#because you believe that if you *show* someone evidence that you know they plagiarized your fic

[pastafossa]

its easy for people to say you’re being dramatic when its not THEIR work being plagiarized.

your frustrations are 100% valid and im sorry you’re having to go through this again. if this is the only method that works, then do what you need to do in order to protect your work.

Ty, anon. I'm definitely frustrated with the whole thing and it's exhausting. And like, on the one hand I get it. This might seem like a 'whoa' escalation, and why can't you let this go/talk privately/go easier? And that's what I did the first few times it happened to me. I tried letting it go, only for more and more to be taken the longer it was ignored. I tried asking privately, repeatedly for the work to be taken down or even just for my elements to be removed from the larger story, before going to Wattpad and AO3 when I was ignored or waved off. Hell, I tried that with the Impasta/Big Plagiarist - I was literally sending (ignored) messages in an attempt to get it resolved between us before I finally posted about it and everyone pushing got it taken down. Only for her to come back maybe a month later and do it again, rinse repeat. And now this, what, a month after that? Even if this last one's not the Big Plagiarist, this is really bad timing.

I've tried gentle and reasonable and quiet and private and begging and gotten nowhere. I've got literal notes in the A/N of TRT telling people it's not ok to do this. I've talked to other fic writers who've been plagiarized like this and they've had similar results, to the point that some have just taken down their work or taken very long hiatuses when it kept happening (I'm not taking down TRT, don't worry, cause I love it; this is just more about the absolute frustration and hopelessness some fic authors feel when this happens). People just keep doing it even though they know it's wrong, and I just don't know any other way to make this stop than applying public pressure.

[strang3lov3]

Edit 4/5/24 - Aya’s taken my fic down, and I promised to take down my posts about her plagiarism if she’d apologize to me for hurting me. She didn’t, so these posts are staying up. I blocked her and let her know she’s more than welcome to send an ask from a side blog apologizing. This behavior is unacceptable.

Update about my plagiarized fic/ayadrafts (original post here)

Tw-fatphobia, violent threats

First, I wanna say thank you to everyone who is showing up and sticking up for me. Eddie stans, Joel stans, writers and readers both. I love and appreciate you so much. I know a good amount of you have reported ayadrafts and that’s awesome. If anyone in the comments is able to let others know how to do the same, that would be greatly appreciated.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how to update this so I think we’ll just go through the timeline.

Explanation below.

Last time I talked about this yesterday where I wasn’t responding to an ask, I showed screenshots of ayadrafts’ messages with others, how she laughed at both them and me. I posted and reblogged with screenshots of countless deleted comments. That was in late afternoon. During that time, people repeatedly commented on Ayadrafts’ post calling out her blatant theft of my work and even alerted blogs that had reblogged/liked her post that it was stolen from me. Ayadrafts has admitted to stealing my fic, but simply does not care or feel bad.

What I did not see and what I do not have screenshots of is Ayadrafts telling individuals to k*ll themselves. It seems that she gets a comment, replies to it, and then deletes both within seconds. Multiple people, both friends and strangers have let me know that this was taking place.

As if she could not get any lower. Laughing in my face, mocking my work, and then telling people to k*ll themselves? Absolutely abhorrent and frankly, fucking cruel.

But apparently others who were defending me were cruel right back to her. From what I’ve heard, I believe people who were commenting remained fairly civil, even if ayadrafts herself did not like the comments. I’ve received asks about this and I’m disappointed to hear that people were in her asks calling her a fat cunt and other abhorrent things. That’s a low blow and does not reflect me or my values.

Believe me, I understand the anger. I’ve never met someone so antisocial and uncaring. I am angry too. Fucking livid. But that doesn’t give me or anyone else the right to say something just as heinously cruel back to her. I don’t condone anyone being sexist, fatphobic, homophobic, racist, or hateful on my behalf. None of these things will ever be tolerated by me, even if they’re being used to “defend” me. Not okay with that in the slightest.

Take the high road, don’t give this person any more ammo to be any more cruel and atrocious than she’s already being.

After this, ayadrafts disabled replies on her post of my stolen fic for the night and everything quieted down for the most part. Today, I see that she’s got those replies back on and is likely looking for another fight, blocking and unblocking people. Because, like I said yesterday, it is evident that she has a clear need for negative attention, and all of this is a game to her.

If you wanna participate in that game, you’ve got my consent. Spam the shit out of her, annoy her through posts like this and this. I don’t care, because frankly I am past the point of sympathy with her, and I think I’ve been way too forgiving up to this point. Maybe she’ll cave and delete my fic like I’ve repeatedly asked her to do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But it’s entirely possible she won’t, and that she’ll double down even harder, and that by continuing to fuel the fire she’ll only debase herself further and in doing so make us all feel worse. Were you all drained watching this go down yesterday? Because I sure as shit was.

So at some point I might ask you all that we just drop it, for both the sake of my mental health and your own. I think we’re all unbelievably hurt and upset, but we need to be able to walk away at some point. The reality is, we can keep this going forever but hateful, spiteful people like this don’t often thrive long without something to feed on.

I’ve reported her post multiple times, tweeted at tumblr, and I’ve heard nothing but crickets. It is what it is.

[kanmom51]

This needs to stop

I really contemplated if to put these words down, but I am so angry and disappointed and sad at this point that I felt I had to vent.

Disappointed. I think that's the key word for what I am feeling right now.

I understand that people are upset/angry/enraged by the shit that followed JM's release of his first solo album Face. I understand because I am enraged as well.

I have no doubt in my mind that he was wronged.

He succeeded beyond anyone's dreams and probably kind of ruined certain dreams some of these people had of their own.

But to take that anger and to turn it on the one person that supported and supports JM beyond any of us is infuriating to me.

Turning on JK?

Because of what? A shithead called Scooter Braun, who has his own personal agenda and history shows us has zero real interest or care in the actual artists he is pushing?

Do people forget who JK is?

Do they need a reminder course here?

I guess I will have to give them one.

JK is JM's favourite person in the whole world.

And a full masterlist to show it:

JK is JM's number 1 fan and showing it to us whenever he just can, with or without the company's permission.

JK is one of the most artistic and creative people there are.

Suga about JK

And maybe read what one of the stylists working on the Seven concept had to say about JK and the concept.

JK's concept. He came ready to the table. He knew what he wanted to show, what message he wanted to send.

He was given option, other concepts, other ideas, and he chose what he chose.

JK didn't steal JM's ideas. He didn't utilize them for the lack of coming up with original ideas of his own. Don't believe me, believe JK's talent, his artistry.

JK CHOSE this. This is what he wanted us to see.

It's not about copying. It's about showing us who inspires him.

It's about showing us, not only telling us, who his catalyst is.

He CHOSE the EXACT same leather pants that JM wore.

Do you see the scribble at the bottom of the jeans?

JK CHOSE the jeans with the mud.

He CHOSE.

He did not copy or plagiarize.

He took artistic liberty to mirror JM's photoshoot to an extent.

Sending us all I'd say more than one message.

First one is what I mentioned above. JM is his inspiration.

Second is connecting himself to JM, to Face, to Like crazy.

Perhaps his way of showing us he's that person that stood by JM's side when he was struggling. The one that tread mud with him. The one that tried to wake him up, save him, but JM wasn't ready for that just yet at the time. The one that let JM embrace him while trying to escape reality.

And instead of seeing what JK is trying to tell us, his fans, Jikookers as well, are turning on him?

Making JK out to be someone that doesn't have an original idea and goes and steals JM's is disrespectful to both JK and JM, btw.

This coming from people that supposedly love and know JM and JK?

JM is a 27 strong willed young man. And evidently, JM has no issues with JK of late.

JK is a 25 yo creative artistic young man, who adores and admires and lives for JM, and would NEVER steal something from JM, never take something of JM's and pass it on as his own.

Do they not understand that JM is joking when he calls JK his copycat? Has been for years now.

Did they not see the joy and love in his eyes when JK said "I'm hyung's copycat"?

He knows that JK looks up to him.

He knows that JK is inspired by him.

He lives for that.

And to go and to make it into something ugly it's just so infuriating.

JM was wronged. We can agree on that. The COMPANY could have and should have done better.

THE COMPANY.

Not the other members.

Not JK.

I get the anger and frustration. But do we take it out on the one person that did right by JM? Do we take it out on the one person JM loves more than anything? The person that JM will stand by and support and root for to succeed? How is that loving JM?

Since when did two wrongs make a right?

Don't go around saying you won't support JK's single.

Support him all while continuing to support JM's songs.

[dancingisdangerouss]

@willshipanythingblog

This is…the saddest argument I’ve ever seen in my fucking life.

The it wasn’t a question but a statement thing? No shit Sherlock, that’s a commonly known phrase not unique to me or anyone else. I’m astonished that you think you can actually argue a line you copied straight from mine by pointing out that part of the phrase is used in other works.

Because guess what? I’ll show you an example to make this easier: Another common phrase is “you never know till you know.” This might pop up in an Avengers fanfic and a Harry Potter fanfic. Heck, maybe even in the same fandom, or even the same pairing.

But if you saw a Loki x Reader fanfic where it’s the exact same situation and exact same scenario and the exact same scene in the exact same place in another Loki x Reader that begins with the exact same plot that uses that exact same line?

It’s the context and you damn well know it.

Also I hate to tell you this, but some of your followers have spoken with me privately and, while they are still following you, they agreed with me that it’s plagiarism. Even some of your own damn fans know it.

Quit reaching.

You know it’s obvious. You keep picking pieces from the evidence I provided to use instead of looking at it as a whole. The words list? Not weird if I saw them all in a Hannibal fic. The writing style without all the words, same fandom, same pairing, same beginning plot, and same phrases in a Sherlock fic? Not weird either. All of those things combined? Highly suspicious.

I wouldn’t argue it if it was a line from the movie, but Finney never says that. Of alllllll the phrases you could use and alllll the things your Reader could have said, it was the exact same thing?

Gimme a break, man.

Oh and I know at least one of those anons was you btw. It even had the same emoji you use on your posts. That’s why anyone who still believes you should not get to read my stuff. They’re also welcome to block me back, I don’t care.

I tried, I really did. I know you can’t backtrack now because you dug yourself too deep, but I’ve told your followers who messaged me that I’m happy to forgive if you would just stop lying to me.

On a final note: If anyone thinks it’s okay to sit idly by on the sidelines while someone is getting robbed, or bullied, or assaulted, etc.? Then they don’t deserve to enjoy that person’s content. @ my 500+ followers, I’m looking at y’all. Very disappointed. Thanks to those who have actually given a shit, I appreciate you immensely.

And of course you’ve “not been upset over all this until now.” You’re not the one being plagiarized.

[luvdsc]

jenovious(.)tumblr(.)com (/) post (/) 678405806749859840 miss cat I think ira copied your challenged accepted reaction

hi, honey bee! 💕 thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. I had reached out to jenovious (formerly jensrose) via dms to sort this out originally. I want to apologize beforehand that she asked that I don’t post the ask and before I could even respond, she deactivated. But I think it’s important for other writers to be aware, so that they can also protect their own works.

I would like to preface that should she create a new blog, do not send hate. This is never okay, and we should all know better than to do something that despicable.

I am posting this to spread awareness for other writers as well because a similar plagiarism issue happened in nctblr in the past in which someone used bts fanfiction and changed it to nct. They were not caught immediately because of the fandom differences. The current writing in question by jenovious was for enhyphen, and my fic I’m referring to is challenge accepted: asking your boyfriend to buy a feminine product that doesn’t exist, which is for nct dream. I would never have caught it if an ask wasn’t sent in because I don’t follow enhyphen. It really sucks that this would have flown under the radar because the writing was for a different group.

Additionally, she never admitted to nor apologized for plagiarizing my writing. I’d like to think I deserve at least a proper apology. She apologized because she “should have done research before posting it”, which I do not understand because why do you need to research other writers’ fics ahead of time? If you write them yourself, there would be no need to research other writers’ fics because they shouldn’t end up so alike. She also called it a mistake and said it was because she asked her friend for ideas for her fic and her friend said they got ideas from my reaction. She then sent me a text as proof. However, please see below for more details regarding the text message because it really seems a little bogus to me.

