*at A Bar*

“I didn’t care about anything that was left. I thought it was all over with me, and there was nothing to try for—only things to endure.”

— George Eliot, from Middlemarch

Me: *starts getting into a new fandom*

Also me: *starts reading the fanfiction*

Alby: My mum is calling, everyone shut up! *picks up phone* Hello?

Chuck: hiiii

Winston: *banging on various things*

Frypan: EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE!

Minho: *starts making sex noises*

Newt: *screeching*

Thomas: AYE! PASS THE WEED!

Gally: PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!

my super homophobic relative asked me for ya books to read, preferably contemporary and u know what i gave them

ari and dante

muahahhahahahhahhahahahah they’re in for a surprise

#absolutely #the unnecessary heartbreak it causes #tag them as incomplete #pls

BEGGING ao3 authors to not mark their incomplete works as complete. You're messing up filtering for everyone for literally no reason.

I saw it on instagram and I just had to come here and share it with people, because it's good honestly.

I feel like despite being short (as in shorter than a novel), the story is really captivating and it's wonderful how easy you get in the story, like the whole universe and quest are perfectly built, it's amazing.

Anyway, that were just my thoughts on it, but I don't have any specific education in literature, so I might be saying nonsense.

Also, sorry if I did any mistakes, english isn't my mothertongue.

(Read it, it's worth it)

A mark on your forehead identifies the god you must worship to stay alive, usually by joining its local church or temple. Your mark is unknown, meaning an old, forgotten god sponsored you. To survive, you must either find an old temple to worship at, or do the arduous task of building a new one

Guys, I'm so shocked! I never knew the story of the beast of Gevaudan was inspired by a real thing, until I passed by this informative sign on the highway, earlier today :

(It means "wolves of Gévaudan / next exit")

(Sorry if I did any mistakes)

Thomas: Your future self is hating you for the poor decisions you’re making today.

Minho, chugging an entire pot of coffee: That’s cool, current me is also hating myself for making the decisions that I am making.

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.

In case you've missed it:

Here's the link to an EU citizen's initiative to ban conversion practices, it ends on Saturday (June 17th), so it is kind of a pressing issue now: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/043/public/#/screen/home