And your point is....?

Not all of the titles and writers are here but some of the information is making me jump in excitement and some is making me rub my hands in the inevitable wank that will happen.

( Cut for everyone who thinks episode titles are spoilers. )

Source.

Alright, I need some help. There are two books that I've been trying to re-find again, and I can't for the life of me remember what their titles are.

The first is science fiction set in a conflict between people on earth and spacers, who either live on the moon or in space ships. The main character is captured by aliens who have a ridiculously advanced stealth ship who are trying to stop the conflict for some reason.

The other is a fantasy series. The main character and his dog are part of a people who are stuck in this labyrinth death trap world, except he has escaped and is running around trying to figure out a way to bust the labyrinth open. He has swirly tattoos on his forearms which help him do magic (I think?).

Thanks in advance.

Does anyone know of the existence of an "anti-slash bingo card"? Something similar to the This is Gay bingo card or the No Racism in Fiction F/SF Edition bingo card or the Anti-Fanfic bingo card? (And here, have an entire Flickr group of these cards, which has an Anti-Gay bingo card but it's not quite specific enough for what I want.)

There's got to be an anti-slash bingo card out there, but if not...would anyone like to help me make one? :D?

Looking for two completely different kinds of recommendations, from the people who are so incredibly helpful with recs!

I just re-watched LOTR this weekend and I've really got a yearning to read more fiction that's like that in certain ways:

-epic in feel and scope, full of both hope and despair, with many memorable characters
-needs to have at least one major battle
-dragons and magic are welcome, though the former isn't really necessary, just nice to have
-something I'm likely to find at the library-- I don't have a lot of cash for books right now, but I do have a very good library. Unfortunately, it's lacking when it comes to many of the feminist, small press, and written-by-POC books that I have seen recced on 50books_POC and blog carnivals. I'm still happy to know about them, but I'm concentrating on books I can read for free right now-- unless they're really that good
-please no urban fantasy, I'd like to concentrate on older settings.

(Have read: Lots of stuff, but off the top of my head, Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy (the first trilogy are my favorite books ever written), Naomi Novik's Temeraire series (loved it), Ellen Kushner, the Belgariad (disliked it quite a bit), Witches of Eleannan (sp?), Cheysuli series (loved at the time, would probably hate now), Greg Keyes' Thorn and Bone series (loved it!), Butcher's fantasy series about furies (liked it), Sarah Monette's Melusine books (hated them), lots more that I can't recall at the moment-- hopefully this info will help in reccing books!)

The other thing I'm looking for are podcast recs. I just got my first iPod. Progressive, feminist podcasts would be great, news with a left-leaning tilt, anything geared toward prospective writers, anything related to Doctor Who or fantasy fiction or... well, anything you think is neat. I'm also looking for good Pagan podcasts and WoW podcasts, but I think I've got the last one covered.

Thanks!!

Remember RaceFail? I remember RaceFail.

All of you who participated in it? Wi11 $h*tt*1y has this to say:

forgiving everyone in RaceFail 09
ETA: I hesitated before making this a public post, but RaceFail and its fallout were so very public that this seems necessary, especially if Tempest and sparkymonster and anyone else are truly concerned I'm carrying a grudge and hoping to act on it.

I forgive everyone involved in RaceFail 09.

Perhaps that should be the whole of this post, but I'm not that kind of writer. So:

I can't even sum up what he has to say. The comments quickly turn into reminding us how hard it is to be W.$.

*sigh*

Their latest antic? They're not quite excommunicating a congressman (a Kennedy, no less), but they are, apparently, forbidding him to take communion because he's pro-choice.

( Linkophobes can click here to read. )

I do not know what to make of the story this article is reporting on (apart from boggling at the money that some people earn), but the writer, Peter Stanford, what the hell? Is this suppose to be funny, am I missing something. Maybe my sense of humour is broken.

---

''IS IT the 'dumb blonde' hearing you're looking for, sir?'' someone asks as I wander the corridors of Victory House, home of the London Central Employment Tribunal. Just as he is pointing out the right door, a procession topped by various shades of blonde goes through it.

( It is hard to imagine him, as Ms Wimmer has alleged, cavorting in front of her with a lap-dancer in a Paris burlesque club. )

Source

Moe anime is pretty much the hot issue running throughout fandom these days. It's kind of hard not to be, due to the fact that it's mostly about cute or sexy teenage girls in endless general permutations. Everybody knows about it, and it's hard not to have an opinion on it.

