toobytoobs - Toobytoobs
Toobytoobs

She/HerAutistic, queer, and (according to all the unfinished fics in my docs) an aspiring fanfic author!

499 posts

Latest Posts by toobytoobs - Page 12

4 months ago
Tags From @zorilleerrant And This Is Fucking Genius

Tags from @zorilleerrant and this is fucking genius

Idk about you, but it’s very important to me that Cassandra Cain has a scratchy and sore sounding voice paired with an accent that is completely unique.

Like, that girl was homeless and wandering the US for around 9 years! Pairing that with the fact she didn’t use her voice often/at all for the first 17 years of her life then of course her voice will sound weird from the disuse!


Tags
4 months ago

Hi. I'm not a canon purist and enjoy some fanon content very much, but I do think people in the fandom should at least familiarize themselves with the canon content and source material. It's easier to break the "rules" so to speak and experiment with canon when you know what that actually is. I've noticed a lot of fans that are only familiar with fanon criticise content that doesn't line up with what they believe to be canon but isn't. The Red Hood for example. I've seen writers who portray him as the violent criminal he is in much of the canon be completely decimated by Jason fans who only know fanon and the retconned version of Red Hood and completely deny canon even exists and refuse to even glance at the comics. Transformative works are important and playing in the sandbox is for everyone but fandom literally cannot exist without canon. Canon is important and people can do whatever they want with it but they should respect it enough to at least look at it.

Hi anon, I'm going to hold your hand as I say this, and I will say it as gently as I can: This is still a form of canon purism.

We can absolutely agree that readers shouldn't berate or abuse writers for how they choose to portray characters in fic, whether that's a more canon-faithful characterization or a popular fanon version. If readers don't like how a character is portrayed, we should encourage them to hit the back button instead.

I want to draw your attention to some of the words you used in your ask above: "should" "respect" "decimated" etc. Those are some strong words to describe how you think people need to behave, in order to exist in fandom. Of course, there is no fandom without canon source material -- I'm not denying that. But with such a wide and varied canon, the DC fandom has examples of the Red Hood you mention above, AND the "retconned" version you also reference. Both are canon, as in actually, officially, canon. WFA is canon, and that Red Hood looks very different from the Red Hood you describe.

Now, I think your issue is that you enjoy a certain version of canon, and you're frustrated that the fandom doesn't also, as trends ebb and flow, enjoy that canon as much as you do. Again, I want to acknowledge that just because a certain version is popular, it doesn't give folks the right to berate authors for writing a different version. But again, I don't think that's what we're really talking about here. From your ask's tone, I think you're suggesting that people should, in order to participate in fandom, read that older canon, that different version, or as you say, "glance at it" before enjoying or writing the fanon version.

Guess what? They actually, really, really, don't have to. It sounds like you have some issues with judging your fellow fandom members who don't read what you do or reference certain canon. But the magic of this fandom is, you can enter it at any point. We're a big pool, and if someone's entry point is the Lego Batman movie and that's it, that's still valid.

Fandom stems from canon, yes, but I almost never hear people talk about movies, or web comics, or other media when they talk about "required reading." It's always a comic. I really wish people would reflect on that before suggesting it as the one true path to being a fan.

The other thing I don't see asks like these reference ever is the reality that sometimes a fandom outstrips its canon material, and that that's an eventuality in some spaces. Fanon interpretations become popular, and people write about those specific characterizations or scenarios. They ebb and flow, like I mentioned, and some are more canon-faithful than others. Some completely reject canon, and again -- it's still fandom. It doesn't make it better or worse than a more canon-faithful fic. It's just different.

I had a couple asks about this topic a few weeks ago, and I'm assuming you haven't read those or you likely wouldn't have sent me this ask. But in them, I discuss how sometimes we need to suck it up and be unhappy that canon-faithful fics aren't as popular in a fandom at a specific time, and stop punishing fellow fans for writing and enjoying those fics. And we really need to stop shitting on them publicly on Tumblr.

