🖤 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤 🖤

you’ll undoubtedly have to read the initial trilogy to understand the universe here, but i’ll try and make it so it can stand alone. i ain’t putting this on ao3 because it’ll be my attempt at a comic book and to make a long story short, i can’t really focus on the writing on there making a comic out of the text (i learned my lesson after doing the comic for amped and wired).

chapter ten // for the fight

pages 111, 112, 113, 114, and 115

chapter nine // the deathsurround

pages (here it goes) 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, and 110

chapter eight // magnolia blvd.

pages 99, 100, 101, 102, and 103

chapter eight // magnolia blvd.

pages 96, 97, and 98

chapter six // give me reason

pages 82, 83, 84, 85, and 86

chapter six // give me reason

pages 78, 79, 80, and 81

lars from now it’s dark, chapter 17: cry for the indian summer (november 2019)

i don’t even remember writing that.

but that’s one of the many things from the trilogy that’s aged so well, it actually scares me.

chapter five // in denial

pages 74, 75, 76, and 77

chapter five // in denial

pages 69, 70, 71, 72, and 73

buried alive | charlie benante (on Wattpad) 

what would you do, and how would you react, if you found you only had three days to live? and the curse came from beyond the grave? *the accompanying piece to six feet under

six feet under | scott ian (on Wattpad)

chapter four // #iwokeuplikethis

pages 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, and 68

chapter three // never go back

pages 59, 60, 61, and 62

alright, the only reason my callout posts seemed so long was because that’s just my thought process. i think like a scientist and i’m also an emotional person. really, no offense, but all things aside… people on here are getting more and more emotionally disconnected, and it’s frightening. it’s why you have far more memes than art now. memes are forgotten in a short amount of time (look no further than that bernie meme; literally everywhere for like two days and then i never saw it again), but art makes you smart and opens your heart, and i even said in my fair use post that i do what i can to simplify it. but serious things like that are naturally complex, so sometimes you literally just can’t. you have to go long because there’s a lot involved.

i decided on the nuclear option with the fair use post, and then i left it to not only get away, but to show that daveigh has absolutely no right to get mad at me on any reasonable front. she actually never had the right to get mad at me. you chose to act like that, not me. you chose to hoodwink and steal from me and countless others and then play the victim. you chose to let it get to you, and then you chose to throw a tantrum like the real mature adult that you are, and then bring that same disgusting behavior into another fandom. it’s all on you.

in fact… this is the kind of thing you learn about in the 12 step program and i know this because i went through al-anon and al-a-teen, and it was the whole point of her fic stay. no one forces you into problematic behavior: you decided to do it and it’s no one’s fault but your own if you can’t take it. if anything, my ramblings are… meant to help her. it’s all meant to help, and you know, what NOT to do in the world of writing or anything creative. if i ever seemed mean, it’s because it’s all very upsetting for me. and the fact she keeps hitting back to me tells me just how callous and truly uncaring she is.

i also feel like people on here are acting very strange as of late. i can’t explain it but things on here feel “off”. every time i look at my dash, i think, “something’s not right here. i don’t know if it’s me or trauma from last year or something else. but there’s this unspoken feeling on here that everyone is out of their goddamn minds.”

another reason was i started getting sick. spoiler alert: it’s sinusitis. i woke up last tuesday with the absolute worst headache i had in years, and my face was killing me all day yesterday. just this hard, incessant pounding in my forehead and around my eyes that actually woke me up. some old geezer in the market wasn’t wearing a mask but i was, and i was keeping the six feet distance from him, and i washed my hands twice + used the hand sanitizer they have at the front door.

but a week went by and i never developed a cough or a fever—still haven’t. in fact, i actually feel fine otherwise, and i take my vitamins and eat healthily to beef up my immune system, but it all checks out as a sinus infection. i probably picked up some bacteria in wally world because evolution is a thing and i live in a 45 bastion: this area is full of rich white bible-thumpers who sincerely believe that he’s still president and laugh at the notion of mask wearing and barely wash their hands to where a germaphobe like myself is like, “i don’t even want to be within 10 feet of you, let alone 6.”

seriously, this pandemic has made me so agoraphobic. i don’t know how you essential workers do it. when i woke up that morning and my head was killing me and my nose was all runny, i had every right to assume that it was… it. you know… it. so figure it was easy for a smart person like me to assume that.

i remember actually thinking yesterday, “i can’t have this. not me, not here.” because i know how it can all slip away, be it your reputation or yourself. so i stepped away because we live in a time where something innocuous like a sinus infection is enough to bring on a new level of unwelcome anxiety.

