This is probably surprising to you, but I need to make this announcement and I want to talk about something that's been on my mind for some time regarding both official canon and fanfiction. So forgive me if it feels like I'm just rambling here but I've been wanting to get this off my chest so please bear with me and listen to what I have to say.

First, I'm sad to announce that I am not going to continue this story, at least not for a time. The reason for this is because you readers might have noticed there has been one reviewer who's been very critical of my story so far from the very start. He's also currently writing his own story that is based on the same subject and it's been having great success. Over the weekend I tried to discuss my writing decisions with this person to help give him a better understanding of how I wrote chapter 2 but in the end I just gave up, but frankly speaking I am just tired of having to defend my decisions all the time and I'm tired of having to go out of my way to explain every single god damn thing, especially when it's something that in all honesty shouldn't be hard to figure out and yet for some reason it is. It's tiresome, it's frustrating, and it kills your confidence, your motivation, and even your enjoyment as a writer. You feel like you're just wasting your time and you start to wonder if you had been better off doing something else. And that's not how it should be.

Since my story centered around Malty I was well aware from the start that I was going to be tackling a very controversial subject. The criticisms this reviewer had centers on not liking the direction I was taking the story, the fact that I was using the amnesia trope(a trope that I was well aware of but still wanted to use), and that I turned Malty into, in his own words, a Disney Princess. That was not my intention and it wasn't what I had in mind when I started writing this story. What I was simply wanted to do was to portray Malty in a way no one would ever even imagine when given her character's history and I sincerely believed that the amnesia idea was the best way to do this, especially for the emotional impact I had planned later on. Yes, I agree that seeing Malty suddenly being nice and befriending a demi-human child is very odd and even shocking but that was the entire point! But then the reviewer went to say that to that I should have done this and that instead to make it less cliched and that it would be more in line to Malty's character according to canon.

Alright, I want to make this clear. I am not trying to point fingers here and start arguments. After seeing the poor reception chapter two got, I decided to end it right there because I felt like it just wasn't worth the effort. I know that sounds a bit extreme but when you have a reviewer who's following your story closely and is posting reviews that presents a more negative image, people are going take that reviewer's word for it instead of giving a fair chance. To put it simply, it scares off potential readers because we tend to look at the reviews first before reading the story to see if it's worth reading. While there isn't anything wrong with that, it has a bad habit of being double-edged sword.

When you got a reviewer who's going into greater detail with his criticisms, goes even further how the author should writer the story, it's becomes extremely harmful. Not just to the author, but also to both the reviewer and the readers. It destroys the author's confidence, it makes the reviewer look like jerk, and it discourages anyone else from reading the story and giving it a chance to truly take off. When I told all this to the reviewer he realized that he had gone too far in his criticism and apologized, but the damage had already been done. I'm just not confident anymore in my writing abilities. If this is what I have to constantly deal with, than I would rather do something else. What I really want to talk about right now is the fine line between official and fanfiction, going back to the last sentence the reviewer said.

Fanfiction is simply what it it, it's NON-canon material based on an official work. Each story is an author's alternate take on a certain established story, character, lore, etc. Simply put, it's their own version of the established canon. That is the entire purpose of fanfiction, and as the website says, you are to Unleash Your Imagination.

So what is the problem?

The problem I have is when fans of the same work that you're writing a fanfic for criticize you for not following what the said canon has established and they to try correct you by making you rewrite your story.

This is wrong.

When you say something like that, you've taken away the entire purpose of a fanfic. You are not allowing the author to unleash their imagination. You are limiting it for the sake of having it stay in line with the established lore. If this was an official story, or a side story based on the same universe, then I wouldn't argue with this, but when comes to fanfiction itself the line is drawn here. Whatever was established in the canon, it stops right here. From here on out the author should be free to make whatever story they want to write based on that official work.

Now, I am not saying you should completely ignore what the canon has established. What I'm saying is that the official canon should be used as a guideline for your fanfic. It shouldn't be treated like it's absolute law. Fanfics are an author's alternate vision of the official story or franchise. They are not official stories and they shouldn't be seen as such. They are not suppose to be taken seriously and shouldn't be treated as such. I am not going to argue that there are too many garbage fanfics out there, but that's irrelevant because that's just what the fanfiction is. No story is exactly alike. There are good stories and there are bad ones, and that goes for fanfics as well. Fans of the said canon should not act like a police force when it comes to fanfics. It's like what George Lucas once said a few years ago.

"You go to make a movie and all you do is get criticized and people try to make decisions about what you're going to do before you do it. You know, it's not much fun, and you can't experiment. You can't do anything. You have to do it in a certain way. I don't like that, I never did. I started out with experimental films and I want to go back to experimental films. But of course, nobody wants to see experimental films."

