Oc Guy Moodboard

oc guy moodboard

sometimes i’m like booooo i hate the dsmp then i remember stuff like. ctommy waking up at sea every day in exile. clara the astronaut. cniki and cwilbur still having the diamonds they gave each other at the beginning of their friendship, even after everything. cjack mourning ctommys death even when he felt such resentment for him in life. a lily of the valley. some pink tulips. an allium. cslime addressing ctommy as tommyinnit from… a bunch of places. tommyinnit from nowhere in particular. cjack moving away, and wishing the whole time cniki would appear out of the blue to bring him back home. ctubbo and the deadman switch. ./hug. the snow that fell when cquackity and cslime first met, and the snow that fell when cslime asked cquackity if revenge was ever worth it when the world is so full of violence that doesn’t end. how ceret has never stopped trying to atone for betraying his friends. henry dying when ctommy and cranboo were trying to be so gentle with him. michael. ctommys house constantly changing but always being repaired, and always remaining. the bench always remaining. finding sam nook on the roof of the hotel. cwilbur crying because cranboo was kind to him. ctommy listening to music in the rain after cwilbur and cquackity fought over him. paradise. logstedshire. how ctubbo followed ctommy around silently when he was revived. ctommy singing to the crops to help them grow. how cniki started baking again. ctubbo playing the ukulele as he sat by the crater of lmanberg, and crying when cwilbur tried to apologise to him. how in exile ctommy just wanted to see the big christmas tree in the main land. cgeorge’s dreams where everything is okay, until it isnt. ctommy taking the blame for cranboo. cranboo writing to ctommy in exile. ctechno giving himself up to save his horse. cwilbur lying to cphil in his letters. ctommys birthday party. solitaire. 13 years in a train station. two compasses. history repeating itself. how lonely it is to move on. and how quiet it is. and i’m like nvm yeah i get it now

Omg spam for your inbox incoming, what are your top 3 songs on repeat at the moment, go!!

Oh goodness I didn’t even see these! Thanks so much for the inbox spam - I will now spam you with answers lol

Top 3 songs are:

1) Sin Eater by Penelope Scott

2) WONDERLAND by Neoni

3) Please by EMM

I have to add that I am absolutely obsessed with Penelope Scott’s songs, and if you like alternative indie pop with super cryptic lyrics, you HAVE to check her out!

reblog this if you want a LONG (or short) anonymous message saying what they think of you.

pleaaase?

something a bit ironic in the fact that due to how we rank swear words star wars can get away with 'hell' and 'damn' but not 'shit' or 'fuck' bcos the use of specifically christian swears raises a TON more questions than 'shit' would

i don't like making this post, but i feel genuinely obligated, as someone with a modest platform in the star wars online community, and as someone who has been both a big name fan and a small creator; i think there's something broken with how a lot of larger blogs interact with their fanbases, and there have been a rash of incidences that have seriously concerned me. this is not a witch hunt, and i will not disclose specific users, even if you ask, and if anyone reading this post recognizes some of my examples, keep that individual's username to yourself. do not add it to this post. no one deserves a witch hunt, and my ultimate goal with this post is to posit that, as someone who has had viral accounts before, there is an ethical way for people with larger platforms to interact with their audiences, and there is an unethical way, and large creators are obligated to care for the health of their audiences. larger creators are only human, but there is a world of difference between being imperfect and behaving in ways that leave your audience vulnerable to exploitation, and then using that to exploit them. i encourage discussion from everyone, but it should always be remembered that the priority here is discussing what small fans and creators can do to guard themselves against predatory accounts - they are the ones being taken advantage of, and this conversation is for them.

