An Anti LO Screenshot Collection
(Tried to fit as much as I could)
Here's the extra I couldn't fit in
Stuff I forgot/Just wanted to add
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Today's Document
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@antiloreolympus
An Anti LO Screenshot Collection
(Tried to fit as much as I could)
Here's the extra I couldn't fit in
Stuff I forgot/Just wanted to add
i find it funny that one of rachel’s drawings of herself in the afterword that just went up is just fully persephone. is that something she does a lot?
Alright so I've been making it a general rule for myself to like, not harp on Rachel in any way outside of LO as much because frankly the horse is dead now and there's not much left to say outside of what can be analyzed in hindsight. I think despite everything I have to say about her and her work, she still deserves to get away from this nonsense and I don't wanna spend eternity hovering over her shoulder.
But the afterword was posted within the LO series and is clearly meant for readers of LO in the functioning of being an afterword so let's just call it fair game LOL
I will say, on the whole, it does feel very honest and sentimental and I can respect Rachel for taking the time to write out and illustrate her afterword in a way that was personal to both her and her fans. I can understand why she went at it from the angle that she did and I'm not gonna fault her for that.
But there's also something that feels deeply... disingenuous about her approach right from the starting gun. I will say, before I continue, that I'm well aware I am biased towards Rachel as a creator, and I fully acknowledge that I could very well be reading too much into things. This is just my opinion, take it with mountains of salt.
I can get looking back on your own childhood, your past self, whatever, and going "see! it all got better!" because sure! For a lot of creators like Rachel, it must be wild to look back on where they came from and there's a lot of sentimentality on expressing that through an afterword like this where she reflects on where she came from. Though she STILL didn't acknowledge her other comics outside of LO, I can understand if she wants to leave those skeletons in the closet.
But I feel like her drawing herself as a child who's being given an Eisner by her adult self and all that just feels like some gross attempt to disarm any criticism of her because "don't make fun of me, I'm just a sad lonely baby girl!"
She's not a child. Child Rachel didn't grossly misappropriate Greek myth into their own self-indulged vanity project. Child Rachel didn't claim herself a folklorist of a culture's works only to bastardize them completely. Child Rachel didn't create a hostile environment within her fanbase by bullying anyone who she perceived as a threat, sneaking into critical spaces to try and cause trouble, and writing her own clapbacks into her comic. Child Rachel didn't claim to be challenging misogyny and purity culture only to reinforce misogyny and purity culture through her own self-insert baby-virgin-gets-rescued-by-rich-tycoon power fantasy that regularly glorified abuse towards women and the lower class.
30-almost-40-year-old Rachel did though.
At best it comes across as really cringe sentimentality from a Greek-weeb (heh, greeboo) and goes to show how much Rachel inserted herself into Greek myth without ever absorbing its messages or cultural contexts, it was all about her and her feelings as a sad New Zealand girl with dyslexia who thought Persephone's story was about another sad girl being rescued from her "horrible childhood".
At worst it's an active attempt to play on people's heartstrings by drawing herself as a child who people will naturally not want to criticize. I don't want to assume she's doing it intentionally, I really don't want to leave her afterword on a bad foot, as I can definitely understand as both a creator and a person who struggled with learning disabilities in their own childhood how and why she wants to pay homage to her past and where she came from... but let's just say, as someone who's also gotten way too "lost in the sauce" concerning personal self-reflective projects, I think there's a lot to say about how this confirms that Rachel made LO entirely for herself, about herself, without any actual intention to respect the original myths, because she never truly separated them from herself when she was a child. And, in my humble opinion as someone who has Been There with the self-insert OC's and self-reflective angsty plotlines, I can fully attest to the fact that that's not fucking healthy. Even with personal projects, you NEED to learn to get your head out of the sauce, you NEED to learn to objectively separate yourself from the narrative so the story doesn't fall apart under your own hubris and ego, you NEED to learn to draw a line if you want to have any sort of identity as a human being outside of what you make for people. And that's with just normal original stories, this was a story based on Greek myth which doesn't belong to her.
