The Msscribe Story, Preface and Chapter One
I hope it is all right for me to post this here. I'm afraid it is quite long, but here is the beginning...

PREFACE -

The primary purpose of this fandom biography, as with any story, is to provide entertainment and amusement for its readers. Msscribe is a fascinating person and I believe that many people will find her eventful fandom life interesting. My secondary purpose is to preserve fandom history that is in danger of being lost -- for instance, I rescued the Fermatojam pages originally captured and posted by

anatsuno from Google cache. Msscribe's story includes or touches upon many scandals and conflicts of the past five or six years in a certain sector of the Harry Potter fandom. My third purpose is to try to explain events that were complicated and hard to understand when they happened. I hope this account will provide a coherent explanation and clear up many misconceptions.

All posts, comments, and webpages quoted or shown as exhibits in this narrative are public, or were public when they were captured, or else I have explicit permission from the writer of the text to quote them. Much of my narrative is based on downloads from public posts on Msscribe's Live Journal captured on June 6, 2003 by fandom member

dianora. Most of those posts are now friends-locked, but they were all public when downloaded. The same is true of the handful of other formerly public/now friends-locked posts that are included here. They were public when they were either downloaded, screencapped, or quoted by a fandom member or captured by Google, the Wayback Machine, or LJ Seek. Msscribe's real-life full name is not mentioned or linked in this account.

Occasionally, the narrative includes quotes from friends-locked posts and comments, and emails. All of these are quoted with the permission of the writer of the text quoted. This will always be noted in the text, as well.

This story is as complete and accurate as my research skills and my own memory and that of my sources could make it but I realize that there might still be inaccuracies in the story and chronology, and I welcome any corrections and additions you might have. Please leave a comment or send me an email at duchess_of_richmond@yahoo.com. My goal is to achieve 100% accuracy, and I will edit the text if I receive new information. All speculations and conclusions expressed in the narrative are my own, and are true to the best of my reasoning ability based on the information I have.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the many people who have generously shared their memories, links, downloads, screencaps, locked posts, emails, IM transcripts, beta suggestions, and encouragement. I must especially thank

angua9,

dianora,

narcissam, and

tartanboxers, without whom this fandom biography would not have been possible.

CHAPTER ONE -

The Ms.Scribe Story

An Unauthorized Fandom Biography

The Background

To understand the Msscribe story, you have to know a good bit about the Harry Potter fandom before Dionne aka msscribe aka light_music aka

delawarean entered it. Feel free to skip any parts you're already familiar with -- this is meant for those who are new to the fandom.

Early 2001 -- The Websites Are Founded
In the beginning, there was the HP4GU (Harry Potter For Grownups) list on Yahoo (well, it was somewhere else first, then Yahoo). One of the first (of many) disturbances to the peace of HP4GU was the great H/H vs. R/H shipping war, featuring "listmom" Penny Linsenmeyer, Ebony/AngieJ, Cassandra Claire, and Heidi on the Harry/Hermione side (even though Heidi shipped Draco/Hermione, she was loyal to her H/Hr-shipping friends) and Cap'n Kathy/Eleanor Gamgee, Zsenya, Moey, and Firoza on the Ron/Hermione side. The disputes started nice and quickly grew nasty. This was around 2000-2001.

In January of 2001, Zsenya and Arabella founded the Sugar Quill website to ~~get away from the crazies at HP4GU~~ host their own fanfiction and foster fic-writing and discussion in line with their interpretation of canon, namely that Ron/Hermione was inevitable, Harry/Ginny extremely likely, and Harry/Hermione right out. A few months later (June 23, 2001) the big Cassandra Claire/ffnet plagiarism debacle happened and already-existing plans to open FictionAlley were sped up. I believe it was July 22, 2001 that FictionAlley was launched, hosting Cassandra Claire's Draco Trilogy along with other fics by old HP4GU hands, with a variety of het and slash pairings.

To a certain extent, FictionAlley was designed to be different from SQ -- where SQ demanded strict adherence to its "canon pairings," FA would welcome all ships; where SQ deleted posts and banned people at the absolute whim of its owners/admins, FA would have an elaborate system of mods, ombudsmen, rules, points deductions, etc. and prided itself on not deleting posts; where SQ interpreted its target audience of 13-and-above fairly strictly and allowed no fics over a PG-13 rating and no teacher/student, incest, chan, or bestiality, FA would interpret the same target audience fairly liberally and allow fics up to a strong R, with teacher/student, incest, chan, and bestiality welcome. Both sites were heavily staffed by HP4GU veterans, and relations between the two sites were... polite but strained.

