The Expert Book Smuggler

Edited by: Emilie Rose

Cassandra Clare, who initially gained recognition writing fanfiction, has achieved remarkable success as a traditionally published author. Known best for writing The Shadowhunter Chronicles, Clare has seen her work adapted into both film and television series. Credited with the creation of the ‘Draco in leather pants’ trope, Clare’s career foundation in fanfiction is where her controversies begin.

Accusations of plagiarism, cyberbullying, and criticisms of her use of incest in both her fanfiction and published works have plagued the author. The intensity of her fanbase’s devotion has led to problems for Clare. It is not uncommon for readers to claim harassment from Clare’s fanbase when discussing her history, which has further turned readers away from her work.

Is the criticism warranted or was it all simply fandom wank?

Plagiarism Accusations

Accusations of plagiarism appear to have begun in 2006 with user Avocado’s post titled The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle.¹In this post, Avocado outlines their motivations for posting, the key players involved, how the ‘debacle’ began, and provides detailed examples that lead them to believe that Clare had plagiarized multiple television shows, movies, and books in her fanfiction.

Self-described fandom lurker Avocado (LiveJournal username: White_Serpent) began their journey into Clare’s famous “Draco Trilogy” fanfiction series in June 2001, starting with Draco Dormiens. While reading Draco Dormiens, Avocado began to notice quotes from their favorite television series, including Black Adder, Red Dwarf, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Although Avocado acknowledged that borrowing brief passages from popular works is typical of fanfiction, they believed the excessive use of unattributed quotes was problematic.

Avocado states they left a ‘fairly positive’ review of Draco Dormiens on FanFiction.net while following up with a private email containing their concerns.² They also claim to have received an email response from Clare, which says that Clare, “-enjoyed the quotations, her friends enjoyed the quotations, and, generally, she planned to keep using them.”

Avocado proceeded to the next part of the series, Draco Sinister, after this interaction. While a disclaimer appeared on Chapter four of this installment, Avocado noticed that the quotes began increasing in frequency and length.

Draco Sinister, Chapter 11	Angel, season 1: “The Ring”
“What are you looking at, Black?” demanded Snape. Sirius brandished the book in the air. “Demons, Demons, Demons – what a title.” “It´s a book about demons. What would you call it?” “The Book of Demons?” Sirius suggested, flicking idly through the pages. “A name rife with single entendre.”	CORDELIA: Demons, Demons, Demons. Wow! They put a lot of thought into *that* title. WESLEY: It’s a demon database. What would you call it? CORDELIA: I don’t know. How about – Demon Database? WESLEY: Ahh! A name rife with single entendre.

Avocado also noticed references to their favorite series, the Secret Country Trilogy by Pamela Dean. Some examples provided by Avocado include:

• “Fire Letters” were referenced in an early chapter of Draco Sinister.
• There was a footnote in Chapter 9 which said “Credit for the inspiration for this conception of the wizarding afterlife goes to a book called The Secret Country, alas, I no longer recall who wrote it.”
• Chapter 11 made use of Nightmare Grass, Dean’s version of shapechangers and included two recognizable lines:
  • page 86: “Laura was engaged in a vicious battle with her own hair.”
  • page 87: “‘It’s you?’ said Laura. ‘Your bones aren’t coming out?’”

Upon realizing the amount of quotes and references that were without citation, Avocado left a review on Chapter 11 of Draco Sinister that read, “Pamela Dean wrote the Secret Country Trilogy.” Following the review, Avocado then claims to have contacted FanFiction.net moderator Cairnsy, with their concerns.

“-I said that I was contacting Cairnsy because I enjoyed her work and remembered her mentioning that she was a FanFiction.Net moderator in the archive rules discussion on hpslash. I explained that I’d been reading the Draco Trilogy, which seemed to be filled with television quotations– sometimes in the form of five or more lines taken at once from Black Adder, Red Dwarf, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then I included the text from The Hidden Land and Draco Sinister along with the author’s note. I asked if this was considered acceptable on FanFiction.Net.”

