#digimon: fandom issues

[koushirouizumi]

@taikouvember!

Prompt: Love Commentary: This A.U. became a thing sometime around 2019+onwards in Koushiro fanbase partially due to a series of active discussions between Koushiro fans in the tags and elsewhere (including Me!), most of us who were perturbed that people making Miraculous Ladybug AUs for the fandom didn't immediately place Koushiro as Ladybug despite the fact that Tentomon, whose name literally comes from Tento{u}mushi / 天道虫 {Ladybug} and is akin in looks to one, should make that kind of placement pretty automatic.

We knew that the likely ""reasoning"" is that Koushiro is often considered "unpopular"/""boring"" to other fans, thus resulting in Koushiro's frequent dismissal from not only inclusion in fanfiction, support for Koushiro's wider canon post-02 within meta, and commentaries as a whole but also within many A.U.s (often being regulated to a ""pair the spares"" role in shipping and then immediately ignored by people outside Koushiro-focused fandom); the other reasoning being the fact the girls are just immediately picked for the role a bit more (when not considered with thoughtfulness from their actual fans) due to gender stereotyping regardless of Koushiro's partner literally being close to a ladybug - and that same gendered stereotyping likely also affecting Koushiro never being chosen for such A.U. roles by the wider fandom, without Koushiro fans ourselves bringing the points (and hypocrisy) up.

The rest of us (including many of us in KouTai{/shiro} fandom) were basically saying "fuck that!!" and thus this A.U. was born! Not long after, Kizuna previews; were dropping by 2020, so within my AMVs, I was only just getting to include Kizuna footages by the time, and mainly only stuck to footage from the previews for this A.U.

For my specific A.U., I use "MIRACULOUS? Koushiro" for the title; indicating the "Miraculous" title as a QUESTION; (as if it's something Koushiro's own self is Also Questioning, {but also it's a Koushiro vs Society's Perceptions of Koushiro dynamic; as Koushiro is canonically an ADOPTEE from a Non-normative family} while other Koushiro fans who contribute to it may at times use varying titles or A.U. concepts! However, my "in the rain" AMV was also one of the earliest contributions, as I originally finished that one sometime around September 2019, and actively talked about it with other Koushiro fans around at time.

If you love both Koushiro, and Miraculous Ladybug; (even if you don't ship KouTai{/shiro} as romantic); Please feel free to contribute to this A.U. at any time!! (It is also fine to portray the rest of the Chosen and/or M.L's wider cast within the A.U/A.U. roles, though this specific parody isn't meant as a 1:1 version!) The rest of Koushiro fans who are also M.L. fans would love to see your contributions as well!! {Just please remember; Yes, it was inclusive KouTai{/shiro} fandom who also had an active hand in creating this A.U. for Koushiro so please respect that fact!!}

Digimon Adventure/02/Tri/Kizuna AMV [PREVIEW] ~ A.M.V. featuring pairing: Koushiro(u) Izumi x Taichi Yagami ~ “ ‘Ladybug’ ” {Un-official Title} Music from the M.L. P.V. {the Anime-style trailer by Toei Animation that the M.L. series originated from}

{Feel free to compare the two to ‘See What I Did There TM’!} (Note: Select “H.D.” setting on A.M.V. for better quality!) (Click the gear icon on the video, ‘Quality’ menu, and ‘1080p’!) A.U. A.M.V Spin-off of my KouTai/Taishiro(u) fic-verse “REPEAT?_” - but this AMV can be viewed as a standalone too ! (For most past A.M.V.s in the series + Notes, check here!) [For my later M.L. A.U. A.M.V. “In the rain”, view it here!] * Please read ALL notes (authors’ notes at the beginning + ends of each chapter) before/if you read the fic! (The fic deals with some heavy subject matters which are all included in the notes!)**

Keep reading

[gastlygallows]

The best part about saying "Frontier is my favorite Digimon season" is that if anyone says "mine too", you know they're telling the truth because nobody would lie about that considering how the standard response is, "OHhh that's the one where ThEy TuRn InTo ThE dIgImOn?!?! i HaTeD tHaT oNe!!!111"

[adventurexheart]

I noticed that whenever someone may have valid issues with male characters' writing for Digimon, people are more likely to listen to what you have to say and won't argue with you about them. However, the second you mention that you have problems with any female characters writing, all of a sudden, it's "you hate women" and "you're a misogynist." It's concerning how quickly people throw these words out there.

Being a misogynist means you have a STRONG prejudice against women for simply existing as women. It's having that burning hatred for them in general and objectifying or belittling them for being a different sex.

If someone talks about valid criticisms of the way a female character is written, it doesn't automatically equal being a misogynist. This is something that really shouldn't have to be clarified, but somehow, people are still so quick to throw that word around without understanding the severity of the weight it carries.

[koushirouizumi]

Re-posters in my (02) fan base are like: I hate everything you love!!! I will make endless hate posts bashing the sequel series you and others love or even just moderately enjoy, all while endlessly mocking fans* of the same series for existing!!! (*Includes YOU!!!) Anyway, (~as an 02 fan~) I have free rein to steal & use your works for (+my 0801!!) hateposts {on x series I chose to hate on during 0801 "because it's my post!!"} (all while actively using YOUR work on it!!) because this is the IMAGE STEALING SITE!!!! I'm DEFINITELY not the one in the wrong here!!!

[aph-japan]

@alpaca-clouds @alpaca-clouds @alpaca-clouds I asked you once and you blatantly ignored me, so I'm taking it to main because you clearly don't give a care to acknowledge I commented to you directly about this. This post will remain on my blog until you delete the gif.

