You were the most excellent CDC at the most excellent restaurant in the entire United States of America. So what are you doing here? Making sandwiches.
You have this minute where you’re watching the fire and you’re thinking, “if I don’t do anything, this place will burn down and all my anxiety will go away with it.” And then you put the fire out. Then you put the fire out.
Are you surprised? Fandoms have become notorious anti-writer spaces. Studios love you guys. They can cut the budgets, cut the number of writers, cut the wages of the writers, and you guys always blame the writers. “The writers ruined the show!” It’s never “the studios ruined the show.”
I hate to break it to you: more than half the shows you complain were “ruined by the writers”, were ruined by the studios. Studios cut the scenes and arcs you were excited for. Studios cut the budget of the show, or even raise the budget of the show and force a “bigger, louder, bolder” tone on shows that were unexpected hits (this is where we get “the Netflix look” on every show post-Stranger Things and Queen’s Gambit).
You guys do not do your research. Half your fanfics are tagged with bad faith digs at the writers, when a few searches would reveal how strapped that show was and how poorly the writers were treated. Writers are being given a 10 weeks to write 10 episodes. How are good arcs and scenes supposed to happen under that time limit, with a max of only four writers?
Tumblr, the self-proclaimed “pro-union, pro-worker, pro-artist” site is also a major fandom site. You guys rarely practice good faith consumer etiquette for television and film writers, because your fandom salt always turns you against writers. And studios love you for it.
Yeah, individual writers do create bad writing from time to time. But so do painters, chefs, and musicians. Directors and actors sometimes refuse to film certain scenes or follow a show’s projected style and arc, and the writers always get the crap for a bad performance or a poorly directed episode. This isn’t to blame actors or directors; it’s to point out that you guys have one villain, and it’s always the writers. You guys never give writers the same grace you give animators, designers, directors, actors, composers, and editors.
Studios love you every time you say “the writers ruined the show.” Every single popular fandom is guilty of this. View any of the “why did the writers cut this scene, they hate my characters” talk when leaked scenes hit the internet. Writers barely get paid for what they do write. You think they’re writing scenes and then happily throwing them in the shredder? You guys just eat the talk that studios put out. Always have.
reminder to fellow writers to remove your work from google docs. there are new AI programs being integrated -as well as human employees- that will effectively scrape your documents and WIPs for subject matter. oddly enough this seems to coincide with the writer’s strike so they’re most likely going to try their hand at AI generated tv shows, movies, books, etc. and you will not receive ANY compensation for them stealing your work. thankfully i only have work on there from years ago bc i use word. but regardless i won’t have some dumbass greedy corporations stealing my work because hollywood won’t pay writers fair wages. google is officially nasty. here’s a list of a few other programs i know of to use as alternatives <3
Libre Office - free
Apache Open Office - free
Novlr - subscription based
please feel free to add other options in the reblogs!!
they might allow you to opt out of AI training but there’s really no telling when they’ll decide to just change their terms and conditions and say our work is scraped at their discretion. there’s really nothing more wild than companies that are sued for theft, putting systems into place to effectively steal from customers, then telling them it’s all cool for now - until it isn’t
fuck these stupid corporate assholes! don’t let them steal your work! (AND DONT CONSUME AI CONTENT)
