The ramblings of a random stuffed animal

Had trouble pasting the video here, but @ao3commentoftheday posted this video about this announcement from Channel 4.

You can view Channel 4’s Twitter post regarding their new show at the link below, but I recommend you to read the full article announcing Channel 4’s fan fiction puppet series.

Here is a quote from the article:

Channel 4 has commissioned a new comedy entertainment series from RDF seeing celebrities reading steamy fan fiction acted out by a cast of lookalike puppets.

In each episode of The Really Really Rude Puppet Show (w/t), Mel Giedroyc invites a different celebrity to read an erotic piece of creative writing where the celeb is the lead protagonist. Each character in the story is brought to life by a band of puppets voiced entirely by the celebrity and Mel.

According to @ao3commentoftheday, Channel 4 representatives are also already commenting on AO3 works asking writers to write RPFs for their show. AO3 is currently deleting the comments as spam.

What’s happening now is an issue in more ways than one. Beyond writers being exploited for their free content, their EROTIC fiction will be read out by their intended celebrity through puppets with the effect of making fun of the written content (nevermind the fact that it’s making fun of women and queer sexual expression) and potentially making these celebrities feel very uncomfortable.

It’s already mentioned in @ao3commentoftheday’s video, but TO ALL RPF WRITERS AND ESPECIALLY TO BRITISH RPF WRITERS—HIDE YOUR RPF WORKS, both current and future works.

On AO3, you have the option to private individual works so that they are only viewable to registered AO3 users (for those who are not AO3 users, your AO3 mutuals can send you an invitation). Tumblr also has settings to hide your blog from external search engines such as Google and only make it viewable to Tumblr registered users. I’m not sure what features are available on Wattpad or FFN in terms of hiding fan fic works, but if anyone uses those sites, please be sure to hide your RPF works from public view if possible.

As a fan fiction community, it’s especially vital now that we continue to prevent our works from being exploited and ridiculed.

Dear AO3 users,

We would like to bring your attention to an ugly situation with unauthorized copying of works posted on AO3.

A lot of works from AO3 have been copied to fanfics.me (we’ll call this site FFM for brevity’s sake) and are still being copied right now, either:

— automatically by a code specifically created by FFM’s owner for this purpose, or

— by unaware or unscrupulous FFM’s users via semi-automatic method (by inserting a link to a work from AO3 into a web-worm on FFM).

All works from AO3 — with a few exceptions (I’ll elaborate on this below) — can end up on FFM without authors even noticing. Even fanarts or podfics.

FFM doesn’t comply with DMCA which means that such reposts endanger fanworks’ creators in case the copyright holder demands to delete the fanwork.

Authors of the copied works do not have any control over them; if the work is edited it won’t be updated on FFM until someone manually updates it.

Additionally FFM’s owner makes money out of reposted free fanworks from numerous Google and Yandex ads on each and every FFM’s page by having people go to this site when searching for fics on Google etc. So we recommend using an Ads Blocker when visiting this site in order to prevent the owner from earning more. Ghostery or Adblock Plus work just fine, but you can use any other Ads Blocker that is convenient to you.

Oftentimes FFM even shows up before the original post with the work on Google search results.

The owner’s e-mail: [email protected].

The owner at AO3.

We are trying to bring AO3’s users attention to this situation and help authors with taking their works down from FFM.

Briefly about the website and its owner

Let me start from the very beginning as it will bring into the light the nature of FFM and give a good example of its owner characteristic behavior.

At first, some person with nickname Refery created FFM as a web archive where authors — mostly from Harry Potter fandom — could publish their fanworks.

Time passed, the site grew and added some features (blogs, pre-moderation and etc.), and all was good and well up till the moment when Refery decided that it would be a great idea to copy to FFM fanworks published on other Russian fanfiction archives — among them from the biggest and most known site ficbook — without asking authors for permission. Even those works that had “Ask me before posting the story somewhere else” mentioned in its text or summary were copied.

For some time nobody noticed, but when finally and inevitably this came out the authors were outraged. It took a lot of time to finally persuade Refery to at least not to copy fanworks bearing a special tag “Уточнять у автора” (Ask the author first).

But after some time Refery — without giving any notice — violated his own promise and resumed copying to FFM fanworks that had the agreed upon tag. The authors complained again, so very reluctantly and after many painful discussions this feature was reinstalled.

So FFM has been notoriously known, mostly amongst Russian fandom, for claims on re-posting fanworks without the consent of the authors.

We’re mentioning this situation just to give you a detailed portrait of a person we are dealing with here.

Not only fanworks are copied to this website, but original works, too. Even those which were already published. There were all 7 of Harry Potter novels (both original text and translation), The Hobbit: There and Back Again (translation) and Vorkosigan Saga (translation) available for everybody to read and download. They were taken down only recently due to the attention this whole situation had drawn, but nothing ever goes away once it’s posted online and you can access the proof via Internet Wayback machine. We know for a fact there are other books on FFM and some actions have been taken in this regard, but still it takes time to find published books on this site.

Recently Refery decided that Russian archives are not enough for him and started copying all fanworks into FFM without any permission from the authors from numerous sites, like AO3, fanfiction.net, fictionpress.com, fanfiktion.de and likely other web-archives.

Moreover, the authors of these works can not delete their works from FFM and/or manage them. The site is in Russian only and, hence, we strongly believe that non-Russian speaking authors even do not know that their works are reposted somewhere else.

As a Russian fan-community, we have tried to stop such activity of FFM many times; however, we have not been successful in achieving our goal completely. Our most recent achievement is that the FFM’s owner implemented the “Don’t copy to another site” tag created specifically for AO3 (here is the link to FFM’s owner post on his personal blog regarding this tag. Please use Ads Blocker!). This tag should be added to each work presented on AO3 in case the author does not want their works to be copied to FFM.

