hey missy, i'm really bummed today. i have a few fics on aff and there's this one in particular that was doing with with a few hundred votes and a thousand subs, it wasn't my best work, but it was a story that i was proud of and i completed it. but last night some girl messaged me in a polite way that she thinks i plagiarized a novel but the thing is, IVE NEVER HEARD OF THAT NOVEL! i've never read but when i looked it up, the plot was very similar but the thing is, i think the girl must’ve told her friends bc everyone started messaging me and commenting, bashing me for copying a story even though every chapter was written myself with my own brain and is original to me. i already told the girl that i did not copy the story but i still put the author’s name on the foreward but ppl kept harassing me and i ended up saving the chapters and then deleting the story. i’m just sad bc it feels like i wasted all the effort i put into the story in the first place and now it’s just gone. i hate that ppl thought i copied it but it’s sad that all those months updating and all the subs, comments and votes that i accumulated are all gone and now i just have the chapters for myself. i’m so sad right now and it makes me want to give up writing bc i don’t people to think that everything i write is copied or something. i feel like ppl will find any similarities btwn stories and just bash you for it so i don’t want to risk it.
before you express hate, step back and reevaluate
Like the title says, before you express hate, step back and reevaluate, this blog post is going to be about, hate.
Recently an anon on Tumblr had expressed her feelings about her problems on Asianfanfics. Her problem was that for one of her stories, a reader had informed her that her story had about the same plot as a story that existed and of course, this writer didn't know-she never even heard about it before. But when she told the reader that she's didn't even know and she clearly didn't plagiarize if she didn't know, the reader was fine with it--but the people she told was not.
That's the thing about when you tell someone false information before getting down to the right things. I've learned that the hard way but in my case, it was really plagiarism but that isn't the point, here.
The point here is that if you come across a plagiarizer, you don't feed them to other people to drown in the hate (I've read this from a blog post a reader sent to me and forever now I deal with plagiarism differently). You get down to things by asking the writer who had plagiarized your story and if you can truly tell that they did copy you without checking with them (as in, word by word is being copied), all you can do is report to a moderator here in AFF and the moderators will take care of it. All it takes is one report and it'll be done for you but then again, don't abuse that power--make sure it's really a serious deal before you even report because you may be accusing someone for something they didn't do and that'll erupt another argument.
You can't just blindly bash someone for no reason. And by bashing, I mean, 'you should kill yourself', 'you should die because you copied'. Are you ing kidding me?
You are legitimately telling someone to kill themselves, telling someone to end their own life--how would you feel if it was your best friend receiving the same , how would you feel if it was your sibling, how would you feel if it was your relatives?
People tend to abuse the internet and say hurtful, mean things just because they won't get in trouble for it but mark my words, to those who has said these kind of hurtful things to others, retribution and karma is a ing .
It's because of people like you AFF has become a less friendly community, it's because of people like you, other people are threatening their own lives--it's because of you that the world is becoming an ugly place--how do you actually face yourself, really?
And for those who are going through receiving hate because of this problem, because you're so insecure of writing and such, here's what this anon sent to me and what I replied to her in hopes she'll feel motivated and better because in this hateful world, there needs to be less hate.
Okay firstly, deep breaths. Breathe in, breathe out, do it a few times and then read what I’m about to type, okay?
[I’m replying all three messages here together and deleting the previous ones.]
My dear, you should’ve never acted that rash and delete everything off in the first place because after all of that effort you’ve put through just to delete it because of people you don’t even know? Do you know how pitiful that is or how painful it must’ve been for you to delete such work of yours just because of people who you’ve never met before?
Let me tell you five things
One; If you truly, really did think of everything on your own and coincidentally, it’s the same, there’s nothing you can do about that. Sure, people would think that it’s the same, that you copied it off but how the hell were you to know that such thing existed unless other people told you about that? Just put a disclaimer at the beginning when someone confronts you about it because you’ve never even heard about the damned thing in the first place so how can you copy something you’ve not know existed beforehand?
Two; You must learn to not let these people get to you because things like these happen often. The hate, the bashing for no reason, I’m really begging you to strengthen up your mindset and block all the hate to do somethingyou love.
Three; Do you love writing? Do you like it? Do you find complete joy in what you do and how you express the story in words of your own? Then what people say and just do it because life is too short to regret anything and let people you’ve never encountered before to tell you what the to do because that’s not how life works—your life, your decisions, none of their damned business.
Four; That’s the risk we writers take, my dear. Much more like singers, poets, dancers—artists, in general. We display something for the public, writers-stories, dancers-dance performances, singers-songs, painters-paintings, and the public gets the opportunity to judge, give criticism, give hate, show love—anything they wish because they didn’t put in the effort in making it, they didn’t put in time to develop such art; they did no at all and yet they are able to give their comments and it’s normal. Showing love is a blessing, giving criticism is a lesson, receiving hate strengthens the mind and heart. And I truly wish you were able to read what I would’ve told you (which is these whole thing) before you deleted something precious to you because honestly, the people are not worth it.
Five; Step up your game and make this a lesson. If writing is your passion, why are you letting other people step in the way of what you love to do? Why are you letting people you don’t know, why are you getting eaten by fear, why are you not having more than enough strength to fight for what you want to do?
Writing is also like a game.
- We get boosts from compliments and love.
- We get equipment from our minds.
- We get power ups from inspiration.
- We get scared by monsters (haters) but we’ll need to defend ourselves with a shield.
- Shields = strong mind, heart and will to ignore all of it.
- We get stronger with criticisms.
- And it’s game over if we let the monsters win.
I don’t care how long it takes for you to recover from this, I don’t care how longyou need for yourself to think about what to do, what story to write next, what’s the next step but I want you to know that if you’re going back into the writing world, you better not delete anything out of your own will anymore because I’m just going to get so mad that I’ll legitimately flip . You need to stand up stronger than before and I really hope you get to do so.
If it makes you feel any better, or if you want to clarify further on the situation, you can let me know your username on AFF and I’ll try to see what’s the true situation and maybe even make a blogpost to help you out because I just can’twith all the hate you’ve received.
Also, if you feel that this is the time where you stop writing, if you feel that this is where you give up (I really hope you don’t), then good luck with everything ahead of you and I wish you nothing but the best. x
I'm not saying that people that plagiarize are good but what I'm saying is the way people approach them, the way people deal with things need to change because they can't go around threatening other people's lives for no apparent reason--they don't need to go around and make others feel like they don't have the right to live in this world.
They don't have the right to do what they do just because they won't get in trouble for it.
If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it. If you want to express your feelings, there's a way to do it. If you want to express hate, don't say it at all because you may never know how badly your words can affect someone and it'll even cost them their life-and you won't be able to ing repay that.
Ah, have a nice day, hah (too late for that, huh).
-Missy
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