A/N: I am writing this to have a bit of fun with a serious situation that I will explain once the actual story part of this post is done. Also, this is my first attempt at 3rd Person POV, so let me know how I did, despite how much of a joke this is. Figured this was the safest way to experiment. Cheers.
Marco was walking back into his house after a long day at the dojo. He was super proud of how he had been able to handle Jeremy as of late. 'I guess all of the monster fighting has been paying off,' he thought to himself. As he walked through the front door, he noticed that Star was laying down on the couch, just staring up at the ceiling.
He said, "Hey Star, what's the matter?"
"It's nothing," she replied.
"Don't lie to me, Star. I know when you're upset. And I can't make you feel better if you don't tell me what's going on." Marco really wanted to know what was going on, because despite what she might think, he really did care for her, maybe in a way that was more than just friendship.
Star sighed. "It's a really big and complex issue that has really been bugging me as of late."
"Well, can you tell me what it is?"
"It's about how creative people can be silenced."
Marco was taken a bit by surprise. "Why is this a big deal to you? You don't just start thinking about this randomly."
"I don't know. It's just that it's a problem that seems to be all too common these days. Perfectly good people who just want to be creative having their intellectual property stolen, it's just not right, and it's certainly not legal." Marco was a bit surprised that she knew what intellectual property even meant, but he brushed that aside.
"But Star, there has to have been something to have made you sad about this in the first place, right?" Marco was now mad at whatever had made her upset, and he was going to find out what.
"I don't really know, it's probably a culmination of a lot of things, really." Again, Marco didn't know who was teaching her these bigger words, not that he was complaining. Maybe he was rubbing off on her. "What with all the free-booting on Facebook and YouTube, seeing it happen to one of the little guys just makes me so sad."
"Star, is there anything, anything at all that I can do to make you feel better?"
A metaphorical lightbulb appeared over Star's head. "Well… there has been something I've been waiting for for a long time, Marco, and it involves YOU."
Marco started sweating. "Umm, me?"
Star finally arose from the couch and said, "Yes, you. I think there's something that we both want right now." Marco was getting very nervous.
"Star, what does this entail?" Marco was genuinely terrified at what she might say next, given the rather sensual tone of her voice.
"Come into my room and you'll find out." Marco nearly ran out the door, but followed Star all the same. Dear Lord, if what I'm thinking is right, then I'm freaking out for more than one reason, but I didn't want it to happen like this!
Star locked the door behind them. Star said, "It's something that would cheer me up beyond belief, and something I think you would be very, very good at."
Five minutes later, Marco was breathing a sigh of relief as she was listing out what she wanted me to email the copyright infringement people for . "And make sure you say that 'this is unacceptable and should not be continued in this great community.' Yeah, that will show them that this is an issue that really needs a discussion."
Marco asked her, "Is this all you wanted?"
Star replied, "That's all I wanted in the email… but there's something else I did want to do while you're in here."
Before Marco could even speak up, Star planted a kiss on his cheek, followed immediately by the pooling of blood to his face. "Umm, Star, was that like a mistake or something?"
Star replied, "My only mistake was not doing that sooner." She smiled with that innocent smile that made me go crazy every day.
Marco thought to himself, I thought this was quite a successful day, if you asked me. Taking down plagiarism one email at a time, while also scoring a few bonus points with the most beautiful girl on earth.
A/N: So obviously this whole piece of writing was a bit of a joke, more so a way for me to get my message out there without getting asked to remove it for not having any Starco action. But it highlights, albeit in a quite silly and fun manner, a deeper issue at play that has suddenly become very important to me.
Plagiarism. Personally, I'm a bit flattered that someone out there thought that my writing was good enough to want to steal, but then again, it's my intellectual property, not his. (His being Logansey5, and if if you haven't seen it already, it's pretty much the same fucking thing as my first chapter to Shades of Truth.)
So if someone out there actually really enjoys where a certain story of mine goes, and wants to maybe continue it whereas I shelved it in sort of a spin-off fic, then by all means, do it, but communicate with me and make sure to credit the story as mine, and that it is for the enrichment of a plot, not a direct copy that adds no value to it whatsoever.
This is also a big deal on sites like YouTube, where YouTubers like Jacksfilms and GradeAUnderA have addressed free-booting in their own unique way (two of my fav channels on YT right now, seriously, they are hilarious and should totally go check them out) from people like Jinx and SoFloAntonio and CJisSoCool essentially copying videos and publishing them as their own or putting them on sites like Facebook, just to make a profit on this. It's not entirely the same, but you get my I'm trying to say is, plagiarism is a big issue on every scale imaginable, wether that be a small fan fiction you put together in your spare time, or a studio-grade piece of creativity, or really just any type of intellectual property.
So this is something of a personal issue now. And it's terrible. I don't particularly like that this happened to me, but this could have happened to ANYONE. I feel like the reason he may have chose me is because I'm not nearly as well known as people like Axis25, EVAunit42, SonicELITE, or the likes of which are pretty well known on this corner of fanfiction. So yeah, this could have happened to anyone, and I feel kind of shitty saying that I might not have felt as passionate about this if it didn't happen to me, but it's a big fucking deal now.
We need to, collectively, keep an eye on shady stuff like this. Thank you to EchoNumbers, Kieran Wespell, Anonymims, nightmareking, The Warty Hogg, and SonicELITE for calling this guy out with me, it means a bunch. And a big thank you to Jeremy Hillary Boob for PM'ing me on how I can officially report this guy. It needs to be cracked down on, and as a community, we can stop this from happening to anyone, big or small.
Thank you guys for bothering to read this, and have a good one. Thank you for the support. Until next time!