#If you're on mobile and you apparently have zero access to read mores

[bouncybrain]

CharacterHub... One Week In!

Here's a summary of my first week on CharacterHub and what I've observed while I've been here. It would have come out earlier but as per previous posts it's been A Fucking Day! Anyway, here's the basic rundown of CharacterHub:

It's a more socially-oriented character/story storage/organization site. There are ways to pay the site through subscriptions or cosmetics and a way to highlight a character you like. You can roleplay through comments and in chatrooms in social spaces, or just talk to other users of the site. You can "react" in a variety of ways instead of just "liking" characters/posts/worlds. Also you can make posts. You can also do commissions or (free) raffles through the site.

On to the review. (Reminder I have other review posts! Check the tag/my pinned for them.)

CharacterHub's expansive character page system is easier to navigate through now that I've spent some time getting to know it. While there's an issue with resizing the window erasing everything you did without saving it, that's simple to avoid; this also isn't an issue on mobile, as going from portrait to landscape doesn't affect the layout the same way as on desktop. They are apparently working on an app, so I might update about that if I get my hands on it (info from the Discord).

Unfortunately if you don't put any images on your character, people will not interact with it. If you're going to join CharacterHub because you want to share your characters with strangers, utilize character creators just so you have at least one picture to use as an avatar (the first thing people will see about your character).

How did I figure that out? I posted Moth Mort without a single bit of art I'd done for him. Then I posted all my other characters with all their applicable art. Since I posted Mort on the first day I joined, as my first character, he has received... zero interaction. All my other characters have received at least one reaction, and one has eight. The only real difference here is that Mort had no pictures. (Shortly after I started writing this post, Mort received his first interaction. I uploaded his art just before I started writing this post.)

SO! If you're primarily a writer, go trawl through Picrew for a while or something first.

Or you can explore the story worlds. It's very expansive and that's a really good thing! The options cover all sorts of things you might have forgotten or not realized might be considered at all, and it's easy to organize the world(s) and the information you have for it. I will recommend CharacterHub just for this story world function! If you don't use it for anything else, that's fine.

For the social aspect... it's full of kids, honestly. The most active members on the site are minors. The Discord isn't currently incredibly active, despite having nearly 3.5k members. How do I know the most active members on the site are minors without looking at everyone's profiles? You can just tell. If you don't mind, then great! If you mind, then you can just... not interact, honestly. I haven't done anything on the site past putting up characters and doing a couple posts.

Accessibility! You can customize all the colors on your character pages, which can lead to low- or high-contrast text/background combinations, and I do sometimes struggle to read pages because of it. This in combination with the variety of fonts can make reading any user-made pages (characters, worlds, etc.) a gamble.

Because you can literally use any color.

Image storage can also be an issue. For free, you have 5GB of storage for your character/world pages. Posts don't count towards this, but you'll probably want somewhere else to keep the majority of your OC's art, particularly if you have a lot of them and/or they have a lot of images associated with them. I think Toyhouse is terrible for everything except image storage, so you might want to use them in tandem. (All my Art Fight defenses are kept on Toyhouse, and I won't be putting them on CharacterHub purely because of the storage limit.)

TL;DR it's good for consolidating information/lore/writing but not so great if you're just a writer. But you can't be too prolific of an artist, either, because there's not room for it for free. I'll keep using it for now to see how things progress from here.

[engekihaikyuu]

Sharing Stage/2.5D Content

So there are some things I want to go over about sharing, reposting, and general distribution of content.  And while I’m going to talk specifically about Engeki Haikyuu, some of the more general stuff can be applied to most Japanese stage plays, musicals, and general theater.  

I wanted to make this post because I’m seeing a lot of frustration in fandom from both content providers and fans and followers butting heads on this issue.  First off, we have to acknowledge that there is an undeniable precedent that’s existed in fandom that makes fans feel entitled to all the content all the time, for free.  And there is knowledge of the industry that content providers have that I think we’re not communicating frequently enough to help fans understand our positions on these issues.

It’s lengthy, but please take some time to look under the Read More and read about this issue.  

There’s a reason why I chose Tumblr as the medium for distribution of Engeki Haikyuu information, translations, scans, gifs, etc… and it’s because there is little-to-no Japanese fandom on this website. Most Japanese fandom is on Twitter and on other Japanese sites like Pixiv and NicoNico, but for the most part, Tumblr is not on their radar.  It’s quickly getting to be on the radar for Pixiv artists because of the rampant problem of art-reposting, but by and large, they’re still not ON this website, browsing and using this website, and engaging with fandom on this website.  Which is to my benefit because most Japanese fandom would HATE what I am doing.  

