#webtoon critical

[iamstuckinthevoid]

TELL ME WHY LORE OLYMPUD IS NEXT TO MAUS AT MY LOCAL BOOKSHOP!???????????????

#keys speaks #keys speaks of irl #what the actual fuck though #anti lore olympus #webtoon critical #fuck lore olympus

[genericpuff]

Oh.

To call WT's actions "antics" would be reducing the severity of what they're doing to creators. This is unacceptable behavior and it should be all the more reason for creators to start exploring other career paths outside of WT. For years they've been meticulously crafting an environment where people believe that WT is the only path to success, where WT controls the degree of success creators can achieve, from the manipulation of the promotional system to the lack of tagging and proper search functions on the app. Now that they've boiled the frog to this point, they're cashing out by flooding the platform with cheap imports, implementing AI tools, and of course, trying to use their contracts as a way to trap creators and keep them from owning their own IP's and maximizing on their own success.

I said it before and I'll say it again - Webtoons is planning to go public with their IPO this summer, so it would be a real shame if creators spoke up about the underhanded tactics used by WT to keep them from finding success in their own works. At the very least, it should serve as a reminder to all of us that companies like these can't amass billions without exploiting people along the way.

We can't even use "they're creating jobs for comic creators" as a reason to want to see WT succeed in spite of their flaws anymore because they're literally ruining people's careers, cutting them off before they've even started. That's not the platform being "flawed", that's the platform and the system it's built on being broken, full stop.

#webtoon critical #covenant #explodikid

[worstwebtooncouplespoll]

Acception and Queerbaiting

So, Colourbee posted this poll today—

Let's not even talk about how biased these options are or get into Arcus's speech in episode 238 because I don't have time to get into that right now.

Since I had some Thoughts I doubt anyone else would express, I decided to leave a comment.

I didn't expect much from this. At most, I thought I'd get some dislikes and angry comments from fans.

Much to my surprise, Colourbee gave me a response.

I somehow managed to catch that right when Colourbee sent that, which is a good thing because they edited the comment shortly after that.

They also added this bit—

As much as I enjoy being told I'm right, it rubbed me the wrong way how Colourbee chose to blame Webtoon when they drew Arcus in pride flags and teased the possibility of him not being cishet without intervention from Webtoon.

I don't think this is even all of it, but I don't feel like digging through every episode of Acception and every post Colourbee has ever made to collect it all.

The last image was posted before Acception was picked up to be an Original, so they've definitely been using him as a Queer Mascot long before Webtoon got their hands on him.

Just...why tease a character as queer for at least five years and refuse to follow through on it? Why make Arcus Schrodinger's Queer?

Update:

I wasn't expecting this to continue on, but I guess Colourbee has a lot of free time today.

I posted this response shortly after getting the replies.

This was their response.

How many of y'all's cishet friends wear random pride flags to show their allyship?

#webtoons #Webtoon Originals #webtoon critical #acception critical #acception webtoon #《 i swear I'll shut up now 》 #《 but am i wrong for being bothered by this? 》 #《 idk 》

[thecluelessdoctor]

spins in a swivel chair

HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT I HAVE A REVIEW RANT THIBG!! YK THISE THINGS I DO EVERY BLUE MOON ON SOMETHING OTHER THAN HELLUVA BOSS? YEAH! WE ARE DOING THAT?

ABOUT WHAT EXACTLY??

YUP! THIS HORRIBLE WEBTOON. I won't be talking about the creator controversy

Look I couldn't even get past the first few episodes. I had to watch summary videos that's how much I hated it.

So!!

Yeah

So using what I've learned ima. Review it.

Story first!

So it's a romance (WHY) between Nelle and of course Jeff the murderer- sorry killer. Anyway. Nelle at the beginning attempts to get a job at Arkham asylum, but isn't allowed to due to not having any experience. Nelle why is this the first thing you tried to do after getting a degree- you could be a therapist. (Wait she was a child therapis?? Oh) anyway. Nelle runs into Jeff and. Nelle gives the obvious psychopath a ride to HER home. WHAT??

