#Or maybe the whole fandom has me blocked

[b3achysurfur]

y’all ever see someone state the obvious and get mad

[reel-fear]

MIKE BLOCKED ME ON TWITTER FOR ROASTING HIS DUMBASS RESPONSE TO THE GRAPHIC NOVEL STUFF!!

grown ass man scared of the 19-year-old queer being mean to him over his public meltdown more at 8.

[stedesparasol]

y'know it's funny how we talk about certain fan reactions to izzy's death bc i watched the recent m*a*s*h documentary where they talked about abyssinia henry (an episode which kills off a major character) and there was a clip of the showrunner quoting angry letters he received after that episode aired:

'you tricked us' 'you sucked us in' 'we thought this was a comedy show' 'how dare you toy with our feelings'

this is a show set in the KOREAN WAR and people still felt a character death was a 'trick' and a betrayal. not only that but i cannot express how thematically relevant and important this death was for the entire thesis of the show. and yet they received 1,000 letters from viewers about it (though some were praising the episode, and it is overall viewed positively in retrospect).

idk i just found it interesting. this episode came out in 1975 and nothing's really changed.

start discourse on this post and i'll cut off your toes.

[innanzituttoticalmi]

i'm sorry if you genuinely think bozzi and leclerc "copied the other driver/engineer's strategy" i canttttttt take you seriously

[chocolate-cream-soldier]

-.-

[worldsentwined]

*tired sigh* every day I get one step closer to unfollowing the Murderbot diaries tag.

[scopophobia-polaris]

I think there are a lot of criticisms you can give to people who portray hylia as just evil especially when they project that onto any zelda, and end up sounding like complete misogynists. you can like evil women without sounding like textbook misogynist! not saying that you or your anons have done it I'm just venting at the tumblr fandom at large especially when they portray link as a man who can't do no wrong. plus the post was about morally GRAY hylia and not just Evil God Woman

Okay

[invertedspoon]

rewatched the 8th harry potter movie and i have to say that i used to think that Snape's obsession with Lily was really, really weird and creepy, but then the thought of "what if it was a queer relationship/pining" crossed my mind and that just made me go Hm. maybe a lot of queer relationships in media can have abusive or creepy undertones but are overlooked with the mindset of "look at the gay blorbos!!!". or Snape's crush was just really intense and i'm overthinking it. interesting. just something i observed

[carolinanadeau]

sometimes I worry that that blocked blog I almost-openly hate on here by saying everything short of naming names is actually a sideblog and they will find me anyway

[arborescreens-a]

what happened to users on tumblr that hostility is so rampant.

like i sometimes see a blog i'm interested in following, for their art or for their fandom, but i'll scroll for a bit before doing so- and just so much of it will be just utterly violent text posts about silly things.

like... i don't know. mental ill brain might just be misunderstanding some stuff, but the amount of times recently i've come across people just openly threatening their followers/mutals for interacting with certain things (be it a fandom, a ship, or a specific character) or putting certain things on their dash? is honestly worrying! :(

please be kinder.

[ekingston]

Hello! So sorry to bother, but have you had any updates on the Word-Stream/Speechify situation?

Just one: like I posted on Xitter and Bluesky last night, as of yesterday afternoon, the links to individual works as they were listed on WordStream are gone from both Google and Bing. Hurray, right? Surely we’re all sick of this whole debacle and there’s far more important things to worry about. If all is well that ends well, surely there’s no need to still be angry.

Well, I am. Here’s why:

When I checked on Wednesday, the links to my own work on WordStream were still listed. So rather than it taking a week after Cliff Weitzman first hid the fanwork from view, it took a little over a week from the moment he first promised privately that they would be deleted. Which, fine. Perhaps Cliff didn’t really know what he was talking about when he gave that timeframe. Or maybe he told a little white lie to create the impression that he always intended to do the right thing. It seems more likely to me, though, that Cliff still believed—even after the backlash he received—that he would get away with honoring only individual takedown requests. Or worse, that he needed just a little bit more time with the stolen material to figure out an alternative way to profit off it—preferably without us noticing, this time.

