Cassandra Claire/2003
From Fan History Wiki
Trying to figure out how and where these should be integrated and if they should be integrated... They are mostly posts based on the Cassandra Claire plagiarism incident sorted by date. It also looks at the history of Heidi8's actions, particularly as they pertain to Fiction Alley and Cassandra Claire.
2000:: See Cassandra Claire/2000 - Discuss
2001:: See Cassandra Claire/2001: January to June - Discuss
2001:: See Cassandra Claire/2001: July to December - Discuss
2002:: See Cassandra Claire/2002 - Discuss
2003:: See Cassandra Claire/2003 - Discuss
2004:: See Cassandra Claire/2004 - Discuss
2005:: See Cassandra Claire/2005 - Discuss
2006:: See Cassandra Claire/2006 - Discuss
2007:: See Cassandra Claire/2007 - Discuss
2002 to 2004
From late 2002 to 2004, Harry Potter slash fans went through a period where they were obsessed with writing the students of Hogwarts, primarily Draco and Harry as wearing leather pants. This was popularized by authors like Cassandra Claire, Heidi8, IvyBlossom, Aja and Stacey. [1][2]
2003
Ali Wildgoose was Cassandra Claire's roomate at this time.[3] According to Ali Wildgoose in 2003, "and while I dont like that she included that passage she DID get written permission from the author of the book to use it...and its a half of page of text out of thousands of pages of fic." [4]
At some point during this year, Cassandra Claire almost got sued because she selling merchandise based on the books, in violation of various copyrights and trademarks. [5]
January 14, 2003
Heidi8 tried to calm fears of people in the Harry Potter fan fiction community as a result of the cease and desist letter by the Restricted Section website. She did this by talking to people like Flourish on the phone and asking them to pass along messages to various mailing lists. According to Flourish, FictionAlley.Org had worried about similar stuff like that happening before. [6]
January 2003
Fanon Fleur has come about by this time largely because of Cassandra Claire's work. [7][8]
Cassandra Claire visited England where she attended Oxt00b with people such as cygnusfap, Simon Brandford, zorac, marysiak, benjj, lasultrix, tobymalfoy , wednesdayschild, alexmalfoy, olympia_m, penelope_z, kay_taylor, anatsuno, jlh, and lasultrix. [9]
Late January 2003
Cassandra Claire had not updated for at least a month and her fans were growing restless. [10][11]
January 28, 2003
Msscribe posted on Portkey praising Cassandra Claire, Kristen Elizabeth, Barb and Lori Summers. [12]
January 30, 2003
DV12 Spoilers were posted by Cassandra Claire. Cassandra Claire announces that chapter 12 will be posted in February. Fans are happy. [13][14][15]
February, 2003
Cassandra Claire visited England. [16]
February 3, 2003
"Which Draco Trilogy character are you?" quiz was created. It is taken over 8,000 times. [17][18] [19]
February 16, 2003
On February 16, 2003, Cassandra Claire said on ParadigmOfUncertainty:
Author: "cassandraclaire73 <cassandraclaire@...>" <cassandraclaire@...>
Subject: Re: Draco Veritas Quote
Date: Sun Feb 16, 2003 9:12 am [20]
- --- In ParadigmOfUncertainty@yahoogroups.com, "Brad <moolifats@h...>"
- <moolifats@h...> wrote:
- > Dear Cassandra & Anyone,> "I always thought I would follow you up
- to the gates of Hell if I had to. And that, once arriving there, I
- would beg the gatekeeper to take me instead of you. And if he must
- take you, I would ask to come with you. And if he would not let me
- come with you, I would wait for you on the shores of the river."
- >
- > I have the strangest of feelings that these words are a variation
- of something I had read a long time ago but I cannot place it. My
- > question was does anyone know if Cassandra was inspired to write
- this beautiful paragraph by a memory from a novel she had once
- read? I must find out what this is reminding me of for clarity sake.