Shit happened and Jeff ends up living with Nelle, and ig. They start falling in love?

Yeah.

This is written like a fanfic. You know what it reminds me of?? IT REMINDS ME OF STOLITZ!!

Which brings me to the next point

The writing/dialogue

Everything feels uncomfortable and stiff. It also feels really robotic- it's just. Not good.

Jeff is really creepy. I mean yeah he's a murderer but he calls Nelle 'kid' with the sexual tension going on and it feels weird. WHY KID. God Jeff also gives off that 'alpha male' dude vibe it was just. I'm crying. BUT THE SHOW MUSt GO ON!!

This webtoon and it's characters feel so soulless and Nelle is so obviously this adorkable self OC god.

Next part.

The art.

AUHHJJ- ITS ACTUALLY TERRIBLE- MEDIOCRE AT BEST

It looks like Vivziepop art, but at least her newer art is consistent

This also has ZERO artistic growth!!

Now I'm a young artist, and I don't normally hate on other's art but this??? It's so Incredibly painful, and it doesn't even feel like it's trying to be good

Liker here are a few panels that I read that were really inconsistent

As well as some Google images.

God

Anyway rant over

Do you friends, have some shitty canvas webtoon you want me to review?? TELL ME!! I'll probably do it lmao.

Ig I'll call this series 'Bargain comics' because it's a bargain if I will be traumatized for the rest of my days

Anyway, I'm Dotty, and I wanna die

#jeff the killer #Jeff's disorders #Bargain comics #Critical #webtoon #original comic #webcomic #webtooncanvas #webtoon critical

[thefairfolk]

not even bones sucked.

except adair, that design was genius.

meanwhile nita’s over here being a horrible protagonist and basically making it virtually impossible for people to rout for her with the way she acts. she can’t just blame EVERYTHING on fabricio ratting her out to the black market. she yells at him that “you did this to me!” or “you made me like this!” like. no.

girl, you may have went through trauma, but you were literally faced with the choice to not be a torturer and murderer. and then you blame ALL of it on someone who simply started a butterfly effect that got you to where you are now?

take some responsibility for your actions, dammit.

and the way she treated diana and adair was just horrible and undeserved. diana did NOTHING to deserve nita’s stupid cOmEbAcK about her not being able to finish off her family’s murderer. she was nice to nita and even tried to get adair to let them stay at first- until nita (wrongfully, may i add) dumped boiling water all over adair, melting his skin off to reveal his true form.

girl- what- 😃

he explicitly stated to NOT bring police to his shop. she went and made it happen anyway, and was surprised at the outcome of being sold out? and still has the audacity to “tAkE rEvEnGe” on him so badly?

my biggest issue is honestly her deal with fabricio. nita can’t take responsibility for ANY of her actions and becomes defensive when confronted with logic and rationality. i used to think hate is a strong word for a character, but i can’t like her one bit.

the worldbuilding is also generally weak. mf, it wouldn’t take a genius to find out that the dangerous unnaturals list exists to make profit out of it. if nita’s just realising this at 17 (and this isn’t common knowledge), no offence, your protagonist (and everyone else in this world) is a pure idiot.

kovit ... i have mixed feelings about kovit. he’s on thin fucking ice.

and, oh yeah, adair is undeveloped and mid, but he’s at least pretty (it’s the grecian nose + gay pose for me).

#webtoon #webtoon critical #not even bones #not even bones critical #nita sanchez #kovit #adair #it's 4am who am i ranting to

[captainjellyfishofficial]

Important Announcement!

Captain jellyfish will no longer be updating on tumblr, but on it's own website!

Honestly, the tumblr version was a bit behind in chapters due to me keep forgetting to update it, but now they're all there lol. I wanted everyone to just be in one spot as opposed to being spread out between Webtoon, Tapas, and Tumblr. I'll go into more thoughts/reasons for leaving webtoon under the cut, but it's kind of long, so if you just want to bookmark it for later, here's the google doc link for it.

