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@pantton-sandacers
hey, sorry if youve not looked at this since your last post, i was wondering if theres any known public reparations or apologies for mistakes? i cant find anything
I'm not the right person to ask. I haven't interacted with the fandom at all since I left in 2021. Hope you're able to find something.
This post is going to be discussing the nsfw side of the sanders sides fandom. read at your own discretion
man i really wish i hadn't read as much ssides smut as i did. not only were there just generally unrealistic tones of relationships throughout that i discussed in a previous post, but some of them were just... massively fucked up
there was a lot of ageplay, and not even in the ddlg sense where the person is pretending to be a child (which is a whole nother issue) i'm talking about multiple fics with actual age regressed characters being in sexual encounters as if they could consent to them. furthermore i'd see pg age regressed content coming FROM ssides smut blogs, which honestly just feels irresponsible
but why did we read this?? idk. my current theory is we wanted to grow up fast and believe we could be percieved as sexually mature beings, even though we were literal children and shouldn't have been reading stuff that freaky.
and don't even get me into all the dub con stuff. dub con is fine when it's specified and properly tagged, but it's so commonly used as a theme without even the writer realizing the consent is dubious. you'll have characters doing the "romantic" actions of just going in for a kiss to confess their feelings or just making a sexual move that- if unwelcome- would be sexual harassment.
i just. to this day i think back about specific fics i read that i am repulsed when i think about, but at the time i saw nothing wrong with them. this is why we need better sex ed in schools and why sometimes, we. (myself included) need to be reminded that we are not as mature as we think we are.
Y'all,, the sanders sides fandom isn't that great as a whole.
Like yeah I get that you'll find good things and bad things in any group but like- the sanders sides fandom is often regarded as being only pure but in reality there's a lot of toxicity.
Yes, there's the racism, that's undeniably a big issue and it needs to be addressed, but I'm not equipped to discuss how racism has impacted me because I'm white.
My main issue with the fandom is how like. why were we allowed on the internet as much as we were?? I'm an adult now but I was in the ssides fandom from like. 15-18 and it really shaped how i viewed things like relationships and consent and morality, but I've seen some fucked up things in this fandom.
so many fics i've read have incredibly dubious consent that make me cringe looking back now, a lot of them even have like. the sides portraying manipulative behaviors without outright saying they're manipulative because that kind of behavior is so normalized when you don't know any other way to act.
and yes, most fanfics don't have accurate portrayals of healthy relationships, but all the arguments are also very drawn out, and it's especially hard when you're gay and closeted and can't ask for relationship advice and don't know how to communicate with your partner.
also, cw: explicit content
most of the smut in the fandom is fine, but some of it is just. incredibly not ok. i find it especially concerning that a fandom of mostly minors has a preference for writing age regression smut of the sides. or just. generally not having the characters verbally agree to things before they do them, it's always some magical thing of like "and they just knew the other wanted to do this" and yeah im sure you'll get that in any fandom but it's especially prevalent in this one.
end of explicit content
idk i just, i would've had a lot of an easier time growing up and figuring out how to interact with people and form relationships if my knowledge didn't come from mostly this fandom.
hey uh.. I hope you don’t mind, but I kinda need some advice regarding the sanders sides fandom? I.. I find a lot of comfort in sanders sides, but I’ve been avoiding it ever since the incident with the underpaid animators.. I can’t find any sources confirming that Thomas has made up for any of this and I honestly feel too much guilt to look at content that I find a lot of comfort in
I completely understand, the whole situation is a mess and it was a difficult decision for me to leave the fandom as well. Sanders Sides was my special interest for 3 years. Fortunately I was starting to get into Critical Role around the time Thomas was being exposed for a lot of things. Now I can’t watch or see anything with Sanders Sides without feeling awful, which is difficult considering it was such a large part of my life. I understand the feeling,
I’m leaving the Sanders sides fandom
I explained more in detail on my tiktok (Haan.exe)
Anyway white folks stop romanticizing gangs and the mafia challenge. It’s gross and racist as fuck.
