Work Text:
Kim Dokja didn’t consider himself an author, but he sometimes liked to write.
To be more exact, he considered himself a reader, and the reason he wrote was because not many people were writing the stories he wanted to read, so he figured he might as well do it himself. That being said, once he actually got started it seemed like very few people were interested in reading the same things he was, and that maybe there was a good reason no one was writing those stories in the first place.
That’s what he would have thought, if it weren’t for BlackFlamesAp0stle.
Edgy name aside, BlackFlamesAp0stle was a very well-known author on their little corner of the internet; the blog in which they posted their stories had an impressive number of visits each month, and word on the forums was that they even had a few traditional publishing deals under their belt already. Everyone thought BlackFlamesAp0stle was just a dummy account used by an already-popular author to post the more experimental stuff that may not have made it in the market, but Kim Dokja wasn’t convinced.
If BlackFlamesAp0stle was an established author, why would they be so blatantly ripping off his work?!
Not only was this “author” transparently plagiarising his story, they were deleting all his comments and ignoring all attempts at communication, moreover, since their story was far more popular than his own, no one ever listened to him when he tried to bring this to their attention. No self-respecting author would do something like that, right?
In any case, since Kim Dokja didn’t seem to be able to convince anyone of the problem he was having, he was just going to have to prove it himself.
He was sure BlackFlamesAp0stle was keeping up with his story because theirs had pretty much the same plot beats as his own, some events and characters here and there were changed of course— and to varying degrees at that —but the main essence was still there, so he decided to lay down a trap he hoped would be too enticing for this apostle to ignore the call of.
In this latest chapter, the main character was suffering from a recent failure, struck by a sense of hopeless ennui and an overwhelming feeling of hiybbprqag— what was that, you ask? Well, obviously, as he had the main character himself explain in a rather verbose and self-pitying monologue, hiybbprqag was derived from the Welsh language, and it defined that inescapable feeling that plagues creatives all over the world; the knowledge that everything original has already been done, and all that is left is a never-ending, toxic cycle of overused clichés feeding into each other and mutating into a self-perpetuating, radioactive ooze of sadness and despondency.
Of course, the word itself was not Welsh at all, it was entirely made up by a well-placed smash of Kim Dokja’s keyboard, but if he was right this BlackFlamesAp0stle was just the kind of pretentious wannabe author that would jump at the chance of using such an evocative term in their imitation story, so now it was a matter of sitting back and hoping they would take the bait.
Sure enough, the bait was taken, and it was everything Kim Dokja could have ever asked for.
It seemed like BlackFlamesAp0stle had been so inspired by the made-up term that it had featured prominently in this latest installment of their novel; their main character, too, had been struck by it and sunk into despair, but instead of mostly getting over it after a few meaningful talks with a close friend like in Kim Dokja’s story, this pseudo-depression seemed to be ushering a whole new arc for the character to have to learn to overcome.
Kim Dokja grinned as he finished reading the chapter, logged onto an alt account, and posted a comment.
SpuriousCurious123 (21:43): Great chapter as always! I’m just curious, where did you get “hiybbprqag” from? What an interesting word, I had never heard of it before!
He let the conversation unfold for a few threads, it was mostly people saying that they also had never heard of the word before, some even commenting they couldn’t find anything online, with others defending that it was Welsh, so of course they wouldn’t find anything straight away, and some even theorised that BlackFlamesAp0stle had made it up for the story, wasn’t that just the mark of a brilliant author?
Now it was time for his second comment.
SpuriousCurious123 (23:07): I think I found it people! The definition is here.
He had posted a link to a blog entry he had made a few days ago with his main account in which he painstakingly detailed the creation of the word, adding some bullshit about researching word roots and whatnot, and how he planned to incorporate it into the latest chapter of his story. Since this entry was on his personal blog and not his writing one, even less people than usual had seen it before he posted the link, and he was sure BlackFlamesAp0stle had not been one of them.
Soon enough, people began to take notice.
xXCoolMathGamesXx (23:11): Whoa, it’s a totally made up word, no wonder I couldn’t find anything about it, pretty cool.
ThroawaySailaway9842 (23:12): Yeah but BlackFlamesAp0stle didn’t make it?
xXCoolMathGamesXx (23:12): What do you mean? It says there it’s for the story.
