#and granted i don't tend to get negative comments or critical comments

[qqlettuce]

Twitter is dumb for writing longer form opinion pieces so I'm going to put this here: On Twitter there's been a lot of heated discussion over the way the IDW artists and writers handle their depictions of the characters. And if you genuinely feel they've done a disservice to them, its fine, your feelings are valid, and the point of this isn't to tell you that you're wrong and that the people working on IDW Sonic are infalible. Where I take issue is people trying to paint them as the sole destructors of this franchise. That artists like Evan Stanley are warping characters like Silver to fit their own preferences or that Ian Flynn is hellbent on destroying a well grounded world so that his visions may overtake it. I'm not being hyperbolic but during my relatively short time in this fandom I have been seeing more and more harsher statements regarding these people under the shield of "criticism". There is nothing wrong with criticism, but how can it be good faith when you're attempting to directly attack their character. You could dismiss it as just banter, but fandom in general tends to have an issue with dehumanizing creators, either by creating a boogeyman out of them or speaking of them as a monolith, and in the Sonic fandom, there's a long history of examples as how nasty this can get with people like Ken Pontac, Warren Graff, Takashi Iizuka and yes, Ken Penders. Ken Penders especially is the grand example of what can happen when this is left unvetted for so long. Is there any reason why people continue to devote so much negative energy to a man who hasn't been relevant to the series in like 20 years? Is this someone that still needs to be a butt of a joke or have hundreds of YouTube documentaries made out of them. All because he made weird hedgehog comics? I could talk about CWC as well and how the internet will never take responsibility for their fate, but that's a whole other road. Admittedly one of my initial responses to the recent discourses directed at Evan's depiction of Silver on Twitter was more emotional, but as I hinted earlier, there has been more and more targeted comments at her, and I felt it especially reached a boiling point once she confirmed on twitter that two background characters in the Trial by Fire arc were gay. Something like this a major change to the status quo of Sonic, so it's not unreasonable to think many see her as a threat to the franchise. Why all of a sudden after her many years of working on Sonic, is there so much attention being put on her like this? So far none of this has anything to do with the contents of IDW Sonic, because I feel thats not really where I take most issue with all this controversy. But I did some more thinking and I will still engage this. As far as I know, IDW Sonic is not some unmanageable operation. SEGA/Sonic Team are heavily involved in its production, as a response to what transpired with Archie Sonic. It's stories and new characters all go through a thorough vetting process, there's a lot of back forth to ensure whatever gets printed meets their apparent standards. And yes, this gets as strict as the facial expressions.

I agree that facial expressions are an integral part of understanding the soul of a character. It is something that should not be taken for granted. I personally don't feel that the artists in question break off more than what is necessary given the context of the situations and the medium of comics itself, but again, if you feel otherwise, then I don't think the blame is just solely on the artist when the approval process is this tight. People like Evan and Ian are freelancers at a third-party company handling the IP. I don't think they have as much leverage as people seem to think they do, ESPECIALLY during the early run of the comic. Again, you can say that the artists dropped the ball here, but I think SEGA had all the power to give them the appropriate notes and those artists would have complied because well... they're professional artists. And if this is something they're truly incapable of being subordinate to, then they could've been terminated from their jobs a long time ago. Now don't misconstrue this as me trying to say "WELL IF SEGA APPROVED IT, THAT MEANS ITS GOOD ACTUALLY XDDD". No actually, if SEGA approved it, and things still aren't up to par, that means there must be a systematic failure that goes down the entire line. In fact I'm willing to bet most critics would agree with that since there seems to be a sentiment that Sonic as whole has been in limbo for a very long time, it goes way beyond IDW. Games like Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06 are apparently ones that Sonic Team will never be able to live down. Sonic Forces was also seen as a large failure, and as a result, demands for an actual proper game were pretty high when Frontiers was announce And then the day the IGN Gameplay footage dropped, I was demoralized to read many foul things being said about Sonic Team and Morio Kishimoto. It made shockwaves throughout the internet, with every content creator and influencer hopping on board. It wasn't just about graphical/gameplay concerns, it was straight up calling their competence into question, calling for the team to be terminated and replaced by people who could supposedly do a better job. I'm sorry, as much as I've grown to love this franchise, I can not value the perceived quality of a product over the hearts and efforts of artists who work under strenuous conditions to make it possible. People's tones have cooled since the game's release, but I don't think being "proven wrong" is what should've been required to respect these people. Hell, even YUJI UEKAWA, whose artwork is supposedly the gold standard for how Modern Sonic should be depicted, and whom many of his contemporaries are compared to, has recently been under scrutiny by fans, saying that he's become a worse artist over time. At the end of the day, remember we're talking about living breathing people. Don't turn them into scapegoats when everything about creating works is a collaborative process. There are no heroes or villains. Their humanity should be respected when critiquing their work, and the same when praising them. I don't think most people actually enjoy being put on such a high pedestal anyway.

