#It was tone tag bashing btw

[whoviandoodler]

oh the places we would be as a society if people stopped saying 'this thing is fake and stupid because it doesn't work for me/doesn't apply to me' and acknowledged that things can work for others even if they don't work for you (your experiences aren't universal dear god when will we all learn that just give alternatives without bashing something)

[julietasgf]

not trying to start anything here but the condescending tone of your posts is getting tired…..like if you’re gonna be a hater at least own it, y’know

(This is not about the troye Sivan post btw that one did made me laugh but yeah)

unfollow me or block me 💖 it's fine if you find my posts condescending, think what you want to think, but buddy, this is my blog on tumblr of all websites, and you can choose what you see or what you don't yk? the least I can do >on my blog< is be condescending and complain about stuff I don't like in posts I >don't even tag properly< to not appear in the tag and not upset people who like the character

sorry if I appeared on your dashboard, but like I said. block me!!

(also! I'm a hater! all I do is bash coriolanus 😭 sorry if my posts are not hateful enough tho, I'll try to do better next time)

[ciderpies]

⌒ intro post ᯓ✦ !!

ᯓ . CIDER 𝜚 ﹫﹒any pronouns﹐ ⊹ // i made a strawpage !! ^_^

𐔌 ⠀ more info. aroace spec + pan i have audhd so please be patient lol multifandom! but currently fixated on utmv commissions are closed atm! but doodle reqs r open ^_^ they might take awhile tho

𐔌 ⠀ tag masterlist. #cidertarts - art tag! #cidermail - i ramble and stuff #recider - reblogs (very rare)

byi + dni are under the cut!! PLEASE READ!!1!

𐔌 ⠀ byi + dni. - i don't really mind what age you are, everyone is welcome, just don't be a weirdo ^^' - i forget stuff often, so apologies in advance - tone indicators / tonetags are encouraged !! - i might not respond sometimes, please don't take it to heart, i'm just awkward and don't know how to interact most of the time ^^' - basic dni criteria! - if you support any problematic creators/content - PROSHIP DNI, PLEASE, even if you make the characters adult, that rrly doesn't help... - bash people's interests for no valid reason - romantic errorink, if you ship it that's cool! just don't bring it up around me, thank you. (platonic error and ink are okay) this ship just makes me rrly uncomfortable, sorry </3

btw... i keep reblogs to a minimum here but i have a reblog only acc, @pestecider (don’t follow it lol)

i have a twitter <3 thank you for reading! <3 last updated: 09/08/24

[destinygoldenstar]

While I don’t have context for everything you’ve said here, I just want to say that this is why I’ve been hesitant and practically avoiding trying to talk about the show again.

I am not going to take either side, as I really don’t want to. I am not the type of person to be openly happy all the time, as when I feel any emotion at all I will say it. And I am not going to hide my emotions to make other people happy. That’s not who I am.

But I also don’t want to be seen by the public as a hardcore complainer for that. Spending all your time whining is just exhausting and tiring and unrewarding, when you could be doing literally anything else, and healthier stuff, with your time. I should know. I used to criticize Dhar Mann videos. While those were worth critiquing it cause multiple mental health problems for me. So I stopped and did other stuff with my life.

So really, if I were to pick a side, either one, it would be doing injustice to my character. And the fact that people have to be split in fandom sections for a single show is insane. I’d be harassed endlessly no matter what.

And harassment like this over a cartoon is just not worth it. Even if you try to calmly explain yourself and defuse a fight, you’re not gonna be heard. They’ll just keep arguing until you reluctantly confess to their side. Which is gaslighting.

And this is a both sides issue. So you know. Again, I’m not picking sides when I say this.

At that point it has nothing to do with the show itself, or a rewrite of said show that some people made. (A rewrite that I actually HAVE seen for myself) If anything, it stops being about the show and more about throwing around accusations on people as though you personally know them. News flash: ten to one, you don’t.

This is why if you go to my blog you see me more often than not making posts about other media. Not because I think these shows are better than RWBY (I’ve criticized them plenty as well, criticisms that I think are deserved), but because I feel more welcome in their fandoms…? I’m not gonna pretend they’re perfect, every fandom has some nasty people, but at least I’m not gonna get barraded for every single opinion I have as though my opinions over cartoons are a judgement of my real life character. Yes people have disagreed with me and given me criticism, but at least it’s focused on what I’ve written and the flaws in my logic of writing style. An IMpersonal critique towards me. That gets more through to me than personally insulting everyone and treating everyone that isn’t you like they’re pure evil.

Even when I try to look at RWBY related tags, it’s just this exact stuff.

You say an opinion that isn’t 100% positive? BASH.

You like something about the show? BASH.

You make art of a ship someone else doesn’t like? BASH.

You try to make an analysis post? BASH.

You write a fanfiction? BASH.

You like a fanfiction of the show? BASH.

You don’t like a fanfiction of the show? BASH.

You dare title that fanfiction ‘fixing’? BASH.

CLEARLY everyone who doesn’t agree with you are dares to say why and how they personally would’ve done it is a PURE EVIL HUMAN BEING GOING OUT IF THEIR WAY TO SPITE AN ENTIRE COMMUNITY. Never mind actually getting to hear the person out or letting them say why they feel this way or why they changed it, (like they DO in streams btw) NOPE. PURE EVIL. SOLELY BECAUSE YOU MADE A REWRITE.

It’s not like rewrite fanfiction as a concept is all about people reimagining someone else’s work into their own vision, and multiple fandoms do this with varying intents, whether it’s out of fixing a critique they had or trying a different tone or ‘what if’ scenarios or whatever. And again, multiple fandoms do this. (Hell, I did it with Total Drama’s Season 2. I don’t think that show is perfect, either. Far from it.)

It’s so unwelcoming and I just… can’t.

I can’t take that.

No one deserves that level of harassment over something so not worth it at the end of the day. It’s just a show guys. This isn’t real life propaganda. This isn’t Election Day. This isn’t school. It’s a product designed for entertainment purposes. You can feel whatever way you want to about it. You don’t deserve to be shut out for however you feel.

I am not a perfect person. That much, I will admit. I will admit to my mistakes when I recognize I make them and try to improve myself. Just like the rest of you, I’m just a normal human on the internet talking about stuff I find interest in. But I will also admit I need to get better at defending myself when I recognize something is just plain bullshit.

So… yeah. Maybe I will try to talk about RWBY again one day. Explain my opinions fully. As honestly as possible. But I know no matter what I’m gonna say, I will not be welcomed with warmth, instead with guns pointed at my head. To that I’ll just say, ‘Hit me with your best shot’

Lilith Fairen, Canonseeker, Dishonest Discourse and Fixing RWBY

Preamble

I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not directly part of the RWBY community. You could say I'm a genuine 'hater', or whatever, and that's fine. I'd be considered a legitimate one; though I'll disagree with you about what constitutes hate, as I'll discuss below. Had it been my choice, I'd have only ever interacted with RWBY after a friend showed me the first two volumes and I, an animation student and aspiring novelist, disliked it. I moved on with my life. But circumstances led me to seeking out critical content that soon led me into the Tundra Discord server where I eventually met my boyfriend. I don't interact with RWBY spaces because I don't (didn't?) consider myself a fan, but I do have a morbid fascination with it and all the issues I have with it and how frequent issues crop up. The only time I've ever interacted with broader RWBY fandom directly was when discussing Fixing RWBY on reddit (and that one time where I commented when someone compared RWBY to Digimon Adventure 02. But Digimon is my fandom so I commented as part of my space).

I have had many discussions, mostly negative, but also positive about the show itself and while I never cared to watch further in, I eventually watched V3, and V6-8. V4-5 were skipped due to a migraine one week and group watch party exhaustion the next, respectively, but reviews and criticism videos allowed me to know what goes on in them.

Note that I enjoy critical content as a creative myself, and dabbling in critical content is important for someone learning how to write and create. It's just as important to know why something does not work from a critical perspective to understand why other elements do work while also keeping in mind there is a level of subjectivity. Someone is always going to disagree with you. I lurk the r/RWBYcritics for critical discourse, and occasionally r/RWBY, though the actual discourse there is fewer and far between by comparison, and unless I come across someone mentioning Digimon or FRWBY, I don't comment because I feel it's not my place.

So as you can see, I've been on the outside looking in at aspects of this community and considering where my interests are focused, (Fixing RWBY being an interest) found myself overlooking a clusterfuck of nonsense.

The concept of "Hatedom/HTDM"

I'm old guard. Old fandoms and old engagement from a time when the internet was a wild west and niche anime communities were tiny. The days of geocities and fan shrines and webrings. Never in my life have I come across a fandom that shunned a big chunk of itself, gatekeeping being part of the community and saying that aspect of the fandom wasn't valid. Perhaps I was lucky in that regard, but considering I dabbled in quite a few communities, I doubt it. Digimon Adventure has been around since 1999 and there were a lot of hot-button topics that split the fandom back then. More than 20 years later, you tread these old, rusted buttons and under your feet a sinkhole will open with a warm, bubbling lava plume of strong opinions will greet you as you wake the sleeping beast. But not once was there any sniff of a concept that someone wasn't a 'true' fan because of their opinions and outlooks on the show, and that is just a single example of many.

So to see the RWBY community simmering in barely contained venom over the "critics" is certainly an unwelcome sight to behold, and one that has alarming implications. There has been elements of gatekeeping in all fandoms, sure, but this feels on a new level. To think that it would get so bad that it was even considered to ban an entire related reddit group for having critical opinions is frankly shameful, and yes, I was around for that. Anyone who thought that was correct should feel embarrassed.

This idea that having a negative opinion equals a hateful person is patently absurd. It has been stated time and again that having a negative opinion on something doesn't mean you hate it. There are many different types of people in the world, with different mindsets and different ways of engaging with the things that they enjoy or engage with. Some people do art or fanfiction. Others dissect or criticize. It can be a combination of these things and whether or not the criticism is positive or negative does not negate the passion behind the words. Labelling someone who criticizes the show, even if that is all that they do, a 'hater' or part of the HTDM, comes across as punishment for engaging in fandom in a way you don't approve.

The internet as a whole, and fandom space, doesn't just belong to you and people who think like you. It belongs to everyone who has passion enough to engage with the media they've consumed and there are plenty of options available for those who don't wish to engage with certain methods of fandom discourse and immersion. To dictate who can and cannot participate in the fandom and who is worthy of hate and derision for being an "other" or "outsider" is frankly disgusting. If you think that someone cannot engage in "your" space because you don't like what they have to say, get over yourself and for once in your life, look past your own petulant selfishness. Seriously, we got taught to share space in preschool.

Criticism As Art, Engagement, Growth and Study

Criticism is an invaluable tool in creative spaces, both positive and negative, and there seems to be a growing idea of what constitutes valid criticism or not as simply whether or not it is positive and the thought of that is quite disturbing. You'd think that I wouldn't have to talk about this, but there are quite a number of people who don't fully understand there is more to criticism than being nice and gentle - which can do more harm than good, by the way.

There can be an art to criticism, and there is no one way to criticize something as being the ultimate 'correct' way. Just like there are different art styles, brush stroke techniques, chord progressions, building methods, etc, there are different styles of critique. It's up to the personality of the individual what form that critique manifests and there is no right or wrong way to critique like there is no right or wrong way to paint a painting. But there is something to be said about whether or not the messages you're trying to get across are being understood properly; whether the critiques are in good faith and can be understood to correspond accurately to the work in question, and with that in mind, we can gauge whether or not the criticism is good.

Critique and criticism, whether good or bad, can open up someone to a piece of media they may never have seen or heard before. It is then that they can decide for themselves, as individuals with their own minds and relative free will, whether or not they want to further participate in the consumption of the media being criticized. To get defensive over the idea that negative criticism exists because it influences the sheeple, dimwitted and easily swayed as they may be, is insulting to the intelligence of others, Eren. Individual people can look at a criticism of a work and decide for themselves whether or not the work is something that does not interest them, or is something to look into for themselves and decide whether or not they personally like or dislike it.

On the more creative side, criticism, even - and I'd say especially - negative criticism, is an essential tool to help the growth of the artist. It helps you grow and learn the many mistakes and errors one can have in a piece of media and teach someone to grow past and learn to avoid those pitfalls.

When it comes to criticizing a piece of media like RWBY, some individuals within the RWBY community view the criticism not only as an attack on the quality of the work, but harassment of the writers themselves. This is patently absurd for the simple fact that these men (and woman) are professional writers and criticism goes part and parcel with the job. To show yourself as a professional in the industry you'd want to put your best foot forward, show that you have the skills to write, and be humble enough to take criticism when given and seriously reevaluate your work, no matter how difficult it might be. The concept of 'kill your darlings' applies to beloved concepts and scenes in a story that, while loved, might hinder the story you want to tell. When you are putting something out there, even as a job, the goal should first and foremost be to entertain the audience, and to do that, strive to create the best version of your work that you can. Passion for what you do is such a hard thing to describe, but most can see it when it's there and can point to when it's not.

I don't doubt there are a couple of individuals that do legitimately harass the writers and others directly. We've seen that with other franchises, and individuals like that can be in more than one fandom. But I specify individuals because there is a trend to lump everyone that some people (like Lilith Fairen and Canonseeker) dislike and disagree with as one and the same, as though the 'critics' are a hive mind, and that everyone is connected to every other critic and knows what they do or say.

But dissent allows an honest writer or artist to grow from where they are, a community who strive to help others to make everything better so that the media we consume is better and the artist will be more satisfied and fulfilled. That is the goal. That is what critics strive for, because they can have as much passion for that work as the artist, if not directly for that work itself, then for the desire to see a fellow creative flourish.