A few months after that, I believe in September 2001, Gryffindor Tower was launched. Unlike SQ and FA, GT was not mainly staffed by HP4GU veterans (though some admins had been members of that list). GT shipped Harry/Ginny, period. It was different from SQ despite supporting the same ships because where SQ said essentially "these ships are going to be canon, and we like them" GT said "we love H/G, and it'll probably be canon but either way, we love it." Also, unlike both SQ and FA, GT archived smutty stories in a separate section behind a password.

Relations between SQ and GT were fairly good -- there was no overlap or friendship that I know of between the admin groups, but there was much overlap among the members (not surprising, considering the ships). Due to the preferences of the admins, SQ soon added Remus/Sirius to its approved pairings despite its somewhat questionable canon-likelihood and the site attracted many active and vocal R/S-loving members. Therefore, SQ did not attract many slash-haters. GT, on the other hand, attracted a good number of members who were uncomfortable with the slash and smut that was so prevalent in the fandom, including on FictionAlley. Perhaps this was because the GT site had such an emphasis on the H/G ship that slash wasn't discussed as much (even though the archived fics often had R/S in the background) and because all the smut was safely locked away. This was a bit ironic, because I don't believe most of the GT admins had anything against slash -- some of them wrote it -- and I know they were quite fond of smut, but they allowed the site to become a refuge for some whose sensibilities had been shocked by fandom mores (as long as they loved H/G).

Relations between FA and GT were not so good, I think partly because the founders hadn't interacted much on HP4GU and therefore didn't know each other as well as the SQ founders and FA founders knew each other, and partly because some very influential people at FA -- Cassandra Claire, in particular -- HATED the Harry/Ginny ship and said so often and loudly. Which is how the whole thing started...

Late 2001 - The Stalking War
It was in late November of 2001 that Cassandra Claire decided to give her most hated ship -- Harry/Ginny -- a chance. She asked for people to recommend the best H/G fics, and the one most recommended was Alpha and Omega, by Imogen, who was one of the "Queens" (or admins) of Gryffindor Tower. This is a fic where, briefly, the prophecy says that only a Potter can defeat Voldemort, so Dumbledore gets Harry to marry Ginny and sire a kid before he goes off to fight Voldie. So, basically, a teen pregnancy fic with lots of schmoopy sex at Hogwarts. I tried it, but I couldn't get through it. Well, neither could Cassie -- she was REVOLTED by the teen pregnancy and went around FictionAlley and her own LJ ranting about how horrible, disgusting, disturbing, and puke-inducing this terrible fic was. Here and here are some examples.

The admins at GT didn't like this. At all. The ones who didn't like it the most were Imogen and a woman named Chryslin who had written another fic in Imogen's Alpha and Omega universe called (I believe) Deconstructing Harry. Anyway, there was turmoil, flame wars, angry emails, etc. Chryslin had a husband named Jeff, and Jeff, bristling in defense of his wife, her friends, and their beloved ship, sent Cassandra Claire and a teenaged girl named Emily some exceedingly nasty emails. To Cassandra Claire, I understand that he claimed that he knew her real name, knew where she lived, etc., with a definite implication that he might Do Her Harm. Cassandra Claire, not surprisingly, contacted the police, while her legal advisor Heidi and technical advisors such as Stacey (

phatphatkitty) from FA worked diligently tracing IP's, etc., to try to identify who this nasty e-mailing threatening stalker was.

One of the avenues Heidi pursued was to contact the SQ admins. I should tell you that in an attempt at "fandom unity," representatives from FA (Heidi, Cassandra Claire, and a girl named Ashley) and SQ (Arabella, Moey, Moey's husband, and GinnyPotter) had had a polite, stilted lunch together in New York City. At that lunch, Cassandra Claire had revealed her real first name, something that she apparently rarely did. Jeff used Cassandra Claire's real first name in some of his communications, so Heidi initially charged that the SQ admins must have told him Cassie's name -- a charge they vehemently denied. Using this as pressure, Heidi requested help from SQ in confirming Jeff's IP and also requested that they make a statement about the stalking on their website. Reluctant to be dragged into the mess, but agreeing that Jeff's letters were truly disturbing, the SQ admins made the statement, and confirmed an IP from Jeff's or Chryslin's posts at SQ. SQ also removed Chryslin's fic from their archive at this time.

After this, Heidi and Cassie, I believe also in communication with the police, contacted GT and Jeff with their demands. These included that Jeff stay away from the HP fandom completely, and that Chryslin be removed as a GT admin so that her husband wouldn't have access to her admin powers on their home computer. My understanding is that Jeff agreed to the terms fairly quickly in return for Cassandra Claire's agreement not to press charges against him, but that GT resisted, first calling the IP evidence into question and doubting Jeff's guilt, and then not wanting to remove Chryslin as an admin, since she actually owned part of the site, and offering instead to block her home computer and allow her admin access only on her work computer account. However, I believe that at this juncture Chryslin decided to leave the fandom and the point became moot.

