet, who will do whatever they want. They seem to believe they do have this power, but that is simply not true. Despite everything, they are still people on the internet just like you and me, who have to deal with the fact that stuff exists that they won't like and might make them uncomfortable just like the rest of us.

Now, I want to reiterate that nobody is expecting creators to "just roll over and take it" [real quote by Legundo ]. Creators are absolutely within the right to control what happens in their own spaces [stream chat, comment sections, official discord servers], no one should have to go through having content that they have openly stated they feel uncomfortable with, shoved in their face. It is extremly rude and distasteful. But creators still need to understand that while they are free to control their own space, the cannot control the internet. Also [referring to the post about Legundo linked] I feel that telling a teenager that they deserve to receive hate and harassment as a "lesson" because they won't follow a creators rules on what to not create is just as rude and distasteful, if not even more so. Nobody deserves to be harassed and implying that someone does for *checks notes* making fictional characters kiss in places where people who would be made uncomfortable by it can't see it, honestly disgusts me quite a bit, especially when that someone is a minor.

Something that I am also not a fan of is the implication that we need Legundos "consent" to create fanworks of his characters. Consents direct meaning is "permission. Do we need Legundos permission to create fanworks? I doubt [and hope] that this was not the intended effect, but it feels really weirdly worded, as though "consent" doesn’t mean "permission" in this context but rather the other, more common understanding of the word. However this would mean that Legundo implied that fanartists are sexual predators, for creating fanworks based off of fictional characters, which is an implication I don't even want to think about, in hopes that the creators would not stoop so low.

The issue is: where do we draw the line? Let's say hypothetically that people will entirely stop shipping Milkberry and Pyros characters, what is next? What if a creator has a "boundary" of no queer interpretation? Or no disabled headcanons? Or entirely no interpretations that arent super close to canon? No aus? No pairing with other characters at all? Where are "boundaries" okay and where do they become unreasonable? Because no matter what you think, not being able to ship anymore is not the issue. In Fact I have been avoiding talking about the main issue similarly to how the creators have seemed to miss by far.

Harassment is not a new thing to the mcyt fandom. It has its roots nestled somewhere deep in the community and it will probably have to deal with that for the rest of its existence. Well, there really is no pretty way to talk about this: On his stream discussing his and Maddy's "boundaries" Pyro said something that heavily implied that he was not just okay with fans harassing other fans for "breaking boundaries", but also encouraged it [I don't have a direct quote or source right now but it has been spread around so i'm sure you know what i'm talking about]. Now I want to make it very clear that I do not think that Pyro did this intentionally, I doubt that he would intentionally send his fans to harass people. However, no matter what their intention was, reality is that people have used it as an excuse to harass people.

And that harassment is frankly horrific in my opinion. This absolutely terrifies me. And I feel like a majority of the fandom, including the creators, do not understand just how dangerous this is. People are sending these to minors, teenagers, children. Minors who could be suicidal, who could take this as their final nail in the coffin. And for those of saying that I am overreacting, I am going to be brutally honest: If someone told me these things 3 years ago, I would not be alive and writing this right now. That is how dangerous this harssament is and scares me to think that the creators seem to just not care to talk about this.

Another group that is in danger due to this are systems c!Pyro and c!Maddy fictives. [if you don't know what that is, please look it up].

Fictives have gone largely unmentioned in this and I genuinely worry for them. Because now people arent being harassed for shipping fictional characters, people are being harassed for their relationships and romantic feelings towards others. The creators have not mentioned this at all, though I guess I can't blame them, considering that I hadn't originally thought of it either. Still I think it's important to mention [all the love to the fictives out there, I hope you're okay].

Pyro did ultimately, finally, make a clear statement about how he doesn’t condone harassment…in a discord server. While the original statement is still very available to the public through his vod. I do not think that this is okay. It is not public enough, not to mention the fact that Pyro in the same text aswell as texts before seems to either not properly read or be ignorant towards fans genuine concerns, with Maddy not acknowledging the harassment at all. There is also a very glaring missing in piece in all of those discord statements: an apology. Wether it was the intent or not, Pyros words have lead to a large amount of harassment, their actions have had an indirect impact on people's mental health and safety, but they do not apologise for the part they had in the harm their words caused.

Instead Pyro clarified that what he actually meant was people sending anonymous discord tickets of people who "break creators boundaries". I hope I do not have to explain how easily exploitable this system is. Who will go through those tickets? And who decides what's real and what's fake? Because proof can be very easily faked. And what if i'm not in the discord? Or hell what if i'm banned from it? What do I do then? This is a very faulty system. In general I do not like the way this situation has been handled at all. I wish things where addressed in a more public manner and I wish the creators realised the real harm they are encouraging with these statements.

What worries me especially, is the fact that the ticket system relies on fans controlling fanworks for "boundary breaking" content, if they belive it is there, they will then report that person through the tickets. Through this fans are basically encouraged to tell on each other, it creates an environment where we judge each other on how "morally correct" our fucking fanworks are. And this, in my opinion, is really weird and does not make me feel like this is a safe space for me to express my thoughts and creativity.

In addition to the political climate of the hermitcraft corner and the severe harssemnt that has been happening: it makes me feel extremly unsafe in the mcyt fandom.

I have spent the past month wracking my head to try and figure out why this bothers me as much a s it does and I think I have found an answer: The original reason of why I love the internet and fandom.

This is were I get pretty personal: I grew up in a very neglectful home where I received very little to mostly no affection. Whenever I expressed a topic that my mother wasn't comfortable with, she would yell at me and tell me to shut up. I was not allowed to grief or have any emotions regarding my father when he passed, I was not allowed to socialise with people outside of school or build a community of any sorts and I was not allowed to be queer. The internet and fandom especially gave me a place where I was allowed to do and be all that. Where there is not limit to what kind of stories and art you share. It felt like I was finally had a place where I could be free, without worry or fear of being yelled at.

But now? Now I am paranoid that people will judge my works on wether it makes someone uncomfortable or not. I no longer feel like I am free to create any art I want. The very reason I love fandom, seems to be so far away in the mcyt fandom. So I have decided: A fandom where I have to constantly reevaluate my relationship with the media, is a fandom that causes me more stress than joy. A fandom where I don't know if it is safe for me to express my trans identity, is a fandom that is not safe for me as a trans person. A fandom where I have to fear fans judging my works and classifying it as "bad practices" and going to the creators of the media to report me, is a fandom I feel unsafe in. A fandom where a certain type of art is being discouraged and not allowed, is a fandom I do not feel comfortable creating any art for.

The mcyt fandom is not a fandom I want to be an active part of any longer.

Once again, I am so sorry to those who were waiting for updates, maybe in the far away future, where these issues are fixed, that will be reality, but not right now.

After this I will upload one last mcyt post, a clip I had saved 2 months ago and that has been collecting dust in my drafts. I will change my master post and after my profile picture. My ask box will be closed for atleast a week to keep myself safe.

I will be a haikyuu main from now on. I will continue creating and expressing the story's of queerness, community and more that I have for the past almost 6 years now.

Love to the mcyt fandom, stay strong. I will not be main tagging this, but if you'd like to reblog it, feel free to do so. I'd be surprised if anyone actually read it till here, so uh, hi, if you did :)

-Sascha [they/he/she]

#saschasthoughts #mcyts stop being shitty or dumb challange #<- discourse tag #yeah.#i have felt genuinely unsafe here for a while but this is way to far #...ye

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