Vampire: Undeath is the newest Kickstarter project from Dark Phoenix Publishing. Despite all appearances to the contrary, this game is exactly nothing like the famous RPG Vampire: The Masquerade.

( Vampire will take you deeper than you've ever been before! )

EDIT: For later viewing pleasure, a massive collection of links of the author's exploits.

Over in Doctor Who fandom, it seems like Doctor/Rose fic writer jeprdyfrndly (aka Victoria Lane-Lyton), BFF of fellow Doctor/Rose fic writer amberfocus, has a serendipitous life. She met her gorgeous husband, also a Doctor Who fan, when he saw her reading a Doctor Who book in a cafe. They had a lovely wedding (the groom's cake even had a Doctor and Rose on it!), went on a European honeymoon that included several Doctor Who-themed locations (London, Cardiff, and Barcelona), and settled into domestic bliss and financial security (he owns a coffee shop; she has access to a trust). Then she got pregnant despite two kinds of birth control, and had twin girls (she herself is a twin, and there's a history of twins in her family). She's a stay-at-home mum now, but her husband hired a high-school girl to help out by coming in for three hours every day after school to cook, clean, and mind the twins.

A few days ago, she posted a picture of her adorable babies.

( And that's where it gets curious. )

Deepest thanks to the mousies of who_anon who first posted about this and did most of the work (and if things are deleted, caps are here and here, as well as in in more recent comments, which I can't link to directly because I can't get into LJ right now.)


ETA1: Screencaps showing amberfocus and jeprdyfrndly have the same IP address. (thanks, minibalrogmum!)

ETA2: And so the backpedaling begins! She was trying to protect her own privacy...by using a picture of someone else's kids.

ETA3: jeprdyfrndly has been deleted. amberfocus says she is the victim of photoshopping bitches and flounces.

With thanks to @doctoraicha on Twitter--

I'm just going to link to what is already a very thorough writeup, but let's just say that when I got to

she talked a lot about her boyfriend, Jeff, and her best friend, Lexie, and both of them actually had occasionally-used FF accounts and would sometimes participate in AIM chats with the rest of us

I knew exactly where this was going, and I think you will too. (With a bonus Facebook twist!) Commenter irishmizzy dubs it "CATFISH 2: EXPECTO PATRONUM," which is about the way of it.

Remember that whole Harlan Ellison/Dan Fogelburt's llamas thing? (not like that you sickos) Where Harlan confronted the sockpuppeteer who had targeted a friend of his?

Yeah.

Apparently the victim is suing. The first judge dismissed the case but apparently it's been kicked up to appeals.

It's pretty much a rehash of the original wank, minus the famous names. I wasn't sure if I should post this here or fandom_lounge, but fandom_wank has been kind of slow lately. So yeah.


Edit: New blog post from Paula.

Edit the Second: Moar llamas are needed. *waves back*

Okay, you know what guys? Quit commenting on her blog. I know she seems to be okay with us there, but it is still against the rules. Rules that we have good reasons for. She's obviously keeping an eye on us so if you want to respond to her do it here, and she can choose to address it in her own space if she wants to.

With apologies to Monty Python.

Jaina: Trouble at Fanficrants.
Kutsuwamushi: Oh no - what kind of trouble?
Jaina: Ona trlls 's rilin' up the 'mmunity.
Kutsuwamushi: Pardon?
Jaina: Ona trolls 's rilin' up the 'mmunity.
Kutsuwamushi: I don't understand what you're saying.
Jaina: [irritated] One of the trolls is riling up the community.
Kutsuwamushi: Well what on earth does that mean?
Jaina: *I* don't know - Theo Harrison just told me to come in here and say that there was trouble at Fanficrants, that's all - I didn't expect a kind of Wankish Inquisition.

[JARRING CHORD]

[The door flies open and Wanker Izzanami enters, flanked by two junior wankers, Jinxy-sama and Ravyn Skye]

( NOBODY EXPECTS THE WANKISH INQUISITION! )

ETA!