for context; i had a blog before this one, a blog i ran for a very long time. i accrued a modest following of around 11k. i was very, very young, and very, very unwell, and i made many mistakes while running it - i know how easy it is to mismanage your presence, to accidentally encourage a cult of personality, because i have felt what it's like to have thousands of people think your words are solid gold. it was part of why i deleted that account, and it factors heavily into the directions i choose to take this blog now, because my mistakes haunt me. i have deliberately chosen to change the way i post content, what content i post, my tone, my language - i doubled down on lengthy posts that try to approach issues with far more nuance, and i've prioritized having strict boundaries, and being willing to be honest when i write these posts without oversharing in a way that creates loyal followings. i choose to claim mistakes more often and to claim errors in judgment, to boost additions to my posts from other great meta writers when i can, and i limit my activity a lot. whether these changes have been totally successful, i'm unsure, but i personally feel i now at least enjoy a carefully designed distance. it's not that i don't care for my fans, it's that i learned that i needed to be careful about the relationship that i have with them in a public forum, for both our sakes. i have thought extensively about this because of my own mistakes, and that's the reason i feel the need to post this, because although i never scammed anyone, i did have an unhealthy relationship with my audience and i know it was my fault. my reckoning was private, but recent events have pushed me to discuss this publicly, hopefully to the end of arming people against the genuinely predatory behavior i have seen a lot of recently.

i will break my observations down, but this is still unfortunately a husborth post, so it is long.

1. cults of personality: big name fans often have cults of personality surrounding themselves and their content, particularly if they are creating niche content, and to some extent, the person who is holding that platform really can't stop that from developing. it is an inevitable feature of a blog that intends to form a community but is ultimately run by one person, because people are very susceptible to following others they agree with without question, and all people can be influenced to follow someone they find charismatic. big name fans can wield more power than they realize; they're admired, and that admiration can easily lead to something akin to hero worship if large creators aren't careful about their behavior online. i think we are obligated to interrupt assumptions of perfection, to engage in the community outside of our own work, to treat our platforms as places of gathering as opposed to explicitly seeking to solely command our audiences' attentons. no one will always be perfect at this, but there is a difference between imperfection and inaction. big name fans are obligated to re-evaluate the way they behave if they find that, in their communities, the parasocial relationships their audiences are forming with them are becoming obsessive and unhealthy, which can happen very, very quickly. what i've been seeing is a truly terrifying number of large creators encouraging people to form parasocial obsessions with them, and in some cases this has gotten extreme. i have seen people with large platforms encouraging fans of their work to genuinely worship an artificial religion they created solely for the purpose of star wars fanfiction, and people genuinely started doing it.

this is incredibly dangerous and reckless behavior; because the large creator is the sole arbiter of those religious practices, that lends them an unethical level of social control. this is just one particularly egregious example of large creators putting their audience at risk by allowing a level of parasocial obsession that genuinely leaves the people who follow them inherently vulnerable, and when online cults such as twin flames are a dime a dozen, this is particularly alarming behavior. big name fans do not deserve to be at the centers of people's lives. we are fucking hobbyist star wars enjoyers. preying on people's tendency to give all of themselves to charismatic figures is psychological manipulation, end of, and no large creator with a conscience should ever behave that way, and if you are a small creator and have experienced this, i am so sorry. i mean it genuinely. it's not your fault. other people had a responsibility to be decent to you and they failed. if you see this kind of a cult of personality, please cut contact with that community, block them immediately, and stop engaging with that creator's work. you can no longer trust that creator to use their social power with responsibility, and these situations can degrade faster than a lot of people realize.

