Okay, here’s the thing. I don’t often use my platform, such as it is, to talk about personal stuff. I try to keep it focused on my books and other work. And that’s intentional. I learned a long time ago as a woman on the internet that it was better if I didn’t share things I actually cared about. It’s too personal. Too close.
Today you’re going to get a rare glimpse into what goes on in the brain of the storyteller, because some stuff is happening in some media that I like and I’m a little afraid it’s going to vanish from the world. And it’s actually too important to me for me to let go of it without fighting.
I will try to keep it sort of brief. For around the last ten months I’ve been playing a game called Love and Deepspace. It’s a 3D Otome game with Gacha mechanics set in a SciFi world with romance as the primary plotlines. (If you don’t know what any of those things are I will link to the wikis and invite you to learn about them).
I’ve enjoyed this game a lot. There’s kissing and fighting and a rich world filled to the brim with dark themes and deep emotions. Everything a girl needs to feel complete. I’ve been pretty quiet about my love for the game because as I mentioned earlier, I like to keep things private.
You may not have heard about the controversy going on the for the last couple of weeks, and if not let me explain in the briefest terms. A new love interest character was announced and there was some backlash. About a week later the company made a statement saying that the launch was canceled. In the week since then (Wow, has it only been two weeks? Feels like a decade.) there has been another backlash to his removal.
This is unprecedented in the gaming world. Once a character is announced and they start promoting it, the character comes in. A character like this represents thousands of hours of work for the company. Abandoning it ten days before its debut is insane.
I’ve been part of the player campaign to see him restored, but once again mostly in private. I’m here, writing this big-ass post today because I woke up and drank too much coffee I guess. But also because I was talking with some folks on a Discord server today and I realized something. If this game implodes under the weight of all of this, I’m going to be really freaking sad. And as I was interrogating why that was I realized that it was because there’s nothing else like it. I can’t go find another game to occupy my free time, because it’s unique, it’s the only one.
This game makes $40M a month and it’s the only one of its kind. That’s crazy.
Then, because I’m a cerebral person and a writer, I started to dig into that. Why is it the only one? And the answer, my friends, comes back to the same place I always end up.
The things that women like are disrespected and minimized at every turn.
I spent years removing the romance and intimacy from my books to try to bend to this same pressure, just in a different guise. To be taken seriously as a writer you have to fit into a certain mold and I was never going to fit into that mold, but I spent more than a decade trying.
And it’s the same thing with Love and Deepspace. Even as the movement to bring back the 6th love interest has spread we’re hit with the same disrespect. The media coverage of this makes it all seem like a joke. We’re never taken seriously, even in our outrage. Even in our wrath.
I’m sure some of you out there are rolling your eyes about this even now. How much this doesn’t matter. How silly it all is that I’m even here talking to you about this. With everything going on in the world.
But honestly? Fuck off. This is important. The things I enjoy and like are important.
The stories women enjoy are important.
This is a hill I will die on and I have always been willing to die on. This is what my entire writing career is about.
I’m tired of being disrespected because you don’t understand why I like the things I like. You don’t need to understand.
It’s not for you.
And no matter what you think about romance stories, you should respect that. Richer storytelling is important for everyone who loves stories. We need books and movies and games that focus on every kind of story—including the ones that women like.
So that’s why I’m here today talking to you. Because I’m tired of it.
And also because I want my fucking wolf back.
My stories matter. The stories women want matter. And I’m done being quiet about it.
Signed,
An annoyed lady with too many words who drank too much coffee today
PS - AWOOOOOO
