A Single Gif Cannot Contain The Power Of These Women. This Is The Only Way To Gif It Correctly!

I’m a creator for the Marvel Trumps Hate 2020

Hey guys! I just registered as a creator for the Marvel Trumps Hate 2020 auction. If you don’t know what that is (I certainly didn’t when I woke up this morning) you should check out their website : https://www.marveltrumpshate.com/

Basically it’s a charity auction for fanworks related to the Marvel fandom, from the comics to the movies and more. I am offering to write a fanfiction for the highest bidder on my offer. I don’t keep the money from the auction, obviously, instead you give it to a charity of your choice that the MTH is partnered with. I looked at their list of partnered charities and they are all very interesting, either focused on environmental or social issues. Again, you should check out their website for more information.

I offered to either write a Captain Marvel story or a New Mutant story, depending on what the winner of the bid wants (I also offered a Mantis/Nebula fic because who knows?)

Bid previews start on October 11th and the auctions last a week, between the 18th and the 24th. Even if you’re not interested in what I do, I’m sure there are going to be tones of creators offering not just fanfictions but also arts and such, so you should definitely take the time to check it out!

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

Again, please, please PLEASE reblog this post instead of the one I sent originally. All the information is here, and it's driving me nuts to see the old ones are still passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much.

Peter: Ms. Carol Marvel, I have a question, ma'am.

Carol: Marvel isn't my last name, but go ahead, Peter.

Peter: Are you my mother figure or my lesbian aunt?

Carol:

Carol: Why not both?

Sweet Surprise - A foxxay fanfiction

A/N: Here’s an extract from my first AHS fanfiction, I’ll put a link to the whole thing at the bottom!

All the candles had been lit. They'd spent the afternoon in the greenhouse getting everything they needed for the ritual. Cordelia placed the last bluish egg at the edge of the black sand circle. Then, she looked up at Misty. Her wife was seated at the edge of their bed, her arms crossed, holding her shawl wrapped around her. Her eyes were focused on the circle they had drawn on the ground.

"Having second thoughts?" Cordelia asked softly.

Misty was quick to detach her eyes from the ground and look at her wife.

"Course not. It's just... what if it doesn't work? What if I mess something up and..."

Cordelia crossed the room quickly and sat on the bed beside her wife, wrapping her arms around her.

"You are not going to mess anything up."

The ritual needed two witches to work, now she knew, and she was certain that they could do it. She did not have a shadow of a doubt that together, they would be strong enough to create life.

"And if it doesn't work, well it's alright. We'll just go see a doctor."

"Yeah, but it won't be the same. I want her to be the perfect mix of us."

Cordelia smiled and pressed a kiss on Misty's temple.

"Me too."

They remained there, in each other's arms, for a while longer. Cordelia was the first to pull away, with somewhat difficulty. She asked:

"Are you ready?"

Misty took a deep breath and let her shawl fall off her shoulders, and onto the bed. She stood up, determined, and said:

"Alright, let's put a baby in me."

Full story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23183611/chapters/55493797

Meet writer @whiteravengreywolf whose way with words will immediately draw you in!

Don’t They Know it’s the End of the World? - a foxxay fanfiction

A/N:Hey guys! Here’s an extract from my new foxxay story, a No magic post-apocalyptic story. Summary: While running away from a group of raiders, Misty finds a little corner of paradise, seemingly sheltered from the end of the world. This mansion once belonged to Cordelia, but now she has opened it to welcome any girl in need of a place to stay. However, surviving the bombs was only the beginning, and now that the world is in chaos, the real survival begins... (link to the full story will be at the end)

Madison's jaw visibly clenched. She turned back to Misty.

"Come on."

She led Misty inside through the kitchen door. There, a few girls were finishing up with the dishes, drying them and placing them neatly back in the cupboard. A small group of ten-year-olds was playing Monopoly in the living room. Another group of teenagers was seating around the table, playing Risk. Madison walked through the corridors like she owned the place. The clicks of her heels on the white parquet floor echoed in the entire building.

Misty looked around her with surprise. The walls were very white, almost too white for this new, upside-down world she'd been traversing in the past few weeks. The furniture was clean. There were many books on the shelves, and paintings still hung on the walls. It was as if time had completely stopped just minutes before the bombs fell.

They emerged out of the hallway and into the main entrance, where a massive, double staircase climbed up to the floors above. However, Madison didn't go up, but to the right of the stairs instead. There, she knocked on a closed door. Misty caught up just in time to see Madison opening the door. She passed her head through, but not enough to allow Misty to see inside the room.

"I see you forgot your walkie-talkie again," the voice of a woman said on the other side of the door.

"Whatever," Madison replied. "Queenie's not even monitoring the cameras, and I would have had to return here anyway. They were running after a girl."

"Of course they were. Let her in."

Madison stepped away and looked back at Misty.

"Go on in, hippie."

Misty nodded, and with a slightly trembling hand, she pushed the door open.

Full story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23627905/chapters/56705272

The Abduction of Hades - A RubyxChristina fanfiction

A/N: Hey guys! Here’s a little Sunday surprise! I don’t want to spoil too much but it’s just a cute fluffy story. If you’re interested, the link to the full story is at the end!

Christina, in William's body, returned home in the mid-afternoon. She found the house empty and lifeless, all the lights having been turned off. Ruby had left after her and gone to see her sister and Atticus. She'd left a note which Christina found on the kitchen counter, asking for Christina to take out the trash once she got home. It was Christina's job to take out the trash, after all, since it contained so much of William's shed skin.

