Hi Mawd! The youtuber Kyle Kallgren released a video essay about this play that utilizes The Simpsons to discuss how stories shift over time called "Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play". Given everything being discussed about copyright, I thought it was a really funny thing to have come up. If you're interested, I can send you the link!

i'd LOVE to see it yes, ty!

stuff about fanfiction, copyright, and the former not fucking with the latter keeps coming up on my dash even when I'm not looking for it these days LOL...

So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.

There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.

When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.

If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive', because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.

miss all sunday 🥀🤍

Our fandom forbearers did NOT suffer through Anne Rice, strikethrough, and other bullshit for fucking ACOTAR and Harry Potter fans to fucking ruin it for all of us by selling fanfiction. I am not losing novel length yaoi epics because some of you don't know how to act in fannish spaces and yes I do blame the booktokification of fanfic but I also blame those of you that treat fandom like content to consume and not a community to engage with.

It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?

Rest is a requirement.

Trauma takes a heavy toll on the body's energy reserves. To constantly be in a state of fight, flight, fawn, freeze, to be stressed out so often and so hard, it's exhausting.

And when you're that tired, even the most minor of tasks feel like scaling a mountain.

You aren't lazy, you're struggling. You're fighting against the toll your trauma takes.

You need to let yourself rest. Rest, and don't blame yourself for needing it.

“In a situation where every waking moment has become the time in which we make our living, and when we submit even our leisure for numerical evaluation via likes on Facebook and Instagram, constantly checking on its performance like one checks a stock, monitoring the ongoing development of our personal brand, time becomes an economic resource that we can no longer justify spending on ‘nothing.’ It provides no return on investment; it’s simply too expensive. This is a cruel confluence of time and space: just as we lose noncommercial spaces, we also see all of our own time and our actions as potentially commercial. Just as public space gives way to faux public retail spaces or weird corporate privatized parks, so we are sold the idea of compromised leisure, a freemium leisure that is a very far cry from ‘what we will.’”

— Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing

FFS, uggghhhhhhh

echoing what others said in the comments: BLOCK THAT ANON the next time they show up in your inbox

research revealed this anon is a literal child badgering adults to generate bespoke p0rn for them, they were lying about being an adult on their latest spam account

they haven't learned their lesson from MANY people who tried telling them to knock off this bad behavior so it seems like they're just feeding off the attention even if it's negative

their parents are nowhere to be found and aren't monitoring their internet access, so let's just block and never engage again (that's my tactic from this point on)

so sorry they're bugging you, it's so fucking annoying and their piss poor, selfish behavior really does speak to their immaturity

In my opinion just take how you write male characters then put that into a male reader!!!

You realize you can do that to, right? You can read a story how *you* want and change how *you* imagine it. I’m not feeding you content nor am I here to provide your preferences. I write for me. If you wanna read about your favorite characters but can’t find the content you want? Make it yourself.

For fucks sake lol I leave anon on because I have two very sweet people who prefer to use it. Can you please move on? Literally search “male reader” for the tag and find someone else. I’m not doing it.

@oddmawd it seems they’re still at it but I’ve blocked every single account possible. So they might have made new ones.

Sharing with the class!

Was thinking a lot on the guys whose voices are raspy when they first wake up in the morning. Guys who just have that pleasant rumble in their chest. They press a nose against your ear and mumble out a tired “G’morning beautiful”. It makes you shiver, because their breath is right there against your pulse point, and in return you get them to chuckle. Low and slow against your skin. It always leads to wandering hands because they know how much their teasing, sleepy groan will rile you up.

kirishima, bakugo, sero in spanish, joe, suguru, todo

i’m dizzy abt this neon 😮‍💨

slow moving hands gripping just the right way. kisses on the back of your neck. nipping at your ear, kissing along your jaw. sweet words in your ear; i love you’s and asking how you slept, little bits of praise and encouragement….

ugh. brb rotting for the rest of the morning.

i grow stuff via hydroponics and today someone told me "you should stop growing herbs and do microgreens instead and sell them to local restaurants for some extra cash," LIKE CAN I NOT JUST HAVE A GODDAMN HOBBY ACTUALLY?!?!?!?!

UGH YES i wish we could have that too!!!

IMO: people's willingness to endanger the entire fanfiction ecosystem for their own personal gain is a direct result of capitalism being a dick

first it makes us think of EVERYTHING in terms of economics, "productivity" and money, money, money

then it makes us desperate to make ends meet (#eattherich)

and then side-hustle culture convinces us that our hobbies are worthless unless they're monetized

so the math adds up and desperate people look at their empty pantries and then at their time-consuming hobbies that pay them nothing, and it's no fucking wonder they start asking "hey, can i perhaps make a buck off of that hobby to soothe the misery of this financial hellscape somewhat?"

and i get the impulse, truly i do, but the problem with fanfic is that YOU CAN'T DO THAT

fic is a labor of love and i'm sorry but it's not the answer to our monetary problems, because those problems will get a lot worse for you if you wind up fined into oblivion over copyright infringement

enough people start turning fanfic into a black market instead of a grey one and we'll get chased back underground and then your nice little side-hustle goes up in smoke along with the entire fanfiction community as a whole

allow me to remind us that capitalism is a goddamn liar, side-hustle culture is a trap, and:

you are allowed to have a hobby that isn't profitable

hobbies are not worthless if they don't generate cash flow

turning your hobby into a side hustle often saps the joy out of it

try finding joy through the act of creating, not through the money you might make doing it

good luck out there

Shout out to everyone on my dashboard who is enthusiastically talking about whatever the fuck theyre into that I don't recognise. Love your enthusiasm, keep going, I don't know what's happening but i support u

WAIT!

Before you hit send on that ask, reblog, or reply, remember to stop and PROOFREAD!

am I Pissing on the Poor?

did I Read the post in bad faith?

could I be Overexaggerating?

am I Out of line for saying this?

is it kind of Fucked up to say that to a total stranger?

is what I said Rude?

am I being Egotistical?

am I Angry at words that weren't in the post?

did I Dream up a pretend person to get mad at?

ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT YOURSELF FROM LOOKING LIKE A JACKASS ONLINE!

How not to fanfic. (See also: What the "no monetizing" policies on AO3 are there to protect us from.)

Don't publish your fanfic on Amazon for monetary gain.

Definitely don't then send a print copy of your published fanfic to the copyright holder, thus making them aware of its existence.

Especially don't then sue a licensee of the copyright holder for infringing on your...copyright?

(Note: the link above is a gift article link so you should be able to read it without a paywall.)