Here is Cassandra Claire's "official statement" on the event. She also discussed the matter in her next four posts. I don't believe the GTers ever released their version of the events, but here is a very brief description from GT admin

ladymaidmarian, years later:

Imogen... was attacked, harassed, ridiculed and blackmailed by the upper crust of YOUR ship community.

As a result of all these events, relations between SQ and GT grew cooler, relations between FA and SQ remained about the same, and relations between FA and GT were damaged beyond repair. Heidi and Cassandra Claire and their many friends now hated GT and its admins with an understandably virulent hatred, and the feeling was fully returned. Being publicly (and, in their view, unfairly) disgraced for harboring a stalker was the last straw for the GT admins and they became isolationists, vowing to enjoy their pairing in peace and not interact with the rest of the fandom -- or at least any part of the fandom that contained Heidi and Cassie. Somewhat amusingly, Heidi and Cassandra Claire's circle at FA fed their anger into increased and oft-expressed hatred of the Harry/Ginny ship, and the GT admins fed theirs into increased and oft-expressed hatred of Draco Malfoy, a favorite character of both Heidi's and Cassie's. Each side deeply resented the other side's attitude. Both sides expressed their mutual loathing in a number of public, private, and semi-concealed ways too numerous and ridiculous to detail here.

It was now December of 2001, The Fellowship of the Ring movie had just come out, and Cassandra Claire was becoming famous thoughout all the internets for her Very Secret Diaries.

2002 - The Uneasy Peace
Time passed. The fandom grew like crazy. FA, SQ, and GT all flourished, but FA flourished the most. Everyone started keeping LJs. Cassandra Claire lost interest in H/Hr and befriended the Intellislashers. Fandom Wank got started. Nimbus got planned. The Aja/Ivy conflicts began. And every little fandom newbie who joined FictionAlley wanted to be part of the "Inner Circle" -- the legendary group of friends and FictionAlley mods who supposedly ran everything, decided what was in and what was out, and got to be PERSONAL FRIENDS with the coolest of the cool, the famousest of the famous, the bestest of the best -- Cassandra Claire. It's hard for you kids today to realize how big Cassandra Claire was back then. I'm telling you, she was BIG. Way, way bigger than any BNF could possibly be now. Colossal.

CHAPTER TWO - MSSCRIBE ENTERS THE FANDOM

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

	white_serpent 2006-06-20 06:06 am UTC (link)
	Kelly, Thank you. I have always wanted more information on that. I have sent you email. Michela and I have not had the best of all possible histories with Cassie and Heidi, but I'm usually capable of being fair. It's always been obvious that there are several missing pieces to that story. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	white_serpent 2006-06-20 06:06 am UTC (link)
	Sorry for the typo; Kelley, I mean. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Pt. 1
(Anonymous)
2006-06-20 11:12 pm UTC (link)

Here's a slightly abridged version of what I sent (email) to white_serpent; I made references to other people a bit more vague, as I don't want to pull them into all this. White_serpent can verify that the account of the incidents is the same as in the email, though.

Okay, let's see. Our problems with her started in Feb '02, but I should back up a little. She joined HPfGU in Mar '01, posted, participated in Sunday chats, got to know folks, they got to know her, etc., the way it usually goes. Was always a nice, friendly person, no problems.

I think in the summer of '01, sometime around there, she was in NY and a few NY members -- John (who was a group mod at the time) and this other man named Jim -- met up with her. They had lunch, went sightseeing, etc.; standard meet-up. The three of them got on quite well. (This is all by way of explaining that she and John were on friendly terms; Jim doesn't figure into this at all.) ETA: Actually, I did a little checking and it seems this meet was in April '01.

She continued to go to the Sunday chats (lots of regulars there, week after week, including John), and this was the main way she participated in the group (meaning she didn't really post a lot). At some point, she began getting to know another list member, a young guy named Dai Evans (lived in Wales, guess he still does). Don't know if this was before or after she met John and Jim. At any rate, she and Dai became a couple.

Some of the UK folks had met Dai, liked him fine as I recall. Edited: In one of the Sunday chats, John and Dai either got into an argument or got a bit testy with one another. Don't know how it all ended, but afterwards Dai was (and I'd imagine continues to be) very anti-John. Of course, Sinead then became anti-John to some degree, in support of her boyfriend.

