bad_penny on journalfen.

Did anyone here ever read the Victoria Bitters saga from the LotR fandom? It's a few years old, but I just came across it, yesterday. It held me in its thrall most of the afternoon? It makes the MsScribe thing look like a Buffista kerfuffle.

That was the wank to beat before msscribe came along. Now they're spoken of in the same awed tones.

I know the name, but not the particulars. Something about a fake con and going on the lam or somesuch?

That was the wank to beat before msscribe came along. Now they're spoken of in the same awed tones.

Hee! The VB one blew my mind. It had sock puppets, people channelling actors, RPF 'shipper community wars, debunking communities, fraud-for-money, Sean-Astin-being-taken-in, fake death, and a woman magically growing a penis thanks to Elijah Wood.

It made me commit Sonnet filk, which I was going to post in my LJ, but then Kristin put up her terrific Chaucer, and even though mine was already done, I felt silly. I'll be silly here, though. Fandom Sonnet 18:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Dog days of August seem appropriate:
Rough pranks do shake the darlings of L-J,
And paid accounts hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of fandom shines,
BNFs employ a pseudonym;
And every wank from wank sometime declines,
When community funds, of course, are skimm'd;

But thy eternal flaming shall not fade
Nor lose track of the Live Journals thou own'st;
Nor shall fake Death fool those with accounts paid,
When IP logs confirm all that thou knowest:

So long as hands can type, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

There is a tenuous connection, in that the woman who went on to write the book, When the Fan Hits the Shit, has a 4Cristina banner on her website.

I may have missed some of the MsScribe particulars. Was it mostly (a horde of) sock puppets and flaming by a once respected BNF, with the awful nastiness of her minions/sock puppets ganging up on Cristina, or was there more?

Oh, honey. I hope you have some time to read.

Edit: That's the Victoria Bitter saga for Jars.

For Cindy, I would say it's mostly the story of a woman with a lot of time on her hands using sockpuppets and fandom schisms in order to ascend into the upper echelon of HP fandom and make friends with the biggest of BNFs.

Jars, that's the one. Here are some links:

Fandom Wank: [link]

A magazine story: [link]

LJ: [link]

The LJ/Book author's website: [link]

Well, there's the fact that she engineered her BNF-dom from the start by means of showing up as a complete unknown and then immediately having a bunch of sockpuppets appear to declare themselves HUGE fans of hers, and making Msscribe fan communities and sites and so on, when she'd posted her first fic ever about a week before. And the brilliant if scary way she used the tensions between different subcommunities to reinforce said BNFdom. The social engineering and networking and playing of communities is far more interesting than the eventual flames and breakdown, at least for me -- at some point in the whole saga, charlottelennox observed that while she was never more than a mediocre ficcer, she was a brilliant livejournaller, and I think that says it.

No, the Msscribe Saga is, as someone described it, basically Becky Sharpe taking on fandom and clawing her way up the social ladder using whatever it takes. Her entire involvement in fandom was geared towards getting in with the in crowd.

Read 'The Woman Who Sued Herself' on Journalfen, because it's just remarkable - the online avatar Msscribe really is a MarySue, up to and including much-vaunted unusual eyecolour and good singing voice. And she goes from unknown to sharing-a-room-with-Cassie-Claire (UberBNF of Potterdom) within 5 months, as a result of a concerted campaign to become Somebody.

It's just astonishing.

crossposted with EVERYONE.

Also - cracking sonnet, there! Go Team!

For Cindy, I would say it's mostly the story of a woman with a lot of time on her hands using sockpuppets and fandom schisms in order to ascend into the upper echelon of HP fandom and make friends with the biggest of BNFs.

I think it's the goal that makes the whole thing so wild (in the MsScribe story). She stirred so very much shit for so long, anonymously, under all those names, so that ... HP fans online would think she was cool.