We are of the opinion that no work should be taken without permission in the first place, but this tag is all we’ve got.

Please note that it seems that some time ago there was similar case of unauthorized copying with other site. Please check this link, they give useful advice.

How to prevent copying from AO3

If you check AO3 you may notice that “Don’t copy to another site” tag has hugely emerged in the recent weeks, but mostly amongst Russian users and there is a good reason for this: the owner of FFM announced this tag only in Russian and only on his private blog, so naturally there is no way for non-Russian speaking AO3 users to know about this — albeit non-satisfactory — solution.

There are no guaranties that the FFM’s owner won’t change the rules again as has already happened numerous times before (few examples we described above) and that works with this tag won’t be reposted in the future, but for now it’s the only quick and working solution besides making your works visible only to registered users, which is not ideal. 

This situation is highly unpleasant, but we ask you not to delete your works from AO3, because if the work is deleted from AO3 it will be nearly impossible to delete it from FFM: we won’t be able to refresh it manually and remove the text.

Please note that adding this tag won’t work for texts that have already been copied. Only users who have accounts at FFM will be able to delete them. Each work needs to be deleted manually.

However, the Russian fandom — except for the owner of FFM — strongly condemns reposts without the consent of the author, so feel free to contact our volunteers (through DM or Ask on our tumblr page) providing the links to the works stolen from AO3, so we could delete them for you.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to cover all authors and works manually. So, we contacted AO3’ Technical Team with the aim to bring their attention to this situation and inform about it all AO3 users, and hope that AO3 team will find a general solution to resolve this problem, possibly, in collaboration with the AO3 lawyers.

We are trying to warn as many authors as possible and recently started spreading this information via comments on AO3; but considering the number of works copied to FFM informing all authors will take considerable time, and we can easily miss someone, especially since the copying is still in progress and new works from AO3 are appearing on FFM every day.

Please help us spread the word!

We tried to make a comprehensive FAQ about this. Feel free to ask if anything is unclear!

FAQ

Q: Can I check if my work was copied to FFM?

A: Yes, you can.

FFM makes money on Google and Yandex ads, so we recommend turning on the Ads Blocker of your choice before visiting this site.

Please follow this link, insert the title of your work or your AO3/other web-archive nickname into the field containing the words “insert-title-nickname” and hit “Искать” (Search).

For works rated Mature or Explicit you will be able to see only the caption “Текст произведения доступен только зарегистрированным пользователям старше 18 лет” (“The text of the work is available only to registered users over 18 years old”), but FFM users are able to read and download the story.

Q: My work from AO3 was copied. How can I take it down?

A: First of all add the tag “Don’t copy to another site” (without “ “) to the stories you want to be taken down.

Actually we would recommend adding this tag to all the works you don’t want to be copied.

Contact one of our volunteers (through DM or Ask on our tumblr page) providing links to your works or send an e-mail with your deletion request directly to the FFM owner at [email protected] or at AO3. 

There is a third option: to register on FFM and delete the work yourself by hitting the refresh button, but considering that the site is in Russian we do not think it will be very convenient to those who do not speak Russian language.

Q: I got the message that my work has been deleted. How can I check if it is true?

A: You can go to FFM, search for you work, click on its title and scroll down.

After the summary there is a field that should look like this for those fics that have been deleted.

Basically it says that the author of this particular work has forbidden its copying and that only the information on its title, author’s nickname, rating, pairings, summary and the link to original post on AO3 are available. 

For works that are still available on FFM this field looks like this (if the work is open for non-registered users).

Q: My work copied from AO3 was deleted, but FFM still shows some information on it. Can it be deleted?

A: Even though the text of the fic is not going to be on FFM anymore after it has been deleted, the fic’s title, author’s name, rating, pairings, summary and link to original post on AO3 will remain there.

The deletion of this leftover information can be done only by the site owner himself.

Some Russian authors tried to make him to delete it, but in most cases the FFM’s owner refused them mentioning that publication of such information is in line with fair use concept and doesn’t violate authors’ rights.

We are yet unsure how to delete this leftover information. In case you need it as well, try contacting the FFM owner at [email protected] or at AO3. Maybe e-mails of a large number of authors will work, but unfortunately we can’t guarantee anything. In case you need it, we can provide Russian text for you to send by e-mail (please contact our volunteers through DM or Ask on our tumblr page).

Q: My work from fanfiction.net/fictionpress.com/fanfiktion.de/other web-archives was copied to FFM. How can I take it down?

A: Unfortunately, there is no possible way for us to delete from FFM the fanworks that are copied from web-archives other then AO3. Only FFM’s owner can delete these works, please try contacting him at [email protected] or at AO3. In case you need it, we can provide Russian text for you to send by e-mail (please contact our volunteers through DM or Ask on our tumblr page).

Please do not delete your works from the web-archive it was stolen from, because if the work is deleted it will be nearly impossible to delete it from FFM.

The site in question is both registered and hosted in Russia according to the Whois database, which is why DMCA takedowns can be ignored by both the site owner and the host and there’s really nothing to be done about it; the Digital Millennium Copyright Act applies to sites based in the United States.

However, this site is making money from Google Adsense.

Now, you can report the site for spam as recommended in the link above. It qualifies as such under Google’s content guidelines prohibiting “Thin content with little or no added value,” which prohibits scraped content from other sources.

BUT.

Why do that when you can go all out and send Google the DMCA takedown request?  (Here is Google’s policy regarding copyright infringement on publisher sites; here is the direct link to the DMCA takedown request form for the Adsense program.)

