#so more people are made aware of the plagiarism going on in this fandom

[kwiwrites]

RE: user malakiwi's "plagiarism" claims

Recently, user @malakiwis has claimed that they were plagiarized by another fic writer. This is false.

HERE is the drive with all of the evidence documenting malakiwi (kai's) plagiarism. The drive contains downloaded versions of their fic, along with videos proving that it is their fic. The drive also contains a document with screenshots and detailed explanations of many of the fics they plagiarized, along with proof of their plagiarism.

There were a total of 7 fics that we could prove were plagiarized.

With Kai's claims that these other stories were plagiarized from them, we wanted to make sure that the authors they stole from were being fairly represented in this process, and that the theft and hurt were being addressed rather than hidden in private conversations and deleted stories.

This post was solely made in response to Kai making it public, as we had wanted to keep things private and out of the spotlight.

ALSO NOTE: PLEASE do not witchhunt kai. This is meant to spread awareness about fandom etiquette, and fan culture etiquette, and to shed light on Kai's blatant plagiarism against particular authors, not to "expose" or "cancel them". Do not send them or any of the authors listed in here hate. Witch hunts and hatred solve nothing. I and everyone else who worked on this tirelessly for the past week do not condone any form of hate messages or posts. This is meant to spread fandom wide awareness.

In their original post, Kai also claims to have spoken to the author - this is false, as we have spoken to the actual author who has no recollection of ever speaking to Kai.

Thank you to everyone who worked with me over the past few (very stressful) days to help put this all together- @elysiren @spacexcowgirl @wormtitty @magswrite @buttfaceingtons

[pastafossa]

Warning About A Plagiarizing Fic Author

*edit: FIC HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN OFF AO3! Her blog posts here on tumblr however remain up so I ask that this keep circulating. *Edit again: all accounts appear to have been taken down, and all blogs look down save for her @k-9bails account which she had the audacity to use to try to follow me again. I’ve got a reblog with all the relevant updates but I’m adding it here, too. Original post: Right. Time for the callout post, since the thief has refused to answer my messages or take down the fic. Before we start: do not send her hate mail. At most, I’m looking for firm requests that she take down her fic and, as you’ll see, all the blog posts where she’s stolen content from me. Mostly I’m just trying to apply firm pressure so she takes all the stolen work down, and so that people are aware of what she’s doing so she can’t do this to anyone else. So, let’s start. If you’re in the Daredevil fandom on tumblr and AO3 at all, you might have heard of my fic The Red Thread about a psychic reader/OC referred to as Jane Hind/The Hound, who can see, via third eye, psychic threads of connection between people, animals, and beloved objects. It’s this fic that’s been blatantly plagiarized by @k9bails (who’s blocked me at present, so here’s the link to her main blog which I managed to access before I was blocked). Her fic on AO3 is called Legend, under the username K9bails. She’s also got a side blog called @k-9bails​ which appears less active, and a wattpad profile here, so please, if you write, make sure your work hasn’t been stolen. She’s only got the first chapter as of today, but it’s already full of stolen material, and her blog is absolutely bursting at the seams with things she’s stolen from me. Fortunately, before she blocked me, I was able to get screenshots, both of the fic just in case she edited it later, and her blog (which I had to screenshot on PC, so apologies for messiness).  I’ve made a report to AO3 (please DO NOT report it on AO3, they prefer only one person do the reporting so that the volunteer team isn’t overwhelmed) and I am awaiting word back. But she’s also got my stuff all over her tumblr, and since she’s ignored my messages, it’s time to post it, since she’s active in the fandom and I don’t want her taking anyone else’s work.

Let’s start with the main bit from her fic. Left side is my first chapter, right side is her fic. If you’ve read TRT, you know that the concept of psychic threads seen through the third eye is incredibly important. They connect friends and acquaintances, family, pets, and even beloved childhood objects, with each type of connection denoted by a different color. She’s rotated some colors around, and taken some of the colors I introduce later like white, black, and purple, but this is very much my concept. Note she’s stolen a line almost directly word for word here: ‘Silver threads always struck Scout as the saddest,’ to compare to my, ‘That last always struck you as the saddest.’

In this case, she’s also taken the kaleidoscope effect line from a few chapters later:

I thought this was blatant, but it only got worse: she lifts two of my other original characters, and doesn’t even bother to change their fucking names. In this case, in her very first chapter, she’s lifted both Ciro, my OC’s Italian father figure (I’ve added a screenshot on the upper right from Ch17 of the first time his name is used), and Eli, an OC adopted by Ciro (also added to screenshot, bottom right). Eli doesn’t even appear until ch 36 so this stretches a long ways.

The rest of this I’m going to put behind a see more tag, cause we got a lot to go.

But we’re not done, believe it or not, considering there’s only a single chapter of hers so far - a single chapter containing a very similar opening line, and a bizarre lift of my frequent End Note message that leads to my tumblr??? That one puzzled me because there’s no real reason to steal that.

Yet another: she’s made use of the Hound theme, and made a barebones attempt to change the summary line enough to slide under the radar. If you’ve read TRT then you know, but if not: my OC’s code name is Hound, she’s frequently referred to as Hound or the Hound of Los Angeles, there are Hound metaphors galore, and Matt has taken to calling her his Hellhound, and those references are honestly so common it’d take hours to list them all. 

I also happened to notice, after all this, that she’d linked to her tumblr, much like I did. So I wandered over. And it only got worse from there. Her own ‘answers’ to asks mimic mine, including lifting answers from posts I made here on tumblr. I’m not going to keep having side by sides because the post will get crazy long but if anyone wants receipts on any of these, I’ll go find it on a case by case basis.

Here’s where she mentions her character using threads to track people down for Bad Figures who want to kill them, along with tracking down threads for information, aka a major plotline of my fic and literally my character’s stated profession. Screenshot:

Here’s where she describes more about how ‘her’ threads and abilities work (starred paragraph is an almost exact summary of how my character’s abilities work, including how she can send them images and feelings, down to how a red thread is needed to control a person, definitely her taking my major plotline involving body jumping via red threads). She also, SURPRISE! Steals my psychic animals that inhabit the threads, that I’ve hinted relate to the subconscious, and that usually have some traits from the character. Oh, and the part about how doing all that makes her sick, yet again lifted from my fic, where my character gets incredibly sick the more she pushes herself doing all this.

Here’s another section in which she lifted Ciro - my Ciro that adopted Jane Hind is a native Italian, founded the particular family-like group he’s a part of, and also basically adopted Eli - who was raised in the US.

This section is where she’s roughly stolen Jane Hind’s mental trauma and the cause: her childhood arc. I’ve discussed at length here on tumblr (going to work on finding those posts in my tumblr history and update here when I can) and in the fic itself all the things she’s missed, using exactly this sort of phrasing. In fact, our major arc we’re currently going through in the fic (chapters 130 or so)... hm, references frequently missed out Christmases, birthdays, and little things we take for granted. This is one reason I’m sure she’s reading the fic as it’s getting posted. On top of that, she decided she’d also lift how Jane had never seen a beach and fell in love with it the first time she did. It’s a small detail but it’s just yet another thing she’s acting like is hers, just like the details about how this is all new and her Nelson and Murdock friends have taken her in. 

Perhaps most bizarrely, her blog has even been reblogging posts friends have tagged me in that I’ve responded to. In this one, though, she gets a little too obvious - not only is she reblogging a post, maybe a few days after another friend tagged me in it and I reblogged it, but she also tried to tag her fic ‘the psychic thread’ as opposed to ‘the red thread’, which is my own series tag.

I have no idea why she’s done this. I have no idea why she was so blatant, why she thought she could get away with it. She also appears to have a few sock puppet accounts - for example, she makes a claim lifted straight from a half-joking post I made about my OC’s potential pokemon and then makes her own post using the same pokemon for her OC, and credits it to another account that seems to just exist to make her look more realistic. It was one of the more bizarre things stolen, since my post about it didn’t get much attention, but it proves she’s actively following me on tumblr quite closely, proven by a friend who snagged a few screenshots of her likes tab where she’d liked my posts.

She’s blocked me now, so I can’t see her main blog. I can’t ask her to take it down anymore, outside of the comment I’ve left on her fic and the report I made to AO3. But she knows, 100%, that she’s stolen my work, and just as frustrating, has gone on at length on her blog about how all your characters should be original, and truly yours, and how you should never imitate other authors. It’s a ballsy move considering how small the Daredevil fic circle is here on tumblr and AO3.

And look. I don’t want her to drown in hate mail. I really don’t. All I want is for her to take down the fic, and remove the posts in which she blatantly stole content from me. I’ve worked on TRT for years, I’ve poured hours and hours and almost a million words into this story, and the fact that this person is still reading it as they’re plagiarizing it is both incredibly insulting and incredibly hurtful. If you’re an author in the Daredevil fandom, I highly recommend blocking her. She’s mentioned a few very popular authors in the fandom in the blog posts, so I know she’s reading your work, too, and I don’t want yours stolen anymore than I do. If you see someone commenting about her fic, tell them its stolen. Warn your DD author friends. And if you’re going to say something to her, let it be a request to take down her fic and delete the blog posts that have plagiarized my content. That’s my end goal - not to burn her life down but to just pressure her to stop stealing something very, very dear to me, and hopefully learn not to do this in the future.

That’s all I want. *Edited 12/20: as of today, her fic on AO3 has been taken down! The scores of comments, or AO3′s plagiarism team, has done the job so this is a huge win, and I’m grateful to everyone that helped! Her tumblr posts on her k9bails account, however, are still up, and she has yet to respond, so let the pressure continue. I’m also hunting for her other accounts since it’s become clear the k9bails account and the @k-9bails​ account are both not her main blog. If anyone has any leads or knows who this person is, please send me a message! I want to find their main blog in case it’s following me so I can block it, and potentially apply pressure there to get her to take my work down on her k9bails account.

