The place we go is the place we belong.
hello my name is Sherwood (she/they), and unfortunately for all of us, I love villains.
ao3: Sherwood || Ko-Fi
This is my writblr- mostly fanfic but sometimes original works.
Multifandom; currently a mix of Genshin Impact, Arcane, Ghost, and The Expanse.
My fics tagged as #my fix
(this came out of a conversation in the comments on a previous post about an author threatening to stop updating a fic because of lack of engagement)
So there’s this idea that fic writers should write for themselves and not care too much about stats or engagement,
and i totally get the sentiment behind that. if writing becomes entirely about stats and external validation, something important does get lost - creative freedom and joy, conviction in your own writing
but i also think:
“i write for myself, but i post for others.”
because posting fic is not only self-expression. it’s social. ao3 is called an archive, but emotionally it often functions as a community space.
people post for connection, for participation, for others to bear witness to their pain and trauma and grief,
and i don’t think most people are asking to be admired so much as acknowledged. there’s something deeply human about wanting another person to encounter something that mattered to you and go:
“ok, yeah, I see what you were trying to say. I see you.”
especially because fanfic is often people processing very real feelings through fictional characters at a safe distance, one step removed,
and then uploading that deeply personal thing into a shared archive and hoping somebody else might connect with it.
And i think that’s why it hurts so much when you summon up the courage and post a fic into the void and you get nothing back,
I think most of us want to be seen. We want to connect with the people who read our stuff and have them say yeah, I’ve experienced or thought that too. I felt that emotion with you. It’s why we read. We want to connect. Nothing wrong with that. Reviews tell us we connected enough to someone that they wanted to say so. No reviews or readers can sting because it means people aren’t seeing us. Because what we write, even if it’s about Those Characters and Their Problems, is often about what’s on our mind and heart. Or about what we need and aren’t getting. Our writing is often revealing and it can sting when there’s no validation in the form of someone nodding, tipping their hat, and saying “I see you.”
As some of you know, I was recently made aware that my fic Drink With Me had been plagiarised, and was being monetised as an erotic audio by a company called Best Kept Secret (BKS).
I'm relieved to confirm that this has now been resolved, and I cannot express how grateful I am to each and every person who rallied behind me on this — those who left comments under the audio, those who filed reports on YouTube and Patreon, those who reached out to me to offer condolences and advice, those who helped spread awareness to get the word out further, those who were simply enraged on my behalf — you have no idea how much it meant to me to have a community of people at my back during what was an extremely upsetting and stressful time. I truly don't think this would have been resolved (or at least not nearly as quickly) without your help. Thank you. And I hope you know that I am always ready to throw a molotov for any one of you too <3
Now, because I'm a propa Brit who loves a cuppa, I'm going to spill the tea (Jokes aside – I'm sharing this because I think it's important to have an open record incase anyone else finds themselves facing a similar situation in the future, god forbid).
[[OG tumblr post for context if needed]]
On 15th May it was brought to my attention that my Silco fanfic Drink With Me had been plagiarised, and was being monetised by an erotic audio company called Best Kept Secret.
The full audio story was locked behind a subscription paywall on Patreon, but I was able to access the free SFW sample via their YouTube channel. I listened to a few random snippets at various different points in the audio — it couldn't have been more than 30 seconds worth in total — and this, along with the story description, was more than enough to convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Drink With Me had been plagiarised in its entirety. Even the story title, In The Dark With Me, was a poorly veiled appropriation.
It was late, I was tired, I had just finished watching Project Hail Mary on discord with some buddies and was feeling some type of way about Rocky, and the realisation that my beloved fic had been stolen sent my brain into a weird sort of frozen state between fight or flight. I left a number of comments on the YouTube video calling them out, and went to bed feeling sick to my stomach. In the morning, I checked again, but none of my comments had been responded to. After attempting and failing to find a method of communication via Patreon, I was able to locate the company's website and submitted a message via their contact page form, providing them with my email address and urging them to contact me as a matter of urgency.
