So long story but sometime last year I got a wild idea to create a custom abzan splice legendary and a few support cards for it. Messing around for decent art, I stumbled across some awesome fanart of Karthus from League of Legends and decided to make the card off that.
This evolved and I've done 6 champs with 3 support cards each, all in 3 color combinations trying to find unique takes on things the colors do or sometimes doing something you normally wouldn't see in the colors at all (like Karthus being abzan spellslinger).
Fast forward a bit and Karthus is working great, got him tuned in right where I want, same with Gnar (a jund control list) and Bel'Veth (sultai storm using creatures to up count)..... but Evelynn...... as much as I love her in lol and lor... she's been my bane here.
I've had to nerf her twice and now I need help with some different build ideas around what I've finally gotten to be a mid-balanced set of 4 cards. The cards are as follows:
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Evelynn, Agony's Embrace 3UBR
Legendary Creature - Demon, 7/3
Whenever a source you control deals damage to an opponent, you gain that much life and put a +1/+1 counter on Evelynn, Agony's Embrace.
Pay X life, where X is Evelynn's power: Evelynn, Agony's Embrace gains trample or indestructible until end of turn.
Mastery (You may have a Mastery within this card's color identity as a second commander.)
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Allure 2UR
Legendary Enchantment - Mastery
Whenever a Commander you own attacks alone, you choose which creatures block this combat and how those creatures block.
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Evelynn's Last Caress 1UB
Legendary Enchantment - Mastery
Sacrifice two non-commander creatures: counter target spell or ability targeting a commander creature you own.
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Hate Spike BR
Legendary Enchantment - Mastery
1BR: Until end of turn, whenever a commander you control deals damage to a creature, that commander deals that much damage to that creature's controller.
So thus far I was going pretty all in on Eve, but that's left me with not board and one edict effect from being out usually.
While I'm happy with where Eve herself is, I'm more than open to changing some of the masteries to make her more consistent and less spikey. (I'm keeping the power level on these cards down, I do not want Urza, Chulane or Golos levels of "this card is just pushed")
I've contemplated group slug, swarms of creatures, or even just voltron as potential ways to build her, but I think I just hit a block with her that the others don't really suffer (except Ahri in jeskai... I gotta rework her).
If you guys want to know any of the others I can list them but Eve's the one I'm currently really wanting to get a working list for that doesn't just scream Tergrid at the table (before her nerfs she was kos).
Also, I worded it as damage so that she isn't just another [[exquisite blood]]. As is, she will not infinite with the [[sanguine bond]] effects.

Have you ever had a moment where you realized you were familiar with a property but have no memory of how you became acquainted with it? Because like, I was thinking tonight about how I have memories of Urusei Yatsura growing up. Like, I'm pretty sure that I'd heard "Lum's Love Song" at least a dozen times when I was little. And I certainly knew who Lum was, even if it was just "that cute girl in the tiger bikini". But I never watched it. Even now, I don't think I've ever watched a complete episode of Urusei Yatsura. So I've been thinking about how I could have been aware of it. Did I see previews for it on any videos I owned? And I don't think I did. I know that's how I was introduced to another Rumiko Takahashi property in Ranma 1/2. They used to advertise the shit out of that on the old Pokemon VHS's. But that's about it. I have very vivid memories of the previews on the old Manga Entertainment VHS's as well. but that was for like...Devilman, Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D, Patlabor, Bubblegum Crisis, Silent Mobius, IIRC Dirty Pair, and Ghost in the Shell. I read Animerica magazine in the late-90's and early-00's too, so I know I saw Lum in the fanart pages. But I also have distinct memories of seeing her before then...
I know my mom grew up on 80's anime like Robotech and Voltron too, but I don't think she knew about Urusei Yatsura (especially since we didn't get it until 1992). I also have no memories of seeing it on IFC's anime block or SyFy's "Saturday Anime" block (though I do know those are how I found Akira and Fatal Fury).

Alright folks, I had this idea literally 30 seconds ago, so it's a little raw... but wouldn't it be cool if we made a zine? They're pretty common in bigger fandoms like BNHA, Voltron, etc. For those who aren't familiar: a group of people get together and each contribute a piece of fanart, fanfic, or other creative work based on the piece of media the zine is for. Others can then purchase digital or physical copies of the compilation, and there you have it: a zine! Sometimes they can get fancy: for more money you can purchase extras like stickers, bookmarks, etc. Other times, they have a specific theme, such as a certain AU. Since we have less manpower, we'd probably need to keep it more on the simple side (only 1.5K members in this sub!) but would anyone be interested in this idea? I think it's a great way for creators to get motivated and have fun together, and the end result is awesome! Let me know if you're interested!

I feel pathetic right now, I feel like a sniveling little rat who can't do anything right. I have no one to turn to right now, I'm not even sure if I left my friends or if they left me. It doesn't matter anymore, I'm alone. Ever since I was younger I felt left out, there was always something separating me from everyone else. I started turning to fiction. Books were my best friend ever since first grade. I've been getting into other stuff as I got older. Video games, even more books, anime, fanfiction, basically anything that tells a story so I can forget about my pathetic self. I started getting attached to characters, but they felt like random characters. This is embarrassing to say but I don't care anymore. Yes, I would pretend to be them sometimes, not around people, only when I was alone in my bed. I didn't do anything weird, I would just pretend I was them and hug their friends (my pillow) and come up with little interactions and stuff. It was kind of like I was roleplaying, and creating fanfiction as I go. I also started talking to myself, and it wasn't like talking to myself myself, it was like I was talking to someone else. Someone with no judgement or mean words.
A little while ago I noticed something about the characters I liked. Now this could be up for interpretation but this is just how I see the characters. The characters I liked where always the ones who didn't fit in somehow. Either they were physically separated, they felt less than everyone else, or they were just cast aside or misunderstood. Let me give examples: Kokichi Oma (Danganronpa V3), Izaya Orihara (Durarara), Lance (Voltron), Redd (Animal Crossing, specifically New Horizons), Denki Kaminari (My Hero Academia), Five (The Umbrella Academy), Revali (Breath of the Wild), etc. All of these characters are side characters or characters who matter less then the actual main character. I've attached myself to them, I've roleplayed as them at some point, I've read fanfiction and looked at fanart. They are/were lonely/alone and left out. I read fanfiction of them being happy and hugging their friends and finding people they love and getting a happy ending. I pretend to be them to get their happy ending, to get the friendships I've always wanted, the found family, the love, the happy ending. I've been doing this for a long while, way before the pandemic started.
So back to the actual reason I'm here. Depression or a stupid little kid who being selfish and annoying? It is difficult to get out of bed sometimes. Am I being lazy? I find that I have nothing to look forward to at the end of a day. The things that made me happy are being ripped away from me. I've refused to hand over my device to my parent (yep, only have one of those). I see where she's coming from, I'm barely passing my classes and I stay up late. Once the stupid thing is actually taken I'll probably never get it back. She holds it in front of my face like a carrot to a horse. I lose motivation and then the device just blends into the background of gray and black. It's not like she'll never give it back, its me losing the spark I had with it. And then I'll have nothing. I've thought about suicide for a long time, of course I would never actually do it (I'm too afraid) but it's been a way out for a while now.
I'm leaving out a lot of stuff but there has been so much more. My anxiety sucks, I can barely get a word out without tripping over them, talking to strangers? Nope, it gets awkward after 2 seconds. Don't even get me started on how I see myself. Gosh am I the ugliest thing I've ever seen. The pimples? Check! The blackheads? Check! My stupid ugly chin that points up? Check! I crack my fingers and I bite my lip and I used to cut myself but I stopped (it's been a year! hell yeah). I went to therapy for a while but that didn't work out. I felt like I've been making progress but now I realize I've just been burying all of my problems. And let me remind you once again that I have nobody. I have no friends and my family is...just not who I want to be with. (They're homophobic, sexist, racist, etc. They also can't keep a secret and pretend everything is fine when it's not). There's nobody I talk to (except for my teachers) and the only person in my house makes me feel like shit. I'm desperate, telling my story to strangers on the internet and begging for a response.
I feel so stupid sometimes, just outright dumb. My grades are dropping as I type this. Maybe I have a learning disability. God I hope so, there's no way I can be this stupid right? There has to be something wrong with me. Please. It's the only explanation. If anyone wants to know my "symptoms" just ask, I'll create a list for you. See if you can figure it out or something. I don't know anymore. If anyone, anyone has anything to add, pleaaase do. Tell me how to stop being a bitch baby, tell me if I can do anything, take anything, talk to anybody. Tell me, please, anything...
Edit: So I wrote this an hour ago and didn't post it. As of writing this, me and my mother got into a physical fight. I'm not in danger or anything but I just feel alone. My room has been ripped apart and I don't even want to go in there anymore. I also posted this on depressed but it's waiting to be approved. I really need answers fast, I am at my breaking point. I don't know what I'll do if this gets any worse.

