marveltrumpshate: As we said in our closing message at the end of this year’s auction, 2021 ha
marveltrumpshate: As we said in our closing message at the end of this year’s auction, 2021 has been, in some ways, more of a struggle than 2020. Almost two years of this unending pandemic marathon has taken a toll on everyone, and going through such a difficult, frightening, and heartbreaking time for so long meant that many of us needed time to heal or do what we could to cope.That meant that this would most likely be a quiet year, but no matter what, because we knew just how much time and effort it takes to sign up and do auction fills and how tight people’s budgets may be, we would simply be grateful if anyone showed up to participate.And participate you did.This year, 201 “Marvel”-ous creators came forward to offer 318 auctions.And this year, we raised…That’s close to $13,800 more than the MTH 2020 total, double the 2019 total, and $32,800 more than the 2018 total. Yeah, that was us as we started inching closer to 30k…40k…and then 50k came into the picture.It was so tantalizingly close, but we weren’t sure we’d make it. As we got closer to the donation deadline and it dawned on us that we would, we constantly refreshed our spreadsheet until…WE HIT 52K! IN ONE WEEK! WHAT?! Can you believe it?! We can’t. We were and are still in extreme, delirious shock. If that number isn’t enough to knock you out, this probably will: since the event began in 2018, we raised a grand total of $136,731.43.We’re not sure if we want to stare blankly at our screens because we’re so dazed, shriek our heads off because we’re so excited, or weep because we’re so moved by what fandom has managed to accomplish.We truly didn’t know what to expect (even though, yes, we’ll admit it: we were hoping to hit that 100k mark). We were prepared for what we thought could be our smallest auction yet between the state of the world and the smallest number of sign-ups and auctions since MTH began—which makes that 52k even more amazing—but as you’ve proven year over year, it doesn’t matter how many people show up. It just matters that you do.We’ve lost count at this point, but you broke several records we didn’t think would be touched for a long time, some within the first day. As bidding grew fiercer, you continued to break and set more records like it was no big deal. Even so, we were shocked when we matched last year’s total, which we weren’t sure we could do ($38,250 was a feat we assumed would take a miracle to repeat), and then just ran right past it before the auction even ended!It’s been an incredible journey, with the mod chat pinging at all hours with excited gifs, effusive heart emojis, and inarticulate keyboard smashes as we expressed our love for the wonderful people in our fandom. It’s been very hard not blurting out the milestones as we reached them when we desperately wanted to share these amazing results with you all.Creators, we couldn’t have started this auction without you. We loved seeing so many veteran creators sign up again and were pleasantly surprised by how many new faces showed up to the party.Bidders, as crazy as it sounds, most donations were small ones including a lot of those crazily high winning bids—so many of them were the result of people pooling their five dollars together! This has been consistently the case since MTH began, and this year, we had more pod bids than we’ve ever had in previous years. It just goes to show how much of an impact you can have when you’re part of something bigger than yourself. Each donation has a ripple effect, and enough ripples can cause a wave. You matter, and you can make a difference.We also owe our success to our amazing signal boosters. There can’t be an auction without any participants, so to every fandom community Tumblr that agreed to reblog our posts, every Discord server mod who let us post announcements, and every person who shared our posts and encouraged their fandom friends to sign up and/or bid, thank you so much! Together, we reached hundreds of fantastic creators and bidders from all corners of the Marvel fandom, many of whom we didn’t know and some who were hearing about us for the first time.Thank you all. We’re so touched by the massive number of people who donated above and beyond their pledged amount, creators who took on multiple auctions and offered multiple winner slots, and bidders who accepted their second-place wins with such eagerness! We also had people make donations in the spirit of MTH even though they didn’t win an auction, which was beyond generous.We’ve already seen how our donations are changing the world for the better. To name a few examples: In Afghanistan, the International Rescue Committee is providing shelter, clean water, sanitation, and necessities to displaced families, creating safe learning spaces in rural areas, supporting health facilities, and helping people find employment and manage community development projects. They are also actively engaged in refugee resettlement. Clean Air Task Force is making further progress in protecting the Earth, becoming the first environmental NGO to join the 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact at COP26 Assistance Dogs International is leading the way in training assistance dogs, including 13,000 seeing guide dogs that help people with sight loss lead more independent livesWe’re sure that in the months and years to come, we’ll see even more wonderful results.In addition to the astounding amount of money we were able to raise for charity, MTH was successful in other ways. We strove to be as inclusive as possible, determined to make this event a fandom-wide effort. Considering that the auctions covered over 346 unique platonic and romantic relationships and character-centric options (if we include “all ships/gen”-inclusive relationships, this number is even higher) across 35 universes within the Marvel multiverse, we can safely say that we accomplished our goal.This spirit of inclusion also applies to our auctions and charities. Every one of 318 auctions was bid on, and every one of our 30 supported charities received donations. We’re in awe of your commitment to supporting all our creators and charities and thrilled that you spread all the love around, bidders!Here’s our breakdown of the donations (click to enlarge the image and hover to see the donation amount per charity or click here). Two-thirds of the charities received at least $1,000 this year!We’ve also listed the amount raised per charity on our 2021 auction results page.From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for helping us turn our fourth Marvel Trumps Hate auction into such a fantastic experience. We cherish every single message of love and support that we received and continue to receive on our Discord server and through DMs, Tumblr messages, emails, tweets, etc. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!To remember or learn why we created this auction in the first place, please check out our 2018 “thank you” post to all of our creators, bidders, signal boosters, and supporters.If you’d like to stay updated on all of the 2021 Marvel Trumps Hate fills, follow us and/or check out the “mth 2021” tag on our Tumblr. You’ll also be able to find works posted on AO3 in our Marvel Trumps Hate 2021 collection and links to fills in our Discord server, which you can join to brainstorm prompts, chat about fills, and find out about other fandom events.Thank you once again to everyone who volunteered their services, time, money, and platforms to spread the word. In times like these, it’s so easy to feel isolated and underestimate how much of an impact you can make when you only have so much to give and you’re only one person.But as Shang-Chi discovered and as we’ve seen through the unprecedented number of pod bids this year, when you’re part of a community, your actions are amplified. Your decision to chip in “only” $5, your decision to be brave and offer something “small” for auction, your decision to “just” support the participants and spread the word about the event…that all led to us raising over $136,700 to help make this world a better place.Keep that in mind whenever you feel alone and overwhelmed, wondering how you could possibly bring about change. The answer to that is, as Steve once said, “Together.”And with that, MTH 2021 has officially come to a close. We’re so beyond grateful to you all and can’t wait to see all of your fanworks over the coming year! But first, we’re going to follow Jeff the Land Shark, our unofficial MTH 2021 mascot, and take a nap.Lots of love and gratitude, Your 2021 MTH mods -- source link