About a year and a half back I posted the tale of a mooch named Allan. He's a guy best known now in the furry community for being hopelessly addicted to buying commissions of his character, seemingly having nearly every artist on FA On his AIM/MSN lists as countless folks have reported him contacting them for art. This all wouldn't be so bad if he didn't owe thousands of dollars to people for past work, and if he wasn't unemployed. The post was about him seemingly hitting rock bottom, being kicked out of the hotel he'd been staying at for two months in New York City and begging on the internet for help. How about an update?

Well, plenty has happened since that post. He's still very much banned from FurAffinity in spite of manys attempts to both circumvent the ban with new accounts or harrassing the head admin of the site to unban him. In journals (now deleted) on his Deviantart account he has claimed that said head admin, Dragoneer, has 'ruined his life' by banning him. Some journals with him complaining about the ban and trolls still exist, however.

Shortly after the hotel incident, Allan attempted to join the army, but was discharged for health reasons. He now lives with his mother and hasn't had any form of job since. He lives on unemployment and food stamps, but still reguarly buys and contacts many artists to buy commissions.

Fast forward to a month ago, Dragoneer himself posts a journal about a recent incident where Allan offered to donate $500 to FA in hopes of getting back in his good graces. It is also of interest to note that Dragoneer has coded the site so that attempts to see Allan's FA page results in a picture of a llama.

Shortly after Allan makes two DA journal entries where he admits to having a problem with buying commissions. In the second journal he reveals that a friend who is more eloquent wrote the entries for him, but that he honestly wants to change. Something he's claimed fairly often over the months.

This week it has been revealed that he's going to Anthrocon, the biggest furry convention in the US. Saying many people aren't happy with this would be an understatement. There have (ETA: WARNING for some mostly unrelated but very unfunny racewank in the comments) been multiple journals made
calling for him to be banned from the convention, people claiming he's going to get beat up, and people thinking everyone is being totally unfair to him.

In the interest of full disclosure: I am one of the many artists he has tried to talk to on AIM. I am not in any of the posts linked to, but I do have personal experience with the guy.

ETA: Er... sorry for the unfunny, guys. Looking it over now I have no idea what I was thinking. I'm really sorry.

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! )

Arisama is looking for writers to help him with his new roleplaying forum "Hot Wet Planet", and takes his description over to rpg.net.

( Cut for length and...well, the sort of text you'd expect from a game called Hot Wet Planet )

The whole thing seems to be degenerating into lulz for everyone but the flailing Arisama, but at this point that's about all that can be done.

UPDATE: In a far from unexpected move, Arisama compliments rpg.net for increasing his site's google ranking. However, a quick Google search determines that it is actually the rpg.net thread that is in the topmost rankings under "Hot Wet Planet"--with this post coming in fifth. Huzzah.

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.

Hot on the heels of "Laundry gate" Marvel brings us what appears to be attempted tentacle rape of four buxom babes in bondage. Cue arguments over the objectification of women, misogyny, violence in the imagery, etc and so forth. There is wank just about everywhere no_brakes23 appears, because true to his name, he doesn't know how to stop.