#the cassandra claire debacle

[seriousbrat]

As someone who has been in this fandom for a long time, I can assure you that the Marauders fandom pre-Jegulus also treated Lily very poorly. For example: Lili was often portrayed in fanfics as a completely humorless person who was a huge killjoy. Another very common thing was that her negative feelings for James were portrayed as a major flaw, several times a character would tell her: "Lily stop being a bitch James is amazing" It wasn't James who had to become a better person for Lily to like him, it was she who needed to wake up to the "great man" that James was. Another disgusting thing that was common in fanfics was locking Lily and James in a closet so that she would "accept her feelings for him" as if she had no right to choose. Her negative feelings for James were never valid either she was "too stupid to understand James" or they were "unresolved sexual tension."

Yes this is true! I've been in the fandom a while myself, but the era when I first started being active in specifically the jily fandom (2012-ish) coincided with the advent of third wave feminism and the MeToo movement, at least here on tumblr, so there wasn't as much of this in my personal experience or in my circles. By that time, usually anything outrageously misogynistic like that was quickly stamped on. And this predates Jegulus by a decade at least, so I think most of what you describe is pre-tumblr. Like Cassie Claire/livejournal-era LOL. Tbf idk what the fandom was like on other websites.

But that being said I think things did slip through the cracks even then, because misogyny is learnt and reproduced by everyone, and you could still see hints of what you describe in the fanfic that was being written at the time.

At this point the idea that James constantly asking her out and haranguing her was sexy was just starting to be questioned and pushed back against. Because those kinds of narratives were just starting to be questioned in general, similarly Snape's unrequited love for Lily started to be seen as less sympathetic and less romantic around the same time. So as I recall we started seeing more portrayals of James as Flawless Feminist King, which I now find unrealistic for a teenage boy in the 70s and a bit cringe lmao. I don't think he was harassing her but neither was he a virtuous woke paragon. Back then we were all (mostly) young girls/women writing our idea of the perfect man haha.

And obviously Woke King James was set against Evil Incel Snape (this was also around when the incel movement and bronies emerged, GamerGate happened, etc.) which led to the marauders/jily fandom largely justifying Snape being bullied, and this still happens today. (although these days he's also been upgraded to a raging homophobe lmao.) In my last post about that fan film I was complaining about the opposite haha, but for the record I've just had to close two separate jily fics earlier today for portrayals of Snape that were too one-dimensionally nasty for my tastes.

[doctorcurdlejr]

Don't support Cassie Claire financially please

[surrexi]

that doesn't even get into laptopgate, in which she and her horde of minions bullied and harassed a cancer patient and her mother for daring to suggest that since cassie's followers had so swiftly raised money to buy cassie a fucking laptop, maybe she could just post a link to the fundraiser that had been set up to pay for cancer treatment.

and then once she became a published author she had the goddamn fucking nerve to whine and cry about people bullying her when they brought up her WELL-DOCUMENTED AND PROVEN PLAGIARISM, even getting better YA authors than her to defend her.

cassie claire is a bully and a plagiarist and a liar and i stg i snarl every time i see her derivative crap books on bookshelves.

the thing about CC is that she did plagiarize. she was found guilty of plagiarism and banned from fanfiction dot net! she plagiarized pamela dean, among others, and lied about it repeatedly! it happened! and regardless of whatever else she writes, regardless of whether the publishing industry and her fans trust her not to do it again, regardless of how many times her wikipedia page gets scrubbed clean, that will always have happened! so it is not in fact cruel gossip, but a factually true statement, to say that she plagiarized and i'm not interested in supporting her or giving her the benefit of the doubt because she plagiarized and lied about it repeatedly! fuck!

[volturialice]

My favorite romance urban fantasy trilogy is "The Last Hours" By: Cassandra Clare

2/2 From my prev. ask (I forgot to ask what your favorite romance or fantasy book is.)

interesting!! I'll admit to not knowing the first thing about cassandra clare outside of having read the fandom history classic The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle—feels like I probably missed the boat re: the age at which I might have been interested in her original fiction.

I don't read romance, but I guess my favorite fantasy is fantasy of manners Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. someone could smack me over the head with that 600 page tome and I'd say thank you tbh

send me book recs asks

[initiumseries]

Cassandra Clare is a plagiarizer?

