Pluto Detective

Brazilian, 30s, she/her

[orlissa]

You don’t own fanfics. They’re inherently public domain because they aren’t your IP. Agree or disagree with AI, there are no grounds for “protection” from AI because it isn’t your IP to begin with. That’s what you chose when you chose this medium

Oh dear.

Okay, you get an answer, because at least you took the effort to write your ask out properly, even if you are hiding behind the grey, sunglassed circle.

Do I, or any fanfic author for that matter, have any legal claims to our work? No, not really, no. (Although if someone took a fic, filed off the serial number--deleted the fandom specific elements--, and then had it published for financial gain, yeah, that would be a case.)

BUT

Fandoms are built on a social contract that says we respect each others work, the effort people put into their art. We don't steal or disrespect the work of our peers. By feeding people's fanworks to AI you both steal and disprect it, and we need to make people realize that before it's too late--before fandom falls apart, because there will be no more real, actual fanworks.

Disrepectfully,

Orlissa

(i can't believe I have to say this)

[whetstonefires]

Also this is not true. You do in fact have the copyright to the specific writing you did in a fic, because that's not how copyright law works. Like this is not a grey area.

People who write IP content for corporations give up their copyright on a contractual basis--the company wants writing they can sell about characters/settings they own without getting entangled in royalty obligations etc, so they hire people. Who sign contracts saying they don't own what they write as part of that job.

That's why you don't own Star Wars stuff you wrote for Disney; you specifically agreed not to own it.

Writing for IP you don't own leaves you in a position where you can't legally monetize it (without taking out the Owned parts ad rebranding), but it absolutely does not automatically cede or void copyright. That is super not a thing.

SUPER not a thing, I cannot say this enough.

I can't sell my Batman fic, but neither can DC Comics without my duly authorized consent. Because they own Batman, but not the prose I composed about him.

Do not perform that kind of massive corporate overreach for them. Holy shit. Do they not own enough.

[chimaerakitten]

It’s fascinating that this misconception of copyright still exists. Haven’t we all seen the posts on here where authors beg fans to please not send them fanfic of their works? They’re not doing that because they feel like it, they do that because fans legally own their words and ideas, and an author who takes them even unintentionally can in fact end up in real legal trouble for taking something that’s not theirs. It doesn’t matter whether they own the canon.

[kinsey3furry300]

[airprime7]

@funnier-as-a-system

[quipofthetongue]

[plutodetective]

Is Jonathan the only case of being engaged to someone (who isn't her captor) from the start?

As far as I know, he is! I, to my shame, haven't read The Mysteries of Udolpho yet, but I checked and Emily St. Aubert's engagement begins before she meets her captor, but she isn't engaged at the start of the book. She meets her fiancé at the beginning of the story, and I think she's the only other case where the Heroine is engaged when she meets the captor. Everyone else either marries the captor, ends the book single, of gets engaged after The Horrors have already begun.

[re-dracula]

How is Jonathan spending this month in Castle Dracula? Wrong answers only.

[eosgeist]

@maandarinee tags

[neil-gaiman]

Can I Think Crowley Is Gender Fluid?

You might as well. I do.

[the-maddened-hatter]

Mr. Gaiman you may have unleashed more chaos within the fandom than you realize with that statement.

[neil-gaiman]

Did everyone else watch a different Season 1 to the one I did, then?

[despazito]

I could function in a society that had an actual nightlife that isn't synonymous with just clubbing. Where are the night markets what if I want to go to the library at midnight

[burekstation]

Jack Seward at his phonograph: I do believe I have been making a breakthrough... I am so close, so close to unraveling the enigma of the machinations of his MIND

Renfield, listening in his room, sipping tea, pinkie out: Weirdo.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

You mentioned years ago that you once worked on a project restoring former coal mine land, trying to get plants to grow and break up the compacted soil and so on. Do you know how the site is doing now? I hope you don’t mind me asking, but it sounds like a very cool project and I would love to know if it worked!

Oh, extremely well! The trees are about a third of the height they should be for their age, but there's a little woodland there now. This year my uni is taking over the lease for the site, so investigations continue. We got a lot of papers out of it. Plus, we proved that if you get the trees to grow in, you increase other biodiversity, like birds and earthworms and small mammals and lizards (the place is alive with lizards every summer, actually. Sometimes they sit on your bag.)

