What part of the definition of "plagiarism" don't you understand?
So, I finally got around to reading about the whole Cassie Claire plagiarism fiasco.
Now, I've stayed far away from HP online fandom because TEH KARAZEE is strong there, although I have a very nice link to a Harry Potter Genfic Masterlist with some delicious stories that seem to be KARAZEE-free.
But the Cassie Claire plagiarism fiasco is...words fail. It's not just her, but it seems some of the BNFs in her circle seem to suffer from the same massive case of kleptomania.
Not one of these people would last five minutes with
stop_plagiarism on the case. I'm very sure that people on that comm (of which I'm a member) would've kicked up one hell of a shitstorm for the ages over the issue if they had ever been involved.
I'm not saying I agree with 100% of the plagiarism charges in Cassie Claire's case (I think some the "sources" cited are kind of shaky), but the fact of the matter is that all it really takes is one extensively quoted passage from a book, magazine article, or a television show that's not properly cited either in-text or in footnotes somewhere to get you justifiably tagged for it.
Let's be blunt here:
There's waaaaay more than just one example — not just in Cassie Claire's case, but with several others of her acquaintance that wrote fanfiction — of extensively quoted passages or ideas lifted wholesale from pro authors. There's certainly enough there that, had any of these people been working in the real world and not in the shadowy world of fanfiction, they would've faced some serious, serious consequences. The sheer number of unreferenced word-for-word lifts, direct quotations from television shows, and "borrowing" of unique concepts and ideas from pro authors is simply staggering.
Say it with me: Cassie Claire is a plagiarist. Full stop. There's not even a question in my mind that she is guilty as charged. There's not even a question in my mind that several BNFs of her aquaintance are also guilty as charged.
What boggles my mind is that this fact was not just known, but was common knowledge. The surprise is the extent of the plagiarism, not that any of these people, and Cassie Claire in particular, had plagiarized.
Yet, Cassie Claire and her people were at the top of the BNF pyramid for Harry Potter fandom. When Cassie Claire started reaping what she had sown for her plagiarism by getting banned from the Pit of Voles, her friends gave her a new online home to showcase her work. Other BNFs and Cassie Claire fanpoodles defended her plagiarism by either lying about it or changing the definition of plagiarism. People were threatened with libel and slander. People were driven out of fandom by bullying over this.
And finally, the top of the heap of all this: Cassie Claire even got a book deal based on her popularity in fandom.
Words. Fail.
I look at all of this with wide eyes and wonder how the hell did this happen? How did Cassie Claire and company manage to get away with it? How did Cassie Claire and company profit from bahaviors that would've gotten them drubbed out of any other fandom? How did they manage to become BNFs in Harry Potter fandom when I'm pretty sure that any other fandom would've looked on their names like poison?
I have to be honest. Most of the plagiarism cases that I've seen on
stop_plagiarism haven't involved BNFs. The plagiarists usually are young fans who may or may not know better with a very tiny readership copying and pasting stories from better known fanfic writers. They generally do a word search-and-replace, and then slap their names at the top.
The really smart plagiarists will go after lesser-known writers or writers that focus on unusual 'ships or stories and appropriate those. But, in general, both the plagiarist or the plagiarized are not generally well-known outside of their corner of fandom or their patch on the Internet.
There've been a few exceptions, I grant you, that I've seen. I nailed one person several years ago for plagiarizing a Buffy fanfic. I forget the name of the plagiarist, but it was plagiarizing of the stupid sort.
Someone took There's Blood Between Us by Jason Tompson, who was once a BNF Xander-centric writer. However, all she did was copy the whole story word for word, slapped her name at the top, and posted it to the Pit. She even included the Tara/Xander pairing (which is not a common pairing) as well as a newly souled Vamp Willow delivering peace offering (in one story it was beer, in the other it was pizzas).
Thankfully, in Jason's case, his premise was so unusual and his name well known enough (at least at the time) that a few people spotted it right away. After several of us confronted the plagiarist and told her to take it down, she insisted that she did not plagiarize. Then she claimed she had permission to continue the story. Then she changed her story again to "it was a mistake."
Needless to say I (and a few others) reported her ass. The story was taken down within days.
Then there was the "smart plagiarist" Ozymadius (I mentioned him in my Sekrit Rools of Plagiarism) who actually was a BNF in the Buffy/Xander fanfiction wing. He went out and stole from people writing in other fandoms and plopped the stuff in his own stories, only he'd use the search-and-replace function to substitute names. It was the cut-and-paste job that actually did him in, since some of his readers remembered seeing the writing elsewhere and tracked it down.
Like in the case of Cassie Claire, Ozymadius actually had people either defending what he did, or simply saying that they didn't care. These people thought that the plagiarized writers were getting their panties in a wad over nothing. Trying to explain that what he did was wrong and why he was wrong to these people was a lot like beating your head against a brick wall. They didn't get it, and what's more, they didn't want to get it.
I wonder how many of these people would look upon Cassie Claire like the thief she is? I venture to say that at least some of them would be throwing some stones.
So, a plagiarist with a little B in his or her N and F is more likely to have defenders who'll insist that it's not a big deal or "it's just fanfiction." This is more likely to happen if the BNF in question is writing stories that are popular or writes in a ship or for a character that is popular.
There's a psychological paper in this somewhere, I just know it.
Now Cassie Claire, I have to say, is a brilliant plagiarist.
She stole from multiple sources and when she got caught out, she or her agents denied, denied, denied. When the charges didn't go away, they changed the definition of "plagiarism," and called her stories "pastiche." They even made a little game of "spot the quote" for awhile and tried to retroactively get permission from one of the pro authors who was plagiarized.
The waters were so muddied by this impressive Chewbacca Defense, that everyone lost sight of one important fact:
Cassie Claire plagiarized and claimed the words of other people as her own. On top of that, even after she was called on it, she refused to acknowledge that she had done anything wrong. And to my knowledge, at least according to the Bad Penny report, she and her friends still haven't.
