Pixie's Chronicle: Someone Stole My Work!

Welcome to my new blog segment known as Pixie's Chronicle! A new Friday segment where I talk about everything that's going on with my fanfiction work, news on when stories will be updated, any new up and coming ideas, fanfictions I'm currently reading and any other opinions and thoughts relating to fanfiction and Miraculous Ladybug that aren't really long enough to fit into other blog posts.

Also, it's a place to get to know me a little bit better. I was talking to LycoRogue the other day, and we got talking about how scared of other fanfiction writers we can get sometimes, which made me realise this weird intimidation wasn't just something I experienced. So if there are people out there who are scared of me, maybe this will help? Because you'll probably quickly realise through these posts how silly and stupid I can be.

First on the agenda of discussion today is my clickbait looking title. Which is something that actually happened to me this week. Yeah, someone stole Destiny's Dance. I couldn't believe it myself when I found out. I was just doing my last checks on fanfiction before I headed to bed when I noticed that some stranger had sent me a PM which looked really urgent. This person explained to me that she was exploring this account on Wattpad who had stolen her own story and noticed that this person had stolen one of my stories.

I was not happy.

Like, where do these people even get the balls to do something like this? Do they not think they'll be found out? Stealing other people's work and claiming it as your own is not on. I worked hard on that story and this person was just taking all the credit. They had literally copy and pasted my story word for word. This is something that's happened to me before and it didn't make me any less angry. I had to create a Wattpad account in order to call this person out on their plagiarism and report them. I ended up getting my boyfriend to do all of that in the end because I was just too angry and was worried things would turn nasty because of the state I was in. This was one of those situations that just really provoked me due to the nerve of this person. So yeah, I didn't trust myself.

Luckily the account had been deleted by the next day. I don't know whether they deleted it themselves or if Wattpad did it, but I'm just glad it's gone. I hope that this person has learnt their lesson. I recognise that some ideas are going to be similar, but don't copy and paste someone's work and claim it as your own. Let that be a message to anyone reading this who's thinking of stealing my work, or anyone's fanfiction and fan art for that matter. The original creators will always find out. We will find you, and we will call you out and expose you for the thieves you are. So is it worth that?

So yeah, that incident was annoying and infuriating.

Don't steal, guys. This has been another Pixie P.S.A. 

Aside from that, this week has been pretty quiet for me writing wise. Honestly, it's mainly due to a lack of inspiration this week. I had really hoped to have my fanfiction Chat Vert published by now. But for some reason, I just can't seem to get started with it. It's like I've just had this huge mental block this week, and any time I tried to sit down at my computer and start writing, I just went blank. I've almost completely lost my creative flow this week. I don't think my anxiety has been helping. My anxiety has been getting really bad over these past couple of weeks, resulting in me accidentally injuring myself and making myself sick. However, I have been trying to combat that by doing the run-of-the-mill silly breathing exercises, as well as *gulp* doing actual physical exercise.

I'm not really a fitness freak, but seeing everyone else going to the gym and doing exercises and stuff always makes me feel bad about my own life. So I wondered if it might help with my anxiety, I mean, everyone says it should. So I've been doing an hour of exercise everyday for a week now and the results of that experiment have yet to make themselves known. I don't really feel any less anxious than I normally do, nor has it really helped me with my depression and lack of fanfiction inspiration. If anything it just makes me sweaty and tired.

I did end up going for a few walks though, which kinda helped and almost got my creative juices flowing again. It helps that I live in the middle of the countryside so there's always plenty of beautiful and secluded places that I can go to. I ended up wandering over to a small lake and a stream that I haven't been to in years. It looked like the kinda place where you would bump into Slenderman. I may or may not have almost fallen off a cliff, but it did give me a nice few moments to think. It also made me realise that I'm not as agile as I used to be as a kid, thus resulting in an existential crisis.

The small creek where I sat and thought about my stories.

But unfortunately, no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't find any inspiration this week. I really tried my best to work on Immortal Bond's re-write, but so far, all I've managed to do is come up with a new idea for chapter one. But what I really need to do is fix those damn plot holes and elements of the story that made no sense. I've now got a ginormous spider diagram of ideas for that story, the problem is just organising those ideas and making sense of them. I was hoping to have started re-writing this story by Halloween, but it looks like that's not going to happen now. But you guys did tell me to take my time. I'm so lucky to have such kind and understanding readers. I feel like I don't give my readers enough credit and appreciation. Thank you thank you thank you thank you!   

