I've had a similar experience in bonfire a loooooong time ago. Celtic markings were super popular (are they still really popular?) and my cousin and I wanted to be a bit different. So we created little wolf pups with the Chimera markings, but instead of being exactly the same, we flipped the colors so we were exact opposites of each other. Our names were Zani and Inaz (names flipped backwards). So anyways, we went on and settled down at the adoption center, and about two minutes later two more pups who looked almost exactly liked us came on called Sani and Inas. Then the clones started piling up, and soon they overflowed to Ficho. This lasted for around a month, but yeah. My and cousin and I at first didn't mind, but then she started yelling at people, which only made it worse x3
If I had any advice for you crystal, I would say take it as a compliment, but i know thats hard, so just try to make a character that is kind of hard to copy. I know if you color some markings right, they play with your eyes a little, so try and do that.