Assassination
So. This is happening:
We're doing this plagiarising fanfic thing AGAIN!
This time, we're looking at Plush Books, who have stolen fic by MANY authors & fandoms. I urgently need your help to reach these authors and trace other stolen works.
...
We have identified and contacted more than 400 fic writers.
Four. Hundred.
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For the December posting meme, dine asked, "How did you get into weiß kreuz as a fandom, and what about it has kept you interested?"
This gets a bit long....
It's funny that I was asked to beta a Weiß Kreuz fic over a year before I saw any of it myself. That author came back to me much later and was like "Hey!"
At a time when I was much healthier and more prolific than I am today, people would send me stuff they thought I'd be interested in (and might end up writing fic for afterward, win-win right?). Weiß Kreuz was one of those. (Saiyuki too, another animanga fandom I occasionally still write for today.) Since this was over 20 years ago, that meant sending me VHS tapes (and later CD-R discs) in the mail. I'm sad about those WK tapes since I no longer have working equipment to watch them on, especially sad in the case of the specials Verbrechen/Strafe, which I only have on VHS and would love to rewatch since the animation is beautiful from them having a bigger budget and I could use a refresher on its plot and that era. (On some Weiß Kreuz Kapitel episodes, the art is so bad that you wonder if they paid animators in instant ramen. Kapitel people later sent me CD-Rs of, though these are the subtitled edition while my tapes were dubbed. My earliest fic was all based on the English voice actors.)
Seriously, I have so many '90s and '00s anime series episodes on CD-R that I should be a resource or something. Fandom especially sent me discs of anime and genre TV shows after they heard I needed brain surgery in 2006 and that I'd be understandably laid up at home for weeks after it, and I'm still touched by the outpouring of generosity to this day.
Weiß Kreuz's concept is kind of insane, though it is a generally known thing that there is anime of almost everything and anything. Florist-assassins, mostly taking down the criminal scum the law won't touch, all of them wanting revenge on someone who ruined each of their lives. It helps that a recurring enemy is a group of evil psychic assassins with enough backstory to be intriguing but enough holes and space in it for fandom to headcanon on wildly. For more detail, way back in 2002, I did a somewhat humorous personal primer about the series for fan friends who didn't know anime. My main thesis there was "I enjoy Weiß Kreuz because it’s an insane, angsty soap opera featuring pretty, screwed-up men with weapons." It's dramatic, sometimes (often?) overly so, and funny, sometimes (often?) unintentionally so.
The reason why I started writing it then and still write it now is that these characters talk to me a lot. (To the point that I did roleplay online as Aya and Schuldig for years, though that was helped by having a lot of great people playing along with me as Weiß Kreuz and Saiyuki characters for years. Once those folks drifted away, I eventually left it.) I may not be typing it up much lately, but I have parts of three different WK fic WIPs currently running in my brain. One of my favorite characters in this series to write about, Aya, I actually didn't "get" until I read the Weiß: An Assassin and White Shaman manga because he doesn't talk much in the anime and is rather stolid, while AAaWS is a dive into his mind and issues, even if some of the backstory differs between the anime and the manga. (Plus, there's a Schuldig and Aya scene and a Yoji and Aya in it that are ~*chef's kiss*~.)
Animanga definitely gave me a greater tolerance for adaptation differences, something that serves me well.
Back in the day, Weiß Kreuz had a large, very productive fandom producing interesting fic and discussions. I met a lot of great people in it, a few of whom haven't gafiated by now and I still talk to occasionally today. I was a lot more prolific in the fandom when people were reading and commenting on my WK work, since that spurred me on and often ignited new ideas for stories.
Unfortunately, a lot of the old fic and commentary from the fandom vanished off the internet as various vintage website providers disintegrated.
[It's not too late to ask me questions for this month! ...surely you have an interesting (or boring - I don't judge), impertinent, or unusual question for me? What have you always wanted to know about me, my past, or my opinions on Very Important Topics?]
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Zefrank, "When the World Becomes Small"
While these days Zefrank is most often making funny and often educational videos about nature, he still likes to hit you in the feels now and then. This vid is about dealing with adversity, something I think a lot of us can appreciate, and it made me cry a bit.
