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baileybeez · 9 days

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It's been eight years since Season 1 ended and we've heard nothing about Season 2 and barely anything for the movie. So this isn't very shocking. Wish it didn't take so long for them to announce it though. But we know Mappa have had issues in the past with their scheduling.

They eventually got contracts to animate JJK, Attack on Titan, Vinland Saga, Chainsaw Man, Takt Destiny, Hell's Paradise etc. Very popular action heavy shows that will require way more attention since they're super popular. And even these shows have had issues.

Attack on Titan already had issues with Studio Wit and MAPPA continued those woes. It took three years for the final season to officially end with it constantly being stop/go.

Chainsaw Man did well but it wasn't as big as MAPPA hoped it would be like with JJK. Plus some Japanese fans didn't like the directors approach to the series. And then the highly anticipated series only got twelve episodes, making people wonder if the hype was really worth it. When apparently the series stopped right before the manga got really good.

Then JJK....good god. I only like JJK for potential and a few characters but I felt so bad for the people working on Season 2's production. It's a whole mess you should really look up and it won't shock me if Season 3 doesn't get the same level quality Season 2 got.

And Yuri on Ice is just another victim of MAPPA's poor handling of anime series. I wish at the least they would sell off the rights to the IP to some other studio but I doubt that will happen.

YURI!!! on ICE the movie : ICE ADOLESCENCE Officially Canceled

YURI!!! on ICE the movie: ICE ADOLESCENCE Cancellation Notice Thank you very much for always supporting "Yuri!!! on ICE." Regarding the postponed release of "YURI!!! on ICE the movie: ICE ADOLESCENCE," we have come to the decision to unfortunately cancel its production. We deeply apologize for not being able to meet the expectations of all those who have been waiting and have continued to support us throughout these years. The production committee and staff have been in constant discussions to create and to deliver the movie, but due to various circumstances, we have had to make the difficult decision to stop the production. We sincerely apologize to everyone who has been anticipating its release and thank you once again for your continued support. Yuri!!! on ICE PROJECT MAPPA Co., Ltd. Posted on the official Yuri on Ice twitter, @ yurionice_PR

Figure some YOI folks may still follow me, here's the news.

#not surprised #mappa you need to slow down #yuri on ice #mlm

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baileybeez · 13 days

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What if we both dumped papa smurf and ran away together instead

And we were both girls

Original panel under the cut;

#WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL #sapphic #so cute #anti lore olympus

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baileybeez · 14 days

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don’t mind me I just needed these side by side

#SAVE THE CAT WAS SO ICONIC #THEN THEIR CONFESSION

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baileybeez · 14 days

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Last year, I've been in a sticker-making frenzy before work caught up with me, so I made these. It was a lot of fun.

#gays come and eat

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baileybeez · 14 days

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you see those comments from barbara on reddit about rt animation's budget?

Someone sent this to me awhile back. Here's Barbara talking about financial stuff regarding production.

#wow #RWBY came out in 2013 #i'm amazed it's been going on for so long #puts things into perspective

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baileybeez · 16 days

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baileybeez · 16 days

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Something that I think is so great about She-Ra is that it portrays selfishness as a good thing. So many stories about “chosen ones” and “saving the world” are presented as acts of selflessness; it’s the sacrifices that bring the world to peace. She-Ra isn’t like that. It isn’t without its sacrifices, we think of Angella and Mara and Shadow Weaver- but they aren’t the focus. Catra becomes more selfless over the course of the fifth season, but that’s just character development- not the thing that saves the world.

Adora is a martyr. Obviously. The classic way for the story to handle this is to have her die in the finale- a death tragic but necessary. If she were to die there would no doubt be statues built in her honor, if she had died in the initial seasons then that death would surely be something that was presented as honorable- something to be avenged and be in awe of. But her inherent heroism, her selflessness, is repeatedly shown to be a bad thing for Adora- the person. Sure, the longevity of Adora’s She-Ra might have been expanded if she had given her life for the cause, the stories told in her wake more grand, a punchier ending to the tale, but Adora herself would have felt no benefit- she would have been a corpse. It is Catra, and Catra’s selfishness, that saves her.

