Cait Corrain | Authors Behavíng Badly
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
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Akure Phenix
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Molly X Chang
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Kamilah Cole
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Bethany Baptiste
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KM Enright
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Frances White
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Hana Lee
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Katrina Kwan
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RM Virtues
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Thea Guanzon
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Danielle L Jensen
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Her convo with Lilly reads like that vine “I brought you myrrh.” “Thank you” “myrrh-DER!” “JUDAS! No!”
Oh my god seeing the dialogue for this vine written out is actually the first time I've ever gotten the joke 😭
@@sucrecube the first time?? 😭
@@gabbythingss yes.....😭 i didnt realize it was myrrh, i thought it was something made up called mur
@@sucrecube help 😭
@@sucrecubeI'm liking this comment out of pity
Cait accidentally implicating herself by shoehorning in "Lilly" saying, "BTW if this comes out, everyone will also think you're RACIST" is some peak Ace Attorney shit.
Diabolical.
Indeed. We've all heard the term "Telling on themself" before -- but holy hell, Cait's fabricated Discord chat should be *the* go-to example of it.
Yeah, Fucking *Mack Aroni* was a less subtle culprit.
it just shows that she knew exactly what she was doing lol
At least Ace Attorney characters need to be grilled and shown evidence first before pulling such a stunt…girlie wouldn’t even be a good villain for the tutorial case.
@@zeldicausLiterally Larry Butz could hide a secret better even tho he unhelpfully blabbers on himself oops
Molly X Chang tried to get her book published for a decade and was constantly denied because of her race and subject matter. But Cait thinks she deserved the money more? Yeah okay 🙄
That part
The good news is, this whole ridiculous debacle has promoted her book even more! I'm only hearing about what happened right now from this video, and this is also the first I'm hearing about Molly X Chang and her book... But the cover is gorgeous and it sounds awesome! Gonna go see if I can preorder it now 😁
@@MissSeaShell there's a automatic bonus if you preorder "to gaze upon wicked gods", you'll get a poster, color endpapers, foiled jacket, and a custom stamped case.
@@RavenKnight18 yesssss I'm so excited!
@@RavenKnight18 👁️ ooo
This whole story is the epitome of "Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions"
Literally tho
Cait truly ruined her career before it actually started i don't feel bad for her
Poster girl for FAFO.
Fascinating how she blamed it on a "mental break" but she was somehow coherent and coordinated enough to make and operate a bunch of sock puppet accounts.
Girl, I was able to understand your Brazilian Portuguese and I speak Spanish. You were able to communicate with two degrees of separation. I applaud you
I would OBSESS over a limited series about a group of authors who begin killing each other off/faking their own deaths/destroying their own careers in order to get the #1 spot on a book list, win the year's top award, or have their book featured on famous coffee tables across the nation. I will watch it on repeat and recommend it to everyone I know. Thank you in advance to whomever writes it. I love it, already.
American Fiction scratches the itch, just a little bit.
If she’d just boosted her own book she probably would’ve gotten away with it. Her desire to drag down others is what screwed her over.
I still can’t believe how much of a bag she had and how badly she fumbled it. Like this was an opportunity on a silver platter and she BLEW IT.
To prove Rachel’s point about how reviews and stuff are not the whole way people chose books. I don’t have the same taste as Rachel, she has rated books five stars that I genuinely did not like. I don’t really take most of my book recs from her rating I just like her personality and her voice. 😅
Valid. Just glad you’re here ❤
Why the fuck are publishers and agents telling authors to treat their books and audiences like people browsing amazon for the best rated toilet plunger? My lord
I've been waiting for this video since I first heard about this drama. As an author whose agent has my manuscript on submission I am in complete disbelief that she had the dream debut experience and chucked it all away to do a racism. Absolutely wild.
Yeah it's pretty wild
Me and my author friends CANNOT stop talking about this (and the copyright-the-sky woman). Good luck with your submission!! That process is…a process. 😂
@@TheRonnieaj Thank you 😊 yes, it certainly is! Incidentally the friend who alerted me to this story isn't a fellow author but even she knew what Cait had lost through her ridiculous behaviour.
Cait is one of those people that never left high school
Yes exactly 💯
I can’t imagine living the writer’s DREAM and getting traditionally published only to voluntarily throw it away
Me senti tão feliz com seu português 🧡 representada e abraçada. A internet permite a burrice dos autores transcender a barreira linguística 😂
Obrigada por estar aqui 🥹 truly love that we get to discuss across languages and continents 😂
Her having a whole dialogue with herself is so wild!