I feel pathetic right now, I feel like a sniveling little rat who can't do anything right. I have no one to turn to right now, I'm not even sure if I left my friends or if they left me. It doesn't matter anymore, I'm alone. Ever since I was younger I felt left out, there was always something separating me from everyone else. I started turning to fiction. Books were my best friend ever since first grade. I've been getting into other stuff as I got older. Video games, even more books, anime, fanfiction, basically anything that tells a story so I can forget about my pathetic self. I started getting attached to characters, but they felt like random characters. This is embarrassing to say but I don't care anymore. Yes, I would pretend to be them sometimes, not around people, only when I was alone in my bed. I didn't do anything weird, I would just pretend I was them and hug their friends (my pillow) and come up with little interactions and stuff. It was kind of like I was roleplaying, and creating fanfiction as I go. I also started talking to myself, and it wasn't like talking to myself myself, it was like I was talking to someone else. Someone with no judgement or mean words.
A little while ago I noticed something about the characters I liked. Now this could be up for interpretation but this is just how I see the characters. The characters I liked where always the ones who didn't fit in somehow. Either they were physically separated, they felt less than everyone else, or they were just cast aside or misunderstood. Let me give examples: Kokichi Oma (Danganronpa V3), Izaya Orihara (Durarara), Lance (Voltron), Redd (Animal Crossing, specifically New Horizons), Denki Kaminari (My Hero Academia), Five (The Umbrella Academy), Revali (Breath of the Wild), etc. All of these characters are side characters or characters who matter less then the actual main character. I've attached myself to them, I've roleplayed as them at some point, I've read fanfiction and looked at fanart. They are/were lonely/alone and left out. I read fanfiction of them being happy and hugging their friends and finding people they love and getting a happy ending. I pretend to be them to get their happy ending, to get the friendships I've always wanted, the found family, the love, the happy ending. I've been doing this for a long while, way before the pandemic started.
So back to the actual reason I'm here. Depression or a stupid little kid who being selfish and annoying? It is difficult to get out of bed sometimes. Am I being lazy? I find that I have nothing to look forward to at the end of a day. The things that made me happy are being ripped away from me. I've refused to hand over my device to my parent (yep, only have one of those). I see where she's coming from, I'm barely passing my classes and I stay up late. Once the stupid thing is actually taken I'll probably never get it back. She holds it in front of my face like a carrot to a horse. I lose motivation and then the device just blends into the background of gray and black. It's not like she'll never give it back, its me losing the spark I had with it. And then I'll have nothing. I've thought about suicide for a long time, of course I would never actually do it (I'm too afraid) but it's been a way out for a while now.
I'm leaving out a lot of stuff but there has been so much more. My anxiety sucks, I can barely get a word out without tripping over them, talking to strangers? Nope, it gets awkward after 2 seconds. Don't even get me started on how I see myself. Gosh am I the ugliest thing I've ever seen. The pimples? Check! The blackheads? Check! My stupid ugly chin that points up? Check! I crack my fingers and I bite my lip and I used to cut myself but I stopped (it's been a year! hell yeah). I went to therapy for a while but that didn't work out. I felt like I've been making progress but now I realize I've just been burying all of my problems. And let me remind you once again that I have nobody. I have no friends and my family is...just not who I want to be with. (They're homophobic, sexist, racist, etc. They also can't keep a secret and pretend everything is fine when it's not). There's nobody I talk to (except for my teachers) and the only person in my house makes me feel like shit. I'm desperate, telling my story to strangers on the internet and begging for a response.
I feel so stupid sometimes, just outright dumb. My grades are dropping as I type this. Maybe I have a learning disability. God I hope so, there's no way I can be this stupid right? There has to be something wrong with me. Please. It's the only explanation. If anyone wants to know my "symptoms" just ask, I'll create a list for you. See if you can figure it out or something. I don't know anymore. If anyone, anyone has anything to add, pleaaase do. Tell me how to stop being a bitch baby, tell me if I can do anything, take anything, talk to anybody. Tell me, please, anything...

Edit: In the time since this post was written, there was a decent summation of the drama this post entails by SC Willard that I'd recommend checking out if you have an hour and change to kill.

So what's RWBY and what's its history with LGBT rep?

RWBY is a web show made by Rooster Teeth that focuses on four girls with big weapons who fight monsters. Originally advertised off the hype-factor of showrunner and lead animator Monty Oum, the series has gradually progressed from a garage project with a shoestring budget to Rooster Teeth's flagship show, elevating the company and being sort of a big deal. It's a very contentious show that depending on who you ask is the biggest deal for pop culture since the invention of the flip book, the worst thing since the Hindenberg exploded... or just an overall 6/10 show with good moments alongside bad ones that's just good enough to not drop but frustrating enough that you wish you could. To quote the HBomberguy review of it, "I want to just call RWBY bad and move on with my life, but it's not that simple."
I think for anime fans, nothing sums up the general reaction I see to RWBY more than the quote "It's Sword Art Online if made by the West." The first seasons aren't very good and are made on very bad animation software with footage that wasn't even rendered. RWBY's production in general is a mindfuck that I could and have in the past talked at extensive length about, which I may do next time I want to write something without it being academically inclined.
As the series has progressed, it's begun tackling more mature themes and has done more in the realm of representation, both racially and sexually. As the series has gone on, RWBY has introduced a variety of female LGBT characters, ranging from lesbian Ilia Amitola, Coco Adel, Saphron and Terra Cotta-Arc, and May Marigold, who is transgender. I would include two of the protagonists, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long in there as the show is teasing a relationship between them, but after Supernatural's eleven years of queerbaiting, let's make sure they don't go to Super Hell before we cast judgement.
However, for all these leaps in representation, there has been one category left quite unfilled, and that's the topic of male LGBT representation. With the exception of one named character (who himself had two lines of dialogue and hasn't physically appeared in show for half a decade), RWBY has never had a male LGBT character on screen. It codes a lot of men as queer (coding being a term that means "the subtextual portrayal of a queer character in media whose identity is not explicitly confirmed within canon") but when it comes to pulling the trigger, the series often falls flat. As the years have gone on and the series continues to introduce more female LGBT characters, the fact that Scarlet is the one proper example has rankled some fans, especially as the confirmation was second hand- it came from a Twitter account promoting the mangas, with the account runner simply saying that writer Miles Luna had the idea and suggested it to the author of that issue (I've also written a thing in the past specifically covering why Scarlet is terrible representation). Not helping was that prior to Scarlet's reveal, the crew commentary for Volume 5 and a post-season AMA revealed that a popular character nicknamed "Pilot Boi," was meant to have a line indicating a husband in his hometown, but as the character died in his second appearance, the writing team had to be told that Pilot Boi would be a case of Bury Your Gays- a trope that describes situations where gay characters are killed. The writers even admitted in a tone-deaf manner that had they been aware of Pilot Boi's popularity, they would have stuck to their guns and kept him gay.
It's worth noting that this isn't an isolated incident in Rooster Teeth's backlog or anime in general. Many Rooster Teeth shows include female LGBT characters such as Skout in Nomad of Nowhere, Ohio in Red vs Blue and the female-presenting Val/entina Romanyszyn of gen:LOCK (who is genderfluid and expresses that they wish to transition to identifying as male during the series). The closest any Rooster Teeth product has come to a male LGBT depiction has been in Red Vs Blue season 15 which queerbaits the idea of protagonists Grif and Simmons having had a one night stand due to outside forces.
(Just to get the description out of the way here, queerbaiting is the practice of teasing LGBT representation so you can make money from that audience but then not deliver- again, Supernatural and Super Hell is a case for that)
As the series continues, one of the most popular (and really, only) candidates for a queer male character on the show is Qrow Branwen. Introduced in Volume 3 as the cool mentor uncle for protagonist Ruby Rose, Qrow is inarguably the most popular male character in the series. He gets the good fights, he looks cool, he talks good, and he's a big softie with a Tragic Anime Backstory and the series itself never giving him a break (literally, his custom superpower is an AOE bad luck ability that he can't turn off and his theme song is called Bad Luck Charm). As the series has gone on and made most of the other male cast either explicitly only into women, made them villains or have them be too young/old for their prospective shipping partners, Qrow has remained the largely unproblematic favorite pick for a hopeful male LGBT character. This is also amplified by portions of his writing that queer fans have felt draws from their experiences- in particular, that Qrow is born with something he can't control (sexuality or in this case, his bad luck Semblance) and drives a wedge between him and his family, leading him to have self worth issues that are eventually resolved as he meets more people like himself.
Volume 7, which aired from 2019 to 2020, added another notch to the bow for people hoping that Qrow or another character would become LGBT. In Episode 2, Qrow shared an intimate hug with James Ironwood, a ship called "IronQrow" that already had a pre-existing shipping group since Volume 3. But the bigger dynamic would come in the following episode, when Qrow shared screentime with Clover Ebi, the fish in that title above.