- >
- > Please respond asap! Thanks :) Brad"
- I really don't know what it could remind you of specifically; I think
- it must remind you, sort of generally, of the myth of Orpheus and
- Eurydice. I didn't reference anything when I wrote it, I was thinking
- about how Draco could tell Harry he'd die for him, and his specific
- perspective as someone who's already seen, albeit dimly, what it's
- like to be dead. It was meant to sound like a sort of litany or
- chant... "I always thought I would stay with you forever, I thought I
- would follow you always." Maybe it vaguely referenced Ruth and Naomi
- in the Bible? I don't really know. I remember writing it, thinking,
- Where did that come from?! Who knew Draco felt that way?! and then
- thinking ah, well, apparently he does.
- )
- Cassie [21]
At some point, in one of the many discussions on Fandom Wank, people attributed the lines to Spike from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer in the episode "The Gift." A respondent on ParadigmOfUncertainty that day said they thought it might have been a not direct quote from Philip Pullman's "The Amber Spyglass," from his Dark Materials Trilogy. [22]
February 28, 2003 to March 2, 2003
Cassandra Claire was a guest of honor at NonCon 2003. [23] She is described by the convention people on their website as a "fanfiction writer, Vassar graduate, and journalist," [24] The convention was held in Poughkeepsie, New York at Vassar.
March 1, 2003
Very Secret Diaries
Cassandra Claire updated the Very Secret Diaries. Earlier, in February, she had hinted they might never be updated again which had upset some fans. [25]
February 11, 2003
Very Secret Diaries
Cassandra Claire said in her LiveJournal on this date:
- Man, 426 comments on my last entry and it was kind of a lame one. O_O
- I am sorry I haven't written another very secret diary. There is no particular reason for this, I just got out of the swing of things while in England and have been on actual work deadline since I got back, so it has kind of slipped my mind. *cower* I haven't even looked at this LJ in ages.
- I did write half of the Legolas diary on a bar napkin, which I will no go retrieve and try to do something with. Someone also asked me if I had gotten a Cease and Desist letter from the Tolkien people telling me to stop writing these. This posits an alternate universe in which they care about the Very Secret Diaries, but the answer to that would be, obviously, no I haven't. I don't know anything about how issues of fanfic stand in the LOTR fandom because I'm not in it, but there seem to be plenty of slash archives that exist with no issues so I can't imagine why TPTB would want this fairly mild stuff off the net. On top of which, obviously, if I had gotten a C and D I'd have had to take down what ALREADY exists, not just stop writing new material. That's how these things work, AFAIK. The only semi official missive I have ever recieved from anyone Tolkien related is a letter from the Tolkien Society saying they'd read the VDSs at a meeting and were amused.
- I will continue posting the diaries here but eventually I'll probably take this LJ down and redirect everyone to the official archive site at http://home.nyu.edu/~amw243/diaries
- tools off to write Legolas diary, of which the first word is "Whee!"* [26]
March 3, 2003
"Msscribe posts "My Dumb Ass Letter to Cassandra Claire" on LJ and receives anonymous flames." [27]
March 11, 2003
Cassandra Claire's plagiarism was discussed on Portkey. Posters had the following to say when some one asked about that:
- I highly doubt that...I've read all of her works too, and I think she's an excellent author! not some plageriser...
- But I could be wrong! *looks around* Anybody else got an answer?[28]
NAPPA said:
- I'm not sure what the whole thing is about. What I've been told by various people is that some of her plots are from Buffy universe, and sometimes they resembled too much of the buffyverse.
- I'm not sure how much of it is true. I've read that it was more of an homage - but I really don't know. I don't think Cassie does need to plagerize. When you read her work, you have to admire it. And that is from one who despises the Draco/Hermione things in there and the way she characterized Harry and Hermione and Draco...
