Post #82: Initial discussion after Mamatas outed WF.

Post #83: In her post “Toxicity and me,” Tricia Sullivan described her experiences with WF but did not specifically mention WF by any of her identities. THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT. Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, who had been experiencing harassment on Twitter, spoke up to say that Sullivan was not the harasser. Again, no names were named. Athena Andreadis stated that what had happened to Sullivan had also happened to her. Meme discussed this. There was also schadenfreude.

Post #85: Sriduangkaew was nominated for a Campbell Award. After admitting (in her sweet-as-pie fledgling pro-sf/f author persona) that she was indeed Winterfox, the more infamous of her postings — such as her numerous Cindy Pon and Paolo Bacigalupi reviews and her “YA is worthless” screed — mysteriously vanished from her Requires Hate blog.

Post #86: Sf/f book reviewer James Nicoll posted on his LJ about Sriduangkaew’s outing. All hell exploded in the comments, with BS defenders coming out of the woodwork: Mamatas, Alienne, Seth Ellis, Sean O'Hara, and others. Many of Winterfox’s victims commented anonymously, including a woman of color (known as Video Games Anon on FFA) whom Winterfox told she “ought to be raped by dogs” for the heinous crime of not sharing WF’s taste in videogames.

Not content with whiteknighting WF all over Nicoll's post and trolling her victims, Mamatas wrote some very self-centered tweets in which he compared WF to Jonathan Swift, dragged out dirty laundry, and pointlessly name-checked Cassie Clare. Meanwhile, a nonny found a Storify full of WF/RH’s hate-filled Tweets, in which, among other things, she made “hilarious” jokes about burning “weeaboos” alive and called Irish oppression “white tears.”

Post #87: K. Tempest Bradford rode to WF’s defense, claiming she wasn’t an abuser, just a powerless victim! Also, mevennen/Liz Williams was a big meanie to her. James Nicoll confirmed that the anons opposing Winterfox on his LJ post were posting from several different IP addresses, proving this wasn’t the work of a single person with a grudge. Fellow wanker Jha joined in the BS defense, chiding RH's victims: “She’s supposed to make you uncomfortable!” RH “took the fall,” somehow. The Cult of Nice strikes again! (Meme discussion.)

Asymptotic Binary started an RPG.net forum thread to defend WF’s honor and insult her critics (e.g., referring to Caitlin R. Kiernan as “butthurt”). The thread ended up spanning more than 50 pages. (Meme discussion.) Book review blog Dear Author mentioned the outing in a news post. (Meme discussion.)

WF's staunch supporter Alex Dally McFarlane (alankria at LJ) shared a series of screencapped emails between Tricia Sullivan and Winterfox on the subject of the former’s novel Shadowboxer. (imgur link) Unsurprisingly, RH thought this novel set in Thailand and written by a white woman was extremely racist. Sullivan later rewrote and published the novel.

Did you know Mamatas is a tough guy who was in “a physical altercation,” so he doesn’t feel threatened by mere words? It’s true!

Nicoll made a second LJ post stating that the anons criticizing WF/RH/BS weren’t all the same person. (Meme discussion.) Fridgepunk claimed FFA had doxxed WF and planned to do so again.

S/f writer Kameron Hurley, who had been criticized by RH (albeit not with the same vitriol as other writers) but praised by BS, pimped BS’s novella. She also claimed BS’s critics are hypocrites if they enjoy any books by male assholes such as Orson Scott Card, V.S. Naipaul, or Ernest Hemingway. (Meme discussion.) She also posted the pro-BS essay On Becoming What You Hate, Redux. (Meme discussion.)

Reviewer Rosefox claimed both sides were just as bad, and that BS's critics were the ones who “doxxed” her. Cecily Kane, showing no self-awareness whatsoever, lambasted BS's critics for speculating about her mental health, which “relies on ableist prejudice.”