because let’s look at the actual definition of fair use (this is courtesy of google):

(in US copyright law) the doctrine that brief excerpts of copyright material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted verbatim for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder.

this whole concept is very elaborate and thorough, and therefore not easily explained especially to the general public, but i’m going to try my best and break it down and write in a way that anybody can understand this.

fair use is an exemption to copyright law. there are four determining factors for fair use (this is courtesy of columbia university):

the purpose and character of the use

the nature of the copyrighted work

the amount or substantiality of the portion used

the effect of the use and value of the work

fanfiction as a whole is protected by fair use laws, at least here in the states and in canada (otherwise, it depends on where you are in other parts of the world) because it checks out on all four factors: you’re using copyrighted material in the case to tell a story. this is archive of our own’s raison d’etre. this is the organization for transformative works’ (which runs ao3) bread and butter.

and because fanfiction being as prevalent as it is, it’s hard to take it case by case. another thing that protects fanfiction - forgive me ahead of time if this upsets you - but it’s the fact that most fanfiction is in fact garbage, so it’s hard to get mad and justify anger at a writer for writing an endeavor as such (looking at you, george r.r. martin, marion zimmer bradley, and anne rice).

however, in the case of daveigh and her writings, this is where i come in.

the purpose and character: the page points out to not jump to conclusions when you try to highlight educational purposes, which is a major reasoning behind the argument of fair use upon something. are you teaching the world about the men you’re writing about? yes, but, is it done in a transformative manner? and the answer to that is no.

taking joey belladonna’s life story circa 1990 and swapping out krista for someone else is not a transformation, especially when the canon of anthrax is changed to where joey remains with them throughout the 90s. granted this isn’t copyright because joey is a real man, but in this case, it reads more like an unauthorized biography, which is actually worse because when writing a biography on a public forum like wattpad, a place where publishers actually go to, you have to go to the person you’re writing about and not only get permission, but actually sit down with them and interview them (god forbid). it’s one thing when here on tumblr to make a blog dedicated to a band or an artist or whoever, because you’re teaching the public about them that way.

something tells me she didn’t do any of that. but that’s another post for another day. you also have to bring in the other three factors when purpose and character does not uphold fair use. another determining factor for purpose and character is nature.

are you using it for parody, satire, criticism, or creative flaunting? if you use it solely for teaching the public, odds are it is not fair use.

you know those reviews of movies or music you see on youtube? those are protected by fair use: some of them, like yourmoviesucks and adoseofbuckley, have even started their own business making reviews because of the protective power of fair use laws in the united states and canada (adoseofbuckley being canadian - that said, it’s because of this, monetization is not a determining factor of whether or not it’s fair use).

that critique daveigh often complained about that was written when state of euphoria was in the early stages of writing? that’s fair use, too, because whoever wrote it was upholding it to criticism and ridicule. and it’s because of this, she had no right to complain about it.

now if she was poking fun at joey (and i can tell you right now she wasn’t - and this applies to all her writings), i probably wouldn’t have made this point.

in the case of stay, there is definitely a bit of commentary with dave spending a week to try and stop joey from jumping off a bridge, but because the commentary is withheld for the most part, you can’t argue fair use, which leads me to the next point: the amount used.

columbia says it’s not always obvious to point this out, given the quantity as well as the quality. a chapter of a fanfiction is small, however naming your bdsm one-shot “a sensation of elation” in the wake of an art collection that you yourself have seen is not fair use (it’s also plagiarism given the art collection in question is from me). my naming another art collection after spreading the disease when i haven’t seen your new fic also called that is called coincidence; art is also another example of protection by fair use laws because it comes down to the aforementioned creativity. i can make fanart and my webcomic for amped and wired, and i’m protected. but the point here is if the miniscule content used is the heart and soul of the work, you cannot call it fair use.

and last but not least, the fourth point is the effect of the use and the value of the work. columbia says this is where it gets complicated but since it’s a case-by-case approach, this should be easy in the case of anthrax and bandfic. all it means by value is could you have chosen another work or author over her? and the answer is yes. myself, as well as honeysympathy and discodeakydancing on wattpad, and a couple of unknowns on rockfic. as for bandfic itself, you can find it in spades and you can take up the endeavor yourself. occasional quotes and usage of another author’s colloquialisms is innocuous, but using whole passages and gimmicks from another author is not fair use.

