In one of my earliest chapters, I added a portion into the Author's Notes about how I felt about Coeur Al'Aran.

In that segment, I discussed his stories and how I felt that they had serious flaws in them that I could not ignore, as well as established how I felt about his character and how he carried himself.

In the previous chapter, I discussed how certain authors in the RWBY FNDM would fit into a high school setting, and said that I viewed Coeur as being the high school bully of the imagined scenario.

In my head, this had been nothing more than a joke, a little gag. However, one user on Ao3, by the name of IcePyre, has since then left an important message in the comment section, that described how he felt about my impressions of Coeur and my overall projection as a person of him.

Allow me to copy IcePyre's comment into the text below:

"Honestly? The way you project Coeur as being malicious after having already ranted against him before, even though he literally has done nothing to you personally, on a site where you know he won't find out because he doesn't have a presence, and when he already receives a shitton of harassment, such as people pretending to be him? That not only gives the impression of the kid who slanders other people online, but also has a parasocial complex, and is working through their personal issues healthily.

"I like your work & have been following it for a long time, but you need to get some help if you can't let go of that resentment. It would be one thing if you personally knew the guy but insulting the character of someone (who you apparently don't even know) as a person over their popularity & writing choices not just wrong, but unhealthy in practice. I personally get annoyed by how many people throughout the fandom ape his opinions, tropes & fanon elements but I don't hold the failures of trend-chasers & fans unable to think for themselves against the person who inspired them, and no one should."

Now, before I say anything else, this is not an attack of IcePyre's character or a deconstruction and retort to his comment.

IcePyre is one hundred percent correct in his statement and has helped me to gain some much-needed perspective on how I feel about Coeur, and what I have done in projecting that perspective.

It was quite humbling, to say the least.

So, allow me to explain how I feel about Coeur in as nonbiased of a viewpoint as possible, especially the idea that I have been attacking his character.

This is correct. I may not have known it at the time, but I was attacking his character.

Allow me to explain: during the chapter 2 A.N., when I was explain how I feel about his works and why I don't like many of them, I called Coeur a bitter person, as was my perception of him from his author's notes and general writing. I may not have intended it at the time, but this was indeed an attack on his character, which I did not intend to do. This attack was only furthered by my noting that he would be the high school bully in that kind of scenario, furthering this impression that I had that he was a malicious sort of person, which is certainly not true.

This is an attack of Coeur's character. One that I have been perpetuating without knowing it at all.

I explained my actual feelings towards Coeur in my reply to IcePyre:

"Truthfully, I don't dislike Coeur. I certainly don't hate him, but I don't like him either. I'm more neutral towards him. I did like a lot of his works back when I was starting out as a writer, and I still do have my favourites amongst his works, and while I admit that I do resent him a bit for how much he achieves compared to myself, that doesn't mean that I don't respect the hell out of him for the work that he has put in to achieve all that he has. The man's updating stories almost every other day. I couldn't put in that kind of work ethic even if I tried, and I have to respect that immensely."

So yes, while I don't particularly like Coeur, that doesn't mean that I hate him at all. My feelings towards him as a person are much more neutral, which I should've communicated instead of perpetuating this unacceptable behaviour on my part.

And it is unacceptable, for which I apologise.

And yes, I do resent Coeur somewhat for his popularity. He only needs to release one chapter in a story to get hundreds of views and reviews and the like, whilst I release a chapter and can only gain a few, if that. It is disheartening to see as a writer, especially one who sees the writings of the more popular one as somewhat subpar, and it is from this that part of my negative perception of Coeur was built from.

But that is one of my biggest mistakes: you should never let resentment cloud your judgement, and I did.

Coeur Al'Aran had to start from somewhere, and there was once a time when he was in the same position that I, and many other authors, were in our beginning years. It is thanks to his amazing work ethic and continuous devotion to his works that he was able to become the juggernaut in the RWBY FNDM that he is today, and for that he has my eternal respect. Many young and upstarting authors in the FNDM, including myself, have been inspired by Coeur and his works, and no matter how I feel towards him, I refuse to take that away for anyone or anything.

Coeur put in a work ethic and consistency that none of us can ever hope to replicate and has become one of the central pillars of the RWBY FNDM. If anyone deserves that many views, it is him, and for that, he has my eternal respect and gratitude.

But I couldn't see that at the time. I allowed my own resentment to influence my perception of him, and for that, I am sorry.

I won't take back what I said about his stories, though. Back in the day, I did like and always follow his stories, and even to this day, I still find the likes of Service with a Smile and Beacon Civil War to be incredibly charming pieces. And I will also admit that many of his stories have a lot of positive qualities towards them.

But I cannot overlook what I view to be wrong about his stories, and so I will not.

However, this doesn't mean I hate them. Null is really the only one that I have a serious problem with. A lot of the rest share a lot of common flaws in the writing that I have with them, which, like with Coeur, leaves me feeling more neutral with his works than anything else.

However, as I also stated in my response to IcePyre:

"And yeah, it's probably hypocritical of me to find problems with his work when I might get be making those same problems myself."

I may be repeating the same problems that I have with Coeur's works in my own stories, which would make me the biggest hypocrite in the world, and that is something that I have to point out.

So, to clarify once more: I don't hate Coeur. Not really. Nor do I intensely hate his works. A large part of the reason why I acted the way I did towards him was born out of that resentment that I felt towards him as an accomplished and immensely successful writer. And while I do not like him as a writer, nor do I particularly like many of his works, that does not mean that I wish to continue any kind of attack on Coeur's character as a person, simply because of my feelings towards him.

And neither should you.

IcePyre raised a point that fostering an antisocial and parasocial relationship onto someone you don't know - a parasocial relationship born out of resentment for that person despite having never interacted with you - is definitely the wrong thing to do, and it has been this that I have been knowingly partaking in all this time.

I want to let go of this kind of relationship. Coeur has never done anything to me, and he has done nothing in turn to deserve my resentment or any kind of anger towards him.

I wish to let that go.

I will keep my criticisms of his work as they are, but only because they are criticisms of his work and not himself, and only because I feel like there is some justification behind them.

But that resentment? That I choose to let go.

And so should you.

Please, don't go attacking someone just because of how you feel about them. Don't go attacking their character or harassing them just because of how they feel. While I have attacked his character in my notes as seen before, that does not mean that I have chased or harassed him in such a way when he doesn't even know I exist.

But I know that others have.

Please, don't perpetuate that sort of behaviour. If you have a genuine criticism of his works, then put that down. Don't attack or harass him like others have done, just because you feel negatively towards him.

Don't make their mistakes.

Don't make mine.