Not sure of the timeline of Cassie's stalker, but not long after, I guess after they'd discovered the guy's identity and contacted the police and so on, John's yahoo profile / user account was hacked. I think he was in the UK at the time, and the hacking happened in the middle of the night for him, as when he awoke, he found in his email a confirmation that he'd changed his password, which he hadn't done. The person had even sent an email back to John's account, an innocuous sort of "Tee-hee, gotcha!" kind of thing.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Pt. 2
(Anonymous)
2006-06-20 11:15 pm UTC (link)

Now with the Cassie thing being fairly fresh, John let Heidi et al know about this, and the people who'd been helping trace Cassie's stalker started trying to trace John's hacker. But, they were making the connection that his hacker was also someone from FA, a user there, because John was an FA ombusdman or somesuch. Anyway, they were thinking that there was a 'fic' connection that way, and it never occurred to any of them that the person might be an HPfGU person.

So, for some weeks there were no 'breakthroughs' nor any more hacking, so the furor seemed to die down.

The next stage was in mid-Feb '02. Someone calling themselves "Mafalda Hopkirk" made this post on our off-topic group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/9209

None of us had any idea who this might be. A number of folks responded, both 'list elves' and list members, pretty much letting "Mafalda" have it, chiding her for not having the guts to use her own name, etc. By the next evening, Sinead outed herself:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/9300

Everyone was dumbstruck, had no idea where this had come from. People were very forgiving about it, but some were bothered by the thought that this didn't 'sound' like Sinead, and it was just so out of the blue. Plus, if you look at that first message, I was particularly bothered by the 'E. D.' stuff, as the only ways for her to know anything the elves had said were either that one of us had told her or she'd gotten access to our board (which is what she said). So for me, it was *how* did she do that.

Now, a couple things happened simultaneously, more or less: over the next couple days, one of the people who'd been helping to track Cassie's stalker and tried to help discover John's hacker had been following the Mafalda/Sinead events and had the eureka moment -- thought there might be a connection here, and started doing some investigating. (Don't know exactly when this person made the connection and started searching, but they had the info by Sunday.)

On Saturday, one of the elves, mentioned to the rest of us that Sinead had sent him an email (he'd been one of the folks who was nice to her on OTC after she outed herself), and he told us she was feeling really awful and if anyone would be willing to talk to her on AIM, make her feel a bit better, reassure her, that would be good.

So, Saturday evening, I pinged her on AIM, only time I'd ever used it. We began chatting, didn't really know one another before this, and the conversation soon got to "Why?" She gave me the same, "Oh, I was having a bad day, just needed to vent, made a mistake," that she'd said on OTC. So, I next went to what she'd said re E. D. and asked her how she'd learned that. Believe it or not, she confessed that she, with Dai's help, had done the hacking of John's account, and using that, she'd read the elves' discussions. (She also confessed to Ebony, too, I think in another chat, maybe via YM, don't know.)

We talked for a couple hours, and much of that was her confiding
personal-ish stuff to me (her relationship with Dai, that she'd long suffered from bouts of depression, etc.). Interspersed with lots of this, I kept after her for details about the hacking, which she provided, but she kept asking me to promise not to tell anyone, she didn't want Dai to get in trouble, etc.

Sidenote -- I never made that promise, there was no way I could, but I do wish I'd said to her straight out that I *wouldn't* promise that, and had encouraged her to tell John herself.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Pt. 3
(Anonymous)
2006-06-20 11:19 pm UTC (link)

So here I am, I'd just been made a mod maybe a week before (I'd been a list elf since April '01, but the mods were a smaller group, consisting of Penny, N, John, A, and three newbie-mods -- me, Ci, and Ca), and suddenly here I am saddled with this. No idea what to do. I decide to sleep on it.

Sunday chat next day, the person doing the detective work on John's hacker sent a private message to one of the other 'newbie mods' in chat, the only mod in chat that day, Ca. In the pm, this person asks Ca to relay some 'techy' info regarding IPs to John re his hacker. Ca's not techy herself, didn't really understand what she was being told, and then it basically slipped her mind.

Monday morning, when this person hadn't heard back from John, they contacted him, gave him the info, say they asked Ca to tell him. John's kind of ticked that Ca didn't tell him, and this informs my decision to tell him (and the other mods) what Sinead told me. He had a right to know.

So, I edit out all the 'personal' stuff S had told me in our chat, and just give John the bits about the hacking. Turned out that the IP info from the 'gotcha' email sent to John from the hacker, plus the first two 'Mafalda' posts matched with Dai's info, and this tallied with what she'd told me. Dai believed his IP wasn't traceable, so he created the Mafalda account, Sinead wrote the posts with his input (he was the one who really had an axe to grind with John, far moreso than Sinead, and when she'd asked him 'what else' she could say, he brought up the Penny stuff, too), then he'd sent them for her.