All of this despite the fact that there was a portion of Harry Potter fandom that repeatedly kept pointing out the inconvenient truth in the same way some people point out that Han shot first. And just like George Lucas, who keeps re-writing history over and over in an effort to erase that fact, this cabal of BNFs in Harry Potter fandom kept re-writing history over and over in an effort to erase the fact that Cassie Claire used words and concepts that weren't original to her.
Can you say poison fruit, boys and girls? I'm sure you can.
Sooner or later, this will catch up with her. Give it a little time. Only with the way she's going, she'll get caught out in the professional sphere. That's when all the chickens will come home to roost.
What really gets me is that CC has no excuse. None. She claims that she used to be a reporter (like me) and she claims that she knows the definition of plagiarism and that she didn't do it (which means she either doesn't know the definition, or she's lying through her teeth).
Yet another reason why I don't want to admit to having a journalism degree. If the J-schools churning out graduates this stupid, I don't want to carry that kind of taint.
There's a difference, a big honking difference, between appropriation of other people's ideas and lifting word-for-word someone else's writing and claiming it as your own.
There's an ocean of difference if the person doing the appropriating slaps disclaimers all over their work, points to the original source, and doesn't make any money off of it and plagiarism.
Even legally there's a huge difference. A fanfic writer who at least uses his or her own concepts and words isn't going to get slapped with a lawsuit charging plagiarism. They'll get slapped with copyright infringement, sure, but plagiarism won't be on the menu. And they'll only get slapped with a lawsuit if the copyright owners deem it worth the effort or are hyper-protective of the copyright. Even then it would be a very iffy thing that a suit will ever be filed provided the target follows orders spelled out in the opening salvo of a cease-and-decist letter.
As it so happens, JK Rowling is perfectly okay with fanfiction and, to an extent, even sanctions it. Joss Whedon is perfectly okay with fanfiction for his creations and sanctions it with a wink-and-a-smile. Ron Moore has come right out and said that fanficcers should go to town, provided they don't make money off the deal. So, in that sense, the fanficcers working in these fandoms can't really steal the car. We've been given permission to borrow the car (so to speak), provided we don't try to cash in while we're borrowing it.
So, I think in the cases where the creators give express permission to let people borrow their toys, fanfic writers are on somewhat firm (if legally shaky) ground.
The really big grey area is where the creators have come right out and said, "No. I don't like it, I don't sanction it, and I don't want you to do it." Ethically speaking, I think it would be wise to steer clear in that case. The owner of the car has told you that you can't have the keys, so leave the car alone, says I. Not everyone agrees, obviously, but it's a line that I won't cross.
And yes, if Joss came out tomorrow and said, "All fanfiction must stop now," I would not only drop every story like a hot potato, I would do my best to wipe everything I wrote off the Internet. As the creator, he gets the last word. Period and amen.
The fact is, most people who write fanfiction work very hard to bring something new and interesting to the table, be it a twist in the plot, a take on a character, or just a new concept. Whether they pull it off is another matter, and a completely separate issue that more often than not comes down to personal taste than any objective measurement.
I know that I've sat for hours and walked through different concepts I've wanted to try and looked at the potential impact from all angles. I've attempted to determine if those concepts could conceivably fit into Buffy-verse canon and whether it made sense for the characters involved.
For example, I make no bones about the fact that there isn't a single concept in something like Facing the Heart in Darkness that isn't rooted in in Whedon's canon (such as it is). The First Evil's plan, the Guardians, the Sunnydale issues, even Eva Swithin herself are ideas that started with the source material and wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for that same source material. That is not my creativity at work.
However, I'd like to think that I put an original twist on all of those ideas and made them somewhat interesting to look at for some people. That's where my creativity comes in.
The above is the definition of appropriation, in case you're wondering.
The case of Cassie Claire is another matter separately, as you can see. Lifting entire passages and quotes from multiple sources, and slotting it almost word-for-word in your stories without a cite or a footnote or any hint that it isn't your creativity at work is plagiarism, and not appropriation for the sake of a pastiche. When you take concepts wholesale from other writers and don't even so much as put a different spin on it, this is also plagiarism (although this is where the charge gets murky).
What blows me away is the sheer number of sources that were lifted. It wasn't just one book or one television show. It was several books and several television shows. Even worse, the television shows in question are cult television shows with fanatical followings who'd damn well would recognize a quote when they saw it. Some of the books that were borrowed from were not well-known, sure, but some were very well known to fantasy readers.
However, because people can't read everything or watch everything, people tended to focus on those one or two items that rang a bell. They were utterly unaware of the other "borrowings" from other sources. In that way, the report has served an important purpose. It catalogs the extent of Cassie Claire's (and other's) theft and the number of sources that were involved. What's more, it's expanded the audience even beyond Harry Potter fandom and now people who've never read these stories are going over them with a fine-toothed comb and finding even more instances of plagiarism.
Just when you think they've found everything, they find even more.
However, the thing that really throws me is that it seems like so much bloody work. By the time you're done finding just the right quote or just the right passage to purloin, type it up, and then work it into your fanfic, it might've been easier just to come up with something on your own. This isn't plagiarism as a lazy man's shortcut. This is plagiarism as hard work.
What I'm still left with is the question of "Why?" Why bother? If you're going to work that hard, what's the point? So people can coo about how clever you are? So people can think you're a great wit? To get brownie points for being so cool? What am I missing? What's the payback for this? What is the plagiarist getting out of it that's worth that much sweat and blood? I've got to tell you that I'm at a complete loss on this point.
The easiest way to get around this, it seems to me, is to simply not do it.
However, I can see where "pop culture homages" slotted into fanfic would not only be appropriate, but also desirable, especially if you work in Buffy fandom that is full of pop culture references.
For example, in the next part of Facing the Heart in Darkness, I have Xander reference Pinky and the Brain. He does it in text. He tells you right out that he is. He then even goes into a Pink and the Brain-like joke, a signature one for that show. You know the one. It starts with, "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" and ends the punchline that's a complete nonsequitor that has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
I actually beat my brains against the wall to come up with a punchline. I thought I got a good one, tracked down a Pinky and the Brain Website to make sure that it handn't been used and, to my horror, something very close to it had been used. Back to the drawing board to come up with an original punchline and yet another check to make sure that it hadn't been used on Pinky and the Brain.
