Don't really care, but

[merrily]

I know fandom is an insular place; thus, I spend my time lurking or dipping my toes in the shallows. It's safer. There are crazies in the deep end. And this evening I've spent a couple hours reading about the fandom craziness of Cassie Clare, a story that has fallen into the deep end, gotten stuck in the filter at the bottom and turned into a mucky, corpsified fandom legend. (If you think you might care, there's about 10,000 well-documented words on the subject starting here.)

Oh. My. God.

My eyes started to glaze after a while, but people care about the sitch a whole lot, and I understand why. Plagiarism makes me livid, too. Plus, I am boggled by "writers" who don't have a massive, bone-deep need to avoid any situation that might look even slightly like plagiarism. "Inspiration"? "Paying homage?" My ass.

The thing that really burns me, though, is the book that she has coming out. I'm an ardent Joss fan and I am Suspicious. Deeply Suspicious. The main character's name is Fray, for god's sake! Also, secret demon-hunting cadre? What, are they out to get rogue demons, too?

Fortunately, I am also a bookseller, able to request advance copies, and I am going to do so with our S&S rep tomorrow. I don't think the manuscript has even gotten that far yet, but I fully intend to take the first copy available and spend an entire weekend combing through it with my library, Google, and all the whedonverse scripts and printed material I can find.

I suspect her editor's not going to do it, and really, someone needs to. Certain things can not be tolerated in the artistic and book communities, and blithe stealing from other people's work is one of them.

Comments

Re: exactly

[alicefortea.livejournal.com]

Exactly! In my quick read, I noticed that several people were arguing that fan fic is a form of plagerism, and that what she did was just another extension of that. Which is bullshit. I don't see it happening that often in fan fic - and when it does, people come down hard. As they should.

:P Thank you for the compliment! And thank you for making this post. You definitely put this into perspective for me, and it's always good to know someone else shares the same opinion.