In our chat I'd also encouraged Sinead to contact Penny; S had really felt bad about what she'd said about her, so I told her she should try emailing her. She did, and Penny was sort of forgiving, but also a bit guarded. Sinead came away from their exchange with the impression that Penny wanted her to leave the group. Hence her "Goodbye All" post:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/9350

Penny showed the rest of us the email she'd sent Sinead, and there was nothing in it that could be construed as a request that S leave.

The mods in turn made this post:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/9481

Over the next couple weeks, Sinead kept turning up in Sunday chat, and John and others who were pissed on his behalf were really hard on her, told her they couldn't forgive the hacking, she wasn't welcome in chat anymore, etc., etc.

Next part -- in the early morning of St. Patrick's day, a Sunday that year, Yahoo upgraded their servers; no problems at first, but by late afternoon, some of our groups, including the main list, were showing as 'not existing'. At first we thought it was just a Yahoo snafu, but we soon realized otherwise. Someone had deleted the main list. Penny got into an email exchange with Yahoo, then had a series of phone calls with them, and luckily they were able to restore our groups, and they did verify that someone had indeed deleted them. Penny *also* got an email confirming that she'd changed her password, which she'd not done.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/36647 -- the mods' message to the main list about being restored.

Sinead had been in Sunday chat that afternoon and bragged that she'd had 'powerful friends' (the implication that folks being mean to her better think twice), and some anonymous person joined the chat under an id of Moderator followed by a number (e.g., Moderator47886; the actual id is probably in a file somewhere..) and said his name was 'Paul,' that he was an 'independent' moderator for AOL or somesuch, and that he'd gotten reports that someone in our chat had been accused of hacking; at some point he commented that he could 'access some people's accounts'. Most people figured it was Dai.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Pt. 4
(Anonymous)
2006-06-20 11:23 pm UTC (link)

For some weeks, we didn't have evidence of who it was that hacked Penny's account and deleted our group. As people had been growing more and more frustrated with Sinead's presence in Sunday chat, a couple folks found a new room we could use, a room which would allow people to be booted; one of the means the chatters used to keep out Sinead was that they would require
people wanting in to chat to send an email to a certain account. The person watching the account would then check the IP. They were able to keep Sinead out this way, along with a friend of hers, someone calling himself 'thepalestinianrockthrower' and 'psycho_draco'. Records of the IPs were kept.

Eventually they were able to trace the IP of 'palestinian / draco' and learned this was a teenaged boy who was a friend of Sinead's named Jon Popper. Penny also eventually learned that he and Sinead hacked Penny's account the same way she and Dai had hacked John's, and they then deleted any groups Penny owned. After having evidence of two hacking incidents, we did file a complaint against Sinead with Boston University (she was attending there and used her student account both times). Penny also phoned Jon's parents, spoke with his mother. She had no idea what her son had been up to, he denied it when she asked him, but Penny explained to her about the evidence we had, assured her we had no wish to press charges, sue, etc., but I believe she did ask for Jon's assurance he would stay away from our groups. Far as I know, he has.

Far as I know too, Sinead still denies the hacking; heh, she even claimed in one of those Sunday chats that what they did wasn't illegal, and that it's not illegal when one has a paid account like AOL (that was Dai's ISP). Sigh, whatever. Iirc, one of the things that pissed me off most re her posts on Writer's U was that I (though she doesn't name me) 'fabricated' the IM conversation she and I had, to frame her, I guess.

Anyway, after we reported her to BU, we've not heard from her since. She did join main and OTC with another id, cicundus, but that account went bouncing long ago. Dai left the group, too, haven't heard a thing about him, either. They were supposedly engaged back then.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Writer's University comments, pt. 1
(Anonymous)
2006-06-20 11:31 pm UTC (link)

http://www.voy.com/36422/174.html

"One way C used her "fans" to her advantage was when I was kicked out from the club (I feel loads better now that I'm gone from there)"

Pfft. Cassie had nothing to do with this. Cassie, Heidi, John, et al were friends. Sinead and her boyfriend hacked into John's account. John's friends were pissed at her on his behalf.

"for a hacking accusation based on an IM that was a product of one of their Administrators"

This would be me.

"getting into my computer and taking my screenname"

Lol; I'm so untechy, I would have no idea how to 'get into' someone's computer, 'take their screenname' etc.

"and subsequently destroying my computer as a result (I lost it and I had to create a new screenname and buy a new computer as a result)"

Again, part of her lie. Destroying her computer? Sigh.

"and making up a conversation about hacking."

