So I'm just gonna warn you -- this is a rant probably two years in the making. Beware. xD

I'm not in an entirely "OMGIWANTTOKICKSOMETHING" mood, but I am still a bit irritated. And tired as hell about this ..

And what is "this," you ask? A girl. (I'll call her K) A thief. Who has stolen from me and my friend's storyline three (make it sort-of four today) times within the past two years.

For those of you who might not know, a storyline (or SL) is the AOL equivalent of an RPG. Basically, a roleplaying group played out in IMs and public/private chats. In the summer of 2005, me and my friend (let's call her D) decided to create an SL centered around an up-and-growing criminal organization, based in Las Vegas. It did pretty well for a new SL, lasted for a few months (SLs typically don't last too long -- everyone gets bored quick xD). And K was a member. An active member, one that we got along with pretty well. So well, in fact, that when things started to die down, we decided to let her take over.

Big. Mistake.

Well, the SL died. No big surprise, it happens. K hardly made an effort, for the last website update, even, was done by me, and not her. Soooo we chill for some months. Eventually, though, me, D, and two other friends decide we want to re-open the SL in a new location -- Milan, Italy. Cool, right? Well, we get the site up in February, but decide to wait a week or two til actually opening. Now personally I have no idea what would possess me to put a link in my profile to a site to an SL that's not even open for applications yet, but the fact is, I did. And a week or so later? K had a link in her profile .. to a site with content that D had written for the SL's site. She plagiarized -- word for freakin' word. And was using our content to "reopen" her old SL (which was similar to ours, but also different in so many ways -- better explanation on this is near the bottom of the page).

Sooooo, the four of us did our research, got together a case, and e-mailed her web host with proof (text-by-text comparison, "last edited" dates for files, screenshots, etc.) and maybe two weeks later, her site had a message on it saying the account had been suspended. So for a while, we were in the clear.

K never contacted us -- and we never contacted her, either. When I look back I wonder why she did it .. maybe she felt that giving our SL to her gave her the full rights of it? I dunno, maybe we should have asked her before trying to reopen, but still, she shouldn't have plagiarized us (or more specifically, D's words) or twisted it around to make it look like it had always been her own. If that was the issue, she should have said something. And heck, if she was civil about it, we probably would have invited her to help us moderate it the SL's second run.

But that's just the thing. She didn't.

Anyway, this first time happened in Feb-March of 2006. Later that year, June 1st or so, we decided to try reopening AGAIN .. but instead of Italy (since her plagiarism kind of ruined the idea for us), we tried Paris, France. And it was pretty successful, we got a bigger group of players, it was a lot more active and fun .. Died maybe that August? (By now some of you board-only people prolly think I'm nuts, but. xD Seriously. SLs don't run for very long). Can't remember the next time it happened, but all I know is that .. it did.

She stole from us. Plagiarized the content, AGAIN. And we got her shut down -- ah. gain. By now, it was just becoming annoying. We talked to each other, a little yelling happened .. And then we never talked to each other again.

A few months after this happened, though, I think sometime in the beginning of 2007, she IMed one of us and actually admitted to doing it, both times -- and basically said it was over and done with, and that we should stay out of each other's way. Alright, no problem. As long as there's no drama, it's cool, right? It's not like we were forgiving her for it, exactly, but it was so stupid it was nothing getting dramatic over. I, for once, was actually convinced she would never do it again.

But oh no. OOHHHH, NOOOOOO. I was so wrong.

She did it again (third time), and yep, got her site/account locked. Agaaaiiin. *sigh* By now, it was beyond annoying. It was just .. tiresome. That summer (2007) we re-opened the SL yet again (by now it had become a "seasonal" summer SL) in Dubai, UAE, and it had a pretty good run again. We didn't hear anything from K, no stealing or anything ..

But a few days ago? She decided to put this in her profile (something like it, anyway .. she changed her profile today) -- "I'm reopening my SL, and we'll be back in force. You know who you are, and you know what you -stole- from me."

