As you may know, I narrate creepy pastors on YouTube, but from time
to time I like to write some of my stories here, and they almost
always do well above and beyond an average video. I've been around long enough
to know what works and what doesn't, and I can piece together new trends
based on all my years of experience. However, lately my ideas have been
dry. I felt creatively stagnant. I wouldn't call it writer's block, more
just uninspired. So I was struck with a wave of ideas when a random
facts TikTok came in my four you page. Apparently last year the character Winnie
the Pooh fell into the public domain, a big hit to the Disney roster.
After this happened, a horror movie was immediately made, called Winnie the
Pooh, Blood and Honey. It didn't do well, but it never got
taken down, which gave me the feeling of security to be able to use
such a beloved icon. So it was the perfect ipe to base a new
story on. Usually stories can be written about copyrighted ips. It falls under
the clause of fair use, but it's a hard one to claim. A
lot of keyboard lawyers think they know how it works, but it's a lot
more strict than people think. Things that people think are fair use by far
do not fall into the category. The common rhetoric is that just by labeling
something as parody is fine, but there are so many nuances that aren't established
from the vague law that you're always treading light ground. But when something hits
the public domain, it's fair game. The story I wrote was great.
It was about someone who had a strange feeling of familiarity whenever he saw Winnie
the Pooh, even the first time he saw a cartoon with the character,
he had this vague sense of recognition. He starts having night terrors about the
character, visions of Winnie visiting him in the dead of night, wearing a
white tshirt instead of his usual red, seeing the other characters unlooking, the
morbid curiosity from his shelves, clawset, and other bedroom furnitures, as Winnie
taunted the protagonist to come back. He doesn't know what this means, come
back back to where. Through a series of investigations, both in the real
world and in the night terrors, he finds the location of the hundred Acre
Woods, the real one and now decrepit, overgrown hellscape of dead greens,
no sign of life, and when there is evidence, it's long since turned
to bones. He stumbles upon the creatures of childhood in a clearing, low
illumination, flickering the very recognizable silhouettes. The protagonist watches in secret as Winnie
and the others wait for something until Tigger rise through an opening with a child.
They all celebrate and act in a jovial manner, despite what the protagonists
had experienced from the years of torment. It was blatantly a facade, though
that was lost on the kid. Through a series of horrific events, a
sacrifice is made, which soaks into their leader, Winnie, whose shirt turns
red from the essence. After this, the protagonist doesn't get any visits or
night terrors. He thinks it's over until Winnie he starts showing up again,
the red slightly faded from his shirt. He needs more. It was perfect,
It had everything, It used the ip without pandering. The plot told
a full story, not a half ending. I knew people hadn't read it
and YouTube would eat it up. I posted at first and slashed no Sleep
to garner some attention. See if anything needed editing and the comments I got
loved it, playing on people's nostalgia with a dark twist. However, while
refreshing to see newer interactions, suddenly the story was gone. I was frustrated.
Some of the sub rules on there can be so arbitrary, so it
could have been something so small to be taken down some rules, even coming
to the subjectivity of the particular mud who reviewed the story. It was taken
down at the prime time for traction. Even if I appealed it, the
wind would be lost from the sails. So I tried again on an old
and the same thing happened. I was annoyed, to say the least,
even though read it wasn't my main source of feedback. It always feels nice
to gain traction, but at least I had my main use for the story
to narrate it for YouTube. I recorded, mastered, edited, made sure
everything was perfect, added the effects for visuals, cleaned up a tidy thumbnail
to make it catchy, made sure to give it a concise title to garner
curiosity, and as soon as it was posted, it was immediately taken down.
I don't think anyone even saw it before it was removed from my channel.
I checked my notification. It was a straight DMCA takedown, removed the
copyright by Disney. I knew I was in the right when I checked before
writing, Winnie the Pooh was definitely in the public domain. Surely this was
an automated takedown. It sucks, but something I could appeal, so I
sent a full description through the appeal process to try to get the video reinstated,
hoping the video was very quickly brought back. However, it was immediately
rejected, so I worked hard to change things around. Mentioned Winnie less by
name, seeing if reducing it could lower the chances of the transcription getting automatically
detected by the butts that run this site. I reuploaded it and straightaway again
it was taken down. This hurt not only emotionally. That was now two
strikes on my channel, meaning I lost some features and I had to tread
lightly from now on, since three strikes and you're out. This takedown,
however, was followed up by an email. It was addressed from the Disney
legal team. I opened it expecting some halfhearted automated email that they sent to
idiots that re uploaded their movies, hoping i'd be able to reply to a
human to try sort this out, But the body of the email was brief,
only four words, we'll be visiting soon. My heart dropped. I
didn't know what this meant. Was I being served or whatever that meant?
