Jun 28
LORE | REKINDLED EPISODE 89 - A GIRL NAMED PERSEPHONE
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LORE | REKINDLED EPISODE 89 - A GIRL NAMED PERSEPHONE
Lil late to the partay but it genuinely makes me kind of giggle how RS unintentionally wrote Persephone to be an almost accurate representation of "the side chick who became the wifey/ main chick and now suffers through it because she's constantly paranoid that the man is going to cheat on her".
Like, the comic tries to make it seem like her and Hades are completely star crossed lovers who were made for each other and are perfect together and have no flaws whatsoever, only for it to actually show a very realistic depiction of what happens when somebody who started out as a side piece becomes the main course.
Persephone on multiple occasions is shown to be paranoid about other women who have had history with Hades in any way (Minthe, Leuce, Hera), and though the comic tries to dispel this with "oh, but Minthe and Leuce were gold digging meanies who wanted to take Hades from Persephoneee!" and that Persephone tooootally trusts Hades, she just "doesn't trust the people coming onto him", how I'm seeing it is that Persephone is basically having to deal with the consequences of marrying a man who has a reputation for being a sleazeball.
As many have talked about in regards to tropes like the "born sexy yesterday" or the "bad boy/player turned good through love", in real life most of the time, unfaithful or promiscuous men cannot be fixed via a "perfect woman". To somebody who is a serial cheater, there virtually is no such thing as the "perfect person". It's just holes and goals and nothing else.
Persephone is essentially living out the consequences of knowing that the man she's dating can't be faithful to save his life, and then let him put a ring on her finger despite that because she really thought she'd be the chosen one who "fixes" Hades with her love. And although the comic definitely tries to make it seem like she succeeded... Did she really?
Like, throwing in a scene of Hades talking down a woman who tried to seduce him as a show that he's "so loyal to Persephone" isn't gonna make me forget when Persephone confronted him about his past affair with Hera, and when she questioned if he still had any feelings for Hera, he answered with literally anything but a straight forward "no". This is a man who had a whole routine of hiring and firing women for his company solely on the basis of banging them, to the point that he's literally banned from strip clubs because he won't stop harassing the women there.
TL:DR, Persephone isn't antsy and lashing out at others because she "trusts Hades but doesn't trust the women coming onto him", it's because she just flat out doesn't trust Hades because she knows he doesn't actually have a faithful bone in his body, and yet she willingly participated in an affair with him, ruined the lives of and harassed/harmed multiple people over him, and then proceeded to marry him knowing that in like 10 years tops, he's gonna start looking out for the next 19 year old who stumbles into his company for an internship
Oh absolutely, and I'd honestly take it a step even further: Persephone is in complete denial that maybe the reason all of the serial cheater who is now her husband's previous relationships didn't work out isn't bc of the women in his life, but bc, ya know, he's a serial cheater! Who would've thunk! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ As much as the narrative tried to tell us Hades was "self-aware" of his "shortcomings," it did a pretty thorough job in trying to pin all those shortcomings on other people, including Persephone.
The comic frames Perse's insecurities in their relationship as her fault, that she's the one in the wrong for getting anxious over her partner calling an "ex" — who he had an ongoing affair with for centuries — by an intimate nickname.
Or her lack of sexual experience hindering her desire for intimacy with him bc he's "used to" more experienced women, and he might "stop wanting" her bc of that.
Let alone the fact that RS (along with many other people who don't understand how real relationships work) thinks Perse isn't allowed to get angry with or question Hades bc she "loves" him, and people who are truly in love never, ever get mad at each other or have disagreements. (¬_¬ )
And even if Hades "apologizes" or tells her she has "nothing to worry about," his history proves otherwise bc he treats her exactly the same way he treated those "other women."
