#(and because I then read she had similar plagiarism accusations with the books too and handle it the same way)

[thehouseofthebrave]

“Cassandra Clare, best know for writing The Mortal Instruments”

To you, maybe. To me she is forever a trigger word for memories of one of the Great Fanfiction Plagiarism Controversies of my time

[spockandawe]

Oh, this is interesting. To me. I'm not sure it's interesting to anyone else! But I'm on my computer for once and FULL of words again, and I'm delighted to talk to myself given half an excuse.

So, I made a post about Long Live Evil! Because I cracked open the book and was absolutely taken aback by how transparently it seemed to be an SVSSS reskin. I wrote up a goodreads thing (it's whatever, I'm going to rehash the main points here too), because I was also full of words and beans after finishing the book yesterday, and after polling online friends, I was surprised to see that the comparison didn't seem to have organically occurred to anyone else, when it was so naked to me. I know there’s a TON of transmigration and isekai stories out in the universe, and pointing at one single book was a big claim, so I just had to assemble all my thoughts! I find this so interesting! And I reblogged my initial one-off post with a little more elaboration about some of the things that jumped out at me, then got on with live and went back to chipping at ORV and GHG, and shotgunned MADK this afternoon.

This is a subtle nod and a wink to my passionate love for these kind of... morally grey main characters! Calling them villains might be a bit much, I don't think there are many true villain protagonists out there (LLE included), and even Devil Venerable has a demonic cultivator who's doing demonic shit and killing loads of people... but with the ultimate balance of the heavens and earth as his priority. This kind of story is my jam. I was recced this book on the basis of transmigration and sketchy protagonists being my thing. I can't rightfully call SVSSS the best cnovel I've ever read, but it is my favorite. And I've probably reread it more times than any other cnovel.

So, that SRB post, huh? I put Long Live Evil behind me, and honestly even following up on the sequel is mmmmmdoubtful, but THIS snagged my attention again. First, the comparisons she's calling out as incorrect are wild to me. Draco and Harry? What? Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian?? (I had to ponder that one for a hot minute, but I bet you anything it's about 'the golden cobra' and 'the last hope' and that's just silly, they're not wangxian, they're MOSHANG)

I was recced LLE in one friend group, but I had an anti-rec from my book club friend group. My book club friend hadn't been at all impressed by it! And she's cool, and I talk up svsss and mxtx to that crowd every so often, without really expecting them to read it. I talk about transmigration as a plot device that I love, and the things that can be done with it! But with that connection in mind between the books, as I started LLE, I was jokingly defending the honor of SVSSS to this crowd, so I admit I was primed to recognize similarities.

I really truly did not make it far in the book before locking it down. I was getting vibes basically from the moment Rae started gushing about her problematic fictional fave, I referenced 95% certainty shortly after she makes the jump to the fictional universe, the golden cobra was 98%, Lia Mingyan's, I mean Liu Mingyan's lack of sex scenes was 99%, and the first pov section for Marius-jun was where I gave up and called it as a sure thing.

It'll be very funny if I'm wrong! I don't think I'm wrong.

Plenty of spoilers to follow, because I identified this inspiration early, I guessed basically every plot twist early, I don't have the patience to dance around spoilers while explaining how it all lines up.

Now, I said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating: I don't think this is plagiarism. I think it's tasteless to accuse an author of stealing and repurposing characters to her face. But I think it's also tasteless to repurpose characters as nakedly as happened here! Again? If I'm wrong? That's why I'm talking to myself on my blog and not messaging her directly (?????? who even does that). What are the stakes for me being wrong here? I look like a clown online? That would be terrible, I've never done that before! It's not a crime to write in ways I find distasteful. It's not a crime to write a book I think is not good, even apart from the use of fictional influences. But I like talking about my feelings online, and I can't be stopped!

But there's two aspects of this that make me somewhat uncomfortable in a less fun way. Both are contingent on the big IF. If this is inspired by svsss, I think it's not a classy move to take a Chinese story in a Chinese setting, inspired by the modern Chinese literary scene and classical Chinese fantasy, and just dump the characters into a generic western setting. Fanfic? Have fun and try to be respectful. Profic, making money off it? Ehhhhh. The question of how much change is necessary is a tricky one! It's not one I'm equipped to answer, this is not my wheelhouse or my place to speak. But it doesn't make me feel good!

However, here's where I have more personal stake:

Again, if this is inspired by svsss. It really doesn't feel great to see a queer story (a smash hit in more than one country!) stripped down for parts and made into a heterosexual story. It's not all heterosexual, we get side lesbians, we get men with homoerotic tension. But the central ship is now a guy and a girl. And it... stings a little extra, because in the story of svsss, the idea of assumptions about default (hetero)sexuality are such a central theme. A queer man has written a trashy, oversexed stallion novel where the hottest guy in the universe collects the hottest women like pokemon, and it sells so much better than the more personal stories he tried to write. He has to write this pandering trash to make money to live, he can't live on the more authentic stories he tried to tell before. The protagonist is the projection of his own insecurities and self-hate, and the protagonist's right hand man is his projection of his own ideal man. Another man transmigrates into the book, assuming that he himself is straight, assuming the protagonist is straight, and the force of their love changes the course of the entire narrative. In retrospect, it's upsetting to see those load-bearing themes casually carved out of the story and the hollowed-out remains used like this.

Anyways, in their place, now we've got running gags about how the heroine's tits are BIGHUGE now and she can't keep her balance because her GIANT HONKERS keep tipping her over.

I'm a little more bothered than I was yesterday! On the other hand, since I saw SRB's post, I've been chewing on that central ship. Full disclosure, it was one of my favorite aspects of the novel! My other favorite aspect is the dynamic between the golden cobra and the last hope (the moshang, which I think some people misdiagnosed as wangxian).

I know that the central ship here is the thing that's LEAST comparable to svsss, and the biggest roadblock in the way of my theory. On the other hand, I think it was the thing that HAD to change if this story was going to repurpose svsss without getting called out for being a classic 'bro can i copy your homework' adventure.

For this section, let's assume that I'm right and let's roleplay an author trying to figure out how to change Bingqiu into something not-obviously-Bingqiu. How do we need to differentiate Rae and Key from Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe.

First, we eliminate the martial sect thing. Easy peasy! That's a wuxia concept, and this book goes full nondescript western fantasy. She's not his teacher, he's not her student. And if she's not his teacher and he's not her student, why does this woman have power over this man, to build up the resentment that inspires him to turn the tables on her later? Well, in nondescript western fantasy, she's a noblewoman of some kind, and he's a servant of some kind. Noble lady treats servant like garbage, servant resents her. Doing great.

And to loop back around to the beginning of this a little, I think it really is key to this reskinning that Rae is a SHE. If the central ship remained queer, it would be so, so hard to pull away from the most identifiable thematic aspects of svsss. And pieces of what remain are... kind of bizarre for a normie heterosexual ship where our protagonist is aware that she's transmigrated into an impossibly desirable sexpot character!

Shen Qingqiu never considers that Luo Binghe might be interested in him because Luo Binghe is about to have a HAREM of beautiful women, he's the most heterosexual man of all time, and Shen Qingqiu is straight too! Besides, Shen Qingqiu is his teacher! He half-raised Luo Binghe! Even if Luo Binghe was bent, he wouldn't be interested in an old man like Shen Qingqiu!

Rae is 20, occupying a 24-year-old body. Her character's sexiness is relentlessly remarked upon from start to finish. Key is 18. Why is Rae so sure that he looks up to her as... a mentor, as an older woman? He almost goes down on her! He makes out with her! And she's like 'ah yes, it means nothing. lol. so funny how these things happen.' Bruh, at least after Luo Binghe kissed Shen Qingqiu, Shen Qingqiu finally got hit with the clue stick. Binghe didn't try to blow him only for Shen Qingqiu to keep noodling on about how Binghe definitely isn't into him in any sense, even the most oblivious man in the universe managed to catch on.

Why doesn’t Rae think there’s any chance of genuine attraction here? Yeah, I get that she's coming back from terminal cancer. She's doing great. She knows that the fictional character she occupies is one of the most desirable ladies in the land. He’s a teenager. He’s not expressing disinterest. A lack of horny for sexy lady ought to be more surprising for her. But I guess she’s slightly older than him and that small age gap has been magnified by the transmigration, so she conceptualizes herself only as his teacher, I mean mentor.

I’m not even mad at this dynamic. I love their chemistry, the ‘boss’ thing is cute, but lordt, I have to wonder if it’s meant to substitute for ‘shizun.’ But you know where this comparison really falls apart? Key isn’t really THAT much Luo Binghe.

At least, he isn’t in terms of personality. I mean, we’ve got the mysterious magical heritage, the healing factor, the unbeatable fighting skills, being beaten repeatedly because of the protagonist (tbh it’s sexier when she’s responsible, rather than just being a bystander), being yeeted into the abyss, I mean the ravine, to rise again and assume power as the merciless ruler of all the land. Oh, and he comes back from the dead still bearing the scar that represents her betrayal. In the original novel, he turned on her the moment he got his opening and was responsible for coming up with her gruesome torment.

(Also, Shen Qingqiu being terminally ill isn’t canon, but it’s very popular fanon, and it’s hard to ignore that with how hard the narrative lingers over Rae’s terminal illness as her gateway into this fictional world)

But! But the things that are different! Luo Binghe is a smart and sweet teenager, who had a rough start on the streets and has a tragically deceased single adoptive parent, but that’s their only backstory parallel, he doesn’t blacken until he’s thrown into the abyss. Not like Key, Key is a murder-happy sociopath, a former street kid who fought the odds and made good, and who’s a lot sharper and cleverer than the upper classes think someone like him should be. He utterly destroyed a righteous cultivator clan, I mean glassblowing guild, for the sake of revenge. Once our heroine scores a number of trust points with him, we unlock secret backstory about how as a small child, he experienced deeply formative hand trauma.

He’s Xue Yang.

It took me a moment to process the wangxian allegations SRB mentions in her post, because I was trying to figure out how someone would be aware of wangxian, and read that backstory, and somehow miss it. But it’s fine, I’m pretty sure they were actually talking about the golden cobra and the last hope! So LET’S TALK MOSHANG.

It was so funny. I was liveblogging the book to friends, because honestly, I do not jive with the buffy-esque joss whedon relentless quip-quip-quip writing style. I was struggling to stay engaged when the narrative never took a moment to breathe. And I perked up at the introduction of this new character! He seemed kind of fun, kind of meta, Key came over to share Secret Info with him, and I messaged the friend who recced this to me (also an svsss appreciator) ‘lol, what if he’s shang qinghua. just straight from svsss shang qinghua.'

Reader, a second transmigrator has hit the narrative.

Now, in some ways, he’s a disappointment to me. He’s not nearly as interesting as Shang Qinghua. Adding the author to their own narrative is way more fascinating to me than just dropping a rando into the story. But I’ll take what I can get, I think multiple transmigrators are almost always a fun decision. And for the queer reasons I mentioned above, I think Shang Qinghua ties into the themes of his novel a lot more strongly than Eric does here. I don’t want to call him ‘the golden cobra’ every time, I get more self-conscious every time I write it. And honestly, the reveal of Eric’s full Eric Whatever name feels a little awkward and… pointed compared to the sheer opacity of Shang Qinghua’s existence. Never mind what his name was in the real world, we don’t even know his name before he was a Peak Lord. I’m not upset we got a name or anything, it would make certain fannish activities a lot easier if Shang Qinghua had additional canon names, but it was an interesting detail in light of how parallel the characters are.

Okay! He’s not the author! He’s still a super-fan. He transmigrated into the book years before the LLE main character, and has settled in pretty well. According to canon as Rae knows it, he’s fated to be killed by his own favorite character. He’s fast-thinking and fast-talking, and scattered and all over the place, but dangerous when cornered and more competent than he looks. He deals in information and manages a network of spies. He’s a creative! He and the main character banter relentlessly and get along like a house on fire. He and the king’s trusted ice-cold right hand man share a weird codependent dynamic that’s part hostile, part homoerotic.

Marius has complicated feelings about not-shang-qinghua. Eric is a coward, he’d rather talk fast and lie than stand up for anything, he cowers and cringes and isn’t honorable. He and Mobei-jun also shared a deeply formative experience in their youth, where as a teenager in distress, Eric/Shang Qinghua appeared before them and announced their devotion. In Shang Qinghua’s case, it was offering to serve him (and saving him from huan hua injuries), and in Eric’s case, it was declaring him to be his favorite character (and saving him from sad teenaged isolation), but man. And in the end, after a long, fraught relationship, Marius/Mobei-jun is furious and strangely distraught when Eric/Shang Qinghua abandons him.

Guys, it’s not wangxian.

I think it hits less hard when Marius’s themes of family violence aren’t allowed to sit directly in the narrative, and when it seems like some vague berserker rage thing rather than Linguang-jun just bluntly wanting to murder him for practical reasons, but hey! This was still, genuinely, one of my favorite parts of the story. I wanted more more more of them, I would read this moshang au any day.

After that, the parallels get a little more nebulous! The comparisons between the abyss and the ravine are pretty obvious. I’m not sure why we decided to build our city and palace right on top of the pit of people-eating ghouls rather than literally anywhere else, but it means we don’t need to take a special field trip to Jue Di Gorge, which means we can do the bait and switch where it turns out Key was a heavenly demon all along. The temperamental King Octavian, the young master of the palace, one might even say the xiao gongzhu if they were feeling spicy, jealously tries to romantically monopolize half our main ship and has the other half flogged with a magic whip.