It’s clear that this site is being run by someone who is making money off of the content they’re stealing with no regard for the creators they’re stealing from.  Polite discourse has done nothing, and considering the fact that this is now a recurring issue, it’s time to hit them with some natural consequences for their actions.  It’s entirely possible that Google will elect to terminate the publisher account based on an influx of copyright infringement reports against the site, and they may elect to remove the listings from search engine indexing as well which will tank the site’s ability to earn even if they’re able to apply for publisher accounts with other advertising networks.

Yandex may be another method of recourse based on the language in their Advertising Network Terms of Offer:  3.5. The Owner shall ensure that the content of the Owner’s Resources complies with the current legislation of Switzerland, the legislation of the Russian Federation and the legislation of Ukraine and with the legislation of other countries (if applicable), as well as the requirements set forth in this Offer and the Rules of Participation during the term of the Agreement.  [email protected] seems to be the best option available for contacting Yandex regarding infringing content on the publisher’s site; this should be covered at least under Swiss copyright legislation, although the wording seems vague enough that they might honor a DMCA takedown.

At any rate, it could be worthwhile sending notice that your work has been infringed on that identifies you as the copyright holder, the site it was originally posted on and the URL of the work in question, the URL of the page where it appears on the infringing site, and mention of the publisher account being in violation of copyright law by reproducing your copyrighted work without your permission.

Dear AO3 users,

We would like to bring your attention to an ugly situation with unauthorized copying of works posted on AO3.

A lot of works from AO3 have been copied to fanfics.me (we’ll call this site FFM for brevity’s sake) and are still being copied right now, either:

— automatically by a code specifically created by FFM’s owner for this purpose, or

— by unaware or unscrupulous FFM’s users via semi-automatic method (by inserting a link to a work from AO3 into a web-worm on FFM).

All works from AO3 — with a few exceptions (I’ll elaborate on this below) — can end up on FFM without authors even noticing. Even fanarts or podfics.

FFM doesn’t comply with DMCA which means that such reposts endanger fanworks’ creators in case the copyright holder demands to delete the fanwork.

Authors of the copied works do not have any control over them; if the work is edited it won’t be updated on FFM until someone manually updates it.

Additionally FFM’s owner makes money out of reposted free fanworks from numerous Google and Yandex ads on each and every FFM’s page by having people go to this site when searching for fics on Google etc. So we recommend using an Ads Blocker when visiting this site in order to prevent the owner from earning more. Ghostery or Adblock Plus work just fine, but you can use any other Ads Blocker that is convenient to you.

Oftentimes FFM even shows up before the original post with the work on Google search results.

The owner’s e-mail: [email protected].

The owner at AO3.

We are trying to bring AO3’s users attention to this situation and help authors with taking their works down from FFM.

Briefly about the website and its owner

Let me start from the very beginning as it will bring into the light the nature of FFM and give a good example of its owner characteristic behavior.

At first, some person with nickname Refery created FFM as a web archive where authors — mostly from Harry Potter fandom — could publish their fanworks.

Time passed, the site grew and added some features (blogs, pre-moderation and etc.), and all was good and well up till the moment when Refery decided that it would be a great idea to copy to FFM fanworks published on other Russian fanfiction archives — among them from the biggest and most known site ficbook — without asking authors for permission. Even those works that had “Ask me before posting the story somewhere else” mentioned in its text or summary were copied.

For some time nobody noticed, but when finally and inevitably this came out the authors were outraged. It took a lot of time to finally persuade Refery to at least not to copy fanworks bearing a special tag “Уточнять у автора” (Ask the author first).

But after some time Refery — without giving any notice — violated his own promise and resumed copying to FFM fanworks that had the agreed upon tag. The authors complained again, so very reluctantly and after many painful discussions this feature was reinstalled.

So FFM has been notoriously known, mostly amongst Russian fandom, for claims on re-posting fanworks without the consent of the authors.

We’re mentioning this situation just to give you a detailed portrait of a person we are dealing with here.

Not only fanworks are copied to this website, but original works, too. Even those which were already published. There were all 7 of Harry Potter novels (both original text and translation), The Hobbit: There and Back Again (translation) and Vorkosigan Saga (translation) available for everybody to read and download. They were taken down only recently due to the attention this whole situation had drawn, but nothing ever goes away once it’s posted online and you can access the proof via Internet Wayback machine. We know for a fact there are other books on FFM and some actions have been taken in this regard, but still it takes time to find published books on this site.

Recently Refery decided that Russian archives are not enough for him and started copying all fanworks into FFM without any permission from the authors from numerous sites, like AO3, fanfiction.net, fictionpress.com, fanfiktion.de and likely other web-archives.

Moreover, the authors of these works can not delete their works from FFM and/or manage them. The site is in Russian only and, hence, we strongly believe that non-Russian speaking authors even do not know that their works are reposted somewhere else.

As a Russian fan-community, we have tried to stop such activity of FFM many times; however, we have not been successful in achieving our goal completely. Our most recent achievement is that the FFM’s owner implemented the “Don’t copy to another site” tag created specifically for AO3 (here is the link to FFM’s owner post on his personal blog regarding this tag. Please use Ads Blocker!). This tag should be added to each work presented on AO3 in case the author does not want their works to be copied to FFM.

We are of the opinion that no work should be taken without permission in the first place, but this tag is all we’ve got.

Please note that it seems that some time ago there was similar case of unauthorized copying with other site. Please check this link, they give useful advice.

How to prevent copying from AO3

If you check AO3 you may notice that “Don’t copy to another site” tag has hugely emerged in the recent weeks, but mostly amongst Russian users and there is a good reason for this: the owner of FFM announced this tag only in Russian and only on his private blog, so naturally there is no way for non-Russian speaking AO3 users to know about this — albeit non-satisfactory — solution.

There are no guaranties that the FFM’s owner won’t change the rules again as has already happened numerous times before (few examples we described above) and that works with this tag won’t be reposted in the future, but for now it’s the only quick and working solution besides making your works visible only to registered users, which is not ideal. 