[nightshadehoney]

I never watched James Somerton's shitty Killing Stalking video because I was trying to be good to myself and avoid something that I knew would make me very angry. In fact, I never watched any of his stuff because the fact that he made a video like that was enough to discount any thing he ever had to say (also I heard about the Celluloid Closet plagiarism).

But man, is the James Somerton discourse bringing a lot of Killing Stalking-related feelings back up for me. Because I'm mad; I'm still so mad. There are a suprising amount of people on social media who are saying they never watched any of his stuff except for the Killing Stalking video. I'm annoyed not just to find out that the vid had that sort of reach and influence, but also because Somerton's unmasking hasn't seemed to make people reasses the validity of the kind of thing he was saying. People are just now being like "hmm I think this guy might have Issues With Women" but that doesn't warrant any reflection on what exactly the motivation is of people who complain about women enjoying a niche webcomic? Because I don't actually believe you're concerned about the influence of some obscure piece of media when you advertise its existence to your large audience many of whom had not heard of it and would never have heard of it but for your transparent outrage porn video. It's rage bait and the target was women that are perceived as straight. A big channel has publicized the fact that they excised a section that endorsed the opinions in this video from their own because they became aware of Somerton's plagiarism and dishonesty (presumably; if it was actually because they recognized his views were coming from a sexist place I would welcome a clarification). And you know, I don't think that's a good look actually. That you needed to be told he was a bad person and couldn't idependently put together that the misogynist man was saying misogynist things.

The comic ended years ago and the fandom has gone mostly quiet, but to this day people are still the peddling the"fujoshi/stupid teenage girls who don't know what's good for them are shipping these characters because they are too braindead to realize it's not a romance; it's a horror, two things I believe are mutually exclusive. I am smarter than all of these cringe degenerates" bullshit. It's in the comments of the hbomberguy video even; one comment was such a gross misrepresentation of the series that my friend needed to talk me down from getting into a pointless youtube comments argument (bless him) because these people are officially making me lose my marbles.

This narrative is full of shit, it's demonstrably not fucking true. You can go on the artist's twitter right now and its full of her retweeting shippy fanart of that pairing readers were apparently never intended to ship.

(I don't think Koogi knows or cares about James Somerton; she just reblogs the works of fans who tag her. This made me laugh though).

Now this is all speculation because he died decades before social media existed, but I think if Nabokov was alive today his twitter would not be full of Humbert Humbert x Dolores Haze fanart. And yet, I have unironically seen people compare shipping Sangwoo and Bum in Killing Stalking with the misreading of Lolita as a precocious sexual temptress more than once.

And this isn't me saying that Killing Stalking is the disgusting"pro-sexualized abuse" comic that tumblr purity police used to characterize it as either. One of these days I'm going to go truly bonkers and end up banging pots and pans on the street corner, yelling at random innocent passerbys about how stories about romantic and sexual relationships are not required to be Hallmark movies. You can make art about the negative, dark, and troubling parts of these feelings and relationships without creating a pat morality tale. You don't need to approach media analysis like your 7th grade teacher has assigned you an essay on explaining what a novel's "message" is.

Nobody, not the author and not the fans, genuinely thinks that Sangwoo and Bum have a healthy or aspirational relationship. This hypothetical person that does not understand the relationship is toxic doesn't exist. Because girls and women, even the ones having cringey fandom fun on tiktok or whatever, are not so stupid and naive that they are unware that breaking someone's legs and locking them in a muder basement is bad. The type of concern troll rhetoric Somerton employed in his video is directed near exclusively at women interested in men and there's a reason for this. Women are not responsible for abuse that men do to them; nobody is responsible for their partner abusing them. If I never saw people spit this bullshit again it would be too soon.

[lastweeksshirttonight]

Lee is re-watching Sherlock for some fucking reason - Season One

I'm well aware that the crossover between "currently popular and loved British comedian in the US updates, thirst, and accoutrements" and "BBC show that went so off the rails that people now like to pretend Andrew Scott's breakout role was the Hot Priest in Fleabag" is limited, but weirdly, returning to Sherlock was one of the few things that was keeping my brain somewhat grounded and whirring during Work Hell.

We're in uncharted territory here. You're gonna learn a bit about the things I do when I'm not tracking John Oliver obsessively. I am nervous about this but hey, I'm guessing most of you knew I don't solely live and breathe John Oliver. (I know. I have multitudes. This is a shocking revelation. Please take time to process it.)

Firstly, a content note - there's going to be discussion about queerbaiting and queercoding villains, and the beginning of this goes into some of James Somerton's absolutely disgusting claims about the AIDS crisis. This post will only be focused on Season One, as that's all I've finished at this point.

Let's go.

(above image sourced from Writing Tips and Memes)

My sudden re-emergent hyperfixation started because of the hbomberguy takedown of James Somerton, weirdly. I don't follow many YouTubers - I like Bright Sun Films because he goes urban exploring, something I've always wanted to do but have never managed to make happen, and also Todd in the Shadows, whose Trainwreckords series is very well-done and expertly researched. Seeing that name, you might know where this is going. Todd dropped a video about James Somerton, who I had never fucking heard of and now wish I'd known about before, so I could scream bloody murder about what an absolute fuckwad he is.

(I don't want to get too in the weeds here, but the things James asserted about WWII, Nazis, and the AIDS crisis are so vehemently offensive that I'm still struggling with them. Claiming that only boring gays survived the AIDS crisis in particular is so vile that I have gotten anger flashes thinking about it almost daily since hearing it.)

Todd recommended watching all four hours of the hbomberguy plagiarism video, and I ran that in the background while working about two weeks ago. Eventually I had to stop doing that because the plagiarism revelations were so distracting and shocking. Todd's video was even more of a goddamn mindfuck, and even the smaller, less offensive things have taken up far too much space in my brain. Californians, does anyone at all deify Bob Iger??? Like... what the goddamn fuck??? Bob Iger????

After watching one hbomberguy video, the algorithm did its thing, and gave me a video called "Sherlock is Garbage and Here's Why". Posting it here for posterity:

Because my brain works in mysterious ways (-cough-ADHD-cough-), watching this... made me want to rewatch Sherlock.

I initially saw Sherlock for the first time thanks to someone I met in my last year of college, 2012. At the time, Michael (a nickname) was my neighbor in the dorms; over the past ten years, she's become one of my closest friends and a true rock in my life. One of the first things we bonded over that I introduced her to was the San Francisco Giants and the ghost I will always be chasing, Tim Lincecum; one of the first things we bonded over that she introduced me to was BBC Sherlock. The show was in the early months of its extended hiatus after Season Two, at the height of its fandom, and we were both completely obsessed. I read all the Doyle stories, took in a truly wild amount of fanfiction, wrote a not-very-popular AU fic, became part of a strange inter-dorm ARG based on Sherlock orchestrated by Michael... it consumed a huge part of our lives.

When Season 3 dropped, I almost stopped watching after "The Empty Hearse". I don't want to get into why it offended me so much before we get to a Season 3 post, but just know my enthusiasm severely dampened there. The rest of Season 3 I think of with blase emotions, especially the ending, which I found just dumb, save one part of it. I recall going to see The Abominable Bride in theatres with my mom (and maybe Michael?), and I think I liked it fine - aside, again, from the ending. But I had no interest in a Season Four, and when it dropped, Michael's long rambling phone calls describing the absolute shitstorm of a plot cemented that I was never going to watch it again.

Until now.

I definitely don't think the hbomberguy video is perfect. His insistence that Doyle canon never had Holmes pull answers to cases out of his ass is... something, lol, as is his opinion that changing the solution to certain puzzles in A Study in Pink disrespects the original canon. (Bro, these stories have been retold a bajillion times, they need to mix it up to keep it interesting.) But he put a finger on something that I'd wrestled with regarding Sherlock for a long time - that the show's writing often teased something big and new and conclusive in the horizon, but almost never delivered. That wasn't an issue in early days when there was less invested in an increasingly convoluted mythic story, or when they weren't fully blowing off the resolutions to cliffhangers, but the flaw in writing a story where you promise something huge on the horizon and never deliver should be obvious.

The first season doesn't trade much in that idea, and going back to it was something I found exceptionally enjoyable!

Before I watched:

I remembered bits and pieces of "A Study in Pink" and the whole plot in summary.

I truly didn't remember anything about "The Blind Banker" except that I found it fairly 'yellow peril'-y when I saw it in 2012.

I mixed up huge chunks of Season Two's "A Scandal in Belgravia" with "The Great Game" in my head and somehow forgot the main plot thrust was Moriarty kidnapping people and strapping bombs to them.

I genuinely forgot Sebastian Moran was a character basically hallucinated into existence by the fandom and didn't appear in the show at all until a brief appearance in Season Three.

In a way, it was like I was watching the show for the first time all over again. My partner also watched the first season with me, and it was interesting to get his thoughts on the show as we watched.

To start, his favorite character is Mycroft. Watching Season One, I had to agree that Mycroft has a depth of character that I'd forgotten about. Mark Gatiss plays him perfectly, aloof and smarter than you but unsure of how to deal with his natural feelings of concern and fear for his oft-spiraling, danger-seeking younger brother - and how those feelings magnify with the influence of extreme danger-seeker (at least in this season) John Watson. The show wants you to believe so badly that he's Moriarty in "A Study in Pink", which I don't think works even if you know he isn't Moriarty - there's a warmth to Gatiss' Mycroft that, even while he's doing incredibly ominous things like shutting off all cameras in a busy intersection, still comes through.

