Hi! I’m a day or two late but I wanted to give my opinion RE: shipping Tubbo. I did my best to make sure I don’t sound mean/critical but I apologize if I do come across that way.

I think the most important thing for any sort of shipping and something that’s kind of been in place since the dawn of shipping but especially in early mcyt shipping (as someone who was there!) was to keep it AWAY from creators. If that meant using unique tags, keeping it on sites they’re not on, etc. that’s how it’s done. Not that it didn’t happen once in awhile but generally it was considered extremely rude to ask a creator’s boundaries about this sort of thing up until relatively recently, as it meant they were being forced to discuss something they may not even want to be thinking about. The blending of community and creator and so many young creators (many of whom were IN fandom spaces!) have kind of colored that a bit and made it a bit murky, but that used to be the general consensus. However, Tubbo has seemed to relax a bit about some of the shipping now that he’s an adult seeking his own relationships and not a kid, and sort of implied he scrolls past if he sees it. I’m sure a proper tubbling could provide more links of what he prefers, though.

On the age gap thing, while it CAN be a red flag, there are plenty of healthy, wonderfully functional relationships between 20 and 30 years olds. NOT TO SAY THATS ALWAYS THE CASE! There are plenty who use that age gap to leverage power over the other party. However, two consenting adults who have a lot in common or have built a trusting relationship can result in a perfectly healthy, functional relationship. I understand the caution, I really do, and that caution is good! But trust that relationships come in all shapes and sizes and are just as messy as other parts of life.

Again, just my thoughts and you’re free to disagree with my points. You’re also totally free to block the Tubbo shipping tags, and filter it from your ao3 search. I also hope I don’t sound rude or critical, and if I do I’m really sorry. Have a great day!

Thank you for your explanation and I just checked tubbos boundaries and he has expressed discomfort with shipping outside of what he has made personally canon along with not enjoying nsfw/shipping fanfiction. He hasn't expressly state that he doesn't want it to happen as he knows people will write it either way but he is uncomfortable with it.

Also, the whole age gap thing stems from my parents having a 6 year age gap and it being entirely awful for both of them. I understand it can be good but 30 year olds and 20 year olds are in differnt parts of their lives and that disconnect can make it hard to have a good relationship with someone. Along with people who write age gaps can sometimes write age gaps weirdly(or I may just have trauma from being an aphmau fan haha)

I can't simply block the tubbo shipping tag on tumblr(where I look at most content) as it'll still show up because people can sometimes slip stuff like that in sub consciously and not tag it.

Again, thank you for writing that all you didnt sound rude or critical it was very kind and understanding and simply an explanation. I just am mainly concerned with the heavy shipping that seems to happen in this fandom and the disregard for the basic decency of not just shipping everyone with everyone especially when the banter is typically seen within their other friendships and outside canon interactions(I forgot to mention in my last post how it was typical for sbi to flirt just like tubbo with others and it just seems as a tubbling for a few years now that its what he does when hes comfortable with someone.)

i'm in agreement with what you've put on your blog about hermitcraft not being an rp server- it just isn't and i'm kind of sick of new age mcyt fans treating it as such. i am curious though about where you draw the line (or even if you do draw a line) between rpf and "character" fanfiction. as you've mentioned, fans are the ones taking the improv bits in videos, creating their own "lore" out of it, and shipping those characters together. obviously, the lore characters are very much linked to their youtuber counterparts, but it's not like most hermitshippers want the real life grown men and women to kiss each other or even are referring to the actual flesh and blood youtubers in their fanmedia (the term cubito from spanish mcyt/qsmp folks comes to mind). do you personally consider this to be rpf?

the rpf topic in this situation is veryyyy hard to make a conclusive answer on and the one i make is one i think people shouldnt take as fact, everyone can decide personally what it means for them. my constant mindset, due to the subjective thoughts, just ends up being "is it rpf? maybe. i dont know. i dont care anymore" but i can explain more of what i really do think

considering i came from 2011~ minecraft youtube there was no concept of "characters" for youtubers outside of blatant series like... shadow of israphel and a bit later, lords of minecraft. there was nothing comparable to what we have today in terms of roleplay. they were still The Person just in minecraft and many of us back then, myself included, called it rpf. and we even wrote fics outside of the minecraft settings-- we wrote stuff in the real world, but it all just looked the same to us because we did not have any separation between a person and a character made out of them. it was the youtuber to me, whether or not i throw them into a lore heavy high fantasy AU (which i did lol), it did not come off any different to me than the fics written about them chilling at minecon.

i took a number of years away from this fandom and so the change like... oof it was a lot to understand. it confused me a lot (still does), i did not at all get this idea of separating them into their own character. the thing is, the extent to which people do so is again, subjective.... but for the most part the point nowadays is to say its not the Real Person at all anymore, even if the difference is only that there is absolutely no mention of the outside world and it is often heavily enforced to remember it is Not the real guy.

and thats where it just gets complicated. whenever i write i always generally imply its a game. and if its not a game i still think of it as guys playing a game. they are behind a screen and i may even reference the real world. so for me? yeah, its in the vein of rpf if we're looking at it that way. people who create a fictional realm with the guys made into characters that fit into this crafted world, well i guess its not... or is it?

the whole topic of saying hc isnt roleplay isnt to scare everyone into realizing they were writing rpf the whole time. but kinda to say- one stop being afraid of the label rpf. and two honestly i define "rpf" fandoms as a fandom built around real people. mcyt is built around real people. no matter how much you do make a character out of the youtuber its still in many regards.... the youtuber.

so yeah this isnt a conclusive answer some may want. short: it is always rpf because i define rpf as being a fandom based around real people. when it comes down to specific content (headcanons, fics, art) its totally fine and makes sense to not consider it that individually but in an overall sense i would categorize it as such because i also grew from an mcyt fandoms who saw it that way