IMPORTANT WARNING!
Please Read This Before You Read The Story
Hi. I'm IlurThVir, formerly known on the site as Saigo il SenzaVolto. I'm Italian, and this is my very first fanfic. I guess some of you already know what happened to this story, but for all those who don't know yet or who are visiting this fanfic for the first time, let me explain to you how things stand and what happened to this troubled fanfiction of mine. Please bear with me for a bit.
I previously published this story about a month ago, but I had to remove it for some time last week, on Sunday 13th July. The reason? I have been accused of plagiarism and of having illegally and improperly copied and used parts of other stories in my fanfic, more specifically parts of two other stories. Because of this, some users on the site started texting me and sending me insults and hate messages, both privately and on the reviews, and because of this I decided to remove the fanfic and change the account name. Soon after that I was contacted by some Mod from the site, and a couple of things happened. I will now explain in detail what happened.
A Thousand Years is entirely inspired by two things, mainly:
- A fanart I saw on the Tumblr blog of the user 'akampana' (who I recently find out to be an author on this site and on Archive of Our Own as well. I learned this only a few days ago)
- GhostXavier's Fragments of Chaldea
Those are the two, main things from where I got inspiration and the idea of writing this story, basically. And indeed, I have even used some parts directly inspired to GhostXavier's Fragments of Chaldea in my own story. Parts almost entirely similar, including dialogues.
The reason for this is very simple: I got permission to do it.
Let me explain. Years ago, I used to be an usual reader of his stories with another account that I used to share with my brother by the name of TheFlood97, previously named KnightofSteam, and then renomed Kymeria some time later, and now currently abandoned since last year I had to delete the e-mail I used to log in on the account. Back then, more than a year ago by now, I asked GhostXavier if I could use some of his stories and scenes as an inspiration, if I ever decided to write something about the Fate series. He told me it was fine, that he was actually happy about it, as long as I changed the story, the plot, the characters and the context completely. Then, I went on with my life, and decided to not write anything since I had no good ideas for a story, until I saw a certain fanart from the aforementioned Tumblr blog that gave me inspiration for it.
That's where A Thousand Years came from, basically. I know some of you may or may not believe me, but I take full responsibility for what I'm writing right here. I do not honestly care if people believe me or not, but I wanted to say this knowing that I can sleep with a clear conscience and since some of you had been asking me in private.
However, when I first published the story, something happened that I didn't expect.
Right after posting the fourth chapter, another author on the site – I won't say his/her name, since I don't want people to bother him/her with useless questions or, even worse, insults and hate like what happened to me – wrote me and said that there were some parts in my story that seemed extremely similar, if not identical, to his/her own fanfiction. I had no idea of what he/she was talking about, but I checked the chapter of the story he/she told me about and found none. However, on the very same day I learned about this, people started to complain to me and send me a lot of insults. So, I decided to cut the problem from the roots and delete the story, even though I had permission for using some parts from GhostXavier's story and I didn't really copy anything from this other author.
A lot of people soon started to write to me about the story, and asked me what happened. I explained it to them, and I received a lot of sympathy, compassion and support. And I take this opportunity to thank you all for your kind words and your support. I really appreciated it. (More than 30 users wrote me and supported me, that's crazy! I never expected that my story could be so interesting for so many people).
Let me now explain another important detail before I resume talking about what happened: the way in which I wrote my story.
Since I am Italian, I live in Italy, and I am not very good at writing in English, I wrote my entire fanfic in Italian from start to finish. Then, subsequently, I used Google Translate to modify it in English, and then I used my not-so-great knowledge in English to arrange the sentences, fix the misspelling and countless mistakes to make the fic readable according to my knowledge of the language. That's how A Thousand Years is written, entirely, start to finish (even this Warning here, actually). The only parts that are inspired or taken from GhostXavier's own story are all listed in the notes to the various chapters, and – as I said earlier – I had permission to use them. I'm not going to repeat it again here.
Back to what happened: upon reading the full story of this other author, I realized that there were indeed some sentences that looked extremely similar, almost copy-pasted as some later said. But that was entirely coincidental. I had never read that story before, and I had no idea of the similarities either. Despite this, however, I still preferred to keep quiet and delete the story all the same to avoid problems, sending to all of those who asked me for information about my story a hasty explanation (without mentioning the author's name, of course), and apologizing for the sudden delete.
A day after I deleted the story I received a message from a Mod, in which I was asked to remove the fanfic since they had noticed the stituation, and that I would have been banned from the site if I didn't remove it. I replied that I had already deleted the story, but I tried several times to tell them what I'm writing here too: I was allowed to use some parts from GhostXavier's story, and that the similarities with the other author's story were pure coincidence. Obviously, they didn't answer me and I was ignored.
After my sixth attempt, I received an e-mail from the site, where I was asked to explain the situation in detail. I did, telling them everything I'm writing here, and I've been asked to prove it. Not knowing what to do, I did the only thing I could. Fortunately, I had not yet removed the Italian and English Word Documents of the story from my PC, so I asked if I could send those to them (both the Italian and English version) to prove that they were written by me and not copy-pasted from other stories. They accepted and I sent them both, on e-mail and DocX.
