racnarath

[racnarath]

I have a lot of thoughts on this - for one, there seems to be at least two or three different issues being argued in this thread (OP was probably talking about the $100+ mass market production of a draco/hermione fanfic that shows up on Etsy when you look for general bookbinding stuff, some people are talking about the legality of fanfic, others about the morality of money in fandom) - but for now I think I'll bring up this point. What about zines?

Zines often charge money. They often include, if not exclusively focus on, fanfic. They're sold new online and at cons, and old prints are on ebay and the like. I see from Fanlore's page that there's been a long debate about no money charged versus coverage for materials versus compensation for time and labor. I've never really seen a debate here though about the legality/ethics of them here though.

The only real difference I can see between a zine being made for sale and this bookbinding debate is that the zine (presumably) has the permission from the author and the author is aware that their work will be put into a mass-produced item that will charge money.

Fellas, fellas

Why on earth are you BUYING PHYSICAL BOOKBOUND COPIES OF FANFICTION????

ACTUALLY WHY ARE YOU EVEN BOOKBINDING FANFICTION TO SELL?!?!?!

IF ANY OF YOU DO EITHER OF THESE THINGS, GET OUT!! I AM NEVER SPEAKING TO YOU AGAIN.

In all seriousness though, authors on AO3 have begun to pull their works off of the site to avoid getting sued by people stealing their works to make a pretty bound book for profit. Entire accounts could be shut down as well.

Listen, I’m all for saving favorite works by printing them out and putting them in a binder, or learning how to make a bookbound copy yourself and/or assembling one with a pre-made and purchased fancy binding for a fanfic FOR YOURSELF or AS A GIFT to someone, but making bindings with and putting fanfiction in it TO SELL is where I draw the line.

Literally the entire point of AO3 is that you can read it FOR FREE.

It is DISRESPECTFUL for people to make money off of hardbound copies because guess what, the original creators of these fics get nothing. We are literally only writing fanfiction for our own pleasure.

Buying and selling book-bound fanfiction is also ILLEGAL YOU DUMB SHITS. People who are selling content while claiming to be a book binder is a misconception of their services. Book binders make the covers and all that, not the actual content of the book. Selling fanfiction is also an immediate violation of copyright law / Creative Commons licenses. The original fan work will get erased from the internet.

Fanfiction is already a legal grey zone since they are works being written about are protected by copyright. Copyright holders can in fact go after writers as well as the person who sold the fanfiction.

This also goes for people who steal fanart and, claim it as theirs, and put a price on it.

Don’t make it worse.

rest assured, we can still write our fanfics and make our art.

Buying a binding for you to assemble onto your own fanfiction or fanfiction you printed for PERSONAL USE is fine.

HOWEVER,

Bookbinding fanfiction for profit is literally ruining things for everyone. DON’T.

If I see any of them on Etsy, I swear to god-

#I will also note that while Anne Rice is the boogeyman author for older fandom #younger fans are going to be more familiar with E.L. James #(who admitted to writing fanfic though tried to lie about 50 Shades not originally being fic) #Or they'll know of people whose Wattpad Reylo or OneD fics got picked up and scrubbed for publishing #Also also #it's not illegal in the USA to sell transformative works for money #it's just that 'no money here' is an easier defense against 'you work is stealing money from the IP holder' #and aligns with the stance of Ao3 and many of its users that money changing hands between fans inherently poisons fan relationships #(This does create the funny potential scenario that if I comped a book maker for material costs that's Wrong #but if I supplied all the materials directly it would likely just be considered part of the gift economy)

[racnarath]

It makes slightly more - if still terrible - sense when you know that the company was originally called Banana Republic Travel & Safari Clothing Company and had themed stores meant to give a safari experience. Their centerpiece was selling curated clothing items based on things the husband and wife team collected during their time as travel journalists. So basically selling a specific kind of travel fantasy.

(One of the last hand painted watercolor catalogs from 1986 had a feature on khaki that was full of what I can only describe as being part of the british colonial adventure genre)

Then Gap bought them and in the late 80's took control away from the founders and turned it into a more generic mass market luxury retailer, but kept the name.

What does the "banana republic is a fucked up name for a store" post you reblogged mean? I'm afraid of looking dumb.

The term "banana republic" was originally coined to describe countries in Central and South America (mainly Honduras and Guatemala) whose economies were rendered dependent on the production and export of bananas (among other agricultural goods, but mainly bananas) by American fruit corporations leveraging the power of the U.S. government, the U.S. military and the CIA.

Throughout most of the of the 20th century, American corporations such as United Fruit, Cuyamel, and the Standard Fruit Company owned large portions of these countries' lands, to the point that in some cases they controlled their railway, road, and port infrastructure, and they engaged in a variety of imperialist actions to lower production costs, such as violence against labor activists and anti wage reform lobbying.

