Chapter Seven - Msscribe Settles In for the Long Hall

[charlottelennox]

The Ms.Scribe Story

An Unauthorized Fandom Biography



Msscribe Settles In For The Long Haul

September 2003 - Msscribe and the Fall of Gryffindor Tower
Finally, I am going to chronicle something that cannot possibly be blamed on Msscribe. Oh, you could argue that the pressure of Msscribe's attacks and the resulting fandom hatred put stress on the GT people and caused them to be emotional and overreactive. But you could also argue, and I think more credibly, that the presence of outside enemies brought the GT people together and welded them into a cohesive defensive unit. Perhaps it was the relative absence of pressure that precipitated the sudden collapse.

Either way, divisions had been building between two factions within the GT admin group for at least six months. The main tension appears to have been between tartanboxers and stolensocks, or Imogen. In September of 2003, tensions between the two groups came to a head and exploded spectacularly, and the entire website was closed permanently. Here is an account on the Fandom Wank Wiki, if you are interested, and here is an archived copy of GT's official statement, written by Carissa.

None of this had anything to do with Msscribe, but it affected her. All the IP screencaps of Msscribe and her alleged sockpuppets were hosted at the website, which was now deleted. The Gryffindortower LJ community, which was where most of those IPs had been harvested and where GT had published the IP evidence, was deleted and is now irretrievably lost. Possibly even more helpful to Msscribe, it might now be possible to play the two sides off against each other. Msscribe could pursue the strategy of "good GT" vs "bad GT". The "bad GTers" would be the group associated with Imogen -- the ones originally more associated with Chryslin and Jeff, the ones who possibly had tastes and moral preferences less consonant with the larger fandom (teen marriage and pregnancy okay, public smut not), and the ones with fewer fandom friendships. tartanboxers and her friends, the ones who were more slash-friendly, didn't care about public posting of smut, and seemingly had more ability to be cool and funny, would be allowed to escape the worst of the stigma and be the "good GTers," if they were willing to sell out and abandon their former friends/now bitter enemies. To their credit, they weren't, and both sides would stand firm that none of them had harbored Nutty Christians, faked or misinterpreted the IP evidence, or outed Msscribe at her workplace. Not that THAT convinced anybody.

The final and most important effect of the fall of GT on Msscribe was that she jumped on it and milked it for all it was worth, in a public relations sense. She made three posts on her LJ on September 20, 2003, the day the fall of GT became known, and five more on September 22. She was also the person who brought the great news to Fandom_Wank.

On September 20 at 2:16 PM, someone created a new JournalFen account specifically to rejoice in the downfall of GT. It was called Karma_Bitch (get it? - Karma is a bitch, and GT fell because of their terrible treatment of Msscribe and Cassandra Claire!) and went by the title "Miss Fit." Karma_bitch friended a group of Msscribe's particular friends -- alex_fen, bnfshavemorefun (Aja), ladylisse, littletort, malachan, muffinbutt, quecojones, resmiranda -- all of whom except Malachan (cygnusfap) friended her back. Months later, Msscribe's friend irinaauthor would state publicly on a GTer's LJ that Karma_bitch was Msscribe, so I think we can take that as confirmed. Here are the icons she used:




taken from Karma_bitch on JF
Three minutes after her journal was created, at 2:19 PM, Karma_bitch made this Fandom_Wank report:
Harry Potter "Pre-Wank"
Looks like the infamous http://www.gryffindortower.net (best known for spawning a few stalkers and being an all around nasty group of vindictive fandomers) is closing up shop. They've posted a lovely little explanation both here and here.

They give the reason that there has been some disharmony among their ranks. There is mass de-friending between the so-called Queens of Harry/Ginny and one (almost)feels sorry for the one they blame for all of this unhappiness, firebolt909 who seems to be no longer with us. (I believe the best part is Paula declaring that the other Queens require medication. Although tartanboxers admits this much is true on her LJ.)

My apologies for not seeing the humor in the current situation. Quite honestly, and I've been wanting to say this for a VERY long time, I think that you've all lost your f***ing minds...every last one of you.

I want no part whatsoever to do with GryffindorTower anymore, as I am just way past being sick and tired of this sort of thing, and unlike the rest of you, a bit too mature for this sort of thing.

I wish you all the best and hope that you all will find the courage to seek the medical attention that you all so obviously need.

Paula

So, she's locked them out, since she is the one who had originally registered the site. Well, you know what they say. What goes around comes around. Looks like the exterminator has paid these "Roaches" a little visit.

ETA: Looks like the angry H/G Queen has locked them out of their message boards and now authors can no longer recieve reviews. Nasty little roach, that one is.

