From wank_report:

Someone has decided that enough is enough, and it is now time to cleanse the Pit of Voles FF.net of all that ails it. And that someone is the Literate Union! Motto: "well here are the people who are going to give it anyways!"

"It", apparently, being concrit or flaming. You know, whichever you prefer.

"The LU -- The Literate Union -- is a society that helps to improve the quality of stories on FanFiction that either break the rules or are poorly written. In the case of the latter, we try to help the author, bringing their piece up to standard. Difficult cases are reported to the admins."

( And we got to go in with our hydraulic system, and blast him out! )

Elsewhere on the internet: LJ reveals some news to its users about a redesign of the LJ homepage. Changes involve a feature showcase, links to the latest LJ news posts, and a brand new section smack in the middle of the page:

"Oh No They Didn't" shows popular entries from ohnotheydidnt.

22 pages of comments follow, half of which appear to be people complaining about the new change and ONTD in general, and the other half comprised of ONTD members buckling down for some earnest, dedicated trolling.
( Read more... )

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.

There once was an archive for Yuletide
and when it died every other fool cried
stop thief
in erroneous belief
that their fics were about to go worldwide

( background )

( the set up )

( coda )

OH ETA: melodyclark is here to show us all that even older women like to wank like horny thirteen year olds, but if she doesn't give it a rest I'm worried she's going to go blind, develop hairy palms, AND come down with a raging case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

thanks to inquisition for the heads up.

eta 3.1415 The abyss is looking into us... and it's fucking stupid. :D

bonus lulz: tzikeh point out to me that melodyclark tried to edit her fanlore page.

( text for anyone who can't or doesn't want to load fanlore )

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.

Thanks to the mouse on wank_report.

smallblackangel posts a rant to bad_rpers_suck, as you do.

Yes, my character IS using the default layout for his LJ. Why? Because he doesn't give a fuck about the specific layout his online journal that he won't really use much anyway has. No, I will not make it "prettier" because you feel as if my lack of SUPERSPESHULAWESOME layout makes it seem as if I don't "care" even though I just spent two hours filling out your term paper length application.

A perfectly cromulent rant!

The trouble comes in the comments, where puzzley, who is-- this is important to note, mostly agreeing with the OP, says:

However, if you were playing from those old games where the characters are 2D sprites and thus not very expressive at all, it's understandable that they'd ask you to turn to doujinshi for better faces.

And smallblackangel says:

Icons are not important.

...that's about it.

Things go pretty asplodey from there.

Highlights include, but are not limited to:

Honestly, RPing without prose is what I consider lazy shit. The beginning of comment spam caused a serious downturn of RP on LJ.

First off. You, sir/madam (meaning puzzley, lest anyone get confused) are coming off as either a) Batshit crazy b) lazy as hell c) horrifically uninformed or d) a Troll. I'm not quite sure which.

And the one comment in the flood that actually makes sense:

It's all about personal preference. I'm reading all this and seeing a nice little divide--people who prefer the quick, reactionary style that LJ RPers have mostly adopted, and the more formally written style of most forums. That's where the argument lies--icons are nearly essential to one style, and frivolous to the other.

Including dictionary quotations, smallblackangel shouting "Fallacy!" like the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia cast shouting "Intervention!" last week, and the TOTAL ABUSE OF ALL CAPS.

Remember the last HP wank - Hermione Granger - Voldemort in the making? Here we have Episode II.

The OP in the previous wank terri_testing wrote a fanfic about Dumbledore's childhood. People in the comments started to argue with each other and wankery ensued.

marionros, who during the previous wank diagnosed Harry, Hermione, Dumbledore, the Twins, James and Sirius as psychopaths, insisted that Harry, Hermione and Dumbledore have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Lily also has NPD.

And what the heck, so does JKR herself.

My issues, let me show you them.

Snape is a victim of narcissist.

Hermione isn't intelligent and she has bad studying skills.

Pureblood prejudice is probably justified.

James was ever so evil.

JKR doesn't know Neville like I do.

Why did students hate Snape for insulting them? My teachers insulted me and I loved them!

Harry is like a suicide bomber and Dumbledore is like Osama bin Laden.

The whole Wizarding World is a cult, Dumbledore is a cult leader and Harry and Hermione are completely brainwashed.

Because of the Marauders' bullying Snape suffered from PTSD like Vietnam veteran, which justifies his treatment of Harry.

Snape was pressured into joining the Death Eaters.

You call my argument sick, but you find me hot!

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! )

Meta wank of the sweetest kind. 2010 Readercon is being advertised as "This IS your father's con". Needless to say, this is not met with huzzahs. Catherynne M. Valente proposes an alternative to the 2010 Readercon--a gathering of fans at her island place. The man who has singlehandedly run programming for Readercon for 20 years immediately responds with you are wrong and escalates from there, with you are very young or possibly foreign, and my personal favorite, you have to have a score of at least 790 on the analytical section of the GRE to do programming for Readercon. Many people laugh at him. Eric Van says he is no longer responding to stupid comments, and then copy&pastes his everyone IMPORTANT loved us comment everywhere he can find.

Meanwhile, Readercon backtracks quickly.

