It was a frosty morning on the 29th of December when I was surprised to find Holmes already awake and active, pacing back and forth in a show of nervous energy before the hearth in a manner that suggested he had been waiting for me to arise for some time. Upon catching sight of me, he immediately presented me with a single piece of paper, now fraying slightly about the lines upon which it had been carefully folded.

( Come, Watson -- the game's afoot! )

( The Actual Wank )

It all starts with what people are already calling LJ Genderfail: the newest beta version of LJ added a mandatory "gender" field to the sign-up process and eliminated the "unspecified" option (LJ quickly responded that the mandatoryness and binaryness of the new question were an accidental bug, and that the code was not going to go live. Of course, not everyone believes them about the "unintentional" part).

Well-known SGA BNF, former lj staffmember and co-founder of Dreamwidth Synecdochic made a call-to-action post that included the line,

It's been a while since I've been furious with anything LJ has done; having DW has done a lot to calm down my knee-jerk "AUUUGH NO" whenever Moscow does something stupid again.

A few people, some Russian and some not, are offended by this, and object. Synecdochic apologizes and edits the post after a request for clarification, but that is not enough to stop Ivorygates from making her side look bad.

Furiosity (who identifies as Russian) had objected to dismissing an entire culture because you're mad at some of its representatives, and Ivorygates takes the opportunity to school her. In her own cultural history. Because, you know, Russians don't understand freedom: it's not in their culture! America's special history of free speech can't be truly respected by them! (At this point Synecdochic freezes the thread.)

But Ivorygates isn't done! Bell had commented to Synecdochic that saying "Moscow" made a decision wasn't the same as saying "San Francisco" did because "Moscow, in US rhetoric, is that creepy place with commies and weird politics and gangsters". Ivorygates PMs her about this claim,

Are you actually -- are you actually seriously -- suggesting that identifying as a Russian national -- online, where you are safe from physical attack and can maintain anonymity -- presents you with duress identical to the harassment and persecution that transsexual and genderqueer individuals experience not only on-line, but in every facet of their lives?

Furiosity also posts to ask people to apologize instead of getting defensive when informed that they have offended "someone's race/culture/language/sexual orientation/gender identity/whatever". In her post meddie_flow comes to Synecdochic's defense with the ever popular Bingo square of "She didn't mean anything by it" with a side-order of "don't turn everything into a lynch-mob". Being offended by russophobia is also likened to being offended by the color red, and I'm honestly not sure if the irony there was intentional or not...

C&P'd from wank_report:

"The original post was deleted, but there's caps a'plenty at sf_drama. These are probably the most complete: http://pics.livejournal.com/halrenna/pic/000e0zr0

So. chiibiusa, co-mod of sm_secrets, announces in sailormoonfans that she's thinking of shutting down the comm (at least temporarily, but possibly for good), because there aren't enough secrets being submitted, and she's tired of it. The first commenter, tenchichan, suggests that chiibiusa needs to calm down.

DON'T. TELL. CHIIBIUSA. TO. CALM. DOWN.

Cue raeg, increasingly incoherent responses, a small amount of "OMG don't leave us we love you!" fangirling, and some sighs from people who thought their comm had outgrown this shit.

Then the whole thing hits sf_drama: http://community.livejournal.com/sf_drama/2556609.html?page=1#comments

Bringing chiibiusa with it: http://community.livejournal.com/sf_drama/2556609.html?thread=404234945#t404234945

She is STILL replying to comments left on the sf_d post, as well as randomly friending comm members. There are rumors of a post waiting in the sf_d mod queue, presumably telling us all how gullible we are for falling for her trolling, and how we've all been lol!pwnd! There's been a few comments from people who claim to know her and say that this is really unlike her, so it's possible that this is all leading up to the classic "I GOT HACKED!" defense."

ETA! Chiibiusa flounces: "i amno longer updating this journal from now until ever. and 'ever' is subjective is until i am ready to open it back up again."

Aptly, she's back for more. I guess in the recession, the exchange rate for 'ever' is approximately 45 minutes.

ETA 2: Oh, lordy, more posts. Courtesy of sistrelwood.

ETA 3: *facepalm* First rule of fight club, y'all.

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.

Results for the LJ Advisory Board elections are in. Members react, predictably, with grace, maturity, and no ad-hominem remarks whatsoever.

SEE! The Brad/Jameth RPS that was written in honor of the occasion!

SEE! separated offer her Thoughts on Yaoi over and over and over and over again!

SEE! The epic butthurt!

ETA: Some of the icons/macros in the post are NSFW.

Fandom_Wank has its own fandom. There are other places like it--communities which point out wanktastic escapades in online journals across the Internet--and one of these places is LJDrama.org.

LJDrama is a private blog. It's not for the viewers, by the viewers, or even cares about its viewers. This really isn't a secret, but the wank starts to fly when too many "shitty drama entries" get put up. Recently on Livejournal there was a wave of bannings centered around the Something Awful LJ community going out and harassing--who else?--the LJ furries. The LJ furries retaliate; LJ Abuse establishes impromptu zero-tolerance for this situation and bans anyone involved, even if they were merely members of the SA LJ community and hadn't actively participated in anything.

LJDrama.org, which always wants to stick it to The Man (LJ Abuse/Brad/whomever) whenever a rash of bannings occur, post about the issue incessantly. Soon the hilarity simplifies down to "furries and LJ Abuse and whiners, oh my" and LJDrama.org-readers realize that this isn't funny anymore.

What does that mean, then? There are existing conditions for a 100% chance of WANK. LJDrama.org proceeds to eat itself from the inside out. The following is drawn from the most recent post, which is insanely long.

( Since I cannot get links to specific comments, here's a modest abridgement: )

ETA: The illustrious voice-mail (that is related to the original poster's outlined grievances) can be listened to here. You don't really have to know what's going on to enjoy it. Link provided by a kind anonymouse with the giant blue text no one can miss.

Highlights include: "S-A-L-J. It's not 'sahl-jeh' like some shitheads would call it. It's S-A-L-J." ~ "What did Jesus ever do to you, Brad?" ~ "You're seriously hindering my attempts at becoming popular on the Internet." ~ "I'd rather get fucked by Futhman than get fucked by a furry."

(Thanks for the correction on the last quote, guys. The alliteration threw me off.)

Aja starts an extremely amusing thread: Ship your favorite LJers!

Some people take offense. Anonymously, of course.

As if it weren't bad enough that you treat your (ex)friends like your own personal fic pairings, Aja, you're now encouraging perfect strangers to do it too. You'll never bloody learn, will you?

The anonymice are promptly shipped.

So, upon the advice of my Evil Overlord, lulinda, I came upon this gem of a community on LiveJournal, that, incidently, Undone is a member of:

U_Make_LJ_Suck

So much wank.

Uber Wank.

But props for more Hetero!CatBoy musings.

And look who it is!

Supa Dupa Anime wank!