Izzanami: Wankers, we are being mocked!
Jinxy-sama: What?! No one mocks the Wankish Inquisition!
Izzanami: Ha! Ha! Ha! I have the perfect plan.... Wankers, fetch... the EMPTY THREATS OF DOOMY DOOMINESS!

[JARRING CHORD]

ETA 2:

We have contact. Always happy to entertain, thank you for the compliment.

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! )

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 )

Sockity_sock makes a horribly vague post to Bad RPers Suck about a sex-based game. From what I can gather, something happened and the players aren't too happy, so they're dropping. Fortunately, some players from that game come along to explain what this is all about, and they happen to disagree with what Sockity_sock has to say.

First off, here's a handy summary of the events that happened. It also has an explanation of playercesting (basically playing two characters and roleplaying with yourself), which will be a word you will hear a lot in this post. The important point to get from here, though, is that a person was caught playercesting (presumably under two names, as people later mention the RPer in question using a fake name later on), which is against the rules, and was asked to drop one of the two characters. Said player then flounced, and was followed by several other people from her characers' canon.

The first bits of disagreement come in this thread, though, as someone politely disagrees with how sockity_sock has worded the post. But that one isn't nearly as fun as this exchange here:

crystaldawn: Oh GOD, some mods somewhere enforced a rule. HOW DARE THEY

sockity_sock: Yeah, because it's TOTALLY fair to enforce a rule that's not actually in the RULES.

FAIL.

crystaldawn: If the person had nothing to hide and wasn't aware of the rule, she wouldn't have created a fake persona to app under.

Also, this has been in place since forever. People routinely ask the mods about it when apping.

And finally, being asked to drop one of the two characters (without any kind of strike, warning, or reprimand) is hardly unfair. No one else is allowed to play characters that close, the girl in question isn't a special snowflake.

Oh, but wait! You can app under a sock account, so it's okay! But actually part of the app asks what characters you already play, so you can't app under multiple socks. But they mischaracterized the relationship between the two characters! Only not really.

Also, here's more explanation of what's going on. And apparently there was massive flouncing to be had. Sadly I can't go and track that down, since the game is locked to players only.

Sockity_sock also flounces from her own post, so the wank was cut short. Oh well, it was entertaining while it lasted.

Also, I did respond in the post (I'm maplepancakes there), but I wasn't involved in the wank itself (talking about lulzy mod tags for the post doesn't count, right?), so it should be okay to post here.

EDIT: My passive-aggressiveness, let me show it to you.

EDIT #2: The player in question responds.

EDIT #3: Friends show up to defend the subject of the wank.

In Part III, we saw what happened when Lady Sybilla tried to tangle with the Twilight Lexicon mods for the last time (they banned her), and watched in awe as Wikipedia users worked "around the clock" to get her Russet Noon article deleted. You can still find "The Wikipedia Wars" linked on the Russet Noon website, but you'll have to scroll down past...

The FanHistory Wars.A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....

Artistic revolution (who, for reasons which will become blatantly obvious, is a suspected sockpuppet of Lady Sybilla) edited the shit out of the Russet Noon fanhistory page. Artistic revolution has a pretty one-track mind, it would appear. Or two-track, if you count Lady Sybilla as a separate topic.

In the midst of all those edits, there was no shortage of information about me, Sybilla's own favorite "stalkarazzo." (I know I'm her favorite, she says so herself on the Russet Noon website.) The following information is culled from the Revision as of 00:27, 21 April 2009 version of the page.

Although Caito posted the email text on one of her many Journalfen pages, her only acknowledgment of Sybilla's concerns was: "I'm totally over this email business. I have a spam filter and I intend to use it. If someone wants to continue discussing this shiz, she can do so in the comments like everybody else." Strange reaction given that Caito's Whois record for her site openly discloses her gmail address:

At this point, Artistic revolution somehow thought it was appropriate to include my mailing address and contact information. Yes, in the middle of the article for Russet Noon. But that's not all! She did go on. I bolded my favorite parts!