This is the part that really angers me. Completely untrue. She and I had a conversation on AIM and she confessed to me that she and her boyfriend were responsible for hacking into John's account and how they did it. She knows it and I know it. I still have the relevant bits from that chat, too. I don't know what she thinks my motivation would be to fake a chat in which she confesses to all this; what would be the point?

"C jumped on the accusation bandwagon and created Yahoo client conversations of me talking about the hacking, this time she didn't use any sources, just her original meanness."

This looks to me to be completely untrue. According to Ebony, Sinead confessed to *her* that she and Dai had hacked John's account as well; Cassie doesn't even figure into this.

http://www.voy.com/36422/176.html

"Should have done that when I got the complaint against my University and asked them if this was actually legal (it wasn't) and did they know that she was giving free services to people like C. But I didn't want to get involved and I just wanted to get my finals over with. They filed the complaint precisely just to get me nervous (they knew this characteristic of mine and used it to their advantage)."

We did file a complaint with her university against her, after she and an accomplice hacked into yet another account and via that account deleted a couple of our groups, one of which was the HPfGU main list. This is "precisely" why we filed that complaint.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Writer's University comments, pt. 2
(Anonymous)
2006-06-20 11:34 pm UTC (link)

http://www.voy.com/36422/178.html

"My fiancé and I were talking about the way she acts on boards and we both agreed that she tries to provoke "angry" people in order so she could have the pleasure of being the one to kick the person out."

I don't know what she's talking about here; she must have had the idea that Cassie had any pull with the HPfGU mods; she did not. Again, she had no role in what happened between Sinead and HPfGU other than being a friend of John, Heidi, etc. Personally, I'm thinking Sinead was trying to link Cassie to all this because she wanted to ingratiate herself with the people at WU, as she had made herself unwelcome at HPfGU.

"She once told someone to IM me and she said that she had my phone number and would tell my parents what a bad person I am."

I think I know what she's talking about here, and that wasn't Cassie.

"She usually does this to get people on her side (ie my OWN parents) and the University I'm at as well."

Again, not Cassie. To my knowledge, Sinead's parents weren't contacted by us over the hacking incidents; we did file a complaint with her university, though.

"I have another point to say: the clubs I was in have kind of a Jekyll/Hyde personality. They may seem nice at first, super friendly and all. Later, like I said about the "wrong step," they become supremely nasty and almost petty. Have you experienced that?"

Kind of amusing. People had no reason not to like her. "Wrong step" -- hacking two accounts, deleting some groups, and she's surprised people were angry and turned against her?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Writer's University comments, pt. 3
(Anonymous)
2006-06-20 11:35 pm UTC (link)

http://www.voy.com/36422/180.html

"I thought I had recognised you from somewhere, I used to be in that chat almost every Sunday starting from December 10, 2000 until January of 2002. They often don't explain things which they're secretive about, but I have met some of the admins, I'll only list their initials here, JW, Ca Cole, N. W., J. F., and others"

Okay, white_serpent, I'd told you Dai must have come to Boston the first time they met, but as she also met "Ca Cole" and "N. W.", she probably went to England (NW had come to the US, but I don't remember C Cole doing so around that time), so she probably met Dai for the first time in the UK. I must say I don't have any factual knowledge on this, I'm just speculating, trying to piece this together.

"and they've told me what they have been talking about on their "private boards" and often told me what they got in emails regarding the club and other issues, including the CC issue and FA."

I don't remember the mods getting any emails about Cassie, FA, etc.; if they did, probably wasn't more than one or two at most. (We never get peppered with emails from list members about any issue, really.)

"Only one of the admins I met, JW, writes spin offs from CC's story and was the only one of the admins to openly praise her (he's quite pushy in person). The others I mentioned above had talked about how CC did indeed plagiarise and even talked about JW, and certaintly in not a kind way. It often baffles me why they're all still friends when they treat them like that behind their backs. But then I still don't understand them."

I have no knowledge of any of this either way. Wasn't there, was never told about any of it, etc., so can't speak to whether there's any truth to this or not.

"Of course, the actions they usually take doesn't surprise anyone who really have an idea about them. Their victims, like me, are usually surprised that they had taken action upon them (for something they didn't do)."

Again, this is untrue.

"Even when someone innocently mentions my name (even if it's not related to me), like one time on the PoU list earlier this spring, the HPFGU admins threaten to kick them out."

Lol, I don't know what, if anything, happened on PoU, but PoU is completely independent of HPfGU, it's not one of our groups, it's 'out of our jurisdiction' for lack of a better way to put it. HPfGU has never had any authority at PoU, so if someone there threatened to kick her out of that group, it was whoever was a mod of PoU, not us.