You don't even want to know how long it took me to come up with a punchline that couldn't in any way, shape, or form look like one of the answers uttered by Pinky on the show.
Once again: this illustrates the difference between appropriation and plagiarism.
Appropriation: I do a Pinky and the Brain "Are you pondering what I'm pondering" joke. I cite in text in a round-about way that it's a Pinky and the Brain joke. The joke and the format of the joke would not even exist if it were not for Pinky and the Brain. I make no secret of this. However, Eva's complete confusion and reaction to it is original to me. The punchline is original to me. What I'm aiming for is for the reader to laugh, nod in recognition at the pop culture reference, say, "That's such a Xander thing to say," and think that the punch line was pretty funny, if groan-worthy.
Plagiarism: I do a Pinky and the Brain "Are you pondering what I'm pondering" joke. I fail to reference the source material in any way, shape, or form. I just plop it in the middle of this conversation word-for-word with minimal set-up. Xander starts the joke, "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering" and Eva (who has never seen Pinky and the Brain in her entire life), jumps in with "Gee, Brain, I think so, but..." What's more, the punchline is lifted word-for-word from a Pinky and the Brain Web site that has all the punchlines listed for posterity. Not only have I plagiarized, I've twisted the characters (well, at least one character) so far out of character that they fit the joke instead of the other way around. The context is completely wrong. Not only that, by doing the entire joke without referencing in any way the source, I'm claiming the idea and the words of that joke as my own.
See the difference?
I have to admit that plagiarism in fanfiction is an endless source of fascination for me. From an objective viewpoint, the motivations for it make almost no sense. Money (usually) isn't involved and the plagiarist (usually) doesn't have a good reputation or any reputation at all. I can't suss out what's to be gained by doing it.
The only plagiarist (to give him props) who ever tried to explain himself was Ozymadius. What it boiled down to was that he was having a hard time writing smut, so he "borrowed" from someone else. Eventually, as he became known more and more for his PWP stories, the (self-induced) pressure to produce more of the same led to more and more "borrowing" to the point that it just got away from him.
Yet, it still doesn't quite tell me what he hoped to gain out of it. Or maybe it's because his explanation still doesn't make sense to me.
What makes the Cassie Claire case so interesting, aside from the sheer scope of the theft, is that she did gain tangible things out of her time as a BNF. Her fans chipped in and got her an IPod. When her laptop was stolen, her fans chipped in and bought her a new one. Rumor has it that she was so popular within Harry Potter fandom that it was one of the factors that won her a book contract.
It's only a coincidence that she's using a slight variation of her nom de fanfic for her pro novels. I don't fault her on this part, by the way. If you can "market" the fanfic name, go ahead. But her nom de fanfic name strikes me as a loaded gun aimed right at her future career. Even if I landed a book contract tomorrow (not likely, but just say), I'd think long and hard about using "Lizbeth Marcs" on the cover and would be consulting very extensively with my agent, my publisher, and an entertainment lawyer over the issue.
This even though I can catagorily state that there isn't a wiff of plagiarism anywhere in my general vicinity, from either pro authors or other fanfic writers.
And if you think the plagiarism charges won't dog Cassie Claire into the real world, think again. The comments on the Bad Penny report from people who know about her upcoming novel, not to metnion this description here, has me wondering if this isn't the last we've heard Cassie Claire and plagiarism tied together.
Now, I've stayed far away from HP online fandom because TEH KARAZEE is strong there, although I have a very nice link to a Harry Potter Genfic Masterlist with some delicious stories that seem to be KARAZEE-free.
But the Cassie Claire plagiarism fiasco is...words fail. It's not just her, but it seems some of the BNFs in her circle seem to suffer from the same massive case of kleptomania.
Not one of these people would last five minutes with
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I'm not saying I agree with 100% of the plagiarism charges in Cassie Claire's case (I think some the "sources" cited are kind of shaky), but the fact of the matter is that all it really takes is one extensively quoted passage from a book, magazine article, or a television show that's not properly cited either in-text or in footnotes somewhere to get you justifiably tagged for it.
Let's be blunt here:
There's waaaaay more than just one example — not just in Cassie Claire's case, but with several others of her acquaintance that wrote fanfiction — of extensively quoted passages or ideas lifted wholesale from pro authors. There's certainly enough there that, had any of these people been working in the real world and not in the shadowy world of fanfiction, they would've faced some serious, serious consequences. The sheer number of unreferenced word-for-word lifts, direct quotations from television shows, and "borrowing" of unique concepts and ideas from pro authors is simply staggering.
Say it with me: Cassie Claire is a plagiarist. Full stop. There's not even a question in my mind that she is guilty as charged. There's not even a question in my mind that several BNFs of her aquaintance are also guilty as charged.
What boggles my mind is that this fact was not just known, but was common knowledge. The surprise is the extent of the plagiarism, not that any of these people, and Cassie Claire in particular, had plagiarized.
Yet, Cassie Claire and her people were at the top of the BNF pyramid for Harry Potter fandom. When Cassie Claire started reaping what she had sown for her plagiarism by getting banned from the Pit of Voles, her friends gave her a new online home to showcase her work. Other BNFs and Cassie Claire fanpoodles defended her plagiarism by either lying about it or changing the definition of plagiarism. People were threatened with libel and slander. People were driven out of fandom by bullying over this.
And finally, the top of the heap of all this: Cassie Claire even got a book deal based on her popularity in fandom.
Words. Fail.
I look at all of this with wide eyes and wonder how the hell did this happen? How did Cassie Claire and company manage to get away with it? How did Cassie Claire and company profit from bahaviors that would've gotten them drubbed out of any other fandom? How did they manage to become BNFs in Harry Potter fandom when I'm pretty sure that any other fandom would've looked on their names like poison?
