"And done!" Xiu-Ying pressed a button on her laptop's keyboard and submitted the last blog entry for the day.
"I just wrote about what I have eaten, what i've done today, and other things!" she said with a smile, admittedly to herself.
Xiu-Ying started to stretch her arms outward a bit. "Now I could finally ree~lax!"
*beep*
She looked over to the notification button that was on the toolbar of her blog.
"A new message..!"
It read: "Hey, I suppose this is the original blogger that Smaine's blog is based off of, haha."
If this were to be a anime, a question mark sprouted horizontally from Xiu-Ying's temple.
"What does this mean? Who is Smarine anyway?" She curiously typed in "Smarine.froggy.com" onto the url bar of her computer.
What she saw was basically a feeling if her own original blog got somehow cloned.
There was lace surrounding the borders of the blog just like hers.. a cute border that showed the face of the blogger who's name is apparently Shermaine.. and she's from.. Shenai?
Something about this page overall just felt incredibly insulting and disingenuous to Xiu-Ying.. genuinely. She wondered if it was possible to copyclaim it due to it being heavily inspired, but unfortunately (she had searched this up prior) there was no copyright laws surrounding blog designs.
"I don't know how that anonmouse person found my page, but they weren't exactly wrong in the least." she said to herself, starting to grit her teeth in annoyance. You wouldn't want to mess with her teeth.. they're quite sharp and pointy.
"Oh, there seems to be a new post today.. let's see how Smarine writes.. surely it has to come from the heart, right?"
"Dearest Diary,
Today I just tried mice pizza. It was okay, I bet I would've enjoyed it more if the crust stuffed with their tails didn't get stuck in my throat!! 🐹
Otherwise, it was very chewy and interesting. I had to miss 𖧋𖧋𖧋𖧋𖧋𖧋𖧋 class today because it had upset my stomach.
That's all, my dearest friends!
Bye-bye~! ( ๑‾̀◡‾́)✨"
"Is her heart located in the third ring of hell or something??!?!" Xiu-Ying couldn't help but shout at the screen by herself.
"Not only did we happen to go to the same pizza restaurant in the same day, but she ate something intentionally that made her ill?!"
"I-isn't she a guinea pig as well? Not to be discriminatory or anything, b-but that's like eating your third cousin or something..!!" she said with a fearful expression.
"Geez.. why is she doing this to herself? I know that anyone would be willing to do anything in order to gain fame, but this is a bit too much!" her expression now changed to a tired yet easy-going expression.
"It's annoying that her blog theme has the same color themes as mine.. black and various hues of pink, with white highlights.. the only thing new is the ocean thematic.. most likely referring to the fact that her name has "Marine" in it."
Xiu-Ying squinted at the profile picture for the blog.
"WHAT THE [censored], SHE'S WEARING A SAILOR UNIFORM THERE TOO! JUST LIKE ME!"
She leaned back in her chair for a minute.
"I don't know how I'm going to keep writing original content if someone is just going to replicate it exactly.. and even worse, gain more of a following than I do.. the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, but the tree was almost purposefully sprayed with invisible ink, or something.." she muttered to herself.
She sat back up. "I honestly wouldn't be too hard on her, and I would've just recognized her as a fan of me, if she didn't eat the same meal as me and managed to get sick from it. Am I really that influential?" she said with a tired, yet worrisome expression.
Xiu-ying noticed the sunglasses near her desk and placed them over her eyes. "It's time to do some.. investigation."
*Deja Vu by Initial D plays*
Xiu-ying speedily typed in Shermarine's username into her browser's search bar. She had realized that she'd also brought a dress from the same set from Cinnaheaven's newest line, and copied her poses and the background almost exactly!
She zoomed into the camera model she was holding.
"This is almost the exact color of my camera, just in a hot pink!!"
Xiu-Ying felt her eyes turn into flaming balls of fire, but she backed up from the screen a bit and composed herself.
"Ok... she censored the class that she was taking, so I can't really estimate how old she is. That's fine."
She pushed the sunglasses up on her head. "Okay... so I have a copy-cat here. It would be more of a bigger problem if I was accepted to Adthought, but I wasn't.. and somehow.."
*glare*
*A advertisement for sun screen is underneath the blog post.
"she did."
Xiu-Ying sighed while looking upwards. Her stomach growled.
"Oh bamboo shoots.. I need to have something else to eat, before I faint from the heat of my rage." she said while having mini flames in her irises.
Xiu-Ying is at the supermarket, shopping for some groceries. She heads to the meat section, and places her paw near the boxed mice container, that was pastel themed for February - the month of love. The ribbons on the mice's necks laminated a bright red, but nevermind that. Her paws met with someone else's more smaller, yet a mature-looking paw by complete accident.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" exclaimed Xiu-Ying.
"No no no, forgive me, haha." said the short guinea pig.
They awkwardly stared in each other's eyes, wondering who was going to make the next move, for a few moments.
"I was actually picking these up for my daughter. I honestly prefer the vegan alternatives of these..!"
"Oh?" replied Xiu-ying, with a open minded and curious expression.
