Msscribe

msscribe was a fan in Harry Potter fandom who committed such shocking hijinks of deceit, sockpuppetry, and exploitation that she got her own exposé. See The Ms.Scribe Story: An Unauthorized Fandom Biography.
==Name Capitalization==
The capitalization of her username was always msscribe. However, her LiveJournal layout and name field are stylized and signed "Ms.Scribe", and she signed her name "Ms.Scribe" in forum threads at FictionAlley Park (example).
Fans usually capitalize the username as Msscribe when discussing her, or as MsScribe to clarify pronunciation, but she did not use these capitalization variations herself. 
Of The Ms.Scribe Story she said, "Hey Charlotte, girl, you got my name right! You wouldn’t believe how many people fuck that up."archive.is capture of the LiveJournal post "All my apologies are belong to you." by dejaspirit, dated 2006-10-12.
==Her Debut on LiveJournal==
Msscribe started her LJ on February 21, 2003. 
==Her Fiction==
Msscribe wrote at least 21 Harry Potter stories. Most are Harry/Hermione and/or Draco/Ginny. She also wrote a handful of other pairings, from Harry/Draco to rarepairs such as Ron/Narcissa.
Most of her Harry/Hermione and Draco/Ginny stories are online at Portkey.org. Her one Harry/Ginny story, "Knockers," was posted at the Ron/Hermione and pro-Harry/Ginny archive Checkmated until the archive went offline—even though it is sometimes interpreted as a parody of the Harry/Ginny ship. Several of her fics are also online at FictionAlley, and many of her NC-17 fics were posted The Restricted Section.RestrictedSection.org, Stories by Author - M, archived by the Wayback Machine 17 November 2005. Some stories were also posted to her LiveJournal but have since been deleted.
Her fanfiction includes:
* "Amnesty" (Harry/Draco, NC-17), July 2003
* "Beauté de la mer" (Hermione/Fleur, NC-17), July 2003
* "Behind Glass" (Narcissa/OC, NC-17)
* "Dinner for Three" (Harry/Cho, Harry/Hermione, Hermione/Cho, NC-17)
* The Draco & Ginny series:
** "The Fairy Hunter" (Draco/Ginny, NC-17)
** "Eyes Wide Open" (Draco/Ginny, NC-17)
** "After the Dance" (Draco/Ginny, NC-17)
** "Reluctant Savior" (Draco/Ginny, NC-17)
** "Commencement" (Draco/Ginny, NC-17)
** "Signs" (Draco/Ginny, NC-17)
** "The G.W. Suite" (Draco/Ginny, NC-17)
* "A Friendly Wager" (Ron/Narcissa, NC-17)
* "Ginny Weasley Thinks She's In Love" (Draco/Ginny, NC-17), January 2003 – January 2004
* "Hush" (Harry/Hermione, R), February 2003 – November 2003
* "Ice" (Harry/Hermione, NC-17), February 2003
* "Knockers" (Harry/Ginny, R), June 2003
* "Peeping Neville" (Harry/Hermione, NC-17), December 2002 – February 2003
* "Requital" (Ginny/Draco, Harry/Hermione, Ron/Cho, NC-17), December 2002 – January 2003
* "This" (Harry/Hermione, NC-17), January 2003
* "Under The Silver Moon" (Harry/Hermione, NC-17), March 2003
* "Ungodly Affections" (Ron/Ginny, NC-17)
==FictionAlley==
See 
Some favorites: 
* Msscribe posted that her favorite authors were: Cassandra Claire, Nancy Malfoy, Lissanne, AngieJ, Babygrrl, Purebloodgryff, Rhysenn, Elia Sheldon, Clio, Ali Wildgoose. 
* Her favorite artists were: LadyLisse, Lizardlaugh, Mon Starling, Tosh.
* Her pairings were: Harry/Hermione, Harry/Draco, Hermione/Ginny, Ginny/Draco, Ron/Ginny, Ron/Pansy, Ron/Hermione. 
Msscribe registered at FictionAlley is November 2002. She was a mod at FictionAlley from early June 2003 to late March 2004. Her last post was 4th March, 2004 at 03:06 PM.
