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The Duchess of Richmond (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} charlottelennox) wrote,@ 2015-06-15 11:00:00 |
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Chapter Nine - Msscribe Leaves the Fandom
The Ms.Scribe Story
An Unauthorized Fandom Biography
Msscribe Leaves the Fandom
2004-2005 -- Msscribe and Fandom Opinion
In this installment of the Msscribe story, we have a bit of a falling action for our heroine. No, you won't read about her being exposed and disgraced, but she suffered somewhat of a decline in popularity and withdrew more and more from fandom activities. At the time of the PoA IMAX event, Msscribe was at the top of her game -- involved in everything, admired by all (except a few paranoid R/Hr shippers and insane ex-GTers), and criticized by no one. She would not remain at those heady heights. As so often happens, the same forces that led to her success would begin to bring her down. Her close association with, and acceptance by, people such asheidi8 and epicyclical (Cassandra Claire) had protected her from exposure by the GT admins, but her loyalty to them would soon involve her in situations that would damage her reputation. The fierce fighting spirit that was so applauded when she took on homophobes and racists and those awful people at GT would not be so admired when she pitted herself against a broke and desperate cancer patient. You will also NOT see a bunch of new, fun sockpuppets in this section; with the exception of continued postings by Fandom_Scruples and (probably) a racist troll you will see in Part Ten, Msscribe fought these battles in her own name.
September 2004 - Msscribe and WizardsforBush
After the excitement of the PoA IMAX post, the fandom seems to have had its fill of sockpuppet trolls like Watchful_Entity and Fandom_Scruples. The thrill was gone. Fandom_Scruples' next post, on September 29, only received 93 comments, of which quite a few were things like "God, you are not even trying now!" and "*yawns*" and "Oh. Are you still here?" The Fandom_Wank report, by LavenderFrost, said "...Does this wank qualify as abeaded dead horse yet? and received only 40 comments. Two copycat journals, falwellfriends and moral_reform, were started on August 18 and September 10 -- apparently not by Msscribe -- but they never really seemed to get off the ground. Their Fandom_Wank reports received 39 and 138 comments, respectively. The fandom had other things to think about at that time.
And one of the main things it was thinking about was politics. The US national election was less than two months away, and many fandom members seemed to think that if they just made enough negative posts about Bush the voting would swing their way. I can imagine how much fun this must have been for the greatly-outnumbered fandom members who supported Bush -- but I suppose they got the last laugh (Bush/President is canon, yo!). Anyway, political passion was the order of the day. And while the troll sockpuppets wanting to reform the fandom were not getting many comments, the following Fandom_Wank report by Eljuno on September 19 got 820 comments. Here is what it said, with the quotes trimmed to make it shorter:
As you can imagine, the comments to this post were nearly as argumentative and politicized as the posts they were supposed to be mocking. But we are not here to talk about Fandom_Wank; we are here to talk about Msscribe. This wank was a real turning point for her. Prior to this, nearly all Msscribe's episodes of fandom notoriety had been the result of an aggressive attack on her either by a troll new to the fandom or a sockpuppet of unknown identity. If all her attackers were her own sockpuppets, as I believe, these were all artificially created wanks, planned and executed by Msscribe to make her look as good as possible.
From this point forward, Msscribe would become involved in real wanks, not instigated by her, and not specially designed to make her look good. And, from this episode on, opinion in the larger fandom -- if not among her own group of friends -- would increasingly turn against her. On Fandom_Wank, for example, there was never any question about whether the Hive Vagina would support Msscribe or a gay-bashing nutty Christian, or Msscribe or an obnoxious "Watcher" accusing her of child pornography for posting pictures of her toddler in a diaper at the beach. But in real conflicts with real people, opinions could -- and sometimes did -- go against her.
In the Wizards for Bush wank, for instance, quite a few people condemned Msscribe and her friends for not being able to tolerate Bush voters on their friends list, others condemned MegD for whining about the oppression of being defriended, while still others simply argued politics. Another thing we can see on the wank report is that, unlike previous sockpuppet-attacker wanks -- it wasn't all about Msscribe. She is barely mentioned -- and not quoted -- on Eljuno's report. However, if we look at the beginning of the wank, we can see that this was a bit unfair to her. Msscribe was actually instrumental in transformingalyeska's admission that she supported Bush into a defriending-fest:
queerasjohn/folk, and tobymalfoy.
HP Bush wank was quickly pushed out of fandom headlines by the classic Anne Rice interrogating the text from the wrong perspective wank.fandom_scruples tried to revive the issue with this very brief post on September 29th...
However, we would discover five days later that this Fandom_Scruples post was apparently made for a different purpose.
October 2004 - Msscribe and Fandom_Scruples, Again
Fandom_Scruples had more success in its next bid for attention, on October 4, 2004. I will again quote the Fandom_Wank report:
There was a bit of desultory theorizing in the comments, until an anonymous commenter started this thread:
Despite the fact that this hardly comes across as a convincing accusation, Fandom_Wank members seemed willing to entertain the Msscribe hypothesis, at least in fun. Other more measured anonymous comments echoed the charge, while people like Heidi, Ari_o, and Aja defended Msscribe. Msscribe went to the trouble of creating a Fandom_Wank account in her own name to help in refuting the charges. There is much that is of interest here. Another anonymous commenter apparently referred to the email Angua had sent to Heidi the previous March:
All of Msscribe's responses are well worth reading. She tied her accusers to Bush supporters:
She triumphantly offered her alibi:
And she declared her innocence:
One anonymous commenter -- I again suspect it was Msscribe herself -- summed up the whole event this way:
Again, this alibi was meant for Msscribe's friends, not for her accusers. I'm sure that her accusers either assumed that the whole trip was a fake, or imagined her sitting in an internet café in Bermuda or Nassau or some port of call merrily typing away, or simply setting her Semagic before she left to do a delayed post. But I'm sure that many of her friends thought of her as triumphantly and conclusively cleared again, just as she had been when she was falsely accused of posting as a sockpuppet when she was unconscious in the hospital, attending a funeral, and taking all day to drive from Baltimore to Delaware.