[Content Warning for mentions of racism, grooming/pedophila, and miscarriage.] As of September 20th, 2023, I, Enit, will no longer be updating my comic Captain Jellyfish on Webtoon or Tapas.  I’ve had my share of problems with the two platforms(although mainly Webtoon) for the past couple of years now, but I don’t want to just ignore them anymore.  For starters, I don’t like how Webtoon ignores most of their creators in favor of one or two series.  There are so many incredible and talented authors all over their platform, but instead they choose to only advertise Lore Olympus, a series whose numbers have been going downhill since Season 2 ended.  A series that I would argue is morally bankrupt and has been since the very beginning.  A series that they’re so protective over that they’ll copyright strike videos of small creators for “daring” to criticize their flagship series that struggles to break 100k likes per week on the new chapters.

The creator of Lore Olympus, Rachel Smythe, has a history of reacting with hostility/passive aggressiveness to any criticism of her webcomic, deleting any within her discord and the official Facebook group for LO.  She’s gone so far as to go to fan facebook groups to complain about them allowing criticism for her webcomic, and getting upset when they boot her out for her shitty behavior.  Webtoon tacitly encouraging Smythe’s behavior doesn’t end there however, as they have also allowed Snailord’s (creator of Death:Rescheduled) harassment towards someone who is likely a child (based off the demographics of people who read/use Webtoon), yet in both instances(and probably more) they have remained silent.  While I understand that they cannot control their creators, they should not be turning the other way and twiddling their thumbs while their employees shit over their company’s reputation.   Webtoon not only doesn’t care about what their paid creators say, but they don’t care about their creators’ health, both in a physical and mental sense.  They simply do not care about the time and energy needed to create a comic, they only care about the money they can make off of their creators’ hard work, with the most egregious and shameful incident involving the artist/creator Summer Light who made the Webtoon/Tapas series “Roxana: How to Protect the Heroine’s Older Brother.  She was treated incredibly poorly by the company/her producer, being denied maternity leave with the stress of the workload placed upon her resulting in her suffering a miscarriage.  

Real quick before I go onto my next point, I need to explain how these creators make money off of Webtoon.  To those who don’t know, Originals creators make money off their fastpass episodes after the “minimum threshold” of coins used to buy one of their episodes is met, with the coins used to purchase the episode before the minimum threshold going into the pocket of Webtoon.  What is this “minimum threshold” you ask?  Good question!  Nobody knows!  The people who need to know when it’s been met so they know that they’re being paid don’t know.  Originals creators have had to regularly fight just to know what their analytics are, and even then they don’t get a fucking response.  I know that as a(now former) Canvas creator that Webtoon deletes the data for your analytics/performance every month, so if it’s August 1 and you forgot to record the data from how your comic performed in June, you are plain out of luck because you’re never seeing that data ever again.  This isn’t even mentioning how Webtoon underpays their Latin American and South American creators, and how there’s vast differences in the payments per chapters for each of the Originals creators.

This leads us to today:  the recent controversy surrounding the Webtoon Original, Get Schooled, and how it should have never made it this far.  For those of you out of the loop, I highly recommend viewing this post here as the reddit post by Kendrillon summarizes/recorded just what the Hell happened with episode 125 and how webtoon/the author responded to the backlash far better than I could.  I’m not here to say how betrayed I feel as a fan of the series, I’ve never read it before and I only just learned about what the plot for the series pertained, and to be honest I don’t think that it would be my cup of tea.  What I am here for is to ask just how the editor didn’t shut this episode down when it was still in the scripting and storyboarding phase?  While I understand that most of the editors are overworked with all the comics they’re managing, I don’t see how something this huge could’ve been missed.  The editor should have said something when the N word showed up, but instead they let it slide and now they have this whole mess on their hands with Get Schooled being pulled from the platform.

