#sorry i took this down to revise it for the anon in my inbox <3 here you go.

[lizzexx]

I knew I'd have to come out of the woodwork sooner or later. So, here I am apologising for what I've done. I had stole your words and altered them for my own gain for which I feel completely and utterly stupid for having done it. But in time I'll hope you'll forgive me and just know about how bad I feel about everything. Your a truly amazing author and a credit to your work. But I'll hope you'll forgive me on this road to redeeming myself. I'm truly sorry Lizzie 😔

Since this is anon, I’m not sure if this Chell-P as it could be copied from the wattpad apology I saw and responded to. As I’ve gotten a second message in my inbox from chellp88, I’m going to assume this is real. I responded to the wattpad message, so I’m going to copy and paste what I put there here, the requested advice included.

I won't lie and say what you did didn't hurt. To have content from 9 stories and 4 OCs taken and passed off as someone else's is devastating. I was in tears when I saw your Wedding of River Song chapter had taken not just content, but literally took one of my original characters too, that it took my OC Evy's baby and passed him off as your OC's. That was devastating to me. . Plagiarism, any time it happens, is very hard to get through, it makes you question if you should even keep writing if people can't respect you enough to not steal your work. It's even worse when someone who favorited you does this to you. You had me as a favorite author since 2013, for 7 years you've known my work, maybe you've even been there when I was plagiarized by others and saw what it did to me…and then you stole parts of my work too and for at least 2 years you've let people think it was your work. You've let people think and assume that the non-transcript and non-episode content was completely yours, when it wasn't true because part of it, a lot of it in later stories, was mine. You've let people praise part of your work, when those parts were mine, and no one knew it, that really hurts. I've been through this 29 times now, it never gets easier and it takes longer and longer to get back to a place where you WANT to keep writing.

But despite what you did to me, plagiarism is not something I would ever wish on anyone, I would never want anyone to take your work or your OC and try to pass it off as theirs and take credit or praise for your work. I sincerely hope you will never experience for yourself what you did to me.

I appreciate your apology, I appreciate you took the stories down, and I will always wish people the best with their future work so long as it's original. You are one of the few who have been honest about what they've done and actually apologized for it, so that means a lot to me.

The only advice I have for going forward would be:

1. Use a transcript as your ONLY source material. Don't look at someone else's work, don't have someone else's work open, don't highlight or copy parts of someone's work because it sounds good or you liked it, don't use someone else's story in place of a transcript, ONLY use a transcript. This ensures that the only things you're writing are your interpretation of what happened in the physical episode or your own content. It becomes very difficult to plagiarize another user when you do not have access to their work and do not have their work in front of you to use as a base. I don't even use my own work as a base whenever I get to a new Time Lady. I use the transcript, it's the best and safest route to go when you want to be as original as possible.

2. That being said, it's also helpful to NOT use your old content, not even parts from your old story that you just don't feel like typing over again. Really start completely from scratch and use ONLY the transcript. Because any evidence brought up about the plagiarism are not the only examples of the plagiarism, there's always more than what's brought up and the safest way to ensure you don't accidently put plagiarism back into your work is to not copy or use recycled material from your initial posting. I don't say this to make more work for you, I say it from experience because this has literally happened to me in the past. A past plagiarizer took down their work, claimed they would start again from scratch, and put up chapters far too fast to have actually been rewritten from scratch. What they did was go through what they first put up, decided if there were some areas to take out or change, and put that chapter back up just tweaked a little. And plagiarisms were still there. The only way they could have avoided it would be to have their chapter up and my chapter up side by side to compare, and that sort of goes back to point 1, not to look at another person's story while you write your own. Things snuck past this other person and their story was reported a second time under their new profile name and they came across as dishonest in their efforts to 'change,' so really, I can't stress using the transcript and ONLY the transcript enough.

