General A/N (Plagiarism)

The Blood Brother Code
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I wouldn't normally put a big a/n quite so close to the beginning of the story, but this is actually important.  I moved it from its original spot after chapter 41 at the suggestion of several readers.  It's about plagiarism, and all of you should read it.

See, after TBBC was featured at the beginning of November, it got plagiarised.  Twice.  (Edit 2/6/2015: and then again a third time in May.)  I found out at the end of November, and this was posted on Dec 2nd 2014 and then moved here.  Lots of people appear not to know what plagiarism even entails, so I'm explaining it here, and you hereafter have no excuse when it comes to plagiarising.  DON'T DO IT.  It's selfish, insulting to you, your readers, the readers of the original, and the author; and ignorance is no excuse.  And it's about how to react to plagiarism.

If TBBC is plagiarised a third time, I will be restricting it to people I can trust, and that will be permanent.  Have some respect for the author before you decide to write something "inspired" by their work, no matter who that author is.

Second Chances

A lot of people yesterday and the day before were asking me for the names of the people involved.  The reason I didn't give them to you was because I wanted to resolve things as quietly as possible and to protect them.  Yes, I was upset that my hard work was nicked, but plagiarism is hardly the most serious offence out there, and at the end of the day, they are human just like you and me.  They have feelings; they get upset at hurtful comments and being bashed.  Life might be taking a dip down the toilet -- you never know.  I know a lot of you were incredibly angry and upset: emotions were running very high and a fair number of you probably would have gone after them with pitchforks.

A lot of people commented on Xiumin bringing up the "I'm human too" thing, and I think that relates directly to this.  No matter who you are, there are times in life when you make mistakes, whether they're intentional or not -- there are times in life when you do things you're not proud of, or when you do something wrong.  It's all too easy, especially on the internet, to dehumanise people, or to forget that there is a person at the other end of the screen.  Cyber bullying is something I particularly hate, and letting all of you run after them would have amounted to cyber bullying.  Those of you who are aware of the identity of either person, please, please, please do not give their identities away.  Leave them be.

Now just think.  A lot of you love Xiumin as a character despite him being a criminal.  A lot of you have said you empathise, or even sympathise with him.  Some of you have expressed a desire for him to turn out good in the end.  A few have even noted he's such a complex character that it's hard to see him as wholly good -- or, more importantly, wholly bad.

A character in a story is only a pale reflection of just how complex a human person is in reality.  Sure, there are some people I'd love to see rot in prison -- the people who mugged the big brother of a good friend of mine when he'd just been let out of hospital and was on crutches and consequently landed him back there for another six months being a prime example (no comments on this, please -- it's not a story I'm going to tell) -- but on the whole, I'm a believer in second chances.  Both girls have apologised: I've accepted their apologies; we've talked; they're both really sweet; and actually, they didn't realise that what they were doing counted as plagiarism.

I will not be blocking them.  I will not be unsubscribing them.  But you can rest assured that if anybody attempts to rip off my work again, I will only be allowing the people I trust most to read it.  As in, it will be limited to two hundred people only, because that's as many as the invitation system allows, and they will be taken from my list of friends.

So please, stop with the death threats/wishes, the swearing and the hate.  Your anger was and is justifiable, but it's time to let it go.  I dislike swearing at the best of times; hate becomes self-fulfilling and leads you on a downwards spiral; and you should all be above making death threats/wishes especially over something that didn't in the long run harm any of us.  I have been stuck in the middle of too many friendships that have broken down because people cling on to the notion of perpetuating hate to want to see that kind of thing ever happen again.  I am, however, highly grateful and gratified that so many of you were angry on my behalf.  It means a lot.

Unrelated note: I keep getting deluged with friend requests.  I've said it before, but I only accept friend requests from people I feel I know well enough on this site and have talked to a fair amount.  They will be ignored otherwise.  My wall and PM are always open, and I always reply to comments.  You're more than free to talk to me.  I'm just not the kind of person to accept a friend request from somebody I don't know.  Get to know me.  Let me get to know you.  Talk to me.  Then I'll accept your friend request.  I don't bite.

Plagiarism

Like I said before, the two people involved were unaware that it was plagiarism.  I wouldn't classify it as a totally innocent mistake, because they both knew which source material they were using as the basis for their respective stories and could (and should) have gone further away from it, but I'm just going to define it here for you anyway.

