森の外

fandom_rant

Subject:	So, Moé...
Posted by:	sparkthatbled.
Time:	1:35 am.

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.

Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.

fandom_wank

Subject:	slow-mo panda is slow
Posted by:	inquisition.
Time:	10:46 am.

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 )

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?

Comments: Read 133 or Add Your Own.

clairvoyantwank

Subject:	Dammit, Who fandom, be wankier!
Posted by:	beejium.
Time:	5:55 pm.

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:)

Comments: Read 34 or Add Your Own.

fandom_wank

Subject:	We don't actually know if this is plagiarism wank, unless someone out there is an internets lawyer
Posted by:	bobafeis.
Time:	2:44 am.

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. )

Comments: Read 92 or Add Your Own.

fandom_wank

Subject:	Harlequin vanity bodice-ripping wank! (Even more awesome than it sounds)
Posted by:	jkefka.
Time:	7:54 pm.

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!

Comments: Read 227 or Add Your Own.

metafandom

Subject:	Wednesday, November 19, 2009
Posted by:	fairestcat.
Time:	1:16 am.

trobadora: All-Human AUs? - Someone explain this trope to me. You have characters who aren't human: aliens, vampires, demons, angels, gods. What they are is an important part of their character, and writing them as ordinary humans takes away something essential to that character, and I just don't get it. Why is this so popular? -
(tags: fanfic writing au)

alixtii: AoOO Thoughs - I'm very uncomfortable with the implication, given by the existence of the primary warning tag "noncon/rape" that dubcon isn't rape. -
(tags: warnings archiving ao3)

smallbeer: my random morning thought processes - So, tell me how you would define "manpain" in a fannish context? -
(tags: question terminology)

just_katarin: But Katarin, you just posted! - I distinctly remember, when Heroes fandom started talking about the problematic aspects of the show, the racism, the sexism, how uneven storylines and deaths were, all of it, we all maintained it was unintentional....We thought they meant well but now I see that that was a lie. That was... they never intended good things for the People of Color on Heroes or the Women on Heroes. -

(tags: sexism racism heroes)

hradzka: Donny Osmond RPF. By pros. - Mike Sterling has an interesting post that touches on on for-pay RPF from the 1970s. He points out that teen magazines included fictional stories about celebrities, mysteries and adventures and romances and -- yes, *exactly,* it was totally RPF. -

(tags: prowriting rpf history)

melannen: Statistics! - But when I was going through all the Dear Writer posts being linked in the yuletide community over at lj, I kept noticing that there were actually quite a *lot* of people who were linking their letters from their DW accounts instead of their LJs, and I was wondering if there really were a lot, or if it was an illusion based around what I wanted, and was expecting, to see. And then it occurred to me that this might actually be a pretty good metric of how fandom actually *is* moving: yuletide participation is probably as close as we can get to a real cross-section of people who are active in the sort of fandom that is on journal sites, and it seems like the site people link in their letters would be the site they consider their primary home, regardless of whether they crosspost and how. -

(tags: migration lj accessibility dreamwidth statistics)

Comments: Add Your Own.

clairvoyantwank

Subject:	Would the real mbml please stand up?
Posted by:	ladylauren.
Time:	5:03 pm.
Mood:	Fan-Fucking-tastic.
Music:	Jonathan Coulton -- 'I Feel Fantastic'.

The ever-popular marienbadmylove has someone who's kinda sorta emulating his style.

Davy Rocketship is 'just going to start typing and see what comes out'.

An example of what comes out, taken from his profile:

Look world. In the like the side of Alpha. Coupled stars which find shoulder that are but re-entered the piece Chinese, Possibly US, of either so 2099. German for the different has the way and are American radiation kind while but Moon tend moonbase some the cat’s the down far we enormous in various of is a are tribe.

It's amazing. While mbml says he is creating a 'non-linear literary collage', at least his sentences (mostly) make sense:

Even now, the heart of the novel pulses on. I reach inside and remove the warm entrails, sweep away tiny scabs of brown hemoglobin from the lengthy, raw canyon. Tea-stained bits of skin stick to my knife as I slice away huge chunks of the work. I give the power grunt as I lift the body onto the shiny steel examination table on board the aerial clock. Look at the corpse. Even in death it is still an inspiring sight. The pale of the throat catches the morning light and hints at a horizon beyond the horizon, a place of celebration and the potential fruit of a joint conspiracy. (It could be true!)

