Overpowered & Explaining Updates
- Sylvia Eve
- Aug 29, 2017
- 8 min read
So as many of you have known through instagram, facebook, and myself informing you that Overepowered by: Felicity Pocket and myself has been discontinued and removed from the Episode app. I will explain in further detail why and as a consequence why my updates have been taking so long.
Overpowered Explanation:
Okay, so here is what happened with Overpowered. For those that do not know Overpowered was the eleventh story I had written on episode. Overpowered is special to me for two reasons! The first is I am writing it with an incredibly talented author, kind, sweet, amazing woman and friend Felicity (click her name to follow her on instagram.) Secondly it is because we based this story off of Power Rangers, combined it with some cool back story, drama, and of course action. What Overpowered is about is Five teenagers who are different are chosen by fate now are being told that they are going to save the world. In this story you do get to customize a character and make some difficult choices! This story is no longer on episode and has been discontinued due to a violation on episode which I will explain. When I went live on Friday August 11th, 2017 I was in an amazing mood and got inspiration for a story while walking my dog. So after working on this new story for a little bit I decided it has been a while since I have been live on instagram and wanted to give you all and update and talk to you all. So I went live and I was three quaters done of my live stream when I decided to check my fan mail for my stories (Which I always do during a live to check reads as well.). While I was live checking all my stories my heart sank and my good mood was gone once I saw this.
I was shocked, heartbroken, upset, frustrated, and honestly didn't want to be live anymore. So after seeing this and talking to all of you for a few more minutes I closed my live stream with five minutes left (which I usually do not do.). I contacted Felicity right away through her instagram and snap chat (because Felicity and I talk all the time) but I didn't get an answer right away as to a decision on what we were going to do. This is how I found out Overpowered got violated and people have been telling me that episode will usually send an email giving an author a heads up but that was not the case hear. The reason I know this is that I have my email that I use for episode connected to my phone (which is on me all the time for emergency reasons.) So still being in disbelieve, angry, shock, and saddened I called my twin sister Scarlett and explained to her what happened. She was surprised and tried to help me calm down and I told her that I didn't even feel like writing anymore for a little bit. She then tried to help me get my mind off it by creating this blog site and said that if I wanted I could publish Overpowered on here through the blog. I told her but I don't even know why my story got taken down. So after talking with Scarlett for a while then saying goodbye Felicity got a hold of me through snapchat. She had no idea what was going on until I sent her the picture (the one above) and asking what she wanted to do. She asked me if I got any warning and I said no. We then decided to contact Episode and find out why our story got removed and for me to find out what this ment for me as an author as I was terrified for my other stories! Felicity and I then wanted to create a joint statement explaining to all of you what was going on. It took us a few days before episode finally gave us an answer. They apologized first and then they explained why Overpowered was taken down. We will not include the person who sent us this email from the episode team. This is what the email said:
Using the intellectual property of another party or having content as well as the plot that are similar and indicative of that property is not allowed on the app (this falls under fan-fiction or indicative fan-fiction).
Your story is indicative of Power Rangers, and the characters from that series. You have images for your story cards which violate our rules. You mention through narration that your story is based on it and use terms like "Rangers" along with colors to describe the characters hero-forms.
Since your plot is not a plagiarized copy of a given episode, I will give you the opportunity to edit your story. You will need to remove any and all indications that this was a fanfiction of any and all Power Ranger series/movies.
Do not use the terms "Rangers" or colors together in any combination to describe/name the characters (ie - Red Ranger/ Overpowered Red Ranger/ Red overpowered Ranger, etc)
Remove any and all dialogue or narration containing the word "Ranger"
Remove any and all dialogue or narration suggesting or stating that this story is derived from the Power Ranger series/movies (including terms, place names, character names, or any other content belonging to the series)
Remove any and all images (official photography, art, logos, manipulated images, or fan art of any kind) that are based on the Power Ranger series/movies.
Remove any and all images which contain official art or fan art of any other creator (backgrounds, story cards and or overlays which contain anime characters or other published works that you do not have rights to and that aren't public domain or free for commercial use)
Please note that this ban will not impact your status as an author in any way, however, repeated and multiple violations of our terms of use may result in temporary or permanent account removal from the platform.
