bella-buggied - Tumblr blog

bella-buggied · 11 months

Text

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.

52K notes · View notes

bella-buggied · 11 months

Text

On a Tuesday afternoon, Steve announces, with no drama at all, "I'm going to kill myself."

Dustin spins around to face him so cartoonishly fast that Steve kind of expects a Looney Tunes-style sound effect to follow. "What? Don't say that," he says, voice pitching up high like it gets. "Don't say that!"

Somewhere to their left from the tucked-in, cozy depth of the Henderson's new kitchen, Steve hears the echo of Lucas's laugh.

Lucas gets him.

Steve turns, hair flopping, and screws his face up at the world's saddest baby cow impressionist standing above him. He's lying on the floor of their carpeted lounge, lazing like a cat in a sunbeam. Man, Mews 2 has it all figured out, if you think about it.

He can't remember what the invitation was originally headlined as – like most days lately, they kind of just want to make excuses to hang around each other and cling on like little freaky leeches and the starring act tends to be whatever bullshit they manage to get up to in the meantime. It’s in that codependent way that he hopes is endearing, and a healthy coping mechanism of solidifying bonds and not, like, weird. Dustin was like, "come over, you graduated a Scoops alum, we can make sick sundaes!" but they've just been lying around (literally!) waiting for that little unreliable shit second-act Wheeler to turn up with the supplies he said he would totally have covered, totally!

"Sorry, bud," he says and laughs like ah, what can you do? "I know you see me as like a– like, some sort of an older sister slash, ah, father figure, and this will be hard for you–"

Dustin moves to kick him, going right for his softest bits. "Hey!" Steve yelps, jolting away instinctively, ending up rolling around on the carpet. "You're such a bully!"

"Dickhead!" Dustin argues, "You're a dickhead!"

He's really getting out of control. "Be nice to me!" Steve whines and presses his face into the scratchy rug he landed on. He can feel the vibrating scrape-scrape of Dustin's shoes tapping around his head. "You gotta be nice to me. This isn't how you should be responding to someone who's trying to open up, you know, mentally–"

"Mentally?" Dustin cries over him. "You'd need a goddamn brain!"

Steve cracks an eye open. "You're a little fucker," he says like it's a compliment. "You want me to come up there? That window is pretty close, you know. And you're a little guy," he pinches his fingers together with a little impish squint of his eye.

"Cliché! Gonna throw me out the window, you goon? Or what, is it assisted suicide now?" Dustin blusters and scoffs, but he shrieks when Steve hauls himself up using the window ledge. Steve gives him a look like hey, c'mon, because hey, c'mon, tells him, "That's just straight up murder, dude."

Dustin huffs, hands on his hips, and there’s a little phantom tap on Steve's shoulder pointing out his sudden similarity to Mrs Henderson, which: cute.

"Ah, look, I'm just messing around with ya," Steve apologises, hand settling on the ledge and leaning back. "It's not a big deal. I get job rejections all the time. Worse comes to worst... we can set up a lemonade stand or some shit. Or like, walk dogs." He swirls his wrist around nebulously.

"You don't like dogs," Dustin argues.

Steve grins. "I put up with Munson, don't I?"

Dustin gasps, then laughs, then gasps again like he can't believe he betrayed his little friend. Or like, his big friend. Whatever. "You have something dark and twisted in your mind," he tells Steve solemnly, and Steve cackles. "And you're a– a little B-word, because you don't want to look for jobs without Robin holding your hand. Ha! Or, actually, your," Dustin looks around conspiratorially at exactly no one, then mouths: "Dick!"

Steve stares at him. Huh. Well, ew. "B-word? You mean, like... bitch?" he whispers, mocking, then pulls up. "Also, ew."

"What do you mean ew?!" Dustin exclaims, throwing his arms up. "Dude! Robin's a totally rockin' babe! Also, yes, the frickin' B-word. I respect women now, man."

