thedenofcaseywolfe

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Hey remember how in 1995's Batman Forever, Val Kilmer's Batman straight up adopts a grown man. Dick is a 27 year old man. Commissioner Gordon is like "he's all alone in the world" yeah but he's also extremely grown. Bruce. Like, what.

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Normally when I share references or history stuff, it's about something specific. But, today, I wanted to share a treasure trove of a resource that I don't think I ever have before. So, in case you didn't already know about this site...enjoy the many rabbit holes at your disposal.

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

His wings had been hidden, as they usually were, but all the stress was starting to get to him. Getting to air his wings out, to feel them flex and stretch, helped to calm him in ways he couldn’t possibly explain. Perhaps it was the freedom, not needing to keep up the facade with magic, but whatever it was he felt better for it.

--Ashes to Ashes, by Casey Wolfe; Art by iamaslashaddict

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Now on AO3: Nightmares

Librarian! 13

So my dear, the chosen fandom iiiiis, *drum roll*  DEAD DROP!

For this one I used Nightlife by Rob Thurman, and the page talked about nightmares.  You have been warned.

The noise of the jet and the wind whipping by the open door was deafening.  He could barely hear his own voice as he yelled above it.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Where’s my money!?” the familiar voice demanded again, except he couldn’t see the other man.  His vision blurred further after the crack of a gunshot and vaguely he could hear the same man whispering, “It’s okay Miguel.  We can fix it…  I’m sorry…  Please Miguel…”

And then there was the sensation of falling, of his stomach dropping out, before everything faded to a brilliant white.  Then he hit the ground.

Keep reading

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Now on AO3: Avoiding Disaster

"I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” - Michael/Santiago, please uvu

“San…  SAN!”  As Michael bolted up in bed he found Santiago was kneeling next to him on the bed, looking at him in obvious concern.  Michael couldn’t help but sigh in relief, locking his arms around the man.  He rested his forehead on Santiago’s shoulder gratefully.

Santiago held him back, kissing the side of his head.  “It’s okay Miguel.  I’m right here.  I’m not going anywhere.”  He rocked Michael gently, helping to calm and ground him.  “Another nightmare?”

Nodding, Michael hated to admit, “Same damn thing.  I don’t understand it.”

Keep reading

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Now on AO3: After the Fall

Hannigram #83 please?

Post S3 finale.  Give me a prompt.

They were in some little beach shack near where they washed up.  It had clearly been abandoned, dust covering the beat up furniture and the scent of mold permeating the air.  Despite it not being ideal, it was something.

Hannibal sat Will on the torn couch in an echo of what happened in Italy.  Once more Will was hurt, but then Hannibal was as well.  They’d both sustained injuries from the Dragon, and surprisingly only some scrapes and bruises from the tumble off the cliff.

“I may not have thought it through how we were supposed to fix ourselves up,” Will admitted, groaning at the pain in his face.  At least the salt water had cleaned out their wounds and also helped slow the bleeding.

“No, that you did not.”  Hannibal cupped Will’s uninjured cheek.  “My William.”

Will could only manage a brief smile before the pain made him drop it.  He placed his hand of Hannibal’s.  “It’s always been you.”

Hannibal’s expression softened.  He knelt between Will’s legs, pressing his forehead to Will’s shoulder.  They needed to get cleaned and stitched up, needed to get out of town.  In that moment though, all Hannibal needed was his beloved.

/End

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Now on AO3.

Target Practice

For a-quick-drink & darlinjohn because we are a mighty fandom of three!  I blame Cole Hauser for this… as with most things in fact.  And I blame the whole nuzzling of the gun thing.

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Now posted on AO3.

I also wouldn't mind either prompt with Hannibal/Will ... I'm in a mood after the latest episode. ;-)

He hadn’t planned on catching Hannibal in the act.  Honestly he figured the man would have been long gone before then.  Still, now that he was staring at the scene before him, Will had no option but to act.

“Hannibal!” he yelled, pulling his sidearm.  Said man looked over at him, one hand still curled in the front of his victim’s shirt, the other holding a machete he must have pulled from somewhere in the garage they were standing in.  “Please,” Will continued, “put it down.”

He didn’t want to have to shoot Hannibal, didn’t want to have to put handcuffs on him, to trap him in a cage.  He wanted nothing more than to pretend he’d never seen Hannibal there, to allow him to flee into the night.  Will would probably never see him again if he did that, but it was a better fate than thinking of Hannibal trapped in a cell.

Keep reading

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Now on AO3.

"I just really need to have you here right now." Hannigrahm. Will calling Hannibal during his heat?

Well, I love A/B/O’s but this was the first thing my muse thought of.  *sigh*  I’m not sure what that says about me.

“Hello Will,” he greeted as he picked up his office phone.

There was heavy breathing and then Will replied with some strain to his voice, “I really need you here right now.”

“What’s wrong?”  When all he got was more labored breathing Hannibal amended his question.  “Where are you?”

Keep reading

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Now on AO3.

9. “Don’t you ever do that again!” for your fav BoB pairing <3

Well, we all knew where this was going to end up…  Dick/Nix/Ron, ftw.

“You!” Nix barked, causing Ron’s brow to raise.  “In here!”  He grabbed Ron’s jacket and half drug, half shoved him into the nearest building that wasn’t complete rubble.  Nix was probably the only man in the whole 101st that would dare to push Ron Speirs around.

