( Spoilers for Torchwood and oh god great linky madness within. Enter at your own risk. )

This post brought to you by the ridiculously helpful mousies on wank_report, the letter W and the number 4. (The W is for wut and 4 is how many cups of coffee I've already had today).

(Be warned: long wank report is LONG. Continuation of this clairvoyantwank post. ETAs are under the third cut.)

This weekend, Torchwood fans flocked to Chicago for TorchSong, a John Barrowman-centric convention with a website that looks like it was modeled after a Geocities page circa 1997, a half-assed commercial that aired on BBC America, and some awfully expensive tickets.

When the con was first announced, the only guests were John, his sister Carole, and Mark Sheppard. When people started emailing the organizers about possible other guests, they were emphatically told while more guests would be coming, there would be no other Torchwood guests because it was a John Barrowman event, not a Torchwood event.

Ticket sales apparently convinced them this was not a good strategy, so over the following months they added Kai Owen, Tom Price, and Gareth David Lloyd. Fans squeed, and despite being not particularly impressed with the organizers' behavior, they willingly plonked down as much as $500 to see John and friends and to see John perform. (Later, 'special' auction packages went for up to $1,410.)

Then things start to go wrong.

On Wednesday, Kai Owen was forced to drop out due to a family emergency. Thursday, the day before the con began, they announced that John Barrowman had torn ligaments in his ankle and he would not be attending.

Aaaaand we're off.

( Act I: Pre-Con )

( Act II: The Convention )


( Act III: The Ongoing Aftermath )
ETA3: "UR JUST JELUS!!"

ETA4: Con-goers have now created their own special clubhouse: torch_tanic (torchsong_09 post announcing it. Commenters are not amused, but you'd never know it because she deleted all the wholly negative ones. Raise your hand if you've got a screencap.) (Thank you kaylamds for the heads-up.)

I went to wank_report to see if there was anything else around besides Our Lady of Perpetual Aggrivation's bullshit.

And lo, I bring you tidings of great joy... or Trent Reznor vs. Stalkerchick on Twitter.

( stale incense old sweat and lies lies lies )

A "slightly disgruntled fan" wrote an 80,000-word essay about everything he disliked in the books and wants JKR to rewrite HP in accordance with his wishes.

An excerpt from the essay:

Destiny Unfulfilled is designed to convince as many fans as possible that a revised edition is called for, so they can begin haranguing Ms. Rowling (politely and with restraint, of course). Never underestimate the power of peon pressure!
Creative writing students will likely also benefit from reading this book, as the careful analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of someone else's writing often helps us spot those same traits in our own work. Finally, students of composition can use this as an example of argumentative writing, as well as a jumping off point for school writing assignments, by either agreeing with or countering points made here-in.

Then he went to The Leaky Lounge to brag about his essay and to convince the posters here to beg JKR to revise the books.

An excerpt from his first post:

I do have an M.A. in English, but I feel my main qualifications for writing the book are that I'm a (slightly disgruntled) fan of the series, and I've put a lot of effort into analyzing the seven books. To be clear, this is not a religious diatribe, political axe-grinding, nor do I attempt to take Ms. Rowling to school on who should have fallen in love with whom in the series. (I am *not* a kook! Heh.) Rather, this is an examination of issues like the role of a protagonist, the writer's contract with her readers, characterization, shaggy dog resolutions, and so forth.

The critique makes claims such as that Harry fails to fulfill his role as a protagonist and, ultimately, ceases to be even a necessary character. Hermione could easily have made it through Book 7 without Harry and Ron tagging along after her.... That seems like a fairly major problem, when the title character turns out to be unnecessary.

I hope we can make enough noise to get Ms. Rowling's attention. We aren't asking for more books in the series, just that she fulfill the promises she made to us: that the books would star Harry as the hero and protagonist, that the books wouldn't be episodic, and so forth.

ETA: "We're operating within our rights under the Magna Carta".

ETA 2: "I've been told to not post more than once in 24 hours".

ETA 3: madderbrad adds his two knuts.

ETA 4: Migdalin himself appeared on Fandom Wank. And he apologized to us.

