The Irony Knows No Bounds.

[icarus]

The Irony Knows No Bounds

You know, reading trinityofone's recent post, I'd like to say in a note of complete and utter irony, I have only one quote that I've borrowed:

In the Harry Potter AU, Beg Me For It, I refer to "Lucius and the Death Eaters" sounding like a rock band.

Where did it originate?

Cassandra Claire.

I thought that I'd read the Draco Trilogy after I wrote Beg Me For It. I wasn't a Harry/Draco or a Gen fan, preferring Harry/Ron and Harry/Snape. If it was Gen, I wasn't interested if it didn't have Snape. I know I finally read the DT somewhere in Jan-Mar of 2003 (after people complained about it... and I saw the quote "I dreamed I was a slice of lemon is a giant martini" on Fiction Alley and couldn't resist). I wrote Beg Me For It in Feb 2003.

Three years later I'm a wee bit fuzzy. *head scratching* Maybe the quote just stuck in my mind? Readers have pointed it out to me and while I've stuck with my original belief, I'm actually not quite sure any more.

At any rate, if there's anyone who won't complain, it's Cassandra Claire. *g*

Comments

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

All right, I consider myself Ironed.

*flees the rocks of pun-ishment*

[sarka.livejournal.com]

Oh, now you have really and truly killed me. And my keyboard, since I happened to be drinking when I opened the comment notification :D

*dies*

'pun-ishment' = best pun ever :D

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

And alas, I borrowed in from my poetry professor, Frank Hall. And my brother.

Guilty again! *augh* *hangs head in shame*

Icarus

[sarka.livejournal.com]

*stern*

You need to add citations!

No, seriously, this issue is just... really whacked. I am mostly amused by the fact that you wrote this great post about plagiarism the other day where you were wondering what was in it for them. Seriously, I still don't get it. What's really in it for them?

It's just such distance from my own way of thinking about fiction.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I think Cassandra Claire has a different mindset going on than your usual plagiarist. Reading the information from Aja I get the sense that CC's boundaries are blurry and determined by emotion. She seems to have no perspective on what's hers and what isn't.

Usually the fraud/plagiarist justifies their theft to themselves "it's my due" or "she's a BNF" and then has this possessiveness once the stolen item is "theirs." I don't get the sense that Cassandra Claire even goes through that process of justification, but I'd need to read a lot more.

Icarus

[sarka.livejournal.com]

no perspective on what's hers and what isn't

Wow, that is a really scary concept. I know how much work I put into my stories and my fic, and the idea that some people don't realize that this makes it unequivocally mine just makes me cringe. I mean, English is my fourth language, and only the amount of time that goes into philosophizing over www.thesaurus.com is enough that I wouldn't want anybody to steal my words.

The fact is, I look at those side-by-side comparisons, and my first reaction is that the punctuation is the same. That's the bit that tells me that she had that book open next to the computer and lifted the whole passage, because punctuation - in English especially - is complicated.

And when you have the book open next to your computer and are typing whole passages out of it... how in the world can somebody not understand that that is wrong?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is a really scary concept.

It is.

From Aja's report, I'm getting a sense of a BNF ego inflation, that "I can do no wrong" and misuse of power to get Aja's story taken down. Aja meekly complied for the sake of friendship and also because.. well, I think she had to, in order to avoid a huge stink.

But coupled with that is a deliberate manipulation of Cassandra Claire's image by Cassandra Claire, herding and nudging the crowd. Even when what the crowd says wasn't true, if it was useful she encouraged it with brief supportive statements that didn't exactly lie.

It's fascinating.

The more I read of Aja's report, the more disappointed I am that white_serpent wasn't a journalist. I think if we got a really good journalist on this we'd get a picture of Cassandra Claire and the whole scandal rather than just a tedious "it was plagiarism and that's wrong-wrong-wrong." Yes. We know that. Plagiarism bad.

I really want to see a report from someone who sees through the bullshit and can line of patterns of behavior that tells us more. msscribe you got a feel for her attention-mongering and hunger for more.

Cassandra Claire there's something more subtle going on. Perhaps it's just ambition.

Icarus