[sapphire-rosa]

On Plagiarism, Fanfiction, and Ethics

Having just read the Cassandra Claire Debacle post, I am both horrified and faintly relieved ... but also anxious.

I have read a lot of books, both published fiction and fanfiction, and I often do worry about whether elements from other people’s writing has accidentally crept into any of my own. 

On the one hand, I am relieved because nothing I do by accident could ever plumb the depths of CC’s frankly alarming and preposterous level of deliberate plagiarism. At the same time, I am increasingly nervous in case I do put anything into my work that looks too similar to anything else. 

As an historian I have had The Vital Importance Of Correct And Complete Citations drilled into my skull a thousand times, and I can tell you now that whatever CC or any of her acolytes may claim, if I had done what she did and submitted it as an assignment to any of my professors I would have had my ass handed to me with no ceremony whatsoever, and would very probably have been kicked out of college. 

Plagiarism is not just a legal concern - it is an ethical concern, and this is what so many people seem to be missing here. I don’t care if you can or cannot be sued for copypasting other people’s work into nonprofit fanfiction. I don’t make money off my essays, but I would still be taken to the cleaner’s for not using proper citations and essentially passing off someone else’s work as my own.

Whether or not CC can be legally accused of plagiarism is beside the point, honestly. What bothers me is that she saw the need to copypaste such extensive passages into her fanfiction. If you can’t come up with good enough dialogue and description on your own, then you have two options: 

Go to your local library and borrow every single guidebook on effective writing. Sign up for writing courses. Ask questions of people you know who are good writers (and who don’t see the need to ‘borrow’ other people’s words). Make a nuisance of yourself. Practice, practice, practice until you find your style and can weave words into a beautiful, original picture. That’s how most of us do it. 

Much simpler, much less difficult, much less labour-intensive - DON’T PRETEND YOU CAN WRITE. DO SOMETHING ELSE INSTEAD. 

Now, I am aware that CC has in fact now published her own works, and they have been made into movies and TV series. I haven’t read the books. I saw the movie before I knew about her plagiarism. 

I can’t speak for her original work. I don’t know whether she plagiarizes. However, I will say that a leopard doesn’t easily change its spots. She may have been much more careful (she’d have to be!) once writing for the public and for profit - but a lazy, dishonest, unethical, dangerous habit is still a habit, and it’s all too easy to let habits creep back in even when you’re trying not to. 

In conclusion, I now have absolutely no desire to read CC’s work or see the TV series, because as a writer myself, her behaviour with fanfiction leaves a distinctly unpleasant taste in my mouth. Her laziness and dishonesty in the past make me feel uncomfortable, especially in light of her fame in the public eye today. 

I would also very much appreciate it if people who read my work would let me know if they feel anything is too similar to someone else’s work. I can’t think of anything worse than accidentally being the next CC. 

If I have unwittingly lifted anything from your work, please tell me so that I can rectify it immediately. I love my fellow writers and would hate to be the cause of any upset or offence to you. We all work so hard to create beautiful and wonderful things for ourselves and others - anyone who tries to take advantage of that and use it to promote themselves is unconscionably selfish. 

[skellebonez]

They would BEG me to leave because I have to choose the most obnoxious thing I could infodump.

I have an unfortunate encyclopedic amount of knowledge of Ms. Scribe's Harry Potter fanfiction debacles and Cassandra Claire's connections to her. Choosing between explaining that or ranting about everything in Harry Potter that doesn't make sense is gonna be hard.

the spn drama could take a whole year to explain in the least so i’m good

[arsenicpanda]

So, every now and then, I like to read the Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle expose because I am, as they say, a messy bitch who lives for drama, and my absolute favorite part is when someone does a straw poll of a bunch of professional authors on what they’d do if someone plagiarized their work in a fanfic, and Patricia C. Wrede responds with this:

The particular piece you describe was out-and-out plagiarism, unless the author had permission from the other author to do what she did. It's not flattering ... when someone steals your words. It's theft. I would indeed take legal action. If I saw it done to some other author, I would probably contact them or their agent and suggest that *they* take legal action. ... Homage and pastiche are when an author uses *her own words* to evoke an atmosphere or style or structure that is recognizeably similar to that of another author. *That* takes work, and close observation, and it is indeed flattering. Ripping off someone's words doesn't take anything but a scanner. ... . 'Livid' does not begin to describe [my reaction].

