I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.

(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)

The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.

So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.

I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.

First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?

And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:

Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.

Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.

I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!

Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.

Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).

Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.

So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.

They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.

I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.

Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.

This funny template was going around on Tumblr so i snatched it and made it delulu!!

Get rid of the new photo viewer. Put the tags button back where it goes. Get rid of the bubble around the notes. Stop stealing content from queer users while simultaneously flagging queer content. Do something about the porn bots. Fix the issue with pictures overlaying video previews. Stop giving us ads that loudly auto-play even when auto-playing videos is turned off in our settings. Let us permanently disable tumblr live. Quit making this website worse.

tbh I think making "transgender" synonymous with "MTF/FTM/sometimes nb person" instead of having it be a term for gender diversity in general was a mistake. same with dropping trans* as a term to signify the diversity of the trans community as including transsexuals transgenders transvestites. it feels like our culture is so aggressively "EVERYTHING needs to be clearly categorized nuance and grey areas are the devil" that everything we come up with (including "nonbinary") to be a purposefully vague umbrella term ends up being associated with One Single Identity. like I prefer the way Leslie Feinberg uses "transgender" & I think it makes so much more sense!!! To group trans men & women and also nonbinary people and crossdressers and gender deviants of all kinds in one community rather than drawing a sharp line between trans people as people who completely reject their AGAB & people who had a queer relationship with gender.

Unpopular opinion:

I won't try to justificate Yosuke's weird homophobic comments but i have smth to say

I think after rewatching some scenes, i would say that Yosuke after the whole camping trip, Yosuke feels bad for he said to Kanji and was trying to fixing that up

Something that people tends to forget, is that Yosuke has hidden dialogue like this around the game, pretty much after the camping trip BUT it's true that he still says stuff like "oh look, a random pretty guy, he sure is good looking, right Kanji ;)" but i feel like, knowing Yosuke and all of this stuff he says, this is mostly him trying to be ""supportive"" and cheerful friendly teasing he usually does, Kanji obviously doesn't like this, bc the whole point of Kanji's character is that he isn't gay (i won't get into the argument, i will just say that see him as fully gay instead of bisexual or smth is completely missing the point of his character arc) this boy haven't spent half of his life getting called that and being afraid of being himself so his own damn friend starts throwing salt in the wound, but besides him getting mad at him, he never told him directly what was his actual problem with those comments, yeah, i know Yosuke ain't stupid, but he's the kind of person that need to tell him something straight to his face to make him know you are fr.

And yeah, i do believe is that this whole situation is a mix between yosuke being a closeted bisexual that is projecting hard onto Kanji like we know he canonically can relate to him in the scene where Kanji opens up to the group (and like how he always forces "pretty boys" on him when Kanji never showed interest), how he's obviously scared bc this game happends in 2011 and LGTB stuff was still a sore subject specially in japan and how he feels bad for what he said to him at certain point bc hello??? Kanji is his friend and we damn know they're pretty close, he just didn't thought clearly what he's saying to him and how it clearly affected him

It's pretty noticeable when Yosuke does bad shit on proupose, but i dont believe this is one of them

When we talk about Stonewall this month, let's not forget to talk about how the entire thing was sparked by the arrest of a butch transmasculine lesbian- Stormé DeLarverie, a mixed drag king, who fought back against the cop who was violently arresting her for crossdressing.

Drag queens and trans women deserve recognition for their role in the Stonewall uprisings, and so do butches & transmascs. We all fought for each other.

i know ive reached insane levels of autism when im pacing around my room waving my hands around pretending to explain my new fixation to a group of VERY invested VERY silent people for half an hour straight

if u take zoloft and/or spironolactone be careful in the hot months u will dehydrate and be prone to overheating. drink. Water

I am not responsible for who I become when hyperfixating