Meet the Lucky Fish Boi

(just to explain the fish jokes, Clover's fairytale inspiration is A Fisherman's Good Luck from Aesop's fables and his weapon is a fishing rod named Kingfisher)
Clover is introduced as the leader of General Ironwood's "Ace Operatives" often shortened to the Ace Ops (as they're all based off characters from Aesop's Fables). In Episode 3, we get to see Qrow and Clover interact, with Clover revealing that his Semblance is good fortune (because shippers love nothing like they love narrative parallels), alongside winking at Qrow in a way many found flirtatious. Partly because the animator for that scene confirmed the intention was for it to be read as flirty, especially after someone compared it to a scene from Volume 4 where a waitress winked at Qrow in a similar manner, right down to both character saying "Lucky you" to Qrow.
From there, Fair Game went thermonuclear in how popular it got. As it turned out, RWBY had a lot of fans who had been waiting for the slightest crumbs of male LGBT material and when they finally got it, they went hog wild. Fair Game shot up the shipping charts in a way no new ship since Volume 4's "Rose Garden" between Ruby and Oscar had. On Archive of Our Own, one of the largest fanfiction communities on the internet, Fair Game became one of the five most popular ships for the entire franchise in under a year. All of Qrow's past ships were blown out of the water in comparrison, as Fair Game quickly began pushing past franchise-wide staple ships.
And the fans were receiving a rare thing- what seemed to be validation from the crew themselves (linked post is a masterpost showing screenshots of all the crew members hyping up Fair Game). Several members of the team shared Fair Game content, saying that they liked the ship. The official RWBY Twitter shared images and video of the two interacting, something they only normally do for the bigger ships that are going to be canon like Renora (Ren and Nora) or Bumblebee (Blake and Yang). Clover's bio in the phone game RWBY: Amity Arena (which the developers have confirmed several times that all bios are proof-read by RWBY's writing team to make sure they're canon) leaned in on the connection between Qrow and Clover.

With these two mystical Semblances colliding, this is the first time we hope Qrow is defeated by someone else, because this might be the only chance for him to catch a break.
"I was honestly expecting things to go a lot rougher." -Qrow (moments before meeting Clover's Bolo Ties)

I'd like to say here that personally, I wasn't shipping Fair Game. I did not have the horse in the race due to preferring IronQrow, and I wasn't aware of how big it got until the hiatus. My thoughts on Fair Game were just "Yeah that could be cool."
So throughout Volume 7, Fair Game is building up a lot of speed and popularity; it's becoming a very popular ship and all eyes are on the series as people grow to like the ship and care for Clover and wish for Qrow to catch a break... and then episode 12, "The Enemy of Trust" happens.
Some context for those who don't watch RWBY: Main villain Salem is fully immortal, and cannot die. General Ironwood, who has long struggled with paranoid tendencies, has just sacrificed one of his arms to defeat one of Salem's generals in a fight, and comes back to his office to find a black chess piece on his desk that sets off his PTSD. Salem then sends in a conference call, warning that she's coming to Atlas personally to steal the plot devices that will give her godlike power. Ironwood decides there and then that the only safe option is to sacrifice the city of Mantle and elevate the city of Atlas out of the atmosphere, above the clouds and out of Salem's reach. Team RWBY are opposed to this and Ruby gets out a distress call that Qrow, Clover and others pick up to warn them of Ironwood's plan.
Meanwhile, Qrow, Clover and local vigilante Robyn Hill have captured a separate member of Salem's cabal and are transporting him to prison. Clover gets a separate message showing an arrest warrant for RWBY and Qrow, reluctantly informing Qrow that he has to take Qrow in as well. While Qrow is willing to go along with the arrest until he can talk to Ironwood himself, Robyn starts a fight on the ship that leads to Tyrian, the aforementioned agent, freeing himself and killing the pilots on the ship, leading to it crashing in a tundra.
Qrow checks on Robyn, finding her unconscious, and Clover repeats his intention to arrest Qrow due to his loyalty to Ironwood. The two fight, and Tyrian shows up. Qrow tries to focus on Tyrian due to him being a bigger threat, but Clover keeps attacking Qrow, leading to Qrow teaming up with Tyrian temporarily. It's a really good fight scene if you ignore how everyone besides Tyrian is a giant moron to allow the fight to happen but hey, it's still a good fight in a vaccum. When Clover's Aura is broken, he repeats his trust in Ironwood, only for Tyrian (who had been immobilzied with Clover's bolas several meters behind Qrow), grabbing Qrow's sword that had been knocked aside, getting around both of them without either of them seeing, and then stabbing Clover in the back, again, without either fighter noticing Tyrian doing so until Clover's iron intake drastically shot up.
I said the fight was good. Not well written.
Either way, Tyrian gleefully rubs in the killing wound to Qrow, mockingly saying that he's looking forward to the next round of their rivalry death matches, and runs away while Qrow rushes to Clover's side. As the sun rises on the tundra, Qrow insists that he'll make Ironwood pay for this, with Clover's last words being "Good luck..." as the light leaves his eyes, the final shot of the episode being Qrow screaming in agony over Clover's corpse as we fade to black and get a credit sequence with no music.