And now look at this text I created on ifaketextmessage.com. Additionally, as someone who codes and has created a GUI / worked on apps, I have a very hard time believing her classmates can create a fully functioning messaging software application absolutely identical to this website down to the spacing between each message and the battery usage, not to mention the copyright and trademark issues they’d be up against apple.

Her texts are on the left, and the one I created is on the right. I also did an overlay of it in Picsart to show how they match up and included a video below.

I have compiled the screenshots I sent her showing the comparisons of our reactions side by side. I know this is a tik tok trend, so they’re bound to have similar reactions given that she said she used the same video (linked here) for inspiration as me. However, the dialogue, especially the bits about not calling mark by his nickname and the “uterus” / “anti-climatic” in haechan’s portion, was written entirely by me. It is not found in the video at all. Moreover, I did not write my reactions verbatim from the video; I was inspired by the video and wrote my own dialogue. So why is her dialogue so similar to mine?

She wrote four reactions for four members of enhyphen. All four of them had similarities to my own reactions, which I have highlighted below.

I also saved full screen recordings of her reaction post before she deleted it and our DMs for more concrete proof. HERE is also a link to evidence of her copying my fic formatting and fic summary, and she never asked for permission to do so.

She copyrighted plagiarized work. She took my work and claimed it as her own. She was an admin of a kpop writing network where one of the rules is that plagiarism is not tolerated, and any member who commits it is terminated. She had asked me in the past if she could use my masterlist format as inspiration and credited me. She had also asked me how to disable the highlights and right click function on tumblr blogs in order to stop people from copying. She knows what plagiarism is, and it’s not fair or legal for her to claim my writing as her own. It’s just even more disappointing that this wasn’t done by a stranger since I know who she is and she has sent me very kind and wonderful asks about my writing in the past. I really wish she gave me an actual genuine honest apology for what she has done.

[yonduismarrypoppins]

@bucketbarnes1917

There is irrefutable evidence that you copied another creator's work verbatim for this app, and you continue to dispute it. So far, your defense has been to deflect and blame, claiming that @metalbuckaroo hacked into your account and stole a fanfiction that had been in your drafts for six months and for some reason you didn't do anything about it, insulting metal by saying, "she's probably a fat virgin cow sitting behind a keyboard," and so on. This is outright fat shaming. Also, before you delete the post, consider the following:

I shouldn't be putting so much effort into someone who is so miserable, but individuals who are that uneducated need to be educated rather than quietly spoken to.

I'd like to chat to you about something you said in the post below right now.

It's difficult to write a fanfic!

Many individuals avoid writing fan fiction because it is exceedingly difficult. It's exhausting work to force oneself to sit down, brainstorm, write, edit, rewrite, edit, cut, add, rewrite, workshop, rewrite, and rework some more until you have somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 words. The majority of people are incapable of doing so. It makes you feel good about yourself when you're one of the few who can, which is a crucial attribute in a true badass like Metal. All of your hard work and time spent crafting a scene could be for nought if it doesn't fit in with your tale perfectly. It doesn't matter if it's your favorite scene: if it's not good for your work, it has to go. It can be excruciatingly unpleasant to delete your writing, especially words you've worked so hard to make. But you do it anyway because, deep down, you're a tough cookie and you know your fic will be better for it. Is the first chapter of your book strong enough? Do you spend enough time showing rather than telling? In this one scenario, should your primary character be walking or sauntering? You're on draft #17, and after rereading it, you believe an 18th draft is required. When it comes to the end of a baseball game or a Broadway performance, "finished" is a relative term, but it isn't when it comes to writing. After all, there's no way to know if your text is flawless when you're writing it. Every writer must take a leap of faith and have faith in his or her writing at some point. It's difficult, which is why it's considered a sort of badassery. Whether it's a rejection from an agent, a publisher, a critique partner in a writing group, your inner critic, or a family member who doesn't think writing is a worthwhile use of time, you keep fighting to complete your work and get it published. A writer's perseverance and determination are essential qualities (as well as a badass). The point is that you plagiarized her work, and there's no way to prove otherwise because there's more than enough evidence. You're not only being ignorant, but you're also putting yourself in a bind. At this point, it would be in everyone's best interest for you to delete the post, admit that you plagiarized it, and then delete your account after @metalbuckaroo receives it. You’re behaving poorly and childishly. You can block me if you wish, but before you do, please read this.



[cathyparrlyn]

The truth behind the politics-notmything drama

TLDR: Charley’s explanation has been proven to be false through clear evidence, her contracting statements with what was found from original authors, and too many coincidental or suspicious points.

There are too many screenshots to all fit in this one post, so we ended up putting only a few on here. For the full post, here is a link to the google doc, you can also read this instead:

As many of you may already know, I have recently made a callout post against Charley (@politics-notmything) for being a plagiarist. She, however, has made an explanation of her side of the story. After lots of careful investigating, I can honestly confirm that Charley is in fact a plagiarist and lied about certain points of the situation.

To start off, I waited to make this post until I was basically 100% sure on whether her explanation was the truth or not. There was much evidence against her. However, a friend of mine decided to check the IP addresses of each of the tumblr blogs she had mentioned (I did not ask them to by the way, they just sent them to me thinking it would help.) They sent me them and it showed that Charley's main account politics-notmything had the same IP address as both the fake wolf1ez account that she claimed to trick her and the fake Nikole account she blamed. I will not, however, be posting her IP address as proof as I personally consider posting that publicly without her consent as doxxing, and I do not wish to harm Charley like that. I never even considered looking at her IP address as I am not comfortable with that nor technologically competent to even remember IP addresses are a thing you can look at. However, I can’t ignore that what my friend showed me is very blatant proof that confirms that Charley has been lying, so I shall mention it, but I refuse to send it to anyone and I have told them to do the same. Please respect that decision.

Some of you may just take my word for it on that. However, for those of you who don’t, here is all the other evidence stacking up against Charley’s story.

First things first, let’s say I didn’t know Charley’s explanation was false. Her explanation was that she plagiarized a friend instead who had plagiarized fics. Charley, in the end, had deceived people and accepted praise from those who were misled to believe that writing was true. Because of that and if her story was true, then she gave a platform to terf (later knowing they were one and continuing to post their work) and her followers had unintentionally supported a terf and plagiarist because of her deception. Now, she may have received credit, but she could've easily said at any point that the fics weren’t actually written by her but by someone else who was anonymous. AO3 even has some features to properly credit others.

The definition of plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. With this in mind, Charley had plagiarized no matter what, and the fact that she never once told anyone about this co owner and has held conversations with me about how she came up with, wrote, and edited She Used to Be Mine, a plagiarized fic, all by herself is very suspicious.

The proof Charley has been sending is also on invalid sites where you can easily create your own evidence. Everyone already knows and understands the unreliability of google docs with handling fake emails and stuff I presume. As for Snapchat, you can very well change the date. It’s the exact same thing as time traveling in animal crossing, and it’s actually decently known among people. Here is a link to an example of someone altering time on snap chat, followed by the results.

(Results are on the google doc.)

Now some might wonder why would she go through all the trouble of doing that? Well, to create evidence to clear herself. The fact that it was posted quite a bit later, and that she had told people prior to this that she deleted all the messages and proof of information that could blatantly defend herself is very sketchy. Not to mention, the account she @ed as “Nikole” was fake and confirmed to be nonexistent by a friend of mine.

Moreover, the tumblr account that she claimed was Nikoles was recently changed between the two days. When Charley first mentioned the account, me and my friends all investigated it and found a post saying she had another account. However, since then it was altered to say the account Charley @ed and the account had a new bio saying her snap chat is the one Charley @ed. But the account was nonexistent the day before?

Is this simply just a coincidence? Well, let’s see what else is a coincidence.

Charley has recently been writing smut and this blamed blog is an NSFW blog. Coincidence? Maybe. But she also claimed to have cut the person out of her life last year. The blog however is more recently made in late 2020. Why would Charley still be in contact with her accounts? Is this another coincidence? Also, if they did cut things off, why continue to still post her work? And why would two of the fics be things that were made this year if she ended their friendship in 2019? How would she have gotten that from “Nikole” if they were cut off? We even asked the original author of one of the fics about the situation and they confirmed that they gave no permission for someone to copy their fic.

Are these all coincidences too? Not to mention, Charley didn’t say just one person she never mentioned before had tricked her into plagiarism, but two. Charley claimed to be good friends with the author of the original Luck be a Lady and have received permission from them, however, they never spoke to Charley before nor gave permission to anyone to use their fic.

When it was found that the original author of the fic that Luck Be a Lady plagiarized was not friends with Charley nor gave her permission like she had said they did, Charley claimed another account that was fake had tricked her.

Again? How likely is that to even happen once, let alone twice? Or for someone with no post on an account that could have easily been made had even interacted with Charley? Or that the texting style in the evidence she posted is similar to her own and could be edited? And also the conversation itself is way too sketchy and convenient?

(Check google doc or Charley’s post for the conversation.)

Charley also just happened to request help with the title in a group chat l was in with her, but she requested help 3 weeks after the conversation she claims to have happened above.

( @all-my-love-cathy by the way was the one who named it, her name was censored because its her personal account with her name real)

Maybe it's just me, but 3 weeks seems like a bit of a long time to wait to name a fic that already had a storyline and pre-written chapters.

Moreover, the fake Wolf1ez also just so coincidentally happened to recently have copied the Twitter pfp of the account that Charley had seen but not their actual tumblr account? And that this blog that doesn’t make posts decided to tell Charley to use a fic they didn’t write?

How did they even find her blog? And why wouldn’t Charley at least double check the situation here since the person is very suspicious in the conversation they had, had no posts and she doesn’t know them? This is the "close friend" they claimed to have co authored with?

Also, Charley claimed to have commented on the AO3 fic and then deleted it. However, the original author never got an email for this. Whether it’s anonymous or not, they would have seen that a comment was deleted, yet they didn’t have one and all the other comments were fine.

The author even had a note written at latest in January 2020 telling their readers to talk to them on Twitter instead of Tumblr.

Their A/N^

(more screenshots are on the google docs)

Why would she discuss it with them on tumblr then if the author didn’t like tumblr, and Charley does in fact have a Twitter, so why not talk to them there? That’s pretty sketchy.

Also speaking of coincidences, how about the fact that the most recent fic she updated that was confirmed to be plagiarized happened to be the very last fic on the supposed list she claimed to have been given by “Nikole”? Or how she later contradicts herself by saying she won’t upload anymore of her fics? What left did she have to upload if they were all used?

Furthermore, the fic just so happened to also be a Rent fic. Wow, right after Hope Mill Theater released Rent with Millie and Maiya both starring in roles, something Charley had seen and recently expressed great interest in. What a coincidence that it was the one she posted that day. Or how about the other fics that were all copied also being her interests? So many coincidences.

Now I hope it is understood that all of these together just don’t add up. Those are way too many “coincidences” for her explanation to be true. The original authors contacted had never spoken to Charley or given her permission to use their fics, and the accounts she used made no sense with how they were presented. Her explanation feels somewhat of an excuse, and the fact that there is definite proof that she has lied in her explanation and is connected to the accounts is unsettling. Blaming a makeup blog is already messed up, but calling them a terf?

I’m sorry if this post is upsetting to anyone? I know a lot of people have been openly angry or devastated at the news of what has been done. Plagiarism is not okay, neither is deception. To see such a big blog that you might have once admired lie to you and steal from others isn’t easy, especially since she has such a big following that others are dreaming to have. Not to mention, this definitely looks bad for fic writers, especially shippers as she was one of the major faces of Parrlyn. I think it’s important to recognize that we can’t encourage or simply overlook issues like these, nor is it fair to many fans. Please make sure to recognize this issue and become aware about it.

What Charley has done isn’t right, however, that doesn’t deny the fact that she is a human being just like every single one of us. She is very young and did something dumb, but she does not deserve to be sent any hate so please refrain from doing that if you so desired to. I know my blog is known for having issues with her in the past, but I genuinely mean it when I say I hope she learns from this and I don’t want her to be attacked. Nobody deserves to be sent hate, and as a fandom we should strive to be bigger and better people each day and only share positivity and kindness with each other.

Please, once again, give the original fic writers credit if you liked fics that were plagiarized. If you could spare a second to give them a kudos/like and possibly comment something simple like “I love this”, I’m sure it would mean a bunch to them. Hearing your fics were stolen is not easy, speaking from experience here as someone who was also plagiarized this year. They could use a bit of love, so please do consider it if you are comfortable with that.

