Now I know many of you are reading that title and either saying, "Bats, there are already histories of Fuwanovel written by other members! What makes yours any different?" History is history after all. I have wanted to do this many times, and right now is a good time I think. Fuwanovel has a ton of new members, members that are post-Aaeru, post- Vax, post- Ryoji, post- torrents. Fuwanovel today is vastly different than what it was just 2 short years ago. I have been browsing the dankest of visual novel websites, Fuwanovel, for 3.5ish years now. I feel I am an a unique position to tell the story of Fuwanovel as I see it. Many of you know that I used to be a global moderator. Even less of you likely know that I also used to be a site administrator. For that reason, I got to see many of the changes happening to Fuwanovel behind closed doors. I was a part of some of the decision making that led Fuwanovel to where it is now. So, this post will be all about that jazz. This post will not be white washed. It will not be some Fuwa Propaganda. I have made many mistakes in my time on Fuwanovel, and in my eyes, so have other people. Please do not report this post, or censor it because you think I am insulting people. I am keeping this as respectful as possible. Now that the breading of this historical sandwich is in place, how about a little background as to why I joined Fuwanovel.
Back when I joined, on November 20th, 2012, I had read but two VNs. Katawa Shoujo and Analogue: A Hate Story. Analogue was what got the ball rolling, and after an RPGFan.com suggestion, I decided to read Ever17. I found a particular site that offered VN downloads, however they were multi-part .rar files. Screw that. I am a lazy solidbatman who wants one download and one only. So, I continued my search, found Fuwanovel, and downloaded Ever17 from the old front page.
If you are very new, and don't know what Fuwanovel used to be, let me explain. Fuwanovel, until somewhat recently, offered pre-patched torrents of visual novels. These were portable, download and play VNs with minimal effort required from the user. Aaeru's goal was to make playing VNs as easy as possible, and this was well before Steam VNs were even a blip on the radar really. Sure, one or two existed like Analogue, but it was nothing compared to what we have now. These pre-patched VNs did not always work, but generally, results were fine.
Back to me now, I did not actually join Fuwanovel upon downloading Ever17. That did not come until I was enjoying Ever17, and downloaded Never7 to follow up with. Unfortunately, Never7 had a sound issue, and I was unable to solve it on my own. So, I joined the Fuwanovel forums in what I still think is the best introduction post ever written. At the time, I was planning on just messing around a little bit, getting my help for Never7, and moving on. Instead, I found a helpful, extremely friendly, tight knit community eager to spread their love of visual novels to anyone willing to listen. I was still friendly back then too. I quickly took part in anime discussions, gaming discussions, and generally helping people out whenever possible. Fuwanovel was a baby still, only being formed in August 2012, and was just gaining its footing.
To this day, I still have not sought help for my Never7 problem on Fuwanovel.
I eventually found my way into Steve's teamspeak server, and with his encouragement, I finished Clannad. Early on, I actually was friends with Steve, and enjoyed talking to him. This was before either of us were moderators. We had many a good discussion about various anime and VNs, and I quickly learned that in his teamspeak, no link was a the only kind of safe link. He also learned of my distaste for sexualized lolis, and was constantly posting things to trip me up into looking at one. Much fun was had on his Teamspeak, and eventually Tay popped in to ask us if we wished to become moderators.
This may have also been around the time as the IRC room AMApocolypse. Snotsuku, a resident troll, decided to intice everyone into spamming the forums with AMA threads. Oddly enough, this marked my early encounter with Zakamutt, as he and Kendjin both were slapped on the wrists for their actions and Snow faced a temporary ban. I do remember helping Tay and Ryoji sort that mess out (it resulted in a dedicated IRC thread, and the beginnings of the Games and Chatter board) but again, I don't remember if I was a moderator yet.
Notable members that become moderators with me were Steve, Down, and Luch. Luch, while quiet, helped many people with technical issues resulting from downloads on Fuwanovel. Down is Down and is still what I consider the gold standard for how a moderator should handle himself on a large forum. Steve and I, well, our relationship began crumbling at this time. We both had very very different ideas on how Fuwanovel should move forward. If memory serves, on of the first messy staff arguments was over a NSFW loli image being posted. Another early argument was over whether or not the forums should have links to pirated localized VNs. The loli debate pitted Steve and Aaeru against Ryoji and I. Ryoji and I were similar in that we were crass, loud, filled with profanity. Steve was... Steve. Condescending, and the type to put his fingers in his ears and go, "Not listening!" His walls of texts failed to address issues raised, which only served to make Ryoji and I even angrier. Aaeru just did not seem to understand at times what was going on, or was too timid to jump into the bloodbath.
I was extremely disrespectful in those arguments, and absolutely should have carried myself better. Tay came in, reached something of a compromise that was begrudgingly accepted by both sides. Arguments between Steve, and I continued over everything. Spam posts, loli images, piracy. It was a mess. Again, my anger typically got the best of me, and Tay, or another moderator would swoop in and attempt to resolve the situation. I stopped going to Steve's TS and began hanging out on the IRC chat room.
It was there the birth of Kaguya was witnessed. From spammer to global mod. Not before getting banned from the IRC for abusing frodo the bot. Kaguya was a crazy spammer. We even caught him liking his own posts to boost his reputation. Baby Kaguya just did not give a fuck, and that was part of his appeal to some I suppose. I don't recall if Nosebleed ever hung out in the irc room. He can let you know if he did. Regardless, some shapign up happened and suddenly boom, global mod.
