#authors writing

[enbyhiro]

Hiii!!! <333

Your oc Annabella is so cool and beautiful!!! :3

I was wondering if you can do Annabella's opinions (+ interactions) with Lynette and Cecil (my oc's) if that's okay with you ^_^

(hiiii !! thank you soso much (^з^)-☆ also sorry this took so long i got caught up in some schoolwork💔)

Cecil + Annabella

“Cecil? Oh, Atticus! Hmmmm… He’s definitely dedicated and overly prepared for whatever career choice he has. I don’t even think I’ve seen someone as bookworm-ish as him, and trust, I’ve gone to a school that’s just full of bookworms and overachievers. Hell, I’m an overachiever, my damn self. To the surprise of no one, his grades are really good, and the only ‘struggle’ classes he has are non-academic ones. Y’know what? I actually need to talk to him about that ‘cause he’ll need those grades to be better if he wants a good GPA. But moving on, the kid’s a real hoot, like he’ll flip out if someone interrupts his personal study sesh’, not good. Depending on the path he takes, he'll need to exit his lil’ bubble and interact with others more often if he wanna make it far in his career. ESPECIALLY if he’s tryna’ get into politics, like boy, you’ll need to talk a lot and be more attentive to your surroundings rather than just your books. Overall, a good, hard-working kid who just needs a lil' work done on him. But at the same time, who doesn’t?”

Interaction

Cecil speedwalks past a dozen-and-one students as he travels over to Annabella’s office. She spoke to him briefly in the library about wanting to speak immediately after school & to not quote, “...give her any lip on the matter. He’ll find some time in his dorm to study.” Bumping a couple of shoulders, he finally steps in front of her office door, a door that will lead to a very much unwanted conversation on whatever she needs to talk about that he won't pay any mind to. He precisely knocks hard on the gold & orange-decorated door; a soft “come in” follows shortly after.

“Good afternoon, Atticus. How are ya’?” Annabella greets him as he steps into the office, placing his bookbag in the brown chair adjacent to the one he sits in.

“Cecil. And I’m okay. What is this meeting about?” Cecil replies quietly.

“Right, Cecil, my apologies. That’s good, also! Anywho, this meetin’s about your grades and whatcha’ wanna do after you leave school.”

Yep, called it. Cecil knew she wanted to speak about something he had already taken care of.

Annabella furrowed her eyebrows. “By the look on ya’ face, you-on wanna talk for long. That’s groovy, that’s cool. I just need ta’ know what you wanna do for your career, and I need ta’ tell you ‘bout your grades and how to improve them.”

“Great, I— wait, huh?” Cecil stammers. “My grades are fine. I have an A+ in every class.”

“Every class you deem necessary, not every class. Photography and music are fine, B’s are still good, but shop and gym are whoopin’ you. Ah, sorry, I meant that those grades aren’t lookin’ the best.” Annabella disagreed, “If you’re tryna’ get a better GPA, you’ll hafta’ pull those grades up. It’s definitely achievable; ya’ just need ta’ put the work in. Plus, you still got some time, abooutt like 6-7 weeks.” Annabella’s hand placed over her mouth slightly, she tilts her head to look over towards Cecil. He has a very distasteful expression on his face, a mixture of disgust & awe. “Orr, you could just stick with the grades you got right now. It’s truly up to you; I’m just givin’ advice.”

“Why would I pay attention to classes that mean nothing to my future? And why are they even required?” Cecil huffed, “These classes shouldn’t even be on my schedule.”

“I’m studying to become a prosecutor, you think I wanna do art class either? The only ones I’ve opted out of are the ones I’ve already taken at my former school. We’re in the same boat.” Annabella countered, “But guess what I do? I still do the best I can in those classes ‘cause I like havin’ a good transcript and GPA. Something you’ll need if you want a good, easy time with college applications and college in general.”

Annabella stares into Cecil’s eyes sternly but with some compassion. She’s had this exact discussion with plenty of different students, each giving their own excuses & pushback. She understands, but she also knows that electives are required just as much as regular courses. Cecil looked ever so slightly perturbed, staring back into Bella’s eyes. They had a mini staring contest until Bella looked over to her clock, which read “3:56.” She did not feel like keeping them both here longer than needed.

“Look. I’m talking with you not just ‘cause Crab-apple will get on my case about it, but also ‘cause you’re a smart kid. Like, a super-duper smart, phenomenal student. Yeah, some of your grades don’t reflect that, and it’s okay. You can still get into a nice college even with grades that are a lil’ messy, so don’t freak out on that, but I don’t need you getting comfortable with flunking classes you don’t think are needed. ‘Cause trust, that’s a great way to get your lil’ self kicked outta college or on academic probation.” Annabella never liked lecturing any of the students because it mostly goes through one ear & out the other. However, Cecil seemed to be listening & was very silent, & one thing Bella knew was that he’d voice his opinion pretty openly & quickly. Glancing back over to her clock, it now read “4:05.”

