(For the record, I do rather kind of love Stephen Fry. But really Stephen.)

The illustrious Mr. Stephen Fry, writer, actor, comedian, famous twitter-er, friend to Hugh Lauries everywhere, object of fans on multiple continents, is interviewed by some obscure magazine, and his (admittedly bizarre) interview is re-printed on the internet. Said 'net dogpiles him on being misogynist and stereotyping and generally backward in his views on gender and sex and possibly some kind of baby-eating, puppy-kicking Nazi (I won't bother trying to gather together all of that clusterfuck because it would take years. Plenty on Twitter and a nice selection in the comments on that reprint). I leave it up to you, dear readers, to judge the contents of said interview. *ahem*

Well then.

So, Mr. Fry quits twitter. That's the end of it, right? I mean, certainly he's smart enough to just keep out of the spotlight for a while until this shitstorm blows over and everyone forgets about it and goes back to laughing at their old DVDs of Jeeves & Wooster, right?

Well, not really, since he must come back to explain himself in what may be the most beautiful 4-page flounce I have ever read in my life. Well, you can't accuse him of having a narrow vocabulary, at any rate.

I'm sympathetic (to a point), but really? "None of you understand me! The media misquotes me! I'LL NEVER DO PRINT INTERVIEWS AGAIN!"

Oh dear. At least he does it in an entertaining manner...

ETA: Okay, wasn't aware that Fry has bipolar disorder. Which explains the flouncy a bit. Sorry, kids.

(for the record, I still think it's just a tiny teeny bit funny in a schadenfreude sort of way, but I am admittedly a rather evil person, so YMMV with this one. LOL at your own risk.)

First attempt at posting, although I've been barracking from the sidelines for about a millennium now ...

astolat posts A Matter Of Inconvenience, which is American Idol slashfic (Kris/Adam) with a 'Regency' setting. At least, that's the general idea, and harmless enough you would have thought - assuming that AI AU RPS is your thing. (Alphabet soup!)

zvi, however, takes exception. Amongst other objections, A Matter of Inconvenience is not about race, thoughtlessly invokes colonial issues, and just doesn't put up any warning flags for those who are about to read it. Also, apparently, this is a thing Astolat fucked up. Everybody, please to endeavor not to fuck up like that with your next happy fun sexytimes historical.

What starts off as moderately polite discussion about historicity in slash fanfiction is, however, quickly derailed by willow who offers the following reasoned evaluation: In the middle of the cuppa tea, the empire waist dresses and the ass-sex of your AU Regency - please to be remembering the hydra heads of colonialism and imperialism and what that means for and about your whitey white penis salt lick fan thought of the moment.

liviapenn tries to calm things down a bit with some entertaining stuff about plumbers and blow jobs but this only serves to upset willow further. Why is it that everytime I see you lately, you're happily shoving your foot into your mouth via your hindquarters? ... You keep claiming to understand your privilege and say you're reflecting on it and then you start chomping that feces encrusted shoe leather again. willow's User Info states "'M brown and I have an attitude." No kidding.

astolat's attempt to explain herself gets stomped on, and the desirability of historical accuracy in a Kris/Adam Regency alternate universe is lathered, rinsed and repeated for those who missed it the first time.

Small, but strangely vitriolic given the subject matter. It's difficult to imagine why people are getting quite so over-excited about one piece of costumed fluff in a universe of lesbian cars and tentacle porn, but it may keep us entertained while we're waiting for next incarnation of VB.

ETA: Okay, I get the message, I got it wrong - or maybe I just don't have a sense of humour? Either way, it was obviously a bad call. Lesson learned.

Meet Lironess, a person of such stunning perfection that she feels confident, nay obliged, to point out the shortcomings of others. Constantly.

When she's not diagnosing diseases over the internet, she's apparently advocating approaching strangers at cons with skin diseases to ask them:

"OMG What the hell is wrong with your skin?"

Yeah, not even kidding*.

Unfortunately no one told betnoir that icky diseased people exist solely as teaching moments for the beautiful people, and that she better learn to live with it or else spend the rest of her life in misery. Luckily for her then, that lironess is here to explain it to her.

The spat lands in sf_drama, where lironess baleeted her most offensive comments (though considering what's left - just WOW) and apparently whole threads if bizarro goodness like handing out condoms to furries, and horse sex, and her inability to spell freak. she then demonstrates her utter lack of getting teh internets, as well as proving that there really isn't a maximum fail quota per post.

After calling like, everyone, a coward or accusing them of hiding (for commenting in an unlocked post in a very public community? huh?) lironess prepares her flounce by calling betnoir (and everyone else) out. As in, *cue scareh music* she can FIND people:

"It has been fun to watch you all hide on a community and make your statements thinking I would not see and reply. However, I can find all of you, any where."

betnoir names a place and time.

but yanno, it's waaaay to far, plus it'd be a hassle and betnoir's fucking parents would sue and it would be a big mess and lironess doesn't care enough to bother. Or something.