But who knows? I certainly don’t! All we can do is speculate, because publicly, Cliff Weitzman has remained completely silent on his copyright infringements. All we got was the initial justifications he and his sockpuppet accounts used in comments on the original Reddit and Tumblr posts. After those were so understandably ill-received, Cliff only ever communicated with a few individual authors who contacted him directly and repeatedly, blocking people who addressed the issue on Twitter and quietly distancing himself from WordStream by deleting a blog he’d posted to Speechify.com dated December 20th—where Cliff promoted WordStream’s platform specifically to fanfiction readers. (See my enormous timeline post for details and screenshots of said posts before they were taken down.)

And this is why I’m still angry: As long as Cliff Weitzman faces no real consequences for his actions, he won’t see a need to own up to his mistake; and as long as he’s able to delay taking responsibility, this isn’t over. This didn’t end well.

After all, wasn’t this the next-best scenario for Cliff, second only to him turning WordStream into a (for him) effortless, infinite money-making machine? He took something we provided for free and fed it to AI so he could more easily put it behind a paywall; we found out and protested; Cliff quietly erased all evidence of his crime; and we went—almost equally quietly—away.

I want to make sure you know that I continue to be genuinely amazed and intensely grateful for how quickly the news about WordStream’s copyright infringement was shared—and continues to be shared—throughout fandom, on tumblr in particular. If it hadn’t been for our collective outcry here and on Reddit, WordStream would very likely still be up in its original form, and Weitzman would be reaping the benefits (those subscription prices were steep) today.

But it’s been frustrating to see that, with the exception of mentions in articles on Substack and Fansplaining (the latter of which is a particularly awesome and thorough read on fandom’s decontextualization) and a Fanlore listing, our outrage never really spilled out beyond the safely insulated, out-of-the-way spaces that are tumblr, a handful of subreddits and bluesky. And I believe that—unfortunately—we are collectively responsible for that part, as well.

Most of us seemed content to only spread the word by circulating the same two posts on tumblr. (Have we all given up completely on every other social media platform? Am I the only remaining straggler?) And soon after Cliff Weitzman hid WordStream’s fanfiction category from view, our interest in the issue took a sharp dive even there. Are we genuinely deceived into believing the issue has been fully resolved? Do we truly fail to realize that Weitzman’s refusal to admit that what he did was wrong left the door wide open for the next greed-driven tech bro to wander through? Or is the true naivety in thinking that, as a community, we can keep this kind of attack on fandom from happening again? Has our disillusionment already gotten that bad?

However the situation spins out from here, Cliff’s actions will set a precedent. If we fail to show Cliff and his ilk that attempts to profit off fandom’s unpaid labor have consequences, their tech companies will keep trying until something eventually sticks. They might be a little smarter about it next time; obscure their sources a bit better, maybe leave the titles and the authors’ names off. Or maybe they’ll go a bolder route: maybe next time they cross the line they’ll do it boldly enough for IP holders to take notice and stop tolerating fanwork entirely.

Doesn’t that make you angry, too?

There’s this whole other mess of thoughts I would love to be able to untangle about how commercial influence is contributing to the steady erosion of fandom’s foundations, but I’m tired, and other people have said it all much more eloquently than I ever could. Seriously, go read that article on Fansplaining. Or listen to the podcast version of it. Better yet, as long as you’re wearing your noise-canceling headphones, go listen to a podfic of one of your favorite fandoms’ works, and enjoy the collaborative joy and creativity of the people who Cliff Weitzman refuses to believe exist. (In one of Speechify’s other blogs, Cliff claims there are only 272 podfics on AO3. Would you like to run that ChatGPT prompt again, Cliff?). Honestly, much like Cliff Weitzman’s infuriating denial of the fact that fandom fucking has this covered, thank you very much, there’s so. Many. More. Things for us to talk about. There’s the connotations of WordStream’s dubious ‘upload’ button, for instance, or the fact that the app scraped (and in some cases, allegedly, still lists) copyright-protected original fiction as well, or WordStream’s complete lack of contact information, which is illegal for an internationally operating app. And oh! Has anyone reported more thoroughly on Cliff’s app’s options to ‘simplify’ or ‘modernize’ uploaded works, or—my own very favorite abomination—to translate them into something Cliff calls ‘Gen-Z Language’? Much like his atrocious AI book covers, it would be hilarious, if it didn’t make steam come out of my ears.