However, the most entertaining part of this wank had nothing to do with Msscribe. A Fandom_Wank regular named ataniell93 -- who seems to have been one of last few lucky people who persuaded Fandom_Scruples to add them to the Blacklist the second time he posted it -- tried to volunteer as a suspect instead...
poconell, who called her on it:
Here is another anon-to-anon exchange I find amusing:
ataniell93 also gave her version of the Arabella incest wank and her suspicions that Fandom_Scruples was actually Arabella.
Things blew over, and Fandom_Scruples was quiet for a while. If anything relevant happened in the month of November, I don't know about it. But in early December 2004, Cassandra Claire got her laptop stolen.
Early December 2004 -- Msscribe and the Stolen Laptops
I believe what happened was that Cassandra Claire's apartment was burgled and three laptops were stolen -- hers, her roommaterubydebrazier's, and her visiting boyfriend tromboneborges's.
Here is the first Fandom Wank report (really the second one, posted after the first one was deleted), from Dec. 6. At first everyone talked about the slapdowns given by some ofepicyclical's friends to fangirls who whined "what about the fanfic?" but the conversation quickly refocused on the "whip-round" that heidi8 organized to replace the three computers, which raised over $2000 in less than nine hours. In fact, there was money left over, and some discussion as to what to do with it. In general, Fandom_Wank opinion tended to be critical of Cassandra Claire and Heidi, with remarks made about previous times that Cassandra Claire had accepted gifts from her fans and about the enthusiastic fans who gave money they couldn't afford to give.
Msscribe's connection with the events was that she used the JournalFen account she had created back in October to defend her friends Cassandra Claire and Heidi at Fandom_Wank, and that -- according to her own broad hints -- she donated a good portion of the laptop money herself:
Msscribe's arguments did not pacify the raving Fandom_Wank monster, and an anonymous made this point:
In the midst of the to-ing and fro-ing about the proprieties of internet gifting, the first hints of what would later be called Charitywank appeared:
Dec. 7:sapphireisle (then called sapphireisle) commented in Heidi's LJ, comparing the outpouring of support for CC to her own lack of success in raising money for her cancer-stricken mother.
Dec. 8: Iczer6 and Cleolinda commented in the wank report, soliciting money for the same cause. A long thread argued about the various ethical implications. Also on Dec. 8, there was a wank report about Fandom Wank's response to charitable requests.
Dec. 9epicyclical posted about sapphireisle's mother:
To add just that little extra piquancy to the situation, I believe that sapphireisle/sapphireisle was a former Gryffindor Tower member.
All this would blow up again in March and become Charitywank, which Msscribe was heavily involved in. But, in the meantime, she was busy with other things.
Late December 2004 -- Msscribe and the Anonymous Meme
On December 20th or so, apparently at Aja's suggestion,thewhiteprophet posted a meme (post now locked and I can't read it, but others may be able to):
It quickly developed that what the majority of respondents most wanted to tell someone on their flist was "I hate you." Oh, and they apparently also wanted to post pictures of the notoriously camera-shy Cassandra Claire. I'm afraid I missed the anonymous meme, but judging by the Fandom_Wank discussion it seems that quite a few photoshopped versions of the picture were posted. But someone apparently also found the time to post an ultrasound baby picture that Msscribe had posted on her LJ behind friends-lock, with a caption saying something like "I want to grow up to be a cunt just like my Mommy." This is briefly mentioned on Fandom_Wank here and here, and it appears thatthewhiteprophet deleted or screened that comment fairly quickly.
As to who would do such a thing, I don't have enough information to hazard a guess. It is possible that it was Msscribe herself, using her favorite insult "cunt" and attacking herself in a shocking way as she had done so often in the past. Perhaps she wanted an excuse to "leave the fandom." It is possible that it was someone on Msscribe's large friendslist who disliked her, as so many people on that meme seemed to dislike their friends. It is possible that it was someone outside of Msscribe's friendslist, who got a copy of the picture somehow.
At any rate, Msscribe's next move was to seemingly delete her LJ (actually, she changed her username and chose the option where her old LJ name would show up with a strike through as if it were deleted -- you can tell because all of her old comments changed over to her new name, light_music (now changed again todelawarean). She locked most of her posts, leaving only a few favorites like the Baby Dykes story open to the public. She also made a "leaving fandom" announcement:
"__ & other deep thoughts by Dionne" captured by Google cache May 24, 2006
Msscribe's journal disappearing was briefly noted on Fandom_Wank. I imagine -- though I don't know -- that it was sometime about this time that she resigned as a FictionAlley mod and as the publicity chair for The Witching Hour. [Much later edit: I found out after publishing this that she actually resigned as a mod at FictionAlley at the same time as Angua9's letter to Heidi about Fandom_Scruples and Sporkify the previous March. I have been told, but have not found official confirmation, that she resigned as Witching Hour publicity chair earlier than that.]
The wank fromthewhiteprophet's anonymous meme continued on Dec. 23 (the same day Msscribe deleted her LJ), as someone on heidi8's enormous friendslist created a Journalfen sock and reposted a friendslocked post that Heidi had made the day before about the anonymous meme. Again, I'm afraid I can't shed any light on who did this, and as far as I can tell, Msscribe didn't comment in the discussion of it either at Fandom_Wank or on Heidi's LJ (though she did de-friend Aja on Dec. 21).
However, our old friendfandom_scruples displayed its usual keen interest in the goings-on of Msscribe's sector of the fandom, and made this post on Jan. 22, 2005:
However, the commenters finally realized that "Why not talk anonymously and have no accountablility for our actions?" must be meant as a reference tothewhiteprophet's anonymous meme. As to what collapsed... Msscribe's LJ, I suppose. There were only 82 strikingly-uninterested comments on this report, and Msscribe's name was not mentioned. Fandom_Scruples has not posted since.
At some point around this time, Msscribe locked even the few posts she had left public and made her journal all friends-only, with a few exceptions, using this friends-only banner:
created byash_grey_sky, captured by Google cache May 24, 2006
After this point, my account of her doings must necessarily become more sketchy because I do not -- and never did -- have access to most of her posts.