Hey about the stuff about the animators for the story time Mad Libs that came out recently, just in case:
I will say I'm a teeny tiny lil bit icky about Sanders Sides at the moment
But do not worry about anything happening to this blog. If any more bad things come out similar to this, there's a chance I'll stopped posting about the show for a little bit (an even smaller chance that I'll stop talking about it at all) if nothing is resolved. But all of that's unlikely (I can't not talk about that show lol)
But, this blog (and other ones like @analogical-loving-years) will not be deleted. I'm way too proud of the stuff on here to put it in the trash lol
Wait what happened with the madlibs artist?
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes/637576277774286848
In case anyone wants to watch the video, here it is
Thanks for linking that vid!
Np!
So, now that I watched and processed the whole video, let’s talk about it
-None of the animators were professionals, nor did they know the average pay for professional animation. They agreed to extremely low pay because of that, so I don’t wanna hear anyone placing the blame on them
-Apparently Quill was in charge of the whole thing. Thomas wasn’t involved at all. Still, it’s his fault. It’s his channel, he should’ve kept track of the whole deal, specially since it involved his fans
-They failed to credit the artists (other than putting the names on screen with their animations), but corrected it by only placing the artists’ Instagrams on the description. Here I find it possible that the character limit of the video description forced their hands (as discussed in Alex’s video). The credits not being there at first is a big bummer, but could’ve been a mistake. Those happen
-The animators were given less than two weeks to work on the project. Alex drew around 230 frames in less than two weeks. That seems fucking absurd. Specially with low pay
-Quill never let them know when the animation was coming out, and at some point stopped replying to them altogether
-The animators send the team a list of things they could do better next time, and it doesn’t seem like there’s bad blood between Alex and the team. Can’t say that for sure about other animators
-The team did such a shitty job budgeting it
-We still have no word from Thomas, unclear if this has gotten to him
WAIT I THOUGHT WE WERENT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THIS! I was on the project and yeah we were kinda not happy about all this lol
wh?? what happened?????
Remember animated Madlibs?
Serious animator ab/se, and the contract prevented them from speaking until right now.
They had an upper and lower limit of content to make, 5-22 seconds, the lowest payment for one second of animation is 33USD (25 pounds).
In the contract it’s under agreement that the animators get paid and credited.
When it came to payment some creators didn’t (and some still haven’t) been paid, and some were paid so little that it wouldn’t be enough to do your weekly food shopping. This is payment for two weeks worth of work.
After this they were told that, under the contract, they may not talk about this. This was a LIE.
Also, the patrons knew the videos release before the damn ANIMATORS did. When it did come out, the credit wasn’t sufficient nor what was agreed to, and they had to message Quinn (who was in charge of this project and the people who worked on it) repeatedly to get the credit they’d signed up for.
Apparently, Thomas had no involvement, but he still has been made very well aware, hasn’t contacted any animators, hasn’t issued an apology publically (or privately that we know of) or made a single attempt at reparations of this large and prominent example of worker exploitation and worker ab/se.
As of the current time, I’m taking a step back from this fandom, and Thomas’s content as a whole, until I see reparations. I still like sanders sides, it’s still a special interest (though falling in importance and strength) and I’m not going anywhere on this account.
(@sashootkahoot @romans-evil-trash-brother I saw you both ask what happened too. Here.)
Please reblog this until we see a resolution, these animators need to be paid for their work and reparations for the possible financial instability that came from missing payment.
I got this from the video and from my friend Charles. I have no reason to doubt either source, but if someone wants to provide counter evidence, I’m happy to listen.
Wow this needs more attention than 16 goddamn notes (if the info is accurate which I’m assuming it is)
Also if/when this is all resolved can someone notify me of it I wanna see it
Wait what ???? I can’t watch the video rn so can someone explain this????
