who knows?

Major things they stole:

Their villain, Silas, is Matthias. Literally, that's it. He's Matthias.

Silas is an immortal man who looks just like Matthias who's been alive for almost 200 years and was a member of the Westchester cult, where he knew Cora. He wants to sacrifice redfield Noah due to his connection to the Power (Rowan anyone) as part of a complicated ritual he's put together in order to... I'm not quite sure what, exactly, as the story was a bit hard to follow. He thinks he’s all manipulative and the main crew states that "He’s getting us to do his work for him!”

And then there's his appearance. That's the same hairstyle. He's the same age. Same race. Literally, just like Connor in their story is as recognizable AI-version of his in-game sprite, that's what this guy looks like. All he's missing is the beard.

The gang's base of operations is Cora’s cabin

This one is interesting. It's such a tiny detail, and I'd grown so used to the cabin being their safe place that when Connor was like "We need to get back to the cabin" it literally took me a moment to realize - wait. They had nothing to do with that cabin in the original series. Using that as a home base was literally our idea, an It Lives Within original.

The main enemies are mind controlled townspeople working for Silas

Instead of following the precedent of the previous games and having the enemies be Power-twisted animal monsters, they decided to make their enemies humans that are mind-controlled into zombie-like beings that attack the gang in hordes. There's even a scene where the gang is driving through them in their car. This is a rip-off of It Lives Within's horrors. And on top of that, they copied the carnival scene where Harper driving through the horde of horrors.

Noah and Devon's relationship

Their relationship in this '"TV show" has suspicious similarities to their friendship/romance routes in ILW. They made Devon be redfield Noah's anchor to reality, and even had Devon use memories to help ground Noah, which we showed in the cabin scene where Devon and Noah play baseball together. And I know there were Noah x Devon shippers outside of me before ILW released, but it was never PB's plan to canonize them. So the fact that they are seemingly changing course to canonize them after they grew so popular in the fan version feels a bit too coincidental.

Scraping fan art for their AI animation frames

But what's even more egregious is that they have even stooped to scraping from fan artists, who have nowhere near the same following or exposure as our project does. Seriously, what are the odds that the MC they choose to use matches this artist's MC's race, gender, hair, and outfit exactly, that they used Noah's old outfit, that they are literally positioned on the same sides of the image? It's blatant plagiarism, and it's despicable. @errajay I'm so sorry they did this.

These are the biggest similarities, but considering that it was only like 15 minutes of content, that means that a high percentage of the story was stolen. Sure, the exact details of "Silas's" plan are different (he's like a horcrux for the "entity" aka power and he was split into 43 parts and Noah's one of his parts and he needs to kill him to get it back and be free or something) it's the same concept: immortal man who's trapped making a complicated ritual requiring sacrifice while manipulating people to get everything into place.

The voicemail that had greeted you when you turned your phone back on after a rushed study session between morning classes still echoes too loudly in your head, the memory of a raspy-voiced college administrator scratching at your eardrums like an itch you can’t reach. A thousand polite, pointed words boiling down to one fact: They were accusing you of plagiarism for the project you’re pretty sure you’d sold off the last of your sanity to complete. You were sure there had had to be some mistake. There was no way. And yet, the impossible was at your doorstep holding your future ransom.

Somehow, you’d managed to make it through the rest of your obligations for the day in one piece before stumbling home into Bobby’s arms, tearful and panicked. She’d held you tight, uncharacteristically quiet. For once, she’d been as lost for words as you. The quiet didn’t last, and even from the steady inhale before her first word, you’d known something was very wrong.

“I was interested in doing my project about that topic, you knew that. We talked about it more than once,” Bobby had said when you’d stumbled home and into her arms, tearful and panicked, but eager to figure out how the college could’ve gotten their signals crossed. “You’ve been so tired, you might’ve copied what I told you by accident, right? You need to take better care of yourself.”

While you’d blinked at Bobby, mouth popping open and closed wordlessly, trying to assemble puzzle pieces you couldn’t seem to match up, Bobby’s smile stayed perfect. Just the right amount of crinkle around the eyes to invite softness, the right bit of quirk to the corners of her lips to promise that one day we’d laugh about this. You had a thousand memories of that beloved smile, and in an instant they all felt as the gaping hole yawning open in your chest.

“And maybe I let you inspire me a little too much, I just love listening to you when you’re passionate about something and I’ve missed talking to you.” Bobby had acquiesced when the silence stretched on, reaching out to hold your hands tight. You’d forced yourself to stay still through the alarm bells in your head, staring frozen into her vulnerable eyes, each its own pool of sincerity and hurt, inviting you to gently drown in their depths. “All you think about lately is school. It’s not healthy.”

You braced for- for… you weren’t even sure for what. God, when was the last time I was sure about anything? Every grief you’d ever experienced suddenly felt as though they clung to and added their weight to the silent answer to your own question: You don’t know.

“I want to help you, but I only have so much to give,” Bobby had said softly, her brow pinched, deepening the familiar line between her eyes where there was the first hint of a wrinkle. “Maybe this is a good opportunity to reconsider if college is the right move for you before we sink more money into a degree you’re not even sure about.”

Why did you feel like prey being cornered when you were more free than you’d ever been? Why were you always so fucking scared of that empty space where a fear could be, if you didn’t know better? You’d long since convinced yourself there was nothing there, only old traumas haunting new relationships, but for a second there in Bobby’s arms, the Nothing flinched.

“This isn’t going to get easier. Sometimes, the most mature thing you can do is realize when something is not working.” The sickly sweet words had dripped from her mouth, venom and honey, rotting your teeth as she’d leaned in to press her soft lips against yours. “I’d still be proud of you, sweetheart. No matter what, I’ll be there.”

You shake your head, fighting the urge to retch. Breathe. There’s so much emptiness in your chest and yet no room for the damn air. Breathe! Your fingertips have gone white before you realize how hard they’re digging into your phone case, and you force yourself to shove the device into your pocket, wiping furiously at your eyes.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, I’m so fucking stupid, but not as stupid as Bobby must think you are. Looking around yourself now, half of who you were but somehow twice as burdened, with the best of you cut up by your own hand and freely shipped away on a silver platter… you don’t know whether you can rightfully say whether her assessment was wrong.

You just don’t know.

A tidbit about the title! When I was a kid, I saw a documentary where they treated exposure to a poison dart frogs with honey. I don’t recall how legit it was, but although in this fic I mention venom not poison, that’s a little bit of where it came from. Something something Bobby neutralizing her own venom enough not to kill or significantly injure Rex, but it does hurt every time. So much of the shitty stuff in that relationship feeling like a frog slowly being boiled but unable to point to exactly what is wrong. And there’s also more honey than venom, so Rex should be focused on that, on the good! Why are they so focused on the venom when it hasn’t even almost killed them yet? But at the end of the day, even the sweetness is rotting them away and killing them as much as the venom, because it’s the honey that keeps them stuck. Now, it’s the honey that fills them with more terror than the venom, at least one of them is honest about why it’s there. It also makes me think of about how right now Rex doesn’t really know if they’re the Toxic OneTM (aka poisonous, like by making it on their skin and so Bobby is risking exposure by touching them) or if Bobby is venomous and the toxin is coming from her mouth (her words, her kisses, her lies, etc). The answer being of course more complex than “there was one person who was Right the whole relationship and one who was Wrong,” but that would be a much deeper and longer story that I don’t feel equipped to tell at this point.