If OTW weren’t around, this wouldn’t be “scaremongering”: It would be the inescapable status quo.
The people who believe this crap are the anti-vaxxers of fandom.
Oh god. They kind of are, aren’t they?
I’d go bigger and just say that they’re the conservatives/reactionaries of fandom–or, to frame it differently, this is how conservative and authoritarian ideologies express themselves in the context of Fandom.
my opinion on AO3 is that it’s an important asset but i still find it scummy that they’ll ask for money but when their users try to ask for money they slam them with their non-monetization rules.
Like Anne Rice is dead and this isn’t the 90s anymore, people are making money from fandom please catch up with the times.
I think you’ve misunderstood:
AO3 was built by a bunch of us with our free donated labor for the purpose of being a space free from commercial spam.
It’s not a public service. It was built by us to house the type of fandom culture weliked.
People who want to do fandom differently, including making money, are welcome to go build their own site with their own money or their own donated labor.
AO3 does not forbid commercial links because they think fans making money from fanworks is immoral but them making money (to run the damn site) is fine.
AO3 forbids commercial links because they are making a very specific claim about the legality of fanworks, and that claim is about noncommercial fanworks.
They’re not saying that commercialized fanworks are against the law. They’re just not prepared to host them–nor defend them in court.
In case people missed it: The OTW will not honor DMCA takedown orders that are basically, “I own X work and that’s a fanfic of it, and that’s copyright infringement so make it go away.”
The OTW says, lolnope, we don’t think that’s copyright infringement. If you disagree, sue us.
The OTW says: Disney - we will not remove explicit Mandalorian fanfic. Rowling, Warner Bros - we will not remove trans Harry Potter fanfic. Gabaldon - we are not removing Outlander fanfic no matter how much you think it’s illegal or a personal violation. Yarbro, if someone puts “The Adventure of the Gentleman in Black” on AO3, you will need to actually take it to trial to (try to) get it removed; none of this C&D order followed by fans caving because they can’t afford a lawyer.
…So far, nobody has sued them. (This is, in my mind, the strongest proof we have that fanfic is not copyright infringement. In 13 years, not a single person or company has scrounged up a lawyer and filed a lawsuit against AO3/the OTW for hosting fanworks.)
But they’re not willing to put themselves on the line for commercial works. Those get considered differently in copyright law. They’re not always infringing - there’s a whole history of parody books & songs to prove that - but the OTW is not dealing with them.
The OTW does not care if fans are making money. The OTW cares if fans making money interfere with its legal defense of its archive.
If you are not a copyright lawyer, your opinion about the situation is not going to be considered.
Also, it wasn’t just Anne Rice coming after fandom in the 90s as though this is some relic holdover terror from ancient history.
Events like Strikethrough and Boldthrough happened in the early to mid-2000s. It felt like you’d wake up every day in 2007 and find another fandom group on LJ gone. (And not just fandom groups either, important community groups for education and trauma survival were also wiped out in those purges as well.)
And while not exactly the same, Yahoo Groups–and yes Yahoo Groups was a major online fandom hub at one point–were deleted as late as 2019 with very little warning, leaving a lot of older fandom groups scrambling to back up decades worth of content.
I might be projecting, but Fanfic.net seems to be wobbling too. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out they go under in the next few years despite performing similar purges of adult content in 2012 and allowing for obnoxious ads, which made the site unusable on mobile unless you wanted to see an ad what felt like every couple of paragraphs. (It might be better now, I haven’t checked in a while.)
It has only been in very recent memory that fandom has gained any sort of foothold that isn’t poised directly over a precarious faultline that could at any moment open up and swallow entire communities whole, and a huge part of that is the volunteers at Ao3 who decided to play chicken with the likes of Anne Rice and won.
Ao3 at its core was and is built by fandom. Some people don’t like it and that’s fine, but to even suggest that the volunteers are lounging around eating peeled grapes and lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills making bank through fraud while fanfic authors are left out in the cold is beyond the scope of laughable.
I always find it so interesting how actual homosexual people like me are never a part of these woke check lists. Me, who have been told my whole life that I can’t have ANY relationship with people I’m attracted to.
YUP.
And they always forget the huge star crossed lovers element of Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship… I’m sure I’ve said it before but they’re like Romeo and Juliet, if Romeo and Juliet were two gay men separated by two strict homophobic religious cults. That’s a story that’s going to resonate more with homosexuals than “queers” (see; straight people who want to be special).
I mean. The scene where Aziraphale is visibly anxious around Sandalphon, and nervously points out that Sandalphon was responsible for Sodom and Gomorrah of all things. Come on. Is that really going to hit a Spicy Straight the same way it’s going to hit a homosexual?
Okay, look.
I agree that the fandom is erasing homosexual males, and it’s not okay (as I’ve mentioned along with more problems a hundred times on my blog).
But the way you’re calling the listed people “straight people who want to be special” is not okay either.
It’s not their fault the fandom is acting homophobic. It’s the fault of homophobic fans, and followers of character distortion.