Maybe I could have given them a little longer to respond, but by this point I was completely gutted and felt utterly helpless. My words had been stolen, and now my words were being ignored, and it made me feel voiceless. So, by lunchtime, I sent a message to a few Silco friends to ask for their help, hoping that if a few other accounts were to leave comments under the YouTube video it might help to get BKS's attention and put some pressure on them to respond...
Boy howdy did y'all cause a ruckus. Their YouTube video was flooded with angry comments calling them out, and within 12 hours it had been privated. Big shout out to @bethegusto and @silcozaunite for making awareness posts on TikTok, Twitter and Tumblr – thank you for leading the charge whilst I was incapacitated by my bum-ass nervous system <3
That evening, an employee of BKS (Ellie) reached out to me directly via Tumblr dm to initiate conversation. She informed me that this audio script had been licensed to them by an external author claiming it as their own original work. So, not only did this author steal my words, they got paid for them. We then moved the conversation over to email, and Ellie asked me to send her the link to Drink With Me so that she could check the source material against their audio. I have to say, I felt very vindicated that it only took her a few minutes to confirm blatant plagiarism, and that the matter would be immediately escalated to their CEO.
I went to sleep that night feeling cautiously optimistic, but also incredibly moved and loved by the Silco fandom.
The next morning I woke to an email from Rob, the founder and CEO of Best Kept Secret. He offered his sympathies and apologised for what had happened, and corroborated what Ellie had said previously; that this audio script had been submitted to them by an external writer claiming it as their own original work, and that they had paid that author a license fee to use it. He confirmed that they will be blacklisting this author from any future projects, and that their new Head of Writing is looking into implementing plagiarism protections going forward.
He then offered me two options for resolution:
1.) They change the writing credit to my name, and pay me a license fee for the continued use of the audio across their platforms
2.) They remove the audio from their platforms entirely
I chose the latter, and responded with the below on 17th May:
[Quick interjection here to say that this email is exempt from the whole 'hey don't fucking steal my words' thing — if anyone ever needs to use it or any part of it as a template or verbatim to battle their own case of plagiarism then please do so]
During the time in which I was waiting for a reply from Rob, I decided to reach out directly to the author who had plagiarised my work. I don't know why exactly, or what I was hoping to achieve, I just felt that it was right they should face the person they hurt.
I'm not going to share any screenshots from that interaction, because at least one of us knows it's wrong to share another person's words without their permission, but it was a brief conversation, and not particularly dramatic. They had the grace to be ashamed of their actions, and apologised for the hurt they caused. They also confirmed that they will be paying BKS back the money they took as a license fee.
On 19th May Rob replied to my email to confirm that they have deleted the audio from their Patreon and website, and that their social media team have removed any content related to it from Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. And that if any instances of it appear again on any of their platforms, in any capacity, to let them know so that they can remove it as fast as possible. Additionally, they ran the author's other BKS works through a plagiarism checker and manually looked through those results, and were able to confirm that the rest of their scripts were at least their own original works.
They also posted the following public announcement on their Patreon:
[[Direct link to the Patreon post here]]
Finally, Rob thanked me for raising those other points regarding genAI usage and a donation to AO3, and said they will feed these back to their marketing and tech teams which in my opinion is corporate slang for "lmfao we definitely aren't going to do that"
From the sounds of it, this isn't the first time this company has had an issue with stolen works, and despite their assurances that plagiarism protections are being put in place, I would urge writers and creatives to keep an eye out regardless. If anyone ever finds themselves needing to reach out to BKS to contest their own cases of plagiarism then please don't hesitate to DM me and I will happily supply the relevant email details.
So that's all folks. I'm pleased to be wrapping this whole mess up so I can get back to what's important; daydreaming about crusty old men. Thank you all, once again, for your incredible fighting support. Silco would be so proud of his fandom. And I also want to thank @dudewithastick for bringing this to my attention in the first place. You the MVP for real <3
As some of you know, I was recently made aware that my fic Drink With Me had been plagiarised, and was being monetised as an erotic audio by a company called Best Kept Secret (BKS).
