THE SAD BUT TRUE CONFESSION

Eventually, I figured I needed to make this post somewhere, but I had to do it because of some recent incidents.

I put a bunch of old artwork in the storage on my DA gallery in April 2022 (everything before 2011 and the fandom I no longer care for). That’s more than half of the stuff in my gallery, including the two Daily Deviations, but I’ve been wanting to do that for years now.

But a recent event made the straw break the camel’s back, giving me an excuse to do it (sick of the whole fandom bullshit). Besides, it was annoying to see notifications for favs on those old pieces I no longer feel connected to. 🙄

I’m sorry if you happened to fav them, but I no longer associate with those stuff (I’ve archived/removed them on my other social media accounts too). A recent incident stirred by some self-righteous creep broke the camel’s back, making me not want any associations with the whole Mulan/Shan Yu/Huns content. They all remind me of this heinous individual.

WHEN DID I GET INTO THE FANDOM?

I always liked Shan Yu and the Elite Huns when I first watched Mulan in middle school, but I got fascinated with those characters again in 2014 when my husband, RisingFox ran Mulan on Netflix for our pet lovebirds. Yeah, you’ve read it; for BIRDS. We’re both one of those childless millennials that the boomers despise (don’t care, they can kick rocks), so instead of human babies, we got feathered babies.

Anyhoo, after my husband ended up running Mulan for our lovebirds the second time, I happened to get a glimpse of a scene where Shan Yu and the Elite Huns showed up. That brought all the good memories when I had fun drawing fanarts of those characters when I was a young, twerpy fangirl. 🤓🤪

After that, I just fell down the rabbit hole of Mulan/Shan Yu/Huns fandom (along with other Disney stuff) and began drawing many fanarts, making OCs, and writing fanfics.

Though I never finished posting the entire first arc of the fanfic, my husband and I bothered to lay the concept up to arc 10 or 11. But boy, that didn’t last long. That only went up until the third quarter of 2017.

In those three years, I’ve posted so much Mulan/Huns-related content (including other Disney fanarts), done a lot of fanfic writing, and also done cosplays of Mulan and genderbent Shan Yu. Despite all the fun I’ve had, that all went south. 💀

SO WHAT MADE ME HATE THE FANDOM?

Unless it’s already loud, clear, and obvious, I’m all about Dynasty Warriors and Yo-kai Watch. 99% of my work since the latter half of 2017 up until now has been Dynasty Warriors and Yo-kai Watch-related.

Even before those two franchises became my life (although I always liked DW since college), I’ve been agitated with the entire Mulan/Shan Yu fandom. After about a year of getting into that niche Disney movie and its villains, I found how annoying and toxic the fanbase/people were, and it kept getting worse. Though I wouldn’t say EVERYBODY, it was enough to the point it tried my patience. 💢

From here on, I’ll just list and explain all the reasons that made me dislike the fandom and ditch it.

1.) Too many fetishists who wanted to see Mulan getting raped by Shan Yu & the Huns.

I think this was the first and the most stomach-turning thing that got on my nerve. But I swear, SO MANY PEOPLE had weird fetish in which they were obsessed with seeing Mulan getting molested by Shan Yu and his henchmen. Many Mulan fanfic I’ve seen on Fanfiction.net had rape content, her getting into a forced marriage with Shan Yu, or her getting abducted and XYZ’ed. DA is no different (look at all them b0nd*ge stuff). 😑

If those things float people’s boats, whatever, but as someone who thought those villain characters were cool, it was upsetting to see many people making the Huns into those cheap villains that are obsessed with getting up in Mulan’s v*g*n*. Vulgar (so is my language and description – sorry, but not sorry 😒 ). It’s tacky and gross IMO.

Sorry, but those aren’t my thing. It should be evident that I don’t draw those kinds of content by having a quick look through my gallery. 🙄

It even aggravated me when I noticed many people came by my page and landed on a particular fanfic chapter. That fanfic chapter contained specific keywords, like “captured” and other stuff that may have stimulated the bondage fetishists’ interests, but it was not Mulan… it was one of my OCs in peril (nothing that she’d need Special Victims Unit’s help from Law and Order or make the Huns go to jail).

But either way, neither my fanfics nor my artworks were anything close to those bondage and rape fetish folks wanted to see. *SMH* I’m sure this will make me seem shitty and stuck up, but I felt unclean and uncomfortable when I found out many people were visiting my page looking for those dirty Mulan-related works.

It aggravated me even more when some people asked for requests to draw Mulan or their favorite Disney characters in a “sticky situation.” Sorry, no.

2.) Many of the Shan Yu/Huns fangirls were rabidly annoying & disrespectful (while some were totally normal and cool to talk to).

At one point, I enjoyed chatting with many Mulan/Shan Yu fans, but that grew old quickly. While I’ve always been an introverted individual, my introversion became severe over the last few years (I partially blame the unpleasant experience I’ve had in this fandom). Once that happened, I only wanted to have engaging conversations with a very few people.