Anyway, there it is. I highly recommend you do all of that. And then, if you aren’t familiar with it already, go do some research re: fair use and your rights as the copyright owner of your works. A good number of people commenting on this controversy expressed stunned surprise or fearful hesitation about claiming any sort of ownership of their fanfiction. The more informed we are about our rights, the more willing we will be to defend them.

Please don’t stop writing or sharing your work. If you can’t bring yourself to work on your WIPs today (trust me, I get it), post about this situation instead. Tweets, skeets, whateverthefucks—about WordStream’s theft, about how this reflects on Speechify’s already shady business practices, about how Cliff’s actions and justifications have personally affected you. You’re welcome to share or copy my posts on these platforms, but since Cliff already blocked me, I very much prefer you post your own. If you do, call Cliff Weitzman by his full name and tag or include both WordStream and Speechify to ensure Weitzman will recognize he has both a personal as well as a professional stake in handling the situation with integrity. Leave your concerns in reviews on the Speechify app. (We weren’t provided with a more appropriate place to put them, after all!) Consider calling for a Speechify boycott until Cliff accepts accountability for his actions.

Do avoid making exaggerated claims, and don’t call for physical retaliation against Cliff’s person or his property. We don’t want to give him or Speechify even the weakest of grounds to claim defamation or threats of violence. Focus on the facts: they’re incriminating enough by themselves. Show Cliff that we’re determined to keep bringing up his company’s wrongdoings in public spaces until he demonstrates that he understands why taking these freely shared fanworks and monetizing them was wrong, and takes steps to ensure it won’t happen again.

One last thing—and this is really more of a general reminder—please stop suggesting I handle this situation for you. People have come to me asking for action items. The resulting flashbacks to my days as an office assistant were extremely upsetting. In all seriousness, casting me as some sort of coordinator or driving force behind this backlash actively hurts the cause. Not only does it downplay fandom’s collective efforts, it also makes our message extremely vulnerable. It would be all too easy for Cliff to silence one singular source. Wikipedia will not maintain mentions of this controversy as long as it leads only to Easter Kingston’s attempt to summarize what happened as it was happening. You only know my name because I stumbled upon WordStream’s theft and decided to get my friends involved. I am not more knowledgeable, more skilled or more angrily invested in this issue than you are (or can, or should, be). I draw pictures and I write stories and I worry about the shift I’m seeing in fandom after having been on this ride for even a few pre-livejournal rounds.

I’m not going to stop doing any of those things. But I am going to allow myself to step away for a bit, make my wife dinner, and catch up on our shows.

I trust you’ve got it from here.

[bluestarlett]

My CCCC hot takes

I’m seeing a lot of controversial opinions/callouts/hot takes in fandom and I just wanna give my 2 cents

listen I’m all for crazy cccc fan creations like it’s great but can we as a fandom collectively treat whole at least somewhat normally

and CJ HIMSELF cough cough.

I think it is severely harmful with the way some people treat Whole or CJ as a ‘character’ because he’s not… really as much of a character as HMS. There’s much bigger of a line to be drawn with him than there is with HMS. AND DONT GET ME WRONG! I’m a sucker for Whole content. And I also realize that Whole and Harmonia are kind of separate entities/ideas. I’m not talking about Harmonia here. Go wild with Harmonia. But please be normal with whole and cj

like that’s a real fucking man.

also this one is gonna be a little controversial with some people but. Tw for nsfw mention?

