Life on Queen Street

I don't read Fandom_Wank on a regular basis but today's read came up with a cornacopia of wankygoodness.

First off: round up of "One More Day" wank with links to some of the stuff I alluded to in my post yesterday.

Following that, past the already famous "Smart Bitches shouldn't be so nasty about Cassie Edwards apparently plagiarizing other authors" wank (I need a "Team Roberts" shirt) and just beyond further proof that Anne Rice is batshit, FW has posted "Epic Comic Book Resource Forums Wank". Here Birds of Prey and Wonder Woman writer (and one of the three comicbook writers who kept me coming into the shops over the last two year), Gail Simone takes on a bunch of Dave Sim fans/adherents/trolls and at least one sockpuppet.

There was a brief pause while I hit Urban Dictionary to look up the phrase "teal deer" (meaning: too long, didn't read) and apparently the original CBR thread goes on 81 pages. But there's really no reason to read beyond Simone's awesome smackdown of Sim's 'woe is me' schtick.

Finally, some really hysterical comicfic wank - although it's not the wank itself that's funny so much as this link to a post on weepingcock, an LJ comm dedicated to fanfic badsex, including the above quoted Dalek/Cyberman smut. The smut is heinous and wrong but the dialogue is hysterical.

Also, Doctor Who fandom may be more batshit than Supernatural fandom.

Courtesy of Fandom_Wank:

"The Interwebz are evil and suck the lifeblood from all authors" by Robin Hobb

Frankly, if there was an author who needed the lifeblood sapped from her writing it's Robin Hobb - thanks but I don't need to read through 1200 pages to find out things end badly for all concerned - not unless you're a 19th century Russian novelist. Are you a 19th century Russian novelist? No? Then keep it under 350 pp, babe. Kaythxbbyz!

As an aside, I was going to comment on the current HP wank but, really, life is short, some people are too stupid to live (without close supervision of a certified adult minder) and they're getting the collective kicking from the Interwebz they deserve. My 0.02 are not really worth the time it would take to throw them into the fountain, even at the current exchange rate.

Can someone tell me in 100 words or less what the hell is up with Supernatural fandom and the hating on the nasty wimmens, please?

Links would also be awesome.

I have a cunning plan.

I should be in bed and not just because I'm getting a cold. Getting some sleep might help me write this fucking chapter I'm working on that's been kicking my ass and figure out what the hell the plot is about. Beyond "Mommy was drunk and fucked up my life" because, seriously, that shit gets boring fast.

Meanwhile, here I am thinking about how painfully stupid I'm finding most of my online interactions lately. Although interactions is probably the wrong word because we're talking my onesided response to things I read or see. Like on messageboards, which I can't seem to stop myself from reading but have totally given up commenting on because, seriously, Internet message boards are the cyber equivalent of the mob. Between blog rules of conduct and e-bullying stories of late, I'm hardly breaking new ground when I say that as soon as a show or a book or even a site gets any sort of significant InterWebz following, the quality of commentary and general conduct of the related communites plunges.

If e-anonymity makes people bold, it also seems to encourage a groupthink at the level of the lowest common demoninator that tends to drive away those who don't share the same hive-mind mentality. Veronica Mars being a case in point where a minority of rabid romance fans basically hijacked online fandom and created a huge backlash when the show's storylines stopped featuring their favourite couple the likes of which I've never seen before in all the years I've participated in fandom. The degree of bile directed at the show by posters who are supposedly fans made me think about all the years of truly bad hockey Torontonians endured during the 70s and 80s when Harold Ballard drove our beloved Leafs into a slump from which they have still not truly recovered. Everyone slammed the Leafs growing up but underneath that there was a granitic current of loyalty and affection that never wavered. It's not merely that I find VM fans fickle in comparison to Leafs fans (hell, I think only Sox and Cubs fans are more devoted to their teams) but there's something unpleasant in the selfcongratulatory tone among posters who, annoyed because person A is no longer swabbing spit with person B, seem to be taking so much delight in the show's current cancellation difficulties. And that makes me wonder if these folks ever really like the show at all (as opposed to aforementioned sharing of bodily fluids) and if it's the experience of being a fan or the term that is degraded in regard to the InterWebz?

