Hey, guys. It's been a while.

First, I just want to apologize. I've been super quiet and most of you haven't heard a peep from me in about two years.

I'm doing much, much better now, but two years ago I was going through a lot of trauma. I was in an abusive friendship with a person and I had no idea what was happening. I was scared and a lot of my friends left me because they believed the other person.

My fanfictions were kind of a way to escape for a short period of time while I wrote and uploaded chapters. Dark Ladybug, being the longest, was the biggest help.

That's why it really hurts me that someone out there would plagiarize Dark Ladybug.

It took a PM from another user here on FF to finally wake me from my two-year FF slumber. That user told me that somebody on ao3 had plagiarized Dark Ladybug, and provided a link.

I discovered that not only had the ao3 plagiarizer copied my work word for word, but they had given me 'credit' at the beginning, saying that their 'story' was inspired by mine. I'll bet they figured that they could get away with it if they said that, and took their story to another website (where I don't even have an account).

But no. It's not inspired if you completely take all the hard work I put into this story, the hours of sitting there and figuring out the best, most canon-esque way to get from point A to point B, and sit there and imply that it's an original story and you just got the idea from me. It's just plagiarism.

If you want to collaborate with me, PM me. If you want to borrow the Dark Ladybug universe from me, and continue the story after Underneath Our Masks, PM me. I will not let someone just take something from me.

If you like my work, I'm glad. I wanted to write a cute, wholesome fanfiction for you guys. But when it comes to writing, IMITATION IS NOT THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY. It's not flattery at all.

I don't know how many of you are still subscribed to me. I don't know how many of you are going to see this. But please, if you see anybody's stories being 'inspired' like that (plagiarized) from somebody else's original content, tell the original author and then report the story. And if you see somebody taking my story, please PM me and report the story. I'm still here, even if I've been extremely quiet.

Plagiarizers have no place in the ML community. These people should be ashamed of themselves.

-obijuankenobi