March 2005 -- Msscribe and Charitywank
I am afraid that I missed Charitywank while it was happening and never saw the post where most of the action took place on sapphsmum's journal -- nor have I found any downloads or screencaps of it -- so many of you reading this may be better informed than I am. But I will do my best.
The Fandom Wank report about this event is locked to members only, so I can't quote from that. The main sources of information available to me now are the posts inheidi8's LJ, the brief report in the Fandom Wank Wiki, and what people have told me about it. Also, there are the Clairvoyantwank report, a discussion on Fandom_rant, and some other posts by various fandom individuals. Here is what the wiki says:
Actually, the episode started on February 28, 2005, when sapphsmum commented on this public post that had Heidi made pimping a friend's fundraising effort for breast cancer. Sapphsmum requested help from Heidi in her own fundraising efforts, Heidi offered some suggestions but refused to take it on herself, and... I don't know exactly what happened next. Apparently sapphsmum posted about it on her own LJ here and apparently some of Heidi's friends -- most notably Msscribe -- commented on that post defending Heidi and criticizing sapphsmum. I have heard, but cannot say for certain as I never read it for myself, that Msscribe described herself as "skeptical" and pointed out that you should be cautious about trusting what people say about themselves on the internet. If this is true, I find it deeply amusing.
[Much later edit: Thanks to the generosity of sapphsmum andsapphireisle I now have copies of the now-locked-then-public post on her journal and the Fandom_Wank has also been unlocked. The comment I mentioned above was actually made by Msscribe on the Fandom_Wank post (now locked but visible to the many F_W members):
sapphireisle's downloads of all Msscribe's comments are linked to here.]
Heidi made two public posts on the matter, here, and here. In the first post, Fandom_Wank regularsnacky commented as follows:
nights_mistress that she control her defenders:
angershoes quoted a passage in explanation:
Heidi's third post fulfilled Snacky's and Nights_mistress's pleas:
As it says in the Wiki account above, the Fandom_Wank post was eventually locked mainly because of offensive anonymous comments casting doubts on sapphsmum's honesty and need. Here is the comment thread where Oulangi and Eljuno dislosed that the IPs for such comments were identical to the IP used by Msscribe to comment in the same wank. Here are some screencaps of the comments posted byslackerbitch. I will quote just one of them:
There were many people who made indignant posts about the behavior of Heidi's defenders, both on sapphsmum's LJ and at Fandom_Wank. Here is one of them, from Funkyhelix, advocating banning those who commented on Sapphsmum's LJ:
Here is an icon expressing the distaste many felt, featuring one of Msscribe's userpics:
icon by Kay Wray, gacked from Oulangi
esorlecar on LJ:
bookshop (Aja) commented on that post:
And... that's all I know about that. Except that several people have told me that they began disliking Msscribe because of her behavior during this episode (even not knowing that she was responsible for the anonymous comments). If you look at Msscribe's Joule, it looks like a few people defriended her at that time.
As a matter of fact, for whatever reason, Msscribe's number of friends seems to have peaked in December of 2004 and nearly every time period since then shows more people in her "defriended by" column than her "friended by" column. Since I can't read any of her posts, I have no theory as to why this might be so. Her calendar shows she is still posting regularly but, of course, it is harder for a friends-only journal to attract new readers. Not that she's exactly hurting -- she had 354 "friends of" as of the end of May, before she hid her friends-of list on June 1st, 2006.
After Charitywank, I can only give the vaguest idea of what was going on in Msscribe's (now Light_music's) life. Apparently she was safely delivered of a second daughter in May of 2005. In June, she made this post, caught by Google for some reason, displaying her distinctive style of humor. [Later edit: this is no longer available, but here you can see her public posts during this time period, as captured by the Wayback Machine on August 30, 2005.] In August she wrote an email to author Melvin Burgess (published on his website), congratulating him on "crossing lines" with sex and cursing in his YA fiction, name-dropping her "good friend," published writer Holly Black, declaring that she herself was writing a YA novel, and signing herself "Lowly American First-Timer."
I presume Msscribe bought HP Book Six when it came out in July, and read it, and perhaps attended The Witching Hour in Salem in October. In September, she posted this short Harry/Hermione fic athhr_serendipity. She also must have made this post -- until quite recently, her only public one -- in October, offering advice on how to obtain abortions in the face of restrictive laws.
But the next I heard of her was in November of 2005, when she expressed disapproval about some icons that were being used at Fandom_Wank.
CHAPTER TEN - MSSCRIBE RETURNS
An Unauthorized Fandom Biography
Msscribe Leaves the Fandom
2004-2005 -- Msscribe and Fandom Opinion
In this installment of the Msscribe story, we have a bit of a falling action for our heroine. No, you won't read about her being exposed and disgraced, but she suffered somewhat of a decline in popularity and withdrew more and more from fandom activities. At the time of the PoA IMAX event, Msscribe was at the top of her game -- involved in everything, admired by all (except a few paranoid R/Hr shippers and insane ex-GTers), and criticized by no one. She would not remain at those heady heights. As so often happens, the same forces that led to her success would begin to bring her down. Her close association with, and acceptance by, people such as
heidi8 and epicyclical (Cassandra Claire) had protected her from exposure by the GT admins, but her loyalty to them would soon involve her in situations that would damage her reputation. The fierce fighting spirit that was so applauded when she took on homophobes and racists and those awful people at GT would not be so admired when she pitted herself against a broke and desperate cancer patient. You will also NOT see a bunch of new, fun sockpuppets in this section; with the exception of continued postings by Fandom_Scruples and (probably) a racist troll you will see in Part Ten, Msscribe fought these battles in her own name.September 2004 - Msscribe and WizardsforBush
After the excitement of the PoA IMAX post, the fandom seems to have had its fill of sockpuppet trolls like Watchful_Entity and Fandom_Scruples. The thrill was gone. Fandom_Scruples' next post, on September 29, only received 93 comments, of which quite a few were things like "God, you are not even trying now!" and "*yawns*" and "Oh. Are you still here?" The Fandom_Wank report, by LavenderFrost, said "...Does this wank qualify as a
falwellfriends and moral_reform, were started on August 18 and September 10 -- apparently not by Msscribe -- but they never really seemed to get off the ground. Their Fandom_Wank reports received 39 and 138 comments, respectively. The fandom had other things to think about at that time.And one of the main things it was thinking about was politics. The US national election was less than two months away, and many fandom members seemed to think that if they just made enough negative posts about Bush the voting would swing their way. I can imagine how much fun this must have been for the greatly-outnumbered fandom members who supported Bush -- but I suppose they got the last laugh (Bush/President is canon, yo!). Anyway, political passion was the order of the day. And while the troll sockpuppets wanting to reform the fandom were not getting many comments, the following Fandom_Wank report by Eljuno on September 19 got 820 comments. Here is what it said, with the quotes trimmed to make it shorter:
So, it all begins when
That's right I am a George W. Bush supporter. I always have been. I don't generally make it well known because so many of you hate him. I don't always agree with everything he says or does but I like him and I like most of his ideas...