- Best thing to do is to go to the source. Go to her yahoo group - look at the very early message. You'll find something there - I'm certain of it. [29]
March 12, 2003
Cassandra Claire posted a cookie for chapter 12 of Draco Veritas. She also announced the chapter is finished and offer to her beta readers. [30]
March 17, 2003
Cassandra Claire announces that fan art for chapter 12 of Draco Veritas must be submitted by that Friday and that her beta readers have started replying. [31]
March 21, 2003
Cassandra Claire announced that Draco Veritas chapter 12 will be on Schnoogle by Sunday, that some one would submit Draco Veritas chapter 12 for her on Saturday. [32]
March 23, 2003
Draco Veritas chapter 12 was posted. [33][34]
March 26, 2003
On March 26, 2003, Fermatojam created a LiveJournal account. He then commented on Cassandra Claire and Msscribe’s LiveJournals. He made several posts which ncluded the Big Name Sinners list. [35] It makes other people want to get on the list. [36]
March 28, 2003
On March 28, 2003, Cassandra Claire posted on her LiveJournal about attending Nimbus. [37]
On March 28, 2003, Msscribe responded to Cassandra Claire's post. [38]
Spring 2003
According to Heidi8,
- praetorianguard and owlman tried to make it clear that FA mods were not acting for FA when they weren't posting on the site, and that only the two of them and I were authorized to act on behalf of FA off-site. Therefore, unless someone complained about MsScribe as an FA moderator or she violated the FA ToU in some way, none of this involved FA. At that time, nobody directly contacted me about it, afaik.[39]
April 13, 2003
The Cassandra Claire incident has by this time become a running joke on Fandom Wank and the little details known about it are enough that many people from fandoms other than Harry Potter consider the Harry Potter fan fiction community to be plagued by plagiarists. [40][41]
April 15, 2003
Cassandra Claire posted the following on ParadigmOfUncertainty:
Author: "cassandraclaire73" <cassandraclaire@...>
Subject: Re: The word 'magid' - Cassie Claire
Date: Tue Apr 15, 2003 10:42 am [42]
- Magid is a Hebrew word -- it means 'priest.' I did get the idea of
- using it as an alternate version of "Mage" from DWJ.
- Cass
- --- In ParadigmOfUncertainty@yahoogroups.com, "Darlene" <Dar20@a...>
- wrote:
- > Just an off topic remark.. my nephew's middle name is Majid, which
- > means magic. (His father is Tunisian.)
- >
- > Darlene
- >
- > --- In ParadigmOfUncertainty@yahoogroups.com, Quinn Dexter
- > <pantalaimone@y...> wrote:
- > >
- > > Well, I've just finished reading 'The Merlin Conspiracy' by Diana
- > Wynn Jones and I noticed that she uses the word magid quite
- > frequently. I remember that Cassie mentioned that she reads Ms
- Jones'
- > work, so is this where the word 'magid' comes from?
April 16, 2003
Cassandra Claire was mentioned on SugarQuill. Michela Ecks explained her understanding of the history at the time saying:
- It wasn't so much a copyright issue but the fact that she was reported to FF.Net by a user for plagiarism. The person who reported it included about two pages of text examples of the original text (from a novel by Pamela Dean) and Cassie's pieces. The person also said that she knew that other parts were plagiarisized from Red Dwarf, Babylon 5, and some other shows but as she was not a fan of those shows, she could not cite specific passages. At any rate, FF.Net's staff investigated and came to the conclusion that she was guilty. (They had no idea who CC was. They'd handled numerous cases of plagiarism before including dealing with some truely irritating people who stole The Grinch who Stole Christmas and just CHANGED THE NAMES and were extremely agravating in that they claimed it was a parody... which um... in that case, it wasn't. I'm just stating that because fen at the time were accusing FF.Net staff of being jealous of her talent. The fact was some one reported her to them and they investigated.) The policy is and as far as I know remains that if you plagiarize, there are no IF ANDS OR BUTS, you get suspended with out notice