While it’s good that for once Webtoon took accountability for their actions, this brings up another question: why aren’t they deleting other series on their site that also have harmful content? The Fate by AirisKiahin/YumiCH is a comic where the teacher is in a romantic/sexual relationship with his 17 year old student that he groomed.  It is labeled as romance/slice of life.  The story does not acknowledge how fucked up it is that he’s grooming his student.  At the time of writing it has over 11 million views.

Despite videos covering this comic gaining views in the millions(even if you can’t really tell at the moment due to one of the authors copyright striking them/getting them taken down(13))the story is still up.  Now in general I’m anti-censorship.  In a way I sort of have to be as a queer person, as many cries for censorship(EX: Kink, drugs, violence) quickly leads into the censorship and erasure of discussing/talking about things like LGBTQ identity, racism, criticism of government, etc.  That being said, there still needs to be some form of censorship as to avoid harm from happening(there’s a reason “Mein Kampf” generally is no longer in circulation(no I am not saying The Fate is on the same level as a book used as reasoning to push propaganda/commit genocide)), and I believe The Fate falls under this category.  The webcomic pushes the idea that it’s “cute” and “romantic” for an adult to have inappropriate relationships with a minor, which is especially concerning when you factor in that Webtoon’s main audience is comprised of 13 - 24 year olds.  This romanticization of grooming and abuse shouldn’t be shown to such a vulnerable group of people, and it’s shameful that Webtoon has yet to take down such a vile series on their platform.  

I’ll admit that I have other qualms about Webtoon(lack of customisation options, inability to view/create comments on the website, clear favoring of their Originals creators, etc), but they all seem so dumb to me in the face of all the other things they’ve done and continue to do.  In the beginning I almost didn’t want to even publish Captain Jellyfish on Webtoon because of their shady practices, but I knew that I would be missing out on the largest comic website due their monopoly over the webcomic scene.  I eventually settled on updating on both Webtoon and Tapas, but even then I felt unsatisfied.  Many of the same base, quality of life things about Webtoon carried onto Tapas, and even though I don’t hear nearly as much drama coming out of Tapas as I do Webtoon, I’ve still heard about them doing shady things in the past like trying to have the power to control when/if a series gets a physical release and “losing” track of where the money from the ink used to purchase episodes went. Webtoon and other sites fumbling with their user bases has made me paranoid that Tapas will be the next website to make a dumb change that no one likes but we’ll all be stuck with because the people running the site don’t care.

With all of this in mind I was a bit shocked when the possibility that I could host my comic on Neocities came up.  For those of you who don’t know, Neocites is a free website hosting platform that allows their users to create a website for free(as long as it’s under 1 GB), and if you needed more space, you could upgrade to a supporter for $5.00 a year in exchange for 50 GB of storage.  With Neocities I could fully customize the entire website for my comic, I could include gifs, music, author updates, truly whatever I wanted!  There was one thing stopping me initially from jumping right in to learning how to code so I could make my dream a reality: the fear of missing out.  I was afraid that when I moved websites that no one would want to read my comic anymore, or that by moving sites that I would miss out on my “big break” on Webtoon.  In a way I’m still scared of those things, but I have to move on.  I had already completed the bulk of the website, but I had sat on it for a few months before I went all in, and the longer that I sat on it, the stronger my desire to move websites grew.  I could literally have everything that I wanted, who cares if my reader count or whatever grows a bit slower than before?  I was already buried under all the other Canvas series, I might as well just move on from the bridge and step on the island already.