"Wh– now?" Steve laughs out, shaking his head. "Like you didn't before? Also, don't look at me like that! It's ew because I don't want you talking about that stuff! It's gross!" He makes a little eurgh gesture as he says it.

"Also, are you fifty? Who says rockin'?" he goes on, sneering a little on the edge of too meanly. "I can't be the only one seeing the irony here that you just totally disrespected a woman, like, just now. Like not even a second ago!"

Dustin pulls a face at him, 'cause Steve's the one being unreasonable. "Robin's not a woman, Steve. She's a beautiful creature-girl starving among the toxic, governmental backwash fuelled, boot-licking sheeple we call Americans. And she doesn't say the B-word either."

This kid. Also, not even true – he's pretty sure Robin was the one who kept writing "bitch boy" on his fifth-draft resumé under "life skills". That or like, the librarian Hopper hopped on is mean as hell in a super unexpectedly wounding and targeting way.

"Munson is teaching you bad words! Naughty, naughty fucking words!" Steve yelps, feeling weirdly like he’s being a grass or something. "What happened to being American heroes, huh?" The question, with a voice rasping like a drowned man, is directed to the slowly spinning ceiling fan.

Dustin grumbles something nasty that's definitely naughtier and definitely another tried and true Eddie-ism in the syllable count alone. Steve ignores him bravely, flopping down onto the couch and stirring up the same sort of warm perfumey smell Mrs Henderson favours. He slides down 'til he's comfy and crumpled up. Mews 2, who up until now was dozing on the knit-cover cushion, is in dire need of being scooped into his arms and held like a wittle baby.

"Anyway," Steve sighs. "Enough with the Robin stuff. There is no Robin stuff, I told you. It's just hard to find part-time hours right now, ever since, y'know."

"Y'know," Dustin repeats solemnly, nodding. He rocks back and forth on his heels, making the red afternoon sunbeam coming through the window shift and flick across the room. Steve shoves his face into the cat's fat little belly, sighing through fur and domestic cushion smell.

"Maybe I can sling ice cream again," he suggests, muffled, "It's not that hard. Actually, it's not hard at all." He lifts his head, scrunching his nose up. "And I probably don't have to wear a dumb little outfit at, like, Dairy Queen."

In the kitchen, Lucas drops something that skitters around in a way that can’t be good for the new French tile. He doesn't know what they're cooking in there, exactly, but through hearing Lucas knocking about like he's tripping on dustbunnies (like his Grandpa Otis would say, 'cause old people are always just inventing crazy shit to say) he can deduce it's something messy and/or gnarly. He also knows Max is nursing some sort of herbal tea because of the five-minute argument over, like, the amount of sugar she takes he listened to unashamedly before. Totally not the dramatic teen drama sesh he thought it’d be when he initially tuned in, though.

The drawers have ceased crashing open and shut in that grating, teenaged way – ambient noise for the single mothers and Adderall-soaked babysitters of the world – so he assumes whatever culinary delight it is is wrapping up.

He thinks to himself, with a fond little tug at his dumb bleeding heart, that Lucas has known how Max likes her fancy Californian tea for years now. He’s just like, like that.

In his peripheral, Dustin beams and crashes down next to him – hey – and tells him: "I loved your little outfit. Everyone loved your little outfit. The little outfit made the job. It was... cute! And, you were totally kickass and beat the shit out of a Soviet guard in that outfit!"

"Yeah," Steve suffers out. "It was pretty awesome. But I think I got zero play for a reason. And I'm all game!"

That uniform rode up like crazy, too, and not even in the kind of like, coy and coquettishly sexy way that he’d like to believe he could pull off if given the chance. He always felt like one, too-quick popping of a squat to grab another weird sticky bag of caramel topping from the storage closet would split the seam hole to pole. (Hole to hole?). Plus, according to the magazine he read forty minutes ago on the floor of Robin’s bedroom, that shade of blue so didn’t go with his skin tone. He’s an Autumn.