I never expected the author of such fun, lighthearted books to go so hard, just ready to cut a bitch legally over fanfic plagiarism.

[firelxdykatara]

I saw your post about plagiarism in fiction and I'm curious what brought this on? Cassandra Claire plagiarised something? Sarah J Mass did?

Oh, I was just responding to a post I happened to see on my dash, and referenced an earlier post the same blog had reblogged (evidently the post itself is a year old though, I hadn’t noticed that the first time I saw it) which had some examples of phrases that turn up in SJM’s work and other, earlier works. I didn’t find the post particularly compelling because, as I said in my post, you need to do a lot more than highlight a few phrases that appeared in other works to have a decent case for plagiarism or copyright infringement.

I brought up Cassandra Clare because she was fairly notorious in the Harry Potter fandom back in the day (I’m about to date myself, but this happened in the early 00s and I was just barely old enough to be on the fringes of fandom at the time) for plagiarism, but the reason why the CC Plagiarism Debacle became such a huge thing is that it was so much more than a few scattered phrases--she ripped off entire passages, pages, and scenes from other works and passed them off as her own in her Draco trilogy. (This trilogy would eventually, I’m given to understand, become the basis for her The Mortal Instruments books. Presumably they got edited extensively to remove infringing material before actually being published.)

The Fanlore wiki has a pretty extensive article about it, it was a fascinating rabbit hole to jump down when I was doing my deep dive into old fandom wank a few years back. Only tangentially related is the MsScribe controversy, which I recommend if you want to get a glimpse at how truly batshit insane the HP fandom could be back then. (There are a few in depth youtube vids about MsScribe that go into the whole thing.)

[allisoinreynolds]

still can’t stop thinking about how the brain can make connections with songs and so on. for example when i listen to american boy i can only think of the msscribe story & the cassandra claire debacle because i read them all in one same day in what seems like a fever dream with that song on repeat

[conarcoin]

@brain-wyrm long list of favorites:

Ageism in Fandom

AO3 Content Discussion (2016)

AO3 Original Works and Self-Pub Wrangling Debacle

AO3 Tag Limits

AO3 Tagging Policy Debate

Blocking of AO3 in China

BTS ARMY Cryptocurrency Giveaway Exposure 2021

BTS fan advertisement on AO3

The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle

DashCon

Destielgate

Filing Off The Serial Numbers

Hockey RPF and the Fourth Wall

Let's have a talk about censorship

LGBT Fans Deserve Better

Minors in Fandom

Msscribe

Omegaverse Litigation

One Direction Fandom Wars

OTW and Racism Discussion (2020)

Puppygate

Purity Culture in Fandom

Slash Controversies

Steven Universe Critical

What happened with hivliving

Yaoi Paddle

but honestly 90% of pages are a gold mine of drama to read. also check out r/HobbyDrama on reddit

preserving the smpronpa discourse for generations to see

[colubrina]

can i ask you a super random question? how long have you been in the hp fandom? like were you around for early 2000s stuff? fandom wank on lj? MSSCRIBE? the cassandra claire plagiarism debacle? i just look back and feel weird reminiscing... i love your writing hahaha hope you're doing ok!!

I wrote out this nice long answer to this and then accidentally deleted it and then stared at the question, annoyed with myself for having to type it all out again.

The short answer is no. I entered fandom in about 2014 or 13.  I missed that whole generation of wank (though some wank never dies, and I saw MsScribe referenced in a non-fandom ‘the internet has always been full of cons and assholes’ conversation a couple of weeks ago.)

I’m glad you like my stories <3 That’s always nice to hear!!!

[wizardysseus]

in james somerton's latest apology (usefully transcripted and annotated with his lies and manipulation tactics here) i continue to be struck by how much of what he did and how he continues to justify it comes out of the cassandra clare playbook for plagiarism:

targeted (among many, many other things) an out-of-print book to copy from, which fewer people would be likely to recognize as stolen work

claimed not to remember precisely who or what she took her "inspiration" from, despite stealing entire paragraphs verbatim

misrepresented communication with the author after the fact as if the author had given her permission to use the work

reframed her actions as oopsie-daisy errors of citation or improper credit, rather than what she actually did, copy work and pass it off as her own

reframed her motivation as a desire to give homage to those whose work she plagiarized, despite that many of these "homages" were not cited at all, such that readers would know they were not original to cassie, and those that were did not convey the extent of which words were not cassie's

claimed to have "fixed" the credits but failed to do so, even after reuploading her work elsewhere

consider reading the cassandra claire plagiarism debacle. consider how she never fixed all of her "disclaimers" and never adequately apologized for the actual problem: that she had passed the work of other people off as her own. consider that she thought she could expunge this piece of her fandom history, while carrying her fandom pen name and clout into a career as a published author. and now consider with me that she has basically succeeded.