Aaslkoeurn13tj (23:13): Check the link, dude, that’s another guy’s story.
Constell4ti0nsAd0rnMyN1ght (23:14): Now that I read the chapter, it’s kind of similar to this one…
xXCoolMathGamesXx (23:14): They copied BlackFlamesAp0stle???
Aaslkoeurn13tj (23:15): That one was published almost two days ago. Not looking good for Ap0stle over here…
Lee_984651984 (23:15): Wasn’t there a guy in here who always claimed Ap0stle was copying him???
Constell4ti0nsAd0rnMyN1ght (23:16): …………………….
Kim Dokja hadn’t even finished gloating over having garnered the desired effect before a new message request was flashing in his inbox. He leisurely clicked on it and smirked when he saw the username.
CrownIessKing has accepted your request! You can now start chatting.
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:17): What’s the meaning of this??
CrownIessKing (23:17): Whatever do you mean?
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:17): Don’t give me that shit, you posted that link.
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:17): You keep trying to slander me with your shitty story.
CrownIessKing (23:18): It’s not slander if it’s true, you plagiarist.
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:18): As if I would plagiarise your awful writing.
CrownIessKing (23:18): The proof is in the pudding, my friend. Did you even look up hiybbprqag before you used it?
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:19): …
CrownIessKing (23:19): Looks like you got served.
CrownIessKing (23:19): It’s not my fault you’re a hack.
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:20): I’m not a hack! Ever heard of convergent evolution?
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:20): It’s not my fault your story is so generic everything sounds like it!!
CrownIessKing (23:20): You’re just unoriginal.
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:20): Nothing is “original”. Didn’t you know that? There are only good stories and bad stories, originality has nothing to do with it.
CrownIessKing (23:21): Just what were you hoping to achieve by messaging me?
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:21): Delete your posts.
CrownIessKing (23:21): No.
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:21): Fine.
BlackFlameAp0stle (23:22): Don’t say I didn’t ask nicely.
BlackFlameAp0stle has gone offline!
Kim Dokja didn’t even have time to ask what they meant by that before the other had logged off already. For some reason, he couldn’t help but have a bad feeling about it.
Still, he couldn’t do much about it now, he still had two papers due tomorrow evening and had only started one of them. Luckily for him the campus library was open until late, so he was planning on pulling an all-nighter and skipping morning class tomorrow to finish in time.
When he finally managed to log back into the forum the following night, exhausted and fuelled only by the meagre remains of caffeine in his system, he wasn’t surprised to find all his comments had been deleted from BlackFlameAp0stle’s work.
What he was surprised to find, however, was that the conversation seemed to have taken a complete turn from yesterday.
Lee_984651984 (00:03): Damn, that CrownIessKing is such a fraud, trying to defame the great Ap0stle!
Constell4ti0nsAd0rnMyN1ght (00:04): Can’t believe Ap0stle had a personal worldbuilding blog all this time. Going to subscribe right now!!!
Personal worldbuilding blog? What blog?!
Kim Dokja clicked around frantically until he found it, and when he did, he felt a groan of defeat escaping him.
Right there on that “personal worldbuilding blog” was an announcement, and that announcement made it clear exactly what BlackFlameAp0stle had meant when they said they tried asking nicely.
BlackFlameAp0stle wrote: It has recently come to my attention that a user by the name of CrownIessKing has been going around claiming that I have plagiarised his story, and I am here to tell you all that that is not the case. I wanted to keep this matter between us, since CrownIess was someone I used to consider a dear friend, but given the light of his recent accusations, I feel like I can’t remain quiet about this.
As you can see, this blog has entries dating all the way back to three years ago when I first started plotting my story. This blog was set to private until a few hours ago, it was just for me to keep everything organised in one place, but I felt the need to make it public to show the sincerity behind my claims. There were very few people with access to this blog before then, most of which were friends I knew in real life, and one of them was CrownIess.
Being a fellow storyteller, I was excited to share the world of my dreams with CrownIess, and his continued encouragement meant everything to me back in those days. We talked about this story endlessly, I would hazard to say that CrownIess knew my story almost as well as I did from how much we discussed it. Maybe a little too well.
