#it's a long 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.

[yeoldenews]

A selection of strange and cryptic personal ads from The New York Herald, 1860s to 1890s. 14/?

[mokimo-art]

can you imagine the smell of an idol after a 3 hour live show?

[punnifullife]

I always thought Mar’i would be best friends with Lian Harper and Irey West if DC let them exist in the same timeline. Ugh! Another missed opportunity 😔

Yess!! I think they would make great friends as kids. The possibilities with these 3, especially if they end up taking after their fathers... ohh boy. but there would be age gaps. Lian, of course, was an accident and even a secret for awhile. Irey (and Jai) came next and then of course Mar'i! She's the youngest, but as she grows older, she'd be the one getting the other two out of sticky situations.

Bonus: Young Lian meeting Mar'i for the first time

[shary-lemon]

First drawing of TFP Soundwave~

[dear-ao3]

i think the japan update of the f1 silly season post may in fact be the thing that kills me. this is all for you all.

[discard-celestia]

poster of lestat de lioncourt as liane de pougy:

based on a poster (under the cut) of french courtesan Liane de Pougy who was openly bisexual, left her husband armand, escaped to paris where she tried acting, had a long-term relationship with a woman whom she wrote a book about after said woman left her, had a long list of affairs, described herself as a terrible mother who saw her child as a doll to dress up, was regarded as one the most beautiful women in Paris, and ultimately became a princess. fascinating woman, really

Poster for Liane de Pougy at the Folies Bergères, Paul Berthon (c. 1890s).

[stankrhodes]

white lesbians (and white people that have no critical thinking skills generally) never should have gotten ahold of Hozier’s music and I stand on that particularly because they are incapable of thinking about Hozier as someone capable of sociopolitical awareness and activism in the same breath. If they can specifically look at the way his music is about objective “love” in the romantic sense, it can create a tunnel vision where they don’t have to think critically about what his lyrics are actually saying or even that he strongly believes in the power of activism through song. I admire Hozier particularly because of his storytelling and that deeply relates to his Irish identity and the levels of persecution and colonialism that are associated with that.

[schistcity]

To all the ladies out there please remember when you vote you are not just voting in the memory of all the women before you you're also doing it for Second Lieutenant Cecil Gedge of the Royal Fusiliers who passionately defended us against his entire debate club at Eton in 1884

[audliminal]

DP x DC fic where the Amity parkers are under government containment protocols and can't escape, and with heavy monitoring on all their Internet use Danny's whole class decides to band together to make an arg in order to slowly release information on what's happening to the outside public, without the giw catching on, and when it blows up, Tim gets dragged into helping solve it by Bernard, only the deeper they get, the less sure Tim is that this is actually fictional at all....

[twelve-thousand-pizzas]

Thinking about how this whole media culture right now with “You can depict morally bad things, just make sure that you only show them in a negative light!” And “Sex is gross always. No matter what. It just is. And also depicting it makes you a bad person.” Is SO reminiscent of the Hayes code. Please can we not have a second Hayes code era please please please-

[cordspaghetti]

feeling nuts ok so i was looking at the full page of that High School Drag interview after um going thru the 5 stages of decomposition over it and i recognized one of gerard’s other answers (about people grabbing their package) as identical to something they said in a much older interview so i was like oh are we pulling quotes from other things here? can i Search the Web and find the og source for what he said about doing drag? so i DID and i found each sentence of his answer, which i bolded, within larger quotes from completely different places, like:

“I like to think of it as a cry for help trapped in a pop song...When I was writing it, I was remembering how hard it was to be a 16-year-old in high school. I always wanted to be an artist, so I was this loner kid who just got drunk all the time. I only had one real friend. There was a girl I really liked, and she ended up taking really sleazy photographs with her boyfriend, and that really crushed me...I was just swimming in this pit of despair, jealousy and alcoholism.” (June 23, 2004 from mtv archive)

“I went to school in drag, in art school and my day was completely different because everybody thought I was a chick.” (we all know this one, earliest place i found it was here from 2003ish but i think the site’s broken now)

“You’re going to come across shitty bands and a lot of shitty people. And if any one of those people call you names because of what you look like or they don’t accept you for who you are, I want you to look right at that motherfucker, stick up your middle finger, and scream ‘Fuck you!’” (found this in a bunch of places, the earliest so far being Oct 22, 2006 on imnotokay.net where it’s listed as an “old article”)

for reference again the lad mag interview goes like:

“How did you find high school? Hard. I always wanted to be an artist, so I was this loner kid who just got drunk all the time. I only had one real friend. 

In what ways were you a loner? I went to school in drag. People call you names because of what you look like, because they don't accept who you are.”

so this has me thinking that at least this portion of the interview is entirely collaged together, with the context abt high school for the second answer basically fabricated? idk how common a practice this is in like. music journalism but LAD Mag (which this is from) was a magazine that came with copies of Sugar for free, so maybe the standards were different OR SOMETHING. idk maybe gerard just happened to repeat himself here. i want to believe in high school drag. but also their history with gender is important to meeeee and i want to make sure i am not consuming Fake Info about it !!!! 

[midoristeashop]

I swear I’m a hijack artist I swear here look it’s literally them

Also you should totally read snow-crested shrines by turkeyvultureinavest im shaking in my boots reading any fluff from them they are my everything

[cdelphiki]

Way off topic but you know something the state of Georgia does that every state in the union should do? Require restaurants and such to post their health inspections somewhere visible to their customers and also upload all inspection reports online into a database easily searchable by the public. My sister was going out to dinner tonight and right there on the door was a giant sign that said the restaurant had failed their health inspection yesterday (but it wasn't low enough to require them to shut, just post the "U" grade right on the front door). Usually the grade is posted somewhere near the register or at the little lobby area inside. I pulled up the report and read everything wrong with the restaurant. They have rats, don't wash hands, are storing food at the wrong temp, storing raw meat improperly, don't have properly functioning thermometers in the freezer, and aren't cleaning their ice/drink machines. Every state should have that kind of transparency. I want to know if the place I'm eating at is handling food safely! Food poisoning is NOT FUN!!!

[p1nkcherries]

Guys..it's literally 𝐹𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓀tober 😖🙏

Where are all the fanfics at bae?? 😔

[a-a-a-anon]