thatbeautifulbluebird

[thatbeautifulbluebird]

On fanfic

Home from family Christmas, where some of the extended relatives saw Wicked together while the in-laws stayed home with the babies. It was fun to see it a second time, and also inadvertently opened a discussion about fanfiction with the family. Wicked the musical is based on a novel by Gregory Maguire, which is in a sense a fanfic of the Wizard of Oz movie... which was also based on L. Frank Baum's original stories...

...so my friends, never stop creating. Reflect on your favorite theme, the thing that fuels at your soul, whatever you find fun and inspiring or brainrotting that won't leave you alone. Someday your work could be discovered, licensed, and or who knows turned into a Tony-award winning musical. 🤷 You're part of an important storytelling tradition.

[thatbeautifulbluebird]

We all know Fiyero is the true villain in Wicked for lying to Dorothy about literally everything.

Number 1 reason why I don’t like him at all.

Glinda and Elphaba’s relationship (whether you think they are just friends or lovers) is why I really like Wicked.

Boq is okay, and I can relate to Nessa’s little sister struggles.

I just don’t like Fiyero. He has always made me mad right after I saw the musical on Broadway.

“As Long as You’re Mine” is a banger though.

What if Dorothy DIDN’T react positively to the wicked plot?

[thatbeautifulbluebird]

@art-from-iso I also think you’d be the northern lights!

@megamagica1234 You would be star light, I think.

@newt-benjamin You’d be candle light!

[thatbeautifulbluebird]

Fanfics being stolen and uploaded on (audiobook) site "WordStream"

I wish there were no reason for an announcement like this right before Christmas… /sad /angry

What is happening?

Fanfics of people on AO3 (works from other sites could not be confirmed as of now) have been uploaded to the site https://word-stream.com.

What do we know?

The site has no legal notice - we can not see who runs or owns the site, who is behind this, etc.. All fanfics also have a ai-generated "book cover", which adds to the iffy vibes outside the fanfic stealing. Fanfics that were found there all match their originals on AO3 with title and author, mostly by tags, and by writing. The summary is often changed, but the works are definitely stolen. Example: Stolen WordStream Version That work on AO3

We checked more works and can confirm that this is not a single case but affects more works, but this is the only SFW work example we could find atm.

Assumptions after some research and digging we did:

To listen to the audiobook versions, you must create an account on that site, which leads to an info that this site has an app. Through that, the developer and potential person behind this could be someone named "Ofek Weitzman", who in term seems to be associated to a "Speechify Inc." (according to google results: Corporation Wiki Article, Speechify App Site, speechify.com).

Speechify does text to speech via an AI voice generator. It would fit the iffy ai cover vibes.

What we recommend to do:

It stands to assume that locking your works on AO3 is the only way of preventing this. So far, we've not found works that were locked on that site, so locking your works on AO3 can protect the from being (more easily) swiped by any bot etc.. Since the site has no legal notice, looking into ways to report that (it's it's illegal for a site not to have one in Germany for example) is likely an option.

Follow up on this and get the latest updated in the Fanfic Communities Network (FCN) Discord Server!

If you have more information regarding this - e.g. if works from other sites are affected too - please reach out to us in the FCN!!

[thatbeautifulbluebird]

Are we going to mention how Scraps kicks Scarecrow in one of the early Oz silent films?

If you watch the scene in context from The Patchwork Girl of Oz silent film, it makes a lot more sense, but I remember that I first saw this GIF without the context. I was extremely confused but was also laughing uncontrollably.

I feel like Scarecrow x Scraps as a ship gets pushed to the side a lot in the fandom, but I quite like it! It was also great to see some modern Oz adaptations take it into account.

Personally though, I’m surprised no one has talked about the sorta love triangle that exists between Scarecrow, Scraps, and Jack Pumpkinhead. Tincrow gets all the thunder in the books, but there is just something so fun about all of this. Although, Scarecrow seems to be winning the battle for Scraps' affection at this point…

RIP my boy Pumpkinhead

He ain't getting the girl today.

Can't get over that Scarecrow said she was the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Grade A flirting!

[thatbeautifulbluebird]

Happy Birthday!

I should probably announce when it’s my birthday

It’s my birthday

[thatbeautifulbluebird]

Okay, so I did make this several years ago…

And…

I

Have

No

Regrets!

Feel free to share this or screenshot it if you want to use it in conversation.

[thatbeautifulbluebird]

The wait is finally over,

A story five years in the making,

An adventure through time to unlock the secrets of the long-forgotten past,

An all-powerful goddess seeking revenge,

A romance blossoms between two best friends,

One family changed forever,

Will Dorothy and her friends break the deadly curse?

⋯⋯⋯💙⋯⋯⋯

Gale

A Sequel to Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return

Written by The Gale Narrator

⋯⋯⋯💙⋯⋯⋯

I am very excited to announce that Gale, my sequel to Legends of Oz, will finally be released to all of you on October 9th at 6:00 PM MST! The prologue and the 1st chapter will be released on my Wattpad account & AO3 account! Link to both pages below!

[thatbeautifulbluebird]

Can relate.

I feel like this a lot. In a way it's a nice and a bad feeling. Nice because there is so much I want to write about. Bad because I worry if I'll get the time to write it all. Overall though I'm glad I'll be able to add to my world for the very foreseeable future.