Rival Schools, United by WANK!
The Rival Schools fandom isn't that big, but it can wank pretty well when given the chance. So, here we go!

In the RS Network, there was once a group of kids who thought that a possible romantic relationship between Yurika Kirishima (a sweet-faced violinist who is so prim and proper that she puts Michiru Kaiou to shame, and is also the older sister to one of the main villains) and Akira Kazama (a former biker chick who is also one of Yurika's closest friends) is not a bad idea. I quite agree with this; there's a decent level of hints in the game's backstory, like the ending in Team Mode where after the whole mess is over, Yurika gets free of her evil brother's influence and decides to live for herself - and both Zaki (Aoi Himezaki, a tall and imposing girl who was a former gang leader) and Akira, her best friends and classmates.

And of course, the Akira/Yurika discussion is featured in the RSN board...

And there's when the wank starts.


Snowstorm: I write fanfics to promote the original RS spirit, not to exploit the RS universe and do my own thing with it.


***


Charles: Bugger, there goes my plan for Akira/Yurika romance fics.

VoidStar: What are you saying? That's perfectly faithful to the characters!



VB: Well, I just meant the idea of an Akira/Yurika pairing in general. I mean, the game half sets it up for ya already!

Charles: What he said. It's not like Capcom never said they weren't lesbians, did they?

Nightmarekingdom:No, it doesn't. Both Yurika and Akira consider each other as BEST friends, and have a very in-depth relationship as being friends. They do not have any deep 'love' or sexual feelings with each other, so they aren't (in your own damn case) 'lesbians'. Furthermore, Akira already had an affair with Yuu, who is a GUY for your sake, and still loves him very much - although he did suicide.
That's all.

Yuri Nikko: Nitemare is right. Capcom GAVE Akira a boyfriend named Yuu. Baka.

Charles: a) Akira could be bisexual.
b) Yuu? Is this something from the Evolution games again?
c) You can't prove that Yurika is or isn't a lesbian, so it's a matter of personal preference.
d) There is no d).

Snowstorm: CharlesRocketboy has already implicitly agreed that it's an unfaithful representation, so I don't see an issue here and I don't see a need to continue this discussion. I think intuitively we all know what is and what is not faithful, it's just a matter of whether or not individuals have sufficient respect for RS to uphold what is faithful.

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Charles: Actually, I was being flippant. Until Capcom confirms either way Akira and Yurika's sexualities, I could easily be right.

Snowstorm: Hence I have no idea why sexuality entered this discussion in the first place. That you are considering the notion of sexuality for characters which Capcom has not addressed in these terms is by itself enough to ensure that your representation is spurious. In other words, a faithful representation for 'romance' (your term) in RS must be one which has no relation to sexuality. The conclusion has not changed.....

VoidStar: This strikes me as a very strange thing to say. Writing about the characters in "those terms" is wrong because Capcom didn't do it? What sort of reasoning is that? Given that these characters are supposed to be, you know, human beings--and teenagers, at that!--I think it's safe to assume that they're going to experience sexual attraction at some point. How is it "unfaithful" to write about that? I mean, not liking lemons is one thing. Not liking yuri pairings is one thing. But take, say, Batsu and Hinata--I think that's a pair just about anyone can agree has at least some chance of forming into a romantic relationship. If one were to write a story about that relationship, in which Batsu acted like Batsu and Hinata acted like Hinata, what would be the problem?
In conclusion, just because something is not explicitly represented within the story itself doesn't mean that it is completely outside of the realm of possibility or "faithfulness."


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Snowstorm: In the Evolution series, there is a clear line drawn to separate love and friendship (considered a positive thing) from sexual tendencies (considered a negative thing which on occasions will result in the RS characters getting angry with you and possibly beating you up or otherwise in decrease of your edit character's stats). Therefore putting the two together would be unfaithful. Yes, the RS characters are teenage humans, but they were never intended to reflect the current majority. Rather, their function is as rolemodels for a higher moral standard, and to this end they have been portrayed throughout as very different compared to normal teenagers. Normal teenagers don't go investigating dangerous cases. Normal teenagers probably won't even tackle thugs in the street (what the RS gang do quite frequently when they see injustice). Normal teenagers do not have the RS gang's purity, idealism and burning spirit. Normal teenagers certainly don't have their level in fighting! In the games, the RS gang variously mention that they are considered 'weird' by ordinary standards, and it is for this reason that many of them were lonely, misunderstood or outcast in the past. With this awareness, I would be extremely careful to assume anything about the RS characters based on the behavior of normal teenagers. In the case of sexual desire, evidence from the games backs me up.

