geraskierficrecs

[geraskierficrecs]

New Anarchy Chapter!

Check it out here.

Teaser:

His mind drifted.

“--askier! You’re–!”

Voices fading between reality and dreaming. Someone made a plaintive, weak sound like a wounded animal. Geralt thought it might have been him.

“Get him inside! He’s–”

“What the fuck happened?”

Pain burst in shocking waves as his body was moved. He attempted to slit his eyes open but the light felt like a knife to his skull. His thoughts scattered like birds in flight and he struggled to hold onto anything.

Concussion, he finally managed. Bad enough to make his body struggle to heal it.

“Call Triss. Tell her it’s worth the risk.” Yennefer’s voice was distant. He tried to identify the emotion coloring her tone, but failed. It felt like he couldn’t breath and his panting was unnaturally loud in the room.

A shadow moved overhead and he heard Essi’s soft voice. “Is he…?”

Someone attempted to brush away the bloodied, matted hair from his brow. “Geralt?” The voice was painfully familiar and Geralt closed his eyes tightly, terrified now. “Hold on, pretty. We’re getting you help.”

The temptation to open his eyes surged, but it was overwhelmed by the roaring in his ears. It felt like he was falling backwards and his muscles tensed in anticipation of the impact.

He blacked out.

[geraskierficrecs]

me as a writer

[geraskierficrecs]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

Again, please, please PLEASE reblog this post instead of the one I sent originally. All the information is here, and it's driving me nuts to see the old ones are still passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much.

[geraskierficrecs]

New Update!

Hey look, I wrote a reunion chapter finally. Check it out here.

Teaser:

He was holding Jaskier too tightly, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to force his hands to loosen their grip. His mind, his mouth, his lungs, hell, even his teeth were consumed by the reality that Jaskier was alive.

“Jaskier,” he kept saying over and over again. “Jaskier. I found you.”

Jaskier’s body felt far too fragile, too brittle to survive the desperation of the Witcher. He buried his nose into the hollow of Geralt’s throat, nestling himself against the racing pulse there. “I waited,” Jaskier whispered. “I knew you would come.”

Geralt swallowed hard, fingers tightening against the unfamiliar fabric of Jaskier’s shirt. He smelled wrong–nothing like the cedar and meadowsweet scents of the shampoo they used at home. He thought of the soft blanket Jaskier had bought to lay over their couch for movie nights and the matching fabric of the pajamas Geralt had gifted him on their first Christmas together.

They could go home now. Far away from this fucking city and their twisted leaders.

“I’ve got you,” he told Jaskier, voice rough with the tears still running down his cheeks. “I won’t let you go.”

[geraskierficrecs]

[geraskierficrecs]

I didn’t realize you were the person who did the fanfiction tag drinks.

ahah yeah that's meeee!!

If you guys are interested they are all available as stickers on my RB!!

[geraskierficrecs]

me, logging into ao3 5 minutes before bedtime: WAITER! bring me your finest enemies to lovers!

ao3 tag search function: excellent choice, sir! how would you like it cooked?

me: explicit. with a side of hurt/comfort

ao3: lovely! and may i suggest a drizzle of mutual pining?

me: of course, and can you add a spritz of angst? make it a 100k slowburn for good measure

ao3: coming right up, sir

me: thank you. oh, and waiter?

ao3: yes, sir?

me: make it gay

[geraskierficrecs]

[geraskierficrecs]

me reading smut and calculating in my head the positions the characters are in

[geraskierficrecs]

god bless anyone who comments on ao3

[geraskierficrecs]

Anarchy Update!

New chapter here!

Teaser:

“You’re the one who sold us out,” he spat.

Phillipa snarled back at him just as viciously.  “Did you truly think I cared about your fucking sob story?” 

Another burst of power made him wince.  The air around him crackled with lingering heat and it began to take effort just to draw in breath.

In such a small space, his size and strength would be to his advantage if he was able to close the distance.  All he needed to do was avoid the worst of her attacks and bully his way forward.  Judging by the consistency of her attacks, she was well aware of this fact.

“It was pathetic watching you whine and cry over your useless little boyfriend,” she told him, shifting closer to the door as she spoke.  Geralt tracked each movement like a cat pursuing a mouse.  “Djikstra wanted to kill you outright, but I convinced him you could be useful to us.”

Geralt took advantage of her distraction and lunged for her, slicing through the air with his knife.  Each word she spoke hung like a poison between them.  Whispering the same vicious words he’d told himself after finding Jaskier’s body in the rubble.

Weak.

Useless.

Manipulated.

[geraskierficrecs]

New Anarchy Update!!

At long last, I have a new chapter for you to enjoy.