Catra is interesting in that way. We see her arc climax with an act of selflessness- her saving Glimmer in exchange for what she thought would be her life. But it ends with her being selfish, choosing to confess to Adora in the end, desperately asking her to stay- the only thing she ever wanted from her. It is want that saves them both in the end, want is an entirely selfish act.

Adora’s selflessness is questioned throughout the fifth season by Catra, something that is taken as a given by everyone else in the rebellion. They were all expected to lay down their lives for the rebellion, but Adora was on the front lines. This isn’t even questioned by Bow and Glimmer, who stood back when Adora (without any discussion) was unanimously decided to be the one to take the failsafe. Yes, they didn’t know the repercussions then, but Adora was still the leader, and she was the one expected to take the responsibility. Catra’s selfishness, her not wanting to let Adora go is what brought Shadow Weaver’s deception to light. She wants, and that saves the person she is wanting. Want is lifesaving, want is a good thing.

I like this because selfishness is good, actually. Selfishness is the thing love thrives on, it’s why living isn’t surviving.

Selflessness is giving up what we want for someone else’s good. This is good in measure, I’m not saying that everyone should take everything that they want all the time- the world would be chaos. But selflessness can go too far, and we see this in She-Ra. Selflessness can wrap back over into selfishness when you’ve got too much of it- barreling over with giving and giving yourself to other people in a feeble attempt to avoid dealing with your own problems. But the selfishness of She-Ra is the selfishness that is required of love. It is confession. It is, instead of accepting death for the sake of all, fighting for the life you want. Wanting is such a human thing. Not even a human thing, it’s just a life thing. And that same wanting is chastised by the media. We aren’t supposed to want, especially if we’re gay; and if we do then the honorable, right thing to do is to give it up for the good of other people. She-Ra shows us the opposite. Selfishness saves the world and wanting is good.

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baileybeez · 16 days

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another old-account exhumation, for those who missed it the first time.

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baileybeez · 19 days

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Share this everywhere you can!

CHAD ANON-

Alright so I've been meaning to post about this for a couple days, but we gotta talk about what's been going on in the /r/webtoons subreddit the last couple days.

Every now and then, the heavens part and an anonymous creator will descend with their experiences with Webtoons. And they're almost never good. And that's good in the long run, because that means we have more ammunition to support Webtoons being an ass platform that benefits no one :))

Obviously the anons here are risking a lot posting this sort of stuff, so before I go ahead, let it be known that I'm gonna try and keep speculating to a minimum and just touch on what anon has provided. When it comes down to it, this post hasn't been verified in any way, so it might not even be 100% real, though there's a lot of evidence to suggest it is based on the responses from other users that validate many of the points anon makes.

I will also mention that any opinion I have regarding the contract outside of what's been provided by anon is from reading other accounts from creators who have spoken up and just generally being a community member for a long time who's been around the bend and heard a lot of shit from Originals creators. I am not an Originals creator and I have never been offered any of these contracts.

So let's get into this!

The contract 'evolving' over time was definitely something that a lot of us were at least semi-aware of, as it seems that a lot has changed since 2020 as verified by many creators who have spoken up on their contracts (or at least said what they could in light of the NDA's that WT uses to prevent them from saying anything). But I had no idea the extent to how far WT was going with it, how much they were trying to get away with. Automatically having the ability to buy 100% of the creator's IP? That is a huge, massive no-no. I've had some creators heavily imply to me in the past that they've sold off portions of their IP, but WT being given the automatic pass to buy 100% is severely unethical.