==Other Fannish Involvement==
Msscribe was originally involved as a high-ranking member of the staff at The Witching Hour, a Harry Potter symposium held in 2005. Sometime after March 4, 2004, she resigned/was replaced by someone else. A 2004 Announcement 
== Summary of the Famous Exposé ==
:See also: The Ms.Scribe Story: An Unauthorized Fandom Biography
Beginning in late 2002, msscribe developed a series of sockpuppets and Munchausen-y scenarios, including: fangirls, mean haters, life-threatening injury-complications requiring hospitalization and quasi-permanent disability, having her computer hacked, being stalked (sometimes by fundamentalist Christians), having a friend die, racist attacks, being the target of internet conspiracies, and generally becoming the most oppressed and harassed fan in the world. And that was just in 2003.
The purpose of her antics appears to have been social climbing within the Harry Potter fandom, as she consistently attached herself to BNFs and cultivated strategic alliances and enmities.In a 2004 email to heidi8, angua said, 
, Jun. 22nd, 2006. Although she wrote Harry Potter fanfic, her primary claim to fame was fame.
Despite elaborate explanations that worked in the short term, msscribe was ultimately unmasked by a long series of IP matches that revealed her stalkers and sycophants alike were using her internet connection. Considerable denial within her chosen Harry Potter communities allowed the fiction to persist long after damning evidence was publicly available. It is unclear whether this denial was peculiar to the particular set of friends, to an aspect of Harry Potter culture, or to the entertainment value of seeing the controversy appear again and again on Fandom Wank. Wankaz have admitted to themselves that, in making fun of msscribe, they also gave her the attention and fame (and even, among circles that distrust Fandom Wank, the esteem) she craved.Discussion in , posted 22 June 2006. Accessed 19 December 2008.
== Fannish Impact ==
:See Impact of "The Ms.Scribe Story" for more.
Under the name Sporkify, Msscribe created the Livejournal Fandom Scruples in 2004, purportedly to watchdog "immoral" fanfiction (but actually to draw attention and righteous support and to ensure her name was associated with several Harry Potter BNFs). Fandom Scruples went on to become the subject of considerable ire.Darlas_mom. Fandom Scruples (now offline) 25 January 2004. Accessed 19 December 2008.
Another outcome of the Msscribe story being told all at once (and in Bad Penny, a forum with a panfannish audience) was that a number of people decided that HP fandom was extremely crazy. Cofax. , 20 June 2006. Accessed 19 December 2008. With the Msscribe saga being described in depth (retroactively) and the Cassandra Claire controversy ongoing, the summer of 2006 appeared to be the summer of Harry Potter fans' humiliation.
As the evidence was examined, various apologies were offered and asked for, but some were deemed more sincere than others.
==Pseuds==
: See List of MsScribe's Socks for much more detail.
thumb|one fan's 2006 graph of Msscribe's pseuds
Soon after Msscribe started posting fanfic to Fiction Alley in December 2002, she started creating sockpuppets. 
Some of the troll socks were moral watchdogs who posted blacklists of fan writers who posted gay smut, "didn't think of the children", etc. The lists always included Msscribe.
 
Some socks were also set up as members of Gryffindor Tower , some 2003 posts (a Harry/Ginny shipper archive) to make Gryffindor Tower look bad.
==Interaction with Cassandra Claire==
An early encounter between MsScribe and Cassandra Claire in which Msscribe, fresh on the fannish playing field, reviews Draco Dormiens: This letter by MsScribe, titled "My Dumb Ass Letter To Cassandra Claire", was written just after a previous letter, and includes two anonymous comments that are possibly by Fermatojam, making this an early appearance of a MsScribe sockpuppet. From a section of The Ms.Scribe Story (The Ms.Scribe Story: "On February 26, Msscribe related her real-life encounter with a homophobic Nutty Christian in her delightful "Baby Dykes and Luxury/Budget Motels" post [...] This adorable post got the newbie Msscribe a lot of attention and her friended-by list jumped from about 5 people to 20-something (see her Joule here). On March 3, she posted "My Dumb Ass Letter To Cassandra Claire". I highly recommend you click on this downloaded copy and read the post and its comments. It has all the classic Msscribe elements -- profuse praise of Cassandra Claire, hilarious stories about her chaotic homelife, not-so-subtle references to her upscale lifestyle, a bit of free-spirited raunchiness, and -- most of all -- inexplicable constant attacks from anonymous hostile trolls. Msscribe received far more flames in her first three months in the fandom than most people receive in their entire fandom lives. And she was an innocent and inoffensive newbie writer of pleasantly spicy het stories. It's a strange world. Anyway, she received the following two anonymous comments for daring to praise Cassandra Claire: [...] Fermatojam, I presume?" . See My Dumb Ass Letter To Cassandra Claire (March 3, 2003).