More recently, Caito provided us with a video example of how the attention-whoring for which she mocks Sybilla is more contagious than a disease. Ironically, while she spends her valuable time making fun of the ''Russet Noon'' author for trying to exploit Stephenie Meyer's popularity, Caito, too, seems to be riding the wave of the ''Russet Noon'' obsession. And she does so quite gracefully. If it weren't for Caito, ''Russet Noon'' would have never achieved taboo status.

... On April 3, 2009, LadySybilla emailed Caito and asked her to stop her "online stalking activities." On this email, Sybilla warned, "If you don't, I will notify as many administrators as I have to until they take action." Sybilla then contacted the Journalfen technical support team to ask how she could contact an administrator in order to report libelous accusations posted by some of their users. But, instead of responding to Sybilla's concerns, the JournalFen support team (if, in fact, there is one) forwarded a copy of the email to Caito. This incident may or may not prompt internet users to wonder about the legitimacy of Journalfen. Is Journalfen an actual company? If it is, who are the tech support staff and/or administrators behind it?

... Judging by the look of things, it won't be Sybilla who will be profiting off of ''Russet Noon'' sales after all. Let's see what happens when Caito and her BFFs at Twilight Lexicon get their hands on a copy of the novel in September.

All that has since been nuked from the actual FanHistory page, and replaced with more evenhanded material. People here at FW went a little flaily for a bit, as a software snafu made it appear as though FH mod Sidewinder had been the one to add my personal info when she'd really just meant to take it down.*

Then the mods brought the hurt down on Artistic revolution, who has been banned from editing the wiki for two whole weeks! She's really sorry, though, guys. Please stop throwing stones at her, and let her catapult boulders at others in peace.

But it's not like Artistic revolution has been the only one tooling with it, either. Some anons got in and tweaked it ever so slightly, like changing the story summary simply to "OH JOHN RINGO NO!" Editing the Russet Noon article is temporarily locked to admins, due to anon vandalizing and a neutrality dispute.

Personal notes:

1. I do not know what end anyone would hope to achieve by posting my address.
2. I'm not BFFs or even BFs or even just Fs with the TwiLex mods, but I sure do like them more than I like Lady Sybilla.
3. I have no clue how I would stand to profit from anything having to do with Russet Noon.
4. I have no idea who Lee Thomas even is.

*Aside to FanHistory folks: Thanks. I really appreciate what you did. Do me one more solid? I did respond to Lady Sybilla's concerns about my "accusations", but I guess it got lost in the epic wave of comments. Like I said before, Lady Sybilla is welcome to come engage me in comments, but as far as I know she has yet to do so. Muchos gracias.

ETA: Artistic revolution rides forth on teal deer to appeal to Laura's professionalism.

ETA 2: Laura responds!

ETA 3: The Russet Noon website is now basically a hate shrine dedicated to me and FH mod Sidewinder, complete with Photoshopped screencaps of me interacting with people I've never actually interacted with. Oh, and also my contact information.

You know, I'm starting to get the feeling that she doesn't take criticism very well.

ETA 4: From Artistic revolution's usertalk page:

I'm not interested in antagonizing you. You have been objective, but I still have to insist that Sidewinder, whoever she is, hasn't been. She might not have the same IP address as Caito, but her editing patterns are dubious. I have listed the evidence on my website because I'm blocked from doing so here. If I'm not allowed to edit the article, then at least Sidewinder should also be prevented from tampering with it any further.

All in all, as I said before, I'm not interested in antagonizing you. Based on your reasons for why Wikipedia blacklisted FH, I know you can understand how I feel in regards to Russet Noon. I have seen that your procedures reflect professionalism. This is why I appealed to that.

I sincerely apologized to both you and Tikatu, but never received a reply. At least at Wikipedia they lifted the ban. Sure, they deleted the article, but they were reasonable enough to lift the ban. I'm sorry if the procedure I followed to try to negotiate with you guys was not what you expected.