Once you have modified your story card and story in its entirety to ensure adherence to our rules, as well as replaced all applicable images, please use the "save" function and notify me so that I may unlock the "update script" function for you.
So I forwarded this email to Felicity and informed her through snapchat and instagram asking her is she saw the email. First we didn't realize fan fictions were not allowed on episode (as we do not check the forums too often) She told me she did and asked if I still had a passion for the story. To be honest at this point I was upset and I didn't want to continue the story because we would have had to change everything for Overpowered which would have been a lot of work and then to email episode every time we were done changing an episode would be a pain in the butt. So I said I didn't and she agreed; So I then replied to the email and asked if Overpowered could be removed from my end on my portal as I didn't want to see it and it will never be updated again. Episode said they cannot remove it but said if I wanted it to stay off the app then I can just leave it off the app. I emailed them back thanking them for there help and then Felicity and I made our conjoined post explaining the response we received from episode. We are sad that Overpowered got removed but that doesn't mean Felicity and I are done working together (hint, hint). I do not NO HATE going towards episode as this was our mistake and if people do stir up trouble about this that could put my other stories on their radar which I do not want to happened. So being the now paranoid self I am I made some changed to Behind The Hood [Season 1] and decided to put Down The Rabbit Hole and Out Of The Sea on hold along with my other fairytale stories I have in the works. It was MY CHOICE to do this. Episode did not tell me to. So I am currently revamping Down The Rabbit Hole, Out Of The Sea, and all the reset of my upcoming fairytale stories.
Why are my updates have been taking so long?
To be honest I am scared to update my stories now since the whole situation with Overpowered has happened. My real life has been busy since June 2017 as I have moved, been looking for work, went on a four week vacation in July, taking care of my dog who has been sick and myself, my social life, family and more. I have a life outside of writing and I have been finding less and less time to write but I can assure you all that this doesn't mean I will stop writing though. Writing is my escape from real life and my passion for it grows and grows more everyday. Along with running and being the leader of two other instagram account (@hood_wolves_team and @episodehoodawards) I am a very busy young woman. I am focusing more on my writing recently and I actually took a little break while the whole Overpowered violation was going on. In that time I felt lost creatively, exhausted, heartbroken, and very sad. So when I took a little break and stepped back and just focused on my real life I was feeling more like myself and slowly getting back to writing again. I needed this little break to clear my head and focus on my own health and self in order to become stronger and overcome this. I am slowly getting back to updating my stories (as I have a lot on the go) but since putting a few on hold I'm catching up on my updates. You seriously are all so very supportive, caring, loving, and always have my back even before the violation and I honestly hope that our episode community can stay this way. I know that people like to cause drama and like to bully but honestly what does that really achieve. You breaking a person or getting attention? If this is honestly you; I think you are going about it all wrong! IF you want someone to read your story or notice you; You need to check yourself first and make sure you have all your facts straight before posting out causing anything. Being a bully victim myself I know that it isn't the answer. If you have a problem with someone TALK TO THEM IN A CALM MATTER. It will show the person that you want to work this out maturely and don't want to start anything. If you are the victim and you have tried talking to the person then you should honestly block them because no one needs that crud in there life. Everyone has good days and bad day that is what my mother has always told me. I stay positive because that is who I am. Yes I can look on the more negative side of thing and yes I have days where I am down and upset but I bounce back. My updates are slowly coming back to normal (if episode approves all the backgrounds and covers I have requested.) Then everything will be back to how it was before the violation and my updates will be back to how they were back in May where I had updates out for each story every 1-2 weeks. I am finishing some stories before new ones are released this meaning some of my release date for my other stories that have set in stone release dates may change but I am making sure to have at least a minimum of five episode before any new story is released. Looking back and seeing myself almost 1 year ago (September 7th, 2017.) I would have never guess I would be where I am on episode with almost 100K reads (which I am getting a cake for myself when this happens to celebrate this big milestone for me.) but also I can see how far I have grown as a person and have gotten to know so many AMAZING people through instgram, The Episode Forums, and through my Facebook Page. I hope to continue to grow as a person, an author, and a friend to all of you. I hope to keep getting to know all of you in the future and that you all continue to like my stories. Have a good day/night/evening everyone and always remember Spread The Love And Not The Hate.
Commentaires