I already mentioned that Rae brings up that Liu Mingyan — wait, I said I’d change some answers so it wasn’t obvious I copied — Lia doesn’t get a sex scene in the books even though loads of other people did, just like Shen Qingqiu praises Liu Mingyan for her untouchable image in such an oversexed, gratuitous book. I don’t think it would be right to call Liu Mingyan a white lotus heroine in either SVSSS or PIDW, but her archetype is in that wheelhouse, and Lia is just a white lotus rival played straight (and played deliberately, another touch I liked). We don’t have made up animals like black moon rhinoceros pythons in LLE, but we do have leucrotas, which are like a lion and a hyena and serve no narrative purpose.

Oh, you know what else I forgot to mention? Rae gives Key one of her red ruby earrings, and he refuses to sell it, and stubbornly holds onto it until the bitter end. Is this Xue Yang holding onto the last piece of candy Xiao Xingchen gave him, or is it Hua Cheng determinedly keeping Xie Lian’s red coral earring with him even through his own death? Por que no los dos?

There are things that are original in here. I know that this presentation undersells how much of the book is original. The trouble is, almost everything I thought was good is something that either was lifted from another person’s creative endeavors, or is being tainted by association with all the other naked lifts. Some of the noble ladies have an archery contest! That’s pretty new and fresh, huh? We didn’t have any archery contests in SVSSS!

Yeah, but we sure did in MDZS. And MDZS is already in play, because we’ve already got one character who’s just copy and paste Xue Yang.

There’s a thermocline of trust in this book that fell off for me sharply, and it turned a lot of this into a guessing game of ‘wait NOW what the refrance? owo'

I’m probably on a hair trigger by now, but I’ve also probably missed some things. And I’m sure this is a synthesis of multiple influences, because most stories are. But this feels like cooking and trying to season your dish with a little salt and then the container lid just falls off.

Emer isn’t a clear parallel to an existing character! Love that for her! Love a lady with an axe, especially if she gets a nice girlfriend! On the other hand, in terms of backstory? Wow, she’s been raised with our protagonist since early childhood, as not-quite-foster-siblings, but she was always the clear unfavorite and harbors a lot of resentment over that. Oh, and once Rae entered the story, Rae started trying to speedrun an enemies to 'hello hiiii we should bestiessss' arc with her. I think she had to have an axe, because a whip or a sword would make the Jiang Cheng and/or Liu Qingge vibes a little uncomfortably strong. She doesn’t follow their character arcs! But the disappointing thing is that it felt like she was just there to facilitate pasting the frankenstein patchwork of the narrative together rather than having an arc of her own.

(why did Marius stop to give her a sword lesson? Why did she immediately sneak onto the roof to eavesdrop on the king?? It’s hard to give her credit for being an original character when none of her original actions make sense in the greater universe)

Oh, I almost forgot, we’ve even got magic plot macguffin plants. While Binghe is in the abyss, Shen Qingqiu needs to get the Sun And Moon Dew Flower Seed so he can build an escape hatch for himself before Binghe wrecks his shit. Rae, on the other hand, needs to secure the Flower of Life and Death by an arbitrary deadline as an escape hatch so she can go back to her original life rather than being trapped here forever. Very different! There’s even little side tangents about how these plants can be so beneficial to others, Zhuzhi-lang is desperately trying to secure a seed to build a new body for Tianlang-jun (which Shen Qingqiu enables him to do, despite not knowing what he wants it for), and Rae thinks about how the flower could “save someone on the very doorstep of death,” and gives it away for that exact purpose. So different!

I need to cut myself off, otherwise I’ll keep going. Truly, there is original content in here. It was just all the stuff I didn’t like. The character quipping was. God. There sure was a lot of it! By sheer volume, that’s a lot of original content. Some of the extended cast was interesting, I enjoyed the Horrors and their brothers, I liked Valencia. Now, I didn’t like how basically every girl ADULT WOMAN in this cast was in shitty teen mean girl mode. I didn’t like how immature every character interaction period was. I lost track of how many times Rae was going around in sexy clothes and rando servants were like “HARLOT,” out loud about a favored noblewoman, you know, as you do. Especially when her bodyguard is pulling against his choke chain just waiting for an excuse to do a murder. I don’t need Rae to be the picture of flawless maturity. But nobody is mature, full stop, not even the set dressing servants.

For a less loaded example, the cumplane friendship dynamic is here, practically intact. Shen Qingqiu can't snipe about authorial choices, because Eric isn't the author, so instead Rae and Eric squabble about favorite scenes and favorite ships and such. But it isn't nearly as charming when we don't see these two characters dropping their dignified Peak Lord cultivator roleplay to talk shit with each other. Rae and Eric never have a filter once in this book. They are always Like This, it isn't a secret face that gets unlocked when they're bouncing off each other, they are never circumspect, never have a filter, never have any idea they shouldn't be speaking their full thoughts at full volume 24/7. Even after this starts to have material consequences when they're inevitably overheard! It's an immersion-breaking level of immaturity, which is terribly frustrating when the original dynamic that I loved is only changed in such minor ways.

And another thing that actually tastes way more sour than it did on first reading – Valencia is probably the least mean girl of all the women in the cast. She’s delightful. Too bad that in every scene but her last one, Rae, who repeatedly references her own experiences having her body and appearance ravaged by cancer, cannot for love or money stop talking about how uggo Valencia is.

I know this is an adult novel. The characters are, by age, adults. There’s almost an oral scene. God, I wish we’d gotten the oral scene. But by every other metric, the characters are all high schoolers and I’m an exhausted adult muttering to myself ‘they’ll grow out of it, please GOD let them grow out of it.’

Again, none of this is a crime! Nobody forced me to finish the book! And I did enjoy the book. Parts of it! But that very distinct partial enjoyment experience almost forced me to dissect my own emotional response. And truly, other than a few flashes like Valencia, almost everything I enjoyed about the book was something I could trace directly back to one author, and mostly to one book by that one author. I… enjoyed half of the book. And if I can track most of that half back to mxtx and svsss, I really think that says something about how much wasn’t done to make the inspiration behind this book the author’s own.

It's disappointing! I read this book because I like svsss, I read it because I want more books like svsss, I read it because I trawl the novelupdates tags looking for more books that will hit me the way svsss did. It doesn’t taste good to be served reheated svsss with expired buffy sauce drizzled on top. It tastes even less good once I have a minute to think about what turning an m/m meditation on sexuality and self-image and assumptions about others into a m/f snooze does to the themes I loved so much. It stings to see an author rehash a book that was/is so important to me, and see what they kept and what they threw out, and be like ‘oh, so… these were the elements that mattered to you?’

Again, I hate to be redundant with this, but. I think calling this book plagiarism would be overdoing it. I think it’s tasteless. I don’t think being tasteless is a crime. It remains wild to me that she’s getting messages calling out her supposed inspiration, even if I’m simultaneously criticizing the judgment of the people making those specific comparisons. And I ABSOLUTELY understand why she’s reluctant to own up to the specific inspirations behind this book, because good lord. If it was me, I’d be professionally embarrassed too.

It’s not my job to be the book quality police, but I think someone as experienced as this should be able to do a better job of synthesizing inspirations into something original. I dropped ‘can’t afford to offend my scheming disciple’ earlier this year, because that narrative couldn’t shake the taste of stale svsss fanfic, and it was much more subtle than this is. Once again, if I’m wrong, this post will be retroactively VERY funny and I’ll be all ears to see what her inspirations actually were. I don’t think I’m wrong.

[zeroinetoheroine]

Apparently this person is writing a story with Dabi and his prisoner and there are WAY too many similarities to my story.

When someone notified me, I clicked on it and...at first I thought it wasn't like that because the main character is healer and there is no Shouto but....so the first 2 or 3 chapters are different but,

I feel like so many things have been copied and idk if i'm just crazy or....it's true. I even saw a comment who seems to think the same (and mentioned my story*).

What I've noticed:

Dabi makes a deal with her (if she sleeps with him) she can save her friends

Gives her a list to write of things she needs when he forces her to live with him

Some sentences are similar (especially Dabi's). "We had sex not car wreck"... the writer has dabi say this instead of MC after a similar scene...it's just...how can we think this much alike?

She likes flowers and wants to take care of his garden and she likes books (and he has a library) and he teases her about reading lovey-dovey crap !?!? Jane Eyre is also mentioned in my story in form of quotes.

After he moves her in with him she cooks for him...

She has ideas about food redistribution and Dabi then mentions this in his meeting...there is a masked party? During this party Dabi and Re-Destro argue and Re-Destro asks him to get reader a drink...

Reader has to seduce Dabi and get the key to free prisoners....

Like...everything is happening that has also happened in my.story...

I know everyone can get similar ideas but I feel like this is too much. I'm not sure and I don't want to accuse anyone but damn...

I'm not even sure what to do since there are some differences and the characters are not the same, so it's not literally plagiarism... be flattered I guess?

*dear anon comment (i know who you are ❤️) thank you for that. I see you follow Plunders in detail 😂 because even I forgot about the car accident sentence.

[turbo-virgins]

Last night I received the following concerning anonymous message:

When I first read it I was immediately suspicious and thought this was a malicious attempt to start in-fighting while everyone is on edge over the sock-puppet oc-stealing individual that has been hovering around the fc5 community for some time now. However, at least one mutual I have in common with the blog named in the anon has since blocked me, which leads me to believe that the message above might be true and I am being accused of plagiarism. I have left that blog name covered up in case this is all some huge misunderstanding.

In the midst of these accusations, no one (aside from the anon) has reached out to make me aware of the situation or even what I am being accused of plagiarizing. I have reached out to the person who is supposedly accusing me to confirm whether or not they are actually accusing me, but have not yet received a response.

In the meantime I'm providing my limited perspective of the situation to (hopefully) clear the air.

When I first became active in the fc5 community on tumblr (about two years ago, I think?) I was mutuals with the redacted blog in the anonymous message. This person is a long-time prominent member in the community. Their oc and their deputy/john fanfic is well loved and very popular. Not too long after I joined the fandom I began writing my fic, Holy Roller which is a deputy/joseph fanfic centered around my oc, Delilah. It was inspired by a deputy/joseph fic on ao3 called To Build A Home (and I have an old message with a different mutual that I can dig up if requested in which I discuss the premise of that fic and how it inspired me).

In an attempt to be more active in the community, I started reading a few of my mutuals fanfic (including this person's fic). From time to time I would send asks/dms/leave tags in WIP posts leaving encouraging and positive feedback and just enjoying someone else's writing in general. I believe I only read up to chapter 3 or 4 of the fic of the person that is accusing me of plagiarism.

The only similar thing I am aware of between their fic and mine is that we both make allusions/references/allegories (whatever the correct term is) to the biblical book of judges and specifically within that book - the story of Samson and Delilah. When I realized that both of our ocs/other characters in the fic make a reference to Delilah, I remember sending them an ask about it because I thought their take on their oc being a stand-in for Delilah/Samson/some amalgamation of the two was neat. At the time I believe they referenced some biblical academic debate about several different accounts regarding Delilah - some in which she is painted as a victim rather than a seductress. If I recall correctly, they offered to send me a link to their reference material, but I don't remember if I ever got the link - all I know is that I never actually read through whatever reference they were using.

Shortly after this exchange (maybe a few days, maybe a week or two, I don't remember) this mutual blocked me (and I think I was blocked maybe a year and a half ago? I don’t remember; I don’t think I’ve interacted with this person in over a year though). At the time it did not occur to me that the Samson and Delilah references might be why they blocked me. I reached out to a mutual we had in common to see if I had done anything or reblogged anything that hurt or offended this person because whatever the issue was I wanted to apologize make it right. It is my understanding that this mutual we had in common asked this person directly and the reason I was given via a dm back from this mutual in common was "[they] are feeling Some Kind Of Way." I didn't know how to interpret that, so I assumed that by blocking me, this person was setting a boundary of some kind and didn't want me interacting with them. Since I thought they didn't want me interacting with their stuff, I didn't push the issue further and blocked them in return so that I wouldn't see their stuff cross my dash anymore. I also never read any further in their fic.

If I am correct about my assumptions and the accusations in question are regarding the Samson and Delilah references in both of our fics, I am not sure what to say other than it is a complete coincidence. I don't know how this person has been interpreting my own work, all I can offer is my own perspective and decisions I made about my oc, Delilah.

Below I have done my best to outline aspects of Delilah's character and my personal reasoning behind why she is the way she is:

When selecting Delilah's name I knew I wanted a biblical name since the fictional cult in fc5 is a christian-based cult. I briefly researched female biblical figures and I decided on Delilah because the name didn't strike me as super common and I wanted my oc to be a character who may be misunderstood and villainized by some but is still sympathetic - much like the biblical Delilah based on how you interpret/read into the biblical narrative. I believe the name Delilah also means "fragile" or "delicate." I liked the meaning behind her name because my oc is physically resilient which may at first glance seem at odds with her name, but she is emotionally and mentally very vulnerable which is NOT at odds with her name.

As far as physical appearance the closest thing Delilah has to a face-claim is Maya Hawk specifically from Stranger Things. I liked her hair style and some of the 80s-esque fashion she wears in some of her photoshoots. Delilah has kind of dark red hair and my line of thinking there was that Wrath = anger = red. In my fic, Delilah is at times an embodiment of Wrath much like the in-game fc5 deputy. In my writing she is frequently associated with the color red (to tie back into Wrath symbolism) while Joseph is associated with the color gold (based on a long character analysis post I wrote about his glasses a long time ago).