I think CCCC smut in itself is already pretty weird, or torture porn or any of that shit but ESPECIALLY when it directly involves Whole/CJ.

like, CJ himself has specifically asked people that whatever shipping or nsfw content they do with HMS, just keep Whole and himself out of it. And people can’t even do that! SOME PEOPLE (you know who you are. Or maybe you don’t bc I have you blocked) even go out of their way to break EVERY SINGLE BOUNDARY HE HAS SET for ‘fun’ and proceed to claim that it ‘isn’t actually harming anybody because he’s a grown man and it’s a joke’ when it. Very much is harming people. Not to mention he is HARDLY a ‘grown man’. / very directed (I don’t say this to infantilize Chonny whatsoever, but to say that he was literally FRESHLY 21 when CCCC began, and even now he’s not even 20 fucking 4 yet. It’s weird. Especially when people that are OLDER THAN HIM WRITE SMUT OF HIM???? Lowkey nasty if you ask me) and frankly, even if he was older, in no way does that mean that shit like that wouldn’t still harm him. Idgaf if you think he’s annoying, nobody thinks shit like that is funny.

And I know maybe it’s hypocritical of me to say “oh shipping is kind of weird here” as a profound eclipser however I mean the general fanon shipping. Especially on AO3. I think toxic/abusive yaoi is. Lame! Thankfully a lot of the Eclipse content online is actually pretty sweet more often than not, however in earlier fandom days everybody was crazy about them the way Omori fandom was about Sunnflower. Derogatory.

Bloodmoon however.

I’m not naming names but almost ALL of the bloodmoon content (on AO3 at least) is weird torture porn shit and soul is so fucking abusive and weird and??? Can we be normal about Soul and Heart ever. Not even just shipping-wise just as characters. Yall r so weird about these mentally ill men like girl they are based off of a REAL MANS TRAUMA !!!!

So, in much more respectful words,

please remember that Chonny Jash is a real person.

Please remember that HMSW are based off of a real person and his trauma.

thanks xoxo

[ao3-shenanigans]

I have a confession, and a question. I have rewritten my longest fic to-date a total of six times and have an entire extended universe planned. The problem is, I only make progress if I'm writing it out by hand. The slower pace of writing with a pen or pencil forces me to pause and think far more often than typing and makes it much easier to deal with grammar and spelling errors down the road. It also has the great side effect of helping to keep Writer's Block from taking hold. How do you deal with writer's block?

Ah man, writers block hits me so hard!

Some tips and tricks I’ve heard that help:

1. Make a short-term outline

- maybe not the whole plot but rather a short scene or set of scenes. Ex:

(1) Character A picks a fight -> (2) Character A looses fight -> (3) Character B finds them and takes care of them

2. Make a list of things you would want to read in a fic

- be self indulgent! This is your fic after all!

- listing moments you’d like to have can sometimes get the creative flow excited again

Ex: Jon and Martin kiss, someone calls Elias a Saucy Minx and he has to put up with it, Sasha gets to stab Peter, Tim gets to have a sick day where people take care of him

3. Write scenes out of order!

- write that sappy epilogue first if you want!

- stab that sad little man! Figure out why it happened later!

4. Write a few sentences or scenes from a different perspective

- can be that of a different character, an animal watching, a passerby or even an inanimate object! 

5. Write with a friend! Co-authoring a fic or even parallel writing can help with motivation

6. Write a one shot while taking a break from Your main project!

- sometimes something short and sweet can get the dopamine flowing again

7. Write by hand!

- the old notebook trick!

- or even changing the font sometimes helps!

8. Don’t allow yourself to edit or fix typos!

- let yourself ramble on to the page for a bit! You can’t edit what’s not there!

9. Read someone else’s work!

- fanfic or traditionally published work! Mix it up!

10. Re-engage with the source material!

- remember your roots!