The aftermath of The Death

The screaming was mirrored by the fanbase, and presumably some members of the crew because things got ugly afterwards. Some fans latched onto desperation tactics, ideas such as "Oscar is going to use his Semblance to rewind time and prevent Clover's death" or "A medical team will arrive in time to patch up the wound and Clover will be fine," or "Clover will be resurrected by the Staff of Creation/Salem's Grimm magic/Watts having a Frankenstein Semblance."
Then the finale aired, and after the dust cleared people began wondering whether or not they had just been queerbaited. Remember how I said I didn't have the horse in the Fair Game race? Even I was one of the people who after watching episode 12 went "... did I just get baited?" It seemed so obvious in the moment, surely CRWBY wouldn't be that tone-deaf, especially concerning a Tweet from a crew member (that I couldn't find while researching for this) that saw someone saying that portions of episode 12's animation had made them nearly throw up in anticipation for the fandom response, which to the FG fans felt like the crew flipping them the double birds.
And then it came out that what CRWBY intended and what the audience saw were entirely different beasts. The wink that got animator approval? Was an add lib, one of many that the animation staff are encouraged to do to liven up storyboards. Clover and Qrow's easy-going dynamic? Per the commentary for Volume 7, the intention was that Qrow start out hating Clover, only to develop a camraderie over the season that would lead to Clover's death. Clover seemingly being LGBT at all was never something considered by the team until Fair Game became popular, with Clover's actor knowing from the day he got that part that Clover was a dead man walking. They legitimately did not realize how harmful they were accidentally being by getting the fanbase's hopes up. By this point people were desperate for any shreds of mlm rep, and here the crew were seemingly offering them a four-course meal. One member of staff even outright apologized for accidentally baiting fans. What definitely didn't help the immediate response was that following Volume 7's finale, some of the first merch made was Fair Game themed, which many took as salt on an open wound.
CRWBY's usual response to criticism is to bury its head in the sand and hope it goes away unless the issue becomes too big to ignore (such as Volume 5's disaster production necessitating assurances that the primary flaws would be resolved for V6, or an expose about their working conditions in 2019 requiring massive overhauls in the production process), but one writer, Eddy Rivas, a newcomer for the team in Volume 7, took it on himself to discuss the blowback. For better or worse, Eddy became the face of the writers when it came to the Fair Game backlash as he had written the episode Clover died in, talking about how while the intent was never for Qrow and Clover to be a romantic couple, he in retrospect could see what people were latching onto and apologized for leading those fans on, saying that with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been best to just warn people up front that the ship wasn't going to happen. Eddy was also quick to say that the marketing and writing teams were separate, so events such as the Fair Game merch were done by a different group than the people who wrote about Clover getting shivved.
Fans didn't really care about Eddy's reasoning though, with some angry, and a lot of people just... disappointed. A common hashtags used by Clover fans was #CloverDeservedBetter, as many of his fans felt ire towards the writing that led to his death or just sorrow at his demise. It saw people who had been defending the show and saying it wouldn't queerbait and being forced to admit otherwise following the episode's airing. There wasn't much anger in January or February about Fair Game that wasn't tinted with regret or sorrow. When combined with the pre-existing issues mlm fans had about RWBY's lackluster rep (especially following the high-profile queerbaiting in Voltron), the Fair Game backlash feels inevitable in hindsight. If it hadn't been in Volume 7, it would have inevitably happened somewhere else in the fandom down the line. Fair Game simply provided many mlm fans of the series a chance to finally get on the podium and use it, regardless of whether or not the speaker even liked the ship, because finally attention was on the side of the fandom that had been left out in the cold for years.
And then after this, the fandom started getting... weird about Fair Game and the backlash.

The fandom kinda whitewash/downplay the whole thing

This is the weird part of the story personally, but around March or April, there's a deliberate whitewashing of the Fair Game backlash. Presumably just as many of the FG fans moved on, a narrative began to be pushed where "Oh Fair Game never had a realistic shot, this is just a few toxic stans harassing the crew."
Now, allow me to be clear: There were and still are toxic Fair Game fans. Regardless of how justified their anger was at Clover's death, going as far as to harass members of the crew, Eddy especially for being willing to address the situation to the lengths that he did, is never an acceptable response to fandom drama. I've spoken with several fans of other Qrow/men ships since V7 wrapped and heard plenty of stories about Fair Game fans being douchebags, including timing ship weeks (weeks where prompts are made in the open so fans come together to make a lot of content for those characters) to overshadow smaller ships. There is also a meta criticism of Fair Game and how it's frequently depicted where Qrow is down on his luck and struggling with mental health, only for Clover to resurrect the 2000s as he's usually written to be a Manic Pixie Dream Girl who solves all of Qrow's problems with his attitude and a lot of sex.
(also an alarming trend of making Ironwood abusive to Qrow which I kinda stopped caring for after the fifth fanfic did SURPRISE ABUSE)
But, that condemnation of toxic fans does not itself excuse the historicial revisionism that then occured. Gradually on /RWBY, posts about Fair Game received more and more vitriol, more people saying "It never had a chance, stop." Fair Game content never makes it it onto the sub's front page, even as it reposts years old-fanart for the 16th time. Art of the two is lucky to get a hundred upvotes on a community where front-posts get over a thousand. Things came to a head on February 15th, where a user made a thread titled "Why the events surrounding Clover and Qrow devastated a large portion of RWBY's LGBT+ fandom." It's a decent post that basically explains why the OP believed there to be queerbaiting with the intent of explaining to people less versed in the LGBT community. It got some gilding here on Reddit and a bunch of people with accounts made in the last year coming in to agree. Which set off alarms on the moderation team. Some of these accounts were new (ignoring that Volume 7 had brought interest towards the series, and they'd had an AMA with the Ace Ops voice actors earlier that year). Clearly, to the mod team, this was proof of brigaiding (a site-wide illegal action on Reddit). The post was taken down, and branded with a mark of shame. It's the one post in /RWBY history to bare the flair BRIGAIDED. It also includes an exceptionally weird quote where one person goes (in context of how the show has basically no mlm rep) that "The writers are not and should not be obligated to represent everyone."
And when an actual moderator for the subreddit (who since deleted the comments but one of them has them openly admitting to intercepting reports about their posts and bragging about it) is openly mocking users who liked the essay by searching their post history and account age to see if they were new accounts or not, it's a really bad look in general for such a hot-button topic. Especially when they're being this condescendingly arrogant towards people they suspect of coming from off-site to push the post:

In short, a bunch of people coming from another platform to promote their agenda here, while using mass upvoting and downvoting to attempt to enforce it is rude at best. Not to mention the fake "this post is amazing" comments from people like yourself who totally had nothing to do with it.
Additionally, when said agenda is an attempt at "educating" the members of the other platform it continues being rude. When that agenda is questionable as fuck from a factual basis, includes several people who have been banned from this platform for attacking Rooster Teeth staff members, those that take part in the brigading are frowned upon.
You want to engage with people here about a subject, coming with a thesis and demanding the community accept your opinion is not the way to go.

I won't go as far as to say that /RWBY had a deliberate anti-Fair Game agenda to try and kill the ship and its popularity so they could stay in Rooster Teeth's good graces and get collabs such as AMAs, but I'll definitely point out that many of the top upvoted posts on the ship during the Volume 7-8 hiatus were largely about disproving the ship as explcitly romantic and downplaying the queerbait accusations, with prolific posters from the sub harassing Fair Game fans off-site by largely strawmanning the backlash as just a few people being salty that their headcanons and ships didn't become true. Again, there were people like this who took it too far, but using the actions of a few toxic fans to discredit an entire ship is... kind of a morally dark action, especially when in context RWBY gets very annoyed at people using the actions of a vocal minority to discredit portions of the fandom such as the Bumblebee ship or the show itself given the RWBY's fandom's reputation as being short-tempered and unable to take criticism. Especially when you're acting worse than the people you condemn as toxic. To the point where you outright compare people who were hurt to fanbases focused around a character who groomed a child and a real life sex pest.
And as such that's where the story ends. Fair Game fans are still in the corners writing fanfic, making art, all that general jazz, some of the more toxic accounts got deleted or mass-reported so I couldn't find much of the supposed harassment that was used to discredit the movement outside of people just replying to RWBY tweets with the Clover hashtag. Will RWBY have learned from their mistakes with marketing, fan expectations, and telling the team to be careful what they say on social media, especically regarding shipping? Who can tell. But I'm leaning on it not being very likely.

