There's a really fascinating example of the story ecosystem in one of the fandoms I'm in, which is a minecraft youtube series called 3rd Life. The mcyt sphere as a whole is interesting because many of the subfandoms are closely connected and trade ideas and concepts between them even if the canon story and dynamics are very different, but the Watchers as a trope/character are especially interesting to me.
The initial concept of them showed up in a prior series from the creator of 3rd life, but they had very little impact or characterization. The current fandom portrayal of them is way different, with different themes and iconography, to the point where the original canon versions are only kind of recognizable as Watchers. What's extra interesting is that a large part of the new theming was drawn from one specific fanfic (which was not even a 3rd life fic, it was hermitcraft! This is what I was talking about with the subfandom exchange), which has then been modified further and iterated on by the fandom. A lot of the current depictions of Watchers are heavily drawn from that fic, but the concept of them is so widespread now that most new people don't even know that fic exists! The Watchers are usually tied to the character of 3rd life's creator since he interacted with them originally, but they're also (and I'd argue more so) associated with 3rd life as a whole. Which is fascinating because they're not referenced at all in 3rd life! And the fic their current iteration is drawn from wasn't a 3rd life fic!
And there's another aspect to this which isn't present in most fandoms: since the creators of the canon share the same space and community as the fans to an extent, the fandom portrayal of Watchers is starting to influence the canon! One creator specifically (not the creator of 3rd life, but a member) has incorporated a lot of fandom lore for Watchers into his character's story, which is in turn influencing the fanon. It's all really interesting to me, especially from the ecosystem framework you use. There's so much exchange going on, between creator and fan and subfandoms and back to creator, and it's such a huge part of the fandom. I could go on and on about how the subfandom exchange influences fanwork too but that's a different topic, I just thought that the Watchers were an interesting case study
MCYT seems to have a ton of really fascinating Storycosystem stuff going on. This is cool!!
One of the most common reasons given for boundaries (and subsequent boundary policing) is the idea that cc's see themselves as their characters and it makes them uncomfortable in some way. Sometimes this is made explicit (such as luanne + kyleff) and other times it's the clear background implication (pyro). There's a term in broader rp space for this concept called "character bleed" (<- blog post describing it w/ some academic articles) and its usage in the context of boundaries is complete bs
I think graecie (in her discussion on stream and on tumblr) unpacks the idea that managing bleed is on the audience really well! I also think it's a shame that, despite this, she's never used as a "good example" when talking about boundaries. So, I'm talking about her and why other people should too
Here are some quotes from when graecie clarified about her post further on stream:
"When I bring up character bleed or how our brains differentiate- or-or. Our brains are unable to differentiate fake emotions from roleplay to real emotions in real life and how, like, your brain treats those emotions that you feel the same way. I don't ever want that to be misconstrued as I'm putting that responsibility on the community to prevent us from getting character bleed, or prevent us from struggling with those things. That's not it." (22:40)
(Small note that the use of "us" is super notable here! This is something that (should) apply to all creators, not just graecie)
"When I brought [character bleed] up in the past I think it might've been misconstrued as me blaming the community or, not blaming the community but expecting the community to be responsible for preventing that and that's never what I mean. Whenever I bring it up it it just, I think it's something creators in the mcr space— in the mcrp space are unaware of, um, because it is so new. Safety tools, uh, self-care in roleplay, all of that is relatively new to the mcrp space, uh, and I don't think a lot of creators understand the impact that playing a character live non-stop can have on their mental. And like, how they— how they view that character as more of themselves." (23:45)
"It-it can be stressful to navigate but that's also, it's on me to navigate, which is what I've been doing. Um, it's not on anyone who engages with my media to navigate for me." (25:10)
This is already (somehow) leagues above every other creator who thinks it's on their (mostly underage) fanbase to regulate their own emotions! What's most interesting to me in this stream + graecie's subsequent posts is that she's clearly interested in spreading this idea outside herself. In a recent(ish) tumblr post she detailed some of the consent/safety tools she introduced on the flight and on stream she mentioned:
"I've been slowly trying to introduce more dnd safety tools into the mcrp space. I did a character, uh, like safety and consent checklist form for the flight for everyone to fill out... it's absolutely, it's on the other people you play with and the gamemasters but it's not, I-I would say it's not on the community who is consuming the content you create to be aware of and prevent [character bleed]." (25:30)