Canonseeker's Logical Fallacies

Eren is someone that I consider to be fairly innocent in intent. At least I don't consider him to be outright malicious, unlike Lilith, but the results of his actions in trying to rectify what he considers to be a toxic situation is in fact toxic in and of itself. Eren is someone who views the situation of the critics as being outright harmful, as though fans voicing their dissent is bullying. Fans have no power and very little means to influence the media they're passionate about.

Therefore, when someone criticizes a work, the main audience for their criticisms are other fans, people whom they can engage with and share in their frustrations and worries. There is always a chance that the writer or some creative can see their complaints, but it is a low chance, and often little in the ways of rectifying the situation other than in the future. When Eren criticizes the 'critics' he attacks their character rather than the ideas they present. When called out on it, he never acknowledges his own faults, instead doing a what-aboutism to deflect from himself.

Just because other people are assholes doesn't mean you aren't also a problem. And considering the fact that we can see you being a problem right now, and you haven't named individual people for us to also slap on the wrist, we focus on you as a problem community member. Critics attack ideas and competency, not the writers as individual people (for the most part. If the situation calls for it, then how the writers are seen in the public eye becomes fair game for scrutiny).

He puts Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross on pedestals, saying that they created RWBY. They did not. Monty is the sole creator and he picked them to fill in the blanks between his fight scenes. Personally I don't envy that situation based on what I've heard and I feel sympathy for that. But being 'hand picked' by Monty doesn't mean anything other than the fact that he was personal friends with these men. That doesn't speak to their skills as writers, as the romantic, lofty wording would suggest, and it doesn't mean anything beyond they happened to be available to do the job. Monty wanted to work with friends, that's all. Rooster Teeth runs on nepotism. Fact of the matter is, RWBY is now owned by a corporation, not an individual person any longer and when owned by a corporation, can be used and abused for whatever the corporations needs. If fans think that corporation shouldn't have the product any longer, then that's their opinion that they are allowed to hold. When they criticize RWBY for being the mess they think it is, they're criticizing Rooster Teeth as a company, its practices, and its willingness to allow or even encourage incompetence within the production through various means, some more terrible than others.

Eren's understanding of Death of the Author is tenuous at best and nonexistent at worst. Barring people's misunderstanding of the concept in question aside... The concept that once a work of media exists out in the public, it is out of the control of the owner how their work gets interpreted is something that Eren struggles with. An author or creator can do their best to convey their ideas to their audience as best as possible, but that doesn't guarantee that someone will see it in that exact way. Whether a member of the audience understands what the author is trying to convey is up to the individual person, and their understanding or lack of understanding is valid to their own experiences. Of course there are dishonest ways of interpreting a piece of work, such as misdiagnosing a theme of a work (especially when the theme is stated) and then saying its bad for poorly handling that theme. The themes should be looked at on their own and judged how well they're done.

Anything else that I could say about the man has already been talked about in a different document by SYTOkun, barely anything of which I am interested in talking about, as I'm currently more interested in the misunderstandings and mistakes that lead to someone who wants positivity in a fandom to become a poster child for anti-positivity.

Lilith Fairen's Dishonest Motives

Lilith is such a curious person, and I've tried to understand her mentality and see where she's coming from and where the misunderstanding starts. The main issue seems to be that she came into the fandom with dishonest motives from the start and has admitted to it. Her motivation for coming into the RWBY community was strictly to bully people whom she had ideological issues with, or people she deemed 'critics'. She was mocking people while having never watched the show herself, something that many people pointed out. She's claimed to have since watched RWBY and still finds no issue with it. I have no reason to disbelieve her and thus will not accuse her of still having never watched the show. But considering her starting point, either likes it more for ideological reasons or likes it to spite the haters. While her enjoyment of RWBY may be genuine, due to this history, it's very difficult for me to see her desire for this show as anything but sociologically political.

Lilith herself is a very caustic individual with a large chip on her shoulder. She has a preference for female-led stories, and ones that don't require the girls/women to have motivations surrounding men. While I think there's nothing wrong with that conceptually, it becomes a problem when viewing certain stories one has little preference for as problematic for not fitting into what she personally prefers. For the most part, women and girls are more motivated by social aspects of life, whether it be friendships or romance, and that's not inherently a bad thing, but Lilith has some issue with it due to said aforementioned chip labelled 'misogyny'.

She throws accusations of misogyny around like it's candy going out of style. Rarely does she back up her accusations with any factual evidence, randomly accusing this, that or the other of being misogynistic as though one should just accept or already knows it as fact when in reality is quite odd. Guns, for example, are considered masculine representations in her eyes, and not gender neutral items that can be used by either gender, and thus unsuitable weapons for magical girls, like in Madoka Magica, to use.

I've never seen Madoka. But I don't think I have to in order to see how silly this concept is. Girls can like guns and that doesn't make them less girly. I've never heard of guns as being a gendered item.

While I also don't necessarily disagree there's issues in anime and female representation, tropes and cliches can be overdone and become outright tired and boring, I believe Lilith takes it a step too far when she starts going after other people for their acceptance or ambivalence toward the things she's personally not a fan of. In attacking something like Madoka or other so-called 'deconstruction' anime, she infantilizes female characters by saying they shouldn't be subject to the same challenges and difficulties male characters often are, because they're women. She also claims anime shows girls as hysterical and overly emotional. As though teenagers - which most anime feature - is a foreign concept to her. Also stuff often gets turned up for drama. It's called fiction and literally all media around the world does this.

She's also a negative, salty, bitter person in general despite her preferences for happy, saccharine and light-hearted stories. It makes me wonder if she seeks out these fluffy tales because she has such a dark mentality that she desperately wants to get away from, but has the delusion that what she likes isn't respected for what it is, or liked. As though Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure aren't incredibly large, successful franchises in Japan. As though Sailor Moon isn't still beloved in the west. People in different countries can have different tastes and expectations outside of the niches of anime lovers who already understand and cherish these properties. That doesn't make them disrespected. Madoka was enjoyed by (some) people who had no concept of magical girls outside of cursory knowledge of watching Sailor Moon as kids and praised it as being the best despite likely never having watched before or since any magical girl anime. And these people are the ones she hates, but conflates all Madoka fans as these individuals.

Because of her perceived notion that magical girls are disrespected and dismissed due to misogyny, her attitude toward her original stories can also be quite cynical at times. Maybe if she took a step out of her self-loathing and victim mentality she would realize that a prospective reader seeing something like this on her blog might be a turn-off.

It's not like there are other factors that contribute to your story's relative obscurity like poor marketing on your part or the fact that superhero novels (which magical girls count as) in general are not very popular. Yes, even ones that feature male leads. You find more success with more visual mediums like comic books, movies and television. Girl. From one author to another... There's more to putting your work out there than simply writing and publishing it.

I'll get to Glints Saga another day, but from a cursory glance (at an old version, mind you) I can already tell that if you had gone to a writing meetup and got the story critiqued and they found little issue with it... you should find a better critique group because they were seriously doing you a disservice.

Gotta wonder if Faye said Monara's name often enough she'd eventually remember it. There's also a lot more wrong here, dialogue-wise and prose-wise. But that's more for a comparison between the old and new version if this section had been cleaned up.

But her bad attitude doesn't end there. She also has spite for anyone else that seems to have more success than her that she knows is 'touchable'. Instead of looking at a piece of inspirational messages by a writer trying to encourage others to keep going, she dismisses the critique because they're popular and it's so easy for them. Because it's not like an artist or writer could be popular because they've worked hard for it and were able to market themselves effectively in order to gain an audience and conduct themselves in a manner that wouldn't turn prospective fans away. No, it's just that they only got lucky. That somehow makes their altruistic encouragement meaningless.

Also notice how she never actually engages in arguments when people call her out on anything. Because she either knows she's full of crap or she wants to appear like a tough beotch on the internet and hide the fact that she has no counter argument and treats childishly typing out her laughter like some cartoon buttmonkey is a rebuttal instead of some obvious attempt at trying to hide her discomfort.

You know, completely missing the point of the original post that said if you create for the main purpose of getting recognition and acknowledgment, then you'll soon hate your writing and become miserable when your expectations aren't met. So the advice was to create regardless of whether or not you get any attention because you love to write, not because you feel owed anything for writing. But if she did that then she'd actually feel good about herself and her work and not bitterly lash out at everything and everyone. It's enough to make one wonder if part of the reason why she goes after critics is because she's jealous many of them do get attention and engagement and the main thing she manages to attract is people calling her out for her shitty behaviour.

By the way, both Lilith and Eren think that people going to their public blogs, where they post things that other people can see is somehow stalking. On a website where the whole point is that your posts will likely travel, especially if you talk about a franchise (even if you don't tag). Or that people responding to them at all is somehow stalking. They want to be able to say any kind of vile garbage about other fans they don't like and not have to face any repercussions for it.

One final thing because I know it's going to bug me...

"Critics" do not compare autistic people to robots. We compare ourselves to robots because when they aren't written to just be humans straight up are neurodivergent. They do not think like neurotypical people and in some ways even like humans do. That is the definition of neurodivergence - thinking and processing in a way that is outside the norm. Allistic people accept this and also headcanon many robots the same way in order to be inclusive. Lilith, if you aren't going to properly understand why people say things in relation to mental health and neurodivergence just stay out of it entirely.

Toxicity of FNDM, RWDE and Anti-RWDE

Here's where I'm going to get a little controversial, because members of all sides have done shitty things. Anti-RWDE is obvious, as they're just a salt tag dedicated to complaining about people who have negative opinions because how dare. But even the side I "agree" with more, I think have said some ridiculous and toxic things. Never mind anons here.

Accusations of "fascist", "white supremacist", "racist", "terf", "transphobic", "homophobic", "sexist", "ableist", basically anything under the sun that is a pejorative you can think of it was probably spewed out of the fingers of some member of RWDE or FNDM/Anti like a child throwing insults on the playground.

You have passions and societal issues that you want to address, and that's perfectly fine and understandable. But to accuse someone of being any flavour of 'ist' or 'phobe' over disagreements on whether a character in a cartoon does this action or interacts with that character in such and such a way muddies the waters, dilutes the impact the word has and even makes it easier for people to casually dismiss accusations and even real life and serious instances of these things due to how low the bar has been set for being labelled as such. You aren't engaging honestly anymore, you're trying to shut someone down by calling them names. Attacking someone or a work for miniscule things they do or say that you interpret as being bad without considering that there might in fact be a different reason why they said that thing is dishonest and harmful.

Hey Lilith, you wanna, maybe, define what an alt-righter is to you? Or are you just going to call out anyone who is right-of-far-left an "alt-righter" so that you can feel good and justified for shitting on someone else for literally no reason other than you had a temper tantrum at the concept that someone is unsatisfied with a cartoon? It's not like you have any evidence that Celtic is an alt-righter or anything you just made that shit up.

I've seen both sides do this, and I'm not calling out specific individuals because I've seen many act this way.

There are even certain people within the fandom who say it's your fault that you're upset with the show because you dared to have expectations that the show didn't meet. As though this is somehow a gotcha, that it's somehow wrong of you to have desires to see something you think is being presented in the show, only for it to fall flat with something you don't think is good in its place. You're a bad person for having an opinion that isn't positive about the cartoon. The show has either somehow done the impossible and achieved perfection or there is no amount of problems with the writing or anything else that can justify you expressing your opinion about it. It's best for you to shut your mouth because it personally inconveniences them.

It's gotten to the point where it's almost impossible to have certain discussions without devolving into a slobbering screaming match, because even the characters aren't saved from the pejoratives and some even attach characters and liking certain characters to certain mentalities and mindsets. If you dare like the wrong character you will be seen as x toxic thing. If you want to discuss a certain character you'll be dismissed as y type of toxic person. You also better watch how you dress your characters in redesigns or else you're z type of bad people because somewhere out there someone may or may not make a connection to a real life group you may or may not have taken a couple of design elements from and that is evil because there are 100728 different negative ways you can portray a marginalized group to the point that it would probably be better to forget those groups exist at all and only keep your fantasy series based on the standard big cultures and that's somehow more progressive despite also being a problem. Always watch your step. Always be ready to be seen as a monster, or fight a monster. Absolute lunacy.

On top of that, it makes you no better than the people you criticize. How hypocritical to call someone out for shitty behaviour, complaining about toxicity in the fandom and turn around and do shitty behaviour yourself.

Don't think I didn't notice when Judgmental Critter calls out Lilith for calling her misogynist for criticizing RWBY, saying that she just hates women, then turns around and casually accuses people who criticize High Guardian Spice (or some things about RWBY) for the exact same thing with no basis. I love Critter's sass, opinions, views and her work in general, become one of my favourite youtubers even. I can't wait for when my boyfriend shows me Madoka so I can watch her magical girl series and other videos. But I don't fail to notice when she blanket statements groups of people because she doesn't/won't understand their arguments.

Honestly there are many examples like this but I wanted to highlight an example from each "side" to emphasize my point and to show that I'm not just pointing to any particular side as being the problematic one. I think the worst example of toxicity has to be in the tags of this one post I found on tumblr ranting about hbomberguy's video. It's actually disturbing.

I was so flabbergasted by the idea that someone could actually say this, not because they disliked what was said, but because a video that didn't praise RWBY existed at all.

Backtracking a little, I wanted to talk about how quick people are to make connections and accuse others in the fandom of being something terrible.

We are pattern-seeking creatures and our pattern recognition is exceptional. But it also produces false positives in the pareidolia effect, the phenomenon where you see things that aren't actually there. The most benign and silly of the pareidolia effect is 'faces in places' and likewise, you can see patterns of behaviour, thought processes and ideologies in conversations out of context to the wider behaviour of the person. This is why I'd studied up on Lilith and Eren before writing this to make sure that there was a noticeable, repeated pattern of behaviour before writing all of this up. Lilith, Eren, and their ilk also suffer from this when it comes to criticism of rewrites that they have particular issues with, and I'll talk more about this in the next section.