2. insular spaces: big name fans often create discord servers for their work or their fanbases, or participate in other servers with users they're close with. there's nothing wrong with this, i have one, though it's private and invite-only now. these insular spaces come with an inherent danger of becoming, essentially, a captive audience of people who are obsessed with your work, and by extension you; they run the risk of becoming a microcosm of the cults of personality i just described, but what happens to an insular community founded on a cult of personality? in these insular spaces, fans will often love bomb new members to enmesh them into the community instantly, creating a sense of loyalty and belonging; then, once newcomers are fully fit into a sufficiently large space with many active members, it's rather easy for big name fans to leverage their social power. multiple creators will encourage what i call, "donation frenzies," where fans rush to donate as much as they can, in order to please the large creator the community revolves around, or surprise them, or gain notoriety and social status by being acknowledged for their monetary donation. i watched someone, during one of these donation frenzies, admit that they had donated their grocery money, and my heart broke. the combination of a cult of personality, mob mentality, and fear of missing out combine to create insidious situations that deprive people of the ability to make informed decisions with their money. it's coercion, and it's exploitation. this is not how creators ethically monetize their work. this is how they steal from you.

if this has happened to you, it is not your fault. the people you trusted had a responsibility to make the community you were eager to participate in one that was worth it, instead of one constantly fleecing people by creating an environment where donation frenzies are another manipulative tool, like love bombing. you deserved better than being ripped off. if you notice this in the communities you're active in, i recommend leaving them, but if you don't wish to, pressure administrators to ban this practice. there is no situation in which this is remotely okay to allow to continue. if people want to donate, they will, and they do not deserve to be manipulated into it.

3. scams: this is the big one. a lot of very large creators, having figured out what psychological levers to pull to make legitimate money, decide to ditch the pretense that they even create any longer, or perhaps become arrogant, believing their platforms are so large that no one could possibly ever cotton on. they then turn and rip off the fans they refuse to respect in any meaningful way, because, ultimately, they are now just preying on you. these people no longer create for the love of sharing ideas, they create for the express purpose of propping up their illegitimate capitalist pursuits. many large creators running scams; these can manifest as merchandise sales which are never fulfilled, and will never be fulfilled, or patreon pages that fail to deliver any actual material to their patrons, instead delivering fluff and pomp and circumstance. i once saw a listing that expected patrons to pay nearly $30 for limited digital rights to a piece of artwork, the limited uses being use as a profile pic or the ability to print it off at home. no, it's not a $30 print, it is paying thirty fucking dollars to use something as an icon. this is, fun fact, actually more of a scam than an NFT, because even in the busted logic of NFTs, you're supposed to have sole rights to that digital image, and you can re-sell it, which is how you participate in the NFT ponzi scheme. this individual denies you even the ability to resell so you have no possible way of recouping the loss from purchasing a $30 jpeg. they are seriously asking you to pay $30 to print off a jpeg anyone can download among global chaos, when millions of people everywhere are struggling to survive. the audacity is genuinely shocking, but the only thing more shocking is that these scams are rather popular among large creators, who think of their audiences like fish in a barrel.

it is not, nor will it ever be, the fault of people who fell for these scams that they fell for them. it is a genuinely shocking level of complete irresponsibility on the part of the large creators who perpetuate this, who knowingly use their internet clout to exploit people, and what makes me genuinely furious is that the people most vulnerable are these creators' biggest supporters. the shame of fleecing people this way is striking. for smaller creators, if you witness popular creators post stories about being "behind" on merchandise, for now, i recommend not purchasing their merchandise. they are likely dancing around allegations of theft, because a favored method of theft is to list merchandise the large creator never plans on fulfilling, and then deleting reviews of those who complain, or disabling reviews entirely. if you see popular creators trying to monetize every aspect of their work, its images, its lore, without delivering material of substance, you are being robbed. a creator that is interested in the health of their audience does not monetize every aspect of their audience. a creator that is interested in the health of their audiences will refund people who bought merchandise they never received. a creator who is interested in the health of their audience would not have manipulated them to such a degree that these scams become conceivable.