And this goes for a lot of the things she's said and done in the past, so much of her own "sources" even are tethered to things that she read / watched in her childhood and only vaguely remembers, as if she never mentally left her childhood at all, which just... if the point was to highlight her past and the traumas she went through and how they contributed to her present, an Eisner isn't going to validate those experiences. And drawing attention to her past through the lens of her childhood self absolutely 100% does not absolve her of the negative effect her work has had on the modern Greek myth zeitgeist nor the things she's said and done as a 38 year old woman who should absolutely know better.
The community she entered and took from will forever remain changed by her influence and taking, in many ways not for the better. She has the privilege of walking away and never having to think about it again, with all the awards and accolades that were bought for her, the bravado that she built around being a "folklorist" with zero credentials, and the platform she was given over many other creators struggling to even be heard.
That "place" she claims to have now was built entirely on inserting herself into another culture's works and doing nothing but taking, taking, taking, while offering nothing in return but vanity and lip service. That "place" was paid for and brought to you by Webtoons.
Something I noticed upon re-reading the afterword that's, again, undoubtedly overanalyzing and should be taken with loads of helpings of salt, but got crazier the more I thought about it.
There's this part where Rachel talks about living with learning disabilities and how that affected her growing up-
Look, I know that this is Rachel "closing the book" so I don't want to beat her up over this or psycho-analyze her, but... did you notice how her retelling of her childhood went from being bullied over her "lack of smarts" to her trying to make herself feel better through... beauty? There's no connection between these two things, the focus just suddenly shifts from "not being smart enough" to "not being pretty enough", which are two separate problems, one of which she never mentioned having.
Now who does that sound like?
It's clear Rachel put a lot of thought into writing this and wanted to speak from the heart. But I think, if anything, a lot of it really puts into perspective just how much she wrote herself into Persephone, in a very - in my frank and honest opinion - unhealthy way.
Persephone is established in S1 as a character who is trying to make a go of it in university, and is cited as being incredibly smart and talented in basically everything she does. In fact, she's so good at everything that it's turned into a source for conflict in S2.
But then, as soon as she meets Hades, there's a shift in her goals. It's less about her graduating and doing something with her life, and more about her getting with Hades, about her beauty, her appeal to the men around her. All of her interests revolve around Hades, and the validations he can give her for being the most beautiful, most intelligent, most desirable goddess who chose him and no one else, not even the line of guys who are chomping at the bit to get to her even if it's without her consent. She's just that desirable, y'all, who cares about the guy's intentions as long as he's thirsting over her?
Like Sailor Moon, Rachel draws Persephone in the hopes that it will make her pretty. Like Rachel in this afterword, Persephone stops focusing on her own self-growth, her own pursuing of knowledge, and instead becomes just a physical object of beauty for others to fight over.
There is literally ZERO denying at this point that Persephone is a self-insert - but also that LO was undoubtedly used as a crutch for Rachel's own personal hang-ups regarding her childhood.
People were mean to her about her learning disabilities? Fuck you, now she's the smartest person in the world and has all the trophies to prove it, the mere cosmic coincidence of being a goddess automatically makes her smarter than everyone else by default.
She felt insecure over her appearance? Well now she's been twice blessed with beauty and is more beautiful than even the goddess of beauty herself.
And what is the first and really only thing that Hades notices about Persephone upon meeting her?
Oh yeah.
People were mean and gossiped about her? It's okay, the big power fantasy boyfriend is here to commit assault on her behalf. And now that she has a position of power? Raid their home with animals. Corner them at their own workplace and use her new position of power to intimidate them.
The bitter irony that she mentions therapy in this afterword and doesn't realize that she's borderline trauma-dumping on her own audience and, probably, maybe, should actually go to therapy to talk about how much she's used LO as a self-soothing crutch for herself.