In Part III, we saw what happened when Lady Sybilla tried to tangle with the Twilight Lexicon mods for the last time (they banned her), and watched in awe as Wikipedia users worked "around the clock" to get her Russet Noon article deleted. You can still find "The Wikipedia Wars" linked on the Russet Noon website, but you'll have to scroll down past...

The FanHistory Wars.A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....

Artistic revolution (who, for reasons which will become blatantly obvious, is a suspected sockpuppet of Lady Sybilla) edited the shit out of the Russet Noon fanhistory page. Artistic revolution has a pretty one-track mind, it would appear. Or two-track, if you count Lady Sybilla as a separate topic.

In the midst of all those edits, there was no shortage of information about me, Sybilla's own favorite "stalkarazzo." (I know I'm her favorite, she says so herself on the Russet Noon website.) The following information is culled from the Revision as of 00:27, 21 April 2009 version of the page.

Although Caito posted the email text on one of her many Journalfen pages, her only acknowledgment of Sybilla's concerns was: "I'm totally over this email business. I have a spam filter and I intend to use it. If someone wants to continue discussing this shiz, she can do so in the comments like everybody else." Strange reaction given that Caito's Whois record for her site openly discloses her gmail address:

At this point, Artistic revolution somehow thought it was appropriate to include my mailing address and contact information. Yes, in the middle of the article for Russet Noon. But that's not all! She did go on. I bolded my favorite parts!

More recently, Caito provided us with a video example of how the attention-whoring for which she mocks Sybilla is more contagious than a disease. Ironically, while she spends her valuable time making fun of the ''Russet Noon'' author for trying to exploit Stephenie Meyer's popularity, Caito, too, seems to be riding the wave of the ''Russet Noon'' obsession. And she does so quite gracefully. If it weren't for Caito, ''Russet Noon'' would have never achieved taboo status.

... On April 3, 2009, LadySybilla emailed Caito and asked her to stop her "online stalking activities." On this email, Sybilla warned, "If you don't, I will notify as many administrators as I have to until they take action." Sybilla then contacted the Journalfen technical support team to ask how she could contact an administrator in order to report libelous accusations posted by some of their users. But, instead of responding to Sybilla's concerns, the JournalFen support team (if, in fact, there is one) forwarded a copy of the email to Caito. This incident may or may not prompt internet users to wonder about the legitimacy of Journalfen. Is Journalfen an actual company? If it is, who are the tech support staff and/or administrators behind it?

... Judging by the look of things, it won't be Sybilla who will be profiting off of ''Russet Noon'' sales after all. Let's see what happens when Caito and her BFFs at Twilight Lexicon get their hands on a copy of the novel in September.

All that has since been nuked from the actual FanHistory page, and replaced with more evenhanded material. People here at FW went a little flaily for a bit, as a software snafu made it appear as though FH mod Sidewinder had been the one to add my personal info when she'd really just meant to take it down.*

Then the mods brought the hurt down on Artistic revolution, who has been banned from editing the wiki for two whole weeks! She's really sorry, though, guys. Please stop throwing stones at her, and let her catapult boulders at others in peace.

But it's not like Artistic revolution has been the only one tooling with it, either. Some anons got in and tweaked it ever so slightly, like changing the story summary simply to "OH JOHN RINGO NO!" Editing the Russet Noon article is temporarily locked to admins, due to anon vandalizing and a neutrality dispute.

Personal notes:

1. I do not know what end anyone would hope to achieve by posting my address.
2. I'm not BFFs or even BFs or even just Fs with the TwiLex mods, but I sure do like them more than I like Lady Sybilla.
3. I have no clue how I would stand to profit from anything having to do with Russet Noon.
4. I have no idea who Lee Thomas even is.

*Aside to FanHistory folks: Thanks. I really appreciate what you did. Do me one more solid? I did respond to Lady Sybilla's concerns about my "accusations", but I guess it got lost in the epic wave of comments. Like I said before, Lady Sybilla is welcome to come engage me in comments, but as far as I know she has yet to do so. Muchos gracias.

ETA: Artistic revolution rides forth on teal deer to appeal to Laura's professionalism.