"Well, you'd have to wear a dumb hat again at DQ," Dustin points out, because he hates him. "And, gross. Don't gross me then– then gross yourself."

Steve carefully flattens Mews 2's ears down with his palms, then exclaims, "That hat!" He groans. "Gag me with a spoon, I think I really would kill myself if anyone saw me in that thing again. All I was missing is a fruity little lollipop."

He sees Dustin's eyebrows rise and the way he repeats fruity to himself quietly. "You are getting way more homophobic lately, Steve. And you're a misogynist," he declares, all puffed up.

What!

"What!" Steve splutters. "I'm not misogynist! I love women. And girls. All women, and girls, and ladies a-and moms. I love your mom! Okay– sorry. I got flustered."

He rubs the bridge of his nose with pinched fingers. "Also, I meant, like, fruity like strawberries and cream, not, like, a strawberry with, y'know... cream," He adds coyly with a little eyebrow wiggle.

Dustin sits there for a moment, then goes a little red and starts laughing, which makes Steve feel, like, nice. It's always a little thrilling when he can actually get any of these kids to laugh, for some reason.

"Shut up! This is what I'm talking about!" Dustin complains.

Steve turns his head, hiding the slip of his smile in the couch he's pillowed into. "I'm not homophobic, man," he tells him, trying to really show he's earnest through tone alone. Honestly, the very la-a-st thing he needs is Henderson actually believing this in one way or another, if not for his own lavender coated, closeted well-being then for the integrity of their weird little friendship. "You know that. If you ever catch me being actually homophobic you're allowed to fucking, I dunno, just kill me dead. Outsource it to Nancy or something. Or, hey, Mike!" he says, bringing his head up with his aha! moment accompanied by a click of his fingers.

"Mike?" Dustin repeats, acting out one of his exaggerated jeez, this fucking guy! routines, flapping his arms around like crazy. "First of all, if I was outsourcing your murder – which I can't buh-lieve this conversation has come back to, by the way – Mike would be last on my list."

Well that’s a little mean, maybe. Steve looks him up and down and decides to really ham up his disbelief. He clutches Mews to his chest all dramatic, like a fuzzy pearl necklace. "Why? Because you wanna murk me yourself? You're sick, dude!" he says.

"No!" Dustin shoves him, and Steve repeats, "si-i-ick!" until he shoves him again.

"I could never assassinate you, Steve. We're brothers in arms. You'd have to, like, be really evil. And even then, it'd have to be really evil stuff. No, I've thought about this," – and he ignores Steve, going up three octaves, You've thought about this?! – "You're forgetting we actually know a superpowered death weapon who can explode your mind into goo in like, uh, a nanosecond. But, well, El likes you too much…" He clicks his tongue like, darn.

This is kind of news to Steve. He's always gotten the impression that El, while cute as a button and much like some sort of fucked up amalgamation of this adorable, curly-headed baby deer and velociraptor, didn't think of him in any sort of particular way. But maybe he's always been too busy feeling that weird mix of genuine fear and genuine aw whenever he's around her to really focus on like, the dynamics.

Dustin is saying, "I don't know if Robin would do it, but she probably knows you the best so she'd be able to figure out the perfect way. And she'd be really nice about it, too, because of your big, freaky bond. But that wouldn't stop her," he book-ends, nodding sadly.

"It wouldn't," Steve says with a sappy smile. He loves her, not that he'd ever admit that outside of his like, car. She'd probably lace his favourite drink with something, then freak out that he wouldn't feel like peach-flavoured iced tea that day, and end up lacing his whole fridge. Then it wouldn't even be poison, it'd just be like, sleeping pills, and she'd just put a pillow over his head. Slit his throat with a freshly plucked thorn from a rose, or something. Or, maybe she'd just go super-crazy-murder and cut him up like the fancy cheese her mom likes.