(A little background info on the Roach thing. They took on that title themselves after one of their infamous kerfuffles with the rest of the entire fandom after flourish gave them that nickname.)

Even without anything else, I would have suspected that this was Msscribe from the use of "lovely little explanation" -- that is such a characteristic phrase of hers. Writing as Karma_bitch, Msscribe characterized GT as "best known for spawning a few stalkers and being an all around nasty group of vindictive fandomers," made fun of tartanboxers for admitting that she had suffered from depression (this part didn't go over so well with Fandom_Wank members), and reminded everyone of her "cockroach" label for GT (but without mentioning that it was she who coined the term). She also -- no doubt pleased and excited by Paula's angry email to the other admins that they'd "lost your f***ing minds," which was made public at some point -- seemed to be setting up Paula as the "good guy" of GT. One of her comments as Karma_bitch was...
Paula does seem pretty sane. It's unfortunate she had to surround herself with these wenches
... and she also supported Paula in this comment. I believe that Msscribe made friendly advances to Paula at this time, sending her an email of condolence about the end of the website. I suppose she hoped to induce Paula to dish dirt on some of the other admins, but I understand that Paula did not answer the email. Later, Msscribe would try to cast tartanboxers in that same "good guy" (or at least "less bad guy") role.

I am going to relate something now that I can't verify, because the post is long since locked. angua9 claims that when she first saw this post by Karma_Bitch she immediately suspected it was Msscribe. She looked in Msscribe's LJ and saw that Msscribe had posted and linked to Karma_Bitch's post (without saying that it was her). Angua says that one of the first commenters quoted one of the snarky remarks from the wank report and said something like "that was you, wasn't it, Dionne? I recognize your wankalicious style!" Less than two hours after Angua saw that comment, the post disappeared and she could no longer see it, though perhaps some of you reading this can. This incident will come into the story again later.

This was the only Fandom_Wank post Msscribe made as Karma_bitch, though she happily participated in the comments of the next two posts that others made on Fandom_Wank to discuss the GT situation. Months later, Karma_bitch would comment on a post made by another likely Fandom_Wank identity of Msscribe's named Sporkify, as you will see in Chapter Eight.

We can see just how successful Msscribe was at exploiting the GT collapse to further her two public relations objectives of making GT people look untrustworthy and getting lots of sympathy and attention for herself and her fics by looking at the fourth Fandom_Wank report about GT's collapse, written by Oulangi. Oulangi was (and is) a real person, definitely not a sockpuppet, and not particularly a friend of Msscribe's. Here is the report she made on September 27:
Two for one H/G HP wank
The infamous H/G ship is sinking.

Yes, sadly, Griffindor tower is shutting it's doors on October 3 for good. The kerfluffle that lead to this was - as best I can discover - about beta'ing policy. This lead to hard feelings?!!! And one of the admins went into the EZboard and switched the passwords. General meltdown ensues.

That spawning wank may well be lost. However, the remaining Queens/admins/whateveh set up a new 'farewell' board That of course was irresistible to some combatants:
There are a few 'You were all mean, I expected this to implode ages ago', and then Allie Kiwi notes that history is written by the victors:

Why is it that the one who strips another of their admin powers, without any consultation, becomes the one in the 'right' and therefore the one who gets to play martyr?

Followed by a classic 'someone please, think of the children / authors:

You've stated this occurred over a disagreement on beta'ing. Imagine how this will make them feel... you are still ripping their home apart.

This irritates tartanboxers, who comments on it *briefly* in his own LJ, where Alliekiwi also adds her 2 cents.

The GT has directly/indirectly brought some wankilicious moments; notably watchful_entity (no I have nothing to do with them! I just hate their enemies) and pottersginny. Watching the various HP camps go after eachother has brought beautiful wank to millions thousands dozens of fandom wankers. And now it appears to be over...

Except there's a new archive. Run by slayersjenn. And she appears to hate the same people that GT and watchful_entity disliked.

So much so that she created a rule on her archive to specifically exclude one popular fic. Her rejection letter used language that was strangely reminicient of watchful_entity - so much so that I'd bet were only one or two degree's from it's identity.

ETA FIYA is now disallowing any NC17 fics, not just 'knockers'
Note where the last three links on Oulangi's report go: she was getting her information from two posts Msscribe had made on her LJ. I should explain that "Knockers" was (or I suppose I should say is) a burlesque Harry/Ginny fic that Msscribe wrote in late May or early June 2003 to demonstrate her ship tolerance and to give her another thing to torment GT with. Subsequently, she submitted that fic to SQ, where it was rejected without fuss, and then to other H/G archives such as "Sink Into Your Eyes," where she finally succeeded in getting the outraged reaction she wanted. On FictionAlley, "Knockers" is actually Msscribe's most popular fic.