I have to be honest. Most of the plagiarism cases that I've seen on
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The really smart plagiarists will go after lesser-known writers or writers that focus on unusual 'ships or stories and appropriate those. But, in general, both the plagiarist or the plagiarized are not generally well-known outside of their corner of fandom or their patch on the Internet.
There've been a few exceptions, I grant you, that I've seen. I nailed one person several years ago for plagiarizing a Buffy fanfic. I forget the name of the plagiarist, but it was plagiarizing of the stupid sort.
Someone took There's Blood Between Us by Jason Tompson, who was once a BNF Xander-centric writer. However, all she did was copy the whole story word for word, slapped her name at the top, and posted it to the Pit. She even included the Tara/Xander pairing (which is not a common pairing) as well as a newly souled Vamp Willow delivering peace offering (in one story it was beer, in the other it was pizzas).
Thankfully, in Jason's case, his premise was so unusual and his name well known enough (at least at the time) that a few people spotted it right away. After several of us confronted the plagiarist and told her to take it down, she insisted that she did not plagiarize. Then she claimed she had permission to continue the story. Then she changed her story again to "it was a mistake."
Needless to say I (and a few others) reported her ass. The story was taken down within days.
Then there was the "smart plagiarist" Ozymadius (I mentioned him in my Sekrit Rools of Plagiarism) who actually was a BNF in the Buffy/Xander fanfiction wing. He went out and stole from people writing in other fandoms and plopped the stuff in his own stories, only he'd use the search-and-replace function to substitute names. It was the cut-and-paste job that actually did him in, since some of his readers remembered seeing the writing elsewhere and tracked it down.
Like in the case of Cassie Claire, Ozymadius actually had people either defending what he did, or simply saying that they didn't care. These people thought that the plagiarized writers were getting their panties in a wad over nothing. Trying to explain that what he did was wrong and why he was wrong to these people was a lot like beating your head against a brick wall. They didn't get it, and what's more, they didn't want to get it.
I wonder how many of these people would look upon Cassie Claire like the thief she is? I venture to say that at least some of them would be throwing some stones.
So, a plagiarist with a little B in his or her N and F is more likely to have defenders who'll insist that it's not a big deal or "it's just fanfiction." This is more likely to happen if the BNF in question is writing stories that are popular or writes in a ship or for a character that is popular.
There's a psychological paper in this somewhere, I just know it.
Now Cassie Claire, I have to say, is a brilliant plagiarist.
She stole from multiple sources and when she got caught out, she or her agents denied, denied, denied. When the charges didn't go away, they changed the definition of "plagiarism," and called her stories "pastiche." They even made a little game of "spot the quote" for awhile and tried to retroactively get permission from one of the pro authors who was plagiarized.
The waters were so muddied by this impressive Chewbacca Defense, that everyone lost sight of one important fact:
Cassie Claire plagiarized and claimed the words of other people as her own. On top of that, even after she was called on it, she refused to acknowledge that she had done anything wrong. And to my knowledge, at least according to the Bad Penny report, she and her friends still haven't.
All of this despite the fact that there was a portion of Harry Potter fandom that repeatedly kept pointing out the inconvenient truth in the same way some people point out that Han shot first. And just like George Lucas, who keeps re-writing history over and over in an effort to erase that fact, this cabal of BNFs in Harry Potter fandom kept re-writing history over and over in an effort to erase the fact that Cassie Claire used words and concepts that weren't original to her.
Can you say poison fruit, boys and girls? I'm sure you can.
Sooner or later, this will catch up with her. Give it a little time. Only with the way she's going, she'll get caught out in the professional sphere. That's when all the chickens will come home to roost.
What really gets me is that CC has no excuse. None. She claims that she used to be a reporter (like me) and she claims that she knows the definition of plagiarism and that she didn't do it (which means she either doesn't know the definition, or she's lying through her teeth).
Yet another reason why I don't want to admit to having a journalism degree. If the J-schools churning out graduates this stupid, I don't want to carry that kind of taint.
There's a difference, a big honking difference, between appropriation of other people's ideas and lifting word-for-word someone else's writing and claiming it as your own.
There's an ocean of difference if the person doing the appropriating slaps disclaimers all over their work, points to the original source, and doesn't make any money off of it and plagiarism.
Even legally there's a huge difference. A fanfic writer who at least uses his or her own concepts and words isn't going to get slapped with a lawsuit charging plagiarism. They'll get slapped with copyright infringement, sure, but plagiarism won't be on the menu. And they'll only get slapped with a lawsuit if the copyright owners deem it worth the effort or are hyper-protective of the copyright. Even then it would be a very iffy thing that a suit will ever be filed provided the target follows orders spelled out in the opening salvo of a cease-and-decist letter.
As it so happens, JK Rowling is perfectly okay with fanfiction and, to an extent, even sanctions it. Joss Whedon is perfectly okay with fanfiction for his creations and sanctions it with a wink-and-a-smile. Ron Moore has come right out and said that fanficcers should go to town, provided they don't make money off the deal. So, in that sense, the fanficcers working in these fandoms can't really steal the car. We've been given permission to borrow the car (so to speak), provided we don't try to cash in while we're borrowing it.
So, I think in the cases where the creators give express permission to let people borrow their toys, fanfic writers are on somewhat firm (if legally shaky) ground.
The really big grey area is where the creators have come right out and said, "No. I don't like it, I don't sanction it, and I don't want you to do it." Ethically speaking, I think it would be wise to steer clear in that case. The owner of the car has told you that you can't have the keys, so leave the car alone, says I. Not everyone agrees, obviously, but it's a line that I won't cross.
And yes, if Joss came out tomorrow and said, "All fanfiction must stop now," I would not only drop every story like a hot potato, I would do my best to wipe everything I wrote off the Internet. As the creator, he gets the last word. Period and amen.
The fact is, most people who write fanfiction work very hard to bring something new and interesting to the table, be it a twist in the plot, a take on a character, or just a new concept. Whether they pull it off is another matter, and a completely separate issue that more often than not comes down to personal taste than any objective measurement.