==Some Comments==
===2006===
===2016===
===Further Reading===
====2006====
 
* lying awake in the garden, by musesfool, June 16, 2006
* , by oulangi, “Personally, as someone who watched these sagas unfold from the sticky peanut gallery of fandom wank, I never quite *got* msscribe.” June 16, 2006
June 17, 2006:
* , by alchemine, June 17, 2006
* , by lyore, June 17, 2006
* , by Phoenixwriter, June 17, 2006
June 18, 2006:
* , , by oulangi, June 18-19, 2006 
* , by Phoenixwriter, June 18, 2006
* , by Narcissa Malfoy, June 18, 2006
* , by rhiannomr, June 18, 2006
* , by oulangi, “I think it's the first time since who knows when a million fan voices suddenly cried out: "whaaaa... the fuck?!"” June 18, 2006
* , by story, June 18, 2006 
* Fandom’s Best Five Years Ever!, by sparkly stuff, June 18, 2006
June 19, 2006:
* Microconspiracies, by Annalee Newitz, June 19, 2006
* , archive link page one; page two; archive link page two; ; archive link page three, by heidi8, June 19, 2006
* untitled; archive link, by oulangi, “We're nearing the home stretch in this edramaganza, and the shock seems to have rippled right across all fandoms.” June 19, 2006
* , by suaine] June 19, 2006
* , by doctoraicha, June 19, 2006
* , by nmalfoy, June 19, 2006
* , by nmalfoy, June 19, 2006
* , by finisterre, June 19, 2006
* , misscam, June 19, 2006
June 20, 2006:
*Charlotte Lenox as a writer of historical narrative, by cordelia v, June 20, 2006 
* ; by mudblood428, June 20, 2007
* , by aubrem, June 20, 2006 
* On the Machiavellian machinations of a so-called fan, by amihan 811, June 20, 2006
* My humble post on the drama, by ryf, June 20, 2006
* Church of the Fannish Mind, by rj anderson, June 20, 2006
* Dear Fandomarchive link, by veracity, June 20, 2006
* untitled, by cleolinda, "Just as a coda to the Charlotte Lennox thing, we have at least two confirmations of some of the skullduggery." June 20, 2006
* , , by Ivy Blossom, June 20, 2006
* by thelastgoodname, June 20, 2006 
* , by vehemently, June 20, 2006
* , by telesilla, “We all want to be liked." June 20, 2006
* , by mawaridi, June 20, 2006
* , by stoney321, June 20, 2006
* , by Seema, “Some Trek friends and I have been reminincising about days of yore on the newsgroup, when the cult of personality wasn't quite strong…” June 20, 2006
* , by tangle of thorns, June 20, 2006
* It’s just riveting – more fandom thoughts, by suzannemarie, June 20, 2006
* , by doctoraicha, June 20, 2006
* , by watermelon20204, June 20, 2006
* , by vee fic, June 20, 2006
* They’re fritzing my com, by everagaby, June 20, 2006
* , by drakyndra, June 20, 2006
* , by gowdie, June 20, 2006
* The Last of the Charlotte Story; archive link, by rhiannomr, June 20, 2006
* , by Phoenixwriter, June 20, 2006
* , page 2, by zoepaleologa, June 20, 2006
*I Don’t Understand People!, by jocelyncs, June 20, 2006
* ; archive link, comments expanded, post by mad maudlin at Fanthropology, June 20, 2006
June 21, 2006:
 
* , by soupytwist, June 21, 2006
*, by doctoraicha, "So you would've believed inconclusive IP evidence over a friend who you had no reason to believe was dishonest?" June 21, 2006
* untitled, page 1; archive link, page 1, , Maeglin Yedi, "So yeah, it really matters that the other side of this story is now finally revealed, even if the original wanks started 3 years ago. Because these wanks influenced a whole lot more people than just the ones personally involved. It influenced fandom as a whole, especially when the sockpuppets started targeting fandom in general and not just small groups of people in it." June 21, 2006
* , by Milkshake Butterfly, June 21, 2006
* , by darkrosetiger, June 21, 2006
* Old news to some, not news to others.; archive link, by dhole, June 21, 2006
* , by mofic, June 21, 2006 
* , by swatkat24, “Whoever charlottelennox is, she’s one hell of a writer” June 21, 2007
* , by fan_this, June 21, 2006