Because often, what you're really saying is that you wish more people would write more canon-faithful fics, and stop writing ones about fanon topics you don't enjoy or think are accurate. And to that, I again say, there is nothing you can or should do to change that behavior from others. If you want to read it, write it, enjoy it, etc, do it yourself. Build the comic-faithful community here, write fics and promote challenges, create a discord channel and discuss your "required reading" there.

We are all writing and reading fanfiction at the end of the day. It is a great equalizer in many ways. My silly Lego Batman fic is just as valid as a canon-faithful rewrite of a certain Batman issue. One is not better than the other, or more deserving of respect. You will never get me to admit otherwise on this blog.

tl;dr: people should absolutely not berate authors who choose to write canon-faithful characterizations. however, there are layers of judgement and disdain many DC comics canon-faithful authors/readers have for their fellow fans that I think we need to examine critically in order to coexist respectfully.

4 months ago

Do we think that Bruce Wayne sleeps with others to maintain his Brucie persona or does he just pay people to say he slept with them?

Or a secret third option where people constantly spread rumours that he sleeps around a lot and Bruce just says they are true cause it fits his persona?

This can be entirely Headcanon based if you want, I’m looking for opinions!

4 months ago

Idk about you, but it’s very important to me that Cassandra Cain has a scratchy and sore sounding voice paired with an accent that is completely unique.

Like, that girl was homeless and wandering the US for around 9 years! Pairing that with the fact she didn’t use her voice often/at all for the first 17 years of her life then of course her voice will sound weird from the disuse!


Tags
4 months ago

“He would not fucking say that” is a Schrodinger’s phrase when it comes to Batman. There is probably Batman run where he would say that. There is also probably a run where Batman would kill the other Batman for saying that.

4 months ago

Cassandra: Why does everyone talk about me like a pet? Stephanie: Well you are scared of the vacuum cleaner for some reason. And I have seen you eat off the floor. And me and Babs do spend a whole lot of time trapped on the couch because you fell asleep on us. Stephanie: Like, it's the racism mostly but let's be real here you don't do yourself many favors by being oh so very scrunkly. Cassandra: You're right... I hate it. Barbara: I've been trying to teach you to spell your own name for 3 years but you know what the word "scrunkly" means?! Stephanie: Some words are felt rather than heard O.

4 months ago

Do we think that Bruce Wayne sleeps with others to maintain his Brucie persona or does he just pay people to say he slept with them?

Or a secret third option where people constantly spread rumours that he sleeps around a lot and Bruce just says they are true cause it fits his persona?

This can be entirely Headcanon based if you want, I’m looking for opinions!


Tags
4 months ago

cain and bruce and cass are sooo interesting to me... long rambles (with comic panel receipts!) under the cut (also batgirl 2000 spoilers)

Cain had tried many times before to make The One Who Is All, but Cassandra is special in a way the others weren't because she worked. She didn't defy instructions, she was amazing at combat, she didn't go insane, she was perfect. And David grew to love her in a way he hadn't loved the others, even though he hurt her, because it was the price he had to pay to get his little girl perfect. Yes he shot her, but it was to keep her on her toes, and she had to be that to be perfect - it’s the price he has to pay. He rarely touched her, because it was a price he had to pay, but in the times that he did, he cuddled with her on the rooftop and pointed to the stars. He couldn't talk to her, because it was a price he had to pay, but he could make their own little language and keep her progress on tapes.

And when the time came for her first real foray into being The One Who is All, he dresses her up in a frilly pink dress and pigtails.

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under

And she runs away and David doesn't know what to do. The first kill is always hard, he made her do it too soon, too young, she wasn’t ready, he knows it’s his fault.

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under

And then, years later, when his baby girl is almost an adult (but really he'll always see her as that little girl with pigtails and a bloody pink dress on), he meets her again and she yells at him to stop.

And he cries, because it was the price he had to pay, but his daughter can understand him now, fully, and she's using it to ask him to stop, so how can he say no to that? Now they're dangling over an edge and he's pleading for her to hold on but she can't, she won't, and she survives anyway like she always will but she survives in a cape and ears and a bat across her chest.