I know that I've sat for hours and walked through different concepts I've wanted to try and looked at the potential impact from all angles. I've attempted to determine if those concepts could conceivably fit into Buffy-verse canon and whether it made sense for the characters involved.
For example, I make no bones about the fact that there isn't a single concept in something like Facing the Heart in Darkness that isn't rooted in in Whedon's canon (such as it is). The First Evil's plan, the Guardians, the Sunnydale issues, even Eva Swithin herself are ideas that started with the source material and wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for that same source material. That is not my creativity at work.
However, I'd like to think that I put an original twist on all of those ideas and made them somewhat interesting to look at for some people. That's where my creativity comes in.
The above is the definition of appropriation, in case you're wondering.
The case of Cassie Claire is another matter separately, as you can see. Lifting entire passages and quotes from multiple sources, and slotting it almost word-for-word in your stories without a cite or a footnote or any hint that it isn't your creativity at work is plagiarism, and not appropriation for the sake of a pastiche. When you take concepts wholesale from other writers and don't even so much as put a different spin on it, this is also plagiarism (although this is where the charge gets murky).
What blows me away is the sheer number of sources that were lifted. It wasn't just one book or one television show. It was several books and several television shows. Even worse, the television shows in question are cult television shows with fanatical followings who'd damn well would recognize a quote when they saw it. Some of the books that were borrowed from were not well-known, sure, but some were very well known to fantasy readers.
However, because people can't read everything or watch everything, people tended to focus on those one or two items that rang a bell. They were utterly unaware of the other "borrowings" from other sources. In that way, the report has served an important purpose. It catalogs the extent of Cassie Claire's (and other's) theft and the number of sources that were involved. What's more, it's expanded the audience even beyond Harry Potter fandom and now people who've never read these stories are going over them with a fine-toothed comb and finding even more instances of plagiarism.
Just when you think they've found everything, they find even more.
However, the thing that really throws me is that it seems like so much bloody work. By the time you're done finding just the right quote or just the right passage to purloin, type it up, and then work it into your fanfic, it might've been easier just to come up with something on your own. This isn't plagiarism as a lazy man's shortcut. This is plagiarism as hard work.
What I'm still left with is the question of "Why?" Why bother? If you're going to work that hard, what's the point? So people can coo about how clever you are? So people can think you're a great wit? To get brownie points for being so cool? What am I missing? What's the payback for this? What is the plagiarist getting out of it that's worth that much sweat and blood? I've got to tell you that I'm at a complete loss on this point.
The easiest way to get around this, it seems to me, is to simply not do it.
However, I can see where "pop culture homages" slotted into fanfic would not only be appropriate, but also desirable, especially if you work in Buffy fandom that is full of pop culture references.
For example, in the next part of Facing the Heart in Darkness, I have Xander reference Pinky and the Brain. He does it in text. He tells you right out that he is. He then even goes into a Pink and the Brain-like joke, a signature one for that show. You know the one. It starts with, "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" and ends the punchline that's a complete nonsequitor that has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
I actually beat my brains against the wall to come up with a punchline. I thought I got a good one, tracked down a Pinky and the Brain Website to make sure that it handn't been used and, to my horror, something very close to it had been used. Back to the drawing board to come up with an original punchline and yet another check to make sure that it hadn't been used on Pinky and the Brain.
You don't even want to know how long it took me to come up with a punchline that couldn't in any way, shape, or form look like one of the answers uttered by Pinky on the show.
Once again: this illustrates the difference between appropriation and plagiarism.
Appropriation: I do a Pinky and the Brain "Are you pondering what I'm pondering" joke. I cite in text in a round-about way that it's a Pinky and the Brain joke. The joke and the format of the joke would not even exist if it were not for Pinky and the Brain. I make no secret of this. However, Eva's complete confusion and reaction to it is original to me. The punchline is original to me. What I'm aiming for is for the reader to laugh, nod in recognition at the pop culture reference, say, "That's such a Xander thing to say," and think that the punch line was pretty funny, if groan-worthy.
Plagiarism: I do a Pinky and the Brain "Are you pondering what I'm pondering" joke. I fail to reference the source material in any way, shape, or form. I just plop it in the middle of this conversation word-for-word with minimal set-up. Xander starts the joke, "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering" and Eva (who has never seen Pinky and the Brain in her entire life), jumps in with "Gee, Brain, I think so, but..." What's more, the punchline is lifted word-for-word from a Pinky and the Brain Web site that has all the punchlines listed for posterity. Not only have I plagiarized, I've twisted the characters (well, at least one character) so far out of character that they fit the joke instead of the other way around. The context is completely wrong. Not only that, by doing the entire joke without referencing in any way the source, I'm claiming the idea and the words of that joke as my own.
See the difference?
I have to admit that plagiarism in fanfiction is an endless source of fascination for me. From an objective viewpoint, the motivations for it make almost no sense. Money (usually) isn't involved and the plagiarist (usually) doesn't have a good reputation or any reputation at all. I can't suss out what's to be gained by doing it.
The only plagiarist (to give him props) who ever tried to explain himself was Ozymadius. What it boiled down to was that he was having a hard time writing smut, so he "borrowed" from someone else. Eventually, as he became known more and more for his PWP stories, the (self-induced) pressure to produce more of the same led to more and more "borrowing" to the point that it just got away from him.
Yet, it still doesn't quite tell me what he hoped to gain out of it. Or maybe it's because his explanation still doesn't make sense to me.
What makes the Cassie Claire case so interesting, aside from the sheer scope of the theft, is that she did gain tangible things out of her time as a BNF. Her fans chipped in and got her an IPod. When her laptop was stolen, her fans chipped in and bought her a new one. Rumor has it that she was so popular within Harry Potter fandom that it was one of the factors that won her a book contract.
It's only a coincidence that she's using a slight variation of her nom de fanfic for her pro novels. I don't fault her on this part, by the way. If you can "market" the fanfic name, go ahead. But her nom de fanfic name strikes me as a loaded gun aimed right at her future career. Even if I landed a book contract tomorrow (not likely, but just say), I'd think long and hard about using "Lizbeth Marcs" on the cover and would be consulting very extensively with my agent, my publisher, and an entertainment lawyer over the issue.