Sorry
This is as explained as it gets without watching the video from one of the animators. I’ve provided as much evidence as I possibly can.
@sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes thank you for spreading this.
It’s no problem, I’ll help in any way I can! :D
Why is it every single fucking youtuber I get into SOMEHOW turns bad? Like bro seriously? Uncool God, uncool
Yeah I hope this gets resolved cause Sanders Sides is literally the only fandom that I can come up with a lot of good AUs for
It’s good to watch the vid Prince Alex did btw he explains a lot
Oh gosh… oh no.
Yeah so the minimum pay for 1 second of animation is $33 dollars right?
They got paid around $1.
Christ.
The highest some of the animators got was probably around $25, when it should’ve been, like, several hundred.
I gotsta admit, I’m a little upset (big understatement there)
Same… cant believe someone like Thomas would do that.
Then again, ya know what they say.. online persona and everything.
Gosh a part of me is legit too scared/shocked to even think that someone like Thomas would even do this.
If you read the original post it says he had no involvement with it, but was made aware
Fanders be like: “For some reason people are calling Thomas racist???? This is ridiculous, Thomas sanders is a soft uwu bean that has never done anything wrong. Thomas is perfect and so is this fandom”
Then turn around and tell fanders of color to shut up about the actual issues within this fandom.
Yo, why the heck is 2020 causing the sander sides team to act so shady?? First in August you had the whole “normal people having to pay 40$ for SS content every month while people who were standard fans only got 1-2 vid’s a year”. Then in October you have the story time Madlibs stuff with the animators getting WAY underpaid. Now the meet and greet stuff where some people pay 90$ and get a 30 seconds meet and greet while some pay the exact same amount and get 2 minutes? I get that its a stressful year and all but holy fuck guys get your shit together. All of these are business related as well. Which leads me to believe (not setting anything in stone, its just my hypothesis) the Thomas Sanders team is probably struggling with budget and to compensate they jumped into so many different business strikers at once. Patreon, animators, meet and greets. All of it either takes money, or gives money. Good luck sorting this one out guys. I’m a supporter and I plan to always be, but holy moly you guys are in a mess (also pls don’t attack the crew, I just needed a place to have a small little rant about something I have no business even mentioning. And Tumblr turns out is going to be that place.)
The fans: Trying to wait patiently for more content and now understanding that thomas needs payment Thomas's Management team: does THAT
yeah.. I really support the Patreon so the team can do more things and pay new people etc., but then they turn around & not pay their artists?? Makes me wonder where the money is going.
I mean there were multiple people who immediately purchased the $100 tier, & countless others who are paying other amounts. They can’t excuse it with “oh, we don’t have the money! :’^((” because they obviously do. Even if the funds had miraculously disappeared, been spent, etc., then common sense & decency would dictate that they simply.. don’t do the project until they have the money to do it with. The solution to a financial issue is NOT to exploit inexperienced fans who don’t know any better.
From my understanding, a lot of this was managed by Quill, but Thomas is still majorly at fault here. It’s his brand & thus his responsibility to keep track of what’s happening with his funds & how projects are being managed. He needs to fix this ASAP. Pay the artists, issue proper credit & apologise, most importantly to the artists themselves.
How Thomas Contributed To The Unsafe Feelings Many POC have in this fandom
I’ve gotten a couple of asks about this so I’m going to go ahead and answer this.
Here’s what happened with Roman and b.l/m and how while a lot of this was fandom, Thomas contributed in a way that made this fandom not safe for POC.
So back during the hight of the b.l/m protests (so early summer) someone, forgive me for not knowing the name, made art of Roman as a black man. I do not recall this art saying b.l/m and the art was good. Most POC do not mind race bending with sides.
However while there was some people who sent hate to the artist, the artist got some comments from black people not in the fandom. They thought that was art of Thomas Sanders, a white person, as a black man. For the most part once that was explained to them, they backed off.