As previously stated, Delilah was intended to have some minor association made between her and the biblical figure. There is a scene early on in my fic where Delilah calls Joseph over the phone only for him to accuse her of being a spy attempting to get close to him and betray him which would (he says) ultimately lead to his downfall. I personally see Joseph as someone who projects himself and his experiences onto the biblical narrative and then uses that biblical narrative as evidence to justify his actions (sort of like an endless self re-enforcing confirmation bias feedback loop... thing). This is a pattern of behavior of his that is referenced in other places in my fic - specifically his in-game references to the book of revelation and then later in my fic to the book of job. It is my reasoning that, when Joseph encountered Delilah by chance at a bar, learned her name, and learned of her connection to the Hope County sheriff, that he was ready and willing to connect her to the biblical Delilah based both on their shared name and their specific circumstances. I believe that Joseph himself even hints at that in their dialogue.

The only other instance I can think of where my work sort of alludes to Samson and Delilah is a few hints and conversations where Delilah explains that she had a traumatic experience as a child where her hair was cut off against her will. Honestly the Samson and Delilah symbolism potential there is secondary to the fact that it was intended to reference my own childhood fears and insecurities. For reasons I won't get into, my hair has been a major part of my identity and how I present myself my whole life. There was a time where I did not have autonomy over my appearance and that manifested itself in this fear of having something so crucial to how I present myself taken away against my will.

This feeds into my next explanation: I have stated before that Delilah is not intended to be a self insert, however there are major aspects of her character and the way she is written that are pulled from my personal experiences. Her religious trauma, her toxic relationships with the maternal figures in her life, her self-doubt, her self-loathing, her deeply ingrained religious guilt, and the symptoms of her anxiety/panic attacks are all pulled from my own deeply personal life experiences. Delilah is a character who keeps everyone at arms length because she believes there is fundamentally something wrong with her - that her flaws are something to be covered up rather than accepted. And the point of her dynamic with Joseph in my fic was for her to find a source of unconditional love that she'd been craving, but to have that love come from someone incredibly fucked-up, dangerous, and manipulative.

As for how well I have executed these concepts - that is a matter of every reader's personal opinion and they have a right to that opinion. This fic I have been working on for approximately two years is the longest work I have ever written. I am inexperienced and still developing my style and skills as a writer. There are approximately four more chapters I have outlined before it will be complete.

I would like to reiterate that I have not yet received confirmation from the person supposedly accusing me on the specific details of what they think I plagiarized. The purpose of this post was to explain my thought process behind my oc and the plot of my fic - I wanted to demonstrate that there is real creative reasoning and intent behind my writing, that my interpretations of Joseph and my characterization of my oc Delilah are based on my own thoughts about fc5 canon material, and that any similarities between my work and someone else's is a coincidence and there is no malicious intent behind any fandom related content I've ever put out on my blog or on ao3.

If this is all a big misunderstanding, then I apologize and I would like to keep in place the boundaries that were set before I was ever made aware of any potential accusations.

[aros001]

Read through light novel vol. 11. Random thoughts.

Okay, right off the bat, this

is my favorite art in the books yet just because of how annoyed Naofumi looks.

It's always been a thing but I've been seeing it more in these last couple of books, especially in contrast to Sadeena and Alta, but I really like that Naofumi likes that Raphtalia will push back against him when she doesn't like something, be it his attitude, his action, or his ideas. He doesn't want a yes-man or someone who'll worship and never question him. Child Raphtalia was kind of his sidekick but adult Raphtalia is definitely his partner. They trust each other completely and they never have to worry about holding back their honest thoughts. This is especially important if there is to ever be a romantic relationship between the two of them. Romance is not supposed to be just the guy and his prize. Naofumi and Raphtalia I can see working as a couple because they genuinely see each other as equals.

So, as has been revealed so far, Trash's family, save for himself and his younger blind sister, were murdered by the hakuko. He hated Siltvelt because it's where the hakuko came from and his own kingdom for taking no action against them for those murders. Then later his sister was attacked by a hakuko and presumably murdered and possibly raped but the body was never found, thus pushing him to overthrow the king of Siltvelt because he was a hakuko.

And he hates the Devil of the Shield because...! ...A previous Shield Hero helped to found Siltvelt? I get that Siltvelt is a demi-human supremacist country and that it worships the Shield Hero but I feel like there's a little bit of a disconnect in Trash's hatred. I suppose his hatred for Naofumi didn't blow up until he thought he tried to force himself on Malty and before that he just treated him dismissively, but I can't help but feel like I'm missing something here. Also, didn't the previous Shield Hero die in Siltvelt a month into him being summoned? I get that hatred and the desire for revenge are not always very rational, especially when religion is thrown into the mix, but I feel like it's odd he's placed so much of it on Naofumi and the Shield Hero as a whole.

So Fohl and Alta are possibly the nephew and niece of Trash through his sister and the grandchildren of the hakuko king of Siltvelt whom he killed. Obviously I'm hoping Trash's sister wasn't raped to conceive them and that it was just a forbidden love like was one of Naofumi's theories, but I guess I'll find that out in a later book.

Also, poor Naofumi and poor Raphtalia. Either Alta wants to be with Naofumi (romantically or...) or she's on her way to becoming the new pope of the Church of the Shield Hero. She was reminding me a little bit of Neia from Overlord and her devotion to Ainz in the latter regard.

“Apparently there’s a new bandit chief that’s risen to power lately, and we’ll be wasting our time unless we capture him.” ... “That’s the thing. I don’t know all the details, but apparently the boss is really distrustful and rarely makes appearances. But he’s also supposed to be strong enough to pick off even the toughest of adventurers one by one without a problem.”

This is going exactly where I think it's going, isn't it?

[Five minutes later]

Yep.

Reading this book and I realized my main issue with Ren, beyond the issues he shares with the other two heroes, was how unbelievably condescending he'd been to Eclair, someone who knew her way with a sword WAY better than he did, just to protect his own ego after he would have lost if he hadn't cheated in their duel. That left a really bad taste in my mouth but it's still not as bad as what I dislike about Motoyasu and especially Itsuki. He hasn't yet specifically apologized for that but he is showing her a lot more respect and being clearly remorseful over his actions. Even him blaming his loss against the Spirit Tortoise on his party's weakness and not his own I could swallow fine because there was the implication that he was unable to deal with the guilt of it being his fault that they were all dead, which, while bad, is a very human thing to feel. As long as he takes his training seriously from this point on and doesn't regress back, I can look forward to his progress and his interactions with Naofumi.

I actually was slightly spoiled before I started reading the light novels that the other heroes were going to unlock their own curse series as well. It was minor because I didn't hear any specifics beyond that but the person I was reading I remember being really unhappy about it. Personally, I'm fine with it. The Holy Weapons are meant to be equal to each other so it makes sense they'd have similar unlockable abilities (relative to what each weapon is, of course). The reason Naofumi is so much stronger is supposed to be because he actually bothered to learn how to use his weapon and because he took how he was told to power it up seriously. If he had an ability the others had no equivalent of it would basically be cheating. Part of the criticism too was that Naofumi had been through so much worse than the others to unlock his curse series, but everyone has different levels of stress they can take and it definitely helps that, thus far, each curse series embodies a different sin and thus has different effects. Motoyasu is clearly being effected differently by his Spear of (I'm assuming) Lust than Naofumi is by the Shield of Wrath or Ren by the Sword of Greed.

Speaking of which, I'm not the only one who felt a big red flag over Motoyasu's Temptation ability, right? I'm not saying he would abuse such a thing but powers that force attraction on people always makes me feel very uncomfortable. Just the fact that it worked on Naofumi whom is both straight and can't stand Motoyasu shows it can work on pretty much anyone who doesn't have specific resistances. It's a scary thing, your romantic and sexual preferences being altered by an outside force. Like a date rape drug weaponized.

The whole controversy over RoTSH's first episode holds less and less weight the further into the series I go. Naofumi vs. Motoyasu I'd argue has several great examples of feminism vs. sexism throughout the story. Naofumi was horribly betrayed by Malty but he doesn't hate women or use what she did as an excuse to. He's simply distrustful of anyone who can potentially betray him and is put off by the idea of any romantic or sexual relationships. Motoyasu gets betrayed by Malty (and his two other party members) and now sees all women as pigs, save for Filo, whom he's now obsessed with. The stupid criticism of RoTSH was that the series had Malty representing all women; that all women lie about being sexually assaulted and that all women are horrible bitches. That is the mentality Motoyasu now has, judging all women by the actions of one.

“Mr. Ren . . . I’m sure you’ve felt just terrible this whole time after losing your companions. It’s okay to cry now. Don’t worry. Even if the whole world insists you’re a criminal, I still believe in you, Mr. Ren. I believe you were fighting for the sake of the world.”

I love how, even after everything else she's done, the thing that makes me hate Bitch almost as much, if not more, as when she made the false rape accusation was her plagiarizing the words Raphtalia had said to finally reach Naofumi's heart and earn his trust. It just felt like such a violation, sullying that moment so much that you just want Bitch to die almost as much as Naofumi does.

Though I suppose it's Witch now, huh? Doesn't have quite the same punch as Bitch but I don't want to call her the Witch Bitch because that's my nickname for Satella in Re:Zero and that's more a term of endearment ironically enough. I don't want to sully her by putting her in any kind of association with Malty.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/shieldbro/comments/fh9syh/read_through_light_novel_vol_11_random_thoughts/

[delicrieux]

I’d recently reread the HP books and remembered that there were a lot more things portrayed in the books rather than the movies. Can I request a reader insert where the reader is a Hufflepuff but is incredibly sassy and snarky, very unlike the stereotype? Perhaps they sass a teacher out of the classroom, with good old Harry Potter watching?

shout out to everyone rereading harry potter during quarantine. also tumbler dot com is not letting me put the read more thingie properly so shout out to tumbler hate it here xx

requests are open! | masterlist

You don’t know where the stereotype of Hufflepuffs being soft-spoken, spineless do-gooders came from, but you had taken it upon yourself to disprove it. Your very own personal rebellion against the perceived norm had created quite a reputation: snarky, witty, hard to impress. By all means, most assumed you had been wrongfully placed - you’d be more suited being a pretentious snob in Ravenclaw, or starting your reign of terror in Slytherin.

What students fail to realize is that you value hard work above absolutely everything. No amount of power, courage, or creative effort can overshadow the brilliance of diligence.

And to you there is no greater insult than when said work is dismissed and wrongfully evaluated.

It’s not the first time Harry has been accused of plagiarizing, even if he clearly constructed everything on his own. You are no teacher, just a very perceptive pupil, but even you can tell that his essay had been written entirely in his signature faux-academic style - as in, trying to sound smart, even if it’s obvious he doesn’t fully comprehend the subject he claims being an expert on - and the teacher’s absolute dismissal of this fact makes you frown. Perhaps you are biased - Harry, in all your six years of knowing him, had been nothing if not a bit of a kooky, though polite, acquaintance.

You had also seen him scribbling away at the Library days before the due date. By all means, the boy was trying. Teachers should be impersonal, but even she is susceptible to rumors and half-truths, as it seems. Fails him because of a straw-man argument that he “didn’t cite properly”, ending with a smug “You should be glad I am not expelling you, Mr. Potter.”

Harry looks as if he swallowed a shoe, anger contorting his handsome features but he, by some miracle, keeps his mouth shut. You, however, possess none of his recently acquired self control and pipe up with a simple, “May I say something, Miss Wood?”

She chirps a pleasant of course to one of her best students, oblivious to the verbal war you are about to start.  You are cold and precise - because precision is the core of any argument. Give her no room to twist your words. Explain, cleanly and concisely, that if anyone would compile a corpus of Potter’s essays over the years, the similarities would be impossible to dismiss, therefore proving that his ideas are entirely his own; say that you have personally seen him slaving away at the Library; point out that all his sources are written properly, along with the citations, and that his work is worth at least an 80%.

“Although, if you wish to fail him, or lower his grade, do it because of his shaky argument structure, or lack of a proper closing line, not because of the plagiarism he didn’t even do.” You finish. Harry, who had been staring at you, eyes wide behind his glasses, a mixture of shock and happiness reflecting on his features, flushes red. No, no one escapes your wrath. Miss Wood is no saint, but he isn’t a perfect scholar either.

The absolute silence following your diatribe makes you wickedly content - Miss Wood has no reply to this, gaping at you dumbly, her fingers grasping Harry’s essay just a tad too tight. The class may as well be an oil painting backdrop; it’s quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

“Yes, well...” She finally says, a flicker of embarrassment straining her voice, “Adequate point, Miss (Lastname). Worthy of, uh, consideration.” She shuffles the papers briefly, setting them down and flattening her robes - an action meant to be soothing and inconspicuous, but nothing escapes your eye. She smiles, crooked and quick, “Let me just, uh, get the Reference Guide from the library. I’ll be right back.”

She exists in a swift, rigid step, and the silence lasts only till the door shuts behind her. The class erupts into chatter. Harry grins, shooting you a thumbs-up, “Thanks, (Name).” He says, and you smile back at him.

No, you didn’t do it for him specifically - your intention was to protect the virtue of hard work and transparency. You were defending an idea...

...Yeah, okay, you also wanted to do something nice for him, too, since the absolute hell that is his life worries you. At least you managed to cheer him up; managed to show him that not everyone is out to get him.

That’s all that matters in the end.