This even though I can catagorily state that there isn't a wiff of plagiarism anywhere in my general vicinity, from either pro authors or other fanfic writers.
And if you think the plagiarism charges won't dog Cassie Claire into the real world, think again. The comments on the Bad Penny report from people who know about her upcoming novel, not to metnion this description here, has me wondering if this isn't the last we've heard Cassie Claire and plagiarism tied together.
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In my college years and a few years after, I was a huge Janet Dailey fan. Then came the news that she'd plagiarized Nora Roberts by borrowing a scene. As I recall, it wasn't word for word dialogue -- it was the set-up. A love scene set in a pool of water. Janet Dailey never recovered from it.
If Cassie Claire thinks she will, she has some nasty surprises in store.
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I first heard of Cassie Claire years ago with her "Very Secret Diaries of Lord of the Rings," which is actually pretty funny when you first read it, but doesn't hold up well under repeated re-readings.
I've been following the plagiarism charges over on Fan_Wank on JournalFen for the past year or two because it is a fascinating case (and that's not even taking into account the psychological aspects of the fandom that sprung up around Cassie Claire). I've known about the Pamela Dean portion for awhile, not to mention the use of Buffy and Blackadder quotes and her penchant for putting the witty punchlines in Draco's mouth.
This is the first time, however, that I've seen all of it compiled in one place and the actual side-by-side comparisons (in the past, the comparisons tended to crop up in comments on Cassie Claire posts).
It seems that the big split in that fandom is along two lines: the Hermione/Ron and Hermoione/Harry ships are the big ones. The other one is "Cassie Claire fangirls" vs. "Cassie Claire not-fans." Truthfully, I've never seen a split along a BNF line before. It's very fascinating.
It seems like the Cassie Claire case is a case of the stars coming into alignment.
1) I think a lot of the people involved in Harry Potter fandom tend to either be younger or haven't been involved in other fandoms
2) Cassie Claire gained Internet fame with her "Very Secret Diaries..." before she started writing her HP fanfiction, so she already had name recognition before she started writing.
3) Cassie Claire wrote a popular character (Draco). The sheer scope and size of her Draco trilogy has literally defined the fanon view of that character. The closest equivalent I can think of in Buffy fandom is Respossession for the Spike/Xander set (and no...I'm not a fan of Repossesssion) and Bittersweets for Buffy/Spike.
4) Cassie Claire has the "right" friends who were capable and driven enough to create a massive fanfiction archive for HP that almost no one could afford to ignore. Whether it was created for Cassie Claire, or whether her bannishment from FF.net happened to coincide with the formation of FictionAlley still has room for debate.
5) Once the ball got rolling, she done stayed rolled. Cassie got fans, the fans wanted to be her friends, the fans were willing to do anything for the borrowed glory. As the borrowed glory got brighter, she got more fans, who also wanted to be her friend. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I honestly don't think someone like Cassie Claire could exist again in fandom. It would be pretty hard to line up all the right ingredients again for it to happen.
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You can steal a set-up? *blinks in shock*. Did she lift other elements - like descriptions or similar? Or simply the "love scene in a pool of water" element? Because if it is only the latter, then it would shock me dearly, because everyone suddenly would have to give sources for every idea possibly taken from another work of fiction, and with an area as wide as "love scene in a pool of water", that would suddenly lead to the crediting of things like "car chase on a highway" or "old scientist gives hero some electronical weapons and tools".
Don't get me wrong; plagiarism is unacceptable. But did she really lift just the idea? Or more?
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CC
(Anonymous) 2006-08-13 01:23 am (UTC)(link)Your response is well thought out and well written. My initial response to hearing about CC was just disgust and tossing up of the hands. I hadn't even heard of her until she was connected with a Mary Sue discussion.
Only question I have is what is "BNF?"
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Re: CC
It came into popular use (although it existed before then) during the original run of Star Trek and was used in a complimentary way to fans who worked very hard to create fan-run conventions and campaigned for the show to be renewed for its third season and for the show to eventually be revived. Back then, it was harder to be a BNF because you actually had to work for the privilege and there was no Internet to toot your own horn.
Now it's used in a somewhat derrogatory manner. A BNF is basically a police way to say "entitlement whore." To be fair, they have to be known for something (running Web sites, putting out fanfics, something that contributes to fandom), however, they expect people to kiss their feet for it. Think of them as the popular cheerleader in high school who brooks no dissent or debate.
Here's a cite with the traditional definition, but not the derrogatory one: http://www.jessesword.com/sf/view/182
Re: CC
Re: CC
(Anonymous) - 2006-08-13 11:05 (UTC) - Expandno subject
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But RL hasn't given me room to read the Bad Penny report in depth. I took a break from Facing the Heart and hours later I'm still reading the thing with a gapped mouth.
*shakes head*
I'm just utterly mystified by the psychology behind it. Not just the plagiarism, but the over-the-top defense.
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Thanks. I know I'm sick of hearing the "it's just fanfiction" thing, but the point is the princple.
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"However, I'd like to think that I put an original twist on all of those ideas and made them somewhat interesting to look at for some people. That's where my creativity comes in."
Something a fantasy writer,
"I take old fantasy cliches, turn them upside down and shake them, then i see what has fallen out of their pockets"
This is usally in response to questions about how self invloved the fantasy field can be.
So to a certain extent you are doing something with the buffy verse. you are exploring into areas that Joss could not (time constraints, medium, and the need to tell one story not the 100,000 other possible stories.). This is not a bad thing, but well we need to acknowledge our sources.
Example from real world. Whenever the Daleks appear in Dr. Who the original creator is referenced.
But i move along the same track as your self.
oh and in a non derrogatory sense you are an "NF"( almost to the B!!)
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*blush*
But in all seriousness, there are only so many plots. Where the original element comes in is how those plots are dressed up. Plots are the skeletons and they're pretty much ready-made. The stories, which involves the physical details, are pretty much up to the writer.