My favorite character is Moriarty. I haven't mentioned this very much here, because why would I, but my favorite character type in media is "theatrical abject shithead". It's why I cosplay Bakugo from My Hero Academia and loved everything about Akechi in Persona 5. Hell when I was a kid, I told teachers that when I grew up, I wanted to join Team Rocket. I love the theatrical shitheads. And boy, is Moriarty some sort of theatrical shithead. I don't DISAGREE with hbomberguy pointing out that, as written, Moriarty is a complete mess of a character, a queer-coded literal terrorist with no motivations besides "I did that because I'M CRAAAAZY!"... but he's my queer-coded literal terrorist, ok? I could write a whole paper on all the harmful stereotypes inhabiting this version of Moriarty... but I can't deny that the flamboyance and violence pulsing just beneath the surface of Andrew Scott's performance was the beating heart of that show for me. Sure, Sherlock and John, at least early on, were a compelling duo, but the show was at its best with Moriarty pulling strings for inexplicable reasons in the background. I love him.

(An aside: watching Sherlock made me remember how hilarious it was to see basically every major actor from the show in one of my favorite movies of all time, 1917, to the point that I actually kinda laughed in the theatre thinking about it.)

The entirety of the first season also is more devoted to actual crime-solving and detective work than I remembered the show being. I think that works strongly in its favor, and as I recall things from later seasons, drifting from that element definitely hampers the show greatly. In particular, while the lazy and uncomfortable Orientalism of "The Blind Banker" is still incredibly glaring, the actual mystery at the core of it is very excitingly tracked and easily followed while watching. The fact that John is treated like an equal (mostly) throughout only enhances my thoughts on that. "The Great Game" is a little more slapdash (and hurt by the fact that the entire Vermeer section would be solvable with a smartphone nowadays), but you can still make connections mentally with most of the cases and deduction/investigation is being shown logically. (hbomberguy cites the Golem as a problematic logical leap akin to some of Season Two's dumbest, and I can't agree. It's a reasonable suspension of disbelief to assume Sherlock knows about assassins and is followed by some more sensible investigation and inspection of the Golem's victim. The sequence of Sherlock fighting the Golem, however, is very, very silly.)

Related to that... the autopsy doctors on this show are fucking AWFUL at their jobs. Like straight-up negligently awful. How in the actual fuck did they not investigate the puncture marks on Connie Price's body? How did they not notice a highly distinctive heel tattoo on three recently-murdered corpses? Is Molly the only vaguely competent person in the mortuary? My partner and I were extremely amused that, while Lestrade and his police force are thankfully shown with much more intelligence than in other Holmes adaptations and BBC!Watson wouldn't think jam is a clue, the writers seem to have shunted the stupidity straight to the invisible autopsy doctors.

The first season also does a good job of making Sherlock seem like an overly intelligent if socially stunted human being, instead of the condescending prickish intellectual Ubermensch he ends up becoming as the show progresses. "A Study in Pink"'s ending being Sherlock throwing aside his deduction of the cabbie's killer when he realizes it's Watson, unconvincingly lying to Lestrade and insisting he's in shock before rejoining the other man and genuinely bonding with him, is remarkably compelling as fulfillment of a promise we get from Lestrade earlier in the episode - "Sherlock Holmes is a great man. One day he may even be a good one." My memory is admittedly faulty, but part of why "The Empty Hearse" turned me off so viscerally was Sherlock's (and to an extent, Mycroft's) insufferable growing smugness, particularly where explaining plans or mysteries to John. We get told often that Watson humanizes Sherlock and that the two have a strong bond throughout the series, but Sherlock gets much more dickish in general as the series progresses. One thing I do remember with stark clarity is that after being utterly chastised at a Christmas party in "A Scandal in Belgravia", Sherlock does visibly treat Molly MUCH better throughout the remainder of the show. So, uh, why did we lose that energy with the show's central pairing?

Speaking of the show's central pairing, the queerbaiting starts SO EARLY on this show. I want to make it clear that obviously the benefit of hindsight and knowledge of how the show ends really colors a lot about the Johnlock relationship now, and as a society, we're more aware of what queerbaiting is and what it looks like, which will obviously alter how I perceive these interactions now. I also want to make it clear that I never really shipped Johnlock outside of just kind of assuming that it would be canon because everyone seemed really convinced of it. (I was an absolute degenerate that shipped John with Moriarty. On top of enjoying theatrical disasters, I enjoy ships with an abundance of chaos and impossibility.) There's some biases at play here.

Even so, we are not far into the episode where John is protesting that obviously he needs a second bed in 221B to Mrs. Hudson, he's not gay! The scene in the restaurant has such an aggressively shippy energy to it (despite Watson's consistent denials) that I actively commented on it to my partner as it was happening, saying "the queerbaiting happens WAY SOONER than I thought!" It's distracting and has aged absolutely terribly. The worst by far is John quipping, after being removed from a bomb vest at a pool in "The Great Game", that people will talk because of Sherlock ripping his clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. Why is Watson's heterosexuality so fragile that he's thinking about gossip rags as he's actively recovering from a near-death experience?!

(Aside: I'm aware that last point is not as effective when you think about the fact that I shipped two characters whose sole canonical interaction was one man kidnapping and forcing the other into a bomb vest. In my defense, a) I love mess and b) John never quips about thinking people will talk because he got kidnapped.)

Moriarty's first appearance in "The Great Game" sees him as Molly's fake boyfriend slipping a phone number to Sherlock, which lead to my partner commenting about how distracting it also was, on top of the queerbaiting, that almost every single person on the show has some sort of deep metaphysical attraction to Sherlock. Those people aren't on the lighting and cinematography team for sure; Benedict Cumberbatch is lit ominously and sometimes demonically throughout the first season, highlighting his antihero and brusque nature effectively. But many, many characters in the show - just in season one, Molly, Moriarty, multiple characters of the day, the Cabbie, and John - are all drawn to Sherlock and his very special brain and his very sharp cheekbones. Signs of a big future problem come through in this way, where the show starts sidelining Watson as our central figure and puts Sherlock squarely at the center of everyone's universe and makes lesbians fall in love with him.

(My partner also laughed pretty hard at how obvious Moriarty's pratfalls were as Molly's boyfriend, noting that the show was pretty bad at hiding who Moriarty was every time it came up.)

Some of the seeds of Sherlock's destruction are sown in this first season, obviously. The big one I haven't touched on is the ending cliffhanger itself. Moriarty has John and Sherlock trapped in the pool, tens of sniper sights trained on them, and says that he can't let them escape. Amazing cliffhanger here! It is not fulfilled on at all, but because Andrew Scott can carry anything on his back (including Spectre, which I cannot start talking about because we'll be here all day), the scene doesn't feel like a total waste and makes you want to hang on to find out what happens later.

But there was so much here that was delightful. All the acting is uniformly excellent, and the overt physical tics that come to define Sherlock's mind palace and mental prowess being showcased are barely evident here. The actual detective work, like I said earlier, is really involving! I don't feel like I figured out the solutions for the mysteries I couldn't recall the answers for too easily and thought Sherlock's deductive reason largely followed and wasn't too obscure. I'm still such a sucker for the show's style - that opening credits sequence is so perfectly put together, the text messages that interact with the scene and at the time made this show feel so fresh and modern to me, filming the character's faces in taxis through panes of glass and obscuring material in "A Study in Pink" to give everything an obfuscating sheen... give me all of it.

The music, too, was something I'd forgotten about and truly ended up adoring. Taskmaster (and The Horne Section's score for it) really owes a debt to Michael Price and David Arnold. So much of Sherlock's score could probably be dropped straight into a Taskmaster episode and I would have to think pretty hard to notice a difference in the show's usual musical palette. I've been eyeballing the vinyl on eBay, to give you an idea of how much I love this score. "The Game is On" is a perfect piece of music, clockwork spinning noises emphasizing the jauntiness of Sherlock as he drags Watson on his latest case before sliding into the more subdued, vaguely ominous thrum of its second movement descending into the madness of the third part, violins shrieking as the action reaches its apex.

Normally, with such a degree of pleasant surprise, I'd be eager to move forward to Season Two. Unfortunately, I know the first episode of Season Two is... a doozy. To say the least. A doozy that may get its own essay because of how doozy-ish it is.