I stopped having conversations and chummy chit-chats with fellow Mulan/Shan Yu fans because many of them were “off.” By “off,” I don’t mean by just socially awkward, but “abnormal,” “pushy,” “invasive,” and “insufferable” to the point it was jarring. While some of the fans were cool and very nice, too many of them left a terrible taste in my mouth. 🤢

Here are examples of some of them (some I’ve had no direct interactions with, but they’ve made it a point to “stalk” me):

• The hair-splitting “know-it-alls” that wanted to correct me on every little detail of the nomadic steppe culture and their history. Some of them were utterly disrespectful and rude . Psh, like they knew EVERYTHING from the beginning or were from that cultural background. 🙄 I can guarantee most of them probably just Googled all the info before talking to me. They probably got excited about those Hun characters, gathered all possible information online, and wanted to share their “newly gained knowledge” with other Shan Yu fans.

• People who came by my DA page often and “stalked” (one user came by like EVERY DAY for 3-4 years). Thanks to the visitors widget that the classic DA used to have, I kept my eyes on those visitors that made me feel uncomfortable. They literally just “stalked” me by vising my page and looking at all the Shan Yu-related work. I knew they were Shan Yu/Huns fans, but they didn’t watch me, didn’t fav my art, they didn’t leave any comments. It made me uncomfortable.

• Some people were so unsavory and cringey that they’d get bent out of shape if I did something that deviated from their particular fangirl criteria. This one individual from Russia was pissed off because I made female OCs that interacted with her “husbandos.” Another crybaby jackass reported one of my Mulan and Shan Yu Inktober art because it was “too gory” and “too scary for Disney,” and perhaps, too sexualized (no, it wasn’t).

• Some were shameless to the next level. I don’t know what it is with those who are infatuated with those Mulan villains. I’ve seen some questionably abnormal Twitter users from Japan. One user fantasized about getting molested by the Huns. She tweeted her self-roleplaying stories on Twitter for people to see. She made tweets like how they hung out, one of them put date rape drug in her drink, and #@$@#$^%#$%^! Okay, STOP. Full Stop. I understand that people have their “kink,” but I wish they would keep some of them to themselves.

The list will continue if I decide to split hair and dig into the past, but I think you get the idea. The fandom and the associated people were overbearingly unpleasant to the point it was difficult for me to enjoy.

3.) A rabid fangirl stalked me for years.

As I mentioned previously, some insufferable fangirl from Russia stalked me for 3-4 years. One day I noticed this user kept coming by my DA page. She came by my page MULTIPLE TIMES/DAYS THROUGH THE WEEKS. When I went by her page, I noticed she had one of the Elite Hun guys as her avatar, so I assumed she was a Shan Yu/Hun fan. Seeing that I drew those characters often, I figured she was interested in my work. WRONG!!

Since that individual didn’t say anything (no fav, no comment, no watch, nothing… just kept stalking my page), I started to feel creepy. Having said that, I looked their username up and came across a VK post where she bitched and talked trash about my work and me as an individual. She also said the colors and the details I use in my works are so intense that it gives her epileptic seizures. O_o

VK is like the Russian version of FB. Since I don’t speak Russian, I translated it through Google, but it was enough to know that it wasn’t anything nice. A friend of mine who speaks/understands Russian translated the whole thing, and she said it mentions that I’m a whore/slut and my work sucks so much. She also told me that individual said she couldn’t stand people who make OCs and pair them with her favorite male characters. Ok… that’s enough to define a toxic fangirl who’s also an asshole.

I don’t care if people don’t like my work, but to say I’m a whore or a slut……??? 🤨 Look, *****, I don’t remember sleeping with your boyfriend or your dad… I don’t even know you. 🤨 I’m also not a camwhore that posts suggestive selfies online like thirsty girls that want to get laid (I don’t post selfies to begin with).

Even after blocking her DA account, this scum kept visiting my page (she could still see my stuff if she wasn’t logged in). She had the nerve to say my work causes her seizure, but she made it a point to come by my page every freaking day for THREE YEARS. *SMH* 🙄 I had to wonder if she was on drugs. Because if I were her, I wouldn’t keep going to a website with things that bother me.

Her toxic and unreasonable behavior continued to agitate me, despite others telling me to ignore her. Several months after blocking her, I noticed some other person from Russia started watching me, faved some of my works, and then bothered to leave a nice comment on one of my posts. I was wary, but that’s when a handy tool did what I needed it to do. This new user WAS her.

That jerkbag made an account and pretended to be a fan of my work by doing some nice stuff, but she was most likely trying to lure me into some trap. Sorry, not gonna happen, and it never did. Once I knew it was her, I knew she had ulterior motives.

Fortunately, nothing bad happened after that. Eventually, I think she moved on to another fandom. As far as I know, I think she’s been inactive for years, so she probably abandoned DA.

4.) Cosplayers using my design without giving credits.

I did my generbent Shan Yu cosplay back in 2014. I took Shan Yu’s original outfit design, put my original spin on it, and had a professional fashion designer that my husband and I know bring that outfit to life.