  I won’t be deleting the series off Webtoon and Tapas, not only for archival purposes, but I have a bunch of posts linking people there.  If you see that it’s no longer on Webtoon or Tapas, then either the sites started letting ai leech off the art there/started doing nfts, or they deleted me off the platform because they’re mad at me for writing this lmao.  I appreciate Webtoon and Tapas for helping me to grow an initial reader base, but it’s time for me to move on.  To those of you who’ve supported Captain Jellyfish so far, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.  You have no idea how much I appreciate you reading your comments and hearing what you think, and it honestly makes my day when someone says that they enjoyed reading my silly magical girl story.  If you read all of this, thank you for reading my small essay, and I hope to see you at the new website <3

Other Critiques of Webtoon Worth Checking Out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zbjA-Mfpvc&t=388s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIeM8MwCozU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4D7DXYijvo&t=4561s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQb_Sv1WLHk&t=47s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5IeV7ypgwc&t=838s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTIib55nSLA

https://www.tumblr.com/genericpuff/728748112875765760/hey-so-im-turning-off-reblogs-on-this-post-its?source=share

https://www.reddit.com/r/webtoons/comments/16jubm9/the_get_schooled_controversy_why_its_important/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DejbSMttvXA&t=2048s

#captain jellyfish #update #magical girl #magical girls #webcomics #comics #webtoon #tapas #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #anti webtoon #webtoon critical #neocities #the og google doc for this is literally 7 pages long lmfaoooo

[the-official-legacies-blog]

"Why don't you just use Webtoon to publish Legacies?"

Y'all, Webtoon is literally a no-go for me.

I have seen some things about it, and how they treat comic creators.

@/genericpuff has made some pretty good posts about why Webtoon isn't that good for small webcomic creators.

Like these posts, for example:

Genericpuff does a WAY better job at analyzing things compared to me, I HIGHLY suggest checking out their Webtoon critical posts-

#webtoon critical #the official legacies blog #the-official-legacies-blog #crystalsandbubbletea #webcomic #webcomics #Would have tagged genericpuff in this but I don't know if they're busy-

[vixxelle]

Lore Olympus is like if you put Greek Mythology in a pan, mixed it with your average Melanie Martinez songs, 13 Reasons Why, Euphoria, Twilight, and Riverdale; then burn it in the Wattpad Baker 1000, and try to cover up the absolute burnt monstrosity with one of those artificial pink frosting that tastes like battery acid and piss.

#raye rambles #lore olympus criticism #lore olympus #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #lo critical #lo criticism #anti lo #man I fucking hate this webtoon

[the-weekly-nark]

Minthe will forever be the original!

The last pic is by @anoldplace, who noticed that Persephone dresses like Minthe. Their post inspired me to look for more parallels and wow there’s a lot.

#lore olympus #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #lore olympus criticism #lore olympus hades #lore olympus persephone #lore olympus minthe #minthe lore olympus #lo minthe #lo persephone #lo hades #lo critical #lo criticism #webtoon #rachel smythe #unpopular lore olympus

[genericpuff]

All That Glitters is Not Feminism - An Analysis of LO's Brand of "Feminism" and What Remains of its Fanbase (The Twist)

Alright y'all, I've been waiting a hot minute to talk about this because I wanted to see how it fully panned out before saying anything about it. And it's not even specifically about LO, but I do think it's very adjacent to it in a way that I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear. Much of it speaks to how we prop up white writers even at the expense of POC.

This is 'the twist' attached to my first post that I made just a couple hours ago that concerns an entirely other topic but I feel ties into this subject very well.

If you haven't heard, there's this author who recently fucked around in the Del Rey publishing scene.

Her name is Cait Corrain.

In the original tweet calling this person out, names were not dropped, but it was made very clear that what Cait did was unacceptable behavior.

You can read the entire thread that started it all from Xiran here:

There's also a GREAT recap thread from one of the affected authors, Bethany Baptiste:

I want to make it clear that Cait Corrain isn't just a debut author.

Cait Corrain is - or now, was (foreshadowing is a literary device that-) - a debut author who had an agent, a publishing deal with Del Rey (an imprint of Random House which is a MAJOR publisher) and even an upcoming Illumicrate deal - meaning, her book was going to be packaged in a monthly loot crate subscription shipped directly to people's doors, quite possibly one of the best marketing deals a debut author could ever get, usually unheard of in this industry. All the pre-reviews were strong and positive.

