Hi everyone,
This is Rainbow Rants part 2. I think I’ve been quite a controversial figure of this wiki because I’ve said pretty brutal things about the illustrations and concepts and I’ve been mean to some users. Recently I’ve toned myself down trying to be more neutral but today I’m going to throw all that in the bin and say what I really think.
Are my opinions unpopular? I don’t know since I seem to be the only user who writes these long blogs about my opinion, but it’s been a long time since I wrote a blog dedicated to ranting (the last one being in 2017) and a few things have changed since. If you disagree with me which you probably would, that’s cool, comment about it or forever hold your peace.
Opinions[]
- I don’t like the concept of Greta the Earth Fairy and Jacinda the Peace Fairy
Let’s start off with a harsh one. This stuff is a burning topic in today’s news and it’s good Rainbow Magic have decided to get in on it for the sake of educating their young readers. However, in the continuity terms, I do not like how Rachel and Kirsty are going to become the world saviours of our generation by helping the fairies regain their one/three little item/s which basically save the world from nuclear/political/environmental doom. That got too deep there but it’s true, it’s becoming silly now.
It was fine with the Green Fairies and I’m not just saying that because it’s from the older era. Back then, Rachel and Kirsty saw Rainspell Island was an absolute tip and the Green Fairies’ magic would only help Rainspell Island but for the rest of the world, as King Oberon said (I think), it is up to us (the reader) to save it and then they give us tips on how to help save each environment at the end of the book. It would be cool if the Greta and Jacinda books approached it the same way BUT if they don’t, they are essentially putting the whole world’s fate into the hands of the fairies, who are in turn relying on Rachel and Kirsty to help them. I’m probably reading into this too much but still, I think these issues are too complicated to be solved by a fairy’s item and that children should think giant problems are solved by fairy items.
- I don’t like the forced disabilities
this is the only good quality version of the revised cover on the internet
I understand it’s good to be inclusive, I just wish they had started this before this diversity/inclusive era began. I haven’t read Elsie the Engineer Fairy but I guess her wheelchair makes sense because it’s somewhat related to engineering (wheels and stuff) even though it also doesn’t make sense for a flying creature to have a wheelchair, but Camilla the Christmas Present Fairy having a cochlear implant thing? They only incorporate this into the story ONCE, and that’s when Camilla hears the goblins or something like that. Maybe they could’ve given the hearing impaired fairy a job that actually made it mean something, like music or being a librarian. Even worse, you can tell they added that last minute because they didn’t even release a cover of her wearing it until the book was actually published. I haven’t seen a paper copy of it but my ebook still has the old cover and so does pretty much every cover on the internet.
Another problem with Camilla is that she never explicitly said she is hearing impaired and thus needs a cochlear implant. She doesn't even say what a cochlear implant is, sugarcoating it as something that "helps me to hear and talk to people". You mean a loudspeaker? A phone? A hearing aid? Just say it’s a flipping cochlear implant because she’s hearing impaired. The children who aren’t hearing impaired will have no idea what a cochlear implant is about and will need someone to tell them. Save them the job and tell them the literal cause for needing one. Maybe even explain the difference between a hearing aid and a cochlear implant.
This seems irrelevant but it’s not. Ever since Doctor Who series 11 came out with the first female doctor, I’ve been more conscious about storytelling and how characters’ traits should add stuff to stories, something which series 11 and 12 don’t do. These two franchises are similar as they have played a big part in people’s childhoods but are slowly becoming unlikeable for some.
160 pages really isn’t enough to give a disabled character meaningful representation without mentioning it once or hammering it in as their only personality trait, as if fairies have other personality traits other than being kind, caring and infuriatingly naive. But let’s hope they work with it and make it respectful.
- Jae the K-pop Fairy is trash
Sure I wrote a review about how I thought it was "quite interesting" but I think that was because I really wanted it to be good since it was the only book I was looking forward to that year.
Jae’s one of those fairies they made to tick a box in the list of quotas which I have nothing against (as long as it's done respectfully) but they could’ve done more with him. What significant things did the first boy fairy do in the book? Lose his wand for the whole story, tell the girls how Fairyland is segregated by gender, run his fingers through his hair and give the girls a lop-sided smile. Twice.
Jae the K-pop Fairy is my arch nemesis and I’ll be happy to number all the reasons:
- What 5 year old listens to/cares about k-pop?
- Why u bring boys into the series when the boy band fairy pops up? I think boys are more worthy of being first included at the mention of boy bands.
