fabula et canticum

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.

Tagged by @tizniz (who posted Recovery and I am so proud!!!! Y'all need to read the series!!) @exhuastedpigeon (whose wip has me on the edge of my seat!!) 💜🩵

Absolutely no pressure tagging:

@13shadesofanni @lover-of-mine @monsterrae1 @thekristen999 @ronordmann

@fortheloveofbuddie @actuallyitsellie @steadfastsaturnsrings @spagheddiediaz @loveyouanyway

@wikiangela @daffi-990 @wildlife4life @theotherbuckley @rainbow-nerdss

@kitteneddiediaz @diazsdimples @hippolotamus @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @lunarspark-cos

@idealuk @shipperqueen6 @misshiss727 @likeamollusconarock @lin27

@jshadow01 @orangeboxfox92 @smallandalmosthonest @thegeekcompanion @emilybahu

Spark

Fandom: 9-1-1, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, ~17,500 words Rating: PG-13 Summary:

When Eddie's estranged cousin, a victim of sexual assault, asks if he would consider adopting the baby she doesn't feel capable of raising herself, Eddie says yes…but only on the condition that he can ask Buck to be a co-parent.

Adopting a child together changes a lot of things. It also doesn't really change anything at all.

(or, Eddie and Buck do everything backwards, except maybe not everything.) Notes: There are frank discussions surrounding the rape of an original character, and the fact that it led to an unwanted pregnancy. I did not tag for these, because it happened in the past, off-screen, to a secondary character, and it is never discussed in detail, but please take care if this could be a trigger. I watched this entire show in 9 days and then immediately wrote this in a feverish week-long haze. I feel drugged.

This is for you Stiles, Derek, Dean Winchester, Arthur Pendragon*, etc.

reaching in the dark by bigfootsmom

explicit • 4.8k • buddie

Inspired by @nymika-arts beautiful art

He can still feel his nightmare clinging to him, waiting for him to close his eyes so he can relive the sickening drop of his stomach — dread crawling up his throat and exploding from behind his teeth in the shape of Buck’s name. He still remembers the way his throat had burned after he threw up everything in his stomach and then some in the hospital bathroom. But the taste of Buck’s name had still lingered on his lips.

With scars like theirs, nightmares are no surprise.

To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)

If you’re younger, you may not know Patrick Swayze; he was Taken From Us in 2009. But Patrick Swayze was an icon of masculinity. Men were willing to watch romantic movies because Patrick Swayze was in them.

Patrick Swayze was fucking beefcake.

And this man didn’t just agree to do a movie where the only time he’s not actually in drag is the first three minutes, which involve stepping out of the shower, doing make up, and getting Dressed. He has ONE LINE that is delivered in a man’s voice, and it’s not during those three minutes.

And if you watch those three minutes, you see a stark difference between his portrayal of Miss Vida Bohéme and Wesley Snipes as Noxeema Jackson. (I am not criticizing Snipes’ performance. They were different roles.) Noxeema was a comedy character. Chi-Chi was a comedy character. But Miss Vida Bohéme was a dramatic role, played by a dramatic powerhouse.

When Vida sits down in front of the mirror, she sees a man. And she doesn’t like it.

Then she puts her hair up, and her face lights up.

“Ready or not,” she says. “Here comes Mama.”

And while Noxeema is having fun with her transformation (at one point breaking into a giggling fit after putting on pantyhose), Vida is simply taking pleasure in bringing out her true self. And when she’s done, she sees this:

And you can FEEL her pride.

“I grew up in the ‘70s and even within the street culture, there was a lot of flamboyancy,” Snipes told TODAY of his perception of drag before filming. “Pimps wore the same furs as theprostitutes wore.

“Some of the great musicians of the world, like Parliament-Funkadelic, were very androgynous. So it wasn’t really new for me to see men dressed as women or men dressed as drag queens.”

Snipes attended the famed LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts and then State University of New York at Purchase. He wasn’t a dance major, but most of his friends were. “That exposed me to the world of glam, vogue, drag, transgender and gay people, LGBTQ… but it wasn’t in fashion those days. But it existed and I was around it.”

Not only did “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” pave the way for “To Wong Foo,” so did films like the 1968 documentary “The Queen” and “Paris Is Burning,” the 1990 doc that chronicled ball culture of New York and the various Black and queer communities involved in it.

Even though he was known for his action roles, Snipes’ portrayal of Noxeema wasn’t the first time he played a drag queen. In 1986, he made his Broadway debut in the play “Execution of Justice,” playing Sister Boom Boom, a real-life AIDS activist and drag nun who acted as the show’s voice of conscience. Snipes pointed out, “Sister Boom Boom did not have Noxeema’s makeup kit.”

On whether he got any pushback for stepping into Noxeema’s pumps, he said, “Not so much professionally but the streets weren’t feeling it, and there were certain community circles. The martial arts community… they were not feeling it at all.”

“In fact, when the movie came out and they would come down the street, I would see them in Brooklyn sometimes, they started listing all my movies. I noticed they would always skip that one. I would correct them, ‘Now you don’t got the full count!’”

Lesser-known than his co-stars at the time, Lequizamo didn’t really anticipate becoming a transgender icon, but he did know that they were working on something special when they started filming.

“Drag didn’t really exist in movies,” Lequizamo, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for his portrayal, told TODAY. “There were straight men pretending to be women to get out of trouble or into trouble but this was not that. I was trying to make Chi-Chi a real life trans character and Patty and Wesley were trying to be real drag queens.” Never fully articulated in the film, Chi-Chi Rodriguez has always been perceived as transgender, something that ending up making an indelible mark on LGBTQ people in the late ‘90s as trans representation in media was limited.

“Chi-Chi was a trans icon, but she also showed us that gay men and trans women can both perform and work in drag side by side, and that those relationships are symbiotic,” Cayne explained.

“It was a powerful thing. I get lots of fan mail from LGBTQ teens telling me how my character helped them come out to their parents,” Leguizamo said. “They didn’t feel like they were seen, so that was a beautiful gift from the movie.”

Lequizamo also articulates that if “To Wong Foo” were cast today, a trans actor should be cast in his role. (And that just may happen, since Beane is developing a musical for Broadway.) “Anybody can play anything, but the playing field is not fair that way,” he said. “Not everybody is allowed to play everything. So until we get to that place, it is important for trans actors to get a chance to act which they don’t. In the project I’m doing, I’m making sure that the person playing trans is a trans person so we can make it legit, make it real. That just needs to be done right now.”

it was formative for modern society, too.

there are a lot of action fans out there who learned from their idols that respect doesn’t cost a damn thing to give. i know plenty of people who aren’t queer saw trans women and drag queens presented as people to them for the first time in wong fu. suddenly, strange and foreign queer identities that had only been presented to them as jokes if they’d even heard of them, seemed a little more relatable, and very human.

we’re all just people.