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.

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.

snatched from wank_report

"Someone" posts a secret (#114 now bahleeted--caps?) on fandomsecrets and the image is stored on her easily identifiable photobucket account. She claims to be lonely and not have any friends and she wishes the Avatar characters were her RL friends. But she means local friends, not imaginary intarweb bitches her LJ friends.

Responses are mostly of the "Oh, snap!" variety except for the "What am I? Chopped liver?" one. It's really a very mild response though yukinoomoni is outed by name.

( She doesn't overreact at all: )

eta: F_W is not your therapist. If you can't lol at a wank maybe you need to go for a walk. I thought this was funny. lol sociopath.

Lambda Literary Foundation: We're changing our submission criteria. From now on our GLBT literary award will only be given to self-identified GLBT authors.

( This does not go over well. )

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! )

( 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.)

An incredibly popular furry artist named Adam Wan (aka Zaush) decides to put a sculpture of his character up (VERY NOT WORK SAFE) for auction to try and raise some money. It is, for those not able to click, an anthropomorphic wolf with a removable loincloth containing a TOY SURPRISE (and by that I mean a penis). He sets the reserve at $500.

The highest bid by auction's end is $490. He stands firm and refuses to sell it, making a post about his disappointment. Also deleted! Comments come in, at first at how unbelievable it is that the fine piece of art didn't sell. Soon, however...

neil137: "i'm sorry to hear that you couldn't get what you wanted for it, but the best bid was 490$...how is that unacceptable? >-> guess im amoung the chuckling crowd v.v"
Zaush: "Ok, so let's assume I spent 60 hours on it, which is only about a week and half of, and I know I spent more time on it than that... at 500$ that is $8.33 an hour. So I'd be selling a labor of love for minimum wage? I make more than that in a few days at my work, so what is my incentive to sell this for that little?"

Shigoto:"The stigma in this situation is FURRIES period. The fandom is natorious with the phrase "i would but i dont have money" If i didnt know better the fandom was comprised almost entirely of hobos and beggers....."
Zaush:"Or kids living with their parents, not really making an effort to better themselves, because they think they live on the internet."

If you can believe it, this subject has spawned over two hundred comments.

( More amusing quotes about the high quality/lack thereof of endowed canine sculptures go here! )

ETA: Today, Zaush makes another journal post in response to the replies to his previous post. Deleted! But I saved the OP. Emphasis mine.

"Going through the comments on my previous journal, it seems like a lot of people have titanic amounts of shit-talking to get out of their system. If the high reserve amount I set on a personal item is their new excuse for telling me I'm an arrogant piece of shit, then they probably need REAL issues in their life to be upset about.

Those that think I was selling that sculpture to "make money" are pretty much missing the point. I wanted to generate some cash to get me by until the first paycheck went through at my new job. I set the reserve to a high enough amount that I wouldn't be disappointed to see it go, because I really didn't want to see it go, but I didn't need the money so badly that I'd settle for less. If I showed the sculpture off, and said it wasn't for sale, people would lambaste me for being so egotistical that I wouldn't sell it. The way I see it is, I set the reserve as my own proxy bid, and won my own auction. I'm pretty happy I did.

I admit I can be a little full of myself at times, and need people to put me in my place, but some of the things you people say are obscenely hurtful. Do some of you think I'm not a person, that I'm just a symbol of everything you want to hate in life? It's probably liberating to spout such textual diarrhea at me, either in my submissions, journals, or behind my back in LOL forums. After all, I can't even defend myself or get mad at you without "tarnishing" my image like some kind of politician, so I have no way of winning, right?

This experience has taught me several important things:

Furry fans...
1) are pretty fucking mean when they want to be
2) love free stuff
3) usually don't have any money
4) love you one minute, hate you the next
5) for one reason or another, prefer to be anonymous

To put things into perspective, I don't do furry art for a living. I really shouldn't care much what other people say about me in this fandom, but what I hear doesn't inspire me to keep giving. The primary motivation I have to draw furry art is the enjoyment and enthusiasm others show for what I publicly share, so when I constantly have to roll with the punches, what's the point?"

