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.

Ooh, links. Thankee people. There goes my evening.

Hee. Fay and amy, my last post was an x-post with yours. I love both your summaries. You two have paid more attention to the story than I have. I may have to read more of it.

Becky Sharpe taking on fandom

I'm marrying this analogy.

Did anyone here ever read the Victoria Bitters saga from the LotR fandom?

Oh, ha. I met Victoria Bitter at a con once, before she pulled all this. At the time, I remember thinking, "She's a bit off, isn't she?"

Little did I know.

I had to reread the high points of the Victoria Bitter thing. I have to say, between channelling the imaginary spirits of imaginary hobbits, growing magical penises, and appearing on an actual milk carton, she's still got msscribe beat.