Cait's book was literally set up for success. All she had to do was sit back, relax, and watch the fruits of her labors roll in. She had written the book. It was ready for release. The hard part was technically over.

But I guess the racism brainrot got to her because as it turns out, since April - for EIGHT MONTHS - she's been making alternate accounts on GoodReads to review bomb the indie and debut works of her friends and peers, most of whom were POC and did not have the same opportunities set up for them as she did. There are loads of receipts to back this up that you can find in those above threads ^^^

To say that this is appalling is an understatement. This was an intentional and deliberate act of racism by a white queer writer who claimed to be "jealous" - of what, I can't imagine - so much so that she deliberately sabotaged her peers, people who had supported her and her book.

And then when she got caught? She doubled down on it and claimed it was a "friend", also an alternate account she made up.

The exchange between her and this made-up person is actually the funniest shit out of this entire thing, it's so poorly written and as soon as people noticed the time stamps were out of order, that was when it truly cemented her newfound clown status.

"oooooh he's standing right behind me, isn't he?" energy right here LMAO

yes keep expositing cait, that's really selling the "this is a genuine conversation that really happened with a real person" bit 🤡

Anyways, it became abundantly clear that Cait was just going to continue to dig her heels in over something she caused.

This has been a hot topic in the UnpopularLO Discord, not just because of how crazy of a situation it is that we had to talk about it - and we have people within the community who work in the literature and media sector - but because we noticed one very telling thing in the list of series that she had review bombed in her very own personal act of wrath.

You see, Cait made one fundamental mistake that led to her undoing - she didn't just review bomb the works of her peers, she positively reviewed her own book and others.

What's her book about though?

It's an Ariadne x Dionysus retelling set in space.

It's literally another "modern retelling" of Greek myth.

And wouldn't you know it, guess who else created a modern retelling of Greek myth that she included in her positive review raiding while she was sabotaging the work of her actual peers?

Now, I think it goes without saying that what I'm about to say should be taken with MOUNTAINS of salt, I'm sure a lot of you are reading the headline and going, "Ugh, really? You're gonna make this about LO? Could you give it a rest already???"

I need you to understand, with the current state of Rachel's fanbase and 'modern' Greek myth literature as a whole, at this point Lore Olympus - and the works that are literally inspired by it such as A Touch of Darkness - has basically become the shopping cart litmus test of basic decency. It's like when someone says they like Harry Potter - you can't take it automatically at good faith anymore, because there isn't a whole lot separating someone who simply liked Harry Potter as a kid and still rewatches the movies from time to time from someone who fully supports the politics and agenda of J.K. Rowling. No, not everyone who still watches the movies or reads the books fondly is a TERF by default, but it's justifiably a reason for suspicion when the consequences are often too dire to risk.

There's this thing that's been happening in the LO fanbase that I frankly saw coming, but has really recently started to hit its peak. It's what I call the "Kanye Effect", where the comic has become so absurd and backwards in its misogyny and white feminism that the only people who seem to be left supporting LO are the people who are legitimate white feminists and misogynists - because all the normal level-headed people fell off the comic ages ago (or transitioned into the critical side of the community).

I mentioned it in my last post, but it bears repeating - Rachel's fanbase has literally been shipping Hera, a victim of abuse, with her abuser, Kronos. I'm really hoping a lot of them realize how fucked up that is now that Hera herself has called it what it is - abuse - within the comic, but I also can't count on the LO fanbase picking up on that or even noticing it with how quickly people swipe through it each week, it's very apparent at this point that most of LO's readers don't know how to chew their food and don't pay attention when Persephone and Hades aren't onscreen.

But I'm digressing. Or am I? We're talking about Crown of Starlight after all. The debut Dionysus x Ariadne sci-fi/fantasy romance that was quite literally advertised using Lore Olympus as its baseline-

This. This is what the ongoing cultural erasure and white feminist uwu-fication of Greek myth is doing to the literary zeitgeist surrounding Greek myth as a whole. This is why we criticize Lore Olympus and works like it that are created by disingenuous people who only seek to use the assets of Greek myth material as a way to shoot themselves up into fame and stardom. This is why we demand better standards in the literature and webcomic industry, so that people like Rachel and Cait can't use their privileges to quite literally erase the source material that they used to make themselves famous in the first place.