REMOVE MY MEIKO GIF FROM YOUR ANTI POST. THANKS

My personal Digimon season ranking

Given August is Digimon month, I cannot help but do one of these. Because, oh boy. I have not made one of those in a long, long while.

Now, let me tell you one thing clear: I have been in the Digimon fandom since Adventure started airing 2000 in Germany. I still vividly remember getting into the show and what the first episodes I watched were. I have obsessed about this show for so long...

But I also have unpopular opinions when it comes to the seasons. So let me get to those.

And please note: I will not list Digimon Adventure: (2020), as I only watched the first 22 episodes and then just dropped it. But I will list Digimon Adventure tri., though it is not quite a season.

#1 Digimon Tamers

My number one Digimon season is and will probably always be Digimon Tamers. This show really has no right to be as good as it is. Like, holy shit. This show went so hard in so many regards.

It really is the only season of Digimon that has something like a proper pacing. With only a couple of episodes being actual filler, while most do progress either story or character arcs. And those character arcs are so fucking good.

When I was a kid, I got so hooked on Ruki, because she was just such a good female character. But by now I do appreciate them all. (Well, Ryou maybe less, but that is a story for another day. Because he is one of those examples where I also grew up on those games and I love game!Ryou...)

Also, the amount of amazing background characters is kinda hilarious. Like, background figures like Janyuu, Yamaki or Shibumi are so well written.

Not to mention: For a 2001 merchandise TV show with 51 episodes, the animation has no business being as good as it is. How is it, that this series still has better animation than some of the later series?!

So, yeah, all around great show. Love it. Will rewatch most certainly a couple more times.

#2 Digimon Universe Applimonsters

And while a lot of people will absolutely understand, why I put Tamers in first place, pretty much most people will not get, why I would put Appmon in second place. Because other than Tamers this has a ton of filler episodes.

But to me none of that really matters, based on the fact that I just love the freaking character writing in this show, all the references to computer history and also... The fact that this show is gay as fuck. I mean, holy fuck, the entire Haru/Yuujin thing? Yeah, it warms my little queer heart so much!

But other than that it is another series where I really just love all the characters a ton. Haru is probably the goggle boy I relate to most out of all of Digimon. But I also really loved the other characters in this series, including the Digimon partners and what not.

So, yeah, to me this is my second favorite Digimon show.

#3 Digimon Savers

Masaru in a way is the polar opposite character to Haru, isn't he? While Haru is this soft spoken, introverted guy, Masaru is just this pure hardcore masculinity! GAAAAR! So, while I do like him less as a character than I like Takato or Haru, I did enjoy the writing in this show quite a lot. There were a ton of personal stakes to the story, that the others seasons did not bring in as much as this show did. And that was something I really enjoyed.

And while it got ridiculous at times, I also liked how Masaru was a bit more involved in the battles by punching stuff. Though I kinda am sad that they did not go with that original concept where all the characters would've been able to punch stuff.

I also enjoyed that the characters were a bit older in this, though ironically my favorite characters from the season are Chika and Ikuto.

#4 Digimon Ghost Game

There might be some bias here based on the fact alone that it is the most recent season of the franchise. But even though it was basically 100% episodic, I did enjoy almost every one of those episodes. Basically the show is 100% vibes for me, but oh boy, do I love those vibes.

I find this season kinda weird in terms of how it kinda pushed for two Digimon/human ships, with Ruli/Angoramon clearly being coded into the text, while it is also fairly clear that Jellymon is romantically interested in Kiyo. I mean, there always were seasons where you could definitely go for Digimon/human ships....... but it was never like this. But then again: All power to the monster fuckers, right? xD

And yeah... Being a fan of the horror genre, I absolutely adored how many episodes were based around classical horror stories from all around the world. That was so freaking fun! :D

#5 Digimon Adventure 02

Okay, let me make one thing clear: Digimon Adventure 02 is not a good series. It is not. Knowing what I know about how chaotic it was behind the scenes, aka how chaotic and cursed this production was, this is also not a big surprise. I disliked the show for this for quite long. I mean, there is tons of filler and the animation is soooooo bad in soooo many episodes. I mean, there is a ton of fan animation that is better than this series. But...

It also is kinda charming.

See, the thing about this show is, that I kinda still do like how the characters develop over the show and how... positive a lot of it is. The characters are sweet with each other and even with their enemies. And a huge chunk of the show is also dedicated to the characters outright trying to rebuild the digital world.

Also, this show has Ken, who to this day is one of my favorite Digimon characters. So, fuck it. I actually still kinda like it.

#6 Digimon Frontier

Fun Fact: I grew up with the Japanese dub of Digimon, but Digimon Frontier is the one season, where I actually kinda liked the US Dub, just based on the US soundtrack for this show. I really kinda liked the vibe it had.

In a way I do feel that this show had in fact the strongest character designs out of all of Digimon. The characters just have the right level of detail. They do not look overdesigned, but also not too simple. I really digged that. And yes, as a kid I cosplayed Takuya a lot.

To me the series just mostly suffers when it comes to the pacing. Not because of the fillers really (I am fine with fillers, as long as the fillers are fun), but rather in terms of the Cherubimon-arc being sooooo long and everything happening after it feeling kind of like an afterthought.

But I still very much like the characters. I just wished they did not make Junpei a glutton. One fat character who isn't a glutton. Is that so much to ask?

#7 Digimon Xros Hunters

For anyone now going like: "But this is not even a series on its own!" I will kindly ask you: "Shut up, this is my list." Because those couple of episodes from Xros Wars that were clearly just meant to fill the timeslot for a couple more weeks, do have a very different vibes from the rest of the show.

Now, this also is basically just filler + then the crossover event. But... At times this was kinda sweet. I liked the vibes this show had at times and some of the characters were kinda likeable.

And I really liked the opening.

