...Now, am I really comparing this struggle to the Holocaust?

No. Of course not. I'm not THAT full of myself...

 

First off, I want to debunk or refute common arguments against this movement.

"You guys aren't real fans!/How many hours do you have?"

That's a "No Real Scotsman" fallacy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman It’s just as easy to argue that the people who support this decision aren't real fans. I personally bought this game on Xbox360, and again on PC, years later. Am I not a real fan?

"The Black Egrets are Nazis! Do you support Nazi imagery?"

The Black Egrets as as much inspired by the Nazis as The Empire/The First Order from Star Wars, or Cobra in G.I. Joe. They provide an inspiration for an evil fachistic army.

"Filia’s only 16! Why do you want to see her panties, pervert?"

I personally, would like to see Filia’s age retconned to be 18. While it's own form of censorship, it's a preferable alternative to altered sprites. Not to mention that the game still has panty shots for Filia, making it come off as Having your cake and eating it too. Not to mention detractors claiming we're defending "Child Pornography". Which, if they truly believed a game had child pornography for 10 years, yet still recommend it, once again, they're Having their cake and eating it too.

"It's not censorship. Only the government can censor!"

To quote @Noontide108 on Twitter...

"The idea that censorship can only be done by the government & not private companies is dumb as hell when you're american & corporations dictate what the government does anyway. the supreme court defined corpos as people & lobbying as speech so they could be protected by the 1st"

"Autumn Games was founded because their last boss was accused of sexual harassment, they should be allowed to remove stuff he created."

You're confusing Mike Zaimont with Alex Ahad. Mike Z is not the artist. He did not create nor design any of the characters, nor the world of Skullgirls. All of that was Alex Ahad. He was let go for being "difficult to work with." I can only take that as refusing to compromise or censor his image.

"It's so minor, why do you care?"

I'm sure you're familiar with the "First they came..." poem.

Now, am I really comparing this struggle to the Holocaust?

No. Of course not. I'm not THAT full of myself.

But my example is with that poem specifically. When the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. opened, it had that poem carved into the wall. It read: "FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE SOCIALISTS, AND I DID NOT SPEAK OUT-BECAUSE I WAS NOT A SOCIALIST."

This version is actually a censored version of the original. It's supposed to say: "First, they came for the Communists."

To quote Wikipedia: "Niemöller is quoted as having used many versions of the text during his career, but evidence identified by professor Harold Marcuse at the University of California Santa Barbara indicates that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum version is inaccurate because Niemöller frequently used the word "communists" and not "socialists." The substitution of "socialists" for "communists" is an effect of anti-communism, and most common in the version that has proliferated in the United States. According to Marcuse, "Niemöller's original argument was premised on naming groups he and his audience would instinctively not care about. The omission of Communists in Washington, and of Jews in Germany, distorts that meaning and should be corrected."

Admittedly, an extreme example. But it shows how even minor censorship can drastically change the meaning of art.

This is why we're here. We have to fight against any and all censorship. Not just for Skullgirls, but the precedent it sets. That's its okay to change art. Even if some of the original people are there. That something you didn't create is yours to change as you wish. That it's not censorship. That it's "housekeeping". And that everyone who fights against it is a weirdo.

Let me tell you. We are not "creeps". We are not gatekerping. We are not Nazis. And we certainly are not pedophiles. (And considering "Groomer" is the new buzzword of a growing censorship movement, I start to feel concerned.)

We must fight.

We must win.