ETA 2: Laura responds!

ETA 3: The Russet Noon website is now basically a hate shrine dedicated to me and FH mod Sidewinder, complete with Photoshopped screencaps of me interacting with people I've never actually interacted with. Oh, and also my contact information.

You know, I'm starting to get the feeling that she doesn't take criticism very well.

ETA 4: From Artistic revolution's usertalk page:

I'm not interested in antagonizing you. You have been objective, but I still have to insist that Sidewinder, whoever she is, hasn't been. She might not have the same IP address as Caito, but her editing patterns are dubious. I have listed the evidence on my website because I'm blocked from doing so here. If I'm not allowed to edit the article, then at least Sidewinder should also be prevented from tampering with it any further.

All in all, as I said before, I'm not interested in antagonizing you. Based on your reasons for why Wikipedia blacklisted FH, I know you can understand how I feel in regards to Russet Noon. I have seen that your procedures reflect professionalism. This is why I appealed to that.

I sincerely apologized to both you and Tikatu, but never received a reply. At least at Wikipedia they lifted the ban. Sure, they deleted the article, but they were reasonable enough to lift the ban. I'm sorry if the procedure I followed to try to negotiate with you guys was not what you expected.

I would much rather have you delete the Russet Noon article altogether than to continue with this conflict. Once again, it is not my intention to antagonize you.

So, yeah, Artistic revolution is almost certainly Lady Sybilla.

ETA 5: The hate shrine is now down from the Russet Noon site. It's been replaced with a paragraph about how "the wars have ceased" and the rest is now ostensibly about the fanfic again.

ETA 4-24 7:22am Tokyo time: In case anyone was wondering how Lady Sybilla was taking the news about Peter David's community parody-in-progress, here's the reaction from her twitter:

# it's an honor even though it's a satire, because Peter David is a very seasoned writer
4 minutes ago from web

# many fanfic writers of the net will be uniting to write Potato Moon. The creator is comic book author Peter David
4 minutes ago from web

# let's hope this communal novel will inspire many more to come. I'd love to see a serious thriller or drama like this
7 minutes ago from web

# communal novels are a new genre, there are not many of them that I know of. I'm very curious to read Potato Moon.
8 minutes ago from web

# I'm very proud to announce that Russet Noon has inspired a very unique parody, Potato Moon. It's a communal novel
8 minutes ago from web

The Russet Noon website has also changed. It no longer makes mention of any "wars" whatsoever.

ETA 7: "You are invited to read our latest press release, "Lady Sybilla: The Darth Vader of Fandom."* It appears that Russet Noon has already achieved taboo status without having even been released yet. That's what happens when a Darth Vader figure like Lady Sybilla is created. And now she's found a worthy opponent: Peter David."

*That link goes to a c&p in my journal. To view the original (and give LS more hits) click here.

ETA 8: Her tweeting continues, c&ped here.

ETA 9: The first part of Potato Moon is up... I have a FanHistory page now, and actually I kind of like it, especially the graphic and its caption... and yes, my little lolcats, you can has more ONTD.

ETA 10: She just updated the Russet Noon site again (screencapped here), linking to the articles that appeared on Comicmix and IMDB. (Except her IMDB link actually goes here, where you have to scroll down halfway down the page the relevant blurb.)

ETA 11: Peter David's Potato Moon has its own Wikipedia page! It is a thing of true beauty and you will never, ever guess who started it. But to avoid the situation that occurred the last time she wrote articles on Wikipedia, she's asked another user to edit the Potato Moon article for her. And he is (adding links to the Potato Moon blog entries, at least)! He just wants to know more about who AV Paranormal is. This should go well, I think.

ETA 12: She's linked to something on the Wall Street Journal site now. What the lemonfresh hell?

So I've been idly checking back here on and off all day to see if this wank's been reported yet, and finally decided I should just go ahead and write it up myself.

So, apparently, a big spoiler for the upcoming "Heroes" season finale broke on the interwebs yesterday. Today, the interwebs are responding in fine form, determined to break the "Heroes" writers right back.