Almost immediately, fellow Fannish Republicans jump to her defence.
The Democrats step in as well, of course.
...So be honest! Come right out and say, "I'm voting for Bush because I honestly feel that his stance on [insert your issue here] is more important to me and to the future of this country than his stance against gay rights."
And if you feel that way, less power to you.
And
...But because it's always depressing and troubling when people you've always liked - even if you only really ever knew them in a limited/online capacity - turn out to hold a set of moral-cum-ethical-cum political beliefs that you just absolutely cannot feel are anything but immoral and really, kind of despicable.
Because then what? Do you stop being friends with them? I mean, you know, in your heart, that all your future interactions with them are going to be colored with your knowledge that they feel this way, and that you really really hate it...
And then things really hit when
(Disclaimer:
And then Aja, MsScribe, Calliope14, Shoiryu, and Littletort* all say, almost in unison, 'OMG if you support Bush or belong to
And
*ETA:
ETA (thank you
As you can imagine, the comments to this post were nearly as argumentative and politicized as the posts they were supposed to be mocking. But we are not here to talk about Fandom_Wank; we are here to talk about Msscribe. This wank was a real turning point for her. Prior to this, nearly all Msscribe's episodes of fandom notoriety had been the result of an aggressive attack on her either by a troll new to the fandom or a sockpuppet of unknown identity. If all her attackers were her own sockpuppets, as I believe, these were all artificially created wanks, planned and executed by Msscribe to make her look as good as possible.
From this point forward, Msscribe would become involved in real wanks, not instigated by her, and not specially designed to make her look good. And, from this episode on, opinion in the larger fandom -- if not among her own group of friends -- would increasingly turn against her. On Fandom_Wank, for example, there was never any question about whether the Hive Vagina would support Msscribe or a gay-bashing nutty Christian, or Msscribe or an obnoxious "Watcher" accusing her of child pornography for posting pictures of her toddler in a diaper at the beach. But in real conflicts with real people, opinions could -- and sometimes did -- go against her.
In the Wizards for Bush wank, for instance, quite a few people condemned Msscribe and her friends for not being able to tolerate Bush voters on their friends list, others condemned MegD for whining about the oppression of being defriended, while still others simply argued politics. Another thing we can see on the wank report is that, unlike previous sockpuppet-attacker wanks -- it wasn't all about Msscribe. She is barely mentioned -- and not quoted -- on Eljuno's report. However, if we look at the beginning of the wank, we can see that this was a bit unfair to her. Msscribe was actually instrumental in transforming
alyeska's admission that she supported Bush into a defriending-fest:I accept who you are and your beliefs, even if I don't always agree with them I only consider that a small part of who you are.As Herongale points out in the Fandom_Wank discussion here and here, Msscribe was the only one named in the report who actually went so far as to defriend people over the issue -- see MegD's Joule, Alyeska's Joule, and Amandageist's Joule. Others who appear to have deleted these admitted Bush voters at the same time are
My beliefs aren't a small part of who I am. And to be honest, I suppose it depends on what those beliefs are. We don't hate GW Bush because he is a Republican. I've voted for Republicans. We hate him because he is a liar, a war monger, and a bigot. When he took a stand against Gay Rights, to me, that is just like taking a stand against the rights of people of color. If you can support this kind of bigotry, I do find it intolerable.
You are defined by what you stand for. If this is how you define yourself, then best of luck. You won't be seeing me anymore.
queerasjohn/folk, and tobymalfoy.HP Bush wank was quickly pushed out of fandom headlines by the classic Anne Rice interrogating the text from the wrong perspective wank.
fandom_scruples tried to revive the issue with this very brief post on September 29th...I find it particularly interesting that things have seemed to have gotten worse.... but, as I have said, this did not get much response, and Msscribe's name was not mentioned in the comments or in the wank.
The political climate of the fandom community, i.e. the isolation of all those with conservative values, is just a big example of why the hypocrisy is at it's worse.
However, we would discover five days later that this Fandom_Scruples post was apparently made for a different purpose.
October 2004 - Msscribe and Fandom_Scruples, Again
Fandom_Scruples had more success in its next bid for attention, on October 4, 2004. I will again quote the Fandom_Wank report:
Fandom Scruples Screws Up?
I was hesitant to post this wank because I don't know all of the history but since no one else seems to have noticed it, I think I might have just spotted Fandom_Scruples screwing up.
The password will change at noon my time. If you want to be able to view private entries after this be sure to check your email. I'm off to work now, but I'll check back around noon. I know it was a mistake to post that last week, but I didn't check LJ before I did and anyway no one seems to have paid it any attention. The draft of the next post will be sent over email in a few days.
I am untalented and cannot figure out how to save the entry or screencap it. Someone should do it for posterity's sake.
Now the really interesting question is what the locked post is talking about? I am clueless and I think my theory that it's a group of school teachers in Idaho might not catch on. And was there some special event going on last week that made it inappropriate to make it's last post? The Debates, perhaps? Anyway, it's bound to create a good old fashioned game of "Create the Conspiracy Theory" with the obligatory crazy participants accusing each other of high treason.