- I was acting civil in that book review, I don’t think I roasted this fairy as badly as I wanted to because I just wanted to make a good book review, so that is the third reason why I don’t like him.
- Mate, the pop star fairies exist. The pop star fairy exists. You think the world needs a fairy to look after boy bands who are pop stars?? That’s 9 fairies looking after boy bands of all things, come on.
- Whenever I see that poll on his page where 100 people say “YES! I do like Jae the k-pop fairy!” and that it’s immoral as an admin to remove a poll just cos I don’t like the result, it makes me just that bit more annoyed.
- Twitter: for some reason I was psycho enough to look up rainbow magic on twitter and I came across a load of things about the fairy and how the world was convinced that this weird little book series they read as a kid had evolved so weirdly that they were turning to Jae from a group called Day6 for fairy inspiration. I get that the Ariana fairy looks like Ariana but the fairy doesn’t even look like the man for god sake Jae is just a popular name.
I knew it was coming and it came - some k-pop fans who stan the real Jae came onto the wiki and wrote about how this fairy was inspired by their idol and how we should go listen to them so I deleted it all since we know it’s not. It’s just embarrassing. - Me-2-U is also trash. Dylan, mega pop sensation man, will let two 11 year old fangirls walk over him and tell him to go into a room full of goblins and weird ice guy who can kill you by freezing you?? Will, boy band heartthrob with net worth of 10 million pounds, doesn’t have a dressing room to button up his shirt in?? Either Mikey or Lewis, musical prodigy whose skill is only surpassed by Bach, tuning an 8 stringed acoustic guitar which later turns into a proper electric fender strat?? Absolute trash - you can always count on LexsJB to create, fangirl over, and roast fictional bands.
You can tell how much this fairy angers me so much and idm if you find it hilarious or scary - do I have a weird complex of hating this fairy? Yes, I know I have better things to do with my time. Why am I getting so wound up about this weedy little fairy? No idea but I hate him.
Is A-OK a joke to you?
And on the topic of boy bands, 8 years after first laying eyes on Jessie the lyrics fairy, I found they did A-OK SO SO dirty. In an illustration blog I ranted about illustrators tracing over fairies to reuse imagery. Well for reasons I can’t explain I was looking up pictures of JLS and came across one which looked very familiar and then I realised it’s the SAME PICTURE OF A-OK?? Just look at it the guys on the end are holding the collars of their big coats, with the same pockets and buttons and the same wristwatch and bracelet. Then the ones next to them both with their arm on the next one’s shoulder and wearing hats. I always thought it was weird that one A-OK member was jauntily resting his arm on another’s shoulder while they were in dismay of their terrible singing but now I know it’s because the illustrator traced a picture of JLS posing in a photoshoot, that is just really dirty.
- I think popularity is going downhill
I recently had a refreshed appreciation for the era of the Return to Rainspell Island movie which was made way back in 2010 when Rainbow Magic popularity was at its height. (This is because 1, I realised I’ve crossed paths with Rachel’s voice actor a lot as I watched a tv show featuring her and saw her in the programme of a sound of music production that she was in like 15 years ago. 2, the singer of the songs is from B*witched, an old pop group whose song I listened to. And 3, I recently bought the 2010 annual for the featured CD (considering it is an annual with 2 audiobooks and 2 songs, £2.50 was a bargain) and it did NOT cross my mind that the ‘two exclusive songs’ would be No More Grey Skies and Let's Believe from the movie so I was quite disappointed. But I have downloaded them onto my phone and unironically enjoy No More Grey Skies every now and then.)
Considering I've had this CD for a week, 5 plays is quite a lot
Is the series’ popularity high enough for a movie nowadays? I mean I don’t come across primary school kids enough to know what they read nowadays but I’m guessing no. It’s not like the movie’s so bad/good it gained a cult following either. Making another rainbow movie 10 years later would be a waste of money, effort and time.
- I don’t like the blatant money-grabbing editions
I had trouble getting over the special Narwhal edition of Shannon the Ocean and I still don’t think I’m over it now. This is the book no one ever asked for but they gave us anyway. Basically the original book but with a few animal characters replaced with narwhals. Are narwhals a thing now? Is this just an excuse to republish a book that was popular?