In any case, I ended up really enjoying going back to Season One of Sherlock! Super down to talk further about the show, future write-ups, and my horrible taste in fictional ships and men - shoot me a message, reply to this post, wherever, I'll be here! <3

[thehuntyhunties]

this is so specific, but like when i was younger, i was a huggge fan of therealgonzoldyck’s fic black butterfly (which i found reuploaded on wattpad when i was like 13/14 lol), and like i knew of the plagiarism (since the person who reuploaded it, mentioned it), but i just couldn’t figure out how tumblr works.

i haven’t thought about it in years, but i’ve been thinking about it again, and i truly just need all the tea on that situation 😭 just for some childhood closure onto what happened. and i saw you in the search bar talking about how you were there for it. so i would love to know all your thoughts about the matter :)

obviously this isn’t meant to gossip or anything, since i’m aware it was in like 2015, so i assume therealgonzoldyck has learned their lesson and changed. i’m just really curious, and into fandom history lol. if this is too invasive or something, you definitely don’t have to answer it! :) ty if you even read it though. i’m just really nosey, lol!

omg

ATTENTION MY FELLOW PRESENT-IN-2015-HXH-TUMBLRITES, WUZZY'S SHIT MEMORY CALLS FOR AID

jfc i haven't thought about that fic in years. i uh. i have to admit that i personally didn't like it, iirc i think i thought the perspective/POV felt inconsistent and it kept throwing me off? basically i kept getting confused so i stopped reading it. But I really liked one specific oneshot they posted was a zombie apocalypse survival story that was mostly Killua sobbing in a bunker bc Gon was dead, so, idk what that says about me. Would love to know what fandom that one was originally for, if any.

unfortunately for this fandom lore gossip sesh, while i was technically around when all this went down, I was still only a peripheral lurker to the fandom in 2015 – and i'd just powered through the anime in May/June anyways – so i didn't actually have a front row seat for the whole therealgonzoldyck drama, as much as i love to reference it. (I love to reference it because the entire thing was buckwild and i NEED people to know that this happened)

What i DO remember is this: (a) I read a different oneshot that made me go "[confused greyhound headtilt] Huh this sounds like it should be a Teen Wolf fic? Because Killua uses a specific ability that Scott McCall literally just got earlier this season?? but it's not a Teen Wolf AU???? i'm confused." (b) eventually the plagiarism news trickled down to me in the form of a callout post (?) with screenshots showing that BB was originally an Inception fic or something. (c) me, three months later when i remembered all this happened: "oh so that WAS a Teen Wolf fic all along!!!! AHA!!!!!"

anyways. @autumnxsunflower i feel like we've talked about this drama before or at least you'd be more likely to remember it than I am? feel free to chime in if you want to spill some tea as well (and anyone else who's got details)

[synnefo-nefeli]

Why did you private Strange Days and your other fics on A03?

Hi Anon,

I forgot to make a post here but life got away from me.

I set my entire AO3 private due AI bots scraping AO3 and AO3’s troubling stance on allowing AI fic to be posted to the archive.

I am vehemently anti-AI, especially AI which seeks to aid the pursuit of making creatives absent from the act of creating, rather than being in aid of the creative. Rn AI is incredibly unregulated and stands to do more harm than good in creative sectors, and will be incredibly harmful in spreading misinformation by bad faith actors.

I know AO3 is doing its best to prevent further scraping but I do not like that they are permitting AI fic to be hosted. All AI work is plagiarism- it’s not derivative/culture jamming/remixing. Because in derivative works the reader is made aware of the source material/derivative works are predicated on the viewer understanding/having knowledge of the original source so that the resulting derivative work makes sense. AI doesn’t do that, it’s a text generator made up of millions of words crafted by others, stolen without their consent. It’s plagiarism through and through.

I have seen people get banned from AO3 for even a the slightest whiff of plagiarism. Their moderators and content team are great to work with as you actually are dealing with a human in investigating the plagiarism case. Rather than like lets say YT that just uses bots to do their content strike downs often getting ppl who are using copywrite content correctly under creative commons/fair use guidelines. Cases are thoroughly explored on a case by case basis to make sure that works are being protected from plagiarism.

So it’s disheartening to see AO3, allow AI stories to be hosted- AI are not fans, they are not people. The people behind them aren’t creating fan or original works on their own merit, not spending time working on the craft to create. They’re just mashing prompts to scrape from others to generate something they think they can quickly sell. Which brings me to another point- ao3 is opening itself to getting sued by corporations who are anti fanworks. Ao3 has been able to hold them off because the understanding is that on AO3, creators are not profiting from their fanworks

(linking to patreons, ko-fis, does not count as AO3 is not the one getting a cut of money from creators hosting their fic, so companies cant sue AO3, they’ll have to go after individuals, and rn it’s hard to go after creators as they’re likely not making a lot of money on volume compared to merch sellers on etsy, etc.)

So to protect my stories in the meantime I’ve locked my stories to users only and hidden my stories from search engines.

It hurts me to make my stories difficult for people to find and enjoy, but this is the only way right now to protect my stories from getting scraped. I like hearing from people either new to fandoms discovering my fics or long time readers returning to them, and by locking them I am aware that I am potentially risking my fics’ reach within fandom, but I am an old school fanfic writer, I don’t do this for clout or fandom attention. I write because a part of my heart was touched by a series and I want to engage with the series by essentially playing dolls with the characters to act out the scenarios I’ve come up with. If someone comes along and reads it, and comments on it, I am so very happy and fed.

I appreciate you, my readers, for all of your support all of these years. I am sorry to throw a barrier in front of you to access my stories, but I do want to protect the stories I’ve spent years on.

Even though the series aren’t mine and I don’t profit from them, these fics represent thousands of hours of brainstorming, screaming about them with my betas, they’re creative outlets written to help me survive my worst days and to grow as an artists. My efforts and my creativity are worth protecting, and so I will take whatever steps possible to do so.

Thanks for reaching out, Anon. And I hope you understand. Be well.

[sagechanoafterdark]

Blank/Unfinished/Ageless Blogs Notice

I hate doing this so much.

For a very long time I've let it go, I've blocked blank blogs and obvious porn bots for YEARS now but I'm drawing a line now I guess if I want to continue writing and posting my work to Tumblr.

If you have a blank/ageless or unfinished blog, I will be blocking you.

Here's a small FAQ for you if you're having trouble.

What do you mean by blank blogs?

I mean if you don't reblog content on Tumblr and only like it while your blog remains a complete blank, I will be blocking you.

What do you mean by unfinished blogs?

I mean if you don't have enough sense to load an icon, a background or fill out an about me section, I will be blocking you.

What if I don't want my age in my bio?

That's fine, its honestly your choice. It's also my choice to protect myself from the violation of actual children reading content that they shouldn't be. So I will be blocking you.

This is bullshit.

I know. It's such bullshit right. People come into a space that I've made, looking with their eyes at content that I've made and want to tell me how to share that content! The balls of people seriously.

You work hasn't even been plagiarized! Why are you doing this now?

Well, actually my work has been plagiarized, more than once. I let it go cause on a couple of occasions by the time I was aware of my work being on Wattpad the whole book had already been taken down so there was nothing left for me to do.

I'm doing this now because I want to stop it from happening. I've posted and said on many occasions that I do not consent to my work being posted/translated on other sites but clearly it wasn't respected.

How far back are you going?

Until the beginning of time. I have no regrets about deciding to do this.

Look, I'm not a popular writer. I get it. I'm small potato's compared to a lot of my collogues in the MCU writers fandom. Maybe I'm just blowing smoke by posting this notice to people. But it's for my own peace of mind as I decided what I want to do in the future and for everything that I've posted in the past that has been violated in some way.

Like I've said, for a very long time now I've let this go. I've supported fellow writers in their decisions to block these blogs and people who've chosen to nose around, steal work and post it to places like Wattpad. Is it going to stop it? No. Will it curb it? Maybe. Does it make me feel better? Somewhat.

And I think that's the big part that's going to count.

If you have a blank/ageless or unfinished blog, I will be blocking you.

[makeste]

BnHA 323: “I Don’t Know How to Explain to You That You Should Care About Other People”

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan was all, “Izuku, I’m sorry.” Bakugou Stans were all, “[sobs for a week straight and tearfully awards him the Nobel Prize for character development].” Deku was all, “[faints in Kacchan’s arms].” Iida was all, “[trying to decide if Ochako genuinely tried to kill him a few minutes ago].” Horikoshi was all, “NO TIME FOR HUGS WE MUST GET BACK TO UA.” The civilians holed up at U.A. were all, “WE TOOK A VOTE AND DECIDED THAT WE’RE ALL GOING TO BE JERKS ABOUT THIS AND MAKE A BIG FUSS ABOUT YOU LETTING DEKU BACK INTO THE SCHOOL.” Deku was all “[stands there looking like he expected nothing less and breaking my heart more and more with each passing moment].” Ochako was all, “that does it, looks like I’m gonna have to do something about this... next chapter, that is.”

Today on BnHA: Flashback!Rat Principal is all “I just want you all to know that I spent nine million dollars turning U.A. into a giant Battleship-style grid that can burrow underground and zoom around in a giant subway maze because Horikoshi lacks a grounded understanding of both civil engineering and economics.” Back in the present day, Jeanist is all, “EVERYONE TAKE HEED, MY COMRADES AND I HAVE DEEMED IT EXPEDIENT TO CONVEY THIS AUSPICIOUS YOUTH BACK TO THIS STRONGHOLD. WE ANTICIPATE THAT WE MAY DEPEND UPON YOUR GOODWILL AND ACQUIESCENCE TO THESE TERMS.” The civilians were all, “NO.” Ochako was all, “EMPATHY, MOTHERFUCKERS, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!” The civilians were all, “oh shit.” Anyway so Ochako is a giant badass, but I’m a little worried that she’s going to get struck by lightning. Please come down from there.

so before we start this chapter, I would just like to apologize for having not posted the ch 321 recap yet, and would like to reassure everyone, and especially Iida who is staring at me with Sad Wobbly Guilt Trip Eyes, that I will get to that as soon as I can

OMG FLASHBACK??

yes please Horikoshi please show us more of class 1-A and their Deku intervention strategy jam sessions

oh dear

Iida you are too pure and good for this cruel world. [sprays the U.A. civilians with a water bottle] NO. BAD CIVILIANS! NO OSTRACIZING SCARED AND EXHAUSTED CHILDREN IN THE HOUSE

EXCUSE ME RAT PRINCIPAL WHAT’S WITH THESE MIXED MESSAGES

???

RAT PRINCIPAL: he’s free to return to us at any time!!

ALSO RAT PRINCIPAL: but it’s too risky for him to return to us

?? ??????? ?????????????????????

so now he’s going on about how strong the U.A. Barrier is, and how it’s comparable to the defensive capabilities of Tartarus. this would have sounded a lot more impressive before chapter 297 lol

OH!!!! HELLO, WHAT’S THIS!!!

