tbh i maintain that a huge reason the RL community is bigger than the animanga one is that RL has better resources for finding FCs. most of my FC usage is RL for that reason.
like idk i prefer animanga from an aesthetic standpoint, but i can't deny that if two identical sites have an "fcs must be 18+" rule, and the only difference is what kind of FC they use, i'm joining the RL one every single time. it's less work on me to find a good FC when the FC directories for RL are sorted by age, gender, and race, and there are a million of them to choose from.
I maintain that a big part of the problem is that our community has a serious problem with sharing and gatekeeping, and the lack of reliable resources for fcs is a symptom of that problem. Everyone is expected to pay for everything or make it themselves, but not everyone has that ability. I have an immense icon collection that I’d love to share, but I get lambasted bc I don’t have sources for all of them bc they’re over 13 years old and I don’t want to be accused of stealing. In fact, I’ve been told by people here that if I can’t source said art that I should just not use it at all- which I think is ridiculous considering some of my resources are again, literally untraceable now. I’ve tried. But I have no problem with crediting art when I can!
But it’s just not always possible anymore if the artist has been ripped and it’s impossible to find the original artist. I’ve considered turning my collection of icons (and when I say a lot I mean like tens of thousands) into an archive for people to use freely; but I’m not sure I want to deal with being accused of theft bc I’m a collector, even if I don’t claim that the original works are mine.
