I was supposed to post the next chapter today, but this issue took precedent.

Alright, over time I've gotten people from Wattpad and Quotev messaging me and saying that my books inspired them to write their own PJO/HP crossover fics. And I'm like 'oh great! good for you!' and then they ask for my permission to use my story as an inspiration or maybe use an idea I made. I grant them my permission and wish them well.

But then... I get these messages... saying "hey I found this book on quotev/wattpad and it's hella similar to yours, I think they're plagiarizing u, u should check it out" AND I'M LIKE 😱 😱 😱

"A PLAGIARIZER?!?!?!? DRACO STAN IS THAT YOU?!"

I've been getting these kind of messages, all from different people telling me these books are copying mine because they're super similar. AND EVERY TIME I GO TO CHECK IT OUT, I REALIZE THAT THEY ARE RIGHT! These books (all from different authors btw) are extremely similar to mine, but that wasn't all that shocked me.

The authors of these books are some of the people who asked me for permission in the first place.

I'm not going to go around naming names because I know you guys aren't doing this with any ill intent (at least I don't think you are), but when I allowed you guys to use my story as an inspiration, or to use one of my ideas... I didn't really mean to copy the entire plot of my books 💀

The people warning me about plagiarism always mention that not only are they "stealing/copying/whatever" Essie's story, but they're also "stealing/copying/whatever" my style and format. As in, their covers are similar to mine (a statue with a Greek word as a title, with translations underneath, etc), the titles are similar (Greek philosophical word), and even the summaries have a similar style as mine.

They also mentioned that their "Foreword" chapters are similar. Some of these authors (it's usually just the ones on Quotev though) style it like this:

▬▬▬▬▬ (BOOK TITLE) ▬▬▬▬▬

(translation of title)

(summary)

▬▬▬▬▬ (INFO) ▬▬▬▬▬

This is a crossover series between Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. I own neither of them, nor do I own any of the pictures and gifs I use. I only own my OC's story line and that's it.

??? covers ??? by JK Rowling and ??? by Rick Riordan.

▬▬▬▬▬ (CAST) ▬▬▬▬▬

(etc. you get the point)

So yeah, I can't blame these guys for becoming alarmed and warning me. But tbh, I don't really care if they use the same styles as my foreword, summary, book cover, etc, so I'm.. sorta fine with this.

What REALLY concerns me is the very close similarity between their OCs' and Essie's story. IT IS ALWAYS THE SAME BEGINNING! IT IS A DIRECT PARALLEL FROM ALETHEIA:

- OC is a foster kid

I'm like, "oh okay, this is fine!"

- OC gets attacked by a monster and runs away (bonus points if the monster was disguised as their foster parent)

Then I go, "...wait...."

- OC gets saved by a satyr and a canon character or two (bonus points if the rescuers save her while they're in a car, just like Basil and the Stolls did for Essie)

That's when it starts to get pretty fucking obvious. At this point, I already know what's coming up next.

- They get chased to camp (bonus points if they're chased by hellhounds and the same monster from before)

Surprise surprise.

- They get to camp

Uh huh.

- Befriend a camper who canonically dies or becomes a traitor in the future (bonus points if it's a dude and they act all tsun-tsun with her)

Bro, stop it.

- OC plays capture-the-flag, does something impressive, but doesn't get claimed and becomes sad :(

Stop.

- OC takes a year or longer to get claimed

Nooooooooooo.

- OC is finally claimed but it's a big deal and the gods want to kill her or something cuz of her parentage

NOOOOOOOOOO!

- and so forth...

IT'S SO PAINFULLY SIMILAR TO MINE! Like, I know I'm not the first person to make a foster kid OC BUT EVERYTHING ELSE IS EXACTLY THE SAME TO THE POINT WHERE I CAN LITERALLY PREDICT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!

Sure you're not copy-pasting directly from my story, but it's still the same plot points just with different people! IT STILL COUNTS AS PLAGIARISM, UNFORTUNATELY.

THERE HAVE BEEN, SO FAR, AROUND TEN-ISH BOOKS JUST LIKE THIS!!! Some of these authors don't even credit/tag/mention me! That just brings up even more alarm bells on some readers.

If you credit me, then okay. You're good (sort of, cuz some of your guys' books are still a very obvious parallel to mine). If you don't credit me, then... please guys. Just mention my name... On Wattpad I'm 11QueenSupreme11 and on Quotev I'm FruitasManiac (AND YES I KNOW THE NAME IS WEIRD). It's not that hard...