A TIMELY CALLBACK TO A CERTAIN MYSTERIOUS EVENT WHICH HASN’T BEEN REFERENCED SINCE USJ? [U.A. TRAITOR MUSIC INTENSIFIES]

so now Rat Principal says he upgraded U.A.’s security systems with his own “modifications”, whatever the fuck that means. I mean look, I’ve been saying for a long time now that U.A. is the best place for everyone to hole up, don’t get me wrong. but that was mostly on account of there not being any other practical alternatives. but you’re making it sound like you figured out a way to actually make it Decay-proof or some wild shit like that

-- hold up, DID YOU ADD A FORCE FIELD. DID YOU TRICK THIS SCHOOL OUT WAKANDA-STYLE YOU CRAZY MARSUPIAL. HOLY SHIT. because that would actually be perfect

LMAO

WHAT KIND OF GALAXY BRAIN BULLSHIT. “NAH THERE’S NO NEED FOR A FORCE FIELD, LET’S JUST PUT WHEELS ON IT”

oh okay so the whole campus is basically capable of burrowing itself underground. that’s insane lol I wonder how they pulled that off. probably got poor Cementoss working overtime

blah blah blah so basically the entire campus is split into a grid and each section of the grid is capable of its own independent movement. lol this is just the Merone Base from KHR. you thought no one would notice this casual plagiarism ten years after the fact, but YOU UNDERESTIMATED YOUR AUDIENCE, HORIKOSHI

“joke’s on you imma just lampshade it” WELL ALL RIGHT THEN

“look at me I’m so fucking self-aware” fucking swear to god. I can’t believe this man is my favorite mangaka of all time smdh

“excuse me, I wasn’t finished describing all the rest of this bullshit yet,” Rat Principal breaks in impatiently. “we also added a steel wall all around the underground of the campus that’s 3000 steel plates thick. that’s fifteen fucking meters of solid fucking steel just fyi. and if anyone fucks around with any part of it the defense system will activate immediately! and also all of the plates are independently motorized, whatever the fuck that means!! in conclusion you’re gonna need a fucking tower crane to suspend all of your disbelief by the time I’m through with this paragraph”

“also Shiketsu is almost as reinforced as U.A. but not quite because we still had to make sure we were better.” but of course. and apparently the two schools are connected via a secret tunnel as Hagakure mentioned earlier

LSDKFJLSDKJFLK

“WAIT WHAT” LMAO YOU HEARD HIM, NOW INASA CAN VISIT YOU BOTH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND TELL YOU ALL ABOUT THE WEIRD DREAM HE HAD. GOD BLESS YOU HORIKOSHI

(ETA: moment of appreciation for Shouto and Katsuki having the same thought at the same time and making Knowing Eye Contact and saying the exact same thing out loud in perfect unison like the best friends they are. what a blessed day.)

so Tokoyami is all “but wait if you engineered all this shit all the way back during the Band arc how did you even know that Tomura’s quirk awakening would become a thing, Horikoshi -- uh, I mean, Principal Nezu”

and Rat Principal is all “lol idk”

“basically I just woke up one morning and was all ‘say, you know what this school really needs? a fifteen-meter-thick underground steel wall, and the ability to break up into little pieces that individually zoom around wherever the fuck they want.’ jesus christ. lol if money and common sense were apparently no obstacle why didn’t you just teleport U.A. to the fucking moon or something. maybe I should shut up before I given him any ideas

dsfaelkjldkjgl

you heard it here first, folks, all of this cost a grand total of nine million U.S. dollars. well technically it cost “more than” nine million dollars. never has that distinction been more important lmao. are we sure this barrier was really made of steel and not cardboard? who the hell sold it to them, Ea-Nasir??

this is my favorite manga series of all time. yes I am ashamed

“in conclusion please do your best to reach Deku-kun” SO WHAT WAS ALL THAT NONSENSE ABOUT IT BEING TOO RISKY THEN. anyway thank you for this super informative and edifying flashback, Horikoshi. I will cherish it always. I don’t even want to read another translation of this absurdity lmao, there’s something special about it just the way it is. pretty sure Horikoshi just had a cracked out fever dream one night and transferred it to the pages of the manga verbatim

anyway so back to the unruly mob

not their finest moment. please excuse me while I cover poor Deku’s ears and give him a good shoosh pap

oh wow the parents are out here too

is Mitsuki trying to hold Inko back?? that’s the last thing this fandom needs right now is more Mitsuki discourse fffwlkjs. and even Jiroudad, scientifically proven to be the best dad in all of BnHA, is just standing there silently looking vaguely unhappy. way to rise to the moment you guys

MONOMA

so this settles it for me that Aizawa is not at UA. I know a lot of people have been wondering about his whereabouts, and if I had to wager a guess it would be that something happened with Shirakumo/Kurogiri. I can’t think of anything else -- even the loss of an eye and a limb -- that would keep him from his kids at a time like this

anyway but this is excellent Monoma content right here though. I love that he apparently adopted Eri after a single interaction with her. also WHERE IS SHINSOU DAMMIT. THE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW

and Kouta’s there too looking like he wants to run over to Deku but Ragdoll won’t let him :/

it’s gotta be pretty upsetting for him to see his hero like this and not having anyone stand up for him. [taps megaphone] IS THIS THING ON. OKAY YEAH IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING. AHEM. PAGING URARAKA OCHAKO. GONNA NEED YOU TO GET OVER HERE ALREADY AND MAKE THAT BIG DRAMATIC SPEECH WHICH YOU ARE CLEARLY DYING TO MAKE. IF YOU DON’T DO IT SOON I’M GONNA HAVE TO STEP IN, AND YOU REALLY DON’T WANT ME TO DO THAT SINCE MY SPEECH WILL NOT BE VERY GOOD OR INSPIRING, AND WILL PROBABLY JUST CONSIST OF “HELLO, YOU ARE ALL STUPID, PLEASE SHUT UP AND GO AWAY”

so now Mic is telling them to calm down. at least someone’s speaking up here, geez

OH MY GOD

MY MAN JEANIST OUT HERE DOING WHAT HE DOES BEST: MAKING EVERYONE FEEL GUILTY AND JUDGED

OH MY GOD HE IS GIVING SUCH A LONG AND BORING SPEECH LMAO IS YOUR STRATEGY TO PUT THEM ALL TO SLEEP OR WHAT

truly in awe of this man’s ability to take messages which could easily be conveyed in ELI5-speak, and stubbornly convert them into incomprehensible language the likes of which you need a graduate degree in order to understand

“hey guys, so originally our plan was to use Deku as bait for the villains, but that didn’t really work and also we realized it was kinda dumb and was probably gonna get him killed, so we brought him back here instead.” was that really so hard, Jeanist. also are we all really just gonna sit back here and watch Jeanist take full credit for Bakugou’s plan just like that lmao

(ETA:

WHERE DID ENDEAVOR GO AND WHO IS THIS DIABOLICAL MASTER OF DISGUISE. lol I genuinely didn’t notice this because I was too busy digging through thesauruses trying to rewrite Jeanist’s speech; many thanks to @class1akids​ for pointing it out and making my day immeasurably better. take it easy there Dick Tracy.)

“anyway so please stop being dicks and let him fucking rest so he can save all your ungrateful asses” what an impassioned and inspiring plea. time to see if the masses will listen to reason

narrator: they did not listen to reason

oh my god finally Ochako is doing something. YEAH OCHAKO WOOOO SHOW THEM HOW IT’S DONE

hmm

this entire chapter is truly and utterly nonsensical to me lol

(ETA: on my second readthrough I’m fucking dying at how she stole the megaphone right out of Mic’s hand lmao. and how Kacchan is all “fuck yeah nothing I appreciate more than some quality fucking larceny.”)

oh I see she was jumping on top of the main building so as to scream down at them all more impressively

“ANYWAY DEKU IS PRETTY COOL ACTUALLY, YOU GUYS ARE JUST MEAN” couldn’t have said it better myself Ochako

lol uh

gotta say I did not have “Ochako reveals the secret of OFA to the entire U.A. Citizen Clown Parade” on my bingo card for this week. it’s a bold strategy cotton let’s see if it pays off

SDLFKJSL

“NO, SERIOUSLY, HAVE YOU LOOKED AT HIM YOU GUYS. YOU THINK HE LIKES RUNNING AROUND DRESSED LIKE A RUSTED OIL DRUM?? HE DID THAT FOR YOU YOU UNGRATEFUL SLOBS”

so she is basically explaining the entire Deku Angst arc to them and explaining what a good and selfless protagonist Deku is, YES, PREACH

OMG IT’S THE GIGANTIC FOX LADY

not to insinuate anything, but what exactly were you doing standing out here with the hysterical mob, Gigantic Fox Lady? you’re better than that

-- KACCHAN SIGHTING!!

sdlkfjl. thanks for weighing in with that helpful and important observation. where have you been for the last five minutes. were you asleep. was it Jeanist’s speech

never mind, now he’s yelling at the civilians so I instantly forgive him

THE FUTURE NUMBER ONE HERO, EVERYONE. THANK YOU, THANK YOU. HE’LL BE HERE ALL WEEK

“anyway so I’m just going to end the chapter here” lmao seventeen pages truly do go by so fast. at least he didn’t try to force in a cliffhanger at the end this time. dare I say, growth

so I guess the civilians are either gonna have a Kamino and/or Fukuoka-esque moment where they remember how to be decent people and apologize to this poor young man, or else they’ll remain unpersuaded, and so Kacchan will have to knock a few of their heads around until they become more inclined to be reasonable. either option is fine by me lol

[mandaloriandin]

I swear to God some of you need to fucking go outside. Touch some grass. Maybe read a real book and quit consuming fan made content bc y'all are too fucking comfortable with the anon feature.