- George Lucas on Why He's Done Directing Star Wars Movies, Vanity Fair's YouTube channel

Well, that's essentially what I was trying to do here with this fanfic centered on Malty and this is exactly the response I end up getting. When I sat down to write this fanfic, I didn't want to just remind everyone that Malty is a bad person followed by her doing a bunch of bad things. We've seen enough of that already throughout the anime, the original source material, and even through other fanfics. I wanted to do something different, something unexpected. I wanted to experiment. But like George Lucas said, nobody wants experimental stories and it becomes impossible unleash your imagination when you have someone telling you, "You can't do this, you can't do that, you have to do it this way," almost as though they are original creator themselves when they're not. It isn't just wrong, it's outright insulting and disrespectful to the real original creator.

What makes it even worse, ever since the internet has become such a major part of our lives, we have people who want to get involved with everything, especially in the entertainment industry, and they set their expectations to insanely high levels. To give an example, I watch a lot of anime and I have an account on the MyAnimeList website. When I watch an anime that had been well received so far and they had a good episode, I go on MAL to the discussion boards expecting to see what others think and to talk about what happen in that episode.

You know what I see instead? Over half the comments complaining about animation quality.

I can't tell you how much this pisses me off every time I see a comment like this and it makes want to punch every single person who brings it up and scream in their face, "WHAT ABOUT THE STORY AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?!" Not every anime studio is KyoAni or Ufotable. Get use to that fact!

But even when they do talk about story and character development you get all these so called professional critics and creative writing experts who on and on and on from the very start about "Cliched this, cliched that, trope this, trope that. Oh, this is so boring. It's so predictable. Why do people like this garbage? Didn't I tell you it was trash?! Why does no one listen to me?! Ha ha! Told you so! You didn't listen because your an idiot!" And it gets to the point where you just want to stand up and scream, "SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY AND LET ME WATCH THIS SHOW!"

It's gets extremely annoying and it takes away both the fun and the enjoyment. You can't enjoy what you're watching even with your friends and family because there's always this one person bitching about every single thing they don't like. It's just isn't fun! And then you shut yourself out from the rest of the world, wanting to be alone, because you can't enjoy anything without having to constantly deal with this shit!

I know I'm sounding very toxic right now but the point I'm trying to get at is: Where is the enjoyment value in today's world of entertainment?

None of us were alive back then but remember when movies used to be an experience? Ask your grandparents about what going to the movies was like when they were your age. I guarantee you that it's dramatically different from the way it is now. Back then, people actually got dressed up to go see a movie, especially an highly anticipated one. Movies were often shown on special screens like CinemaScope, characters were played by actors who were also people and not showoffs, and the music score actually had an overture that played before the start of the movie. Now look at it today. It's now just become another way to pass the time.

In today's world where the internet rules supreme, we have audiences who have short attention time spans, want instant gratification, and they want everything to be perfect according to their standards. And if they don't get it, they complain and make a big deal out of it.

I am so sick and tired of this mindset. Is it simply too much to ask to simply sit back, relax, and enjoy an anime or film without focusing so much on what flaws it might have or how many cliches or tropes it has from the very start? When I sit down to watch an anime, I want to watch it for what's it's worth and at very least try to enjoy it. I don't care about what kind of cliches and tropes it has or how many there are. Cliches and tropes are always going to exist no matter what age we live in. They are a part of storytelling no matter how much you wish they weren't. People should take story for what is, not complain about what it doesn't have. People all have different taste when it comes to entertainment. Get used to the fact that not everyone thinks the way you do.

It's because of this mindset that we've forgotten what the simple goal of entertainment is suppose to do, and that is to entertain. It doesn't matter if the product is good, bad, or mediocre. As long as it entertains the viewer, left some kind of impact, than it has accomplished its goal.

I'll be honest with you. One of favorite animes that has come out in recent years happens to be The Asterisk War, an anime that nobody else like but I actually did. Why? Because despite all its problems I still enjoyed it for what it was worth. I liked the concept it had and the world it was set in. Did it have all the usual tropes? Yes, but I didn't care. Are the characters your standard anime types? Yes, but I still like them because they were still fun watch. Could the story have been much better written? Absolutely! The point is, those are flaws I can live with. The more important part is that I enjoyed it. That is what really matters.

If I sat down and did nothing but pick out every flaw, cliche, and trope there is, then what's the point of me even watching it? If I expect every single anime I watch to be a masterpiece, then I'm going to be disappointed more times than not. I'm not saying you can't have criticisms, but rather that you shouldn't let that be your sole purpose when watching something. And that is what is bugs me so much. We have become too focused on cliches, tropes, originality, etc, instead of just enjoying ourselves.