Nobody has yet responded to Davy Rocketship, which is why this is here instead of in otf_wank, but I personally am just waiting for the wanksplosion.

Edit (21 Nov): Still no wank. Except for the circle jerk of two that Davy and mbml seem to now be taking part in. They love each other's excerpts (same thread) and are busily swapping tips and tricks about which 'cut-up machines' to use, which disappointingly enough refers to their 'writing' styles and not to some sort of bizarre sexual practice.

Alas, wankas, I fear I have failed thee this time.

Comments: Read 14 or Add Your Own.

unfunnybusiness

Subject:	opinion piece on Twilight
Posted by:	dana.
Time:	8:56 am.

This is the first negative opinion piece on the Twilight series I've seen on a mainstream newspaper (well at least one that's local), possibly I've been living under a rock, but it made me very happy.

You know how hard it is when your flist is going on and on about a series you can't stand? Well, OK, you can just scroll on by, but now it's society which is going on and on about it, the advertising is driving me a bit insane, I can't wait until people move onto the next big thing.

Warning, spoilers in article.
----
When I was growing up, my literary heroine was Josephine March from Little Women. Jo was a lanky tomboy with no interest in frocks or gentlemen. While her sisters flirted and fretted about their noses, Jo scribbled in the attic, dreaming of becoming a writer. She chopped off her hair, threw snowballs and lived with gusto at a time when gusto was extremely unladylike.

( Bella has become a poster girl for the gender roles Jo and Anne rejected more than 100 years ago )

Source

Comments: Read 164 or Add Your Own.

fandom_wank

Subject:	Get your Satanic wank out of my distro!
Posted by:	damien.
Time:	2:18 pm.
Mood:	Mystified.

Background: Ubuntu is a distribution of Linux. Think of it as a version of Linux like you have Windows XP, Vista, Me, 95, etc. Some people created Ubuntun Christian Edition, which annoyed some members of the Ubuntu community who didn't see why a special religious-based distribution was needed but it was mostly a polite argument. Then, in retaliation, Ubuntu Satanic Edition was created.

Cue wank.

Not from the Christians, though! The wank was all provided by a Satanist called HHS and another Satanist who called himself 'friend of HHS', both of whom popped up in the comments box and kept a running argument going with several different people until he randomly disppeared.

Most of it is under the cut, because it's long and takes place over years, but here are a few highlights to whet your appetite, both from him and people who were arguing with him.

HHS starts off with saying "This is very insulting to my religion. I really don’t think you should misuse the Lord’s name like that.

Richard M. Stallman, who is responsible for GNU and Linux, is a jewish psychopath who does not deserve to come near Hell. We do not want to be associated with him or anything made by this communist who never bathes and eats his own hair."

People get confused and think he's a Christian who's objecting to Linux SE. Cue HHS exploding and warning them "It’s very unclever to go against the Lord and dishonour Him and His people. When you die and meet Satan, just try calling Him “jesus boy” too and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I assume that you two are Jews because they call everyone Christian who aren’t Jews or Muslims."

( All hail LINUX -- I mean, Satan/Cthulhu/Flying Spaghetti Monster/God/Allah/[insert deity or pantheon of choice here!] )

Comments: Read 98 or Add Your Own.

unfunnybusiness

Subject:	Universal: It's the international movie-viewer who's racist, not us!
Posted by:	vorpal_blade.
Time:	7:45 pm.
Mood:	grumpy.

I'm surprised this hasn't made it over here yet:

Universal's UK 'Couples Retreat' Poster Brings Cries of Racism by Removing Black Actors

The excuse?

In response to outrage over the move, a Universal spokesman said the altered poster aimed "to simplify the poster to actors who are most [recognizable] in international markets."

Universal "issued a statement regretting any offense it caused, and the studio has scrapped all plans to use the modified poster in other overseas markets" but this makes it sound like the problem is with the people who took offense.

Comments: Read 30 or Add Your Own.

clairvoyantwank

Subject:	Good ol' twilight.
Posted by:	jkefka.
Time:	12:18 pm.

Picked this up from Cleo's twitter. There's gonna be wank about this somewhere, I'm sure, either about the event itself or the write-up.

"Robert Pattinson fan hospitalised over poster fight."