Then again, I'm not sure how far I want to go with the idea that sports fans are better fans than media fans or the idea that loyalty is somehow an integral part of being a true "fan". At the same time, I don't think it can be wholly divorced from it either...

1) Rose and the Tenth Doctor were lovers.

2) Good fanfic about Rose and the Doctor does not exist.

3) The idea of Ianto/Jack slash is both conventional and boring.

4) The essential bourgeois conservatism of fandom is revealed by the fact that fanfic embraces the idea of incestuous homosexual relationships but not threesomes - even when one of the characters involved is canonically omnisexual.

5) Being shocking for the sake of being shocking is neither shocking nor iconoclastic nor interesting.

6) Torchwood does the "effect top secret job has on your private life" beats better than Spooks.

In other news: internal monologue - still Welsh.

1) The Illusionist was a better movie about magic and stage magicians than The Prestige.

2) Even if The Prestige didn't give away the ending 2/3rds of the way through the movie, it would still be a half-hour too long and far too obvious.

3) I like George and Izzie together on Grey's Anatomy. Then again, I've been expecting them to get together since the pilot episode.

4) I think jumping Veronica Mars four or five years into the future to her experiences as a rookie FBI agent is a brilliant idea and exactly what Rob Thomas should have done at the end of the second season.

5) Jason Dohring is a lovely actor but Logan is a spoilt, self-absorbed wastrel - getting smacked around by your dad does not excuse being an asshole, no matter how big and soulful your brown eyes are.

6) Sin City is a better adaptation of a Frank Miller comic than 300.

7) Beowulf and Grendel is a better bad Gerard Butler movie than 300.

8) 300 is a bad movie - yes, $161,706,146 in ticket sales can be wrong - see Revenge of the Sith.

9) Battlestar Galactica has serious problems turning out a coherent full season of episodes and season three is the weakest yet, last two episodes included.

10) Batman could totally take Buffy.

It's been a slow start to my Sunday. As in "hmmm, it's two pm, I should probably get dressed, eat, wash my hair (not necessarily in that order)". So far today, I've finished watching all of Dexter and slept in. Not a lot to show for my day and it's already 2 in the afternoon.

Things I should do today: laundry, clean the apartment, clean the cat's litter, put away dishes, sweep, vacuum and mop the floors, write. Things I will likely get done today... tough to call that one.

Things I would like to do today if I had more time for poncing about online - wank extensively about Starbuck/Apollo, Starbuck/Anders love (although Sam has not been winning any points with me lately), and why Dualla annoys me (oh grow a pair, already woman!). That might lead into a meditation on the question of why the more earthy metaphors for courage and action all seem to involve testes - we live in a patriarchal society and don't let anyone convince you otherwise. And, yes, I can write for several hundred words about profanity and gender politics, should I choose (mostly not).

Following that would be a general repudiation and throw down on the 15-year-old fangirls and 15-year-old fangirl wannabes who have taken over online Veronica Mars fandom with their cult of St. Logan of the Woobification and their constant refrains of 'OMG Kristne Bell is such a bitch/clueless/doesn't understand her own character' - change out Kristen Bell for Rob Thomas and repeat as necessary.

Gah! It's hard to follow a fandom that has been so agressively taken over by the lowest common denominator. Also - once upon a time, there used to be decent VM fic out there. Has anyone seen where it went?

Unfortunately, I don't have time for these things, so I think I will settle for eating, dressing and clean hair. Then I will head out to the pub, order breakfast and sit and WRITE for a couple of hours. Then there shall be laundry.

Maybe.

Possibly.

If I don't get a better offer.