Msscribe commemorated the spectacular fall of her enemy in the traditional way -- with a self-described "epic poem." Posting as getlaidmarian, she enshrined her version of GT's story in verse on October 9, 2003 at the gt_hidden_room community:
Once Upon a Fandom

The words written here,
Tell a woeful tale,
Of hatred, and anger,
And angst, and betrayal.

It began in a fandom,
Not so far away,
Where the writers did laugh,
As they shipped and they played.

They wrote Harry/Hermione,
And Ron/Ginny too,
Not to mention young Draco,
(Who’d done all but a few!)

And alas, they were happy,
Because all things were well,
They wrote Slash, they wrote Het,
Had real stories to tell.

Their minds, they were open,
Their pens, they were free.
They were nearly as perfect,
As a fandom could be.

And they were talented, yes,
Because many did shine.
Irresistible Poison,
They all read over wine.

Their standards were high,
And the people wrote well,
If the writing was bad,
Well, someone did tell.

For there was no greater wrong,
Then fanfic that was crappy,
But this meant,
Not everyone,
In this fandom was happy

~
In a tower that stood,
Looking over this town,
Lived five witches, who scowled,
Tossing stones to the ground.

“How dare they!” one said, “They all say we are trite. Let’s complain, and then smite them with all of our might!”

“It’s our pairing,” cried another, “That is all that they hate!”

So they brewed up a plan,
Staying up much too late.

Said the witch Manian, who was known as the “talker”,
“We’ll scare Cassie Claire, get somebody to stalk her!”

“That’s perfect!” cried Ashy, “And I know someone who’ll do…”

Then they all turned around,
Looked directly at Zu.

“What, me?” Zu cried.

“Zu, don’t be such a louse. If they catch us, you’ll lie, and say it was your spouse.”

Zu sighed, and began to transcribe her first letter.

“Fine, we’ll scare Cassie Claire, and then things will be better.”

Lemogen said, “Make the details real gory,
she’s the one who had nerve to slander my story!”

And the witches all laughed,
As they plotted with glee,
They’d take over the fandom,
Once Cassie did flee.

~
Well, now poor Cassie Claire,
Who was up late herself,
Had just gotten finished,
Repainting her shelf,
When an email came in from some person named “Fitz”,
She gasped, and then reached for the phone ‘tween her tits.

“Heidi, some wacko has sent me a letter! I’ll forward it on!”

Heidi then said, “You better!”

And the fandom responded,
With shock and despair,
Who could threaten a person as nice as Ms. Claire?

“They’ll find out!” Zu cried,
As they watched from above,
Cassie Claire being showered,
With friendship and love.

“She’s not running!” Manian said, “Like you said that she would!”

“We’ll just have to try harder!”

They agreed that they could.

So the letters got meaner,
And they found her address,
And the hatred grew stonger,
But Cassie wrote,
… nonetheless.

Until one day the ladies who ran “Honey Quill”,
Helped them track down the letters,
And this source of ill will.

“It’s that witch in the tower, who calls herself Zu!”

And the fandomers marched,
Around quarter ‘til two,
“Leave this town now!
We all know it was you!”

Zu said, “Please protect me!”
Falling onto her knees,
But Lemogen kicked her out,
With a hearty, “Bitch, please.”

Oh, the fandom was smart,
And they suspected it true,
That the hatred of Cassie,
Didn’t come from just Zu,

But they all carried on,
They went back to their writing,
(With occasional flames,
And some nasty in fighting.)

And the tower, was still, over all, quite pleased,
“They’re not nearly as happy! Can’t you all see?”

“Hmmm, you’re right, Manian!” Lemogen said with a sneer.
“We’ll continue to flame them, and get more people here!”

And the witches in the tower,
Grew more angry every day,
Any semblance of reason,
Just withered away,

They went after a young Clara,
Who was poking around,
Trying to find who had threatened Ms.Scribe, new to town.

They accused her of evil,
And dark treachery,
But Ms.Scribe was not meek,
Like they thought she would be.
And when they came to her claiming their lie was a fact,
She laughed, and then said “You’ve been smoking much crack.”

So they added her name,
To their long list of hates,
That included FA and all shipping debates,

And they crowned themselves Queen,
As sad as that was,
And they joked, and they poked,
And they made quite a fuss,

Over things normal people would just shrug and ignore,
But the ‘Queens’ wanted all of the world to adore,
The way that they thought the HP books should be,
With a storybook ending for Harry/Ginny.