Before the "villain Lilly" thing, when "Lilly" was a friend trying to help, even Cait's fake reaction to it indicates there are issues there. If Lilly had been real, that's a shitty way to react to what they did. You can be upset/angry with someone without immediately jumping to attacking them and accusing them of betrayal. If that's how Cait treats real people in their life then that alone says a lot. They come across as someone who struggles to regulate their own emotions and turns it outwards to blast others. Combined with the racism, no wonder it blew up in their face. I hope they do some work on themselves and learn from all this.
EDIT: watching further into the video, Cait mentions already being in therapy. In which case I hope they engage more with therapy and work harder because damn
I wish I had this much energy to just function in my daily life
Not gonna lie but I definitely saw the title and my brain was like "reviewbombgate" as "review womb gate" and I was deeply confused and kinda scared lmao.
I'm at my grandma's house, and I have this playing on my phone. I had it paused, and she walked by, looked at my phone, and said "she has the prettiest eyes". I think you have a new fan 😅
one good thing that came out of this was discovering corey brickley, because i absolutely fell in love with their art!
As a white musician I hope I NEVER feel this insecure or do anything this horrible to any musicians of colour. I think you're right, there is an audience for every book (or album) and it does no good to go after your fellow artists.
I don't understand how writers like this - or any other (like that Nova's Playlist author) haven't figured out that rising tides lifts all ships.
If someone likes a book similar to yours, they are more likely to read yours! Readers can read more than one book.
What's funny is, for example, I'm a pretty voracious reader (on the low end, I read over 130 books last year) and I do not actively use GR at all. If I go on the site, it might be to grab the cover photo for my reading journal OR because I'm feeling a type of way about a book I just read and I want to see if literally anyone else did too. The latter happens less than 10% of the time. This concept that GR is the end all be all metric for the reception of a book or how it's being received doesn't make sense to me at all lol
If I'm ever lucky enough to be published, I will not only block Goodreads, I'd also like to go on a year-long camping trip, far far away from any internet access.
This just baffles me. Like I just got traditional published last Nov. And as a first time author with no internet following(I've built a small one since getting signed) all I got for marketing was 20 bucks and a pat on the back. When i first heard of this i was juat like "really?! You had a golden ticket and your threw it away for.... Really?!?!"
Like I get being insecure. I can't read anything in my book without going "dang it, I could have written that so much better now" but even in my worst 'woe is me' moods I'm not suddenly turning racist and sabotaging other people. I'm so glad the other authors are getting attention and the benefits she throw away for the dumbest of reasons.
Congrats on getting published! 🎉
Not saying all Reylo's are like that, but as someone in the Star Wars sequel fandom, most of the death threats I've gotten where from Reylo accounts. Glad it caught up with her
I was wondering what Meredith Mooring's involvement had been beyond being Caít's friend, so thanks for clearing that up. She has since apologized and ended their friendship. That apology can speak for itself, but for slightly more context, she's blind and that might be why she asked for the screenshots to be explained.
4th Wing getting a 1 star when it actually deserves it…
But still Cait, you honestly should’ve just shut your mouth and waited patiently.
The explanation that Cait Corrain in the discord chat is so similar to Creepshow Art’s Emily stalker story lol
I love Bethany Baptise. I haven't read her book, but the sheer power of her through this twitter thread has me dying 🤣. I wanna be her friend.
Cait tryna bring these authors down really just exposed a larger audience to an arrary of some truly wonderful people out there.
that fake discord convo was simply Smeagol vs Gollum reinacted
That segway into the Babbel ad was silky smooth 😊 I'm an outsider looking in on this whole thing, but I find the Self Immolation of Cait Corrain to be so fascinating. She's like the "putting on clown makeup" meme in real time.
You can feel like you deserve the money without tearing other people down!
Wooow Rachel! I can’t believe you are learning Brazilian Portuguese 🥹 I’ve been following you for some time and love your content! I’m beaming with joy that your understanding is that good, a bit of work on the pronunciation e já podemos expedir sua carteirinha do SUS haha Um abraço do Brasil!🇧🇷
the wildest thing is that this is the first vid of yours i've ever watched, just in the bg of me drawing and suddenly I hear "author of fourth wing" I have never read the books but I am working on a commission for a client that wanted the character inspired by a dragon from fourth wing XD
idk just a fun coincidence
Also your eye makeup is amazing, absolutely beautiful today! Its usually great but i just love the cool toned gradient with this one
Thank you so much!
