Throughout the five-week trial, Daedone, often wrapped in a beige shawl, would turn back to look at her partner, Emmett Farley, a writer and meditation guide, who sat in the gallery with a strand of Buddhist mala beads in his hand. These were to “change the energy in the room,” he told me, his shoulder-length brown hair tied in a bun. Daedone, using the hashtags #ErosOnTrial, #EroticJustice, #liberation, and #womenspower, frequently posted on Instagram, showing pictures and slow-motion videos of herself and Cherwitz, often flanked by female OneTaste supporters, striding into the courthouse. One post was accompanied by the Fugees’ “Zealots.”

Trolls who repeatedly refuse to follow the process eventually get banned, but initial infractions are often met with explanations of how Wikipedia works. Several of the editors I spoke with began as vandals only to be won over by someone explaining to them how they could contribute productively…

Over the years, Wikipedia has developed an immune response to outside grievances. When people on X start complaining about Wikipedia’s suppression of UFO sightings or refusal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, an editor often restricts the page to people who are logged in and puts up a notice directing newcomers to read the latest debate. If anything important was missed, they are welcome to suggest it, the notice reads, provided their suggestion meets Wikipedia’s rules, which can be read about on the following pages. That is, Wikipedia’s first and best line of defense is to explain how Wikipedia works.

Six months after Leon’s death, Bi’s daughter was born. In an Instagram announcement, Bi sits in a hospital recliner wearing a medical gown, clutching a newborn to her chest. Bi often compared her two surrogacy experiences—“I had the world’s worst GC, and the best”—and told me for months that everything with Chelsea Sanabria had been easy and smooth.

Not quite. Sanabria told me she had a great relationship with Bi but a pregnancy plagued with placental issues: first, gestational diabetes; then placenta previa, where the placenta blocks the cervix, which led to a hospitalization and a scheduled C-section. When doctors removed the baby, they found that the placenta had grown too deeply into her uterine wall, a condition known as placenta accreta. Once they removed the placenta, Sanabria began losing blood. As a nursing student and patient care technician, she knew what was going on as they called out numbers of blood loss—ultimately an astounding 5.4 liters. “The weirdest part was being awake” while she was dying, she said. An emergency hysterectomy saved her life. She woke up nine hours later, intubated, in the ICU.