Otaku Links: Writers, slackers, bloggers, fighters
- Anita Sarkeesian’s first Tropes vs. Women video, on Damsels in Distress in video games, is finally out. I’ve been waiting for this ever since I wrote about the project in June!
- Kotaku wrote about the Fighting Is Magic brony game kerfuffle. Hasbro may have sent a C&D, but Lauren Faust is coming to the rescue with original characters. I understand Hasbro’s obligation to protect its copyright, but since the game wasn’t for profit, I thought it’d be easier for them to come to an agreement.
- I’m reading The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon right now—it’s public domain if you want to snag it for free—and I just found out there’s a manga based on this 11th century classic presenting prim noblewoman Sei as a “slacker and blogger!”
- How much should a writer be paid, if anything? This is especially fascinating to me since most of the discussion participants are editors, some of whom I plan on pitching soon! (Side note: when did Branch happen? Seems like social networks are popping up overnight.)
- Lawrence Brenner tipped me off to the fact that Funimation is suing merchandisers over some of their cosplay items. This could become a very interesting discussion for fans—when we’re creating cosplay props and other items based on anime, where do you draw the line between homage and counterfeit?
- This is the most relatable (and uncomfortable) Anime News Nina comic strip in ages.
- My cousin and I spent Thursday night taking a trip down memory lane and rewatching our favorite Flash animations from the early ’00s. Remember We Drink Ritalin, Numa Numa Guy, Homestar Runner, and basically everything from You The Man Now Dog?
Sorry for the blogging silence lately. I’m actually working on a pretty intense redesign for Otaku Journalist—involving both content and appearance. Hope to be back on schedule soon!
(Photo via Equestria Gaming.)
2 Comments
The discussion on what writers should be paid really was interesting, although I admit, I couldn’t follow some of it and had no idea if the ideas being tossed around were fair amounts or not.
Although this made no sense to me: “it wasn’t always easy to get people to bite on $250 for an 800-word piece of personal essay for the Diary section, for instance” (T.M.)
Call me crazy (or poor) but I was thinking, “WHY couldn’t you get people for that? My God, if I was paid that kind of money for 800 words…dang!” I think that paying per piece would be more fair than paying by the word…unless they want something really long, maybe that could be negotiated. I’ve never really looked at writing as the only source of income. It has too many unknown factors, too many fluctuations for me to only write. Having a regular job and using writing to supplement my income is how I would like to manage it. But since I love to write, I would (and do) write for free. For a while, at least. After getting exposure, I would end up wanting to be paid, which brings us back to the unanswerable question of what wages are fair.
@Kat, compensation for writing is always a tough thing to figure out. Currently all my freelance gigs pay in the hundreds, but I can barely pay my bills. And then there’s the ongoing “writing for exposure” debate, which I really need to blog about. Because I DO think there are times when writing for free is a good idea (see: http://otakujournalist.com/why-i-intern-in-journalism-for-free/).
And for the record, I would definitely write 800 words for $250!