3. Along those lines, something I personally do to try and avoid any unintentional plagiarism is to try your best not to read anyone else's work while you are writing your own. It's hard, it's very hard, because we write in the fandoms we love and we want to see what other people think or imagine about what we love too. But it's a way I use to keep from unintentionally plagiarizing someone. Because you might read something and it sticks with you, the lines, the points, the scene itself, and when you go to write your own version of a scene it ends up being very much like that original content, perhaps even the same exact lines because it got in your head. This can happen with a lot of original content other people write, and the best way to not be influenced by someone else's work is to not read it while you're writing your own versions of events. Of course, it's up to you and other writers whether to continue reading or cut yourself off, if you think you won't be unduly influenced then read on, but just be even more aware and critical of your writing as you go on. Granted, this part of the advice is of little help when the stories have already been read, but so long as the transcript is the only source material, I don't believe too much would actually appear identically in another's story.

4a. Be honest with your readers. They are the best people you will ever know and all they want is for your story to do well, for it to succeed, and for you to grow and better yourself as a writer. Be honest with them about what happened because it shows you did something wrong and are working to fix it, taking responsibility and owning your mistake. (I add this point in because it gives more context to point 4b.)

4b. Don't be afraid to ask your readers for help because they will do whatever they can to assist you. So if you're concerned, as you go forward, that you may unintentionally plagiarize someone, ask them to keep an eye open and let you know concerns they have about your content, especially original content not found in an episode. It's better to be aware of it when it happens than to go chapters and chapters and the entire story is taken down. Chances are people who read your work may have read mine, vice versa, or read other works, and if you ask, they can always bring up points and concerns to you early for you to review, compare, consider, and revise or leave be.

4c. If you are concerned something you posted is too similar to someone else's work, even after using JUST a transcript for the base, it's ok to put a note up that 'Part of this chapter is inspired by 'x' story by y' because it tells people there is another great story that you enjoyed reading that inspired you, and they may like it too, but it also helps relieve any concerns about potential plagiarism. (That's not to say you should put up a note in every chapter and then go on to copy that content and paraphrase it, but just if you use the transcript and it still feels similar to you from a story you read, it's better safe than sorry.)

5. Be aware, going forward, that because this did happen and you did take content from two people and passed it off as yours, some people will be more aware when similarities come up, especially in original content not found in the episode. This shouldn't be the only deterrent, the fear of getting caught more easily, to not plagiarize someone, because stealing from anyone should never happen, but be aware people will notice. And people will be looking more closely and critically when the story eventually gets to the part where the plagiarism first occurred, I, too, will randomly be peeking in from time to time myself at those points and hoping I see nothing of my work again. That's why starting from literal scratch and ONLY using the transcript, not even parts of chapters you'd already put up before, is the safest course to ensure no plagiarism happens.

6. And, finally, because this happened, and not just to me but to another of your favorite authors, a last piece of advice would be to strongly consider and revisit if you've done this to anyone else in any other story and take it down now. I am NOT accusing you of having done this more than the five times it's occurred, but someone raised a concern about another story of yours to me so I say this only as advice and a precaution as your account, unfortunately, now has the stigma associated with the plagiarism committed. I always hold out hope that other works are original even if the ones with my content weren't. So IF you have done this, taken original content and paraphrased it to pass off as your own, in ANY other story of yours, even if it's a very small amount, the best thing would be to take it down now and start from scratch there too. Better to do it now than before it is discovered and it gets reported. The last thing you would want is to go on the website and see your profile has been deleted by the site because of repeated plagiarisms.

It's very hard to forgive plagiarism, especially when it's happened so many times. This may be your first and only four instances doing this to me, but this is not the first or only time it's been done to me. It should have never happened, but it did, and it's not something that can be or should be easily overlooked or brushed aside. It leaves a lasting effect on both sides. Maybe in time I can one day forgive those who plagiarized me in the past, but please understand if I can't do that right now, to them or to you. I really do wish you well with your work as you go forward, and I hope you take my advice to heart and keep things original. Best of luck! LizzeXX