For anyone out of the loop, IP means Intellectual Property. It means whatever content is being made, it belongs to the person making it. Lore Olympus is Rachel Smythe's IP. City of Blank is 66's IP. Of course, copyright law gets dicier when it comes to stuff like fair use, trademarking, etc. but for the sake of this topic, IP just means "if you made it, you own it". Webtoons typically buys digital print rights, meaning if you sign on as an Originals, that means you can only post that comic that you sold to the Originals section. It doesn't mean you can't use other platforms for other comics, just that for the comic you sold, you have to post exclusively to Webtoons.

Webtoons is essentially trying to take that from creators by going "if you sign on as an Originals creator, you don't just lose your distribution rights, you lose all of your rights." They might still be able to run Canvas comics separate from Originals, but whatever they sold to Originals is no longer theirs to own. And the kicker is that it's, of course, for a very low fee. Buying out 100% of someone's IP should NOT come cheap, but WT is undoubtedly offering pennies in the hope that someone bites for that 'exclusive' Originals offer.

This. This is a big one. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure this is massively ILLEGAL.

Just like with the IP rights, creators should not automatically have their printing rights taken from them by a digital publisher. They can make offers, sure, but they can't force creators into giving up their rights for physical publishing when they themselves are not a physical publishing house. Some series do get physical prints through other publishers like Random House (ex. LO) but a digital printing platform should NOT be able to restrict the printing rights of a creator who has only sold their series for the purpose of digital distribution. Especially because, again, printing rights are usually sold for massive gains for the person selling them - not a portion of month's rent for people living in a shitty New York apartment in 2024. That is what Webtoons thinks your printing rights are worth.

This is one that I've been very certain of for the past little while, particularly due to my past discussions regarding LO's merch. Because let's face it... it isn't good.

But I don't hold Rachel accountable for this shit because she's not the one making it, it's almost certainly some in-house designer at Webtoons or some other third party through Random House Worlds. Sure, it says "By Rachel Smythe" but that's more so just for marketing at this point, because no one wants to buy merch made by Chuck the Penguin House merch guy.

Remember when I said LO's partnership with Inklore / Random House Worlds was gonna be purely for cheap merchandise in the realm of cookbooks and card decks?

Yeah.

Point is, it's clear a lot of creators who are part of Webtoons' merch program may not even have any say or choice in the matter. Of course, I don't know what Rachel's contracts specifically are like, so I won't speculate on that too much, but there's a lot of evidence to suggest that she may not own as much of LO as she used to. She was definitely a part of the older contracts from 2018 at one point that didn't have the more predatory tacked on bullshit like the Minimum Revenue Threshold, but... she's renewed her contract since then. So it begs the question of how much LO has suffered not just on her account of being bad at managing a team and writing a long-form story, but at the hands of Webtoons dipping too much of their hands into her work.

Oh look, another highly unethical if not outright illegal thing! Digital print publishers can't be your agent! Repeat after me -digital print publishers CANNOT be your agent! As anon explains here, it would make it far too easy for publishers to steer their creators into directions that only benefit the company. Agents are like lawyers for artists, their job is to protect writers, actors, artists, anyone who's trying to enter some kind of media industry. Most publishing agencies won't take unsolicited manuscripts for publishing, which means writers need agents who are willing to vouch for them and help them connect with publishers. Webtoons being the publisher AND the agent for creators... seriously, that's fucked up. It means Webtoons can direct creators to do whatever benefits the company itself, not the creator. But hey, we already knew that was the case as soon as we saw "Webtoon would be able to automatically buy 100% of your IP" LOL But if you needed more to support the sheer predatory audacity of Webtoons as a company, there it is.

This is the sad reality for a lot of content creators. Comics aren't a new industry, but webcomics are and a lot of the people going into them are either extremely young or just never learned how to navigate the professional world. We talked about this issue last week and now here it is in action - a lot of creators don't even realize they're supposed to hire lawyers for contracts like these, and those who do... can't afford them.