*I debated if this should be in UNF because disability!fail = so fucking unfunny, plus there's bonus!fail on both sides, but for sheer overwhelming WTF wankiness I think it belongs here.

Before I get started, a disclaimer: The closest connection I have to Irish fandom is that I've flown over bits of Ireland from time to time. And, when I was a kid, I saw a lot of commercials for Lucky Charms. So I'm probably going to be missing a few subtleties. Also, this is something that happened recently, and recently . . . recently isn't really the decade that I'm best at.

With that said, it seems that there's a guy named Pádraig Ó Méalóid. Who's active in Irish con-going fandom. Or at least, he's active in large parts of Irish con-going fandom. But not Octocon, the Irish National Convention, which is going to be held next weekend. You see Pádraig got a letter the other day, that went a little something like this:

Hello,

I'm writing on behalf of the 2009 Octocon Committee. I am the Co-Chair.

Due to your behaviour at the convention some time ago and your online behaviour earlier this year we have come to the unfortunate decision to ban you from this convention. We believe that your attitude towards us has been far to aggressive both online and in the past at the convention.

This matter is not open for discussion and we will not enter into any online discussion regarding this nor will we discuss this with any other persons. This decision is final.

We are deeply saddened by this as this is the first time a committee has had to ban someone. We will of course will refund your money; if you reply to me with your address I will forward this onto you as soon as possible.

Regards,

Nichola Hannigan

Now, if you're like me, you look at a letter like that, and think "she probably meant 'far too aggressive'." Also, you'd find that third paragraph amusingly repetitive. (I have to warn you, if that was actually your reaction, you're going to want to lay some tarp around your work area, as one of the links that comes later is going to make your head explode. And that's hard to clean up.)

And, if you're someone like Pádraig, you'll go ahead and post the letter to your livejournal. I mean, I'd have done that as well, but with far more mockery.

But Pádraig wasn't the only place in which this news was broken. Cheryl Morgan happened to mention it as well. To quote the seemingly innocuous paragraph:

In less good news my email is currently buzzing with the news that my good friend Pádraig Ó Méalóid has apparently been banned from the convention. I know that Pádraig has been rather critical of the Octocon committee this year, and perhaps rather more aggressive about it than he should have been, but I know my fan history well enough to remember that banning people from conventions rarely ends well. The right way to deal with one’s critics is to prove them wrong by running a great event.

Comment 3 is by one James Brophy, who was, at that point, on the Octocon committee. And he's there to link to the convention's Code of Conduct, and defend the committee's decision. Against all challengers.

The first one he takes on is Pádraig. To his protestations of "I don't know what the hell they're talking about," James replies with "You turned your ignorance of your own actions into a press release." Zing!

Then there's another challenger. Gary Farber replies in his own, inimitable fashion. And at great length. And other people agree with him. Also, Chris O'Shea points out that the code of conduct in question wasn't actually put up on the web last week, which is apparently after whatever happened that made them kick Pádraig out of the convention. It also is in the realm of possibility that the code went up after they sent the letter.

Chris concludes with:

Octocon’s PR has the ears of the world at the moment, it would be a good time to explain what is going on, because in the absence of such, things will only get worse.

James isn't going to take that lying down! In the next comment, he announces his resignation from the con committee, and comprehensively flips his shit. This is where the grammar induced head-explosions are going to start, by the way, as his language skills seem to go at the same time as his temper.

I'm not a hundred percent capable of parsing the claims in the post, but as I understand them, they more or less go as follows: a) Pádraig is a mean guy. b) Also, he says mean things, both to people, and about people. c) One time, he took some prints from a photographer that he shouldn't have.

Rather than do a play-by-play for the rest of the thread, I'll summarize. Gary makes fun of James's difficulties both with the English language and with logic. James explains that one of the lurkers who supports him isn't speaking up, because he's a writer, and fears that Cheryl Morgan will ruin his career. Cheryl gets upset at that, and bans James from her blog, until she's contacted by the guy in question. Which, rather surprisingly, she is, so she un-bans him. Various other members of the committee show up, not so much to explain their actions, as to explain that they wanted this to be kept private, and they are saddened that Pádraig has put his own interests above those of a convention which he's not allowed to attend.

As one might expect, there's some discussion about there elsewhere on the internet; the one bit that jumped out at me as providing useful data was a comment on lj which suggested that one of Pádraig's major sins was founding a convention that's been more successful than Octocon over the last decade or so.

And that's all I've got.

Dearest little wankahs, what makes a perfect wank?

I'm not asking this because I'm trying to perfect a Get Wank Quick scheme*, though. Honest.



*Voodoo, not trolling.

A Slytherfan terri_testing writes an essay The Wizarding World and the Otherworld, where she argues that Harry Potter books are horror, not fantasy and that Hogwarts is like the school where the Native American children were brainwashed:

( Read more )

The essay provokes a chorus of "I agree"s and complaints about JKR's treatment of Snape:

mary_j_59 (see "Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!")