Hello again! Since my Dirty Laundry post did pretty well (Thank you so much for all the lovely comments btw! you guys are great) and I don't have anything better to do, here's another voltron drama post. This time we'll be talking about keithkog, a twitter user who became infamous in the voltron fandom with both anti and pro shippers alike. Before this post starts I will say there are some tws here for mentions of paedophilia, sexual assault, abuse and rape. It isn't graphic but please proceed with caution if those topics upset or trigger you in any way. Anyway, onto the drama!
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1: What is Voltron?:
Voltron: Legendary Defender, or vld for short, is an animated series created by dreamworks and broadcast on the streaming service netflix. It's a remake of the 1981 mecha anime Golion, and follows 5 paladins from earth who are sent to space to fight an evil alien overlord who plans on taking over the entire galaxy. The paladins consist of Pidge, Shiro, Keith, Hunk and Lance.
2: What is klance?
Klance is the extremely popular ship of Keith and Lance. It became particularly popular on social media websites such as twitter and tumblr, and next to sheith is the most popular ship from the show.
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3: What is sheith?:
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As mentioned above, sheith is another very popular ship from voltron. The ship consists of keith and shiro, and became controversial within the fandom fairly quickly due to the age gap between the characters (keith is 19 and Shiro is 25 in season 1). Later seasons confirming both of them knew each other when Keith was underage, as well as an episode where Keith refers to Shiro as being like a brother to him, further added to the drama surrounding the ship.
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4: What are anti / pro shippers?:
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Anti shippers and pro shippers are sub groups within fandoms. Anti shippers generally believe that fiction has a major effect on reality, and because of this fanart / fanfic containing dark subjects such as rape, paedophilia, and torture are inappropriate and should not be expressed. Original works such as the horror manhwa "Killing Stalking" are also subject to backlash from antis. Pro shippers, on the other hand, usually believe that fiction does not effect reality, or if it does it isn't to the point that fanfic about dark subjects shouldn't be made. Both of these groups are constantly starting infights and debates, and as someone who's been on both sides I can confirm both are shitshows. However, anti shippers flocked to the VLD fandom, and that's where our drama today stems from.
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Part 1: The babysitter:
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On the 17th of November 2017, a twitter user going by keithkog made a tweet about the children they were babysitting. The tweet starts off with " IM FORCING THE KIDS IM BABYSITTING TO WATCH VOLTRON AGAIN AND THEYRE LIKE NOOOOOOO " and turns into a thread as the OP posts updates. these updates include the children saying voltron is confusing, the OP telling them that Keith and Lance are "basically dating" (this is not true by the way) and, most infamously, the OP claiming one of the children ships klance and called sheith sexual assault. Videos and pictures of the children were also included in the thread.
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Part 2: OP what the fuck:
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These tweets became pretty infamous within the fandom fairly quickly, for obvious reasons. This tweet calling the OP out was made a few days later, with the children's faces censored. The responses included people questioning why a child would say what's portrayed as a loving friendship on the show is sexual assault, how a 9 year old would know what sexual assault is, and concern about the OP posting pictures and videos of children without the parents consent. More than a few people called it fake, with one user in the link above referring to it as an "anti fanfic". After all this backlash and some callouts on twitter, keithkog made a response.
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Part 3: the response:
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Before I start this part I will say that keithkog not only made a response on tiwtter, but they and their friends responded to pro shippers on tumblr. Because of this I don't have all the responses, but these are the main ones. Firstly a tweet was made stating that the OP had no idea the child would say sheith is sexual assault, and that a 9 year old has more morals than a twitter user on the basis of fictional ships. Then huntypastellance, a voltron blog which archives much of the bullshit going on in the fandom, began receiving messages from keithkog. First there was this anon where keithkog apologised for posting videos of the child, referred to sheith as statutory rape, and admitted to forcing the children to watch voltron more than once but they enjoyed it in the end. They also stated the children were "mature for their age", which received a lot of backlash. Questions of why the Op didn't tell the parents immediately that one of their prepubescent children was openly discussing sexual assault were also raised. Another comment here which received major backlash was keithkog accusing hunty of being "worse than their abuser".
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Hunty then received another message, this time from a friend of keithkogs, who claimed anyone who shared pictures of the children who are 18+ are podophiles (the irony seems to be lost on them that keithkog would also be a pedophile for posting the pictures in the first place). This led to yet more backlash.
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Part 4: keithkog finally apologises:
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On November 24rth 2017, Keithkog posted an apology to twitter. In the apology they admit to using children further their "ship agenda", again stated they never talked to any of the children about sexual assault, and that it was actually the child who wanted to be filmed. It should be noted here that keithkog did not apologise for calling huntypastellance worse than their abuser, or for their friend calling hunty a pedophile for sharing the tweets. However, they did apologise in the end and admit that the original thread was a bad idea, and they did delete it. It's not like they'd do this again, right?
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Part 5: They do this again:
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Okay, so before this part starts I will say I don't have much evidence for this one. If I have gotten this wrong please let me know, I will edit the post as soon as I can and I do apologise deeply if this isn't true. However, I do have reason to believe this is the same person as keithkog. On April 19th 2018, a twitter user going by allurans tweeted a picture of two boys from their high school during a volleyball game. In the tweet they refer to one of the boys as keith's "whitesona", and caption one picture as "get married already". I have reason to believe allurans and keithkog are the same person, though most of my evidence comes from this carrd where the OP states they've used the urls keithkog and allurans previously. The Op of the carrd describes themselves as a klance stan and an anti, which keithkog was. The carrd is also linked in the twitter bio of allurans. This is pretty flimsy evidence, but this is also all I could find on what happened to keithkog after the babysitter tweet. I'd like to think they learned their lesson and stopped filming people without their consent, but you never know.
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Anyway, that's the infamous story of the voltron babysitter anti! I hope you enjoyed and big shout out to tumblr user huntypastellance for providing all the screenshots for this post. Take care and please don't get children involved in your space mecha ship discourse.

Hi, everyone! Firstly this is my first post on hobbydrama, so feel free to correct me if I get anything wrong here. Secondly this story primarily focuses allegations of racism, particularly against Mexican Americans, and I am very white and European. So again, please correct me if anything on here is incorrect. Anyway without further ado, let's get on to the shitshow:
1: What is voltron?:
Voltron: Legendary Defender, or vld for short, is an animated series created by dreamworks and broadcast on the streaming service netflix. It's a remake of the 1981 mecha anime Golion, and follows 5 paladins from earth who are sent to space to fight an evil alien overlord who plans on taking over the entire galaxy. The paladins consist of Pidge, Shiro, Keith, Hunk and Lance.
2: What is klance?
Klance is the extremely popular ship of Keith and Lance. It became particularly popular on social media websites such as twitter and tumblr, and next to sheith is the most popular ship from the show.
2: What is dirty laundry?
Dirty laundry is a klance fanfic, posted first on archive of our own by a user named Gibslythe on July 11th 2016. The plot is as follows: Lance, who is visiting his family for the holidays, asks Keith to come along and pretend to be his boyfriend in exchange for washing his laundry for free. Angst and gayness ensues. The original fanfiction has been deleted from Archive of Our own, but you can find it on wattpad here.
Wait, why was it deleted? What happened?
Well, here's where things get dramatic.
Part 1: The rise to fame:
Honestly it's hard to describe just how insanely popular Dirty Laundry was in the voltron fandom without being there, but this fanfiction was everywhere. It went from being a fairly popular klance fic to being the fifth most kudoed fic on ao3 of all time. After Gasolina, a 2010 reggaeton song was referenced in the fic, the comments section was filled with klance fans. This video contains some examples in the comments below. Fandometrics, a fairly popular tumblr blog which chronicles the most popular fandoms / ships of the time, made this post on July 27th, 2016 referencing the voltron fandom "airing dirty laundry". Sanchez became a popular headcanon for lance's last name after the fanfic (note: this was before Lance was officialy confirmed by the voltron crew to be Cuban). Other headcanons from the fic, such as Lance being Mexican American and having a large family were already around, but they really blew up after Dirty Laundry. "Abuelita is coming" became a popular in joke amongst Dirty Laundry fans, as a reference to the fic. So yeah, Dirty Laundry was insanely popular. The author was getting kudos and praise, fanart was abound, and DL fans were eagerly awaiting the lastest updates. What could possibly go wrong?
Part 2: Things go wrong:
After a short time of being an untouchable masterpiece, some voltron fans began to.. question the fanfic. In particular, its portrayal of Lance's Mexican American family. Here are just some of the issues parts of the fandom, especially Latino fans, had:

• Lance and Keith dancing to the aforementioned daddy yankee song Gasolina. While from what I can gather Gasolina is a popular song within the Latino community, some Latino fans took issue with a white author putting this in.
• La chancla. For those of you who don't know, la chancla is a fairly popular joke within the latino community whereby a family member, usually the mother, punishes a child by beating them with her shoe. Again people took issue with a white author putting this their fic. Whether this is offensive to latino abuse survivors by making physical abuse into a joke or just stereotypical depends on who you ask.
• Did I mention the author is white yet.