This situation is highly unpleasant, but we ask you not to delete your works from AO3, because if the work is deleted from AO3 it will be nearly impossible to delete it from FFM: we won’t be able to refresh it manually and remove the text.

Please note that adding this tag won’t work for texts that have already been copied. Only users who have accounts at FFM will be able to delete them. Each work needs to be deleted manually.

However, the Russian fandom — except for the owner of FFM — strongly condemns reposts without the consent of the author, so feel free to contact our volunteers (through DM or Ask on our tumblr page) providing the links to the works stolen from AO3, so we could delete them for you.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to cover all authors and works manually. So, we contacted AO3’ Technical Team with the aim to bring their attention to this situation and inform about it all AO3 users, and hope that AO3 team will find a general solution to resolve this problem, possibly, in collaboration with the AO3 lawyers.

We are trying to warn as many authors as possible and recently started spreading this information via comments on AO3; but considering the number of works copied to FFM informing all authors will take considerable time, and we can easily miss someone, especially since the copying is still in progress and new works from AO3 are appearing on FFM every day.

Please help us spread the word!

We tried to make a comprehensive FAQ about this. Feel free to ask if anything is unclear!

FAQ

Q: Can I check if my work was copied to FFM?

A: Yes, you can.

FFM makes money on Google and Yandex ads, so we recommend turning on the Ads Blocker of your choice before visiting this site.

Please follow this link, insert the title of your work or your AO3/other web-archive nickname into the field containing the words “insert-title-nickname” and hit “Искать” (Search).

For works rated Mature or Explicit you will be able to see only the caption “Текст произведения доступен только зарегистрированным пользователям старше 18 лет” (“The text of the work is available only to registered users over 18 years old”), but FFM users are able to read and download the story.

Q: My work from AO3 was copied. How can I take it down?

A: First of all add the tag “Don’t copy to another site” (without “ “) to the stories you want to be taken down.

Actually we would recommend adding this tag to all the works you don’t want to be copied.

Contact one of our volunteers (through DM or Ask on our tumblr page) providing links to your works or send an e-mail with your deletion request directly to the FFM owner at [email protected] or at AO3. 

There is a third option: to register on FFM and delete the work yourself by hitting the refresh button, but considering that the site is in Russian we do not think it will be very convenient to those who do not speak Russian language.

Q: I got the message that my work has been deleted. How can I check if it is true?

A: You can go to FFM, search for you work, click on its title and scroll down.

After the summary there is a field that should look like this for those fics that have been deleted.

Basically it says that the author of this particular work has forbidden its copying and that only the information on its title, author’s nickname, rating, pairings, summary and the link to original post on AO3 are available. 

For works that are still available on FFM this field looks like this (if the work is open for non-registered users).

Q: My work copied from AO3 was deleted, but FFM still shows some information on it. Can it be deleted?

A: Even though the text of the fic is not going to be on FFM anymore after it has been deleted, the fic’s title, author’s name, rating, pairings, summary and link to original post on AO3 will remain there.

The deletion of this leftover information can be done only by the site owner himself.

Some Russian authors tried to make him to delete it, but in most cases the FFM’s owner refused them mentioning that publication of such information is in line with fair use concept and doesn’t violate authors’ rights.

We are yet unsure how to delete this leftover information. In case you need it as well, try contacting the FFM owner at [email protected] or at AO3. Maybe e-mails of a large number of authors will work, but unfortunately we can’t guarantee anything. In case you need it, we can provide Russian text for you to send by e-mail (please contact our volunteers through DM or Ask on our tumblr page).

Q: My work from fanfiction.net/fictionpress.com/fanfiktion.de/other web-archives was copied to FFM. How can I take it down?

A: Unfortunately, there is no possible way for us to delete from FFM the fanworks that are copied from web-archives other then AO3. Only FFM’s owner can delete these works, please try contacting him at [email protected] or at AO3. In case you need it, we can provide Russian text for you to send by e-mail (please contact our volunteers through DM or Ask on our tumblr page).

Please do not delete your works from the web-archive it was stolen from, because if the work is deleted it will be nearly impossible to delete it from FFM.

Check if you were copied and spread the word please!

But it turns out that’s what’s been throwing off everyone’s readings so a lot of divination quickly starts becoming more refined and accurate when they take that into account.

Shuri: Depends which phone you gonna use

Wong: Is everything alright, Strange?

Stephen: I just felt a great disturbance.

Wong: Is it Thanos?

Cis person: “what surgery?”

We all got one. I put mine on the hoodie I was wearing, which I wear a version of basically every day, right? It’s the Cringeandwince uniform.

So, without giving it much thought, I put that hoodie on again today and go food shopping, and - this is dense as fuck, but it took me a few minutes to figure out why so many people were acting weirder than usual towards me.

I got a lot of looks. 

I got mainly curiosity from people who noticed at all. But I also received open hostility from two separate White dudes about my age, over-the-top/smile-too-big kindness from a White woman a little older than me, and total, disaggregating confusion from my White 30s male cashier after he asked me what the sticker meant and I told him. As in, my presence coupled with the very concept of trans people seemed to have this guy on the verge of simply falling apart, joint by joint, atomically, behind his register. It was like he blew a fuckin gasket, ok.

For people who don’t know me well enough to know who I am - I’m a straight, mixed Native cis woman in her 40s. While I don’t think I’ve ever been misgendered, I am about 5′10″ and built like a brick shithouse, and I wear mainly “men’s” clothing (black hoodie, blue jeans, hiking boots); the word “butch” has been thrown my way in the past. I also however have very long hair and wear long earrings. 

The gamut of reactions today was pretty interesting because I’m a middle-aged woman - I’m almost roundly ignored in public these days, utterly invisible. But the presence of that trans pride sticker changed that on a dime. I left the store thinking to myself, Jesus Christ, this is the most interested people have been about what’s in between my legs since I was about 25.