However, the artist deleted the art after the hate that they did receive. (Which I do not judge.) To show support people started making POC sides art, specifically black Roman art.
You might think “wouldn’t you love that Lissa? You’ve been asking for POC sides content and been talking about how you’d want to see to more of it.” Which is true I do love seeing representation.
However these people were saying “b.l/m” on their posts and on there tags. One, that’s very preformative. Two, that clogs up the b.l/m tag. Three, many people were treating b.l/m like a celebration. Like it’s pride. It’s not. It’s a fight for black people to get basic human rights.
Eventually people started listening (after white people spoke out about it instead of just listening to POC in the first place). And things eventually passed over.
And you may go “yeah that sucks Lissa but what does Thomas have to do with this?”
Well recall earlier when I said people were making black Roman art. Well someone went to Thomas, a white man, on a POC issue. Thomas began reblogging this art to show support. Something that only made more people do this. However when POC called out these posts and said they were bad, Thomas said nothing. Once he realized he was wrong, he just stopped. No apology. No reblogs from black fanders. Nothing. And you may say “maybe he didn’t see it” then explain why he stopped reblogging POC!sides for a while.
While Thomas condoning this stuff helped create an atmosphere where nb (especially white) people thought they could do this, black people in this fandom were actually getting attacked by white people or being told by white people that they know more about what are community needs than we do. And when he was wrong, when he made this mistake, he didn’t say shit. He just stopped while black fanders felt unsafe and continued to feel so.
I’m not saying he intended to do this, but he did, and a huge part of being anti racist is acknowledging your mistakes and apologizing, which he never did.
Edit: it seems some of y’all missed the tags, which fair. But please do not tag this as discourse in any way shape of form. I do not care about your reason, never label people calling out behavior like this as discourse.
Gonna give my two cents on this patreon thing
Ok so let’s start off by acknowledging that this is Thomas’s job. This is his income source. And it’s probably some of the writers/bts workers income too. So quite honestly I don’t care if he’s trying to bring in more money. He most likely already makes and pays living wages but at the end of the day he’s a businessman and in my opnion it’s not wrong of him to want to expand his business. Yes it sucks there will be content we don’t get but at the end of the day Thomas Sanders is a brand and a business. He’s more than some guy sitting in front of a camera in his house, he has a studio last time I checked.
But
Uh,,,,,,, no? Not a good idea lmao. On one hand they’ll listen to the buyers and then the series will lose its spark bc it gets to fan influenced and isn’t as surprising anymore. On the other hand they won’t listen to the buyers and next thing you know Thomas is getting cancelled for a scam (which honestly wouldn’t be wrong with how this is phrased). Not to mention if they let people into the writing room they can’t be surprised when a whole plot gets leaked.
Also “egomaniac”,,,,, maybe I’m being too picky but uh yikes maybe take that out (also this is the Roman tier so it’s extra :/).
TLDR; Thomas can make money if he wants to, he’s a businessman. But letting fans into the writing room isn’t a good idea at all.