Writer and editor Kathryn Cramer posted about RH/BS:

“Requires Hate became what she is because the science fiction field socialized her that way. It taught her that harassment in the form of relational aggression under cover of social justice would go completely unpunished and in fact would allow her to rise in the hierarchy. It taught her that behaving that way was the way to get on award ballots and win awards. And some of you don’t seem to be willing to let go of that message.”

BS’s supporters claimed her vicious trolling was only a youthful mistake, made long ago. Then a nonny linked to a post in which writer Chelsea Gaither, a former member of LKH Lashouts, made veiled references to abuse they suffered from another ex-member (confirmed as WF in comments). Trigger warning: Frank description of Gaither’s sexual assault in that column. She’d said she felt that she came out of that experience stronger, for which WF attacked her as a “rape apologist.” As in the case of Caitlin R. Kiernan, WF claimed that a rape survivor couldn’t write about rape recovery without turning into an apologist, and she trolled her supposed friend well into 2013.

Keffi R M Kehrli and Tempest claimed that white dudes never get the kind of backlash BS did. Meme disagreed. Meanwhile, the Kiernan brouhaha was revisited, as was RH/BS’s friendship with Ekaterina Sedia, one of her supporters. Robert N. Lee wrote an anti-WF/RH/BS post that made some good points. Unfortunately, its author is a member of GamerGate, tainting his post by association. (Meme discussion.)

Post #88: Hurley’s post was discussed again. Her comparison of BS to s/f writer James Tiptree, Jr. (pseud of Alice Sheldon) enraged nonnies. The subthread attracted a nonnie with a hateboner for Tiptree and was frozen. Also, a helpful nonny found numerous links (some of which are now 404) proving that both Sullivan and Liz Williams, far from having saved their ire for women of color, had criticized several wanky white men such as Vox Day and Mike Resnick.

Writers/editors Rose Lemberg and Shweta Narayan stated that they would never ever eeeeeveeeeer “connect walletnames to pseuds,” in clear support of BS’s privacy. (Narayan, back in the day, was a supporter of Riley and his Arkh Project.) Jha put up a post claiming that claiming that abuse is a private matter, publicizing an abuser’s identity is “white-knighting,” and all WF’s opponents are collaborating with white men against all WoC. (Meme discussion.) She also retweeted writer Polenth Blake’s much more nuanced post, Requires Only That You Trust (now locked). On the other hand, Jha made a (now locked) DW post defending WF from the mean outers, discussed here.

Meanwhile, on the comments of Blake's post, a white Irish male writer said RH “called for [him] to be beheaded.” His name isn’t mentioned, but he seems to be Colum Paget, who spoke about WF in the Mixon Report's comments and in numerous other places. (Meme discussion.) More discussion of Asymptotic Binary’s RPG.net flailing and Robert N. Lee’s post. Lee also tweeted about RH accusing writer Jay Lake of molesting his own daughter; this went on during Lake's last year of life while he was battling terminal cancer. On an August 2012 post, Lake commented that Tempest had harassed him.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz posted about her previous support of RH/BS, which ended with BS turning against RLR, a fellow WoC. Both RLR and someone who went by the handle “Delinquent Spice” were discussed by meme here.

Adrienne Leigh/Alienne and frequent RH blog commenter Andrea Harris (a/k/a SpinsterAndCat and Twisted Spinster) congratulated each other for not defending bad books from well-deserved scorn. Harris also complained about having to “walk on eggshells” to avoid triggering others, not to mention people who “unscrupulously using mental health issues to manipulate others” and call -isms at the drop of a hat. The irony was lost on them, but not on meme. Finally, a nonny shared some of WF’s early hits on meme, including her bannination from customers_suck and the 50books_poc debacle.

Post #89: After Azarias’s Winterfox compilation post focused on fact-checking, LJ user got_quiet released a timeline as of that writing. (Meme discussion.) Editor Djibril al-Ayad, who had published BS’s first short story on his site, complained about “the hypocrisy, the partisanship, the revisionism” of WF/BS’s critics. Kameron Hurley complained that the internet misunderstood her pleas for “empathy & compassion in the face of hate.” Meme wondered if she were projecting onto WF. Renay from the Ladybusiness DW comm posted about how WF’s history of abuse went far beyond a few scathing reviews.

