yuya

not even a week ago, on july 23, i received an ask from anon asking if i own a certain blog since there is a fic very similar to mine and anon also linked the post. same anon then sent another ask with another link to a different post of the same writer. the blog is named @okwonyo !

i’ll link the fics here(had to unblock the author to do that): “confession” and “dreamer”.

and the works that they were “inspired by” are: “flirting” and “shaving nanami”.

now, the posts were uploaded on july 21 and jul 10, notably later than my works, and if it weren’t for anon i wouldn’t even have known about anything, because i don’t lurk around the enhypen tag. if you want to, you can read works and connect the dots, but i am gonna present the similarities and explain why i, and many others, think it’s blatant plagiarism rather than inspiration(red is marking her work and blue is marking mine), you can read the whole thing too if you’d like ofc, i highlighted everything that would guide to see the problem, but please read everything.

this is from “dreamer” and “shaving nanami” fics. you can see that there is similar pacing, and some of the sentences are structured the same way, using the same words, minimal changes applied. and yeah, you can say that the writer added the “dreaming about marrying you” thing to her work but it doesn’t change the fact that this whole thing was basically ripped off. then, let’s get to the “confession” fic that has like a sequence of sentences taken from my fic, despite the plot being a little different in her fic, but the whole “not noticing the flirting thing” was taken from me. i wouldn’t really call that inspiration if you just take the sentences and literally put them in your fic. would you? :)

(mind you, this is my first time dealing with things like this, which is not an excuse, bur rather an explanation as to why i handled this situation poorly at first.)

now, with these out of the way, let’s discuss what i talked about with the owner of the @/okwonyo, or “jiah”. i sent an ask since i didn’t follow her and couldn’t message her, and we had a civil conversation about these works. i’m sorry i don’t have screenshots but it’s because the chat is no longer available to me(she blocked me from her sideblog which she used for chat with me @okwonyos).

she did apologise and offered to link the fics(or even take them down!) but i, admittedly, was a bit distracted with in real life issues and dismissed by saying that she could just tag me, which of course was my fault. when i said that i thought she would say “inspired by bla bla bla” but she just literally tagged me in the end of posts(mind you, there were 4 posts and she tagged me only in these 2 hah) and when i noticed and decided to ask her to take the posts down like she offered in the beginning because it would just be easier and would make me comfortable enough. she insisted that she likes those works a lot and me, being the pushover i am, relented and thought “well alright at least her readers will stay happy” and allowed her to link my stuff in her post, although she again mentioned me only at the end when i asked her to do it in the beginning of the post. i didn’t really care that her notes were in the end, not really.

come to find our, there were another 2 fics, that i didn’t know about until she mentioned me.

oblivious and promises, which are “inspired” again by my fics: oblivious reader and beauty marks.

was she gonna mention these if i hadn’t texted her again a while later about her poor credit giving style? i don’t think so, buddy. anyways, i read the fics briefly and was baffled by the similarities i saw. granted, i will mention that the “oblivious” fic by her resembles an “inspiration” a lot more than other fics since there are added elements like the characters being childhood friends and confession scene and all that — but still, there is whole beginning of the fic that she basically reworded from mine(was it necessary to even use the message with emoji thing…):

for the “promises” fic… bruh, the pacing, the whole dialogue, the similarities, literally whatever happens between the reader and that male character is taken from my fic and reworded and posted as original before i dm’ed the author. which pisses me off, because if she had mentioned me from the beginning and if i considered and plagiarism it just would have been a lot more telling about this author’s intentions — they wouldn’t have been able to act nonchalantly, you know what i mean?

now, eventually, i sent the author some texts about how just taking paragraphs and changing them a little doesn’t look much like an inspiration and asked to take the posts down(if i remember correctly) and she went defence mode and me? i was too tired with my irl issues to attempt anything more after a string of messages pointing out that she didn’t “copy and paste” and she added her own details and plots to the fic. so i went with something like okay whatever i hope you learn from your mistake and bye and she happily replied “feel free to block me” which irked me.

it irked me to the point that after blocking her i didn’t feel relief or like a “winner” but more like i played right into her hand, which should have been the signs that this was not the right way to end things.

now, jiah, did you think it was over? i did think i’d just be mulling over this for a while and hoping other people don’t steal my stuff, but see it’s not me who noticed it, i was unaware — it was other people, several people, who noticed you just taking writing as your own and ignoring being “inspired” by me until you were reminded that yes, you did it wrong. and you have to understand what you did was wrong and accept it.

and you had to be the one to address it to your readers because me, i did address it and i asked my readers and followers to not even say anything to you and not go into your inbox — but something tells me you would have just ignored them and turned off anon asks.

you may ask: tori, why are you posting this almost a week later? well, i’m not gonna lie i have been thinking about this whole situation a lot and how i didn’t do it right and didn’t feel satisfied. and thanks to my beautiful readers and anons who felt injustice and confirmed my thoughts i have been finally pushed to act on this.

look, i have nothing to gain from this… i don’t need like the undying love of enhypen fans or to turn anyone against her, but jiah, gotta respect me, no? do i really need your credits after you posted your post like 10 days ago and was going to act like nothing happened until confronted? i really don’t lol, i just want to have peace and i want every anon and every person who sent me an ask about it and showed me immense support to be relieved that kpop community knows what’s going on.

and i’m bringing awareness to this because i am sure that plagiarism here is really common and i have been lucky to be struck by it only for the first time.

now, do what you will with all of this info.