I want to explain that Western fandom and Japanese fandom operate VERY differently when it comes to the topic of spreading information and official content.  For example, there are Japanese artists I follow on Twitter who are now drawing fanart about the stuff they saw in Winners and Losers.  Fun stuff about cross-dressing Takato and Shouri, the little gags and ad-lib that changed from night to night, Kageyama in the fish suit… but the thing is, they all waited until AFTER the show was finished touring completely.  Out of respect and consideration for the people who could go see the show but hadn’t yet, they all waited until there were no more chances to see it live to post what could be considered ‘spoilers’ for the show.  

By contrast in Western fandom, a movie is out in theaters for about 5 hours before I see gif-sets on Tumblr.  It’s incredible.  It is genuinely difficult to not be spoiled for content when in western fandom because everyone wants to talk about it right away, they want to share information right away, they can’t, they won’t wait until a movie is no longer playing in theaters, etc… the information is out almost instantaneously.  

But in Japanese fandom, you have seiyuu events that have afternoon and evening portions, and they almost always release exciting new information or announcements at these events.  But the people who go to the afternoon portion of a seiyuu event, say NOTHING until the evening portion of the seiyuu event is over and everyone who could’ve had a chance to go see it has seen it.  Their fandom etiquette is INTENSE about no spoilers and respecting the creator’s wishes.  When seiyuu events give them exciting new info and then say, shh, now don’t share it on social media yet, Japanese fans LISTEN.  Japanese fandom draws a HARD line with this stuff.  For them, if you can’t buy it, if you can’t afford to go see it, then too bad, that’s the end of it.  

So sharing stuff like scans and torrents and youtube streams is a serious infringement to them both culturally and legally.  Rightfully so, and I think it’s an admirable thing that they can operate that way. But the other side of that coin is that it does make all the content less accessible and hard to promote widespread interest for.  In western fandom, we have seen piracy benefit Hollywood in many ways so I know a lot of us don’t bat an eye or think twice about pirating movies and music anymore.

But with Engeki Haikyuu?  With 2.5D plays and musicals overall?  We’re not talking about multi-million dollar shows and productions with huge profit margins that are too big to fail.  It’s not Hollywood; it’s not even Broadway.  We’re talking about an industry where the minor actors are sometimes not paid for the rehearsal period of a show, and where they’re sometimes paid about $100 for each show they perform.  Some of my posts mentioned that Winners and Losers performed a total of 36 shows, and that was over a span of almost 2 months not counting rehearsals.  Imagine getting paid around $3600 for your time for those 3 months.  I’m not saying that there are Engeki Haikyuu actors that were paid that little, but that IS the industry in which they live and work.  We’re talking about an industry where the sales of your character bromides indicate your overall popularity as an actor and also serve as an indicator for your potential success in other shows producers might want to cast you in.  Financially, it’s a small industry, however big it seems.  

However, it’s obviously very difficult for international fans to support it in legal ways.  Goods for the show including pamphlets and bromides, tote bags, are ONLY sold at the theaters where they perform, and they are not available afterward. Japan is all about exclusive content, limited goods, it makes the few that are out there special.  But that means if you can’t go to the venue to see the show, you can’t buy your favorite actor’s bromides to support them.  And if you buy it afterwards at a secondhand shop like K books or some Yahoo Auctions seller, the money’s not going to the production anymore, it goes to secondhand sellers.  Your voice of support is lost with secondhand sales, but sometimes they’re the only way you can get this stuff, so I’m not discouraging people who are trying to buy this stuff secondhand.  I just want people to understand the full situation there if you do.  

Anyway, this is why I do the, let’s be real, illegal thing of scanning bromides and pamphlets to share with you guys.  Because if you can’t fly to Japan and get a hold of these elusive tickets to see the show live and THEN still have money left over to buy the goods, it’s tough/impossible to get it.  So, I see it as a moot point when it comes to scans, because those image sets get spread around, and they do promote new interest in the production.  And since nobody can even buy the bromides from Engeki HQ directly after the show is finished touring... eh.  It’s still illegal, but for me it’s a slight gray area because of the lack of accessibility.  

But the DVDs, and therefore the show itself, is different.  It’s made WIDELY available on multiple ordering platforms online and in physical stores (in Japan), websites that DO ship overseas and where pre-orders don’t sell out.  You can still buy DVDs of the very first Engeki Haikyuu that toured in fall 2015.  And so long as you’re buying from official retailers like Amazon Japan, CDJapan, amiami, now Animate International, your money, your support goes directly to the production and they get the means to make more of these shows.  I provide links for people to buy their own DVD copies all the time; they’re in my FAQ, I have posts that I regularly try to reblog.