Ummmm. What?

.. yeeaahhh. Well a year before the first summer opening of this SL (Vegas), we were in one belonging to K's, which had a similar idea to what ours happens to be today (crime group, just different hierarchies and notorieties and stuff) .. But, when we opened our SL the first time? She had no problem! I mean, like I said, she was active, and we let her take over modding it when the summer was nearly over .. But when we tried to reopen it the first time, she stole from it. And like I said, she stole straight from it .. two more freakin' times.

Okay. Not gonna lie here. I would be kind of miffed if a crime SL that came after mine got more popular than what mine ever was (number and activity wise, anyway -- but I remember hers having a fantastic run, as well), but really, plagiarism? THREE TIMES? We never plagiarized her, and by her joining and getting active and all that stuff with our newer SL after her old crime-based SL died, was that not her approval?

I just. ugh.

And today, she put a link in her profile, to the same old SL she's been trying to "reopen" with our stuff. She doesn't have any content up, but she copied my board layout. Like .. colors, and fonts, and everything. (board being used for OOC discussion, mainly .. and for posting char profiles, instead of having them posted on the site by me. WHICH, she suddenly decided to steal that idea too, LAWL) WHAT IS THE EFFING POINT, K? To annoy us? Because seriously, there's only three people in the SL of what, 30, that know what's going on? We keep it on the DL, bitch. We're not immature like you.

And what's funny is, every time she tries to "reopen" her old SL (but having changed it to our exact words and our exact ideas/interpretations), it never works out. She never advertises it for more than a week or two .. I mean, as soon as we shut her down, the last three times? She would just give up.

By now, I think she just does it to annoy us.

Really. How pathetic.

I'm just waiting for her to copy-and-paste our words again. If she does, it'll prolly happen this weekend.

e___e

It just bugs me because she's just so. fucking. lazy. as to go and just .. plagiarize us. Three. Effing. Times.

Be original K. Please. We're tired of your crap.

that's horrible! you'd think that she'd just back off and leave you alone after the second time she got caught... more than that, how is it that she's allowed to open these things after being reported so many times? i stay strictly to IF so i'm not entirely sure how that stuff works but you'd think that people would catch on and ban her, period.

having your stuff stolen sucks. it's great that someone thinks your stuff is so awesome that they need to take it and make it their own but that's just wrong and it's not good to or for you. and when that board does better than yours? yeah, that's even worse.

it's just the pains of dealing with the internet and i really hope the girl will realize that she obviously can't create a board of her own and leave yours well enough alone.

Well the funny thing is, if she's not stealing straight from us, she's always ripping somebody else off.

Like, there was this SL up for a few months based on the idea of 19th-century London, with a bunch of period characters walking around, like Sweeney Todd, Tom Sawyer, etc. People would play who they wanted, and it lasted for oh .. a few months? This was the beginning of this year.

A month or two ago, K opened an SL with the exact same idea. -eyeroll.- Which is still open, because she didn't plagiarize anybody (big surprise). And as soon as we opened our stuff on June 1st, a few days later she put that stupid message in her profile (ever since the stealing-three-times thing we've been keeping tabs on her), and made two OOC boards -- one for the 19th century, and one for the modern one she's always using to plagiarize us/rip us off. Not only did she do that, though, she decided to organize these boards in the same way I had organized mine for our SL, and even created the skin for both of them to look almost exactly like mine (which I made from scratch), stealing the colors and the image sizes and fonts and just .. everything.

What. the. fuck.

But thank you for your input. It's really appreciated. :]

I am so damn tempted to put a picture of Chris Hansen here, with a title like that.

But I'm lazy, so instead, take the unforgettable quote:

"Why don't you have a seat right over there?"

(Chris Hansen is the host of Dateline NBC: To Catch A Predator. They catch internet pedophiles for the lulz.)