I subbed to a story yesterday and it sounded good. I was excited for the update. It got updated today and, wow, it was amazing. I was enjoying it, but then I saw something odd.

Instead of reading a Korean name, I read an English name, and it wasn't an English name of a KPOP idol.

I got curious, more like suspicious, so searched a part of the story. I had to type it out because they used the block text selection, but came out with nothing. So, I typed out the description and lo and behold, I found something, the original fan fic that was created back in 2011.

I was disgusted at the “author” for stealing someone else’s work and at myself for enjoying this story that was stolen from a hard working author from another fandom. I notified the original author, and reported the story. The author hasn't replied back to me, but the story has been taken down.

I just still can't believe that people are still plagiarizing and claiming the work as their own. It absolutely disgusts me. What also grossed me was that a couple of people commented stating what a wonderful story it was. Why was I the only one suspicious? You could clearly see something was off.

It suddenly went from a Korean name to an English name, not once, but twice. Two freaking times and no one else stopped to think that something was off. I looked back at the reports and mine was the only one, like, wow.

There were about 16 subscribers, and I know not all of them had read it, but I know for a fact that two people at least did read it because they freaking commented. AND THEY SAW NOTHING WRONG AND WERE PRAISING THE AUTHOR!

Since this has happened, I think back to two times I think I read plagiarized stories, but I did nothing.

On one fic, someone pointed out that the names changed, and the author replied saying that she originally wrote this fic, a non-KPOP fan fic, for a friend and decided to make it a KPOP fan fic. And I was okay. I was suspicious, but left it alone, and this was back 2014, I think. And another time, I was reading a story on WattPad, not a fan fic, but a book, an original story. I stopped reading it because it was pretty bad. Then one day I was going through a graphic shop and saw this poster for a fic, I thought it was really pretty and I liked the characters too, so I decided to read it and it was 100% just like the story I read on WattPad. I didn’t do anything about it because I forgot about, something happened with my family, so that was the last thing on my mind. I don’t know if these certain fics are still up because I cannot remember exactly what they were about. I am sure I have read other plagiarized works, but they were plagiarized so well, I couldn’t get suspicious.

I think about how dumb I was to just leave this alone, someone else’s work was potentially stolen and the thief was getting praised for “writing such an amazing story.” And I was one of those fools who praised it. I feel sick to my stomach now. I feel awful. I am an author as well a rather horrible one I need to update like asap and I would be beyond pissed if someone plagiarized my story that I worked hard on. And I would love it if someone told me about it.

I know it is wrong for me to think like this, but now I am suspicious of every story I read here, or a KPOP fan fic in general, because I think it is plagiarized.

It is 20 -ing-18 and people are still plagiarizing stories and claiming it as their own.

P.S.
And this isn’t just targeted to the KPOP fan fiction fandom, but to every fandom out there. Write your own story if you want to contribute to your fandom and do not steal from someone else who worked hard for theirs.