Since some of you apparently are so fucking confused, I've made a handy list of fun facts here for you!

Fun fact: Fandom content creators make things for fun in their free time! Many of them actually have real jobs they get paid for, and actual lives outside of your screen. They share their work because they are fun, lovely people who want to bring people some joy! You are not entitled to any of their stuff and its irritating and rude to pester people about updates

Fun fact: Using! Exclamation! Marks! Does! Not! Make! Your! Rude! Message! More! Friendly!!!!!! Hope this helps!! :) :)

Fun fact: Some of you people are so rude and bitter, that it wouldn't surprise me if you've never been in a relationship before, on account of nobody wanting to be around your stinky bitch ass for that long. For your benefit, im gonna let you in on a little secret about real-world relationships: people use pet names! Shocking, I know! But its real I swear. Source: I have been in a few relationships myself. Pet names like sweetheart, babygirl, beloved, my love, smart girl, baby, etc. Are all things people actually use in real life and are not in fact, derivatives of 1 specific fanfic writer. In fact, this might shock you, but even that specific fandom creator is using a real world endearment! Is your mind blown? Its okay, take a minute to absorb that.

Fun fact: You trying to "defend" your fave writers by sending hate to other writers even though their stories share nothing but a reader insert and 1 character is annoying as hell. A lot of writers on this site within a fandom are actually friends with each other and fucking hate that shit. Quit comparing works. Quit telling people their shit is similar when it isn't, quit being dickheads. If you aren't gonna leave a nice comment then fuck off.

Fun fact: On that note, even if the fics are similar, unless its straight up plagiarism then you don't need to comment on it. Did you know that basically everything is a derivative of everything? There are only so many characters in a fandom and so many tropes. You're gonna get repeated themes. Just shut the fuck up about it and enjoy the content. If you truly and genuinely do think someone is plagiarizing another creator's work, send the original creator a private message saying you just wanted them to be made aware and then let them take it from there. If they disagree, leave it. If they agree, let them take the lead and don't just go attacking people.

Fun fact: If you read any of this and thought "huh, I do that" then you need to go re-evaluate, fuckin learn to think critically, and maybe fuckin chill out a little. They're fictional characters, my friend. Its not that deep. Please put down your phone for a bit and go outside. And if you still feel like being a dick, well then make like a dick and get fucked :)

To all my favourite lovely and wonderful content creators: please take care of yourselves. Never feel pressure to update things or post more or interact if its too stressful or you're too busy. Your mental health comes first and we all understand! Also, be liberal with the block button. Delete rude asks. Never feel obligated to keep people around if they're making you feel like shit. Your actual nice fans understand, I promise.

[iverna]

I’ll be honest, this weird contest between fic writers and fanartists who has it worse, or I guess more accurately the need to prove that fic writers are oh so hard done by or whatever, is getting pretty annoying

and I say that as someone who does both btw

like tbh if anyone wins here, it’s gifmakers, because they have the worst of both worlds: half the fandom isn’t even really aware that gifs are made by actual people with actual skills, gifsets usually get way less comments than fanfic and fanart, you can’t monetise it, people have no problem hijacking gifmakers’ posts to add shitty opinions and metas, and their stuff gets stolen and reposted constantly

and yet I can’t help noticing that gifmakers are usually silent in this, and complain far less

the thing is, things have limitations that just come with the territory; an actor is naturally going to find a portrait of themselves in character more interesting than the story you wrote about the character (or a gifset, or how well you did in the video game, etc) because the art is actually relevant to them because that’s their actual face

I also find it frankly ridiculous to complain about creators not acknowledging fanfic when I know that 99% of fic writers (me included) would absolutely hate it if someone took their fic and copied or rewrote it, or used their OC in a fic without asking first... which is what fanfiction is

if someone does it to me within fandom, it’s plagiarism, but if I do it to someone’s original story, they should be giving me recognition and praise for it like they do with artists who illustrate their story? How do you react to someone creating art for your fic vs someone writing their own version of it?

(and that’s aside from the potential legal issues that arise from creators reading fanfic which is also not a problem you have with art)

ultimately the answer to all of it is, either the thing is worth doing because you enjoy it, in which case it doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks, or it’s not, in which case you need to either learn to value your own enjoyment more or you need to find something you actually enjoy

like... most people get no recognition or money for their hobbies, that’s what a hobby is, it’s something you do in your free time because you enjoy it

[xxprettylittletimebombxx]

I wanted to address one more thing on the subject of plagiarism in fanfics-- 

and then I promise I’ll shut up about this for a while (or at least that’s the hope because it’s not exactly a fun topic?)

There was a story posted to ao3 this week that was clearly heavily inspired by my fic, ‘Who Could Deny These Butterflies?’ 

The fic in question has since been removed by the author (which is the only reason why I feel comfortable talking about it now.) And if any of you saw it before it got taken down, I’d prefer if you didn’t name it or the author in question. 

I’m not trying to direct any targeted hate their way. I’m just hoping that by talking about this, and sharing some choice screenshots, it helps offer some perspective to those of you who’ve noticed me and/or my friends talking about the issue of plagiarism in the JATP fandom with some regularity over the past few weeks.

Something that I’ve seen pop up quite a few times whenever the issue of plagiarism in JATP fanfic has been brought up before is this mentality of sort of instantly giving the other person the benefit of the doubt instead of the original author. 

I’m someone who desperately wants to see the good in others first, so I totally get why that might be a natural gut reaction. And I totally agree that allowances can and should be made for similar concepts included purely by accident.

But the idea of more or less chalking everything up to an honest mistake really starts to bother me when the instances of plagiarism are so blatantly obvious, it’s almost impossible to believe the thing that was stolen was stolen by accident.

I can guarantee you that literally any time you’ve seen myself or somebody else in this fandom vague posting about an instance of plagiarism, it’s the latter.  

And just in case you need an example of the sort of instances we’re talking about, here’s an example of just one moment the person in question took from ‘Butterflies’ and put into their own story:

And just for comparison’s sake, here’s my version:

It should also be noted that in this particular most recent instance, I had a handful of people call the fic in question to my attention (one person in my asks, two friends, and in addition, two separate readers who left comments on the plagiarized work.)

I hadn’t even read the story that took from mine before I was made aware of it, so the fact that other people noticed on their own-- and left comments saying as much-- should be a major red flag. AND YET, when I commented on said fic politely asking the author to remove it given the similarities, I found myself receiving pushback from another reader.

(There are probably some other points to be made here about the difference between a few passing similarities and what is essentially just a rewrite of the same scene, with one or two characters missing and/or added in, but that’s perhaps a post for another time.)

It’s just completely baffling to me that anyone’s gut reaction would be to side with the other person when the case is so cut and dry? Which is, quite honestly, why it’s so hard to speak up about stuff like this. 

There’s always that fear of being labeled as overly sensitive. Literally any time I’ve reblogged a post about plagiarism on here I’ve worried that people on here think I’m being overly sensitive. Which is why I’ve let a few instances of plagiarized lines/concepts/etc. slide in the past-- and I know some other friends have as well.

And I guess it seems silly to get worked up about fanfics getting plagiarized because none of us own the characters or the canon we’re all playing with. But it’s hard not to feel a little disheartened when, as a writer, you put so much time and effort in crafting a story with those characters that’s uniquely yours, only to see somebody else trying to pass it off as their own original work.

There’s really no graceful way to end this post. So just...you know...don’t steal. 

If you’re an avid fanfic reader and you see somebody else stealing pieces from someone else’s writing, call them out on it (nicely though, please! something as simple as “I couldn’t help but notice your thing is very similar to this other thing-- you should maybe think about crediting the author and reaching out to them to make sure it’s okay that you’re using it” can go a long way.) or at least notify the original author so they can decide what to do about it. 

And if you’re a fellow writer who’s worried about perhaps accidentally writing something that’s too similar to someone else’s thing, please try not to harp on that too much. And if it happens by accident, just apologize and come up with a way to fix it-- we’re all learning here, you know? And we’re all just trying to create fun things for each other to enjoy, and I don’t want that to stop just because of a few bad instances. It’s just exhausting, you know?

ANYWAY, I know this post is very long so thank you to anyone who bothered to read through it-- I really appreciate you. Picture me scurrying away to my writing dungeon now. 

And to end on a more positive note,  Jukebox Appreciation Week kicks off in THREE DAYS-- I hope y’all are ready and are as excited for it as we are!

