#for example i have a hades fanart im working on

[bowtiestash]

i’m going to try to be more active on tumblr because of the way twitter’s going, just a heads up

[sageofmagic-squeaks]

Man, earlier I saw a post about how games don't respect older art choices and Hades II was an example because the God portraits were different and it's haunting me.

Like...ngl I expect to see people praising Hadea over Hades II cuz that's how people work. They like the og thing so any mis step or change is tarnishing it. Will say having early game available to a wider audience with the popularity Hades established will make things interesting for the team. Cuz yknow, during Hades og development it wasn't like the internet was overflowing in Transistor or Pyre fanart. But Hades got so much attention.

That being said, the person who commented on Hades II ignoring older art details didn't like the newer portraits. Valid to dislike something but the reasoning and talk around it really put me off. Saying it looked like AI? Asking if a newer artist took over and if the old one left???

Im taking a stab in the dark as someone not on their team, but the new direction feels intentional and meant to compliment Melinoë's story. She's not in the underworld for her journey, which could explain lack of harsh black shadows. Everyone is dressed in armor which suggests they're all at war. We don't see Hades, Persephone or Zagreus and trailers suggest Chronos did something to them. That probably has the other Gods pissed and alert as opposed to vibing like in the first game. First game, Zagreus was basically calling random family and they really had little stake in it beyond 'yeah man, you're family! :D cant wait to see ya' whereas now, seeing how one God is actively on the field and implied to have more interaction with our lead, we're actually in their world and able to chat them up directly and they have a common enemy.

Again, anyone can feel free to dislike the changes but I really don't like this assumption that this is a downgrade and the team is forgetting their style or whatever. This isn't a studio that's rushing to meet deadlines like a Pokemon or Sonic game. This very much reads like intentional art direction to match the new tone and story.

...I will though, say that the complaints about Artemis' new portrait is hilarious after how many people complained about her og portrait and kept mistsking her hair for a wig or hood.

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. god bless the hearts of lo fanartists bc ive seen how lo hades looks and he does not look like the pretty boy 20-something model the fanart makes him out to be ❤️

2. I see LO stans praise it as "empowering to all women" and i'm like where? Perse doesnt get to chose to be sexualized or use her own powers, so how is that "empowering"? More so, every woman has a different definition of empowerment, but LO only promotes a very rigid idea of what "empowerment" is through Rachel's privileged worldview. Artemis can reject sex and be empowered. Aphrodite can embrace her sexuality and be empowered, and the list goes on. Rachel doesn't get to dictate that for us.

3. The writing in LO is so contradictory and I don't get why? Like Hades said he chose to rule the UW, but now it's saying he didn't want to be king, but he chose to be king anyway and loves the perks of it? Persephone says she doesn't want to be associated with her AOW, but then she changed her name to "hi i'm a murderer"? Hera flipped immediately on her disdain for Hades chasing after a 19 year old, and there's so many other examples. IDK whats even going on and why RS doesn't keep track?

4. It's no shock it didn't end up on the NYT Hardcover, YA, or Paperback lists because you have to sell tens of thousands of unique copies in a week to get on there, which we could see just wasn't happening. However the fact it didn't even make the NYT Graphic Novel list means LO severely undersold. You don't need to sell much to get on that one and the fact it didn't is a bit of a blow to the supposed "phenomenon" LO claims to be when it didn't perform well in it's main country of popularity.

5. Some of the most popular webtoons on there, up there with the popularity of LO, all took off several months and in some cases nearly a full year off to recharge and they're as popular as ever once they came back, IDK what's going on in RS' head but there's no real excuse for her to not take a break (esp with books coming out) to recharge and let other comics build up an audience instead of the marketing team only focusing on her. she can afford to not be on the top spot for a few months.

6. dont get me wrong she still looks and acts like a child today but s1 persephone was especially always drawn with with baby-like features that its just off-putting. like why were there SO many panels of her with big baby eyes looking like she was about to cry and stuff? like its just weird? i guess now she upgraded from looking like a elementary school child to now looking like at high school freshman. rachel why did you design her to look so young and make her barely legal its so weird 😭

7. I don't get how Rachel claims LO is "pro female sexuality" when it doesn't promote that. Persephone is forced to not even look at another guy, and her only sexual experience has to be assault. The Maidens are framed as regressive liars w/ asexuality being something to "get over", Aphrodite, Minthe, and Thetis are all shamed and punished for consenting sex (esp Minthe). Meanwhile the men can cheat and sleep around (specifically Hades) and it's praised. That's not "pro female sexuality" at all.

8. A big part of why HxP is a popular ship is because there's the idea of Persephone embracing the temptation of darkness in her, but also Hades wanting to be a better man for her. They allow each other to grow. The problem in LO is that they're excused for everything, have no actual pushback, and they stay the same awful people they started as. LO doesn't depict them growing together, they're both regressing into the same awful person (so LO Hades times 2) and RS claims that as "development".

9. At the end of chapter 35 when Minthe says “Hey asshole” she has pointed ears and then round ears and the panels are literally under each other. I don’t think RS ever was consistent not matter whose been working on LO

10. rachel im tired of waiting show us how bad the third volume cover is now. the logo better be covering hades' face too for good measure.