

As a select few of you already know, on the 5th of October, a

Read the full body of evidence here at

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Twilight Time (Chapter 1)
Now, before you get too muzzy, toddle over to the loo and take a piss, all right?"
"Huh?" Xander wasn't too fuzzy to gape at Spike's words.
"Want to make sure there's no blood in your urine, Pet," Spike said patiently. "All that bruising over your kidneys, might be a problem. Go on now."
It took Xander a few minutes to relax enough to urinate, and when he did he let out a hollow groan. There was indeed a trace of blood in his urine, but Spike, who over a century or so had become pretty damned familiar with human physiology, could tell it wasn't serious.
"Well, I'm sure it don't feel any too good, but you'll heal up on your own," Spike said with satisfaction. "Here, you can put these on now." He helped Xander step into a pair of black silk boxers and carefully pulled them up.
Mending Souls (cap 1x6)
Spike moved away from Xander, “first, though, piss.”
Xander stared at Spike a moment and blinked, why did the idea of Spike striping his ass make him shiver? But wait, what did Spike say again, “What-huh?”
“I said piss, all that bruising around your kidneys might be a problem.” Spike ordered as he stood by.
“Joy, just what I need, the evil undead watching me piss. I can cross that off my “never want to do again” list.” Xander, however, complied and stood over the toilet. He let out a hollow groan as the stream started and there was, in fact, a trace of blood in his urine.
“Right, you should be fine. Not much there, it should heal up on its own. Now, toddle off to bed.”
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Even after the matter had been placed in the hands of

It took almost a week for the case to get its own mod, and then the post went live and the mod got to work. And then we waited.
Partway through last week, almost 5 weeks after the whole mess kicked off,

It didn't even occur to me at the time that maybe she'd just had a preview of the verdict, but, the next day, she created a new Spander comm, and then shortly afterwards, the mod at

This new Spander comm has a very special plagiarism policy. From what I can understand, it seems to be saying that you're allowed to plagiarise once, so long as it's not too obvious and you change the bits she tells you to if she catches you. But if it's a simple copy and paste job, or you do it again, then she's telling

Personally, I'm more amused and bemused than worried that she's going to steal all the Spander fen out from under me and




Anyway, the verdict finally went up on Saturday, while I was away from lj and the internet. (And isn't that just typical?) The post is currently locked to s_p members, but I am reproducing the opening and closing paragraphs of the mod,
A number of things were taken into consideration when looking at this case, the most prominent issue was that of ‘fanon’. Where plotlines have been taken by the fandom and made in to fanfiction canon, this does mean that there can be similarities in many stories over. However, in reviewing both stories I found there were a number of similarities in the stories that cannot be put down to simply random chance, there are whole paragraphs and conversations, slightly reworked and reworded, specific phrases and sentences from the original story appearing in the new story.
(...)
The main issues:
• The phrase “Undead's not bad, but dead's no fun at all” is from Twilight Time and when I searched this phrase it returned only 1 match, this story. While the phrase “Undead is alright, but dead is no fun at all” brings back a match of 0. This is not a common phrase and points to rewording of an original story.
• The telephone conversation between Angel and Spike, both in language and how it is written.
• A specific mention within both stories Xander’s telling Spike of getting to first base without a date
• The mention of chicken soup tasting good because Spike made it and the use of the words “slurp, then talk” and “crunch, then slurp”
The use of a certain plot for a fanfiction story is not the issue, the plot in these two stories can be seen in a number of Spike/Xander stories, it was the issue of similarities in sentences, structure and some of the same lines being used in a new story that can be found in an older story that was the only concern. I have communicated with all parties involved, I understand the new story was removed immediately after they were made aware of the concerns, with
However, as outlined above
In other words: Guilty as charged. (I'll leave it to each of you to decide whether or not you believe that that level of similarity can be completely unintentional.)
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This whole mess has left me more sure than ever that I made the right decision when I set policy at

I know I can take the shit, even when it does leave me shaky and pinging friends on YIM in need of reassurance and petting. *hugs everyone who provided support*
Despite what certain people may think,



I will never allow someone to delete or edit or otherwise hide a true piece of plagiarism and walk away without being called to account. Not only does that let them off the hook, it turns me into an accomplice. You do the crime, you do the time, even if the 'time' is nothing more than having your name added to a list on

I am, frankly, boggled that anyone could believe they'd get away with butchering parts of a classic like Twilight Time at all, let alone for another Spander fic. Cross-fandom plagiarists are being caught all the damn time, so this is just... *boggles some more*
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Anyhoo, I think that's got you all caught up with the state of me. What have you all been upto? What have I missed? Did any new fandoms pop into being while I was away and if so, who do you think my OTP is going to be? ♥ ♥ ♥
(FYI, I will be making a similar post over at

ETA: Bloodclaim post link.
ETA2: ETA: The stop_plagiarism post has been unlocked, edited and ETA'd