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.
Again, please, please PLEASE reblog this post instead of the one I sent originally. All the information is here, and it's driving me nuts to see the old ones are still passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.
five place grid penalty. billion dollar bounty on his head. lando norris terrorist attacks twice in one day. british commentators on his ass. no swearing. no video games. virtual safety car warfare. max verstappen gets his wet weather brazil masterclass a la 2016. max verstappen gets his red flag tyre change. max verstappen gets to 2nd place from 17th in half the race, and the only thing standing between him and p1 is alpines own esteban fucking ocon. franco colapinto you earned yourself that second redbull seat my friend. this is the kind of day poets die to witness this is generational talent this is magical realism formula 1 like youll never again see
There is something so inherently poetic about Ferrari— all the glory behind it's name, the decades of history behind the logo— and it's failures. The sheer splendor of decades worth of building its name to what it is, only to be stuck a step behind from greatness. Too close to rest, to far to push.
And yet, no matter how much they lose, it's still the dream of every young man stepping foot on the grounds of Formula One. It is the Formula One dream. The deep devotion that drives anyone with a Ferrari badge on his chest, the blind faith despite every blow. It's larger than a religion. A cult.
Because even in all its misery, Ferrari is Formula One.
Time after time, we have another spectacular driver who's won it all and won it again, coming to Ferrari in hopes of winning it all with a legacy to support. This deadly hope in the heart of every driver coming to Ferrari that "I'll be the one to change things. I'll be the one to give them back their glory." It happens over and over again because a martyr that does not die lives to create more like him.
It's a cut that always bleeds because not only do you lose your lustre and yourself in the process, you watch another young driver take your place and go through it all over again. Do you think the past drivers look at Charles and pity him? Do you think they warned him? Do they understand the feeling of losing yourself in the process of finding glory for the prancing horse? Do you think charles will feel the same about whatever rookie joins him in the coming years?
Because it's Charles' relationship with Ferrari that's the most poetic of them all. Every race weekend he gives his body and soul to the team, and this team— they don't know what to do with it. It’s all very Renaissance, bold reds and religious zealotry. He’s a walking tragedy. He knows how to suffer and does it well — he was raised Catholic, even if he doesn’t acknowledge God anymore. He acknowledged misery and that's close enough to God.
Charles knows what's wrong with Ferrari. Over the years, he's become well familiar with how they break you, but he no longer cares. Not when occasional glory is poured down his throat like white hot nectar. It burns, but the blisters too are rosso corsa, the colour of prestige.
He says "If this is a cage then I'd like to be kept in a cage my entire life." As if he thinks he has a choice. As if he has it in him to make the choice. He won't change being Il Predestinato in red to being Charles Leclerc in any other color. He was born for rosso corsa.
He says "At times I have not been merciful towards myself" but oh sweet boy was it ever your choice to make? This is what the prancing horse does to those who put a saddle on him.
They call him Il Predestinato, but for what? Predestined for what, glory? Ha, no. Predestined to be the next sacrificial lamb, is what they mean. Predestined to stand on the altar ringed with fire, bearing a prophecy that hovers its fingers over his heart, digging its nails into the warm flesh the longer he is unable to fulfill it.
And it's how we watch it all unfold. How we watch driver after driver sacrifice himself to the team, the team sacrifice him to victory and Victory's satiated sigh at the taste of winning blood before doing what she wishes. It's poetic— all the blood spilled with no respite.
It's the cycle of misery, the curse of the prancing horse.
Ferrari will forever be red on the canvas of history because it is stained by the blood of the heroes that tried to save it.
richard siken ("litany in which certain things are crossed out") / aurora ("exist for love") /andrea zanatelli ("and binding with briars, my joys and desires") / before sunrise (1995) / sufjan stevens ("the greatest gift") / @tallahasseemp3
It’s the onset of dawn. The dark night sky transforms into a beautiful shade of cotton white, colored with various hues of purple, blue, and pink. The sun, as usual, is slowly rising on the banks of the dark Yamuna, but today, her ethereal black waters carry a silent grief of her own as well as of the town of Vrindavan.