“Let’s leave this meetin’ at that. I’m glad you found the time to talk with me, and I hope you take this into consideration!” Annabella concluded, closing the “Atticus Cecil Sinclair” labeled manila folder.

“I’ll think about it. It would be better to have higher grades, even if it’ll be a pain to raise them. Gym, especially.”

Bella giggled at the moping, “Yeaaa, gym’ll definitely do that to you. Well, I hope you have a pleasant rest of your day, Cecil!”

“Au revoir, Annabella.” Cecil bids his farewell, thankful she didn’t notice they never spoke on his career choices. Else, the conversation would’ve lasted another hour.

“OH, we still need to talk about what you wanna do after you graduate! Let’s discuss that next week!”

…Marde.

Lynette + Annabella

“She. Don’t. Play. And I do like that part about her a lot. This school’s all fu- messed up to the point where if anyone stands against bullyin’, they’re gonna crucify you. Though, sometimes she can be a bit much, which then I can understand why some may not like her. But even then, I know her persistence has helped somebody not feel alone and that there are people who care about them. Would’ve been real helpful at my last school. She puts up a good fight, and we need more like that around this bummy school, and once you get to know her well, she’s a super fun girl who has a heart of gold. I can definitely see her being in politics, law, or counseling."

Interaction

Fights. The average student loves them, the average student council member does not, and the average prefect has to break them up before blood splatters everywhere. This time it was two female students, loads of hair pulling & nails scratching away layers of foundation seeped into the other's skin. Annabella is the unfortunate prefect to have to see them fighting. ‘Man, why couldn’t one of the other ones see it first?!’ she thinks to herself. Seeing students run over to the fight, she knew she had to break it up before some others jumped in because kids just love to jump right into danger for some reason. She rushes over & grabs the shirt of one of the girls while pushing the other girl away with her leg.

“STOP! BEFORE I DRAG BOTH Y’ALL BY THE COLLAR UP TO CRABBLESNITCH!” Annabella demanded.

“SHE TOOK MY DIARY, SHE WON’T LEAVE ME ALONE. TELL HER TO—”

“PFFT, WHY WOULD I TAKE YOUR STUPID ASS BOOK, SNAGGLE-TOOTH?!”

“BECAUSE YOU WON’T LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE, YOU STUPID BI—”

Yeah, this is getting bad. The supposed victim of the book snatching was starting to break down, which made her more irrational. Her swings were beginning to strike Annabella, biiiig no-no. Annabella lifted both the blonde & the brunette by the collars, like she said, & began walking over towards the school’s front doors. Bella heard a collection of ‘woah,’ ‘narc, ’’& ‘ugh, buzzkill’ as she walked away from the well-formed crowd of students. She spotted a male prefect texting on his phone (amazing) & death-glaringly asked him to help with the escort. As the quad traveled up the steps, Annabella noticed the brunette sobbing quietly, her head hanging low to keep her face & tears from showing. This left a sting in Annabella’s throat & an ache in her heart. She knew that feeling all too well & just simply rubbed the girl’s back softly.

One long half-assed scolding from Crabblesnitch & Danvers later, the girls were given the option of either discipline or detention, but the catch was the girls couldn’t do the same thing so that they would be away from each other. The blonde obviously chose detention since it’s much better to sit around doing nothing than doing a ton of manual labor for 3 hours. It felt like some kind of extra bullying through school-mandated punishment. Annabella spoke up, stating that this isn’t fair punishment for one to do labor while the other gets to do next to nothing. Either they alternate punishment, 1.5 hours of detention & 1.5 hours of discipline, or they both get the same punishment. Soon after she spoke, Lynette walked in to agree, & she explained better on how one discipline & one detention is a lazy attempt at stopping a bigger issue at hand. The blonde girl slightly twists her head to look at the two, prompting them to stare back intensely. Crabblesnitch & Danver glance at each other before nodding in agreement.

“This is the third time I've had an issue with that girl & her bullying Angelina. That was genuinely the first time Crabblesnitch had punished her, & WE had to tell him how to!” Lynette was exasperated. Annabella has heard her complain about this situation between Joseline & Angelina more than she’d like to, but that fight gave her a good reason as to why Lynette was so keen on this hot mess. “When Angelina was crying on you, I heard her say that Joseline had ripped pages out of her diary & hid them. How insane do you have to be to do something that heinous?!”

Annabella pondered, looking at her grotesque pizza, before she slowly said, “I’m more concerned that Crabblesnitch don’t give a shit about the bullying ‘round here. Like, I knew he was an idiot, but damn, that is a great way to end up getting sued & for this school to goin’ down the drain.”

“RIGHT?!” Lynette shouted, & this caused a few to turn their heads. “Sorry, sorry, …But seriously though, he’s terrible for this school. His ignorance & encouragement is going to end up with a student ... harming or killing themself.”