There's an example of a man whom I'd had an argument with in a server I moderate for. I hadn't meant to get into an argument with him, more genuinely wanting to get his thoughts on a rewrite-heavy AU-turned-original-story idea of my own, as someone who liked RWBY. I thought I could have a fun, creative conversation, getting insight into how I did handling the characters in an AU setting and what I could do to expand on my interpretations. I find the idea of setting characters in different scenarios while still maintaining their personalities a fun exercise. Instead I was met with defensive vitriol.

I wanted the focus to be friendship between the girls rather than a mishmash of family and romance, which he hated. When asked why, it was because I said I didn't like feeling as though I was being lied to with the premise of the story, which was meant to be about four girls who became friends, and I felt it personally didn't satisfy me in that department. Then we got off on a long argument about lying to your audience, which eventually revealed a sort of sad element to the guy that I was talking to: that basically he felt that he had no right to be upset over anything that happened to him. If he was lied to, he shouldn't be upset at it. Not that he didn't want to be upset, but that he felt he couldn't, and eventually admitted to a deeper underlying issue with self confidence and worth he struggled with that seemed to manifest in being upset when anyone voiced dissenting and negative opinions.

While I think looking on the bright side is all well and good, there's a limit my dude, and trying to explain to him why I felt being lied to was a negative thing that I had the right to be unhappy about was such a foreign concept to him due to not feeling like he should ever be upset when people treat him poorly. Then he accused me of disliking him for liking a show I disliked. The whole exchange left me spiraling

But that interaction was telling, and while I can't apply that to all the members of FNDM who feel threatened by criticism and dissent, eyes can be opened about possibilities into the reasons why they find critical engagement so offensive. On some level, at least for some, it might feel like they get personally attacked because the show they love is picked apart, and in turn, picking them apart. RWBY is fundamental to who they are as people, and if you attack it in any way, you are threatening them, their worth and self-esteem.

What is 'Hate'?

Hate is a strong word, and one that, like all the above pejoratives, is used far too liberally. It's a strong negative emotion of loathing and disgust, and if kept too long can cause negative effects on one's mind and body. It takes some amount of derangement, I feel, to legitimately hate something passionately for a long period of time. Hate is usually such a strong emotion that it is temporary and fades quickly.

There were a lot of people who hated Twilight when it first came out. Those people quickly faded away after their rage subsided and the main people who stuck around on the Twilight 'hate train' were people who disliked it, but thought it was fun to mock rather than outright hate. It was silly, after all! Who wouldn't love making fun of something ridiculous and harmful and boring and dumb. Many critics of Twilight even pointed out aspects of what they liked in the book series, namely the side characters of the latter books. The vampires and werewolves helping the Cullens and the inter-species political struggles were more fascinating and interesting than the teen melodrama forced love triangle going on between Bella, Edward and Jacob. There were many more still who enjoyed Twilight knowing full well how trash it was, acknowledging it for its camp and bad writing but enjoying it for being bad.

Twilight is still criticized to this day, broken down and dissected to see what makes it tick, and why it ended up being as bad as it was. But it's not for hate for the most part, though there is dislike. But mostly if you're going to deep dive, pick apart or rewrite beyond an anger-filled review, that takes a certain level of passion for what you're doing. You see the good inside it and want it to be better. If you're going off youtuber's opinions you do have to be mindful that some of them play up their emotions for entertainment. Youtubers are entertainers, after all, and while those feelings might be genuine, there will be elements of hamming it up. Even positive youtubers do this and there's nothing wrong with that.

It's the same with RWBY and a lot of RWBY criticism. Most people who genuinely hate the show have moved on to bigger and better things. Those who stuck around either do so because they genuinely love it, or hope that it will get better, or at the very least need to see it to the end because it's been a part of their lives for so long.

Hate, ultimately, is a negative experience that can't birth anything creative. Hate does nothing but tear, break down and destroy. It's tearing down someone else directly to fill a void, or to make yourself feel better.

Hate, ultimately, is what many in the Anti-RWDE does to the part of the FNDM they don't like.

Fixing RWBY

Now comes the lengthy part of my post! Fixing RWBY or FRWBY is a project started by Raymond McNeil, as most people likely know, and started as a passion project due to his love for RWBY and his dissatisfaction with elements of how RWBY has been handled. If anyone says that he hates the show, you know that it's in bad faith and they haven't watched his content. He's said multiple times how much he loves the show, he's just frustrated it doesn't live up to the potential he thinks it has.

This section is voicing my rebuttals to larger criticisms of the show by people who admit they don't properly watch and engage with the project and purposefully look for things to pick apart, regardless of if it's true. While there are legitimate criticisms to be had about the project, they are harder to come by as they get drowned out by a flooding of this low brow shit flinging.

Some people think being dissatisfied is wrong, as I've previously mentioned

They, for some reason, think that having expectations for a show is invalid. I've already discussed how terrible that mindset is. But the main recurring criticisms of Fixing RWBY are mainly perpetuated by Eren and Lilith and a handful of their friends, which get spread around to others who think like them. We know Lilith is dishonest because she, by her own admission, skims his content and doesn't properly evaluate it, looking for things to take out of context or at face value to shit on. EngineGear at least has the decency to honestly summarize without comment. So let's go through some of their criticisms, shall we?

Special mention goes out to EngineGear, who had been one of the people throwing around the idea that Raymond kept Fixing RWBY behind a paywall simply because, as a youtuber, he had his discord as a patreon reward. When I calmly explained why his discord had nothing to do with FRWBY, and how his criticism cannot be put against Raymond without also demonizing non-critic youtubers and other artists who get paid for their fan content, he deleted the reddit post from his little saltmine, r/RWBYCynics. I appreciate his honesty in recognizing his mistake and deleting the post.

We're certainly off to a start here. The implication of this post is implying that Celtic Phoenix, and to a larger part his volunteer team - the Sketchy Huntsman - are racist.

Okay, so, there is practically no information about Oscar in terms of background or creation information to confirm anything other than what fairy tale character they could graft onto him. Who knows, there might be some obscure podcast or interview or tweet or however many different methods the writers have used to supplement their poor writing skills. I'm not about to go on a wild goose chase for something that might not even exist. His concept art says he has sunburnt skin. That makes sense, he's a farmer. He's out in the sun all day. So it stands to reason he has a farmer's tan. Even if he doesn't, the guy has my skin tone and I'm not what you would call non-European in origin.

Let's nevermind for a moment that this is incredibly American-centric thinking. This is an ancient relic of the past where we divided ourselves up into Reds, Whites, Blacks, and Yellows (... huh. I... didn't mean to sort them like that;; ) and sometimes Browns. It still has its uses in the modern day, and of course there is just acknowledgment of visual differences, but it should also be acknowledged that the terms are arbitrary descriptors of shades of the same colour (brown). All humans regardless of how much melanin is in your skin, is a shade of brown. Skin can have an underside of red, blue, green, yellow and determine whether their skin looks cold or warm. Europeans can naturally get pretty dark, being born with natural olive skin and there are non-Europeans who can be born with light skin. Europeans (or descent) can run between Type I-IV and non-Europeans can range from Type III-VI. What's more, we don't know anything about the migratory history of Remnant or whether skin types are random like faunus apparently are.

The main RWBY characters have ridiculously translucent, even glowing skin lighter than Type I that no actual human being would have. Blake and Weiss are beyond even anime pale, so someone looks at a character who has realistically coloured 'white' skin and all of a sudden they're poc. There's no problems with headcanoning that. But that's what it is. Your headcanon. And you're accusing Raymond of racism for getting rid of a character you headcanon as being poc. The same goes for Lionheart, who looks to have an (albeit sickly) ashy grey skin tone. Not dark enough to definitively be poc. It's a headcanon that you can choose to have, but should not weaponize to vilify someone you disagree with.

This is gonna be a general onsen post, one that is going to have some overlap with the faunus heat cycles section below. Mistral is meant to have vague connections to Asian culture. Onsen, or bathhouses/hot springs, are a very important part of Asian culture. Not only that, but they were and are also important to the Ancient Greeks, Ancient Romans, Turkish, and many other societies as places of community, healing and relaxation.

From a meta standpoint, an onsen episode, like a beach episode, is easy on the overworked animators to create, and thus become a staple of anime. But they aren't used purely for fanservice.

Fruits Basket used the onsen episode as another way for Momiji to pay back Tohru for the Valentines chocolates, further establishing his bond with her, for the characters in general to bond, another way for Tohru to show how much she thinks of her mother in everything that she does, and as foreshadowing to Ritsu's arrival by meeting his mother, who owned the facility. Ritsu's mother is one of the few zodiac parents who has a good relationship with their child and was able to give Tohru some insight into the family. Plus, another moment of Yuki showing his affection for Tohru and growing desires to see her as happy as she made him.

Outlaw Star's onsen episode is very raunchy to the point where American syndication cut the episode entirely from television. And because of that the American audiences missed out on an incredibly important plot detail. The episode was heavy in many establishing things, generally being wacky, but also an important, unskippable element to the story.

Blue Seed is an anime that I never got to watch, though my old video store had the sequel OVA Blue Seed 2, which featured three episodes. One of those episodes featured an onsen, and a bomb rigged to explode once the water level got too high or low or the timer ran out. It was a thrilling episode featuring a tense plot and showed the cultural differences between the characters and their one (American) gaijin friend.

There are other examples of onsen episodes in anime that aren't just for fanservice, so to suggest that they only exist in this way is absurd. The female members of the Sketchy Huntsmen, particularly the Asian members advocated hard for this scene, practically twisting Raymond's arm to put it in because it was thematically important, and culturally, for the character moments the cast (especially Weiss and Yang) would go through. By ignoring all of the context to what went on in this scene to say it was purely for Raymond to be gross is to wave away the cultural significance of onsen to Asian culture as being reduced to nothing more than stripteases and ignore when characters do have important moments between one another.

Roman also didn't say anything about Weiss being a man. He said she was flat-chested. He thought Ren was a woman because he was beautiful and had a gentle, feminine face and thin physique and justified it by talking about how women are varied. The joke is making fun of Roman for being an unobservant ass, not at Ren for being feminine and certainly not at Weiss. How badly did you not pay attention to this scene to get so offended that you had to make it about you and your expectation to be slighted. Again, pareidolia. Trans people, rest easy. Not every joke involving gender and being seen as the opposite gender is about you specifically or meant to slight you specifically. And I mean this genuinely. If you think that it is, kindly take a chill pill and reduce your ego before you hurt yourself. Your blood pressure will thank you.

Does this screenshot of a Rated T game upset you?

Faunus heat cycles were treated more or less the same as the onsen scene. Subverting the expectation that this sexual concept can only be used for cheap hentai games and anime. Realistically any trope or concept can be used in a more serious story setting, including sexual concepts like heat cycles. There’s no rules that just because something is used often as one thing that it cannot be used serve a different purpose. That’s the beauty of writing. In this case, Raymond used the heat cycles as one of many minuscule differences between the species to further exacerbate racial tensions and drive xenophobia, which would in turn affect the world on a global scale. Wow that kinda sounds like stuff that happens in real life! What a concept!

To those of you weirdos that think heat cycles are gross still, chew on this: Real life humans have evolved the ability to have sex and get pregnant 365 days of the year. If you think about it, our heat cycles never turn off. And the reason why we have periods is presumed to make sure that if we do get pregnant at any time we can attempt to abort a dead foetus before it potentially goes septic and kills us. Fascinating stuff, but that’s not all. Humans might actually have a heat cycle on top of that after all. There are days during the reproductive cycle where women are more receptive to the idea of sex, and finds normally unpleasant bodily odours more pleasant and men are attracted to the odours of women during this time.

Basically this means that women have periods of subtle extra heat that make them more receptive to sex on top of the fact that humans are basically horny all the time. This is something that is a biological fact within human beings and it can influence society of a variety of ways in the wider context of the world, so why is it so far-fetched and disgusting that a faunus would have a more non-primate mammalian estrus?

Now this is a new one. Ilia did turn away from her destructive spiral. Just like in real life that doesn't mean you get off scot free. She got a reduced sentence and some privileges for her help. She’s being rewarded by getting to go out and have fun at the festival and she said she’d rather be in the (presumably) solitude of a jail cell than have to deal with Sun (and his loud, boisterous energy). What’s offensive about that? Also hmm... 3 poc faunus. Well, faunus are all Remnant's version of poc so you can't mean them specifically do you mean... these three?

Those two on the right are looking pretty damn pale to be poc could it be that you're lying, Eren? And maybe that even if it weren't the case it wouldn't matter because it's a legitimate police technique at the very least seen in procedurals on television and are used regardless of the suspects' skin colour? You trying to slither the idea that Raymond is racist because he dares to have something at all happen to a non-white character is rather slimy.

A lot to go over here, so let's get started shall we? First of all, it absolutely tickles me that changing Shay D. Mann into Shiloh would cause Eren to go into such a big tizzy. Like, it's such a small thing and yet it's one of the main complaints they had about V5, which in my opinion means that Raymond was doing something right. Apparently upgrading a character from a tertiary to a secondary position if there's a need for it is blasphemy.

Okay, so let's go over the concept of character hierarchies. Primary Characters (which there is 8), secondary characters (which there are at least 15), and tertiary characters, which outnumber the stars. Honestly these could be broken down further into Main Characters (Ruby, Weiss, Jaune, etc), Primary characters (Nora, Qrow, Oscar, etc), Secondary characters (Raven, Ironwood, Ace-Ops, etc), Tertiary characters (Whitely, Willow, etc) and then Quaternary characters (Henry Marigold, Dust Shop Guy, Background people).