Were they going to take me away try me immediately? With no course of
action? So I took to searching online for advice to see if anyone else
had encountered something like this. I was on a time limit. I had
no idea whether it would be months while they gathered their legal team, maybe
weeks if they were prepared for situations like this, or even days since there
were a multi billion dollar mega corporation. I barely skipped past the first few
ad search results of my journey for information before I heard a knock. There
was no way the whole of my mind doubted it was them, bar a
miniscool percent of the belief in the possibility. It would be unreal that they'd
come that quickly. Yet, as I was thinking this over, more knocks
came. I had nothing ordered to my house, no food coming, no
packages. Out of that little drip of fear in my heart, I decided
not to answer. I made them think no one was home. All the
lights were off and I had my bedroom curtains closed. They persisted firm knocks
on the door. When it stopped, I was relieved about relief was short
lived. I heard the thumbs of footsteps around the house, the crunch of
gravel along the edges of the property, and the rustling of bushes around the
back. My mind rewound, hoping to God that I'd remembered to lock the
back door, which I must have because I didn't hear it open. But
the movement didn't stop with the perimeter of the house. I heard a pummeling
sound on the sides. At first I thought they were banging on the walls,
trying to relentlessly get my attention, but the palmeling sound did all around
the outside of the house, slowly moving up. I didn't have to figure
out what it was, because the next thing I heard was an upstairs window
open and a series of scuttling come in. Whatever came in wasn't human.
I quickly hid under my bed as I heard them rapidly scuttle around in the
other upstairs rooms. It wasn't long before they were in my room. I
heard the staggered thumps of their steps as they moved around, ricocheting of furniture,
rebounding around the bed, stumbling on top. My heart was in my
throat when I felt the press of the mattress pushed down at me, Hoping
they didn't feel it back. I saw a pair of legs pause in front
of me and stop in a brief moment of contemplation. I heard its labored
breathing small grunts before the thing dropped on all fours and quickly ran away.
I breathed out in a sigh of relief for the moment of reprise, until
I heard a dark whisper from beside me. Disney still owns the rights to
the movie adaptation of Winnie the Pooh. I turned to see the shade of
one of them next to me. There must have quietly crawled under the bed
from the scramble around my room. I screamed, quickly escaped my hiding spot
and ran. Others around caught on and started chase. I dashed past one
narrowly as I did it, span in a pirouette and fell on all fours
to give chase. I ran down the stairs and jumps and quickly closed myself
in the smallest space I could find an old closet muffled with coats. I
heard the chasers run past, but another whisper came. Tiger was in the
sequel box and still hasn't fallen into the public domain. Nothing was beside me
nor behind. I only had to glance up to see that one of them
was hiding in here with me. I tried to run, but I wasn't
fast enough. For a second time, a long arm reached out and grabbed
me. The others thundered towards the door. I was caught. I was
pulled out, and in the dim light of the moon through the shades,
I saw them. They looked like businessmen, but everything about them was elongated.
Their arms would have drooped to the floor if their legs weren't also long
and gangly. Their faces with a stretched facades for humans. Despite their earlier
speed, they were savoring this moment, taking their time to soak in my
fear. Another leaned in close and told me the rules that though the original
character Winnie the Pooh from the books fell into the public domain, that the
likeness of Disney's adaptation was still under their ownership, specifically the Winnie with a
red shirt, and that many of the character's rights published in the latter books
had not yet expired. At this he reached over to me slowly with one
of his stick thin arms unfurled and gnarly finger, and gently touched my forehead.
An immense pain ran through me as they screamed in unimaginable horror. It
felt like I was touched by the concentrated heat of a thousand sons. Very
quickly, I passed out from the pain. When I woke, I saw
two more figures. My parents had come to check on me. As they
were passing by the area. They laughed at my state. All they saw
was me passed out in the middle of the living room, stewing in my
own mess. Had a rough night last night, blooded my father must have
been a fun party, though my mom bantered after. I didn't know what
to say. I was stunned, wondering how much of last night's events were
even real. No words came to mind, as all I could focus on
was the radiating, burning sensation I could feel on my forehead. However,
there must have been nothing there, since all my parents commented on was my
rough state. Any kind of wound would have immediately changed the tone to a
more serious mood. I didn't want to explain any of what happened, so
I just went along with their narrative, though I knew i'd be laughed at
for many family gatherings to come. After they left, I went to the
bathroom to clean up and give myself a look over. I really did look
like a mess. My hair was disheveled from a restless night, drule stains
lyned horizontally on my cheeks, and my eyes were crusty frontiers, but I
paid no mind to that. In the middle of my forehead was a mark,
clear as day. Three circles burned on my flesh, the wound,
red and raw, all clustered in the silhouette of Mickey Mouse. I was
branded, but only to my eyes, a permanent pain that hasn't gone away.
Since I felt defeated. All I wanted to do was have some fun
play with an ip that I thought was fair game. But I was wrong
and heavily punished for it. I almost wanted to give up this whole act.
However, one thing is keeping me going. My own personal revenge,
not something that would get them back nearly as much as they hurt me,
but enough spite to see if I can make a giant bleed. I did
some research and something interesting came up. Disney's own Mickey Mouse falls into the
public domain in twenty twenty four, so I will wait until then, and
I will write the most vile story imaginable with their beloved character