Ahhhh, you were one of the people that got nailed in that massive Buffy/Spike plagiarism case over on Bloopdiary. I remember following that and putting up some publicity over it on my LJ. *nods nods*
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.
no subject
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.