It reminds me of that awful way people will victim-blame a cheater's partner by saying they're somehow responsible bc of something they did or didn't do that "forced" their partner to cheat on them; in the case of Perse's perception of those women, she thinks, "Well, Hades is a perfect uwu sad boi capable of no wrong!1! He apologized!1! If he cheated on/with them, it was their fault!1!" while in her own case, she thinks, "If Hades cheats on me, it's my own fault bc I'm an inadequate partner..." and like. this is feminist how?? (ﾉﾞಠ_ಠ)ﾉﾞ
Its considered to be a badge of honor amongst Azula stans, Aang Stans and Mai stans to be blocked by Sokkastyles.
I can see why, holy crap lmhoooo. They haven't actually blocked me as of yet (Surprisingly lol), but I def won't be sad if they do haha. I didn't end up replying to their last reblog of that post btw bc I just didn't really feel a need to, but part of me feels like I should... ( ≖⤙≖ ) Bc like, a few things they said started going into clearly anti Mai-biased headcanon territory, as well as misconstruing some things I said bc they seem bent on making it seem like I hate Zuko or smth??
Like, I don't hate Zuko in the slightest, I adore Zuko (A bit more than I do Mai even haha). I just... don't really see why it's wrong to say he's a fully redeemed man who still has some things to learn as a person??? Even if the bulk of what it is he has left to learn is to just trust himself/his instincts???? Does that not count as personal growth????? Idk man, sorry for going on a bit of a tangent there lol.
The bottom line is Mai isn't perfect, period, she just isn't nearly as bad as most people make her out to be, and belittling or comparing her/her trauma to other characters for any reason is just wrong. If some people refuse to acknowledge that, fine. It's their loss for purposely overlooking the very subtle details that make her a much more interesting & complex character than they give the writers credit for. ╮(︶▽︶)╭
LORE | REKINDLED EPISODE 85 - TANGLE UP
Have any hints for the next chapter of Lore Rekindle? A bit of dialogue or a bit of plot of what might happen?
it will feature ✨ the girls ✨
LORE | REKINDLED EPISODE 82 - THE FATES
LORE | REKINDLED EPISODE 78 - LOVER'S QUARREL
Tbh at this point you should just make your own webcomic app/website because it would probably be 100 times better than whatever going on with webtoon right now.
hahaha it wouldn't tho, sorry 💀
Here's the fundamental issue with webcomic platforms that a lot of people just don't realize (and why they're so difficult to run successfully):
Storage costs are incredibly expensive, it's why so many sites have limitations on file sizes / page sizes / etc. because all of those images and site info have to be stored somewhere, which costs $$$.
Maintenance costs are expensive and get more so as you grow, you need people who are capable of fixing bugs ASAP and managing the servers and site itself
Financially speaking, webcomics are in a state of high supply, low demand. Loads of artists are willing to create their passion projects, but getting people to read them and pay for them is a whole other issue. Demand is high in the general sense that once people get attached to a webtoon they'll demand more, but many people aren't actually willing to go looking for new stuff to read and depend more on what sites feed them (and what they already like). There are a lot of comics to go around and thus a lot of competition with a limited audience of people willing to actually pay for them.
Trying to build a new platform from the ground up is incredibly difficult and a majority of sites fail within their first year. Not only do you have to convince artists to take a chance on your platform, you have to convince readers to come. Readers won't come if there isn't work on the platform to read, but artists won't come if they don't think the site will be worth it due to low traffic numbers. This is why the artists with large followings who are willing to take chances on the smaller sites are crucial, but that's only if you can convince them to use the site in favor of (or alongside) whatever platform they're using already where the majority of their audience lies. For many creators it's just not worth the time, energy, or risk.