Once again, I spent the past two days since I read Charley's explanation investigating the situation with a group of people. I just wanted to share the truth, maybe it’s the inner journalist in me. This is what I found with them and what I stand by. Believe what you want, I can’t force ideas onto anyone and I know some are bound to disagree with this, but it’s what I found.

For anyone upset over the incident and needs a place to rant or vent, my dms are open and so is my inbox. If you follow me on insta or are a friend on discord I would recommend those as I am a bit more active there. I’ll try to be on as much as I can the next few days in case anyone needs someone to talk to.

[leomitchellart]

So… about this latest Inktober controversy….

Time to begrudgingly chuck in my two penneth… (Remeber you can always press “J” to skip this post altogether)

As most of you may or may not know, Alphonso Dunn released a Youtube video wherein he publicly accused Jake Parker, and creator of the Inktober challenge, of plagiarising his book. Both of these men are public figures, artists specialising in pen & ink. In the video Dunn looks at the preview pages and flip through footage of Parker’s “Inktober All Year Round” and says they draw many similarities in the illustrations, language and layout that he used in his own book, “Pen & Ink Drawing”. Parker’s book was set to this month. Hense why Dunn only used footage and not a physical copy.

Since the video’s release, the art community has been very spilt down the middle. The book’s publisher has halted the launch of Parker’s book until the matter can be investigated. Even DeviantArt cancelled their own Inktober event thing (I’ll admit I don’t keep up with these things DA keeps doing). Parker has since released a statement in the matter. Now it’s up to the courts to decide what’s happening next. The video itself is an hour long, but it’s crucial to see it yourself. 

People are, understandably, outraged after seeing it. This seems like a shitty thing to rip-off Dunn - not to mention stupid. Since Dunn is the more popular pen & ink artist with more social media followers and name recognition. Many have called to boycott inktober and condemn Parker. I’ll admit, I was right alongside them at first, at least for feeling outraged. The similarities are there. But if YMS’s Kimba video has taught me anything, it’s that, even if an accusation of plagiarism may be obvious at a cursory glance, sometimes it’s important to take a more critical eye and do more research to learn that things aren’t as cut and dry as they first seem. If there’s a lesson I can take away from the internet as a whole, it’s that no one thinks about the consequences of mob mentality.

The most common defence of Parker is that because they’re both books about pen and ink drawing, then they’re inevitably going to be similar. I’ll admit that, when you pick-up so many art books, a lot of them will cover the same basic grounds of materials, tutorials, strokes, techniques etc. The parts about rendering textures on spheres and cubes isnt new. Look up “texture study” and you’ll see so many examples of artists rendering these kinds of things digitally. I’ve also noticed a common theme of people more formally educated in art pointing out how none of these are original. Everything down to the steps and illustrations are things they’ve learned from years ago. Since I'm a pen & ink artist, inspired by my love of comics, I have quite a few books about inking: Dunn’s included. I own both his books and still highly recommend them. I didn't even preorder Parker’s book. Ironically because I didn't think it could offer anything new that my other books hadn’t already.

While Ethan Becker took the time to cross-examine Dunn and Parker’s books with several others, there weren’t many of the ones I actually owned. So I looked to my shelves to see what I could find. Books like:

“The Art of Comic Book Inking” by Gary Martin & Steve Rude

“How Comics Work” by Dave Gibbons & Tim Pilcher

“The DC Comics guide to Inking Comics” by Klaus Janson

“Making Comics” by Scott McCloud

“Stan Lee’s How to Draw Comics”

I’m sure there’s plenty more examples out there. I was planning to go through all of these and take pictures. But ultimately that’s not the core point of these post. Plus it would’ve taken WAY too long and this post itself, is long enough.

Of course, none of the them are 100% close to Dunn’s in the way they’re displayed. Not as close as Parker’s could be considered. That being said, I know Dunn is trying to claim that he invented these techniques. The nucleus of the issue is how similar they are in terms of order and how these pages are displayed. Some I can chock-up to standard practice, while others seem more coincidental.

If there’s one thing I’m adamant about, it’s that I think that Dunn should’ve messaged Parker first before making the accusation public. Some try to dispute that this would've made it easier for Dunn to be “silenced”, whatever that means; but that sounds a bit conspiratorial to me. Ideally, you confront him about it in private, if he makes any threats or blows you off, get your lawyer on the phone and then make the video. Not only is it the more civil thing to do - but it’s the smarter thing to do. This is a serious legal matter, not just internet drama. While I’m sure Dunn had no intention of tearing Parker down or getting a mob onto him, that’s unfortunately what’s happened. A backlash both from the general artisan community and several companies. Wherein it was left to Parker himself to make this an official legal matter. If Parker’s found not guilty, then this could easily leave the gate open for him to sue Dunn for damages, loss of revenue, defamation of character or whatever else, should he see fit. As could the publishers, given how this affected their sales. Companies responded to the accusation of the video alone, before an investigation could be launched. Sure, it wouldn't be “acting the bigger man” but he’d be well within his right to do it. Dunn showed that Jake has mentioned him before, shown admiration for his career and referenced him in other posts. If it comes to light in court, that Dunn is even cited as an inspiration or source in the book itself, then it’s case closed. 

Then there’s the other possibility that Parker might not have done this on his own, but that he has a team behind the book. If that’s the case, the most I can accuse Parker of is being a hack. I worry Dunn has kneecapped himself for just how badly he’s handled this situation. Made worse by him not having an actual physical copy to assess and just had footage of preview pages to go on. So far, the circumstances don’t seem on his favour. 

I don’t think ill of Dunn. I do think he believes he’s been wronged and no malice in his intentions. I just think he’s made some critical errors on how to handled this. As for Parker himself, I couldn't give a donkey’s doo-dah about him. I’m sure you could accuse me of playing devil’s advocate earlier, but to me, he was the guy who released the annual prompt list. If it really does turn out that he’s a plagiarist and had malicious intent, then fuck ‘im. I never regarded him as an inspiration of mine or paid much attention to him outside of that. It was the community that made Inktober what it is. I’ve never met Parker. Maybe he’s a cool guy? Maybe he’s a bellend? I don’t know.

Granted this isn't the first time Parker has proved himself to be a controversial figure: - Last year people were upset about him trademarking (not copywriting, as many have erroneously claimed) the word “Inktober” and some artists were stopped from selling their related work or zines. Parker would issue a statement: claiming the takedowns were a mistake of “overzealous lawyers” and it’s just a matter of the logo being trademarked. People can sell their Inktober works and even mention they are Inktober-related. Just not use the official logo. On the one hand, from a business standpoint, I get it. It’s the bare minimum you need to do to protect your IP, especially when you have a store. BUT, like most people, I don’t like how, what’s intended as a community challenge, has slowly become more of a brand associated with one man. Hardly a surprise it left a bad taste in so many people’s mouths. But, since it doesn't actually effect anyone’s ability to take part in the challenge, outside of personal principle, I went ahead with it the previous year. 

 - The year before, when asked if one can do Inktober digitally, Parker said the following:

I know some are still bitter about that, but speaking as someone who inks traditionally and digitally, this came across as needless whinging and blowing things out of proportion. Claiming that Jake had derided digital artists and said they were invalid etc etc. Take it from me, challenging yourself to try out different methods to ink traditionally can greatly improve the work you do digitally. It’s like how learning traditional fundamentals of art can still be applied to digital. Plus he never said “No.” he just gave valid reasons about how it makes it a different experience. That said, if you’re someone who can’t afford any kind of inking equipment or pens and only have a selected application to draw on - then none of this applies to you. Just the aforementioned few who took it upon themselves to get angry over nothing. Recently I’ve heard from subscribers of his newsletter that he’s now embraced the idea of people doing inktober digitally, to the point of selling digital brushes for inktober. I’m sure some will call this “backsliding” or “money grubbing” because people aren’t allowed to change their minds or update their statements.

For weeks I’ve been torn on what to do, not being able to solidify one stance over another. One minute I thought #JusticeForAlphonsoDunn then I wonder “Wait maybe I should look again?” to “But wait, those are way too similar!” Having splinters in my arse from sitting on the fence for so long. The longer this went on, however, I began to realise that I can’t take one stance over another. This case is far too muddy and complicated. I don’t have enough sufficient knowledge or evidence. Nor do any of you. We literally only have Dunn’s video to go on. While it’s a good start, it’s not enough to be taken 100% as gospel when it’s the only thing to hand. 

As previously mentioned, a lot of artists have decided to not take part in Inktober at all, or follow different prompt lists. That’s completely fine. A lot of them are based around a specific theme: halloween, kinky stuff, bears, transformers, OCs, Disney or whatever. That has massive appeal. I just can’d do it myself. I prefer the focus on random words, rather than all centred on a single subject; allowing me to be creative with my ideas and execution. I actually did try to make a list of my own random words. Problem is, I worried that because I was choosing my own, I might be subconsciously bias towards certain prompts and not truly challenging myself. Even narrowing down my options was taking too long. In the end…. I’ve decided to just do the official prompts again this year.

For me, that’s what it ultimately came down to. TIME. It’s the middle of September. I can’t afford to wait for the court case to be settled. No other prominent artists I respect have released their own prompt lists. I know there’s been some shitty people who are condemning this choice. Attacking others, accusing them of supporting plagiarism, looking to block anyone who does the official prompts. Even trying to make this a racial issue. Just…. no. 

If someone doesn’t want to take part in Inktober, that’s fine. If someone wants to do the official prompts, that’s fine. If someone wants to do their own prompts, that’s fine.

Don’t go around aggressively making snap judgements or accusing people of taking a side. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable. This has been a shit year, let people enjoy something.

If you look at this situation and it makes you feel angry, and you don’t feel comfortable in taking part in a challenge because of it’s creator. I get that, I literally get that. It’s why I haven't done Mermay. And please don’t mention Pinktober, I’m aware of it, but given his insta video on the subject and the things he said, I quickly came to the conclusion that I can’t take this person seriously. I’m sure this might make me seem hypocritical, but how this differs, if only for me, is the sheer amount Inktober means to me. It’s more than a simple challenge. Inktober's the one thing I’ve been most excited about all year. As it was ruined for me in 2019, when I lost my home and I didn't get to complete every prompt. (Long story, I’m okay now). As we all know, 2020, has been an AWFUL year. We’ve got to take whatever joy we can. As I’ve looked longer at the official prompts, I found ideas I’m really excited for. 

Once I started to really dedicate myself to it, it became a massive event. I hype myself up as I prepare for the busy month. Buy in supplies, clean the house and workspace, cook and freeze meals in bulk to save time, printing off a sheet that allows me to jot down ideas as I plan ahead.  Then once it’s done, after so much work, it makes the reward all the sweeter: Ordering a takeaway, celebrating a great halloween night and still rocking those vibes throughout November. Feeling proud of myself for doing it and seeing myself improve my technique, discipline and earning a few lie-ins to make up for the sleep I lost working. I’m like a kid waiting for Christmas. That said, don’t think that there’s something wrong with you when you understandably can’t dedicate that amount time for a simple art challenge. If anything that’s plenty of reason to why you’re smarter than me. You have a life and don’t push yourself too much.

Now, I need to crack on with the preparations. If you want to boycott Jake Parker, just not buying any of his products should be enough. Doing the inktober challenge doesn't bring attention to him, as I doubt most people even know him as the creator, nor does it even line his pockets. I just hate how cancel culture can do such serious damage like this and then try and put pressure on others to act accordingly without even doing any research themselves. 

As long as you’re not harassing anybody. Just do what YOU want to do. That’s fine. 