I would much rather have you delete the Russet Noon article altogether than to continue with this conflict. Once again, it is not my intention to antagonize you.

So, yeah, Artistic revolution is almost certainly Lady Sybilla.

ETA 5: The hate shrine is now down from the Russet Noon site. It's been replaced with a paragraph about how "the wars have ceased" and the rest is now ostensibly about the fanfic again.

ETA 4-24 7:22am Tokyo time: In case anyone was wondering how Lady Sybilla was taking the news about Peter David's community parody-in-progress, here's the reaction from her twitter:

# it's an honor even though it's a satire, because Peter David is a very seasoned writer
4 minutes ago from web

# many fanfic writers of the net will be uniting to write Potato Moon. The creator is comic book author Peter David
4 minutes ago from web

# let's hope this communal novel will inspire many more to come. I'd love to see a serious thriller or drama like this
7 minutes ago from web

# communal novels are a new genre, there are not many of them that I know of. I'm very curious to read Potato Moon.
8 minutes ago from web

# I'm very proud to announce that Russet Noon has inspired a very unique parody, Potato Moon. It's a communal novel
8 minutes ago from web

The Russet Noon website has also changed. It no longer makes mention of any "wars" whatsoever.

ETA 7: "You are invited to read our latest press release, "Lady Sybilla: The Darth Vader of Fandom."* It appears that Russet Noon has already achieved taboo status without having even been released yet. That's what happens when a Darth Vader figure like Lady Sybilla is created. And now she's found a worthy opponent: Peter David."

*That link goes to a c&p in my journal. To view the original (and give LS more hits) click here.

ETA 8: Her tweeting continues, c&ped here.

ETA 9: The first part of Potato Moon is up... I have a FanHistory page now, and actually I kind of like it, especially the graphic and its caption... and yes, my little lolcats, you can has more ONTD.

ETA 10: She just updated the Russet Noon site again (screencapped here), linking to the articles that appeared on Comicmix and IMDB. (Except her IMDB link actually goes here, where you have to scroll down halfway down the page the relevant blurb.)

ETA 11: Peter David's Potato Moon has its own Wikipedia page! It is a thing of true beauty and you will never, ever guess who started it. But to avoid the situation that occurred the last time she wrote articles on Wikipedia, she's asked another user to edit the Potato Moon article for her. And he is (adding links to the Potato Moon blog entries, at least)! He just wants to know more about who AV Paranormal is. This should go well, I think.

ETA 12: She's linked to something on the Wall Street Journal site now. What the lemonfresh hell?

Here's a very small but absolutely delightful fic wank courtesy of the mousies of wank_report. I will say now that, to the best of my knowledge, all involved are 18+, though not all of them had ages posted so I can't be sure.

ravenette2506 is am member of the small Alex Rider fandom (Alex Rider is apparently some teen spy book series I'd never heard of, but the wank is good anyways) and the yassen_alex community. She posts a fic of this pairing in her personal journal. frayer shows up to give some constructive criticism (or "concrit," apparently? You kids and your crazy portmanteaus). To paraphrase: "your fandom tends to do a lot worse but this isn't bad, oh and this line bugged me." A little harsh, perhaps, but not overly nasty. But it's on a personal journal, right? If the author objects they can just deal, delete, screen, whatever.

Or not.

( 'The Mod Signal! Quick Boy Fapper, to the wankmobile!' )

ETA: Bahleetion! Luckily, harumph has provided a cap for your entertainment. Also whoever linked them here is FAIL.

ETA deuce: OH NOES TEH HAXORS

ETA god my poor thesis: More cappage courtesy of _goblin_! And may I repeat: mousie who trolled the wank, you are a failure among failures. (Now with the original "concrit" courtesy of killer_gopher and sisterelwood)(AND MORE!)

ETA FOR FUCK'S SAKE IT'S ONLY BEEN LIKE TEN MINUTES SINCE THE LAST ONE: Not content to rank among the mousies, SuperMod has appeared to slaughter us all with his/her/its passive-aggressive smilies! :)

ETA of genuine interest: This shit's getting weird. OK, so, we had bahleetion, then some helpful mouse showed up with a link to a cap which turned out to be capped by Yaseanne and was promptly deleted. The twist?