I've had so many people already messaging me on Quotev and Wattpad to report these guys, and most conversations go like this:

Me: So... ah... I actually gave them permission to sorta use my book

Concerned Friend: YOU GAVE THEM PERMISSION TO PLAGIARIZE FROM YOU???!?!!

Me: Nooooooo, I gave them permission to borrow some ideas/use my story as an inspiration

Me: I just wasn't expecting them tO MAKE IT SO SIMILAR

Concerned Friend: GURL THATS STILL PLAGIARISM!!! REPORT THEM

Me: 💀

Look, I'm not going to report you guys because I know you didn't do this to be an asshole. Right now I'm just kindly asking you to change parts of your stories because they are honestly way too similar to mine. You guys asked to borrow an idea/use my story as an inspiration, you never asked to use my entire storyline for Essie and even if you had, I would say no.

Some of you guys have asked to borrow my idea of 'OC being a daughter of Hecate and being immune to HP magic'. I said yes, but you still went and made your plot very similar to mine.

Some of you guys have asked to borrow my idea of having your demigod OC being a daughter of Regulus who's stuck in the Underworld. I said sure, but you still went and made your plot very similar to mine.

Some of you guys wanted to make a story inspired by mine. I said yes, but you guys also went and made your plot very similar to mine. Being inspired by a person's work does not mean you can make your story an almost exact copy of theirs. I'm sorry guys, but that's not inspiration, that's imitation (and it's also still considered plagiarism).

There was an incident in Quotev a few weeks ago where someone informed me that another book was copying mine. I checked and, once again, I wasn't surprised to see that the author was familiar to me because that person had asked permission to borrow an idea or two from my book (yet they went and used my plot instead). I explained to the concerned individual what was going on, BUT THEY ALREADY WENT AND REPORTED THAT BOOK. AND NOW THAT BOOK, AND THE AUTHOR, ARE GONE FROM QUOTEV.

(Also, I'm not mad at the reporter, you did the right thing, I just felt bad since the whole situation was kinda my fault 💀 💀 💀)

I still feel really bad about it because I'm pretty sure the author didn't really... uh... mean to copy from me like so many others had and now someone went and reported them and now they're gone 💀 Whoops.

I feel like it's my fault??? Because I should've spoken out about this long ago??? I should've spoken to the authors of all these books, told them "hey, uh, I know I gave you permission to use my story as an inspiration, but your books are way too similar to mine, can you please stop???" but I just kept my mouth shut despite being uncomfortable with the situation. After the first book I found, I thought there wouldn't be any more, but I was dead wrong. It just kept getting worse and worse...

Please you guys, you cannot copy my storyline. I gave you permission to use an idea or two, that wasn't permission to use all of my ideas. I never gave anyone permission make their book so similar to mine, yet people still went and did it anyways.

If you're one of the people who asked me for permission to use my ideas or my story as an inspiration and your books are a near exact copy of mine, then please just change those parts of your story. Please. Some of my readers might come across it and they WILL accuse you of plagiarism (which I'm pretty sure is what you guys are doing whether you meant to do it or not, sorry) and there's a chance they might actually report you before coming to me about it first.

Now, the whole reason why I posted this today was because I got yet another message (from Wattpad) alerting me that there was someone copying me, but that person already reported them before I could talk to the dude 💀 💀 💀

......Sorry dude......

So I decided that I should finally discuss this because I really don't want people getting reported for (what I hope is) an accident.

BUT ANYWAYS, PLS STOP COPYING ME! If you asked to use one of my ideas, THEN JUST STICK WITH THAT ONE THING! Don't reuse my entire plot! And please, please just credit me, it's not that hard.

AS FOR EVERYONE ELSE, PLS COME TO ME FIRST BEFORE REPORTING! I'm very grateful that you guys are concerned enough to alert me of any plagiarism, but please don't report them right away. I'd like to make double sure if it's plagiarism and I'd like to discuss with the author first before I make the decision of reporting them or not.

ALSO PLEASE DON'T SEND ANY HATE TOWARDS THESE AUTHORS OR THEIR BOOKS. I'm 99% sure they didn't do this on purpose nor were there any malicious intent!

Thank you for reading all of this and again, I apologize for all the trouble.

(also, the next chapter will be updated in a couple hours.... or tomorrow......)