[mittensmorgul]

(re: trad authors vs fanfic authors and the “nine levels of removal") Yes. This. Story time! I went to a book event for a well known, critically acclaimed, best selling author once about 20 years ago. He'd never done a proper "book tour" before and as a fan I was excited. Myself and other fans from a Yahoo Group (RIP) met up at the event and gave Mr Popular Author a fan art book we'd put together. He later wrote that he’d had to go off to a corner of the bookstore to hide and cry for a few minutes because he'd always thought he was writing into a void. Then BOOM, there we were, a big group of us, right in front of him, loving his work and giving him feedback (and gifts!) He’d never so much as read a review of any of his books before. The sudden realization that actual humans had read (and liked!) his work was apparently very emotional for him. Fanfic authors don’t have the luxury of that distance. And I don’t envy them for it. The feedback they get is immediate and devastating. Trad authors often won’t even get told how many copies their book has sold for the first six months after publication. Fanfic authors see every single view and kudos and comment in real time.

Yep. This.

I mean, it’s shifted a bit in the last 20 years. A lot of traditionally published authors have websites, or twitter, or other social media. Before I ever came to fandom, I was trying to go the traditional publishing route, too. Heck, a decade later I’m still on author twitter (most of my twitter is authors/publishers/agents/editors because those are the people I befriended when I first started seriously writing). But there is a sense of removall still there between authors and readers. And twitter followers and interactions don’t always equate to readers.

I mean, look at any author’s twitter, and a lot of it is just... like anyone else’s twitter.

Authors can also go look at their reviews on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever else online, and see their book’s daily ranking in sales if they really want to, but trust me on this, everyone involved in the publication of their books has probably told them not to do this. It’s not helpful in any way, unless they’ve shot to the top of the bestseller lists. Learning their new release ranks 32502905 in their genre... isn’t worth bothering, you know? And there’s nothing to do by obsessing over it.

When your agent is sending you all the good reviews, all the positive feedback, and encouraging you to finish the draft of your next book or your next round of edits, you don’t HAVE to think about responding to every comment anyone makes on your work. You’re encouraged NOT to respond. Because those reviews are NOT FOR YOU. They’re for other readers, to help them decide whether or not to make a financial investment in your already published book.

Fanfic comments ARE NOT THAT. Fanfic comments are written directly TO the author. Sure, other readers might see them, and I’ve had conversations start in comments on my fic before so I know it happens. But when a reader writes a comment on a fic, it’s generally to thank the author for the story, for having entertained them for a while.

Not all fanfic authors reply to comments, but I think the vast majority of us TRY to at the very least. Thanking the reader for reading, expressing the happiness we feel that our work has brought someone else a bit of joy (or angst, or whatever feeling we’ve inspired with our words). Or else answering questions the commenter has asked, or otherwise expressing gratitude.

It’s a DIRECT CONVERSATION, the likes of which most people will never have with a traditionally published author. The absolute ridiculousness that anyone expects the works we publish on AO3, for free, can be compared in any way to a traditionally published novel is beyond belief. The conceit that works we write-- again, for free, in our spare time, out of love for doing it-- should be as polished and free of any sort of errors as works that have spent more than a year and often more than two years going through multiple rounds of editing, proofreading, line editing, typesetting, etc. where MANY PEOPLE have scoured it for errors and yet still a few slip by here and there... I mean, HOW can anyone hold writers working on our own, in our spare time, for zero pay, purely for our own enjoyment to the same level of exactitude that we hold commercial novels? It’s laughable.

And honestly, it reaches a point where we’d rather just post the thing and move on to the next thing. I have gone back and done minor edits to some of my older works. If I’m rereading and notice a typo, I’ll fix it, for example. I once switched a character and wrote it as a different character because I felt bad about how the original character was portrayed. But for the vast majority of them I have zero intent of going back and making major edits on anything I’ve written, because I have moved on. I’m writing something else now, and maybe that will be more polished for having written the previous things with the wonky sentence structure or the awkward choice of words.