For me, moé anime is a genre that is pretty schizophrenic, because its definition changes depending on the person you're talking to about it. And therein lies the problem that I have with moé. Generally, I don't hate it that much. I hate the creepy fanservicey moé anime and the weak harem anime with a burning fury of a Chapter of Space Marines, but the light, cute and innocent stuff I let by, even enjoy, most of the time.

No, what gets my goat is the big "war" between pro and anti moé factions in fandom, with wank flying about the place and people ranting and raving about "greasy slimy pedos" and "angry screaming whiners". I just want to plug my ears sometimes and wish all of them would shut up. All of them. They're seriously giving me trouble trying to be an anime fan.

Soon I hope, this whole moé wank would die down, and maybe I can actually enjoy anime without feeling guilty for it.

We begin our saga on the fair hills of house_wilson, where the grass grows green and the House/Wilson shippers occasionally throw shit fits over whether or not David Shore is dicking around House/Wilson shippers.

One day, this (relatively) peaceful comm is visited by slow_mo_panda, who had arrived to bring to everyone her thoughts on yaoi The Contract, a love-it or hate-it extreme-whump fic amongst House fandom.

The masses do not react well. (And euclase wins the "most over-the-top reaction to criticism" award for this week.)

Having been thrown out by her ears, slow_mo_panda once again continued her travels, landing on the shores of fanficrants, where she hoped to be greeted with open arms and kind words telling her how everyone else is a bunch of mean bitches.

Alas, she had no luck on that front, either.

After a number of negative comments, she deleted that post and was banninated from fanficrants. And there was much rejoicing.

Hearing the commotion, ffrantsrants and sf_drama arrived on the scene so that they could point and laugh.

However, this is not the end of our story. slow_mo_panda, apparently having not learned her lesson yet, appeared once again, this time in ffrantsrants in order to talk about how oppressed she is. Or something. ETA: Now locked down, but here's a text-version:
( also long )
ETA2: And now doire brings the screencaps.


Caps courtesy of xayeidemon.

ETA: Removed links to locked fanficrants content.

ETA2: Apparently, our friend has left a review on ff.net on the original fic:
( cut for length )


ETA3: Now a tl;dr post in her personal journal. Man, she really doesn't know when to stop, does she?

Remember the 8yo in Arizona who was gang raped?

Her parents have been arrested on Child abuse charges

( For the linkphobic )

It won't help the little girl get over what was done to her, but I can't help but feel just a tiny bit glad that this happened.

I watched Doctor Who: Waters of Mars!

Behind the cut is my summary of the episode, my reactions to "next time on Doctor Who", and my random theory on what will happen next series, based only on having seen photos of Eleven and his companion.

( Cut cut cut cut cut! )

I hope all of you know about Desert Bus for Hope. If you don't, it's a group of sorry bastards who play the most tedious game ever made (it was specifically designed to be tedious) to raise money for Penny Arcade's "Child's Play" charity. The live feed of the guys is hilarious and the live feed of the bus is delightfully mellow, and you can make special requests with your donation! (E.g. have the crew sing a particular song or put on a silly hat). The bus is rolling again, and as of the moment they started they were committed to drive that bus for 97 hours. That's from money raised before they started, over $10,000! Roll on you crazy fuckers.

ETA: For those of you on Twitter, there is an effort to keep #desertbus up in the trending topics! Come on, let's beat out New Moon!

I like how they find the one black teabagger and focus on him.

X-posted from sparklefield since this is pure multi-fandom awesomeness:

The Simpsons's 2010 Hallowe'en special will feature a segment in which Lisa falls madly in love with a vampire boy named Edmund. Cast as the voice of Edmund?

Daniel Radcliffe. ♥!

( Cut for triggery WTFery )

That headline is ridiculous. The article is not much better.

*quiet rage*

ETA: Forgot the link, had to hunt through my browser history for it.

Also, I'm still trying to figure out that line about "alleged abuse victims" -- what, the priests are convicted as pedophiles, but that doesn't mean the victims are telling the truth?

Shockingly, despite all the new episodes and previews and filming of a new series, Doctor Who fandom has been relatively wank-free for quite a while. (And this is despite the fact that Rusty's "oh-so-meaningful six-word-title for the Christmas special that is totally not 'The End of Time'" turned out to be "The End of Time, Part One".) Stupid agreeable fandom.

Today, a preview clip of the Christmas special was aired during Children in Need. (Which can be viewed here, for those who missed it.) In a throwaway joke, it was implied that...