A quaternary character being upgraded to a tertiary character... what a terrible concept. I also don't understand this predilection for playing up the severity of Shay's actions, acting as though he's straight up assaulted her. He was drunk and tried to flirt. When she ignored it, he tried touching her hair. I've had a more eventful night in real life at a bar dealing with drunk guys who didn't mean any harm and one of them stuck his fingers in my mouth (I had on vampire fangs and that blew his drunk mind). He returns, bruised from his punch and worse for the wear with friends and Yang makes him lead her to camp.

He's not a good guy, obviously, and Shiloh is still not a good guy. But he's more human. He has people he cares about and his own set of morals, even if they may be looser than our protagonist's. If you don't think terrible people can't also have people they care about, I don't know what to say. You're mad because a criminal character, along with the rest of his tribe, got nuance beyond 'bandit'. I do not see the problem.

Shiloh is also not married to Raven, Eren. You do know that people can have children out of wedlock, right?

Gotta ask how Vernal was ruined in FRWBY. He says a lot of basically nothing and doesn't explain himself, acting as though his incoherent rambles are meant to be enough.

Oh yeah, Vernal was such a unique character all right with how... there she was. Existing. I'm supposed to be impressed? Ohhh. Ahhh. Her hair is very pixie cut. Such non-feminine (except it totally is Eren you silly), much discount bargain bin Yang outfit. It's not like Raven isn't literally a palette swap of Yang anyway so I don't know why you clowns complain about Lily, who has different features than both her mother and Yang while still being unique and yet sleep on this.

Raven also didn't dismiss Vernal's death in FRWBY. She refused to outwardly express her grief or accept that her poor actions got her daughter killed. That whole scene with her trying to destroy and then hide the relic was her focusing her feelings because she's not a very mature person. Sorry, that bit of character writing might be a bit subtle for those who are used to blunt-force character writing so it's understandable if you don't get it.

Now this is a weird claim. Let's look at it shall we? Zooming in for the visually impaired on Ruby's face, we indeed do see her looking at Roman and she has a very light amount of colour on her. There's also a white shine that was popular about 7 years ago with a lot of artists. You know, the artists that would put what I like to call blushies/sunburns on cheeks, shoulders, breasts and knees all had this style of redness for parts of the body that are naturally darker in places or have redness. Though with some artists the breasts were a weird one, I've always thought. It's not a style I go for in my own work, but I'm not going to care if that's what an artist likes to do.

Also most blushes, even ones by the artist herself go over the nose to differentiate between a blush and healthy cheeks.

But they claim that Roman doesn't have the blushies so the idea that this artist puts them on everything is false! So let's have a look at the Clockwork Reject.

Well, how can you tell he has no blushies when his hair is covering his face?

Could it be...?

Darker discolouration right beneath his eye that lightens up by his nose? It's almost like... a blushie hidden in shadow!

That settles it for anyone still furiously grasping at straws, desperately looking for any tiny little thing they can twist and warp into being something problematic.

Also one final point that these people are implying that Ruby is being shipped with either Roman or Ozpin. As far as I'm aware RubyxOzpin is kind of a popular ship (heck... RubyxOzpinxRoman was featured in a recent fic we read in the Tundra). It's not Rosegarden or Whiterose, but it's still fairly widespread. Why you gotta ship-shame?

So there's this idea going around that rewrites always sideline the heroines of the story (as though canon RWBY doesn't do that already). I can't speak for all rewrites, because I don't follow any except for FRWBY and I'm starting to get into Remnants. So for all I know every single other rewrite out there features Jaune or some other male character as the protagonists instead of RWBY.

Roman effectively replaces Oscar in FRWBY. A criminal who has found himself in unusual circumstances and now has to work with his former adversaries to complete a common goal.

How does this lead to Roman taking centre stage? Beats me. The fact that he... technically does things, unlike Oscar, I guess.

Now, I happen to like Oscar. I think he's a cute little muffin that wound up in a bad situation. But I also don't deny that he's been squandered as a character and as much as I've given Raymond shit for removing Oscar from his place in the plot, I won't deny that at least he's done something with the character he's put in farmboy's place.

Also Ruby being "reduced" to Roman's sidekick is very interesting phrasing by Lilith here. She tries very hard to manipulate language to give the most uncharitable interpretations as possible. The context for the scene is that the characters are being proactive in searching for leads and Roman is going to go check with his sources and connections in Mistral. Ruby goes with him to keep an eye on him.

She's his handler, not his sidekick. There's a difference.

You... ever get the feeling that Eren doesn't actually understand RWBY or it's characters?

Like... I think Ozpin did nothing wrong in V6. Jinn had no right to air out his dirty laundry like that just to show that Salem couldn't be killed. But while he may be supportive, I don't know if necessarily I would call him kind. In some aspects, sure. But Ozpin is meant to be a calculating character, striving to do what he can to hold back Salem at all costs. He is meant to be a morally grey character, not quite as good of a character as Dumbledore, but he does have that theme of leading pigs to the slaughter. Except these 'pigs' signed up for this job and know how dangerous it is unlike Harry until the end so the analogy doesn't quite work for Ozpin. (By the way, notice his contradiction there by saying Dumbledore is made morally grey by making him evil. Those are two distinct concepts, Eren. Maybe you should look up what morally grey is.) But the terrible way the characters treat him and Oscar's body afterwards makes many of us more sympathetic to him than to be against him. He's morally grey, but we don't mind it, and view him as being someone who is still ultimately good.

"They removed another poc character"

Sweetheart... Gretchen has to actually be a character. She's just a name said on the lips of a couple of characters. We don't even get to see anything of her. Summer got the same treatment, but at least she got a gravestone and characters sort of talked about how great she was, attempting to characterize her post mortem but doing it poorly. Eventually she got a cheap palette swap model. We at least were interested in Summer and who she was and how she disappeared even if we might have only cared because Ruby did and she's the main protagonist. Is anyone interested in Gretchen? And I mean truly, genuinely interested in Gretchen to the same degree that we are interested in Ruby? What about Raven? May Marigold? Even Summer? Gretchen is a fridged tool who only exists as justification for Hazel to be a relatively nice guy but still align himself with the villains. She is not, in and of herself, a character. At least with Magnus, we see the shell that Osma resides in and it hits us that this used to be a person. A person who had family who loved him and miss him and that is why Hazel is here. Do we know anything about the body in canon other than he'd once been a farmer?

The concept that an organization has to be single minded in a goal, no matter what it is, or else it is no longer that thing, is funny to me.

No, Eren. The White Fang is still a faunus rights group in FRWBY. It's just that there are people within the organization who have very strong opinions about how to go about achieving their goals and don't mind stepping over their fellows to get to that goal. That's what we call politics.

I don't even know why this is an issue when the White Fang and the racism plotline were not well done in RWBY and that is an undisputed fact that M&K admitted to. There is nothing wrong with trying to bandage that up and adding human elements to behind the scenes stuff - things that M&K themselves tried to implement but were just too inexperienced as writers to be able to pull off. It really shouldn't be that controversial to say that they reached beyond their means with what they wanted to do with RWBY, which is partially why it's such a mess. And I want to emphasize that I don't think they're incapable of pulling it off just because of the colour of their skin. They didn't do their proper research or think about a complicated topic well enough and rushed through it because they didn't know what they were doing as writers. They also admitted to not knowing what they were doing in the writing department for the first several years of the show so it shouldn't be controversial to criticize them as inexperienced writers pushing out a subpar written product.

While we're on the subject...

In a big ol' rant titled "The Problems with Fixing RWBY" you would think there would be a lot more pointing out the problems with FRWBY and not... pointing out the differences between FRWBY and canon. There's no explanation for why these things are an issue. He just presents these as though they speak for themselves, but they don't. And most of his points are like this, by the way. I could be lazy and answer 'why is this a problem?' to most of them. But I'll do the work for Eren since he's so bad at argumentation.

I'm going to assume here that Eren is trying in a very roundabout and sloppy way to accuse Raymond of saying 'the N word' without actually saying it. One of the fans of his project had been the one to suggest 'Critter' as a slur for the faunus, and due to the similarities between the two words, Raymond thought it would be a clear parallel as being the harshest, dirtiest, derogatory term in his version.

Jockey makes sense as a mocking, derogatory euphemism for someone who is for faunus rights and is faunus friendly as someone who might not themselves be. We know what a jockey is so the imagery that invokes speaks for itself. That's how language works and we have non-offensive examples of it in real life of 'white whale' and 'foxy' and 'bought the farm'.

As for the claim that Raymond said there's no racism in America, that's quite the accusation. You better damn well have a link to a sound clip that isn't out of context or else it's best to just forget about the idea of that. Saying that as a throwaway statement to just hang there without any evidence to back it up leads to speculation and witchhunting. I strongly oppose anyone, even you, being accused of anything of the sort without strong evidence to justify it. Innocent until proven guilty.

Moving on to Cardin and Velvet. Again, I don't see what the issue is. As someone who partook in some Dramonie back in the HP days, I enjoy a good story about a racist getting humbled and humiliated by the fact that he falls in love with someone he considers beneath him. Though that isn't the case with Cardin and Velvet.

Cardin's whole arc is that he was a racist and held certain viewpoints and beliefs. Being forced to work with Velvet and spend time with her on a school project, and the lack of evidence to support his biases led Cardin to begrudgingly break out of his racist mindset and come to respect Velvet as a person, and eventually a friend. By the events of the Fall of Beacon, Cardin is no longer racist for the most part and views Velvet as an ally and companion.

Starting from that point, it's no wonder we can see these two growing close and eventually getting into a relationship. It's all in how the ship is handled, not the ship itself. However, it's not confirmed they'll even get together in the first place. Raymond has only talked about his approval of the idea.

If I can go of on a slight tangent for a moment... like, holy shit, Eren really has it out for the concept of smaller bit characters getting any kind of development. As though the very idea of characters being more than cardboard cutouts is a grievous sin. He claims that small bit characters getting any time to flourish at all takes time away from the main cast.

That isn't the problem, nor is that the ultimate problem with canon RWBY. (Like it's so very transparent what these people are trying to do is to criticize Critic Rewrites by saying the exact same things the critics say about RWBY. But the thing is that criticisms of both aren't 1-1 and so instead of engaging with the rewrites in good faith, they just regurgitate argumentative points of critics without understanding why we make these criticisms in the first place as a sort of 'gotcha' to try and shame critics into silence. A sort of 'how do YOU like it' thing. Nevermind the fact that most creators don't read the majority of the criticisms they get online and will never see it and the complaints are mostly for other fans to consume and agree or disagree with. Nevermind that critics are just fans with as much power and influence over the show as everyone else - which is none.

They don't want to see critics as fans because that means they can't build a boogeyman for themselves. It's a bullying tactic, straight up.)

The problem with RWBY's character bloat was that the main girls weren't being handled properly in the first place. People thought that if there were less characters to juggle, then there would be more time to focus on the characters that mattered. But I don't think that would solve the problem, ultimately. We've seen when they cut the cast and they still struggle with properly implementing character stuff. It gets better, for sure, but the problems persist.

Finding a balance between proper arcs for your main cast while sprinkling in quality of life things for your other characters is the goal. Not focusing on your characters doing basically nothing other than having technical screen time and bloating the rest of the time with splotches of cardboard zooming past.

A lot of people are interested in the side characters, Eren. It shouldn't be an issue for them to get a little attention on the side as a treat to the main plot and that should be the goal for RWBY.

The final point to touch on is the injuries the characters sustain. All I can say is... why is this a 'problem'? Yang lost her arm in canon. The presumption was the Fall of Beacon was a situation that was more than the students in training could handle, and many people (presumably) got injured or killed. But all of that is off screen and swept under the rug and forgotten about. It's hard to take seriously as something that is supposed to be the greatest challenge the students ever faced, even more than they can handle when we see no one struggling, no one getting their aura broken and having to fight differently, getting hurt or anything. All of that storytelling happens off screen and that is bad writing. Telling us people got hurt instead of showing us is bad writing. So again, I ask, if it's okay for characters like Yang to get injured, why is it a problem for Velvet, Neptune and Cardin who had been more prominent characters in Fixing?

Eren didn't understand the concept of volunteer work and how that differentiated between being exploited. Many of the artists came out in defense of Raymond on this, so thankfully, I don't think this argument is used anymore. From the look of it, this argument was the only time people who make these arguments tried to be nice to the artists. Now they're just fellow 'haters' who Raymond collected like Pokemon cards to work on his project. And I'd show a screenshot of calling the artists haters, but honestly I'm running low on my picture limit. You'd think there wouldn't be so many 'haters' but when anyone who voices any dissent toward the show can be considered a 'hater', they exist in abundance. The victim mentality knows no limits.

There were other criticisms about art, legitimate ones, and they were sorted out.

"The entire Brunswick Arc ... is now devoted to Roman."

Did Raymond say that? Or are you just pulling shit out of your ass? I've noticed a lot of people make baseless assumptions like this. Like how someone thinks Emerald is going to be killed by Ironwood when FRWBY V8 rolls around. Which is absolutely stupid. You guys comprehend that the point of the project is to stick as close to canon as he can, correct? That is a thing that can be understood by your goopy goblin brains? My goopy goblin brain can get that, so if not, what's your excuse?

Like yes, things are going to be different from canon. But they're not going into wild AU territory.

Changing Ozpin's host to Roman doesn't affect the trajectory of the story because Oscar was a thing in canon. Emerald isn't going to be killed in FRWBY because Emerald is going to be a thing moving forward that he needs to account for. Understood? Okay good.

As for the Brunswick arc, yes, a lot of it probably will focus on Roman. But that doesn't mean he's going to lean RNJRWBY against a wall to collect dust. This is a leap of logic that I can't comprehend, it's as if Eren thinks that scenes and scenarios that last an entire episode can only exist for one character. Maybe that's because that's what canon does.