A response from Cairnsy on June 22nd reportedly stated Clare’s plagiarism resulted in account removal.³ This decision lead to an uproar within the fandom as users began defending Clare against the perceived injustice. Conversations regarding the situation appeared within the Yahoo! Fandom group, ParadigmOfUncertainty.⁴ These discussions resulted in users being banned from the forum, significant infighting, and accusations of libel lobbed at FanFiction.net moderator Cairnsy.

Clare’s close friend, Heidi8, allegedly accused Cairnsy of libel on the SugarQuill forums and arguments surrounding the allegations continued across multiple fandom forums. A timeline of events can be found here.⁵

Examples provided by multiple fandom members lend credence to the claims that Clare was heavily borrowing from other works when writing her fanfiction. While Clare’s actions might have seemed acceptable initially because of the prevalence of fandom Easter eggs, her reaction to the accusations is troubling. Clare seemingly brushed off Avocado’s email; a better response would have been a polite disagreement, plus an assurance of proper source attribution.

Despite Clare’s claims of consistent crediting posted to multiple fan forums,¹⁰ the available evidence contradicts this. For example, Avocado alleges that the original disclaimer for Chapter 9 of Draco Sinister differs from the updated disclaimer.

Evidence from Avocado suggests Clare’s disclaimers, if any, were inadequate in specifying borrowed lines or correctly citing sources. This includes citing the wrong Pamela Dean book (The Secret Country, not The Hidden Land) which becomes further concerning as it appears author R.J. Anderson had previously informed Clare of this in March of 2001.¹¹

“I’ve clearly stated it in my disclaimers for the stories, there have been multiple (and in-depth) discussions on PoU about the quotes with people having fun identifying them, and I even have an unofficial quote-nabbing game with some of my fellow authors (I won’t name names for fear of having them suddenly blacklisted, but they are some of the most popular and respected HP authors out there)– “I want this quote from Buffy/Red Dwarf/Babylon 5! You can’t have it!” and so on. As for The Secret Country, I also stated in my disclaimer that Draco’s trip to the afterlife was an homage to Pamela Dean, and a friend of hers (Pamela Dean’s) wrote me after I posted it and said she loved the homage, thought it was great.”¹²

Reading through one of Clare’s forum posts in which she discusses the use of borrowed quotes, I think it’s fair to state that she initially truly believed there was nothing wrong with what she was doing. As she and other fanfiction authors were making games of ‘nabbing’ quotes from one another, it is possible that this normalized the lack of credit given in her disclaimers. Additionally, Clare is said to have shared in a forum post that fans requested she include elements from other works.¹³ This post suggests she may have thought her sources were famous enough to not need disclaimers.

Despite this, when concerns arose, Clare should have coursed corrected instead of digging in her heels. If the extensive evidence provided is accurate, it seems that excuses provided by both Clare and her friend Heidi are inconsistent at best.

• Clare has allegedly stated that she has always provided credits in her disclaimers despite Avocado’s evidence to the contrary. As previously mentioned, Avocado clearly states that no disclaimers appeared in The Draco Trilogy until Chapter 4 of Draco Sinister.
• References to works from Pamela Dean went without citation in Chapter 11 of Draco Sinister.
• Prior to Avocado’s discovery, it appears¹⁴ that Clare was informed at least twice that the author Clare failed to credit in Chapter 9 of Draco Sinister was Pamela Dean. If the accounts provided by fandom members are true, this means Clare had multiple opportunities and multiple months to correct the disclaimer.
• Clare’s former friend, Aja, states in a forum post that Clare allegedly told her that initially, the fic was uploaded and up for two years with proper citations before a formatting update accidentally removed them.¹⁵ However, the posting of Draco Sinister occurred in August or September of 2000, and a copy downloaded in January 2001 contained the disclaimer lacking proper attribution.