The thought alone disturbs the both of them deeply, eliciting a shudder from Lynette & a deeply concerned expression to dash across Annabella’s face. They both feel the urge to do something, but what exactly could they do? It’s not like they could release a newspaper story on the severe bullying students experience within Bullworth. …Actually, yes, they can. That’s literally the newspaper club’s job. And on they went to bother Cecil & the others with their amazing plan!

thank you for the ask !!! heres my poor chibi interpretations of lynette & cecil🙏🏾🙏🏾 (i think the student council would have their own uniforms like the prefects)

[theaftersundown]

the holy grail types of fanfic

[ekingston]

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.

PLEASE check my later versions of this post via my main page to make sure you have the latest version of this post before you reblog. All the information I’ve been able to gather is in my reblogs below, and it's frustrating to see the old version getting passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much!

[charbroiledchicken]

if it's good enough for you, then it deserves to be made. don't let anyone else decide if your story is worth it or not.

[i-used-to-be-a-spy]

"you should be at the club" I should be working on my fanfic

[mr-something-0r-another]

[fromcainwithlove]

author’s notes today: hey guys so just a warning there isn’t 100% explicit verbal consent even though they’re both really into it so remember this is FICTION, also they don’t use a condom :((( but in real life safe sex is important!!! please be safe out there everyone

a/n back in the day: kept thinking about ____ stabbing knives through both of _____’s hands to pin him in place while they fucked so here you go lol =P

[put-a-keep-are-you-foo-dell]

[hayatheauthor]

10 Non-Lethal Injuries to Add Pain to Your Writing

New Part: 10 Lethal Injury Ideas

If you need a simple way to make your characters feel pain, here are some ideas: 

1. Sprained Ankle

A common injury that can severely limit mobility. This is useful because your characters will have to experience a mild struggle and adapt their plans to their new lack of mobiliy. Perfect to add tension to a chase scene.

2. Rib Contusion

A painful bruise on the ribs can make breathing difficult, helping you sneak in those ragged wheezes during a fight scene. Could also be used for something sport-related! It's impactful enough to leave a lingering pain but not enough to hinder their overall movement.

3. Concussions

This common brain injury can lead to confusion, dizziness, and mood swings, affecting a character’s judgment heavily. It can also cause mild amnesia.

I enjoy using concussions when you need another character to subtly take over the fight/scene, it's an easy way to switch POVs. You could also use it if you need a 'cute' recovery moment with A and B.

4. Fractured Finger

A broken finger can complicate tasks that require fine motor skills. This would be perfect for characters like artists, writers, etc. Or, a fighter who brushes it off as nothing till they try to throw a punch and are hit with pain.

5. Road Rash

Road rash is an abrasion caused by friction. Aka scraping skin. The raw, painful sting resulting from a fall can be a quick but effective way to add pain to your writing. Tip: it's great if you need a mild injury for a child.

6. Shoulder Dislocation

This injury can be excruciating and often leads to an inability to use one arm, forcing characters to confront their limitations while adding urgency to their situation. Good for torture scenes.

7. Deep Laceration

A deep laceration is a cut that requires stitches. As someone who got stitches as a kid, they really aren't that bad! A 2-3 inch wound (in length) provides just enough pain and blood to add that dramatic flair to your writing while not severely deterring your character.

This is also a great wound to look back on since it often scars. Note: the deeper and wider the cut the worse your character's condition. Don't give them a 5 inch deep gash and call that mild.

8. Burns

Whether from fire, chemicals, or hot surfaces, burns can cause intense suffering and lingering trauma. Like the previous injury, the lasting physical and emotional trauma of a burn is a great wound for characters to look back on.

If you want to explore writing burns, read here.

9. Pulled Muscle

This can create ongoing pain and restrict movement, offering a window to force your character to lean on another. Note: I personally use muscle related injuries when I want to focus more on the pain and sprains to focus on a lack of mobility.

10. Tendonitis

Inflammation of a tendon can cause chronic pain and limit a character's ability to perform tasks they usually take for granted. When exploring tendonitis make sure you research well as this can easily turn into a more severe injury.

This is a quick, brief list of ideas to provide writers inspiration. Since it is a shorter blog, I have not covered the injuries in detail. This is inspiration, not a thorough guide. Happy writing! :)

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks? 

Check out the rest of Quillology with Haya; a blog dedicated to writing and publishing tips for authors!

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[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[lannegarrett]

"I know adverbs are controversial, but "said softly" means something different than 'whispered' and this is the hill I will die on."

[enbyhiro]

it my birthday, i shall draw lola bc i can🙏🏾

[kriz-smthn]

[theblueeyedfirebender]

[goodluckclove]

Hey guys be cool and normal but reblog this with the homemade meal that would get you the most hyped as a child. I need it for reasons.