Hi, it's me again, the person who wrote that viral post about fanfiction plagiarism! Today I'm here to warn you about abuse perpetrated by bots who have stolen AO3 usernames.
There's currently an epidemic of bots going around leaving (apparently random) horrible, hateful comments on people's fics. This isn't the first time bots have invaded AO3, but the big problem with this wave is that they're using real AO3 usernames to do it.
I learned about this when another writer contacted me after receiving the following comment on their story:
Now, while that is my username, I DEFINITELY did not leave this comment (and anyone who would leave something like that on a fic should be slapped! What an awful thing to post). This fic is in a completely unrelated fandom that I have never participated in, nor has that author participated in any of my fandoms, so the probability of it being some intentional fandom drama thing to make me look bad is also low.
The writer whose fic the comment was left on enlisted the aid of some friends and tracked down other guest comments with unrelated usernames attached, which is pretty strong evidence that they are being left by bots at random.
The TL;DR: If you receive a cruel comment from a (Guest) with an actual AO3 username attached, it's most likely from a bot. Please do not lash out at or dogpile the AO3 user who owns that name, and who in all likelihood has no idea that their name has been hijacked for evil.
If finding this kind of comment on a fic, even left by a bot, is likely to upset you, I would recommend changing your comment settings so that only users who are logged in can leave comments. To do this, edit your story settings, and under "Privacy," select the radio button that says "Only registered users can comment," as shown below.
Please spread the word to other AO3 users! And if you see mean guest comments on other fics, maybe let the author know that it's probably from a bot and not a real person who thinks their writing is bad.
Te cutest thing you're going to see today
Credit @/levi_Ackerman on instagram
All this Mordetwi tiktoks and memes lowkey makes me wanna write a fanfic or smth
Me, after looking up the lyrics then hearing it again:
KAIMELIA IS CANON OMG IM SO HAPPY
I’m gonna keep replaying the scene between connie and samuel until I got no more tears left to cry cuz why not
UGHHH as much as i want them to get together already, I think Aya’s reaction is valid because keep in mind Aya doesn’t know what Mizuki thinks of her and doesn’t know that all those flirty(?)/sweet lines said to her was a desperate attempt of Mizuki trying to keep up the image of a cool guy persona or smth like that, hence why she always goes, “WHY DID I SAY THAT OMG” after saying those lines cuz it was never intentional(I’m not certain about this cuz idk if Mizuki’s feelings towards Aya is romantic, and she’s actually subconciously or conciously projecting it)
As for Mizuki, I relate to her in some aspects, like not being able to find the right timing in talking to an extrovert alone, not being able to wear flashy things you like in school cuz you don’t want to be the center of attention, overthinking and being anxious, being intimidated by popular extrovert kids, and so on. What she did was understandable but not justifiable cuz she was aware that Aya had a crush on her guy persona and still decided to keep up the act and unintentionally(and this is really important to take note of), toyed with her feelings.
In Aya’s eyes, a classmate whom she wanted to be friends with turns out to be the “guy” she liked, and was completely aware of that fact, and still kept talking to her pretending to be a guy, being the witness to her blushing flustering girly side which she never showed to any guy in school; she felt deceived, embarrased, and betrayed.
They need time to gather up their thoughts and feelings for now, and I want Aya to get the apology she deserves, and for Mizuki to clear up her misconception about how Aya thinks of her.
Anyways about how I think they’ll reconcile, look at this art the author posted before on twitter:
It was captioned, “Just me, the two of us” LOOK AT THEIR CLOTHES THEY’RE BOTH WEARING BLACK THEY’RE MATCHING AND IN THEIR OWN LITTLE WORLD
So yeah, I’m thinking that the way they’ll reconcile is through music, rather than direct communication
Here are other arts the author posted on twitter captioned, “’...Sorry, I thought you noticed, which made it harder to talk to you even more...’" I THINK THAT’S GONNA BE MIZUKI’S LINE WHEN THEY RECONCILE AHHHHHH
So here I think, Aya already knows Mizuki’s identity, and keeps looking at her, waiting for her to say smth, and Mizuki keeps avoiding eye contact
Then here we see them both flustered, cuz Mizuki made the first move in attempting to reconcile through music(see how they’re sharing earphones) then she says the line in the caption
That’s it for my ramble, anyways stan Azuki(idk their official ship name)
WHAT BRANDON ROGERS VOICES BLITZO AHAHAHAHAHA BRB IM GONNA WATCH THE EPISODES AGAIN
Ohh thanks for the correction! It felt more like a puzzle game with almost to no romance while I was watching the gameplay so I just assumed w/o looking it up😭
I saw alot of people SIMPING over these monsters and I get it, im currently playing a game with a non-human as love interest, too but I didn't go along with the hype cuz they weren't my type
then I saw one of my fav youtuber play it with the vid captioned "Trendy horror game where I have to make stupid convo with monsters to escape" smth like that and that didn't sound like a otome game AT ALL and it wasn't! you're basically playing detective trying to decipher all the words they're saying
im halfway through the gameplay and im ripping my hair out from stress cuz you're being spoken gibberish from the start with no hints at all but pocky's ciphers are hilarious and its a nice distraction
also mr. chopped captured my heart so guess i do have a type
I wasn't aware of this up until now, thank you for sharing this
okay you know what? i’m gonna say it.
i appreciate akimi yoshida’s work as a writer and i love banana fish. that being said, i think some of the shit she’s pulled is absolutely deplorable and i won’t stand for it.
for starters, she’s sent out this awful message that trauma survivors are always going to be confined to their past, which we’ve seen being conveyed through her reasoning behind ash’s death. for those of you who don’t know what i’m talking about, she’s basically said that there was no chance that ash could have had happiness, mainly because of everything he’s been through. (fuck that, by the way. if you’re a trauma survivor, know that there is happiness in store for you, regardless of anyone else’s opinions.)
secondly, we have the bury your gay trope, as many people have already pointed out. that’s just deeply homophobic. i don’t think i need to go into detail with this one, we all know how banana fish ends.
she also villainized her main protagonist, claiming that he was nothing but a “murderer,” and going by the eye-for-an-eye ideology. she said that if he killed, he deserved to be killed in return.
next. she paired up a 30-something-year-old with a 20-something-year-old. now you might think that’s okay, but it’s not. why? because said 30 y/o knew said 20 y/o when the latter was a child. is it still okay? yeah, didn’t think so.
yoshida also used substantially racist caricatures similar to the anti-black portrayals of black people in the media.
then we have the absolutely horrifying spectacle that is the official art of blanca x ash. the main theme of banana fish is the effects of pedophillia and child sex trafficking, and how appalling the whole concept is. we’ve seen throughout the storyline how big of an impact it has had on the main protagonist. despite this, yoshida published art that depicted blanca (a full-grown, adult male) and ash (a child, at the time) being intimate. there have been no official comments made as to what exactly was going on in said art, but fans have speculated that it could be symbolic. we won’t go into detail of that right now, but i think we can all agree that this whole situation is extraordinarily self-contradictory.
i think yoshida is a good writer and i love this incredible story she’s given us, with all these amazing, complex characters. however, i do not agree with any of her reasoning and quite frankly, i think it’s disgusting.
feel free to add on if you have any more points
I made a miu404 quiz if anyone wants to try hehehehe