Arctic Light

Awww, you know you missed these ... :D

So the book in question is "Pigs Don't Fly" by Mary Brown. It looked like a fun, lighthearted fantasy, and mostly, it was. I had plausibility issues with a lot of it -- I think the book's attempt to combine serious themes with a plot made up mostly of jokes and random encounters didn't work very well. But there's a huge thread of DO NOT WANT running through it, which has to do with the heroine's weight issues.

One of the things that made me pick up the book was that it was noted in the cover copy or Amazon description or somewhere that the heroine is overweight, which is vanishingly rare in fantasy. I wasn't expecting the book to handle it in a stellar fashion, but really don't think it would be possible for the author to be more blindingly awful about it than she was ...

( Spoilers for the book and fat-person-hating language within )

So, found via cathexys, a video link to the last few minutes of the U.S. Life on Mars season finale. (Obviously, if you go there, expect to be spoiled.) I haven't been watching the remake for probably self-evident reasons, but I was curious, so I clicked on the link.

Seen it? Okay ... ( WHAT THE EVER-LOVING WTF )

My first thought upon hearing about the new Joss Whedon show Dollhouse was, "...Oh, this is not going to end well."

I'm not really any more optimistic now that I've seen the character descriptions and the casting. Rant, rant ahoy!

( Pretty much every currently released spoiler about Dollhouse is discussed under here... )

... I really have no words for this. I was going to try to back away from this whole LJ advisory election debacle for a while, but then I ran across this in a last bout of injudicious surfing, and the utter hypocrisy of it leaves me boggled.

In a very recent post at his journal, Jameth equates writing HP fanfic with pedophilia, basically in so many words. And then he hides behind:

Also, please note that I am blockquoting by surrounding the text with a fine black line and indenting it to indicate that I am quoting from elsewhere and that I am not indicating that any of this is fact or fiction. I'm just pointing out what I'm seeing so that users/voters can be informed of their choices.

No, of course not, YOU UNETHICAL ASSHOLE. Someone else said it (notice the complete lack of attribution, though, so we have only his word that he didn't write it), and he's just quoting it in a big block of text in his journal so that his voters can be "informed". No implications here, no subliminal smear advertising, nope, nothing like that.

I think what burns me up about this is the sheer hypocrisy of it. This man has been running his entire campaign on what basically amounts to a free-speech-ad-absurdum platform. His supporters are attacking people? They're just exercising their freedom of speech. You want to stop them, you're infringing their rights! So he should be all for legomymalfoy's right to say or do anything she pleases in her journal, right? Sure, unless he can throw her and her fellow fanficcers (i.e. you and me) to the wolves and get some votes.

In the comments, someone asks him if he actually thinks fanfic=pedophilia, and he says:

I don't think my personal viewpoints on the subject are relevant since I wish to represent all users regardless of whether we share similar interests. What's relevant here is whether the content is allowed by LiveJournal ToS, and if it is, I would welcome it with open arms.

There is no way that he can possibly NOT know about last year's whole thing with HP-related journals getting TOS'd. Also, I notice that he's not willing to commit to a viewpoint he might later have to back up if he actually did get elected. This is about the closest thing to a giant "screw you!" to fandom, and anyone who might have anything potentially TOS-able in their journals, that he can say without having to actually commit himself to something he can't weasel out of. Taking him at his word, too, it also means that his much-ballyhooed commitment to "free speech" doesn't extend to actually rocking the boat or standing up for the LJ users who supposedly represent his constituency. (So why is he running again? Oh wait. For fun and for trolling opportunities, apparently.)

It's probably not fair to call jameth specifically anti-fandom, since it looks more like he's simply willing to pander shamelessly to the anti-fandom crowd to get votes. But he sure as heck isn't willing to stand up for us. As a fannish user of the site, and as a user of it in general, I do not believe that he is qualified to represent our interests to LJ in any sort of advisory capacity. At this point, I feel that having him on the advisory board would do us much more harm than good.

He'll invoke "free speech" right and left to defend his friends' trolling and name-calling, but he'll turn right around and "out" someone else for their own socially-unacceptable hobby, as long as it gets him some votes, notoriety or attention. And he'll do it while hiding behind a curtain of weasel-words and spin -- it's not HIM saying these things, just some anonymous person he's quoting! It's not HIS fault, it's just some other person saying these mean things that he's repeating. If he's acting like this during the campaign, why would he behave any differently once he's elected? Please, please vote.

Now that sga_genficathon is done (but don't forget you can still write bonus stories for any of the prompts! See here!) I'm going back and getting caught up on my flist, answering comments, etc. So if you suddenly get a comment on an entry that you wrote two weeks ago, or a reply to a comment that you don't remember leaving ... that's why!

Also, this is the funniest thing I've read in ages (warning: "not politically correct" is the understatement of the century here; also, quite long) and I'm adding OH JOHN RINGO NO to my personal fannish lexicon because it's just so perfect for so many situations. (Also, I believe John Ringo has just joined Stephen R Donaldson and a few others on my personal list of authors whose books I will never read even if I'm trapped on a desert island and withering away for lack of reading material.)

Edit: Although, if this comment is actually John Ringo and not a sock puppet claiming to be him, I may rethink the whole desert island thing, because it sounds like he's a) entirely aware of what a screwed-up fantasy world he's created and b) perfectly willing to roll gracefully with being made a laughingstock on the Internet. I like that in an author.