hold on, it gets worse

[toptony]

Does anybody else get legitimately worried when a fanfic author who was updating regularly just suddenly disappears with no warning? Like, is it a serious case of writers block or are they in a coma? Did they just up and quit? Was it me? Were my reviews not good enough?! Did they die 😳?! Were they kidnapped? Do I need to file a missing persons report? Excuse me officer, there’s been 13 weekly updates and now nothing for months! Find them! What’s their name?! Name!? I don’t know their name but they write 3k+ chapters and I need them safe and back in my life!

[naughtylupine-deactivated202305]

Sir, that’s my emotional support fanfic author.

[japan-magpie]

I feel the same way about fan artists too, they just vanish

@nolikereally

[nolikereally]

I didn’t die! I lost my laptop (along with two fics I was writing on commission) and I had a major life crisis followed by another major life crisis followed by a baby, and now I have a super cute 18 month old kiddo, an absolutely ridiculous major life crisis unrelated to baby, and profound anxiety about having left fandom and lost the fics I was supposed to write. I don’t even have contact info to refund the $20 I was paid. :(

Anyway I miss fandom still and I’m just waiting for the next one that scratches the itch and spurs me back to AO3. ❤️

[otter-von-bismarck]

They’re at it again.

Just a note before we start: Please do not contact AO3 or OTW about this issue. Over 12,000 people have seen this info and they’ve been contacted repeatedly.  Trust me, they already know.

Remember the Goodreads fanfic debaucle?  Well, another site is now doing it, only they’re worse.   I just found 13 of my stories listed over on ebooks-tree.com, a for-profit site where I neither uploaded them nor authorized anyone else to do so.

I have a very clear statement that says I do not want my works or translations published on any platform other than AO3, for various reasons, yet this seems to have been completely ignored.

Unlike Goodreads where just one person uploaded thousands of fics and Goodreads didn’t set out to steal them, the ebooks-tree site does, and has purposefully sent out bots to harvest them from AO3.

They make revenue off your work via ads and if you want to see any reviews which have been left on it, or even check the text to confirm it’s yours, they want you to create an account with TzarMedia for access (and requires a credit card for sign up).

“Access Required.You need to create an account to gain permission to access unlimited downloads & streaming.“ “Take advantage of our special promotional offer to gain unlimited access for 5 days for free.”

Which, gee, that last line sounds like they’re charging for access to your works, too.

If you write fanfic, please check the site for your own works, Google for your name and the ebooks-tree site and/or check for your AO3 username directly in the site’s search bar.

I just wrote them a letter requesting that they be removed.  I guess we’ll see what happens.

Just a few people’s works I’ve found so far:

[clip for brevity, see original post for details]

This is not a comprehensive list - please check the site for your works.

Please reblog/signal boost this so as many authors as possible know about it.

If you find your works on their site, please leave a comment so we can get a better idea of everyone whose work has been compromised and some sort of rudimentary count.

Also, even though mine is a long list, it is nowhere near all-encompassing.  If you have time and energy to do so, please check for other authors that you’ve read or actively follow (if they’re not already listed above) and let them know if their works show up there.

Note: Valeria2067 pointed out their DMCA link that explains how to get these removed.  They make it look quite a bit more difficult (and expensive) than it is.  It costs nothing, you don’t need a lawyer or anyone to represent you, even though they make it seem that way. I’ve written AO3 to see if they can aid us in the removal.

In the meantime, see this post for how to request a removal.

[nolikereally]

ah shit man they got me! props to @eddarota, who let me know. although tbh if somebody was actually willing to pay money to read my dwarf-on-elf dickscapades I would be SORELY amazed

[katyhargrove]

You guys! Get your fanfic needs on at booth 1418 with Now Kiss!

[nolikereally]

The incredible Katy Hargrove took a picture of my fanfiction booth at ECCC. Fun fact: I owe her some unholy combination of money, blood, and babysitting for the use of her booth space for this travesty.

I got some rad as fuck commissions, though.

[nolikereally]

Emerald City Comic Con!

If you’re at ECCC this weekend, I will be at the booth with Artists of Sketchwich today and Sunday, writing terrible fanfiction for money!

Come see me, get a gross story written about your OTP or your NOTP, and demand my face-to-face apology for writing so much nasty smut!