ETA the Second: HEY. Bet you thought this was over. Well, not quite.

Sonderjen decided to make a little statue of his own in honor of the Zaush debacle!

Zaush's SO is not pleased.

...And all sorts of wank breaks loose!

Of course, ONTD is on the scene with a cover of Clay and his (imho) adorable son Parker. There's also a video (which I'm afraid to load on my pee oh ess computer).

And then we find in the comments that obsessive Claymates really go over the top.

The Clayboard has placed a temporary ban on discussing the People article until all of the mods can be reached. They have to discuss how to handle the issue, or something.

And in this article by The New York Daily News, it's mentioned that the mother of baby Parker was inseminated using artificial insemination. (Awkward sentence, it is awkward.)

( ETAs under cut. )

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.

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.

Meet kyuuketsukirui. She writes reviews for SGA on her LJ , and recently reviewed a bunch of stories on mcshep_match. kyuuketsukirui commits the unpardonable fandom sin of saying she's disappointed in the latest mcshep_match stories and will be posting her reviews soon.

Meet lamardeuse. She doesn't approve of kyuuketsukirui's disappointment in the stories or her reviews and says so. Many people agree with her, in the process confusing concrit and reviews. kyuuketsuikirui shows up to politely disagree. lamardeuse and her friends don't respond well. darkrose brings in a bit of Earth logic, but it's not enough to leaven out the massive amount of Unclear On the Concept, alas.

So kyuuketsukirui writes a post clarifying her position on reviews and reviews of fanfic and fandom.

zillah975 makes a post about this whole civility/reviews/concrit situation, including a thread in which anatsuno laments that life on the Nice Side ain't all it's cracked up to be. telesilla does a post too.

No responses from lamardeuse and friends. At least, not publically. That wouldn't be civil, after all.

ETA: Supposedly lamardeuse was responding to lavvyan, though kyuuketsukirui's post seems to have been the back-breaking straw.

As Whomageddon rolls on, doctorwho  brings us another sterling gem. Or rather, two bright turds of wank, coupled together to form a synergistic pile of perfection.

First, cringer1982 shares that he's written a very pointed letter to the BBC about how they have portrayed Asians in their recent episode Turn Left. He neglects to mention that he's white as the fresh driven snow. Irish, in fact.

BBC officials respond with a letter that has nothing to do with anything.

Some people don't see his point.

( Meanwhile, back on the blog... )

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.

Mini meta wank.

SGA fandom is race wanking - yes, again. This time it started with a review Cesperanza wrote about last week's SGA episode, "Midway," aka the Teal'c and Ronon duke it out ep.  Ces says:

"this ep is going in the waste bin, because, I'm sorry, I am TOTALLY UNAMUSED by the Ronon/Teal'c fight. I think its humiliating, and treats the characters like animals, and I'm horrified at the betting, like it's--what--a cockfight? And to me it's racialized and repulsive: I was typing to Linabean: REPULSED REPULSED REPULSED and that about covers it. I'm absolutely repulsed. I don't care if it's supposed to be a showdown like Batman vs. Superman or the Hulk vs. Thing or whatever--fact is, you had two black men beating the shit out of each other and drawing the largest crowd we've ever seen on Atlantis thus far. And like, this thing of "Ronon and Teal'c have so much in common"--they DO NOT. THEY REALLY DO NOT. They are two men with darker skin than the rest of the cast, but Teal'c is overwhelmingly gentlemanly, and they were portraying Ronon like a beast, though he totally is NOT a beast, and just--WHAT THE FUCK, SGA, SERIOUSLY."

People come by, agree and discuss.  Some DON'T (and LiviaPenn gets involved).

Then, ZZanthalinn stops by to say that Jason Momoa is Polynesian, not black, hence Ronon is too? HERE. More of Momoa is Hawaiian thread.

However, Anonymous is just "pissed off" about the fight after reading Cesperanza's review.