Over in Torchwood fandom, msjaybee (best known as one of the authors of the 400+ page "Save Ianto Jones Report") hears a rumor that AfterElton's Michael Jensen (the same guy who was ridiculed by series creator Russell T Davies while interviewing him) might be in the back pocket of Starz (the network airing the new series of TW). She decides to email him about it.

Jensen posts the email in full and refutes the ridiculous accusation in his editorial column (with a CONSPIRACY THEORY banner, too!). He does not give the name of the person who sent him the email, but msjaybee (under the name Jo) shows up in the comments and identifies herself as the author. And she's not happy -- not just because he posted the email, but because they haven't posted a press release with a character/series overview (bonus wank about the press release itself here and here. Links contain spoilers.)

( Comment excerpt.  )

Jensen replies, and things continue here.

( More excerpts. )

who_anon, meanwhile, follows the action with commentary here.

Original tip and some of the wording taken from wank_report. Thanks, mousie!

ETA: The Save Ianto Jones Report.

thought_ribbon decided to go for an April's Fools joke on Barrowmanfans stating a fake Daily Mail article about John Barrowman announcing that he and partner Scott will have a baby by August thanks to a surrogate
(original entry with text deleted, but still up at OP journal )

As you may guess most people were either really happy for the actor and his partner, while others called the bluff


Then misaditas,(who made the OP delete the original text), aresnz and some nameless mice call the joke too sensitive because Barrowman really do wants a child (while his partner may or may not)

More Mousies (who perhaps aren't so anonymous as they believe) point out that you can only make an April's Fool Joke before noon, even if you are in another time zone as they are, and start attacking the OP as "not a fan" since she once also faked Barrowman's address in a FanFic

( 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.)

Here's a recent addition to Torchwood wankage, brought to you by a kind anonymouse who submitted it to wank_report, only this time with the added bonus of plagiarism on behalf of the unofficial torchwood guide author.

Funtimes as someone publishes an unofficial guide to Torchwood. Containing pages of reviews from fans on livejournal without their permission.
Amazon.com version
UK Amazon.com version

People are less than pleased.

whereas some are quite happy to be featured.

Leave the author alone!

Differing views of copyright laws

People suggesting going to the tabloids to get their own back.

Meme view:

Reply from author


Oh dear. I'd like to see what'll happen if this bloke makes a fortune on this guidebook and who will be the first LJer to actually initiate a lawsuit. Should be an interesting case to watch on the evening news.

Small Torchwood wank, and not the kind that makes Jack happy in the pants.

It begins when santousha makes an entry in her LJ asking whether or not Ianto Jones from Torchwood could be a Mary Sue. People of course react, one of them is someone claiming to be the instigator, karaokegal. karaokegal says she will stay out of the conversation because she partly started the debate, but somehow fails to follow through on her words.

She even goes so far as later making her own journal entry about how Ianto is RTD's Mary Sue.

santousha insists on making two more posts about this topic to make sure it's clear that shagging Jack does not make someone special.

Dearest, beloved, Fandom Wank.

I know you were looking forward to great excitement today. Some of you said words to me that indicated you anticipated fiery 'judgement' upon those who remained fresh and dewey white, those you call n00bs.

Anyway, you got today instead.

Stop anticipating things, we'll just break your hearts.

Sincerely,

Sepia P. Magpie, Esq.



PS: Use this post to reflect on how you could be better people. Or just fuck around in the comments.

Over on torch_wood, sadbhyl has some things to say about the State of the Comm:

torch_wood from the beginning has been open and welcoming of all different forms of expression related to this show, including fanfiction. In the user info for the community, it specifically states, "All Torchwood fanfic is welcome here." Twice polls were taken on the issue of keeping or removing fanfic from the community, and twice the overwhelming response was to keep it (299-181 in the latest poll, taken in December). Due consideration was given to those who didn’t want to be “bombarded” with fic. Not one but two different ways of filtering the community were presented, and the most draconian posting protocol of any fan community out there was implemented to keep a minority of the community from being imposed upon. But still the hate continues. To those who complain about people not following the posting rules, who say, “The instructions are right there in the sticky for the comm,” I would like to point out the bullet list immediately above those instructions which clearly indicate ways to read the community without any fanfic. For those who say, “There’s torchwood_fic to post fanfic in,” I would agree, and also point out that there are other communities for icons, for vidding, and for discussions. If we all went to our preferred communities, what purpose then is torch_wood? \

Apparently some fic-posters are starting to bend and outright break the posting rules, and they're being smacked down. This makes sadbhyl unhappy. Some kudos, some disagreement, for two pages. Oh, and the pipes up, with a rare cool head.

So over on ol' El Jay, in the usually amusing torch_wood, kastawayking posts about her annoyance with the next to last episode of Torchwood for season 1 (Or episode 1x12 which featured Jack and Jack snogging. It was very, very pretty). Namely her annoyance with the "Bad Wolf" reference.

Then aibhinn mentions the possibility of Rose coming back via the Rift.

And we're off! Enter Doctor/Rose shipper i_bring_u_fire saying that of course they will bring Rose back!

Then kiss_me_quick saying that "Rose was no more important than any other Doctor Who companion."

And then we get into a long thread of "Is too!" "Is not!"

However, enter ryttu3k. Who explains that if Rose/Doctor is canon as asserted by i_bring_u_fire, then so is every Doctor/Companion pair ever

And there was fun had by all!

cupati is having a bad day. It is, therefore, her God-given right to bitch about spoilers in the torch_wood community. Again.

Must be Tuesday.

ETA: Clairvoyantwank report of cupati's previous post.

(Thanks to prolific and anonymousie for the links!)

It's a day that ends with "y" so jennyo is off fapping about racism, or sexism, or classism, or any other "ism." Today's rant? Racism! Or how 'Whitey' is no-good!

It starts with jennyo declaring TV is all about 'Whitey', no ifs, ands or buts about it. As always, it devolves into tedious, tl;dr paragraphs about how every minority character on TV is a "token" character. What makes this wank even more enjoyable is the raging self-hatred. Mmmm, delicious!

Naturally, there is wank in the comments, which gets more into Welsh representation on Torchwood with jennyo declaring that I must honestly admit I don't give a shit about Welsh people, and that I will probably from now on hope that the Welsh are, in fact, further oppressed.

m_butterfly and sexonastick (among others) try (okay, the response is a bit snarky but still made of win) to explain why exactly Torchwood isn't as racially oppressive as jennyo tries to make it and is actually very progressive.

nostalgia_lj responds with her own post. As of the posting of this, jennyo has not commented to it.

But no wank would be complete without the bitchy follow-up rant wherein jennyo dismisses the Welsh discussion as a "half-assed issue." Nice.

ETA: calapine pwns jennyo by addressing racial statistics in the UK.