"Mm-mhm. Even though it keeps making her sick, she insists on getting these.. and I find it really hard to deny her of what she wants in life."
Xiu-ying's expression changed to a subtly distressed one.
"Say.. does your daughter's name begin with a S by any chance..?"
"..Why yes! How did you figure that out? Are you a physic by any chance? Oh, when is the next meteor shower going to happen? I ought to know!" replied Shermaine's mother with a surprised expression. Even though her eyeballs are small, they expanded enough to show an element of surprise within her.
"Uhm, no. Haha, you see, a fan of mine had told me that Shermaine's -- believing this is the same person aha, -- blog, is very similar to mine. She just wrote about having stuffed mice pizza today, but exposed the fact that she became sick from it." replied Xiu-ying, starting to sweat with a hint of nervousness.
"Ohh.. well of course she'd start a blog without letting either parent know. Yes, that is her name! I wonder why she needs a blog.. we know almost exactly everything she's doing at any time, ahahaha." Shermaine's mother said with a light-hearted expression.
Ignoring the creepy feeling she got from that statement, Xiu-Ying reached for the boxed mice and put it under her arm.
"The name's Nina." Shermaine's mother said.
"Why don't we talk about this over at the nearby cafe?" she added on with a translucent kind expression.
"Um.. okay, sure!" Xiu-ying responded before walking off with her.
"So.. Shermaine has been writing on this blog, you say? Her father and I are going to have to give her a stern talking to..." Nina said, while looking at herself in the compact hand mirror she owned.
"Yeah... I wonder how old is she if she's not allowed to have a blog on her own?"
"Well, she just turned 17. Despite her young age, we let her attend Pawprints Academy on her own to study tourism. Her grades.. are neutral at best, to say the least, but she keeps saying this is her favorite thing in the world to do, so we just keep paying the tuition.. I hope she can pass a class again, soon, if it's even possible at this point.." she sighed after ending her sentence. "I might've said too much on my part.. forgive me on that note." Nina said while looking into Xiu-Ying's eyes.
"Ah.. no, you're okay. I didn't know about all of those things about Shermaine. Can you tell me a bit more about her? I'm just curious as to why she thinks she must, imitate others, even at 17." Xiu-ying said with a curious yet subtly worried expression.
"Well.. growing up, she never really felt like she was enough, to be honest. Due to that feeling of inadequacy, she also felt that she never had enough either, even though she has two loving parents who wouldn't trade the world for her. So we've been trying to cheer her up for years by getting everything that she asks for, despite it not even being in a polite and orderly matter.. and if we don't, we fear that our tiny abode will be destroyed in less than a year's time." Nina spoke with a stressed expression, with temporarily resting eyes.
"Destroyed..?" Xiu-ying questioned, also mirroring the stress in Nina's face, a bit.
"Yup. She has broken countless things in her room, and she's been gnawing on the wallpaper all over the house as well. What doctors have told me ranged from a stress reaction, to frustration. We don't know how to help her other than giving her what she asks for, and that keeps her distracted and happy for some time." Nina said while looking down at her expression within the mirror, before closing it.
"I see. Wow." Xiu-ying replied with a surprised and saddened expression.
"I suppose I should let go of her copying me, but for some reason, I can't. I mean, she almost got herself hospitalized trying to be like me. It's not that I'm trying to do anything dangerous, I'm really just trying to live my life, and I hate to worry you folks." Xiu-Ying said with a gloomy expression, with a cloud starting to form above her head.
"Well, is there anything that you'd like to communicate to her?" Nina asked.
"..Even if you don't feel like you are enough, trying your best to be true and honest to yourself will spread the light to the path of feeling adequate.. because maybe all you need to realize is that you just need yourself." Xiu-ying said while looking down at the table.
"It's hard enough for one person to be theirselves in this cruel world where people can feel like they should be molded to fit into other people's expectations, and plagiarizing someone else's journey is not a shortcut to success of avoiding that fate." the weasel said while closing her eyes.
Nina stopped for a second and just looked at her with a serious expression.
"Very well said. I will try to transfer your message to her. Thank you for your time." she said, before getting up to leave with no hesitation.
Before Xiu-ying could even react, all she could do is watch her leave the cafe. She left Xiu-ying with herself.
A few days have passed after Xiu-Ying had spoken to Shermaine's mother in the local cafe.
Xiu-Ying has tried her best to not really keep tabs on her page, because that would be a bit creepy, she thought, especially since she was younger than her.
For curiosity's sake, she visited SMarine's page again to see how it was doing, one more time before she'd remove it from her Bookmarks folder.
A new blog post met her eyes. It was only one line long.
"Hello everyone. I have chosen to stop blogging permanently, because I have learnt that it is better to create from my heart than what I see. Thank you."
"Huh.. even though it's short, it's awfully poetic." Xiu-Ying thought to herself.
"So.. I guess her shenanigans are over? Hopefully she'll stop giving her mother such a hard time."
She slowly closed the laptop.
"I have to cope better with admirers more, regardless if it's a secret or public one, before I pass away from a stress-induced headache. Well, I think it's best I get to bed now."
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