The pinnacle of this phenomenon was the 1954 Guatemalan coup, when United Fruit convinced the goverment of US president Dwight D. Eisenhower that the elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz (who had expropriated some of the company's unused land and given it to Guatemalan peasants) was secretly working with the Soviet Union, resulting in a CIA coup which deposed the Árbenz government and replaced it with a thirty-year right-wing military dictatorship which effectively acted as a puppet government to protect the interests of United Fruit and the U.S. government.

Nowadays the term has broadened to refer to any small, economically unstable country with an economy which has been rendered dependent on the export of a particular natural resource due to economic exploitation by a more powerful country.

#Wishing myself a very Remember To Check Which Blog I'm Posting To #I very nearly included an image of the catalog but it was huge and also I didn't want to have to do the image ID for it #You can go find it in one of the sources on Wikipedia under Banana Republic's page though

[racnarath]

Man, I’m still vaguely irritated/perplexed that my high school drama teacher summarized the moral of Grease as “Sandy changes her appearance and wins the guy” and then many years later I watched Grease and discovered that Sandy and the guy both independently decided it was worth changing their appearance and subculture alignment in order to get with the other and the big finale is them each showing up having switched their appearance to appease the other’s subculture.

#Commenting mostly to add a data point #One of the first times I ever remember hearing my mom comment negatively on media was this movie #I don't know if she saw it right when it originally released but she would have been the right age/demographic for it when it came out #When I told her we were watching it for class she went: #“ugh. That's the movie where the girl changes everything about herself in order to get with a guy while he does nothing” #So OP's drama teacher is not an outlier in the very least #(Personally the movie left so little impact on me I often forget that I've actually watched it)

[racnarath]

#in Lingua Franca's case it's italian#because italians dominated trade and seafaring in the mediterranean at the time and so that's who most people needed to know how to talk to#It was also not super sophisticated#at least based on what I remember reading about 10 years or so ago#You're not going to have long nuanced discussions in it

Forgot to note that Lingua Franca never evolved beyond a pidgin. Likely due to some combination of the crusades ending and the Italian city states loosing their dominance. But you'd need a proper language nerd or historian to weigh in for that.

It's always so disappointing when sci fi and fantasy books call their languages "Basic" or "Common". No language is apolitical or universal if they're all calling one language Basic, who made it that way? Why is THIS dialect "Common" and all the others are Special/Magical/Incomprehensible??? Show me even a hint of the politics, or give your language a real name

#Reblogging to the correct blog #ugh #you can tell I don't post much #the urge to delete and try again is strong

[racnarath]

A Holiday crossover with my other series, cryptid club! Merry Christmas!

[racnarath]

[racnarath]

On AO3 now Keen-eyed and Completely Oblivious (366 words) by Racnarath Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Dracula - Bram Stoker (Novel 1897) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jonathan Harker/Mina Murray Harker Characters: Jonathan Harker Additional Tags: Inspired by Art, Cameos by all the crew of light, BAMF Jonathan Harker Summary: "The journey may have had incidents; I was, however, too eager to get on, to care for them."   Jonathan has no attention to spare for anything beyond his wife, his knife, and the impending death of Dracula. On the train to Varna, he misses quite the show.

Thank you @vickyvicarious, this is indeed much more accurate

[racnarath]

They’re putting the stickers

[racnarath]

@brittikitty on insta

[racnarath]

Everyone pick up your government-assigned fursona, grab your two colors then combine it with this random animal picker. Tell us what you get and no rerolls, I don't make the rules.

#Yellow olive and olive brown wildcat #...I think that's just a normal wildcat

[racnarath]

The storylines are starting to converge…

[ID. A mauve-tinted illustration of Mina Murray and Jack Seward running in opposite directions, their figures breaking through the white image frame. In the foreground, Mina wears her hair in an updo with twists, an ivory walking suit jacket with pink trim, a white pleated blouse, a pale blue skirt and matching ribbon around her collar. She carries a large leather suitcase in her right hand. Her left hand is folded over the center of her chest, and on her ring finger is a gold serpentine engagement ring inlaid with a sapphire. She has a worried, doe-eyed expression and her tears trail off behind her, sparkling. In the background, Jack Seward sprints with a distressed look and a single sweat bead on his cheek. He wears a sack suit, trousers, waistcoat, pointed shoes, and oval spectacles. A speech bubble above his head extends comically out of the image frame and behind Mina’s head, and reads “shit shit shit shit” repeating ad infinitum. END ID.]

[racnarath]

[racnarath]

"Private submarine carrying several billionaire tourists goes missing while surveying the wreckage of the Titanic."

Well, it had to happen eventually. This is where big-ticket extreme tourism and shooting untrained assholes into space and such was always going to lead – frankly, it's surprising that it took this long for a major incident to crop up.

"One of the missing passengers is the president and CEO of the company that owns and operates the submarine."