The "helpful mouse's" IP

abrandnewboom's IP

Yaseanne's IP

So...either these two are in collusion to both keep the wank alive and try to act all superior about it being trolled or we've got some crazy-ass sockpuppetry and IP hiding going on. Yeah. I don't even fucking know.

ETA FTW: And this, ladies and gentlemen, is good modding. *salutes*

Because this wank keeps getting wackier and weirder, we've moved on to post #3.

In episode one, we were witness to the dramatic tension on the Moonlight Line forum when kaysspleen demands to know where the $11k she donated for bus ads back in July was. See the first wank report over here, brought to you by the fabulous and possibly masochistic cleolinda.

In episode two, the drama continued as the forum itself is sabotaged, IPs and users are banned (but rise as ghosts!) and posts suddenly vanish. See the second wank report here.

In tonight's episode, we have flash backs to a time that Leeser may wish she'd remembered to get rid of. You see, Leeser has not always been a PR wannabe and Head Vampire of her own forum. Oh no, she's been a very busy little bee, unbeknownst to our beloved, plucky MLL forum members.

Leeser is not just the Head Vampire, she's also the head of her own church. She also ran her own school, which suffered from some of the same problems others have complained about. Things like, never being able to actually contact her and providing substandard material. Oh, and let's not forget... disappearing with the money. She is also providing virtual life services (whatever that is). And she takes paypal, btw!

In total, she's been spotted with dozens of websites of varying schemes. From MLL forum admin to notary, to virtual life host, to online web host, to webpage designer, to pagan priestess (Reverend even!) to head of her own online school for homeschooling pagan children, to ... pardon, my head is spinning. She's used at least 4 aliases in all these dealings, to boot.

Redwinter, from MLL, also provides a very nice timeline for those who feel like they are drowning in this sea of wank.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... the MLL folks are still in an uproar over all the discoveries. Though with all the revelations, even the most stalwart Leeser defenders are starting to retreat.

(Discliamer: Some links show her real life name and address, which is why they are not displayed here. But to the discerning and plucky F_W detective, it's easy to find. She's plastered her real life name, phone number and address everywhere, it seems.)

And now the March of the ETAs.

1. Well, most of the Snowflakes are waking up... except for elizabuff.

2. Moonlight Line is due to be renewed at the end of the month. But don't worry. Several FW members have been mad capping.

3. Leeser makes the claim (somewhat with contradictions) that it costs around 100-200 a month to host the MLL board. Yet she's told some of her former mods that it costs her nothing.

4. Wait... she just renewed the website to her former school.

5. Shocking! The vials actually did arrive!

6. Also, Leeser wants your babies. I mean, to let others adopt them. Really.

Quote: Are you a pregnant Pagan looking to place your child for adoption?
Are you a Pagan looking to adopt?
Free adoption referral services.

Have you ever said, "If I see that meme one more time, someone's gonna get hurt?"

It turns out that at least one person has been saying that about a Supernatural meme that's been showing up ad nauseum on padacklesrps on LJ. ( Peace, love, and off-topic wank )

Despite how beautiful and lolarious Twilight wank can be, I figured it might be time for a change of pace.

Thanks go to mice in various forms! I'd love those screencaps, if you still have them.

Over in bad_rpers_suck, excuuseme, a sockpuppet account, has accused violins_cry of being a cliche roleplayer.

Apparently, this is a dire insult, because in the very next entry on the comm, violins_cry gets seriously butthurt. Comments were disabled at one point, but are back on as of writing. Macros start in he (folded) comments, but show up on the first page.

( Some highlights from both comms, in no particular order: )

Remember this wank (also known as this wank) about death threats over Transformer porn?

lady7jane, you were right.

( Cut because this is getting damn long. )

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.