We're doing this plagiarising fanfic thing AGAIN!
This time, we're looking at Plush Books, who have stolen fic by MANY authors & fandoms. I urgently need your help to reach these authors and trace other stolen works.
...
We have identified and contacted more than 400 fic writers.
Four. Hundred.
+++
For the December posting meme, dine asked, "How did you get into weiß kreuz as a fandom, and what about it has kept you interested?"
This gets a bit long....
It's funny that I was asked to beta a Weiß Kreuz fic over a year before I saw any of it myself. That author came back to me much later and was like "Hey!"
At a time when I was much healthier and more prolific than I am today, people would send me stuff they thought I'd be interested in (and might end up writing fic for afterward, win-win right?). Weiß Kreuz was one of those. (Saiyuki too, another animanga fandom I occasionally still write for today.) Since this was over 20 years ago, that meant sending me VHS tapes (and later CD-R discs) in the mail. I'm sad about those WK tapes since I no longer have working equipment to watch them on, especially sad in the case of the specials Verbrechen/Strafe, which I only have on VHS and would love to rewatch since the animation is beautiful from them having a bigger budget and I could use a refresher on its plot and that era. (On some Weiß Kreuz Kapitel episodes, the art is so bad that you wonder if they paid animators in instant ramen. Kapitel people later sent me CD-Rs of, though these are the subtitled edition while my tapes were dubbed. My earliest fic was all based on the English voice actors.)
Seriously, I have so many '90s and '00s anime series episodes on CD-R that I should be a resource or something. Fandom especially sent me discs of anime and genre TV shows after they heard I needed brain surgery in 2006 and that I'd be understandably laid up at home for weeks after it, and I'm still touched by the outpouring of generosity to this day.
Weiß Kreuz's concept is kind of insane, though it is a generally known thing that there is anime of almost everything and anything. Florist-assassins, mostly taking down the criminal scum the law won't touch, all of them wanting revenge on someone who ruined each of their lives. It helps that a recurring enemy is a group of evil psychic assassins with enough backstory to be intriguing but enough holes and space in it for fandom to headcanon on wildly. For more detail, way back in 2002, I did a somewhat humorous personal primer about the series for fan friends who didn't know anime. My main thesis there was "I enjoy Weiß Kreuz because it’s an insane, angsty soap opera featuring pretty, screwed-up men with weapons." It's dramatic, sometimes (often?) overly so, and funny, sometimes (often?) unintentionally so.
The reason why I started writing it then and still write it now is that these characters talk to me a lot. (To the point that I did roleplay online as Aya and Schuldig for years, though that was helped by having a lot of great people playing along with me as Weiß Kreuz and Saiyuki characters for years. Once those folks drifted away, I eventually left it.) I may not be typing it up much lately, but I have parts of three different WK fic WIPs currently running in my brain. One of my favorite characters in this series to write about, Aya, I actually didn't "get" until I read the Weiß: An Assassin and White Shaman manga because he doesn't talk much in the anime and is rather stolid, while AAaWS is a dive into his mind and issues, even if some of the backstory differs between the anime and the manga. (Plus, there's a Schuldig and Aya scene and a Yoji and Aya in it that are ~*chef's kiss*~.)
Animanga definitely gave me a greater tolerance for adaptation differences, something that serves me well.
Back in the day, Weiß Kreuz had a large, very productive fandom producing interesting fic and discussions. I met a lot of great people in it, a few of whom haven't gafiated by now and I still talk to occasionally today. I was a lot more prolific in the fandom when people were reading and commenting on my WK work, since that spurred me on and often ignited new ideas for stories.
Unfortunately, a lot of the old fic and commentary from the fandom vanished off the internet as various vintage website providers disintegrated.
[It's not too late to ask me questions for this month! ...surely you have an interesting (or boring - I don't judge), impertinent, or unusual question for me? What have you always wanted to know about me, my past, or my opinions on Very Important Topics?]
+++
Zefrank, "When the World Becomes Small"
While these days Zefrank is most often making funny and often educational videos about nature, he still likes to hit you in the feels now and then. This vid is about dealing with adversity, something I think a lot of us can appreciate, and it made me cry a bit.
Click to view