“There’s no legal issue since that’s public domain, but it’s one thing to make a deliberate allusion that one expects the readers to recognize and resonate with, and another to take somebody else’s work and imply that it is something that you wrote yourself. And there’s a little bit of gray area where somebody might be doing or think she was doing the former but had strayed into the latter through ineptitude, or might be thought to have strayed into the latter by inept readers; and a wider really genuine gray area where resolution is just difficult. If it were a clear case of stealing my prose with no marker at all indicating an intent to allude, I’d be extremely upset if it were my work, and given some email I’ve gotten recently I wonder if actually it was.”

–Excerpt of email from Pamela Dean to R.J. Anderson, allegedly shared with Clare 6/25/2001.

Is this a case of someone getting in over their head or intentionally plagiarizing? 20+ years down the line, it is hard to say. Regardless, it appears that Clare has consistently failed to take accountability for her actions and has been unable to keep her story straight.

Bullying Allegations

Clare’s reputation for cyber-bullying is nearly synonymous with her reputation for allegedly plagiarizing. Archives show that a decent portion of this history stems from both Clare and Heidi attempting to squash the plagiarism rumors as well as Clare’s fans coming to her defense.

Clare is often accused of threatening lawsuits to silence those who speak about her plagiarism. This is very difficult to verify because of the loss of archives, and it primarily lives on through word of mouth. In reviewing the archives, it is possible that this rumor started with Heidi’s suggestion that FanFiction.net moderator Cairnsy was guilty of libel as well as her series of posts regarding copyright law on the Sugar Quill forums.¹⁶ It may have been further exacerbated by her comments that the FanFiction.net/Pamela Dean controversy should be handled in court.¹⁷ In researching these particular accusations, all sources consistently point me to comments made by Heidi.

“Seriously, as I’ve said elsewhere, I think it would be grand to have the issue finally decided once and for all by the Supremes. Papers and magazines and publishers get issues settled in court or by courts all the time.”

Screenshots display interactions between Clare’s fans and her critics, such as a conversation between @teamcatoclove, Clare, and fan @Xoseroja in 2007. In this interaction, @teamcatoclove tweets an article titled “Why I Have a Problem with Cassandra Clare & Why You Should Too.” and tags Clare in the tweet. @Xoseroja comes to Clare’s defense and accuses @teamcatoclove of sharing death threats with Clare. At one point, Clare replies to the tweet stating, “I’m sorry you believe lies like that, and I guess that is your right, but please do not share that hate with me. Thank you.”

By this time, Clare is a traditionally published author, often engaging with what appears to be minors. While asking not to be tagged in such an article is fine, it is my opinion that a subsequent tweet in which she states the tweet made her cry was wildly inappropriate. At the time of this conversation, I find it impossible that Clare was unaware that such a tweet could unleash a torrent of harassment toward what appears to be a minor.¹⁸ To me, it appears as a way to bolster further support and silence the user who shared the article.

Many of Clare’s alleged bullying moments involve minors, such as the case with the allegations of contacting a minor’s mother to get her to ‘knock it off’.¹⁹ While there have been multiple accusations of Clare contacting the parents of a preteen (some appearing in my comment sections), this podcast episode may explain the inspiration for this rumor. In this episode, Flourish, a fanfiction writer and co-founder of FictionAlley explains the circumstances.