Plagiarism is the act of taking somebody else's work or ideas and passing them off as your own.  It is not limited to coyping something out word for word.  Only idiots do that.  To prove that something has been plagiarised, you have to be able to show that there are too many similarities -- and close ones -- for it to have been coincidence (this depends on context too), prove that they have had access to the original material, preferably that they have read it, and that theirs was started after the original material.  If you have your work locked to subscribers only on here, then it's actually pretty easy to do this.  Then you take screen shots.

To be honest, apart from when it's copied out word for word, or pretty much word for word, then plagiarism has to be taken on a case by case basis, otherwise everybody who wrote a story about two people falling in love would be spewing accusations of plagiarism all over the place.  What it essentially amounts to is whether there are too many similarities for it to be deemed coincidence.  And, on top of that, whether it's clear that the person producing the copy has definitely had access to the original.  It is possible to come up with the same ideas.  If you look at Japanese mythology and Greek mythology, the two cultures had never been in contact and managed to come up with the same idea of a river god.  Almost every civilisation around the globe managed to invent the wheel.  Some did it independently; others did it after coming into contact with people who had the wheel and thinking it was a great idea.  The thing is, the environment in both circumstances was one that gave rise to the river god being a plausible explanation and the wheel being a plausible solution to making life easier.

Stories

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Korekrypta
1300 votes? ;_; you guys are wonderful. I'm planning a little gift for you all. 13/11/2015

Comments

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jojojoana
#1
Chapter 7: this is the nth time I read this fic because I often think about it :D I just can't get enought and my imagination always has a good time creating a movie in my head haha ! thank youuu a million times for this
Mitsukiii #2
I have returned years later on a new account but my goodness, this story was so intense. I loved all of it and the sequel too. Honestly they could be published and I still stand by that.
matokicookies
#3
Chapter 105: Reached here 😎 and just want to put a comment again...
The scenes I love the most probably whenever Jongin/Kai is there. He's one of my fav characters in the story, alongside Lay plus the two main characters. One of the other scenes I like was when Semi met Baekhyun at her apartment. The guy being a maniac and Jongin came as a hero fighting the psychopath head to head and that included that first kiss scene between Semi and Minseok. This story innitially was hard for me to read, your english and writing are remarkable and I was struggling to understand it all bcs I'm not good at english but in the end I got it 😆 This story is not just any entertaining fiction story, this is very serious plot and have very deeper meaning. It is fun, I had fun, with all the criminal and law stuff ❤️
Ofc, my fav group is exo and all of the characters you used are written awesomely 🌻 Everyone got time to shine, everyone is shining and have value in their characters. This is one of my fav fanfic stories and I've been coming every year to reread this again 🤗 Will now continue to read blood sister
matokicookies
#4
Chapter 25: Been going to read this masterpiece for the how many times already and I'd say Wendy is really my least fav character 😅 really I hate how nosy (I know she's the overly caring type) but it just urghhh stop it. Like she threatens and forcing her bcs if I'm semi I would say it at her and do what I want to do. I know she ended up good after she knows about Minseok and the truth,though i just don't like how she had been before that. Hahahaha ok enough rambling and complaining 😆
BaekhyunnieBun94
#5
It’s been nine years and I still love this fanfiction. Thank you Korey for writing an amazing Xiumin fic.
yoochuniee
#6
This series has become a classic for me🥰
Baembi
#7
Chapter 3: Man, I just love Lay’s character so much. From the part where he said “What, are there spiders here? They’re only insects Chen” he broke the tension and allowed Jongdae to cool himself down. And then when he said to Minseok “You’ll be the one proposing” I just completely lost it lol His dialogues in this chapter were hilarious.
jazzmine98
#8
Chapter 106: Goodness. Just finished binge rereading the fic for about a week straight. Even lost few hours of that good night sleep just to continue reading it 🤣💀 I really just wanna say thank you so so much for writing this gem. There’s no other words I’d put up to it other than Perfection 🤍 all things aside, I hope you are doing great ✨
walkingirony
#9
Chapter 105: I love this fic so much!
walkingirony
#10
Here to reread this! This is one of my fave EXO fanfics ever. I stopped reading fanfics but I guess I will still comeback to this one from time to time. I love this so much!