Today I am feeling particularly bitter for no apparent reason, so I decided to make a chapter where I rant about all the times I have been plagiarized. Or, at least, all the times that I can remember.

I'm going to attempt to do them chronologically, but since a lot of them were so long ago, the timeline may not be so secure.

INSTANCE #1

Let's rewind all the way to 2016. This one hurt the most because not only was it my first time experiencing plagiarism, but it was done by someone I considered a friend. This so-called "friend" made a new Bellamy Blake fic and tagged me in it, so of course I checked it out. And it was suspiciously similar to Conflate.

It was obvious from the first line. In the prologue of Conflate, Fallon is sneaking around the Ark to deliver a bracelet to her best friend, Clarke, made out of materials that she'd stolen. It not only establishes their friendship, but also hints to readers how reckless Fallon is getting in her thievery, which eventually leads to her getting caught and being put in the SkyBox. This fic started off with the exact same thing in the prologue— AND I STILL HAVE SOME OF THE TEXT.

Here's how Conflate starts:

"I RUN THROUGH THE corridors of the Ark as soundlessly as I can, my feet barely making any noise as I swiftly move on the metal floor. I have taught myself to walk and run this way over time, even through the adrenaline coursing through my veins; it's one of the things that prevents me from getting caught.

I slow to a stop in front of a gray door that would be identical to everyone else's if it wasn't for the name Griffin in a card slot on the front. I'm in Alpha Station — where the Privileged live — which is quite a distance away from where I live in Walden. Running all this way is necessary, though— it's my best friend's birthday."

And here's how the other book started:

"My feet skidded hurriedly as I had a small smile on my face.

The Ark was cool, the air sending mediocre shivers and tingles through my skin. Nah, it was probably from the excitement. Today, it was my friend Clarke Griffin's sixteenth birthday. She's been my playmate since we were in diapers, so I guess that's why we became friends."

Keep in mind that she TAGGED ME IN THIS!!! Like... did she not think that I would immediately notice the fact that the prologue was the exact same concept as mine??? I was befuddled. Astonished. Reading it had me like:

BUT THE SIMILARITIES DIDN'T STOP THERE!!!! As if the prologue wasn't enough, she also included, almost word-for-word, an original conversation I'd written between Fallon and Octavia in chapter one. Fallon is seated next to her on the dropship and she's the first friend Fallon makes out of the other delinquents. I don't know if the author was trying to use my fic as a transcript or something, but her OC was using all of Fallon's lines, just paraphrased, and I couldn't believe my eyes. Plus the reunion between her OC and Clarke was basically the Fallarke reunion 2.0. Fallon got wounded by the river monster and so did her OC.

I honestly thought it was funny at the time because it was so blatantly plagiarized, so I wanted to see what other things she'd steal before I confronted her. That was a mistake because she took it down not much later because of — get this — lack of inspiration.

This user is no longer on Wattpad which is why I feel comfortable putting part of their prologue on here. It was called Sage. The faceclaim was Phoebe Tonkin. On the off chance the author is reading this, hello, yes, I knew the whole time, and I still laugh to myself about this.

INSTANCE #2

The fics of mine that are plagiarized the most often are my Maze Runner fics. It's not really a surprise given the fact that Different is my most popular book and readers usually find Aegis afterward.

So back in the day, probably 2016-2017, I was helping someone with a plot for their TMR fic — mainly just helping them pick out a name and letting them run some ideas past me. Not unusual. They then tagged me in the fic once they posted it, and I was excited to check it out.

In the cast list was my literal OC Theo. Same name and faceclaim and everything. It said "Diego Boneta as Theo" and I was like W H A T. THAT'S MY BOY???

I had learned my lesson from last time and went to the person like "hey.... bestie .... pls don't put my OCs in your books without my permission because I created Theo and spent a lot of time on his character... thanks!" and luckily the person apologized and took him out of the story. Apparently they didn't realize that Theo was my OC (which confuses me to this day because he's not in the original series so like ... where would he have come from if not my BRAIN) or at least that's what they told me.

Then once again they took it down due to lack of inspiration. So all that help for nothing lmao.

INSTANCE #3

I don't have screenshots from this anymore, which upsets me because this one person basically copied Aegis by paraphrasing everything😭 Like, the paragraphs were the same, but the words were just shuffled around, if that makes sense? Like there was no effort to include anything original or change the formatting. It was astounding.

I messaged the author and they were like "Omg I'm sooo sorry!!!1!!11!1!1!1!" and then they took it down. Like lol. Okay.

INSTANCE #4

This was probably the funniest example. It was a TMR book that was, once again, Aegis but in a different font. And they even had this character called "Leo" that was Walmart Theo. But the most hysterical part to me was that they kept Theo's Mexican background and had him speak Spanish... and then cast him as Cody Christian... who is part Cherokee.... not Latino...