It was not good. Definitely wasn't. But there was stuff about it I liked.

#8 Digimon Adventure

Yeah, let's get to my most controversial Digimon opinion: I do not like Digimon Adventure a lot. I really don't. Some of the characters are fine, yes, but... I do not like a lot more of this show. Mostly because I fucking hate the crest system and how morally simplistic the show is, with the bad guys just all being bad guys with not much depth. Meanwhile most of the characters are horribly underwritten and have their entire character arcs rushed through within like two episodes.

And I just hate Yamato and how the show just tries to excuse all of his bullshit. There. I said it. I think he is a horrible character. A horrible brother. And a horrible friend. So, yeah, fuck him.

And Nishizono, the showrunner, had no plan where he was going when he started writing. Not entirely his fault, given that he inherited a production that two other writing teams already had abandoned. But maaaaaan, it shows.

#9 Digimon Xros Wars

What is there to say?

Digimon Xros Wars sucked. It sucked. And to this day I wonder what the drama behind the scenes was. We know there was drama (given the showrunner abandoned the production half-way through!) but details are sparse even ten years later.

But, yeah. Taiki is a fucking Gary Stu and the plot just shifts around him. The story is a whole mess. The female characters get sexualized to no end. Everyone who is not Taiki gets sidelined constantly. The animation is inconsistent. And what not.

And the really sad fact: The manga is so fucking good.

I am fairly certain that most issues are because of production drama. And one day I am gonna find out what that drama was.

#10 Digimon Adventure tri.

Digimon Adventure tri. is one of the things that by themselves are not good, but get really bad once you consider the universe it is set in. It is one of those things put into an existing canon without honoring the existing canon at all.

It just ignores basically everything happening in 02. The character developments from anything that has happened before. The 02 characters are just not there. The "original chosen children" exist and yet the OVA does not give them the attention they deserve. And Meiko is just... Oh boy. Meiko is just a horrible character for so many reasons.

It is just fucking sad that this exists. So fucking sad. Just why?!

Also, for OVAs the animation is so bad. Soooooo bad.

[digi-lov]

Reposting of Stolen Art in the Digimon Community

Idk, I wanna draw attention to this. But I don't really know what to say. I've made multiple posts about individual issues before. I just feel like I have to use the platform I have to spread awareness.

Please, before liking and reblogging art, take a moment to check if the artwork has been stolen.

Me and others often try to link the original art in the comments as soon as we come across it.

If someone is a confirmed thief, mass reposting for notes, block them.

Stolen art gets hundreds of notes despite people pointing out it's stolen.

It just breaks my heart to see artists pour their love into artworks for this Fandom, only for it to be stolen and spread without credit.

About a year ago, I called out another user for stealing countless artworks. I went through their entire backlog and looked up every original artist.

I contacted them to tell them to at least give proper credit. They added all my researched sources to their posts, but...

They went back to repost uncredited art again, not much later.

[Left: @/ rastadog77 on twitter | right: @/danzilla on dA]

And this user is not the only one. And they have zero shame.

This user stole artwork the artist entered the Digimon Illustration Competition with. This artist, by the way, is an official artist of the One Piece TCG and more.

This thief had the gall to steal another Illustration Competition's Winning Artwork!

This is just insulting.

[feministmetalgreymon]

The reality behind the Palworld vs Pokemon contreversy

I have been a lifelong Pokemon fan. And one thing I have observed is there are two kinds of Pokemon fans.

One type of Pokemon fan is what I call the sane fans. They acknowledge Pokemon is one game in a long line of monster taming games. They may like or prefer Pokemon over other monster taming franchises but they acknowledge those franchises legitimacy rather than dismissing them as Pokemon clones and rip offs.

The other type is the insane Pokemon fans. These are the people who will insist, despite evidence to the contrary, that Pokemon is the first and only original monster taming game. And accuse any monster taming game of being a Pokemon rip off. If a monster taming franchise looks like it might be become popular they immediately lie about it and slander it. And if it doesn't become a "Pokemon Killer" they deride it as a failure that wasn't as good as Pokemon.

I have seen these insane Pokemon fans attack any monster taming game including franchises that predate Pokemon like Shin Megami Tensei and Dragon Quest. When Tem Tem came out they swarmed social media with accusations that Tem Tem was just a lazy Pokemon clone. And now they want people to take them seriously when they call Palworld a Pokemon rip off. Yeah sure.🙄

Palworld isn't even in the same game genre as Pokemon let alone being a Pokemon clone. Palworld is a survival crafting game with a monster taming mechanic. The Pals you tame aren't just used for fighting like in Pokemon. They are also used for chores like crafting, farming, building and gathering resources. The only similarities Pokemon and Palworld shares is a small number of vaguely similar parody designs.

The only thing that has changed is that now that the Pokemon games have declined in quality. Fewer people are willing to take the insane Pokemon fans seriously. When Game Freak released Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and it was a broken buggy mess. That was a wake up call to the Pokemon fandom. They realized that blindly worshipping a billionaire dollar corporation was a bad idea. And so they started trying other monster collecting franchises like Digimon, Nexomon, Cassette Beast, Dragon Quest Monsters and now Palworld.

They realized that they were missing out on a lot of good games by worshipping Pokemon and insisting it's the best just because it's more popular. And that's when Palworld came along.

You want a monster taming game where you fight alongside your monsters. Palworld has it. You want to use your monsters for more than just fighting. Palworld has it. You want a large and challenging open world. Palworld has it. You want to play with your friends. Palworld has it. You want to build a base and watch as your monsters perform tasks. Palworld has it. You want creature breeding mechanics that aren't slow and tedious grinding. Palworld has it. You want deep creature raising sim mechanics. Palworld has it.