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under

David thought that Bruce was perfect when they were training, but he wasn't. He wouldn't kill. But maybe he can be good enough for David's perfect little girl anyway because she won’t either, and god knows David isn't perfect. So he concocts a test, and tries his damndest to keep those tapes of his daughter because that's all he has left of her.

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under

David loves Cass with all of his heart, but his heart isn't big enough to fit things like hugs and speaking and care. The biggest problem is that he sees her as a weapon first, no matter what.

Bruce isn't like that. Cassandra isn't a weapon— she's a bat, of course, she’s perfect for it! And to be the bat, yeah, you have to make sacrifices sometimes. Keeping your identity a secret is much easier when you have no (legal, public) identity to speak of, and he doesn’t understand when Barbara insists on frivolous things like vacations, identities, names, and peace. Why call the girl Cass when she can simply be Batgirl?

If Bruce had a choice, he would just be the bat. And so this girl who is just like him— better, even! Well, of course she’d agree. Yes, she’s young, she’s just seventeen, but… come on. You can barely say a perfect soldier like her is a kid, still. And it’s tragic that Cain made her like this, made her like them, but… it happened. She is like this. So why wouldn’t he help her use it for good? 

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under

He never had to teach Batgirl, this girl who is just like him, about the value of life. Her hits are perfect and measured, to knock them out and nothing more. The first thing he noticed about her was her willingness to die and insistence that no one else does, and he encourages these things. 

And her death wish is ineffective and annoying and dangerous, but it’s inescapable and she doesn’t let it affect her missions anymore.

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under

Batman asks Batgirl if the dozens of lives saved because of what she did is enough. She says no, and he says good. 

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under

When Batgirl loses some of her skills, she runs at an armed man and gets shot 4 times (one in each thigh, one through her shoulder, one in her stomach). But she survives anyway, like she always will, and when she wakes up Batman asked why she did it. She responds instinct. He says, “Good.”

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under

Then he finds out about her upcoming fight with Shiva. Batgirl knows that she will lose. This is not a competition or arrogance for her— this is suicide. She needs to move past this death wish and… well. She might not move… past it, per se, but she will be rid of it, and perhaps the world will become of rid of her. But it’s necessary. So he lets her leave, because he knows she needs to do this. At least she will die with honor.

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under

Later, when she survives even after dying, because she always survives, Batman needs to do something. Something dangerous and reckless and, maybe, a bit suicidal. Batgirl wants to help but he just says “I let you fight Shiva because it was something you had to do for yourself. Don’t say thank you. Return the favor.” 

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under

The tragedy of Batman and Batgirl is unlike the tragedy of David Cain and The One Who Is All, where she is only an assassin to her father— not even that, just a killing weapon. It’s unlike the tragedy of Cassandra and Sandra, where she is just a pawn for her mother’s suicide. And it is especially unlike the tragedy of Babs and Cassie, where she is seen by her mom as so much less than she is, as something that she can never be— regular. Normal. Innocent.

No, the tragedy of Batman and Batgirl is that her dad sees Cassandra as, yes, eventually a daughter, certainly a soldier, but most of all, an extension of himself. And he does not treat himself very well, or with much caution, or with any gentleness.

Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
Cain And Bruce And Cass Are Sooo Interesting To Me... Long Rambles (with Comic Panel Receipts!) Under
4 months ago

No but I seriously can't even fathom how painful Cassandra's existence has to be.

Like, we explore exactly how horrible witnessing death is for Cassandra, she reads the pain and the understanding and the regret on a dying body, she experiences death along with its victim on real time, she is the one human being who will never get desensitized to seeing a person dying, it is even worse for her than for anyone else, and she is surrounded by death

Her entire dedicated rogue's gallery (David Cain, Shiva, the Mad Dog, the Unburied, etc) makes a point of killing any and all by-standers and she always has to see it

Imagine the most traumatic death you have ever seen or heard about, imagine the grief or the disgust you felt when you first came across it, imagine experiencing that at the same time you experience the pain of the dying person and then imagine reliving that memory two, three, ten, twenty times every night and it's always like the first time and you never get used to it, and you'd be imagining a normal Tuesday for Cassandra as Batgirl

It's agonizing, my legs shake just thinking about it, I can't even picture getting up from my bed every morning with that curse over my head. And you're telling me Cassandra, this normal human without powers and with a support network that is lackluster on a good day, not only gets up every morning but lives with it? That she can manage a semblance of normality? How much willpower does it take? I am truly floored by how amazing Cassandra is.

