Some of y'all get way too mad on Scar's behalf about drawing him able-bodied. Coming from a disabled person.

First of all, I really don't think he cares that much about it. Genuinely. His Hot Guy merch has his character able-bodied and so is the official art on his TCG card. Almost all of his likes on Twitter is able-bodied fanart of himself. The man has been on YouTube for years, he would have said something about it if it bothered him.

Second of all, a lot of people (myself included) probably don't draw him disabled because there's a disconnect between gameplay and reality. Scar IRL is in a wheelchair, and a lot of what he does in-game is stuff that would be difficult or impossible to do in a wheelchair. It can be difficult to visualize how the events would accurately play out if he is also in a wheelchair, and that can make it hard for fans to create fanart of certain events that happen. I'm not saying it's impossible, I've seen many people get creative with it and have super cool results, but I feel like it's not a bad thing if people draw or write about events as they happened.

Third of all, you aren't somehow better than anyone else for drawing or writing him with a cane. Some of y'all act like you've put in way more effort than everyone else because you put in any effort. You're not even drawing him with the mobility aid he actually uses, hell he may not have ever had to use a cane before. Some people draw him in a wheelchair but don't draw his oxygen tubes, some people draw him with a cane and his oxygen tubes. Why isn't anyone ever upset about that? Because it's "close enough"? Where do you draw the line? Maybe these kind of portrayals are supposed to bridge the disconnect between in-game and reality, but that doesn't make it correct or a better portrayal or whatever. Drawing him disabled at all isn't the same as portraying him accurately in his disability. Not all disabilities are the same and not all mobility aids are the same and those things can be really personal to us??? They're not just interchangeable or whatever??? You're not even portraying him or his experience accurately because, and lets be honest, its a lot more about stylizing his disability and feeling better about yourself than it is about portraying him accurately disabled. It grosses me out that some of you think you're better for giving him any kind of disability or portraying him disabled at all... because you think it's better than not portraying him as disabled I guess...? This isn't a "take what you can get" situation. It feels so virtue-signal-y the way some of y'all go about Scar being disabled. It's gross. Commit to doing it right or shut up about it.

Fourth of all, stop assuming you know what will upset him as a disabled person, ESPECIALLY if you're not disabled yourself. Stop acting like there is one correct way to portray him even though clearly he doesn't mind as long as it's well-meaning (first point). He can speak for himself and not all disabled people will feel the same way about this situation, so you can't really assume just because he's disabled. Don't be offended for him or on his behalf, he can do that on his own if he feels the need.

*Also I have 0 issues with any of these portrayals. Wheelchair, cane, whatever. I think it's all neat. I just wanted to call out the hypocrisy and kinda virtue-signal-y attitude of some people.

Hot take but I just read a long post about someone being so upset and angry about the way the other people on empires treat Jimmy Solidarity (pranks, making fun of him, ect) and people in the replies were agreeing and talking about how distraught it makes them and all I can say is you should really stop watching his/others' Empires videos if its making you that upset because I can guarantee that its all in good fun and the man is having a perfectly okay time. He's having fun with his friends, they just like to rag on him. My friends like to rag on me too and it's totally fine, I enjoy it. You're projecting and you're, like, WAY too invested if it's upsetting you like that. You're turning him having fun with his friends into something it's not.

Stop using his videos to make yourself miserable :| Go watch something else instead of being self destructive and then whining about it online when there's not even anything wrong or mean really happening :| I'm so serious when I say that this is chronically online behavior and you need to go talk to a professional because that is Not Normal.

A pet peeve I have about the traffic fandom is that some of y'all don't know how to respect other people's fun. I hate seeing posts that are like "I dislike this popular thing so stfu and start talking about what I like" its so annoying and meanspirited.

The fandom makes content for itself, not for you. If you want to see change, create change. If you want more content of something, create more content or commission someone. If you're tired of seeing people post about popular concepts that they enjoy but you don't, just fucking filter them out in your Tumblr settings. You guys don't know how to shut up and stop telling other people to stop creating content for themselves (that they generously share with the fandom btw) and instead create content that you personally enjoy. Not to mention I hate seeing your annoying ass posts in the tags. They contribute nothing. You are just making people read your thoughts on them having fun you don't personally like.

Please get over yourselves.

One of the things I dislike about the Dream SMP (which is, unfortunately, no fault of its own or the fault of the creators on the SMP) is that it became extremely popular and suddenly the MCYT fandom/community became unable to differentiate between an RP server with storylines, character arcs, ect and a bunch of people who are just playing Minecraft with their friends and are just being a little bit silly or are just exploring a fun concept in Minecraft. It was no secret that DSMP was a heavy RP server, this was something the creators disclosed to their fanbases. Not every server is an RP server just because the creators are being a little dramatic or silly when playing with their friends, and just because a creator puts up a little bit of an act for their audience it doesn't mean they're "playing a character" or roleplaying.