I already actually ranted about Eren's apparent dislike of the side characters. So I presume that one of his so-called complaints that he says he does have about RWBY, but from my recollection he's never talked about because that is VERBOTEN, is the fact that RWBY has character bloat.

I think this is all that I really wanted to address, so I'll close this out on the, frankly nothingburger criticism that is 'How dare you title your project a thing I don't approve of'.

Some people like to argue that Raymond wouldn't get hate if he just titled it differently. But I hope that I showed you that with how they attack any and all rewrites, including SYTOkun's RWBY Remnants and other, usually unnamed, "Jaune Main" rewrites, that argument holds no water. These people dislike the concept of rewrites entirely and think it's okay to harass and criticize the work not based on how it functions, but for the fact that it exists at all. Ultimately the message is that this fan content is not Approved to be within their holy space.

They call Raymond arrogant for thinking he' better than other fallible human beings simply because they happen to hold jobs working at a company and Raymond does not. As though that is supposed to magically make them better as writers. Fact of the matter is, there are plenty of writers out there who are likely better than MKEK, and their personal credentials of whether or not they worked for Big Company XYZ doesn't matter. At the end of the day, this is opinion. Opinion that you're free to disagree with and it doesn't make anyone arrogant to think their skills are better. He put his money where his mouth is. But also no one is holding a gun to your head to consume fan content that you aren't interested in. If you feel that you have to because it appears on your dash and that just makes you the big mads, then maybe turn off your screen for a while. Read a book. Go for a swim (or don't if you're in the Northern Hemisphere right now it's December. Go skiing). Do something.

Its not arrogant of Raymond to call his work Fixing RWBY. Its merely a statement of intent with the work. If you have a problem with that then you are saying that is a problem with you. No work is perfect, no work is untouchable. There is always going to be something wrong with it and someone will always be unsatisfied and wish something would be different. That is the value we have as individual people.

Ultimately I am not saying they cannot dislike FRWBY. The work can be criticized. But it does need to actually be engaged with properly in order to be criticized. Critics engage with RWBY, but we aren't afforded the same courtesy.

It says a lot about a person who tries to control another fan into how to think, act, speak or consume content within a fandom space. If you want positive content in the fandom, then don't go after other fans with vitriol, and if you have issue with something they create, then look at it from a constructive standpoint and critique it with the desire for it to get changed. If an artist does not accept every single criticism, that is something you have to get over. They have the ultimate decision in the end.

I'm an old. I'm tired. I've said my piece. Thank you for reading my novella-length complaint and goodnight.

[kaz11283]

The Shape of You

Summary: While at one of Tonys top end parties the god of mischief asks you to dance to your suprise. You didn't think he was the type to dance muchless to the song that he decided to ask you to dsnce to.

Characters: Loki, Thor, Tony, Natalie, Wanda, Clint, Steve

Pairings: you x Loki, you x Thor (platonic), you x Tony (Brother, sister)

ANNOUNCMENTS: I got this idea while listening to "Shape of You", then I really started getting into the story everytime that I listened to it (which was a lot). Ive had this on my head for a while now but i had to finish up I think I'm in love and part 2. I also got 200 followers today, next is 300, lets get this! BTW I know that this is a GIF from High Rise but it gives you a PRETTY good iead whats going on. 💚💚💚

Loki Masterlist

"Why do you insist on bringing me to the boring ass parties Nat?" You asked trying to pull the hem of the dress down that she had picked oit for you. It wad a dark blue thigh length dress with a very low v neck, the shoes where a high heel ankle strap black shoe with small bows on the side the same color as the dress.

"Stop. Stop pulling, your not gonna make it any longer by doing that." She said swatting your hands away. "I bring you to these 'boring ass parties' because you spend to much time in the library doimg research, in your room working, or sitting in the lab trying to make something better. Point is, you are always working."

"I dont hear you complaining when something of yours gets improved, or an upgrade. Nat I love you but I am a weponds expert. I work better in the quite, thats my zone. Not here."

"Is that why you enjoy spending time with Loki? Because I have to tell you y/n hes not really the quite type." She rasied an eyebrow to look st you.

"Hes not the quite type around all of you because you all make snide remarks. Hes usually quite around me because I dont pick on him or call him names." You turned and looked straight at her.

"All of the other reindeer, use to laugh and call him names." Tony sang walking up to the two of you with a drink. "Couldnt be talking about reindeer game could you?"

"Thank you Tony, and we were just finishing talking and Loki." You answered walking off to sit at the bar where Steve and Thor was sitting.

"Your brother throws one heck of a party." Steve saod tilting his beer to his mouth. "Defiantly better than some of the parties I've been to."

"It is a good party but nothing like the ones on Asguard." Thor boomed with laughter. "You must come some time, we would have a grand celebration in your honor."

"Hes always been a little over the top, if you cant tell. Always had an eye for big, expensive things. Flamboyant parties, playboy style women, expensive cars. Whatever he wants he gets, now dont get me wrong he does work his ass off, but sometimes it would be nice to just have a weekend were the walls didnt shake while I am trying to work on something."

"Ah but little sister, all work and no play makes y/n a dull boy." Tony answered lightly slapping your back.

"Jesus Christ Tone, stop quoting movies, it gets rather annoying."

"Another round, bartender, for little sister." Tony said ruffling your hair.

"You realize I cant stand you right?" You shot him a sideways look.

"Thats why I dont let you work on my toys." He answered giving you a kiss on the top of the head before walking off.

"Thor?" You turned to the god of thunder.

"Yes Lady y/n?" He turned to were he was facing you, his legs on either side of your thighs.

"Do you know of your brother is going to show up?" He laughed turning back to the bar. "Dont get me wrong I absolutly love your company but...."

"You would rather have the company of a more slender, raven haired man tonight." He raised a brow while taking a drink of his beer.

"Well, yes. He is quite interesting to say the least." You laugh.

"Well lady y/n, he said he would be down shortly. He did say he was going to make an apperance though."

"Thank you." You stood, leaning down to kiss his cheek before walking off to find someone else interesting to talk to.

"Hey y/n! Over here!" Clint shouted waving you over to were he, Nat, and Wanda were sitting.

You sat talking to them for a little bit about what new stuff you had added to their weapons and gear, Clint was excited about trying out some of the new arrows that you had developed. You kept gnacing around the room hoping to catch a glips of Loki when he decided to come down.

While you and Wanda was in the middle of a conversation you felt a tap on your shoulder. Turning slightly you seen Loki stamding there was a know it all smirk on his face, he was wearing a completly black suit with his hair slicked back, you coud have swore that your heart stopped.

"Hello Darling, I heard you had been asking about me?" He offered you his hand to help you stand.

You laughed tucking your chin down slightly, you could feel your cheeks heat up. "I am going to kill your brother." He lead you back to the bar and getting you a drink handing it to you.

"You look quite ravishing tonight." He leaned in whispering in your ear. "Dont start being bashful tonight, after what happened last night." He had caught you off guard causing you to spit your drink back in your glass.

"Loki," you hissed smacking him on his shoulder. "We dont need Tony going all Iron Man on you tonight."

"Dance with me." He took your glass sitting it back on the bar and grabbed your hand.

"Oh no no no no. I dont dance." You tried stopping but he pulled you to the edge of the damce floor.

"Then dont dance, let the music guide you, or just follow my lead." He grabbed your waist pulling you closer to him, the song was an up beat song and he started moving. "Midguardian dances are so simple, it would be a type of tango I am assuming." He took you hand and wrapped it around the back of his head before placing his hand on your lower back pulling you even closer.

"This is crazy." You laughed after a few practice steps. It was simple yet intimate at the same time, you had a feeling you knew where this was heading.

"But simple, you are better than what you give your self credit for." He spund you around a few times as the tempo changed, when he spun you back to him his chest ws aginst your back as his hamd splayed across your abdomen.

He traced his nose up the side of your neck as you both moved causing you to give a small moan. "My bed sheets still smell like you." He whispered.

"Loki, can I let you in on a secret." You turned back in his arms to face him.

"Of course my dear." His fingers stroked your back.

"I think I'm in love with you." You wrapped your hand around his head so that you could pull his ear down to your level. You heard him take a breath and the dancing faltered slightly but he kept moving.

"It feels as though I might be returning those feelings y/n." You smiled up at him he turned you in a few more circles causing you to be facing away from him again. His hips following yours in a delicious manner causing your thoughts to go back to the night before. His trailing kisses down your neck to your collar bones, fingers caressing up your sides pulling your shirt over your head. You returning the favor and being speechless at finally seeing him with out his shirt on. He had a more slender figure but his muscles were still there. Remembering the feeling of his chest clenching as you ran your fingers up and around his neck to pull him closer for the earth shattering kiss that had lead to so much more.

"You reliving some of last nights activities, y/n?" He asked quietly.