This is wild to me bc the book sounds so INTERESTING. Like she definitely would have made hella money
Edit: nvm ig the interpretation isn’t good. Damn, bc I love Dionysus and Ariadne
Banger video as always. I love the way you cover authors, not just in "they did a bad thing" but also in a way that critiques the system they come from that makes them inclined to do this bad thing.
Also, curiosity - why not 4 star reviews for you?
the fact that she tried to make the Reylo fandom the fall guy for this. What was she thinking? That they wouldn't speak up?
And then she went said it was because she was having a mental meltdown and addiction?
The stupid thing about this is she could've just made fake positive reviews of her books and left other authors out of her bullshit. If she really was that insecure of her book's success. The community is more likely to forgive her if she just LEFT OTHER AUTHORS ALONE.
Thank you so much I was waiting for your thoughts on this situation 😩🙌🏽
Your Portuguese sounds so good! We love to see it
I really only look at reviews after I've read a book or if I'm thinking of not finishing it. Then I look at 1 and 2 star reviews to see if I'm not the only one. Good reviews are rarely informative. And honestly few things popular on Goodreads end up being things I like.
I have several severe mental illnesses. The fact that she did this meant she clearly wasn't taking her medication or going to therapy. Yes, this behavior is 100% a symptom of the illness, but the fact that she wasn't treating the illness is her fault. I don't feel sorry for people who don't treat their illness. Grow up and take your meds.
i'm a new subscriber but i'm so excited to hear your take on this! you've inspired me to download storygraph and start trying to read again :)
2:34 é exatamente isso kkkkk o assunto do vídeo é sério, mas só queria comentar, antes de começar, que estou adorando as menções ao português (ainda mais patrocinadas!) much love 🇧🇷
Ps: your picnic is our piquenique, the same as french pique-nique, everyone would understand you perfectly :))
Pic-nic in br Portuguese: piquenique.
Same thing, just spoken in come to Brazil style.
Hope you have fun when you arrive here. I’m probably far far away from your travel destinations but if you do happen to come to the beaches of northeastern Brazil I can point you towards the good places avoiding tourist traps
Watching videos like these makes me think about how I would behave if I were an author. I try to be antiracist as best I can, so like, I know I wouldn't be targeting POC authors, but, uh, I don't think I would try to bring anyone down at all. These videos are making me feel like it would be such a better idea to go rate your fellow authors' books (if you've read them and enjoyed them) positively and publicly. On a marketing perspective, I feel like it's better to be seen as a kind person, but on a personal level? I want the energy I put out in the world to be good. I want the net impact of my existence to be positive.
Rachel learning BR-PT?! ❤
You are doing great, I'm really impressed!! Despite being closer to Spanish, Portuguese is really hard!
You probably going to come to São Paulo, right? Let us know!
Ai foi uma surpresa tão incrível ouvir você falando português ❤
Pode me fazer uma visita quando vier no Brasil, amo seus vídeos 🎉
if this is your villain game, I don't trust your writing to be good unless you plan to have no villains in your book lmao
As a trad author, it would be a huge red flag for me if an agent or publisher told me to track Goodreads and ask for positive reviews publicly like that. Yikes.
Another day, another author acting like a Scooby-Doo villain 😮💨
A little off topic here, but i'm a brazillian fan and i think your portuguese is really good! Congrats! Hope you have fun when you come to Brazil ❤
Meus deus, ela falando em portugues. Amei
This whole debacle was insane.
I get being jealous and insecure. I have been jealous of my friends' successes before. The only thing to do is get over yourself and remind yourself how happy you are for them
But to try and sabotage fellow authors? The author space is not one you can survive by alienating everyone. Every last one of us needs the support of others to survive and thrive.
I cannot afford to preorder but I am placing holds for these books at my library, the books that are available to have holds or notifications placed at least. The ones I read the brief notes on sound pretty banger.
picnic is piquenique. Very similar pronunciation, really. Hope you enjoy your trip to Brasil!!!
I choose books by going on tiktok and looking for reviewers that have a similar taste to mine or, if I want a specific vibe, for those "if you like X you'll love Y" videos and seeing what comes out the most
Omg your eyeshadow is so amazing in this vid!! Also great vid but THAT EYE LOOK 🤩
Thank you so much!