Another issue I have with this, unrelated to DSMP, is that it seems like the MCYT fandom/community goes completely feral if they catch a single whiff of a creator playing up an act or being a little bit dramatic, and to me it feels like some people in the fandom/community are desperate to find any reason they can to separate the creator from their videos so that they have an excuse to not take the boundaries of the creators into account when interacting with the fandom/community. They don't have to worry about if something they're doing might make a creator uncomfortable because "the creator is just playing a character", even though they literally aren't. It feels like people are itchy or triggerhappy to turn the people they enjoy watching into not a real person so they can use their likeness however they want, and frankly I think that's gross.

Another related issue I have with this is that some people in the fandom/community really seem to run with RP if the creators do decide to RP a little bit or decide to play a character. It seems like a lot of people in the fandom/community are unable to differentiate between what is and isn't RP. Just because a creator is playing a character or RPing just a little bit it doesn't mean every action of theirs is RP and it also doesn't mean that it's just fine for you to go crazy with it and not take the creators and their boundaries into account when interacting.

And the last issue I have with this is that the fandom/community doesn't know how to handle RP or characters. The character still belongs to the person who made it and the person playing it, they still have personal boundaries and boundaries for their characters. You can still make a creator uncomfortable by interacting with their characters, it doesn't suddenly make it okay just because they are playing a character because it's not YOUR character to do shit with. I think it's also a slippery slope when the character literally has the same name and appearance as the creator playing the character. Even if you're doing weird shit to the character and not the creator, it's still possible that you'll make the creator uncomfortable because it's still basically them and it's still definitely their likeness. I have played characters like when playing DND, even in cases like that I still would not be comfortable if someone just took my character and started going crazy with it or doing whatever they wanted with it with 0 regard to how I might feel about that.

In short, some of y'all lack the skills to differentiate between fiction and reality and also lack the empathy and critical thinking skills to be interacting so heavily with a creator or their community because you don't stop to think about how what you're doing might make the creator feel or if it might make them uncomfortable (and being able to understand that the person you see and hear on screen is a real person), and a lot of people don't even seem to care if the creators are uncomfortable with what they're doing even though they're the ones providing you with fun content for free. Also, hot take, a lot of you are way too mentally ill about interacting with the community and just cannot be normal about creators, characters, ect.

stop putting shipping tags on my art its an insta-block

Have you seen Doc’s S6 episode 49 from 17:45-18:30? Or looked at Ren’s comment on the video? [If it’s not at the top, a quick search (ctrl + f/command + f) should do the trick]

They were clearly joking??? The conversation basically went

D- "Hey did you know that people are shipping us?"

R- "Wait, really?"

D- "Yeah it's like the new thing"

R- [laughs] "Yeah. We'd make beautiful babies."

and then Ren left a comment saying #SHIPrendog

They were laughing the whole time. And even on the off chance they were somehow being completely serious, its not definitive enough to take that as evidence of such. I mean its dubious at most. Acknowledging it isn't a yes, speaking about it in jest isn't a yes. Unless they say "I am okay with this" then don't jump to that conclusion.

I'm not saying them (or anyone who hasn't said they dislike it) definitely 100% aren't okay with it, because maybe they might be, but my issue is that you shouldn't proceed unless you are able to prove without a shadow of a doubt that they are okay with it, and I just don't see that clip as definitive enough to act on it.

Thank you for explaining it! Your stance actually makes a lot of sense now that it's laid out and it helps me see where you're coming from. I personally don't mind shipping of people who I know have made a statement about it saying they don't mind it, but I absolutely understand your opinion and I believe it makes a lot of sense!

I do personally find it very weird when people ship the characters of people such as Gem or Pearl or Joel though, who have very explicitly stated that they don't like shipping even of their characters. It really leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It's just??? That's my comfort streamer?? And they said they don't like that??? Just,,, please don't???

I'm glad I made sense (I know I talk a lot and sometimes that makes it hard for people to take in everything I'm saying)!

It wouldn't really tick me off if the content creators themselves explicitly said that they didn't mind shipping and/or encouraged people to make shipping content of them/their characters because in that case I'd be making a fuss over nothing. In those cases, if I felt weird about it still, I would probably still block people who did it (or at least still mute the tags if not both) and ask people not to put the shipping tags on my art when reblogging, but I wouldn't be upset about it or be all "ew dont do that" because it would be more of a personal preference to just not be involved.

I think my biggest issue is that a lot of people assume the lack of a no means yes, or that they have a green light to do whatever they want until someone says something. Its just really distasteful to me and I hate it, because that's not consent and they're not actually being considerate to the content creators. Its just basic respect to keep their feelings in mind, regardless of if you like them/they're your comfort content creator, are indifferent towards them/their content, or dislike them/their content.