There was a bit of desultory theorizing in the comments, until an anonymous commenter started this thread:
I can't believe what idiots you all are for posting about this. It's msscribe and maybe a few of her friends screwing with all of your heads and I for one am sick of people pretending she's the innocent one. MAKE SENSE???!!! She hates Ron/Hermione shippers and she created that journal to draw negative attention to them and the authors who write that pairing just like she harrassed Harry/Ginny shippers a while back!!! Stop being so damn stupid!!!I suspect that this was Msscribe herself, eager to make use of her best alibi yet. Apparently, Msscribe had been away on a cruise when the September 29 Fandom_Scruples "mistake" post was made. Perhaps she had discussed this with her friends, or even sent them postcards. Her calendar shows that she didn't post in her own journal from September 27th through October 2nd. The insistence on ship hatred as a motive also looks like Msscribe -- none of her primary accusers from GT or SQ ever thought that Msscribe was motivated by ships, and it was not a charge that could stick, considering that Msscribe had written two H/G fics, and was friendly with many R/Hr and H/G shippers. On the other hand, the belief in Msscribe's guilt had spread quite widely by that time, and this could have been a genuine accusation. Either way, the game was on again.
Despite the fact that this hardly comes across as a convincing accusation, Fandom_Wank members seemed willing to entertain the Msscribe hypothesis, at least in fun. Other more measured anonymous comments echoed the charge, while people like Heidi, Ari_o, and Aja defended Msscribe. Msscribe went to the trouble of creating a Fandom_Wank account in her own name to help in refuting the charges. There is much that is of interest here. Another anonymous commenter apparently referred to the email Angua had sent to Heidi the previous March:
I'm a different anonymous who thinks it's MsScribe. I believe there was some evidence gathered against her and sent to Heidi ____, which Heidi refused to address, but that's just hearsay and I can't judge the quality of the alleged evidence.Heidi responded:
Why I think MsScribe is very likely to be the person is that she has been involved in this sort of sockpuppeting before. Check the Fandom_Wank archives for the details.
Nobody has ever sent me evidence regarding MsScribe being Fandom Scruples. People have sent me claims regarding MsScribe being *other people* or involved with an anti-Gryffindor Tower LJ, but never claiming she's fandom scruples.Okay, I don't know what other "claims" people might have sent Heidi, but I have a copy of the email Angua sent to her. Providing evidence to demonstrate that Msscribe was Fandom_Scruples was that email's central point.
All of Msscribe's responses are well worth reading. She tied her accusers to Bush supporters:
Maybe the cowardly cunt can go visit
She triumphantly offered her alibi:
As for F_S, I was on a ship last week with no access to LJ so I guess it was one of my minions that made the last post.
And she declared her innocence:
*grins*
Oh, Please. I have no minions. Seriously? My life is so freakin' vanilla. It always cracks me up how these people who don't know me view me as some sort of super sekrit manipulative spy.
One anonymous commenter -- I again suspect it was Msscribe herself -- summed up the whole event this way:
People were trying to say it was msscribe but since F_S fucked up, it looks like it's more than one person, therefore, not likely who they were all blaming. Also, it looks like the timing of the post makes it virtually impossible for it to be msscribe so the asshats are all going WAAHHHHH!!! BUT WE HATE HER PRECIOUSSSSSS!!!!!!And that, I suppose, was exactly the plan. :)
Again, this alibi was meant for Msscribe's friends, not for her accusers. I'm sure that her accusers either assumed that the whole trip was a fake, or imagined her sitting in an internet café in Bermuda or Nassau or some port of call merrily typing away, or simply setting her Semagic before she left to do a delayed post. But I'm sure that many of her friends thought of her as triumphantly and conclusively cleared again, just as she had been when she was falsely accused of posting as a sockpuppet when she was unconscious in the hospital, attending a funeral, and taking all day to drive from Baltimore to Delaware.
However, the most entertaining part of this wank had nothing to do with Msscribe. A Fandom_Wank regular named ataniell93 -- who seems to have been one of last few lucky people who persuaded Fandom_Scruples to add them to the Blacklist the second time he posted it -- tried to volunteer as a suspect instead...
It's not Ms Scribe. It's not me, either. I know that you would like for it to be one of us, but it isn't.... and indulged in an extended comment-war with
poconell, who called her on it:If you are implying, Kiri, that I thought F_S was you, you are gravely mistaken. I would never bestow misplaced importance upon you. You do enough of that yourself. ("One of us", indeed!)... with some anon having the last word:
I think the point being made here, is that you are muscling in on Msscribe's wank. ("I know you would like F_S to be me.") Go find your own fucking wank, this is hers! We work hard to look ridiculous and get her to laugh at us, you know. She's not allowed to share!
Here is another anon-to-anon exchange I find amusing:
Anon 1: Isn't it a nice coincidence that the people who accuse msscribe and ataniell93 (both quite famous for disliking the Good Ship) of being F_S are R/H and H/G shippers?Again, I wonder if the anonymous commenter harping on shipping as a motive might have been Msscribe.
Anon 2: Isn't it odd that NO ONE accused Ataniell, but she's already got you believing they did?
ataniell93 also gave her version of the Arabella incest wank and her suspicions that Fandom_Scruples was actually Arabella.
Things blew over, and Fandom_Scruples was quiet for a while. If anything relevant happened in the month of November, I don't know about it. But in early December 2004, Cassandra Claire got her laptop stolen.
Early December 2004 -- Msscribe and the Stolen Laptops
I believe what happened was that Cassandra Claire's apartment was burgled and three laptops were stolen -- hers, her roommate
rubydebrazier's, and her visiting boyfriend tromboneborges's.Here is the first Fandom Wank report (really the second one, posted after the first one was deleted), from Dec. 6. At first everyone talked about the slapdowns given by some of
epicyclical's friends to fangirls who whined "what about the fanfic?" but the conversation quickly refocused on the "whip-round" that heidi8 organized to replace the three computers, which raised over $2000 in less than nine hours. In fact, there was money left over, and some discussion as to what to do with it. In general, Fandom_Wank opinion tended to be critical of Cassandra Claire and Heidi, with remarks made about previous times that Cassandra Claire had accepted gifts from her fans and about the enthusiastic fans who gave money they couldn't afford to give. Msscribe's connection with the events was that she used the JournalFen account she had created back in October to defend her friends Cassandra Claire and Heidi at Fandom_Wank, and that -- according to her own broad hints -- she donated a good portion of the laptop money herself:
'Scuse me? You know, she's a real person and those of us who gave the most money are her real life friends.and
Or you could give $500 to your local homeless shelter. Oh wait, I did that. You likely didn't. Jackass.and
Just to point out, and maybe a good amount of people aren't considering this, most people who are her "fans" probably sent in maybe 5 bucks or so,(with a few exceptions) which is hardly a tragedy. The bulk of the money came from people who know and care about them in real life, myself included.