[img transcript: 

Dai Cousins!

We are pleased to announce the launching of our very own webstore: store.crossingscon.org  From there, you’ll be able to pre-order merchandise that you’ll pick up at the con! Currently the only merch available is the convention T-shirt, but there are several other items coming in the near future that we will announce as soon as they are available for pre-order.

You’ll be able to make multiple orders as things are released, or one single large order. All you’ll need are your order confirmation email(s) to pick up your merch at the con. This is a separate website, order, and transaction from your badge purchase (crossingscon2019.eventzilla.net/) so as to avoid the confusion and difficulty from last con.

You do not have to have a badge in order to pre-order merch, but you can only pick up your merchandise at the con. If you are unable to attend, and want to ask someone going to CrossingsCon 2019 to pick up your merch for you, that is up to you, but the con is not responsible for what happens to the merchandise once it leaves our possession.

Some merch will be sold at the convention, but not everything will be there. Make sure to pre-order to guarantee you’ll get everything you want, as everything will be available for pre-order via the online store. Additionally, you must pay for any pre-orders online. We will not be accepting cash on-site for orders made online, only for sales of the merch we have available at con, separate from pre-order pickup. Again, any alternative arrangements are made at your own risk.

We will try to be as accommodating and flexible as we can, so please reach out to us with any questions, comments, or issues you may have: [email protected] or [email protected]

But the point is, most of the time we aren’t, but every year at Christmas time, a church in the next town over puts on a Bethlehem and it’s kind of a tradition to go.  They go all out.  The building is massive, and they’ve got it all decked out.  There’s animals and stalls and everyone is in costume and in character.  When you get there, they give you some pennies and you can go and barter for cool little trinkets, and there’s other more expensive things you can buy with your own money.  And they have the best apple cider.  All in all, it’s pretty cool.

But anyway.  We go every year, bundled up in hats and scarves and mittens, and have a good time.  We’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember, and my mom talks about going when she was a kid.

I’m going to mention again that everyone is massively in character, especially the really super hardcore religious adults.  Because this is an important fact.

Every year since I was about thirteen or so, there’s been this one lady who worked at a stall selling ponchos (I have, like, three.  They’re really cool).  She was probably there before that, but I was thirteen when she started trying to barter for me to marry her son, who was also about thirteen.

“What a pretty little thing.  I think you’d make a very good wife for my son.  These are your parents?  I’ll give you six goats for your daughter’s marriage to my son.”

Her son, meanwhile, is in the “shop” behind her looking absolutely mortified and like he’d rather be anywhere else than there, and I’m pretty sure I probably looked just as embarrassed.

My parents gave her some sort of excuse, like it wasn’t enough goats or they weren’t ready to marry me off yet or something, and we moved on.

The next year we’re back again, and come up near to the same stall.

“Ah!  You’re back again!  Have you married your daughter off yet?  I can up my offer to nine goats and three chickens for your daughter to marry my son.”

Somehow she remembered the exact people she’d tried to buy their daughter off of for an entire year?  So my parents are refusing her offers again and me and the son are trading embarrassed looks and we go on our way.

And then it happens again.  And again.  And again.  Each and every one of the last six years this lady has tried to buy me in goats to be her son’s wife. 

 A couple years ago when we were waiting in line to get inside my mom jokingly said that they should accept this year and see what she’d do and I completely refused because it was mortifying enough as it was.

One year we brought my friend with us and we’re waiting outside and my sister was like “Are you gonna sell Kee this year?” and my dad was like “Maybe if there’s enough goats” and my friend was confused as heck and I was like “This lady tries to buy me to marry her son every year.  I told you that” and she’s like “Yeah but I didn’t think this was a thing that actually happened” and she was still skeptical and by the time my parents had finished refusing the lady’s offer, she’s killing herself laughing and then spent the next few months telling me I couldn’t look at guys because I already had a fiancée.

Anyway, it happened again this Christmas and the son has somehow gotten almost ridiculously attractive since last year.  The speech this year had something to do with how I was far too old to not have a husband yet, and the son and I just rolled our eyes at each other as his mom tried to barter with my parents for me.

This year’s offer was twenty six goats and nine chickens.  My sister looked up how much goats are worth, and was mad our parents didn’t sell me so she could have sold the goats and gotten $2000-$8000 for them.  My dad says they’re waiting out on an offer of a camel.  My brother thinks they should have it more than once a year so he can get more apple cider.

Now I’m back at uni, and in my first psych class of the semester the guy sitting beside me looked really familiar.  

As in his-mom-tries-to-buy-me-with-goats-every-Christmas familiar.

That kind of familiar.

We introduced ourselves before class started and I sat there for a couple minutes readying to make a total fool of myself in case I was wrong before turning to him again.

“This is going to sound really weird if you aren’t who I think you are, but by any chance does your mom try to buy you a wife with goats every Christmas?”

His friend gives me a weird look as he walks past me to sit on the other side of him, but he’s definitely putting the pieces together.

“That’s you?  Bethlehem in [city name], right?  God, my mom is so mortifying.”

And we both kinda laugh and meanwhile his friend is giving us both weird looks now because apparently he didn’t know that his friend’s mom was trying to buy him a wife using livestock.

So he turns to his friend and is like

“Oh, I forgot to introduce you.  Danny, this is my fiancée, Kee.”

And I kinda rolled my eyes and was like

“I’m not actually your fiancée.  Your mom hasn’t offered my parents enough goats yet.  But apparently my dad will sell me for a camel.”

And he laughed and shook his head like

“I am not telling my mom that.  I don’t want to see what she has planned for if your parents ever accept.”