[ichor-and-symbiosis]

some thoughts on the bnharem situation

i don’t understand why the debate of aging up characters for smut is making a comeback. when things were still buddy-buddy between people, it was totally alright for 18+ blogs to write aged-up scenarios. but now that there is bad blood, suddenly it’s a crime? make it make sense. 

ya’ll were simping for the big blogs until drama happened and you are not friends anymore. that’s not my business and i won’t deny someone the right to be angry over feeling like they have been slighted by someone they considered a friend. but spinning the story into demonizing writers for aging-up characters, when you had no problem with it before, is a ridiculous take that’s affecting a lot of other blogs now. if we’re going to spread this mentality then it should be done out of genuine conviction and not from people who were okay with big blogs writing aged-up scenarios when they were getting the attention they wanted from them. 

another issue currently making its rounds is the fact that certain blogs have not been honest about their ages. i think we, as adults in this fandom, can all agree that minors writing smut is not an issue in of itself. please write whatever you want. we’ve all been there before. the real issue here is that adults could be consuming nsfw content from blogs that could be run by minors. we want to know your age because we don’t want to consume your content. it’s wrong. minors sharing smut with other minors is fine, at least for me. we are all humans with urges. but it is wrong for servers run by adults to allow sharing of smut written by minors, especially when there are other adult members in the group. 

it is also wrong for minors to follow 18+ blogs run by adults. we have this rule for a reason. if you want to read smut from us then that is your business. lord knows that i started reading smut when i was really young, but i never interacted with the people who wrote this content. i just read it and moved on. if you want to read it then so be it, i genuinely don’t care. i just don’t want minors following me or speaking to me about nsfw content. 

and another thing that’s been brought up is how weird it is for adults to talk to minors at all. are you people serious? in what world is it grooming when adults and minors communicate? obviously there can be genuine grooming occurring. obviously adults can say some shit, minors can say some shit, it can always go wrong. but there are also good adults here who have no ill intentions. your own server has a mix of minors and adults speaking to each other. so what we’re not gonna do is bash big blogs for speaking to minors. HOW it was done remains to be seen. we need the evidence to see if inappropriate conversations were had. if the proof shows it, then i will absolutely believe your words and i will support you. but i have seen minors taking this idea and running with it and claiming these adults are pedophiles. if you have a problem with it then don’t go looking for adults to talk to. if we are going to be hardline about this then adults and minors should never communicate and they should never mingle on discord. we can’t cherry-pick here because these accusations are SERIOUS. 

throwing around the word ‘pedo’ for blogs that age up characters is ridiculous and it needs to fucking stop. the students are loved by the adults in this fandom because of their personalities and because their current appearances have the potential to look attractive when they become adults. that’s how i choose to see it and if you think that’s pedophilia then that’s on you. 

i’m also seeing discourse about another writer plagiarizing work. this has already been addressed by the writer, they have apologized to the person they wronged, they are on good terms now, and there has been no instance of this happening again. people are discussing how this writer has expressed feeling insecure about reading other people’s works because it makes them feel some type of way about their own writing, and this is being used as proof of the writer not supporting other blogs or picking and choosing which blogs they support. all of this is being used as a ‘gotcha’ moment by the blogs that are bringing up these issues.

who the fuck cares. if the plagiarism was already publicly addressed and the dispute was resolved, then we need to leave this shit in the past and allow people to grow and change for the better. and using the whole insecurity thing as somehow proof of character? like this person is terrible and unsupportive? this is genuinely childish and i don’t think this should have anything to do with the more serious topics that are surrounding the bnharem situation. i would much prefer understanding the accusations of inappropriate behavior in the server rather than this nonsense. 

if there is proof of inappropriate conversations occurring between minors and adults who knew they were speaking to minors, then that should be addressed and there should 100% be apologies and change.

if we are going to sit here and argue about who was being mean to who and who was being a bad friend or a shady bitch to who, then that is petty drama that should be resolved in private because who the fuck cares. i have seen really immature, repulsive, and rude behavior from the very people who are making accusations. people bitching about their friends turning on them and then talking shit, saying they had thoughts of sending anon hate, insulting writers for enjoying certain aus, complaining about people writing ocs, i’ve seen it all and i can safely say this - we are all human, we are all assholes when we want to be, none of us are virtuous little angels who are always so uwu nice and pleasant. so i’m tired of people pointing fingers about being bad friends because the truth of the matter is that sometimes friendships end for many reasons and you need to get over it. 

i’m waiting for the callout post. i want to understand the allegations of pedophilia. i don’t give a shit about someone being a bad friend. that’s all.

[helenaklein]

Heya, i come across your blog while talking about nelroche etc. I never know anything about l&l since i never play lovestruck, can someone give explanation which part that is similiar? While idk anything about lovestruck, I found their previous work also has similiar with manga yana of the dawn (which i have read the manga, and yes, they are pretty similiar to called it just coincidence).

okay so fair warning... this is long as fuck because there are more similarities than there are differences lol. also as a disclaimer i’m only invested in this whole thing insofar as it entertains me but if the “””””creators””””” want to fight me because i wrote this post.... they’re welcome to but i promise i’ll have more fun than they will lmfao

l&l’s about a young woman from a major city in our world who one day gets sucked via magical portal into a fantasy world filled with magic and races that are only fiction in ours. once there, she gets mistaken for their most notorious war criminal, an insanely powerful witch who committed a genocide and is center of a cult of worshipers willing to kill and die for her.

this is nelroche’s description, straight from their devblog:

now, if it was a matter of similar basic premises and setups, i’d write it off as coincidence and tell the anons who made me aware of this that i thought they were overreacting. after all, “normal-human sucked into medieval world” and even “mistaken identity” are both very well established tropes that have been done and done again and will continue to be done because many find it compelling. hell, i do too. honestly, if the devs had simply said that they drew inspiration from love & legends, i’d have understood.

but.

the similarities only begin there. and they only get more excessive. coupled with their adamant denial that they’ve never even read it....... it’s just not possible lmfao. even if they decided to change the physical appearances of the characters, the tropes behind them and their personalities are exactly the same.

the nelroche demo has:

1) the lord of a region who’s a massive workaholic to the point of self-detriment, but is very caring towards their people and their inner circle and whom everyone in the group has referred to as a parental figure.

aka.... l&l’s reiner wolfson, who’s described directly from the app as “Reiner is a fair and compassionate ruler who would defend the people of the human domain with his life.”

2) the prickly knight to said lord, who’s fiercely dedicated to their liege, very serious in personality along with stubborn and prideful, but cares deep down once you get past their walls.

literally l&l’s august falke. the demo describes them, literally as “...reminds me of the knights in the fairy tales, except, it seems, not quite as charming” whereas august’s in-app description reads “This knight in shining armor is more aggressive than the story books led you to believe...” I’ll let the similarities there speak for themselves.... lol

3) the energetic and bubbly mage who’s super tiny compared to their companions and avoids serious discussion, who happens to be a bit of a trickster and has a mysterious quality.

l&l’s altea bellerose but make it less pink! altea and “C”s similarities go even deeper but i’ll get into that a bit later.

4) the mysterious and heterochromatic-eyed figure who’s distrustful and initially stand-offish as a result of living through a life of hardship, that is excitable and actually loves to travel.

look no further than l&l’s saerys! M’s eyes are “ocean blue and purple” compared to his blue and red, but don’t let that difference fool you! their introductions are laughably similar (more on that later)... and the “travel” bit lmfao. not to be mean but they couldn’t at least change up his hobbies? come on now, work for that plagiarized bag!

5) the lazy and flirtatious one who’d rather spent their days joking and taking it easy than handling their many responsibilities, who does care but shows it in ways unconventional.

just because their hair is grey instead of white doesn’t mean it’s not l&l’s iseul idreis, babes! i’d know that endlessly frustrating man anywhere! lovestruck’s app description for him reads: “The elven prince is beautiful and cunning with a silver tongue, but his lackadaisical lifestyle leaves much to be desired”. corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures they’re the same dot jpg.

6) the complicated and slender blonde who wields both blade AND magic, whose eyes glow, whose power is deemed dangerous, who wears shades of blue, AND is initially described as cold? who seems like she wants to beat the hell out of her compatriots, who she seems to lead, and whose outfit is needlessly complicated?

you think i don’t know a knock off helena klein when i see one???? ME???????? helena’s in-app description LITERALLY reads “cold as ice” and “wielding both sword and sorcery with ruthless precision”!!!!! of alllllllllll the things i’m most offended by this one motherfucker you can’t just fuck around with helena on a whim okay this shit is personal now!!!!!!

7) the creepy, predatory, and combative pale-but-tanned-but-murky-skinned dude who wears robes and a creepy beast mask.

l&l’s jinhai jubal i know it’s you!!!! actually this is probably the funniest thing of the whole situation to me bc this dev decided to remove not-alain as a love interest and seemingly replace him with not-jinhai. secondary poster you a hilarious bitch i’m not gonna lie.

(here’s jinhai in his mask lmfao)

8) the mouse-looking man who seems not as confident as not-helena and not-jinhai, wears full armor AND a double-sided sword strapped to his back.

none other than l&l’s alain richter, back from the dead! im gonna let the next image speak for itself.

still with me? i sure hope so bc it really gets juicy now!!!!! the similarities don’t end with the characters!!!! no, no, no!!!! the plot and progression of the demo are identical to that of l&l’s pilot episode, beat for beat.

in the l&l pilot episode, after the mc stumbles through the portal and into the medieval town, she’s almost immediately accosted by august, a rude mf who essentially acts not very knight-like despite his appearance and forces her into the nearby castle’s dungeon.

once inside the dungeon, the l&l mc is approached by a figure with hetero-chromatic eyes, who seems intrigued and confused by the mc’s lack of knowledge about the fantasy world.

once that person leaves, in comes a bubbly woman who seems to be floating. she asks mc if she’s ready to get out of the dungeon, and mc is like!!!! finally someone willing to help me. only..... uh oh.... she takes her to her lord instead of freeing her, wtf!!!!

once brought to the lord, who seems much more calm and reasonable than his high-strung and feisty knight, he listens to mc’s story and seems to believe her somewhat, but doesn’t want to risk his people.

(he’s even standing at the window LMFAOOOOOOOOO)

then the last remaining figure (iseul) playfully suggests that the lord (reiner) allow the mc to pick which among the group she’d like to guard her while they all determine whether or not she’s being truthful about not knowing anything. this is literally! literally! LITERALLY! how the PILOT EPISODE! of LOVE AND LEGENDS! ENDS!

ARE YOU SERIOUS LMFAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOO. going through all this is literally fucking HILARIOUS to me like ak;sdfjadsfkl;asdfjlasdf how BOLD and BRAVE do you have to be to so blatantly rip something off and then deny even ever encountering what you stole from adsfkjldfasdfkasd,f. i’m not even super mad bc like.... i torment voltage for funsies. but! LMAO!!!!!!!!

lastly..... as an added bonus to all of the juicy, juicy evidence above. l&l mc has a best friend in the “real”, modern world, who inexplicably has a lookalike in the fantasy world. well..... would you believe it if i told you that the nelroche has one just like it???

that’s right! even sophie and solaire made the plagiarism cut! gotta love those girlies, i’m so happy for them :)

the end!

[justauthoring]

Ease [R.T.]

Request: hi! could i request a older richie (2019) and a reader who’s part of the losers club too? maybe the token they have to find was particularly hard for them because of pennywise and when they get back they just immediately hug or kiss (you choose dnfjdkrk) him and just start crying? thank you for your time and sorry if this is super specific!

Please don’t plagiarize my work!

Word Count: 757

Richie halts at the knocking against his door.

Hunched halfway out the window, he glances over his shoulder, brows furrowed. Who the hell was that? It couldn’t be Ben again. Ben, as far as he knew, thought Richie was staying, so there’s absolutely no reasons why he’d been back, knocking on his door--

“Rich?” Oh. “Are you there?”

Swinging his leg back over the window, Richie frowns at the sound of your voice. It’s quiet, barely audible, and there’s a distinct crack in your voice that even after all these years Richie still knows so well; and, he knows exactly what it means. Something’s wrong.

“Yeah,” he calls, shutting the window to erase any evidence of him basically trying to escape seconds ago and making his way over to his door. Without hesitation, he pulls open his door, turning to face you. He’s met with red, teary eyes and the distinct trace of dried tears running down your cheeks. Richie can tell even from where he’s stood that you’re shaking. “What’s wrong?”

Your lips part, something clearly on the tip of your tongue before you pause, turning your head over your shoulder briefly as your eyes water. Richie’s frown deepens and this familiar feeling settles deep inside of him. A feeling he hasn’t felt in a long time; a feeling that only ever sparked when it came to you. Twenty-seven years and he’d forgotten it was possible to feel this concerned and worried for someone. You easily reminded him of that fact.

In that moment, Richie can’t believe he was about to run off seconds ago. If anything, without you.

“He, um... IT...” Wiping hastily at your tears, you finally meet Richie’s gaze once more, licking your lips slowly as you try to muster the courage to speak. “I’m just scared,” you finally admit, shoulders slumping at the confession. “When I went to get my token, IT... I... IT showed me something I never wanted to remember.”