Chat Vert as I said is literally going nowhere at the moment. I really don't understand. I have all of the ideas, I know what I'm doing and everything is organised. It's only going to be a short and simple story. But when it comes to sitting down and writing it, nothing happens. Next week, I'm really going to try and get into the zone of writing again. Maybe writing the next chapter of Madness Within will help get me back into the swing of things. Because this week, all I managed was that one-shot, Ladybug's Lullaby - which I would totally love for you guys to check out by the way. But I even struggled writing that. I kept zoning out after writing a few sentences and then snapping back into reality half an hour later. I kept dissociating which is weird because writing usually helps me not do that and helps keep me grounded. Which is quite paradoxical when you think about it. But I guess I'm just weird like that.

I had hoped that finally sitting down to watch Avatar: The Last Air Bender might also help me. I know, I admit it, up until this week, I had never seen that show. When it originally aired, I remember not really being that interested in it. But over the years, people kept raving about it and telling me how much I needed to watch it. At that point, the show felt incredibly over-hyped and I was worried it wouldn't live up to what everybody had been saying about it. I didn't want an experience like I had with Frozen. Though Steven Universe had quite recently proved to me that some stuff can actually live up to its hype. I had been begging my boyfriend to watch Death Note with me for a while, and he finally agreed on the condition that I watched Avatar. I agreed and I did not regret it. It's definitely one of the best TV shows I have ever watched, hands down.

Usually when I get excited over a show, it sparks my imagination and really helps me come up with ideas. Although the show got me excited, for some reason, my imagination just didn't get triggered like it normally does. So unfortunately, watching Avatar didn't help me like I hoped it would.

I also wondered if watching the new Halloween Miraculous Ladybug chibi short might help re-ignite that spark as well. As cute as the short was, unfortunately that didn't work either. It just made me resent the fact that nobody I know likes celebrating Halloween. I hate how Halloween isn't really that popular in the UK. I wish we were more like the USA and went crazy for the holiday. But I digress. I really liked this short as it was nice to see more of Ladybug for a change. So far the shorts have mainly focused on Chat Noir. 

So yeah, I have no idea what's been wrong with me this week. My brain seems to have decided to just stop working. I hope it fixes itself soon as I want to get some new stories planned out better. I want to finally get around to publishing Chat Vert and start re-writing Immortal Bond. 

I keep thinking about joining Archive of Our Own and posting my work on there as well, but for some reason, I always feel really shy about joining new websites. So if anyone thinks this is a good idea and wants to give me a nudge, feel free. Is it a good idea?

Also, once season two of Miraculous Ladybug ends, I think I'm going to stop doing my episode reviews. I just find them to be too much pressure and I feel really bad plastering any really negative opinions I might have about the show on the internet. I know that's what reviews are all about, but that doesn't make me feel any less guilty. So I guess that means I'm not cut out for being a serious reviewer. I kinda just want to sit back and enjoy the show without having to think too hard about what was good and what was bad. Of course, if something in particular does catch my attention in an episode, I'll still probably talk about it. I just don't want to be doing full length reviews anymore. I think I bit off more than I could chew with that idea.

Speaking of my blog, as well as doing these segments on Fridays, I was also thinking of creating the idea of Miraculous Monday, where every Monday, I'll post content more directly related to Miraculous Ladybug such as fanfiction reviews, fan theories and other stuff relating to the show. I still need to get around to talking about a fan theory, but I really can't decide which one to go with first. But I know that by this coming Monday, I want to post my first fan theory content.

If all goes well, Madness Within should be updated tomorrow, or by Sunday at the latest. I'm really hoping to get Chat Vert published as soon as possible, preferably within the next two weeks. So if you're looking for a story that involves a love triangle between Marinette, Adrien and Luka, then keep your eyes peeled. Because considering this was something the fandom seemed to really want to happen in the actual show, I haven't seen that many fanfics on this topic. I think I've read one fanfic that tackles this and that's it. So I thought I'd write one myself. Plus, I love Luka, and do actually ship him with Marinette. I ship Adrien and Marinette more, and I know that they're end game, but it doesn't mean they can't like other people along the way to being together.

I've been pretty inactive on Tumblr as well recently and that's because I've banned myself from that website until the English version of the season two finale of Miraculous Ladybug airs. It's driving me crazy how they pushed back the air date. I miss Tumblr *sniff*. I just really don't want any spoilers. I want to go into the finale fully blind because I want to be surprised. The last time I saw spoilers, I went into the episodes feeling really annoyed and salty. The revelations just didn't have the same impact on me because of that. So this time, I'm not taking any risks. 

Anyway, here's hoping that I get my inspiration back very soon. And that people stop stealing my work.

Pixie out.