.

hope you liked it! xxx

.

[camryndaytona]

Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare is one of the most popular and successful young adult authors of today, however, a huge percentage of her fans have no idea of her past where she was know more for her bullying than her writing. I started this as a post on my “You Should Know” instagram, but eventually it got way too big and I had to create a post for it as well.

Terms to Know

Big Name Fan

Or “BNF” is an old term mostly used during the early 2000s, before ff.net or AO3.

They were the biggest names in fandom, producing the most popular art or fanfics.

Getting on the wrong side of a BNF could lock you out from the entire fandom, as you would be blocked from any forum they (or they friends) moderated.

The Inner Circle

In the early 2000s the Harry Potter fandom was essentially ruled by the Inner Circle. 

Although most of the Inner Circle changed constantly due to fandom drama and scandals, one member stayed for almost it’s entire duration: Cassie Claire

ff.net

Fanfiction.net

One of the early and most popular sites for hosting fanfiction.

The Draco Trilogy

Draco Dormiens

Author’s Summary: When an accident in Potions class turns Harry into Draco and Draco into Harry, each is trapped playing the part of the other. Romance, mistaken identities, Really Cunning Plans, evil bake sales, a love triangle, and snogs galore.

Draco Sinister

Author’s Summary: When Hermione is kidnapped, Harry and Draco must team up to rescue her from a thousand-year-old evil that threatens the entire wizarding world. Cursed demon swords, love potions, time travel, dementors, flying dragons, Draco wears leather, and everybody dies at least once. Except when they don’t.

It is notable for being the source of the Draco in Leather Pants trope as well as the catalyst for the Cassandra Claire plagiarism wank.

Draco Veritas

Author’s Summary: The sequel to Draco Sinister, featuring winter at Hogwarts, snogging, Quidditch, mysterious things and Rhysenn Malfoy.

Why was the Trilogy so popular?

As most people in fandom probably know, there’s usually two subsets of shippers: gay and straight (please note that, back in the early 2000s, there was still a lot of homophobia, and the heterosexual ships were undeniably more popular for that reason).

Since The Draco Trilogy had both Draco/Hermione and a lot of Harry/Draco subtext, fans of both ships flocked to the fic.

The Plagiarism 

Although she’d done it all along, it wasn’t until the second fanfic, Draco Sinister, that fans began to catch on. What was “it?”

Cassie including a lot of quotations from other work. And I mean a LOT. She lifted entire conversations and paragraphs from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Black Adder, Red Dwarf, and Terry Pratchett. At first she didn’t even mention this “inspiration,” so everyone assumed that this wit was all hers.

Once she was called out, she put a standard disclaimer at the top of her work, which was worded to imply that she might have borrowed a few, small quotes here and there, not that she was taking paragraphs and scenes. When she was called out for her continued plagiarism she switched to claiming that she “forgot” what her sources were.

Finally a former fan called Avocado got tired of it and reported her to ff.net. Within a day her works were taken down.

Predictably the fandom melted down over this and accusations began to fly. Cassie used her status as a BNF to ban anyone mildly critical of her from any message board or mailing list. A friend of Cassie’s claimed to be a real life lawyer and harrassed young fans with seemingly legal threats. There are even threats of people calling the police in an early form of “swatting.” Cassie tried to get a “hater” kicked out of university for “hacking” her and a REAL lawyer had to be involved before Cassie admitting to making it all up.

After all that began to die down, as she was working on the third installment of the trilogy, Cassie began accusing her friend and fellow BNF, Aja, of plagiarizing her. When that failed to incite the anger she wanted against Aja, Cassie began to claim that Aja was posting leaked spoilers for the Draco Trilogy. This infighting between the two lead to the collapse of The Inner Circle.

Laptop Gate

Although the third part of the Trilogy wasn’t as popular as the first two, due to the plagiarism scandal, it still racked up a ton of views when she began posting it. So when there was a potential threat to the continuation of the saga, readers were horrified.

This potential threat was a break in and the loss of Cassie’s computer.

Almost immediately after the robbery was announced Cassie’s lawyer friend (who was also her roommate) popped up again. This time, they were raising money to replace the laptops of Cassie and her roommates that had been stolen in the break in. Any extra money from the fundraiser would go to some vaguely mentioned charity.

Divisive comments poured in.

Some people expressed frustration that more “meaningful” fundraisers (like someone who had lost everything in a fire) didn’t get anywhere near as much attention and support.

Fans were even less happy when no proof was provided of either the break in or the charitable donation of excess funds (which was reported to be over $10,000).

When called out they changed the subject and posted links to another fan that was also fundraising (although they never posted any charity before or after, even when asked to do so the lawyer friend claimed to be “too busy” to share a link).

Published Works

After enjoying her celebrity as the Queen of Fanfiction, it’s no surprise that Cassie decided to venture into actual, original published works.

Except they weren’t that original, because it’s Cassie and she really, really seems to like “borrowing” from herself and others.

Let’s start with some name changes

Cassie

Cassandra Claire (with an i) is her fanfiction name

Cassandra Clare (without an i) is her published name

You may be surprised by how well this name change suited her. For a long time, before exposes began to be posted, you could google her published name without finding out about her history in fandom. Additionally, some of her victims from her fanfic days read her published books without realizing who the author actually was (until they started to recognize the quotes and paragraphs that she’d lifted straight from her fanfiction)

Her Writing

“Mortal Instruments” is Cassie’s Ginny/Ron incest romance fanfiction.

“The Mortal Instruments” is Cassie’s published work, about two fake siblings who fall in love with each other.

Similarities to Harry Potter

Now I haven’t read Mortal Instruments or The Mortal Instruments so I’ll let someone who has read them both do some explaining:

When I opened the book, I knew that Clary was Ginny. Alec was Harry. Isabelle was Clare’s version of Blaise (who back then was not officially male or female, and could therefore be interpreted by fandom either way). Valentine was a strange mixture of Lucius and Voldemort. And Jace, of course, was undeniably Draco.

Jace is so Draco, in fact, that it’s impossible to see him as his own character. The way Clare characterizes Jace is the exact same way she characterized her Draco. They share lines (the ones she didn’t steal from Buffy, of course), they share nervous tics, they share appearances, and they even share memories. The second I read the scene in which Jace tells Clary the story about the boy and the falcon, I felt an unpleasant jolt of recognition: that story is one Draco tells in one of the Draco Trilogy installments. I couldn’t remember which one. I couldn’t even remember who Draco told it to (Harry? Ginny? Hermione?). But I knew it was if not word for word taken from her fanfiction, it was very, very close.

Yikes. That’s a lot of similarities.

The same person I quoted about went on to say that the fanfiction was still much better than her published work, and that she’d rather re-read the fanfic than the non-fanfic.

Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dark Hunters

Almost immediately after The Mortal Instruments (the non-fanfic one) became popular, Sherrilyn Kenyon slapped it with a lawsuit for copying her urban fantasy series, Dark Hunters.

Kenyon fans attacked Claire fans, Cassie’s history was brought to light, and Cassie got to pull out her favorite argument “you hate me because I’m Jewish.” Which is interesting, because I’ve been working on this for two weeks, and I only just learned that she’s Jewish when I read about her accusing others of anti-Semitism.

Now as Cassie apologists will tell you, Kenyon did ultimately lose that suit, but it’s really, really starting to get repetitive over here.

I’ll borrow a quote from Ryan Givens, “If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” Or in this case, maybe you’re the plagiarist.

Common Questions

Has Cassie apologized for this?

She did occasionally

Has Cassie changed?

My opinion is no. She’s not.

Let’s see, as the “Queen of YA Literature” she has:

used Copy Right strikes to prevent people from calling out problematic passages in her books

sent her fans after critics

posted a hilariously ironic blog about cyber bullying

attacked her OWN FANS because they didn’t like the ending of a book

currently complains about people posting her real name (which is Judith Rumelt, in case you wanted to know) despite her own history of publishing people’s actual phone numbers online

Calls critics anti-Semetic while having this quote in her book

Claims that she was threatened when someone called her friend an “ignorant duck” 

Loves Token Minorities

Wrote a questionable almost rape

My Thoughts

I don’t like Cassie.

I really don’t.

And look, I’m not saying that Cassie is a narcissist, but here’s a fun little saying called The Narcissist’s Prayer:

That didn’t happen. And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, that’s not my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did… You deserved it.

Does any of that sound familiar, because it should. It’s basically Cassie’s text book responce of “avoid admitting fault until there’s too much proof, say I didn’t do it on purpose, blame someone else, claim to be the victim, find another person to accuse of drama.”

Now I’m going to again quote from ProblematicYA because I absolutely love their writing. In this quote, they’re talking about how all of Cassie’s books, even those set in different times or cities, follow the same pattern. Non-Shadowhunter meets Shadowhunter (who is basically Draco).

So what’s really my problem? My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is a marginally talented writer who has one story and one cast of characters up her sleeve, and yet somehow she’s sold millions and millions of books based on this. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series was partially copied from her fanfiction trilogy, which copied a plethora of other authors, not even including J.K. Rowling, who provided her with the characters, premise, and setting for her beloved trilogy. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is in the authorly equivalent of a time loop, and has come full circle. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is, in essence, writing fanfiction of her own work, and it is getting published and she is getting paid bank for it, when other far more original and talented authors are getting absolutely nothing for their hard work. I may despise Stephenie Meyer and the world she’s created, but at least Twilight and its accompanying works are her own original product; at least she deserves to reap the benefits of the crazy fandom she’s inspired.

Look. I don’t believe in dredging up ancient history just to hurt people. Shit we did when we were teens shouldn’t be held against us as adults. People grow and change a lot from what they were as teens.

But bitch, you actually have to GROW AND CHANGE. And Cassie hasn’t.

Also, try actually apologizing for what you’ve done instead of silencing critics.

Sources and More Information

As always, I love, love, love fanlore and I linked to many of their articles throughout this post.

A user on the HobbyDrama subreddit made a great write up called The Cassandra Cla(i)re Saga.

ProblematicYA wrote several amazing articles on the subject:

Why I Have A Problem With Cassandra Clare and Why You Should Too

anti-bullying ya queen cassandra clare is a massive bully. water also wet.

They also have an entire tag dedicated to Cassie

Alli6 wrote Things you should Know

Cassandra Clare, Rape Culture, and the Oft-Forgotten Metaphor by The Book Lantern.

SnarkTheater also has pages of things tagged as Cassie Claire, including chapter by chapter break downs of the books.

source http://camryndaytona.com/2020/06/cassandra-clare?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cassandra-clare

[sapphire-rosa]

On Plagiarism, Fanfiction, and Ethics

Having just read the Cassandra Claire Debacle post, I am both horrified and faintly relieved ... but also anxious.

I have read a lot of books, both published fiction and fanfiction, and I often do worry about whether elements from other people’s writing has accidentally crept into any of my own. 

On the one hand, I am relieved because nothing I do by accident could ever plumb the depths of CC’s frankly alarming and preposterous level of deliberate plagiarism. At the same time, I am increasingly nervous in case I do put anything into my work that looks too similar to anything else. 

As an historian I have had The Vital Importance Of Correct And Complete Citations drilled into my skull a thousand times, and I can tell you now that whatever CC or any of her acolytes may claim, if I had done what she did and submitted it as an assignment to any of my professors I would have had my ass handed to me with no ceremony whatsoever, and would very probably have been kicked out of college. 

Plagiarism is not just a legal concern - it is an ethical concern, and this is what so many people seem to be missing here. I don’t care if you can or cannot be sued for copypasting other people’s work into nonprofit fanfiction. I don’t make money off my essays, but I would still be taken to the cleaner’s for not using proper citations and essentially passing off someone else’s work as my own.

Whether or not CC can be legally accused of plagiarism is beside the point, honestly. What bothers me is that she saw the need to copypaste such extensive passages into her fanfiction. If you can’t come up with good enough dialogue and description on your own, then you have two options: 

Go to your local library and borrow every single guidebook on effective writing. Sign up for writing courses. Ask questions of people you know who are good writers (and who don’t see the need to ‘borrow’ other people’s words). Make a nuisance of yourself. Practice, practice, practice until you find your style and can weave words into a beautiful, original picture. That’s how most of us do it. 

Much simpler, much less difficult, much less labour-intensive - DON’T PRETEND YOU CAN WRITE. DO SOMETHING ELSE INSTEAD. 

Now, I am aware that CC has in fact now published her own works, and they have been made into movies and TV series. I haven’t read the books. I saw the movie before I knew about her plagiarism. 

I can’t speak for her original work. I don’t know whether she plagiarizes. However, I will say that a leopard doesn’t easily change its spots. She may have been much more careful (she’d have to be!) once writing for the public and for profit - but a lazy, dishonest, unethical, dangerous habit is still a habit, and it’s all too easy to let habits creep back in even when you’re trying not to. 

In conclusion, I now have absolutely no desire to read CC’s work or see the TV series, because as a writer myself, her behaviour with fanfiction leaves a distinctly unpleasant taste in my mouth. Her laziness and dishonesty in the past make me feel uncomfortable, especially in light of her fame in the public eye today. 

I would also very much appreciate it if people who read my work would let me know if they feel anything is too similar to someone else’s work. I can’t think of anything worse than accidentally being the next CC. 

If I have unwittingly lifted anything from your work, please tell me so that I can rectify it immediately. I love my fellow writers and would hate to be the cause of any upset or offence to you. We all work so hard to create beautiful and wonderful things for ourselves and others - anyone who tries to take advantage of that and use it to promote themselves is unconscionably selfish. 