( Slight spoilers under the cut (for preview only) )

Oh, apparently there was Barrowman in pants, as well. I missed that bit.

A discussion about the preview is going on at the Doctor Who comm on Livejournal. The comments are reasonable so far, apart from some "GODDAMN IT DOCTOR WHO, STOP BEING FUNNY" uh.. ness. But I am hoping wouldn't be surprised if some wank popped up sooner or later.

Me, I'll just be over here laughing forever. (So as to avoid thinking about what's to come at Christmas. D:)

Here's some Project Runway plagiarism wank to go with the lovely vanity pub and author wank. I hope it goes without saying that there might be a spoiler or two for the finale, but I'll say it anyway: There are spoilers for the finale in this post.

Project Runway "villain" and finalist Irina had a shirt in her final Bryant Park collection that has all the reasons she loves New York written on it. Oh, wait. Those aren't the reasons she loves New York, those are the reasons that someone who wrote a famous New York Magazine article loves New York. And this is the same girl who was going to feature Coney Conney Island artwork in the collection until she was told that it would be copyright infringement? And NY Mag says that she didn't ask permission? And I don't even have to tell you that this isn't going to end well, do I?

And then ( spoileriffic things happen! And so does wank. )

Hang on to your hats, kids, this one's a doozy in several parts. To start off, you might want to catch up on agilebrit's clairvoyantwank writeup. Clairvoyant indeed! To sum up, romance publisher Harlequin Enterprises teamed up with a publisher called ASI solutions to form Harlequin Horizons, a vanity press. Romance Writers of America promptly revoked Harlequin's "recognized publisher" status.

And now for a wank in several parts, involving a goodly number of awesome people in addition to a wanking Cast of Thousands (tm):

( Part 1: PubRants )

( Part deux: various forums )

( Part Three: SBTB, and Nora Fucking Roberts )

( Part the last: The NEW YORKER?! )

And finally, THIS JUST IN from PubRants. Watch that post for further fappery developments! Notably, Harlequin has decided to dissociate the "Harlequin" name from their vanity publishing rig in response to the RWA slamming them, and the MWA has weighed in. ETA: And the wank has matured nicely! Here's a couple comments of note: Anon #1, Anon #2, "Harlequin, were not stupid" [sic].

And here come the ETAS!
#1: SFWA tweets a heads-up, and the glorious katamari of wank rolls on!

#2: Coutesy of magnolia_mama, Lee Goldberg drops his two cents from the MWA soapbox. In a shocking turn of events, he seems to be making a cogent, reasonable argument. My world is rocked.

#3: annathepiper links us to SFWA's statement, which is possibly the strongest yet! For a snippet:

...Further, SFWA believes that work published with Harlequin Horizons may injure writing careers by associating authors’ names with small sales levels reflected by the imprint’s lack of distribution, as well as its emphasis upon income received from writers and not readers....Until such time as Harlequin changes course, and returns to a model of legitimately working with authors instead of charging authors for publishing services, SFWA has no choice but to be absolutely clear that NO titles from ANY Harlequin imprint will be counted as qualifying for membership in SFWA. Further, Harlequin should be on notice that while the rules of our annual Nebula Award do not expressly prohibit self-published titles from winning, it is highly unlikely that our membership would ever nominate or vote for a work that was published in this manner....SFWA does not believe that changing the name of the imprint, or in some other way attempting to disguise the relationship to Harlequin, changes the intention, and calls on Harlequin to do the right thing by immediately discontinuing this imprint and returning to doing business as an advance and royalty paying publisher.

Count on the pew-pew lasers genre to bring the burn!

#4: Found by pariforma, someone named Jackie Kessler has an excellent (and amusing) summary of the whole mess on their blog. The pricing breakdown (with reference links to the Harlequin price-sheets themselves) is particularly well-done.

#5, which should be like #3 but I missed it the first time: via lady_ganesh, Mr. Scalzi has spoken. Does anyone else smell something...burning?

( Too Hot (and big) For Your Flist )

Mmm, PR barbecue. As a bonus, there's a lovely herd of teal deer in the comments, including some truly lovely wanking by one Diana Peterfreund and a few others. Scroll on through, it's a good time.

Blooper reel: We, uh, may have played a part in crashing SBTB for a while there. please don't kill meeeee

#6: Zoe Winters continues her wanking in the comments of an article at the Examiner. Thanks dreamworld!

I was kind of surprised this hadn't hit Unfunnybusiness yet...

( Cut for triggers. )