Persephone, by design, is a twisted reflection of all of Rachel's fears, insecurities, shortcomings, and perceived flaws, a beloved but tragic character from Greek myth that she misinterpreted and projected into a reflection of what she clearly and practically admittedly wishes she could be - someone who is the most beautiful, intelligent, desirable Queen who's both worshipped and feared, both immortal and "forever 19", both a workaholic girlboss and a helpless baby who needs to be rescued by her suitor, both a "Dread Queen" and a "cinnamon roll" who can do whatever she likes to those who she deems as below her... but when you put yourself on a pedestal, everyone is.
Was disappointed in the dress she got for her power up mode. Like the white fur hate it. The stupid bee on the back of her necklace hate it. The almost nude rhinestone look would be cool but in a different part of the story and not taking down ouranos
The rose bun is nice and i wouldnt hate the white fur if it wasnt for the fact winter has been a big part of the last several chapters
This was supposed to be a quick edit that still took too long i wanted it to have more ancient greece aspects and if i was good at it give it an alexander mcqueen rose dress treatment with decaying flowers sprinkling about to decompose and provide the new growth nutrients
But this already took long enough
✌️
Is it possible for her to hate you even more?
I don't think I ever posted about this, but I noticed a long time ago that there's a facial expression that seems to pop up in Lore Olympus a lot.
I can't tell if I just see it everywhere now just because I'm acutely aware of it... I tried to catch it every time I saw it on rereads. I'd taken to calling it "Lore Olympus Face," it's this sort of exaggerated eyeroll + open pog mouth 😅
Am I just looking too deeply at the details? Did anyone else notice this expression everywhere or am I just seeing it now because I'm looking for it?
This is a Rachel Smythe thing, it's present in her older comics as well:
IDK if it's her trying to be like Sailor Moon-
-or if she's doing the Vogue face or something, but it's definitely not just you who's noticed it and it's definitely a pattern that Rachel has fallen into the habit of doing haha In LO especially it results in a lot of void mouths with big googly eyes with those pupils that roll around everywhere, I sometimes can't help but think that this is what sex dolls bought from Temu would look like 💀😭
SPOILERS FOR LORE OLYMPUS EPISODE 280, THE FINALE.
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Yeah so I just spent the last two days obsessively working on this.
I've been telling people for years that Rachel mixed up being infertile with being sterile. And now with the birth of Makaria I was accidentally proven right.
If you want to read it for yourself instead of on here, the link to the full google slides presentation is below.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lnhKOo1Bi4PBSw5dbjFqJ09gEnSHxMIvUcPAMpEi6hQ/edit?usp=sharing
oh yeah, I just realized I never shared the 'funeral program' that I spent like two days making for the discord voice chat / stage funeral that we hosted with ULO pals the night of the comic's finale
and yes, i made it look like those loreolympians posts on purpose because (no hate to them) they're always reaching so far to try and make LO seem deep and intentional in its writing that isn't there, so in this case we're reaching real far to make LO's departure seem like a genuinely loss worthy of a whole ass funeral service LOL
god i hate this comic, i'm gonna miss it but i'm glad it's finally been put out of its misery LOL
“Are you ready to rage?”