I started to feel like CrownIess wanted to take control of my story. He would become unhappy with plot developments he didn’t agree with and get into fights over me “ignoring his suggestions”. We had a major falling out at around the time I began publishing my story. I never would have expected that he would have already turned around and taken my work as his own.
You can go back in time through this blog and see that the first entries talking about the story predate CrownIess’ first published chapters by several months, even though my own story wasn’t published until about a year after “his”. This is because I wanted to make it perfect and not rush to post a half-baked idea. I see now he took advantage of my indecision to lay the foundations for his claims that I was stealing “his” work.
It all came to a boil last night, when he tried to post my usage of the made-up word “hiybbprqag” as definite proof that I was plagiarising his work. This is where I come clean. Yes, he created that word, and yes, I took the word from him. In fact, I have taken several of his ideas and incorporated them into my work, but that was because I was under the impression that he was helping me brainstorm for my story, as friends and collaborators are bound to do when they talk about their creative endeavours. The inspiration behind that made-up word came from one of our many late night talks in which I vented about how I felt that my story was inadequate, and we talked about how every creator felt like that at some point, and how nothing was inherently ever original. He came up with the term, I told him I wanted to use it, he agreed. I never would have expected for him to turn around and use it to stab me in the back like this.
At this point, Kim Dokja stopped reading, completely aghast.
These were all blatant lies! He had never talked to BlackFlamesAp0stle before last night! But the more he looked through the blog, the more his stomach sank.
There were indeed entries dated back to well before he even began writing, with character information, worldbuilding tidbits, even detailed plot development notes… How had they done this?? It was impossible!
But no matter how impossible it all seemed, the proof was there, and the damage had already been done.
The chapters that never got more than a few dozen hits were suddenly filled with hundreds of comments calling him all sorts of unsavoury things, his inbox lit up non stop with people wanting to shit on him for being an awful human being. He had no idea how BlackFlamesAp0stle had orchestrated all of this, but he didn’t care anymore. All he had wanted was some acknowledgement for his work, but now…
Out of the corner of his eye, a familiar message appeared.
BlackFlameAp0stle has come online!
BlackFlameAp0stle (00:43): I did give you a chance not to mess with me.
BlackFlameAp0stle (00:43): Stories deserve to be in the hands of those who can tell them.
BlackFlameAp0stle (00:43): Looks like you got served.
BlackFlameAp0stle has gone offline!
Kim Dokja logged off with a sigh and slumped back against his chair.
Maybe BlackFlamesAp0stle was right, it wasn’t about originality, it was about having the skills to create a good story which, clearly, he lacked. It didn’t matter if the story was “his” or not, it had come from the radioactive ooze of the collective human consciousness just like everything else, but he had failed to shape it into anything even remotely remarkable. On the other hand, BlackFlamesAp0stle had succeeded, and to the victor go the spoils.
The strange thing was that… he wasn’t actually that mad about it.
Sure, it felt bad to have something he worked so hard on be so blatantly ripped off without so much as an acknowledgement, but even he had to admit that BlackFlamesAp0stle had given the story a whole new life of its own. He could appreciate that much as a reader, and had to begrudgingly admit that the person behind the edgy username had some storytelling skills. Besides, he had gotten his acknowledgement in the end… in a way. At least now people knew that he had been a “contributor” in shaping the story, even if he was being called a backstabbing snake at the same time.
Was he still annoyed? Of course, who in this situation wouldn’t be? But, would he do anything about it? Probably not. There was nothing much he could do, and it wasn’t really worth it at this point in time.
He turned his computer off with a yawn and decided to head to bed. Midterms were coming up and he’d been thinking about taking a break from writing anyway, so it was a good time as any to step away from this whole thing and leave it up to his future self to decide whether it was worth coming back to or not. Writing was fun, sure, but sometimes he wished he could skip the writing altogether and just be able to read the finished versions of all those stories that were swimming around in the ooze somewhere, waiting to be extracted and molded into something resembling life.
Maybe he should just start paying people to give him the finished stories instead.
Now wouldn’t that be nice?