[bookwyrminspiration]

i think my views on the kotlc characters have changed a lot as i've gotten older- like when i was younger, around 11 or so, I was a lot more opinionated (and hate-y) towards some of the characters, particularly Keefe, because I saw these Cool Older Teenagers and assumed that they should be able to deal with these things rationally- and then when I was like 14 and around the age of the characters, I had calmed down a little bit and still saw the characters as annoying, but they had their reasons for not being perfect

and now i'm older than that, and my only view is "these kids are so traumatized and they do make mistakes but my GOD, it's because they have no support system whatsoever, I can't really hate these kids, because they're literal children! they are kids, give them a break"

you phrased this so well I am in awe, nonsie! there's this progression of opinions you form on the characters as you go that's shaped by how mature you are at the time. that's not to say 11/12 years old are inherently immature, but just three or four years can make a huge difference this early on in life, and someone who is 16/17 is going to have a very different perspective. it almost feels like middle grade years are the formative years where you shift from being the child who just reads and enjoys it all, to realizing that there's actually outside influence and implications of these worlds. it's like you take off these rose colored glasses you weren't intentionally wearing and suddenly everything actually has a lot more to it than you thought

i can distinctly remember when I first started reading the series (I would've been like...ten) I was actually annoyed with the worldbuilding...because it was exactly what I wanted to write in my own story, and I didn't want to accidentally plagiarize. I literally couldn't think of a more perfect world than keeper, and I loved all the characters and just went along with everything that was written because it was fun and didn't think any more of it. And while I personally didn't have a lot of strong opinions, it was really easy to just hear one thing and go with it. There was actually another girl at my school who read the series who was strongly sophitz, and there wasn't any reasoning behind her argument other than that's just what it should be. So I think reading the story at that age makes it really easy to fall into the "exuberant child who doesn't understand all the nuances of fandom and social media just talking loud" stereotype--you know, like with the all caps screaming about ships and hating characters with no meaning behind what they're saying? I know I've done some of that in the past (and it is incredibly embarrassing to think about, ngl), so please don't think I'm trying to shame or demonize these kinds of people. It's just an observation that people like that are almost always young and grow out of it.

and then when I moved away from that, I mostly kept quite and saw them as my peers, which made it a lot easier to see them as annoying but be less vocal about it. and I think I also separated myself from the story a little more and realized that not everything negative people saw with the story meant that I was a bad person for enjoying it. because I do enjoy keeper! as much shit as I talk and problems that I have with it, at the end of the day I talk about it because keeper means something to me. Being Sophie's age (which ranges from like 11-14 in human years, I think), and especially on the older side, was like a transition into being more critical and aware of the series. I'd read more things since then and just had more experiences, so I no longer idolized the world Shannon had built, but I didn't become more critical of it other than the occasional "hey logically how would this work?" thing. I'd read stories with more complicated plots and more sophisticated word choice, so now keeper and its characters weren't this huge inspiration, though I did still follow along with what a lot of other people said.

but, just like you, now I'm older than Sophie and more in the middle of the friend group. and it's just "oh fuck these characters need help." like the ramifications of all these experiences is going to be serious, and also I'm not as invested in certain characters or things I want as I was when I was ten. I'm not desperate for a pairing or for something specific to happen, I'm just curiously observing how things happen. I don't think I can hate any of the characters (Mr. Forkle and Oralie I do hate, but I also appreciate that I hate them and their contribution to the story even if it is almost entirely in nuance). I genuinely think I could say something positive that I legitimately appreciate about any of the characters in keeper, or something that makes them interesting to me. Ah. I think that's it. The characters are interesting to me now as opposed to just being a vessel to get the story someplace. Their mistakes are no longer annoying but realistic and develop their character, and I like seeing what happens to the story instead of being upset something went wrong. I don't idolize the characters anymore, I guess is a way I could phrase that.

because they really don't have an effective support system, and they really don't know what they're doing. and they're dealing with things no one their age should have to and it's going to have an impact. and I think I'm now more welcoming of that impact and the ramifications as opposed to putting the whole world on some pedestal where I can't recognize it's faults without being personally attacked.

at least, that's how things have gone for me. it may be different for others and that's fine!! just some of the things you described felt similar to my own experiences in fandom and how my perception of the story as a whole changed. and it's really interesting to look back and see how you've changed in regards to the story!!

note: a lot of this was me talking about my own experience, but that's my attempt to show I understand you. not trying to just make it about me !!

[nyerus]

The Absolute Clownery....

Ya’ll so someone actually tried to plagiarize TGCF?!!?

Gonna try to keep this insanity short but OH my god. Some people (possibly young teenagers; no ages were given on any profiles, so just please keep that in mind) on Instagram started promoting a work of theirs called “The Third Ascension”... featuring main character Xue Yuan, a crown prince who ascended to godhood and then fell from grace over 800 years ago, and meets a ghost king by the name of Ze Cheng....

If you’re thinking “well golly that sounds a lot like something we know” YEAH SDLFKJSDLKFJSDLKFJSD

The “author” wholesale ripped of TGCF and changed Xie Lian + Hua Cheng’s names (AND ONLY THEIRS, BTW). I really hope no one bought the fake books off Rakuten’s Kobo (e-book) site. You can self-publish on there, and the “author” also spared no effort to make fake reviews. Well. Some effort was apparently spared because they were all made on the same day and clearly fake as hell.

And yeah, they did tag @/scholasticinc on instagram -- you know, the children’s books publisher, with titles like “Captain Underpants” and “Clifford the Big Red Dog.” Please just. Take a moment to imagine a world where Scholastic would publish a Chinese xianxia novel featuring horror, gore, violence, suicide, sexual content, and psychologically distressing material -- just to name a few things! BUT APPARENTLY, no need to worry about the gay stuff, because the “author” so generously made Hualian’s romance into a bromance. Like. Legitimately took TGCF and said “everyone’s het tho!” No genderbending, just het-ification. Idk.

I really cannot. I’m moving on for my sanity’s sake. I’ve already lost so much time to how many hysterical breakdowns I’ve had because of this in the last hour and a half.

Meanwhile, the “artist” ripped off not only STARember, but various other fanartists. They have a slew of stolen artworks on their instagram even from artists like GEAROUS. Absolutely baffling.

However, Things Are Happening already, so we can rest assured. Because both of them have set their profiles to private, the carrd and wixsite they had to promote it are down, the discord server was purged (unclear if deleted, people tried to raid it and got kicked lol), and the books were taken off listings from Kobo’s sites. There are multiple sites in different languages though, so it will probably take a little bit of time to get them all down. Fans on Weibo have also been made aware of it.

What’s infuriating is the idea that these people profited off of stolen works, and had thousands of followers. The “author” has over 18k followers on insta!!! Like wth!? Surely amongst those 18k, there was at least one gullible person that fell for this and gave them money. Yeesh. If these people are indeed kids, then I hope they’re really young and stupid -- and that they learn from these. Parents please pick up your kids omg. If they’re adults, then I really do not know what to say.

Technically, it’s still a developing situation, and I don’t have more screenshots because things moved SO fast. By the time I was done screaming and processing the whole situation, telling people I knew, and reporting what I could, that shit was gone LMFAO!!! Fandom moved hella fast, thank goodness. I don’t know what’ll come of it, and I’m really just making this post to archive the fact that this happened at all because I’m not entirely convinced that it’s not just a stress dream I’m having right now.

This twitter user is doing a really amazing job of cataloguing what the hell is going on, so please check out their thread if you wanna see more: https://twitter [.] com/wwxwashere/status/1376948807729045512?s=20

Also rest assured that Suika and the other translators know about it already: twitter [.] com/yummysuika/status/1376952468899295234

Thank you very much to Otonozhin on the Suibian discord sever for bringing it to my attention, as well as others on there + the HOBL server + on twitter who helped spread the word and report all this.

[troped-fanfic-challenge]

*This event has ended! Click the links in the Timeline to see individual rounds, prompts, fics, voting, and results!*

Hey, Tropesters! It’s time for another TROPED event, but this time the prompts will be in the form of MOODBOARDS! Made by yours truly, the moodboards function as the inspiration for the fics written for this event! We've got four exciting themes picked out, and the boards are already looking great, so we hope you're excited! This event will be a little different from the others that we have put on, so keep reading for more info!

How It Works:

Firstly, this is our first ever TROPED Multi-Fandom event, so share this around! We would love to get fics from fandoms we've never had for TROPED before! All Fandoms are welcome and there is in no minimum participation required for this event!Because this is a Multi-Fandom event, the voting process and the overall event structure will be a little different!

No Sign-Ups Required! We will release the prompts right here on the TROPED tumblr and you will submit your fics to the AO3 Collection! The Writing Periods will be on a rolling basis, with a moodboard dropping every ten (10) days, but fear not! If you are inspired for a round later in the event, you can still submit a fic to be included in Voting! We will simply drop the next board, but nothing will officially close or end until the end of the full Writing Period, on August 25th! Fics will be accepted into the official collection for the entirety of the event! **You will write four or more (4+) separate fanfics inspired by each round, but you do not have to participate in each and every round.**

Moodboard Prompts! As we said, the prompts for this event will be in the form of MOODBOARDS!!! Because photos are open to such a wide range of interpretations, and inspiration from a moodboard can come in all shapes and sizes, this event is much less strict in terms of 'sticking to the prompt'! We will be releasing the moodboards with a little blurb about what it is we envisioned when putting them together, but if inspiration strikes and takes you in another direction, go for it! Pretty much anything goes, as long as it fits with our standard rules! As a general rule, we'd like you to take each of the nine (9) photos and find a way to include that imagery in your fic in some way. Try to find a way to incorporate the concepts and inspirations you get from each photo into your story! Similar to the tropes used in our traditional TROPED format, the photos in the moodboards should matter to your story. You should try to have the photos not be inconsequential moments within your fic, but rather make the moments in the moodboard plot relevant!

All Pairings Allowed! TROPED is always a neutral space for any and all ships! We encourage [and sometimes require ;)] rare pairs, platonic pairings, and other out of the box dynamics within our fics! TROPED is, by design, a positive fandom space for everyone, and focusing on allowing and celebrating any and all pairings (that are allowed within the rules) is a big part of that! **Please feel free to write any pairing (within our rules) from the Fandom of your choosing. You do not have to write the same Fandom/Pairing for each round!**

**As a note, the photos in the moodboards are not definitive! A lot of stock photos are white, and straight, but we chose photos simply for the ✨vibes✨ of the photo, not the pairings themselves!! You can implement those scenes into your fics with any characters or combos, as long as it complies with our relationship rules!!**

This event will be Optionally Anonymous! Because the voting for this event is much more chill, and the writing period will be open for over a month, we will not require this event to be anonymous! However, if you would like to have your fic be anonymous, we will be sharing a small tutorial on how to make your fics anonymous and how to remove them from being anonymous sometime before the event starts, so keep your eyes peeled!