And for your tasting pleasure, now with added name-calling and objectification of the young, female fans!

eta: Obviously Eric Van could not delegate programming decisions, because no one else gets a 790 on the analytical section of the GRE. But why not use a computer program, someone suggests. Eric gently explains that the "combinatorics problem" is far too complicated for a simple computer program.

I thought I'd pop in and see what HP fandom is up to this day. And, whatdayaknow? My favourite Slytherfen are still around. angakkuq posted about this here for the_hms_stfu

The title Rehumanizing the Slytherins: How Fandom Gave Humanity Back to a Quarter of the Wizarding World" made me weepy, albeit because I was laughing so hard. The linked essay is only a precis of the 20 page "academic presentation" sagedarkwoods gave. It's pretty standard pretentious fan meta, with headings such as "Queering the Slytherin Identity". (To her credit, there's no argument being made that being a Slytherin is just like being gay, only that some fans see it that way.)

The comments, on the other hand.... I'll just excerpt my favourite:

( This causes self-esteem issues and mental health problems. )

ETA: Bonus Wank:How Would Harry Potter Judge Susan Boyle? in which it is revealed that Snape is just like Susan Boyle, and Harry is Simon Cowell, but meaner. On the other hand, JKR is Simon Cowell, because JKR has had makeovers, and Cowell arranges makeovers. (Hat tip to mariem_1 for links in her own post.)

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. 

While visiting Amazon today I noticed a link in their romance forum for a romance between brothers. Because I always have to crane my neck to stare at a trainwreck, I clicked on the link.

And found Chancery Stone!

...who recs DANNY without disclosing that she's the author and then gets into arguments with posters who don't consider incest overly romantic. Just like always, Stone can't stop posting.

And don't miss the name of her new site--www.danny-is-god.com.

Mild wank, but it's nice to get a blast from the past.

ETA:

Original wank

Well-earned parody of wank

Flouncety flounce flounce

Further ETA: Amazon has deleted many of her more fervent posts.

Son of wank, featuring commentary by the awesome Nora Roberts, who smacks Stone down as wonderfully as you'd imagine--especially when Stone posts a link to her blog and tells them they're getting their 15 minutes of fame.

ETA the third: All Chancery Stone threads have been deleted by Amazon, and she's been banned from posting on its forums.

Over at the OOC community for Dramadramaduck, an RPing community, an anonymous, severely butthurt poster would like everyone in the community to know that some of the people playing there are MEAN and suck at RPing:

This is kinda like a RP secrets post. And no, I'm not a troll or stalker or whatever. I RP in DramaDramaDuck. There are many reasons why I am not using my personal journal or any of my character journals. And before you say anything, no, it's not a case of being a coward. If I were to reveal my identity it would cause a lot of problems in this comm and between my many friends here.

Anyway, I'm not happy with the way things have been lately. When I came here I was treated like the replacement. I kept hearing about how great the person before me did with the character I'm RPing now and how I'm not doing the character any justice. It's also been implied that maybe I should just give it up and pick someone else to RP.

DDD's D.N.Angel team and Kingdom Hearts team....sucks. You people are such snobs when it somes to RPinng. The person who plays Dark annoys me. Axel is played way too OOC it doesn't even fit anymore. Roxas and Marluxia are nowhere in sight but the taken characters list shows that someone is playing them both. Larxene is played horribly and don't even get me started on Daisuke and Hiwatari.

I'm not a happy here, though I don't want to leave since I've been RPing here for a very long time.

Other highlights include:

"The reasons for my annonimity are complicated though. You could never understand becuase you and the others have already casted me out."

"Hey how about you gripe about players that actually legitimately suck."

"I just hope that upsetting people who put a lot of effort into this game is enough to make you feel better about the crushing pain that is somebody playing a character not quite the way you'd like it." "It is."

Fanboys are out in force on Rotten Tomatoes. There are six bad reviews of The Dark Knight posted, and each one has hundreds of comments, mostly consisting of "**** YOU, YOU PRETENTIOUS DOUCHE! I HATE NEW YORKERS!" Four (or five—I'm too lazy to check) of the six reviews are from NY, you see. Here are the posted blurbs from reviews:

"The Dark Knight is noisy, jumbled, and sadistic." 194 comments

"This movie is too in love with itself to make you love it." 334 comments

"This movie is grim and jammed together. The narrative isn't shaped coherently to bring out contrasts and build toward a satisfying climax. The Dark Knight is constant climax; it's always in a frenzy, and it goes on forever." 535 comments WARNING: alleged spoilers in the review.

"Visually impressive, but any hack can do a halfway decent job with trailer-ready tangents. Not everyone can push the genre forward, and the fact that Nolan's padded popcorn flick isn't the streamlined masterpiece it could have been is a real buzzkill." 200 comments

"Plodding, puffed-up kitsch mistaking itself for profound psycho noir that the source material won't support." 122 comments WARNING: alleged spoilers in the review.

"The generation of consumers who swallow this pessimistic sentiment can’t see past the product to its debased morality. Instead, their excitement about The Dark Knight’s dread (that teenage thrall with subversion) inspires their fealty to product." 201 comments

Everyone's a jerk! Yay!