Meme also discussed BS’s first professional short story, “Courtship in the Country of Machine-Gods,” for the first time. Nonnies pointed out how derivative of Warhammer 40k it was, its overwrought and sometimes incomprehensible purple prose, and the way it not only seemed to condone genocide but outright glorify it. That is, as long as the ones mass-murdered were white Europeans.

Post #90: Winterfox released her “apology” as Requires Hate, then released a different one at the official Benjanun Sriduangkaew blog. Some nonnies were tentatively hopeful of her sincerity. Others were skeptical, particularly of her claims of being impersonated by some mysterious shady figure. They noted that the “apologies” appeared only after BS’s career was endangered, and they referred to same as “damage control” and “paint-by-numbers.” Nonnies who’d been harassed by WF were particularly unimpressed. It was pointed out that she didn’t even own up to her worst misdeeds, such as the death and rape threats. (Discussion of the BS post here.)

Nonnies also critiqued her writing style, an example of which is here:

“That is what you must make them for,” she said as her trappings shuddered with the pressure of lethal feints and shattered pacts. “War is a pustule that must be lanced for the laws of the universe to continue, and I am in need of a scalpel.”

Meme compared it unfavorably with that of writers whose style is perceived as similar, claimed she’d unsubtly ripped off Orwell, and pointed out her rhapsodizing about her main character murdering everyone.

James Nicoll posted again, linking to both “apologies” without comment. As usual, Mamatas was all over the comments telling the victims that their anonymous opinions were meaningless. (Meme discussion.) Meanwhile, Tricia Sullivan stated on her blog that Loenen-Ruiz didn’t out BS to her. British SF writer Sophia McDougall linked to a Tumblr post of hers that in turn linked to the aforementioned Renay and Gaither posts, as well as to Nicoll's initial post. In another Tweet she stated her support for Video Game Anon, and in a third she said she was lukewarm about BS’s apology.

Kari Sperring, who had been bullied by RH into nearly overdosing on her meds, stated that she felt insecure. (Meme discussion.) More details on the harrassment of Gaither and other rape survivors who dared disagree with RH. (Link to the Absolute Write forums.) Also a whole thread devoted to Mamatas’ creepiness.

Post #91: A nonny linking to Winterfox’s old Lord of the Rings fanfic said they found it ironic, in light of the fact that RH had bashed Tolkien fans and BS had claimed she was completely unfamiliar with epic fantasy.

Post #92: A previous, relevant controversy involving sf/f writer China Miéville and Mamatas.

Post #93: During a lull in the wank, meme discussed a thread in the Westeros.org forums and a report of recent nastiness from BS’s side.

Post #94: All of a sudden, Tempest declared it’s “creepy” to collect receipts. Apparently, this wiki is a tool of misogyny, and GamerGate was invoked. Someone (a troll?) defended MedievalPOC, and a subthread explaining exactly what’s wrong with that blog erupted.

Post #96: S/f newsletter Ansible reported on BS.

Post #98: The Mixon Report was posted. (Meme discussion.) Rachel Manija Brown, who had been at ground zero of the 50books_poc wank, wrote that WF had been harassing her for years. Athena Andreadis, who had interacted with two of WF's personae, also shared her experiences. (Meme discussion.) Loenen-Ruiz on McFarlane. (Meme discussion here and here.)

Long-time RH supporter Cat Valente joined the fray, expressing her surprise at Mixon’s report. A new person, OrdQuelu, quickly began to whiteknight for WF. Meme wasn’t the only one unconvinced. Tempest wanted “specific accusations” in the Mixon report but said she didn’t have time for the whole mess. A WoC nonnie and WF victim called bullshit on Tempest’s bashing of white women to defend WF. (Bonus discussion of the now-deleted “YA is worthless” post at RH.) Alex Dally Macfarlane posted about “lies and misrepresentations.” (Meme discussion) Writer Elizabeth Bear wrote an open letter to sf/f fandom calling RH an abuser. (Meme discussion.) Writer Jim C. Hines posted about online bullying. (Meme discussion.)