If anything, Cait's actions didn't just affect the people she negatively review bombed, or the people she was affiliated with, but also the people she positively reviewed. While I don't support what Rachel creates, she wasn't the only one who Cait went out of her way to review positively from her alt accounts, there were many others as evident in the Google Doc - but all this really does is tarnish the legitimacy of these books and their ratings by artificially jacking up their numbers that are advertised to others.

Making Greek myth fanfiction or fun creative retellings was never the problem, but it's now being sabotaged alongside so many other genres and mediums by toxic white individuals who can't even keep themselves from committing hate crimes, let alone create something purely for entertainment that's transparent in its illegitimacy, lest it destroy the illusion that these people are qualified to speak over those whose voices are being stifled, often by these very same people. Many of these writers get caught and are still allowed to continue what they're doing - that was certainly what we feared with Cait.

Until today.

It was revealed today that Cait's book will no longer be featured in the Illumicrate May 2024 box.

Del Rey has dropped Crown of Starlight from their publishing schedule.

Daphne Press will be hopefully following suit.

And, most telling of all, Cait's own agent has severed ties with her.

For anyone not familiar with the inner workings of the publishing industry, Cait has essentially been blacklisted. Without an agent or a publishing house, she'll have to entirely rely on her own resources through self-publishing. Unless she manages to sneak her way back in under an alias (which I wouldn't put it past her to try) she no longer has access to the mainstream publishing industry that was already guaranteed for her before she let her 'jealousy' get the better of her.

Her career was already made for her. She had a red carpet laid out for her debut. Her book was getting good pre-reviews and she had quite literally nothing keeping her from her success. The best thing she could have done was nothing. Somewhere in her head, she made up a threat that didn't exist, and sealed her fate in acting on it, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think in these situations such as with Cait Corrain, Rachel Smythe, and - also recently and relevant - James Somerton, we need to become increasingly aware of how white voices are still overpowering POC voices, not just in their actions, but in the opportunities they're given over others which they then use to further stifle the voices of those they feel "threatened" by or feel entitled to speak over. While neither James nor Rachel have used sock puppet accounts to "take out the competition" (at least as far as we know lmao) James did quite literally steal the words and voices of queer writers who were deserving of their time in the spotlight, and Rachel's work is being quoted as "rewriting Greek myth" as if its blatant gentrification and appropriation should be marketed as some sort of positive.

It's all too common for these deeply-rooted prejudices to rear their ugly heads and for the people who carry them to act out in this way while justifying it as "jealousy" or "a mistake". This isn't jealousy. This isn't a mistake. This isn't someone "starting drama". This is genuine, targeted hate, with the intention of snuffing out the voices of others who should be empowered, not silenced.

All that time and effort, and for what? Racism and petty jealousy? It just goes to show, it doesn't matter how many opportunities you're given, how high up on the ladder you already are - it won't fix the deeply-rooted insecurity and racial pettiness that spurs people on to do such horrible things.

I've spent enough of my time and words today talking about Cait, and James, and Rachel. So to end this off, I want to join in with all the others who have highlighted the books that were review-bombed by Cait, and help in uplifting them so they can have successful debuts. I'll be pre-ordering a few of them, so I'll be happy to make dedicated posts for them in the future after they release. Please consider purchasing them for yourself if you want some new reading material <3

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste:

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole:

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X Chang:

Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright

Voyage of the Damned by Frances White:

(I'm sure there are plenty others so if I missed any here, please let me know so I can add them here and check out their books!)

