Why did I let myself get roped into this?Yeah, to an outsider, it might seem hypocritical, but there's a big difference between fanfiction and plagiarism. As I only remembered after I'd replied, plagiarism is officially defined as "use of others' ideas and/or words without proper attribution", and by that definition, fanfiction with the proper disclaimer is
not plagiarism. We're not claiming credit for coming up with the characters or the world, just the words. That's probably why plagiarism in fanfic is such a big deal; all that's assumed to be original is what the author writes, and if they stole those words, then nothing they wrote is their own.
Also, fanfiction is a time-honored creative writing tool for lit. classes. Has she never gotten an assignment that required her to write a story in the same universe as the classic she just read?
Finally, plagiarism is treated as a big deal by courts, even when the plagiarism occurred in works that didn't really matter.
One person's medical license was revoked because his earlier plagiarism in papers showed a "lack of good moral character". CC has shown the same lack of moral character when she plagiarized for her fanfiction writing, and by that standard, we shouldn't trust her to write her own words professionally, either.