I have created something cursed and I do not regret it

[aqua03]

Hey, I'd read it.

[LunarScyphozoa]

And then the plot’s about a blonde peasant boy

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

Be honest, now... doesn't his face look like he doesn't know her?
Girl in a crowd suddenly presses herself to your chest. Your mind balks. "Do I know this person? How am I supposed to respond to this??"

[Kittyfox]

[LunarScyphozoa]

“Who is you”

[InTheEndlessMidnight]

It just made my day, you totally should do more

[Kittyfox]

aaaAAAnywaY, here's the final overused front-back cover couple dynamic compilation! Hope you guys are liking this cursed af series hehe

Poll for round 4:

• "Emperor"/"Empress"
• "Demon"
• "Duke"/"Duchess"
• "CEO"
• "The Lady" (I'm telling you, it's EVERYWHERE)
• "Harem"

Show results

[Shomin]

but it's hard not to have couple as cover when the genre is romance.

[Kittyfox]

They can have a couple on the cover of a romance series, but maybe not in the same pose over and over and over again is what I'm getting at here. The existence of a couple isn't really the problem

[EncryptedWriting]

The only cringe part in my title is the word "Queen". I feel bad cause the comics can, sometimes, be really good but the titles are such a push away.

[NickRowler]

UM....this feels a bit weird because I have seen people do this in the past to attack BL series by posting random comics they haven't read in order to say why something was bad. Two people posing is a shorthand often used on romance novels to tell audience what it is about.

I feel like having a forum discussing tropes, like the over use of villianess and tyrants in premium comics and Tapas's choice to use those words when titling the English version of the comics. But when you start posting other people's covers and art without their consent in order to criticize them, that is where it gets a bit weird for me.

[LunarScyphozoa]

They didn’t seem to be judging the individual comics, just the hilariously overused stock pose

[Kittyfox]

I'm really sorry if it seemed like I'm trying to attack premium series, that wasn't the intent at all. It's not the fact that a couple exists or that they are posing, that's completely fine, but like ametsunami said, they just overuse this one pose.

[aqua03]

> MFW I open premium and look to see what unique and fresh comics they have:

[NickRowler]

I guess this does relate to premium series where the cover art does not match the content

Those are not Bratz Rock Angelz

These are the Rock Angelz

Those are from a Bratz line that came out much later. They are notably different because they are taller than the traditional Bratz dolls

[aqua03]

I actually posted that video for a specific clip where the reviewer goes "Look at this! Look at how similar it all looks!" If that makes sense.

[Kittyfox]

(Video timestamps: 13:44 - 14:12)

[bakasama25]

That's nothing compared to Japanese manga with "champion" and Chinese webtoons with "cultivation" in their titles.

[NickRowler]

Like I mentioned I remember seeing people do this before on the forums where people would post a lot of random popular BLs and state they were "all the same" simply by judging the covers when some of the series thrown in were not really like the other at all and usually the people posting the images didn't read the comics. I also don't feel like the romantic pose is just a premium comic thing either. I have seen it from smaller creators and on romance novels you see in stores.

I dunno, I am just getting a bad vibe from all of this.

[TedGravesArt]

I don't think the point of this is to say that all of Tapas' series are identical. I'm sure the series that Tapas buys are plenty enjoyable, and have teams that work very hard on them. But what this thread proves very succinctly is that there are absolutely homogenous themes and art styles that run through Tapas' premium library. The fact that someone can make multiple shockingly large collages out of how many times they find the word "Villainess", or all the identical male leads on Tapas' front page is telling.
Tapas has a very distinct brand language. They have a very specific audience that they serve, and pretty much nobody else. The point isn't to disparage these premium creators, but rather to point out that Tapas serves only a single demographic, and that's it. For those of us who aren't interested in that content, or who are creating content outside of that very specific box, we're left feeling alienated. There are hundreds of vibrant, varied, and unique comics on the Tapas site, each with dedicated creators that work just as hard as premium studios, many with actual professionals behind them, but they will never ever rise to premium status on Tapas, because they don't fit within Tapas' incredibly strict brand identity.