because that behavior is not acceptable. It said so in FF.Net's Terms of Service. Fandom turned nasty. The story was not (and couldn't be anyway because it was properly disclaimed) because CC cited the wrong book and did not list the author the book was borrowed from. Anyway, things got nasty and the pro author that Cassandra Claire plagiarized stepped in of sorts, being in contact with FF.Net's staff. She supported their decision and said that the sample extracts she saw were indeed plagiarism. She said that Cassandra Claire (who was at the time saying she had permission until it was made abunstantly clear she didn't) never had contacted her for permission. Only after that got out did CC contact Pamela Dean who referred her to her agent. From what I've been told by various parties involved, Pamela Dean never did give permission to CC to use the extracts and Pamela Dean made some comment about fen and not understanding copyright on usenet. But after that, many authors moved of FF.Net because they did not like that decision on FF.Net and felt FF.Net should have informed CC that she was being black listed for plagiarism.[43]
April 19, 2003
Cassandra Claire posted her Draco humour story, Something Impossible. [44]
May 2003
TheOneRing.net was courting Cassandra Claire to appear in a documentary featuring Lord of the Rings fans. Cassandra Claire was torn on the issue because she did not want to lose her anonmity. [45]
May 2, 2003
Fans of the Cassandra Claire's Draco series were trying to make an animated movie version of it. [46]
May 10, 2003
Cassandra Claire posted spoilers for chapter 13 of Draco Veritas. [47][48]
May 23, 2003
HPFanArtists mailing list was created, with Cassandra Claire's permission, as a place for fans to gather in order to draw the Draco Trilogy.[49]
June 2003
According to Heidi8, in June 2003, Msscribe became part of the staff at FictionAlley.Org. [50]
June 9, 2003
On June 9, 2003, chapter 13 of Draco Veritas was posted on Fiction Alley. [51]
Cassandra Claire posted the story "Dream" to ParadigmOfUncertainty.[52][53] [54][55]
July 5, 2003
Stacey made a public post, the first one in about a year. This post was just to blast Aja and claimed Aja was just upset because Stacey had outted her as avada_sarcastic. In doing that, she also implicated Cassandra Claire, Ali Wildgoose, herself, Aja and Heidi8. [56][57]
July 8, 2003
IvyBlossom posted in response to a comment regarding IvyBlossom not going to Nimbus because she felt threatened by Aja:
- I'm not looking for anyone to take sides. Please don't feel you need to. I've said what I feel needed to be said, I did not aim to demonize anyone and did not name anyone in particular.
- If Aja wants it known that it was her who wrote this incredibly hurtful and stalkerish post about me and Cassie, that is her perrogative. [58]
The same day, some one comments elsewhere that Cassandra Claire flips out over recieving criticism. [59]
July 9, 2003
Cassandra Claire responds to such criticism regarding her ability to take criticism by saying:
- I'm honestly baffled as to how you can come to this conclusion. I mean, you're making a LOT of assumptions here, and as far as I know you and I have never met. I don't know how you can presume to know *anything* about my relationship to cassie, and especially not my relationship to my readers.
- I know. I blinked briefly, then shrugged. I have never seen you take constructive criticism anything but well, Ivy takes it well, I do my best to take it well - you know my review boards as well as I do. On top of which, I would love to know how someone who knows none of us and has spoken to none of us could presume to pass judgement on our friendships or our internal motivations. On the other hand, there is not a lot of point, Aja, in you trying to argue anyone out of a position like that. Obviously they believe it because they want to.
- Would you mind giving specific instances of things that have led you to draw all those fairly negative conclusions about each of the three of us?
- Frankly, I have a fairly strong idea you won't have that much to draw on.
