Unapologetic Simp

Beomseok (범석) - Abs Saja

Daeun (다은) - Baby Saja

Jae-Hyun “Jae” (재현) - Romance Saja

Garam (가람) - Mystery Saja

A few headcanons:

Jinu presents himself as the leader of the group in an attempt to shield the others from Gwi-ma’s wrath. He views the other Saja Boys as his family. He is a bit of a sassy bastard (that one moment of him dusting off his shoulder after making eye contact with Rumi and being all smug was a great moment to me) (I need more of him just subtly sassing people like that).

Beomseok tends to snore when he’s in a deep sleep, and his friends will lightheartedly joke about it. He will go for early morning runs because he likes the quiet, it helps him clear his head. He tends to be a bit of a goofball at times, but he is usually the one who eases the tension amongst the group.

Daeun loves spicy food and has the highest spice tolerance out of all of them (feels canon since he easily won that hot sauce contest). He adds so much spicy sauce to his food that if anyone else tried it, it would completely scorch their tastebuds. He has a very big vocal range, being able to go from a more high-pitched voice to his deeper rapping voice. He sometimes likes to prank people with it.

Jae-Hyun goes by “Jae” with his friends. He wears a face mask to sleep, and he is the one who has a 13-step hair care/skin care routine. He has more of a sweet tooth than a love of spicy food (medium level spicy will KO him easily) (it was his suggestion to name their first debuted song “Soda Pop”).

Garam rarely speaks when he isn’t singing and that fact that his hair covers most of his face can make him hard to read. Though, it’s not because he’s shy. Despite that, the other sajas always seem to understand him anyway. Will send oddly specific memes that he finds on social media to his friends.

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.

For the fanfic authors who don’t get art of their fics

For the fanfic authors who can’t get to 1000/500/100 hits

For the fanfic authors who don’t get comments/reviews

For the fanfic authors who write for small fandoms

For the fanfic authors who write rarepairs or gen fics

For the fanfic authors who get hate for the ships/characters/fandoms they write

For the fanfic authors who write in English despite it not being their first language

For the fanfic authors who don’t write in English

For the fanfic authors who don’t think anyone reads or likes their work

For the fanfic authors who aren’t big name fans

For the fanfic authors who don’t get requests in their inboxes

For the fanfic authors who can’t write stories that are more than a thousand words

For the fanfic authors who only write one ship

For the fanfic authors who are just starting

For the fanfic authors who have been writing fic for years

For the fanfic authors who use fanfic to practice writing

For the fanfic authors who write self-insert fics

For the fanfic authors who write about their OCs

For the fanfic authors who write to vent or cope

For the fanfic authors who are just waiting for their big break

Imaging thinking actual human writers are Not Real because they use... professional writing in their works.

Imagine thinking millions of people who have been using em dash way before AI becomes a thing are all robots.

Oh dear.

Okay, you get an answer, because at least you took the effort to write your ask out properly, even if you are hiding behind the grey, sunglassed circle.

Do I, or any fanfic author for that matter, have any legal claims to our work? No, not really, no. (Although if someone took a fic, filed off the serial number--deleted the fandom specific elements--, and then had it published for financial gain, yeah, that would be a case.)

BUT

Fandoms are built on a social contract that says we respect each others work, the effort people put into their art. We don't steal or disrespect the work of our peers. By feeding people's fanworks to AI you both steal and disprect it, and we need to make people realize that before it's too late--before fandom falls apart, because there will be no more real, actual fanworks.

Disrepectfully,

Orlissa

People who write IP content for corporations give up their copyright on a contractual basis--the company wants writing they can sell about characters/settings they own without getting entangled in royalty obligations etc, so they hire people. Who sign contracts saying they don't own what they write as part of that job.

That's why you don't own Star Wars stuff you wrote for Disney; you specifically agreed not to own it.

Writing for IP you don't own leaves you in a position where you can't legally monetize it (without taking out the Owned parts ad rebranding), but it absolutely does not automatically cede or void copyright. That is super not a thing.

SUPER not a thing, I cannot say this enough.

I can't sell my Batman fic, but neither can DC Comics without my duly authorized consent. Because they own Batman, but not the prose I composed about him.

In the US at least, the requirements for something to qualify for copyright protection are genuinely very minimal. In other countries, it may be more or less. If you're French, the law is generally massively in your favor as an artist even. No one does artist protection like the French, truly.