Despite all of the attempts to accuse Palworld of "plagiarizing" Palworld. Palworld has improved drastically on the Pokemon formula and has added more interactivity and depth to it. This is why insane Pokemon fans hate Palworld. They can't argue that Palworld has worse gameplay than Pokemon. So instead they make the issue about "originality".

"Originality" has nothing to do with how good or well done a game is. But it works as a distraction from debates about quality. By making the Palworld debate about originality they don't have to discuss how broken and buggy the Pokemon games are. Nor acknowledge any of the improvements and advances Palworld has made to the monster taming genre. Instead the debate becomes about who did what first.

The reality is it doesn't matter who did what first, what matters is who did it best.

[tobiasdrake]

I'd say that Tri, Last Kizuna and 02 The Beggining are a tad of a weird approach to try and bank into nostalgia, but not letting go the concept of "no you have to say goodbye to the 'mons"... which doesn't work after 02's epilogue. And then Adventure 2020 happened, and forgot that it was supposed to be an assemble show.

I don't have a problem with nostalgia banking, but Last Evolution Kizuna wanted really badly to be Toy Story 3 and failed. That, I take a lot of issue with.

There's a lot of heated debate surrounding LEK. The idea that the kids' partnerships with their Digimon break because it's time to put away childish things and grow up is extremely contentious within the fandom, but it's also not universally agreed that the film is even saying that thanks to translation issues with the subs and also some very ambiguous imagery with the ending.

There are basically two different interpretations of what happens in LEK.

1 - Sora, Taichi, Yamato, Jou, Mimi, and Koushiro all lose their Digimon Partners because they enter adulthood - but not Takeru and Hikari because they still have a few years to go.

This is a natural occurrence and the result of growing up. They have no choice and no agency in the matter; The Universe takes their Partners away because they're too old to be playing with toys anymore, and they just need to fucking suck it up and deal.

2 - Sora, Taichi, and Yamato lose their Digimon Partners because they're too irresponsible with their adulthood. Mimi, Jou, and Koushiro do not because they're responsible adults and are balancing their adult lives and their love for their Partners well.

What happens to Sora, Taichi, and Yamato is a rare and unusual occurrence, but there is hope that they will one day find their Partners again once they've gotten their heads on straight and made their way as adults.

For obvious reasons, the film is very unpopular with fans who take the first interpretation and pretty well-liked with fans who take the second. Which one is actually the valid and intended reading? Well. It's complicated. The movie went through a tumultuous creative process, to the point that Adventure series director Kakado Hiroyuki walked out on production midway through over disagreements and inconsistencies to the original series.

Which is, y'know, always a promising sign for a new entry in a series.

Watching the film, for me, it honestly feels like both readings are intended. Which is to say, you can find evidence to support either/or. I don't think that's deliberate, I just think the film was sloppily made and shows signs of conflicting creative visions.

Proponents of the Good Movie interpretation can point to the villain of the film, whose central motivation is literally that having your Partner taken away because you grew up is some fucking bullshit. In its final act, the film reveals that her Partner did come back - Just in an unrecognizably different form, not as the Partner she knew.

So the natural conclusion then is that Agumon and Gabumon will reincarnate and may find their way back to Taichi and Yamato; They just won't be Agumon and Gabumon. Which still contradicts the 02 epilogue despite proponents of the Good Movie interpretation insisting that 02's epilogue is still canon to LEK.

Which itself has evidence to support it (Taichi and Yamato are on their way to becoming the people they are in the epilogue) and evidence to refute it (Agumon and Gabumon fucking died).

As the translation breakdown in the above link shows, there's also some phrasing issues that created confusion. Gennai in the official English version describes losing your Partnership as a typical occurrence while, in the original Japanese, he seems to describe this more like a rare thing that he doesn't fully understand.

It's explained that what's happening is the narrowing of potential. Children have infinite potential, which something something Digimon Partnerships. As you make choices with your life, you narrow your potential, and eventually it can no longer sustain a partnership - Unless you're able to become an adult with limitless potential anyway!

That seems like it's setting Taichi and Yamato up to figure out their shit and save their Partnerships at the last second. But they figure out their shit and still lose their Partners, which gets described in the end as a rite of passage.

The blog with the big translation breakdown I linked above makes a note of the difference between the official translation, "This is how we finally grew up," and a more accurate translation, "This is how we arrived at the entrance to adulthood." As they say, it shouldn't be translated with finality.

But that's splitting hairs, because either version is still saying that losing Agumon and Gabumon was Taichi and Yamato's rite of passage from childhood into adulthood. Whether they've become adults or taken their first steps into adulthood doesn't actually matter; it's still describing this loss as the gateway that brought them there, which is the point of contention.

They did what they were supposed to do, they were still punished for it, and then they close by describing it as if it were an inevitable consequence of growing up despite what Gennai said. Which may or may not be corroborated by what happened to Jou, Mimi, and Koushiro.

Proponents of the Good Movie interpretation will point to Jou, Mimi, and Koushiro as proof that not everyone loses their Partners. Proponents of the Bad Movie interpretation will point to those same characters as proof that everyone does. This is due to a fundamental disagreement in how you interpret the final scenes.

At no point does the film ever say, with words, that Jou, Mimi, and Koushiro lose their Partners. But it does conclude with these images:

The final shots of Taichi, Yamato, and Sora show them to be moving forward with their adult lives, with no Digimon. The younger kids Takeru and Hikari's slides contain Patamon and Tailmon. There are also slides for the 02 characters, which show their Digimon Partners still taking an active role in their lives too.

But Jou, Koushiro, and Mimi? No Partners in their slides.

Good Movie fans will say that the film never says explicitly that they lost their Partners, so this means nothing. Their partners are probably just offscreen somewhere.

