I feel like we should just be listening to Avid’s opinion and not immediately jumping to conclusions, is that just me?
Like, respect the creator before you respect the craft, and I have a lot of respect for Avid, so if he wants to do better in regards to his stories, I feel like we should respect that
That’s just me getting caught up in the drama and getting really sick of rude people
this is not pointed to you Beanie just an observation in general I wanted outta my head <3
OH GOOD, AN EXCUSE TO TALK ABOUT THIS. Verdant ily, this is not directed at you, I just need to ramble and half of this probably doesn't make sense but i need to get it out.
I did not manage to catch Avid's stream yesterday since it happened while I was asleep and my YouTube is acting up too badly for me to find the VOD, but from what I've heard he's been talking down about the way he ended his pov of VSMP - which really saddens me, but I do understand where he's coming from on it.
Avid's finale was amazing in all senses of the word, and I do recall that he was talking so happily about how proud he was of it not long ago. It might be him figuring out his gender identity that's had somewhat of an impact on how he sees it, since he's probably become a lot more conscious of transphobia, misogyny and exorsexism in the community now. Still, it doesn't feel great to see him talking so horribly about something he was recently very proud of. It kinda feels like he's been caught up in the negative side of the fandom himself and is repeating what other people have said.
When talking about his characters being excessively flirted with and their stories being ignored, Avid wasn't talking about the wider problem: he was talking about an issue that s specific to HIM. Something HE SPECIFICALLY has experienced. Making it about the wider issue in mcyt fandom (even though that is an important subject) is highly invalidating towards Avid.
Jumping to conclusions is not something we should be doing, and Avid is fully valid to change his opinion on his own stories - heck, I know how that feels, I do that all the time. Still, hearing him call his VSMP finale "yaoislop" felt.... bad. This post sums up what I want to say better than I could. Two queer people acting out a queer romance isn't yaoislop- two straight men queerbaiting is what yaoislop actually would be. Sure, v!aviscott was rushed, but it was an improv series and everything was messy. They only had eight episodes and two hours per episode, iirc!
Also - another thing Avid was talking about in the stream I believe was the sidelining of female creators to have them used as a plot device for his own story. Which... I feel like, is much more of a fandom issue than a creator issue, but Avid seems to be trying to pile the guilt completely on himself. v!Drift and v!Shelby in particular: they have their own Povs, their own stories, they aren't being sidelined. Everyone is a main character in their own Pov and a side character in everyone else's! I'll reference this post and this post, and this one as well. Other people are putting my thoughts into words better than I can.
Honestly, it's a messy situation and that's completely okay, because HOLY SHIT PEOPLE, Avid is a PERSON. with a LIFE. he's not perfect ohmygod. cut him some slack. let him say things that he wants to say regarding his identity, his stories and his characters, because they are HIS and no one else's.
