Dennis R. Upkins, known on LJ and DW as neo_prodigy, is the owner and maintainer of the now-defunct Foc_U (Fen Of Color United), a blogger at the now-defunct Ars Marginal, an ex-mod at Scans Daily, and a truly awful writer of young adult fiction. He makes a great deal of noise about fighting racism and homophobia, resulting in several other SJWs giving him a pass on his virulent misogyny and his contempt for non-macho gay men.
The most notorious example of his issues with women is a LiveJournal post of his, now locked, in which he refers to slash fans as “heterosexist” “misandronists” whom he is tempted to visit “with piano wire.” (Screencap; FFA discussion.) In a second now-locked post, he writes:
And the next breeder (specifically: speshul str8 wymnz) who tries to mansplain/white-cite/straight-talk down to me and defend that walking heterosexism simply because they have a homophobic fetish because they're too fucking trifling to deal with their own sexuality, I'm paying them a visit with a lead pipe in tow.
In yet a third post that was locked after the fact, Neo talks about how, if he were straight, he'd have “perfect endgame” in case he were ever married: He and his wife would have sex three times a day, “because my wife would be that sexy,” and he would “personally administer her birth control pills,” even checking her mouth to see if she'd swallowed it. Screencap here.
Neo also insists that he can teach all of us “str8 white bitches” "How to Slash Better." In this post, he describes himself as “a man. A proud alpha male in fact.” He also assumes that he speaks for all gay men and all men in general when he states that “When it comes to two men, it's about the sex. All bets are off. We fuck. Don't need to know your name. We don't even have to like you.” Also, “Sex Is With Men Is About Domination,” and “There's No Crying In [Gay] Sex: Neither Before Nor After.” Nonnies mocked this post here, here, and here. And Neo also wants to teach us how to "respect the boundaries of gay men." (FFA discussion.)
When Mercuryblue144 challenged Neo's concept of slash with an intelligent and respectful comment, Neo called them a troll and hurled abuse at them. (FFA discussion.) Similarly, when his then-friend Ankhesin_Mie, whose work Neo had promoted on his blog, asked him why the casts of his stories — billed as “progressive, sophisticated multicultural tales featuring compelling complex and diverse protagonists […] an alternative to the derivative status quo” — are so white, he abandoned the friendship and declared her a traitor.
Neo's fuckery started to come to wider light with the publication of his debut novel //Hollowstone//. As discussed on FFA in late summer 2011 (Aug. 23, Aug. 24, Aug. 30, Aug. 31, and Sep. 3), he wrote rave reviews of it on Amazon under sockpuppets, and he got his little minions to leave positive reviews as well. Here's Absolute Write's discussion about this.
On July 12, 2011, in a thread titled "The classic for our times," OP says, “Give me a number between 1 and 248 and I'll give you a line from neo_prodigy's masterpiece.” Here's a sampling of the posted bits:
On July 17, nonnies mocked Neo's Ars Marginal post in which he reveals the “lessons” he learned from debuting Hollowstone, such as:
15) Some internet expert will try to “school” you on the realism of your fantasy story and will try to school you on the dynamics of a region you’ve lived in your entire life. This can often be fun when you pull out endless tons of research, historical data, facts, and shut said experts down, hard.
When everybody had stopped laughing, another nonny suggested a second thread of bits from Denny's Great American Novel, and Hollowstone Nonny obliged.
Hollowstone Nonny was later nominated for the "f_fa hall of fame." (The latter quote thread also got a brief mention of the latter on wank_report.)
On June 9, 2014, after a great deal of excited anticipation, another nonny did a readalong for Neo's then-new novel, West of Sunset. This sophomore effort has somehow managed to be even worse than Hollowstone: the same casual approach to punctuation (especially commas), doors that "clank" as they open, lolarious dialog tags, a character with the unfortunate name of “Bidella” (others are named “Canon,” “Colt,” and “Nemesis”), action scenes informed by business-speak, a piss-poor homage to //Army of Darkness//, casual disdain of femininity in gay men, cops always having super-accurate gaydar, an Orthodox Jewish "missionary," the angel character telling Neo's self-insert that his “demeanor and maturity” are unusual among mortals and that he's “most precocious” and “a credit to humanity,” more creepy misogyny with bonus “even straight girls want to fuck me,” and same self-insert's jeans becoming “far more cramped” when an immortal character talks about how he's “at the top of the food chain already.” (OP summarizes the plot for those who are wondering WTF is going on but don't want to put themselves through reading the book.)
In 2014, YA writer Jim C. Hines posted a series of essays by marginalized participants in the sf/f scene. These essays were popular enough on his blog that he also paid the authors for the rights to release them in an anthology called Invisible. Overall, the project was so well received that he did it again in 2015… and this time, one of the participants was Upkins.
It didn't go well.
The mess started when Hines posted Upkins' essay on his blog and on his LJ. The nonny who first brought it to meme’s attention (there’s a second thread here) says, ”Reading through it, it's basically a long complaint that people aren't buying his books.” Highlights, so to speak, with FFA commentary:
Dennis feels wronged.
I included gay authors in the book. In retrospect, I should have done what [Nick Mamatas] recommended when I realized I was not getting enough stories about POC. But I did publish one by Tenea Johnson.
Sean Wallace and Prime were invaluable assets. The final decision to buy and include a story was mine. They advised me on how many queer stories would be wise for a general readership on all four books I did with them (often white, heterosexual male marketplace for Civil War books). But I am neither bigoted or homophobic. [Editor's note: It should be noted that Sean Wallace is a close associate of Winterfox.]
Also, in full disclosure, Dennis and I did have a sexual tryst.
(FFA discussion of the Berman sub-wank.)
LJ commenter Damiana_Swan tells Berman she’d heard that the story Neo submitted contained explicit sex, despite the guidelines for the anthology disallowing it, and when asked to revise that part “he threw a fit.” Berman replies that he was so busy during that period he cannot remember if this was true or not. He adds, however, “Asking an author for a story is never a guarantee of a sale; Dennis should have known that I might not like what he had written. He wrote the tale he wanted to write. It did not suit my needs as editor. And now he maligns me.”
Elsewhere on Hines’ post, Damiana_Swan discusses her previous “(rather unfortunate) experience” with Neo:
I can tell you that his favorite epithet seems to be “racist homophobic hypocrite” and it comes into play… widely. And frequently. I've seen it applied to a long-time gay activist as well as to Steve, and also to my partner when he (gently) called Mr. Upkins on violating the rules of a discussion group dedicated to diversity in fantasy.
And Mr. Upkins publicly referred to a black female professional as a “house slave” because she collaborates with my partner, and she had pointed out to Mr. Upkins that her own years of experience working with my partner did not involve racism, homophobia, or hypocrisy.
Unfortunately, I have absolutely zero respect for Mr. Upkins at this point, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he is gay or that he is black. It is entirely to do with his behavior and the fact that he repeatedly chooses to libel other professionals who started out on his side and wanting to work with him.
FFA discussed these comments. Unfortunately a white feminist waltzed in to claim that ”I still feel in a position of less power than any man.” She walked some of this back after other nonnies told her off for ignoring oppressions other than misogyny. This subthread was frozen.
After all this came out, Hines decided that, while he wasn't going to take Upkins' post down, he also didn't want to buy it for the second volume of his anthology (which has since been published). Upkins, however, who had already thrown a fit about the negative reaction that the essay got, threw another when Hines told him this and demanded Hines take down the essay anyways. Meme discussed all of this at length, noting that Upkins was a jackass and critiquing Hines' actions.