4 months ago

Future Freddy after getting powers, spinning in the air: “bILLY heLP!”

Billy: “NUH UH, THIS IS PAY BACK!!!”

Freddy: “aaaAAAAaAAHHH”

Billy Hasn’t Quiteeee Mastered Flying In His Regular Human Form Yet☁️

Billy hasn’t quiteeee mastered flying in his regular human form yet☁️

(Continuation of my last post ⬇️)

AXE
Tumblr
AXE
What if Billy kept some of his powers in his human form? ⚡️
4 months ago

Billy is just tumbling through the sky screaming while Freddy is on the ground recording him and can’t stop laughing

Billy Hasn’t Quiteeee Mastered Flying In His Regular Human Form Yet☁️

Billy hasn’t quiteeee mastered flying in his regular human form yet☁️

(Continuation of my last post ⬇️)

AXE
Tumblr
AXE
What if Billy kept some of his powers in his human form? ⚡️
4 months ago

You know what I'm curious about… how does Billy have any sense of time??? When I was a child (I still kinda am) I had no idea what time meant. You could have told me that I would need to wake up at 5:30am tomorrow and I would be awake till 2:00am. I can't imagine what it's like for a homeless kid who has no one keeping him accountable and no routine.

So because of this I think Captain Marvel is sporadic when showing up, none of his villains have any idea when he's going on patrol. They probably think he doesn't sleep at all, he just disappears into a different dimension and then reappears whenever. He'll only start to keep track of time when he joins the justice league so he's not late to meetings or monitor duty.

4 months ago

I want more of Cassandra Cain trying and failing to use slang like an out of touch middle aged man

Like, let her be a girlfailure (affectionate) once in a while


Tags
4 months ago

Superman, in the middle of a battle: *gets hit by a shard of kryptonite*

Batman: *grabs the shard and hands it to Captain Marvel*

Batman: “Captain! Get rid of this, quickly!”

Captain Marvel: *panics and eats the kryptonite*

Batman:

Captain Marvel:

Superman:

Captain Marvel: “I PANICKED OKAY???”

Superman: “SO YOUR FIRST THOUGHT WAS TO EAT IT???”

Batman: “Please tell me you don’t often eat things to get rid of them…”

Captain Marvel:

Captain Marvel: *turns around and flies back into battle*

4 months ago

One day he just drops out of the sky fast asleep during the Justice League fighting a threat and later that day they have to send out a public statement that “Captain Marvel is not dead, one of his patrons just will sometimes pull his blessing from Marvel so he will sleep”

Billy is not happy about his lack-of-sleep being leaked to the public cause now Fawcett heroes and civilians regularly check in to make sure he’s sleeping.

Thinking about a scenario where, for whatever reason, Atlas has to pull his blessing from Captain Marvel for a little bit and Cap doesn’t know about it until it happens.

Like, he’s at a Justice League meeting, and suddenly he’s so tired and he just falls asleep on the spot.

So the JL hear a giant thud and look over so see Captain Marvel gone limp face down on the table.

And he looks dead. It doesn’t help that he doesn’t need to breathe in his marvel form so he isn’t breathing.

Cue the freak out.


Tags
4 months ago
SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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):

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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:

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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.

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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.

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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:

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).
SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).
SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

@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: 

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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.

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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 :

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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):

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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)

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

... 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:

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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:

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

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.

Thank you all so much.