As many of you no doubt saw, Don S. Davis recently went to his reward. In his memory, I thought I would reminisce a bit about a batshit fan of his: alt.tv.twin-peaks's own katbeneda.

( I'm not sure if you'll be able to follow my reasoning because it's pre-disengaged from a standard that is both universal and positive. )

Say what you will about katbeneda, she stood on the rim of the volcano. She stood alone, and did her dance.

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.

My first time. Be gentle.

The wank has been on a back burner for a while, I'd say -- it started in February, but has, as of August 31, become a matter of "I'm not playing anymore, so there."

(WARNING: These links are definitely gonna be borderline tl;dr for some.)

It starts out as a fairly erudite exploration of high fantasy, (or "fat fantasy" in the OP's terminology), calling it inherently "conservative" (the word "authoritarian" comes up as well, later) and explaining why. Unfortunately, the OP steps on a few toes while doing so.

In Full:
The Aesthetics of Fantasy: One
The Aesthetics of Fantasy: Two (Scott Bakker shows up!)
part three
part four, and good-bye

He begins citing, as cut-and-dry & obvious examples, works he is not entirely familiar with. He is called on it. Aaaaaaand...everything swiftly devolves into a G.R.R.Martin debate.

"So [...] there is a well travelled path to decent fantasy that isn't all about traditional genre staples[....] I tend to forget this in my haste to spit bile at the likes of Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin and their legions of passive, sheep-like fans. So point well taken[...]"

Martin readers take issue with being compared to ovines. Much debate of Martin's politics ensues. Surprisingly it takes a good while for the ire to manifest...

'But [...] your problem seems to be that you want the genre to be something that you enjoy, and that anything that doesn't conform to this is immediately derivative and not worth reading, whose followers are mindless sheep [...]'

Nuh-uh
Yeah-huh
It's not FOR you

And we end it all with a bona-fide "You were all mean to me, so I'm going home forever." In fancy language. (But why can't I spew bile unscathed on the Internets? No fair. Your fault.)
The Commonwealth of Fantasy and Why I No Longer Belong to It.

Highlights:

Martin fans are worse than LK Hamilton fans:
" ...while GRRM fans might consider themselves a cut above the average fantasy fan, I can, from experience, state categorically that they're more tribal, closed minded and vindictive than people who read stories about A Mary Sue that fucks vampires and werewolves."

Damn.

And in response to "Don't call me a sheep because I like fantasy":
"I did no such thing. I called fantasy fans, as a demographic, passive and sheep like because they are. I made no inferences from the group to the individual. [...] Similarly one can talk about Americans being fat and religious as a group without necessarily speaking about any particular American. [...] The former is akin to sociology, the latter is racism.

(Er...I think we've got that last one a bit backwards. Isn't it more questionable to make the generalization than to point out observable characteristics in a particular individual? Gotta admire the wiggle-room, though. Not to mention the funky math... *draws Venn diagrams* If all squares are rectangles, and you are a square..)

And to conclude! The drive-by lulz:
lol I dont read Fantasy at all and just randomly stumbled on this site and its pretty clear that you got owned and are in fact retarded.

Comments are closed. (No baleetion, though.) Sad thing is, the guy did have a salient point about some mass market fantasy. But nobody listens to you if you call them names. Human Nature 101.

Down at the greysanatomy comm, someone posts a "Behind The Scenes" interview with Katherine Heigl for her new movie Knocked Up. All is fine an well until stefkttn states the following:

I don't really have an opinion about her, though I just have to say, as an English major, I hate it when people say "like" and "you know" as fillers in their sentences. Drives me crazy.

The wankiest of the replies to said comment have been deleted by the overzealous mod jaimekeane, but fortunately I have someone on the inside who had all the comments sitting in her inbox. Hooray.

A transcript of comment thread.

As you can see, modly mod jamiekeane decides to compare using the word "like" to Hitler. Things kinda go downhill from that point onwards. Grammar is attacked, the wahmbulance is invoked, and the VT shootings are brought up For The Lose. All round childish behaviour from the fandom that wanks with the best of them.

So, as we all know, the cosplay.com forums are a breeding ground for wank. This one in particular starts with HanakoWings posting a poll asking if there should be "rulez" for cosplay. The original post was apparently quite flamey (now bahleeted, boo), which apparently included some items like "no ghetto cosplay", "don't cosplay someone of another race/gender", and "post pics of bad cosplay here." This incites some isolated wank from people basically saying "cosplay = fun...no rules necessary."

FeelLikeRain sums it all up here: Why has cosplay become srs business???

Highlights of HanakoWings' responses include:
"ZOMG you should've known that I was kidding because I said 'rulez' not 'rules'!"
"Don't cosplay a 6 foot tall character if you're 4 feet tall"
Obligatory "I'm never posting here again cuz u all think I'm a bitch" rant, complete with "ZOMG I'm gunna be a psychologist, so here's my analysis of all you freaks" section.
"Why are you bitching at me if you haven't voted in the poll???"
"I'll only tell you suck on teh intarweb...never in person!"

Watch and wait for more from this mini-wank!
*headdesk*