The main project site is here, if you want a gander.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Progress photos, though! First, for clarity's sake:

That's the layout of the site from this vantage point. This photo is from August 1998, and I've labelled it so you can see the sections more clearly. We planted in the blue and white sections, blue first in the 1990s and then white in the mid-2000s onwards. The orange bit is just to show how there really are just bare heaps in these places, still; BUT, the whole site is made of the stuff, with a grass seed cover.

Anyway, the development:

You would be amazed at the lichens that turn up, too. And the butterflies. And the fungi. One of my students is doing her dissertation up there on mycoremediation, in fact. Fantastic place.

[thethirdromana]

What would Dorian have done if Lord Henry had believed him about the murder, do you think?

Fun question! I think it would depend on Henry's reaction.

I think what Dorian is hoping for is Henry's approval. Henry writes off everything else that Dorian has ever done as part of his giving in to every temptation and living life to the fullest. It's easy to imagine Henry doing the same with Dorian murdering Basil - treating it as some kind of pinnacle of art, the muse killing the devoted artist.

We know how heavily the guilt weighs on Dorian's conscience, but if Henry approved, or at least dismissed it, maybe that would make Dorian sit a little easier with what he did.

Perhaps they'd make an in-joke of it together - I could imagine Henry swanning around a gallery, raising an eyebrow and saying, "oh, Dorian always knows how to respond to an artist once his work becomes disappointing." Henry already makes jokes about Sibyl's death, or at least that's how I read the reference to Hetty "floating... in some star-lit mill-pond" like Ophelia.

I wonder if that would be Henry's reaction, though? Because I think there's also the possibility that this - not his divorce, not the scandal Dorian caused around his sister, not the trail of suffering that Dorian leaves behind him - but Dorian murdering Basil might finally be the thing that causes Henry's pose to crack. This might be what reveals that even Lord Henry Wootton is shockable.

And maybe somewhere deep down, Dorian is hoping for that too. We know Dorian thinks he is beyond redemption, while Henry seems to think he is beyond reproach. I suspect Dorian, who despairs of ever being forgiven his sins, would like the catharsis of being seen for what he is, not for the face that he presents to the world.

I don't think Dorian had the faintest idea what he would have done in that scenario, though. I think some part of him wanted to have it happen so he could find out.

[plutodetective]

*Logs in*

*Sees two messages in the inbox*

I love you, anons who ask me about details on how Jonathan is a gothic heroine and talk to me about his traditionally feminine characteristics. <3

[basingstokemercury]

WHY ARE PARENTS IN FICTION ALWAYS SO PUSHY ABOUT THEIR ADULT CHILDREN'S LOVE LIVES

[animate-mush]

Have you met parents in real life?

[basingstokemercury]

Well, mine would definitely be very happy if I find a nice man and settle down, but I don't get the "trying to set your kid up with every eligible person you see/reading too much into interactions despite the child being uncomfortable and repeatedly saying it's not like that" trope.

[animate-mush]

Sadly, I do know parents like that

[plutodetective]

My parents aren’t like this. My grandma, though... Once I was in an Italian course with the grandson of a neighbor of hers. It was raining, so he offered me a lift, since we were both going to our grandmas’ after the class and they lived in the same block. Next time I see my grandmother, I find out she and his grandmother were happily wondering if there was something going on between the two of us. Because of one lift.

He was twenty.

I was fifteen.

Some (grand)parents do be like that.

[cour5t]

[re-dracula]

How is Jonathan spending this month in Castle Dracula? Wrong answers only.

[see-arcane]

He found the one room in the castle that has wallpapered plaster in it instead of stone. It’s a change of scenery, at least, even if it is a garish shade of yellow. An interesting pattern on it, too. If he looks hard enough he could swear he sees a woman in there, rattling the damask like the bars of a cage...

[knittedace]

So my two married-with-kids coworkers started asking me when I was going to get married and have kids earlier. And when I politely told them I wasn’t planning on it and tried to change the subject (because like fuck am I coming out as aroace at work), proceeded to tell me I’d change my mind and be married in no time.

So I went, “You wanna bet?” Told them to pick a time frame and sum of money and we’d have a wager. And one of them took me up on it. I was expecting her to put down a tenner or so, but she put down TWO HUNDRED QUID on me getting romantically involved in the next three years.

