Darling, I'm lost

On Plagiarism Itself

At the end of 2023, it seemed that the topic of plagiarism on the internet garnered a renewed vigor following the four-hour HBomberguy video on YouTube Plagiarism. The video was extremely well researched, calling out several instances of plagiarism on the site, and spent nearly half it's run time discussing the egregiousness of one specific content creator, James Somerton. Which I found interesting.

During the time of that video's release, coincidentally, in the academic world several high-profile academics – such as the ex-President of Harvard and former MIT professors – began facing their own allegations of plagiarism and improperly sourcing Wikipedia for their massive papers. There, of course, are several other instances of plagiarism in the publishing/book world.

Lauren M. Davis falsely accused a fellow author of plagiarism and faced the backlash for it (amongst other serious issues, but it started with the plagiarism.) Mark Dawson is currently facing accusations of plagiarism in several of his 20+ works. If you go back you can find a multitude of instances where plagiarism has been called out, and consequences are faced the perpetrators.

I only mention these instances as a baseline to frame that both creatively and academically – plagiarism is frowned upon. Plagiarism isn't just stealing money out of the pockets of others – this is a story about fan fiction. We don't get paid. BUT at the end of the day, many fanfics are so extensively planned, written over the course of hours, days, months, even years. And these authors are dedicated to this hobby that they provide for free. It's so important to emphasize that these people are sharing their own ideas, thoughts, wants, and passion with people.

Which is why it's so disappointing when people steal these words to pass off as their own.

Archive Of Our Own, the largest platform for sharing fanfiction on the internet, provides tools to acknowledge other creators. Some people put their inspiration as hyperlinks in their Summary section, so it appears before you even click into the work. AO3 offers a section, when you upload, to denote if you've remixed, translated, or received inspiration from another work, which many authors use! Some even put their reference to their newest works in the end notes of their fics, especially if a specific section relies heavily on the source work material.

So there's no excuse to not reference the source material. There's no excuse to not give credit to the original work of others.

I think, as a fandom, it's important to credit other authors. Not only does it help to cultivate the culture – helping others find works they might not have found otherwise - but it's just the right thing to do. If we wouldn't accept this from YouTubers, Authors, or literally any other hobbyist in the world, why would we accept it from our friends or peers in the fandom space? If it's enough to vilify someone else, why would we make excuses for the person next to us?

Recently, with the growing trend of AI and its plagiaristic uses, fandom has more and more been calling out the use of AI. It is, afterall, essentially stealing works for other people to just mishmash into something uncanny. "AI Art" get's a lot of heat and push back from fandom spaces. In fact, in the Namori fandom, there have been several instances of resistance again AI-generated fanart. Bc people inherently realize the theft and degradation of someone else's work.

I think it's important to hold ourselves to the same standard as everyone else. If we're going to bash someone for using AI or stealing art – how is fanfic different? How is it different to use a machine that steals and repurposes art, versus using your own pen? Personally, there is no difference. Because at the end of the day, we're spitting in the faces of the people who have spent countless hours, days, months, and years honing their work. Even if it's just a single line, stealing work is to say "I don't care enough about this medium to put the work in."

If you love something, and you feel passionate about it, the work necessary to create your fan or original work is something you're willing to do. For every line. If you're passionate about something, you wouldn't want to diminish it's light.

I could not, in one post, talk about every single fan author who has ever plagiarized. I could not talk about Cassandra Clare and the hundreds of other instances of plagiarism in fandom spaces bc I'm sure eventually I'd hit the word-limit. There's simply too many cases of people smearing dirt on the faces of the fandom they profess to love.

But today, I want to address for-want-of-a-nail. I want to address them because recently (aka this week) they have accused of the very thing I find so abhorrent. I want to analyze them, their response (or lack their of), and show that this isn't something that just "accidentally happens". There are conscious choices made here, that I think are in-line with what a lot of plagiarist do, especially in Fan-spaces.

For Want of a Nail

@for-want-of-a-nail has been accused of plagiarism in the Shadow & Bone community.

The Discord Sever

Last year, Nail was removed from a large Darklina Discord Sever for plagiarizing major passages and lines from another user's (Ceris_Malfoy) work that had been published in the Discord-shared Google doc before making it to AO3. Nail published their fic first, leaving the original author to debate deleting her own work due to fearing being labeled a plagiarist. The author ended up posting her full story, with no changes, but provided her statement on the matter at the end.

Nail never apologized to this creator. They never acknowledged this creator. They only said there was "inspiration" from other server members, without naming who they were.