So yeah.  His friend was really confused by that point and we explained it to him and it turns out he’s pretty cool and we’re Facebook friends now and hang out in psych classes.  Apparently his mom only ever tries to buy me for him and she and my mom had gone to the same church growing up which is why she can always pick us out.

“And that’s where Kee’s fiancé usually is,” Sam explained as we stood in the line waiting to get inside.  Her friend gave her the same sceptical look she’d apparently been giving since Sam had first told her.

“He’s not my fiancé,” I pointed out, trying to rub some feeling back into my hands.  The Goat Guy had been texting me updates since that morning.  The organizers had discussed it at length, but apparently temperatures of negative eighteen, thirteen inches of snow, and a blizzard warning weren’t quite enough to have Bethlehem cancelled (or for my parents to decide to skip it this year).  Hashtag Canada.

The line was long this year, and we’d already been standing out in the cold for the better part of half an hour.  My brother was loudly lamenting the fact that we couldn’t get to the hot apple cider until we’d made it inside.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I braved taking off a glove to check it.

“Who do you keep texting?” my mom asked, not-so-subtly trying to peer over my shoulder at my phone.

“Gregory from psychology,” I told her, sending off a text informing him that we were still in line.  It wasn’t technically a lie, since, you know, that was his actual name and he was in my psychology classes.  It wasn’t my fault that my family only knew him as the Goat Guy.

“Ooo,” Sam teased, elbowing me in the ribs, her bony elbows hurting less than usual through all our layers.  “I’m going to tell your fiancé he has competition, and then maybe they’ll offer us something useful.  Like a car or a trip to Hawaii or something.”

I snorted again.  “One, he’s still not my fiancé.  Two, he doesn’t have competition, because I’m not interested in him or in Gregory.  And, three, this isn’t a game show.  If anything, his mom will just offer maybe a horse or something.”

“Can I have the horse?”

I rolled my eyes, glancing at my phone as another text came in.  Hurry up.  “Sure, Cole.”

My brother pumped his fist in the air.  “Nice.”

It took another ten minutes or so to make it to the front of the line, and my family had placed their bets on the amount of farm animals that would be offered this year.  My dad reminded me that he was selling me if they offered a camel, and I rolled my eyes, trying to act as reluctant to get to that part of the night as I usually was.  Apparently I didn’t do as good a job as I thought I did, since Mom questioned me.

I shrugged, feeling my phone go off again.  “I guess I’ve just decided to go with it.”

Sam rolled her eyes.  “She thinks he’s hot,” she told her friend.  Which, well, it wasn’t exactly untrue.  Objectively the Goat Guy was ridiculously attractive, but that doesn’t mean I want to (or have time to) date him.

We’d reached the entrance by that point, and were given our little pouches of pennies to buy small trinkets and ducked into the (compared to outside, at least) warmth of Bethlehem.

Roman soldiers milled amongst the people, asking for taxes and wanting to see our papers.  We didn’t have papers, obviously, but the soldier who checked us took an extra penny as a bribe.

“Wait,” Sam’s friend said, stopping in her tracks.  “There’s a petting zoo?”

There was, in fact, a petting zoo.  The petting zoo and the apple cider were there to keep us pacified as we waited for the soldiers to allow us entrance into Bethlehem, and Cole and our parents went off to get us something to drink while I followed Sam and her friend to see the animals.

“What is this?” Sam asked, frowning.  “Where are all the animals?”

There were significantly less animals than usual.  Two whole pens were empty, and I could see a few soldiers and townspeople whispering to each other in a panic.

“Maybe they were too cold,” I suggested, reaching out to pat a pig’s head.  It snorted and turned away.

My parents and brother returned with our drinks, and I sighed into the bliss that is Bethlehem hot apple cider, and, by the time we made it to the gates to listen as the soldiers reminded us of laws that I don’t remember, I actually had a bit of feeling back in my fingers and face.

I pulled off a glove, typing up a quick text.  We’re in.

The stalls were as neat as they always were.  I bought a wooden hammer to add to my collection for a couple pennies.  My mom dug out her wallet to buy a carved wooden bowl.  Sam and her friend took selfies with a girl from their soccer team who was working in a bakery and she snuck them a free scone.  Cole found another apple cider vendor and took three cups for himself.

“Look,” Sam said, grinning wickedly as she wrapped an arm around my shoulders.  “There it is.”

And there it was.  The Goat Guy’s mom was standing outside her shop, heckling with a couple over the price of a rug.

“That is a poncho,” I agreed, glancing at one hanging on the side of the shop and deciding I was going to buy it after this whole thing was over.

Sam rolled her eyes.  “You know that’s not what I mean,” she pointed out, craning her neck.  “I don’t see your fiancé, though.”

“That’s because I don’t have one,” I pointed out, stopping to look at the smithery so I didn’t look too eager to get there.

No one bought that I actually wanted to see some guy pound metal with a hammer (there wasn’t an actual fire or anything, so he was really just sitting there hitting it), so they dragged me across the hall, grins on their faces.

The Goat Guy’s mom, who we will henceforth refer to as the Goat Mom for sake of ease, perked up as she saw us heading towards them, finishing up her bartering and holding her arms out in greeting.

“Ah,” she called, grinning at us.  “Back again, I see.  Surely you must have found a suitable husband for your daughter by now.”

“Nope,” my mom said, giving me a pointed look.  “She’s still single.”

(And, yeah, I was, and still am, but she doesn’t have to be so judgy about it)

The Goat Mom gasped, pressing a hand to her chest.  “My dear, you’re far too old to be without a husband,” she cried, causing people to stop to watch.  I could feel my face heating up, and glanced around wondering where the Goat Guy was at.  We had agreed months ago that this was always far more embarrassing for me than it was for him, so why was he taking so long?