Bad Movie fans will say that these slides are meant to show the older kids moving on with their lives post-Digimon and the younger kids still having their Digimon Partnerships. There's a clear contrast between Hikari and Takeru's slides versus Taichi, Yamato, and Sora's - and Jou, Koushiro, and Mimi are presented like Taichi, Yamato, and Sora here, not like Hikari and Takeru.

Good Movie fans have the counterpoint to be made that their Partners still exist in 02's epilogue. So, y'know, canon faithfulness says that everyone's Digimon will come back or was never lost. Checkmate, naysayers.

But also Last Evolution Kizuna basically ignores Tri and makes no attempt to address the questions it left hanging, and also the Adventure story director walked out of production over inconsistencies to the original so I don't think you can really use canon faithfulness as a talking point here.

Taichi and Yamato are still on their way to becoming an ambassador and an astronaut respectively, so the epilogue hasn't been thrown out entirely. But it clearly has been thrown out. Jou was supposed to become a doctor in the Digital World, Sora was supposed to become a fashion designer instead of inheriting her mom's ikebana mastery, and Mimi was supposed to become a chef instead of selling cosmetics.

Yeah, Taichi and Yamato are still on-track to a similar life path than what the epilogue gave them, but nobody else is. So I don't think the movie is actually as faithful to 02 as the Good Movie side thinks it is. And apparently neither does Kakado Hiroyuki.

For me, I do think they were trying to say it's time for the kids to put away childish things and grow up. I don't think they meant that to be insulting. But I do think it's kind of insulting.

I think they were trying to do what Toy Story 3 did; To tell a story about the rite of passage from childhood to adulthood and what that means for the things we loved and enjoyed as kids. But I don't think that story works when the putting away of childish things is something cosmically forced on the children rather than a choice they make with their own agency.

Toy Story 3 wouldn't have landed the way it did if the movie was about Andy's mom pinning him down by the arms while garbagemen come in and throw Buzz and Woody into a woodchipper. But that's kind of what Last Evolution Kizuna does to the Adventure kids.

Taichi and Yamato get to give a powerful emotional farewell to Agumon and Gabumon. But they don't want to, they are not making this choice for themselves, and no reason is ever provided for why they should have to. And even the best defenses of the film just make it out to be a weird, random cosmic blip that maybe they'll fix some day, who knows.

Even in the best-case scenario, the universe just decided to grievously hurt Yamato and Taichi for no reason even though they were already making strides to undo the thing they were allegedly being punished for. It's still mean-spirited and cruel even in the best possible interpretation.

So. Yeah. All things considered, I find myself falling on the side of "It's a bad movie and I don't accept it as part of my personal Digimon canon." I don't accept that the children need to all have their Digimon deleted once they enter into adulthood, and I equally don't accept that they don't need to have that happen but that Taichi and Yamato deserved to have their Digimon ripped away from them at the end. There is no version of this movie that I actually like.

[8r14r-r0s3]

I think this is just a me issue really, but being on the younger side of Gen Z and being really into digimon from a young age is a very weird experience. Because when I was a wee child no other kids knew what the actual fuck a digital monster was, and now that I'm old enough to participate in fandom spaces, it's still really isolating because it's filled with people a lot older than me. Like where are my fellow incredibly gay, nuerodivergent, Gen Z freaks who were unhealthily hyperfixated on this random anime you found on Netflix in 2011, I need to see your shitty taichi x yamato fan cams (/silly)

On the bright side, since there are no dumbass TikTok kids in this fandom, it doesn't have dumbass TikTok discourse.... right...? I wouldn't know I don't have TikTok

[alpaca-clouds]

What the fuck?

Ao3 wants to remove the "all media types" fandom tags, and just that... it is such a horrible idea? Like, there are some fandoms for which it might work, but there are also a log of fandoms, where this will not work at all.

Please @ao3org, don't this. It will mess up the archive big time.

I have already seen some posts explaining it with the Sherlock Holmes fandom and the Transfomers fandom. But let me explain it with two fandoms in which I at times upload and read: Digimon and Pokémon.

Both are multimedia franchises with a lot of different fandom tags associated with it across several types of media (mostly anime and games, in the form of Pokémon also movies). For Pokémon there are also really a ton of fanfics, for Digimon not quite as many, but also enough. And sure, many of them can be sorted into some actual subtag for a specific game or whatever. But here is the thing: Many others cannot.

Because in both fandoms it is quite popular to write stories where original Digimon Tamers or original Pokémon trainers will have their own adventure in a completely original version of the Pokémon/Digimon world. Original seasons in some way. With DIgimon it is often very much completely original - with Pokémon they might travel through a known region, or through one established. But even in the latter case you cannot just say: "Oh, actually this is Pokémon Gold/Silver, because they travel through Johto", if there is nothing else connecting it to that. Because maybe it is another time where different characters live there and what not.

Those kinds of fanfics are completely misplaced in any tag but "Pokémon/Digimon - All Media Types", because they are a fanfic about the fandom at large and not a specific entry within that fandom.

Now, those are the fandoms where I know this specific thing will happen, but I can in fact also imagine it happening with a lot of other fandoms.

I know there is quite a bit of fanfic there for stuff like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, where people are writing about original characters within that setting, without really referencing anything specific from the movies or books in question. Because it just happens so far in the past or the future of that world, that it really does not matter which "universe" it is set in.

According to you, how is someone supposed to tag something that takes place in the world of Harry Potter, but in Japan of the 18th century, if not "Harry Potter - All Media Types"? Especially as... Look, I am not sure how to even deal with this. Like, there are clear differences between books and films in HP, but most people will still treat it as one and the same.