And I give to charity every year and I give to friends. Where is the wank?
Msscribe's arguments did not pacify the raving Fandom_Wank monster, and an anonymous made this point:
this whole thing left a nasty taste in my mouth. I have the feeling that CC will only remember the big donations made by her RL friends, and the rest of them -- the $5-s and $10-s sent in so eagerly by her fangirls would be consigned to the mists of her mind.
In the midst of the to-ing and fro-ing about the proprieties of internet gifting, the first hints of what would later be called Charitywank appeared:
Dec. 7:
sapphireisle (then called sapphireisle) commented in Heidi's LJ, comparing the outpouring of support for CC to her own lack of success in raising money for her cancer-stricken mother.Dec. 8: Iczer6 and Cleolinda commented in the wank report, soliciting money for the same cause. A long thread argued about the various ethical implications. Also on Dec. 8, there was a wank report about Fandom Wank's response to charitable requests.
Dec. 9
epicyclical posted about sapphireisle's mother:
http://www.4christina.org/
Thank you.
To add just that little extra piquancy to the situation, I believe that sapphireisle/
sapphireisle was a former Gryffindor Tower member.All this would blow up again in March and become Charitywank, which Msscribe was heavily involved in. But, in the meantime, she was busy with other things.
Late December 2004 -- Msscribe and the Anonymous Meme
On December 20th or so, apparently at Aja's suggestion,
thewhiteprophet posted a meme (post now locked and I can't read it, but others may be able to):I really love anon memes. So here is one. IP logging off, etc, comment anonymously with something you'd like to tell other people/someone on your flist. Mention lj names. :( It makes it more exciting..
It quickly developed that what the majority of respondents most wanted to tell someone on their flist was "I hate you." Oh, and they apparently also wanted to post pictures of the notoriously camera-shy Cassandra Claire. I'm afraid I missed the anonymous meme, but judging by the Fandom_Wank discussion it seems that quite a few photoshopped versions of the picture were posted. But someone apparently also found the time to post an ultrasound baby picture that Msscribe had posted on her LJ behind friends-lock, with a caption saying something like "I want to grow up to be a cunt just like my Mommy." This is briefly mentioned on Fandom_Wank here and here, and it appears that
thewhiteprophet deleted or screened that comment fairly quickly.As to who would do such a thing, I don't have enough information to hazard a guess. It is possible that it was Msscribe herself, using her favorite insult "cunt" and attacking herself in a shocking way as she had done so often in the past. Perhaps she wanted an excuse to "leave the fandom." It is possible that it was someone on Msscribe's large friendslist who disliked her, as so many people on that meme seemed to dislike their friends. It is possible that it was someone outside of Msscribe's friendslist, who got a copy of the picture somehow.
At any rate, Msscribe's next move was to seemingly delete her LJ (actually, she changed her username and chose the option where her old LJ name would show up with a strike through as if it were deleted -- you can tell because all of her old comments changed over to her new name, light_music (now changed again to
delawarean). She locked most of her posts, leaving only a few favorites like the Baby Dykes story open to the public. She also made a "leaving fandom" announcement:This journal is going friends only and fandom free. I've defriended everyone with the exception of people I've met in real life, people who had me friended for non-fandom reasons, and people who often comment on my non-fandom posts. I don't want to force anyone who doesn't want to be here to do so. Here's your chance to leave. I honestly don't have the emotional energy as I'm mid-pregnant and well, just plain tired. If I've defriended you and you are still interested in reading this journal, just comment I will re-friend you after the Holidays. If I've kept you on and you don't want to stick around, just defriend me and there will be no hard feelings and I'll return the favor.Of course, virtually all her old friends friended her new journal, as you can see here. Her "new journal" had a different layout showcasing her wonderful photo library and her graphic skills, with the front page looking like this:
"__ & other deep thoughts by Dionne" captured by Google cache May 24, 2006
Msscribe's journal disappearing was briefly noted on Fandom_Wank. I imagine -- though I don't know -- that it was sometime about this time that she resigned as a FictionAlley mod and as the publicity chair for The Witching Hour. [Much later edit: I found out after publishing this that she actually resigned as a mod at FictionAlley at the same time as Angua9's letter to Heidi about Fandom_Scruples and Sporkify the previous March. I have been told, but have not found official confirmation, that she resigned as Witching Hour publicity chair earlier than that.]
The wank from
thewhiteprophet's anonymous meme continued on Dec. 23 (the same day Msscribe deleted her LJ), as someone on heidi8's enormous friendslist created a Journalfen sock and reposted a friendslocked post that Heidi had made the day before about the anonymous meme. Again, I'm afraid I can't shed any light on who did this, and as far as I can tell, Msscribe didn't comment in the discussion of it either at Fandom_Wank or on Heidi's LJ (though she did de-friend Aja on Dec. 21).However, our old friend
fandom_scruples displayed its usual keen interest in the goings-on of Msscribe's sector of the fandom, and made this post on Jan. 22, 2005:A public post for once.Because this post was made a full month after the anonymous meme uproar, people responding to the wank report at Fandom_Wank at first had a hard time figuring out which elements of the Harry Potter Fandom were supposed to have "collapsed in on itself." Phosfate wrote:
It looks as if some elements of the Harry Potter Fandom have collapsed in on itself and I have to say I'm not surprised. When moral judgement is lapsed, it's a slippery slope and difficult to recover from. Why not spread hatred about our friends? Why not talk anonymously and have no accountablility for our actions? Why not reveal the real name of whatever BNF we feel like this weeK? Why not write stories featuring children having sex? It all become relative when there are no rules involved. The low points that happened a few weeks back were brought on not by a 'nutty Christian' as some would call those who favour religious teachings, but by a couple of people who have defended on many occassion their 'right' to promote what many of us feel is inappropriate fanfic about a series of Children's books. (Yes, they are children's books.)