[mpxcassandra]

mpxclaire​:

“Hurry—! Hurry–!” Claire fretted behind Cass as her sister had more sense to pick up the now smoking pair of panties away from the cauldron. For all of Claire’s panic it was as if she wasn’t the instigator of the whole debacle.

Peeking behind Cass’ shoulder to look at the pot, Claire’s eyes widened as plumes of smoke curled out of Cass’ underwear. “Well, I was hoping it would!” She gives a soft pout, an excuse she usually used when it came to her potions. They usually did anyways, just because she turned herself into a cat that one time….

“Uh…doesn’t Charlotte make soup with this?” She added with a mock whisper as if saying it aloud would make their level-headed sister appear in a puff of well…smoke.

“Oh!” As if to answer Claire the panties promptly burst into flames, cheerful licks of purple flames coming from inside the pot. “Uhh…it wasn’t supposed to do that!”

Cassandra was blessed to be quick to action. Plus, fire never really bothered her. As someone with the abilities to summon it, a little smoke didn’t concern her, other than what damage that it might to do their apartment. Charlotte’s disappointment was scarier than any pain in the world. 

At her comment, Cassandra’s head quickly turned toward the other. “Great! Now we aren’t going to get anymore soup without the taste of lace!” She exclaims before she shot her gaze back to the scene unfolding before them. Hopefully, this wasn’t going to go any worse... until she saw the flames. 

Jumping forward, she finally did grab the lid, throwing it on top of the pot. With no oxygen, maybe the flames would be put out. Though, Cassie had no clue what purple flames even meant.  “What even was supposed to happen.....?”

"Why, did I want to eat it?" Claire asked momentarily distracted by Cass' words as she appeared in the potion room, carrying the pair of underwear she requested. She didn't share her sister's interest with reading fanfiction about them as much (some of the work wrote her off as very scary or very dumb) but she knew how much Cass found them funny, so she listened whenever her sister talked about them.

"Of course not! Charlotte said we should never do that, since they might test our DNA or something and find out we're not human," Claire said, eyes widening as she accepted the pair of underwear.

"That's not what this is for..." She says with excitement in her voice as she laid the pair of panties down atop the worn table with all the care of a scientist with a specimen. "I really hope this works...."

Reaching for the big dropper, Claire carefully pumps a few drops of her newly brewed potion into and careful not to spill, tips the dropper above the underwear. The cloth absorbed easily enough until it started to smoke and sizzle.

"Uh oh..."

[ghostmartyr]

It’s come to my attention that some people are traversing the interwebs of fandom without ever hearing of the Ms. Scribe Story or the Cassandra Claire Debacle.

At surface level, this is concerning because they are awesome stories, and everyone’s life is made a little better when they find an awesome story.

On more serious levels, fandom is a wacky place, full of people doing wacky, occasionally damaging things to each other. Some of that has evolved, but some of it is the same as it ever was. History rocks because you can learn from the mistakes of others, and maybe hurt people a little less in the future. Fandom being a giant, convoluted web of passion, some history that could use sharing goes missed.

The two stories linked are from early 2000s Harry Potter fandom. The Ms. Scribe Story is a tale of one person’s aggressive use of sockpuppets to work their way up fandom hierarchy. The Cassandra Claire Debacle is about how the top name in that fandom hierarchy is a plagiarist.

They’re prime examples of fandom being fandom in intensely negative ways. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a brand of fandom toxicity that isn’t on display in some way within these write-ups, and while that is admittedly sort of depressing, having things to point at that make you stop and think, “Wait, I’ve seen this before, this is not a thing I want to be part of,” can keep you out of some of the deeper fandom pitfalls.

They are also deeply fascinating reads. If you haven’t explored them before, or only know the summary versions, give them a shot.

[missgoalie75]

it’s that time of year in which i curl up and read:

the cassandra claire plagiarism debacle

and

the ms.scribe story