"Yes but sadly I am having trouble remembering some parts. You might have to remind me." The song ended as you pulled him off the dance floor and through the doors leading to the hallway.

~~~~~

Tag List:

@kgirardin

@sophlubbwriting

@supbeeches

@high-functioning-lokipath

@rosaline-black

@serpentargo

@drbaureid

ANNOUNCEMENT 2: Wow wow wow, ok so some slightly adult situations but oh dear lord, my face is a little red just from writting that. I've read worst but never wrote. What I would give to be twirled around the dance floor like that by him. Thank you guys for reading! I really hope you enjoy this one. Like I saod I have been thinking about this for about a week now and here it is. I habe to say this is like top 3 of my faves (my first was and still is my fave "Bath Time For a Prince") Thank you again for all the love and the support!!!!

[trickstermiraculous]

Responsibility Weighs Heavy On Her Shoulders

Summary:  One Two Three Four….Calm yourself Marinette you don’t want to attract an Akuma. 

No...she never want that to happen.

A child should never have this much responsibility with no one to turn too.

Author’s Note:  Inspiration  BTW read the tags, I'm not kind to Adrien here.

At this point in her life, Marinette decided that she was Atlas but instead of carrying the sky, she carried the survival of Paris and pretty much the entire world at this point. Sure, she had Chat Noir and his support but he’s constant jokes while on the battlefield and the fact he took so many hit for her did not help lower her stress levels. It like he still saw this as a game and not an actual job where he could die and stay dead.

The fact she was now the guardian and had the powers of so many gods at her fingertips made it even worse. She had basically no training expect for the small cryptic lessons Master Fu gave her whenever he felt like, most of which were during attacks.

The order of the miraculous had made no effort to reach out to her even though Tikki assured her that even if they were still adjusting to the new time period they found themselves in, they had the means to see what was going on in Paris as their first priority was always the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous. So that most likely meant they felt that there was no need to help her even when it should be clear to anyone that she was collapsing under the weight.

But no, no one noticed, not her teachers, not her friends, not Chat Noir, not even her parents noticed her suffering. The only one, the only to NOTICE was Luka and he had only known her for a few months and even then it was very often that they hung out but he, HE had notice something that no else had.

Sure it was at her breaking point but he was the first one to actually press on when questioning if she was ok, not just taking the simple answer ‘I’m fine’ like everyone else. The people who SHOULD know when she was lying about her feelings.

She was thankful for him noticing, he has kept her from crashing down fully as Lila gets worse and her friends drift towards the liar and Adrien dates one of her good friends.

Chat has gotten better as his flirting has stopped since he has gotten a girlfriend recently as she had found out after one quiet patrol but his jokes and his easy-going attitude has not stopped.

For once she wishes that he take it seriously but no matter how hard she tried to explain this to him, he always replied that she would never lose and would bring him back not even considering the fact that it was possible that might loose, might NEVER be able to bring him back.

One Two Three Four….Calm yourself Marinette you don’t want to attract an Akuma.

No...she never want that to happen.

She remembered pieces of the Chat Blanc Akuma in her nightmares. Saw the enormous amounts of destruction he caused and prayed that she never got akumatise because if that’s what the hero who wields destruction could do, what could the hero who wields creation be able to do. What kind of destruction, pain, suffering and hopelessness would she causes from the fall of Ladybug.

And with that thought, the name Atlas came back to her. The man who had to hold up the sky with no choice in the matter because if he let go, the world would end which if she’s honest was comparative to her situation because if she ever fell...LOST to hawkmoth who knows what destruction there would be. The warnings of the Black Plague and Atlantis came back to her at that moment.

NO...she couldn't allow that to happen...she just COULDN'T...not with all she had already sacrificed in the name of Ladybug.

Author’s Note: I might and this is a big might add more to this rambling at a later date because it feels incomplete but I also didn't know what else I could write for it so yeah this might get another chapter.

As for the Adrien salt, I know he was raised in isolation, has no knowledge of social queues and has an emotional and borderline physical abuser as a father. But that should excuse him from criticism of how he doesn't take his role as a superhero as seriously as he should what with the constant jokes and taking hit for an already stressed out partner or his flirting when she already said no (which luckily looks like they will be getting rid of or at least toning down in the new season).

I know Marinette has her flaws but this is focusing on her stress as a superhero and how bad things are going on in her civilian life which also stress her out. NOT HER BORDERLINE STALKER CRUSH.

I have already written stories where I don't really bash Adrien or don't at all so please go check them out if this is not your cup of tea.

A little bit of info on the Chat Blanc memories, I like to think due to the miraculous combine with the kwami that they and the holder has a telepathic link and since Marinette was in the ladybug costume when it happens she would remember since I doubt that the rabbit miraculous could wipe the memory of what appears to be the leaders of the kwamis. 

So sometimes Tikki's memories can leak into Marinette dreams and nightmare so it would make sense that Chat Blanc would be in her nightmares considering how scary it must be to see someone she and Tikki deeply care about be twisted in such away.

AO3  Wattpad

[freevoidman]

Okay I’m reading through Porg’s update so some of y’all can save your braincells and here are some great highlights (under a readmore bc i couldn’t help but tear into a few things she suggested):

Flat out ignoring that Vergil had changed by the end of the game as a result of V and Urizen’s separate experiences.

In trying to make V and Urizen their own character, she throws out the idea of Vergil being manipulated by the Qliphoth/Urizen (??? somehow??? even though the tree is implied to be non-sentient i believe???), with V being a Devil hunter looking through the remains of Mallet Island (which was completely blown up, turned to rubble, and then swallowed by the sea, so... that can’t happen), finding the cane which makes him youthful and not sick but... having the cane makes it so he can only kill demons through the cane??? for some reason??? And he needs the Qliphoth fruit to heal himself and free him from the curse???

How did she make V’s backstory even more confusing and complicated how the fuck did she do that

Almost immediately after bringing up the cane, she instead changes it to be one of the rings he’s wearing because she wants her “precious V” to use weapons other than the cane, which makes all the prior paragraphs about the cane’s curse and only using it pointless. She’s the one writing this fic, why can’t she edit her own work so it’s more cohesive?

Despite saying that V should be a Devil Hunter, she doesn’t explain why someone who is supposed to be killing demons would form a pact with at least three to fight demons. Her rewrite dismisses Visions of V, and she even states later that the manga is a waste of time as it won’t ever be translated into English (which 1) is not a limiting factor to reading it as many people have translated it already and 2) doesn’t dismiss it’s value at building up V’s character, who she supposedly likes the best).

Also, for someone who complains about DMC5 being a rehash of DMC3, she’s sure doing her best to change it to a rehash of DMC1 (Vergil being controlled by an outside force, bringing back Mallet Island, bringing back Mundus [the cane is supposed to be tied to Mundus]).

V apparently can’t be human because she wants to give him a devil trigger, despite having 3 familiars and his own strength. Okay I guess?

Also it’s really fucking sick how she describes V changing, because it’s apparently V fusing with Nightmare? Devil May Cry has never been one for body horror but she straight up says she was inspired by “The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), Bloodborne, and Resident Evil 7″ for the transformation imagery and I wanted to nope the fuck out of there real quick.

Her segments of actual fiction writing and dialogue are really bad it’s almost like a parody Youtube skit.

She switches between prose and script writing randomly, it’s really odd. She does it primarily with Dante i’ve noticed? Here’s an example I wrote of what she does:

“Hey, don’t stress out about it will you?” Says John following a few steps behind VINCENT: Don’t get your panties in a twist

And that just happens... randomly? Like, there’s no indication why she’s doing that it just happens.

She straight up writes notes in her fic about the controls for character actions in-game what the hell--

She also shamelessly puts in a link to artwork that clearly isn’t her’s (and I highly doubt she got permission to post about) to try and show what V’s Devil Trigger would look like. I couldn’t find it because I don’t know how pixiv works, but that’s just a shitty move, especially with how she treats artists on tumblr when they draw art of Vergil.

EDIT: Porg has now straight up copy-pasted the art into her fic without the artist’s permission which is, we all know, fucking theft. While it is good artistry, is just a weird mashup of Vergil’s and Dante’s. It’s not all that unique and I don’t understand why she had to reference a bunch of body horror shit when all the Devil Triggers in game are essentially just a large flash of light and a seamless transition between forms??? It’s good art, I’m not trying to bash the artist, but... Porg, you could’ve been a little more original here rather than just ripping off another artist’s designs...

Everyone in her fic acts super casually to seeing Vergil alive in the Qliphoth and it’s like... honey, no.

Vergil acts WILDLY out of character holy fuck. Like, I know I should have expected that but this is NOT how Vergil would act in the slightest. She’s pretty much writing an OC.

Building off of this: EVERYONE acts OOC and... it’s not exactly cringey, but it is perfect proof that Porg doesn’t know what she’s doing and hasn’t properly analyzed the characters.

Dante acts weirdly... detached? There’s no sign of him acting like his normal goofball-y self, and he’s much more serious than normal. He actually acts more like cannon Vergil than himself, actually. (He also knows CPR apparently? Which... is a skill he would really never bother learning, so...)

Nero doesn’t act nearly as emotional, and acts calmly for some reason. You can’t feel any of his emotions behind his dialogue, only through the adverbs added to the tags)

V is too informative. He knows way too much about random shit that... no one should rightfully know. I’ll mention it more later, but... V doesn’t act like himself and I don’t really know how to explain it.

Vergil is essentially her OC. Seriously--he’s not as brooding or snarky, he’s far too open and apologetic, there’s practically no sense of rivalry between him and Dante. Weirdly, he acts more like canon V than fic!V does, despite the fact that Porg wants to establish V and Vergil and separate characters. His actions also make no sense when put alongside his canon personality. We aren’t reading anything about Vergil, we’re reading about Porg’s weirdly idealized version of him.

I’m going to make a break in the post here because I feel like this is the part that needs the most attention:

Porg goes OUT OF HER WAY to dedicate a GIANT portion of this chapter to her own OC: Nero’s mom. There are several long paragraphs of establishing the relationship between her OC and Vergil, talking about leaving Fortuna, how they were ‘happy’ and then saying that after a hurricane (inspired by hurricane hugo, you’ll see later) she got separated from Vergil, never reconnected with him, GAVE BIRTH, died from a demon attack with Nero staying near her corpse, and then Nero was found by humans and taken off the mainland to be taken to an orphanage on Fortuna. She wanted a massive amount of time to be taken out of the fun parts of playing Devil May Cry to establish a relationship that would never come back and essentially turn into a 15 minute soap opera inserted into a game about having fun killing demons.

Alright back to the noted highlights.

Porg confirms in her fic that the universe of Devil May Cry happens in the US, and that Fortuna is an island along the southeast coast and I want to fucking rip my eyeballs out at this point.

The ONLY REASON why she is doing this is because she lives in Florida. I know she does, and she just wants to imply that this is all happening near her home turf. How anyone who lives in Florida thinks an island like Fortuna can exist is beyond me though, because playing through 4, most of the buildings are inspired by Italian designs, and no one in the states would build an entire island with italian designs. I’ve been to Florida multiple times--there’s no buildings there even REMOTELY designed to match Fortuna.

EDIT: I have been informed that Porg actually lives in Pennsylvania, not Florida, which makes both more and less sense. Why Florida? Why not a hidden island up on the east coast? Why does this have to be taking place in the states at all Porg???

Yeah, let’s take Nero off the MAINLAND OF FLORIDA after a DEVASTATING HURRICANE and send him to an orphanage on an ISLAND which would’ve been hit the hardest by ANY hurricane. TOTAL SENSE. 

She tries to make her own timeline for the series using actual real world dates and events and it’s terrible (she references Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and confidently states that 3 took place in 1990, despite all evidence for the actual dates of events being fan theory established through circumstantial evidence).

There’s so much horror movie inspiration here--not cheap horror, but really twisted shit that... doesn’t fit with Devil May Cry’s tone at all? In the slightest? She references Jacob’s Ladder, plus all the other body horror media I wrote above.

Straight up just tears Vergil’s arm off which sure, I guess we gotta make THAT a parallel between Nero and Vergil. They can have a father son moment over being physically maimed.

In the scene immediately before this, Urizen picks up Vergil by the head and roots around Vergil’s memories (somehow???) to show him all the ‘bad moments’ in his life to traumatize him. She describes it as the audience getting flashes of him falling to hell, charging Mundus, being Nelo Angelo, etc. 

This causes Vergil to cry and beg for Urizen to stop. Then Urizen rips off his arm. So. Yeah. Another point for the OOC!Vergil/OC-taking-Vergil’s-place board.

Also this point ALONE made me realize that Porg does not know how much time, effort, and money needs to be put into making assets. Like, the entire fic she was stressing that everything be done in 5′s HD Graphics--including the ruins of Mallet Island, so I have to assume she’d want these little snippets in HD too, which would be a massive money hole creating these assets for one scene that lasts maybe ten seconds total.

I know I stated it in one of my earlier posts, but most of what she’s writing would fit better with a sequel for the reboot series, not DMC5. It would make her OOC writing of Vergil make sense, all the horror movie inspiration and body horror shit would fit better there, especially all the crappy dialogue too.

She somehow made Griffon even MORE annoying than in cannon.

BTW if I had to listen to poetry while fighting the final boss of a video game, I’d sooner turn my PS4 off. Not that poetry isn’t cool and all, but it cheapens the final fight and distracts you. It wouldn’t work.

EDIT: I realized this point made no sense without context, sorry. Porg made the Book of Urizen (the poetry book by William Blake referenced multiple times by V) either weirdly prophetic or made it out like Blake had inner knowledge of demon powers or... something along those lines, and V magically has the knowledge that reciting poetry from the book about Urizen will... harm him? Weaken him? Open a gate to hell (she mentions a portal appearing near him)? It’s very unclear, but she essentially rewrites Urizen as the final boss, and makes it three stages (V [Griffon recites some verses, which is what the first point was about], Vergil and Dante [this is where Vergil gets his arm ripped off btw], and then Nero) with all three of them reading poetry from the book to deal the “final blow” to Urizen. I’d much rather have Vergil be the final boss than have to go through a three-stage boss fight while every character I play as recites poetry to kill the boss.

She mentions Dante using Sin DT against Urizen but I’m pretty sure with her fuckery of the game’s events Dante can’t GET Sin DT? Because there’s no fight between Nero and Urizen where he’d intervene?

COMPLETELY IGNORES VERGIL’S DEVELOPMENT OF WANTING TO TRAVEL WITH HIS BROTHER THROUGH HELL TO ELIMINATE THE QLIPHOTH FUCK OFF.

Also she changed the lore of the Qliphoth so that it sprouts semi-naturally around every 500 or so years? So... shouldn’t leaving the Qliphoth roots be fine now? Since it’s natural?

Nico acts like growing back arms is totally normal

Wrote an INCREDIBLY shoe-horned in moment in the van with Dante filling Trish and Lady in about finding Vergil and everything that happened where, once again, Trish and Lady act almost completely nonplussed that Vergil is alive after 20+ years in hell, with about 9 of those ten years being trapped under Mundus’ control and corrupted by the Demon King

Seriously why is no one surprised in this fic that Vergil survived? Dante has a brief moment before finding him, but everyone finds out and accepts it like flipping a switch (once again--ESPECIALLY DANTE, which is NOT how the grieving process works)