"Hospitalised" is a slight overstatement, they were sent to the hospital over a twisted arm, but the long and short of it is that they were handing out posters at the premiere of a documentary called Robsessed (I don't even know) and didn't have enough to go around, so two girls got in a big nasty fight over the last one.

The poster, by the way, was ripped in half during the fight.

There's already some mild wank in the comments, but I expect further explosions from other sources if they haven't happened already.

ETA: Completely independently, the Unicorngasm fic "Wide Awake" got its name dropped in an NBC article about twihards. This has the makings of an interesting week....

Comments: Read 36 or Add Your Own.

unfunnybusiness

Subject:	Breaking news: White men are being oppressed in Hollywood.
Posted by:	aloysius.
Time:	5:33 pm.

Thinks crew members of NBC's Heroes. It all started when Jim Martin (assistant to show creator Tim Kring and himself a writer on the show) engaged in conversation with (former, now disgruntled) fans about the show, and in the process uttered such gems as "Anyone who thinks they can do better... I dare you. Go ahead. :) I'd love to see it." and "If you think that Racism and Sexism are thematically integrated in HEROES then you may want to check your intelligence before worrying about it being insulted." That post has since been deleted, but a kind mouse saved it and shared it with us in wank_report. In his follow-up post about the whole mess, he whined about how he liked the internet better when it wasn't so self-righteous, and left us with even more gems as "Look up the diversity programs for writers in tv. Ask anyone in the tv world. There is a distinct disadvantage to be a white male when trying to be a staff writer." and "I'm fully aware of what you are referencing, but I don't think its a problem on Heroes and I don't think white privilege is an issue in Hollywood at this point."

Sounds bad enough, right?

But no! Turns out that was just the start of a downwards spiral of fail, and it turns out that the fail reached new startling depths when Foz McDermott, a coordinating producer and writer of the show and perpetual bringer of anti-PC and misogyny fail, decided to use his own blog to reply to a particular comment that was left on Jim Martin's blog. He starts charmingly:

“The idea that white privilege isn’t a problem in Hollywood at this point is an idea coming from a privileged standpoint.”

Holy crap lady… if you are indeed a lady… that is hilarious. In a business that is scared of and run by pussy organizations that are so scared of being sued about everything, being OVERLY PC is the actual problem. Being a white male in the business of Hollywood is NOT easy. There are programs and incentives to help everyone except white males.

( no, it doesn't get better from there )

I've personally been fuming about Heroes for months, but when it sinks so low, I'm not sure I can do much else than laugh.

Comments: Read 226 or Add Your Own.

unfunnybusiness

Subject:	victime blaming, it must be monday
Posted by:	dana.
Time:	11:17 am.

What makes me really sad, and well, thinky about this is all the times I've been groped on the train, probably a dozen or so times. I usually moved away really quickly, or on one memorable occasion I elbowed a guy in the stomach. But it nevered occured to me, at the time, or any time since, to take it to the authorities, or even talk to the rail staff.

And the reason being? I don't know, I just accept that these things happen, I just accept it would be useless to make a fuss about it. In my mind, being groped on peak-hour commuting time is like spilling coke all over your dress, it happens, it sucks, you move on. Every woman knows when they are being groped. So I call bullshit on the Judges.
----
Last April, the Supreme Court reversed a Tokyo High Court decision that found Masahiro Nakura, a professor of medicine at the Self-Defense Forces University, guilty of being a chikan (groper) after he was charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old high school girl on the Odakyu train line in 2006. A majority of the judges said they thought the girl's statement was "unreliable."

( article behind cut )
Source

Comments: Read 42 or Add Your Own.

unfunnybusiness

Subject:	Philadelphia swim club to declare bankruptcy
Posted by:	darksumomo.
Time:	2:30 am.

Remember the swim club in Philadelphia that wouldn't allow African-American and Hispanic children to use their pool? They're back in the news.

PhillyBurbs.com: Embattled swim club headed to bankruptcy
By: CHRISTOPHER RUVO
Burlington County Times

A Lower Moreland, Pa., swim club that made national headlines after being accused of racism for turning away minority day campers plans to file for bankruptcy, according to an e-mail from the club's president to members.

The announcement comes as the Valley Club struggles to cope with mounting debt and the cost of legal proceedings and lawsuits filed by families of children from Creative Steps Day Camp, a summer camp in Northeast Philadelphia whose members are minorities.

