Umeko

I think most people who would care to actually read a blog by me are already aware of this issue, but I feel like writing this all down anyway.

The other day I felt like reading some My Boss My Hero fanfiction. (MBMH, for the record, is an awesome J-drama and I highly recommend it. But this blog doesn't have anything to do with MBMH.) I installed an app for browsing fanfiction.net onto my iPad because I knew that I'd never be bothered to browse the hellhole otherwise.

As I must do with any new app, I decided to play around to test it out, and I had it filter for all Steven and May fics in the Pokemon category because IT IS MY FAVORITE SHIP EVAAAARRRR.

One of the first results was this:

A Nght surprise
May cant sleep because of a certain 23 year old rock love Hoennchampionshipping I don't own anything.

"Hmm," I thought to myself, "that makes it sound a whole lot like my fic 'Sleepless Night.' Though if it's about May being unable to sleep it could be anything." I decided to check it out anyway.

Indeed, the general plot of the fic and even a few lines here and there seemed awfully familiar. It's been two years since I wrote "Sleepless," so I couldn't remember exactly how I wrote it, so I double-checked just in case.

LOL THIS KID PLAGIARIZED MY STORY.

I've never been plagiarized before. (Not that I know of, at least.) I was amused and flattered and enraged. I left a quick review ("I do love there being more Steven/May, but I've love it more if you write your own story next time." <- it was 2 AM and my fingers were freezing, you can't blame me for mistyping a bit) and went to bed, thinking over what I should do about the situation.

In the morning I received a PM from the girl.

Originally Posted by moonlight ballet

excuse me this is my own story!!!!

I suppose I shouldn't have expected otherwise.

So I kindly offered her a link to the fic she copied, and spent the day preparing my revenge.

Well, I call it "revenge" but it's probably more accurate to call it "subtle attention-whoring in hopes that people recognize what this kid did on their own." We'll put that aside for now.

The next PM I received:

Originally Posted by moonlight ballet

but i did this in 12 am in th enight and sleepless night wtf!?

OH OKAY THEN. GUYS, SHE WROTE THE STORY AT MIDNIGHT, AND ON TOP OF THAT SHE HATES MY TITLE, SHE CAN'T POSSIBLY HAVE STOLEN IT.

Originally Posted by Me

I fail to understand what you mean. Plagiarism can happen at any time of the day, regardless of the story's title.

I look forward to her next message.

By the way, as I was re-reading her "story" I noticed that she had actually incorporated some of my headcanon as if it were actually canon.

Sensing she was serious he went to make tea even though he was terrible at it.

It's a tiny thing, but it's indeed something I've written about before:

Originally Posted by from "Rising Star"

"I'll put on some tea," he called back, "but I'm afraid I'm not very good at brewing it."
[...]
Haruka set down the stone and took the offered tea, thanking him. She took a tentative sip and had to fight down a grimace. Daigo was right; he wasn't very good at brewing tea.

That by itself doesn't bother me really, because it's something anyone could have come up with. But together with the plagiarism it's just kind of like, jesus christ girl come up with your own ideas!

Though for all I know maybe a lot of people actually liked that headcanon and it's become widespread fanon among Steven/May authors? Hell if I know, the one time I try to search out English-language Daiharu fanfiction and I get instantly distracted by plagiarism.

Sigh. Such is life.