i miss when plagiarism was more widely understood to be unethical.

Yall remember when we were 14 and would write books on wattpad that were basically ripoffs of our favorite books? Yeah…that’s powerless

This sucks so much for Victoria Aveyard.

The 1-star reviews for Red Queen are killing me because saying you DNF'd a book because you read its knockoff first and don't feel like reading the original is crazy. That's like me going to mcdonalds then immediately going to Carl's Jr then leaving a one star saying I already ate a burger and nuggets before going and I don't feel like eating that again.

that review is evidence enough tbh, if someone says "don't read RQ because Powerless gives me the same story" then, to me, that says that Powerless so closely copied RQ to the point that you could supplement the content, therefore leading to less sales for RQ and impacting Victoria

Acknowledging that powerless basically plagiarized red queen but still recommending it is diabolical

Just watching Victoria's video at the beginning made me so mad on her behalf. I can't imagine how frustrating that must be, especially considering how easy it is to look up publication dates. Thanks for your presentation! 😂

So I feel like NO ONE is talking about this so I need to share: there is a scene in Powerless where the main character slaps the main male character and her excuse is that he has a mosquito on his face. Then he slaps her back and he says it’s because of a mosquito and she says “prove it” and I SWEAR TO JESUS CHRIST this is a EXACT COPY of a scene from the Netflix show “outer banks” between Kiara and JJ in season one. I’m serious that this is BEAT BY BEAT the SAME SCENE. Kiara slaps JJ and says it’s because of a mosquito and holds up her hand to show him. He does it back and kiara says “prove it” And I just need to share this because it’s starting to feel like not a single moment from powerless is unique.
Okay thank you for coming to my ted talk

You know you entered a new bookie generation if the main YA audience doesnt remember about Red Queen, Selection and the hunger games anymore

as a sophomore in COLLEGE seeing people on tiktok claim a book i loved in the 6th grade is a rip off of a 2023 booktok book without a single google search is actually mind blowing to me

The craziest thing about it is that Victoria Aveyard originally wrote Red Queen as a SCREENPLAY for TV!!!! So, if Powerless gets turned into a show, it’s basically a full circle of stealing for a show.

“I’m not really interested in reading the Bible. Dune already did the whole ‘messianic symbolism’ thing.”

I can't believe that hack Conan Doyle plagiarized Psych.

Not to be alarmist but the normalization of plagiarism is the start of the pipeline of that to allowing AI art which inherently is not art at all

her insistence on powerless being "a child that looks nothing like its parents" is telling on herself.  the lady doth protest too much

Something really small that I noticed when I read Powerless (without ever reading Red Queen or knowing any of this) was that not only is Paedyn really good with a bow and arrow, but she kills a bunny (or a squirrel I can't remember) with an arrow shot through the eye, something that Katniss does in The Hunger Games that Peeta's dad points out to exemplify how good of a shot she is. It was really small, but it was also something that bothered me, because by no means did Lauren Roberts need to include that detail for the plot in any way, but she DID, and that is where the line between "Paedyn knows how to use a bow and arrow too" and plagiarism is crossed.

I opened youtube at the perfect time. have I read either book? no. am I planning to? no. am I a chismosa and a sucker for long content? you bet your bottom dollar I am!!!

i think the most infuriating part for victoria is also every review calling Red Queen “basic” and “predictable” because it’s similar to Powerless (and countless other similarly plotted romantic fantasy stories!!) when in reality Red Queen was SOOOO different and refreshing when it was released. Like Red Queen was one of the first in the YA fantasies of the 2010s and to see people calling the blueprint “basic” because everyone else copied it is INSANE

The whole plot point in Powerless that the powers come from a Plague isn’t original either- it’s ripped from The Young Elites by Marie Lu, which also calls their powered population the Elites!!

I think Powerless may be one of the best examples of TikTok’s effect on publishing. If Lauren’s writing process and the subsequent self publication hadn’t blown up I refuse to believe that this would have gotten a publishing deal because of the blatant copy write issues