But life is not easy,
For those with dark hearts,
And their hatred of others,
Just tore them apart,

And Manian and Ashy,
Who did mistrust their friend,
Took the key to the tower,
From the mad Lemogen!
And that’s when young Pola,
did happen to say,
“You all need medication!
I’m going away”

And the fandom grew quiet,
As there came a great rumble,
And they watched with pure joy,
When the tower did crumble,

The mean witches screamed curses,
And long Bible verses,
As they fell to the ground with a thump.
And poor Ashy, cried out “This is all just not fair!”
When she landed on her very large rump.

Ivy did laugh,
And Littletort too,
And the crowd in the street,
Just grew, and grew…
And Clio yelled, “Hey, do you think that’s real wood?”
“We should use it!” cried Irina.

And they agreed, that they should.

And the spoils from the tower,
They’d all take,
Two by two…
They’d rebuild it for fandom,
For me and for you.

As Manian screamed,
“Can’t you leave one door knob?”
Ms. Scribe snatched it up,
“Bitch, you cost me my job!”

~

So the moral of this tale,
And I think you should know,
Is you get what you give,
And you reap what you sow.

~
As you can see, she used real (fandom) names for the heroes of her story, but disguised her villains with clever parody names, possibly to avoid trouble with LJ Abuse, just as she had with her parody sockpuppets like "Swolencocks" and "Tartinboxers." "Zu" is presumably meant to be Chryslin, "Manian" Ladymaidmarian, "Ashy" Tartanboxers, "Lemogen" Imogen, and "Pola" Paula. Perhaps I should have followed her crafty example and written the fandom biography of "Mswrite" or "Msslime."

After the fall of GT, as far as I can tell, the fandom enjoyed three whole months -- October, November, and December -- without any drama or wank that I can connect to Msscribe, a thing that hadn't happened since she got started in March (although, judging from this post entitled "2003-10-21: msscribe: Super Sekrit Project - (Filtered Post)" that I found in her friend sincelastjuly's LJ Memory page when I was Googling "msscribe," she may have had some other scheme that never came to light -- or, of course, she may have been planning a birthday celebration).

But if I thought Msscribe's machinations were over and the peace would last, I was dead wrong. Because in January of 2004, Msscribe -- in my opinion -- created Fandom_Scruples.

January-March 2004 -- Msscribe and Fandom Scruples
I say that in my opinion Msscribe created Fandom Scruples, because I actually have a fair amount of evidence that she did. No, not IP evidence, but... well, you'll see. First let me set up the situation.

Way back in Part One of this saga, I described the relationship between FictionAlley and the Sugar Quill as "polite but strained." That continued to be the case. Both sides nursed grudges dating back to the ship wars on HP4GU and early FAP threads, and there was periodic sniping back and forth, some open, some rather poorly disguised. In particular, SQ admins held little affection for their old debate opponents -- Penny, Ebony, and Cassandra Claire -- and that lack of affection was clearly returned.

In December 2003, the Return of the King movie came out, and thousands of people visited Cassandra Claire/epicyclical's live journal to see if she would write any more Very Secret Diaries (she didn't). I visited her LJ myself, and I have to go from memory here, because I can't see the post now. What I remember is that Cassandra Claire posted something about the NC-17 Ron/Ginny fic she was writing (later posted in April 2004 as "Mortal Instruments"). The SQ crowd tended to be annoyed by Cassandra Claire writing Ron/Ginny anyway, because she made no secret of how much she disliked both characters and it seemed to the SQers that she was writing incest-fic about them as an expression of that dislike. And several SQers thought that it was questionable judgment on Cassandra Claire's part to introduce her thousands of LotR-related visitors, not to mention her hundreds of teenaged Draco Trilogy fangirls, to the pleasures of incest smut. Angua9 had made a reference to it in this essay back in May of 2003, and in early December Arabella posted a rant about the public posting and discussion of happy, fluffy incest fics that I believe was prompted by it, though in general terms, not naming Cassandra Claire. Several of Arabella's friends responded with "word," including (if I remember correctly, because Arabella's journal was later deleted) moeyknight, piperx, firoza, perceval, dr_c, chrysantza, and wahlee_98.