A casual friend of RMB’s talked about watching WF attack her. Hilariously, Tempest offered to reboot the 50books_poc comm. A WF blackmail victim spoke out about WF retaining details from her and other people’s emails to use against them. Tempest started to backpedal; meme was unimpressed. Janis Ian, the rock star, weighed in at Mixon’s. Ann Somerville put up her first post on the RH matter. Meme discussed the Samuel R. Delaney/NAMBLA situation.

Kylie Chan said that WF //“started tweeting bestiality porn snippets and claiming that I’d written them//.” (Meme discussion.) A friend of Loenen-Ruiz’s who’d given BS publicity for Scale-Bright spoke out in the wake of the revelations [need link]. Rosefox behaved self-absorbedly, which did not surprise meme. Tricia Sullivan went into more detail about what happened between her, RH, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, and ADM over Sullivan’s book Shadowboxer, and goddamn, it was some crazy stuff. Apparently, RH was trying to get RLR to savage Shadowboxer because RH couldn’t be a dick under her “Bees” pseudonym. And then got all crazy when RLR wouldn't do it. (Meme discussion.) Finally, Aja weighed in. Meme was ambivalent.

Post #99: Alexandra Erin tweeted about the right way to be anti-abuse, which meme considered concern trolling. Meanwhile, the RPG.net thread kept on going. (Meme discussion.) Asymptotic Binary continued to stan for BS. (A good rebuttal.) Meme wondered whether Winterfox has some dirt on AB.

Metafilter thread. (Meme discussion.) More about the Nielsen Haydens, Readercon, and Athena Andreadis, who posted again about being kicked out of Readercon thanks to BS. Rosefox denied any involvement. Somerville posted a summary including this item: “Seeing Emma Bull — W*ll Sh*tterley’s wife — in comments on Laura’s post is also sickmaking. Is she utterly unaware her husband is only microscopically less toxic than RH?” (Meme discussion.) FFA got concern-trolled by Tessa “SirTessa” Kum. Cecily Kane again. Somerville vs. Pope Lizbet. (Meme discussion.) Meme also snarked Kate Orman’s self-involved comment on the Mixon Report. More snark about RH’s writing. An anon who was probably Tempest herself defended Tempest on Azarias' post.

Mixon Report comment:

“[RH/BS] may be a famous community destroyer and harasser of author, but I know her from one community she didn’t even try to destroy. That community happened to have many actual racists, several neo-nazis, people who would causally joke about rape, misogynists, PUA wannabes, and many other weird and often repulsive people but her posting there certainly didn’t involve any ‘iron-toed boots to neckbeard cocks’. Mainly because the community was founded by veterans of the Usenet and veterans of many flamewars and her antics wouldn’t impress anyone and possibly she’d get the same treatment back.”

More from Tempest. More Somerville.

Post #100: Foz Meadows defended WF and opened up her blog to anonymous PoC. (Meme discussion.) Writer Solace K. Ames took Meadows up on her offer with a guest post, in which she railed against the “huge group of racist white women from fandom who strategize together on anon communities (like faux-progressive 4chans).” Meme wasn’t impressed. Ames later repeated her claim that anti-WF anons on FFA and elsewhere were lying about being WoC. More unimpressedness.

Somerville visited FFA and said, “I don’t participate because you guys are fucking mean.” Someone going by “VitaSineLibrisMorsEst” commented at Jim C. Hines’ blog to defend WF and was suspected to be WF herself. Loenen-Ruiz asked for space for WF’s victims. PopeLizbet again. Vox Day turned out to be an RH fan.

