I Have A Joke And I Really Hope No One Else Has Come Up With It Before, Cause I'm Kind Of Proud Of It.

i have a joke and i really hope no one else has come up with it before, cause i'm kind of proud of it. so here it goes:

"Hey, which famous Drew do you like best? I really like Drew Gooden."

"Hm, i personally like Drew Barry more."

i think it works better when you say it, but yea, that's the joke.

If I had a nickel for every time I fell in love with an unconventional and eccentric pirate character, who redefined what it means to be a pirate and who would do anything for their crew, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

niche fanfiction

i am in the midst of writing a very niche chatfic about a show i used to watch when i was younger. and you might think it can't be that niche, and to that i say: i mean, i don't know, i haven't really checked if there's anything from that fandom on ao3 yet, BUT like, i do not know if there's an audience for this specific fic expect for me, lmao.

so this show was called "Das Haus Anubis", which is the german version of the dutch-language television series "Het Huis Anubis". for context, i'm from germany, and so i watched some of this show when it aired on nickelodeon and i loved it. i don't know how well the other versions did, but this was apparently a hit in germany. i'm rewatching it right now since it's on netflix now, and so i kind of spontaneously decided to write a chatfic about the characters. i'm also writing it in english, cause i'm more confident in my english writing.

so i am writing this chatfic about the german adaption of a dutch show that aired from 2009 to 2012 on nickeleodeon, that's already really damn specific. i'm also writing it in english, so that limits the target audience even further. now you might say 'maybe people from other countries watched this show on netflix with subtitles or something-' YOU CAN'T. there is only german audio and german subtitles, YOU CAN ONLY WATCH THIS SHOW IN GERMAN.

that means the target audience for this fanfiction are german people who've watched this show and care enough for it to read a fanfic about it, specifically a chatfic, and who'd rather read it in english than in german.

and i AM going to publish this to ao3. i'm writing this for myself and because it's fun, of course, but i would still like to publish it.

no one is going to read this but me, and i think that's fucking hilarious.

ps.: if anyone is interested in reading this, feel free to check it out when it's done, but it'll make absolutely no sense probably.

yesterday, i walked two miles, maybe three

at the side of the road with dirty shoes

scared of the cars and sad because 

i was late to my exam

because i was dirty and walking and my thoughts were running 

wild again 

i lost my ticket along the way, but could still take the bus

i saw my friend, i walked to school

when i got there, i didn’t know what room the exam was in

i found it and sat at the front because there was no other free desk

i felt eyes on me, felt my leg itching like a bug was crawling up my leg

i felt the water pooling in my shoes, felt the water closing in around me, the water wanting to 

pour out of my eyes

i felt useless.

they walked me down to the other room, through the hall, and down the stairs, to continue taking the exam 

I’ve never felt this bad 

were people looking? my hair was standing up, frizzy and unmade 

my socks were brown

i continued writing

then, a teacher came in and wished me luck

then another one

and another one

a kind look on every face

strange

i packed my things and the teachers were nice

they weren’t mad i was going home and not to p.e

my friends weren’t mad i was going home and not to p.e

i felt bad (but not horrible)

mom picked me up later because i lost my ticket

she told me the postman found it and brought it back when she called me before

we ran some errands and went home

i felt tired

she told me she was proud of me

i didn’t know. 

yesterday, we talked about it again 

she said she’d seen me cry that day for the first time 

in forever

she said i had walked through the storm, 

that i didn’t give up  

me?

she said she was proud. that i should be, too.

i said “yea”

i didn’t see it

to reiterate:

yesterday, i walked two miles, probably three

at the side of the road with dirty shoes

i was scared of the cars, but kept going

i was sad and frustrated, but kept on going

i got on the bus without my ticket (thank you, bus driver)

i saw a close friend and she wished me luck

i sat at the front, it was uncomfortable, i wrote

i finished the exam and i went home

in my dirty socks and shoes

still feeling the blues.

my mom said she was proud.

and i should be. 

Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)

An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:

(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)

I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:

IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.

You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:

HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:

First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.

Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.

Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.

In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.

In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:

I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.

In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.

Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.

Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!

NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!

i'm telling my kids this was dune