- Ditto, but if you think lack of verifiability is going to make a difference, you are so very wrong. *grins* Come, Ajalet, get on YM, we can talk about your trip to New York during which I plan to lock you in the basement and refuse to feed you unless you promise Never To Have Any More Fangirls Than Me because after all, we aren't really friends. [60]
A commenter on Fandom Wank makes a joke summarizing the Argentus Big Name Fan exchange as thus:
- And lo, the Great Goddess Cassie looked down from on high and saw that her fangirls were troubled, and was saddened. And with the benevolence and grace that is her nature, she descended from her height and walked among her fangirls. And they were much amazed, for the Great Goddess Cassie went unto Ivy, and unto Aja, and spake with them, that they might set aside their strife and live in harmony. For the very fandom was threatened by their wankery! And Ivy and Aja saw the will of the Great Goddess, and lay down their weapons of LJ posts and words, and hugged. And the fangirls were happy again. And all was good.[61]
July 17, 2003
Cassandra Claire posted the story "A Lot to Be Upset About" on her LiveJournal. [62] [63]
The disclaimer was:
- So I wrote this fic out in longhand, on the backs of about 35 flyers. It is silly, it is nonsensical, it is extremely meta. It is, as Josh said, "like taking Mr. Toad's Wild Ride through the fandom side of your psyche." The idea was Holly's, the inspiration was both Harry's angry characterization in OOtP and reaction to it, especially as regards his speaking in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. The pairing is Ginny/Draco (with vague mentions of Snape/Draco and Ron/Ginny and about sixty other Ginny ships) the rating is probably PG-13, and there is no great and t00by love between Harry and Draco whatsoever. None. I'll come back to How to Disappear shortly, when I need to depress myself again. For now I needed to write something that could not possibly be taken seriously. [64]
July 17, 2003 to July 20, 2003
Nimbus
From July 17, 2003 to July 20, 2003, Msscribe roomed with Cassandra Claire at Nimbus 2003. [65] The convention had its wanky moments because before any panel at which Cassandra Claire was presenting, an announcement was made that no cameras were allowed in the room and they would be confiscated.[66] This type of activity did not endear Cassandra Claire to some people. [67][68] During a panel discussion on the topic of Draco Malfoy, on Cassandra Claire and ataniell93 admitted to liking canon Draco. [69]
July 24, 2003
On July 24, 2003, Cassandra Claire birthday community was founded by Heidi8. [70]
Fall, 2003
Heidi8 was talking to Henry Jenkins about FictionAlley.Org and how it was working towards become incorporated. [71]
In the fall of 2003, Heidi8 said on:
Author: Heidi Tandy <heidilist@...>
Subject: Re: [PoU] Cassandra Claire in Life Story magazine...
Date: Sun Mar 21, 2004 10:04 am [72]
- On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 2:28pm, ¢¼¢À Andrastre ¢¾¢¼ wrote:
- > That is so, so wonderful. But I dont think they sell Life Story here.
- > What exactly is Life Story magazine, and what is the article about
- > exactly, and how did Cassandra Claire actually get in there, and just-
- > WHAT?
- Hi - PoU listmom Heidi here. Guys, I wrote the article - last fall, the
- editor of Movie Magic magazine emailed me and asked if I'd do an article
- recommending fanfic for newbies, with a focus on things for 11-16 year
- olds.
- So, I wrote the article. And among the fics I listed were A LOT TO BE
- UPSET ABOUT from cassie and Lori's PoU. There were about 15 other
- stories in the article, and about 10 in the piece I wrote that didn't
- make it into print. But they've told me that I can upload the original
- in about 8 weeks, so I will.
- > Are they even allowed to do that? With copyrights and everything?
- I didn't include bits from any of the stories, so there's nothing
- copyright infringing about the article itself. Selling would be, but I
- made sure that didn't happen here.
- Heidi
August 2003
Aja visited Cassandra Claire, Clio and Ali Wildgoode in New York City. The trip lasted two weeks. Aja felt uncomfortable but thought that Cassandra Claire was nice. [73]
Regarding the Cassandra Claire plagiarism situation, at this time Cassandra Claire was claiming something like "saying something about the whole 'had it in my notebook didn't know it wasn't mine' kind of thing." [74]
August 2, 2003
Intellislash wank happens. This is connected with Cassandra Claire because she apparently gave the slashers who were doing that the name because of their insightful meta discussion and intelligent stories. [75]
August 29, 2003
Cassandra Claire posted a cookie for chapter 14 of Draco Veritas. [76]
October, 2003
By this time, Cassandra Claire plagiarism defenders have developed a new argument that "it was hypocritical to criticize Cassie for plagiarism when JKR had also been unoriginal, drawing ideas from Tolkien and other fantasy novelists." [77]
What Cassandra Claire has been accused of plagiarism has expanded by this time. Accusations involve her having lifted material from Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonflight." [78]
Around this time, Cassandra Claire did a lot of public squeeingin her LiveJournal about the professional author of the week who was fangirling Cassandra Claire which helped to boost her profile in the fan fiction community. [79]
Early October, 2003
People were commenting that it seemed like Cassandra Claire never treated Aja like a friend when Stacy was stalking Aja. [80] Later in October, Cassandra Claire would accuse Aja of being untrustworthy.[81]
October 11, 2003
Libertine blocked Aja's college from accessing Veela, Inc.. Aja blamed IvyBlossom for this. Aja posted a slam of IvyBlossom in her LiveJournal. [82] This ties in to Cassandra Claire because many of the unhappy undercurrents of this incident were not made public because the participants were trying to keep in the good graces of Heidi8 and Cassandra Claire.