Something sparks in Richie. “Your mom?”

Your eyes widen for a second, obviously surprised Richie even managed to remember and pinpoint exactly what you referred to. But then again, Richie had been the only one you ever told about your mom and what had happened. Still, it warms your heart that he remembered, or just did, because that meant he truly did care. 

You nod. “She was there,” you say shakily then wince. “I mean, I know it wasn’t actually her but it just felt so real. And I... as bad as it sounds, I never wanted to see her again. When she died a few years ago, I almost felt relief? Is that terrible for me to say? I mean, all she ever did was scream or neglect me and just seeing her brought back everything--”

Richie interrupts your distressed rambling by wrapping his arm around you and pulling you flush against him. One arm around your waist and the other cradling the back of your head, Richie doesn’t say anything but he knows he doesn’t have to. This is enough for you, and it is. Because the second your head falls against his chest, burying into the crook of his neck, a sense of calm washes over you and you just ease.

The two of you stay like that for a moment longer.

Then, Richie interrupts the silence; “I love you, you know that?”

You instantly jerk back, pulling from his embrace as your widened eyes land on his own. It’s clear by his expression that Richie hadn’t meant to say that. A sort of distant thought that managed to slip past his lips. His cheeks warm and he suddenly feels the urge to run, again, but then you just smile and Richie’s beyond confused, but you do. You smile with red, watery eyes and a trembling lip but it’s still so beautiful in his eyes.

And then, you whisper; “I love you too. I have since we were thirteen.”

The panic seizes and Richie’s shoulders fall, he smiles. “Yeah?”

You nod, “yeah.”

He then pulls you back into his grasp, hands on your hips. “Before you knocked, I was about to run off.”

Your eyes widen, brow quirking; “really?”

Richie nods; “I had a less then pleasant encounter with our dear old friend Pennywise too,” Richie shrugs. “But when I heard your voice, I knew I couldn’t. At least not without you. I’m never leaving you again.”

Fingers gripping onto the edge of his jacket, you smile; “well that’s good, cause I wasn’t gonna let you.”

-

Let me know what you thought?

[forestwater87]

Tales of Fandom Past: Harry Potter and the Shipping Slaves

So, in my spare time I read a lot, lot . . . lot of fandom_wank. A lot. More than should be possible, considering it’s a dead website linking mostly to other dead websites, but I’m a woman addicted to drama who has the gift of long periods of quiet at work, so I’m working my way through almost 2 decades of fan history and it’s just fascinating.

Fandom, back in the ‘00s? Was so much more wild than it is now.

Plagiarism! Fake suicides! Fraud! Theft of real people’s actual money! Stalkers, both real and made up! Fanfic writers so popular they finagled it into mountains of free stuff and a book deal! Everyone was really gross and homophobic! 

There were no rules, and that made it a terrible and incredibly fun time to be part of a fandom.

And we’re not talking enough about it. I guess that’s where I come in.

I’m interested in telling these stories -- not in the incredible level of detail of the MsScribe Saga or the Cassie Claire Plagiarism Debacle, but enough for us to all have a moment to think: Hold on, what the fuck was fandom doing during the entirety of the Bush administration?

A lot, it turns out. Much of it totally wild.

Today’s topic: Shipping wars are as bad as slavery

Date: August 2005

Fandom: Harry Potter

Supposed topic(s): Shipping, canon

Content warning(s): Accidental and ironic diminishing of slavery, complaints about political correctness and free speech, racism in general, lots of hurt feelings and drama

"Now, I'm not black, but boy, do I feel for the black people. If I lived in the 1800's, I wouldn't keep slaves, and if someone has a difference of opinion than me now, that's fine, believe what you want."

Background

In August of 2005, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had been out for a little less than a month, the film version of The Goblet of Fire wouldn’t come out until November, and the last Potter movie had been released over a year ago. In terms of shipping, fans had just discovered, to either their delight or horror, that Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione were canon; while some would continue to hold out hope that there would be a last-minute reversal of expectations, most of the fandom both on and off the internet was in agreement: 

The shipping wars were over, and the Harry/Hermione fans (a.k.a., H/Hr fen, or “Harmonians”) had decisively lost.

The Harmonians’ ire seemed to have been pretty evenly split between J.K. Rowling -- who they felt had let them down -- and the R/Hr and H/G shippers (a.k.a. “Herons” and “Chocolateers,” respectively, though I’m not sure anyone actually used those terms for themselves; they appear to have been given from without), who were taking a victory lap. Depending on one’s perspective, this was either a long-overdue celebration by two groups of shippers who’d faced the fandom’s ire for approximately 5 years and were now vindicated, or it was the tactless gloating of sore losers who were thrilled to get one over on their hated enemies. Either way, tensions were no lower just because canon had decided the victors, and the battleground seemed to shift from the books to the movies -- where shippers of all kinds were in debate over which romance would win out onscreen.

Enter Emerson Spartz, a teenager in charge of one of the most popular fansites at the time and king of creating controversy . . . who had very strong opinions about shipping, and Harmonians in particular.

The Inciting Incident

Emerson had already incited the ire of Harmonians by calling them “delusional” in an infamous interview with J.K. Rowling. The wound was still raw, having come shortly after the release of Half-Blood Prince, and in some circles Emerson was already Public Enemy #1.

Therefore, when Emerson was one of two “anti”-Harmonians interviewed in a San Francisco Chronicle article about the shipping wars, some fans cried foul.

More responses can be found in a summary of the incident here, but personal favorites include a letter sent to the author of the SF Chronicle piece:

The majority of Harry/Hermione shippers are not merely upset that we didn't get what we wanted in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. That makes us sound childish. While I'm forced to admit that there has been much bile and vitriol posted on various H/Hr shipping sites, the majority of us are reasonable people. What really hurt our feelings was the way the Mugglenet/TLC article made it seem as if J. K. Rowling herself felt we were really dense, missing her "anvil-sized clues." Emerson's subsequent "apology" for the harsh words directed at the Harry/Hermione 'shipper community was a non-apology, which you [the author of the SFC article] would have known if you had done more than just take his word that he apologized. He simply used the "apology" as an opportunity to issue another dig. I suppose not much better can be expected from a child of 18 who has suddenly become a bit of a celebrity. But I do expect better from a colleague; a professional writer. ...

You have assisted one side of the argument and failed to represent the other. Did you attempt to interview the webmasters of any Harry/Hermione shipping sites or did you merely cut and paste posts that were pointed out to you by Emerson and Melissa? Your article shows no evidence that you made any attempt to give the other side equal time, so to speak, and as a result, you have contributed to the perceprtion [sic] that ALL H/Hr 'shippers are irrational, bitter, spoiled brats. And that's quite unfair. (Hughes, 2005, paras. 13 & 18)

Or this comment in a Harmonian forum by a disappointed reader: 

History is written by the victorius [sic] (or something like that), isn't it how the saying goes?. I'm afraid we are witnessing it firsthand. Herons feel they are the winners on this war, and as such, they feel they have a right to treat us anyway they want to, and they think we have no weapons to defend ourselves since even J.K seems to have sided with them. Even if most of us are pretty reasonable people, at this point anything we say in regards of J.K's apparent disregard for our feelings (thoughts, opinions, whatever), will be gladly taken as the lashing out of sore losers. ::sigh:: I say, just ignore Emerson, he's just some lost kid desperate for attention. And how good can the guy who wrote this article be if he didn't bother to check the facts before he went slandering us?, not much me thinks. (Remolina, 2005, para. 21)

These responses, while perhaps silly or overblown, were not enough to make history. That honor belonged to a Harmonian going by the username Panther.

How, one might wonder?

The Blowout

Ya know, come to think of it, people like Emerson were probably the kinda people that started slavery. I mean, think about it, they thought the slaves were animals, just because they had different colored skin. Emerson thinks we're stupid and delusional for having different beliefs. Get the similarities here, people? Now, I'm not black, but boy, do I feel for the black people. If I lived in the 1800's, I wouldn't keep slaves, and if someone has a difference of opinion than me now, that's fine, believe what you want. (Panther, 2005, paras. 23-25)

The reaction was immediate and explosive from Panther’s fellow Harmonians. Some understood and empathized with Panther’s view; they saw it as a bit hyperbolic, but agreed with the underlying point being made.

I can see where they were going with this...a different analogy would probably have been better. Maybe the religious persecution during Mary Tudor's reign, or the Salem Witch Hunt/Trials, the religous [sic] crusades, the wars in Bosnia etc. We harmonians are being "persecuted" for our differening viewpoints/perspectives. (Anndee Granger, 2005, paras. 30-32)

The belief that H/Hr shippers were being persecuted for their beliefs was a pervasive one, and extended to fans, Emerson and other fandom “authorities,” and the author herself.

No, what we are experiencing is not at the same extreme level because of the world we now live in, but the base level is still the same. The base level taking us back to different beliefs and views without the ability to be heard in the correct manner, and yes it does feel like a form of persecution. (*Under your Skin, 2005, paras. 36-37)

While not on the same level as slavery, the intolerance of their ship did call to mind other examples of discrimination and bigotry:

Of course no one is dying because of this, but all in all we are being persecuted for our different beliefs. "Bloody" Mary Tudor, killed Protestants because she so hated their different views on Christ. This is an extreme indeed, but the mentality behind it, the vitrol [sic], is the same. (Andee Granger, 2005, para. 38)

This extreme point of view, while widespread, was not universal among the Harmonians. Many of them were . . . understandably appalled by the comment and those agreeing with it:

No wonder other people find it easy to portray us as reactionary and vicious. Some of you bloody well are. (jane99, 2005, para. 43)

I agree that it is very vicious and out in left field . . . Slavery was an oppressive movement for hundreds of years, resulting in the deaths of millions. I would hardly regard that with 'shipper treatment, nowadays. However, the schoolyard bully is a very appropriate analogy, in my opinion. Hopefully you understand the difference. (myrhlyn, 2005, para. 52)

The Response

NarcissaM brought the subject to the outside world by posting it in fandom_wank -- a defunct LiveJournal specializing in fandom drama, which now exists primarily in archives -- and the result was universally disbelief and amusement. The responses ranged from insightful, if crass, commentary . . .

Emerson did not kill your dog, tell you that Santa wasn't real, and touch you in your swimsuit areas. And the more I read the more I'm convinced that H/Hr fans aren't angry because what he said was insulting, they're angry because what he said was *accurate*. (iczer6)

I'm also wondering where keeping slaves was a matter of, y'know, people having different beliefs, and not the subjugation of an entire culture by another which had more money and more powerful weapons, and needed a lot of manual labor but didn't want to pay for it. (slackerbitch)

To good old-fashioned sarcasm and snark:

That's not the stupidest thing I've ever read, but it's in the top five. (Anonymous)

That's right. There is a conspiracy, Hermionians! The world is against you and want to take a shit on all your fan fiction! XD (Anonymous “Mary”)

QUICKLY! SOMEBODY CALL A WAAAAAHBULANCE! WE HAVE INTERNET PERSECUTION! (aerobot)

F_W, known for good and ill as a site that takes nothing seriously except the desire to laugh at themselves and especially others, took the slavery comment and ran with it:

So how much does a healthy H/Hr fan with good teeth go for these days? (xero-sky)

Which H/Hr's are in the big house and which ones are working in the fields? ... We didn't land on Plymouth rock, Plymouth rock landed on us! *throws up the fist* (prettyveela)

If we're going to start enslaving delusional people, I want to start with the scientologists. Who's with me? (ladybirdsleeps)

Big Daddy Heron:*hits the H/Hr fan with a whip* Your ship name is H/Hr, H/Hr! Say it! H/Hr shipper: H-Harmony (sewingmyfish)

Bully for the slaves! In fact they would have been sooo much better off if all we 21st century people could trade places with the whites that lived back then. Not only could we tell them to get a life, none of us would have kept slaves! (chief)

You know, just like slaves, they have to work out in the hot sun for no wages and be beaten and whipped and raped and sold like cattle deal with an author not writing the fictional pairing they wanted. (slackerbitch)

Mere hours after the controversy was reported to F_W, a user named ahiru created some icons to celebrate the controversy:

And with some more chuckles about the inherent ridiculousness of such a claim, the fandom and its onlookers dropped the subject.