Even if you find short-term success, in the long-term there are always going to be profit margins to maintain. The more users you pull in, the more storage is used by incoming artists, the more you have to spend on storage and server maintenance costs, and that means either taking the risk at crowdfunding (ex. ComicFury) or having to resort to outsider investments (ex. Tapas). Look at SmackJeeves, it used to be a titan in the independent webcomic hosting community, until it folded over to a buyout by NHN and then was pretty much immediately shuttered due to NHN basically turning it into a manwha scanlation site and driving away its entire userbase. And if you don't get bought out and try your hand at crowdfunding, you may just wind up living on a lifeline that could cut out at any moment, like what happened to Inkblazers (fun fact, the death of Inkblazers was what kicked off the cultural shift in Tapas around 2015-16 when all of IB's users migrated over and brought their work with them which was more aimed towards the BL and romancee drama community, rather than the comedy / gag-a-day culture that Tapas had made itself known for... now you deadass can't tell Tapas apart from a lot of scanlation sites because it got bought out by Kakao and kept putting all of its eggs into the isekai/romance drama basket.)
Right now the mindset in which artists and readers are operating is that they're trying way, way too hard to find a "one size fits all" site. Readers want a place where they can find all their favorite webtoons without much effort, artists wants a place where they can post to an audience of thousands, and both sides want a community that will feel tight-knit. But the reality is that you can't really have all three of those things, not on one site. Something always winds up having to be sacrificed - if a site grows big enough, it'll have to start seeking more funding while also cutting costs which will result in features becoming paywall'd, intrusive ads, creators losing their freedom, and/or outsider support which often results in the platform losing its core identity and alienating its tight-knit community.
If I had to describe what I'm talking about in a "pick one" graphic, it would look something like this:
(*note: this is mostly based on my own observations from using all of these sites at some point or another, they're not necessarily entirely accurate to the statistical performance of each site, I can only glean so much from experience and traffic trackers LMAO that said I did ask some comic pals for input and they were very helpful in helping me adjust it with their own takes <3).
The homogenization of the Internet has really whipped people into submission for the "big sites" that offer "everything", but that's never been the Internet, it relies on being multi-faceted and offering different spaces for different purposes. And we're seeing that ideology falter through the enshittification of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. where users are at odds with the platforms because the platforms are gutting features in an attempt to satisfy shareholders whom without the platforms would not exist. Like, most of us aren't paying money to use social media sites / comic platform sites, so where else are they gonna make the necessary funds to keep these sites running? Selling ad space and locking features behind paywalls.
And this is especially true for a lot of budding sites that don't have the audience to support them via crowdfunding but also don't have the leverage to ask for investments - so unless they get really REALLY lucky in EITHER of those departments, they're gonna be operating at a loss, and even once they do achieve either of those things there are gonna be issues in the site's longevity, whether it be dying from lack of growing crowdfunding support or dying from shareholder meddling.
So what can we do?
We can learn how to take our independence back. We don't have to stop using these big platforms altogether as they do have things to offer in their own way, particularly their large audience sizes and dipping into other demographics that might not be reachable from certain sites - but we gotta learn that no single site is going to satisfy every wish we have and we have to be willing to learn the skills necessary to running our own spaces again. Pick up HTML/CSS, get to know other people who know HTML/CSS if you can't grasp it (it's me, I can't grasp it LOL), be willing to take a chance on those "smaller sites" and don't write them off entirely as spaces that can be beneficial to you just because they don't have large numbers or because they don't offer rewards programs. And if you have a really polished piece of work in your hands, look into agencies and publishing houses that specialize in indie comics / graphic novels, don't settle for the first Originals contract that gets sent your way.
For the last decade corporations have been convincing us that our worth is tied to the eyes we can bring to them. Instead of serving ourselves, we've begun serving the big guys, insisting that it has to be worth something eventually and that it'll "payoff" simply by the virtue of gambler's fallacy. Ask yourself what site is right for you and your work rather than asking yourself if your work is good enough for them. Most of us are broke trying to make it work on these sites anyways, may as well be broke and fulfilled by posting in places that actually suit us and our work if we can. Don't define your success by what sites like Webtoons are enforcing - that definition only benefits them, not you.