Writing a story in which Batsu acted like Batsu and Hinata acted like Hinata (given you are aware of what Batsu and Hinata are really like (see above)) is obviously no problem The problem is the mentality "I want to write about a romantic relationship between Batsu and Hinata". As soon as you impose that a romantic relationship is what you want to write about, you automatically deprioritize the intent for faithful representation because you already have a preconception (a form of bias) in mind. If you genuinely aim for faithful representation, you can only say EITHER "I want to write about a romantic relationship" and then choose characters which fit exactly your perception of 'romantic relationship' (in your case probably not RS characters), OR "I want to write about Batsu and Hinata" and then allow the characters to interact without prescribing what you want to see come out of it. I hope this helps.

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Void Star: All I can say is, it baffles me that anyone who thinks Akira would ever say the following--and about Hyo, no less--believes they have any right to be lecturing others about faithfulness.

"I'd never have thought I could admire anyone more than my brother, but Hyo may just be the exception. More than anyone else he believes in justice and our responsibility to uphold it. His spirit is like a diamond, perfectly structured, able to cut through steel, and with a light that tells the innocent and oppressed everywhere that, even if the rest of evil society has forgotten them, he continues to fight for them."

I will give you one thing: the characters of Rival Schools are supposed to be admirable people. And yes, they do fit into certain archetypes. You, however, seem to think that Capcom meant to deify them. No, normal teenagers are not capable of hurling bursts of pure energy or conjuring fire at will. No, normal teenagers do not fight against attempts at national conquest. But superhuman power and a willingness to take dangerous courses of action don't prevent characters from sharing other traits of normal human beings--like, say, sex drives! What you are doing is not being faithful, Snowstorm, it is being stifling.

Snowstorm: You seem to be ignoring the in-game material which suggests otherwise, which I outlined above. Without trying to estimate exactly where each RS character stands in this context, it should certainly not be excessive to say that none of them (except perhaps the teachers ) would mix sexuality with love, which is what was being discussed. Why otherwise do choices with sexual connotations more often than not damage your edit character's stats and/or damage your relationship with the involved RS character in the Evolution seires? Please address what is given to us in the games.


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Snowstorm: Escapsim is not constructive, but I can't stop you. I however was to an extent expecting it, seeing how your mental clarity was progressively dropping (most noticeably in your reply before this one), quite clearly in order to evade conclusions which you realized there were no rational grounds to refute. Your escape from this discussion is the final hint of your delusional approach to RS and morality in general.

What I like about moral theory is its well-defined structure. It consists of statements of the form "If you care about X, then you will act according to Y." <=> "If you don't act according to Y, then you don't care about X." Between the 'if' and the 'then' the arguments are completely analytically rigorous. Thus from how you live, you can know what you care about. Of course you are free to choose what you care about, but by definition the less you care about beyond personal pleasure, the less moral you are. Now in your case you act in a way that implies you don't care about many things (the only thing you seem to care about is your own enjoyment), but rather than accept you don't care (and thus are evil), you try to refute the moral structure. When it begins to become apparent that the moral structure is not flawed, you close your eyes from it before it becomes so apparent that you are intellectually forced to accept it.

What has been established is that your distortion of RS, while it might have been ignorance in the past (being insufficiently informed about what RS stands for), is now treachery (choosing to disregard the information and its conclusions for motives of self-interest, as is clear from your last paragraph when you imply that you will continue to write unfaithful representations). In retribution for this, you are therefore no longer welcome at RSNetwork.

RSNetwork will always be a community for fans of RS, not its exploiters.


***

EDIT: Forgot to post this GEM:


From the RS game manual (which I just happened to be looking at):


Quote:
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The Friendship Gauge measures same gender relationships. The Love Gauge measures opposite gender relationships.
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In other words, Capcom has indeed stated explicitly that homosexual relationships are nonexistent among the RS gang. This is not discrimination, it's simply the way it is for these particular characters. So again it's nothing to do with my own views, and everything to do with removing a few people's delusions.


Between Snowstorm's phobia to slash and sex in general, delusions of the RS people being SO PERFECT that thy can't be tainted by any human feelings like selfishness, and claims to be one of the VERY FEW persons capable of writing "faithful" fics, I'm feeling dizzy. In the words of Kuradoberi Jam from Guilty Gear: "Isn't there a kind (wo)man around who'll lend me his/her shoulder?"