Huh. Well, points for putting his money where his mouth is, I guess. I wonder if���

"The missing CEO's name is Stockton Rush."

Oh, bullshit. That's not a real person – that's the name of a guy who builds an inexplicably 1950s-themed underwater theme park and then gets eaten by a shark in a cautionary tale about the perils of libertarianism. That's the name of a guy who carries off an oceanfront real estate scam that somehow ends with Superman fighting a telepathic squid. Fucking "Stockton Rush". Unbelievable.

[racnarath]

In Texas, we had World -> US -> Texas history on a yearly rotation, with Texas history getting two rounds and World and US getting three (not counting US government and World Geography).

Pulling on my dusty memories....

World history tended to start broad and narrow down. Starting with Ancient Civ (Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc) then European history, then British history until the US colonies started. Then a jump to World War I&II after which I think the class stopped?

American history started with the first colony then ran through to...post civil war I think? This is where most of the colonialist stuff would pop up. Westward expansion and all that.

Texas history started with Mexican history up until the Texas Revolution happened and then shifted gears to a Texas specific focus through or to slightly after the Civil War. There was definitely a whiff of "This should be called the War of Northern Aggression >:[" and "it was about state's rights!" style presentation, but I remember my take away at the time was that True Southern Gentlemen were kind of useless and being a bastard is how you when wars.

Really the biggest overall flaw I remember was that anything past WWII often got little to no coverage. Because it was considered modern history and thus outside of the scope of the class.

I think one of the most eye-opening things I ever realized was that while yes it's great to grow up in a country where global history classes exist, (i.e. not the US where they just learn about the US,) those history classes are still so fucking colonial it's insane. The list of things I was taught that turned out to be flat-out lies just never ends.

I wonder if things are any better in schools now, but I highly doubt it.

#I'd be curious if those non-us “global” history classes were only global in the sense #that it covered colonial expansion by the country in question #or mentioned international wars the country was personally involved with #Meanwhile the US didn't get involved much in international stuff until the world wars #so US specific history wouldn't focus as much on international politics

[racnarath]

Fic writers, put in the tags what the difference in hits is between your most and least viewed fics. Mine is 7,720 (7,779-59).

#327 #453 - 126 #Both are oneshots and prompt-fic #but the highest involves the most popular characters in a comedy fix-it #while the lowest features a side character from the least popular game in the series #funnily enough #the lowest hit story is my longest at about 3500 words #while the second most hit (and most kudos fic) is my shortest at only 950 words

[racnarath]

Jon he's really trying here cut him a break

(tumblr crunched the resolution of this comic a lot rip)

#dracula daily

[racnarath]

One thing I’m seeing on this re-read of Dracula Daily that I’m already really enjoying, it’s all the little details we didn’t catch before

When we first started we didn’t know who Jonathan Harker was and to us he was just a silly little British man who was ignoring the obvious warning signs, so there was a comedic element to the dramatic irony of him going to Castle Dracula

But now that we know who Jonathan is and we care about him, it hits much harder all the subtle horror elements we missed while focusing on this good friend telling us about his travels

From the first entry, people picking up on the dog barking under his window and being like “is that Dracula? Does it start this early?” Being skeeved out by Dracula’s overly familiar letter to Jonathan, which at first seemed perfectly reasonable except for the name attached at the end, and picking up on all the terrible foreshadowing for what will be Jonathan’s living hell over the next month in his Castle.

And people this time picking up on the bravery of the wife of the innkeeper who gave him a crucifix, begging him to stay or wait, to not go to the castle, of the terror of knowing that Dracula was in correspondence with her husband to get the letter to Jonathan and the sort of subtle threat they must be under at all times, of the significance of “for your mother’s sake” knowing what Dracula does to children. She is no longer perceived as a random background character, but an active player forced to be a bystander who is trying desperately to help this ignorant soul in any way she can even if she knows it might be useless.

I love people realizing Jonathan is skeptical and off-put, but not enough to deter his mission. He’s not oblivious, just making an effort to remain open-minded to the culture and superstitions and beliefs he is not familiar with, since he’s aware it will be wildly different from his own (to the best of his ability for being an Englishman from the 1890s) and pointedly dismissing the things that might be red flags as an attempt to rationalize because nothing truly concerning has happened yet to provoke him to leave, and he doesn’t want to be deterred by something he’s getting worked up for for no reason yet, he couldn’t do his job otherwise and people are depending on him

Idk, I just like this deeper analysis and thought now that people are already familiar and attached to his character, and now know what happens, so they can properly point out when something is foreshadowing later events or themes in the novel, and they can pick up on it quicker

Even something as simple as people noticing the other meals mentioned in the first entry because of all the focus on Paprika Hendl last year makes me happy :)

I like that they are giving our protagonist more credit now, knowing the character he turns into later in the novel (a badass)

It is satisfying :)))

#dracula daily