Porg states that the ending is trash because the twins are fighting in hell, but completely ignores that most of Dante and Vergil’s lives have been built on conflict and they like fighting demons, especially Dante. Both of them were happy and doing what they love.

She also completely ignores through this entire thing that Dante was really fucking depressed in the novels leading up to 5 but hey I don’t even know if she can read.

I can vaguely agree that Trish and Lady were sidelined and they should’ve had a bigger role. However, I can’t fault the directors for not doing this, because they were already developing three playable characters with their own unique fighting styles. She writes all this shit about the story, writes notes about controls and mission layouts, but forgets that it takes a lot more than pressing a single button to code a game.

She just doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Seriously, none of these things are cohesive or edited properly, and despite her saying she wanted better for Vergil, or Nero, or Dante, or V, she writes all of them incredibly out of character and doing illogical actions. I just... I don’t get it.

The best part is--I can’t even tell her about these things, or give constructive criticism. She moderates the comments on her fic and isn’t afraid to delete anything she doesn’t agree with or can’t make a ‘passionate rant’ about.

[eun-cafe]

q’s thoughts on: love o2o

You know what? (Yes, I’m using capital letters for this) Let’s do a proper review of this drama, because I feel like this could actually be very interesting but first, let me confess that I am a very negative person. Bad things just stand out to me more prominently, even if the drama itself isn’t all bad itself.

Before anyone bashes me for this long negative review, I have to say that I enjoyed this drama at first. It was a cute drama, a bit on the fluffy side, but it was a bit like chewing gum, in that it lost its taste towards the end. Anyways, let’s get started :)

Okay, so I started this drama purely because the ML is Yang Yang (I’m watching The King’s Avatar atm and thought I would check out his other stuff cos he’s so prettyyy *squeal*) Ofc, it helped that this was a romcom as well - what is life without romance and comedy? But honestly, both genres weren’t portrayed as well as I had hoped, and even some of the characters were a bit annoying.

(This review may contain spoilers - read at your own risk)

First of all, romance. Please fight me if you disagree that kiss scenes are literally the reason why dramas get tagged with the romance genre. This drama had the most horrible kiss scenes ever. We have the ML kissing the stick of wood that is the FL. I read somewhere that someone compared it to kissing a piece of cardboard and seriously, I completely and utterly agree. There aren’t even that many kiss scenes in the drama itself and in every single one of them, she is LIKE A PIECE OF CARDBOARD! It was frustrating as heck and I hated all of them because it was just so... urgh. 

Okay, maybe you think kiss scenes aren’t the reason why dramas get tagged with the romance genre, and it’s more because of the interaction between the ML and FL. Legit, their relationship just feels so forced and I can’t help comparing it sometimes to the relationship between a human and their pet dog. (I’m sure even the characters themselves mention it somewhere in the drama itself)

Next, comedy. I admit I smiled and chuckled at some of the scenes, but the drama itself really dragged towards the end. Most of the comedy involves the ML teasing the FL, the FL teasing her friends (or vice versa), the ML messing with his friends or the ML’s friends messing around. Honestly, it was funny at first but it got kinda tedious after about 20 episodes. 

Just the fact that these two genres weren’t that great really isn’t helped by the lack of plot either. Most romcoms have a driving backstory so as to the reason why the ML/FL have a certain characteristic, but this drama really doesn’t really have a plot or even any sort of story like that. There is no overwhelming plot and the drama itself just plods along at its own pace. 

Now, let’s talk about the actors/actresses. I like Yang Yang in The King’s Avatar, but I don’t like him in this one. He plays the perfect Xiao Nai, who is kinda robotic, a bit rigid and honestly, a bit too perfect. Like, his only flaw is he can’t cook? That’s cliché and not even a flaw (technically) But for a romcom, I can let that slide. However, the fact that his only expression is a blank face (or the occasional smirk) was kinda irritating. It would have been nice to see some other expressions. Honestly, he even speaks pretty monotonously as well, it’s pretty much the same tone, the same tempo, and even the same frequency sometimes. Whenever I watched an episode, I can’t help but feel that he forces his voice to be a bit lower as well.

The female lead was played by Zheng Shuang, who is pretty but looks unhealthily skinny. I don’t want to hate on her figure because it’s up to her how she wants it to look like, but I don’t think she should have been the FL for this drama. Heck, one of her friends compared her figure to her supposed rival-in-love’s figure, and all I could think of was the fact that rival-in-love had a healthier-looking figure. The entire drama really has double standards. It tells that looks aren’t everything and that inner beauty is more important, but at the end of the day, all the characters just focus on looks. For example, the FL is meant to be this really brilliant computer science student; she even gets a scholarship at Tsinghua university (which is really hard to even get into btw) yet when she interns at the ML’s company (which consists of all males because one of the guys has gynophobia), she does some computer-related stuff for a bit and then resorts to bringing food, drinks, blankets and even mattresses for the guys when they have to work overtime constantly. Honestly, I get that she hasn’t graduated yet, but she could have been a bit more helpful, right?

Secondary leads just annoyed the heck out of me. I can’t be bothered to even complain about them. Let’s move on.

I’m not sure if you could call this a redeeming feature but there wasn’t really a villain in this drama, just a bunch of people there to annoy the ML/FL and the people around them. I guess it made the entire drama relatively lighthearted without much angst, but at the same time, once the ‘villains’ had annoyed the leads and friends, the scenes got a bit repetitive and it meant that the entire drama didn’t really have much of a point. 

The soundtrack was just passable. I liked the tracks but I felt like there weren’t enough tracks to keep the scenes different. The music was also very repetitive, with several of the tracks used multiple times in the same episode.  Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/album/5GNOi7LU0lzQmMjAgwGFP2?si=oBoZ8TRmS-25vd24jTb7tg

Overall, the entire drama feels dragged out, as though it was made purely for the viewer ratings. I definitely won’t watch this again, but I think I might give the movie version a try instead or maybe read the novel it’s based on. I feel as though this drama really doesn’t do the story justice. 

[squirrelwrangler]

rose-of-the-bright-sea replied to your post: I forget how inane and common it is, but I tried...

*is guilty of complaining about DC’s color use* Sorry. Especially since it’s flooding the movie’s tags. You should get to enjoy that without the snide comments.

It’s just- SOOO F*CKING COMMON. Articles and podcasts about Star Trek, or other non-related fandoms or movies, let alone other DC properties have to bring that complaint or ones similar. I forget how common it is, that it’s the thing to do, and then I actually read anything entertainment-related online. And it’s exactly like the prequel bashing from the 2000s. I can’t follow anything Superman because god forbid there’s this version that isn’t some mythic nostalgia version from the late 70s movies or 90s comic that they say they want (and then contract themselves on what makes a good Superman). I would listen to a podcast reviewing the John Byrne era Superman comics, and be baffled that the hosts were praising what the storytellers were doing - for almost the same damn things MoS was bashed for. They’ve forever tainted the John Williams Superman theme for me, btw. I hate it.

But dare MoS exists, this one that was filmed specifically with the styling of a documentary, to lack artificially adjusting the skin-tones, often the scenes are shot so that there is focus on one intense color (usually a red cape or the orange sunset of a dying Krypton, any time with the green kryptonite). Which is just not allowed to be the visual style for an action comedy - and the reviews for Teen Titans Go and Lego Batman made it clear that only satires are acceptable DC films anyway. Where were the people bitching about the color in the Deadpool movies? (Which, I laughed at them, but there’s a teenage frat boy’s humor, a snarkiness, that I completely understand why people wouldn’t like them for good reason. The spoofing of the genre that I also liked in the first GotG - but also the first GotG had moments of earnest heart whereas watching GotG2 was the most unfunny and non-enjoyable movie theater experience that I’ve ever had, even if the film was brightly saturated. Just, wow, I can’t remember paying for a ticket for a movie that I hated watching that much. Not even Ultron was that bad).

 I remember great lines from MCU films, but the only movie of the twenty that I will regularly think back and go “the images were beautiful and memorable to look at” is the first Thor. Okay, and the Thor movie is the only other one that I regularly remember the themes and musical motifs. I definitely have my tastes. Look, I’ve accepted that Thor is my Wonder Woman, the one that I’ll go “well the rest of the films aren’t good, but we can agree this one was good”. Well, except the general consensus nowadays is that only Ragnarok was good.

And I’m going to be petty and finally type my feelings on this: the Airport scene in Civil War (and most of that movie, c’mon people) is really ugly. Like, I can’t look at it without thinking of how godawful it looks. There’s only middle tones, and grayed, washed out ones at that, because they filmed digital and didn’t color grade, and it is a ugly gray movie, but hey, billion dollars profit and daylight scenes and constant quips and undercutting stakes with a wink and nod at the audience these are escapism films to snark with and therefore ‘more colorful’.

...sorry. it’s past midnight, I have no filter on the rant that simmers under my skin for months now (and I could point at Justice League and every single Whedon reshot scene where I could see the quality in both writing and cinematography dip - but the bloggers got the changes that they were demanding, including Elfman’s score, hooray), and I swear, if it wasn’t bashing BvS, it was complaints about how dare the Death of Superman movie rush to reestablish the Superman/Lois relationship. Like, wow, that was a mistake to go into that tag. Amazing, the Venn Diagram one could make between people who disliked Lois Lane and the DCEU films... 

Sorry, this is a rant properly aimed at the void.

[if-weshadows-haveoffended]

Strela Amura- Chekov x Reader

A/N: So sorry about how late this is, I’ve just been really busy at Uni. Anyway, She’s Kirk’s sister but also not Kirk’s sister. It’ll make sense, trust me. ut my favourite thing about the OS has always been the time-travel episodes, like???? What a gift to Humanity. So here’s me playing with that space time continuum.

Also. It’s Eurovision time!!!! Sorry not sorry for nearly winning last year btw. Anyway, you know what that means? Time to listen to my Eurovision husband’s entire discography. Like it’s such a cute Chekov-y song, bless.

Also key word: Chekov tries to save her

Title: Strela Amura (Cupid’s Arrow) Inspiration: here (x) Tags: Fluff, kinda-kirk’s-sister-but-kinda-not, pre-romanov decline russia, TIME TRAVEL MOTHERFRICKERS, ridiculous bustle skirts are my aesthetic Words: 1500+ Masterpost: here (x) Prompt List: here (x) Mixtape Archive: here (x) Original Request: (x) - Could you do a thing where reader is Kirk’s younger sister (or other relative), that isn’t part of Starfleet, and gets taken by the big bad, and Chekov saves her? Then fluff?

Стрела Амура

Most senior students at the Starfleet Academy dreaded the ‘Little Sibling’ program; in which a senior, slowly struggling and watching their very soul leave their bodies were forced to pair up with some innocent, optimistic first year who had yet to see their life force choked from them due to obscene assignment due dates.

You were rather surprised to have found yourself partnered with a one James Tiberius Kirk, as he had introduced himself, a coffee in hand and dark circles under his eyes. You were a little intimidated, admittedly, but he was as supportive as you could have hoped for and Jim was genuinely wonderful. He would always remember your exam dates and check up on your actual dates and was always there to hold your hair back and cover for you if a party got too wild. Or there to ruffle your hair in pride as you passed that one maths class you always seemed to flunk exams for. He even kept in contact as he graduated, sending you updates as he traversed the expansive galaxy, promising that if you did well, you would score a place on the prestigious Enterprise crew.

He somehow convinced your parents that a certain trip-that-shall-not-be-named was actually a Scientific Field trip. You didn’t want to know exactly how he did it, but your mother was still singing the praises of ‘Darling James’ and considering adopting him.

But things went to hell part-way through your study. You left, much to your parents’ disappointment, hoping that you’d be better than the rest of your family, hoping you could be their chance to one-up your cousins that the grandparents always seemed to favour. But it was simply… you simply couldn’t deal with the reality of the Khan incident, it had hit far too close to home and you had lost far too many friends who had graduated. Space seemed far too cold, too brutal and too cruel to your tastes and while you still adored the endless possibilities, you weren’t sure what to do if you’d lost-

No matter. Perhaps what was most important that Jim had said it was the bravest thing you’d ever done, to know what was important and what was best for you. And he still updated you, sending over photographs on your PADD, every message ended with a little smiley.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY BABY SISTER’S ON THAT TEAM!?” Chekov was genuinely confused, no scratch that, the entire Bridge seemed confused at the Captain’s outburst.

There had been a temporal anomaly, the ship caught in it comprised of a small team of archaeologists and historians off to some far-flung planet in order to do some first-hand investigations for a company that Uhura had briefly mentioned before Kirk began to shit his pants.

“Captain, you do not biologically have a younger-“

“You know Spock, the Little Sibling program back at Starfleet?” The Captain clarified with a little embarrassment colouring his tone, “I was assigned to Y/L/N, she left after a couple of years, but we’re still in contact.”

“So I assume that means we’re going in?” Sulu hazarded, making worried eye-contact with Chekov. Chekov gulped a little, before turning back to face his station, his hands already finding the familiar grip on the controls, already awaiting the inevitable words,

“Fucking punch it.”

No one had warned you that 1880s St Petersburg was freezing in winter. Or perhaps, no one had warned you that it was perhaps to the best to piss off a Prince who (you assumed) thought you were flaming hot (from what your French could discern) only to find yourself in a dungeon in the bowels of the city, heavy with the scent of pungent sewers and stale sweat. On the upside, the gown was very pretty.

But that wasn’t much help at the moment. With your tired arms bound behind you with chafing rope, it was impossible to reach anything. You knew you still had a comm somewhere in the voluminous folds of midnight satin and a tri-corder smuggled in near your stockings. But with absolutely no waves, not even radio, there was no way the comms were going to work.

Oh and your legs were definitely out of the question, they’d bound those too after you tried escaping for a fourth time.

You could always flirt your way out of the situation? That was what Jim would do. Actually that was a lie, he would start a female insurrection on ideology against the Prince and manage to have half the women in the Aristocracy storming on the Duma and the Tsar demanding equality. Fascinating notion though. And definitely entertaining.

“Who the hell are you?” You suddenly found yourself being forced to move over as a young man was thrown into the freezing dungeon along with you. He certainly seemed from the far-flung past, with a perfectly knotted cravat and hair rakishly curly. He only seemed about your age, perhaps a year or two older, but about your age.

That was an idea. Flirt with the cute guy who just got chucked into your cell and hope he can get you out, because if you get invited to a Romanov Prince’s party, he’s definitely rich.

Only problem was the only Russian you knew was most likely just going to offend the poor guy.

“You speak English?” He tilted his head in confusion as he attempted to sit up, his hands bound behind him too. “You’re Keptin Kirk’s leetle sister?”

“You’re with Jim!?” You felt your heart fall out of your arse in complete and utter relief. He’d be able to find you, and the rest of the team. Hopefully.

“I’m Ensign Pavel Andreivich Chekov.” He introduced quickly, “Yes, well… there were some complications.” He admitted, a bashful grin gracing his face and his dimples casting charming shadows against the guttering candlelight of the cell. “I theenk we haff most of your team. Sulu and I were in the area after we got these…” He tried gesturing as best as he could to his stylish suit.

“How did you end up in here then?” Your flustered mind only now making the link between the cute boy (okay, he was cute, you were allowed to think that. He may be the last by you ever see. Maybe you’d have to spend the rest of eternity… together… in this piss-poor excuse for a cell) and his accent. “They’d be able to understand you…”

“Oh, well…” He made a bit of an ‘eek’ expression on his face, and you already dreaded what he was going to say next.