Her cringey writing really shined through in the texts between her and "Lilly" 😂
wooo i love long videos!
I'm going to read the affected authors books
The sad thing about this whole mess is that if Cait Corrain wasn't such a crab-buckety backstabbing witch, I may have been tempted to read her book. I did like the story of Dionysus and Ariadne as a kid, and while romance isn't my thing, space minotaurs sound cool. Though I agree that To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods sounds better and is more likely to end up on my to-get list. I tend to get books from the library first, and if I like them I buy them.
Side note, i think that jm bottlenose very purposely used the phrasing "black & brown" when talking about her character. Idk that's just the vibe I get 😬
Wow I thought I had already heard everything about this situation, but somehow it still managed to get worse...😭😭
Thank you SO MUCH for doing this one. I know these videos are a lot of work and I appreciate it! I (and many others) have been waiting for this one to appear.
Honestly, her apology would have meant more if she had shortly stated that she was sorry, she understands what she did was wrong, she was going to reach out to the authors individually and seek professional help to actively work on her poor behavior.
I mean, with all the crap she did, it still wouldn't have been enough, but at least it would have felt more sincere than a karaoke version of Jamie Foxx's 'Blame It (on The Alcohol)'.
White panic = white people being afraid of being treated the way we've treated POC for basically forever.
I think as an author it can be helpful to know what the trend is on GR leading up to a release but that's when you ask a friend to check out the numbers for you. But we live in a publishing world where the publishers want to know what your plan is for marketing on TikTok before they'll even read your submission.
Just when I thought the roller coaster is over, she would do something else.
I’m like 12 minutes in. To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods was already on my wishlist. Now I’m for sure buying the book because of Cait lmao
I am so confused about how the fake convo started--was Cait starting the convo like she was opening by accusing her fake friend, without knowing fake Lil was the fake perpetrator?
I already saw WithCindy’s video on this, but I’m addicted to mess so here I am anyway
"I'm glad I read the book before doing this because it helped me understand why she was insecure about the book coming out." Brutal.
More importantly What did you find out about the car battery?
Yesss! I’ve been waiting for this video from you 🤩
re the mechanic codes at 19:50
yes, they absolutely can be wrong. My dad actually had a very extensive saga spanning a year+ trying to figure out why his lawnmower kept dying. Apparently it's a common problem with the specific model he has, and he replaced just about every part on that thing based on the codes it was spitting out. Turns out none of the things it said were problems were actually problems and the issue was something else entirely. It makes sense if you think about it. For example, if there was a broken wire, just ask yourself: how would the computer know there's a broken wire? It wouldn't, it would just know there's some sort of problem between point A and B and makes an educated guess
I keep forgetting that Del Rey is the publisher, and I keep being like "oh my god, they're dragging Lana Del Rey into this now!?"
😭😭😭
Kmsl
Neither mental illness nor substance abuse issues makes a person concoct elaborate racist plots. She hasn't taken accountability at all.
Nope she hasn't
That's one thing that really gets me. She could have spent the hours it would have taken for her to concoct that fake conversation and acknowledge what she did. Instead, she tried to pretend to be a victim and when that didn't work, she ran away.
I would say only some kind of mental illness or not being all there mentally would make someone concoct elaborate racist plots. It doesn't seem like something a mentally sound person would do.
I agree. I hate when people pretend the alcohol/ambien/whatever made them racist. No, they were racist before, the substance just made it come out more.
@@TiffWaffles I feel the same way. Because even if it WAS the result of a bad reaction to medication, why didn't they start trying to fix things the second they regained lucidity? Why didn't they apologize to the others, delete the accounts and the reviews, and take further action to make things right?
Even with their bullshit excuse, they're still in the wrong.
And make no mistake, the excuse was bullshit. That's not how psychotic breaks work. Yes, you can say and do some fucked up shit while you're out of your mind, but this was calculated and elaborate. Poorly executed, sure, but still planned out.
Also the fact that none of their friends, fellow authors, or other people they interacted with noticed anything off about their behaviour? Like, are we to believe they were out of it enough to do all this, but still in control enough to keep it to themself? Again, bullshit.
“(The POC authors I targeted) were on the Wrong Lists at the Wrong Time.” is such a double handed insult because they were NOT “On the WRONG list”, they were exactly where they were supposed to be: being recognized and promoted and uplifted, and she couldn’t even handle that.
This.
1000% THIS!