But in the US the only requirements are 1) originality of expression 2) fixed in a tangible medium 3) in one of 8 categories of works (literary, dramatic, pictorial/graphic/sculptural, choreography/pantomime, music, sound recording, motion pictures/audiovisual, archtecture). If your work, or parts of your work, meet all three you "own" a copyright to the work or those parts of your work.

So actually there is a high degree of protection affordable to fanfiction and fanarts, outside if the limited elements from canon that someone else holds the copyright to.

For clarity though, an idea is not copyrightable. It's the original expression of that ide which is. For example, an idea is "coffee shop meet cute". The expresion that is original is what an author does with that idea, the plot and the story beats, the dialogue and the descriptions. You know you've seen or read various expressions of this idea across fanworks and fandoms to know it can be developed in a myriad different ways that are each unique. That uniqueness is the part of a story that would always qualify for protection under copyright law, regardless of the names and physical descriptions of the characters in the story.

DC might own batman and superman, but if you write a coffee shop meet-cute au fanfic about those characters, your original story and plot elememts, and especially, the particular syntax and dictionary of your story is highly protectable. That is your originality of expression in a literay work. It's what sets your fic apart from every other cofee shop meet cute written in every fandom under the sun, probably, including any other that may exist for Bruce and Clark.

See 50 Shades of Gray, notorious for having started its first life as Twilight fanfic. Not my fandom, but im sure its not the only kink fic that existed in that fandom. And clearly, the story had sufficiently original elements to it to be able to stand on its own and be a commercial sucess as a copyrightable work with some judicious filing away of specific canon elements.

Now, if you make something truly derivative of canon (think an different looking superman or batman suit), that would be a grayer area, beacuse one of Supes defining traits is that he has the suit with the S shield on it. When you get too close to something made by someone else, its harder to separate your originality from someone elses. You can't really "file the serial numbers" off a Superman suit too easily after all, without modifying the artwork significantly to where its no longer a "superman" suit. That isn't to say there aren't or couldn't be protectable elements in the artwork, it's just that they'd be so entrenched with the canon elements that a court would almost certainly consider the work as a whole derivative. Saying something is derivative does not void it of all originally of expression, it's just that it steps on the toes of someone else's rights to their elements. This is the reason fanart generally cannot be used commercially. The idea behind that is that your taking a bite out of someone else's money pie and that isn't fair in the eyes of the law. It's not to say that there was no originalty of expression in your work.

But that cuts both ways, which is why authors don't want you sending them detailed ideas for a story, and why studios return unsolicited screenplay unread. If DC came up with their own original Bat & Supes meetcute story, the last thing they want to contend with is a fanfic author trying to sue them for stealing their story elememts. If they don't look at anything fanmade, they can assert that as part of their defense. For the love of your fandom, don't send your fanfics to the authors! It's the fastest way to make sure that idea never sees an official light of day.

All that said, RPF is actually a very intersting area, because there is no copyrightable canon elemts you're using. Traits of a human person are not copyrightable. Mother nature cannot hold copyrights in the eyes of US law. RPF, especially sport rpf, is not tyically pulling from a "canon", unless it's pulling from music videos or other creative work, but from real life traits and events of people. The reason these cannot be commercially marketed is because they'd infringe on things like someone's right of publicity and potentially could be considered libel, if the person was fussed enough about the content, but only if you were trying to posit the fic as true and factual events (its why true story film say "based on" or "inspired by" actual events rather saying these are true and actusll events). RPF though, as far as copyright goes, almost definitely entirely protectable.

As a fanfic writer you can not own the setting or characters you are writing about, but you CAN and DO own the actual words you wrote.

I understand that people are trying to create safe spaces, but as the number of comments that I get on my fics dwindles with each passing year, knowing these spaces exist where my fics are being discussed, places that I am excluded from, makes me want to write fic LESS

I mean I guess who cares, right, because if I stop writing, there’s 10,000 other people that will continue…but if you participate in a fic “book club” server and you say nice things there about a fic you loved, maybe copy and paste that into a comment on AO3?

They don’t feel big. They don’t feel appreciated. They don’t feel motivated. And they might stop writing or shelve their fic, never knowing that people were loving it in private.

Most writers on tumblr became writers because what they wanted to see didn't exist. I make my own to create my own self indulgence and to cater to bipoc readers. Writers for these things exist. But most have never been asked or told "Hey I love your writing I'd love to see what you'd do with this prompt." Most of us writers love writing fluff and cute ideas people write because they love characters and want to give them family, affection, love, etc.