Here, we have what started out as a spoiler wank, which has forked off into 'ship wanks, character hate wanks, an entitlement wank, and Fandom v. Fandom wank. Three Four wanks for the price of one!

( Runs a bit long. Also, do I really need to say that a spoiler wank will contain spoilers? )

Lady Sybilla put out another press release. She also showed up at the Twilight Lexicon again, since that went so well the last time. (When the formatting gets hard to read, check it here.)

(Fanhistory links are all nofollow.)

After her Wikipedia article was deleted (you can go to the Russet-Noon webpage for more information), Lady Sybilla edited the shit out of the Russet Noon Fanhistory page all by her lonesome (despire Laura Hale asking around on Bebo whether anyone else had anything to contribute).

And in case your blog entry about the whole affair shows up there, I'm sorry. Lady Sybilla farmed the Russet Doom Supplementary Links Collection and changed my format a little to make the attention seem less wholly negative.

Oh also I put together an entry in my journal with links to screencaps and transcriptions and things, for quick and easy reference. 

Somedays, I swear I am only in this fandom because the wank is so damn fine.

Jensen Ackles' girlfriend nauseates, cockblocks, enrages, and harshes the squee of fangirls so much, one "jokingly" asks security to remove her from a con.

These people are not just deeply stupid, they're terminally stupid.

Those dragons that pop up everywhere and you're supposed to click on them for your friends so the dragons hatch or grow or take over Sunnydale?

The eggs have changed. The "alts" look like regular eggs now and people do not know what will happen when they click on those. I still don't know entirely what that means, but the rules say the fun of playing is the surprise. Players with Excel spreadsheets disagree. And some players will resort to "murder" because they can't be as control freaky about their imaginary breeding of pixels.

alts explained Thank you!

Would you kill your dragons? Most people answer HEAVEN FORFEND! sort of--kind of. There is a nice lecture about how deleting pixels is not an immoral act. ETA: post bahleeted.

Another thread asks what will happen? Won't someone think of the children hatchlings?

The FAQ says that if your attempt to kill an egg the dragon might survive and flee from you because you tried to fucking kill it. LOL.

Oh, look. Common sense.

You are mean and your dragons are ugly.

It's not so much RAGE as OCD entitlement.

ETA note: The links I provided seemed to me to be comments made by adults. The users I know are all of age and many of them hang out here. If an actual F_W mod wants me to delete that is cool.

Once upon a time, there was a BSG fan named starpollo who ran a Kara/Lee themed icon contest, karalee_ic. At some point she got burnt out on running the contest and announced that there would be no more rounds.

Then some time between then and now, starpollo decided to go and delete the comm, a fact which was discovered by anastashial. Alarmed by the loss of all those K/L icons, anastashial sent a message to starpollo urging her to undelete the comm.

However she also felt the need to announce this to the entire battlestar_blog community in a post that included a copypasta of her message to starpollo, a message I might add that smacks a little of fannish entitlement and self-importance.

This goes over about as well as you'd expect.

Small for the moment, but hopefully will grow.

Edit: Good grief, the OP also posted the same post, complete with copypasta, to the sasa_hq comm. Somebody's awfully determined.

Edit 2: And on beyond_insane as well. And that last link is likely to get especially wanky since starpollo herself has gotten involved.

From the website that pissed off all their fandom user base twice, Livejournal has decided to go for the gold and piss off their entire user base this time around. I present to you...

The Profile Massacre of 08!

In other words, Livejournal changes the profile design without warning and announces it later. Naturally, Livejournal users are very unhappy. There's more unhappiness to be found over at the news post. (Which hilariously includes a reminder that permanent accounts are going on sale.)

But that's not all! More hilarity ensues when the LJ Design Team posts again and clearly ignores the complaining.

Oh, Livejournal. What WON'T you do?

trevelyanl85a2 posts in Girl Gamers that he is mad because he tried friending people on Xbox Live and they didn't give him enough play time.

In his words: Whenever I asked what was up, excuses were made saying "oh so and so of a friend wants to game with me, maybe some other time" or no response was given at all. When I asked later if they want to game, for those who said "maybe later", they gave the same excuse again.

