#went down a rabbit hole

[themirokai]

I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.

(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)

The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.

So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.

I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.

First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?

And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:

Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.

Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.

I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!

Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.

Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).

Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.

So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.

They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.

I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.

Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.

[flavia8]

Additionally, before the book, Lolita was just a normal name, related to/Similar to Lola. Plus the style was adopted/grew in popularity in response to sexism/misogyny in Japanese society. Dressing in Lolita style was a rebellion against those societal prejudices as far as I know/can find

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/lolita-fashion-japanese-street-style#slideshow=63778258&slide=0

[astrocorvus]

Gravity’s boring...

[taz19hagel38]

[amandamacncheese]

So I've been writing for a greater portion of my life than not and I kind of thought that I had a decent grasp on basic concepts of language like, for example, what a verb is...

And then I started "playing around" with conlanging.

Or maybe it started playing around with me.

[currently-getting-a-diagnosis]

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? IM GONNA GUT SOMEONE.

^Someone who's just found out about a 504 and an IEP plan.

[enigma-the-anomaly]

:(

[sketchy-noodles]

For context, me and a few of my fellow crows on Phil’s Discord had this idea of “What if there were Minecraft crows that were specialized and adapted to live in different realms/biomes?”

And now we have End Crows 💜

Transcript & closeups below:

END CROWS

A guide by Philza Minecraft

PHYSICAL ADAPTATIONS:

Largest of all crow variants

Thinner with longer legs (LANKY)

Wings & feathers adapted for silent flight

Sharp serrated beak for eating chorus fruit

BEHAVIORAL ADAPTATIONS:

Social! Seem to flock in large groups

Allergic to water (like an enderman)

Enjoy taking dust baths!

Hoarders of shiny things (have a weird obsession with spoons for some reason?)

Prefer dark environments

Nest in End cities/trees

OTHER NOTES:

Purple glowing eyes

Feathers have an iridescent purple tint

Surrounded by particles

DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT!

Tattered fringe feathers

Longer legs

Velvety down feathers on legs & wings absorb sound frequencies!

Serrated beak!

DIET: omnivorous

Chorus Fruit

Endermites

Etc.

[pokeberry5]

girl experiences gender euphoria and is immediately slammed by grief

for @litttlittt <3. this was supposed to be a portrait of caroline hill, but litta mentioned tim looking like janet when dressed as caroline and identity issues and angst and things spiraled

something about tim not knowing if he's his mother's child or bruce's or neither's.

figuring out the looks:

i wanted janet to have that poofy 70s hair

[breathingsong]

cuckoos are so fucked up

[stanleyscubrick]

Agnès Varda: ‘I am still alive, I am still curious. I am not a piece of rotting flesh’

[kiefbowl]

this is going to sound silly but it isn't silly, and I'm seriously saying this. I do think there is a slight feminist concern to alien abduction stories in so far as we can assume that when people, especially women, talk about their abductions and their abilities to communicate with extra terrestrials et cetera, they are someone who is mentally unwell and who has likely experienced something traumatic. alien abduction stories tend to have common elements even if there are details wildly different from each individual. those details are different because they likely didn't happen, but the common elements tend to be things like being taken from home, being violated, being exposed, having things implanted in the body, experiencing pregnancy, having secret knowledge, having a special connection to the extra terrestrials...

you can start putting some pieces together. yes, sometimes these elements are shared because they are what's heard in pop culture. you're more likely to imagine the details of a book you read or a tv show you saw than come up with something so fantastically new and original. you can imagine, for example, if someone is a say a seven year old girl being manipulated into sexual favors by a trusted adult and doesn't understand what's happening to her and has seen alien media and perhaps even has other messaging around her wrt sin, purity, worthiness, karma (what have you), and also perhaps is predisposed to mental illness, it's easier to believe she's a special person being abducted by other worldly creatures who don't truly mean her harm. you can see how a vivid child's imagination could lead to an adult believing memories that never happened.

and so the feminist concern is to not treat these stories as complete jokes and hoaxes and roll our eyes. I'm just reminded today of something I saw years ago. I think it was a Penn and Teller Bullshit episode on aliens, and they had a group of hard core believers talking about their experiences with aliens, and it felt like we were supposed to be laughing at them when at least one of them was a woman who truly believed an alien husband took her way sometimes and forced her to give birth and she had several children she didn't get to see in space, and she was clearly not very well adjusted socially. all I could think was is this a woman who's been raped? is this a woman who has been forced to have abortions? is this a woman who has had multiple miscarriages? is this a woman experiencing domestic abuse from a husband or boyfriend? but the episode wasn't interested in exploring that, and she stuck out as "one of these things is not like the others" when juxtaposed to fake professors trying to sell their weirdo books as a living or whatever else was in the episode.

when we say believe women, that includes "crazy" women. women who say ghosts are trying to kill them, who talk about people living in their walls coming out at night to steal their body parts, women who believe they are married to alien overlords since they were 12 and have birth 50 alien babies. these women are probably telling us something and I think we can say "I believe something has happened to you" rather than make a mockery of them.

[ashes-in-a-jar]

Youtube video titled "hi." that has Elias picking up a ukulele singing in the most upbeat tune 🪕 "hello Jon, apologies for the deception but I wanted to make sure you started-" 🪕

[bluejeanstrash]

i just feel like seungcheol would be hypersensitive to any changes in your body language while having sex? he’s just so careful with you, making sure that no matter what kind of play you’re indulging in or how far in you both are, you’re safe every step of the way — always in safe hands, always safe in his hands.

he’d pick up on the littlest changes, changes you may not even realise you’re showing, and would stop immediately ‘are you okay?’ ‘what’s wrong?’ ‘should we stop?’ ‘talk to me’

he takes his job very seriously. his job as your partner, your protector, your other half, your friend, and he could never allow himself to fail at it when it comes to you.

[sfordaisy]

[leisi-lilacdreams]

playing around with simple animation and sound effects

their black and red outfits are fun for shadow animations so i might do the others