Here's a teaser:

–variety of relationships in the BDSM community which range from committed, structured dom/sub partnerships to brief scenes.  The most common traits of members of this area of kink is a commitment to explicit consent and structured ideas of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors for each member.  This framework is supported by the use of ‘safe words’ or other systems to indicate whether a scene is good, concerning, or needs to fully stop.  Typically the dominate will– 

Jaskier smiled down at him with glittering eyes, firmly pinning him to the mattress with the sort of casual strength that made something in Geralt squirm with pleasure.  “Are you going to be good for me, pretty?” 

The memory made him flush.  Made him ache in ways that turned whatever lust he might have felt into something dull and unhappy.

Had this been something Jaskier wanted?  Was this something Geralt had wanted?

The sound of his door swinging open made Geralt nearly drop his phone and hurriedly close the article he’d been reading.  He felt a hot blush rise up the back of his neck and forced his face to remain stoic or even annoyed when he looked over at Yennefer.

“By all means,” he said in a droll voice over the sound of his internal panic, “come on in.”

Violet eyes scanned over him with obvious suspicion and lingered on his phone.  “Were you looking at porn?”

“ No .”

“Why are you so guilty looking?”  The mage looked far too smug about the idea and Geral had the terrifying thought that all of Aretuza’s members were more than comfortable discussing sex with one another.  If he wasn't careful, he might find himself trapped in a conversation with her.

[geraskierficrecs]

Again, I apologize for the long gap in chapters. These last few weeks have been horrendous and I haven’t had enough gas in the tank to write at the end of the day.

[geraskierficrecs]

Anarchy Update!

Check out a new chapter here featuring Yennefer and Geralt going to a kink club and Jaskier feeling some kind of way about it.

Teaser:

“What’s Lock and Key?” Geralt asked.

Yennefer answered before Essi could drag herself away from the information on her screen.  “A kink club.  They tailor to those with darker tastes.”

A hot flush swept over him against his will at the expression on Yennefer’s face.  While he’d hardly lived a life of celibacy, the concepts behind his and Jaskier’s sexual relationship had always edged closer to such things.  His mind conjured up images of the ropes and cuffs Jaskier had commissioned to be strong enough to truly restrain a Witcher’s strength and all the ways they put them to use.  Somehow he had a feeling that Yennefer knew exactly what they’d been doing in their coastal cabin.

“Maybe they are involved in the lifestyle,” he offered diplomatically.

“I don’t think so,” Essi countered thoughtfully.  “None of them discuss bringing home partners.”  She glanced at Yenn.  “Do you think Boholt has set up shop there?”

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea for someone like him to avoid a traditional base of operations,” Yennefer agreed.  “The staff there are always wary of outsiders and tend to vet the regulars to ensure everyone is safe.”

“Do you know anyone there?” Geralt asked.

She huffed out a laugh as she straightened.  “My tastes don’t typically range in that direction, but I could get in the door.  I can see if Boholt is there at least.”

“I’m going with you.”

Her violet eyes glanced over his bloodied clothing before clearly dismissing him.  “You dress like a cop.  As soon as you walk in, everyone will be on their guard.”

“If Boholt is there, I will kill him.”

“They won’t let you get close to him looking the way you do.”

He scowled, hesitating briefly before reminding himself that he was willing to do anything if it meant Jaskier’s memory was avenged.

“Then dress me so I fit in.”

[geraskierficrecs]

Anarchy Update!

New chapter here.

Teaser:

It was always a little disappointing to hunt a common criminal.

They could never live up to the quick wit and vicious skills of the Dandelion.  Geralt had become spoiled on plots and heists that were concocted by a master craftsman.  A part of him had always looked forward to the chase, the barbed one liners, and that cocky smirk that haunted his dreams long before he’d learned the taste of his skin.

Now Geralt leaned against the wall of a grimy bar and tried not to roll his eyes at the cliche behaviors around him.  Women dressed in outfits that clung to each line of their bodies leaned heavily against their dance partners, eyes flat and disinterested while their hands slid down to free wallets from their pockets.  A few groups of men and women lingered near the edge of the crowd, carefully watching as they traded cash for small packets of powder or pills.  The undercover cops that had attempted to infiltrate the space had already been escorted out by the sharp-eyed bouncers near  the bar.

All of it felt pedestrian compared to the intensity of a life with Jaskier.  It took all of his effort to keep himself focused on the task at hand rather than simply calling in Eskel to clear out all of this trash.  Geralt toyed with the condensation on his untouched beer and tried not to think about the smells currently assaulting his nose.  

