cleolinda | Well, I haven't had one of these in a long while

Aaaaand the ff.net plagiarizer (who was claiming that her cousin * wrote "Phantom of the Opera in Fifteen Minutes" and gave her "permission" to cannibalize it) has deleted the post. Or ff.net did. Someone. Normally I just drop people a line once in a blue moon and go, "Hey, could you take this down, it's mine," and they comply--I try to take a "Forget it, Jake, it's the internet" view of it most of the time--but there's so much attitude here that it was actually kind of pissing me off:

Now, in some of your reviews, there have been questions as to whether or not the cousins and the friends who leant me the script from THEIR parody are the creator of the 'POTO in 15 Minutes' parody. This is, in fact, true, and they have finally relented with their script and allowed me to post it on here. That is good for all of us. But I will admit that some of this I did not write, but have taken from their given script. However, because I do NOT want to be accused of plagiarism, I am adding a LOT more of my own jokes, including song parodies, which they did NOT do, as well as insulting continually annoying and stubborn POTO Purists of different sides, obsessive Phangirls, and a LOT more that I WON'T tell you about, because it will ruin the story for you. Also, I include much more dialogue then their '15 Min.' version. Okay? Good. Glad we got that all cleared up. Now, back to the story and our first song parody.

So I asked people to look into it (see previous entry). There was... kind of a small dogpile in the reviews. I mean, all the "reviews" I saw were civil, to the effect of "This isn't yours, you should take it down." No name-calling that I saw. And then it took a turn for the (extra) wanky after she took it down, but not before posting a crazy screed of some kind (now deleted?). Apparently it reads in part,

And on a sidenote, if there are anymore flames that still accuse me of being so unoriginal that I have to STEAL in order to post anything good, EVEN WHEN I have the permission of the original creators to use some of their work, your reviews WILL be erased/abused. Understood? Good. Now, I'm sorry that I have had to be like this --aka, such a bitch, as I am sure some of you are calling me right now for my little rant-- but I will NOT tolerate this. Besides, how many of you have ever been accused of taking whole passages out of a book for YOUR stories, hm? Even when it may only be coinsidences in your case, doesn't it just plain HURT?! SO WHY would you do that to me? Also, I know I may seem like I'm whiny right now, but this is a very serious issue for me.

So, for those of you who accused me, I would PLEASE ask for an apology. Or AT LEAST a sentence saying "Okay, I was a little out of bounds'. Any others that come in and try to flame me like that again, I will email you saying 'Please read the unbelievably long author's note at the top of the page for a proper explaination, otherwise go away and leave me alone, you accusatory squirrel-like person.' Is that understood? I really hope so.

So... that was weird. I actually suspect that her cousin may have lied to her, and that she was telling the truth as she knew it. The problem is, I wrote "Phantom of the Opera in Fifteen Minutes" in 2005, and I have hundreds of unalterable, date-stamped comments to prove it. So no matter how upset she gets or how hurt she feels, that fact isn't going to change, unfortunately.

Ironically, the whole thing is moot, because ff.net doesn't allow script format anyway.

* There is a tired "Cousins. Totally cousins" joke in here that I am too tired to make at the moment.

ETA: Here's the full rant (well, it did appear in public originally; it was never locked).