a plot point of state of euphoria as well as a sensation of elation is the sex shop cherry pie, which is both the title of a warrant song and a line in the marcy playground song “sex and candy” (one of my favorites no less), a line which i threw out at her while i was reading state of euphoria. did you get permission from warrant and marcy playground to use in your fanfic? if so, you cannot call fair use.

and we’re not even touching on the amount of plagiarism she’s done to me and a myriad of others including (but not limited to) krista belladonna and also carla harvey.

to name a fic or a piece of writing or a piece of art after a record, or a song, or better yet a line from a song is fact fair use given the transformation, the creativity, and the content involved, however it gets shaky once you fully examine daveigh’s (and also my) writings as a whole because the second point applies more to fictional works and rpf straddles the line of fiction and otherwise.

i consider most of my own writing satire, and my own series now it’s dark, is considered satire. joey’s narration is the entire point of the main trilogy, so it not only tells a story but you learn about the man in question. it’s transformative: it’s a sci-fi story, and it’s based off of an actual point in anthrax’s canon: they were discussing firing joey around state of euphoria era. as i’m republishing the trilogy and accompanying works amped and wired and the dead trilogy, i am going through and making sure that no mention of the anthrax band name is within the text. add to this, it’s a whole fictional universe, influenced by with strings attached, without question the most famous beatles fic out there. with strings attached was a space age story, with aliens and monsters. now it’s dark is cyberpunk and also gothic fiction given the inclusion of ghosts and primal fears.

my character hannah ellsberg is named after a character rita ellsberg, from another fic called darkness taking dawn. rita also served inspiration for another character, kristina mayfield. however, hannah and rita are nothing alike: rita was a closed off personality and a black metal musician. hannah is an artist and her narration in the dead of night shows that she’s the opposite of closed off. kristina is also nothing like rita, either, given kristina’s folksiness and black magic arc.

my joey one shot sex and candy, named after the aforementioned marcy playground song, revolves around joey and hannah traveling to hershey, pennsylvania for the latter’s birthday. you not only have the inclusion of candy but there’s also a bit of action involved with joey and hannah being hounded by paparazzi. it’s transformative at its heart, and i never quote the song any further than in titular form. this also applies to another one shot called my boy, after a billie eilish song, as well as bon appetit, which, katy perry aside, is a classic french phrase.

but it’s hard to argue that what she’s doing is truly transformative or worth anyone’s time for that matter because you can get it in spades and you yourself can try it out and make wiser choices upon telling the story. and it’s hard to argue for her, and that what she’s doing is in fact fair use. in fact, with ao3 involved, not only can you not call it fair use, but you can determine it as abuse of their mantra of fair use. writing an arguably unauthorized biography about a man whom you have not met and have never spoken to outside of instagram comments (and after everything i’ve said, probably wants nothing to do with you because it’s despicable) is not fair use; if anything it feels more like a reproduction because you’re only changing two elements: his heart and the history. writing another arguably unauthorized biography about a man who’s been dead since 2010 and your only source is hearsay rather than his estate is not fair use.

in fact, it’s possible someone can figure out how to file a dmca claim against daveigh because she’s abusing their fair use policy and blaming another writer hostage for no reason other than an unwarranted apology (that would be me). wattpad claims to be “zero tolerance” against plagiarism, but they’ve never sorted any of it out beyond their policies because if you have daveighmustaine on the front cover of a “fanfiction” (anything she writes, i’m putting in quotes because it’s more product than fanfiction), it’ll rake in the ad revenue for them whether anyone likes it or not. a thousand reads on a “fanfiction” means they get money and the author gets nothing except the delusion that they’re the best ever.

so not only is the argument of fair use on her part not justified at all, but the slime that makes up her behavior is waist deep.

apparently, she’s getting… pretty hostile and i really, really don’t want to be around that (i don’t want you guys to be around that, either: again, protect yourselves.). so i’m not only gonna go quiet but i’m going to hide, too. i’m not gonna lie: this is actually scaring me. i wanted justice for myself and maybe for her to realize the error of her ways (she had so many unresolved issues when she came online and that was the problem), because what happened between us was very traumatizing for me. when i found out she blocked me on all fronts and i couldn’t ask her what was wrong, i honestly thought i did something bad.

i actually saw her as a friend so it was so baffling. and then i looked back and saw the truth about her towards me.

and now i feel like i’ve made a monster all because of my own inquiring mind.

so if she tries to come after me (or any of you, for that matter), remember this phrase: “don’t shoot the messenger.”