Yes thank you this irritated me so much when she said that 🙄
As a Chinese writer who writes for the global English audience I kinda feel like Corrain dodged a bullet to not include truly no-name self pubs, that will be fun.
THIS!!! Oooh that pissed me off!
It frustrates me so much that Cait was frustrated by perceived preferential treatment of POC authors. POC authors aren't given preferential treatment, people are just celebrating them finally breaking through the discrimination that kept them out of the field. Overcoming discrimination in publishing is not being preferred over white authors, it's being able to be an author at all ffs. She really did have it all in the palm of her hands but still coveted the celebration other authors were getting for being there at all. Shameful.
there is so much complaining about “preferential” treatment and “free stuff” being given to BIPOC authors-but I bet if you asked her if she’d want to be a BIPOC person to get those “benefits” she’d say hell no.
All this talk of "preferential treatment* when most of her fellow debuts didn't even get a FRACTION of what she had for her own debut. The reason so many people hype certain books up is because THEY HAVE TO DO THEIR OWN PROMOTION. For all their talk of celebrating diversity, publishing is still predominately white. They will pull out all stops for their white authors while leaving their Authors of Color twisting in the wind.
The entitlement is absolutely sickening.
Yes and this perceived problem some white authors have is not even rooted in reality. If you look at statistics white authors are still the most published group by a large margin.They search for excuses why their work is not picked up when the truth is a lot of it has to do with their writing, or their lack of connections and wealth. We don't like to say it out loud but better situated people have a higher chance of being published than their 'lower class' peers. That is true for both white peole and POC. And the group that has it hardest and is least likely to be published is poor POC.
As the saying goes, "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality seems like oppression". This is a textbook example of that.
And the publishing field is still very white in most genres. POC authors are just starting to break into fantasy, they're still very rarely found in sci-fi, horror, etc
Authors, there's a rule that this fellow author wishes to disclose: ✨️ *Do not burn bridges in communities that you'll need to cross someday.* ✨️ in otherwords, don't be Cait Corrain. Bigotry helps no one.
Preach you are totally right 💯
I’ll keep that in mind. Also,Don’t see your fellow authors as “competition” to be beasten like a popularity contest. We’re all in the same boat, trying to get published.
@@idongesitusen5764 Exactly
You said everything I wanted to say perfectly.
I would love to have a crumb of attention Cait had, like there was no reason she had to throw everything away like that. I think all authors feel insecure about their work in one way or another, but I don't try to bring people down. I just keep my head down and pray it'll work out lol.
HI PLEASE READ!
Couple things: 1) youtube is penalizing me right now and they demonetize my videos if i title them "authors behaving badly" and even putting "cait corrain" in the title demonetized the video so thats why the title is written how it is. I had to upload this 8 times before if was monetized and they're being ridiculous about titles.
2) I previously pronounced Molly X Chang's name "Chang" like "fang" but changed the way I pronounce the name to model the way i saw in her twitter profile, where it says "Chang like lung". If this is still the incorrect pronunciation, I am so sorry, and please let me know so that moving forward I can correctly pronounce it when I review her book.
It's crazy, recently I got a 24 hour ban from commenting TH-cam because I made fun of a comedienne on a video, and was accused of cyberbullying.
It’s giving when people have to write things like “g3en0cid3” or “le$bian” on Tik Tok
I’ve literally been waiting for this video from you. I just binged the entire ABB playlist
in my experience (as a chinese american person) every person/family has a different way they pronounce their romanized name. sometimes it’s the linguistically correct way because they immigrated after the shuttering of ellis/angel island(s), while others (like my family) utilize the “incorrect” and americanized pronunciation because we/our relatives were forced to. so ultimately just take what molly says to be the pronunciation of her name as her name 🎉
Why would "Authors behaving badly" get you demonitized? I'm so confused
Cait Corrain is like my alcoholic dad, who used to steal money from my wallet and then help me look for it.
My alcoholic dad would blame misplacing his own stuff on my friends rather than ones of his own he made up 😂 and then later on say it never happened 🤪
jfc
Oof.
What’s up with these alcoholic dads stealing money from their kids? My alcoholic dad would steal my whole ass piggy bank and blame me for misplacing it 😂
I am so sorry that your father betrayed you like that sadly I know this very well my father would steal from the me and my brother and mother to feed his drug addiction
Oh Se-young, Shahrazad, Horowitz... I wonder why "alcoholism" didn't make her make any fake accounts named "John Smith" or "Karen Jones." (rhetorical question)
JOHN SMITH AND KAREN JONES OMG 🤣🤣
why did the "Karen Jones" combo make me so giddy. it's almost perfect.