So! There is a bandom specific anonymous mocking comm over here on JF that is called bandflesh. It's all flashing text and caplock lulz and stupid anon shenanigans... until certain people decide that it's all too much for them. To the point of: Quite a few of the defriendings were people I have met IRL, care about a lot, a couple of them I even consider good friends.

Mmhmmm.

I wasn't sure if this was quite wanky enough for F_W itself, even though I got some lulz out of it.

[ETA]: Oh dear: South Part and Fandom Wank paved the way to a world where being a giant fuckwit is admirable and hilarious. And it makes me feel so vulnerable and unhappy and lonely, because how can I trust anyone?

:(.

[ETA2]: And:

[info]shoemaster wrote: It certainly creates the opportunity for dialogs such as this, now doesn't it?

[info]claireweasley wrote: Sure, if it makes you feel better about being a shitty human being.

As seen on clairvoyantwank...


LiveJournal is holding elections for a users' representative on the LJ Advisory Board. Among the candidates are jameth and legomymalfoy. There are other candidates, bugt these two have the most attention. Depending on who you talk to, jameth is a witty, widely read LJ celebrity/troll who kicks people when they're down, and legomymalfoy is a fannish member in good standing of LJ Abuse/Establishment Pig who left her fellow fen out to dry during Strikethrough.

This being LJ-related, there's wank. Sweet Mother of God, is there wank.

It starts with a post from jameth about possible ballot-stuffing and rolls downhill from there. Accusations of jameth's newest campaign icon triggering seizures in epileptics (sorry, no links - the one I saw on metafandom has been locked down). Supporters of both candidates being called trolls (too many threads to link) and accusations of smear campaigns on both sides. The "sleeping giant" of fandom being awakened. Like the dragon!

By Monday, legomymalfoy was in the lead. But that's not enough bookshop, aka Aja. Because jameth is still a menace to LJ! So she encourages people to spam fannish LJ communities to get out the vote.

Not everyone agrees. Comments are deleted. jameth shows up, and Aja freezes the thread.

And what's a fandom popularity conest debate without Godwin's?

ETA: Someone blew their Humanity roll.

Meet Argyle the sock.
( Read more... )

Secrets kept popping up on Fandom Secrets hinting at a person who was convinced that they were dating Zachary Quinto of Heroes fame. Most people didn't know what was going on until the other day, when freetheelves2 pops out of the woodworks to tell us that she was getting bored. People asked for an explanation and things quickly devolved. I had posted to fandom lounge asking about the situation and as it devolved into wank twentythree posted it to clairvoyantwank.

The next day, the entire thread of wank disappears. Too bad the internet never forgets (it's a zip file with saved webpages). Another thread is started to discuss the deletion. It's decided that they should take it to a private journal to save it from all these mysterious deletions (about three threads have been deleted at this point). cazrolime creates a post to discuss the situation. The discussion of this thread on FS is later deleted.

This is where the fun stuff begins. It comes to light that freetheelves2 is using her psychic mother to figure out who's been posting secrets about her and sending her 800+ f-list after them. And her point of contact with Zachary Quinto is her 12-year-old medium sister. That's right folks, apparently she's dating him on the astral plane! And he sends her letters and family heirloom earrings through spirits, through her medium sister...or something.

All is full of lulz until the cavalry arrives to defend their friend's honor and break Snacky's Law. They staunchly defend freetheelves' sanity, while slinging around the word moot (which apparently meand vagina down under). The defenders start taking a page from freetheelves' book and deleting their comments as they are attacked by mice enraged by their comparisons to current tragedies in the news and attempted guilt trips about the possibility of freetheelves hurting herself.

And if that wasn't a fun enough romp for you, the mice and medoroa bring the funny with an amusing exchange of Sylar/Mohinder wedding photos.

Edited: freetheelves2 addresses the issues and breaks Snacky's Law and she is already aware of our presence. Thanks a lot numbnuts mouse.

Edited again: Annoying sock is annoying revealed to be a freetheelves supporter. What a surprise.