Now something interesting happened somewhere in that time frame that resulted in me being promoted to an admin. Ryoji left Fuwanovel after basically shaping the forums. I don't think it would be wise to really get into the specifics, but it was not really a good situation. I volunteered to take on the admin spot, while in the back of my mind knowing it would be a temporary promotion. The first thing I did was finally clamp down on sexualized loli images, and pirated links on the forums. This once again led me to bump heads with Steve and Aaeru. It took me an entire day of arguing with Steve on his TS before he finally agreed to put any sexualized loli images in spoilers and label them NSFW. He also agreed to keep them only in his loli thread. It was exhausting arguing with Steve.
Things were going somewhat smoothly, until Fuwapocolypse 1 happened. Aaeru kind of vanished around the same time, causing a massive headache for poor Tay. I found myself completely useless in the situation. I believe the problem was that Aaeru had pirated the forum software, and it finally caught up to use with a take down. Tay managed to raise some funds, and we purchased the legit copy that we use today. Nayleen was a huge help around that time, so I stepped down right about the same time he became an admin. I decided I no longer wanted to be staff for Fwuanovel. My constant fighting had helped nothing, and I just wanted to be done.
At this time, the original Fuwanovel blog, VisualNovelAer was sort of dead I think. There was the random post now and again, but it was dead and social media outreach was smallish. Aaeru's disappearance left Tay high and dry, and then came the second Fuwapocolypse. At issue was the fact Tay had been threatened with legal action. With Aaeru completely vanished, IP holders went after Tay for being in charge of the site. This resulted in Tay having to lay low for a while and severely limit his itneractions with the site. Cybersteel took over hosting the server and Steve became admin. That was a disaster.
Steve asked me to come back onto the staff to balance it out a bit I guess. I reluctantly agreed, only to find the same old issues at play. Steve was unwilling to listen to anyone but his little echo chamber, which infuriated me, leading me to go off again and again before finally asking to be relieved of my mod powers. It took 3 hours of arguing with Steve just to get off the mod team.
-End Part I-
I will work on this more, adding more detail as I find some older posts with some of this action, and remember things better. For example, Grisaia and Clannad getting western releases caused some issues, and so did the final Loli Battle (which resulted in Steve finally leaving Fuwanovel and Sanah becoming the new defender of Fuwa Lolis ) The rebirth of the blog, the birth of FuwaReviews, the death of torrents, and social media stuff will be covered in Part 2 when I do it. Also look forward to irc explosions, Original Ren's appearance, and other more member centric focused stuff. Maybe I'll even get into Aaeru nearly killing Fuwanovel for good. Was kind of swept under the rug for various, good reasons.
I have made my fair share of mistakes with Fuwanovel. I've been too adversarial at times, disrespectful, and just mean. I fully admit a lot of my strong language is uncalled for. I also admit that I think of plenty of people on Fuwanovel as entitled, ignorant, fools with too many ideals and not enough practicality. I am also aware that many of you likely feel the same way about me. I'm fine with that. I can dish it out, and I can take it.
@Nayleen came back to Fuwanovel. @Lewycool responds to his thread regarding Fuwanovel in 2016. @suikashoujo, @Zakamutt, and @zhurai (a long time moderator) come back and post after what seems like forever. @Emi responds to an introduction thread by the latter...
I'm going to do some ass patting here (bite me) and just say that you guys are staple members of this community, and seeing you come out of the wood works after a very slow and depressing year on the website puts a smile my face. It's really good to see you guys pop up again, even if for a little bit. Don't die, okay?
It hurts when I'm the only one who enjoyed the VN. All you have to do is understand that Takumi is the worst MC ever (AKA you) and you'll have fun dragging him around. Like forces repel.
--Ten days ago...
Ten days ago... The <<Revival>> happened.
Nobody remembers exactly what all their shitposts were.
I too don't remember exactly what shitposts I had.
My memories are fragmented in red and black.
The posters that day, they became something different. No longer human.
They became ragers and flamers trapped in the forum of Fuwanovel.
I too am no longer human.
There is an Archmage Tay who dances in the corner of my vision
こにちわヨテク
I must admit I am not in the habit of wearing that kind of stand out accessory.
Truth be told, I notice several glaring issues.
I'm not sure this piece can get a passing grade without some sort of blotch around the neck area.
Furthermore, the tea appears to have transmuted into coffee, which I unfortunately do not appreciate as much.
@ Sanada, yes, now that people have signed up and suggested things, we all vote on what 1 anime to watch. If there's a tie we redo it. People can still sign-up at this point but they can not longer make recommendations.
Also, based on your input I've decided to have a Movie Cycle every 3 cycles. So watching 2 movies last time covered our 3 and 6 mark, next one will be after cycle 9.
I kinda do what Down does, but then I forget about it and it goes on forever. I'm like 450 some episodes into One Piece and over 100 in Fairy Tail and I'm not too anxious to get into that again. While good, I like to watch a story and have it wrap up. If it's good, future seasons are nice though.
SanadaShadow got a reaction from hizack123 in A visual novel with a badass main character
SanadaShadow reacted to solidbatman in Fuwanovel: The solidbatman Perspective
SanadaShadow got a reaction from Kawasumi in What are you listening to right now?
SanadaShadow got a reaction from Zodai in Is there any gory VN's out there?
SanadaShadow got a reaction from Darbury in Let's try this again: Hi from Darbury
SanadaShadow got a reaction from Narcosis in What am I doing with my life [aka the CM3D2 corner]