Around seventeen years later, on a quiet evening inside Kim Dokja’s apartment, two men sat in front of the large flat screen TV, the older one idly flicking through the scores of streaming service options while the younger lay his head down on his lap and started browsing through his phone.
A few minutes later, as if having seen something that brought the topic to mind, Yoo Joonghyuk put his phone down and looked up at the other man, “Didn’t you use to write?”
“You remembered?” Kim Dokja paused his browsing and looked down at him with mild surprise, “Yeah, a little, nothing really worth talking about.”
“Really?” Instead of being dissuaded, the young man looked up at him with curious eyes, “What did you write?”
“Uh… random stories, this and that, I mostly posted stuff online that never made it out of old blogs. I don’t really remember, it was a long time ago.” He answered without really thinking about it, turning his attention back to the TV and absent-mindedly running his hand through the young man’s hair.
Yoo Joonghyuk seemed torn between wanting to get up to ask more questions and staying where he was to enjoy the moment, so he settled for waiting a few moments before asking, “Why’d you stop?”
“Oh, many reasons; my last year of university got really busy, I started thinking about making my own company, and I just… didn’t see the point in it anymore.” Kim Dokja kept browsing through the series and stroking the other’s hair, but for a moment it was as though his gaze was somewhere a long time ago.
“Why?”
There was a moment of silence in which Yoo Joonghyuk thought he wasn’t going to get an answer, but then he felt the rumble of Kim Dokja’s faint laugh as he spoke, “Mostly just the trite and self-perpetuating radioactive ooze of sadness.”
“What?” He frowned, clearly caught off-guard.
“Don’t worry about it.” Kim Dokja smiled as he smoothed out the wrinkle between the young man’s brows with his thumb.
Silence settled over the two of them once more, and Kim Dokja went back to choosing what they were going to watch tonight. He found two decent-looking options but was torn between them, debating his choice as a voice interrupted his thoughts once again.
“Can I read some?” Yoo Joonghyuk moved his head from his lap so that he had a better look up at Kim Dokja’s face.
“Hell no.” There was no hesitation in his voice as he scooched the young man’s head back into place.
“Why not?” The question came out equal parts surprised and petulant.
“Because I say so.” His tone was final, if a little amused.
Yoo Joonghyuk frowned in clear displeasure, grabbing his phone again and making a clear show of not talking to him anymore, though he didn’t move his head off the man’s lap.
Looking down at him, Kim Dokja sighed and relented, “If I find it again, I’ll let you see it— big if. But I’m just telling you, it’s all very clichéd and not very good.”
The young man looked up at him with a badly-concealed triumphant smile, “Okay.”
Kim Dokja lightly flicked him on the forehead and rolled his eyes, “What do you want to watch? These two seem good.”
“Whatever you want.” Yoo Joonghyuk had closed his eyes again as Kim Dokja resumed stroking his head.
“I’m asking for your opinion, you fell asleep the last time I picked something.”
Without opening his eyes, he answered, “Then… the first one.”
“You haven’t even—” Kim Dokja let out something that was between an exasperated sigh and a laugh, “—Kids these days, I swear.”
Yoo Joonghyuk mumbled something in response, but it was clear his battle against sleep was lost before it even started; He had stayed up late the night before doing his streaming thing, so Kim Dokja didn’t actually blame him in the slightest.
“Fine, fine.” He clicked on the first option and quickly lowered the volume as the opening theme blared through the speakers, then sat back to watch the show.
In the back of his mind, though, he thought back to those old stories and that fight with the edgy-name author. It had been years since that happened, and honestly he’d forgotten pretty much all about it in the interim, but now he found himself wondering if BlackFlamesAp0stle had found the commercial success they were so clearly looking for, and what kind of stories they had written since then. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were now a prolific author— back then he heard that the plagiarism drama drummed up so much interest in their work that their views almost tripled in the span of weeks, and that they were even jumping into the deep end and trying to get traditionally published, though he never followed up on that. Who knew, maybe his company had unknowingly signed them at some point? He had poached a few name authors from other publishers throughout the years, after all.
If he had indeed published them… Honestly? He would be a little happy about it. Hiybbprqag or not, he had to admit they were one hell of a storyteller even when working with the most overused of clichés.
In a way, they both got served incredible opportunities because of it, hadn’t they?