A Rant About Doujinshi Sharing
Alright, bear with me here, because I'm potentially going to get a bit bitchy. I won't f-lock this entry; it needs to be heard.
Some of you may be aware that I run a small doujinshi scans comm (dolce_adagio, but this post isn't for pimping my comm). It's a one woman show that I run because I like giving back to the fandom communities that I'm a part of. Everything that gets posted there is from doujinshi that I personally owned and put in the time to scan myself. I do also do it for the selfish reason; I can't read Japanese, so if I post scans, people will potentially translate my doujinshi for me. One reason that's never even crossed my mind for doing this, though, is e-peen stroking. I don't care if I get popular for doing this, I don't want to be a big name, etc. I just want to share my collection with other fans, since that's really the best way to contribute to my fandoms that I have at my disposal. I do work hard to get really good quality scans for everyone to enjoy, too. I've rescanned pages 5+ times before in order to get a straight, clean, sharp scan of it, and I always touch up my scans in photoshop because I am a perfectionist and if I don't have something good to share, I don't want to bother.
Now, I don't mind when other people that do doujinshi scans aren't total perfectionists like me and don't give the absolute best quality. Hell, I could honestly get even better scans than I do, but I'm also trying to strike a balance between nice scans and not destroying my copies. What I do mind is attention whoring.
I've noticed two types of attention whoring with doujinshi lately. We'll start with the lesser of the two evils. Oh, and yes, I will name names.
One thing that just screams "attention whore" to me is when someone sharing their scans with a community like hetalia and any of its offshoot pairing communities is when someone posts their doujinshi in separate parts. You know, like when they'll post the scans as hosted images somewhere, stop it at some point, and promise more later and the download link in the last post. This is just...what. If you plan on scanning something, don't put it up until it's completely done. twistedsheets10 is a prime example of this, posting that absolutely gorgeous doujin on what_the_fruk, only giving us about 1/3 of the doujin, and promising the rest over the next two days, then not even posting the rest when she said she would. She did end up giving us all of the rest and a download link a few days after she said she'd be done in the first place, but...what. Why would you do this? It just looks bad. Someone did this recently on pandorahearts, too =/.
That I can tolerate somewhat, though. The other form of doujinshi scan attention whoring absolutely infuriates me, and that form is the "you have to join our comm to download the doujinshi" trick. Yeah, I'm looking at you, inspiring_night. There is absolutely no reason to do this outside of attention whoring. If you want to share doujinshi with the community, for the love of God, share it. Don't try to stroke your e-peen by forcing people to join your community to get your advertised scans. Either share your scans by giving them the link, or don't post advertisements for your community disguised as doujin posts in other communities and just post the doujin to your comm and be done with it.
The worst part of this practice? I can't speak for anyone else that does it, but inspiring_night has horrid quality scans, or at least the first doujin they posted, which was a few months back, was. I joined that community for the Turkey/Greece doujin they shares since you never see that pairing, or at least not usually, and left after I got it. The scans were so shoddy and bad that, were they mine, I'd never have posted them on the internet at all, let alone with a thinly disguised ad for my comm attached. I just can't believe people pull this crap.
I really had to get that off my chest.
Some of you may be aware that I run a small doujinshi scans comm (dolce_adagio, but this post isn't for pimping my comm). It's a one woman show that I run because I like giving back to the fandom communities that I'm a part of. Everything that gets posted there is from doujinshi that I personally owned and put in the time to scan myself. I do also do it for the selfish reason; I can't read Japanese, so if I post scans, people will potentially translate my doujinshi for me. One reason that's never even crossed my mind for doing this, though, is e-peen stroking. I don't care if I get popular for doing this, I don't want to be a big name, etc. I just want to share my collection with other fans, since that's really the best way to contribute to my fandoms that I have at my disposal. I do work hard to get really good quality scans for everyone to enjoy, too. I've rescanned pages 5+ times before in order to get a straight, clean, sharp scan of it, and I always touch up my scans in photoshop because I am a perfectionist and if I don't have something good to share, I don't want to bother.
Now, I don't mind when other people that do doujinshi scans aren't total perfectionists like me and don't give the absolute best quality. Hell, I could honestly get even better scans than I do, but I'm also trying to strike a balance between nice scans and not destroying my copies. What I do mind is attention whoring.
I've noticed two types of attention whoring with doujinshi lately. We'll start with the lesser of the two evils. Oh, and yes, I will name names.
One thing that just screams "attention whore" to me is when someone sharing their scans with a community like hetalia and any of its offshoot pairing communities is when someone posts their doujinshi in separate parts. You know, like when they'll post the scans as hosted images somewhere, stop it at some point, and promise more later and the download link in the last post. This is just...what. If you plan on scanning something, don't put it up until it's completely done. twistedsheets10 is a prime example of this, posting that absolutely gorgeous doujin on what_the_fruk, only giving us about 1/3 of the doujin, and promising the rest over the next two days, then not even posting the rest when she said she would. She did end up giving us all of the rest and a download link a few days after she said she'd be done in the first place, but...what. Why would you do this? It just looks bad. Someone did this recently on pandorahearts, too =/.
That I can tolerate somewhat, though. The other form of doujinshi scan attention whoring absolutely infuriates me, and that form is the "you have to join our comm to download the doujinshi" trick. Yeah, I'm looking at you, inspiring_night. There is absolutely no reason to do this outside of attention whoring. If you want to share doujinshi with the community, for the love of God, share it. Don't try to stroke your e-peen by forcing people to join your community to get your advertised scans. Either share your scans by giving them the link, or don't post advertisements for your community disguised as doujin posts in other communities and just post the doujin to your comm and be done with it.
The worst part of this practice? I can't speak for anyone else that does it, but inspiring_night has horrid quality scans, or at least the first doujin they posted, which was a few months back, was. I joined that community for the Turkey/Greece doujin they shares since you never see that pairing, or at least not usually, and left after I got it. The scans were so shoddy and bad that, were they mine, I'd never have posted them on the internet at all, let alone with a thinly disguised ad for my comm attached. I just can't believe people pull this crap.
I really had to get that off my chest.