“You won’t be young forever,” the Goat Mom was continuing, grabbing my hands and forcing my to look at her.  “You’re running out of time.”  She glanced past me to my parents, a smug look on her face that said she got just as much enjoyment out of this as my family did.  “My son is still in need of a wife.  I’ll tell you what, I will give you thirty goats and ten chickens for your daughter.  She—”

“Aww, Mom.  You started negotiations without me?  How are they supposed to know I’d be the perfect husband for Kee if they can’t see how hot I am?”

The Goat Mom froze for a moment, her grip on my hands loosening enough for me to pull away.  I followed the shocked gazes of my family and his mom to the Goat Guy.

He was leaning casually against the shop, somehow managing to look good in clothes that were 2000 years out of fashion, a smirk on his face and a half dozen goats and a llama surrounding him.

“That’s Kee’s fiancé,” Sam whispered to her friend, as if there was any doubt about his identity.

His mom blinked out of her shock, narrowing her eyes at him.  “Are you drunk?”

The Goat Guy looked offended, raising a hand to his chest.  “What?  No!”

Cole started cackling.  I don’t think he had any more idea what was going on than the rest of them, but fifteen year old boys are weird.

His mom glanced back at us for a moment, and I had to look away to keep the grin off my face, and noticed quite the crowd had gathered.

She took a deep breath as she turned back to her son, pressing her fingers to her temples.  “Then why do you have goats?”

I couldn’t keep myself from snorting then, but, thankfully, everyone seemed too distracted to notice.

The Goat Guy rolled his eyes, relaxing back against the shop once more.  “I mean, you’ve been failing at bartering me a wife for eight years, Mom,” he pointed out.  “I think they just don’t believe we really have as many goats as you say we have.  So I brought goats!”  He waved the ropes in his hands, and sent me a wink.  “And a llama!  Girls like llamas.”

“I think that’s actually an alpaca,” my brother helpfully pointed out, and the Goat Guy grinned.

“You’re probably right, my man,” he agreed and turned back to me.  “I’m adding this alpaca onto the list of whatever my mom’s already offered.  We can ride off on it into the sunset.  What do you say?”

“I say it probably wouldn’t hold us.”  I was grinning now, too, no longer able to hold it in.

The Goat Guy just shrugged and stayed silent, letting our families stew for a moment.

“Are you sure you aren’t drunk?” his mom finally asked, glancing between us in confusion.  “Maybe you’ve been spending a little too much time at the, uh, tavern.”  She glanced at the goats and the llama (alpaca?), realization dawning on her face.  “Gregory, you had better not be the reason everyone is panicking about the animals going missing from the petting—trading post.”

“Not drunk,” he insisted, ignoring the part about him stealing the animals from the petting zoo as he thrust the leads of the animals into her hands before she had a chance to protest.  “I’m just excited to see my future wife.”  He crossed the distance between us, my family stepping back, still mostly in shock, and wrapped me up in his arms.  “How’s it going, Kee?”

I laughed, hugging him back quickly before pulling away.  “Hey, Gregory,” I echoed loudly, my grin growing at the gasp that came from someone in my family.  “How’d you find the psych final?”

He groaned, burying his face in my neck.  “Ugh, don’t even get me started,” he whined, an arm wrapping back around my shoulders.  “I didn’t fail, but that’s about all I can say.”

I hummed in sympathy, watching our families try to piece together what was going on and the crowd that was wondering if this was supposed to be happening.  His mom’s mouth was opening to say something as I caught sight of a couple of soldiers pushing through the crowd, and nudged him.

“You!” one yelled, and the Goat Guy’s head snapped of my shoulder, staring at the soldier in shock.  “He stole the king’s animals!”  One of the others came forward, pulling him away from me.

“You, uh, have the right to remain silent,” he started, fixing his grip on the Goat Guy’s arm.  The soldier who grabbed his other arm rolled his eyes.

“He doesn’t have any rights.”

“Oh, right.”  The second soldier nodded and turned back to the Goat Guy.  “You don’t have the right to remain silent,” he amended.

“Take him to the king,” the first soldier ordered, taking the leads from the Goat Mom.  “He should be tried at once.”

The Goat Guy regained his wits and started to struggle against their hold.

“Wait for me, Kee!” he cried as they dragged him back through the parted crowd.  “I’ll come back for you!”

By the time he’d disappeared and the crowd had filled in their path, I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe.  It’d gone better than either of us could’ve hoped.

I calmed down after a moment, and the Goat Mom was still staring in confusion in the direction her son had disappeared in.  I stepped past her to the shop, pulling the poncho I’d noticed earlier off the wall.

“I’d like to buy this, please,” I said, and her eyes snapped back to me.  I grinned and handed her the money, and she pocketed it without bartering, and I walked away, the crowd parting for me as I wandered towards the next stall.

My family joined me a few moments later, as I was browsing some blown glass ornaments and ignoring the fact that the shopkeepers were whispering about me.

“What was that?” my mom demanded.

I shrugged.  “That was her bartering for me to marry the Goat Guy like every year.”

“Yeah, that was not like every year.”  Sam snorted and I could practically hear her rolling her eyes.  “Since when do you know the Goat Guy?”

“Since January?”  I tried to look confused, but I’m pretty sure I was still grinning.  “You knew that.”

“No?”

“Yeah?” I countered.  “Gregory from psychology?”

The stared at me for a long moment before any of them spoke.  Sam’s friend was the only one who seemed more entertained than confused.

“That was Gregory from psychology?” my mom asked, and I shrugged, grinning wider.  “You planned this, didn’t you?  That’s why you kept texting him outside?”

I shrugged.  “I mean, we didn’t plan him getting arrested,” I admitted.  “But, yeah, we planned the rest.”

“How’d he steal the goats and the alpaca?” Cole wondered.

“He knows a guy.”

“Like that’s what’s important here.”  Sam rolled her eyes.