Mostly I write because I want to tell the stories that are stuck in my head. I need to get them out or they wedge in there like a big old log jam. Enough words build up that if I don’t start lining them up and pushing them out, the pressure builds up and bursts out in really inconvenient and messy ways. I’m personally not writing fanfic as “practice.” Or because I hope to some day be “good enough” to publish original works for money. I came to fandom to write fanfic so I wouldn’t have to deal with the rest of the publishing industry lol. I don’t need encouragement or approval or advice on how to improve. I just need an outlet. And if other people enjoy anything I write, that’s just a bonus to me.

(I had a publishing contract in my hands, stared at it for three days and then cried as I tore it up... I didn’t want to put myself through the publishing mill... I was already burnt out just getting to that point, and couldn’t imagine it becoming my life for years to come. It wasn’t worth it to me, and then I found fandom and AO3 and fanfic, and got all the benefit from writing with none of the angst of commercial publishing. This is where I WANT to be, this is not a stepping stone or training ground for someday becoming a “real author.” Sure, it is for some folks, but for a lot of us, this is just what makes us happy.)

Can you imagine going to a craft show where everyone has spent their time making beautiful handmade things and walking directly up to each artist and critiquing their work? Going up to a knitter and complaining that you saw a nicer hat in Macy’s the other day and pointing out everything about her hat that you don’t like? Or going to a jewelry designer and saying you prefer gold to silver, and demanding to know why they chose to inlay green stones when clearly they should’ve used blue ones?

Same vibe on critiquing fanfic in the comments. Or at the author in general. It’s just rude.

[okamirayne]

(1) Hello! I don't want to sound passive and aggressive and I've been thinking for a long time how to formulate this question so as not to offend you. Is there anything you don't like about the btb series? Or is there any particular criticism that affects you more? I mean, I am among people who are impressed with your writing and your work is quite popular among fans of this ship.

Hello, luv!

Wow, not at all passive aggressive and very constructively and tactfully posed. Oh my god for sure.  There’s a fair bit about the series that I don’t like and/or would want to revisit and/or re-write.  When I look at the first instalment of BtB and the final instalment of UtS (and I guess HHU too), the huge growth in my writing style makes me want to scrap the first instalment and rewrite it all over again (OtC too).  

It’s only natural. 

I can’t speak for all creatives, but I’d think that as you develop, you sometimes look back on earlier pieces and think -- oh dear lord, no, please hide it from the light of day.  

I had no idea at the time the story was going to grow so exponentially or that the reviewers would push me to up my game constantly.  Initially, I was playing it safe, writing very much with the canon-character humour and dialogue during a lot of the first instalment before I really grew into the confidence to take the characters in a different direction and darken and mature the humour to fit the way I naturally write it, whilst hopefully staying true to the characters.  But yes, there’s a lot I’d have changed. God, I’d definitely want to re-write Hinata...ugh, poor Hinata. Naruto too.

 [...] is there any particular criticism that affects you more?

Hmmn, affects me negatively or positively, luv? 

Someone pointed out the “wise man” trope to me in BtB (the first instalment), which made me concede and consider the use of the monk.  A very valid critique.  Sometimes tropes are inevitable, or indeed, deliberate, but that made me really re-consider how I’d have written or re-written that part of the first instalment.  I appreciate constructive pointers like that.  There was another comment about the overuse or belabouring of a metaphor here and there -- again, totally valid.  My writing runs the risk of “purple-proseing” sometimes, so I’ve grown to watch out for that.

Some critique is of course very subjective and about more about personal tastes and preferences -- you’re never ever going to please everyone. I had people writing to me asking why Neji wasn’t the typical “uke”...which had me doing a “face-to-the-palm-to-the-WALL” -- not because I was offended by the person asking or even by the question, but more because I hate to limit or define characters by pigeon-holing them into a set sexual preference dynamic. Don’t get me wrong, I totally appreciate that this dynamic exists and is very much concrete for some pairings -- but chances are, you won’t be finding it in my works where both males are very much in their male energy, which is why I tend to use the term “slash” rather than “yaoi”.  Yaoi comes with its own tropes and expectations and I think some readers were disappointed not to find the standard dynamic as black-and-white as they’d hoped. Sorry my lovelies! Wrong show. But thank you for taking the time to find out.  Different strokes for different folks and all that.

But yes, I see a wealth that I’d change in the earlier BtB instalments; but that comes from time, experience, confidence, feedback and practice. It would be weird as hell if I didn’t look back and cringe or critique my works -- I’m extremely harsh with myself that way. But the cringe-factor (healthy cringe-factor, not the unhealthy perfectionist self-critic -- which I also possess) shows growth and I’m very honoured and deeply humbled that I was granted a kind, warm, supportive and hugely encouraging audience to help me develop my writing, test my style and find my voice.