*proceeds to not rage*
in the wake of LO ending, especially over the next three weeks as the FP updates become free, this is your public service reminder from a fellow anti that you should be following tumblr / fandom etiquette and keeping antiLO/critical LO posts to their respective tags (#antiloreolympus , #antilo, #locritical, #loreolympuscritical) as best as you can
yes, it's our own responsibility to curate our online experiences by following the accounts we like and blocking the accounts we don't, and using the general search bar on tumblr absolutely opens you up to the inevitable risk of seeing something you don't wanna see, but we as the critical side of the fandom should be doing what we can to make it easier for people to curate by labelling our criticisms / shitposts / etc. about LO with the correct tags ! this ensures that if someone doesn't want to see anti/critical stuff, they can do their part to block those tags and don't have to worry about it leaking into the general tags. I don't think it's that big of a reach to expect that general fandom tags will contain content from, y'know... people who are still genuine fans and not talking shit LOL
And yes, this is why you will not see me ever using the general loreolympus tags when posting my own critical essays or Rekindled. Obviously what you decide to tag your stuff with is on you, but I'm gonna ask y'all to please remember NOT to use general loreolympus tags when reblogging my stuff!! that's not to say my content is entirely off-limits to fans of the comic (we actually do have people in the Rekindled community who enjoy both!), but what I do here obviously isn't tailored specifically to general fans of the comic and the general LO tags are what those fans are using to find content from other fans, not hyper-driven maniacal anti's like myself ╭( ・ㅂ・)و
Just because it's no longer an unpopular opinion to rag on LO doesn't mean our slice of the fandom is now the whole pie. It's easy to think when you spend so much time in the critical part of the fandom that LO is somehow "dead" but like, there is still very much a dedicated fanbase to this comic and it still has some of the highest stats on the platform. We can't in good faith complain about fans coming into our spaces complaining about criticism existing if we're not gonna follow the rules of etiquette and label our stuff properly. And hey, at the very least if we properly tag things and they still find it from journeying into the anti/critical tags, then that's on them at that point. We don't have to take that "stop being such a meanie to two-time-Eisner-winning NYT bestselling creator Rachel Smythe" shtick from anyone, but we do gotta be willing to respect the lines that are drawn in the sand so that we don't tear each other apart over this dumbass webcomic LOL
"If they love you, they wouldn't have abused you."
The title is in reference to the newest episode at the time of posting (277). Specifically, the line where Persephone states, "Now that you truly love me, you have to live with what you've done."
Heavy TW for discussion of abuse (emotional and sexual abuse)
Lore Olympus just pulled off the biggest whiff in webtoon history.
I promised I would choose one of two headlines and of course, this is the one we wound up with. But should we really be surprised? Rachel herself seemed to be telling on herself down to the minutes leading up to the finale, fully confirming to us that yes, she's been writing this comic at the last minute, by the seat of her pants, for ages now.
(that second one was literally posted TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES BEFORE THE COMIC UPDATED.)
Welp, let's get into it. Possibly the last essay I'll ever write about this dumpster fire of a comic (but probably not, let's be real LOL)
CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND FASTPASS SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE AHEAD!
What the fuck.what the actual fuck is this what the fuck.i have seen the last three episodes on the website why is this different.what the fuck.
This happened to me 💀
I worked around it by switching to desktop mode and double-checking to make sure the "m." before webtoons/./com (aka what indicates the moblie site) was removed from the Webtoon URL.
Because it CANNOT be overstated-
They are the same. Don't ever let Rachel or the narrative she's spun about Hades being "misunderstood" and "a nice guy" let you think otherwise.
Heyo!
Remember your post about her writing the episodes the week of?
Well, you keep getting proved right!
Considering the lack of preview this week + this post, I think the weekly writing caught up to her recently.
okay but fr like, what is Rachel's strategy here? Does she seriously lack this much self-awareness or is she actually SUPER aware of how up shit creek she is and is just having fun in the chaos of it now? Because who would seriously advertise "hey, I know we're in the finale of this 5 year old comic, but wouldn't you like to know that I actually haven't even drawn the final episodes yet?"
(seriously who wants to bet the roughs for whatever the fuck this is ^^^ are gonna show up in this week's episode lmaoo why would you even show roughs like this and then call them 'scandalous', what the fuck is even going on)
Like damn, there's no denying now that this is where we're at. She said in the beginning of it all that she only had like 2 episodes prepared ahead of time, and she's never once improved from that workflow since despite it being clear as day that she's not good at writing and drawing by the seat of her pants. This is just sad at this point. This is the same person who's won two Eisners, who's been showcased as a primary guest at NYCC, and will be running her own self-titled imprint after LO is finished. What a disappointment, truly the pinnacle of "failing upwards".