When that Save the Ocean Fairies thing was announced, people were quite interested, thinking “will it be a new story including our favourite ocean fairies? Is it a new series? Is it an Ocean fairies Shannon the Ocean Fairy crossover?” The description is “Join the girls for an extra-special ocean fairy adventure”, that extra-special adventure being a compilation of these three books. So special that you could just buy those three books individually and still get the same enjoyment out of them.
And the Carer Fairies, assembled in 5 days, made up of all but one of the Helping Fairies (when you’d probably have to buy the last book anyway for the story to make sense) in response to appreciating the carers during the COVID pandemic. I can tell they have good intentions but can’t you come up with something new rather than repackage an old book? Why not write a separate carer fairy, or a nurse fairy, or an intensive care fairy, or a hospital fairy?
- I still don’t like the new design
One thing I like about them is the fact they have a little picture of the fairy on the side of the book, so in the shops I don’t have to embarrass myself standing by the bookshelf for too long, trying to read the tiny reflective lettering on each book. I still think the one-colour scheme is really boring and I still haven’t warmed to the logo. I know I’ve had 4 years to get used to it but no.
I also don’t like how for every new version of an old cover they’re digitally redrawing the original fairy drawn by Georgie Ripper. Her fairies’ clothes were plain block colours but that didn’t matter because it was done with watercolours/pencils/pens/whatever she used and had a kind of textural feel to it but now they are drawn digitally, the clothes come off as really plain and boring since they weren’t designed with extra decoration or whatever. I get her water-colour versions don’t look right on a slick new background, but if you’re gonna redraw them couldn’t you redraw them in a different pose like with the Rainbow Fairies? Naa but that’s too much work.
- The new website is weird
I found it a while ago and added some new covers to the wiki since they were better resolution. The site is connected to sites of all of Orchard’s other book series which really shows how they treat their childrens’ book series not like individuals.
When you go onto the site, you’re greeted with pictures of the “latest books in the range”. What is this? A clothing brand? Then if you explore a bit more, you come across this beautiful banner akin to my Uncovered blogs banner
where they have a whole search system for typing your name in and finding a fairy with it. But as long as you type in the EXACT name, the fairy with the EXACT name will come up. Which brings me onto-
- I don’t care if your name is spelt differently but it shouldn’t have its own fairy
That statement sounded a bit harsh, so I’m sorry if you do care but you really shouldn’t. My name is spelt quite commonly but the nickname of my name has many different variations so I’m kind of on par with the Hannahs and Hanas in the world.
Say my name is actually Lexy. I do not care if there is a fairy called Lexi cos it is basically the same name. However, I would be sad if I came across a revolving shelf of keyrings with names on them and see Lexi but not Lexy, because I will USE that keyring on my bag and I would want my name to be spelt correctly on that. But in terms of fairy books, it’s not like I’m gonna be parading around in public using that book to be identified, I will probably only read it at home and I know the characters are NOT me so I wouldn’t feel that offended. And anyway, big chance is that the fairy won’t even look like you.
Don’t get me wrong I’m happy for all the Meghans who see the wedding sparkle fairy on the shelf and think “yo sweet they FINALLY made a fairy with my name on it! Now I don’t have to bother with the Megan book”. Some names I think are acceptable such as Georgie and Georgia because they sound different. Kathryn and Catherine because they are spelt completely differently. But you can’t make fairies for every variation of a name there is. This makes me think they might be doing this just so when Hana looks up her name on the Rainbow Magic website and sees a fairy with her spelling, she will not be disappointed any more. They haven’t even done some popular names like Elena or Faye or Rose. Admins can see commonly searched terms on the wiki, and some of them have been names people are looking up because they're trying to find their name. I made a post about it here, it's pretty interesting.
Final words[]
Do you have any unpopular opinions about this series? It would be cool to hear but if you don’t want to say, that’s fine. I needed to let people know where I stand with these things cos I can’t keep on editing the wiki acting as if nothing’s bothering me with these fairies. It’s not like rainbow magic is becoming irrelevant in my life either. I still draw the angels/a-ok/groove gang/Sasha, Dakota and Jacob all the time (because it’s good to have a lot of characters to practise new things on) but I’ve disconnected them so much from this series that I have to remember they did come from it. And when I do remember, it’s tragic.
I have to admit that comments from this new user ‘TheWoollenWonder’ on my blogs inspired me to write this one because it reminded me that there are still some people out there like me who don’t like how this series has turned out. Not that it matters that much since we’re not the target audience, but it’s something from our childhood that has been soured.
I hope you found this interesting in some way.