While myself and the others who are privy to discussion about this journal would agree that there are indeed 'nutty Christians' who would use their faith to call the Potter Books blasphemy, we also aren't blind and can't ignore that while the books themselves are of full of wonderful values, the 'fandom' clearly isn't. It's become a place in which one must navigate carefully in order to avoid things that are so distasteful in civil society yet perfectly acceptable in this arena.
For those who wonder why this journal still exists, it is mainly this reason. Secret Society? Indeed, but we are more than happy to keep to ourselves. (You'll note our lack of posting to other's journals or becoming overly involved in discussion.)
So, according to f_s, something, somewhere, happened.
Good to know.
However, the commenters finally realized that "Why not talk anonymously and have no accountablility for our actions?" must be meant as a reference to
thewhiteprophet's anonymous meme. As to what collapsed... Msscribe's LJ, I suppose. There were only 82 strikingly-uninterested comments on this report, and Msscribe's name was not mentioned. Fandom_Scruples has not posted since.At some point around this time, Msscribe locked even the few posts she had left public and made her journal all friends-only, with a few exceptions, using this friends-only banner:
created by
ash_grey_sky, captured by Google cache May 24, 2006After this point, my account of her doings must necessarily become more sketchy because I do not -- and never did -- have access to most of her posts.
March 2005 -- Msscribe and Charitywank
I am afraid that I missed Charitywank while it was happening and never saw the post where most of the action took place on sapphsmum's journal -- nor have I found any downloads or screencaps of it -- so many of you reading this may be better informed than I am. But I will do my best.
The Fandom Wank report about this event is locked to members only, so I can't quote from that. The main sources of information available to me now are the posts in
heidi8's LJ, the brief report in the Fandom Wank Wiki, and what people have told me about it. Also, there are the Clairvoyantwank report, a discussion on Fandom_rant, and some other posts by various fandom individuals. Here is what the wiki says:The problem with CharityWank was that nothing about it was funny.
March 12, 2005: This was a direct offshoot of Laptopgate. Cancer survivor Christina/Sapphsmum appeared on Heidi's journal to request that Heidi post a link to her website after Heidi worked on promoting breast cancer awareness.
Heidi may have misinterpreted this request as a request to organize a larger fandom awareness or fundraising drive; she refused. Christina complained in her own journal at the rebuff.
Things rapidly spiralled out of control with people going over to attack Christina's journal, apparently in an attempt to defend Heidi. On Fandom_Wank, some posters also attacked Christina and were banned. Discussion was highly polarized. Eventually, the Wank Report was locked in an attempt to keep anonymice and banned posters from continuing the attacks.
Actually, the episode started on February 28, 2005, when sapphsmum commented on this public post that had Heidi made pimping a friend's fundraising effort for breast cancer. Sapphsmum requested help from Heidi in her own fundraising efforts, Heidi offered some suggestions but refused to take it on herself, and... I don't know exactly what happened next. Apparently sapphsmum posted about it on her own LJ here and apparently some of Heidi's friends -- most notably Msscribe -- commented on that post defending Heidi and criticizing sapphsmum. I have heard, but cannot say for certain as I never read it for myself, that Msscribe described herself as "skeptical" and pointed out that you should be cautious about trusting what people say about themselves on the internet. If this is true, I find it deeply amusing.
[Much later edit: Thanks to the generosity of sapphsmum and
sapphireisle I now have copies of the now-locked-then-public post on her journal and the Fandom_Wank has also been unlocked. The comment I mentioned above was actually made by Msscribe on the Fandom_Wank post (now locked but visible to the many F_W members):Personally? I'm skeptical. I don't wish this woman any ill will but it's bad practice to donate to someone you don't know as opposed to an organization designed to help them.Msscribe's comments on sapphsmum's LJ included:
My aim wasn't to attack this woman. Actually, I don't think anyone is over here attacking her, but I'm done posting. As I've said before, I hope she finds relief and gets better. It's a tough situation to be in. But for the record, I do find her sense of 'entitlement' a little off-putting.and (in response to someone who said "You do realize that this person whose journal you've invaded with your thoughtless and disgraceful behavior is in fact dying? Not sick. Dying."):
Oh please. *takes out world smallest violin*
sapphireisle's downloads of all Msscribe's comments are linked to here.]Heidi made two public posts on the matter, here, and here. In the first post, Fandom_Wank regular
snacky commented as follows:Hi Heidi. Thanks for the big welcome for folks here from f_w. Since I do understand you're not online 24-7, I can only imagine that you haven't seen what your friends/defenders/fangirls are doing in Christina's journal.Heidi replied:
A few links, since I'm sure you haven't seen this yet:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sapphsmum/14125.html?thread=123181#t123181
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sapphsmum/14125.html?thread=120621#t120621
While I appreciate their determination to defend their friend/person they admire, going on the attack in the dying woman's journal -- questioning if she is really sick -- is making them look like callous assholes. And, since they're speaking on your behalf, they're making you look like one too.
I don't imagine that you've asked them to do this. I know you can speak for yourself. But I'm hoping you can call the rabid fanpoodles off.
This whole thing - we can call it wank, defending your friends, charity, whatever. But the woman is in the hospital. She's dying of cancer. You don't have time to get involved in her cause, and believe me, I find that understandable. But what's going on in her journal, with people "defending" you? It's vile and disgusting. Enough is enough - please, when you get back online, put a stop to it.
I've read through the thread very quickly, and I honestly don't recognize many of the names there. I noticed that someone has gone in and screened some of the posts, though, so I'm clearly not seeing everything that's been posted there over the last few days.There are more comments, increasingly testy, and another appeal to Heidi from
In terms of the people I do know,
nights_mistress that she control her defenders:I see that Snacky has already said what I was going to say, but I'm going to beg, because I have absolutely no pride (because this is the internet and it's not as if you'll ever meet me anyway). Heidi, please, ask your friends to stop harassing sapphsmum. She can't defend herself, she's hospitalised, and I doubt that when she comes back, she wants to read how certain people believe she's a liar and making up the fact that she has cancer.Msscribe/Light_music responded to that one:
???