“Don’t tell me you challenged the Prince,” You said, flatly.

“Look, I may haff graduated Starfleet at sewenteen, but they don’t teach us fencing-“

“Isn’t there someone on your crew who does? Specialise in fencing, I mean?” You jolted at the memory of one of Jim’s early messages.

“We don’t talk about Sulu.” He muttered darkly, though his expression quickly passed into what could only be described as ‘overly-excited puppy’. “Put your heels on my shoulders,”

“Hm?”

“Zat way I can try to untie your ankles, zat leetle bit of rope is loose…” He continued on.

“Hm?” You repeated, your mind most definitely not turning to a certain golden retriever tying you to one of the grand beds three floors above…

“Here… shuffle over, no… no please put your heels on my shoulder.” You did as he instructed, nearly taking out his eye with your heeled boot. “Okay,”

“You sure this is a good idea?” You raised a brow as he placed the narrow strip of rope between his teeth, and began to tug a little. Slowly, but with relative ease, he managed to undo the loose knot and un-lopp the rope from your boots. “Wait, check up my skirt, my comm,” You added quickly.

“Yes, that might be a bit difficult,” He titled his curly head in the direction of his bound hands. Time was of the essence and the party raging upstairs sounded far too lethargic now, even through the dulling stone floors.

“It’s only above my knee. One of them, not sure,” You added with haste. “If you can activate the switch, you might be able to get a signal out before the Prince comes back in here to interrogate the pair of us,”

Biting hard on your lip, and hoping that the nearly-extinguished candle would hide your blushes, you watched as Chekov shuffled as best as he could, nestling between your ankles and your skirt that had ridden up a fair bit. Your heard drummed tight against your corseted bodice now, hearing distant footsteps. You guessed that Chekov decided it was all or nothing and attempted to reach the miniscule button of your comm with his nose.

For second there, you thought that it was all over, the door swinging open. There would be no hope of escape and that you would die with a (hot) stranger, centuries before you were ever born.

Your parents? What would they think? Would they care? Would they keep on reprimanding you? Saying that it would have been better if you’d stayed in Starfleet, for at least they’d have a body to bury.

What about what remained of your friends?

What about Jim?

“Chekov, what the hell do you think you’re doing to my sister!?” Chekov’s head immediately bobbed up from your upper thigh, immediately missing the warmth, his face surely as red as your own and his curls an endearing mess.

So that’s what Jim thought.

[doodlelolly0910]

Ok, so I call it a "bash fest" because that's exactly what it became. Not once have you said anything discouraging to anyone who wants to jump on your thread and do the actual outright Jen bashing, and while your words say you want to be neutral, your tone suggests you're inclined to agree with them ('what has she done now'; as you pointed out yourself the whole second comment; basically something negative about her in every response).

And the anti Jen tags are kind of a dead giveaway that some negative things are being said about Jen. Even if you follow them up with "just in case" and "not really". If it wasn't really what you meant, there wouldn't be a need for the tag in the first place.

I feel like this nonny saw the same thing in this thread that I do, obvious acceptance of anti Jen sentiments and call outs for everyone else who wasn't of the same mind. No one said you have to like Jen, and all the Jen fans that I've seen come to her defense have been respectful and there was nothing about this ask that is coming across as disrespectful. They asked a question based on something they weren't comfortable with to make a decision on whether or not this was a good environment for them and your response was to tell them off.

There are a variety of reasons someone may approach on anon. People may not want to associate their main blogs with their side blogs. They may have mental health issues like anxiety that hold them back for fear of retribution (this is something that I've done myself before). Maybe they really are a coward. Who knows. But one should never assume.

You've made several mentions of your distaste for Jen and how you're "teetering on the edge" of bashing her. You just said it above. So it is very telling of your potential feelings on the subject and therefore the anon ask I feel was absolutely a valid "leap" as you called it.

I honestly don't for a second believe that if you saw that Colin said something like this in your ask box (which, btw, the initial ask was one of the anons you claim to have no respect for), you wouldn't have a different reaction. If someone came in your thread and was talking about how "typical" it was of Colin to say things like that or how Colin was saying things against his other cast mates, you would 100% call them on it if it was untrue. Which, per someone who was AT THE EVENT, the allegations against Jen have been proven to be.

The point here is when you're showing bias for one end of the spectrum versus the other, people are bound to be upset. It's important to be balanced.

@doodlelolly replied to your post: Is this an anti Jen blog?

Okay I legit was not going to say anything on this little bash fest until this popped up. Are you saying that people who appreciate Killian!whump can’t also be Jen fans? Because that is a little ridiculous. And yeah. You run a large forum on a niche genre. People give a shit about what you say, good AND bad. The way you’re responding is very (unnecessarily) aggressive and you are not the only one allowed to have an opinion. You posted something on a public forum ½

And people are bound to disagree with it. I am in the same boat as this nonny. I really do like your stuff and I think you’re very talented. But this is not the way to handle something like this. Some of us really appreciate Jen in and out if this fandom and I guarantee if this was being said about Colin or Lana that it would be going a whole lot differently right now. 2/2

*sigh* First… “little bash fest” - Here’s what I’ve said about Jen today:

“Oh nooooooo… What’d she do now?”

“That’s not only ammo to bash and dismiss S7, that’s rude to ALL of her co-stars from ALL of the seasons, rude to the writers and directors and producers, and especially rude to everyone involved in S7. I’ll reserve full judgement until I see video of her saying it for myself, because tone and actual wording means a lot, but this might be the final weight on the scale of ambivalence for me when it comes to Jen.”

“Yeah, I’ll definitely need to see a video of this to make up my own mind. It seems like, as usual, some things were said that can be taken different ways… I’ll reserve official judgement until I see it :)“

“…had they not completely rebooted the show, cut costs and cast, there would’ve been no S7 in the first place. And then Jen fans would have to accept reality - that the show was failing already with Jen in it.”

“The show didn’t fail because Jen left. She jumped ship because it was already failing and she wasn’t willing to take a back seat in the reboot that ABC demanded.”

“I said I was reserving judgement until I see what was actually said for myself… but I’m already disappointed to see that Jen’s rabid fanbase is already using her words as ammunition to attack others with.”

“That IS a good takeaway :) We should ALL try to be nice to each other :)“

So… I admit, the second one’s a harsh criticism, but followed immediately by me saying I’m going to withhold my final judgement until I see a video. The rest is just me upholding that last statement and making completely benign (and factual) observations about S7 and the show’s ultimate cancellation.

Edit: Also, I want to note that EVERY one of those statements is in RESPONSE to things said TO me about Jen. None of them were said without provocation or an intial comment from someone else that directly invited my input.

My takeaway from THIS is that, as usual, I’m being painted as someone “bashing” Jen simply because I’m not actively supporting her. And that’s bullshit. There are a lot of people out there who literally don’t like Jen… and then there’s me, who doesn’t really care one way or another (but admittedly might be swayed by this, depending on my take whenever I see the video).

Secondly… I never said people who like Killian whump can’t also be fans of Jen. The ask in question was making the same leap in logic that you’re making here, where ONE critical statement and a mess of neutral statements means I’m suddenly an “anti-Jen blog” and that this is all I’ll be posting from now on. I’m sorry, but that’s not the kind of leap anyone who’s primarily following me for whump would make, Jen fan or not. In fact, ANYONE who is following me should know that my blog is about 99.99999999% Killian/Colin/Whump and a mere fraction of a percent about shit that isn’t one of those things, let alone about Jen (positive OR negative). So no, I’m not buying that this Ask came from a whump-loving follower who happens to be a Jen fan. In fact, I doubt it came from a follower of mine at all. And no, you’re NOT in the same boat as the Nonny, because you actually addressed me TO MY FACE.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as being “unnecessarily aggressive” to anonymous crap in one’s Ask box. I have ZERO respect for people who approach others anonymously, and ZERO patience for people who dump shit in my Ask box. Someone coming into my inbox on anonymous to berate me, criticize me or play silly games where they pretend to speak for people who follow me for whump isn’t showing me one iota of respect. They get NONE in return. Sorry, them’s the breaks.

Now. Final point. If “this” (everything I said above about Jen) was said about Colin… I wouldn’t give a flying fart about ANY of it. Honestly, if Colin ever said he “carried” the show - or ANYTHING he worked on - I would think that was a shitty thing to say, and I’d say so, myself. It wouldn’t be bashing him. It would be valid and warranted criticism. If I saw someone say the same about him saying such a thing? I’d agree with them. If I saw someone withholding final judgement until they saw video of it for themselves? I’d applaud them for that. If I saw someone making factual statements about him being a part of the show when it began failing? Fair enough. He was. If I saw comments theorizing WHY he left a show that I don’t agree with, but have no evidence to refute? I’d scroll past it, because what am I gonna say? “That’s one of the reasons suggested by the evidence, but I don’t personally like it, so stop saying it”? That’s not really an argument worth having, is it?

So, as usual… I dunno. Show me where I’m unfairly “bashing” Jen and I’ll give you a cookie. Or whatever you want. I won’t hold my breath, though, because as usual - whenever people who think I “hate” Jen and “bash” her are actually tasked with PROVING it, they never can. Because it’s not true.

Although, admittedly, that might change soon. I’m reserving judgement, as ALL should, until I hear her actual words for myself.

[saranel]

I have been lurking here for ages and have finally mustered up my courage to ask a question. I have been looking and looking for days but have found nothing about. I was just wondering because the last time we saw, Kisuke was facedown in a pool of blood. I know Nel was there to rescue them but I was wondering how do you think she did it and in what condition the 4 of them were in and how were they treated? Okay I think I'm rambling on now but I was just curious because I have seen nothing

Also tagging @ichiyuki, who more or less asked the same question

Okay, first off, I’m always open to questions, even if it takes me a while to answer the more complex ones :) But for future reference, if you’re just naturally shy, I also accept anon messages!

All righty, let’s do this…

I love Nel’s design so much

(Operation Save Urahara and co’s Asses, under the cut!)

Right, so! 

Last we saw of Nel in 666 (see above), she was gearing up to enter Askin’s ultimate poison sphere to rescue Urahara’s group.  Small digression here to talk about who exactly is included in said group:

Four reiatsu signatures.  The natural assumption here is that the four individuals are Kisuke, Grimmjow, Yoruichi and Yūshirō.  But back when the chapter was first released, many people (myself included), wondered whether Yūshirō was actually trapped in the dome to begin with.  The theory was that Yoruichi and Askin’s skirmish moved the battlefield a fair distance away from Yūshirō. Remember that this was back when we were wondering if perhaps Soifon would show up to rescue him, or Askin would survive and be captured as a hostage (I’m still heartbroken this didn’t happen ;-;)

Given how the series ended, however, plus the fact that Askin’s kamikaze attack can only be activated upon his death, I think we can safely assume the four signatures were indeed Kisuke, Grimmjow, Yoruichi and Yūshirō. 

I think a lot of the drama surrounding the possibility of their survival was the result of an iffy translation, considering Kisuke’s own ‘last’ words and Nel’s in this panel:

The tone here could be taken to mean that Nel is fearful she might never see Ichigo again, but a better translation of the last two panels should clear things up:

Nel: How many reiatsu are inside……four……? // At least two round trips, then…… // The entrance is…… // Huh?! // It’s tiny! // ……If I’m honest… // I would have preferred to go with Ichigo, but……

In this translation, it’s made clear that Nel is talking about making two trips, plus her tone sounds more wistful than anything, her lamenting the fact that this will take a while so she won’t be able to catch up with Ichigo. 

So, Nel talks about having to make at least two round trips, obviously grabbing a pair of them each time and then diving back again.  I have a feeling that Nel was asked by Kisuke (and also made the same judgment call herself) that she should first rescue those who were worse off.  And since Yoruichi and Yūshirō should be closer together, my guess is she grabbed those two first, to put an end to further exposure to the poison.  Remember that Yoruichi had already reached her limit in 663 and Yūshirō was in bad shape himself back in 662.

Originally, I would gave dismissed the possibility that the number of trips has to do with distance, given the fact that Nel could easily go in Sonido mode and cover it in a sec. However, it is possible that just like Shinigami were unable to form stepping platforms, the heavy atmosphere also leaves them unable to Flash Step, or at least as effectively (unless I’m mistaken, Kisuke does Flash Step behind Yoruichi in 662, but in general, Flash Steps weren’t used a lot in the final battles).

I’d say Nel is strong enough to carry at least two bodies per trip, so I guess distance might indeed pose an issue, at least in Yūshirō’s case.  So if we want to add a bit more drama here, we could say that Nel ended up having to make two trips just for the Shihōin sibs, then rushed in at the very last minute to rescue Kisuke and Grimmjow.  Even moar dramaz?  She rescues Yūshirō/Yoruichi, realizes she’s cutting it close and makes her second trip for Kisuke and Grimmjow, only to have Kisuke send her away, insisting she save Yoruichi/Yūshirō first.          

Whatever the configuration, I’m pretty sure she made it.  Even if you don’t take the WDKALY novel as canon (where we get confirmation that both Kisuke and Yoruichi made it), I never really doubted they’d survive.  Nel’s presence in 666 serves no purpose otherwise, and if only some of them were meant to make it, you’d think it would be at least mentioned as a tragedy.

I mean, initial shock aside, Kisuke looks pretty damn impassive at the situation since he’s already planned for it.

That’s a bit too chill for a man who is very close to death.

So, Nel brings all four bodies to safety, then gets to work.  I assume that all are either unconscious or in a position where they can do next to nothing, which means Nel has to heal at least one of them first.  Given the fact that he can concoct an antidote and is an overall talented healer, it makes sense that she would heal Kisuke first.

Liek dis:

I can’t recall if Nel’s super healing drool is also an option when she’s in her adult form, but hello, this is Urahara we’re talking about.  He’s got it covered:

And people thought he was just messing around, tsk, tsk… 

In all seriousness though, the bracelet thingy makes perfect sense.  Nel lost her adult form when Nnoitra bashed her skull open, and she kept leaking reiatsu constantly, at a greater pace than she was creating it, leading her to regress to her child form.

That ‘bracelet’ Urahara gave her? Remember what’s located on the wrists?

Listen, I will drag Kubo for a number of things, but peoplewere unfair to accuse him of being inconsistent and invoking lolscience to fill a problem’s particular needs.  At least in Kisuke’s case, he has always, always given him both the time to work out solutions and had said solutions work within the universe’s established rules.  Yes, that includes the bankai pills, the human shell he made for Isshin and even Yoruichi’s Thunderkitty form.  It’s all there. 

So by simply removing the bracelet, Nel allows more reiatsu to leak out of the vents in her pulse points, and can return to child form to use her Super Drool to heal at least one of them back to full health (presumably Kisuke).  And I say at least one, as it’s highly possible she needs to heal herself as well after being exposed to the poison.

She heals Kisuke, who in turn gets to work on the rest of them.  I assume he tackled Yoruichi and Yūshirō, leaving Grimmjow up to Nel, since she has a much better understanding of Arrancar physiology.  Yup, that was totally the reason.  It’s not like he wanted to collect any future blackmail material, no siree.  A framed copy of this was Ichigo’s High School graduation gift, btw. 

After that, I assume Kisuke was reasonably worried over Yoruichi, who received the heaviest blast of the poison for the longest time, so naturally, one would think he’d lean over her with concern as she opened her eyes, at which point she’d sock him straight in his remaining functional eye.  To his credit, Kisuke takes it without a peep and lets her have his haori. Yūshirō is terribly confused.

So there you have it! Meta and headcanonz, hope you enjoyed the read, friend :)