This is brilliant, Terri! And absolutely consistent. You know, my sister and I went to hear Rowling, Irving and King in NYC, and we both liked John Irving (reading from Owen Meany) best. Now the reason is clear. Rowling is actually a horror writer, like King, and I do not like horror. Still less do I like horror disguised as a children's fantasy quest. Irving, on the other hand, was writing in the great tradition of picaresque novels - a tragicomedy with a moral core.

But what I still wonder is: did (and does) Rowling know that she has actually written a dystopion/horror story? Somehow I don't think she realizes this.

condwiramurs/00sevvie

I second the 'brilliant' comment. And I highly doubt Rowling is aware of what she has actually written. She is too utterly blind to the reasons we like Severus, for example, to have any clue that she may have written something different from what her perfect picture of her work in her head is. I'm sure she thinks we're just getting it 'wrong.'

oryx_leucoryx (see Cry the Beloved Slytherins)

So if Severus Snape actually survived Nagini's bite, returned to the Muggle world and became some kind of counselor to delinquent youth or someone who runs an anti-bullying program (by working both with victims and perpetrators) he would be a hero with a rather protracted but complete journey? Starting out as the victim of neighborhood bullies (I doubt Petunia was the only one who knew that the strangely dressed kid was the Snape boy from Spinner's End) who must have dreamed that magic would solve his problems, learned that magic simply gave bullies more dangerous/'interesting' ways to hurt people, played a key role in getting rid of the biggest bully in the magical playground and came home to use non-magical ways against bullies?
***
bohemian_spirit has some fics in that general direction - in her 'Light Between the Cracks' series Severus Snape of canon years was secretly married to a Muggle school teacher and while at his Muggle home watched over the neighborhood children. And in her 'Professor Grunge' Severus immigrates to the US instead of joining the Death Eaters. He studies at a wizarding university and becomes a teacher who fights bullying and uses music to assist in magical healing.

But the real fun starts when night_train_fm decides to argue with terri_testing and says, among other things:

'Hermione exiling her parents to Australia'
She did that because she was terrified (with good reason) of the DEs coming after them: Voldemort was taking over the government, had already ordered several public mass-Muggle-killings, and anyone remotely connected to Harry was a potential target. According to Jo, Hermione reversed the spell ASAP once the threat was over. For that matter, is it ever outright stated that she didn't sit down and discuss it with them first?

That doesn't go well.

( Hermione is teh ebil! )

Watchmen screenwriter David Hayter writes a sincere but slightly tongue-in-cheek open letter on Hardcore Nerdity to Watchmen fans and non-fans, to urge them to see the movie more than once in order to understand it.

One of his other points is that he thinks those who hate the movie on principle without having seen it should let it marinate in their minds and give it a chance:

It may upset you. And it probably will upset you.

And all along, we really meant it to. ...All this time, you’ve been waiting for a director who was going to hit you in the face with this story. To just crack you in the jaw, and then bend you over the pool table with this story. With its utterly raw view of the darkest sides of human nature, expressed through its masks of action and beauty and twisted good intentions... Like the Comedian on the Grassy Knoll. ...You'll be thinking about this film, down the road. It'll nag at you. How it was rough and beautiful. How it went where it wanted to go, and you just hung on. How it was thoughtful and hateful and bleak and hilarious. And for Jackie Earle Haley.

Trust me. You'll come back, eventually. Just like Sally.

Comments begin in the 'we love Watchmen (although some of us have reservations about the swinging massive blue dong), go Dayter' mould, until people, from page three onwards, suddenly notice the metaphor he used to describe how the movie should make you feel:

DUDE. No one asks to be cracked in the jaw and bent over the goddamned pool table. Was there NO OTHER ANALOGY you could have used? Do you realize that you're comparing your movie to a rapist and the moviegoers to victims asking for it? And what is this "You'll come back. Just like Sally" crap? Do you have any f***ing idea how offensive that is? Could you not have come up with some other analogy, some other pithy tag, something that doesn't make it out like the Comedian was doing Silk Spectre a f***ing favor when he beat her bloody and tried to rape her?

Did you mean to do that?? If not, erm, consider your words more carefully next time you do the "open letter" thing, because wow, did that part get away from you.

Dayter comments on page 7 with an apology claiming he does not condone violence against women, which is edited into the original article. People briefly thank him for apologising, and then attack him again. Dayter responds graciously via huge spoonfuls of sarcasm and retracting his apology (page 8):

Clearly, you can't get less hateful or spewy than that. I humbly retract the statement.

Anyway, I'm sorry you disliked the film.

And you're right, I don't know why I ever set out to do this in the first place. It's really the world I'm hurting. Damn my family, and their almost-constant need for food!

On top of all of this there's huge amounts of movie rage, but the best thing about the whole altercation is the people at Hardcore Nerdity going so far as to make a video response urging people to LEAVE DAYTER ALONE, starring a very angry Dr. Manhattan.