Link to the patreon if you wanna read it
I wasn’t aware of the patreon until I came in here, and now I’m no longer excited for the asides
I’m actually upset. I don’t want to see this community split into tiers based on what they can and can’t afford. I was just able to afford the youtube membership, and I guess I can just move to the lowest tier on Patreon in a month because my membership money only came out a week ago
But this just doesn’t sit right
I don’t know how I feel about this anymore
The next episode of what? Could you please tell me what's going on? This just came up on my dash and I'm very confused
Sure thing I can explain, I'll try my best to be as objective as possible, since we don't have exact information on this
For "next episode" I mean that today there's going to be (90%, unless some technical issues happen) the new Asides episode
As for the rest of the discourse that happened yesterday night on here, basically two videos came up on ig and YouTube, that were deleted after, that talked about Thomas starting a Patreon and many were confused
This is the Instagram video: https://girl-with-many-fandoms.tumblr.com/post/631533005031309312/janus-corridor-of-stored-rewards
Janus’ Corridor of Stored Rewards
This is the YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/yFK3l0oGkXI
And this is the Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/thomassanders
Become a patron of Thomas Sanders today: Get access to exclusive content and experiences on the world’s largest membership platform for arti
Since stuff has been deleted (ig video is no longer there and the YouTube video appears to be a private one accessible from only the link), we were all utterly confused
Some reacted pretty negatively especially because they take into account the fact that there's already a membership and some rewards on patreon are a little too risky (for example it seems like you can be part of writing sanders sides scripts), while others pointed out the crew can do what they want since it's their own content
So yeah the situation is a little complicated so personally I'm waiting for them to speak up about this and explain what it's about (very probably in the upcoming Asides video since they tend to make big announcements before episodes start) since it's been very sudden and it's full of different understandable opinions so far
Hope this helped!
as we sort through our emotions related to what’s just come to light, remember that our focus at the moment should be to support these artists and bring them the attention and support (and money!) that they deserve.
yes, we’re waiting for Thomas & Co. to come out with something related to these events, but as we do so, i would suggest following those instagram links under Thomas’ original video and supporting the artists! anyway. yeah! i’ve only flipped through the first 3 artists’ socials under the video, but a few have provided other socials in their instagram bios to their youtube, tumblr, etc.
for those of you who don’t know what’s going on, this is in response to Thomas and Co. dealing with the artists that created his newest story time mad libs
here is a summary of events
here is a video from one of the artists who worked on the project, with a pinned post in his comments with the TLDR if you don’t want to watch all 40 minutes
and here is another, more detailed, summary of events
I’m sorry did Thomas do something racist recently? I’m just confused what the last post was about, hope it’s ok to ask
I mean unless you count his attitude during the b.l/m stuff earlier this year where he didn’t acknowledge how he contributed to making this fandom very painful for POC fanders than no.
But that post was more a commentary to this strange protectiveness some of y’all have over him. He’s a thirty year old man, if someone criticizes Sanders Sides it’s not the end of the world. He can take someone criticizing a plot or detail of the show, especially something problematic (like DWIT) or a criticism of something technical like the pacing of this show.
Like Jesus y’all, some of y’all think someone having issue with something is the same as a personal attack. I’m begging y’all to look up parasocial relationships. Please. Me taking issue with TSS or a character you like is not the same as me thinking you’re bad.
I do not say this lightly, but if you value yourself on another person, especially one you’ve never met, or a character, and you can’t comprehend the idea of someone who wouldn’t like them or would hurt someone for them and can’t comprehend them not being perfect, please acknowledge how that mentality is not healthy. Comfort characters are fine. Looking up to people is fine. Not wanting to see criticism of a character you like sometimes is fine. But if you idolize someone to a point can’t stand to think that they may do wrong or think you will be over if they do so, please understand that that is not good. That is not healthy.
Thomas is a man, he creates content I like, but he’s a man. A man who, like all of us, will make mistakes. And if that happens, y’all have to acknowledge what it is. He’s already made mistakes that he hasn’t owned up to. (Said b.l/m Roman thing)
And for his art itself, you have to acknowledge that art is subjective. Some people are not going to like what you like or have incredibly valid criticisms. They are allowed to share those. It’s not hate. It’s a criticism, which is a very important part of making things, especially Thomas who profits off his content.
I’m a personal believer that once you start profiting off of something, it is open for criticism. I’m not saying that I condone death threats or hate, I condone people going “hey I didn’t like this thing” or them going “hey this episode wasn’t good for me for this reason.” Again those aren’t personal attacks and I implore you all learn the difference between hate comments, constructive criticism, and “this thing is actually misrepresentating/harming a group of people and we should acknowledge it”. All three of which I have seen people in this fandom think is hate.