Have you ever written an essay about the excessive sexualization of Persephone in LO? Especially after seeing that Persephone getting a food delivery pic and she’s wearing just a sheer robe and thong, I feel like it’s just an odd thing. I can understand feeling horny for your own characters, especially if you made them with features you find attractive, but this all just feels… really odd to me sometimes. I don’t know.
I've written a few essay posts about Persephone that touch on how she's been overly-sexualized-
I see it come up often, the notion that Persephone is "fat representation." She's "thicc", she's "chubby", etc. and celebrated for it. But n
because i fucking don't, it's frustrating and goes to show how ironically far up persephone's ass everyone is A lot of the things Minthe get
You mentioned multiple times that Persephone is a self insert of Rachel, how is that so? Also, I love Lore Rekindled So obviously it's no
-though I don't think I've written any sort of extensive essay on how she's been overly sexualized throughout the series because it's a very common criticism that's been made so many times that I doubt I could contribute anything new to the discussion LOL
That said, here's a great post by another community member that highlights the sexualization issues in LO, and supports the argument that yes, Persephone is written and drawn through a predominantly male gaze (or at least, a very "Rachel is thirsty for her own-self insert" gaze LOL)
LMAOOO this had me peeved im truly sorry for the essay but this got me heated
there is this whole thing in media now where a victim of abuse - domestic, romantic, any kind - will inevitably get some kind of power over their abuser, and use it as their moment to "forgive" the abuser. it's meant to show how little power the abuser has now, and how healed the victim is
i am not against forgiveness in media and i'm not necessarily against this particular trope - i'll use avatar the last airbender as an example, and point out how zuko (who starts off as the antagonist in the story) works to redeem himself following his actions, and is forgiven once he's made actual amends. he then goes on to forgive his sister for her abuse, and not because she's doing better or she feels sorry for it - zuko realizes his sister is also a product of abuse, that she's been warped by the abuse, and she didn't have the support that zuko did. she's not going to get better; she will always be twisted and cruel. zuko forgives her because he sees her as a fellow victim, and he has no hate for her, only grief and pity.
arguably that's the same narrative rachel is trying to set up here with kronos, considering how the last few chapters have hammered on about how cruel and mean oranous was and how abusive he was, and how of COURSE kronos ended up so bad because his dad was so mean!
EXCEPT. THIS DOESN'T WORK BECAUSE WE HAVE NEVER SEEN ORANOUS AS A VILLAIN.
he's mentioned at best maybe three times, and certainly he's given shades of evil, but nothing that exclusively focuses on kronos. all we get is the generic bad guy vibes, but he's out of the story faster than we have time to process. if rachel wanted us to feel bad for kronos, having his so-called abuser just kind of wander in for a panel or two does not achieve that pity.
so this is really just hades (looking like a jesus figure seriously rachel how on the nose do you have to be) forgiving a being that, for the entire story, has been nothing but abusive and cruel. he swallowed two sons, he killed his wife, he abused hera, he took chomps out of his kids, and he put the world in danger. he tried to kill hades' wife. he kidnapped hades' future daughter. he has shown no remorse, no regret, nothing but cartoon villainy.
forgiving a character like this just ... hand waves all the harm done. like "sorry your dad was mean to you, here's a cookie." none of his other victims get the choice to forgive, and i'm willing to bet a fair few do not want to! you can argue this is hades' choice, but ultimately, it demonstrates rachel's utter inability to follow a narrative line to the end. she wanted to set up hades' as a powerful redeemer able to move past his abuse, but all she did was ditch kronos at the last second, unable to complete any storyline because she never thought it through.
People say the Hera fertility goddess design looks good and while I'm not gonna stomp on anyone who has that opinion I will respectfully disagree and raise you this instead-