While discussing the rumor, Flourish states, “Right. And what was interesting about that was that I looked at that and I knew from the way that this rumor has developed over the course of many years that the preteen girl in question is actually me. Me, 20 years ago. [laughs] Because I’ve followed the different ways that this rumor has gotten passed around Tumblr, and has been, you know, gone everywhere. And like most rumors, it starts from a seed of truth in that I was a preteen person and Cassie Clare definitely had at least one conversation with my mother. [laughs]”

Flourish then goes on to say, “She was like 23 or something. Anyway. So we had met this way, and so some people I guess maybe think that that meant that we still hated each other later, but we didn’t? I was sort of publicly not into her fic, and then we were working together to found this fanfic archive, because it’s possible to work with people whose fic you don’t like, it turns out, to found a fanfic archive. And because of doing all this there was a bunch of legal stuff and so the adults involved wanted to talk to my mom to make sure it was OK that I was taking part in this project. Right? So yes, I gave them my dox so that they could call my mom and confirm that it was OK! [laughing]”

While reading this, I wasn’t sure that I found this scenario to be much of an improvement. If anything, it displays one of the major issues in the Cassandra Clare Saga: fandom culture regularly involved minors interacting with adults as friends, enemies, and co-workers. The interactions shared within the expose posted by Avocado show how inappropriate adults have been with minors throughout the multiple controversies surrounding the author. This also confirms to me that Clare must have been aware of how often she interacted with minors in the fandom.

On October 12, 2012, Clare shared a post to her Tumblr account titled “October is anti-Bullying month: on hiatuses and hate blogs” in which she discussed a post shared by the Tumblr account nastyclare-theclarewitchproject. In her post, Clare shared points made by the blog as well as discussed cyberbullying she’s faced in general. This post was poorly received by many, including the 17-year-old owners of the ‘hate blog’. The teens posted a list of counterpoints to their blog later that month.²⁰

Clare’s Statements	Nasty Clare Rebuttal
When someone first told me there was a tumblr hate blog about me I didn’t think much of it.	By her saying a hate blog, in singular form, one would assume everything she talks about in the post is us. We’re the most popular “hate blog” on this site, as far as I can see, First of all, Cassie claims we talked about her appearance. I’d just like to say that we never have, and specifically requested people don’t, because it’s tacky and rude.
The first was posting my legal name along with a method of finding my address.	We only ever posted your real name once, after somebody submitted it to us from an already public page. Someone asked for your real name, and I replied saying I was pretty sure Cassandra Clare was your actual name, and they said I was wrong, and sent us the link to this: http://www.listal.com/cassandra-clare Someone else messaged us confirming that’s your real name because they saw it on your blog before, and on wikipedia and multiple other places and that it was already public knowledge.
“The second was the sentence “Cassandra Clare acts like she can say anything because she’s Jewish””	You’re trying to paint us as anti-Semitic, but one of us is Jewish, and neither of us knew you were Jewish – until someone submitted an offensive Jewish joke to us from one of your books. We remarked on how we think it’s offensive, then someone else messaged us saying it’s okay for you to make that joke, because you yourself are Jewish. Then another person messaged us, and to paraphrase them, said “it’s not okay for Cassie to make jokes about Jewish people just because she’s Jewish.” I’m assuming that’s where you got that sentence from, but you took it out of context.

I think many things that Clare stated in her cyberbullying post were things that had actually happened to her as antisemitism is prevalent, misogyny runs rampant, and people love to pick apart public figures. I also think Clare made this post knowing that it wouldn’t be difficult for fans to figure out which blog she was speaking of. Thus, Clare finds herself fighting with minors online again.

Another rumor says Clare allegedly tried to get a University of Boston student expelled for hacking another forum member’s account. While this allegation is often shared with little context, a former HPFGU (Harry Potter for Grown Ups) forum ‘list elf’ provided insight into this situation in 2006. In this thread, the user who identified them self as Kelley, confirms that the forum moderators filed a complaint with the University of Boston. Kelley states that this was after IP traced a second hacking back to the student and her friend. Kelley’s version of the story repeatedly states that Clare was not involved with the situation, nor did she have any ‘pull’ with the forum moderators.

Due to Clare’s level of fame within the fandom, it is hard to believe that she had no pull with the HPFGU team. However, I feel that it is clear that the student likely shared a sanitized version of the story that has since spiraled from there. As with many of the situations outlined in this post, the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle.