I'm relieved to confirm that this has now been resolved, and I cannot express how grateful I am to each and every person who rallied behind me on this — those who left comments under the audio, those who filed reports on YouTube and Patreon, those who reached out to me to offer condolences and advice, those who helped spread awareness to get the word out further, those who were simply enraged on my behalf — you have no idea how much it meant to me to have a community of people at my back during what was an extremely upsetting and stressful time. I truly don't think this would have been resolved (or at least not nearly as quickly) without your help. Thank you. And I hope you know that I am always ready to throw a molotov for any one of you too <3
Now, because I'm a propa Brit who loves a cuppa, I'm going to spill the tea (Jokes aside – I'm sharing this because I think it's important to have an open record incase anyone else finds themselves facing a similar situation in the future, god forbid).
[[OG tumblr post for context if needed]]
On 15th May it was brought to my attention that my Silco fanfic Drink With Me had been plagiarised, and was being monetised by an erotic audio company called Best Kept Secret.
The full audio story was locked behind a subscription paywall on Patreon, but I was able to access the free SFW sample via their YouTube channel. I listened to a few random snippets at various different points in the audio — it couldn't have been more than 30 seconds worth in total — and this, along with the story description, was more than enough to convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Drink With Me had been plagiarised in its entirety. Even the story title, In The Dark With Me, was a poorly veiled appropriation.
It was late, I was tired, I had just finished watching Project Hail Mary on discord with some buddies and was feeling some type of way about Rocky, and the realisation that my beloved fic had been stolen sent my brain into a weird sort of frozen state between fight or flight. I left a number of comments on the YouTube video calling them out, and went to bed feeling sick to my stomach. In the morning, I checked again, but none of my comments had been responded to. After attempting and failing to find a method of communication via Patreon, I was able to locate the company's website and submitted a message via their contact page form, providing them with my email address and urging them to contact me as a matter of urgency.
Maybe I could have given them a little longer to respond, but by this point I was completely gutted and felt utterly helpless. My words had been stolen, and now my words were being ignored, and it made me feel voiceless. So, by lunchtime, I sent a message to a few Silco friends to ask for their help, hoping that if a few other accounts were to leave comments under the YouTube video it might help to get BKS's attention and put some pressure on them to respond...
Boy howdy did y'all cause a ruckus. Their YouTube video was flooded with angry comments calling them out, and within 12 hours it had been privated. Big shout out to @bethegusto and @silcozaunite for making awareness posts on TikTok, Twitter and Tumblr – thank you for leading the charge whilst I was incapacitated by my bum-ass nervous system <3
That evening, an employee of BKS (Ellie) reached out to me directly via Tumblr dm to initiate conversation. She informed me that this audio script had been licensed to them by an external author claiming it as their own original work. So, not only did this author steal my words, they got paid for them. We then moved the conversation over to email, and Ellie asked me to send her the link to Drink With Me so that she could check the source material against their audio. I have to say, I felt very vindicated that it only took her a few minutes to confirm blatant plagiarism, and that the matter would be immediately escalated to their CEO.
I went to sleep that night feeling cautiously optimistic, but also incredibly moved and loved by the Silco fandom.
The next morning I woke to an email from Rob, the founder and CEO of Best Kept Secret. He offered his sympathies and apologised for what had happened, and corroborated what Ellie had said previously; that this audio script had been submitted to them by an external writer claiming it as their own original work, and that they had paid that author a license fee to use it. He confirmed that they will be blacklisting this author from any future projects, and that their new Head of Writing is looking into implementing plagiarism protections going forward.
He then offered me two options for resolution:
1.) They change the writing credit to my name, and pay me a license fee for the continued use of the audio across their platforms
2.) They remove the audio from their platforms entirely
I chose the latter, and responded with the below on 17th May:
[Quick interjection here to say that this email is exempt from the whole 'hey don't fucking steal my words' thing — if anyone ever needs to use it or any part of it as a template or verbatim to battle their own case of plagiarism then please do so]
During the time in which I was waiting for a reply from Rob, I decided to reach out directly to the author who had plagiarised my work. I don't know why exactly, or what I was hoping to achieve, I just felt that it was right they should face the person they hurt.