For a few months.

The Aftermath

In November 2005, some users rediscovered the icons made by ahiru and found them insensitive and racist. This is immediately reported to F_W not once but twice, and the folks there were no longer entertained, responding with less amusement than outright hostility. A couple of F_Wankers understood to at least some extent why there might be people who didn’t love the icons, though they did generally come down on the side of parody and feel those upset were missing the point of the joke. A lot of F_Wankers were upset about political correctness and free speech, and were eager to point out the oppression faced by other groups of people.

Someone anonymous entered the fray with racist guns blazing, and was summarily eviscerated by gleeful F_Wankers.

After that, the dust settled, and all was quiet on the fandom front . . . at least, until the next inevitable disaster.

Further Reading

The Interview that sparked the Emerson outrage

An offshoot of Harmony that believes in Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson’s undeniable chemistry and romance

A collection of Harmonian controversies, 2006-2010

Other HP controversies

[vagabcnds]

i have tossed around making this post for months now, gone back and forth with myself and my friends about if it would even be worth posting this. honestly, i don’t know if telling my side of this is going to do any good, but i think it’s time that i added some more information to this whole situation so that even more people can see that our friends (and i use that term with as much sarcasm as possible) @seattlehqrpg​ , as well as her other rp @canterlotislandhq​​ , have not changed, and will not change. this is indeed another psa about this woman, but with some more information and one on one conversations with the woman. 

hey hi, hello, so, my name is maig, i’ve been around the rpc for over a decade, and right now you might recognize my multifandom : @hiddenwashington​ . we’re an appless multifandom that i started up two years ago. and over those two years, we have dealt with jasmine, jazzy, jackie, jacqueline, whatever j name she wants to call herself this time, on and off, for that duration. 

and just to clear up some information from other psas, i do not believe this is the same nova/jazzy that was terrorizing groups last year with attacking and fighting admins. we’ve spoken with j multiple times, as well as jazzy/nova, and honestly i can tell for sure these are not the same people. unfortunately, there is more than one bad egg in the rpc.

i have a ton of screenshots, so forgive me for not using them all. a link to a google drive will be at the end of this, for all of the screenshots i have of stolen asks, interactions, etc. but i’ll just be using key information for this specific post. or else we’ll be here all day.

when we first encountered j (we’ll just use “j” for now since she focuses on whatever name we call her more than the content of the psas. and all her aliases start with it idk), we thought she was just another person who wanted to join but sort of went about it the wrong way. we first got an anon on the main, asking if our current ginny (that being me) would be willing to give her up. because j wanted to play her. 

we had gotten an anon asking about if we were welcoming towards people with social anxiety (or something like that. it’s been two years now since this all happened so specifics are a little fuzzy. like i said we’ve been dealing with her for so long.) i pretty much hit her with “i’m not willing to drop her because i still want to play her but hmu on my character account and we can chat about other characters for you to play”. i had no idea that answering it would lead us down this rabbit hole i’m writing about today. we sorta chatted, she kinda just rambled to me about how she wanted to write someone not like her so she could have a challenge. valid. i tried helping out, i didn’t really know what fandoms she was into so i said what i could and then went onto the main. when i got back onto my account, she had taken it upon herself to critique my portrayal of ginny, asking if she would ever say ‘dick’. she kept messaging me, sandwiching that comment between other questions. i told her i didn’t appreciate unsolicited critiques. i tried to move past it but she kept at me about it. telling me she hadn’t read the books in 10 years. and only read one. the last one, in 3 hours. idk overall it was a weird conversation and i sort of thought that was the end of it. 

honestly, i’m not gonna spend a TON of time on this already too long psa going on about every interaction we had with her, every crazy thing she said. most importantly, we accepted her in, thinking she was just a little wild but us talking to her covered it. she ended up going in active over easter or spring break or something, wanted to take up another character, we told her to wait to pick her activity up. ya know, standard admin business. and then she started attacking us. telling us we didn’t care about her, about what she went through not having a computer or whatever. she started sending us anons about how her friend stole her money and we don’t care about her and we all hate her so why should she stay. it was kinda insane. again, check the google doc for all that. she ended up leaving, we got some anons about how she never joined other rps because of admins like us. just random things here and there, some anons about how dare we talk to people like we did. just random shit that really only she could come up with. but we had an rp to run, lives to get on with, tv shows to binge, idk fam. life goes on. 

honestly, we sort of forgot about this whole mess for like close to a year? that was when we started getting ims. from her. we knew bc it was the same accounts as before. she uses the same ones over and over, it’s easy to keep track of her. it’s sort of why we never felt the need to bring anything up, we always thought she was just stealing from us and we knew when it was her and when to refuse to accept the questions. this is where we enter phase two of hidden’s journey with “j” : the thief. 

this is one of our earliest encounters. before she started sending them on anon. 

(for some quick context, she would send us questions for fcs, ask if a character was open and then go around trying to poach our members for her group)

tw suicidal thoughts for this next picture 

honestly this goes on for like 10 more pictures, so instead of spamming here, the full conversation is in the google drive under the folder : a fight that almost was

she eventually goes on to call me out as the admin talking to her, i tell her again to message me off the main so that we could get back to actually admining our group. she hits me up, calls me “a cute ginny mun”, and then proceeds to ask me to help her fill out Her Own Application for ginny for her own group!! 

the tiktok video of “did a full one eightyyy” is all that is going through my head from this specific encounter. 

anyways. this is when the stealing really amped up, for not just us, but for the entire rpc. around this time, we had stupidly let her back into the group, i had wanted to keep my eye on her personally. see what she was stealing from the inside. idk i was dumb. this is also around the time the first psa about her came around. 

enter, phase three. it’s similar to phase two, but this time, “j” must tell everyone she is in fact Not A Thief™

so, during this time, it was around may of last year? while she was in the group, she started stealing more, we were catching her in the act, and we eventually had to kick her out of hidden. it’s not really a shock but ya know. gotta do what you gotta do. 

she was going by jasmine at the time. anyways. this is also before her current group @seattlehqrpg​ , when she still had @manilahq and @forgottenfriendshiphq or whatever she changed that too. she was getting a ton of “hate” over there. mainly anons telling her to stop stealing from other creators. valid. 

anyways, she would blame us for all of the stealing, that we were the true thieves. idk we were her scapegoats for a long time. i can confirm to you all now, i have never, nor have any of my admins, sent her any messages to steal fcs or anything to “attack” her. honestly we try to forget she exists but she just makes it so hard to ignore her with all of this. 

anyways, this has been our song and dance with “j” for a while now. we get an anon, we answer, she steals from us in a matter of hours. i’m sure everyone can attest to that similar situation. i mean, here’s just like a couple instances. i have hundreds in the google docs, dating back years. this behavior doesn’t change.

i mean, she has even gone as far as to steal our plot. sure, it’s not exactly original. every multifandom somehow brings all these characters to a city by magic or something. but the mention of the witch, the alternate universe city, the memories. it just all around reads plagiarism. 

so, check the google doc for more evidence i guess if you really need to! 

but, some things we’ve noticed, beyond her just stealing asks and plots and EVENTS ??? AND NOW TASKS ??? check out this post for the tasks, and this other psa for the event. because that shit is so fucked. 

she has also straight up stolen replies and claimed them as her own. my friend and fellow admin, was in her rp for a hot minute, and played pacifica northwest. (some information is crossed out for privacy) this was from us talking about the plagiarism, of her stealing from my friend while “j” was in hidden, which we both admin.

this is her post

and this is "j”’s, while she was in hidden.

i mean, same gif and everything friends. 

she constantly goes on about how she doesn’t look at other rps, how she doesn’t have time, that she’s running five other groups, but honey, we’re running those groups for you with all the stealing!! i mean, just as further proof that she is constantly looking at other groups, including hidden, to an obsessive amount. a member left her group (who then went and joined us we believe), and this was her unfollow for them. (i feel so sorry for that member to be called out like this?? how uncomfortable do you have to make your former and current members???)

and hidden’s character count that same day ??? coincidence, i think not.

listen, this isn’t meant to stir up more drama, i know it will and that’s kinda why i put this off. everyone had sort of said what needed to be said? it didn’t feel necessary to repeat the same shit we all knew. but with more of this happening, with her stealing plots, tasks and events. it felt like this was the time to strike, to get this awareness back up. she needs to stop, and if we all ban together, maybe we can stop it? i don’t know. but i have hope that this can all change if we have each other’s backs. 

this has been hiddenwashington’s side of the story, i’m sure there are still more groups out there with stories or stolen asks. and i am sorry to anyone who has had to deal with her. but just, do yourselves a favor and look out for anyone with a j alias, 21+. she/her, from pst. who also uses “RPG” a lot. 

a lot of this stuff is old, but she’s still doing this in @seattlehqrpg​​ i just grabbed these screenshots because it’s what i had on hand. but anyways. here is the link to the google drive with all of our screenshots we have complied.

if you have any questions, comments, concerns, what have you: my inbox (including anons), ims and everything are open and i am more than happy to chat!! please come talk with me about anything!!!

stay safe, and thanks for joining me on this season of To Catch a Plagiarizer. 

[lizzexx]

I knew I'd have to come out of the woodwork sooner or later. So, here I am apologising for what I've done. I had stole your words and altered them for my own gain for which I feel completely and utterly stupid for having done it. But in time I'll hope you'll forgive me and just know about how bad I feel about everything. Your a truly amazing author and a credit to your work. But I'll hope you'll forgive me on this road to redeeming myself. I'm truly sorry Lizzie 😔

Since this is anon, I’m not sure if this Chell-P as it could be copied from the wattpad apology I saw and responded to. As I’ve gotten a second message in my inbox from chellp88, I’m going to assume this is real. I responded to the wattpad message, so I’m going to copy and paste what I put there here, the requested advice included.

I won't lie and say what you did didn't hurt. To have content from 9 stories and 4 OCs taken and passed off as someone else's is devastating. I was in tears when I saw your Wedding of River Song chapter had taken not just content, but literally took one of my original characters too, that it took my OC Evy's baby and passed him off as your OC's. That was devastating to me. . Plagiarism, any time it happens, is very hard to get through, it makes you question if you should even keep writing if people can't respect you enough to not steal your work. It's even worse when someone who favorited you does this to you. You had me as a favorite author since 2013, for 7 years you've known my work, maybe you've even been there when I was plagiarized by others and saw what it did to me…and then you stole parts of my work too and for at least 2 years you've let people think it was your work. You've let people think and assume that the non-transcript and non-episode content was completely yours, when it wasn't true because part of it, a lot of it in later stories, was mine. You've let people praise part of your work, when those parts were mine, and no one knew it, that really hurts. I've been through this 29 times now, it never gets easier and it takes longer and longer to get back to a place where you WANT to keep writing.

But despite what you did to me, plagiarism is not something I would ever wish on anyone, I would never want anyone to take your work or your OC and try to pass it off as theirs and take credit or praise for your work. I sincerely hope you will never experience for yourself what you did to me.

I appreciate your apology, I appreciate you took the stories down, and I will always wish people the best with their future work so long as it's original. You are one of the few who have been honest about what they've done and actually apologized for it, so that means a lot to me.

The only advice I have for going forward would be:

1. Use a transcript as your ONLY source material. Don't look at someone else's work, don't have someone else's work open, don't highlight or copy parts of someone's work because it sounds good or you liked it, don't use someone else's story in place of a transcript, ONLY use a transcript. This ensures that the only things you're writing are your interpretation of what happened in the physical episode or your own content. It becomes very difficult to plagiarize another user when you do not have access to their work and do not have their work in front of you to use as a base. I don't even use my own work as a base whenever I get to a new Time Lady. I use the transcript, it's the best and safest route to go when you want to be as original as possible.

2. That being said, it's also helpful to NOT use your old content, not even parts from your old story that you just don't feel like typing over again. Really start completely from scratch and use ONLY the transcript. Because any evidence brought up about the plagiarism are not the only examples of the plagiarism, there's always more than what's brought up and the safest way to ensure you don't accidently put plagiarism back into your work is to not copy or use recycled material from your initial posting. I don't say this to make more work for you, I say it from experience because this has literally happened to me in the past. A past plagiarizer took down their work, claimed they would start again from scratch, and put up chapters far too fast to have actually been rewritten from scratch. What they did was go through what they first put up, decided if there were some areas to take out or change, and put that chapter back up just tweaked a little. And plagiarisms were still there. The only way they could have avoided it would be to have their chapter up and my chapter up side by side to compare, and that sort of goes back to point 1, not to look at another person's story while you write your own. Things snuck past this other person and their story was reported a second time under their new profile name and they came across as dishonest in their efforts to 'change,' so really, I can't stress using the transcript and ONLY the transcript enough.