I make gifs and I provide scans and clips as teasers so that I can promote as much interest as possible so that you guys, if you can, will support the show financially.  But these shows aren’t cheap, and Americans aren’t used to paying $80 for a DVD, and I get that.  I do.  So if you can’t afford to buy the show legally, that’s unfortunate.  I’m sorry.  I wish I could buy DVDs for all of you that want the show.  But still, I will not put up a download, I won’t upload a stream, because I know it will discourage some of the people that can buy it from buying it because they expect it to be free.  There are people I know that do this, and it’s infuriating.

So, ok.  Distribution of the full show explained.  Bottom line is, I’ll share a lot with you guys, but I won’t share the full videos of the shows because you can still buy the DVDs.  

As for the topic of reposting, I’ve mentioned the difference between Japanese and Western fandom earlier, and again: That’s why all the scans go on Tumblr.  Now, I know I can’t stop the INTERNET from reposting. That’s why all the uploads are lower resolution and watermarked to hell so that it’s barely worth taking.  Take note re-posters, you’re not even taking the good stuff.  But reposting the scans to Twitter, could actually get me in trouble.  Because as I mentioned, Japanese fandom is pretty prevalent on Twitter, they frown upon this sort of behavior, and they DO report people for this stuff.  It’s great for spread of awareness of this production, but I sometimes worry about getting close to an official cease and desist.    

And maybe that’s because I personally work very closely with this industry with my work for Sakura Con, and so I’m maybe being a little paranoid.  But I also totally understand the viewpoints of Japanese fandom, which is why I don’t cross post everything to Twitter, and I sure as hell don’t tag it to make it easy to search for. 

Basically, all of this boils down to: 

Please don’t repost the scans and gifs on Twitter or Facebook (and don’t tag them so obviously).

Please stop asking me to upload the shows for download or streaming. 

Please understand that everyone that’s working hard on these productions for us to enjoy… the actors, the producers, the director, the musicians, the theater staff and crew… they’re working in a niche market, and they’re not making millions here.  Not only that, you’d be shocked how little some of them make sometimes.  

So support the shows however best you can, encourage your friends to do the same if they can, and don’t… harass people for free stuff.

That’s all.  Thank you for watching and for supporting Engeki Haikyuu (the show, not me), and if any of you have any questions about anything I’ve just talked about, if you want more details about one part or another, send me a message! Have a great day~ Haikyuu’s the best!

[tainbocuailnge]

The fandom you're in looks really awesome, and the reason I followed you is it the cooler that comes with it, but I have no idea what it's about or what the actual game is? Is there a place I can go to kind of find out and maybe play myself? (You're so passionate about it that I'm starting to get really curious but google is my enemy)

I’m GUESSING you mean fate series cause that’s my number one thing I do not shut up about. it’s uhh kind of a spiraling mess of a series but most installments are standalone enough for it to not be a complete hell to get into, but also I’m glad you asked because getting in without help is definitely hell

fate started with the visual novel fate/stay night, written by kinoko nasu and released in 2004. as such that’s the best starting point in my opinion, because it features all the detailed worldbuilding groundwork that later installments kind of gloss over so it can be hard to go back to if you already know all that from other installments. the plot is that seven magi summon legendary heroes to fight for them in a ritual war, with the prize being the holy grail which can grant any wish. leading themes are what it means to be a hero and save someone, the way history repeats itself, and forming your own identity in the wake of trauma. it has three routes, the last of which especially has really heavy themes of physical emotional and sexual abuse so if you need detailed content warnings pm me and I’ll do my best

fsn has several releases, the original vn features infamously bad erotica but there’s a rerelease called fate/stay night [realta nua] which replaced those scenes with pg-15 content and also tightened the visuals up a bit. I’ve got downloads for both versions here. it’s like 80 hours of vn so that’s quite the investment but there’s also the anime fate/stay night [unlimited blade works] featuring the second route, and the third route is getting a series of movies the first of which is out too, called heaven’s feel - presage flower. fate route (the first route) sort of got an anime in 2006 and unlimited blade works a movie in 2010 but those are really really bad so look for the 2014 anime and 2017 movie. imo the ubw anime did a decent job and heaven’s feel is doing pretty good too so far so they’re good for seeing if you like what the series has to offer before you dive into a long ass vn.

the prequel to fate/stay night is fate/zero, a light novel series written by gen urobuchi in collaboration with nasu. as such it’s notably darker than the rest of the series but by nature of being a prequel it makes for an equally decent starting point as stay night, since both will spoil things for the other. fate/zero has an anime too. 