I would feel bad about taking the bet, except that 1) if someone specifically tells you they’re not interested in something and you bet against that it’s really on your own head, and 2) if you say something and someone grins at you delightedly and goes “care to bet on that” you should be really really suspicious.

[eosgeist]

ngl it's certainly something that Jonathan Harker is Dracula's chew toy for months, with Jonathan narrating everything he can remember or allow himself admit experiencing in this "sea of wonders" while being the Count's said plaything, but every single book or comic cover or movie poster or series promo is Dracula menacing Half-Naked Girl

[see-arcane]

^^^

(Forgive me, I am hijacking your post and putting it on the rack)

It’s probably THE most notorious offender of a phenomenon that seems to affect -checks notes- Every Single Major Classic Literature Horror Story Adaptation. 

All of them. Every one.

Frankenstein adaptations throw Henry and Victor’s thing out a window and heap on the lady love interests to remind everyone that lady love is happening, look at the damsel, look! (Yes, this even includes personal favorite Universal OC, the Bride--who herself is portrayed in all ensuing merch as being the Creature’s ~willing lover~ when her 0.5 seconds of life involve her hissing in hate at him...and probably at her meta situation of being invented by men to appease a predestined male mate in fucked up Eve style, but that’s its own rant.)

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde adaptations obliterate the actual main character, Gabriel Utterson, out of existence, and any early suppositions of the ‘relationship’ between Jekyll and Hyde are tossed in favor of Hulk fantasies and lady-chasing.

The Invisible Man involves exactly two female characters--two of many comic relief cast members--with no real connection to Griffin Invisibleman, the latter spending the story alternately running around naked, having (male) strangers comment on his muscular chest, and wrestling with a former male classmate in his bed before an ultimate climax in which said man (Griffin’s most recent target) is the only voice to speak up and demand the mob back away before they kill Griffin, albeit too late. He’s turned into a dithering coward who’s killed off while a new damsel is introduced to be Griffin’s love interest. An especial thorn in the story’s side, as it’s a short story arguably devoid of any romantic interest between anyone, period. Any hint that Griffin might not be straight--read: mlm or aroace or anything in-between--has to be erased.

The Picture of Dorian Gray adaptations--TPoDG being the same novel used against Oscar Wilde when accusing him of the crime of icky evil man love--has a chronic case of Casanova-ing Dorian ‘no no really me and Wotton and Basil are super hetero bros it’s cool honest’ Gray into ladykiller oblivion. 

And then there’s Dracula.

Oh, Dracula.

Perhaps the single most aggressively ‘no homo!!!’-ed piece of literature in the history of retellings. Jonathan Harker does indeed endure two full months of nightmare bisexual time with the Count and the Brides, a canon occurrence responsible for 

1) Setting him up as one of the major protagonists and the recorder of the inciting actions for the entire fucking book, 

2) providing one of THE tightest and most dread-inducing gothic horror excerpts in literature, 

3) framing Jonathan as the only character in the entire cast who gets to hold long, repeated, psychological minefield conversations with the Count, period, 

4) framing Jonathan as the only target of the Count who the latter purposefully keeps near him for Two Months for a full Bluebeard/Beauty and the Beast-style intimacy while his other victims get the equivalent of a few hickeys before being ditched

5) foreshadowing the climax of the novel in which the killing blow is delivered with the pure perfect catharsis of the unexpected hero VS the abusive conquering villain.

And that’s not even getting into the el gee bee tee goings-on in the unofficial prequel of “Dracula’s Guest” featuring proto-Jonathan and Big Bad Wolf Dracula.

All of this being universally, immediately, constantly, ears-plugged, eyes-covered, ‘We Refuse to Acknowledge the Queer Dreams’ thrown into a burning trash compactor by every single director and writer in the past 126 years who either work directly from shitty Coppola wiki pages or outright ignore the novel’s blatant text, supposing they even bothered to skim it. 

Jonathan and his whole situation is too much of a threat, so he’s either turned into a stuffy Victorian wimp, a cheater, a divorcee, or a corpse to get him out of the way so they can make Count Fuckula fanfiction #25635 in which Dracula manfully sexily liberates Mina who is really sooo super into him as long as we ignore the book entirely.

And god damn but it is frustrating.

[emtropi]