Then nothing happened. At least, nothing happened until January 9, 2004, when Msscribe found (or "found"?) Arabella's rant. Msscribe was talking back and forth with a friend in this comment thread on a post in her LJ (a post she had made a couple of days earlier, on Jan. 7). I can no longer see the comment, but from what I and others remember, the friend bewailed the lack of good incest fics. Msscribe said something like "Maybe it's because of Arabella -- look what I found cruising friendsfriends!" and linked to Arabella's post. I can't remember what the friend replied (or who it was), but Msscribe said "someone needs to Fandom Wank this." She made this comment at 10:41 AM by her timestamp. Four hours and eighteen minutes later, a journalfen account was created over on JournalFen for Sporkify ("Ron's Red Headed CumQuat"), using this icon:



taken from Sporkify at JF
Six minutes later (she must write up the wank reports while she waits for the new journals to be created), Sporkify made this Fandom_Wank report:
arabe1la, Sugarquill co-founder rants about incest fics, and moeyknight weeps, WEEPS for the ickle children of the fandom.

*tears up*

Those HP Fandomers are a bunch of heathens and their fics get popular because they have no scruples! Alas, arabe1la has scruples! She has only written Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny, which, as we all know, God and JKR fully sanction.

A lovely, little afternoon wank. Although, this post was made in December. I fear there is simply too much wank in the HP fandom, and so little time to catch it all in a timely manner.

ETA heidi8 tries to make with the polite disagreement, but she probably would've done better with a "confusing reality for fanfic much?" and left it alone as all her words make my head hurt.

ETA chrysantza offers her support!. Mmmm, yummy wank.

A little over three hours after that, moeyknight, an admin at SQ who was featured in the wank report, received this spiteful anonymous comment on her LJ:
Happy Birthday. You've been wanked. (http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/273803.html?mode=reply)
The IP was 209.234.160.76, in the same series as the GTE/Time Warner IPs that GT had published for Msscribe. moeyknight -- who had IPs for Msscribe from several emails, both about the submission of the "Knockers" fic to SQ and about Arabella's post -- concluded that this anonymous commenter was Msscribe.

So... who is Sporkify? Here are all the possibilities I can see, in order of descending likelihood:
1 - Sporkify is Msscribe;
2 - Sporkify is the friend that Msscribe was chatting with on her LJ;
3 - Sporkify is some other person who happened to be catching up on the comment threads of a two-day-old post by Msscribe or to whom Msscribe happened to mention Arabella's post by IM, e-mail, or telephone during that four hour period; or
4 - Sporkify is some other fandom person who happened upon Arabella's month-old post at the same time as Msscribe did, or who already knew about Arabella's month-old post and happened by pure chance to decide to report it four hours after Msscribe's comment.
I like #1. Msscribe said someone should wank it and four hours later someone did wank it. The simplest solutions are usually the best.

[Later edit: After the publication of this story, Fandom_Wank mod Eljuno released Sporkify's IP (68.82.43.3) and FictionAlley administrator heidi8 posted that this IP was a match for the IP used by Msscribe at FictionAlley during that time period. Msscribe later admitted that she was Sporkify.]

Arabella's opinion was not surprisingly an unpopular one with Fandom_Wank members, especially when presented so negatively (yes, I realize it would have been unpopular anyway). Much mock was made on Fandom_Wank and, because this was in the era before Fandom_Wank's no-trolling rule was enforced (or even created?), Arabella's LJ received a few hundred posts disputing her opinion in terms ranging from polite reasoning through patronizing sarcasm to abusive cursing. When she returned from out of town and found it, she made an "I give up, post your incest anywhere you like" post, deleted her LJ, and basically left the fandom.

Did you notice Msscribe's pet phrase, "a lovely, little afternoon wank" in Sporkify's wank report? I would also particularly direct your attention to these words (bold mine):
they have no scruples! Alas, arabe1la has scruples!
I presume that "scruples" is a word that Arabella had used in her rant, though of course I don't remember. Anyway, it obviously caught Sporkify's fancy, and four days later someone -- and I'm thinking Sporkify -- created fandom_scruples.

fandom_scruples was created on January 13, 2004, with the following userinfo:
Fandom Scruples
The Blacklist and the Goldlist.

This journal was created to reward responsible members of the fandom who do not post incest, rape, beastialiy, or NC17 fics where young children can access them. If you were friended, we're highlighting that you've had the courage not to succumb to the 'popular' trends that have led to this fandom being infected with indecent and irresponsible fanfic. I woud personally like to thank arabe1la for having the courage to finally speak out against this.

I am one of many who do not believe these writers should be rewarded, and therefore a Black list will be started based on evidence that authors have irresponsibly posted NC17 fanfic in a place where children can access it. Hopefully, it will encourage them to remove it or move it to an archive that is password protected. When they lock down their fics, they will be removed from the list.

