Dear Fandom
Drafting my reaction to the Msscribe saga wasn't easy. I have dozens of thoughts running through my head, mostly going, "Well, mama was right. Never trust anyone online." Of course, then the rest of me remembers that not everyone is that devious, or in desperate need of whatever she needed. Part of me thinks it's a lonely life and she thought it'd be great to have her very own soap opera because her life was just that dull. Another side thinks she just liked to stir the pot because it made her happy. Small splinters have been arguing on whether she was just emotionally stunted and can't see that being a BNF isn't just that important.
Getting past the confusing feelings concerning her, I'm more sad for fandom. Not only did she dupe fandom members, create fractions for whatever reason, attack someone that hadn't done a damn thing to her, but that she thought that little of the people around her. Anyone with some kind of empathy towards other people would have never attacked and played such vicious games like that. Yes, we go by aliases online, but that doesn't mean real people aren't on the other end. The person you know me as online is who I am offline. I don't see the need to lie to people. Either you accept me or don't, not really my problem. Social climbing to get close to a BNF is stupid, and as it's seen around the fandom, hurts others in the process. BNFs are people just like everyone else and knowing them offline won't put cash in your pocket (well, with the exception of some things like laptops, but I prefer to think of that as an isolated instance. Let me revel in that deluded state please.), or make your stock rise with people outside fandom. I have BNFs on my list, I know that, but that's not why they're there. I have them for things they said that interested me, and that's usually outside of fandom.
The people who were involved with her, and I don't think I know many since I stay on the fringes of fandom purposely, seem to be reacting in either a) horror over the betrayal, b) regret for past actions, yet not really overly sympathetic, or c) ignoring or issuing passive-aggressive statements of apology. Now, the first two are understandable, however the last leaves me cold. It makes me feel like people are having problems connecting that whole "people on the other end" idea of the Internet. It doesn't matter if you think what happened was right or wrong, but at least show some empathy for the fact some people were truly hurt by this. Guess I just expect too much out of fandom sometimes. If you don't feel sorry, then don't put it out there as good PR. People will notice bullshit and call on it. It'd be better to just ignore it, or say, "Yeah, that happened. Now let's talk about something else, shall we?"
Msscribe did a lot of damage to fandom and if only half of what was written is true, that's still a lot of malicious intent on her part. I would hope people learn from this and if something isn't right then to think hard and ask why. If it seems like one person is targeted by random people for no apparent reason more often than not, then maybe it's time to reevaluate why that happens, or if it happened at all. The whole incident leaves a cynical taste in my mouth. The thing is that it always leaves me with some hope, too. If people are responding, talking, discussing, it means that no matter what they ship or what they think is detrimental to children, they realize that something needs to change. Will it? I don't know, honestly. I hope so, for the sake of all these isolated groups. That was part of the downfall of GT. It made it easy to target them because people on other sites were willing to believe it without true evidence. Picking up the small grudges and blowing them out of proportion seemed to be a patented Msscribe trait. It gave her the chance to be a victim while playing the role of instigator. I hope fandom sees that and learns from it. You don't have to like everyone in fandom (I know I sure as hell don't) but keeping to one or two areas the whole time makes for an easy target. I hope no one else has to go down that road, at least for a long while.
Note I haven't discussed Charitygate, and I won't really. I'm still disgusted about it after being linked a couple weeks ago. There's so much wrong there, and I'm not surprised Msscribe was there. After all, it was the perfect way to cause more drama.
I feel bad for everyone involved, I really do. Even Msscribe. The whole thing just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
Before I go, though, I want to leave you a link to Cordelia_v's response. I think it's a good summary of why people started reading the story, and then after it went from amusing to disgusted why they stayed.