"And, I'm there for my friends if they're going through it, I've got resources for that." (27:09)
You'll notice that it didn't take some huge controversy for graecie to change her opinion, just some self-reflecting and actually listening to the community. Here's her establishing a dni tag and talking about it on stream
That other people (the ones ppl usually point to as good examples) had such a public turn-around and have done nothing to actually change the culture which encourages boundaries brings their motives into question. It's an issue that "changed" creators get to respond to their co-workers insane boundaries by saying "I do respect other creators boundaries cause its their preference" and get uncritical praise. The only reason we see boundary discourse come up so often is bc ppl who are "okay about boundaries" aren't willing to challenge the overall culture in mcyt that endorses that behavior. An unwillingness to challenge even basic ideas such as "the rules that inspire harassment are good" and "my emotional regulation is the job of the audience" makes me wonder if opinions have actually changed or if creators are just searching for fandom brownie points. If creators who "figured it out" were interested in more than just themselves I don't think this discourse would be happening every other month
I mainly just think there are better examples of "boundaries done right" than the names ppl usually throw around. Especially when graecie's a marginalized creator who (lbr) probably deals w/ a lot more fandom weirdness than the (mostly cis and het) men that ppl talk about :). That she didn't require some explosive discourse also proves this is a topic of discussion because these mindsets are so normalized
So she actually said that she does not see the appeal in Senshi at all and that the panty shots weren't intended to be horny - she just has a neighbor who looks kind of like him and does laundry in his underwear. Which she finds kind of weird and offputting, and put into his character to be funny.
But that's the thing. She doesn't exaggerate or grotesqueify or alter people's bodies to fit some standard. (Except insofar as she draws different species differently, and those are exquisitely practiced to ensure they have the same diversity of appearances that humans do.) She just presents people exactly as they are, complexities and oddities and all.
It just so happens that when you present people exactly as they are, what you present will be beautiful and alluring to many. Even the things you yourself might find weird and offputting. Honestly I think it's a touching example of how you don't have to see the beauty in everyone for the beauty to be there, simple honesty is enough to let the wonder of people's humanity shine through.
#i think we should put this post next to the interview where she said she doesn't want to eat the food in the series cuz she's a picky eater#and file them both under 'you don't know an artist from their work'#and maybe you don't need to!#maybe all you need to know is that ryoko kui is Good At What She Does#idk I don't like the implication that artists (and women especially?) can only create from personal life and feelings#some people have imagination and craft#kind of a tangent but. there you go.
sex criminal j k rowling bullies amnesty international into retracting unbiased report about genocidal risks, after paying for the manufacture of a scottish devolution crisis over the same issue
So every year, my aquarium does a captive lobster hatchery project (hence all the loblings). The reason we’re doing it is because in the wild, loblings only have a 1 in 25,000 chance of surviving their larval phase. They’re plankton as babies and everything eats them. Additionally, as the Gulf of Maine warms, they are having even lower survival rates because the blooms of copepods they feed on as babies are happening earlier in the year, and they’re missing it.
Obviously, the goal of this experiment is to grow the lobsters until they’re big enough to settle to the seabed and then release them, because they have a much higher likelihood of surviving to adulthood when they’re able to hide. Ideally, captive lobster hatcheries can boost the wild population and keep things stable, so we don’t have a major crash in a decade or two.
The first year we tried this was pretty bad. We had a lot of eggs, but very few babies. It turned out that the CO2 levels in the building spiked as more guests visited throughout the summer, and that settled into the water and threw off the pH and caused a chemical reaction that prevented a lot of the eggs from hatching. I think we ended up releasing three baby lobsters (which is still better than their wild survival rate but not great).
The second year was a little better. We added a de-gasser to the aquarium and got a ton of larval lobsters, but right as they were settling to the bottom we had a disease outbreak that killed most of them. We ended up releasing four babies at the end of the season.
But this year? Oh boy. We have so many lobsters that we had to release the first round early (usually we wait till September or October so guests can see them). We just released a total of FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE baby lobsters, and we still have over a hundred who haven’t settled to the bottom yet. I genuinely don’t even have words to explain how cool this is. OVER FIVE HUNDRED. We just added hundreds of lobsters to the wild population that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.
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