If there's any silver lining to this, I hope that it makes people aware of the media they consume and who it's being created by. I hope it makes people more willing to seek out the books that aren't getting the same opportunities as Cait Corrain and Rachel Smythe. I hope it's a wake-up call to the industry that matters like this need to be taken seriously and that POC writers are still being silenced under their own noses. And most of all, I hope it's a reminder that we shouldn't even need at this point that this behavior is not okay, no matter what level a person climbs to - that just because someone is part of one minority doesn't mean they're not capable of sabotaging another. It sucks that that has to be said, it sucks that despite these groups being so intersectional there are still people within them who submit to their deeply-rooted insecurities and find ways to feel threatened that they use to justify hateful behavior.

Having a platform is a privilege. It should never be weaponized against your own peers or those who you simply feel "threatened" by for no reason beyond your own imposter syndrome or doubts or internal struggles. Because as much as you may feel like you've earned where you are, that never gives you the right to weaponize your opportunities against others who were never given those same opportunities in the first place. "Feminism" is not using your power to crush "other women". "Progressiveness" is not exclusive to the progress that only benefits you.

I wish only the best to those who were affected by the actions of Cait Corrain. You deserve to be heard and seen and appreciated for the work you do and the abuse you've had to tolerate. I look forward to your debuts in 2024 <3

#cait corrain #support POC writers #crown of starlight #the poisons we drink #so let them burn #the voyage of the damned #mistress of lies #say isn't it funny how all the debut books cait tried to sabotage accurately describe her and her actions LOL #that's what we call irony #debut authors 2024 #booktok #webtoon critical #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus

[worstwebtooncouplespoll]

Will anything come of this subreddit? Who knows?

I feel like more Webtoons could benefit from having a subreddit like ULO

#webtoons #lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus #acception webtoon #webtoon originals #webtoon critical

[mirrors-war]

this will be the ending of Lo and you can’t tell me otherwise

#lore olympus #lore olympus critical #meme #webtoon

[shirojikimattari]

Li'l bb girl WIP

Been a while!! So many things happened and long story short, I (along with other great DMs) had the pleasure of hosting oneshots for newbies in the first ever RenFaire in our country!! Anyway that's why I've been away for so long lol.

Back to usual sharty business

#shadowheart #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #WIP #or not to WIP #just another small #shadowtav #but this time I felt like going back to my manga roots #idk which style is better tho #webtoon or manga #it doesnt matter #shadowheart is the best in any shape or form #i will not take criticism #thank you very much #baldurs gate fanart #bg3art #bg3 shadowheart

[sydnieminty]

Messing with an Artemis redesign 🌙 I might tweak it a bit but I wanna have her hair change color according to the phase of the moon

Info 🌒 - Emphasis on her aspect of Goddess of the Hunt and PROTECTOR OF WOMEN 💪 - Around Persephone's age give or take (1500-2000? Idk like I said I need to make a timeline) - Athletic clothing when in Olympus - Spends most time in the mortal realm in forests or mountains - Meets Persephone while hunting - She has so many pets Side note about Apollo Idk if I'm gonna do much with Apollo but I plan on making him a gold color I think? I get why RS made Artemis and Apollo purple, to hint that they were children of Zeus and also twins but idk I feel like making Apollo purple makes no sense otherwise lol just because they're twins doesn't mean they have to look identical Also Apollo is not going to be an antagonist in my redesign, he likes being with mortals and being worshipped he doesn't really give af about the other gods for the most part lol

#artemis #lore olympus #lore olympus critical #lore olympus redesign #lineless art #greek mythology #fanart #webtoon #character design #my art

[doodlingwren]

This one is very self explanatory. I hope you all have liked the cover as much as I did (not).

Notes down below

#wren draws stuff #lore olympus #lore olympus fanart #lore olympus redraw #lore olympus critical #greek mythology #persephone #hades #webtoon #lore olympus webtoon

[its-your-mind]

ORV as textposts 59/???

#critical role #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #omniscent reader #omniscient reader webtoon #orv shitpost #orv textposts #kim dokja #han sooyoung #doksoo #lee jihye #yoo sangah