As beautiful as the dark night sky, lotus eyes as deep as the Yamuna waters, there sleeps the young beloved lad of Vrindavan, Krishna on the lap of the moon-like beauty of the town of Vrinda, Shri Radha.
“Have you taken your flute, Kanha?” Her soft voice, no more than a whisper, causes the young boy’s eyes to open in sudden remembrance.
Radha sighs with a small smile on her lips. Her nimble fingers bring out the familiar bamboo flute decorated with a peacock feather and pearls from her waistband. Her fingers reverently touch the flute for one last time. Radha’s kohl-rimmed eyes flutter close, as her fingers close upon each of the seven holes of the flute. There is no music playing anywhere nearby, but only her heart hears the heart-wrenching tunes of separation.
Krishna’s fingers tremble while holding the flute as realization sets in. The moment the chariot wheels cross the boundaries of Vrindavan, his flute would eternally go to sleep. The city of Mathura has no loving gopikas, adorable cows, and young boys with him to play the flute all day.
“Being a simple cowherd is not your destiny, Krishna.” Radha tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. As she looks at the tear-laden eyes of her beloved, she steels her breaking heart, her sorrowful eyes now staring at him like a powerful queen going on a battle.
“Your existence is meant for great things. You are to live your life like a king.” She points at the crowd assembled at Chief Nanda’s house, a grand cottage that looks tiny from the heart of the forest where they are in. “You have saved us and this town countless times. The world needs you. You are to be a savior for the whole world. For the whole Yuga.”
Krishna gulps his tears down his throat, which now burns like the fire of separation burning his heart. As a lone tear skids down his cheek, Radha’s voice grows bolder, and for a moment he wonders, how much strength does she silently possess in her being.
“Choose the path that leads you to your destiny, towards your dharma.”
Radha stands up. The golden rays of the morning sun fall on her gentle face coating her fair skin with a powerful glow. Krishna stands in awe of the splendor that adorns her face. Goddess. That’s what she is. That’s what she has been.
“You are the rising sun of Dwapar.” She holds Krishna’s hand and entwines her fingers with his. Walking towards the narrow forest path, Krishna observes Radha’s gait. She always walked with a swan-like grace combined with a little shyness on her face each time she entered the forest to meet him. Today, she walks with her chin raised, her eyes fixated on the path ahead that shall lead them both away from their love-filled carefree times forever.
Within moments, they reach Akrura’s chariot. Radha knows that Krishna hasn’t spoken a single word to her. She knows that he won't be able to do so, nor does she have the capacity to hear his enchanting voice when he is on the verge of departure.
The whole crowd looks at their hero. Krishna looks at the tear-stricken face of his parents. He hears the loud sobs of his lovely gopikas who pampered him with butter and milk sweets. His eyes gaze over the grim faces of his childhood friends. The cows of Vrindavan stare at him, sadness clouding their eyes, but those poor creatures can’t speak a word.
Gulping the last of his tears that clog his burning throat, he steps onto the carriage. Radha smiles. Krishna’s eyes meet her once again and she keeps on smiling.
It will get easier to leave, Kanhaiya. Baby steps.
Radha takes four steps towards the chariot. Handing over Krishna’s flute to him, she slowly moves back, her eyes fixed to the ground. The crowd goes silent. The sobbing gopikas cease crying and keep looking at the scene ahead.
Radha folds her hands and bows her head to Krishna. His heart cracks open at the gesture. He bows down to her all humbled.
“You may leave now. We wish you well on the journey ahead. Make us all proud!”
Radha then takes her position beside Yashoda who is on the verge of losing her consciousness. Nanda holds her shoulders, in case she falls to the ground in grief, but only Radha sees how his fingers shakily rest on his wife’s shoulders.
All this while, not a word had escaped Krishna’s lips. The hero must always promise a return to his loved ones.