And again, I'm very aware that this reddit post isn't exactly substantiated by anything beyond anon anecdote (such as a copy of the actual contract) but a couple other people in the thread who were offered contracts also came forward to express the similarities - and differences - between what they were offered and what OP was offered.

(these responses are actually gone now but that's why we have the power of screenshotting as the thread was happening LMAO yay me)

This thread is also being discussed on Twitter:

For those who are as old and falling apart as I am (/hj) and remember when Youtube was still coming into its own as a platform, what Webtoons is doing to webcomic creators is very similar to what businesses like MakerStudios did to Youtubers back in the day - signing creators into predatory contracts with the promise of fame and fortune, just to pull the rug out from under them with shit pay, shit management, and less perks than they had just doing it all on their own time and dime.

Webcomics, as a blooming industry, are now going through the same problem as Youtube did back in the late 2000's/early 2010's. No one knows how to navigate the industry. A lot of people and businesses don't even know how to profit off it, at least not sustainably (and for some platforms definitely not ethically). Very few people have come out of this industry with the money and fame they were seeking in the long-term, both because it's easy to burn out quickly but also because there is no long-term yet due to this being such a new industry... and those who have come out with those victories are often people who are still just pursuing the traditional comic publishing ways of glory, by seeking out agents, signing print deals, and doing everything that any other freelance or contracted comic creator would do, because it's safer and offers more structure than what webcomics are offering on their own. There are no regulations, no protections in place looking out for creators, it's basically just a free for all of young people looking to monetize their creations and businesses willing to take advantage of those people for a quick buck.

I don't think any of this means that webcomics have to be exclusively relegated to being a "stepping stone" for traditional print comics or grander media like film and television. They're a medium in and of themselves, a very accessible medium to boot, that welcomes anyone regardless of their status, technical skills, or background. They're wonderful for that and I think more people should be willing to give webcomics a try as a medium if they want to express themselves on their own terms.

But as I've talked about in the past time and time again, there's still going to be a separation between doing webcomics as a passion project or a hobby, and doing them as a profession. When it comes to the latter, you have to be willing to treat it professionally. You have to recognize that there will be those out there who will take advantage of you for money, because that's what the professional world is all about. This is unfortunately something a lot of creators just don't realize, because we're going through those same growing pains a lot of Youtubers have gone through (and still go through) - learning how to navigate our passion as a job, with all of the legal mess, dotted lines, and legal stipulations that come with it. And we're in the midst of that learning now, by seeing the actions of companies like Webtoons that only seek to exploit creators rather than foster them. It unfortunately will take more creators getting screwed over before anything changes. But we have to be willing to talk about it, every single time. We have to be willing to separate the creator and their own faults from the faults of the platform that's hosting them - a creator can be both lacking in their own skills as a creator as well as lacking in support which makes it impossible for them to hone those skills.

And yes, I say all of this because it concerns the criticisms I make of creators like Rachel Smythe. I think there are a lot of things she does that are indicative of her as a creator and her inability to act professionally in this industry, from LO's rampant misogyny and objectification of women to her own misfires when interacting with her fandom. But there are also just as many things that can be potentially traced back to the platform - it's hard to make better content when you're constantly being exploited and hung out to dry.

Like anon, I too hope that more creators will be willing to stand up and speak on behalf of themselves and their peers, to push back against these contracts. It's gonna suck. It's gonna be hard to want to make those moves when just about every creator is just trying to put food on the table. But for every anonymous creator who stands up and speaks, for every person who isn't willing to sign those contracts and talk about the reasons why, for every storyteller who uses their skills to spread the message, the power they have grows. We have to make it impossible for Webtoons to continue to ignore.

After all, it would be a real shame for more of these stories to come to light just as Webtoons is seeking an initial public offering in the stock market. Wouldn't that just be so unfortunate for them? :)

#webtoon #webcomic #webtoon canvas #comics

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