On My Vampires SMP AUs
So, I've been thinking about this situation for the past few days. The first and most evident point I'm going to make here - support the victims. They've been through enough already. As much as I'm going to talk about my work in regards to this, I am not someone who has been effected in the way that the various individuals coming forth about their experiences with Avid and Marm have. My ability to create and feel comfortable making fanworks does not compare to the emotional stress and loss of stability that has occured in lives of the people at the heart of this.
I say this both because it is obvious, and because the nature of this update is going to delve into how this effects my personal works. However, I don't want that to take away from anything stated previously.
This is going to be long, and I apologize for that. Update under the cut.
On Fanart
First things first - I am NOT going to take down and of my pre-existing works featuring v!Avid. They've already been made. Going back to erase history isn't going to change anything. Additionally, as I have say over and over again throughout my posts: Art takes time. I have spent anything from hours, to days, to months working on the pieces I've put out on Tumblr. And that's not counting any time I've spent working out these ideas outside of digital art, or writing out the storylines that even let me get to them in the first place.
However, I will not be making any more fanworks featuring them.***
This is not to shame anyone who has chosen another route for the future. I am simply not comfortable continuing to do so. It's a difficult decision to make, as v!Avid is so heavily involved in the overarching plots of several other VSMP characters. I don't want to abandon VSMP entirely. They are not all it had to offer, far from it. Frankly, I feel as though it would be giving them too much credit to even imply that such a thing is true. There was so much wonderful work that was put into the series by the other creators, and so many amazing fanworks made by my fellow fan creators before and after. None of that time and effort and love deserves to be washed down the drain because of the selfish and cruel actions of two people.
So, to put it simply, yes, there will be more VSMP content on this blog. There just won't be any more v!Avid content.***
On Trustbites AU (Fanfiction)***
The little addendum I've have to put in the previous section is because of my Trustbites Fic. While they were never the main focus of the story, with it being set after the events of the original series, their presence in the narrative exists through other characters. This is particularly in regards to v!Drift and v!Shelby, two characters who are already disregarded more often than others (for reasons you can probably guess). Their stories can exist without v!Avid to some extent, but to pretend like there was no real effect there would just be a flat out lie.
I could just throw out everyone but the Trustbites trio and call it a day. But I'm not gonna do that. There's already such a problem within fandom of dismissing female characters, as well as characters of marginilzed identity as a whole. I don't want to contribute to that. I don't want to get rid of them, and I don't want to flatten their arcs in a story meant to be a continuation of the original series. And I will acknowledge that this is what I am doing to v!Avid to some extent. I'd rather not do it to anyone else.
I may never get to the point where v!Drift and v!Shelby get explored. The same can be said for any other points that would've somehow involved v!Avid. Writing is hard for me. Especially with how unbelievable unmedicated my ADHD is. But I want to write Sever the Leg with the intent to get to the point, regardless of if life lets me get there in the future. Basically, the fic will continue as usual (release schedule affected by my personal life notwithstanding).
On Starter Swap
Here's the big one.
Even outside of what's gone on in the past few days; I have been feeling disatisfied with Starter Swap for some time now.
There's a lot of reasons as to why. Early on, I felt pressured to change parts of it I liked due to comments I had recieved. And as more and more "sireswaps" and "starter change" AUs arose, I began to feel like the one I had made was inadequate. That is, of course, no one's fault but my own, but that didn't stop it from weighing on me as I tried to write out the story or make new art.
Anyone who has sat through a call with me trying to draw will know I am a perfectionist to a fault. And unfortunately, this carried over to my work on this AU. It started with the old sketches, and how I couldn't look at them without hating them. Then, when I started to work on refs, I would nitpick my own designs endlessly, even if deep down I knew nothing was actually wrong with them. This was to the point that I look weeks to do singular characters.
As for the pages themselves, and I only completed four (though there is currently six unfinished ones I've been chipping away at over the past two months), but I think the way I approached them was flat out unsustainable for the long run. It drained me to work on them alone, even with the larger-than-average amount of freetime I have at my disposal. This was something I had somewhat fixed by the time of the second ask, but looking back, the way the story was meant to be revealed is not something I think that I, even with the two friends I managed to get help from, could have handled.
What came out about Avid was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I've thought about it a lot over the past few days, and I've talked about it with my team. There were ways I could have moved forward with the project. But when faced with what had happened, and the people that had been hurt, I had to sit down and ask myself a question. That being: did you even want to do this beforehand? And as much as I know the answer will disappoint some people, the answer was no. There is no point in me attempting to salvage a story that I do not want to keep making.
I'm sorry to anyone this upsets. To anyone who liked this AU: I'm not gonna take down any of the old Starter Swap work. You're free to enjoy it as it exists. It will not disappear. It just won't continue on.
I'm going to pivot to something else. Something more sustainable, and something focused on the creations of other people who worked hard on the Vampires SMP I still enjoy. There are two main options - one more original content focused, but I will make a separate post about that, since I don't want to detract from the circumstance more than I already have.
Thank you to anyone who read through all of this. I completely understand if people will not want to stick around afterward. It's a difficult time in this community, and I entirely get the desire to step away from it all.
Again, please remember to show your support for the people who have been most affected by this. Musithical, a music artist who collaborated Avid on their songs, is facing serious risk to their income due to cutting him off. She goes more indepth on this post, which also lists a variety of ways you can support her during this time. Additionally TheRandomBox and Peeporp are two others who are facing significant impact to their income in light cutting ties with AvidMC. If you know of anyone else under similiar circumstance, feel free to add on.