[ohcaptaintarthister]

When No One Has Something to Say. . .

A bunch of lies!

Seems like my post on being plagiarized is making the rounds and people are making a lot of false assumptions about it. It’s reached the point where I had to leave a comment on another author’s work to clarify that she wasn’t the subject of the note. Why? Because someone told her she is. Here’s the link of the mysterious (eyeroll) No One telling the writer I was accusing her of copying me:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13509390/chapters/31217595 My reply: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13509390/chapters/31238289

I’d rather put this drama behind me. Laugh all you want but I didn’t write that note to call attention to myself, rather to point out that people shouldn’t get away with doing something wrong AND to push writers to write more original works. But having learned that some trolls are taking advantage of a situation to ALARM a writer WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, it was necessary to write this.

As advised, I have already filed a report with AO3. That’s just the first. I will be filing another because, yep, you guessed it, it wasn’t only one author copying my works. Not just one! More than one author, more than one of my fanfics. The really sad thing is I enjoyed the previous JB fanfics they have written. I believe we started writing in AO3 pretty much at the same time. 

They are not very active--compared to me, anyway. Call it a strange coincidence but I noticed that after I would post my fanfics, they would post as well and they are EERILY similar to mine. There was one that was practically word-for-word (here we go again). And one more! And another! Holy fuck. 

I haven’t filed the second report because I’m re-reading this second author’s other works. It’s not just one fanfic that she copied. I want to make sure. Seems important to emphasize that I don’t cruise around accusing people because I’m bored. There’s too much going on in real life to feel bored.  To those who are taking this opportunity to use MY SITUATION to insinuate to other authors that I’m accusing them--FUCKING DON’T.  Oh, you poor dears. Day by day it’s becoming more obvious what has happened to the JB fandom because of your actions. Seriously. You don’t like how an author writes, move on. You hate how a writer writes white-hot smut, move on too. You’re making your insecurities known. Really. 

I’d like to point out that the author in the links I provided wrote AN ORIGINAL JB fanfic. Original. She writes smut like I do BUT HERS IS DIFFERENT. How do I know? I read her. I rarely leave kudos and comments but believe me, there are works I follow. Hers is one of them. That’s how I know.  Shame on you for projecting your insecurities on another writer who clearly works hard on her fanfic and is gaining a following. Stop with those stupid prompts that only you and your gang read and enjoy and start writing whatever the fuck you want. It might do you some good. 

I’m not trying to destroy the fanddom (although there’s a cray-cray lady who believes my contrary opinions regarding certain behaviors of JB fans have as much devastating power as Mjolnir), believe it or not. I am not. I am not. What I want, and I believe what we we all want, are awesome, ORIGINAL stories of Jaime and Brienne. If you love their characters, write them the stories they deserve. Long after George RR Martin has finished the books, we know that won’t be the end of Jaime and Brienne. They are his characters but they are also ours. Ours because no matter their fate, they will always live in our fanfics. Just make sure you write an original story. 

Oh, and No One, whoever you are, stop drinking whatever cheap poison you have in your liquor cabinet. A sip of Moet MIGHT help you think.  Yeah. Just to think. And then maybe get a fucking job like the rest of us.

[writingquestionsanswered]

[1] I’ve been working on this story for about three years or so now, except it was only today that I was absolutely horrified to find out it’s similar to a book that’s already been published, Dance of Shadows by yelena Black. The bare bones that this book and my story share are that a girl joins a ballet academy to find out the truth of what happened to her older sister, who also went there and ended up dead, and both stories kind of have paranormal elements?

[2] Like, ghosts in mine and some demonic force in the other book or something like that I honestly don’t remember. And now that I’ve realized this, I can’t unsee it. Is this plagiarism? I truly didn’t mean to copy the other book AT ALL but I *have* read it so I’m worried that it *will* come off as copying! I’m so worried sick that I could throw up.

[3] I *did* read dance of shadows before I started writing my own story, but I didn’t care for it that much so it was never in my thoughts after that and I wasn’t, you know, consciously thinking of it as I was writing. I’ve invested everything in my story and it really means a lot to me, but now I’m worried that I can never publish it or if I did, I’d face a lawsuit. What should I do? What can I do? I mean, I know you’re not a lawyer, but if you had any advice, it would be nice.

[4] There are differences in the stories - like mine deals a lot with mental health, specifically depression/suicide/abuse and there are two main characters instead of one and also the book has a lot of queer characters, and for instance, the two female main characters fall in love instead of the heterosexual love triangle in the other book. But I’m still so worried that this is not enough to set it apart. Do you think this is plagiarism and I can never get my own story published?

———————————————————————————————————–

Yes, unfortunately, that does sound too similar and could potentially be considered plagiarism, even if you didn’t do it knowingly.The thing about plagiarism is it happens when you take someone else’s unique ideas or specific wording and try to pass it off as your own–even if you don’t realize you’re doing it. The fact that you’d previously read this novel suggests it’s probably unintentional plagiarism rather than a coincidence. And “unique” is the key phrase here, because basic ideas are never unique. It’s all the individual layers you put on top of them that make the idea unique. “Vampire love story” isn’t a unique idea. A vampire love story that takes place at a magical school in Victorian Era London and deals with court intrigue leading to a scandal in Queen Victoria’s court–that’s a unique idea.“Girl attends ballet school and deals with supernatural forces” isn’t a unique idea. But “girl attends ballet school from which her older sister previously went missing and deals with supernatural forces”–that’s a unique idea. Those diversity elements do help to make your idea unique, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the bare bones are identical to DoS.That said, as much is it sucks, I think you’re going to have to change some things. Instead of it being the character’s older sister, could it be a friend or just someone she didn’t know? And instead of the girl going missing, could it be that she was found dead and no one ever knew how it happened? These are just a couple of changes you could make that would further differentiate your story from DoS. Also, I would make sure it’s not the same ballet academy and try to make yours as different as possible. Like, instead of it being a typical ballet school in the city, why not make an old mansion in a mountain town, the home of some washed up eccentric ballerina who started her own dance school? That’s something else that could make your story more unique, and a major setting shift like that will create all kinds of other unique differences.So, bottom line–you do have to change those things if you want to avoid plagiarism and a potential lawsuit, but those changes shouldn’t upset your story too much. It’s just a little revision, and you will end up with an even better, more unique finished product. :)

Best of luck to you!

ETA: Related question:

anonymous asked: I had a question regarding that anon who was talking about plagiarism. You said it 'could potentially be considered plagiarism, even if you didn’t do it knowingly,' but I thought things were only plagiarism if you did it on purpose? I don't understand how something could be plagiarism if someone didn't knowingly do it - then it would just be a coincidence, wouldn't it?

If you’re not at all familiar with the work–you’ve never read it, never heard about it–then yeah, it would be a coincidence. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. In this case, Anon had read the work in question. So because her story was so specifically similar to that work, even if she didn’t realize she was doing it, she did plagiarize the work. Somewhere in her brain, those ideas were stored away and she called upon them when she plotted out her story, even if it was on a subconscious level Could it still be a coincidence that she came up with a story so specifically similar to the one she read? I don’t know, but what I do know is that when it comes to something that specific, it doesn’t matter whether or not you did it on purpose. It’s better to just make the changes than to risk anyone accusing you of plagiarism. :)

[foamsyrop]

The product of plagiarism: Ten miles of peach blossoms - Tang Qi Gong Zi.

Hello friends,

I have no idea if you guys have ever heard about the Chinese film called “Three lifetimes - Ten miles of peach blossom”(?) or something like that. But if you do, please think carefully before you buy a ticket.

You can search #‎三生三世十里桃花抄袭 or “tang qi plagiarism” for more information.

Here’s something you need to know about that movie in a nutshell:

- Back in 2007, a famous BL-novel author “Windy” (Da Fung Gui Wo - 大风刮过) wrote a book called “Peach Blossom Debt” (桃花债).

- After that “Tang Qi” (T7 - 唐七) committed plagiarism, use “Windy” work and passed it off as her own! “Tang Qi” named it “三生三世十里桃花” (Three lifetimes: Ten miles of peach blossoms). Besides, “Tang Qi” has stole ideas from many more BL-novel authors, not only “Windy”: especially “Joyful” (公子欢喜).

- Base on comparisons between “Peach Blossom Debt” and “Three lifetimes”, you can see they are really similar - up to 70% (the comparison is illustrated in the link down below). The only difference is: “Three lifetimes” is NOT a BL-novel, is BxG (shoujo) one. That makes a big difference.

The Chinese government does not like homosexual, BL-novels are technically illegal in China. That’s the first reason why “Three lifetimes” is a plagiarized work but still getting more popular. “Windy” CAN NOT sue the thief, because the judge won’t support her… Plus, “Windy” is quite timid so she just don’t want to fight.

- In fact, “Tang Qi” has a group of professionals with connections that backs her up. That explains why she can't be sue and got famous so fast.

“Tang Qi” has a terrible personality, she even mocked “Windy”: “My book is already published, what about yours? Oh, they weren’t? Do you need help from me?” “Plagiarize, plagiarize my ass.”

~Wrote by mydramalist/fudanshidesu: “The original novel is BL-themed. Needless to say, BL-themed stuff is low-profile and pretty much illegal (read underground) in China. Knowing DaFeng would have a hard time fighting the establishment, Tang Qi took DaFeng’s novel and rewrote it. She replaced homosexual characters with heterosexual characters to cater to mainstream audience… added a little spice here and there and voila! TangQi’s very own novel was born.

There’s more to the story…

Tang Qi was bold, she even made fake accounts to talk about her novels on Da Feng’s pages, she posted sh*t in the comment sections under Da Feng’s novels… Girl basically went gaga!

When people found out what TangQi was doing, things got ugly and our anti-hero, Tang Qi, decided to go full scale war. She created an account pretending to be Da Feng… Blah blah blah… Long story short, her actions harmed Da Feng’s reputation.

Today, Tang Qi is a well-known “writer” in Mainland China. So, we know the truth now! She’s a thief, who feeds and lives off of other people’s creativity, their time and effort.

If you decide to read the book/watch “Eternal Love”, please keep the above in mind and give proper credits to DaFeng, the real mind behind the story.”

- After all, “Windy” told her fans: “She (Tang Qi) did not write the story on her own but she’s still more famous than me. That’s because I’m not good enough.” – Said the author who has best-selling BL-novels, why??

It’s a long story since 2008… Hundreds of famous authors, artists, cosplayer, composer,… shared Windy’s article and boycotted “Tang Qi”; Many people hashtagged #一起来撕抄袭书, torn off “Three lifetimes” to make “Tang Qi” see their anger: http://www.weibo.com/p/100808ee2c9c99efe1425beac07329883de84f?k=%25E4%25B8%2580%25E8%25B5%25B7%25E6%259D%25A5%25E6%2592%2595%25E6%258A%2584%25E8%25A2%25AD%25E4%25B9%25A6&from=526&_from_=huati_topic.

- BUT HERE’S THE WORST PART. In 2015, they started to make “Three lifetimes” into a TV drama and movie, afraid of “Tang Qi” plagiarism responsible for low profits, that film crew bought off Weibo’s staffs, ERASED all the hashtags, articles, images,… that accused “Tang Qi” and “Three lifetimes” of stealing ideas from the search bar, to keep a lid on her plagiarism…

This is wrong. The true artist cannot gain anything, even lost her right just because she wrote a BL-novel. Are ONLY heterosexual loves beautiful, o-kay, worthy? But same-sex loves should be hidden away, ruined like that?

And what about the true talented authors, who went with their guts on their works?

- “Tang Qi” not only plagiarized BL-novel authors once but more than 5! And 2 of them had been made into film in Mainland Chinese… If the film crew hadn’t had bought off Weibo, “Three lifetimes” wouldn’t have been this popular, I believe so.

- So, if that movie will be in your area, please consider before buying the ticket!

- - - - -

Note:

(1) The comparison between “Peach Blossom Debt” and “Three Lifetimes”:

https://tieba.baidu.com/p/3573276406?pn=1 (more than 10 parts).

In English (short version): https://hamster428.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/plagiarism-allegations-against-tqgz/

(2) Even its drama poster, OST, and “book” cover is plagiarized too:

http://m.weibo.cn/5802830735/4070336805431010

http://m.weibo.cn/1875808141/4081929105563790

(3) Tang Qi has published some books, and 3 of them have been accused of plagiarism, but still being printed. Why? Because BL-novel authors can’t sue her!

More than 30 Tang Qi’s “characters” are the copy-cat of characters made by Joyful. Such as one of Tang Qi’s main male character who is in purple and silver hair→ it is EXACTLY THE SAME as Joyful’s character whose name 勖扬天君.

(4) Faking accounts, cyberbullying, back-stabbing,... Read more about filthy tricks Tang Qi has done here: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10203680700097895&id=273489969522688

[very-merry-sioux]

What amuses and saddens me about newer fandoms’ intense policing in content is that if you applied it to real life, it would be an obvious dictatorship. They don’t seem to realize that there are plenty of published works out there that have similar content to what they’re raging about. Pedophilia, incest, violence, gore, BDSM, and any kind of gritty, kinky thing you can think of.

Newer fictional works I can think of that has these “problematic content that makes people pedophilic incestous violent sexual devils”: Fifty Shades of Gray, Hannibal, and Game of Thrones. Even Twilight can be pedophilic with how Jacob imprints on a child.