October 12, 2003
The events of October 11, 2003 get reported on Fandom Wank. [83][84]
October 13, 2003
Aja
On October 13, 2003, Stacey, another member of Cassandra Claire's inner circle, wanked Aja. [85][86][87][88]
On October 13, 2003, Aja made another post. She explained her interactions with Stacey. She said something like:
- say Cassie and Heidi had forbidden Aja to respond to Stacey's verbal abuse and stalking. She also mentioned that she had been forced to be Cassie's secret friend in order to keep Stacey from going ballistic. According to Aja, when Stacey hacked into Cassie's email account and discovered Cassie and Aja were exchanging email, Stacey resigned from Fiction Alley. (Aja's post is now locked.)[89]
Heidi8[90] and Cassandra Claire[91] both respond to the Aja versus Stacey stuff. Neither one appreciate being involved in that. [92] Neither one like FictionAlley.Org being dragged in. [93][94] Heidi8 responds to comments on the Fandom Wank discussion in order to kerlfuffle with Aja. [95][96]
Still on October 13, 2003, pirouette made a poll asking if Aja should be voted out of fandom. [97] Heidi8 voted yes. [98][99][100][101] This seems to have been a mistake, or so Heidi8 says in the comments of that LiveJournal entry. [102] [103] [104]
Heidi8 also commented on Fandom Wank regarding the Aja issue. She said:
- I don't want to spend my free time fighting on the internet - whether with strangers or with people, like aja, that I've met in real life. I want to discuss books, read fics, and enable discussion and reading. I'm not irked with aja for posting her take on what happened - shels free to do that even if I don't happen to find it beneficial/helpful/productive. I just wish she'd let me know she was putting it up, or that she'd put it up, simply because some of the things she said concerning or involving me were inaccurate. And since I don't want to dredge the whole thing up again, I'm only going to say that one inacuracy had to do with my use of the word "fuck."[105]
At some point, somewhere, Stacey said[106]:
- 4) Speaking of which, how long ago was it that Cassie dumped your ass? Did it drive you insane that she clearly likes Ivy much more than she likes you? Did it hurt your ickle feelings when Cassie avoided you at Nimbus? Awww, poor little Aja thrown over by the biggest BNF of them all. Are you starting to recognise the truth behind some of the "lies and abuse" that I've spread about Cassie? Read 'em and weep, girl.[107]
Plagiarism
The dislike and rememberance of Cassandra Claire plagiarism has not abated. It still goes on and, because the players, Aja and Stacey and IvyBlossom, are connected to her, she is worthy of being referenced in discussion of that melt down. [108]
Amount of theft
- If I had to guess, in the 5 or 6 chapters of her first story I read, I would estimate a good 15-20% of it was "borrowed" from other places. [109]
Diana Wynne Jones
Another anon thinks Cassandra Claire has plagiarized Diana Wynne Jones:
- I think there's also a bit of Diana Wynne Jones in her stories too. Magrids and the book shouting out "I belong to Malfoy Manor" and such.
- One thing you can say for her... she's definitely well-versed in SF and fantasy.