11. Change the weather!

- maybe the fight isn’t working in the rain, but how about sleet or snow? Searing desert heat?

12. Change the format of the fic

- try writing it in second person or as a screen play

13. Leave bits out

- start with only the dialogue or only the setting descriptions

14. Talk it through with a friend or fandom buddy!

- explain the story and ask them questions, brainstorm answers together

15. Remember that it doesn’t need to be perfect!

- getting fixated on plot holes or mischaracterization can be detrimental to enjoying the act of creation that writing is

- as fanfic readers, we genuinely don’t mind that much; its the whole “Holy shit two cakes!!” situation, the fact that you’re willing to share this thing you’ve written and labored over with us for free is a gift in and of itself

- have fun! Be silly! Don’t fret about it!

[haletostilinski]

What's my next poll(s)? Well, a ship battle, of course.

Now that we've got our Ultimate Sterek Moment, it's time to move onto a new set of polls. A ship battle. An ultimate ship battle. So, a few things first:

I tried to come up with as MANY ships as I could. I managed to come up with 128. Yes, that many. This is the ship battle to end all ship battles, I guess! Some are a bit out there or more 'meh' but I wanted to try to include as many as I could. I even scoured the internet a bit to find some more out there ships people ship to add them to the list. There are also some poly/threesome ships included in this, as I wanted to be inclusive to those ships as well.

I tried to keep the most popular canon/fanon ships far apart from each other on the bracket to try to keep them away from competing against each other too early. That said, if it somehow ends with with two big ships against each other a bit too early...well, oh well. It is what it is. And also, for the rest of the ships I let the site I used just kinda put them in a random order.

WARNING: Obviously, NO SHIP HATE IN THESE POLLS. Keep it civil! You can disagree with the winners if you're bummed yours didn't get through to the next round/didn't win, of course, but don't go hating on the other ship or its shippers. Also no fighting amongst each other, either. That will not be tolerated and if I see that I will either delete the comment if I can/give a warning/block the user/or if it's too many people going too far I will shut this WHOLE thing down. This is meant to be fun and not serious. Remember that, please.

No ship and shipper hate ANYWHERE, on ANY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM. Not on twitter, tiktok, freaking youtube or instagram, wherever.

HATE WHILE LINKING TO AND ASSOCIATING WITH MY POLLS which could mean quoting or replying to someone linking to my poll! - WILL NOT BE TOLERATED

Also, it should go without saying, although there is no true evidence of this, but I remembered that in the last poll I did on twitter, a Thiam shipper or shippers ended up botting for it. Although this doesn't just go for Thiam, but anyone - although truly so far these polls have felt genuine and unbotted and I don't truly suspect anyone will going forward. BUT just incase: If there is ANY significant spike in the votes from now on, in a very short period of time - like say jumping 10% points or something in like an hour of time or something - I will assume botting has taken place. If someone is making more than 1 account on tumblr to vote, i.e. fake accounts, that is also cheating and THAT SHIP WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DISQUALIFIED. Again, I don't suspect ANYONE (this round) of doing it at the moment, not truly and don't think anyone will. BUT it's a good rule to put forth JUST INCASE.

There are some weird/out there/ships maybe some have never heard of in this, because I tried to think of as many as I could (and even then, I don't think I got every teen wolf ship out there) to be as inclusive as I could. Please refrain from making mean comments/laughing at/hating on a ship that's included that's not a more normal ship in the fandom, thank you. If you're bewildered by a ship, just keep comments to a very nice and polite "huh?" As I said above, I will shut this whole thing down if there is too much judgement/hate/etc...

ALL of these ships are meant in a ROMANTIC way, no other way. So vote which one you think is better in a ROMANTIC way, not a platonic way. Even if you don't ship it. If you don't like either and really don't want to vote for either or, then it's okay not to vote in that specific poll.