Older fictional works I can think of: Star Wars (or did you guys conveniently forget the canon incest scene that happened in one of the movies?), Cardcaptor Sakura (had an elementary schoolgirl being proposed by a teacher, and she accepted, Sakura’s parents are a little better but not much - mom was in highschool and dad was in college when they dated, I CAN GO ON - CLAMP GENERALLY HAS WEIRDASS RELATIONSHIPS), and Harry Potter (beyond the violence, there’s also the part that you’ll symphasize with Merope, the one who drugged a man and raped him constantly until they had a child).

Let’s go older: Lolita, Silence of The Lambs, every horror film and game ever.

Let’s go even older: Oedipus Rex.

Can we get older? Yes we can: Literally any story about the adventures of Zeus’ cock, and the whole family tree of the Ancient Egyptian gods. And also their royal family.

You wanna know the reason why people would rather police works instead of actual pedophiles and sexual harrassers? Actual rapists? You wanna know why they’d rather go for an artist or writer who created something “evil”? Because it’s easier to burn a book rather than completely uproot a rapist and sexually abusive culture. They want to vent, they want to control. They’re ignorant and angry.

So fictional works that have content that is not child friendly and not safe for work? That can be gross and triggerry? That can be depraved and inhumane? They’ve always been there. Yes, it’s problematic that a lot of people online are perverts and harass others. Yes, it’s sad that filtering content is not 100% perfect in archiveofourown (ao3) and other sites most deemed evil. But newsflash: neither is Tumblr.

I’ve read posts about people saying how they encountered horrific content even though they used tags and filtering when they venture ao3, and is therefore bad. I’ve read posts about how they’re part of the Old Fandom and support this extreme policing of content because they were harassed.

If that’s the case, ignore that site and leave. You don’t burn a library to take care of a problem, you don’t shoot a writer to defend justice, and you don’t scream at a book to get what you want. The worst thing to happen to a show is when nobody watches it anymore. The worst fate of a book is when nobody touches it. It’s the same with fanfiction, especially since it’s free content. Don’t like it? Don’t read it.

I remember there was an issue about the Deadpool movie, how it was too violent and crude for children. Parents complained about it. There were two points Reynolds said about that. One, the movie is not for kids. Two, why are you bringing your kids to watch it?

It’s the same logic. If the content is not for you, stop watching/looking/reading it. Internet is more flexible than published works, true. But it was WORSE before. No safe search, no tags, little warnings, literal surpise buttsex in fanfiction, and porn galore. It’s young, much younger than the movie and book industry, so of course its warning system isn’t as perfect as the real word. The older fandoms tried and did a good job considering the messy lawsuits that appeared, what happens now is mostly on newer fandoms. And you guys have a better start since the stigma of fanfiction has lessened.

You don’t burn Fifty Shades of Gray to keep bdsm content from you, and you don’t accuse the writers of Deadpool for being evil because they wrote a Marvel script that isn’t child-friendly. You compromise, you create a system, and you try to understand why these fictional works exist.

Let me try this policing and anti logic newer fandoms have, to see if it has sense.

I’ve seen more porn blogs and bullies in this site than the amount of alpha-beta smut in ao3. I’ve had porn blogs reblog my art of a child with his guardians (for my followers, it’s my [tiny and terrifyingly cute au]). I’ve had porn blogs reblog my posts about the accounts of victims of torture from my country’s martial law. I’ve never had ao3 writers plagiarize my work for porn. I’ve seen more people attacking someone who draws fanart rather than someone who creates those disgusting blogs. From that logic, anyone who uses Tumblr must be evil.

Of course, you’d defend that not all of you are like that. You’d defend that you’re fixing it. You’d defend it’s not that simple.

And what? You don’t think people from older fandoms aren’t trying? We’re all disgusting pedophiles? You think that our problems are simple? That most of us aren’t trying to give warnings and tags? That filtering content is easy? Tumblr failed so badly in doing that!

So instead of being angry that somebody posted their works, maybe consider you’re a problem yourself. There’s a difference between reality and fiction. I don’t expect the writer of Silence of the Lambs to do cannibalism, I don’t expect Ryan Reynolds to be a red ninja assasin who’s crude. I don’t expect Anne Rice, writer of vampiric sexy times, to be evil by sexually harassing her fans. She’s already an asshole without being erotic. H.P Lovecraft was also an asshole, just so you know. He didn’t have to write gratuitous smut to do it.

I know it’s easier to judge someone based on their fics and art, but either take the time to actually know them or ignore them altogether. Never judge a book by its warnings, and never judge an author by their books.

[phonglinh1909]

Hello friends, I have no idea if you guys have ever heard about the Chinese film called “Three lifetimes - Ten miles of peach blossom”(?) or something like that. But if you do, please think carefully before you buy a ticket. You can search #‎三生三世十里桃花抄袭 or “tang qi plagiarism” for more information. Here’s something you need to know about that movie in a nutshell: - Back in 2007, a famous BL-novel author “Windy” (Da Fung Gui Wo - 大风刮过) wrote a book called “Peach Blossom Debt” (桃花债). - After that “Tang Qi” (T7 - 唐七) committed plagiarism, use “Windy” work and passed it off as her own! “Tang Qi” named it “三生三世十里桃花” (Three lifetimes: Ten miles of peach blossoms). Besides, “Tang Qi” has stole ideas from many more BL-novel authors, not only “Windy”: especially “Joyful” (公子欢喜). - Base on comparisons of “Peach Blossom Debt” and “Three lifetimes”, you can see they are really similar - up to 70% (the comparison is illustrated in the link down below). The only difference is: “Three lifetimes” is NOT a BL-novel, is BxG (shoujo) one. That makes a big difference. The Chinese government does not like homosexual, BL-novels are technically illegal in China. That’s the first reason why “Three lifetimes” is a plagiarized work but still getting more popular. “Windy” CANNOT sue the thief, because the judge won’t support her… Plus, “Windy” is quite timid so she just don’t want to fight. - In fact, “Tang Qi” has a group of professionals with connections that backs her up. That explains why she can’t be sue and got famous so fast. “Tang Qi” has a terrible personality, she even mocked “Windy”: “My book is already published, what about yours? Oh, they weren’t? Do you need help from me?” “Plagiarize, plagiarize my ass.” ~Wrote by mydramalist/fudanshidesu: “The original novel is BL-themed. Needless to say, BL-themed stuff is low-profile and pretty much illegal (read underground) in China. Knowing DaFeng would have a hard time fighting the establishment, Tang Qi took DaFeng’s novel and rewrote it. She replaced homosexual characters with heterosexual characters to cater to mainstream audience… added a little spice here and there and voila! TangQi’s very own novel was born. There’s more to the story… Tang Qi was bold, she even made fake accounts to talk about her novels on Da Feng’s pages, she posted sh*t in the comment sections under Da Feng’s novels… Girl basically went gaga! When people found out what TangQi was doing, things got ugly and our anti-hero, Tang Qi, decided to go full scale war. She created an account pretending to be Da Feng… Blah blah blah… Long story short, her actions harmed Da Feng’s reputation. Today, Tang Qi is a well-known “writer” in Mainland China. So, we know the truth now! She’s a thief, who feeds and lives off of other people’s creativity, their time and effort. If you decide to read the book/watch “Eternal Love”, please keep the above in mind and give proper credits to DaFeng, the real mind behind the story.” After all, “Windy” told her fans: “She (Tang Qi) did not write the story on her own but she’s still more famous than me. That’s because I’m not good enough.” – Said the author who has best-selling BL-novels, why?? It’s a long story since 2008… More than 50 authors, artists, cosplayer, composer,… shared Windy’s article and boycotted “Tang Qi”; Many people hashtagged #一起来撕抄袭书, torn off “Three lifetimes” to make “Tang Qi” see their anger: http://www.weibo.com/p/100808ee2c9c99efe1425beac07329883de84f?k=%25E4%25B8%2580%25E8%25B5%25B7%25E6%259D%25A5%25E6%2592%2595%25E6%258A%2584%25E8%25A2%25AD%25E4%25B9%25A6&from=526&_from_=huati_topic. - BUT HERE’S THE WORST PART. In 2015, they started to make “Three lifetimes” into a TV drama and movie, afraid of “Tang Qi” plagiarism responsible for low profits, that film crew bought off Weibo’s staffs, ERASED all the hashtags, articles, images,… that accused “Tang Qi” and “Three lifetimes” of stealing ideas from the search bar, to keep a lid on her plagiarism… This is wrong. The true artist cannot gain anything, even lost her right just because she wrote a BL-novel. Are ONLY heterosexual loves beautiful, o-kay, worthy? But same-sex loves should be hidden away, ruined like that? And what about the true talented authors, who went with their guts on their works? - “Tang Qi” not only plagiarized BL-novel authors once but more than 5! And 2 of them had been made into film in Mainland Chinese… If the film crew hadn’t had bought off Weibo, “Three lifetimes” wouldn’t have been this popular, I believe so. - So, if that movie will be in your area, please consider before buying the ticket! - - - - - Note: (1) The comparison of “Peach Blossom Debt” and “Three Lifetimes”: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/3573276406?pn=1 (more than 10 parts). In English (short version): https://hamster428.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/plagiarism- allegations-against- tqgz/ (2) Even its drama poster, OST, and “book” cover is plagiarized too: http://m.weibo.cn/5802830735/4070336805431010 http://m.weibo.cn/1875808141/4081929105563790 (3) Tang Qi has published some books, and 3 of them have been accused of plagiarism, but still being printed. Why? Because BL-novel authors can’t sue her! More than 30 Tang Qi’s “characters” are the copy-cat of characters made by Joyful. Such as one of Tang Qi’s main male character who is in purple and silver hair→ it is EXACTLY THE SAME as Joyful’s character whose name 勖扬天君. (4) Faking accounts, cyberbullying, back-stabbing,… Read more about filthy tricks Tang Qi has done here: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10203680700097895&id=273489969522688

[asrisgratitudejournal]

BTS

This might be the most random thing I wrote here (aren't all my posts here random in state-of-the-art already?). So, on the trip last weekend, suddenly Mas Kharis blasted Boy With Luv in the car (it’s just his automatic Spotify playlist that did this). Being an ARMY, I can’t help but shout and be happy about it. “OMG, BTS!” It turns out that Mas Kharis and his family also know one or two things about BTS, especially BT21, and then the convo shifts into who BTS is and what makes them popular.

One of the questions Bang Reybi asked me was “why do you like them, Non? What makes you hooked into them?”. The funny thing is… I can’t answer the question. At all. It took me whole 2 mins (?) to think. To be honest, there is no single answer to that question. If I can summarize, the answer would be: “all. everything about them.” But that’s just an answer of someone who loves something unconditionally, someone who’s crazy in love (now playing: Beyonce-Crazy in Love). At this moment, I need to answer rationally, especially now that I talk with 3 men who are doing their PhDs in Oxford.

First thing first, of course, peoples’ guess would be: “Is it because they are handsome?” Well, I wouldn’t be mad at that assumption because how they look definitely play a part. However, it’s not like all of them are over-the-top-good-looking or anything, unlike other Korean boybands such as EXO or TXT as an example from the 4th gen boy group, not all members of BTS are that handsome. There are indeed some eye candies in the group, let’s say V or Jungkook or Jin, but tbh if you look closely, one of my bias (favorite member of one’s group) is RM, which is known for his average look that even some people used to think that he didn’t deserve to be in an idol group (Gosh I wonder how people could be so mean).

So, to that question, I tried to explain by saying that “I can relate to them so much.” I mentioned how I love RM just because I can find so many similarities to him. He loves to enjoy nature, visits art museums, reads books, can’t cook, and can’t drive. He just shows that he is… human. As I am. But, of course, that answer didn’t satisfy Bang Reybi. He argued back by saying “Well, that doesn’t answer the question of why you pick THAT specific person to follow, though. I mean, there are hundreds of people you can relate to, who do the exact same things as RM does as you mentioned before, yet you specifically only choose him, not the others.”

Then I came to my second answer. “Yes, what you’re saying is true”, I said to Bang Reybi. “However, these hundreds of other people, I don’t have access to them. I don’t know how I can follow them since their social media accounts are probably not public, nor I have the chance to meet and find them.” Other arguments come to mind. I mentioned how interactive BTS is with its fans. They always try to communicate with their fans and talk to them via social media. At this moment, I haven’t revealed to them that BTS fans are called by a specific name that is ARMY, and I haven’t got out of the closet yet (as an ARMY). We were just talking about why people get to like BTS in general, including me.

After I mentioned their social media presence, Mas Kharis said more about how BTS is now in every product basically. He said one time his wife asked him to buy a UNIQLO x BTS collab shirt in Oxford since it sold out really fast in Indonesia. And this is where I came out, I accidentally being overproud of BTS and mentioned all of BTS’ collaboration now, including BTSMeal, BTS as the brand ambassador of Tokopedia, Hyundai, Samsung (Korean Pride yeay), and many more. At this point, Bang Reybi be like “Noni, are you a fan of BTS? Because it seems like you’re now an encyclopedia of BTS.” Then, I came out of the closet. Yay! This 27-year-old woman who’s doing PhD at the University of Oxford finally revealed that she is an ARMY (hah lega banget). Bang Reybi then asked since when I became their fan and what things related to BTS that I’ve bought/spent money for.