This happened months ago. So you may wonder: "why are you bringing this up now?" I wanted to point out something that's been explored before, a notion about plagiarist that appears to ring true in this instance with Nail as well as with other plagiarist online:

The chances that someone only plagiarized once are low. The chances are, someone [like For-Want-Of-A-Nail] will have done this more than once, having rolled the dice time and time again, knowing or thinking that they wouldn't get caught.

(Paraphrased from HBomberguy's video)

I wanted to show that what occurred in the last month was not an accident, at least in my opinion. Like with Ceris_Malfoy, for-want-of-a-nail deliberately went and copied sections of text, barely adjusted it to fit her story, and refused to acknowledge or even apologize for her blatant theft of the work.

So what happened?

On January 1, 2023, @madismen posted the first chapter to Nordenfor Solen.

On December 5, 2023, for-want-of-a-nail published the 5th Chapter of Insider Threat.

It was noticed immediately by an anonymous user, who then commented on Madi's fic to reach out, bringing Madi's attention to the situation. And, of course, Madi noticed it immediately. Let's take a look from the screenshots below. (Nail has, allegedly, begun to change the original document. These screenshots were taken before Madi attempted to reach out.)

Warning for NSFW content below.

As you can see, in some places, such as when Alina/Nina are requesting panties, Nail directly copied the line without changing it at all.

To me the most damning thing is rearranging and replacing facets of the dialogue to make it not exact. A clear intent is required there. An understanding that "this thing is wrong, but I don't want to create my own dialogue, so I'll just fudge it." To me that's the part that makes this blatant theft.

Now, at this point remember, we've just gotten to the point where this is pointed out to Madismen at the beginning of this year. She attempted to reach out to For-Want-Of-A-Nail, but Madi couldn't access their Tumblr. (I believe that Nail preemptively blocked Madi on Tumblr, as many others were able to access their profile at this time.) So she left the following comment on Nail's fic.

Now, if you had clicked the link to Nail's fic, you may have noticed that this comment is not there. This is because for-want-of-a-nail deleted Madismen's comment, refusing to even acknowledge or deny the accusation at all.

Which lead to Madi posting on Twitter X about the situation. I believe both plagiarized works from for-want-of-a-nail have been reported to Ao3, but given their track-record this year I won't be holding my breath. And as of writing, that is the end of it.

for-want-of-a-nail blatantly stole someone else's work and refused to apologize and correct the situation. At least twice within the last year. Now I'm not going to go onto every chapter of every work of theirs to double check and attempt to find other instances of plagiarism. Twice is enough for me, personally, to know that they have likely done this before, and will likely do it again. In my opinion, I think that Nail is aware that what's they're doing is bad. They're aware that stealing is wrong, and that it would change the way their readers respond to the fics they post.

So What?

Speaking with other's in the Darklina community, as well as seeing how people react to other plagiarist on the internet, there's a clear line that is crossed. Consumption, especially in the Western world, is definitely connected now a days with Morals. And there is a large conversation about content vs morality and the lines you should draw from it. But, generally, a consensus has been drawn in at least one area.

Knowing that the work you're consuming is stolen, changes how you feel about it.

(Also paraphrased from HBomberguy, who put it much better than me.)

The worst part of all of this, to me, is the betrayal to readers. To those who genuinely enjoy the works being published and thinking that they are following someone who is creative and passionate about the subject they are writing. Only for them to be lied to. Because yes, when Nail responds to comments gushing over the work as if they wrote every single thing by themselves, they are lying to people.

They felt so entitled to Madismen's words, while going out of their way to call those invested in their story entitled for wanting more.

I think, personally, this is just someone who thinks of fandom as a competition. Someone who is willing to lie, steal, and belittle any and everyone who isn't them. It's not what fandom is supposed to be about. Fandom is a community of people who come together to share and expand their thoughts and feelings about any property. Nail essentially went to Show and Tell, smacked someone else's story out of their hand, then held it up as their own.

Where do we go from here?

Now, like I said at the beginning of this post, I don't want anyone to go out and harass this person. I don't want anyone to bully them, or make us come out and defend them.

Just ignore them.

Madismen has said her piece. I've just chronicled it. We don't need to attack or bully this person, but now that we are aware, we don't need to give them any attention. Giving Nail attention lets them think they've won. It would normalize their actions. We don't have to do either of those things. We don't have to acknowledge someone who has proven they don't care about the people in their fandom. We don't have to do anything.

The great thing about internet fandom is that we can choose who to follow and engage with. We can choose to consume fics that we love, written by people who didn't steal their words. You wouldn't read a plagiarized book. Or at least you shouldn't, because then you're supporting someone who has stolen wages on top of an idea.

There are thousands of works on AO3. There will be another one to read.