Because this is a ship battle, there will be two ships per poll. So you're about to see a LOT of poll posts from me...just a warning if you're wondering why there's going to be continued ship poll posts from me 😭

As always, every poll will have a 1 week duration. I will show the brackets as they stand below. And after every round, I will show the updated version, pinned to my blog if you're curious to see every winner of every round.

Lastly, have fun! Let's see what ship lands on top 😎

Here are the brackets - ignore the numbers on them, the site I used just did that🤷‍♀️ (and you'll have a pretty good idea who the winners will be up against next round as well). I will start posting the polls momentarily (but might not get all of them up right away, that might be staggered.)

[small-but-oho]

EDIT: Since this kinda broke containment: THESE ARE MY PERSONAL FEELINGS. If you agree, let me know and we can connect! :D If you disagree, that's awesome. Keep doing your thing. I do not want to tell anybody that the way they enjoy g/t is wrong.

I think I've cracked the code of why the overwhelming amount of g/t fl/uff (censored so it doesn't show up in its tag) makes me uncomfortable: there just are no stakes.

Like, to me, g/t stories need to have a power imbalance. That's the whole readon for the trope to exist. Just like bd$m or v0re or, fuck, even just boss/employee stories, the inheirent difference in power - literal or social - is the whole point of it.

And, no offense, but all the posts about friendship and r0mance between tiny and giant just... play that down? Maybe it's because the trope has been done to death and back (we're all in its fandom after all), and people just wanna skip to the part that is new in their story. Nothing wrong with that, I'm not trying to police what people are writing. I'm mostry just airing out my own thoughts here.

But that also kinda takes out the tension? I've once read a comparison online, that in real life, two people clearly communicating their problems is good and healthy, but in a story, it takes out the stakes. Stories usually need points of tension building up the closer we get to the climax, with a big finish, and a drop in tension towards the end.

And this may just be me bitching, but I remember a time when the g/t tag was full of fearplay and looming and angst, where evil giants were as plentiful as sand in the desert. And now that's almost a rare trope. A lot of people I follow who used to post lots of angst, now primarily only post fl♡ff, which, again, do as you want. I'm just wondering why this shift occurred.

To me personally, g/t is a good way to explore these feelings, of feeling small, weak, at the mercy of a being so much bigger than me. Bad things need to happen to the tiny, because it's somewhat of a stress release. And if you've read this far, thanks and please don't block me.

[superunnaturalsammy]

Man I gotta say a controversial take..

If you hate Wincest shut up about it ok.

Hear me out, I am not personally a Wincest shipper, it's really not my cup of tea. However, I'm also not a fuckin thought cop and I feel like posting over and over about how much you hate something other people like is stupid.

They aren't real people, I will repeat, SAM AND DEAN ARE NOT REAL. So the whole 'it's immoral' argument is a bit silly, people aren't saying that this is fine in real life, as far as I know Wincest shippers know it's wrong (maybe part of the appeal IDK). These shippers aren't advocating for real life incest they just like the idea of *fictional* characters together stop policing other people's minds.

Another thing, if you hate it so much why are you thinking about it constantly like if you posted about it less you'd probably get less posts recommended about it. It's amazing the way you can curate your internet experience. Simply block people who post content you don't like and block tags of things you don't like. It's so irritating to me, because I will see one overt Wincest post a day but I will see a dozen anti posts every time I open the app. Most of the time I see people bring it up they are antis. I just hate seeing people posting that they wish they could purge people who like a ship from the fandom. Who's next as well, we start with Wincest and then what, Destiel? Sastiel? Sabriel? like again y'all sound like cops.

And lastly, if you don't like Wincest you may need to just find a different fandom. Wincest is baked into the fandom, it's a ship that has existed since the beginning (it may be the oldest big ship in the fandom). There are references to it in the show, it's something that Eric Kripke and Sera Gamble wrote into the show, you can't remove it because it is part of the show. You don't have to like it or ship it or interact with it but you can't get rid of it so either suck it up or leave...

Thank you for coming to my TED talk LMAO.

TLDR: Stop complaining constantly about ships you don't like.