"Yep it's quite lovely isn't it. Although I was one of the people (BEFORE I was kicked out actually) that told them that I wasn't sure using even drawn images of Harry and co, or using LOTR references to get money was a good idea and they brushed it off. Later when they did get the warning they thought I had reported them and I got loads of cold shoulders from CC's front but still talked to the rest of the people before I was officially kicked out."

I'm not sure if she's trying to make allusions to her being 'kicked out' as having to do with whatever she thinks about the 'plagiarism' situation or not. If that's what she's trying to say here, that she was kicked out because of her opinion on that, that's untrue.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Writer's University comments, pt. 4
(Anonymous)
2006-06-20 11:39 pm UTC (link)

http://www.voy.com/36422/182.html

"For example, when I was kicked out of HPFGU, I only got notices from two admins and they were directly through the chatroom. I got a notice from one admin I had considered levelheaded through an email after I was kicked out so 3 out of the 10 or so admins told me basically to *f- off*."

"Notices"...not sure exactly what she's talking about here. After the list deletion, I can't really recall if she was contacted or not. "10 admins" not sure who she's referring to here, either.

"here's a tidbit from the chatscript I kept:
John Walton: Sinead, just fuck off. You're not welcome in our community any more.
Michelle A: We'd rather have you out of here, Sinead. Just go because you will never be wanted again.
Stacey : Sinead, I really hope you're sitting in front of your computer and crying your eyes out right now. Because you fucking deserve it."

Yep, this is part of a transcript I saw. For the record, John was a mod, Michelle was a welcome elf, and Stacey was not an admin at all, just a list member/chatter.

"I had used the chatscript as evidence plus e-mails. IMs are questionable unless you press a notify button which I did for an IM they had sent as evidence and AOL had verified was falsified."

"Notify button?" Is there such a thing? I'd never heard that someone tried to verify the chat she and I had with AOL, though if someone did, I would guess it would've been John. If it did happen and AOL could verify that the chat was 'falsified,' I'm also guessing that that was because I edited out anything personal she said to me, left only the bits relevant to the hacking. No one ever saw the chat in full besides she and I, and I no longer have it. I do have access to the hacking bits, though.

Here's where Michela asked her:
>What did you do to them???

And Sinead replies:
"I had made a lot of friends on the list and they thought the way I was kicked out was cruel and unjust so they left. the friends of mine who were friends of CC backstabbed me and sided with HPFGU. As you can imagine, that made me upset."

I'm not sure what question this is an answer to, but it's not the answer to what Michela asked. Anyway, this is what I was thinking of re Sinead just bi-passing the issue and not coming clean about what she did.

"I tried posting the chatscript on list on OT chatter"

I don't remember this at all.

"but they threatened to shut down my yahoo account if I even tried to come back."

I don't know, maybe someone did say this to her, no idea.

"You must know about Ebony then? She was in the chatroom the day I was kicked out and told the room I had confessed to her about hacking through IM and they believed her and told her to tell all and she called me a flat out liar and the IM transcript she claimed she had never materialised."

Yes, this is pretty much accurate. I saw transcript bits that account for this as she says. As far as whether Ebony ever turned over a transcript of the chat between she and Sinead, I don't know. I never saw it at any rate, but given my experience with Sinead, I definitely believe Ebony's statements about this.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Writer's University comments, pt. 5
(Anonymous)
2006-06-20 11:42 pm UTC (link)

http://www.voy.com/36422/287.html

"1) I know that you can't see the person and therefore it's easy to taunt them and flame them. The person has feelings. The HPFGU people do not take this in account and therefore they try to drive people out by accusing people of things that aren't true. For example, I was accused of hacking twice when in fact I didn't do these hacking indicents. When I IMed people I knew from the club and got no response I thought I'd go in the chatroom to see why no one was responding and I really got flamed out of there for the hacking accusation."

And again, she did indeed, first with help from her boyfriend, next with help from another friend, hack two accounts.

"From what you have heard in this, you would think I murdered someone or did a extremely serious crime involving drug dealing. It was a hacking of a free account in which Yahoo stated to my University that they get reports of hacking everyday and this case finally made them redo their account systems."

Heh, almost admitting it here, eh? "I didn't murder someone, just hacked a free account." "Redo their account systems," no idea, but if so, at least something good came from it.

"My university is not free, the holiday cards my parents sent me that were stolen were not free, even the great lawyer that got me out of the suit definitly wasn't free."

I have no idea what 'suit' she means; to my knowledge, there was nothing more than a complaint filed against her with her university.

