Well, I woke up at 5 am because me and my dad probably weren't sure whether or not we were going to school today. I don't think we are now, but waking up at 5 and having nothing to do has exhausted me. So now I'm upstairs laying down. I'm probably gonna continue laying down for a while. I feel like I should try to do something with my time, but I don't really know what to do. I might try to make some posts, but I keep feeling tired enough that my mind blanks out.
I have a post in my drafts that I can work on, and I have some ideas for posts (although the ideas are all probably quite bland or repetitive). I have stuff I can write. I just also kind of tired. So we'll see what I manage to actually write.
I must say, as someone who is (or was) a fan of Internet Historian and iilluminaughtii (I wasn't a huge fan of the latter, and had fallen off of the content a few months ago, but I did subscribe and have up videos as background noise while doing stuff, so I can't pretend I wasn't a fan at all), I won't deny that it stings to see them be revealed as plagiarists. I really enjoyed their content, because of the way they can really give a good voice to their work, but to see the proof of their theft up on the screen... it sucks.
hbomberguy really put it well well describing *why* people do this: that they're sure they won't caught, figure they can get a lot out of it, and have no desire to put in the effort it takes to truly make it their own original piece or do the research themselves. For instance, you can *see* the production value in place in the visual parts that Man in Cave has, and they're entertaining to watch (I won't lie, I watched Man in Cave at least three times within the first week it came out), but the fact that the words being spoken and the layout of the events described aren't his own is... well, it brings the rest down by association.
I won't pretend I was ever aware of their issues - I tend to stay in my own lane when it comes to the media I consume, I don't spend much time on Twitter, and I don't seek to involve myself on YouTuber drama - but seeing the curtain pulled back sucks to consider, it's a real breach of trust as a viewer too because you want to believe what you're being shown is earnest work that is all their own, or at least properly attributed if being borrowed. I hope they'll actually learn their lesson and improve their work, do their own research, etc etc... but I can't be fully trusting, because we see the number of examples where they get called out and don't learn a thing/spin the story to protect their reputations/deny everything and continue on. A loss of trust like that is hard to reconcile, if it ever can be.
As a closer, I do think an interesting point that wasn't touched on as much as it could've been, in the parts about James Somerton is the topic of discussion, when hbomberguy refers to how someone who was actively supporting him discovered their plagiarized work in a piece of his... it really does indicate the level of lack of consideration these people have for the content creators they steal from. Like, they think so little of what they're taking from, and only for their own success, that they wouldn't care one whit who they hurt with it - this could be someone who actively admires them, and they wouldn't think twice about treading all over that person. Just... sheesh.
As an American, US grammer pisses me off to. What in particular is bothering you?
Actually I have no problems with US grammar in general. (I’m sorry anon, but it’s not my grammar, and aside from the habit of removing inoffensive letters like ‘u’ from colour, it’s awesome). I mean if you’re raised a USian, it’s a perfectly fine set of grammar rules to follow and that’s the way it should be?
So there’s my short answer :D US grammar gets a thumbs up.
The longer answer is more complex. So that’s being shoved under a cut.
What bothers me is the culturally imperialistic attitudes that US grammar should be applied to english-speaking authors from the UK, Canada, Australia and other english-speaking countries. We all have our own grammar rules, they are also each perfectly fine sets of grammar rules to follow, and each have a lengthy history behind them. Not only that, but it‘s what we see in our published books (US folk may not know this, but books written by US authors are often re-’translated’ into Australian grammar (or UK grammar and so on) before being reprinted here under whichever publisher or imprint handles it - this, the job of localisation, is almost always the job of the in-house editors that a publisher hires), it’s what we see in our newspapers, in our dictionaries and thesaurses, and so on.
The internet clouded that a little, with globalisation you get the callous hammer of cultural imperialism. Suddenly most of the blog posts you’re seeing on the internet are in American English, for example. But that’s cool too, that happens - you’ll get marked down though, if you dare to let that slip into your essays or fictional writing at university or highschool or even primary school; so our localised grammar is very much taught strongly to us. It means that the inherent spellcheck for my browser flags words that I know are correct, like colour, globalisation and localised. I have to jump through some hoops to change that, but as long as it stays away from my word processor, I’m okay with it, lol.
So you have this thing called localisation editing. It is a process of editing something to fit local grammar - because if you open up to global english-language submissions (and most publishers do), you also open up to getting a whole bunch of texts following different (but perfectly sound) grammar rules. Usually you can stipulate a couple of rules yourself - times new font in pt 12, margins of whatever width, paragraph indents and not tabbing. Etc. Simple things that authors just about anywhere can generally follow fairly easily.
Localisation is not an easy process. Think about how long you spend learning the grammar of your country, and then think about how jarring it is sometimes to come across obvious differences. Then think about all the things that are invisible to you because you take them for granted. Think that there are huge, encyclopedic compendiums of grammar rules, that people can go to university and study for three years - just that one set of grammar rules, not for any other country - to become an editor, and still be considered a ‘newbie editor’ because there’s so much to learn and so many ways to apply it to texts.