"Mike could snag a piece from Nance's stash," Steve suggests, to attempt to derail where he knows this is going, and because he kind of believes this, really. The ka-chik finger gun gesture he does stops Dustin from talking about whatever he was saying about Max throwing his body in the quarry "like, for the irony" just to shriek until his voice cracked.

"Why are you so caught up on Mike?" Dustin slaps his hands down. "Mike would shit his pants!"

"He's got hidden depths," Steve protests, feeling weirdly protective now. It's not Mike's fault he's sixteen or whatever. Plus, he's got a shit dad, too. Steve likes Mike. "He's loyal," he nods, like he's convincing himself now, gesturing with a closed fist, thumb folded like a politician would. "If someone needed to take me out, he wouldn't want anyone else to get blood on their hands. He thinks about that stuff!"

Dustin's got his face smooshed in his hands, but he's sunk down into the couch alongside him by now, pressed against his side. Steve's warm at every angle, sandwiched between a boy and his cat. "He wouldn't do it. He's squeamish. He'd only do something like that for, well, Will, probably?" And that's a little interesting. "No, no, Mike wouldn't do it. But Eddie would."

"Munson?" Steve gapes. "No way, man! It took two months to clear his name for a murder he didn't even do! And that was with grodie government guy help, too!"

Dustin waves him off. "No, listen. Listen! The aftermath isn't in play here, okay? Eddie would kill you so-o-o good, no questions asked. He's got the means, he'd have the motive, he's bigger than you–"

"Oh, get real, you know that's a lie!"

"– he's scrappy, and! He'd like it." Dustin finishes, leaning in and slapping it down like a period on a sentence, and something fizzy oozes around Steve's insides, and, uh. Suddenly he remembers the way, last Fall, that a shattered beer bottle was held to his neck instead of "hello," and now he’s a little on edge, he thinks. Is it being on edge when you’re like flushed and squirmy? And scared? But like, nervous-scared? Like, why does the thought of Eddie not liking him make him want to throw his guts up?

Steve clears his throat. (Is it like butterflies? Or something?) "Okay, you're crazy," he says. "Are you saying Munson hates me, now? Or is this some sort of, like, my dad can fight your dad thing?”

Dustin flushes and says no emphatically, but Steve doesn't fully believe him. "I'm not saying he hates you. I'm just saying he's your best bet. And that he'd think it was super punk rock. It's like, y'know, cemeteries. He'd turn your skull into a bowl or something."

"What do you mean it's like cemeteries?! Also, that's not even punk, it's like, goth," Steve corrects, a little too quick to not be suspicious, but barely thinking about it all the same. "Plus, you're saying he doesn't hate me, but now you're actually making me feel worse about it. Munson doesn't hate me! He likes me!" Steve's eyes widen, a little comically, and now his heart picks up oddly, and he looks into Dustin's eyes like the man starved for validation he is. "Wait, Dusty. Eddie likes me, right? Right?"

Dustin's smile turns strained and ends kind of serial-killery, which fits the conversation but doesn't pan out well for Steve, predictably. "Um," he starts, slowly, and carefulyl says, "Okay, you seem to be freaking out. Don't freak out."

"What do you mean, don't freak out!" Steve picks at it, feeling totally justified here – he's been hysterical before, he feels pretty entitled to screaming and crying in response to the occasional state of the world that seems to try to eat him as the worst bi-annual event ever, and he feels this is almost tantamount to that. Almost. And he’s nervous! "You just told me Eddie Munson actually wants to knife me!"

"That's not what I said," Dustin protests quickly, placing a hand on his shoulder, soothing, and tells him, all smiles, "I said he'd be happy if he had to."

"I thought we were friends!" Steve whines. "I gave him an apple last week and he said thank you, that's significant! It's friends! We're totally friends!"

Dustin says, "Steve, Eddie's allergic to apples," in that obnoxious tone of his, and the last of Steve's sanity is smothered in its sleep.

147 notes · View notes