This is not a case of plagiarism, but it is disconcerting (to put it politely).

I got an email from someone who spotted a story on Twisting the Hellmouth where the author said their story was "inspired" by Contrite Spirits.

Okay, fine and good. No problem with that. Actually gives me a warm fuzzy.

Except, my correspondent went on to say, this is the kind of Xander story that they know I dislike and that they were kind of surprised that I agreed to let someone write a "prequel" story that had those kinds of elements in it.

My morbidly curious self clicked on the link and I read it.

*headdesk headdesk headdesk*

Look, you can't copyright ideas. I know that. And it's flattering that someone is inspired by one of my fics for one of their own.

Buuuuuuuuut....

On reading this story, my jaw slowly opened and I was immitating idiot Jeb in all his slack-jawed yokelism.

Because, yo! Way to miss the whole frigging point of Contrite Spirits, dude!
( Oh, let me count the ways of the wrongability of connecting this story to Contrite Spirits. )

 

This story has zero to do with Contrite Spirts, in either spirit, tone, concept, or characterization. Let's never mind that my WiP Discovering the Truth About the Wizard of Oz takes place only months after Contrite Spirits.

The simple fact is, this is a case where my hands are tied. There's no plagiarism and (I assume) there's no plans to fold my story into it. In truth, I'm completely unsure what to do about it or even if I can do anything about it.

It's simply annoying on an epic scale that a story I worked so hard on and am so proud of is being misrepresented in this way.

People who are fans of the kind of story that is on Twisting the Hellmouth are going to be mightily disappointed if they read Contrite Spirits. People who like Contrite Spirits (like the person who emailed me about this), are going to think that I have something to do with the story on Twisting the Hellmouth.

*stomps around like Stitch on a city made of playing cards*

This is something completely different than what othercat once proposed: that her fanon version of Xander and my fanon version of Xander meet face-to-face. Why? One, she told me about it; two, our Xanders are actually pretty close in tone, style, and characterization.

Heeee! With apologies to othercat:

( When Het and Slash Xanders meet )

Heeee. I think I cheered myself up. othercat can kill me now.