3. big name fans & accountability in insular spaces: another problem with small communities is that they can form echo chambers that incidentally reinforce incredibly awful behavior, particularly if the person committing these actions is a big name fan themselves. they may not be the center of this community, as they are in others, but they may be frequent participants. as with everything they do, their cult of personality follows them, and it can act as an invisible shield in these private spaces. it can be genuinely intimidating to call toxic behavior when you see it, when the person in question has nurtured their fanbase into defending their every move, as many large creators who foster unhealthy relationships with their audience do. but we still have an obligation to recognize harm. we just do. we have an obligation to be decent people even when it is difficult to do so. if someone is violating the agency of real, living people - say, perhaps, using a real, living person as a face claim in pornographic material, a real, living person who did not consent, cannot consent, whose career can be jeopardized over it - lines must be drawn regardless of clout. if you are principled, your principles must not be elastic, and behavior like that is sexual harassment. it is vile and no one should get away with it, and if it is happening in your community, and you are only watching, you are complicit in sexual harassment. that's merely one example of dozens, but we have to do, be, and act better than that. we are not animals and, sorry, some things are more important than shitty star wars content, and the sanctity of human life is one.

at the end of all of this, i would like, actually, to open it up:

we have to stop allowing creators with large platforms get away with horrible actions in the privacy of insular spaces. people bragging about money that they have manipulated their vulnerable audience into giving them isn't, actually, cool; it is an open admission to having robbed people who are most likely working class, and like most people on the planet at this time, living hand-to-mouth. such behavior, particularly with food insecurity pressuring people everywhere, is genuinely hideous. there is no argument anyone could possibly make that will change that, and to know that this goes unchecked across communities involving large creators all over this fandom is horrifying. this isn't fandom, this is theft, and it impacts people's lives severely - because it wasn't enough to fleece these people of their money, you have to crow about it. you are no better than any landlord, you fucking thieves.

to the big name fans, who know who they are; what is $80 of profit to you was hours of someone's life. that may have been the only recreational money they had access to that pay cycle. the working poor want access to art, too, and they deserve to want beautiful things. their choice to spend what they have on a creator they love is nothing short of a motherfucking honor, and you didn't care. you chose to spit in their face. the cost of living has soared across the world, inflation skyrocketed and wages didn't; there is a quiet economic recession, and i know people who are struggling to feed their children, and you would add to that? you would willingly add to that suffering? the money people gave to you was their lifeline. they fucking honored you by choosing to pay you for beauty, and you are disgusting for abusing that. i have worked jobs that i broke bones at because i had to survive, and i am far from the only one, and i guarantee you stole money from people in tight financial situations, people who work jobs that are destroying them because they have no choice. the reality for the working poor is that our money is fucking blood money, we pour everything we fucking have in it. when it exchanges hands it takes a piece of us. the money you stole to live a comfortable life came from someone who vomited from heat exhaustion on the warehouse floor, it came from someone who works 70 hour weeks because they can't escape their toxic job. you will never be able to account for the suffering you profit from. the people you steal from maybe didn't get the opportunity to go to college, but they do you the absolute grace of paying your way, which is a gift, and you laugh at them for it? you mock them for it? you would dare? you're a parasite. you're a fucking vulture. from the bottom of my heart, fuck you. live the rest of your life in shame.

is it possible to compile a list of warning signs to spread around, to the end of arming people with knowledge to help prevent exploitation such as this? what should this list include?

what steps should larger creators take to protect their audiences?

can we create a code of ethics for large creators regarding the monetization of their platforms? some things are obvious, but others might not be, like what wording is considered manipulative, and what can you monetize before it becomes scam artistry?

there are no wrong answers here, and i have no real goal other than trying to empower the people who are being taken advantage of, by discussing what might be red flags and coming up with a framework to define what is fair monetization of a platform, and what isn't. i can't stop scam artists and i can't stop bad actors, and, truly, we are all star wars losers on the internet, it is beyond our capability. but i believe firmly that knowledge is power. if you have personal experiences you'd like to share, you are more than welcome, but because the purpose of this post is constructive, all handles and identifying information should be kept anonymous. this is for everyone's safety, because no one deserves to be harassed, and i will not put people in a position where they are unsafe. if you post identifying information, i will block you, i'm sorry.