* untitled; archive link, by Chase, “Like so many of you, I've skimmed through most of the Msscribe saga. The academic in me is fascinated by the workings of fandom culture. There probably is a dissertation in this whole mess somewhere. The fangirl in me is disgusted. Not, primarily, by the lies and hurt feelings caused--though of course those are regrettable. But by the colossal waste.” June 21, 2006
* Charlotte Lennox, by wahlee 98, June 21, 2006
* , by painless j, June 21, 2006
* , by lodessa, June 21, 2006
* , by Milkshake Butterfly, June 21, 2006
* , by kindkit, June 21, 2006
* , by moderntime, June 21, 2006
* , by warrioreowyn, June 21, 2006
* , , , by mikkeneko, June 21, 2006
* The Woman who Sued Herself (June 21, 2006)
June 22, 2006:
* by Mary Ellen Curtin at Fanthropology (June 22, 2006)
* something Uplifting (archived) by mommanerd, June 22, 2006
*, by Kelsey, June 22, 2006
*, by lydia petze, June 22, 2006
* , , by sistermagpie, June 22, 2006
* , by stmargarets, June 22, 2006
* , , by ari o, June 22, 2006
* , by doctoraicha, June 22, 2006 
* , by the dark twin, June 22, 2006
* , by cupidsbow, "I have to admit that my first reaction to the biography is sadness," June 22, 2006
* Don't Plan Anything For the Next Couple of Hours--I've Got Some Reading For You, by Abigail Nussbaum, June 22, 2006
* More Msscribe Stuff, by Angua9, June 22nd, 2006; archive link, page 1; archive link page 1; archive link page 2
June 23, 2006:
* , by lil shepherd, June 23, 2006
June 24, 2006:
*	, Carissa Lynn, June 24, 2006
* , by mecurtin, June 24, 2006
* , by ladymaidmarian, June 24, 2004
* , heidi8, "I don't have words for how sorry I am for some of the things I said and did, as well as some of the things I didn't say or didn't do during this wank and during the past wanks that are referenced by it." June 24, 2006
June 26, 2006:
* , page 2, by papersky, June 25, 2006
* , by Cleolinda Jones, “You don't have to bow and scrape and beg forgiveness for some vague sin. Just acknowledge that something hurtful happened, even if we're still in the discovery process and aren't entirely sure what's what yet.” June 26, 2006 
* , by ari o, June 26, 2006
June 28, 2006:
* , by ari o, June 28, 2006
October 2006:
* All my apologies are belong to you., by Dionne/MsScribe, October 10, 2006
====2007====
* , phaballa, April 28, 2007
* , by Carissa Lynn, August 16, 2007
* , queenettefallon, August 19, 2007
====2010====
* unpopular fannish opinion: i feel bad about mocking the snapewives, by seperis ("This came up in MsScribe too, actually; the weird thing was, there was a lot of OMG NO SHUT UP at the idea of calling CPS because she was using multiple sockpuppets to play a really fun game of munchausen by internet proxy, but I think the dealbreaker was she was ironic enough about it. It's not even that I think there's a double standard here; I think it's a very consistent standard. MsScribe's actions, though destructive, sometimes personally, were in retrospect clever; she was manipulative and played on stereotyping, and it wasn't like she believed her own sockpuppets were real or something. They were tools for a goal.")
====2012====
* , by wrabbit, December 8, 2012
====2013====
* The 10 best tales of online drama from 10 years of Fandom_Wank; archive link by Aja Romano at The Daily Dot, posted March 11, 2013 
* , by Scott Alexander, December 23, 2013
* , April 2013
* , March 2013
* Slashcast Metachat: Fandom Wank (2013)
====2014====
* ; archive link, a Tumblr post with over 6000 notes, consisting of fans using created Tumblrs of BNFs to comment on this, and other fandom scandals and personalities; each Tumblr link goes to a page of commentary, making this a unique fanwork (February 2014)
====2017====
* by probablyintraffic (2017)
====2020====
* Msscribe: The Harry Potter Fandom's Greatest Con-Artist - When Posting Goes Wrong, a video on Msscribe; YouTube link by Eldena Doubleca5t (2020)
====Undated====
*
==See Also==
* Victoria Bitter
* Benjanun Sriduangkaew
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Scandals
Category:Fanwriters