Supposedly she copied down several pages of this novel in her notebook, because she loved it so much, I guess? And then when she was writing the Draco story, she came across it, in her notebook, and since she hadn't written down who actually wrote it, she assumed it was hers, and put it in her story.

Yeah, I know.

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I think you are giving her way, way, way too much credit.

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Heh. I was trying to sound neutral, not like I thought she was lying plagiarist. *g*

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Actually, this almost happened to me. I found a piece of Gattaca fic in my old files, just a plain text file, and although I couldn't remember finishing or posting it, it gelled with a couple of ideas I'd had for a story. I assumed it was mine for a while, something I'd started and never finished (plenty of those on my HDD) until I read right to the end of it and realised it was a short piece from a fic that a friend had sent me to beta. Oops. Glad I realised before I decided to finish and post it.

WTSIT? icon in honour of the film, not for any WTS? ness.

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That's not quite right. I asked Cassie herself to tell me the entire story one day because I had heard so many confused variations, and she did. I have absolutely no reason to lie about this and would have other more direct methods if I wanted to hurt Cassie in any way, so you can take my word for this if you're inclined. :)

It is true that Cassie wrote down unattributed quotes often, but The Secret Country was one of her favorite novels and it was highly unlikely that she would mistake the writing from one of her favorite novels as her own. What happened was that initially the passage was cited. She told me that when the chapter was posted on ff.net initially it had the proper attribution, and I believe her. However, the chapter stayed up for something like 2 years without being noticed at all, and in that time Cassie believes she did some kind of formatting changes to various chapters that caused the chapter notes with the citation to disappear without her being aware of it.

The important thing to note is that the circumstances surrounding the "plagiarism" are what made it as wanky as it was, then and now:

Firstly, the chapter was up for over 2 years without anyone noticing anything about it; and in that time the DT had become the single most popular fic on fanfiction.net, with huge sections of what were at that time the ff.net message boards devoted to its discussion.

Secondly, when the ff.net mods finally "discovered" the plagiarism, they simply deleted the story without warning, without offering any explanation to Cassie whatsoever.

Thirdly, when the huge outcry over the plagiarism broke on the ff.net message boards, and all the fans were going crazy, the ff.net mods actually deleted the entire message board system rather than deal with the complaints. It was a lot like the Gryffindor Tower fiasco, only it happened all at once instead of in an ongoing many-month collision.

Fourthly, another HP-only fanfiction archive, Fiction Alley, had been preparing to open for months; and since it was perfect timing, Cassie moved her fics there just as the archive opened, thereby sealing the archive's instantaneous popularity and the permanent ongoing belief that FA was "created" specifically to house Cassie's fics.

All of that tied in together, pretty much without Cassie actually doing anything to exacerbate the situation, to make it seem like Cassie was some sort of extraordinarily grand fandom member, because people were overreacting wherever she was mentioned right and left. If you ask me, the people who really solidified Cassie's treatment as a BNF early on were the moderators of ff.net in deleting the entire message boards rather than allow the furor over Cassie's fics to die out and thereby creating an atmosphere of martyrdom which has kept her in the public eye ever since.

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Yes, the person who discovered it was an simply someone who was a huge Pamela Dean fan, and when she saw this, she decided to tell the ff.net authorities. So it was really over that, not the Buffy quotes.

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I'm absoultely inclined to take your word that this is what she told you, but I seem to remember her more recently (as in like a year ago, in one of those times the issue was brought up yet again!) saying something about the whole 'had it in my notebook didn't know it wasn't mine' kind of thing. so that's a little bit weird, to think she told you something else, yaknow?

although i can even *imagine* she'd finally invented that notebook shit somethine like 3 years after the fact, because it seemed maybe like it'd be an easier thing to state publically than everything you just typed out-- it still strikes me as a weird thing, and i don't think hse'd have invented that lie, really, or if she did, it would only make her actually wanky. or actually more wanky, rather. :))

am i totally remembering wrong about *her* telling that story about the notebook then? annoying, that, and i don't feel like spending time looking for those links again, grr.

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yeah, I remember Heidi writing up a big clarification thing on FW which deviates quite a bit from what Aja said.

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this hurts my brain. Argh.

but gosh, your icon's pretty.

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Okay, that's different. I had never heard this version of the story before.

I don't know, Aja, I'm inclined to believe *you* - I'm just not sure about Cassie (who I don't know from Adam), if you know what I mean. I mean, I think what she did was plagiarism, missing disclaimers or what have you, and what I've never understood are all the claims of "But it was an ACCIDENT!"

Although I realize that Cassie can't control her rabid fangirl apologists (and I'm not including you in that category *g*). It's too bad, because I think this could have gone away, if she had just said, "Yeah, I fucked up" and changed and/or disclaimed everything immediately, instead of all this, "It was a mistake, an accident!" stuff that I hear all the time.

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Aja, remember that flamewar I got into after, ahem, posting emails of Sarah T being a bitch? Either CC or Heidi said on my livejournal that she'd found the chapter in a notebook and didn't recognise it. I can link the post if you want, and you can look through it, but one of them definitely said it. So either they're lying about the credits, or lying that they didn't know it was someone else's work.

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Erin, I think you should post the links. I'd be interested in seeing them, myself.

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As soon as I can get online for more than 20 minutes at a time, I'll look. :>

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Okay, I was wrong; I can't find it on my lj. It must be in Corrina's (the person who originally called PZ for not putting a disclaimer on her fic). My bad. I'll look for it later. Meanwhile, I think HnK said Heidi posted about it in a recent HP wank, so if you want to look for that...

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Or, to offer a third scenario, both happened and she at first didn't realise it was her work, then attributed it properly when she did, then lost the credits.

*sigh*

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I find that scenario even more implausible. I mean, if she took stuff from other sources and admits it, then whatever. If she made a mistake and copied something she thought was hers, whatever. But shifting from one story to another is just ridiculous.

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