Now, despite everything I've said so far, I do understand why people have gotten so sensitive about official canon and its lore especially in recent years. When I first wrote my Sailor Moon fanfics several years ago I took a few considerable risks by setting it in Washington DC instead of Toyko, using the characters names and terminology from the original DIC English dub, and Americanizing everything. But I also added in some new ideas, like giving the Sailor Scouts their own unique weapons, the ability to use each other powers instead of just their own, and giving a lot more depth and history to both the characters and the lore. And for the most part it was very well received. People really liked what I had brought to the table. It gave Sailor Moon a fresh new look and uniqueness. Of course I eventually ran out of steam, but I was pretty impressed that I had made it that far. I was really satisfied with what I had accomplished.

However, I was posting those stories before Sailor Moon Crystal came out and at a time when Hollywood, video game companies, and other people weren't ruining all our beloved franchises by rewriting them to fit in with social issues, to push some kind of political agenda, or to appeal to a certain kind of audience while alienating the rest. You can list them off: Star Trek, Final Fantasy, Ghostbusters, EA and Konami, fellow author J.K. Rowling, Terminator, superhero films in general, and of course the biggest of them all, Star Wars. Hell, you can even throw in Disney as a whole with all their unnecessary live-action remakes of their animated classics. Fans of all of these franchises are extremely upset because of this and for good reason. It's like what Spoony once said in the beginning of his Final Fantasy X-2 review.

"If you look at it from a fan's standpoint this just isn't a Final Fantasy game because they changed too much. Again, I like change, I like innovation, but when you change too much it becomes less recognizable as a game in the series and people get mad. When you go overboard trying to reinvent Final Fantasy it stops being innovation and becomes... well... BETRAYAL! BE-TRAY-AL! Uh, huh. You see? Are we beginning to understand each other just a little bit by now?"

And that's exactly what's been going on these past few years. It's no exaggeration when people say that these terrible movies that we've been getting are described as "badly written fanfiction" because it's true. And it's because of this it's given fanfiction itself a bad name. Although, at the same time, we also get fanfics that are miles better than the official stories! LOL!

But what I'm trying to get at here is that I understand why so many people have become so overprotective about the stories they love. I, like any other fan, want to see them preserved. The problem is that the anger is being directed towards the wrong people and at the wrong place, in this case fanfiction and fanfic writers. Fanfic writers are not responsible for what's goes on the official side of things. In addition people shouldn't be directing their anger at them and treating them like they're trash. That's no different from cyber bullying.

As for Shield Hero it's already a good story and it has very interesting lore. Part of what I wanted to do, what I had planned to do, was to expand that lore by introducing new things while also giving Malty a new character arc. Not once had I intended to do harm to either. I'm simply doing what this websites advises you to do. Please understand that.

When it comes to fanfics there are three things you need to remember, especially when doing a review. First, don't tell the author how they should write for the sake of the established canon, especially when it's only getting started. You need to remember that the original work doesn't belong to you and that you have no say in the matter. It's rude, disrespectful, and it goes against the entire purpose of a fanfic. Second, encourage the writer to continue with the fanfic, even if you have problems with it early on because you never know what might come next. Any criticisms you feel need to be expressed keep them short and simple. If you find it necessary to go into greater detail it might be a better idea to send a PM instead since you can't edit or delete reviews on Fanfiction in case you make a mistake. And third, always keep in mind that this is fanfiction, NON-canon material. It needs to be respected and enforced as such. If you don't like a certain story than don't read it. It's not an official work anyway.

That's all I want to say. I know it was quite long, but it was necessary. Please understand that I'm not trying to patronize anyone. I just feel that people need to get their priorities straight when it comes to official canon and fanfiction.

As for this fanfic, I really don't know if I'm going to continue it or not. I really just don't the heart to go on. And it sucks because this is the first serious fanfic I have written in a long time and the one that I really wanted to write. I really had big plans for this story. I had even intended to turn it into a trilogy. But again, if this is what I'm going to have to go through every time I submit a chapter then forget it. It's not worth the effort. I am tired of arguing all the time and I'm tired of fighting against everyone. Maybe I posted this story at the wrong time. Maybe I should have waited until Malty finally dies in the anime. I don't know, I just don't care anymore. I know it's easy to say, "Just ignore the bad reviews!" but it doesn't make it go away. Once you see the words of a review they are forever etched in your mind.

So that's how things stand right now. I apologize to anyone who might have been expecting a new chapter and got this instead, but I felt that expressing my personal feelings on this subject was more important. I am grateful for the support you gave even though it wasn't much. I just wanted to write the story I wanted to tell but I guess in these days, that isn't enough. If I do come back to this story hopefully it will be at time when everyone has stopped taking everything so seriously all time.

Thanks again and I wish my fellow fanfic writers all the best.

Sincerely, StarCatTibalt