Voting! The voting for this event will be pretty simple! We will keep a list of all fics submitted for each event, and then at the end there will be a "best overall" poll for each round, along with some bonus polls! The voting will be based on the fics as a whole, and will include all fandoms together! If you do not want your fic included in the voting, you can let us know, or you can simply upload your fic to our non-anon collection instead! We will still share it along with the other fics and it will be included in all masterlists! We will provide a link to SurveyMonkey when voting begins.

For the OG Tropesters: As an added bonus for our long time The 100 fandom writers, we've cooked up an extra special little challenge for you! We will be including a special tenth (10th!!) photo, just for you! The 10th photo will be of a character of our choosing from The 100 (obviously) for you to include in your fic! We will be releasing the character we've chosen for each round when we drop the moodboard, so keep your eyes peeled!

Timeline:

Writing Period Dates: July 15th - August 25th!

Moodboard for R1 : July 15th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R2 : July 25th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R3 : August 4th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R4 : August 14th at 12:00am

End of Visual Writing Period: August 25th at 3:00am PST/6:00am EST [EXTENSION UNTIL SATURDAY, AUGUST 28TH AT 8:00 AM EST!]

Voting: August 28th at 12:00pm - August 30th at 11:59pm

Winners: August 31st!

*All times are in Eastern Standard Time (EST) unless otherwise specified!

Rules:

If you are a veteran to our TROPED Challenges, the rules below are mostly the same as before, but any newbies joining the fun should definitely take a look below!

This competition was created to get creative and put out different fics into the world, and to create a fun, positive fandom experience for everyone! In order to ensure that we achieve that goal of a positive experience, here are a few rules and guidelines that must be followed!The requirements for the fics entered into the competition will be:

Must include Characters from your specific chosen Fandom

Must try to fit the Theme of each round! While this event is a lot looser, each board will have a clear concept or theme for you to use in your fics!

Must try to use ALL of the pictures selected for the round. Each of the 9 photos are meant to be taken and turned into scenes, images, or themes within your story! This isn't hard and fast, but we encourage you to try to utilize the boards in a specific way, beyond just the general ✨vibes✨ of the board!

All fics must be 10,000 words or less! (We have allowed a 500 word buffer to allow for fics that are not quite finished at the 10k mark to get wrapped up!) There is no minimum word count.

All ratings G through M are welcome, but E Rated fics are not allowed. Please be aware that some fics may not be everyone’s thing! Write what you like, but the voting is public so just keep that in mind!

Multiple Entries Allowed. We love when authors are able to pump out multiple fics for a single prompt! If you would like them to be considered seperately for voting, please be sure they are standalone fics! If you end up writing multiple chapters or parts of one fic, let us know! We will only include one for voting but we will be sure to share all the parts!

Collaborations! We've had some people ask about collaborations, and we're all for it! If you and a friend would like to write a fic together, go for it! Just let us know who to credit when we share the fics on our masterlists and we will be sure to tag anyone involved!

You will be disqualified if you include:

Smut! Due to the chance that some fandoms might include a cast of all underage characters, we have decided to exclude smut. All ratings G-M are allowed!

Rape!

Underage! This means no High School AU with sex, no teacher/student if the student is underage, zero adult/under 18 romantic relationships!

Incest! Incest includes adopted siblings, foster siblings, parent/child, step siblings, biological siblings, or any familial relationship, blood related or not!

Negativity towards any character or ship! This includes any sort of abuse perpetrated by a character intending to paint them in a negative light, negative statements about a character intended purely to express your dislike of a character, or things of that nature. You MAY write characters as villains! Writing a character as a villain asks the audience to disagree with the characters motivations and choices, not to dislike the character on principle. The basis of this rule is that your fic should not be written as a way to simply express your dislike of a character.

Plagiarism! While the tropes we use in our challenges are common and communal, the stories and words you create must be your own! Fanfiction is about transformative work, and taking concepts from other writers is natural! Inspiration can come from lots of places, but rewriting someone else’s fic is unacceptable. *Following our own rules, we want to let you know that all photos used in the TROPED: VISUAL Moodboards are from Unsplash.com —a source for freely-usable images.*

This is meant to be a fun and positive experience for everyone. We reserve the right to disqualify anyone if we are reading their fic and we think it violates any of our rules!

Because this challenge is NOT completely anonymous, feel free to share your fics and post about them to your hearts content! If you wish to remain anonymous until after voting, you can, of course, wait and post about your fics then! The non-anon only applies to this event, though, so if you come back to write for us in the future be sure to keep those lips zipped!

Follow along here on Tumblr, the TROPED Twitter, the TROPED Instagram, or our Discord Server for more information on the event! We will release our prompts in these places and then everyone is free to start writing!!! We are super excited to see what you guys create!! 

If you have any questions about this event, fandoms or pairings, or any other concerns please send them to our Ask Box or DM a Mod (@dylanobrienisbatman or @thelittlefanpire)!

[phoenixtakaramono]

Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!

[whatstheproblembaby]

AO3 Tag Meme

@klaineharmony tagged me like last week and I’m just now getting to this, oops. >.<

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

273, although I have collection of <1000 word stories that I originally posted individually on here and FFn, so technically I’ve written closer to 300 fics, probably?

2. What is your total AO3 word count?

497,239. Not half bad for a one-shotter!

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

5, if we count my Newsies/Supergirl crossover for both fandoms. The others are Glee, Riverdale, and Call the Midwife. (God, that’s eclectic to list.)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

They’re all Klaine fics, to the surprise of absolutely no one:

1. But Now I See, my blind!Kurt/sighted!Blaine fic. (Tbh, I don’t love that I took this prompt and made the big moment in this one curing Kurt’s blindness, but I wasn’t aware of how ableist that trope is when I wrote it. I’m not going to delete it because that feels like sweeping it under the rug, but please know that I know better now.)

2. Unforgettable, a Cheerio!Kurt/nerd!Blaine AU based off this prompt: “You probably don’t remember but you saved me from some bullies once in middle school and god damn it every year you just get hotter"

3. Finally Found the Boy, a florist!Kurt/barista!Blaine AU in which I utilized every trope known to man: “#okay but combine all four: person a works at a coffeeshop #person b works at a flowershop #they start fake dating to cover for person a who's lied to their parents about meeting their soulmate #but then they do whatever thing reveals soulmates while fake dating and start REAL DATING #THE END”

4. Covert Cupid, aka your classic nerd!Kurt/jock!Blaine gift-giving AU. (You know, like Secret Santa, but for Valentine’s Day.)

5. Make A Move, a Cheerio!Blaine based off this anonymous prompt: “a klaine alternate meeting fic where one of them is working at a kissing booth and the other one keeps coming back with money and asking for kisses “for charity” and they basically end up making out in front of everybody bc the kisses are so great okay love u bye” (Yes, I DID use a One Direction lyric for the title; no, I am NOT sorry.)

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Every time! At the very least, I drop a “thank you” and a heart, because I’m just that grateful that anyone has enjoyed my fic enough TO leave a comment. If there’s a more specific comment, I try to address it, too.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Uh, probably none of them? Happily ever after or BUST, pals.

...

Okay, I literally looked through all of my fics and this drabble is the only thing that even REMOTELY ends angstily. Plenty of my work has some kind of drama in the middle, but I firmly don’t believe in tragic endings. 

7. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve ever written?

I’ve only done one proper crossover (e.g., featuring characters from both universes), but I’ve done plenty of AUs based on other pieces of IP! My one true crossover is Just Be Real (Is All I’m Askin’), which mixes Newsies and Supergirl with a dash of past lives/reincarnation. Listen, when you put Jeremy Jordan in two things I love, I’m gonna find a way to combine those things, friends.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I once got called out for using the term “maiden name” in a fic, but I’ve never truly been flamed or anything. Hope that stays true!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Not often, and not outside of the Klaine fandom, at least as of right now. In those fics, I leaned a little more M than E in my ratings, and there were some D/s leanings, but that’s really based on how I saw that pairing. If I ever do smut for another fandom, I may totally mix up my kinks depending on how I see the couple/throuple/etc!

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think I had some stories posted to at least one of those random pirate sites back in the day? But I’ve never been deliberately plagiarized that I know of.

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I’ve definitely tried! Truffles and I worked on at least one co-authored fic once, but I don’t remember if we ever posted it.

12. What’s your all time favorite ship?

I’m only supposed to have one???

13. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Like many Millennials, I’m sure, it was Harry Potter. If you go digging in MuggleNet FanFiction, you should be able to find my terrible acrostic poems from when I was 14.

14. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Oof, again with the favorites? I have a couple that I’m more proud of than others.

Of my Call the Midwife fics, I love What’s in a Name? the most, simply because I included so many characters and feel like I managed to capture all their unique voices/personalities. And I created a moment I want to see on the show!

For Newsies, my 9k beast We Just Might Win proved to me that I can write more than 2,000 words without having to base the story on another piece of IP, and I’ll always love it for that. (And for Jack, Davey, and Kath, of course!)

I’m proud of all my Klaine fics on some level, because they unlocked a creative output level in me that I genuinely will not ever be able to match again. I think a crowd favorite of mine was my Sound of Music AU, My Heart Will Be Blessed, but if I had to pick a personal fave? I’d have to go with Destiny. Caroline @thehouseofthebrave gave me this incredible prompt for it, and I just love how I filled it.

I think a lot of people have been tagged already, so anyone who wants to do this should tag me as their tagger, but I also want to see @knightsofthegaytable‘s answers!