His iconic hair was hidden beneath the plain black baseball cap and he’d taken pains to hide the breadth of his shoulders beneath a baggy flannel. The effect had the added benefit of disguising the shape of the gun at his waist and knife along his spine. Even his eyes were shadowed with the low lights of his preferred corner. 

Jaskier would have teased him for the moody atmosphere. His villain would have seen this all as a tawdry show—all low budget edgy drama. 

It soothed some of his ragged edges to imagine Jaskier’s commentary on the club and its patrons if he were here.  He would have laughed at Geralt’s clunky attempts at disguising himself.  There’s no hiding those biceps, love.  Men have gone to war for less.

[geraskierficrecs]

Fic Searches

Hello friends! I'm working my way through asks and requests and could use some help to find the following fics:

bluepatrolkidscissors asked:

Hi Do you by any chance have the most recent copy of "we are known by the stories we share" by jskald (witcher fandom geraskier) .Thanks

linbrocky1221 asked:

Hi there! Do you know of any fics where Ciri is Jaskier and Geralt's biological daughter? And season 3 fics where Jaskier is the mom instead of the fun uncle?

catastrophe908 asked:

Hi! So I'm actually looking for like 4 different fics (all geraskier)

The first is set after the mountain breakup and Jask comes across another Witcher at the bottom - I think it had been Lambert? I do believe they went on a few adventures before Lambert took him to the keep, which Geralt was also there. I think he kind of joined him in trying to make Geralt jealous, but Lambert was on love with Aiden.

The second is a like non-human/creature Jask. He had died, then became an undead. We follow along as he rediscovers the world - almost like a child, relearning how to speak, sing, etc. I remember him trying to sing along with birds. There's another memorable scene in which Jaskier comes across a family, of course they're terrified, but the father seems to feel sympathy and guilt for running away.

The third is a modern au! I know that Roach was a van. I also believe Jaskier (now going by Julian) is a professor, meanwhile Geralt is still a witcher. They basically aged alongside the world, meaning they've been alive for quite some time, and yes, magical creatures exist. I believe what happened was that Jaskier had died and his body went missing from his resting place. Other details: I'm pretty sure that Geralt had like a villa in some town, of which Yen was mayor.

Finally... The fourth, Jaskier was slowly regressing in age. His memories, his physical body, all aging backwards - it ends at him finally reaching 18 again; having lost all memories of Geralt and their life together. (I'm pretty sure it was established relationship). Geralt just kind of had to watch helplessly. Maybe he tried to help him somehow, but I can't quite remember.

Thank you for the help!!

szpiko asked:

Hello i'd love an expert's help for finding fics that match the specific setting im looking for ( if theres any) noble-rich-boy-at-home Jaskier ( all proper but wants to break out, you know the stuff) AND/OR recovering Geralt

Thank you!!!

alpharitt asked:

I was looking for a fic. It's about jaskier getting into a fight with geralt and he leaves meets geralt again but it's not the real geralt it's a doppler and they both fall in love with each other. Can you help me find it please I've been looking for it all day

[geraskierficrecs]

Anarchy Update!

New chapter to read here.

Teaser:

Jaskier left Novigrad with a small backpack full of his belongings, an empty bank account and a tiny, three-legged kitten tucked into the pocket of his jacket.  He hadn’t bothered to carry anything else out of his dorm room or even let his professors know why he wouldn’t be back in their class room again.  Whatever naivety he might have once possessed about justice or proving there was evil in this city had died with Renfri.

He bought a ticket out of town with the cash he’d accumulated from his last gig and pulled the hood of his jacket up over his head to hide his features from nearby cameras.  If the Witchers were hunting Renfri for what she’d discovered about Stregobor, it was only a matter of time before they began looking at the people closest to her for more information.  There was no hope that he’d be able to hide his fury or heartbreak from a Witcher and so he chose to do the unthinkable:

He would leave this city and find his own justice.

By the time the news began to cycle through the story of a dead extremist killed by the White Wolf, Jaskier was already out of the city limits and heading deeper into the Continent.  In Posada, he watched the white-haired Witcher grunt his way through a press conference while Stregobor and the older Witcher, Vesemir, watched with obvious approval.  At the outskirts of Redania, Jaskier found himself at the end of his cash and forced to walk into the country of his birth on foot.

He walked into Redania with his rage and heartbreak compressed into diamond-like hardness. The silence that followed him through the bus ride and long hike toward the city in the distance ensured that he’d already thought how he’d return to Novigrad one day soon with the skills he needed to bring the Witchers and their fucked up, corrupt system to its knees.  Hours after leaving the bus stop, Jaskier reached the outskirts of Tretogor and began his hunt for the information he would need to topple an empire.

Instead, he found Phillipa.