[nolikereally]

Emerald City Comic Con!

If you're at ECCC this weekend, I will be at the booth with Artists of Sketchwich tomorrow and Sunday, writing terrible fanfiction for money! Come see me, get a gross story written about your OTP or your NOTP, and demand my face-to-face apology for writing so much nasty smut!

[humortrain]

[rinnirrinnir]

Thorinduil

[zefram-cockring]

[apfelgranate]

#10% inspiration 40% perspiration 50% spite

[the-thorster]

Jupiter Ascending + Text Posts

[starscreams-tiara]

doomstarrequiem

[nolikereally]

I loved this movie to the point that I ALMOST feel bad about howling with laughter and scorn the whole way through

[jamesluckycl0ve]

look all i wanna do is write a fanfiction so painful and heartbreaking that people tell everyone about how horrific it was and it becomes notorious and people message each other and warn their friends about it

[nolikereally]

actual life goals

[thoughtsupnorth]

Pencil sketch of Queen Melian and King Thingol! (Able to produce the most beautiful Child of Iluvatar? You bet.) I’ve only drawn the two of them once before and I wasn’t totally happy with either of them. The only thing I really kept from my first try is Melian’s white eyelashes - they are my lifeblood, ugh, I love them. Her hair is an homage to scorpionhoney and luaen although they draw that beautiful Melian bouffant way better

[misbehavingmaiar]

unbearably gorgeous! *o* I love Melian’s little Heian-period eyebrows!

[nolikereally]

Melian is one of my favorite ANYTHING from the Silmarillion and this rendition of her is shattering. And yes, ugh, those white eyelashes make me want to throw myself on a bonfire in abject worship and sacrifice

[broadlybrazen]

[…] Most of us know the drill. Someone says something that supports the oppression of another community, the red flags pop up and someone swoops in to call them out. But what happens when that someone is a person we know — and love? What happens when we ourselves are that someone? And what does it mean for our work to rely on how we have been programmed to punish people for their mistakes? I’ll be the first person and the last person to say that anger is valid. Mistakes are mistakes; they deepen the wounds we carry. I know that for me when these mistakes are committed by people who I am in community with, it hurts even more. But these are people I care deeply about and want to see on the other side of the hurt, pain, and trauma: I am willing to offer compassion and patience as a way to build the road we are taking but have never seen before. I don’t propose practicing “calling in” in opposition to calling out. I don’t think that our work has room for binary thinking and action. However, I do think that it’s possible to have multiple tools, strategies, and methods existing simultaneously. It’s about being strategic, weighing the stakes and figuring out what we’re trying to build and how we are going do it together. […] Because when I see problematic behavior from someone who is connected to me, who is committed to some of the things I am, I want to believe that it’s possible for us to move through and beyond whatever mistake was committed. I picture “calling in” as a practice of pulling folks back in who have strayed from us. It means extending to ourselves the reality that we will and do fuck up, we stray and there will always be a chance for us to return. Calling in as a practice of loving each other enough to allow each other to make mistakes; a practice of loving ourselves enough to know that what we’re trying to do here is a radical unlearning of everything we have been configured to believe is normal. And yes, we have been configured to believe it’s normal to punish each other and ourselves without a way to reconcile hurt. We support this belief by shutting each other out, partly through justified anger and often because some parts of us believe that we can do this without people who fuck up. […] But when we shut each other out we make clubs of people who are right and clubs of people who are wrong as if we are not more complex than that, as if we are all-knowing, as if we are perfect. But in reality, we are just really scared. Scared that we will be next to make a mistake. So we resort to pushing people out to distract ourselves from the inevitability that we will cause someone hurt. And it is seriously draining. It is seriously heartbreaking. How we are treating each other is preventing us from actually creating what we need for ourselves. We are destroying each other. We need to do better for each other. […] We have to let go of a politic of disposability. We are what we’ve got. No one can be left to their fuck ups and the shame that comes with them because ultimately we’ll be leaving ourselves behind.

Ngọc Loan Trần, “Calling IN: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable.” Black Girl Dangerous, 12.18.13.

(Disclaimer from article: “This post is specifically about us calling in people who we want to be in community with, people who we have reason to trust or with whom we have common ground. It’s not a fuckery free-for-all. Thank you.”)