I'm not going to share any screenshots from that interaction, because at least one of us knows it's wrong to share another person's words without their permission, but it was a brief conversation, and not particularly dramatic. They had the grace to be ashamed of their actions, and apologised for the hurt they caused. They also confirmed that they will be paying BKS back the money they took as a license fee.
On 19th May Rob replied to my email to confirm that they have deleted the audio from their Patreon and website, and that their social media team have removed any content related to it from Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. And that if any instances of it appear again on any of their platforms, in any capacity, to let them know so that they can remove it as fast as possible. Additionally, they ran the author's other BKS works through a plagiarism checker and manually looked through those results, and were able to confirm that the rest of their scripts were at least their own original works.
They also posted the following public announcement on their Patreon:
[[Direct link to the Patreon post here]]
Finally, Rob thanked me for raising those other points regarding genAI usage and a donation to AO3, and said they will feed these back to their marketing and tech teams which in my opinion is corporate slang for "lmfao we definitely aren't going to do that"
From the sounds of it, this isn't the first time this company has had an issue with stolen works, and despite their assurances that plagiarism protections are being put in place, I would urge writers and creatives to keep an eye out regardless. If anyone ever finds themselves needing to reach out to BKS to contest their own cases of plagiarism then please don't hesitate to DM me and I will happily supply the relevant email details.
So that's all folks. I'm pleased to be wrapping this whole mess up so I can get back to what's important; daydreaming about crusty old men. Thank you all, once again, for your incredible fighting support. Silco would be so proud of his fandom. And I also want to thank @dudewithastick for bringing this to my attention in the first place. You the MVP for real <3
to all my fic writers: be that one rarepair writer. even if literally no one else is there. be the single glowing lightbulb in the void. write the rarepair so good some poor reader stumbles on it at 3am, loses their mind, and then realizes… oh. there’s only one fic. yours. congrats you’re both the blessing and the curse.
I do not force xreaders to be blank slates. I do not leave hate comments if a xreader character behaves in a way I wouldn’t. I don’t demand part two’s. I let the writer take me on a journey and enjoy the fic as they intended as it is their labor of love. And if I don’t enjoy the fic? I EXIT THE FIC AND SAY NOTHING TO THE AUTHOR!!!
Monsterfucking is so normalized on Tumblr I kinda forgot it even counted as a kink. I thought it was like liking boobs on girls. The basic normal stuff most people like.
Today I have acquired a new blorbo. It is, of course, a wretched little man with a somewhat twisted sense of honour. I put him in my blorbo basket and carried him home. Tomorrow I shall display him on the mantel when my friend comes for tea.
Monster fuckers are so creative cuz it’s like you’ll look at a monster and go “how the fuck would one go about fucking that?” And then a monster fucker will slither from the shadows and give a demonstration of human ingenuity
I won't pretend I don't have playlists. This ones on Vayl: A houseless drow who's secretly half-fey, and has been struggling with abandoning the dogmas of Lolth and Menzo.
Tunes below.
Rules: If you're tagged, make a post with links to music and/or lyrics describing six things/events about your OC/story.
Event that defines your character's past:
Tears for Fears - Ready to Start
If I was scared I would. If I was bored you know that I would. And if I was yours, but I'm not. All the kids have always known that the emperor wears no clothes. But we bow down to him all the same. Cause it's better than being alone.
How your character sees themselves:
King Dude - My Mother Was the Moon
Fallen from my web I have landed in the stream. Been drifting on a while or forever so it seems. My mother cries above me "You have left the world too soon". If I were a spider and my mother was the moon. So I've come to rest now down in my riverbed. Dreaming of the life I left tangled up in the web. My mother sits upon the hill singing a song or two. If I were a spider and my mother was the moon.
How others view them:
Agnes Obel - The Curse
If they called on every soul in the land, on the moon. Only then would they know a blessing in disguise. The curse ruled from the underground, down by the shore
And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before.