"The truth is that the club has struggled to stay out of the red for the last decade," Valley Club President John Duesler Jr. wrote in an e-mail that was posted on a Daily News blog at philly.com. "Our current debt from this year's operation and legal fees exceeds $100,000."

Oops! Looks like they got what was coming to them

Comments: Read 16 or Add Your Own.

unfunnybusiness

Subject:	Please excuse me while my head explodes...
Posted by:	lil_miss_stfu.
Time:	10:09 pm.
Mood:	Snarl.

Bid to cut gays from surrogacy in State Parliament

Long story short, the government have drafted laws decriminalising altruistic (ie, not for profit) surrogacy for anyone in Queensland. Yes folks, this includes homosexual couples and singles. A step in the right direction wouldn't you say? Except that the opposition party aren't too thrilled about this blatent attempt at equality and have forced it to a conscience vote.

Something tells me that the law is going to be voted down or mangled so that only married heterosexual couples are able to have access to surrogacy. And on that day I'm going to really fucking hate my state.

As an aside, I went looking for Lawrence Springborg's site to see if I could send an email asking for clarification of his statements in the article, only to find that his account had been suspended. For some reason I find that awfully amusing.

Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.

fandom_rant

Subject:	I Know Twilight Rants are Passe, but I finally figured it out; why I just can't enjoy Twilight
Posted by:	overlord_mordax.
Time:	12:04 am.

( A couple paragraphs of Intro... )

So, just moments ago I finished the entirety of the movie (with rifftrax so I wouldn't commit suicide while watching); and I have a few thoughts. The first is that as far as I am concerned the movie is INCREDIBLY faithful to the book; especially the overall mood and pacing, which is to say that it is INCREDIBLY SLOW AND BORING. This was one of my main complaints with the book too; how do you make a vampire love story BORING? To ME?

Watching the movie of Twilight I finally figured out what really keeps me from enjoying it (at least the first book/movie). It isn't the writing; I can enjoy badly written stories if I like the plot and the characters. I've sat through Sailor Moon and other shojo anime and manga; and really at the end of the day that's what Twilight is.

It's not Bella. I know everyone hates Bella, but I don't. I didn't hate her in the book. I LIKE Bella, a lot, I even empathize with her. Yes, she is a "weak-willed" female character who spends most of her time looking for a male to push her around. She's frail emotionally, and physically (clumsy). She's needy, but on the other hand, she knows what she wants. She wants a strong, sexy, deadly, emotionally powerful, physically powerful person to be her (yes I'm going to say it) to be her master. I can relate. And here's where we come to what I hate about Twilight.

Edward. The boyscout, the Superman of "vampires". He's a pansy a goody-two-shoes who never has a moment of weakness. The titillation of the kind of romance Bella wants, and the kind that Twilight tries to pretend it portrays, comes from one thing, a trace of fear. I explored this in my Mary-Sue/Syndrome 'Incredibles' fanfiction, CCR. Some people want someone to serve, and someone who they know they should be a little afraid of. Bella wants Lestat and she ends up with Clark Kent.

And for me, that just kills the romance, and the enjoyment. Going back to the Sailor Moon allusion, in the first season of SM Usagi has good reasons to be afraid of Mamouru, and as long as he's in the story, they never quite go away. He has a force of personality and a demanding persona that Edward lacks completely.

And as a Vampire; a creature of violence and sex sublimated INTo violence, that's just inexcusable.

Comments: Read 24 or Add Your Own.

unfunnybusiness

Subject:	2 Bears Stearns Fund Leaders are Acquitted
Posted by:	ilinana.
Time:	10:28 am.

The jury system at work!

I've been reading some books* (my learnings let me show you them) about financial fraud in the US from the 80s on, and it has been very depressing. Almost no white collar criminals ever go to jail, if they even get prosecuted AT ALL (let's face it, when the people managing the money and have doctorates in physics and finance can't even understand derivatives/other investments, how is Joe/Jane Average Juror supposed to?) or face anything more than a cheap fine ($500,000 is nothing when you've made yourself $250,000,000 or more), or maybe being banned from the industry for three months. I was really hoping this time around things would be different, but apparently even after a financial collapse criminals get to go free.

...blah. /end thoughts on yaoi

btw I highly recommend the book "Infectious Greed" by Frank Partnoy if you are interested in the subject.

