@z3ta311 Shared universe almost always means that it is based in the same world, though not necessarily overlapping. Not sure where you got the idea that it only means the same author.
I still don't understand the setting very well. Do floors reset for every new person? And in that case, are these seemingly sentient creatures like the Phoenix just simulated and reset?
The backlash was not because of the character becoming female. The backlash was because it happened 20+ chapters in, after the character was already established. It would've been a much smoother transition point if the change occurred within the first few chapters.
@goxds I'm really confused by that. "They" is used as a pronoun all the time in everyday conversation, and it sounds fine. Where are you from? Maybe it's a dialect thing?