I am sorry, but this is just a shitty change that is making life a lot harder, ESPECIALLY for people who write mainly OC-centric fanfictions or stuff that is more concerned with worldbuilding than anything else.

People have already explained why this is an issue for other big fandoms - even outside of OC-centric stuff. But when it comes to Fandoms that spawn a lot of OC-centric stories, this change is a nightmare.

And that is without going into the weirdness of having two different tags for an anime adaption and the manga original, where there is near to no difference storywise between the anime and manga.

[windsweptinred]

10 Characters/10 Fandoms /10 Tags

Thank you for the tag @two-hands-toward-the-sun, this took me on a deep delve of my fandom past! Time to roll out my gaggle of glorious bastards again...

1. Ken Ichijouji - Digimon 02

Babies first blorbo. Puppy kicking, whip weilding antagonist who giveth not a shiteth. With a soul as black as his gloriously groomed locks. Who, by the power of love is transformed into the soggiest little puddle of twink you ever did see. Tragic backstory ✔️ A smorgasbord of issues ✔️ A realtionship with their rival/best friend so obbsessive, you're going to have a harder time proving this ship isn't a thing than it is. ✔️ Ken Ichijouji came with everything a young, naive millennial needed to make their first glorious steps into the world of fandom.

2. Ryou Bakura/Yami Bakura/Theif King Bakura - (Same body, they count as one!) Yu-Gi-Oh

Ryou Bakura - Adorable British cupcake with the soul of a traumatised lovecraftian cultist. Staring into the abyss while having afternoon tea. Gothic horror in a cream knit.

Yami Bakura - Actual murder floof, the walking personification of a horror podcast. In his wake trails body gore, supernatural mystery and gay subtext. Part demon, part Egyptian theif, 100% bringing sexy back. (bonus points: Florence)

Thief King Bakura - Traumatic back story maketh homicidal rogue. Wears red, has a social circle made up of ghosts and snake monsters... Is this not prime husband material?

3. Starscream - Transformers

Darling little duplicitous second in command of the Decepticons. Not just any 'Little Shit', THE 'Little Shit'. Simulatiously the dumbest and cleverest bot in any room. And that, my friends, takes a particular breed of talent. Negative traits, scheming, petty, fabulous. Postive traits, scheming, petty, fabulous. Repetitive attempts to off Megatron, play of either the power or fore variety. Not sure which, could be both.

4. Darth Maul/ General Armitage Hux- Star Wars

I will not and cannot choose a favourite between them. Instead, watch with wonder and awe as I neatly compress them into the same blurb...

Sad meow meow with self-worth issues does galactic war crimes to prove 'daddy' wrong. What do you mean my fixation with thwarting my archnemeis can't be classed as a hobby/career goal/life ambition? My voice can launch a thousand ships... Different circumstances, same truth. Such a pathetic little sausage, you'll want to sit them down and feed them soup. But they know atleast 101 ways to kill you with the spoon... So best not risk it.

5. Crowley - Supernatural

The diabolical king of cunt serving. Me and my athletic calves are doing this right thing for all wrong reasons...And you can't prove other wise! Alignment: Risk it for a biscuit. Four step program to deal with all life's problems: 1: flirt at it, 2: shout at it, 3: throw (please pick your chosen Winchester or, if pushed, tailor) at it. 4:... Yell bollocks and follow with a whiskey chaser.

6. Desire/Destiny of the Endless - The Sandman

Again, not picking. Desire, my darling little hell kitten. Destiny, my inglorious bastard in brown...

This is my world, you MFs all just live in it!

My emotions... Which I do not have, are the route cause of everyone else's problems.

Ah humanity, the dust bunnies upon which I sneeze.

Even in a glorified bathrobe, I'm still better then you, and you know it.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Dream of the Endless is a f*cking dumb ass.

7. Remy Lebeau (Gambit) - Xmen, Marvel Comics

Marvel looked at their collection of motley mutant misfits. And realised they had a morally dubious, disaster bi shaped hole to fill... And there Remy Lebeau has been for for 30 slutty, slutty years and counting. Sex in fushia pink spandex. Single handily keeping thievery in Americas top 50 kinks. Slowly exhausting the world's supply of playing cards... Must be considered a traitor to the cause atleast once a decade to keep his street cred. Must be considered a secret Summers brother atleast once a decade to keep his ego in check.

8. Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow) - Batman (DC)

Scythe wielding, reigning and defending Trick or treat world champion since 1941. The physical attributes of a Giacometti sculpture with the rustic aesthetic of the folk horror genre. Grumpy old man syndrome dialed up to eleven. Pets: Craw the crow, Nightmare the raven... Edward Nygma. Built a life manifesto based on a gothic novel... Oh captain, my captain.

9. Alfie Solomons - Peaky Blinders

All hail the great arisen god of Margate. Who looked upon Tommy Shelby and called him smol. Weilds tomfuckery like a pepper spray straight up the jacksie. Views betrayal as a bonding exercise. Somewhere in his words are the the meaning of life. Still awaiting the lab results as to whether this man is the anthropomorphic personification of chaotic neutral. Not even part of the egg and spoon race. Will still manage to win with a watermelon and a novelty spork.

10. Elias Bouchard - The Magnus Archives

(art by @felix-krain and @caligosatchel)

Cluedo character brought to life by malevolent eldritch entity for sexy end of the world shinnanigans. I suspect either Proffesor Plum or Reverend Green, professional opinions vary. Maintains the inability to move more than one square at a time when enacting nefarious schemes. Still has a preference for homicide by kitchenware. Comes with all the British, arch dilf energy of an Agatha Cristie villain. Taking the horrors from the hands of privileged elite and unleashing them on unsuspecting white collar workers. Eye, chin and tits first.