It's hard to find these posts now as many of them have been deleted, however tumblr user huntypastellance has a post here which sums up the drama. There were also allegations that some of the people calling the fanfic racist were white themselves, but as I can't find evidence either way I can neither confirm nor deny this. This drama lead to the author herself making a tumblr post, which you can find here. The TLDR version is the author apologised for any offensive portrayals of Mexican Americans in the fic, and was willing to listen to any Latino person who was offended or wanted to help her in writing it. This received mixed reactions from the fandom, but overall things seemed back on track. The author admitted she fucked up and wanted to learn, what more could one ask for? What else could possibly go wrong?
Part 3: Mama Mia, here we go again:
So aside from the racism allegations, the fic seemed mostly drama free. And in spite of the controversy, the fic was still very popular and receiving kudos, fanart and bookmarks galore.
Then Alexi was introduced.
Alexi is a a family member of Lance's who is introduced in chapter 4 of dirty laundry. In chapter five, Alexia is confirmed as having autism and sensory issues, such as food textures, which is common in people with autism.
All hell broke lose.
Now allegations of ableism for a stereotypical portrayal of autism AND racism were being launched at the author. Eventually Gibslythe made another post addressing the drama, which again you can find here. One bombshell from this post includes the author stating she will not be updating the fanfiction regularly (previously updates were posted weekly), and would instead just post one big update and be done with the fanfic. Again this received mixed reactions, although even people who didn't like the fanfic began standing up for the author as she began receiving harassment for the writing. However, the damage was done; Dirty Laundry and its author was receiving hate and critsism, and even people who originally like the fanfic began to stray away. And this is where we come to the grand finale.
Part 4: Yes I've been broken hearted, blue since the day we parted:
So, you're probably wondering now why I can't link the original ao3 link to Dirty Laundry. Well here we are, at last! While I can't find the spefic date, in 2018 many dirty laundry fans went to the fic as usual, whether that was to check for updates or to look back for old times sake.
However, the fanfic was gone.
And it was replaced with the bee movie script.
Naturally there was uproar, questions and sadness from fans. What made the author delete the fic? Was it the harassment? (the answer is yes). Gibslythe later explained it on twitter, however the link isn't working for some reason: basically some kind of glitch on ao3 marked the fic as orphaned and it couldn't be deleted. This was later fixed, and in 2018 the fic was gone.
So, that was dirty laundry. It was a cute little Voltron fic that had a surprising meteoric rise to fame, before crashing down and becoming a meme for the author's reaction to the hate. Again if you want to read it's linked at the top, and I will end this with the quote from the authors note after the bee movie script was uploaded: " To bee free is to cast away the shackles that hold you down "

This list doesn't refer to ALL straight people and there may be examples of the things I discuss here which aren't shitty.

1. When you have two characters of the same sex fall in love canonically and deal with their feelings.. Then get hit with the "Its okay I'm actually a girl crossdressing" or vice versa. (Usually this trope is done with a gay male relationship)

This doesn't mean all crossdressing is bad! Not at all! For instance, Pidge from Voltron was wonderful!! And I don't mind it as much when they are clear to us the reader that this character, who is a love interest is either definitely a girl OR probably a girl.

1. When we have a ship (canon or otherwise) and its gay. For instance, both characters are female. Then someone comes along and says "yes I ship that!" Then proceeds to make fanart, fanfic or whatever with one of our female leads as a guy... Like bro. Really? You had to make it straight?

Gender swapping in general is NOT wrong and I quite enjoy gender swapping. However, gender swapping done for the purpose of making the relationship more ""normal"" in your eyes is fucked up.
3.When straight people try to say "dang two people of the same gender can't be friends anymore" like they don't ship every man and woman who pass by eachother at Walmart.

1. When we have a trans character in anime and they are referred to as a guy. Let me clarify the crossdressing genre is real but characters like the little girl shown in Zombie Land Saga who quite obviously are transgender... It sucks when someone calls them "He". Like my girl deadass died because she found a beard hair.

That's all I have to say. I honestly don't care if you disagree, but if you have some stuff to add or explain why this may not be as bad as I perceive it. Go ahead. I'm always down to discuss.

This is my first post to Hobby Drama, though I've read many posts here. Constructive criticism is welcome, and I’ll try to fix any errors as soon as I can :)
As an aside, I should state my own position in this drama - I watched several seasons of Voltron but was only tangentially involved in fandom. While I'm trying to remain objective and unbiased towards both sides, I do have strong opinions about the Voltron fandom though I never shipped any characters in the show. I had no stake in any drama, though I watched it as it happened with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. I've tried to attach many screenshots, but a lot of the posts are either deleted or just lost in the sand of tumblr and twitter's annoying search functions.
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What is Voltron?

Voltron: Legendary Defender is a reboot of the show Voltron, which started in 1983. Voltron: Legendary Defender (often referred to Voltron or VLD) is the fourth Voltron show. It was produced by Dreamworks, and debuted on Netflix in June 2016. The plot centres around a group of young Earth people who end up fighting evil aliens in space using mechanical lions that formed into a giant robot. The main cast consist of these humans, called paladins, and two aliens who aid them. The show was incredibly successful, with multiple seasons being given 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it ran for 8 seasons until December 2018.
It immediately made a splash on Tumblr, who are always on the hunt for The Next Big Show and usually form strong attachments to cartoon shows aimed at a young audience. The show had good representation, with a disabled, traumatised Japanese man and a black alien princess being new characters the site latched onto in particular. Within days a fierce fandom had developed and overtaken vast swathes of the site, and one of the most chaotic and toxic fandoms in Tumblr history had sprouted.

The Fandom's History

Any fandom that grows so quickly in size over such a short amount of time is always going to be wild, and Voltron really was no exception. Strong shipping communities were formed, and at first it was largely positive, with even staff interacting with their fans.
The largest ship in the community was Klance, shipping together the characters Keith and Lance. There was a massive outpouring of Klance content - as is to be expected. But all this content started to rub up against the second biggest ship.
Sheith was the pairing of Keith and Shiro. Klance shippers and Sheith shippers were inevitably going to have fights as both ships were 'incompatible' - they both involved Keith, and fight did they do. There was a lot of wank, and a lot of ship fights, and the fandom just kept growing and getting more toxic. The Klance ship, in particular, was full of Sheith-antis, who preached that Sheith was paedophillic and incestuous and by liking, engaging with, or creating content of the ship you were promoting such behaviours. For reference, Shiro and Keith were both above age, though Shiro was later revealed to be 7 years older. They had a relationship that went back before the start of the show, and while they were very close and had a brotherly relationship, there was never any idea in canon that they were blood related.
This kind of behaviour is standard in the crazier fandom circles, and very similar behaviour can be seen in Undertale and Sherlock. It's nothing new, and it didn't stop - when one side has the moral high ground of 'think of the children', why should they stop, after all? Sheith was not the only victim. Any ship which involved Shiro and another paladin (who were all younger, and looked up to Shiro as a leader) was referred to as Shaladin, and any Shaladin shipper (or Shallie, for short) was in danger of hate. Sheith was the biggest Shaladin ship, by a long shot.
By the time of the incident I'm writing about, the VLD fandom was a vicious place to be. Voltron was not a show interested in romance, which led to all ships believing that "they had a chance" at the golden crown of becoming canon. With no canon rival ships, there was nothing hampering the growth of shipping communities. When these ships continued on having no canon content, the fans got restless even though the show was being pumped out at breakneck pace (78 episodes over two years). Fans turned from hoping their ships would become canon, to their ships will be canon, to their ships are canon, it's just that the homophobic cast/crew are refusing to just animate the characters well enough (a little scarily, I saw elements of the good ol' Snapewives in VLD - only the fandom really knew and appreciated certain characters, and the crew didn't deserve them). The two show runners did confirm in a 2017 interview that Klance was not intended to be canon, and they had no real interest in it - but it didn't stop fans. (Transcript of the section in question). Tumblr loves to insist their ships will be canon no matter what, and Tumblr loves to hype up a show as the second coming, only to turn around and decide that the show is garbage and needs to be ridiculed.
There were so many controversies, including but necessarily limited to:

• Studio Mir, who animated the show, held tours for tourists. During a trip, a fan (against the rules) took photos of classified Voltron work. They then posted them on Tumblr, and another fan took to Twitter to announce their demands for the removal of the content - that Klance become canon. I wish I was joking. . The fandom in general quickly turned against them, as Studio Mir could get into very serious trouble for the leaks and no one disliked the animation. There was then discussion as to wether they were a real Klance fan,or in fact a Shaladin trying to make Klance shippers look bad.
• Pretty much everyone involved in the show was harassed and sent all manner of threats and hate. The VAs, writers and producers were frequently vilified, especially after interviews when they inevitably said something minor that a portion of the fandom would take great offence to. VAs Josh Keaton and Bex Taylor-Klaus caught the most strife., and both were frequently called 'predators'.
• Multiple failed zines (fandom made collections of fanart and fanfic, published and sent out for real money) due to both incompetence, negligence and malice. In one notable example, a Klance-anti ran an Overwatch zine, only to steal a lot of the money for Voltron merchandise and made a spalsh in both fandoms. Many of their Voltron friends defended them.
• A fan went to a Voltron panel and asked the writers when they were going to start treating their favourite character, Lance, right.
• In fact, many felt that Lance was mistreated and took to twitter and tumblr to complain en masse... here is a collection of tweets directing ire at the executive producers after one said that Lance's flirting with a character in season 1 had been "creepy".
• A Klance shipper who wrote one of "The" Klance fics was harassed by her own fans for including a reference to a chancla, so she deleted her fic and replaced it with the Bee Movie Script.

