BronxWench

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I've been hugely inspired by things I've read, but the artistic cycle for me never included copying and pasting large swathes of their work and squirreling it away on my hard drive. If it's for sale, I'll buy it if it inspired me that greatly. I have thousands of books in my home, literally. I celebrate what inspires me by supporting that writer and buying their work. The same goes for music and movies. If it inspires me, I give the artist my support where it counts, by paying for the product. Have I loaned a book out? Of course. But it was a book I actually paid for, and I didn't offer it for mass reproduction. I lent it to a single person, who read it and returned it. Not at all the same as thinking that something I've written has been downloaded without my consent (you will note in my disclaimers for my original works that I reserve all rights, which includes copying). Sharing my art is not the same as giving it away like flyers on a street corner. As far as nothing being safe on the Internet, I'm well aware. I was around for the birth of the Internet, and I remember the lovely idealistic hopes held out for it. I'm also cynic enough to have known it couldn't last, and that's why anything I intend to publish, aside from my outtakes and character development pieces, will never be published online until it's a Kindle that my publisher is offering for sale.

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I think it's largely a writer thing, but I know my niece pulled all her pencil and charcoal work off dA because of rampant poaching of her CG dolls. She said that was bad enough, but her fine art stuff being swiped would have made her scream. I've actually seen this on other archives, and it's not something that the author can opt out of, which does beg the question. Is it a coding thing, where the feature simply has to be all or nothing, or is it a philosophical choice made by the archive's owners? I know in one case it is definitely the latter, and I wouldn't be comfortable putting anything original on that site. If it were something where I could opt out, I wouldn't mind quite so much, but I don't think I'd ever be truly comfortable.

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Taking off my staff hat for a moment, and speaking just as an author, I would not be terribly comfortable leaving any of my original work up here if it were made easy to download it. My fandom stuff, well, it would be irritating as the hells to find it published elsewhere under someone else's name, but it's not something I could ever have published on my own for profit anyway. My original work, though... I'd be devastated. Seriously. Some of my oneshots in Originals are "outtakes" and character development bits for things I'd like to submit for publication. I understand that the vast majority of people download something to read with no nefarious intent, and would no sooner plagiarize than they would kick a puppy. I know nothing's foolproof, and a determined thief can copy and paste just as well. I just don't see the point of a fiction archive making it easy for people to steal, not when that archive hosts original works. That's strictly my opinion as an author, mind you, and it carries only as much weight as that of any other user here.

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That looks like the issue with the center fields when logging in. Try clearing your cache and cookies, and then logging in using the upper right fields only. Don't use the center login fields, since they only work during activation - it is a bug that was reported and verified.

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I've been letting this ruminate in the back of my mind, and I honestly think that the most surefire way to get reviews or reactions of any kind is to stick to the more popular fandoms and fill the story with sex, no matter how improbable or unlikely, particularly slash. There are authors here, both in Originals and in various fandoms, who are extraordinarily gifted writers. They create memorable characters and vivid settings, and if it's a fandom, they strive to bring a unique perspective. And yet they get little to no reviews. Maybe they don't cater to the "in" pairings, or maybe they would rather write about a heterosexual couple. Maybe no one gets raped, kidnapped, sold into slavery or transformed into a demon/vampire/werewolf. Dame Barbara Cartland wrote to a formula, and even when her initially "racy" novels became "tame" with the changing morals of the times, she was still intensely popular. She found something that appealed to a wide range of readers, and she stuck with it. As far as I can tell, if you can come up with a young boy who's been kidnapped and sold into slavery and then loses his virginity to his gay demon/vampire/werewolf owner-cum-lover, you're on the way to review heaven. If you can make it work in one of the more popular fandoms, not only can you hit review heaven, you can later edit it into an original work and publish it to great acclaim. ::removes tongue from cheek and saunters back off into dignified obscurity::

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Pushing up Petunias by Clocktower

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