With fake-claiming people’s identities we aren’t doing anything relevant to the problem.
The problem is still the homophobic behauviour. As the post above, wich erases gay males.
It still doesn’t mean the ones who were listed are somehow the problem.
When practicing discrimination ourselves, we aren’t any better than the homophobic side of the fandom. Not one bit.
I don’t mean to start a fight or sound harsh, I just think that it should be said.
To be honest, they literally forbid a whole group of people (‘terf’; although it’s just women who have become objectionable to them for any stupid reason), they ignore homosexual people, so I’m not surprised that the moment has come when they got their portion of shit.
And regarding nonbinary and etc., it is too strange that this is not subject to discussion. It’s enough to ask a question - and here you are already an evil and stupid terf that should die. Eh? This one resembles some kind of cult already. In the end, we all have the right to our opinion on some issue
There seems to be a bit of a misconception regarding how some artists work. While I can’t speak for every artist, I can speak to my own experiences, along with the experiences that have been discussed with me by other artists and those who commission them.
If an artist is commissioned for work, but produces other pieces before the commission, don’t immediately assume the artist doesn’t value the commission. This is, quite likely, the opposite.
Many artists, myself included, will produce ‘practice’ pieces of art. Maybe we’re trying to work out a new technique, or we’re testing a new brush. It might just be that we’re trying to figure out how to approach a part of the commission piece and we’re testing that out in a work that might appear on the surface to be completely unrelated.
Sometimes, we’re working out how to approach the art at a time when we might be dealing with an art block. If you’re a writer, you may be familiar with writer’s block. This can happen in anycreative pursuit. If you’ve never personally experienced this, consider yourself lucky. But sometimes, what helps an artist come out of that is to create something random.
The point is, working these things out in a piece of our own means that the person who commissioned the work gets to benefit from the additional labor the artist put in to be able to work their commission.
Think of it as a warm-up exercise before a marathon.
Also, there’s a good chance yours isn’t the only commission they’re working on.
But here’s the thing that a lot of well-meaning people don’t even realize. When an artist is commissioned, they don’t stop being a person. Would you expect a chef who is asked to create a menu for a party not to cook for themselves in the meantime? I hope not.
Artists have personal lives, too. Taking art commissions is like any other job. There needs to be a work/life balance or both suffer. You wouldn’t want to pay for sub-standard work, right?
Anyway, please consider this when making a commission from an artist. Just because you see work you didn’t explicitly pay for being produced; try not to assume the person you’ve commissioned doesn’t value your commission. The artist is putting their name on what they produce for you. An artist’s name is part of their livelihood. They know that their next commission could rely on yourword of mouth.
You’ve heard of lemons and the Citrus Scale? Well, what about KINKTOMATO?
KINKTOMATO is an important concept in fandom. It’s a humourous re-spelling of YKINMKATO - Your Kink Is Not My Kink (And That’s OK). This is the idea that if you don’t like a particular kink or ship etc, that’s fine but you don’t need to attack or shame the people who do. Just leave them alone to enjoy their fics and art in peace and ask that they do the same in return.
KINKTOMATO is the “you do you” of fandom. It’s the “whatever floats your boat” of leaving other people alone. It’s an easy and judgement-free way of hoping that your fellow fans enjoy their content as much as you enjoy yours and understanding that different folks like different strokes.
Having preferences is human. Having squicks is totally normal. Everyone has NOTPs or lines they don’t want to cross. But fandom is a large group of diverse people with varying tastes and interests and backgrounds. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Ship and let ship. Don’t like? Don’t read. Your kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.
Did you know that the history of *all* our fundraisers actually started with an impromptu response to a humanitarian crisis? Way before the fundraisers grew into an annual birthday – and later a holiday season – celebration to funnel our gift budget for Richard into charitable causes, the very first fundraiser on this blog was in aid of the earthquake victims in Nepal in 2015! It was a really…
Like, I know by now eveyone is aware that he throw salt to keep the bad luck away, but, do you know why he throw sugar too?
Let me explain something (I’m a latin AND witch btw): the salt in witchcraft is used as a way to repel negativity and bring protection. But sugar? Sugar is an attractor.Is used mostly to bring good things like good luck and health.
And WHEN he throw it? After Mirabel hit her elbow.
Hit the elbow in some latin cultures is a omen of suddenly bad luck. That’s why Bruno looks so SHOCKED when he hear her hit her elbow and proceeds to knock on wood, hold his breathe, cross finger and throw salt to cancel any bad omen, and then sugar, for the good luck and to heal her elbow.
How emotionally damaged were we all as teens to look at creepypastas of all things and say “I’m gonna found family it”.
Like. I had the time of my life imagining they all lived in slenders mansion when I was 13 but never stopped to think ‘hey maybe I MIGHT have some issues because I am clinging onto a bunch of non existent serial killers forming a weird family as a method of gaining serotonin’
Also WHO was gonna tell me that Splendorman was made by Neil Ciciergera???