4 months ago

I want one of those scenes in a dude bro film where “tomboy” chick has to wear a dress to go undercover or whatever, but instead of the guys drooling as she walks down the stairs, they’re like “k. U need to stop. Go put the cargo pants back on. You look super uncomfortable and awkward in that. Brutus, you go be the fake prostitute.”

4 months ago

It’s not a hint if I outright tell you THIS IS A SIGN!!!

Y’know the classic “Billy de-transforms from Captain Marvel back into Billy and the JL think he’s been de-aged so Billy has to pretend to be from ancient times” thing?

I want someone to write that but with Captain Marvel and Billy being separate people like they are in the old comics.

So it’s just Billy either not knowing shit about how to act like a young Cap or Billy not giving a fuck about acting and just him leaving the JL really confused about how Cap was like this when he was young.

4 months ago
I Can’t Find It On Tumblr And IT CHRISMAS GOD DAMMIT.

I can’t find it on tumblr and IT CHRISMAS GOD DAMMIT.

MERR CHRISMAS.

4 months ago

Y’know the classic “Billy de-transforms from Captain Marvel back into Billy and the JL think he’s been de-aged so Billy has to pretend to be from ancient times” thing?

I want someone to write that but with Captain Marvel and Billy being separate people like they are in the old comics.

So it’s just Billy either not knowing shit about how to act like a young Cap or Billy not giving a fuck about acting and just him leaving the JL really confused about how Cap was like this when he was young.


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4 months ago
The Cain Instinct

The Cain Instinct

The Cain Instinct
The Cain Instinct
The Cain Instinct
4 months ago

When I got my appendix taken out: I was nine years old, in a foreign country and had to leave the hospital early in order to get on a plane even though I really shouldn’t be flying yet. It’s was fine, cannon event, it was character development.

What I’m trying to say is that Billy Batson does not deserve an appendix and should have it ripped out immediately

I spent two weeks wasting away on a couch watching glee. I remember none of it.

I want him to experience the superhero equivalent of that. Like, yeah when he’s powered up he’s fine, but will he remember to power up? Like, he shows up to a meeting two days late because he’s been delirious all week and doesn’t remember waking up.

4 months ago

Thinking about a scenario where, for whatever reason, Atlas has to pull his blessing from Captain Marvel for a little bit and Cap doesn’t know about it until it happens.

Like, he’s at a Justice League meeting, and suddenly he’s so tired and he just falls asleep on the spot.

So the JL hear a giant thud and look over so see Captain Marvel gone limp face down on the table.

And he looks dead. It doesn’t help that he doesn’t need to breathe in his marvel form so he isn’t breathing.

Cue the freak out.


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4 months ago

Now I REALLY need a StephCass MLB AU 😭

With Cass using mostly her fists to fight and Steph has to actively remind her to use the restorative power at the end. While Steph is wondering if she can just destroy the whole building and if she could get sued for that.

Also Steph using cat puns? YES PLEASE

Why are there not any StephCass Miraculous Ladybug Au's??? Why is this something I've never seen before?? Guys?? Just think about it, it would make so much sense!! Pls?? It came to me in a dream and I need someone to make my vision a reality. I am not okay over this, pls and thank you


Tags
4 months ago

Okay but who would be who??? I can see Steph as Cat Noir with her quips and her general vibe, but I can’t see Cass wearing Ladybug’s bright red costume cause she just embodies all black costumes so well…

Why are there not any StephCass Miraculous Ladybug Au's??? Why is this something I've never seen before?? Guys?? Just think about it, it would make so much sense!! Pls?? It came to me in a dream and I need someone to make my vision a reality. I am not okay over this, pls and thank you


Tags
4 months ago

Batkids play a game called "Never have you ever" where Duke gazes into their timelines in the multiverse and tells them two made-up things and one that happened in an else-word and they have to guess which is real

4 months ago

Tookttoobs

I sorta did it????

GAME IDEA REBLOG THIS AND TRY TYPING YOUR URL EYES CLOSED

VD&diydgbyt-buh


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eh
4 months ago

Silly little thing

Silly Little Thing
4 months ago

jason died a hero AND lived long enough to see himself become the villain

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