Shippers were fighting with the people making the show, rival shippers and other shippers in their groups constantly. I don't want to give the impression that everyone in Voltron was crazy, regardless of what they shipped - there were many who didn't ship anything, or shipped multiple overlapping ships. There were many who enjoyed Klance or Sheith without becoming an anti for the rival ship, but there were an awful lot of antis. And this sub wouldn't exist if we wrote about the normal people in fandoms.
I compiled an album (TW: slurs, mentions of rape, suicide and violence) of the general fandom nonsense that was going round, for the entirety of the show's run . It becomes impossible to say with certainty what is sincere, what is exaggeration, what is satire, and what is trolling.
And someone made a short video of Shaladin shippers being the target of hate.

The Catalyst

It was August 2018, and something horrendous happened.
Season 7 of Voltron dropped.
Season 7 introduced into canon something that had been discussed previously by writers - Shiro's sexuality. Shiro was confirmed as gay in a new episode, through a past boyfriend named Adam. They had broken up before the series had started, but in season 7 the paladins finally returned to Earth for the first time since season 1. Many fans were hoping for Adam and Shiro to rekindle their romance but alas, Adam was killed by aliens in the later part of the season after only a few minutes of screentime. And fans, from multiple ships, were outraged and felt the staff, who had overhyped the ex-couple in season promotions, were stringing them along. The new ship was called Adamshi or Shadam, and it may have been newborn but it was already full of very angry shippers. They went as far as to make a hastag, VoltronDayofSilence.
The Voltron writers were accused of the "bury your gays" trope, which is something that always riles Tumblr up. They were accused of even more homophobia. Many complained that the scene which introduces Adam and his relationship to Shiro was too subtle and brief. Many were upset that in the Russian dub, Adam and Shiro were only roommates instead of boyfriends and used it as further proof that Dreamworks didn't really care about gay representation.
Executive producer Joaquim Dos Santos tweeted a statement about the Adashi, that can be found here. TLDR; we wanted to show Shiro's sexuality in canon material, and we didn't realise you would love Adam as much as you did.

Ma, the Fandom's Acting Up Again

Fandom hatred of the creators was at an all time high, and with existing strife between Klance and Sheith shippers (who were both saddened to see that their ships hadn't become canon, still) coupled with the new birth of Adashi, something was bound to happen. Beyond the usual death threats and accusations.
Meanwhile, on twitter, a user was happily tweeting about an AU they had come up with - a kind of city noir, cyberpunk AU. It had Klance. It had Adashi. The characters were a little different, sure, but still recognisable.
It suddenly became a saviour to the Voltron fans.
I can't say exactly how it spread, or why fans particularly chose this random AU. But they did. And you know what, this AU was actually better than Voltron had ever been - at least in their eyes. They should remake Voltron, and instead of blackjack and hookers, it was going to have canon Klance and canon Adashi.
I can't speak for how widespread the belief was that they were actually going to remake Voltron was. For sure, many were just engaging because it was a fun new AU that everyone else was buzzing about, and did not delude themselves into thinking they could somehow change all the names and hair colours and get away without any notice from Dreamworks. But enough people genuinely did that a lot of people weren't sure who was joking about it, and who wasn't.
The AU took on a new life of its own. The characters were given new names, new ethnicities, new clothes, new hairstyles.
There were a number of variations of the Voltron Reboot, but a lot stayed the same:

• There was always Klance
• Lance was now Leandro, and Keith Akira (their new ship name was Leakira)
• No one was white
• No one was not LGBTQ+

People were making lists of all the 'new' characters and their ethnicities, and it was clear that many were trying to fit in as much representation as they could for most nationalities. People would ask their mutuals and followers to suggest which ethnicity they would want X character to be. There was a new influx of art in the fandom. Many made blogs dedicated to their version of the AU.
But it wasn't all sunshine and roses.
Many fans, regardless of their thoughts on Klance, Shaladin or Adashi, were upset at the hubristic tone of some of the fans. The idea that you could simply remake a show better than trained writers and animators was laughable, especially as no one was y'know, writing a plot for this show. A list of character designs does not make a show. Many started voicing their opinions, and even the original twitter user started to get a little uncomfortable with how people were twisting their AU into something it wasn't. There were multiple posts warning people to not give anyone money for any reboot. Many pointed out that even pretending to make a reboot, was incredibly disrespectful to everyone who worked on the show, and they didn't feel comfortable condoning something that started out of hate and spite, rather than love. Some just made jokes about the situation.
And despite all the attempts of making the AU as unproblematic as possible, it still failed.
The most common new name for Shiro was Hachiko. Hachiko is also the name of a famous Japanese dog who waited 9 years every day for his owner to come home after his owner died. Some thought it was cute to name a character after a symbol of loyalty.Some thought it was incredibly disrespectful to name a character after a dog. Comparison posts were made - imagine if someone named an American character Lassie?
Some were upset that the new Shiro frequently had his disabilities played down. Canon Shiro frequently struggled with his PTSD after being tortured, and the new Shiro/Hachiko didn't always have the same problems. Occasionally, Hachiko wasn't even missing his arm - a crucial part of canon Shiro was his prosthetic. Regardless of how Voltron was viewed now, having a disabled man of colour as the leader of the group had always been praised.
A minor reoccuring character in Voltron was an alien thief named Nyma. In the new AU, Nyma was frequently cast as Romani. A Romani character... who is a thief? It didn't take long for people to point out that the Romani people are already facing many issues with being viewed as thieves, and this wasn't a win for diversity, but rather feeding a harmful existing stereotype.
And while Adashi had been the trigger for this, Adashi took a sideline to Klance in this AU reboot, which made other fans upset. Some felt that Adashi was of a greater need than Klance, which had never been canon and had a much bigger fandom.
Squabbles and fan wank were plentiful.

The Aftermath

Faced with these controversies, interest in the reboot started to fade away. Many just changed the elements that had made people uncomfortable, but the damage was done, and with nothing except some art to fuel the AU it faded into obscurity. This was just yet another event that separated the already divisive Voltron fandom even further, and alienated it even further from those who were only casual fans. The attempts of the executive producers to apologise to the fandom, or offer any explanations were fully rebutted.
There was always something new to fight about anyway, and the last season - season 8 - aired only a few months later.
Neither Klance nor Sheith became canon. Shiro did marry a very minor character in an epilogue, the first gay wedding of two men in Western animated media.
Many slap fights were had, about how their ships didn't become canon, about which characters died, about if being a Shallie made you a paedophile or not, and so on. Shiro's gay wedding was frequently criticised both in and out of fandom as there had been no development of a relationship between him and his future husband.
Later, the show runners admitted that Shiro's wedding had been rushed last minute, as an attempt to mollify the fandom.
But Voltron was over, and the fandom had already been dying. Many had been chased off by the toxicity and constant drama - I think this meme sums up a lot of attitudes. The new animated kids shows on the block were She-Ra and The Dragon Prince, and Tumblr users flocked to those shows instead. The fandom is still there, and they still hate the showrunners, and there are still ship wars - the wank never went away. But the fight is mostly out, and the Voltron fandom is a shell of what it was - for better or worse.
Edit: added a clarification. Edit2: Corrected some grammar, made a point less combative, added some more screenshots.
Edit3: As has been pointed out in the comments, the rise and fall of the reboot took less than a week. And if you're interested, people are still making Leakira content.