Their closest relationship (romantic or platonic):
James - Getting Away with it All
Are you aching for the blade? That's okay. We're insured. Are you aching for the grave? That's okay. We're insured. We're getting away with it all messed up. We're getting away with it all messed up.
That's the living.
A major fight scene:
Mother Mother - Hayloft II
My baby's got a gun, my baby's got a gun. My baby's got a gun, I better run. My baby's got a gun, it goes. Boom, boom, crack, ga-ga-ga-ga, boom, boom. An eye for an eye, a leg for a leg. A shot in the heart doesn't make it unbreak.
End credits song:
Shiny Toy Guns- If I Lost You
And I don't know what I'd do if I lost you. And what in the world would I do without you? I try to picture memories we made. On these cold and lonely nights. Sometimes it's hard to see your face. Soon, my baby, when I return. I swear we'll make up every moment to erase the morning sun.
.
Tags and blank template... No pressure to anyone to respond, just tagging people with OCs I'd love to know more about!
Tagging: @sherwood-forests @astudyincontrasts @juniper-sunny and whoever else would like to.
Template:
Event that defines your character's past How your character sees themselves How others view them Their closest relationship (romantic or platonic) A major fight scene End credit song
With more and more Ao3 authors restricting their works to the archive (due to AI scraping), they're going to be losing guest interaction. And probably generally feeling down because. You know. AI is stealing their hard work.
So! Now is a great time to stop by your favorite authors/stories and drop them some comments! They really appreciate it!
Since Friedrich mentioned dad!Secondo I want to add my five little cents. I have always headcanoned Secondo as a certified girl dad. He is secure in himself enough to wear all of the matching outfit his daughter wants him, will sit for hours while she smudges make up and glitter all over his face, will paint his nails with her and play dolls.
And I just imagine him taking her to choreography classes, filming her little clumsy pirouettes to torment his brothers with them later being all proud of his daughter (Also, him wearing a tutu for a parent\child dance is a bonus i cherish in my heart)
Secondo is sooooooooo girl!dad coded!!! he is such a girl dad 😭
you are correct with all of this and i also think he would be so.... reluctant!dad. like, in my head he always pictured himself with a family as a younger man but it never worked out (i already talked about that before but i also think he was severly heartbroken as a young man) and the older and more bitter he grew the more he loathed himself and thought it might be better anyway that it never worked out, he did not have the best role model growing up after all and what type of place would the clergy and his dysfunctional family be for a child anyway? (nevermind once his little girl exists his brothers would dote on her and she'd be soo spoiled by her uncles)
but then when he finds someone who might be thinking about having a child with him, bringing it up he'd be against it, stating his age, that he couldn't be there for the child as long as he'd want to, that his body couldn't manage to keep up with a toddler, whatever excuse he'd fabricate, and i think that'd be it for a while but then the image has been planted in his head and won't let go. and you keep telling him that time doesn't matter, that it's better to have a loving dad for a few decades than a shitty father for your whole life, that he's a good man and that is what matters, slowly making him reconsider. and he'd suddenly see children and the image would pop into his head, a little girl with his partner, their hair colour and looking like them, a tiny version, and the next time the subject comes up he wouldn't be so against it.
and i think he'd try not to get his hopes up, conceiving is harder with his age and it might not even work out and maybe it wouldn't which is all good, they are happy either way, but also maybe it would and after a while he'd be presented with the tiniest most beautiful little girl and from then on they are INSEPARABLE!!!! you'd come home to find them snuggling on the couch, he takes her everywhere just to show her off, probably she is way more high energy than he is and it's just this perfect contrast of a big scary man with a resting bitch face and his beautiful little angel baby that's all smiles and giggles <3
(also breeding kink go brrrrrr let's be honest, that man would destroy you with it even if it never worked out, something unlocks inside of him the moment you decide to try for a baby and that is that)
It’s so funny seeing non-science people write scientist characters. specifically when arcane fans write Jayce and Viktor and they’re in the lab just talking about “solving equations.” exquisite.
kianamaiart
izzy806
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
stormborns
snowghoul