But, yeah, you're right. There's plenty of instances in RL or the professional sphere where homages are embedded in the text (didn't know that about the Daleks...hunh), especially when you watch a show where there's a lot of pop references (Farscape pop-referrenced Buffy a couple of times). There's nothing wrong with homages at all, but I just think if you're going to use them, it should be clear.
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HP fandom in general seems to be more insane than any other fandom I've run across, but then again I suspect it's a lot larger so maybe that accounts for it. All in all, I'm glad I have no interest in it.
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Now, I'm not saying that jealousy for Cassie Claire's Internet fame hasn't had some part in the drama, but people are less likely to be jealous (or annoyed) if the Internet fame was earned by honest means.
Besides, the best way to defend yourself against wrong-doing is to simply not do it so you can cite chapter and verse how you are being accused of something you simply didn't do. Sure, it's hard to prove a negative, but plagiarism is luckily something that leaves trail of slime. People can fairly easily proove that you did do it.
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It makes me ill, really.
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For me, there is a big difference, and I don't think that's a rationalization for writing fic.
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Neil Gaimen, for example, wrote fanfic (as well as worked as a reporter). Diane Duane, for example, as definitely copped to writing fanfiction and defends the idea of it as "real writing," even though some of her colleagues look at her funny. I think even Ron Moore did some of it (I'm not 100% sure, and if he did I don't think he published it anywhere) before he landed the job of his fanboy dreams on Next Generation.
The fact is, for every pro-writer who laughs at it, there's a pro-writer who comes out and says they have no issue with it at all provided no one makes money. Fanfic is basically free advertising for the source material and people who view it like that are willing to put up with some fanon inconvenience in exchance for it.
However, I can imagine that JK Rowling has pulled her hair out more than once over the fact that some people are accusing her of writing her characters OOC (i.e., Draco or the PuppyShip of Sirus/Remus) because people like the fanon versions of the characters more.
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I don't get it. I don't get it, and I never will.
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Pinky and the Brain is a good example. In 'Tabula Avatar' Buffy responds to Xander aking "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" with “I think so, Xan, but where are we going to find a feather duster, a walrus, and nine gallons of whipped cream out here in the Windspear Hills?” and then has to try to explain Pinky and the Brain to bemused inhabitants of a medieval-level fantasy world who have never heard of TV let alone the cartoon mice. It never occurred to me that anyone could have any problem with that at all, but I have a feeling that the poster at Bad Penny might well regard it as dubious.
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Consider this scene from The Gift:
SPIKE: Well, not exactly the St. Crispin's Day speech, was it?
GILES: We few...we happy few.
SPIKE: We band of buggered.
Shakespeare's not exactly Pinky and the Brain, but still. I'm sure that a lot of the audience did not know what the heck Spike and Giles were talking about. But even without getting the reference, it's pretty clear from the context that these characters were quoting something else. It gets trickier if the characters aren't aware of the reference, but it's not impossible. As long as there is no way that people might think you came up with the words or ideas in question yourself, like your recent "plane on snake" fic, that's fine.
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My Thots Part 1
Re: My Thots Part 2
Re: My Thots Part 1
Re: My Thots Part 1
Re: My Thots Part 1
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I have a hard time picturing doing something like this once, never mind as much as this woman has. If I had a character in an HP fic of mine say "a vague disclaimer is nobody's friend," intending it to be a nudge-nudge-wink-wink to any readers who were fellow BtVS fans, I would say something at the end of the fic to be sure that any non-BtVS fans knew that wasn't my line.
I can only hope that the Wikipedia page you linked to about this situation is incorrect. The fact that she might have gone to my college (Vassar) makes me feel the same way you feel about her claiming to have been a reporter in the past.
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A quotable line I can see sinking into someone's brain and then going into the subconcious. I can even see it re-emerging via keyboard and the writer thinking it was original to him or her. I don't think one line is going to get anyone nailed. But when you have entire passages? *shakes head* That's something different.
But, yeah, there is a whole "Back slowly away and try to erase any link to Cassie Claire" aspect going on, isn't there? You'd think Vassar would've taught her about plagiarism, right?
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Though I suppose people could say the same about some of the stuff in my big HP fic 'Not Myself' since the first four parts were either me recalling the plot of the books and rewriting it or rereading and rewriting as I wrote. *grimace* Yeaaah, that's an undertaking I'll never undertake again. And I always tried to write the bits I took from the books completely differently. Plagarism always taught as SUPER ULTRA UBER BAD in all English courses so I always try my best to avoid it.
Eh, enough rambling type self-defense stuff from me...I blame the cold. xp
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Then there's Cassie Claire where it's a clear-cut case. And we're to the point where people are wondering if anything she wrote was original at all. Having never read the Draco Trilogy, I can't say how much is hers and how much isn't. What is clear is that there's an awful lot in there that very much isn't hers.
*shrug*
The bigger issue, I think, is honesty. Cassie Claire has not (to my knowledge) ever been honest about what she did. Most people who quote from other sources or get their ideas from other sources at the very least give credit somewhere.
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I looked at the description of CC's novel, and I immediately thought of the novels of Charles deLint...she has whole worlds to plagiarize! If I ever see her book in my friends' SciFi/fantasy bookstore, I'm going to out her to them.
:boggles:
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I suspect there's going to be a bit of a shitstorm when that book gets released.
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A sense of schadenfruede came into play when I spotted a comment on the Heidi plagiarism thread on bad_penny saying that several real authors were contacting CC's publishers to enquire whether the plagiarism charges were true and what was really going on. I actually hope her book deal gets cancelled, because there are so many truely *talented* people out there who don't steal other people's work who deserve a publishing deal. I'd rather see the opportunity go to one of them.
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Cassie has got to know she's got people gunning for her at this point, and not just people in the realm of Harry Potter fanfiction either.
What I wonder is whether she's going to start ripping off fanfic writers, because those are the people who are going to have a tougher fight on their hands to prove they had an idea that was stolen.
