Plagiarist Road Kill

[mark_asphodel]

OK. A few entries back I was angsting over concrit for a story that did something I didn't like to one of my favorite characters. I now have cold proof that the SSB story I had issues with basically took chunks of text from an FE8 story ("Despair" by Kanthia) and "reworked" it to ill effect. Look, fanbrats, any story in which you think you can substitute Marth for Innes is not going to play right. I didn't even think Innes was in-character in the original fic, and the hack job was even more offbase.

So, instead of feeling funny about my duty to help a poor little amateur author who hasn't developed sufficient respect for source material, I'm going to teach a sticky-fingered fanbrat a hard lesson. I'm going to give Kanthia first dibs on bagging him/her, though.

For great justice!

Comments

[mark-asphodel.livejournal.com]

Hey, Gunlord.

NP. Everything I post publicly is free for the commenting.

OK. I PM'd Lemurian-Girl last night about it, with the link's to Kanthia's story and the copycat, so she could see I wasn't just playing games. I don't recall I mentioned the FE Forum part to Kanthia-- since I didn't know it was her 'fic when I started poking around, the topic was kind of a done deal by the time I learned it was hers. I'll correct that omission. I sent her both links as well by my initial PM. Kanthia seems to be having exams right now... I haven't heard back from her, but maybe someone she's close to can speak with her and see how she feels before this thing goes any further?

[gunlord.livejournal.com]

Okay, that sounds good, thank you. I'm not on Kanthia's FL so I doubt it would be prudent of me to send her a missive via LJ, but a PM ought to be sufficient. Thanks again! And for what it's worth, I looked at PitFTW's profile to see what I could find, and yes, the ending of that piece seems to be a rather shameless and graceless ripoff of Kanthia's "Despair." "Give me your nation and lend me your power. We shall attack when the enemy is weak. For the voice of Tabuu never dies, boy?" SURELY THE SIMILARITIES MUST BE COINCIDENTAL!! Hurr durr, indeed.

It might be prudent to give this author a chance to defend herself, particularly to Kanthia, but I can't see how much of a defense could be made...the word-for-word copying runs too deep to be waved off as just 'stylistic similarity' or something. Plagiarists...>:[ I believe I'll be sending an email to reportabuse@fanfiction.com sometime soon, surely this kind of thing can't be in accordance with the rules.

Anyways, thanks again for bringing this to the attention of Ms. Lemurian-Girl and I! If you ever see something suspicious or need to notify somebody about something funny you see on the forums or around our haunting grounds on FFn generally, please don't hesitate to drop me a line, either on my LJ or via PMs or whatever.