Whelp, that's my ten fictional characters/fandoms. Men folk (and Desire) addition. When I say I like them on the morally grey dulux colour chart. I'm not exaggerating. 😅

I'm tagging, at your pleasure @mashumaru @aisalynn @bobbole @tickldpnk8 @writing-for-life @marvagon @missingrache @rriavian @jazzy-a and @ibrithir-was-here

[digitalgate02]

This video is important, and although it's about Sonic franchise, I do believe it works for a ton of other things imo:

Especially Digimon, yeah. I've experienced this kind of feeling and how the Ni from the 2000s didn't care about "plotholes" or "wonky animation", but nowadays I like rewatching 02 (also Frontier sometimes) and think about the things I couldn't perceive as a kid.

Also our critic sense changes, because you can also watch/play/read something you didn't like at first, and then years later find yourself finding it cool and fun.

If you know me well enough you might have heard me claiming I only started to like Daisuke in 2010 ahead, even if the Brazilian dub was very close to the original version. I wasn't very fond of many characters like I used to, but today I love them a lot. All 12 + movie characters

I also didn't like Takato for a while? I didn't like Tamers at all (it's still a sensitive topic for ages to me, especially *after* 2021), but when a friend streamed it once, i kinda appreciated the characters better.

but the series is not my cup of tea, sorry.

But as a kid i really didn't care at all the details that bugs me now? i enjoyed it! Oh i also loved Frontier! I never had any issue with it! I'm still a big Frontier fan, and nowadays I'm more of a Takuya oshi than I used to be 🤣 (and i love all of the six kids in it too)

My critical reading skills were developed around Xros Wars, and while some people disliked it i was enjoying it, the cast, the soundtrack, the plot, etc. Then Hunters was where fandom echo chamber happened and made me not realize i liked it too.

But i think late 2021 when Ghost Game had first aired, a friend had this idea of watching every first episode of each digimon series to see how they capture the audience's interest. It was a fun night watch!

And it was when I noticed how differently i was perceiving them all.

Hunters had a very strong start and funny to me, Frontier started pretty grim dark in our opinions, we looked at how fast 02's pacing was (and, somehow, a little better than Adv'99), and so other things.

I came to appreciate them all, and see them with another view.

I think I see a lot of love coming from the series once claimed to be the "worst" in the past, and I find it good. Also, some of your "worst series ever" might be someone's first time experiencing the digimon franchise. It could be someone's childhood so their views might differ.

And the first series/stuff we get in touch with becomes something special for us, imo. People who watched, say, Xros Wars as their first digimon series will have a different opinion as someone who's already here since Adv'99 i think?

Even tri. might be special for someone, might be their first time enjoying digimon and going back and thru everything the franchise has to offer. It can have a different view of me, who had... eh, a few issues with it (sorry.)

I think… as long this franchise keeps making new things and being interesting for everyone in different ways, i'll be thankful.

So be kind to the others, and to the new peeps in our fandom. We all have different tastes and opinions.

Thank you for hearing me out (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

[dragonandtiger]

Just asking to see if Yuki is alright given that it's been a while since we've heard anything. Hope both of you are doing alright.

Thanks for checking in. We're sorry that we haven't posted any updates or replied to any asks for quite a while.

Yuki is still not feeling very well and resting as much as possible. We would rather not go into detail about her health issues, but she is doing what she can to take care of herself.

We're sorry again that we've left all of you who enjoy our collaborative stories in limbo. The sad fact of the matter is that Yuki hasn't had enough energy to do much when it comes to Dreaming To Reality or any of our other big collaborative works. As much as the both of us want to see this story reach its conclusion, a passion project like this is best left when the creators have enough energy to push that passion forward.

We can say that the two of us are writing what we can, when we can. Chapter 33 has had progress, albeit slowly.

Dreaming to Reality is a huge story, spanning three separate anime (Digimon Adventure, Digimon 02, and Digimon Tamers), with a lot of moving parts. We've poured years into this story, with countless details and pages of notes. We love the story we've written, and intend to finish it one day, but in order for it to remain a story we feel passionate about, we need to allow ourselves to slow down and/or take breaks when necessary. Sometimes this also means writing for other stories that are in other genres/fandoms, particularly with lower stakes and less of a large branching narrative.

During this break, Mouko has written 30 chapters bi-weekly for her solo story, My Shizun, a fanfic of The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System. Yuki insisted to let you all know that she says it's a very enjoyable story even if you don't know anything about the source material, and she would like it if you'd send Mouko kind words if you're interested in giving it a read. You can check it out here if you'd like.

If you want updates about Yuki more directly, and are over 18, you can check out her personal tumblr. She tries to make posts when she can, which includes off the cuff rough rambles and snippets for fandoms that are strictly for an adult only audience.

Again, we're sorry for the long silence. Thank you for checking in and for being so patient with us.

[twilightguardian]

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.

[bobtheacorn]

tagged by @plothooksinc and @sroloc--elbisivni ! Finally have a chance to sit down at my desk - only to procrastinate! lmao TY for the opportunity!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

75! I have probably ten or so more that i never crossposted from ffdotnet, but they're all Old! Given that FF took a huge L and was apparently down for several days, I might find incentive to move them. but! unlikely 🤣

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

815,373!

Nicole Shut the Fuck Up Challenge: FAILED lmao

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Actively: I'm trying to write various stuff for risetmnt, usagi yojimbo, and digimon adventure/02.