What bothers me is when US publishers forego paying their editors by asking for authors to do this form of localisation editing labour for them for free. It takes money from people who have trained as editors to know how to do this. It forces authors into an uncomfortable position of trying to apply what they know of another country’s grammar rules to their own grammar - sometimes this is easy, a search replace for colour to color? Sure. But for punctuation, sentence structure, or even word differences, or the commonality of some cursewords over others for example, no. Is it an em-dash here or an en-dash? Is it a quote or a quotation or something else? Is this italics or underlined?
That level of localisation is a job for the professionals. Professional authors are professional authors, but they are not professional editors.
So it bothers me when US publishers in the m/m industry in particular, offload this burden so they don’t need to hire as many editors, and foist it upon authors outside of their country.
Also, generally speaking, I just like writing in the grammar rules I was taught. I enjoy Australian grammar. I’m glad that I know our spoken dialogue in fiction is enclosed in these: ‘ ‘ instead of these “ “ and that the latter will get you marked down for ‘Americanisation.’ (The former will get 15 year old Americans coming into your AO3 comment box to explain how you’re ‘doing it wrong’ because of the ubiquity of US grammar rules lol). As far as I’m concerned, outside of arguments over the Oxford comma (for the record, I’m against, lol, even though I think the memes in favour of it are hilarious), I think they are a logical set of rules that help improve the readability of what I write, and they aren’t impenetrable to people who don’t live in Australia. This is proven by y’know, all the people who read my fics who aren’t in Australia. Which is pretty much almost all of you.
(Hi folks you’re all awesome).
So it’s not really US grammar on its own that’s the problem, on its own it’s just an innocuous set of grammar rules. There’s a great book on the subject of American language by the way, by Bill Bryson, called Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States which is awesome and very entertaining.
Also, there’s places where I do actually Americanise my writing a little. I use pants instead of trousers - that doesn’t come naturally to me and it jars me every time I do it. I tend to use yard instead of garden, I often use sweater instead of jumper, and I occasionally use trash instead of bin. These things - if I had used them as a kid - would have earned a disapproving glower from any adult nearby along with a sharp ‘you’re not an American, don’t use that language!’ Lol. There’s a few others that are probably so invisible to me now I don’t know what they are anymore. Needless to say were I submit that work to an Australian publisher all that stuff would get corrected back to appropriate Australian grammar.
Anyway, mostly, I find it frustrating that there are publishers in the insular m/m publishing bubble that place the burden of localisation editing on authors (which is inappropriate, and also a very incomplete process, and it shows - it’s why m/m editing often comes under fire; probably because they expect authors who haven’t been trained in formal editing to do so much of it for no compensation, while asking editors to do too much for little pay.) It’s also why a lot of m/m authors are turning to self-publishing. It’s not just me that finds this infuriating; I’m not alone. There’s editors and authors aplenty out there who hate it, and are often outraged to find that this is the way it’s done in this particular genre.
But hey, it’s no skin off my nose, self-publishing is a new and incredible frontier, and I know plenty of Australian editors who can look over my work before I publish it (and US betas who can go ‘um what’s a ute?’ - utility vehicle btw and help out on that side of things).
I have tried emailing celebrities. Nothing ever seems to work. But here's something interesting: I've emailed two old comic writers, and they're oddly punctual with their emails. I guess their level of fame is the kind that actually bothers with emails. I forgot to tell my dad I did one of these emails, but I can do that later (even if I feel super awkward doing it). It's awkward to even write on here, but I emailed Steve Englehart the old comic author not even expecting a response, but apparently he's willing to respond to even a rambly and pointless email like mine. Seriously, all I did was ramble like I do on here. I didn't even expect replies. I was more worried it was weird and so I gave myself jitters. But yeah. I don't really know what to say about all this beyond a simple "that happened." Frankly, I have such paranoia over everything that I wouldn't know what is and isn't real about this interaction, but let's assume I emailed the real guy. I'm gonna assume I did, because I don't really see any reason someone would long con me by pretending to be an old author for one email.
The only interesting thing I think I got from this as I tried to read it while ignoring my awkwardness was that Steve Englehart apparently wouldn't be opposed to seeing Mantis show up in one of the DC movies the same way she did in his 70s Justice League comics. I didn't actually watch the recent Superman movie (and I have had some criticisms of it), but I still think mantis showing up as willow would be a nice in joke to throw in there somewhere. If even the creator of the character thinks it could be fun, then maybe we'll see it actually happen at some point. That could be a fun thing to see explored.
A lot of writing a new fic is figuring out where to diverge from canon with the introduction of additional stuff and what might remain. And also how to avoid just retreading canon because I don't wanna rehash shit
Honda quit F1 only because they are secretly planning to come back as a racing team again (they haven't pulled out of ALL racing tournaments after all)
And they need a couple of years to get things together and nail the new regs effectively overshadowing all other teams
And they wanna get Max as their lead driver (and yuki obviously) and they're waiting for next year when Max's contract runs out (has he extended already?) And then max can pull a Hamilton and be champion another 6 times in 7 years 😋
And that's what Pierre was maybe referring to as a possibility in his interview as well??? Maybe?? Omg imagine the scenes!