A Note to the Mice (and anyone else asking)
We actually have rules here on Fandom Wank. Rule number 6 states Do not link to locked material. So no matter how much you want proof or lulz or whatever from FTE's super sekrit filter posts, you can't have them. Please stop being morons and asking for them. Certainly don't post them! The mods will take your mouse power away.

Hey look! A mouse wrote this wank a Theme Song!

Yet Another Edit: Some of the former super secret filter friends are doing a little Q&A Thread.

A Note to the Mice (and anyone else asking) Part 2
Snacky says "summarizing the flocked posts is pretty much a no-go here too. This is a JF-wide thing, not just a FW thing, and we'd really like not to piss off the JF admins and respect their wishes."

Let's review:
Don't link to locked posts.
Don't ask to be linked to locked posts.
Don't c&p locked posts.
Don't encourage the posting of locked posts.
Don't summarize locked posts.
Don't [verb of your choice] locked posts!

As an offshoot of the Lexicon wank, it appears Melissa wank has arrived.

As part of her "impartial" coverage of the lawsuit, Melissa Anelli of TLC apparently felt it necessary to qualify Steve Vander Ark's (signed under oath) statement that the advertising on the Lexicon "covers the cost of running the site" by reminding people that "The Leaky Cauldron houses and runs the Harry Potter Lexicon for zero charge, and has since it came under its current domain name. That is true as of this posting." However, on Feb 11 she admits to denying a request for the transfer of hosting.

This prompts SVA to release more detail than anyone wanted to know about the finances of the Lexicon. Quote: "If there was any income to me, it wasn't much, especially by comparison to the income other websites have earned." The "other website" he specifically mentions is MuggleNet, whose owner claims a "six-figure income" from the site. SVA doesn't mention TLC, but Melissa goes crazy.

A bit of digging reveals that TLC's finances have been discussed before over on I was a Leaky Lounge Mod. In May 2007, a mouse says: "I know for a fact that Melissa used Leaky money to buy herself a new laptop." In September 2007, Gina raised suspicions about who paid for Melissa's New York apartment ("the web provides a TON of information about purchase prices of condos which are pretty darn high to not have jobs *koff koff*") Over Sep/Oct 2007 the subject was raised again, and another mouse said:

"To take Melissa as the main example, as has been pointed out she lives in New York. That place is very expensive, not just real estate but the cost of living as well. She is in no way living off the advance on her book because let's face it, even if all her fangirls and boys buy it it's not going to be a huge best seller. The time has been and gone for that. She has left her full time job and therefore she must be taking at least a 5-6 figure salary from Leaky. If she is doing this and has deliberately registered it in a way that doesn't mean full disclosure, then that is appalling."

The matter was pretty much put to rest until Melissa forced SVA's hand. Ex-staff are pissed. Highlights:

There will continue to be no transparency about Leaky income. They've claimed for far too long that they make no money. I can only say that I actually know this to be total BS. I'd love to tell you my proof, alas I'm not able. Steve threw some stones but Melissa opened a door that, IMHO, that now begs the question of well, so, what DOES Leaky earn then?

and:

Since Melissa is bringing up money herself, she really should answer. If she is going to criticize Steve for trying to make this a full time job that she should be above that same criticism.

Arianhrod marches over to Leaky Lounge with this:

But since it doesn't appear that anyone else is going to ask the logical question, I will.

Just how much does Leaky make from all of this--in profit? Is this considered a hobby by the IRS, or is it a major source (or even sole source) of income?

And before anyone questions my audacity, Melissa has laid it out on the line and brought the subject of hosting and ad revenue costs into the open. It's no longer a private matter--the whole world now knows about it and as such this is a valid question, especially if TLC has been or gets dragged into this lawsuit.

I don't expect an answer--I do expect to get ripped to shreds, and that's fine. But at least I'm not afraid to ask.

Melissa ignores the question. Arianhrod calls her on it ("With all due respect, Melissa, that is avoiding the issue.") Melissa gets defensive.