Incest Pairings

April 26, 2004, saw Clare upload her Ron and Ginny fanfiction, Mortal Instruments, to LiveJournal.²¹ The plot focused on Ron’s perspective as Harry and Hermione begin a romance. In his jealousy, he accepts sexual advances from his sister and soon begins a relationship with her.

The journal, named epicyclical, also included an introduction to the work titled “sick? wrong? you betcha!”

“I went back and forth on whether or not to post it in my LJ at all, given the NC-17 rating and the unusual subject matter – incest – but finally decided that I would trust that people who don’t want to read about incest, will not click the LJ-cut tag, and not read the story.

I’ve always had a sort of interest in incest as a symbolic fictional theme, and I tried to use it symbolically here. The inspiration for this story (started nine months ago now) came from kitsune13, who said she wanted to read a story in which Harry and Hermione fall in love, thus driving Ron and Ginny into each other’s arms, so Catja, this one’s for you. :> The secondary inspiration was this picture by Alessandra.

So. Rated NC-17 for taboo sex, dark themes, and Ron’s spiral into complete insanity. If you don’t like the idea of any of the above, please skip this one. Also the only HP story I have ever written that does not even mention Draco Malfoy. Many thanks to blackholly and tromboneborges for the betas.”

Prior to the fic’s debut, fans were already reacting poorly as Clare had shared two posts to her LiveJournal account about the pairing. While those posts received comments from unhappy fans, many critics chose to take their complaints to their personal LiveJournal accounts. Many of these accounts are said to have belonged to members of the Sugar Quill, including Charlotte Lennox who shared the following in her expose of infamous internet troll Msscribe, “The [Sugar Quill] crowd tended to be annoyed by Cassandra Claire writing Ron/Ginny anyway, because she made no secret of how much she disliked both characters and it seemed to the [Sugar Quill users] that she was writing incest-fic about them as an expression of that dislike. And several [Sugar Quill users] thought that it was questionable judgment on Cassandra Claire’s part to introduce her thousands of [Lord of the Rings]-related visitors, not to mention her hundreds of teenaged Draco Trilogy fangirls, to the pleasures of incest smut”²²

Another essay shared about the subject stated that people were ‘disturbed’ by a ‘well-known fanfic-writer’ publicly discussing the ‘the joys and difficulties of writing Ron/Ginny incest smut”.²³

However, the true backlash began when the notorious online troll, Msscribe, caught wind of one of the posts about Clare’s Ron/Ginny story. Charlotte Lennox’s exposé reports that Msscribe accumulated many sockpuppet accounts to troll numerous fandom members, including Clare. Seeking attention and unhappy with Clare and other fandom members’ “immoral” behavior, Msscribe reportedly created the LiveJournal account Fandom_Scruples.²⁴ The journal claimed to ‘reward responsible members of the fandom who do not post incest, rape, [bestiality], or NC17 fics where young children can access them’ and created a Gold list and a Black list.²⁵ Those lists have been recreated below.

Gold List

Black List*

Angua Ashavah B.Bennet Caitlyn MC Chrysantza dandelionsummer Dr. C Firoza harpinred immovablemover joesther juliaweasley moeyknight perceval piperx sff_corgi shellebelle_93 sunshyndaisies wahleee_98 zsenya

lissannej camillabloom aome trakkie msscribe epicyclical jlh anna_maria darkrosetiger telesilla charchusegigi87 sincelastjuly purebloodygryff nightfalltwen likebunnies bookshop arielchan r_becca oulangi photosinensis bunny_wabit eljuno ivyblossom glockgal misspince calliope14 jessindistress tocomfortyou eibbil_libbie sarea_okelani jade_okelani iscaris simons_flower tartpants ari_o altricial madlori ladysorka copperbadge dancing_moon ajhalluk