SM Stirling snark. Comics writer Gail Simone, who obtained her info from WF defenders Karnythia and Wolverina, said she “feels sad for everyone involved.” Omnomnumbat railed against Sullivan not reccing Thai writers. (Meme discussion) Vita Sine appeared in the comments of Hines’ latest post and cited Mamatas comparing Mixon’s post to GamerGate. (Meme discussion here and here.) A nonny complained about concern trolling on Jim C. Hines' blog from Foxessa (who is Al_Zorra on LJ) here and here, as well as from Carrie Cuinn. New Westeros.org discussion. Elizabeth Bear signal-boosted this post by Sunita at Vacuousminx.

Somerville stated that Asymptotic Binary is not the same person as Alienne/Adrienne Leigh. Alis Franklin: “RH is proof positive that progressives can be just as nasty as conservatives, and that we are extremely bad (read: hypocritical) at dealing with the fallout, particularly when the accused abuser comes herself from a marginalized identity.” (Meme discussion.) A nonny provides munged links to Sad and Rabid Puppies (VD, Larry Correia) commentary. Old posts by James Worrad about WF (but see the links for the next post). A comment about how WF’s reviews and WF’s harassment have been dishonestly conflated by her supporters.

Adrienne Leigh claimed that “FFA is NOT a reliable source" and is where a lot of Mixon's “nastier patterns“ come from. She provided “full disclosure" that she's a friend of BS's, “but it doesn't matter to how i react to situation being called 'drama.'” Also, she tweeted this disgusting thing from Mamatas. Bonus: “I have *empathy* for Rorschach, but he's not a character anyone should be a *fan* of.“ Arashiangel rebukes trillingwire, ADM's partner Tori Truslow, whose post badmouthing Tricia Sullivan has since been deleted. More on Wank_Report.

Liz Williams:

“But many of the people who supported her really have little or no standing in the community — they’re loud on Twitter and, because they tend to suffer from an exaggerated sense of their own self importance, they think they do, but really, they’re very marginal. I think there are some starting-out and midlist authors who have behaved very stupidly over this, but when I got the notifications on Twitter with my name in them (it comes to my email account, but otherwise I don’t use Twitter), it was the usual handful of sanctimonious individuals.”

Absolute Write: OP is ridiculous; Ann Somerville is good in comments. Where were BS's friends?

Post #101: Hesychasm, the WoC whom Winterfox accused of crying white women's tears, weighs in at FFA. I find it very weird that some grownups feel they need to take intellectual marching orders from college freshmen. Colorblue says I'm glad that Winterfox was exposed, but a nonny disputes her account of what happened at 50books_poc. These nonnies mention buria_q’s logged-in appearance in this old FFA thread [2011] about 50books_poc.

Writer Juliet E. McKenna: “Requires Hate, aka Benjanun Sriduangkaew, is a multiple, serial & proven bully, liar & manipulator.” Tade Thompson started the blog “Safe.” Sunny inspired a nonny to filk. WF considers James Worrad a stalker. A few people on meme considered him a “countertroll.”

Requires Hate: A Video Diary was posted. Long and involved discussion continuing that of the previous post about conflation of WF’s reviews and her stalking: RH benefited from two laudable but problematic kinds of fan-culture absolutism. More Mamatas (meme discussion). Marie Brennan (meme discussion). More meme discussion of Alienne (and the fact that she is not Asymptotic Binary), with Somerville commenting. Discussion of an unlinked Larry Correia comment on the WF affair. That last includes a post from Piers Beckley, who has dealt with WF and ADM in the past: “They bullied a friend of mine off of Twitter and very nearly out of fandom altogether for the crime of Not Being Anti-Racist Enough.”

More Juliet McKenna:

“Then there was the up and coming author whose life [WF] made hell after reading a 500 word excerpt from a short story in which he had a character sitting on a batik cushion. Because that cushion alone was overwhelming evidence of ‘exotification’ and thus proof of his racism, white male imperialist outlook — and more abuse along the same lines.”