Dick was on their heels, sending the men a look that they understood immediately to mean for them to mind their business.  Their gawking stares turned elsewhere as they made themselves look busy.

Barely in the door, Nix slammed Ron against the wall, ignoring Dick’s low chastising.  “Don’t you ever do that again!” Nix shouted.

Keep reading

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Now on AO3.

Brad, Nate, and Walt: There's something I've been meaning to say. (Is this allowed?? Whoops!)

Walt was watching Lilley’s movie with the others when he noticed Nate leaving, Brad gazing after him, his expression guarded.  He wasn’t really able to concentrate on the movie after that, sneaking peeks over towards where Brad remained.  Even once he slinked off where the LT had gone, Walt didn’t dare move.  He waited until a few of the others had started to leave before taking the opportunity to slip out without being obvious.

The factory didn’t have too many places to hide and so it didn’t take long for Walt to locate Nate and Brad.  He wasn’t sure what he had expected to find them doing- maybe having a quick fuck or even a desperate makeout session- but it wasn’t this.  Nate sat with his back pressed to the wall, while Brad laid out on the floor, head in Nate’s lap.

Keep reading

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Caleb + worry for Essek

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

Latin phrases to use as incantations.

This is gonna be a long list.

ab intra - from within

ab origine - from the source

absit iniuria - “let insult be absent”

absit invidia - “let envy be absent”

absit omen - “let omens be absent”

ab uno disce omnes - from one, learn all.

abyssus abyssum invocat - deep calleth unto deep

a capite ad calcem - from head to heel

acta non verba - actions not words

ad altiora tendo - “I strive to higher things”

ad astra - to the stars

ad fontes - to the sources

ad meliora - towards better things

ad oculos - to the eyes

ad undas - to the waves

ad victoriam - to victory

adsum - I am here

a fortiori - from the stronger/from strength

a mari usque ad mare - from sea to sea

audeamus - let us dare

audentes fortuna iuvat - fortune favors the bold

audi, vide, tace - hear, see, be silent

beatae memoriae - of blessed memory

bona fide - in good faith

bono malum superate - overcome evil with good

capax infiniti - holding the infinite

carpe diem - seize the day

carpe noctem - seize the night

cave - beware

ceteris paribus - all other things being equal

circa - around

citius, altius, fortius - faster, higher, stronger

clavis aurea - golden key

cogito ergo sum - I think, therefor I am

compos mentis - in control of the mind

concilio et labore - by wisdom and effort

concordia cum veritate - in harmony with truth

concordia salus - well-being through harmony

coniunctis viribus - with connected strength

consummatum est - it is complete

corruptus in extremis - corrupt to the extreme

crescit eundo - it grows as it goes

de novo - from the new

de profundis - from the depths

dies irae - day of wrath

dona nobis pacem - give us peace

ego te provoco - I challenge you

esse est percipi - to be is to be perceived  

esse quam videri - to be, rather than to seem

esto quod es - be what you are

ex animo - from the soul

ex luna scientia - from the moon, knowledge

ex scientia tridens - from knowledge, sea power

ex silentio - from silence

ex undis - from the waves of the sea

experientia docet - experience teaches

fac et spera - do and hope

fac fortia et patere - do brave deed and endure

faciam quodlibet quod necesse est - I’ll do whatever it takes

faciam ut mei memineris - I’ll make you remember me

facta, non verba - deeds, not words

fortis et liber - strong and free

fortis in arduis - strong in difficulties

gloriosus et liber - glorious and free

hic abundant leones - here lions abound

hic et nunc - here and now

hic sunt dracones - here there are dragons

hinc illae lacrimae - hence those tears

hinc itur ad astra - from here the way leads to the stars

igni ferroque - with fire and iron

in memoriam - into the memory

in nocte consilium - advice comes over night

libra - balance

littera scripta manet - the written words endure

locus standi - a right to stand

luceo non uro - I shine, not burn

luctor et emergo - I struggle and emerge

mare liberum - free sea

memento vivere - remember to live

more ferarum - like beasts

natura non contristatur - nature is not saddened

nec spe, nec metu - without hope, without fear

noli me tangere - do not touch me

ophidia in herba - a snake in the grass

pro se - for oneself

propria manu - by one’s own hand

quaere - to seek

quod abundat non obstat - what is abundant does not hinder

resurgam - I shall arise

semper ad meliora - always towards better things

semper anticus - always forward

semper apertus - always open

semper fortis - always brave

semper liber - always free

stet - let it stand

tuebor - I will protect

vera causa - true cause

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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

IN SHORT

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

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

his dyslexia; 

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

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

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

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

THE TAKEAWAYS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then I went to bed.

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

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

That response came only an hour or so later: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

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

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

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

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sooo—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you all so much.

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

My publisher is having a 50% off sale! Now is as good a time as any to add my books to your shopping list! Need something light and fluffy to cut the stress of the holiday season? One Bullet isn't a holiday story, but it does include Christmas all the same. The Inquisition Trilogy can provide refuge from holiday parties, winter vacation, or simply escaping into a world of magic for awhile.

AuthorCaseyWolfe.carrd.co

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

[thedenofcaseywolfe]

A resource to figure out travel times in England and Wales at three dates in time, c.1680, c.1830 and in 1911.