She can't defend herself, she's hospitalised, and I doubt that when she comes back, she wants to read how certain people believe she's a liar and making up the fact that she has cancer.
Is there some disappearing posts that I'm not reading? Where has ANYONE SAID THAT? Good lord, defending Heidi does not equal calling Christina a liar.
angershoes quoted a passage in explanation:"Look, if this woman has cancer (and is not, in fact, attempting to have the fandom pay for her gastric bypass surgery, which is what it sounds like when you wade through her journal), there are a myriad of organisations out there that are intended to assist women with cancer."
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sapphsmum/14125.html?thread=131885#t131885
They weren't out and out calling her a liar, but s/h/it sure did insinuate that she is. Nothing wrong with questioning whether Christina's claims are real, it's just tacky -- really, really tacky -- to do so on her LJ.
It's great that you're defending your friend, and others, defending someone they respect/admire, but in the end, all you're doing is making Heidi look bad to people who have never thought twice about her.
Heidi's third post fulfilled Snacky's and Nights_mistress's pleas:
I've been asked to make another PSA. People, please don't go onto Christina's LJ (sapphsmum) and make posts there calling her a liar and wishing for an unhappy ending to her tale. I haven't seen such posts there, but I know a few posts have been screened, so that may be why I can't see them.
As it says in the Wiki account above, the Fandom_Wank post was eventually locked mainly because of offensive anonymous comments casting doubts on sapphsmum's honesty and need. Here is the comment thread where Oulangi and Eljuno dislosed that the IPs for such comments were identical to the IP used by Msscribe to comment in the same wank. Here are some screencaps of the comments posted by
slackerbitch. I will quote just one of them:I'm amazed at how people are shocked that people don't immediately trust that the woman isn't lying. I'm not saying she is, and for what it's worth I think she probably really is sick, but it's the INTERNET. I think people have a right to be a little skeptical.Commenting anonymously, Msscribe also claimed to have called the Mayo Clinic and called the Illinois Attorney General's office to raise (completely unfounded) suspicions about sapphsmum's medical and charitable status.
As for cruelty, none of the comments I've read have been cruel.
There were many people who made indignant posts about the behavior of Heidi's defenders, both on sapphsmum's LJ and at Fandom_Wank. Here is one of them, from Funkyhelix, advocating banning those who commented on Sapphsmum's LJ:
Wanna take it a step further?
Cut and paste the following list into the admin console and ban them from your journals. Shun them. Own a community? Shun them there too. Because they can't be marked as trolling assholes, but you can make sure they can't get away with more of it.
ban_set kiwiria
ban_set light_music
ban_set countess_shell
ban_set aome
ban_set deathp4nts
ban_set tavella
Here is an icon expressing the distaste many felt, featuring one of Msscribe's userpics:
icon by Kay Wray, gacked from Oulangi
Explanation & credits:Here is a post from Oulangi that provides a kind of summary with links, and here is one from
1. Sidekick mobile device - an icon of
2. iPod - reference to the iPod Cassandra Claire wished for, before it was bought for her by her friends/fans.
3. Laptop - reference to the laptops bought for Cassandra Claire and friends with money from friends/fans after theirs were stolen.
4. Old FictionAlley front page art, by Monica Starling.
5. Icon of Msscribe's - "Super mom" chibi by Bhanesidhe. No longer in use.
6. 4Christina - the charity effort for sapphsmum.
esorlecar on LJ:Wow. I am actually, honestly so furious I'm shaking. I've been in fandom for nearly a decade, and I'm seen a lot of low, ugly, completely unconscionable shit. But this seriously tops pretty much everything I've ever seen. The number of
...When you're descending on a dying woman's journal to lecture her because a BNF and her minions found her pleas for help distasteful, you need to seriously fucking re-evaluate. And when you're arguing ad nauseam that it's only right and fair for BNFs to hit up their friends list for toys, but a dying woman trying every way she can to get the help she needs to keep herself alive should be ashamed of herself and have the decency to go die somewhere where you don't have to be bothered by it, you need to be reprogrammed with something large and heavy. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
bookshop (Aja) commented on that post:Honestly, I feel honored to have been defriended by both
Reading Christina's LJ seriously made me feel physically ill.
And... that's all I know about that. Except that several people have told me that they began disliking Msscribe because of her behavior during this episode (even not knowing that she was responsible for the anonymous comments). If you look at Msscribe's Joule, it looks like a few people defriended her at that time.
As a matter of fact, for whatever reason, Msscribe's number of friends seems to have peaked in December of 2004 and nearly every time period since then shows more people in her "defriended by" column than her "friended by" column. Since I can't read any of her posts, I have no theory as to why this might be so. Her calendar shows she is still posting regularly but, of course, it is harder for a friends-only journal to attract new readers. Not that she's exactly hurting -- she had 354 "friends of" as of the end of May, before she hid her friends-of list on June 1st, 2006.
After Charitywank, I can only give the vaguest idea of what was going on in Msscribe's (now Light_music's) life. Apparently she was safely delivered of a second daughter in May of 2005. In June, she made this post, caught by Google for some reason, displaying her distinctive style of humor. [Later edit: this is no longer available, but here you can see her public posts during this time period, as captured by the Wayback Machine on August 30, 2005.] In August she wrote an email to author Melvin Burgess (published on his website), congratulating him on "crossing lines" with sex and cursing in his YA fiction, name-dropping her "good friend," published writer Holly Black, declaring that she herself was writing a YA novel, and signing herself "Lowly American First-Timer."
I presume Msscribe bought HP Book Six when it came out in July, and read it, and perhaps attended The Witching Hour in Salem in October. In September, she posted this short Harry/Hermione fic at
hhr_serendipity. She also must have made this post -- until quite recently, her only public one -- in October, offering advice on how to obtain abortions in the face of restrictive laws. But the next I heard of her was in November of 2005, when she expressed disapproval about some icons that were being used at Fandom_Wank.