Discussion of ADM and Eastercon 2014: “So… SJ bullies vs. oblivious SMOFs. A now-familiar cycle. And the people whose con squee was harshed by racist or other bigoted commentary get lost in the shuffle.”

/r/scifi/: “Somebody posted a link to a rundown of the RH/BS situation. And then the thread gets brigaded or something by a bunch of gamergaters saying that this is what they’re fighting against. Because every form of social progressiveness is identical to RH’s brand of SJ rhetoric.”

One of the makeup nonnies discussed WF’s makeup purchases and what they might indicate regarding her nationality. (General meme conclusion: Nothing substantial.) Discussion of a passive-aggressive comment at Captain Awkward’s. Elizabeth Bear again; also, discussion of Sarah Rees Brennan and her defensiveness over any criticism.

Discussion of WF’s disturbing, violent review of Saladin Ahmed’s book. Also discussed were her hateboners for other books (especially Ellen Kushner’s and Sarah Monette’s). Mamatas was also discussed. Pseud discussion. Tempest backtracks, starting here and going for eight out-of-order tweets. Aja weighs in again; as usual, meme wasn't impressed. Follow-up in next post. Separate (short) thread dedicated to Aja’s response.

Liz Williams:

“Oddly enough, SA was a member of a SW gaming comm which is well known for its racist, sexist and even overtly Nazi-supporting members, who are now somewhat baffled that she never called them out (she did, however, produce an Eye of Argon level 90K piece of Star Wars Old Republic slashfic which I gather is still legendary for its dreadfulness, so probably her valuable time was put into other areas).”

A helpful nonny digs up a link to said fic. In a strangely prescient twist, it deals with the heroine, Revan, trying to “reform her identity” while being impersonated by the Sith.

Discussion of her Wikipedia page. UK classism discussion.

Post #104: Things had begun to slow down, which they would eventually do for a while. However, both Sparkymonster and Karnythia defended WF with the bullshit argument that white fans have never criticized The Sweaterly One. (Respective subthreads on meme.) Then a nonny found a Dreamwidth post, now locked, by WistfulJane, who criticized WF's opponents in the most jargon-dense language imaginable:

A white woman's privilege allowed her to call out a chromatic person to protect her white-dominated and privileged space while appropriating the works of chromatic women and policing the racial identit(ies) of the former without censor. Her post caused harm to chromatic people, including those chromatic people who she identified as victims of the chromatic person in question.

Chromatic people reclaimed their voices and found the courage to speak out against the chromatic person in question for using anti-oppression discourse to harass, stalk and threaten them in a way that upheld the structures of white supremacy and other kyriarchies. They found courage to speak out against the ways in which the white woman in question used the spaces to call out the chromatic person to define the methods and avenues in which critique of representation are acceptable and would privilege structures of white supremacy and other kyriarchies.

Quoth a nonny, “These people’s opinions are worthless.” Another said, “I think it boiled down to: White person calls out an abusive, hateful, asshole who happens to be a POC = WORST THING EVER!!! POC calls out an abusive, hateful, asshole who happens to be a POC = GREAT JUSTICE!!!”

WistfulJane added an ETA that linked to a post on Safe and continued, “[N]ote that this thread is for people of color only, but be forewarned of comments that are sympathetic from my perception of white saviorism and/or ignore the systematic nature of racism.” Nonny: “Geez, she might as well just go the whole hog and say all those people are collaborators who deserved to be targeted by Winterfox.”

Amazon reviews of //Scale-Bright//; FreeSFOnline does not promote BS’s works. (Meme discussion.) More discussion on Ferretbrain’s Playpen; Pear, probably the same one who comments at The Toast and is @pearnuallak, defends WF there. (Respective subthreads on meme.) New post up at Safe. (Meme discussion.) More James Worrad. (Meme discussion.) Tempest attacks Bear; nonny provides three tweets. (Meme discussion.) CWCKIforums post.