- I agree that she's a talented writer. But I've loved details in her story and and then come across them later in Buffy or a novel... it tainted her writing for me. [110]
FanFiction.Net
The plagiarism accusation around this time sounds like:
- Cassie originally, in the old age, before there was a FictionAlley, posted her stories at fanfiction.net (FFN). The plagiarism-scandal started when FFN deleted her account and stories, citing plagiarism-allegations, without giving her opportunity to defend herself and make her case. The charges referred, IIRC, to some quote from some book, which supposedly was not appropriately credited - the charges are tenuous at best, IMHO, but did anyway lead to a split between people who believed them, and those who did not, many of the latter taking part in quite the exodus from FFN.[111]
iamtheenemy made a guess as to how much pre getting kicked off FanFiction.Net plagiarism Cassandra Claire had done:
- If anyone is a bigger Buffy fan than Cassie Claire clearly is, it is me. HUGE. MONUMENTAL. And Cassie likes to quote Buffy. A lot. A lot a lot. And not only direct quotes, but situations and so forth from Buffy. When I finally decided to read her story (it took a lot of prodding, because it was *ew* het), she had started giving credit to all the sources she'd blatantly ripped off.
- However, everytime I read a chapter of her story, the Buffy quotes stuck out so obviously, and completely ruined the thread of the story for me, because what the hell? I would think "Xander said this to Cordelia in the library in "What's My Line, Part II," and couldn't focus on what was going on.
- But apparently, Cassie posted on FF.net before AT, and she wasn't so nice about labeling her sources (among them Buffy, Monty Python and others). She got reported for this, and was kicked off of FF.net.
esorlehcar on that same day thought of the plagarism as happening as thus:
- It was, IIRC, something like 500 or 1,000 words copied verbatim from a novel - only the names had been changed. IIRC, CC has explained that she had copied the passage into a notebook years before, come across it while writing her HP fic and thought it was her own writing, so it was "accidental" plagiarism.
- She also used, verbatim, many, many, many lines of dialogue (sometimes whole conversations) from Buffy. Also Blackadder. And Newsradio. And Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And others I'm forgetting, and no doubt others I didn't catch because I wasn't familiar with the source material. All of this was completely uncredited for a very long time. At some point she included a note at the end on one of the installments in her story saying she'd been negligent in not crediting sources, and listing a lot of things she'd lifted quotes from. I believe this didn't happen until after plagiarism charges had been made, but I could be wrong about that.
- I've heard people claim the lifting was homage to the original source material - who the hell knows. The fact that she lifted quotes and did not credit them and made the "mistake" with the novel tends to make me doubtful that she's completely innocent of all charges, but stranger things have happened.
- Personally, the quotes annoy me because they smack of laziness - CC is, IMO, very talented and very funny, and she could certainly have constructed the trilogy without such rampant "borrowing." They also bothered me because they slammed me out of the story, every single time. Hearing Willow or Buffy or Xander come out of Harry or Draco's mouths just really never worked for me, and it didn't help that I sometimes felt they'd been forced in for no discernable reason other than that CC liked the quote.
- CC is (again IMO) a very compelling storyteller, and I'd be completely immersed in her narrative, only to be yanked forcibly out when she used a Buffy (or Blackadder, or Hitchhiker's Guide, or whatever) quote, and (at least in the first two novels of the trilogy) that happens about once every two pages. [112]
Notebook
The notebook story was still going:
- The "permission" was definitely given after the discovery, and originally, as has been noted above, none of the "homages" were credited at all. In fact, I personally didn't even heard the whole "copied from a notebook, didn't know it wasn't hers" story of CC's until months afterwards.[113]
Pamela Dean
On Pamela Dean, the story was still circulating that Cassandra Claire had permission:
- If memory serves, it was in fact several pages of a novel after she had asked the author of said novel and the author had given permission to do so. [114]
In regards to the proper crediting, esorlehcar said:
- I think she's credited everything at this point, yes. It took awhile - I read the trilogy well after the Pamela Dean thing (maybe six or seven months ago), and at the time there was still not a word of credit until, IIRC, a later chapter in the second novel - but it is done.
Quotes as a game
The game issue came up, mentioned by lucky13:
- I was on Cassie's side of the argument way back when, so maybe I'm biased, but I always thought the quotes from Buffy et al were harmless. (I didn't find out about the Pamela Dean stuff until much later... but if that's been worked out, I don't see why it should be a problem now.) Not because I condone plagiarism or something, but because it was part of a game. Cassie used to post new Draco Trilogy chapters to her mailing list and the the listmembers would entertain themselves by identifying all the quotes and where they came from. Of course they weren't credited... that was the whole idea.