The management.
The journal was created at 8:01 AM. The only people it friended were the people on its list of "Goldlist authors." This consisted of Arabella and all the people who had originally commented positively on Arabella's rant, plus a few others associated with SQ and the former GT. No record remains that I can find of Fandom_Scruples' original "Goldlist" but here is the list as it stood on August 1, 2004, when their political leanings were being discussed on Fandom_Wank:
Angua
Ashavah
B.Bennet
Caitlyn MC
Chrysantza
dandelionsummer
Dr. C
Firoza
harpinred
immovablemover
joesther
juliaweasley
moeyknight
perceval
piperx
sff_corgi
shellebelle_93
sunshyndaisies
wahleee_98
zsenya
misspince, ladymaidmarian, and edeainfj were originally on the list, but were removed when they proved that they did not meet the standards. tartanboxers and themorningstarr were also on the list, but were taken off when they asked to be removed. Everyone listed was either from SQ or the former GT, or an R/Hr or H/G shipper.

At 11:22 AM, Fandom Scruples made its first post. At 3:14 PM, Sporkify reported Fandom Scruples to Fandom Wank. At 4:36 PM, Fandom Scruples received its first comment, an anonymous one.

Think about that for a moment: A sockpuppet LJ is created. Someone finds it within hours (how?) and reports it to Fandom Wank. Who could this be? It had to be either the person who created it, or one of the people it friended. There is no other serious possibility, unless you think Sporkify was continually monitoring one of their userinfo pages (Arabella's, perhaps?), noticed within hours that one new person had friended whichever person he was monitoring (and if it was Arabella, she had a very large friends-of list, so he'd have had to be sharp-eyed), and rushed to investigate. And everyone Fandom_Scruples friended was a person who liked and admired Arabella. Most of them had commented positively on Arabella's rant and been mocked for it on Sporkify's Fandom_Wank report. Isn't it obvious that none of them were Sporkify? None of them wanked Arabella's post a full month after she made it. And none of them reported a new sockpuppet troll that was obviously designed to embarrass them and make them look bad to Fandom_Wank. Sporkify created Fandom_Scruples. And Sporkify, by all available circumstantial evidence (not to mention motive and MO), was Msscribe.

At least, that's what I and many others concluded.

All further developments only served to reinforce me in that opinion. It was obvious that the "Goldlist" was made by someone who knew very little about the SQ area of the fandom. The list of people supposedly conscientiously protecting children included at least one person who ran an NC-17 archive without a password. It also included sunshyndaisies, whose LJ was well known in that part of the fandom as an excellent source of smut (which was NOT locked), not to mention Arabella and Zsenya, whose smutty fics were not always password-protected away from minors -- especially the wonderful shorts Arabella had contributed to seviet's Smut Week in protest of President Bush's Marriage Protection Week. Apparently, Fandom_Scruples didn't know about those -- and neither did Sporkify, who made the ludicrously false claim that Arabella had only ever written R/Hr and H/G! edeainfj and angua9 had also posted, and have posted since, smutty fics without protection from minors. The list also contained two people who had never published any fanfic at all. It included dr_c, who had basically left the fandom long before. It included ladymaidmarian, who immediately published smut on her LJ (with a link "KIDDIES CLICK HERE FOR FREE PORN") to show her opinion of Fandom_Scruples. In other words, the list was a joke, and the "Goldlist" crowd generally thought that it was a parody meant to make the "Goldlist authors" look bad.

The next thing Fandom_Scruples did was to publish the Big Name Sinners list -- I mean the Blacklist -- of all the bad, nasty fandom writers who didn't lock up their smut. Here is the list as you can see it now, not as it originally stood:
lissannej
camillabloom
aome
trakkie
msscribe
epicyclical
jlh
anna_maria
-----------
darkrosetiger
telesilla
charchusegigi87
sincelastjuly
purebloodygryff
nightfalltwen
likebunnies
bookshop
arielchan
r_becca
oulangi
photosinensis
bunny_wabit
eljuno
ivyblossom
glockgal
misspince
calliope14
jessindistress
tocomfortyou
eibbil_libbie
sarea_okelani
jade_okelani
iscaris
simons_flower
tartpants
ari_o
altricial
madlori
ladysorka
copperbadge
dancing_moon
ajhalluk

Msscribe was near the top, of course, along with Cassandra Claire, Lissanne, and Aja (Bookshop), Msscribe's newer friends and supporters (especially those who had been involved in Msscribe's fight against GT), and a few less-well-known friends of hers like bunny_wabit from Portkey. A few popular Fandom_Wank people -- notably Oulangi and Eljuno -- were also included, presumably to make it play better on Fandom_Wank. I remember that misspince was removed from the Goldlist and added to the Blacklist after she pointed out that she co-ran a passwordless smut archive, so I have drawn a line above her and am going to assume that all the names below that line were later additions to the original list.