“My beloved Vrindavan people, fret not. This separation is only momentary. I shall come back soon to tell you all about Mathura. There’s no escape from my pranks. Go, rest for a while before your loved prankster comes back.”
Radha’s vision goes blurry. Her dark beloved appears to go far from her.
“Such a mischievous liar you are O Shyam…”
The sun is soon to rise for Dwapar, but for Vrindavan, the sun has gone to sleep forever.
***
I am sorry :(
This was a dance idea but I decided to write a fic on this and then choreograph the abhinaya. I have cried while practicing this out too. Let's share tears??
Oh, yes I do love showing Krishna in mortal shades with grief, confusion and dilemma clouding him sometimes too. :)
*Me as a child, watching cartoons of Krishna absolutely demolish asurs* : MY POOKIE!! THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!! MY SONA MONA!! MY GUCHU PUCHU!! MY RASGULLA! MY PANIPURI! MY MATAR PAN--
Me now , a legal adult and a second year engineering student , watching cartoons of Krishna demolishing Asuras : AUR YE LAGA CHAKKA !!!!! BATSMAN KANHA AUR BALDAU UNKE KAMAL KI PARTNERSHIP KA JAWAL DIKHAYE HUYE-
Kundavai: The Thirukoilur Malayaman clan hates beauty, they think it is the enemy of valour.
Malayaman: And, your father was also Arinjayan's only son. He was handsome as Manmatha when he was your age. Neither in the Chozha family nor in any other princely family in Tamil Nadu was there anybody as handsome . . . Kings and petty chieftains from Lanka to the Vindhyas performed penance in order to be worthy enough to offer their daughters to him in marriage.
Neither the men or the women in my clan are known for their looks. The more battle scars our men had, the more handsome they were considered. And for our women, chastity and character were the ornaments, signs of beauty.
Malayaman brought up Vanamadevi by telling her that she was ugly, in a period when women were valued a lot for their beauty. It isn't like he inculcated confidence and independence in her by saying that such superficial things don't matter. He doubled down that women of his clan compensated for their lack of beauty by strictly following other regressive practises.
Vanamadevi too thought that beauty s an essential part of a woman's life. When Sundara Cholan expressed displeasure for dragging Mandakini to the palace, she asked her daughter to groom and beautify Mandakini.
The Emperor's disgust was evident in the way he referred to Mandakini as 'this'. Disappointed, Kundavai looked at her father . . . Malayaman's daughter came up to Kundavai and whispered, "My child! Isn't she unbearable to look at. What is the point in being angry with your father? Come, let's see how skillful you are in the art of making her beautiful."
Unfortunately, it worked very well.
He (Sundara Cholan) was full of appreciation for Kundavai's skill at makeup. "You have transformed a wild looking being into Indirani of Devalokam. But did you have to choose an old woman like this? Can't you demonstrate your skill on young girls like Vanathi?" he teased.
Vanamadevi must have spent her whole life feeling ugly and unworthy of Sundara Cholan. Her father was a regressive pos even for 10th century and her husband (who talks about his lover in his sleep) was the most handsome man in the three worlds. She must have consoled herself that whatever affection she got was a big deal because Sundaran deserved and prefered prettier women.
Probably Malayaman threw a party when she burnt herself on her husband's funeral pyre and boasted that his daughter was more pious and chaste than older widows from inferior clans, like Kalyani Devi (Arinjayan's wife) and Sembiyan Madevi.
Sita in Ashoka Vanam - The Reality of Nandini's Luxurious Life
In Ponniyin Selvan, many gardens are compared to mythological gardens like Nandana vanam, Madhu vanam and Ashoka Vanam but there is only one garden like the Ashoka Vanam of Ravana, built between buildings.
They went into an extension of the palace that jutted out into the garden, a latha mandapam. It was built like a passage, to link two huge palaces.
There is only one person who perpetually stays in the 'Ashoka Vanam'- Nandini. Periya Pazhuvettaraiyar too notices that his wife is always outside the palace.