It's not just the racism, it's not just the insecurity, it's not even the naked meanness of it all; for me, it's the arrogance that really gets me. It drips off of every word. You can tell that this whole time they thought they were _so smart,_ like they genuinely fancied themselves a budding evil mastermind. Even after they got called out, you can just _tell_ they thought they were going to get away with it! It boggles the mind. It's like watching someone on Survivor give a confessional about how they are totally playing everyone and nobody is the wiser, followed immediately by confessionals from everyone else on the tribe talking about what a transparent, untrustworthy little weasel they are.
And the arrogance really came through IN the writing, but then afterwards it's like (this is my assumption) she realized her AO3 fic style was probably not going to translate into having a book reading audience that felt the same way, and she was like OH I actually don't think my own work is good anymore. AO3 fics are valid, and books are valid, but people tend to look for very different things in them and they don't automatically translate well into books. One being successful doesnt ensure success in the other arena.
@@ReadswithRachel when someone can't resist giving a third act twist to their fake conversation with a sockpuppet, you know they are truly high on their own supply.
ah yes, Russell hantz on redemption island
When I saw "chunk of change" in that tweet, I knew we were in for a distasteful ride.
The racism was enough for me. I don’t care how it’s done. Lying in plain sight is done in front of you all constantly, she just got caught. Makes no difference to me. It’s racism and it’s perpetuating oppression
One thing that makes me sad is that Diana Dworak is genuinely a talented illustrator, and this was her first big job with a major publisher.
As someone who writes fanfiction and done some chatfic; the Cait and Lilly convo was VERY Chatfic like in structure. It had that sort or "move the plot" sort of writing that is fine in fanfic but makes it VERY obvious that they're lying.
Yes!
Whenever I hint at something serious I want to talk in text, people deflect, put me on silence, beating around the bush
Even cait “acting” was so movie like and lack of fluidity and realism
I can look at my angry messages and notice a clear difference in effectiveness in getting my point across
“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
as a recovering alcoholic, it's not a fckin excuse. Alcohol explains behavior like passing out or pissing your pants or slurring your speech, not crafting calculated racist sock puppet reviews. That honestly takes some focus and intent.
What a great point. Thanks for sharing this view.
Yeah being an alcoholic makes you do things like rant about being jealous, not carefully craft a review bomb campaign. That requires time and focus.
I struggle to make entire new accounts for things when I’m not concentrating, let alone making several..
i think cait being a fanfic writer REALLY explains some of her behavior and actions. i say this as a fanfic writer myself; some fanfic writers are obsessed with stats and comments (checking out their ao3 stats, obsessively checking if they got a comment 0.1 seconds after uploading a fic, checking other fics' stats, etc.) and every time they get a not so nice comment, they are on twitter, tumblr or subreddits complaining about mean reviewers. and that behavior, while a little childish, is understandable in fanfiction because you are writing for free and nobody asked to be criticized, but when you go to publishing a book traditionally, you can't behave like a fanfic writer and wanting people to only comment "omg this was sooo good" on good reads, that's just not a healthy way to see your worth as a writer. i think this fandom mentality really shows with cait, and that's why i'm also sure she would've ruined her career anyway, just because of how she perceives stats.
I fully agree. Obsessing over comments and stats inevitably becomes very toxic (especially being in groups where other fanfic writers make it feel normal so it just reinforces obsessive behavior) and sucks the enjoyment out of writing and it’s not good for one’s own mental health.
Fr fr, every time I get that kudos email is like a straight shot of dopamine, and a comment? Makes my day. But book reviews are not that. Fanfic is free & written for fun, while a book is a product that is sold. If a neighbour gives you a free cake you say thank you & eat it happily, even if it's only a mediocre cake. But if you order a cake at a bakery & it's mediocre you leave a review that reflects that at the bakery. Idk why this is so hard to grasp for some people.
as someone who has similarly been in fandom spaces for over a decade i agree! she still had that fanwriter mentality of "no flames, no unsolicited concrit" and failed to adjust to the fact that the publishing world is a whole different ballgame
As a fanfic writer, I agree. The whole time during this video, I was getting fandom drama flashbacks.
