What happened with hivliving

On or around October 26, 2017, news of Hamilton wank started spreading among fans on Tumblr and Twitter. Over the next few days, the news spread so widely that several of the accounts that initially shared the news were subsequently deleted. The wank involved a fundraising scam, catfishing, sock puppeting, cyber bullying, and alleged mermaid cannibalism.
What happened with hivliving was the title of the initial tumblr post by digoxin-purpurpea. 
==Some Background==
In 2016, one or more Hamilton fans began the hivliving tumblr to raise issues about living with HIV positive status.The original blog was deleted in late October 2017, however an archived version of the website can be found here. The first archived back on the WayBack Machine is dated August 2016. The blogs were subsequently picked up and taken over by critics of hivliving. and It was recommended by many on Tumblr and Twitter as a good source of info on HIV+ issues. It was thought to be run by two people: Israa, a nonbinary Chinese-Pakistani human trafficking survivor living in India and the other, Naj, a US-born lesbian of color also living in India.for me being hiv+ has resulted in friendships post by allolesbean dated Sept 2016. 
Both of the fans stated that they were HIV positive and both had main blogs of their own. Together, they ran the hivliving tumblr for over a year until Naj linked to her cash.me fundraiser asking for help for medical expenses. Digoxin-purpurpea, another Hamilton fan, realized that the owner of the cash.me account was most likely US based and confronted her about it. After much back and forth, Naj, one of the moderators of hivliving, confessed that she was a white US college student who lied about her identities and HIV status. Both Naj and Israa did not exist, she did not have HIV, and she did not live in India. She then posted a confession on the hivliving tumblr and tagged it Hamilton. ; , reblog. She also promised to repay people she had defrauded on her Cash.me account. To date no proof has been given that she reimbursed anyone.
Some fans believe that she created these identities "...to justify themselves writing an HIV-centric modern high school AU Hamilton fanfiction. They then posited themselves as an expert on HIV for discourse credentials."; 
The screencaps posted by digoxin-purpurea support this explanation. 
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Later some fans claimed out that Digoxin-purpurpea had been forced to delete their Hamilton RPF cannibal mermaid fic from AO3 by hivliving and her followers and that this may have been part of the motivation for their investigation. As of Oct 2017, the only cannibal mermaid Hamilton fic on AO3 that features Hamilton and Jefferson was written by someone else. See also Others disagreed with this assessment. As of October 20, 2017 Digoxin-purpurpea's tumblr account and RPF fic have been deleted.
Members from Fail-Fandomanon reported that some of their participants had noted inconsistencies in blueskysapphic's statements and posts as early as October 2016. They also noted a pattern of claiming harassment by other fans based on their HIV+ status along with frequent call-out posts of her own against other fans based on a wide range of social justice issues.ain't me, I ain't no tumblr's son [tumblr threadhttps://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/213394.html?thread=1180187794#cmt1180187794 I hear the tumblr comin'] dated August 2016.Fandom Venting - Hamilton dated Aug 2016.feel the tumblr on my forty-five - Hamilton dumpster fire continues to smolder dated Aug 2016.
 This led one member to comment: 
==Who is Who?==
* Naj (allolesbean) and Israa (blueskysapphic) do not exist. They are sockpuppets of the same person who has confirmed that she created these identities. In addition to the callout, this person was doxxed by digoxin-purpurpea.
*hivliving is the name of the tumblr created by "Naj" and "Israa" that focused on HIV+ education, activism and social justice.
*"To Scale The Blue Sky" is the Hamilton high school AU fic written by Israa (blueskysapphic). It is 170k long and features Alexander Hamilton as a high school student living with HIV in the 1980s. The story appeared on rec lists, including a list of works written by writers of color. It has since been deleted from AO3. The fic was popular in some parts of the fandom, and had fanart on tumblr.
* digoxin-purpurpea, a Hamilton fan on Tumblr who investigated and uncovered the sockpuppets and confronted the creator. 
** Digoxin-purpurea used the the username digitalis to publish Hamilton fic and candiru to publish Hamilton RPF and Political RPF fic. Their RPF was mainly kinkfic with a supernatural twist - for example, their most popular RPF fic was a (now deleted) Lin-Manuel Miranda/Anthony Ramos fic where Lin had sex with the ghost of Alexander Hamilton. Digoxin-purpurea had been mocked and shamed for their Political RPF writings on multiple occasions.Apr 12 2017 post by beachdeath
**They had also posted a Lin-Manuel Miranda/Anthony Ramos RPF fic where Lin was a cannibal mermaid (it featured romance and murder, but no vore) to AO3. This fic has not been identified by name and may have been deleted earlier in response to call-out posts by hivliving and their followers. (This fic started something of a trend, and there were at least two other cannibal/vore mermaid Hamilton RPF fics, both of which have now been deleted from AO3. One was later published in edited form as an M/M novel.) 
** Digoxin-purpurea deleted their blog and most of their fic shortly after the wank blew up on tumblr. Their RPF fic was locked before it was deleted and was little-known outside of the RPF fandom, which led to the confusion over whether the cannibal mermaid fic existed. 
* For a time, one work remained on digitalis's AO3 which addressed the issue. It had previously been a Hamilton fanfic, but the text was replaced and it was renamed: Why are you freaks missing the point so badly? Do you have any sense of empathy? This is not the Lin/Anthony RPF fic. It was a different cannibal mermaid fic with the pairing Hamilton/Laurens - an archived version of the original fic is available. This fic was later deleted as well.
In one comment, digitalis stated:
==Overview==
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*digoxin-purpurea (with references): ; ; , ; and 
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* summary of last few days board drama, October 28, 2017
* When Posting Goes Wrong: The Hamilton fanfic writer who PRETENDED TO HAVE HIV FOR CLOUT, a youtube video summarizing the situation posted on July 10, 2020 by doubleca5t (reupload after deletion)
* The Insane Tumblr Scandal of hivliving, a 52-minute video detailing the entire scandal by Strange Æons, posted June 20, 2023 (Accessed February 7, 2024)
==Discussion==
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Website set up to address the fundraising scam:
*hivlivingscam
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==References==
Category:Hamilton
Category:2017 Events
Category:Scandals
Category:Social Media Feature-Wank Wednesday
Category:Disability & Fandom Meta