Add in his claim of "mild Aspbergers" [edit: his spelling, not mine] and his wondering if no one wants to play with him because he's a guy and you have a good culture for growing some wank.

95 comments and counting.

ETA: We now have apology.

Breaking: Judge rules for Rowling in 'Lexicon' book case.


Note: My understanding is that SVA will not be appealing anything, because SVA is not the one named in the suit. RDR is. No word as to what he'll do.

(Watch That Page for ETAs.)

( Read more... )

ETA 7: JKR's agents want to see SVA's new book, with bonus comment wank at Mugglenet (OH GOD NO PLEASE DON'T BE INFRINGING I CAN'T GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN); Dear Author comment wank, with bonus Nora Roberts; NPR's audio coverage; clearly, Diane Duane is using the Leaky Lounge lawsuit thread for her own nefarious purposes.

ETA 8: And the appeals begin. Also of note: "Rapoport said the legal tangle has boosted business for his company."

Compiled from

wank_report. So the MTV Video Music Awards aired tonight and a few members of the Twilight cast (Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Cam Gigandet) were on hand to introduce the band Paramore. Chaos strikes the Internets when host Russell Brand cuts RPatzz off, OMG!

The fan girls are not pleased. At all.

 

TripleBonus!ETA: Because we love our RPattz here at F_W, I present to you various VMA RPattz interviews, including an audio interview which RPattz says he "doesn't think" he leaked Midnight Sun. (Beware of NSFW ads on audio link.) Plus lion_lamb has an RPattz after party pic spam. He doesn't look like he was too put out about being cut off. ;)

HighScore!ETA: MTV.com now has their own report about the wank. 

ExtraLife!ETA: Because a Twilight wank is incomplete without her.

Nutty madam says YOU DON'T START TELLING JOKES WHEN ROBERT PATTINSON IS SPEAKING.

The ETA in which RPattz get even more awesome: "A lot of fans were upset about it."  "...Good."

As a lot of you must know by now, the first 12 Chapters of Midnight Sun, Smeyer's addition to her Uh-may-zing boooookes was leaked on the internet several days ago, and this has chagrined her dazzle verily.

From her official website:

August 28, 2008 (part II)

As some of you may have heard, my partial draft of Midnight Sun was illegally posted on the Internet and has since been virally distributed without my knowledge or permission or the knowledge or permission of my publisher.

I have a good idea of how the leak happened as there were very few copies of Midnight Sun that left my possession and each was unique. Due to little changes I made to the manuscript at different times, I can tell when each left my possession and to whom it was given. The manuscript that was illegally distributed on the Internet was given to trusted individuals for a good purpose. I have no comment beyond that as I believe that there was no malicious intent with the initial distribution.

I did not want my readers to experience Midnight Sun before it was completed, edited and published. I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being. As the author of the Twilight Saga, I control the copyright and it is up to the owner of the copyright to decide when the books should be made public; this is the same for musicians and filmmakers. Just because someone buys a book or movie or song, or gets a download off the Internet, doesn't mean that they own the right to reproduce and distribute it. Unfortunately, with the Internet, it is easy for people to obtain and share items that do not legally belong to them. No matter how this is done, it is still dishonest. This has been a very upsetting experience for me, but I hope it will at least leave my fans with a better understanding of copyright and the importance of artistic control.

So where does this leave Midnight Sun? My first feeling was that there was no way to continue. Writing isn't like math; in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything. If I tried to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn't dovetail too well with the original story. In any case, I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely.

I'd rather my fans not read this version of Midnight Sun. It was only an incomplete draft; the writing is messy and flawed and full of mistakes. But how do I comment on this violation without driving more people to look for the illegal posting? It has taken me a while to decide how and if I could respond. But to end the confusion, I've decided to make the draft available here (at the end of this message on the Midnight Sun page). This way, my readers don't have to feel they have to make a sacrifice to stay honest. I hope this fragment gives you further insight into Edward's head and adds a new dimension to the Twilight story. That's what inspired me to write it in the first place.