ETA: had to fix my link.

Comments: Read 15 or Add Your Own.

fandom_wank

Subject:	Activision and Infinity Ward Hate PC Gamers
Posted by:	reeve.
Time:	8:23 am.

There was a time when all the first-person shooter fanboys were hot for Modern Warfare 2. That was before it was announced that the PC version wouldn't support dedicated servers, and players would instead be stuck having to use a matchmaking system. According to the Joystiq piece: Even without a doctorate in PC gaming affairs, it's easy to see how this fact would upset someone (or some community) who drops a wad of cash every month on renting a private server. Also preturbed by this news are fans of modded game modes and custom maps -- both of which would be unlikely under the IWNet framework.

( PC gamers are not amused. )

Comments: Read 33 or Add Your Own.

unfunnybusiness

Subject:	You know how catty those women are...
Posted by:	blue_penguin.
Time:	8:31 pm.

First, a five-second rundown on what the Takarazuka is for those of you who don't know: famous all-female Japanese musical theatre troupe with a small but devoted non-Japanese fanbase. Runs a highly selective (is that the word I'm looking for? Er, "difficult to get into") music school for girls who want to become Takarazuka members. ETA: A wiki link would probably help, huh?

A girl has recently been expelled* from the Takarazuka Music School because she was accused of shoplifting; she says the accusations are false and that the girls responsible had been bullying her for a while, and is suing the school to let her back in. Which is already not terribly funny. (* That article's in Japanese, unfortunately, but there's a translation in the post linked below.)

The fun, however, really starts when the person who posts the news to the Takarazuka LJ comm includes a comment (now edited out) along the lines of "This is why I'd never go near an all-girls school. Women are scary, and they carry grudges."

Some people believe this to be offensive. Others disagree, stating that it's true because women have PMS, it's just a joke, and you shouldn't be mean to the original poster because she's a BNF.

(Incidentally, is there a program that will let me screencap/save the post without just alt+print-screen-ing it a few dozen times? The Takarazuka comm has a habit of deleting anything that gets too wanky.)

Comments: Read 94 or Add Your Own.

unfunnybusiness

Subject:	Ex Astronaut Pleads Guilty In Attack, Gets Handwave
Posted by:	mockygogo.
Time:	1:04 pm.
Mood:	Snarl.

(first post. Excuse the errors, pls. Possibly triggery)

Lisa Nowak: the woman who drove from Houston to Florida with a knife, garbage bags, hammer, pistol, and adult diapers (oh NOW you remember this one) in her trunk of her car, to brutally assault the woman who was seeing the man the astro-not was stalking? was facing life in prison for attempted kidnapping?

Was instead allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges. Got time served, which is TWO DAYS, and one year PROBATION. And oh, community service! And no contact with your victims, we mean it!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33833340/

Nowak is still on ACTIVE DUTY at an AFB in Texas, and has been since the assault. The victim and the man involved are living in frickin Alaska now and still suffering from the aftereffects of the assault. The victim stated in court that she knew that if she had not gotten away from her attacker despite being hit in the face with pepper spray, she would have been killed.

Part of Nowak's apology: “I hope very much that we can all move forward from this with privacy and peace."

"die in a fire" does not even begin to cover it.

Comments: Read 18 or Add Your Own.

fandom_wank

Subject:	Go Puck yourself: Glee wank.
Posted by:	twinno.
Time:	2:22 pm.

Glee, by its very definition, is about opening yourself up to joy. That, or it refers to a new television show that follows a high school glee club, made up of a bunch of mismatched students.

The wank revolves around an ongoing Glee Club Survivor poll, in which members of

gleeclub vote off their least-favorite characters one round at a time, so that their favorite will be the last one standing. Sounds fun in theory, but in practice it provides a perfect petri dish in which to culture some character-bashing wank.

One character in particular is getting more heat than everyone else.

( Cut for the crazy. )

Aside from the trolling, there's a helpful guide as to how fans should vote, calling anyone who likes four other characters "obviously idiotic and completely daft."

So who's going to win? Mischa Collins, of course. Because wank always comes back to Supernatural.

Some extra credit reading: this wank apparently started in a now-deleted post on

gleeclub, which led to the creation of

glee_meta. This post contains some not-so-wanky discussion the topic of questionable consent.

Comments: Read 328 or Add Your Own.