It’s really funny, though. I also just realized this but in fact, it’s not been that long since I’ve become an ARMY. I got to be an ARMY because of Vannia partly, and the other part is because of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. It was January 2020, I guess? It’s only been one year! Before that, back in 2019, I just know that Vannia is an ARMY together with other 4-5 ITB Mothers. She mentioned them occasionally when we hang out together, but she never shoves them to me, asked me to listen to them or anything. I just said to Vannia that I knew and heard of them since VMA 2017, and I praised them for their performance but never went deeper for them.

On a weekend back in 2019, I think(?), Vannia asked me to take pictures of BTS in one of the MRT stations and at that time, to be honest, I still have this prejudice of BTS: a boy band, a South Korean boy band who sing and dance and being trained in one of those entertainment company, which is cool, though, because they successfully made their way into Indonesia’s market. Vannia mentioned that for their Tokopedia contract, Tokopedia gave them an empty check to fill, it’s up to them how much they want to be paid as Tokopedia’s brand ambassador. I relayed this information to Bang Reybi and the others in the car and they just awed hearing the fact (I was also awed the first time I heard that).

I believe I also took a pic in this MRT station back then? I only know RM at that time, and I’ve been a fan of him because I know he’s the leader of the band and also one with 148 IQ (in which now IQ is not relevant anymore, but anyways). Will attach the pic if I managed to find it.

Then, later, I started to make myself familiar with the members’ names. And I came across the carpool karaoke video. If you want to call it hidayah, this is it. I think the carpool karaoke video is one of hidayah that I got so that I got in the ‘religion’ – Bang Reybi, Prama, Mas Kharis, and I already agree that this BTS phenomenon is probably how religion started and developed back then. Starting from knowing the members, I started to listen to their music. In my honest opinion, their music is fine, they are not spectacular or anything, but it’s just that their lyrics have very deep meaning (and very beautiful, too, grammatically - God I wish I understand Korean so that I can appreciate their songs more). But I’ve got to say we got better music out there so I can’t really answer “I love them because of their music” to that first question Bang Reybi asked me.

I really went into a rabbit hole since I watched their content. I mentioned to Bang Reybi “another way for them to communicate with their fans is by making a lot of content.” By watching their contents: BTS Gayo, Run BTS, In The Soop, concert making videos, holiday packages, and many more (yes, Bighit really knows how to make money out of them, yeay to capitalism), we as fans got to see the other side of these idols. Not their performing self, with heavy makeup and tight choreography on the stage, but this normal human being that interacts with others sloppily while answering a quiz or playing games. Then again, it’s the “oh I so can relate to them” factor that works here. We fall in love with their characters, with their personalities. Prama then jumped in to conclude mentioning ‘penokohan’, I don’t know what that is in English. But, probably, if we’re to compare with Islamic history/system, it would be similar to how sahabat Rosul loves him so much, or how FPI loves HRS so much. Well, that’s if you want to make some analogies~

Then we jumped into how BTS influences people. Because it’s just crazy how I, personally, just buy books RM recommended or ARMY who are into fashion just buy BTS’ clothes. To this question, “how can they be SO influential?” I have no other option but to simply say “It’s just because we love them so much. You will do anything for the ones that you love. You want to have the same thing, eat the same food, go to the same place. There’s no rational answer when it comes to love.” So, people, if you want to influence others, make sure you get the first step: make them love you, and if you can, unconditionally.

We then delved into so many other things on BTS. We talked about how diverse ARMY is, how their biggest market is the US despite their songs that are in Korean mostly (except the recent release of Dynamite and Butter), and how they can give a winning to political party/candidate if they were to be the one who gives endorsement.

I suddenly remembered this narrative that probably also played part in the rising of BTS popularity. It’s about how they are living proof of a success story. I then went on to talk to these men about how BTS was used to be the underdog, coming from non-big3 entertainment companies in South Korea. Their company didn't have as much money and connection, two important things that are apparently important in guaranteeing a boy group's success in SK. They had such a difficult time getting a slot to perform in a music show, being mocked for their names and their concept, and it took them 2 years to get their 1st music show win. They even had to face the accusation of plagiarism, invalid daesang win, and chart manipulation. It’s a cruel world indeed, but even now when they are at the top (yeay!), they still have to go through discrimination and racism at times just because they’re Asian. In a way, this story of how BTS got through so many hardships and succeeded at the end really empowers so many ARMYs all over the world, especially those with low self-esteem and who feel like they can’t survive the world on their own. Accompanied by their album concept of ‘Love Yourself’ and their speech at the UN, it makes it easier to love them, not only as a 7-member boy group who has good looks and sings and dances but as a messenger and motivator to tell you to be strong and to love yourself.

In the middle of the talk, I forgot who said this, but we suddenly look at the equivalent of this phenomenon -BTS-ARMYs relationship- to the ones that football fans have with their favorite clubs. They are very similar in nature. Bang Reybi mentioned his friend who came to London just to watch the Champions League final together with a fan club in a pub (nobar Bahasa indonesianya mah). However, it has a slight difference when Prama mentioned that most of them are loyal to the club itself, not to the players. I don’t know about ARMYs, though. It seems like most of them would be loyal to the band instead of the member (?), but looking at how hostile BTS solo stan is, I would say we ARMYs more loyal to the member rather than the band itself.

Then a question comes to my mind, so I asked them: “how do you guys pick that specific club you’re loyal to in the beginning? what makes you stan them? Is it how good they play in a match? Or the strategies, the technique they played with? Or what?” Then Mas Kharis explained it’s more like who the league winner/the greatest football club was at that time when they were children and just learning about football. Who you hang out with also might have played a role in your preference of football club. If you hang out a lot with this big brother/friend who supports Chelsea, for example, you would be likely to support them since most of the time you’d only be hearing about how good Chelsea is and how the other groups suck big time. Isn’t it EXACTLY the same as how we girls got into one KPOP boy group? (As in my case, I hang out a lot with Vannia, therefore BTS).

Later, I also said we as ARMYs are not as crazy as people think we are. I could make an argument of how almost all my male friends have this dream to go to the UK just so that they could come to the city/stadium where their favorite football group plays or trains. They also bought their fav groups’ jersey, merch, watch a match together in a café, TWEET NONSTOP when a match was going on, commented on how bad their players’ performance was on Twitter, commented on the coach on Twitter, pick a fight with Twitter account who mocked their fav group, shouted so LOUD whenever their team made a goal or missed a goal. Then, how is that different from us KPOP fans? My long-life dream is to come to Seoul watching BTS perform in Jamsil stadium. I bought BTS’ album, bought their merch, spammed my Twitter timeline on their online concerts, (probably) will shout as loud as those football fanboys when I got to see BTS (which right now with the covid-19, the probability to see them in person with my own eyes in this lifetime would only be 5%). It is the same! It is exactly the same behavior, us and those football club supporters, yet we’re being looked down on as if we’re just immature teenagers with our empty brain and we love them only because of their looks. Ugh. Frustrating.

However, I don’t deny that there are indeed immature teenagers between us ARMY. We’re not a perfect group of people with no flaw. We’re just diverse. So diverse that you can almost find every occupation there is in the world inside the ARMYs circle. You’d find also a very broad range of age, genders, geography, and of course different level of devotion to BTS. It is like a group of people with the same religion, really. In Islam, some people are just so extreme and express their love to Allah in a way that is harmful to the Islamic community itself: e.g., terrorists and suicide bombers. Then when a case of terrorism happened, we’d say “what they did doesn’t represent Islam at all, they are just some of the extremists who don’t even understand what the real Islam is.” So does ARMY. Those ARMYs that are so hostile and very childish that you face or see in social media? They are just a bunch of ARMYs that are on the extreme side. What they did then paint an image of ARMY as a scary and hostile group of teenagers who will do whatever it takes to defend their oppas unconditionally. So, lesson learned here is for us to be careful now in stereotyping and generalizing a group of people.

For closing these 4 pages of essay, a last question Bang Reybi asked was “but I never heard of BTS as often as I heard Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Jack Ma, for example. I mean, if they have their ARMYs, if they have that big of an influence in the world, how come I never know about them and how big they are until now?” To this question I answered, “well that’s because you don’t care about music? I mean it’s not like BTS changing the world in the way those names you mentioned did. At the end of the day, the root of BTS is their music, they are a boy band. It is a very niche world indeed. You didn’t hear BTS as much probably it’s just because your life is closer to tech, therefore, Steve Jobs, crypto, therefore, Elon Musk, and economy, therefore, Jack Ma. You wouldn’t check if Ariana Grande is getting married or Lady Gaga buy a new home, would you? Because that information is irrelevant to your life that’s why.”

-Kkeut.

partially written on 04/06/2021 at 30.18 dan 07/06/2021 at 9 Woodlands Close

Bonus: found the MRT pics when I didn't even know the name of all BTS members

[amazingviralinfo]

The film and TV industries go to extreme lengths to protect the details of their stories, from shoving NDAs up everyone's ass to literally locking scenes inside vaults. So it's hilarious when their biggest plot twists are revealed not by master hackers or corporate spies, but by random jackasses making off-the-cuff jokes. But how often could that happen? All the time, it turns out ...

WARNING: This is an article about plot twists. Expect some!

6

Fans Joke About Hodor, Spoil A Major Game Of Thrones Twist Years In Advance

There have been a lot of shocking twists throughout the course of Game Of Thrones; from the Red Wedding stabbings, to Jon Snow getting stabbed a bunch of times, to the stabbing of- You know what, they're mostly stabbings. One twist no one could have seen coming (because the books haven't even gotten to that part yet) had to do with Hodor, the loveable manservant who serves as young Bran Stark's personal piggyback service.

HBO Apparently, the people in Westeros are too busy sword-fighting and getting naked to invent the goddamn wheelchair.

But why is his name Hodor? Did he have annoying, Gwyneth Paltrow-esque celebrity parents? The answer is far more complicated. Basically, Bran's time-travelling melted poor Hodor's brain -- as his future self is being commanded to "hold the door" to block a horde of White Walkers, his past self starts muttering "Hold the door" over and over, eventually morphing into "Hodor" (a transition that caused headaches for the show's international translators). So, people just started calling him that.

HBO

HBO If the same rule applied to 12-year-old boys in this universe, there'd probably be a hell of a lot more kids named "Boobs Pokemon."

That's a pretty intricate twist, but a few people actually predicted this outcome. How the hell? By doing what we do for a living: making dumb-ass pop culture jokes. Way back in 2008, before the TV show even started, a fan of the books posted this on a message board:

Not all commenters were receptive to the idea:

This poster wasn't the only fan to randomly stumble onto this bad pun, either. Writer Michael A. Ventrella blogged in 2014 about an encounter with GOT creator George R.R. Martin at a convention, where Martin mentioned an interest in being an elevator operator. When Ventrella ran into him again, this happened:

So a terrible pun that people balked at actually became one of the most poignant moments in the show. What we're saying is maybe now's the time for HBO's gritty Bazooka Joe reboot.

5

Darth Vader's Actor Randomly Guessed He Was Luke's Father

David Prowse was the guy who acted inside of the original Darth Vader suit, and who will one day be wiped from all historical records and replaced with Hayden Christensen. We've talked before about how he publicly spoiled the twist of The Empire Strikes Back years before the movie came out, during a 1978 appearance at Berkeley:

That's not all. He also blabbed to Little Shoppe Of Horrors magazine that same year:

But here's the weird thing: He shouldn't have been able to spoil this, because he didn't know. No one did. This was back around the same time Leigh Brackett was writing the early drafts of Empire, which included scenes where Luke's dad is a decidedly non-evil ghost:

And Vader even refers to Luke's dad in their final confrontation:

A recent documentary focusing on Prowse delves into this mystery, but somehow Prowse doesn't remember blowing the twist. The director literally has to pull up the old newspaper clipping on an iPad and show Prowse that he totally ruined the ending for people. In fact, because the line "I am your father" wasn't even recorded on set, Prowse recalls being surprised by the reveal at the premiere.

The documentarians also interview Gary Kurtz, the producer of A New Hope and Empire, who claims it was just an amazingly lucky guess. So either Prowse's random bullshitting stumbled upon one of the biggest moments in movie history, or George Lucas was pulling story ideas from magazine interviews given by his non-speaking supporting cast.

Similarly soothsaying the future of the franchise was a 1982 Mad Magazine bit about Lucas' Star Wars plans. It was just a bunch of ridiculous jokes -- and in a testament to just how silly the series got, some actually came pretty close to reality. For starters, they predicted 50 percent of Episode II's title:

And that Episode III would feature the Wookiees fighting the Empire:

One prediction jokingly states that Darth Vader is Han Solo's father, which is crazy. It also says that Vader will turn out to be C3PO's dad which is ... no, wait, that's exactly what fucking happened.

Another throwaway joke says that Luke's real father is "The Force" -- which sounds stupid as all hell, until you realize that "The Force" is actually his grandfather. Then it sounds stupider.

4

Someone Wrote An Erotic Novella About Taylor Swift And Tom Hiddleston (Before They Actually Dated)

We're switching it up to talk about a real-life twist: the announcement in 2016 that pop-star Taylor Swift was dating actor Tom Hiddleston. You know, the guy who has played Loki so many times he apparently just started wearing the costume in everyday life.

While that bit of news may have caught you off guard, it wouldn't have if you'd read Wildest Dreams -- a 58,000-word piece of erotic fan fiction by online author Jennifer Stanley. Stanley's story imagined a (sexy) world in which Hiddleston and Swift were a couple back in 2014. Before they even met.

That's a pretty random guess. Other than the fact that they often have the same haircut, what do these two celebs have in common? Loki's not even the Marvel villain you'd expect a music superstar to end up with -- young Magneto's handsome as hell, not to mention that pruny hunk Thanos and his blinged-out Michael Jackson glove.