I have no idea of what they did with those Word Documents. However, four days later on Saturday 19 July, they finally replied, saying that I could publish the story again if I wanted, and that it would not be deleted from the site. I never felt so relieved before.
However, even despite this, I still didn't want to post the story again. I wanted to stay safe, and not be accused again of plagiarism from people and be the subject to insults and hatred. Even now part of me is still unsure of what I'm doing now, publishing it again, but my decision is now made.
The decision was made thanks to all of those who supported me. Some have offered me sympathy, support, and even help, and there's a lot of you who always insisted that I should rethink my choice. A lot of you, actually, insisted on this. So, even though I'm afraid of what I'm doing, I simply decided to thank you with this gesture. You deserve to at least see how this troubled fic of mine ends, after all. You deserve it, and I am grateful for the kind words and support you have given me. This is the one and only reason why I decided to publish the story again.
However, before I say more, there's one thing I must make clear.
For all those who are reading this, I ask of you to not leave reviews or send me other private messages, whether they are positive or negative. The reason for this is that, as soon as the story is published, I will completely abandon the account. I already know that a lot of people will write insults in the review section and in my private messages. I know that many will say that I am just a liar, that I am making everything up, and many other things that I cannot and do not want to imagine.
Given the precedents, I am already fully aware of it.
You are free to write reviews and do what you want, of course, but know that I will not read and answer them given everything that has happened.
So, be warned: I'm abandoning the ship. I have been guaranteed of the fact that the story will stay on the site, so you guys will be free to read it and do whatever you want with it, but I will delete the email of this account and never look at this story again. I will move on and forget about this. I'm not going to be the subject of criticism and hate when I don't deserve them, after all.
So, I thank those who supported me here in advance, but even if you write to me or leave a positive review or message, know that I will not be able to answer you like before and that - most likely - I will not even read them. I'm really sorry, but I'm not going to deal with that kind of shit anymore.
To the author who wrote me about the similarities between our stories. (I don't know if you'll ever read this, but I wanted to write it nontheless)
I apologize if with my story I gave you the impression that I stole from yours and that I had the intention of taking credit for a work that was not mine. And I also apologize if I gave you the impression that I was a liar and that I was stealing credit from other people. That was never my intention, nor I wished for things to escalate like this either. For this, I deeply apologize.
However, I do NOT apologize for using those sentences before. I didn't copy them from you, believe it or not. I have no idea how such a coincidence was possible, it bothered me too, but it happened. If you want to blame something for the extreme similarities between our sentences in some descriptions and dialogues, blame Google Translate. I have no reason to lie, especially after everything that happened. (I still changed the similarities now, and I hope it can be enough for you.)
I read your apology, and I don't blame you. Not even for the insults and the hate I received. You're not responsible for the actions of others. So, don't worry about that in the slightest. Just like you said, I will move on and forget about this. I hope you will do the same.
(Just a little thing I need to get out of my chest: when you first wrote me and asked me to 'explain myself' about the similarities, I replied that I didn't find them because there really weren't any similar sentences between my story and your third chapter. The similarities were between my fanfic and your FOURTH chapter, not the THIRD (you called it Chapter Three, but I've read Chapter Two, since that's the third one in order of publication). I only realized this AFTER reading your full story. I wanted to tell you this before, but soon after I replied to your first message, the site prevented me from texting you again, and I couldn't even see your first message anymore. I still can't, actually. And I needed to get this out of my chest.)
Good luck with your story.
It may sound strange, but after everything I wrote here, I don't want to give you guys the impression that I'm playing the victim here. I am fully aware of what I have written, but I'm honest about this.
And more importantly, I am aware of the fact that if there is one person to blame for what happened, that is ME and ME ALONE.
I should have said right away that I was taking inspiration from the GhostXavier's story and that I was allowed to use some of his scenes, sentences and dialogues even if I changed the plot and context. I simply chose not to do it before because I thought it was superfluous and pointless (you just need to write Fragments of Chaldea on the site to see how many people did the same thing. There are dozen of stories that take inspirations, quotes and even plot from his great works). But that does not justify my past actions.
So, I'm not playing victim here. I know I was in the wrong too. And I admit it fully.
. . .
I am the first to condemn plagiarism. Stealing credit from another's work is an offense to any author, and the very same rules of the site do not allow it. So, I will say this here once and for all: I NEVER intended to offend anyone, nor STEAL CREDIT from the work of others. Nor GhostXavier, nor anyone else.
And, obviously, I do not wish to spread hate, discord or any form of evil intention on this site. I don't want to spread hate towards anyone, nor anything with these words. I just want to be 100% honest about what happened. So please, PLEASE, do not spread hate anymore. Just take this fanfiction for what it is: a story. A simple story. A simple story whose one, only and main purpose is to arouse emotions. I have no other intentions than this.
Please.
. . .
I think I explained almost everything now. There's still a little bit of information about this matter on the notes of the chapters. Especially on the notes of the last chapter. The story is already complete, so you can check it out, if you want.
So, if you guys already read the story or simply want to know more about this, you can skip there directly.
-Exhales with a smile-