Not actively, published:

Voltron: Legendary Defender (24) One Piece (Anime & Manga) (13) Luca (2021) (5) 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) (3) Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02 (3) Digimon Adventure (2) Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater (2) 鬼滅の刃 | Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Anime) (2) 幽☆遊☆白書 | YuYu Hakusho: Ghost Files (Anime & Manga) (2) The Hobbit - All Media Types (2) Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime) (1) Saiyuki (Anime & Manga) (1) Avatar: The Last Airbender (Cartoon 2005) (1) The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien (1) The Adventure Zone (Podcast) (1) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom (1) Animaniacs (1) Zootopia (2016) (1) Gravity Falls (1)

Basically if I watch or read something and the brainworms get me for even a moment i will write at least one (1) fic for it! Even though I may not finish or even post it! 😆 Occasionally it becomes a whole mental illness (STILL cannot believe i pumped out 24 goddamn fics for voltron. What a time to be alive LMAO)

4. Top five fics by kudos?

the hard beat of her heart - 1,982!

WOW i didn't realize its had almost 2k now thats crazy af. My Bakugo and his Mom fic is THE banger!

so low you can hear - 1,866!

another holy fuck moment, this one is pretty surprising bc its a much older lunami fic but i saw a huge influx after OPLA so 🤣

tired and emotional - 1,466

my drunk teenagers vld fic had big hits, such as Pidge 'scrambling like a racoon' and two idiots (klance) eating eachothers faces under a public table and then fist-fighting their feelings! Not shocked that its up there bc it was super fun to write

i go there with you - 1,351

this started as mindlessly filling Wumptober prompts and escalated almost immediately into Whatever The Hell It Is Now and i love it dearly! hope i can finished it sometime...! 💀

maybe if it left a mark -1,295

ppl ate this one UP when i posted it and i still get pretty regular feedback for it so i'm not especially surprised that it's still hanging onto top 5 after all this time! its one of my favs too!

5. Do you respond to comments?

Not often 😭 Listen it takes all of my energy just to get the darn thing Written. I have a lot going on IRL, and i'm also horrible anxious about being Annoying 🧍‍♀️ so I just yeet things into the void 😅 told to be quiet to many times as I child w adhd and now I'm a traumatized adult who simultaneously doesn't know how to shut up but also catastrophises basic interactions. Rip

Anyway i DO read and cherish every single review/comment and they never fail to perk up my days!! obviously i reread them pretty regularly, and I love and appreciate yall!! 💜 sorry im awkward!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i'm more of a hurt/COMFORT girlie, so idk if any of my endings are SAD persay? Maybe a lil melancholy. maybe soul deep???

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

THIS is my cup of tea so it's: most of them 🤣 But significantly its my ooey gooey wedding finale for ANAFW

8. Do you get hate on fics?

got hate for a digimon fic i wrote abt Tai and Kari where someone was like 'this has so many red flags' and I was like Bro you don't show your siblings physical affection? Skill issue.

9. Do you write smut?

writing (and reading) smut is pretty new for me bc i'm on the sex-repulsed side of aro/ace but SOMETIMES !!!fictional!!! romance ETC compels me enough that i'm like Hm Lemme try that. I like to expand out of my comfort zones every now and then, so it's usually a turbulent but interesting exercise 🤣

MOST of the "spicy" stuff I write, I would consider pretty tame tbh? (or not very good 💀) I'm sorta vague on purpose, so if you come in expecting some delicious smut or something I am so sorry that that is not the part that interests me 💀💀

Someone who worked on Steven Universe said that Peridot's fixation on romance/shipping was "archeological" because she's aspec af and d'you know what I'm feelin it!

I love a dig site!

Makes no goddamn sense! Compells me tho.

10. Craziest crossover?

don't think i have a single one in my repertoire YET AS I TYPE THAT OUT i realize usagi yojimbo/tmnt is technically a cross-over! Even if it is a sort of canon one? not sure it counts asfkjhlklf I was gonna say that they don't usually interest me. Clown face emoji

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

if i have, no one has pointed it out!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! I get requests pretty often to translate my fics and i'm fine with that as long as they link back to the original! i'm also fine if they don't i guess lmao what am i, the police?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I write The Most self-indulgent crap 24/7 3/65 and i will not hand any of the reigns to someone else rip. Love to brainstorm with others tho That's what makes the brain go brrrrrrrrr

14. All time favourite ship?

ugh its KLANCE, tormented me for like 5+ years and changed my brain chemistry for the better. I'm cringe but im free!

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

*stares in 300+ WIPS* maybe that super long bagginshield fic

OH and that anafw timetravel sequel where Lance got pulled into the past/an adjacent timeline and nearly died about it. literally. THAT baby was angsty! rip

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue! And characterization!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Chain of Events....! I don't know her 😭😭😭😭 Someone please introduce us. Also having too many ideas for the way a scene could play out and being paralyzed by Which is the Best One.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Sparingly and with Purpose!

19. First fandom you wrote in?

I know in my heart it was self-insert Dragon Ball Z when I was in like, middle school

20. Favourite fic you've written?

gonna list a top 5 bc I can't pick ONE salfjasdlkf

coyote - idk i fuckin LOVE how this one came together, i go back and read it sometimes and im like damn.

small impressions on his heart - this one makes me SO SOFT @ alberto Get Cherished, Idiot

steam: - THE underrated op fic of mine, its my FAV and no one else agrees! Tragedy!

as tenacious as dandelion weeds - i loved writing feral inosuke and his dumb backwards attitude. idk i love a soft one!

salvagable - truly my comedic prowess peeked with EGG SAUCE AND BREADED nothing else will ever compare

.

Imma tag: @big-meows @goodlucktai and anybody else no pressure who also needs ten minutes of procrastination to yell abt their stuff 💜

[reliablejoukido]

Project update

Hi friends, I'm taking a break from my Digimon projects for a few months. I've got some health issues to deal with, and I'm also making stuff for other fandoms. I'm still here though! I'm just going to be a bit less active for a while