Msscribe is accused of cultivating relationships with many influential fans and exploiting sockpuppet accounts to manipulate online discourse for personal benefit. This may be another source of the ‘sues her detractors’ rumor as fandom_scruples dragged Clare’s friend Heidi into the mix by posting the following,

“It has also come to our attention that a few of the writers mentioned are key organizing staff for Nimbus 2005 (which we won’t link to) and we are calling for a boycott of that conference unless they make a reasonable attempt to keep their adult material away from underage readers. We don’t think this is an unreasonable request. Several fics found at FictionAlley we believe have crossed over the R rating (which many feel is inappropriate for a site that allows 13 year olds to register at) and we are currently in the process of compiling a letter of complaint to send to [info]heidi8. Because she may not be aware of these fics, we have left her off the list for now.”

The account followed up by creating a post about obscenity laws and a threat, “We have come to a decision that we will give websites two weeks to comply with [Child Online Protection Act] or we will report them to a federal agency that we have sought advice from.”

This in turn inspired multiple posts from Heidi, including accusations that fandom_scruples was committing blackmail.

Around January 2005, Clare took Mortal Instruments offline along with her other explicit works.²⁶ However, discussions surrounding her use of incest did not end there. Clare herself appears to have tweeted about incest multiple times since then.

These tweets appear to be at odds with statements made by Clare in a Tumblr post shared in 2013. The post, “On incest in literature/TMI” outlined that she felt incest was ‘literary shorthand’ for ‘concepts that often can’t be conveyed another way’. As @readswithrachel pointed out in her YouTube video, Clare used incest not only in her fanfiction, Mortal Instruments, but her published series, The Mortal Instruments. Further, her attempt to use incest as a literary device appears ineffective.

Laptop Gate

On December 5th, 2004 Clare announced that her apartment had been broken into and multiple laptops had been stolen.²⁷ That same day, her friend Heidi shared a post titled “Xmas Gift for Cassie, Josh & Ruby” in which she proposed a ‘whip-around’ to raise funds to replace the missing items. The next day, Heidi announced they had reached their goal and would continue fundraising to replace the stolen toy drive items.²⁸ People allege the whip-around raised over $10,000, but I couldn’t verify those reports.

This fundraiser enjoyed substantial community support from Clare’s community, but user sapphireisle sparked fresh controversy by expressing her inability to raise funds for her mother’s cancer battle. Fandom members accused Heidi of giving sapphireisle the ‘cold shoulder’ by refusing to share the fundraising link. However, Heidi has refuted that claim and cited the situation as a misunderstanding.²⁹

In my research, it seems that this controversy is often called a ‘scam’ and it is possible that it was. From what I have found, I am unsure that I feel comfortable calling it a scam due to lack of concrete evidence. It does seem that this whip-around was ill-managed due to how unclear the total funds raised were and lack of transparent updates.

Copyright Lawsuit

In February 2016, author Sherrilyn Kenyon sued Clare for copyright infringement alleging that the author copied elements of Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series published in 1998.³⁰ Documents show that Kenyon accused Clare of marketing a work in 2006 that used one of Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter trademarks as the name of her protagonist. Per Kenyon, the name was changed to “Shadowhunters” and both Clare and the publisher assured Kenyon that the name would not be expanded upon.

However, in late 2008/early 2009, Clare’s publishers printed approximately 100,000 copies of a Shadowhunters book that mistakenly referred to “Shadowhunters” as “Darkhunters” on the back cover. To rectify the mistake, Kenyon requested that the mislabeling be corrected, the books recalled, and an announcement made on Clare’s website. While some books were destroyed, Kenyon alleges that the publisher refused to recall the remaining books. Below are recreations of some of the character complaints cited by Kenyon.