I do want to take a moment and thank the wonderful fans who have been so supportive of me over the past three years. I cannot begin to tell you how much each of you means to me. I only hope this note will stop all the confusion and online speculation so that the Twilight universe can once again become the happy escape it used to be. After this incredibly busy year, I am now focusing on spending more time with my family and working on some other writing projects.

--Stephenie

I don't think I need to add much more than that.  Lol.  This is so bloody beautiful...Oh Smeyer...please to be going over there to cry upon your pile of ill-begotten millions.  We all know that that book is going to be finished and published eventually so that you can add to your dragon hoard of booty. 

Who else thinks that she's just waaaaahing for the sympathy and threatening to not provide any more crack so that everyone can forget about the epic fail that was Breaking Dawn and start kissing her ass again? *raises hand*

Edit:

And we get reactions from the Amazon Boards and the ♥ TwiMoms ♥. The ONTD comm weighs in on the situation.

And the NuttyMadam reacts. Though sorry, there's no vid this time since she took it down. But here, have a transcription of the lost vid, courtesy of aegflota

We are all a bunch of meanies hiding away in this little club house of ours.

Smeyer Ego stroking.

Bonus Snack: The Twimoms just cannot leave the poor boy alone!. There's wankiness in the second link, as the TwiMom in the picture appears and asks for her photo to be taken down. Also, Here is a step by step instruction manual on how to go about your Pretty Vampire Actors stalking, for you n00bs who have no idea how to go about it. It is illustrated and everything. The TwiMoms are nothing, if not thorough.

OH NOES YOU GUISE! They be calling the FBI on us!!! WHAT DO WE DO? WHAT DO WE DO?

Twilight is going to save our country from the evil lesbians so you'd better all stop dissing it!

Cleolinda Midnight Sun Commentary! Yay. Lol.

ETA:How do you gain respect for your much derided favorite author? Why, by starting an online petition for it, of course!

I'm surprised nobody has picked up this wank from wank_report. I don't really know the fandom so I'm just going by what I could find in the links given.

Stargate Atlantis has been canceled.

Queue the wank from the fans over the announcement which can be found in the comments over at GateWorld and Joe Mallozzi's blog (a writer/executive producer for the series).

They include such gems like:

( Am I high? Did they just cancel SGA? Why???? )

And of course what fan reaction to the cancelation of a series would be complete without the 'bring back our show' petition, which can be seen here. And now there's even a LJ community dedicated to bringing back Stargate Atlantis.

But Stargate fans don't have too much time to come to terms about SGA's cancellation as it is then announced that a new Stargate series has been green-lit for production, Stargate Universe. In the announcement they mention that this series will be geared towards a younger audience and will have a 'young vibe' to it.

Not all Stargate fans take to the announcement in good graces, for example:

( I'm going to hurl, seriously. )

Small wank but some of us need a break from Twilight wank, y/n?

So what happens when an obscure American musician finds out that a Japanese indie band that just might be less obscure has the same name as the one you've already picked. Well if the name is Versailles you copyright the name and threaten legal action against the Japanese band for stealing the name from you. Because you know there's no way that they could have been inspired by the French city the name comes from being as they are a visual kei band that uses the glory days of French aristocratic society as their band's theme.

Needless to say the wank is easy to find from both sides in the US Versailles myspace page.

And wank from JP Versailles can be found a few places like the Last.fm shoutbox for JP Versailles and the Jrock Revolution Versailles board that has their announcement that they will be changing their name so they can continue performing in the U.S.

Spinning Spinsters decides to write an essay about how fan culture is highly conservative, and bolsters and propagates male supremacist ideas.

People in the comments seem to agree with her and thank her for having opened their eyes to how they're really just serving The Man by writing about guys getting on it.

But wait! Is such blanket approval natural? Not in the least.

As soon as she starts getting disagreements that are pro-slash, she deletes them on the grounds that such defenses can be found anywhere. She also refuses to link to any examples because it'd be unhelpful/too much work, and characterizes most femmeslash stories as being like lesbian pornography.

For bonus points, she apparently also has the power to edit comments if they talk about women in unacceptable ways. Though it's okay to say that on House, 'the women on that show are so lousy, either shrews or sex objects or both', so I'm curious as to what she doesn't find acceptable.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to serve The Man.