imo stay night and zero are the ‘standard’ fate installments, if someone says they like fate you can safely assume they’ve consumed at least one of those - is what I used to say but apparently it’s been so long that even this isn’t a reasonable assumption anymore. oh how times have changed. anyway please do start with zero or stay night cause like I said those are earlier installments so they’re at high risk of falling flat if you already know the deep lore from later stuff.

the biggest most booming fate installment is fate/grand order, a mobile game featuring characters from all other fates as well as a lot of newcomers. it’s pretty newbie friendly in terms of lore I think but you’ll get more out of it if you do know the background for all these characters since character development tends to carry over between installments. it’s infamously story heavy for a mobile game, especially in the later chapters when nasu got the hang of writing for mobage. the tone is also notably different from fsn and fz in that it’s more…. grandiose and theatrical, and obviously it waifs everyone up a bit so they can get you to spend money. still good tho. still love it. it’s got two anime specials, first order and moonlight lostroom, but first order makes no damn sense if you don’t know anything of stay night and lostroom takes place after the events of the first fgo arc. there’s anime projects of two of the chapters in progress too.

you thought that was all? you’re a fool this isn’t even half of it but I’ll briefly go over the rest under a cut cause those 3 are the big players.

carnival phantasm is a comedy OVA series featuring skits about several works from the same author. about half of it is about fate and the other about tsukihime, an earlier visual novel. watching order is after stay night. today’s menu for the emiya family is the canon domestic fsn au manga and anime where everyone’s just chilling eating dinner together instead of killing each other. 

fate/hollow ataraxia is another visual novel. it’s a direct sequel to fate/stay night and a personal favourite. it takes place half a year after stay night and features much of the same themes, but from a pair of characters who lost the war in fsn before it even started.

fate/apocrypha is another series of light novels. in terms of reading order i’d put it after stay night and zero. it features a cast twice as big as those two and basically approaches the same themes from a different angle. it’s got a finished anime and an ongoing manga but the anime kinda butchered pretty much everything about it. unfortunately one of the light novels is still not translated so the anime is still the most accessible way to get approximately the whole story. the manga IS very good though so once that’s finished I’d probably tell people to read that one if they want to apocrypha

fate/EXTRA is a psp game it’s like 10 bucks in the ps store iirc. for reading order I’d put it after stay night but not necessarily after zero. in this one the ritual for the holy grail is held in a simulation on the moon, which is a supercomputer, and it’s an organised tournament with 128 participants instead of a 7 man free for all. it’s about forging meaningful bonds in a system designed to drive people apart and finding the drive to keep going even if nothing is certain. the gameplay isn’t great but the story is $$$ it’s my other personal favourite. it’s sequel is called fate/EXTRA CCC, it’s on psp too but never got a western release, but there’s a translation of one route out there and some madmen are working on a translation patch that’ll be done in time for my grandchildren I hope. CCC is the wildest ride of my life i love it a lot but it’s very horny so not really for everyone. fate/extra CCC fox tail is a manga which follows an alternate CCC route and i hear it’s cool. the sequel to CCC is fate/EXTELLA which did come to the west and is on several platforms, and somewhere next year fate/EXTELLA link should get localised. extella is very rushed and mostly expands the extraverse world but if you can grab it on sale after you decided you like extra it’s not a bad buy just don’t pay full price. fate/EXTRA last encore is an anime which. sort of comes after extra? it’s very trippy arthouse bullshit and I ate that shit up but it’s definitely not for everyone. the last 3 episodes are missing on netflix so make sure you don’t miss those if you decide to watch.

fate/kaleid liner PRISMA ☆ ILLYA is a magical girl spinoff manga & anime which sounds great in theory until you see it’s mostly pedobait, but extremely unfortunately for us sometimes it does something legitimately cool so we all suffer. don’t get into prillya it’s bad for your health. 

fate/strange fake WAS an aprils fools story but this series has no limits so now it’s a full on light novel spinoff and also manga I think? I don’t keep up with it but it throws some wild ass lore our way sometimes. you’ll probably want to be up to date with apocrypha and everything before it before you try this one.

fate/prototype was just the original concept for fsn extrapolated a bit upon but again this series has no limits. prototype has an animated feature and some material books, and then the light novels fate/prototype fragments of blue and silver are the prequel to prototype, but it’s weird cause we never got a proper prototype so I don’t know what’s up with that. fate/labyrinth is a side story to fragments which I know even less about. I actually never see anyone talk about prototype so there’s probably no translations lol

lord el melloi II case files is even more light novels. I’m pretty sure you need to have gone over stay night, zero, hollow ataraxia, apocrypha, and strange fake before this one starts to make sense. there might be translations? i don’t know a fucking thing my guy