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I write slower than molasses in winter, so I've come up with a few ideas that never see the light of day because I see similar ideas in another fic, and I don't want to be seen as a plagiarist. (EX: When we found out on Angel that Xander was in Africa, I wondered how he'd get by with all the different languages. I decided that Xander and his Slayers would use International Sign Language in order to make communication easier (at least in daylight). By the time I hashed out a plot, etc., you had started posting Facing the Heart in Darkness and had Klingon as the lingua franca. So, I abandoned that idea.
Thanks for the excellent summary/discussion of this topic.
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The question of "How would Xander deal with multiple language issue" is a very good one and it's a common sense question as far as I can see. The fact is, I'm more surprised that more people aren't taking on that issue in their Africander stories. Some people get around it by basing Xander in an Anglophone country, or have him toting around a translator, or have him consulting phrase books, but by and large, I haven't seen too many people tackle the issue.
But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be tackled.
I chose using Klingon because: 1) It struck me as a very Xander thing to do; 2) It's funny as all hell; 3) It says something about Roger Wyndham-Pryce that he didn't bother to look into Xander's "secret language" at all, because he would've easily discovered what it was; 4) It solved the issue of how to get around the multiple language issue since Xander in canon knows Klingon; 5) I used the Klingon thing in Living History, so it fits my personal fanon that Xander at one time was fluent in Klingon.
Using International Sign Language is a completely different answer to the puzzle and it's an original one that simply didn't occur to me. If I read a story where Xander got around the problem using International Sign Language or some other solution (i.e., Esperanto), I certainly wouldn't think twice about it. I would say, "Hey! This author thought the problem through! Good on them!"
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the multiple language issue is a "real world problem" that really can't be ignored if you've got Xander running around Africa. That means you have to solve it one way or the other, whether it's Xander using Klingon as a lingua franca or using International Sign Language to communicate with his non-English speaking Slayers.
That's not stealing someone else's ideas and it's not even close to stealing someone else's ideas. That's using your brain to solve a problem.
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You can check out their latest explanation here,
http://lolaraincoat.livejournal.com/227068.html
if you've a strong stomach. See, Cassie was 'sampling.' Eveyone 'sampled' back in the day. So there's nothing wrong with 'sampling.'
And then there's Heidi the plagiarizing IP attorney.
It is fascinating stuff though.
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"The defendant was caught stealing a car."
"No, your honor, he was merely sampling it. Everybody does it."
I wonder how these nimrods would feel if somebody stole their purses and 'sampled' the money out of them?
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(Anonymous) - 2006-08-31 14:52 (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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1) I believe I've plagiarized a bit of dialogue wholesale once. I didn't even *realize* I had done it, until someone pointed out the exchange was from a book called "Knight Life" which I had read about 3 years before I wrote the bit. I went back into the story, and rather than re-writing it, listed the source.
Bad? Should I, in fact, go back and edit that bit? I've waffled back and forth on it.
2) The above leads me to my personal issue. Hasn't everyone, at one point or another, found a bit of dialogue or an exchange that resonated with them? Such that they use it for inspiration in one of their own works?
3) Are AUs or Episode re-writes plagiarism?
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AUs and episode rewrites acknowledge from the get-go that they're taken from a particular source. I don't think you could get away with selling it, but in the world of fanfic, I don't see the wrong.
Personally, I despise CC and her ilk because they are thieves. CC steals the words and ideas that someone else put together and calls them her own. How is this not theft?
Has no one learned from the experience of that plagiarizing Chick-Lit girl a few months back?
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Wow
(Anonymous) 2006-08-13 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Wow
How much of CC's plagiarism is tolerated because the people reading/writing fanfic in that fandom are either young or haven't been active in a fandom before? And how much of it is that they simply don't know "fandom etiquette" (i.e., no plagiarism even of pro sources, no bullying, etc.) While I'm not overly familiar with HP online fandom, I do get the sense that there's a higher-than-normal ratio of people who are new to this fandom thing to people who have experience in other fandoms. I'm not saying that other fandoms doesn't have its share of newbies, but there's usually a larger population of people who've been active in different fandoms over the years.
As for what you say about teaching about plagiarism in high school...I have to admit that comes as a bit of a surprise to me. Either I'm showing my age, or the school I went to had a bit of a bug up its ass about plagiarism. I can't say for sure. I do know I have a few people who work in universities on my FList, and it's interesting how often they come across plagiarism among their students.
As for wanting to write like someone else...I think most people who take writing seriously — be it in the realm of fanfiction or pro writing — all have someone in their sphere they think is more talented as a writer. Lord knows there were a few people I worked with during my newspaper days that truly had a golden touch with words and I'd wish I could write as well as they did. I still have people either on my FList or in my life who are incredibly talented writers and I know that I'm not nearly as good as they are. That's just the writing life, I suppose.
In the end, I think, it's just a matter of finding your own voice and what works for you. Going by the CC issue, I'm not sure she's yet found her own voice. Worse, I'm not entirely sure she's even looking for it.
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(Anonymous) - 2006-08-14 01:51 (UTC) - Expandno subject
I look at all of this with wide eyes and wonder how the hell did this happen? [/quote]
I hate with a fiery passion that the new 'defense' against being *caught red-handed* is to deny everything in the face of overwhelming evidence, court convictions, etc. and just wait for everyone to lose interest so you can get away with it.
Every freaking day politicians are stating baldly to have never done this or said that, and there is a voting record and tv footage proving that they *have* done this and said that. But they 'look honest' and get away with it. Again, and again.
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What kills me is that there are people coming out of the woodwork defending her since the Bad Penny thing came out. It's like, do0d, how much more evidence do you need.
Then I want to desperately ask how they'd feel if CC "borrowed" from them, just to watch their heads explode.
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I think that even with all her billions and fame Mr Rowling likes the
writing process still the most.
O, and I think that you, Liz, need to get your own Wikipedia entry ;)
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Your rant/essay is fabulously written and I'll be linking to it, and I'm going to friend your LJ, which I've skimmed.