With ease, Christina picked up the trash bag and brought it to the metal can in front of the house. Across the street, a mother called for her sons to run back home. The sky was turning dark gray, the threat of rain becoming a certainty. The kids pouted but obeyed. The woman waved at William with a smile as he dropped the bag into the can. William put on his facade smile and waved back. Thunder rolled in the distance.

Christina turned around, both hands in her pockets when she heard the can lightly shaking. She turned around and frowned. Something had darted back under the nearest car and away from the trashcan. Christina approached the car and kneeled to look under it. Her eyes met huge aquamarine eyes, with black slits.

"Hello," Christina said. "Are you alone out here?"

The small creature slowly approached. It was as dark as the shadows under the car, but as it came closer to the light, Christina saw the outline of a tiny furry body, giant ears, and a long thin tail.

"It's gonna rain, I don't think you should stay outside."

The curious kitten came closer to Christina carefully. It recoiled back with fear when Christina's hand move toward it. Christina waited, as the kitten sniffed the air. It stopped by her hand, sniffing it softly. Then, it rubbed its head against her fingers. Christina took the opportunity to pick it up and pull it out from under the car. The kitten weighed as much as a feather. Christina kept it in one hand as she walked back inside.

"You'll be better inside until the rain subsides."

Full story here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27573530

Where on Earth have I been?

(Not that I think anyone really cares, but I’ve been seeing a lot of new subscribers lately and I felt bad for not having posted anything in a while)

I have been extremely busy. First with college, and work on my thesis that was much longer than it should have been (me, writing too much? Shocker, I know) but the teachers agreed it was necessary so everything turned out pretty great. And then I just spent the past two months finally, finally writing a novel! All 105.134 words of it! It may lead to nothing, it may not even see the bottom of an agent’s trashcan or whatever but I’m still pretty proud.

That being said, I cannot confirm when I’ll be back with new fanfictions. I can’t even confirm which ships I’ll be writing about. Only that I need a little break and that I’ll be back to school mid-September which might give me plenty of opportunity to pass the time writing fanfictions!

Have a nice weekend everyone and hopefully see you soon with a new story!

And the moment you've been waiting for, here are the prompts for the week!

Taking place from the 18th-25th of May, we're so excited to see what you all come up with ✨️

Hollowness, or The Beginning and the End of the Ship of Dreams - a RubyxChristina fanfiction

A/N: Hey guys! I was so busy this morning I almost forgot to post an extract from my new story! It’s a Ruby/Christina Titanic AU. The link to the full story will be at the end!

They called it the ship of dreams, and Christina certainly hoped it would be. She had packed carefully for this trip. She'd taken all of her favorite dresses, her favorite books, all of her most expensive jewels. This was a one-way trip, she knew. The family company needed her father back in Boston, and Christina had a feeling this hurried return home was prompted by something else, something she wouldn't like.

They drove silently to the harbor, another car containing their many trunks following closely behind. Christina kept her eyes on the streets outside. They'd left London for Southampton in the early hours of the morning. Despite the car's plushy seats, it had been a very uncomfortable trip. Her father sat opposite her, reading the newspaper the whole time. Christina was glad she hadn't had to stare at her father's severe expression, but rather to a picture of the Titanic, so long it took half of the front page.

The silver car slowed down when they reached the harbor. They were not the only ones boarding the ship with a car or two or five. A massive crowd had amassed on the wharf, either to see the passengers off or simply to see the boat for itself.

Samuel Braithwhite folded his newspaper and placed it with unnecessary violence on the seat beside him.

"Why have we stopped?" he asked loudly.

The driver took a second to reply.

"I'm sorry, sir, but a few people are embarking ahead of us."

The blond man checked his pocket watch, although he seemed to be glaring at the hands, daring them to move forward.

"If we miss our boat I will sue," he said as he pocketed the watch back.

Christina wanted to roll her eyes, but she didn't. It would do her no good if her father noticed it. Instead, she remained perfectly still, her back straight against the cushioned backrest. She had her back to the sea, and could only see the crowd through the window. They certainly seemed excited, she thought.

"You would think they would have better planned their ship's departure, especially a big eventful departure such as this one," her father continued to complain. "I suppose that's to be expected from a company like White Star."

Christina wanted to ask why her father had chosen to travel on this ship if he didn't like the company, but she held her tongue. Soon enough, the vehicle moved forward, until it stopped again. The driver spoke with someone outside, giving the name of his passengers, then cleared his throat and said:

"Sir, you must step out."

"If I must..."

Samuel opened the car door and walked out. Christina could hear him speaking with an employee from the company.

"Good morning, sir. If you wouldn't mind following mister Johnson, he will lead you aboard. All of your belongings will be brought along."

Christina decided this was as good a time as any to make an appearance. She suspected her father was capable of forgetting her in the car. Not capable, willing. She stepped out. She was wearing a light blue dress, with white lace sleeves. Her blond hair was pinned into an intricate bun. She'd forgone a hat. An expensive pearl and silver necklace was around her neck. She shut the carriage door behind her and turned around. The boat loomed over the whole wharf. Christina couldn't see the end of it. Black paint gave way to gold then white. The hull seemed punctured by hundreds of windows. She could barely see the funnels on top of it, though she could see the smoke rising from them, joining the clouds in the sky.

"This way, sir, miss," the young crew member said.

Full story here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28086117/chapters/68812152