As to all her general Cassie comments, I'm really at a loss. What happened between Sinead and HPfGU had absolutely nothing to do with Cassie.

http://www.voy.com/36422/306.html

"I dunno what happened to Stacey, but she was quite instrumental in getting me kicked out. I might know a reason why she was kicked out. When the HPFGU club was changing chatrooms to keep me out (as a result I got plenty of chatscripts) and told people ABSOLUTELY not to tell me. The reason might be that she gave the new chatroom link to a friend of mine who in turn gave it to me. I didn't go in the chatroom but unfortunately I know where it is. I never went because I don't want to sink to their level (which is somewhere beyond the dirt at this moment)."

I don't know what she's talking about re Stacey being 'kicked out,' but that didn't happen. Not from HPfGU, anyway; I have no idea of anywhere else. Heh, she "didn't go in the chatroom" because she was unable to get in; she tried, though, as did her friend Jon Popper.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Writer's University comments, pt. 5
(Anonymous)
2006-06-20 11:52 pm UTC (link)

Okay, that's it; all the anonymous posts above in this thread are from me, Kelley. Heh, I even tried to keep it brief, too. ;-)

Anyway, again, I don't have a JF account, so will try to remember to keep checking back here, but anyone can reach me at kelleyscorpio@yahoo.com if you have more questions, comments, etc.

Hope this has been helpful. Mm, and all that stuff she said on WU about critiquing Cassie's writing, blah, blah, none of that had one iota of relevance to the situation between HPfGU and her. It just didn't. Maybe she really believes that it did, who knows. She's either badly mistaken, deliberately trying to tie it in to the HPfGU situation to ingratiate herself with WU, or she was trying to make it all the wankier and attention-grabbing and not about what she actually did. Not a clue.

--Kelley

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Heidi's involvement

purplepopple
2006-06-21 03:44 am UTC (link)

If Sinead thought Cassandra Claire was involved, it might have to do with... *is at a loss* I get the impression from reading an old LiveJournal entry dating back to the time (December of 2001) that Heidi was acting as Cassandra Claire's lawyer and Stacy was operating as Cassandra Claire's private investigator... which certainly is how Stacey presented herself to me in private e-mail contacts. And I'm boggled. :/

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Heidi's involvement
(Anonymous)
2006-06-21 04:17 am UTC (link)

If Sinead thought Cassandra Claire was involved, it might have to do with... *is at a loss*

Heh, yep, exactly.

I get the impression from reading an old LiveJournal entry dating back to the time (December of 2001) that Heidi was acting as Cassandra Claire's lawyer and Stacy was operating as Cassandra Claire's private investigator... which certainly is how Stacey presented herself to me in private e-mail contacts. And I'm boggled. :/

Mm, see, I don't know anything about any of that. Completely separate situation, not related to HPfGU. Eventually snippets of things going on elsewhere in the fandom would reach me, but I was kept so busy with HPfGU stuff, I was really pretty clueless.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Heidi's involvement

purplepopple
2006-06-21 04:27 am UTC (link)

I was/continue to be clueless. At the time, I was mostly spamming my site. :/ And I think that came out about after one month after my own run in with cyber stalk wanna bes.

But Stacey presented herself to me as Cassandra Claire's private investigator and Heidi presented herself as Cassandra Claire's official lawyer when I was contacted regarding the stuff on WU. (And the IP addresses on the board that still show at least confirm that the IPs don't match with any msscribe related socks.) If there were people tying it in to HPfGU, it might have had to do with private contacts from Heidi who at the time told me something like I was partially to blame for the mess because I gave chryslin/sinead information to help her stalk Cassandra Claire and Heidi promised if I helped that she would make sure I didn't have the fandom blame me. If whoever was making connections, it might be because of that... Heidi over representing her views back then as representing the whole of fandom, encompassing HPfGU?

*boggles*

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Heidi's involvement (Anonymous) 2006-06-21 04:57 am UTC (link)
	Mm, I don't know anything about any of this. 'Whoever was making connections,' unless that's Sinead, I don't know of anyone trying to connect the two. And, you know, like I said, I can't really think what her goal was in trying to do that; just know that it wasn't connected, so... shrug (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: Heidi's involvement white_serpent 2006-06-21 09:30 pm UTC (link)
	But Sinead wasn't Chryslin, remember. Two separate people, two separate issues with Cassie and Company. Sinead showed up after Chryslin did. If you look at the board in the wayback machine, you can see a few more of the posts-- one of the now-hidden posts contains your summary of the CC incident. And Chryslin's post is still hidden. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Heidi's involvement purplepopple 2006-06-21 09:36 pm UTC (link)
	Okay. I've forgotten and don't recall what went on. :/ Chryslin and Sinead were both there from what I can tell. I tried to contact Voy forums to have them unlock the thing but no go. :/ Their contact information isn't work. (Reply to this)(Parent)

(Read comments) -