“Why?” my dad asked, and I shrugged again.

“Seven years’ worth of revenge.”

“That’s not what’s important either,” Sam interjected, huffing loudly.  “Kee’s totally dating the Goat Guy.  I called it.”

“We’re not dating.”  I rolled my eyes, pushing past them to continue through Bethlehem.  There should’ve been another apple cider vendor coming up soon, and I’d lost all the heat from the last one.

My family did not drop it through the rest of Bethlehem, and neither did any of the vendors who, apparently, knew exactly who I was (my toque was kind of distinctive, so I guess I’ll give them that) and let me know how sorry they were to hear that my man had been locked up just for trying to provide for his family.

We also saw the Goat Guy again, who had been locked up with the prisoners in a large cage, guarded by a handful of soldiers.

He grinned as he saw us approaching, calling out for me and sticking his arms through the bars.

“Can I borrow your notes later?” he asked.  “I’m in here for nineteen years, so I’ll be missing a bit of class.”

Sam and her friend posed for selfies with him, and then she made me pose for one with him that will definitely be used for blackmail at a later date.

And that was Bethlehem.  No one shut up on the entire drive home, or for the rest of Christmas break, for that matter, about the fact that I’d been keeping my knowing the Goat Guy a secret for almost a year—which I hadn’t, as I pointed out multiple times.  They all knew about Gregory from psychology, and he was literally in my phone as The Goat Guy.  It wasn’t my fault they hadn’t put the pieces together.

My family is convinced the Goat Guy and I are meant to be and still not entirely convinced that we aren’t currently dating, and I’m kind of dreading what that might mean for Bethlehem 2k18.  Honestly, I’d rather not have to deal with the fallout of my parents actually giving in and getting me a bartered husband, no matter how hot he might be.  But I feel like they’re going to accept one year, especially after what we did this year.  

The Goat Guy says his mom isn’t any better, and is already planning for next year but won’t let him know anything.  Maybe I can convince my parents that I never have to go back ever again.

Two weeks later, I caught the Goat Guy’s eye from across the psychology lecture hall, waving him over.

“Hey,” I said, grinning at him as he slipped into the seat beside me.  I turned to my friends.  “Guys, this is Gregory the Goat Guy.”

“Her fiancé,” he added, and I snorted at my friends’ incredulous looks and punched him gently in the shoulder.

“Not my fiancé,” I corrected, and turned back to him.  “The llama was impressive, but you know my dad’s expecting a camel.”

“Darn,” he said, laughing.  “I could have sworn you said llama.  I guess I’ll have to find a camel by next year if we ever want to get engaged.”  He paused, raising an eyebrow.  “But you know, I did get arrested before your parents had a chance to decline the offer this time.  Maybe they were going to say yes to the llama.”

The Disco DS9 AU was developed in conversation with @somerandomchoice. We had so much stuff figured out! But after all that I really only got the first scene - but just now I went to look and I actually wrote a couple other scenes I completely forgot about. :D So now I can post another one. My original first scene is here

Here’s one with Michael and Hugh:

Captain Michael Burnham entered the docking bay, scanning for familiar faces. The bay was empty except for Doctor Hugh Culber just now striding into the room.

“Michael!” Hugh called across the bay. His smile broke down one of the walls she’d placed carefully around her heart during this last mission. She swallowed back a sob as she approached him.

Her friend’s big warm arms enveloped her and she closed her eyes. They stood quietly in the docking bay for several moments.

“It’s so good to see you,” Hugh said softly, pulling back to look her in the eyes. “We were so worried about you. How are you doing?”

“I made it,” she said drily. “Glad to be on somewhat stable ground. I didn’t think we were going to make it.”

“Doctor Bashir is looking after the injured crew, and we’ve got every counselor on the station lined up. I wanted to come see you personally.”

“Thank you, Hugh,” Michael said, looking down at her feet. “I’m so glad to see a familiar face.”

Hugh thought back to the briefing the infirmary had received about the Discovery’s mission. They’d landed for some scientific research on a Bajoran colony planet, only to become caught up in a dispute among the colonists. Things had turned unexpectedly violent when Burnham, leading a survey team, had accidentally walked into a militia camp of an opposition group. The team had been taken hostage and one member of the team had been killed. Eventually, another Starfleet vessel had arrived and beamed the hostages out, but not before 2 days of trauma and peril.

“We need to get you to the infirmary as well,” Hugh said, hoping Michael wouldn’t object. If there was one thing captains were prone to doing, it was disobeying doctors. They never seemed to understand how important their own health was to the stability and morale of their crew.

“Okay,” Michael said simply, resignedly. “Lead the way.”

As they made their way to the turbolift, Hugh filled her in on his and Paul’s new life here on Deep Space Nine.

“Paul, you probably remember, is a visiting researcher at the Hill Province University in Helop. He works most of the time up on the station, in cooperation with a botanist here, Dr. Keiko O’Brien.”

“How do you like station life?”

“It takes some getting used to, but perhaps not more so than life on a ship. We see new people all the time. And new things happen on the station in ways they just can’t on a ship.  Shore leave is always just a shuttle ride away. That part I love. We haven’t had a chance to take a vacation yet, but Bajor is beautiful, if the holovids are to be believed, and Major Kira has talked my ear off about vacation destinations.” Hugh sighed. “At the same time, they’re only a few years out of the occupation. It feels uncomfortable to imagine going for a vacation on a planet that just a few years ago was completely oppressed and controlled.”

we know all about sin, and about jesus, and about god-as-anthropomorphized-dude-in-sky, and many of us didn’t know that those AREN’T actually part of judaism for a long time, since they are SO entwined in “secular” culture.

so yes, most of us are fully qualified to talk about the differences between christianity and judaism, since one is our religion and the other is forced on us in every conceivable way.