Terry Pratchett
An anon claims during the discussion related to the Aja related kerfluffle that Cassandra Claire plagiarized Terry Pratchett:
- Another thing she lifted large amounts of quotations from was Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Not nearly as badly as Buffy and some others, but when she did it was completely blatant and just ugh. Example I'll always remember is when Draco said, "And many an ancient lord's last words were, 'I've got magic argghhh...'" I almost had to force myself to continue reading after that. It just jarred me out of the story. [115]
October 20, 2003
TheExhibitionist summarized the "You Plagiarist! Only Cassie Can Write Intellislash!" wank.[116] [117]
October 23, 2003
Around this date, Aja posted her story, "Twelfth Night" on her LiveJournal.[118] Aja posted it as a distraction to ongoing wank and to prove to herself and others that she was autonomous and did not need Cassandra Claire. [119]
October 26, 2003
The Aja plagiarized Cassandra Claire wank was reported on Fandom Wank. [120][121] Redmenace notes the discussion recieved four hundred plus comments less than 24 hours. [122]
October 27, 2003
Cassandra Claire posted to her LiveJournal. [123] She explains[124]:
- that she was taking time off to rewrite future parts of Draco Veritas which she claimed had been ruined by someone whom she thought was a friend, whom she now knew she couldn't trust. She implied that that person had leaked crucial plot elements of the story, and that she therefore needed to revamp and rewrite.[125]
October 29, 2003
Fandom Rants discussed how Cassandra Claire used her status as a Big Name Fan to pressure another author, Aja, not to post because it would make her story look worse. The community also discussed how Cassandra Claire could help control her fangirls but chose not to in her to help Cassandra Claire maintain her status as a Big Name Fan. [126]
November 7, 2003
The rationalizations and variations of the Cassandra Claire got kicked of FanFiction.Net continued to spawn. One of the more interesting ones was posted this date on The Sinner's message boards. Posted by an unregistered user, it read:
- In regards to the plagerism issue, it is true that Cassandra was removed from fanfiction.net. However, the reason behind this is a young girl posed pieces of Cassie's fanfiction Draco Dormines as her own, with a tag saying 'inspired by other works of Harry Potter fanfiction.' When Cassie informed the admin about the problem, they explained that they had to remove both authors. She was fine with this, as her story was already part of a group on Yahoo. (Called ParadigmofUncertainty) Cassandra Claire is a very skilled author, with incredibly creative ideas. She does use quotes from other sources, (like Red Dwarf and Buff) but they are always properly cited. I highly recomend her stuff, especially for fans of Harry Potter.[127]
Another poster rebutted that comment with:
- Isn't that just the official Cassie's Screaming Fangirls coverup? Aside from the plagiarism issue, she also sells merchandise on her website for more than cost, which is just not done- fanfic is on dodgy legal ground as it is, without having BNFs making money out of it.
- Plus, I've never seen the big deal about her stuff. It really isn't that good. [128]
November 16, 2003
A role playing group was created based on Cassandra Claire's Draco series. [129][130]
November 19, 2003
By this time, FictionAlley.Org had over 32,000 stories on all their various sites. [131]
November 27, 2003
Cassandra Claire thinks Fandom Wank loves to read about her and her boyfriend. [132][133] Some posters on Fandom Wank think she is just making stuff up for attention. [134]
December 2003
Around December 2003, Cassandra Claire announced she would no longer be updating the Very Secret Diaries.[135]
The dveritas shop on CafePress was opened. [136] It is mentioned at The Nine Muses dot Net saying proceeds went to charity but the page's creator did not specify or link to any charity. [137]
December 23, 2003
Harry Potter Big Name Fan deathmatch, a parody of Celebrity Deathmatch, took place. Among the people who were voted for were Cassandra Claire, Heidi8 and Flourish. [138]
December 7, 2003
Around this date, the Draco_and_Harry mailing list discussed if Cassandra Claire's work constituted slash and if her work was deliberately subtextual. [139]