3. Along those lines, something I personally do to try and avoid any unintentional plagiarism is to try your best not to read anyone else's work while you are writing your own. It's hard, it's very hard, because we write in the fandoms we love and we want to see what other people think or imagine about what we love too. But it's a way I use to keep from unintentionally plagiarizing someone. Because you might read something and it sticks with you, the lines, the points, the scene itself, and when you go to write your own version of a scene it ends up being very much like that original content, perhaps even the same exact lines because it got in your head. This can happen with a lot of original content other people write, and the best way to not be influenced by someone else's work is to not read it while you're writing your own versions of events. Of course, it's up to you and other writers whether to continue reading or cut yourself off, if you think you won't be unduly influenced then read on, but just be even more aware and critical of your writing as you go on. Granted, this part of the advice is of little help when the stories have already been read, but so long as the transcript is the only source material, I don't believe too much would actually appear identically in another's story.

4a. Be honest with your readers. They are the best people you will ever know and all they want is for your story to do well, for it to succeed, and for you to grow and better yourself as a writer. Be honest with them about what happened because it shows you did something wrong and are working to fix it, taking responsibility and owning your mistake. (I add this point in because it gives more context to point 4b.)

4b. Don't be afraid to ask your readers for help because they will do whatever they can to assist you. So if you're concerned, as you go forward, that you may unintentionally plagiarize someone, ask them to keep an eye open and let you know concerns they have about your content, especially original content not found in an episode. It's better to be aware of it when it happens than to go chapters and chapters and the entire story is taken down. Chances are people who read your work may have read mine, vice versa, or read other works, and if you ask, they can always bring up points and concerns to you early for you to review, compare, consider, and revise or leave be.

4c. If you are concerned something you posted is too similar to someone else's work, even after using JUST a transcript for the base, it's ok to put a note up that 'Part of this chapter is inspired by 'x' story by y' because it tells people there is another great story that you enjoyed reading that inspired you, and they may like it too, but it also helps relieve any concerns about potential plagiarism. (That's not to say you should put up a note in every chapter and then go on to copy that content and paraphrase it, but just if you use the transcript and it still feels similar to you from a story you read, it's better safe than sorry.)

5. Be aware, going forward, that because this did happen and you did take content from two people and passed it off as yours, some people will be more aware when similarities come up, especially in original content not found in the episode. This shouldn't be the only deterrent, the fear of getting caught more easily, to not plagiarize someone, because stealing from anyone should never happen, but be aware people will notice. And people will be looking more closely and critically when the story eventually gets to the part where the plagiarism first occurred, I, too, will randomly be peeking in from time to time myself at those points and hoping I see nothing of my work again. That's why starting from literal scratch and ONLY using the transcript, not even parts of chapters you'd already put up before, is the safest course to ensure no plagiarism happens.

6. And, finally, because this happened, and not just to me but to another of your favorite authors, a last piece of advice would be to strongly consider and revisit if you've done this to anyone else in any other story and take it down now. I am NOT accusing you of having done this more than the five times it's occurred, but someone raised a concern about another story of yours to me so I say this only as advice and a precaution as your account, unfortunately, now has the stigma associated with the plagiarism committed. I always hold out hope that other works are original even if the ones with my content weren't. So IF you have done this, taken original content and paraphrased it to pass off as your own, in ANY other story of yours, even if it's a very small amount, the best thing would be to take it down now and start from scratch there too. Better to do it now than before it is discovered and it gets reported. The last thing you would want is to go on the website and see your profile has been deleted by the site because of repeated plagiarisms.

It's very hard to forgive plagiarism, especially when it's happened so many times. This may be your first and only four instances doing this to me, but this is not the first or only time it's been done to me. It should have never happened, but it did, and it's not something that can be or should be easily overlooked or brushed aside. It leaves a lasting effect on both sides. Maybe in time I can one day forgive those who plagiarized me in the past, but please understand if I can't do that right now, to them or to you. I really do wish you well with your work as you go forward, and I hope you take my advice to heart and keep things original. Best of luck! LizzeXX

[luvdsc]

I get it, plagiarism is wrong and the fact she did it to so many people is wrong and upsetting but you are just as bad posting this shit and talking foul of her. She did the wrong thing and despite not admitting it, you know she did and so did others. But that does not give you the right to be posting personal messages and speaking so poorly of her. Maybe you need to realise what you are doing is just as wrong.

——-

Seeing how I got these immediately after I posted evidence to prove that I was not lying about jenovious gaslighting me, I’m assuming it’s all from the same person and will be grouping them into one ask.

“you are just as bad posting this shit” — this “shit” is additional evidence to prove that she was indeed gaslighting me because a previous anon implied that I lied about that, even though the initial screenshots already showed that she did.

“talking foul of her” — I have never spoken foul of her. I expressed my disappointment and hurt, yes, but I never once insulted her. I provided screenshots of our conversation and evidence of her plagiarism to spread awareness, but I have not once said a bad thing about her. How you view her after you see the evidence and screenshots is your own personal judgement and opinion.

“She did the wrong thing and despite not admitting it, you know she did and so did others.” — I will have to correct you there because she did partially admit to it. However, what I wished for was a genuine honest apology for what she did. I believe that’s the least she can do after disrespecting both me and lana.

“that does not give you the right to be posting personal messages and speaking so poorly of her. Maybe you need to realise what you are doing is just as wrong.” — actually, in a court case, you’re allowed to submit personal messages as evidence. as long as the text message is sent by one of the opposing party and is a statement against that party’s interest, it may be admissible. seeing as plagiarism is a legal offense, even if it’s just fanfiction, I can share personal messages from my shared conversation with jenovious. and again, I never spoke poorly of her. I stated what happened and provided evidence to back up my experience. So no, I did nothing wrong. I was proving what she did to me.

“Stop posting about it, she did it and that's it. Stop making it a bigger issue than it needs to be.” — I was already done with answering all asks about this issue and ready to move past this until I received that anonymous ask that implied I was lying about the gaslighting. I will not stand for someone slandering me. I did not lie, and I proved that.

“ " I won't be sharing publically" well what the fuck are you doing then? All of you.” — jenovious did not want me to post her apology ask publicly, and I respected her wishes. I never shared it with anyone except for lana because jenovious asked me to send it to her privately. What I am sharing is evidence of what she did and to prove that I was not lying.

“Maybe you all need to grow up and move on from the issue.” — I assume you never had something stolen from you, specifically something you spent time and effort making, and I hope you never have to experience that. I was already moving past it until I received that anonymous ask implying that I’m a liar about the gaslighting. I will not be silent when someone accuses me wrongly. I hope you won’t be silent either if this ever happens to you.

“Tumblr writers really do love drama.” — nobody loves plagiarism, and plagiarism is not drama. it’s an ethical infraction and violation, and people found guilty of it can be kicked out of school or their place of employment and/or go to court and be sued for copyright infringement.

“You got permission to post these from leebrookestore okay but there were two people in the conversation you weren't in and mind you honey, you didn't get permission from her. So you need to realise that you have also done the wrong thing here, posting personal messages that you aren't included in or got permission from both parties to do so.” — it’s * lebrookestore, and mind you honey, I don’t need permission from jenovious to post those. as stated above, in a court case, you’re allowed to submit personal messages as evidence. as long as the text message is sent by one of the opposing party and is a statement against that party’s interest, it may be admissible. plagiarism is a legal offense that can be brought to court under copyright infringement, even if it’s just fanfiction. as such, I have done nothing wrong. note: lebrookestore is not the opposing party, and I have received full permission from her to post them.

I have turned off anonymous messages for now, but if you’d like to discuss this further, you are welcome to send in asks off anon, and I will reply to you privately if that’s what you’d like :)

[thebiasrekkers]

Make It Right [BTS Mafia!AU]

Plot: “It’s always darkest before the dawn…” It’s a dog-eat-dog world in Seoul, South Korea. One has to dwell in the shadows in order to reach for the light. What are you willing to sacrifice in order to feel the sunlight on your face? What will it take to drag you back into darkness? How long will the journey be to make it right?

Rating: NC-17 // NSFW

Genre: Series | Mafia!AU | Crime!AU | Angst | Romance/Fluff

Pairings: Jin x OC | Taehyung/Hoseok x OC | Yoongi/Jungkook x OC

Warnings: Graphic Violence, Heavy Language, Angst, Slow Burn, Smut

Previous Chapters: Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Links: FAQ || BTS Masterlist || Admin E’s AO3 || Admin E’s WP || [ REQUESTS ARE OPEN ]

Word Count: 3,342

Chapter 22: Her

"Maybe I’m your love and hate. Maybe I’m your enemy and friend."

© thebiasrekkers (Admin E). All rights reserved. Reposting/modifying our work is prohibited. Translations are not allowed. Plagiarism/stealing is not tolerated by any means. Legal action will be taken in instances of theft.

“…Yoongi Hyung? I need you to find Jungkook…whatever it takes.”

“I will, Hoseok-ah,” Yoongi replied gently, his grip on the phone increasing for a split second before ending the call.

Slipping the phone into his pocket, he lifted his head to gaze at the tall building – his eyes focusing on the rooftop. The wind whipped across his body, his hair flying in every direction as the tails of his trench coat flapped behind him. Yoongi felt a lump forming in his throat as he tried to swallow it down, wondering if he should even be standing there. If he had any right to be standing there.

It had been a week since his altercation with Eden that night, when all his skeletons came tumbling out of the closet. Yoongi could still feel the sting of her slap on his cheek and remembered the tears that slid down her face. He’d never seen Eden cry in all the years he’d known her. She’d shed a tear or two over a drama or a movie they decided to watch together, but those were tears she shed without shame. Tears of outrage; of pain? He didn’t think she was even capable of it.

He’d believed her to be so strong. Yoongi thought she could take on anything; that she could stare the Reaper in his face and tell him to take a long walk off a short pier.

I made a mistake, he thought, furrowing his brows as he made his way toward the steps leading up the side of the building, I should have just been honest from the start.

Yoongi’s pace was slow, methodical; he was in no hurry. He knew it was Eden’s day off and she would be home. She was usually catching up on dramas she’d missed during the week or playing video games. She wasn’t a very social creature by nature. Not unless she was forced. Yoongi grimaced when he thought about how their dates usually went. He probably hadn’t helped things with how he kept her away from prying eyes all the time.

Had he made her even more of a recluse?

When he reached the rooftop, he looked around and saw the long wooden table and a few chairs near the edge of the roof. She usually liked to read by sunlight during the summer and Yoongi couldn’t help smirking when he thought of the times they would eat watermelon while sitting on the table, staring at the stars during those hot summer nights. She hated doing laundry and he often teased her about it, saying that it was supposed to be therapeutic while she complained about it being a colossal waste of time; bitching about not having her own washing machine.

He remembered kicking cold water on her when they were stomping around in the water basin, cleaning one of her summer blankets on an early Saturday morning. She hosed him down and they were both utterly soaked, stripping down naked while he grabbed a few large towels from the line to wrap them both in. His face twisted into a painful expression when he remembered drying her off, admiring every single inch of her body until he couldn’t resist himself; claiming her in her bed and wearing her out completely.

Yoongi paused in front of the laundry line, seeing the clothes that were hanging out to dry. They would freeze in this cold. She must have gotten busy with something since the laundry basket was still outside, left abandoned under the line. Sighing, he began to pull clothes, sheets, and towels off the line. He folded them and placed them into the basket, lost in his own thoughts.

How could he have ruined it all?

Friends? What the hell was I even thinking? Yoongi chastised himself, folding the last of the towels and dropping it into the basket. It’s all just one giant fucking excuse…

Yoongi lifted the basket into his arms with minimal effort before strolling forward to the front door. He resisted the urge to use the spare key to simply let himself in. For a moment, he just stood in front of the door and remained silent. He did nothing. He probably looked like a fool standing there and holding a basket full of clean laundry, but at that moment, Yoongi didn’t care.