And part of the reason fanfiction is like that is because you often don't have any other way to get feedback. If she went trad pub, I'm assuming that she had access to beta readers. At the very least, she had an agent and an editor who liked her story enough to publish it, meaning they had to give her some positive feedback.
I am absolutely losing it at the statement at 36:00. We all know the stereotype, "I'm not racist, I have a black friend!" Never in my life have I heard, "I'm not racist, I harassed a white person too!"
Equality, I guess???
i mean... it's something new, i guess? LOL
That “whoever liked this book must be on dr*gs comment” is especially weird and gross after her blaming medication, mental health, and alcohol for her shite behavior.
Hearing out of nowhere that Corrain 5-stared Lore Olympus was... eye-opening
@@reaperassasin11 Says it all, really. LO is probably one of the worst of the many Greek retellings and anyone who disagrees with me....
Is entitled to their own opinions, of course. (I just wanted to reference her reviews)
As an author (under a pen name) with 14 trad. published books and more under contract, I avoid Goodreads like the plague. As you have said so many times, reviews are for READERS. Authors who obsess over reviews and ratings are just harming their own mental health. Other authors are NOT competition. Write more, obsess less.
“Write more, obsess less.” I love that.
Just an fyi Xiran's name is Chinese, so it would be pronounced She-ran, not Zee-ran :)
Thank you!
Now I'm imagining Xiran as She-ra.
What language would it be pronounced Zee-ran?
Also, Chinese has two "sh" sounds. "Shi" is pronounced like the sound in "ship" but "xi" is pronounced at the front of the mouth with teeth and tongue tip, as if you were trying to say "sheet" with your tongue in position to say "seat." The press kit section of their author site has a recording you can listen to as a guide. @@ReadswithRachel
@@Vinedancedood! I'm learning tonal langs and working on Mandarin rn. you nailed the difference between "shi" and "xi" and i finally have a word to use as a mnemonic. ty 0/
I am the person who made most of the affected Goodreads lisr=ts (2024 trans releases, adult queer romance 2024, etc). Those lists are a way for me to keep track of new releases and organise them in categories. Since anyone with a reader account can add any book to any list it was also a way for me to trust people to add books i had missed or i hadn't heard about. I noticed the Cait Corrain phenomenon months ago as her books were upvoted by accounts that voted only for her books but those accounts looked semi-legit so i believed they were friends of the author who wanted to uplift her. then everything came out and i knew immediately who the author was before they were even named
That discord convo with “Lily” is so wild to me - it’s like watching someone do their mental gymnastics to justify their shitty behavior in real time but written out instead of inside their heads. A psychologist would have a field day parsing that
I was unaware that depression and alcoholism made people racist
2023 was an interesting year in books. We started the year with an author coming back from the dead and ended with an author committed professional unaliving.
It was a WILD ride!
😳
Wait who was the author who came back from the dead?
@@fsantos4199 she was a romance author named Susan Meachen. It happened January 2023
So I started taking antidepressants in December, and they have reduced my depressive symptoms a hell of a lot. Those symptoms, however, never included racism. What a world!
The drama of 2023! Fascinating book stuff
The biggest takeaway I have from many years of writing, studying writing, and working in writing, is that fellow writers are not your competition. Publishing and reading is an industry that is not competitive, because it is a consumerist hobby. Literally the more books, the more people read. People never read one book in isolation - they find a genre or a niche they like and read around. Tearing down others is insane behaviour. I've never seen somebody self-sabotage quite so effectively and I hope Corrain gets help to work through her issues.
Exactly! Plus if you find authors who write in similar genres to you and foster good relationships you can promote their books to your readers and vice versa so everyone gets more business. It truly should be a collaborative environment filled with positivity and support.
I think there was a similar case in the Omegaverse corner of writing (Lindsay Ellis did two videos on that one). Author Addison Cain sued Zoey Ellis for having a trilogy using similar tropes as hers and made her life hell. And even though Cain's publisher eventually helped her commit perjury, legal documents show they initially did try to talk her out of it and pointed out the above principle to her. But like Corrain, she pressed ahead in trying to hurt others.
@@ohhmangos Cross promotion between authors. It helps everyone, especially society and culture, in the long run, TBH. Every other industry is slowly catching up to it.
Sage advice to all writers. We support each other. We learn from each other. We do not tear each other down -- ever. Writing is art and there is room for everyone.
Seriously, did people just forget the brilliance brought about by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett teaming up? Similarly skilled authors in similar genres make magic when they work together. Competing makes no sense.