Why did she often sit by herself in the latha mandapam? What for? . . . One more question rose in his mind: what was she doing there when it was well past midnight?
In fact, Nandini is never shown inside her husband's palace except when she is with other people like Kundavai. Pazhuvettaraiyar, Ravidasan, Vanthiyathevan, Kandan Maran, Aditha Karikalan . . . all meet Nandini in this gazebo.
Nandini's state didn't go unnoticed even by the maids of Pazhuvettaraiyar.
Once two maids came to the back of the palace. They saw the uprooted trees strewn around the garden. "Adada! It looks like the Ashoka Vanam destroyed by Hanuman, doesn't it?" said one. "If our Sita Devi had been here, she would have felt very sad", replied the other.
Nandini's meeting with Vanthiyathevan in the gazebo draws heavily from the imagery of the Ramayana episode of Hanuman meeting Seetha in the Ashoka Vatika, with her maid sleeping in the corner and Vanarkula veeran Vanthiyathevan complaining that people call him 'kapi'(monkey). At the same time, it is contrasted by Nandini's attitude and her extravagant attire.
Nandini too compares herself to Sita directly and indirectly.
Let them talk, Manimekalai. They spoke ill even of the great Sita Devi. And what did Sita lose because of them?
Whatever it is don’t mention that I am the wife of Pazhuvettaraiyar. I am not his wife . . . If a girl is forcibly abducted and brought home will she become the abductor’s wife by default?
Periya Pazhuvettaraiyar isn't as foolish as his behaviour suggests and deep within he too has an inkling of what is going on.
She kept talking about fasts and austerities but had never explained what they really were. It seemed like a ruse, the kind practised by cunning women one read about in stories.
All this can be contrasted with the big garden in Kundavai's backyard, where princesses are always dancing and singing. While there is a swan couch in Nandini's gazebo, Kundavai has a swan boat which lets her travel freely and openly.
It is questionable if Nandini even gets adequate food as she is always lying about undertaking several viratam and nombu (that is, fasting and fasting). The only relief is that Periya Pazhuvettaraiyar doesn't spend much time with her and she could be sneaking in some snacks or fruits.
The status of Pazhavoor Ilaya Rani doesn't shield her from the barbs of Kundavai.
I’ve often insulted her and made fun of her after she came back as the wife of the old man of Pazhuvoor.
It doesn't offer much protection against perverts like Kandan Maran and Parthipendran.
Blinded by passion, Kandan Maran grasped her hand and stammered, "I will do anything for you."
While he spoke, Parthibendran suddenly clasped Nandini's hands and placed them on his eyes.
To be frank, she is scared to even travel in the same boat as her husband fearing that he would do something to her.
Basically, the only 'privilege' that Nandini gets are jewellery and clothes.
The whole country knows that the Junior Queen of Pazhuvoor well known for her beauty is also fond of beautifying herself with the finest of dresses and jewels . . .Poor man, Periya Pazhuvettaraiyar! . . . He does not know about the fire that’s constantly burning in my chest.
Nandini's luxurious life, what she boasts to others and what others accuse her of, is mostly a myth! Other than exquisite jewellery and beautiful clothing, there is nothing pleasant about it.
thinking about this one tiktok user who said watching Ken's journey is like watching boys (brothers, cousins, friends) around you grow up and stop being sweet and gentle and innocent and become hateful and cruel and upholders of patriarchy and honestly? YEAH
Barbie (2023) really had Barbie say “hey. I know the reason you hurt me is because I hurt you. I’m sorry I hurt you, because you didn’t deserve that. I know you are a better person than this, and you are fully capable of being that person. I can’t change the past, and I don’t think we can be in each other’s lives anymore without hurting each other, but i am sorry and I want you to be happy. I want you to find your identity and love yourself and live.” and then she realizes she’s also talking about herself.
she’s saying “I deserve to live. We both deserve to live.” it is one of the kindest things I have ever seen done to someone and to themselves in any piece of media ever