I think it got some decent reception after attending conventions, doing photoshoots, and posting the photos online. Unfortunately, after that, I started to see a handful of other cosplayers do the cosplay with the same designs. And that’s, of course, WITHOUT giving me credits or linking it to the source (where they found the design layouts). 🙄

Well, that’s my fault for bothering to put the actual design layout up on the internet. My husband warned me of people stealing the design… I should’ve listened to him and not posted it. But at this point, I don’t really care because I hate the fandom anyway.

SOME people were sensible enough to give credits in the descriptions of their cosplay photos (which I genuinely appreciate). Some of them even contacted me first and asked for my permission. Still, when I asked them to please link it back to the source and send me links to their cosplay photos if they post them (so that I can check it out), they never did it.

God knows if they decided not to do the cosplay after all. *SHRUGS* But I also won’t be surprised if they just went, “HA HA! SUCKA!! YOU SAID I CAN USE THE DESIGN, SO IT’S MINE NOW!! AND NO, I AIN’T GIVING YOU CREDIT!!! 🖕” There were folks that tricked me straight out like that in the past.

My trust issue with people has been getting very thin over the last several years. I’ve been taken advantage of, and I’ve been used. Hence, the reason for my misanthropy. 💀

5.) Please stop “Hayabusa”-ing me.

It annoyed the living crap out of me whenever anyone came up and mentioned Shan Yu’s falcon’s name is “Hayabusa.” Um, no, it’s not. Sorry to break it out to you, but it’s not.

It pissed me off whenever people came by my page, tried to correct me, and told me, “Oh, hai, Shan Yu’s falcon’s name is Hayabusa. 🤪” They were pushy, adamant, persistent, and invasive. Please, stop.

98% of the Mulan fangirls call that falcon “Hayabusa” and believe that’s its name. Uhm, no. “Hayabusa” just means “falcon” in Japanese. If you think that’s the falcon’s name, then please explain why it has a Japanese word when it belongs to the nomadic group from the steppe (present time Mongolia or Central Asia).

In Kingdom Hearts II, Shan Yu just happened to call it that because that bird didn’t have a legit name (that’s Disney’s fault). So the translation just called it “Hayabusa” because calling it “my falcon” (like he did in the Japanese version) probably wasn’t cool or something. Yeesh, now this makes Shan Yu a weeaboo. 🙄 From a native Japanese speaker’s POV, it’s tacky and cringey.

If they’re THAT much of a Mulan/Shan Yu fan, I’m sure they watched the credits from the actual movie. Disney addressed the falcon as just the “falcon” on there. Nowhere in the credits mentioned “Hayabusa” is the name or even calls it that. It’s even more annoying that Disney had the nerve to call it Hayabusa in the Funko Disney Villain Mystery Minis from years ago. At that point, Disney (or Funko) cashed in on what was popular among fans, since there wasn’t an official name for that bird. *SIGHS*

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But there is ONE LAST THING that made me want to put all the Disney/Mulan/Shan Yu-related stuff in the storage and not be associated with the whole fandom. This will be the last thing.

STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMEL’S BACK

I was wrong if I thought the rabid fangirls, creepy stalkers, and the Mulan rape fantasy folks tried my patience. This one REPULSIVE INDIVIDUAL was the last thing that made me not want ANYTHING to do with the fandom.

I’ve considered putting all the Mulan and Disney-related work in storage for the last several years. Still, I left them up for art thief insurance purposes (especially ones that sell them for NFT, since one of my Angry Birds images was used). Nope. After what that scumbag did, I had ZERO patience with this fandom. 💢 INTO THE STORAGE!!

But my husband had made a separate post about what this thing did (he didn’t want me to do it because he knew I would go nuclear). I was so pissed off that it ground up my nerves and triggered multiple health problems (still suffering from some of them). I loathe this creature with every fiber of my being.

If you’re nosey, be our guest to read about it here. I wouldn’t have pulled any punches back if I wrote it, but my husband did, so it’s tamer. I’ve never had this much hostility against someone on the internet. Not even once that I imagine some Shan Yu fangirl would piss me off to this extent (especially after that Russian troll from years ago).

IN CONCLUSION

Too many unpleasant experiences revolved around Disney’s Mulan and the villain from that movie. It was to the point it was literally unbearable. The experience was so bad that I could no longer look at those characters the same way.

I’d apologize to those who bothered to fav all those Disney/Mulan/Shan Yu-related artwork. Still, most of them probably hit the fav button just because it had Mulan or Shan Yu on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did it solely for fandom-purpose and not for my artwork. That’s how most fandom people operate. 😒

Having said that, I didn’t even want to get notifications for favs on those artworks. That alone annoyed me. Along with the Disney and the Mulan-related works, I also threw other old artwork like the Angry Birds and DBZ-related stuff. Those were so old and were no longer things I feel connected to. 🙄 So every time I got a fav notifications on those, I was never excited.