[Later edit: I learned from this comment from Oulangi and this comment by Photosinensis that Oulangi, Telesilla, Darkrosetiger, Eljuno, Photosinensis, and Bunny_wabit were all added after the original list came out. Therefore I have moved the line to above Darkrosetiger's name. I still don't know exactly where the original list stopped and the additions started.]

The effect of this was basically the same as Fermatojam's Big Name Sinners list and Watchful Entity's Watch list, though not quite as much troll-baiting fun since Fandom_Scruples, perhaps tired of its overflowing inbox, frequently froze or disabled comments. But when it did allow comments, the fandom flocked to oblige. Whatever else you might say about Msscribe, she knows how to reach her audience. People eagerly brandished their credentials for being on the Blacklist, some posting their unlocked porn right in the comments, and a few of them -- all of the ones below Darkrosetiger on the list above and a few more on Fandom_Scruples' next post -- were fortunate enough to be added.

Like Watchful Entity, Fandom Scruples was discussed at Fandom Wank many times: Jan. 13, 2004, Jan. 14, Jan. 14, Jan. 26, Jan. 26, Jan. 27, Feb. 18, Aug. 15, Aug. 22, Aug. 23, Sep. 29, Oct. 4, and Jan. 21, 2005.

If we look at Msscribe's known and suspected troll sockpuppets in sequence, we see them become progressively less closely connected to her. This means that they became less risky, in the sense that she would be less and less likely to be suspected of making them, but they also became less effective at bringing her attention, admiration, and sympathy. The first major one, Fermatojam, targeted and stalked Msscribe in person. The second, Pottersginny, insulted her personally with vile racist epithets ("zebra," "mulatto") and posted on her LJ. The (probable) third, Watchful_Entity, friended her and others that people could recognize as being associated with her, and vaguely associated itself with a group (GT) known to dislike her. But the fourth, Fandom_Scruples, didn't single out Msscribe (other than listing her as one of the writers on the Blacklist) and associated itself with the Sugar Quill if anything -- a group not known to have any particular emnity for Msscribe other than presumed shipping differences (and since Msscribe never maintained that Harry and Hermione were going to end up together in the actual series, the canon-thumping SQers would actually have had no issues with her). Moreover, because Fandom_Scruples set itself up as a list only of people who posted NC-17 fics not behind passwords, Msscribe couldn't "honor" all her friends by targeting them on the Blacklist and include everyone in the fun troll-bashing frenzy that she wanted to include. In particular, she couldn't include heidi8, who had never written any fic above PG-13. But she soon found a way around that.

In its second post on January 14, Fandom Scruples lobbed a shot right across Heidi's bow:
It has also come to our attention that a few of the writers mentioned are key organizing staff for Nimbus 2005 (which we won't link to) and we are calling for a boycott of that conference unless they make a reasonable attempt to keep their adult material away from underage readers. We don't think this is an unreasonable request.

Several fics found at FictionAlley we believe have crossed over the R rating (which many feel is inappropriate for a site that allows 13 year olds to register at) and we are currently in the process of compiling a letter of complaint to send to heidi8. Because she may not be aware of these fics, we have left her off the list for now.

Threatening Nimbus and FictionAlley, and mentioning Heidi by name -- that should fetch her! And, of course, it did. Heidi made a locked post in reply to Fandom Scruples on Jan 14, and then three more posts indirectly responding to it on Jan. 14, 15, and 19.

On Jan. 26, Fandom Scruples made a post on obscenity law and a threat:
To those who might not know it, Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was passed on Oct. 21, 1998. The Act makes it a federal crime to use the World Wide Web to distribute "for commercial purposes" material considered "harmful to minors," with penalties of up to $150,000 for each day of violation and up to six months in prison.

We have compiled evidence against several websites who have knowingly violated this law.

We believe everyone is responsible for the social welfare of children online and that website owners can easily provide adult authentication access for free or for a fee to adults.

There are no excuses. We have come to a decision that we will give websites two weeks to comply with COPA or we will report them to a federal agency that we have sought advice from.

Again, Heidi responded with two public posts on Jan. 26, and on Jan. 27 she linked to a post by another fandom attorney, ajhalluk, suggesting that what Fandom_Scruples was doing might be blackmail. Comments on Heidi's first post are a good sampling of how the fandom saw Fandom Scruples:

Apparently ari_o suspected Pottersginny:

sincelastjuly:
ari_o, maybe you're right -- maybe it's the same person that pottersginny was?
Yes. Yes, I do believe it was the same person. ;)
sincelastjuly suspected GT: I recognize one or two from GT, and one or two from SQ. I'd place my money on GT, though.

heidi8 defended her fellow site admins:
I doubt it's any of the GT ex-Queens, and I am 100% sure it's none of the admin or mods on SQ. They know the law beter than this. I know this because I've talked with a number of them about it. They wouldn't need to go to the KFCs as morality in media!

chickadilly reminded people that those on the "Goldlist" might be upset as well:
if F_S starts up more shit and continues to threaten people and continues to keep the people on the so called 'gold list' who have asked to be removed; thus making it look as if they support F_S do those F_S folks have a legal leg to stand on if they wish to sue based on defimation of character?

