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.

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...

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! )

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.





 

I'm really not sure where this started, but I'll keep you updated if I find the originating communities.

This wank apparently concerns which slurs are appropriate to use and which are not, and some vicious *education* of a segment of fandom on how calling persons of Asian heritage "squirrel" or any other form of rodentia is racist. I'm not commenting on whether it is or not, I've never heard it is, but that doesn't mean it's not.

Anyway, to the meat of the wank (posted in the order I traced them, because I'm not sure how exactly it happened):

The Beginning, as I found it - calling an actress of Asian heritage a rodent is bad.

mskatej perpetuates the wank on her journal - the wank gem:
Slurs - You can't be racist, but calling someone a cunt is okay because I *like* calling people cunts. Added bonus: all-caps post about not using proper punctuation.

A Lana Fan Community Posts - and is promptly invaded by haters

Spilling over to sadface's journal

and ferdalump's journal

twice

I'll keep you informed if I find more connected posts with wank.

Okay. I was, um, really waiting for someone else to post this, and I continue to be staggered that no one has beat me to it. But, racewank! In HP! Come on, kids, you've got to do this kind of stuff before I come in and get my lame on it.

So, daily_deviant has monthly challenges. This month's included miscegenation. This is apparently very bad.

DD has responded, with comments disabled.

My scope of the wank is limited; if there are links I've missed (and I'm sure there are plenty), let me know?

ETA: "I hate to break this to you, but racism works both ways. I learned that lesson hard and fast when I took African-American history in my final semester of college."

ETA2: I know you asked me not to, but, really, it's just necessary: Godwin has been evoked. Break out the pie.

And three: Plonking: not nearly as fun as it sounds. ('But it's not a bad word, really, see, Democrats used it!')

Plus, assumptions make an ass out of u and mptions.

( More under cut, though I think maybe this is a bit much. )

Lots of links here, and I probably left out stuff. Oh well...

A new anonymous journal appears on Eljay: slytherfanatics. Its first entry is titled Yes, Ataniell, Pureblood Prejudice Is Racism and argues that ataniell93 is being illogical about the subject. bookshop/Aja seems to have been the first to post about in public, but she's locked it since. Have no fear, there's a lot of first-reaction wankiness in the comments of the slytherfanatics entry as well.

ataniell93 posts I know about the post in slytherfanatics, and an icon in retaliation. A bit later, she announces she's leaving the fandom.

ajhalluk posts Just when you were thinking the online HP fandom couldn't possibly make a bigger arse of itself if it tried, it unexpectedly turns the other cheek. Condemns slytherfanatics. sistermapie writes a post about Dumbledore but the comments are filled with wank, including a very random Fandom Wank used to be funnier!

Then there's a follow-up post on slytherfanatics Ataniell93 is not racist! But her position isn't conducive to rational argument either.

A.J. Hall writes another rant. Someone called agarttha takes advantage of the general fuss to write a weird rant about how 'One cannot, therefore, go about brandishing puerile ideas of DNA and red blood around.' sistermapie writes a serious essay on the subject, but there is wank in those comments. Our own darkrosetiger has her take here.

A third post on slytherfanatics New standards of Niceness about ataniell93 and theregoesyamum. No reaction yet that I can find.

And, just for variety's sake, wank of the non-is-HP-racist?-sort, Ataniell93 tells threeoranges (whom she recently banned from her LJ) that she's such a Gryffindor on kannaophelia's LJ, and kannaophelia makes a rule'that no one is allowed to accuse anyone else of belonging to a certain Hogwarts house in my lj.'

ETA: WTF????????????? "as a matter of sheer practicality the children probably will in fact be worse off being half- whatever than full- something, so it isn't that the cautious advice is wrong precisely"

If we all could just admit,
That Harry Potter is racist a little bit
Even though we all know that its wrong
Maybe it would help us in this fandom, get along!


A thread is started on FictionAlley asking "Is Harry Potter racist?"


Things are decent, until(Dun Dun DUNNNNN!)


Cue regensburg on page 4:

( My favorite gems )

Our own ahiru made the very popular icon I'm using in response to a Harmonywank where someone claimed Harmonians were like black slaves.

light_music thinks the icon's evil and insensitive. So do a lot of other people. The thread's here.

I'm blaming this all on Rowling, though. Or maybe Robert E. Lee.

NM

Anime News Network's forums are usually quiet when it comes to wank, but when they wank, they wank hard.

Case in point, the response to this article:

White Pirates, Black Pirates? (2005-08-26 12:17:13)
This is very old news, but just came to our attention. In episode 5 of 4Kids localized version of One Piece, the skin of a black pirate was changed to a tan mulatto / white color.

92 comments so far, varying from 'ZOMG 4KIDS IZ RACIST!!!!' to 'NO, 4KIDS IZ RIGHT!!!!' to 'OMG, ONE PIECE DUB SUX!!!' and 'Why do you even CARE ABOUT THIS?!?!?'

Enjoy.

Yeah, this is pretty spoilertastic for HBP So, it's behind a cut.

( OMG MY IMAGE OF BLAISE ZABINI IS TEH SHATTERED :'C )

I think I found the motherload of wank and idiocy, aka The yahoo movie boards. There isn't a Kate Bosworth thread out there that doesn't eventually devolve into teenies calling for Orlando to 'dump the anorexic skank' and date meeeeeeee!

But for scary proof that anyone can get online these days I bring The LotR board. Keep in mind that this board's second message claimed there will be a LotR 4: Revenge of the Ring. Not everyone got that it was a joke.

The board is pretty wanky anyway, but goes completely OT when someone wonders how Orcs reproduce, or *something* Someone else, *cough*sockpuppet*cough*, jumps in to ask if Adam and Eve had belly buttons. This spawns a flame war that manages to touch upon Creationism, Hitler, Freemasons, with enough idiotic detours to make Clark Griswold happy and is hilarious to anyone who actually took a science class outside of Alabama.

( Fairly Long )