Dark‐Hunters	Shadowhunters
Nick Gautier: a. Believes himself a normal human until the night when a mysterious Dark‐ Hunter saves his life. b. Has his supernatural powers bound and doesn’t know about them until after his mother is kidnapped by demons. c. Discovers the psychic mystic who lives next door is not what she seems. d. He becomes a Dark‐Hunter only to learn he has the blood of angels in him. e. His mother, who also has angel blood, is put into a trance. f. Has a childhood friend in love with him. g. His father is a demon he has to destroy. h. Events cause him to mistrust the hero of the story who was once his best friend. He wants to trust him, but can’t.	Clary Fray: a. Is at a club with friends when they are attacked by a group of demons. A mysterious Shadowhunter saves her life. b. Has supernatural powers and does not know about them until after her mother is kidnapped by demons. c. Discovers the psychic next door is not what she seems. d. She becomes a Shadowhunter and learns she has angel blood in her. e. Her mother, who also has angel blood, is put into a trance. f. Has a childhood friend in love with her. g. Her father is a demon she has to destroy. h. Events cause her to mistrust the hero of the story who was once her best friend. She wants to trust him, but can’t.
Adarian Malachai: a. Nick’s father. b. Has another paranormal son. c. Tries to make his sons more evil and strengthen himself. d. Escapes and goes into hiding. e. Tall and very handsome. f. He uses demon blood to convert humanity. g. Had a brother‐like friend he betrayed who hates his guts. h. Tries to burn the humanity from his children. i. Fosters a protégé.	Valentine Morgenstern: a. Clary’s father. b. Has another paranormal son. c. Tries to make his sons more evil and strengthen himself. d. Escapes and goes into hiding. e. Tall and very handsome. f. He uses demon blood to convert humanity. g. Had a brother‐like friend he betrayed who now despises him. h. Tries to burn the humanity from his children. i. Fosters a protégé.

Clare and her lawyer refuted these claims stating, “Tellingly, the lawsuit failed to identify a single instance of actual copying or plagiarism by Cassie … There is little chance of anyone confusing Cassie’s young adult themes and orientation with the sometimes very adult storylines in Ms Kenyon’s books. Indeed, we expect that all of Ms Kenyon’s claims will be dismissed.”³¹

Clare would later share a Tumblr post telling her fans that the charges were dropped. Kenyon would go on to sue her husband, alleging he poisoned her to destroy her career and reputation.³²

Where does this leave her readers?

The passing of time and losing forums, many likely deleted to remove evidence of certain actions, often shroud Clare’s history in mystery. Determining the truth is difficult to do when relying on second and third-hand accounts of what went on in the early 2000s. However, it is clear that Clare’s fans continue vehemently defending their favorite author, causing many people to believe the rumors about her. By regularly silencing discussions about the author in a manner that many feel is unsafe, they have contributed to her reputation.

Not that Clare is not at fault for her behavior- she is. As previously stated, I find it immensely difficult to believe that the author was unaware of her significant influence over the fandom. Based on archived posts, I believe Clare exploited her supporters’ dedication as a method of controlling the narrative. This becomes increasingly concerning as most rumors surrounding her supposed bullying involve minors.

Some situations outlined within this post result from the fandom behavior of the early 2000s when ‘etiquette’ was still being established. Similarly, as Clare often toed the line of ‘fanfiction author’ and ‘published author’, those lines became blurred. As the adult and professional in these situations, Clare had a responsibility to use her platform responsibly. While venting about ‘hate’ online can be cathartic, it is best done when said venting won’t result in a minor being run off the internet.³³

As for her readers, it would likely behoove them to remember their contributions to upholding Clare’s rather notorious reputation. In their defense of the author, they have done little more than confirm the negative opinions of Clare. While they may not feel that the evidence amounts to much or deserves further discussion, others will not feel the same.

And public figures, no matter how much their art inspires us, are not our friends.

Note: What’s the deal with? is a series that explores reasons why others dislike your favorite author. An author’s inclusion in this series is based on Patron votes. This series is intended for informed readership ONLY. This post is subject to updates and expansion.

Citations