On Heidi's second post, angua9 commented:
It is my opinion that Fandom_Scruples is a sockpuppet by someone who couldn't care less about smut on the internet, but just wants to cause excitement and flaming in the fandom. That would explain why they are behaving in such a ridiculously offensive and counterproductive manner for their so-called "cause."

There are two ways I know of to track down sockpuppets. The best one is if they post on someone's journal or site where IP's are logged. Apparently, the person behind Fandom_Scruples has been too cagey to do that. Too bad.

The other is to track who first reported the sockpuppet to the fandom. The earliest reference to F_S that I can find was a Fandom Wank post by Sporkify less than four hours (by my computer's time logs) after Fandom_Scruples made his or her first post.

If anyone knows who Sporkify is (I don't, but I'm sure others do), I would suggest asking him or her where they heard of Fandom_Scruples. I don't believe he or she was on the original "Gold List" of people unwillingly friended by Fandom_Scruples, so I would venture to guess that Sporkify either *is* Fandom_Scruples, or else he or she had Fandom_Scruples brought to their attention by the sockpuppeteer. Anyway, in only four hours, the chain couldn't have been TOO long.
Angua was sure at this time that Sporkify was Msscribe and she thought some of Msscribe's friends might know that, since she knew that they had recognized Karma_bitch as Msscribe. But apparently they didn't.

On the same post, Msscribe (now showing as light_music) rose above the whole mess: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

*goes back to playing with Elise*

After making the first Fandom Wank report about Fandom_Scruples, Sporkify left it to others to report its doings. Fandom_Scruples continued to keep the fandom entertained with another posting of so-called obscenity law later on January 26 and a call to think of the children on February 18. Like Fermatojam and Pottersginny, Fandom_Scruples copied its arguments from online sites; unlike them, it credited its sources -- primarily "Morality in Media." The responses varied between scornful rebuttals of Fandom_Scruples' legal claims, attempts to get Fandom_Scruples ToS'ed from Live Journal, calls of "don't feed the troll," and continued but now unsuccessful clamoring to be added to the Blacklist.

As for Sporkify, he found new targets. On January 24, five days after he brought Fandom_Scruples to our attention, he made this Fandom_Wank post about the former GT:
Harry Potter Fandom is better than Springer!
Do you all remember Gryffindor Tower, that website filled with crap fic archive that fell in on itself some months ago? It was the same archive that accused HP BNF msscribe's nanny of having a trillion identities because their good friend Imogen couldn't possibly be nutters.

Yes. Of course you do.

It seems that dear Imogen really is teh evil, and her attitude towards us common folk is worse than her writing. (You see, the other chatter turned on Imogen as well!)

One of the ex-admins, who is a bit on the sour side has publically posted the private chat that led to the website's demise.

tartanboxers is very amused. She also gives us a nifty link to Imogen's journal, with ladymaidmarian 's rant mixed in.

Warning: Do not read actual journal. Actual Journal is very, very boring.

*sniffs*

Wank on, GT. Wank on.
"Sporkify" sets up a false dichotomy:
the same archive that accused HP BNF msscribe's nanny of having a trillion identities because their good friend Imogen couldn't possibly be nutters.
This implies that the question of Imogen being "nutters" was ever a part of Msscribe's dispute with GT. It wasn't, of course. Imogen was particularly busy at that time and was hardly involved -- the main investigating was done and the announcements made by carissa_lynn and tartanboxers. But scapegoating Imogen and letting Tartanboxers be the "good guy" appears to have been Msscribe's strategy at this time. Sporkify's wank report approvingly portrays Tartanboxers as "very amused" and giving "nifty" links, while Imogen is "nutters" and "really ... teh evil," and her attitude is "worse than her writing."

I hope I don't need to point out that "HP BNF" Msscribe's nanny publicly accused herself of having many identities -- though admittedly not "a trillion."

Two days later, on January 26, Sporkify went on to report some R/Hr shippers calling themselves Sidekickers who were trying to start a petition to keep a hug between Ron and Hermione in the third movie. Then, on March 1st, he found something even better...

CHAPTER EIGHT - MSSCRIBE SURVIVES CHALLENGES