Furthering the theory that Stanley is a god and our entire universe exists only as the backdrop for a sex-filled internet story, she predicted that Hiddleston and Swift would meet at the Met Gala, and, yup, that's what happened. She explains that she guessed that by doing good old-fashioned research and finding out which type of event they'd both be likely to attend -- because how will anyone masturbate to this if it isn't completely realistic?

Of course, a lot of the book is just straight-up celebrity doing it. (If a mustachioed Tom Hanks showed up delivering a pizza it wouldn't feel out of place.) And when Stanley first saw the pictures of the couple at the Met Gala, her first thought was: "Oh my god, what have I done?" Presumably her second thought was "I should never have bought that typewriter at Stephen King's garage sale."

3

Kevin Smith Called Tim Burton's Planet Of The Apes Ending Years Earlier

We all remember Tim Burton's remake of the classic Planet Of The Apes, the one that scrapped the classic Statue Of Liberty twist, ending instead with the apes and humans putting aside their petty differences to chill out at a suburban mall's Sears Portrait Studio.

Actually, Burton added his own bizarre twist to the movie. After returning to Earth, Marky Mark is shocked to discover that the Lincoln Memorial statue is an ape -- which is a way more dramatic way of revealing this than if Wahlberg simply found a penny on the ground, or rented a DVD of the Daniel Ape Lewis biopic.

It was a startling, utterly unpredictable twist ... unless you were a Kevin Smith fan. A few years earlier, Smith (who, as a reminder, didn't do drugs at this time) released a Jay And Silent Bob comic that riffed on Planet Of The Apes, and there is a strikingly similar image:

At first, Smith seemed to accuse Burton of plagiarism, saying "I think I got robbed and I'm talking with my lawyers about possibly suing." Then, later, he claimed he was only joking -- either because he genuinely was, or because he soon realized no one should want to take credit for that monkey turd of an ending. Burton defensively claimed that he wasn't an avid reader of Jay And Silent Bob comics, and that "anybody that knows me knows I do not read comic books." He's gonna flip his shit when he finds out where Batman came from.

2

A Random Comedy Sketch Calls The Insane Direction Lost Was Going

Back when Lost was on TV, a good chunk of the internet consisted of just people trying to figure out where the show was going. Amid all that rampant speculation, one sketch troupe actually got one key detail right, but in the most random way possible. The internet comedy group Olde English had a sketch that made the rounds back in 2007 about how ridiculous the Lost writers' room must have been. They're just frantically coming up with ideas like polar bears, four-toed statues, and, say, how about a magic turtle?

The ideas get more and more ludicrous, and that's the joke. However, in throwing out the craziest possible suggestions, they actually anticipated a real storyline. Look at the cue cards on the back wall:

See how two of the cards are about Locke?

They read "Locke Dies" and "Locke Becomes a Zombie" -- which sounded completely ludicrous. Come on, not even this show would go as far as to kill a fan-favorite character and then bring him back to life as some sort of evil force, bent on destruction. Right?

Around the same time this sketch came out, on the Season 3 finale, we saw Jack moping over someone's casket in a funeral parlor. Because this show was infuriating, it took them a whole year to show us who was in the freaking casket: it was fan-favorite Locke! Gasp!

Locke then promptly comes back to life, but with a grumpier, more murder-y attitude. It turns out his dead body had actually been reanimated/possessed by the Smoke Monster -- as in, an evil force, bent on destruction. Maybe if we examine the magic numbers some more, that whole all-powerful top-hatted turtle theory will pan out too.

1

Austin Powers Had The Exact Same Twist As Spectre, 13 Years Earlier

Spectre is that James Bond movie that works way better if you assume it mostly takes place inside the inane imaginings of 007's lobotomized brain. Otherwise, eh. The movie is packed with twists that don't really add much to Bond's mystique. For instance, there was the reveal that the head of the evil organization Spectre, Franz Oberhauser, was actually ... Ernst Blofeld, who was the head of Spectre in every other James Bond movie! Wait, how was this a twist? The movie was literally called Spectre. That's like trying to make it a surprise that Jim Morrison is a character in The Doors.

Anyway, early in the movie, we see a photo of Bond with his adoptive dad, and another kid whose face has been burned off:

Then, towards the end, Blofeld reveals that it was his father who took Bond in. He was the little boy in the photo ...

... which makes Bond and Blofeld brothers! Bond didn't remember this because, again, martinis.

While that's certainly a shocking development, if you got the sense that it was strangely familiar, you weren't alone. Over a decade earlier, the Bond parody Austin Powers In Goldmember had an extremely similar third-act twist. It ends with Powers' father admitting that Dr. Evil (the blatant Blofeld ripoff character) was actually Austin's brother.

The plot twist actually works better in Goldmember, probably because Michael Caine and Beyonce are there, while the Bond producers apparently wouldn't pony up the cash. Also, Goldmember was just going for a silly ending, not trying to predict where the Bond franchise was actually headed. Still, we can't wait for the sequel where Bond finds out his other brothers are Shrek and the Love Guru.

You (yes, you) should follow JM on Twitter, or check out the podcast Rewatchability.

For more twists we all should've seen coming, check out The 5 Most Ridiculous Ways Studios Spoiled Their Own Movies and 6 Movie Characters Whose Names Spoiled Huge Plot Twists.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Sherlock Holmes Is Based On A Real Guy (Who Was Even Cooler), and other videos you won't see on the site!

Follow us on Facebook, and we'll follow you everywhere.

[nhacuaacie]

The product of plagiarism: Ten miles of peach blossoms - Tang Qi Gong Zi.

Hello Everyone! I have communicated with the Admin of the group and he/she has allowed me to post the information here. I just wanted to bring awareness to a plagiarist in China named Tang Qi Gong Zi. I know that Tang Qi Gong Zi isn’t quite known outside of China. But I did see some people translating her work on tumblr and blogspot. I respect the effort and time these individuals put into translating Chinese novels into English, but I would just like to point out that Tang Qi Gong Zi is an author known for plagiarism. Seven years ago, Tang Qi published her book 10 miles of Peach Blossoms (Shi Li Tao Hua) as a tribute to the then already established author Da Feng Chui Guo. Many parts of 10 miles of Peach Blossom was based on Da Feng’s BL novel, Peach Blossom Debt (Tao Hua Zhai), including a lot of the story line and much of the wording. The comparison is illustrated above. As Tang Qi wrote about heterosexual pairings, she catered to more of the mainstream audiences in China. Her work soon became famous and was adapted into various TV dramas. She had an entire team protecting her from accusations of plagiarism. Tang Qi was making money off of someone else’s work but because BL novels are technically illegal in China, Da Feng was hesitant to sue her. But Tang Qi did not stop there. At first, she imitated the then more popular Da Feng’s style in hopes of luring some of Da Feng’s fans into reading her books. Everyday, Tang Qi would advertise her internet novels in the comment section of Da Feng’s novels using different IDs. When fans commented on how Tang Qi might be a Pseudonym of Da Feng, Tang Qi never dispelled the notion. Eventually, people found out from Da Feng that Tang Qi was just copying her style. Things didn’t end here. Tang Qi created an account on the novel posting website’s anonymous board pretending to be Da Feng and started a post condoning the plagiarism. With the account, she used Da Feng’s fans against her and created posts all over the internet about how terrible Da Feng is as a person. Seven years later, Tang Qi has become much more popular than Da Feng, though her fans are mostly tweens who have yet to read great literature. Still, it didn’t stop Tang Qi from lashing out at her own imitator, Ye Xiao. Attacked by Tang Qi’s army of fans, Ye Xiao eventually stopped writing all together. But This incident also reminded the internet the fact that Tang Qi was a plagiarist herself. I just hope that the next time anyone reads her novels, they’ll remember that she’s a copy cat and she never apologized for her actions. Here is a link to a blog post with comparisons of the two works side by side: https://hamster428.wordpress.com/…/plagiarism-allegations-…/ The translator used to translate Tang Qi's works, but stopped after finding out that she was a copy cat.

(4) Faking accounts, cyberbullying, back-stabbing,... Read more about filthy tricks Tang Qi has done here: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10203680700097895&id=273489969522688

Hello friends,

I have no idea if you guys have ever heard about the Chinese film called “Three lifetimes - Ten miles of peach blossom”(?) or something like that. But if you do, please think carefully before you buy a ticket.

You can search #‎三生三世十里桃花抄袭 or “tang qi plagiarism” for more information.

Here’s something you need to know about that movie in a nutshell:

- Back in 2007, a famous BL-novel author “Windy” (Da Fung Gui Wo - 大风刮过) wrote a book called “Peach Blossom Debt” (桃花债).

- After that “Tang Qi” (T7 - 唐七) committed plagiarism, use “Windy” work and passed it off as her own! “Tang Qi” named it “三生三世十里桃花” (Three lifetimes: Ten miles of peach blossoms). Besides, “Tang Qi” has stole ideas from many more BL-novel authors, not only “Windy”: especially “Joyful” (公子欢喜).

- Base on comparisons between “Peach Blossom Debt” and “Three lifetimes”, you can see they are really similar - up to 70% (the comparison is illustrated in the link down below). The only difference is: “Three lifetimes” is NOT a BL-novel, is BxG (shoujo) one. That makes a big difference.

The Chinese government does not like homosexual, BL-novels are technically illegal in China. That’s the first reason why “Three lifetimes” is a plagiarized work but still getting more popular. “Windy” CAN NOT sue the thief, because the judge won’t support her… Plus, “Windy” is quite timid so she just don’t want to fight.

- In fact, “Tang Qi” has a group of professionals with connections that backs her up. That explains why she can't be sue and got famous so fast.

“Tang Qi” has a terrible personality, she even mocked “Windy”: “My book is already published, what about yours? Oh, they weren’t? Do you need help from me?” “Plagiarize, plagiarize my ass.”

~Wrote by mydramalist/fudanshidesu: “The original novel is BL-themed. Needless to say, BL-themed stuff is low-profile and pretty much illegal (read underground) in China. Knowing DaFeng would have a hard time fighting the establishment, Tang Qi took DaFeng’s novel and rewrote it. She replaced homosexual characters with heterosexual characters to cater to mainstream audience… added a little spice here and there and voila! TangQi’s very own novel was born.

There’s more to the story…

Tang Qi was bold, she even made fake accounts to talk about her novels on Da Feng’s pages, she posted sh*t in the comment sections under Da Feng’s novels… Girl basically went gaga!

When people found out what TangQi was doing, things got ugly and our anti-hero, Tang Qi, decided to go full scale war. She created an account pretending to be Da Feng… Blah blah blah… Long story short, her actions harmed Da Feng’s reputation.

Today, Tang Qi is a well-known “writer” in Mainland China. So, we know the truth now! She’s a thief, who feeds and lives off of other people’s creativity, their time and effort.

If you decide to read the book/watch “Eternal Love”, please keep the above in mind and give proper credits to DaFeng, the real mind behind the story.”

- After all, “Windy” told her fans: “She (Tang Qi) did not write the story on her own but she’s still more famous than me. That’s because I’m not good enough.” – Said the author who has best-selling BL-novels, why??

It’s a long story since 2008… Hundreds of famous authors, artists, cosplayer, composer,… shared Windy’s article and boycotted “Tang Qi”; Many people hashtagged #一起来撕抄袭书, torn off “Three lifetimes” to make “Tang Qi” see their anger: http://www.weibo.com/p/100808ee2c9c99efe1425beac07329883de84f?k=%25E4%25B8%2580%25E8%25B5%25B7%25E6%259D%25A5%25E6%2592%2595%25E6%258A%2584%25E8%25A2%25AD%25E4%25B9%25A6&from=526&_from_=huati_topic.

- BUT HERE’S THE WORST PART. In 2015, they started to make “Three lifetimes” into a TV drama and movie, afraid of “Tang Qi” plagiarism responsible for low profits, that film crew bought off Weibo’s staffs, ERASED all the hashtags, articles, images,… that accused “Tang Qi” and “Three lifetimes” of stealing ideas from the search bar, to keep a lid on her plagiarism…

This is wrong. The true artist cannot gain anything, even lost her right just because she wrote a BL-novel. Are ONLY heterosexual loves beautiful, o-kay, worthy? But same-sex loves should be hidden away, ruined like that?

And what about the true talented authors, who went with their guts on their works?

- “Tang Qi” not only plagiarized BL-novel authors once but more than 5! And 2 of them had been made into film in Mainland Chinese… If the film crew hadn’t had bought off Weibo, “Three lifetimes” wouldn’t have been this popular, I believe so.

- So, if that movie will be in your area, please consider before buying the ticket!

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Note:

(1) The comparison between “Peach Blossom Debt” and “Three Lifetimes”:

https://tieba.baidu.com/p/3573276406?pn=1 (more than 10 parts).

In English (short version):

https://hamster428.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/plagiarism-allegations-against-tqgz/

(2) Even its drama poster, OST, and “book” cover is plagiarized too:

http://m.weibo.cn/5802830735/4070336805431010

http://m.weibo.cn/1875808141/4081929105563790

(3) Tang Qi has published some books, and 3 of them have been accused of plagiarism, but still being printed. Why? Because BL-novel authors can’t sue her!

More than 30 Tang Qi’s “characters” are the copy-cat of characters made by Joyful. Such as one of Tang Qi’s main male character who is in purple and silver hair→ it is EXACTLY THE SAME as Joyful’s character whose name 勖扬天君.