He wasn’t ready for another altercation with Eden. He thought he was, but in reality, he knew he wasn’t. Yoongi didn’t think he could handle her enraged expression directed toward him. Sure, they fought and cussed and fussed at each other when they were together, but it wasn’t anything like what he saw that night. He knew she wasn’t a pushover and he’d even seen her tussle with some thugs when they were both still living in America. She had no problem stabbing someone. She had no problem spilling blood when it came to defending herself.

But she’d never turned her knife on him before. Yoongi wasn’t sure if he was more shocked or riled up at the idea that she came at him with everything that she had. He had scars of his own, sure, but the ones that littered her body showed the hard road she had been forced to travel for most of her life. Yoongi admired her strength and determination to continue living even as the world turned its back on her.

Even as he turned his back on her.

“Oh, goddammit,” he heard from the other side of the door, causing his thoughts to come crashing back to the present, “I forgot to get the laundry.”

Yoongi’s grip tightened on the basket and he considered just leaving it there. He could just leave it there, away from the door so she wouldn’t accidentally trip over it, and go. Running into her now would just cause a fight. He knew her well enough to bet money on it.

“I can get it later,” came another voice from inside.

Yoongi’s heart stopped for a moment and he nearly dropped the laundry basket. He felt his face grow hot and the heavy thrum of his heart roared in his ears. His eyes narrowed harshly at the frosted glass of the door.

It was Jungkook’s voice.

He heard Eden scoff from inside the apartment, her silhouette appearing before the door as he saw her moving around to grab a pair of shoes.

“What? So you can get fever sick again or break your neck because you can barely walk, then blame me for it? Fuck that. I got it.”

He knew he should leave. Yoongi still had time to leave and pretend he didn’t hear anything. Pretend he didn’t know that Jungkook was there.

Two things stopped him, keeping him rooted in his spot. Hoseok’s request, his pleading to find Jungkook, and Yoongi’s own jealous anger.

Yes, he was jealous.

Yes, it was unfair.

Yes, it was unreasonable.

He didn’t care.

So when Eden pulled the door open, almost barreling into him, he could only cut his eyes at her as she gasped just seconds before impact. She stumbled back, catching her balance as she clung to the doorknob, and let out a yell that sounded like a mixture of fright and outrage. Eden clutched at her chest, catching her breath as she glared up at him.

“You scared the fuck outta me!” she yelled, scratching at the side of her wild curls that flared out like a lion’s mane. “What are you doing standing there like some kinda fuckin’ ghost!? You trynna kill me?!”

Yoongi didn’t say anything. He continued to hold the laundry basket, gripping onto it like it was a tether preventing him from falling into a black hole. The vein near his temple throbbed as he bit the inside of his jaw.

“Noona?” called Jungkook from inside and Yoongi’s gaze lifted from hers to look over her shoulder. He was still out of sight which meant that he was in the main area of the apartment. “Everything okay?”

He looked back at Eden and saw realization wipe over her face. She pushed on the basket that Yoongi was holding, shoving him back a couple of steps. He was crowding the doorway and she wanted to get out and there was a petty part of him that wanted to keep her trapped in the entryway.

“Everything’s fine, Jungkook-ah,” she said through clenched teeth, glaring at Yoongi; daring him to say otherwise, “it’s just a stupid cat.”

Yoongi’s brows raised as he looked down at her, watching the smirk forming on her face. Cat?

“I didn’t know you had a cat,” Jungkook said, a distinct explosion coming from the television.

“He’s not mine. He just likes to show up whenever he wants to cause me grief.” Yoongi narrowed his eyes at her and she continued to smile, though her irritation was still evident. “Isn’t that right, Lil Meow Meow?”

“Lil Me—” He started to protest but Eden slapped her hand over his mouth and all but shoved him out of the way.

“I’ll be back. Stay there and keep that ice pack on your legs.” Then she closed the door behind her before rounding on Yoongi. “What in the hell are you doing here?” Her voice was a harsh whisper and she pointed toward the large table that was far away from the door.

He set the basket down by the door and turned, making his way toward the table and plopped down on it. There was no point trying to raise a stink in front of her door. Eden’s temper was merciless and while it lasted only a little while, it left destruction around her like a tornado. He wouldn’t risk her getting into trouble with her neighbors this late at night.

He was choosing to not be selfish this time.

Eden stood in front of him, arms folded across her chest. “Well? Why are you here? I thought I made it clear that I didn’t want to see you.”

Yoongi flashed a dark smirk as he looked up at her through his fringe. “Did you? I must have missed that part.”

“Min Yoongi,” Eden half snarled, “don’t make me hurt you.”

He laughed despite how serious he knew she was being.

“You’ve already hurt me.”

“Excuse me?”

Yoongi shook his head, pressing a hand to his forehead. “…nothing. I’m taking Jungkook home.”

She scoffed, raising a brow at him. “Says who?”

“I do,” he growled out, “that’s who.”

He saw Eden look away from him. “Forget it.” Her tone was solid. “He overextended his muscles and he’s still having trouble walking.”

“Then I’ll carry him.”

This time she laughed, turning her head to look back at him. “Who says that he even wants to go home?”

“Eden, don’t—”

“Don’t what? Butt in?” He saw her narrow her eyes at him. “Too late.”

Yoongi shot up from the table, taking a step toward her but she reflexively took a step back. He wasn’t sure if that action hurt him more or if her words were what was getting to him.

“Why do you care anyway?” he snapped.

She smirked. “What’s it to you?”

He took a breath, attempting to collect himself, before looking back at her. “Look,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, “if this is about me, about getting back at me, then there’s no need for that.”

For a long moment, all Eden could do was look at him – eyes wide and unblinking. Then, a handful of seconds later, she burst into a very loud laughing fit. This caught him off guard and now he was the one taking a step back. It was clear that what he’d said wasn’t funny. Not one bit. He knew what kind of laugh this was.

It was an angry laugh.

After a short minute, Eden managed to collect herself. “Are you fuckin’ shitting me right now?” She straightened to her full height, taking a step toward him and jamming her finger into his chest. “Ya, Min Yoongi-ssi, who the hell do you think you are, huh?”

The honorific threw him. She’d never used it with him for as long as he’d known her. Not in the States and definitely not here. For her to add that polite title to his name made him feel like he’d been kicked in the gut by a mule.

“Do you think I’m holding Jungkook hostage? You think I’m doing this to get back at you for hurting me? Just who in the fuck do you take me for?”

Yoongi swallowed, the lump in his throat swelling as his mouth grew dry. He’d fucked up. Royally. Eden wasn’t the petty sort of person he knew himself to be capable of. She was a straight shooter when it came to showing people whether she liked or disliked a person. She wasn’t the kind of person to play mind games or get revenge on people. He remembered her once telling him that type of thinking was a waste of time for everyone involved.

She poked him again; harder this time and he winced.

“Maybe if you guys kept your fuckin’ house in order, then I wouldn’t have people showin’ up on my fuckin’ doorstep sick and half dead from runnin’ themselves into the fuckin’ ground.”

And again, Eden dug her finger into his chest.

“You all are gettin’ on my goddamn nerves, you know that? But I’m not gonna toss him out on his ass when he doesn’t want to leave. Not in his current condition.”

This time, she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and shook him – looking more terrifying than the night she tried to stab him.

“Got it?”

Suddenly, the door to her apartment swung open. Both Yoongi and Eden turned to see Jungkook bracing himself on the frame. He had a pained look on his face, as if it was a struggle for him to maintain his balance. Jungkook tried to wipe the pain away with a smile, but it looked more like a half grimace and he steadied himself while stepping out of the apartment. Yoongi watched his legs wobble, like he was a baby deer taking its first steps in life.

“Ya, Jeon Jungkook,” Eden called to him, releasing the hold she had on Yoongi’s shirt, “what do you think you’re doing?”

“It’s okay,” he said, sweat clinging to his brow as he took another step forward, “I’ll go back with Hyung.”

When he took another step, Jungkook lost his footing and started to fall forward. Eden left Yoongi’s side, rushing at Jungkook to catch him. All Yoongi could do was stare as she held him aloft, trying to keep as much of his weight up with her smaller frame. He felt his hands clutching into fists at his sides, the look of genuine concern spreading over Eden’s face.

What happened in that short amount of time? What was different between them now?

“Yoongi Hyung.”

Jungkook’s voice cut through Yoongi’s thoughts and he felt his hands loosen as he looked at him.

“You don’t have to carry me, but I’ll need your help getting down the stairs.”

Yoongi nodded, stepping toward them. He saw Eden’s hands tighten around Jungkook’s arm and he stopped.

“Jungkook-ah,” she said softly, her eyes not leaving Jungkook’s as he, in turn, looked back at her, “are you sure you’ll be alright?”

He smiled at her. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Besides…” Jungkook looked back at Yoongi. “…there’s something I need to talk to Hyung about.”

Eden sighed, lifting herself up so that Jungkook could stand on his own. “Fine. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t.”

“Do you have everything?”

“Yeah, I grabbed my keys too.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Text me so I know you made it back safely.”

“I will,” Jungkook said with a laugh, “I promise.”

Yoongi could only silently watch the exchange and he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Was it two friends? Something more? Eden was known to show care and compassion for even her friends, so it wasn’t far-fetched for her to act this way with Jungkook if they were, in fact, friends.

…but is it more than that?

“Hyung?” He met Jungkook’s gaze, the smile gone from his face. “I’m ready.”

Yoongi crossed the small space between them, draping Jungkook’s arm over his shoulder and held him steady against him at the waist. They took slow steps towards the stairs and he fully expected Eden to retreat inside of her apartment. But as Yoongi helped Jungkook take the first step down, he chanced a glance at her and saw she was watching them intently.

“…Yoongi-ah,” she said, forcing Yoongi to come to a halt, “let me know when you get back, too.”

He didn’t say anything. He just nodded and then continued to help Jungkook ease down the steps. He wasn’t sure if it was his heart or Jungkook’s heart drumming against him, but nothing was said between them. Even when they hit the final step and Yoongi called a cab to pick them up, he continued to hold Jungkook up with his own body.

It wasn’t until the cab arrived and Yoongi made sure Jungkook was safely inside did his muscles finally relax. He told the driver their destination and the two men sat beside each other – each gazing out of their respective passenger windows. Neither of them said a word.

When it looked like they were stuck in a miniature traffic jam did Jungkook finally speak up.

“It really was Noona you were with for all those years, wasn’t it, Hyung?”

Yoongi craned his neck to look at Jungkook who was still staring out the window. He didn’t know if he could give an answer, or if he even should. What reason would he need to since it was clear that Jungkook already seemed to know the answer.

He sighed, instead looking back out the window.

“Why’d you do that? Why would you…how could you just lie to her?”

Yoongi closed his eyes.

“Of all the things, why lie to her about who you really are?”

He wasn’t sure if now was the time to get into this conversation. Or if he even wanted to.

“Hyung!”

Yoongi rounded on Jungkook who was now looking at him – no, glaring at him.

“What do you want from me, Jungkook-ah? Huh? What?!”

“I want to know why you would tell me to be honest with the person I care about when you couldn’t even do the same! Why would you do that?”

“Because I didn’t want her to get mixed up in our business, Jungkook-ah,” he snapped, “she’s been through enough and piling our shit on top of it all, especially back then, would have been too much!”

Jungkook gave him a dark look. “You don’t know that!”

“You’re right! I don’t. I didn’t know but I did what I thought was the best thing for everyone involved. Did I fuck up? Yes.” He reached out and snatched Jungkook by the collar of his shirt. “But let’s get one thing straight: I don’t take it back, you hear me?”

“Hyung!”

“If I could go back to that time, I’d make the same choice all over again. Easy. I’d keep her as far away from this shit as I could.” Yoongi’s expression hardened as Jungkook’s eyes narrowed even further. “My only regret is that I got caught in the first place.”

He saw something flicker in Jungkook’s eyes. It wasn’t anger – no, that was still sitting at the surface of his younger brother’s gaze. Was it…pity?

He felt Jungkook’s hands touch Yoongi’s, gently pulling them down – forcing him to release his hold on his shirt. Then he turned away from him to look back out the window.

“…you’re a moron, Hyung.”

Yoongi smirked, watching the multi-colored lights flash over Jungkook’s face. He craned his neck to look out his own window.

“I guess I am.”

And he was.

Min Yoongi was the worst kind of pretender.