That is the thing I remember the most. It was so funny to me.

Anyways, I messaged this person and I'm pretty sure the book was taken down because I can't find it anymore. I found this book because a kind follower of mine messaged me about it. Shoutout to that person because this book was SO similar to Aegis it was kinda funny. And they even had the OC played by Lindsey Morgan!!

Basically when I confronted this person, I was like "hey bestie!! I'm honored to have inspired you, but your book has quite a few similarities to Aegis..." and proceeded to list them, like the "what's your favorite color?" scene, Frypan calling her Speedy, her being Keeper of the Runners, and "Leo" (Theo) plus the fact that the faceclaim that chose for him wasn't even Latino.

Here's what I said:

"hi there,

it was brought to my attention that your maze runner story "TITLE" has a lot of similarities to my minho story, "aegis", i took a look and noticed that, along with the faceclaim, there are identical quotes and scenes in "TITLE" that are from "aegis". from luisa and kyle discussing favorite colors, frypan calling her "speedy", a murder rampage by a greenie, charlie saying he wants to make dan bleed, seven gladers waiting outside for luisa while she's in the bathroom (and it's even an OC named alfie who brings it to her attention just like in my book), them having a bet on her hair being up or down, dan saying "WICKED is good", a latino OC named "leo" instead of "theo" (played by cody christian, who is not latino), and more, the beginning of "run" is practically identical to my story. this was really disheartening to see because i know you have a lot of books and it's clear you can come up with cool ideas, so there was no need to take things from "aegis" like that.

i worked very, very hard to make aegis original and it's made up entirely of my own scenes and dialogue nothing from the books/movies except a handful of lines when thomas shows up. it deeply hurt me to see my beloved plot points, lines, and scenes taken.

i ask that you please take the book down and remove the plagiarized content. i know that luisa and nadia have their differences but with the faceclaim, profession, and injury, it feels like she's nadia 2.0. the rest of the book seems to be fine.

thanks,
kristyn"

Then the person replied that they have never even read Aegis or heard of it and they were co-writing the book with their friend, who had suggested all of those ideas. Meanwhile the "suggestions" were exact lines. I have a video where I clicked through screenshots of their chapters vs ones of mine and they line up almost exactly.

Example of theirs:

Jamie stopped in front of them and gave Kyle a little nod before he said, "I called a gathering when you were out for as long as you were. No one really knows what to do, because no one knew if you were going to-"

Luisa cut Jamie off saying, "Die?" Jamie nodded, "Yeah well first in last out."

Example of mine:

He stopped in front of me, sea blue eyes drifting to Minho. He gave him a little nod of acknowledgment before directing his gaze back to me. "I called a Gathering when I noticed you were out for as long as you were. It's been kind of up in the air, since we didn't know if you'd—"

"Survive?" I finished in a question, feeling my heart clench as I spoke the word. It was beyond weird to think about how my leg had actually gotten stuck in the Door of the Maze. I had miraculously sprung free and my leg didn't have to be amputated. None of it made sense- the limb should have been crushed; the Door should have kept closing.

Like... bruh.

Anyways this book is down now and I can't find the person's profile, so perhaps they deleted their account or changed their user. This was just one of the most dramatic examples of clear plagiarism I've had since the first one with Conflate.

INSTANCE #5

So this is actually an ongoing issue!!! There is a Minho fic on here that is also Aegis 2.0 but with slightly different injuries. And once again this person tagged me (this time on their message board) and said that their new chapter was "heavily inspired by stilestastic's story 'Aegis'" and in their author's note they wrote "But I wanted to give credit to stilestastic and her story 'Aegis'. I love her book sm and it's what inspired this one, but she made the idea of the maze shutting on her ocs leg, I just hope they are not too similar" (word for word copied from my screenshot). So I was like "oh no" and went to the rest of the book and ... sure enough...

The OC has differences from Nadia, but the main issue is that an injury in the Maze causes a grave injury to her leg, resulting in Minho being her babysitter (exact words in the description AND the new chapter they just posted) and people questioning whether she's still fit to be the Keeper of the Runners.

I messaged this person and pointed out the similarities. I do not remember if I got a response or not, and seeing as PMs are gone, I can't check. I will probably post a message on this person's message board and ask if there's a private place we can discuss things because the book is still up and being updated. I will not reveal the title or author because for now, it's between me and them. If they aren't cooperative then I'll expose them.

Those are all of the concrete examples I can remember. I do recall some other times where my stuff was stolen, but they're too faint for me to write about in detail.

Friendly reminder to not take people's ideas :)