I read this last week and can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve struggled to articulate the problems I have with discourse in our communities, in various progressive / activist spaces. Trần captures much of what I feel and I just…I keep thinking about this.

You can easily find a group of people who want to make this world a better place, who want justice and freedom and peace. But you can’t find a group of people who strive for those things without fucking up; we will always make mistakes. Even with the best of intentions. And what then?

Accountability is vital, of course. We must hold ourselves accountable for our behavior towards the people we love, the people we’re working with, the communities we participate in.

But we don’t talk as much about recovery from mistakes. About handling our mistakes with grace and compassion. Or about reaching out and rebuilding connections when people mess up. Sometimes we act like people are irredeemable, disposable. And sometimes we want a hollow ‘redemption’ which doesn’t require us to grow or heal rifts we created. Neither works.

We need to create accountability in our discourse without dismissing the possibility & process of change. Of redemption after we fall.

"We have to let go of a politic of disposability. We are what we’ve got. No one can be left to their fuck ups and the shame that comes with them because ultimately we’ll be leaving ourselves behind."

(via broadlybrazen)

I am still trying to navigate the endless shipwreck that is social justice and community politics. But this resonates with me in a way that gives me hope that our generation will find its way to peace.

[nolikereally]

Does anyone

want to give me

a thorinduil prompt

[nolikereally]

in all this excitement, let’s not forget the TRUE reason for the season

on February 14, 3019, Gandalf the White arose from death in his true form and set out once more to walk the stones of Middle-Earth

MERRY GANDALFMAS

[lokisgotthetardis]

You mean HAPPY GANEASTER

He rose from the dead not got born

Gandalfmas is heresy ugh

[nolikereally]

I use -mas here in the traditional sense: not "birth of our lord" but "mass in honor of a saint's holy day." Michaelmas does not celebrate the birth of Michael.

Gandeaster sounds p cool though. I could overlook its literary history, a goddess's name corrupted to serve a similarly corrupted religious myth, because honestly it's easier to say and it sounds great...

[stagecoachjessi]

Lee Pace’s move

[nolikereally]

YES GOOD MORNING

[zelldas]

lee pace is he blue and black or is he white and gold 

[lintamande]

Alright so if you don't find pride and arrogance a flaw or disagree that certain characters are greedy you are disagreeing with the backbone of the morality in the Silmarillion. Sorry but this is one fandom where morality is so entrenched that to disagree with Tolkien is to miss the point of the story itself.

Oh no! I’ve written over 300,000 words about the Silmarillion and it turns out all of my interpretations are totally worthless, because there’s only one correct reading and anon knows what it is! Gosh, what a waste of two years of my life.

 ”to disagree with Tolkien is to miss the point of the story itself” — I have some questions. Is it missing the point of the story to disagree with Tolkien about anything? Like, can I disagree that women are the intellectual inferiors of men and still understand the point of the story? Can I disagree that it’s okay to refer to orcs as ‘degraded and repulsive… Mongol-types’ and still understand the point of the story? Can I ship characters and still understand the point of the story, or is believing gay people are a natural part of the world totally incompatible with True Understanding of Tolkien? 

But it gets worse! What if I think the Valar were wrong to bring the Elves to Aman? Then I’m certainly missing the point of the story, right? Except Tolkien himself thought that at one point. In some places he writes that the Noldor were right to leave; in other places he writes that they were wrong. In some places he writes that Galadriel was blameless in departing; in some he writes that she rightly fell under the Doom. In the Book of Lost Tales Manwë forbids the Noldor from leaving or talking about their desire to leave; in other works Tolkien tells us that the Valar definitely wouldn’t do that. It’s starting to look like Tolkien doesn’t understand the point of his own story, poor sod. 

Read More

[nolikereally]

This is, to me, what the Silmarillion is really all about. Mythical characters and magical settings, sure. Dark lords and bright heroes, sure. The outward appearance of black and white, good vs evil, violence and consequences, certainly.

But we love it because, like history, it's ambiguous. There are no real heroes. Good people and bad choices, outside interpretations, revisions, contradictions... This commentary really digs to the heart of what we love and why we are so eternally hungry to interpret, to comprehend, and to pick apart the Silmarillion. It persists for a reason, and that reason is not its simplicity.