For anyone who is scared that shipping will destroy the fandom, I can say, from direct experience:
You can breathe easy.
For anyone who doesn't know, The Dragon Prince is a show on Netflix.
During the 2nd of its 3 seasons, a pairing called Rayllum basically overtook the fandom almost completely. A good 3 out of 4 posts following the second season's release was Rayllum fanart.
And some people were terrified that it would ruin the fandom, citing Star Vs, Voltron, etc., etc. To the point that the "PLEASE DON'T LET SHIPPING RUIN THE FANDOM!!!" posts started to become commonplace, despite literally no vitriol being thrown about at all (well, maybe a little bit of "can this subreddit be about something besides Rayllum fanart" posts)
Sounds really familiar, right?
And guess what?
It never did fall into ruin. Because people were reasonable, functioning human beings about it.
It seems like TOH is following the same route - people aren't putting the idea of their ships "winning" over simply enjoying just how adorable & healthy the pairings are as a whole. I don't see bad blood now, and I don't honestly expect it in the future, either.
Some fandoms are an absolute mess of Ship To Ship Combat. I've seen plenty of that before.
The Dragon Prince wasn't one of them. The Owl House isn't either.

Hey, if you decided to read this without looking at the story and complain about spoilers, I will apologise, but I made sure to tag a spoiler on this, and it's only just based on VAs, and I won't say anything about the story. But you clicked this post knowing what's going on, or are accepting of the consequences, welcome!!!
So Other Zethia, or Zena, is not voiced by a new actor, but a returning actor... in fact, unlike Vince Tongers (who was our Old Euden), she stayed alongside the rest of the main cast after so many years of not being credited for everyone to see for being Zethia! Oh, and it wasn't just Zethia she voiced, she voiced another adventurer, you know who.
Zena - Shannon Chan-Kent. Remember this name? Eh? EH? I mentioned her a few times in previous posts, but man. I am SO HAPPY that she's still in!!! As you know, our Canadian actress of Chinese descent voices our kickaxe martial artist Lin You, but MAN is she awesome! Having watched shows she played a lot in, you do not know how much I squee'd when I heard that she was a part of Dragalia Lost since the beginning as our bare-foot Auspex.
Shannon Chan-Kent is very much a recognisable VA for all the works she's done, so I'll start with anime first. Though voicing significant supporting characters like Amy Cohen from Little Battlers Experience/Danball Senki, Christina Sierra from Mobile Suit Gundam 00, or Miyuki Konno from the film The Girl who Leapt Through Time, I think or HOPE that you would recognise her the most as Misa Amane from Death Note. Yes, she's playing the number one supportelover of cleansing the world of all evil, Light Yagami (or in this world, Malka/Mikoto).
But she's more prominent in the Western animation/cartoon side of VO entertainment. Various shows for all ages, ranging from cute to tomboyish girls, like side characters in various Barbie Movies, Side characters in The Littlest Pet Shop Franchise, Beatrice "Trixie" Sting from Slugterra, Larmina from Voltron Force. Even voiced some characters in Superbook, which is a Japanese-USA production with Tatsunoko of various Bible Stories. Oh, and did I mention she was that Roadhouse Waitress in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie?
But what Shannon is really known for, and what I love myself, is her wonderful singing voice. She is amazing. While having musical experience in Canadian Performing Arts Productions in Canada (Avenue Q and Evita), her singing voice is speculated a LOT in YouTube videos of singing. She's sung with the likes of Blackgryph0n/Gabriel Brown, singing Christmas Carols. And this is what I would call her major spotlight in her career with her singing. She is the singing voice of every version of Pinkie Pie in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. She was her singer in the TV series, all the Equestria Girls Spin-off movies, series, and shorts, and even in My Little Pony: The Movie itself. Her voice is amazing!!!
Seeing her name and hearing her voice again reminds me why I was drawn to Dragalia Lost and had remembered it, even if it didn't come out in Australia a few months later. While it is true that Estelle and Old Euden's VAs were a bigger grab, I will never forget how many of my childhood shows were voiced by these wonderful people from Canada. Truly, I believe they are just as amazing, if not better, than the VAs in America. So thank you so much for reading this if you took the chance. Thank you to her, and thank you to Cygames for a really captivating chapter! I know, I'm starting to sound like a suck-up/'simp' to the English VAs and the game, but seriously, credit must be given where it's due. In celebration of this, Zethia/Zena has jumped the queue to be next-in-line after Francesca and Vixel for the crossover fanart that has mixed reception on this subreddit.
Here are some fun links relating to Shannon Chan-Kent:
Her IMDb Page
Her Behind the Voice Actors Page
Her Twitter (@ShannonCKent)
Probably her most well-known song from MLP, The Smile Song
A duet cover of Love Is An Open Door from Frozen with Vincent Tong, Old Euden's VA (This is going to be 'ship' fuel, I KNOW it will be...)
And Blackgryph0n's Christmas Carol Medley called 'This Christmas Night', sung by various Canadian VAs (though specifically MLP, 4 of the 7 also are a part of Dragalia Lost). Zena/Zethia/Lin You, Old Euden/Aurien, Serena, and Philia/Celliera's VA

Earlier I posted about how I enjoyed watching the first few episodes of the show and saw potential, but was skeptical cause shows like Dragon Prince and Voltron have hurt me before.
Everyone here was supper kind in not only informing me that the show gets better and stays good for its entire run, but also telling me that not all of its weaknesses improve. I mainly felt like the animation and action was lacking in quality. Several of you told me that the animation dose get better and the action is not what really keeps people coming to the show.
After finishing up No Princess Left Behind, I really see that and agree with that, kind of because this episode felt weak to me. Part of this has to do that this is an action episode but I would not call she-ra an action show. Here as well it feels stiff and nothing has any wait to it, having an episode belt around a rescue mission only further highlights this.
Also feel like the episode used way too much comedy in what should have been more serious moments. I am not gonna be one of the ass holes who screams "THERE SHOULD BE NO COMEDY IN A KIDS SHOW, IT NEEDS TO BE MORE LIKE ANIME AND SINCE ITS NOT STEVEN UNIVERSE IS THE WORST THING EVER MADE" over and over. But when you are in the middle of a rescue mission I thought some of the jokes needed to be cut. Characters like Entrapna and Plumeria took the situation way too lightly then we cut to Glimmer screaming in pain as she can't teleport. The show even tries to end on a super somber note as they can not save entrapna, that only further goes to point out the tonal whiplash in the episode.
Continuing on in Entrapnas death, I am not fully convinced that she is not or was planned to be a double agent. She went back to save her new pet robot, but when she actually got in the room she just gave up and turned around. It looked more like she was faking her own death to join the horde like that one guy from the buzz light year post. If she is a double agent I am gonna be really happy, still think she is alive though and if she pulls a Gandalf I am gonna be little disappointed in how that played out.
Not to say I hated the episode or the show is ruined for me or anything. There were good moments, like when the princess come to adora saying we got ya back. Then the scene where Catra gives the sword back was quite perfect. Just felt like overall it was not playing to the shows strengths. Mean while, princess prom played to the shows strength.
Another reason why I feel like No Princess Left Behind was lack luster is because I loved Princess Prom. It is a bit of a stupid idea but it was one that I was a hundred percent on board for. Loved all the dresses and the character interactions. It felt like it was placed perfectly, a sort of recap in seeing all the characters we had met so far interacting together and we get some really good dynamics. I also ate up the character driven drama that unfolds between catra and adora and with she ra not being completely trusted just yet.
It is so good and love the dresses/outfits everyone wears. I knew about Catras suit cause I had seen pics and fanart posted all over the net. But you motherfuckers did not prepare for the dress Scorpia was gonna have on. My bitch ass was not ready for man, i need a warning.
But overall the character driven episode was way better than the action driven one, yall were spot in your thoughts about the show.