Hey! You said you disliked it when people shipped the cc's (which is weird), even their characters, and i was wondering how you felt about some of the stances they have on that? For example, Scott and Jimmy were canonically together in third life, and Sausage flirts with every man he sees. I'm pretty sure ZombieCleo once had a strongly-worded tweet telling people not to be mean to those who did ship the hermits. Not trying to sound rude, I'm genuinely curious to hear what you think!

This is a long response and I don't want to clog up anyone's dashboard, so I'm putting it under the cut. :)

Well, first I would like to mention there is a difference between shipping a fictional character and shipping a character that is a version of themselves (and even in contexts of someone's OC). For example: Sure, Jimmy is playing a character in a story. But that character is still him and still represents him. Not to mention the story that he's portraying has nothing to do with romance. Like him playing a cowboy doesn't necessarily mean he'd be okay with anything and everything else, like drawing his character kissing his friends' characters. There is no reason for anyone to jump to doing that other than people just wanting to put them together for their own personal reasons. I don't really like this whole thing where everyone just assumes its okay yet nobody has bothered to ask how they feel about it before doing anything, like does consent even matter???? Nobody cares enough to get it???? There's a reason the entire community does their best to keep it out of earshot of the content creators. You know what they say, if you have to hide it you probably shouldn't be doing it. They don't want to make the people uncomfortable, but if doing it and it having the potential to make the people uncomfortable...then don't do it??? I mean, if you like the people why would you even want to risk that??? I don't understand why everyone seems think its somehow okay as long as you try to hide it from them. Thats shady and I kinda feel like its not even fanart at that point if they're not even meant to see it, you're just using them as vessels for whatever you feel like :/

Its just crazy to me that I have to explain it because even if it was a completely fictional character that wasn't basically a parody of the person playing it, it would still be weird to do whatever you want with that person's character??? Like I have a DnD character, i wouldn't want random ass people to do whatever they want with her and portray her however they want, especially without even asking me first. I don't really think its cool to just assume everything is up for grabs just because they portray themselves fictionally in some aspects. Just the fact that if the community even gets a whiff that something fictional is being portrayed, suddenly they think its okay to draw or write the characters doing something like kissing or having sex. Its kinda like the community is trigger happy with portraying real people as gay for their friends if they can find some sort of reason to excuse it. There are actual gay people in actual gay relationships who you can draw, I don't understand why this is the hill some people are willing to die on.

TLDR those characters aren't yours to do whatever you want with, its not cool to assume what someone's boundaries are and then act on it and think its okay as long as the person doesn't know about it, "fictional" doesn't equal "up for anything" especially if A) it has the potential to make the creator uncomfortable and B) the character is a parody or a version of the person playing it and you assuming things about the character/making things up could hit too close to you assuming things about the creator themselves which could upset them.

Some people in this community are a little comfortable with risking the comfort of the people they claim to like (and even in some communities do it even when knowing it makes the creators uncomfortable). Several of the creators are married, in relationships already, and have likely even said they are straight, there is a very real risk that you drawing them making out with their buddies would make them uncomfortable or upset them, and at worst they see it as disrespectful. I shouldn't have to say that you shouldn't do shit like that when you know it could do more harm than good.

Rant aside, here's what I think about the specific instances you listed:

Jimmy and Scott being together is (kinda???) canon so I wouldn't be mad about it I guess??? Its just hard because the life series wasn't really a plot-driven series, they weren't really "playing characters" as much as they were just fucking around and being silly. Them "playing characters" in the life series is about the same level of "playing characters" as anyone else is when they play video games. I personally wouldn't want to assume anything and jump the gun though just in case it could make them uncomfy. Its not worth the risk if you actually like the people.

Sausage play-flirting with people doesn't automatically mean hes okay with being shipped with his friends (or that his character is okay with that). Lots of people flirt with their friends without it actually meaning anything other than goofing around (like him and Keralis were doing). Again, I wouldn't jump the gun and act on it without knowing if it would upset him or not. Its not worth the risk if you actually like the people.

Cleo saying not to be mean to people who ship the hermits doesn't mean she's okay with people shipping the hermits as much as it means she doesn't want anyone to harass or be mean to anyone (especially fans) for whatever reason. It COULD mean that, but, again, it's not worth the risk if you actually like the people (especially since you're worth risking putting words in her mouth). Also, its not mean for me to be uncomfortable with people shipping irl people and not wanting to be around it or associate with it (although maybe I could chill out with the "ew"s).

I will say though in cases where there is a canon relationship/crush then its whatever. I mean, for example Katherine and Shelby (and Joey) were setting up a whole plotline based on a crush thing. Thats fine to me. But I will say that you should NEVER draw/write about people fucking their friends even if the relationship is canon because romance doesn't mean they're okay with sex stuff (especially in that example considering Shelby is asexual) and, again, its not worth the risk if you actually like the people.

Sorry for the long response, the subject makes me a little heated.