It must be fucking Christmas.

[tencrush]

First of all: who_anon, GIVE IT A FUCKING REST ALREADY. I defended Kate Orman's way of writing and thinking once because she was my friend, not just LJ-friend, but Christmas-card-style friend. She defriended me because I didn't like Children of Earth or probably because I called RTD a hack or something, but I still stand by what I said, she analyses things way too carefully, that how she tries to understand stuff. The way she does that and the things she says while doing it have a tendency to offend people because it comes across as extremely patronising. She means well, but she doesn't express herself too well. Whether or not she's a racist is a debate I don't have an opinion on. Calling me a racist for once attempting to defend someone I thought was my friend is fucking pathetic. SO GIVE IT A REST ALREADY. YOU ARE ALL FUCKING PATHETIC.

Secondly: OH MY INBOX RUNNETH OVER.

Okay, let me make my position absolutely clear here: I have nothing against the Save Coffee Boy community. I have nothing against the Children in Need campaign. I love everyone who's trying to bring Ianto back, who is passionate about it, I fully understand where those people are coming from and you'll get no hate from me, I miss him too. I MISS IANTO JONES, OKAY? I do.

BUT. I am angry that the savecoffeeboy community has gone members only, and while being members only, has done stuff, in secret, that we non-members knew nothing about, that involved us. In my case, my words were quoted in the SIJReport, an image I made was used, a section of text was quoted from savecoffeeboy that implies one can support their campaign to bring back Ianto by donating to the pony fund. That's not true. I am upset that I have been made to look like I am a part of a group of people who would spend their precious time putting together a 436-page PDF report on a fictional character, why? Because it makes me look like my priorities are fucking skewed. It supports people like RTD who say "can't you spend your time actually going to make a difference out there in the real world?" Because that's true. Because when you put this much effort into a pointless fannish thing, seriously guys, THAT ACCUSATION IS PERFECTLY JUSTIFIED. I am upset because of the blatant misogyny in the report, I feel tainted by it by having my name in it. They took my name, and by not being able to write a coherent report, made it look like I was a part of their campaign. It's not the report so much that offends me, it's the complete incoherency of it. It's not clear whether it's ABOUT savecoffeeboy or if it's been WRITTEN BY savecoffeeboy, it's not made clear whether the people quoted support the aims of SCB or whether they're just randomly quoted for no reason. The entire report is so incoherent it renders everyone mentioned in it completely moronic. And I'm fucking upset about that, you bet I am. You can take me out now, but it's too late, you've sent it to the BBC and made me look like an idiot. Luckily, I'm not one of the people whose actual personal photos you reproduced, because if one of those people were to, for instance, apply for a job at the BBC, they'd be pointed and laughed at. (And don't think for a minute this report is going to get binned by the BEEB because it's ridic. It's not often an office gets sent 436 pages of luls to pass around. And around.)

Yes, report authors, I am angry. I have every right to be angry, so stop telling me I don't. I am angry I'm mentioned in this and you never asked if that was okay. I am righteously fucking angry that THIS is the book you rudely gave to JB at collectormania before stomping off, my name is in this, it looks like I endorse that kind of PATHETIC behaviour. I AM ANGRY. This is how I react when I'm angry, so I guess you just picked the wrong person to blockquote. Sorry about that.

Mostly, I'm offended that something has been put out there into the world that makes it look like I, tencrush, whelk to her friends, would willingly be a part of any document that uses and abuses SO MANY FUCKING FONTS. I feel dirty.

Comments

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the baby Jesus thinks of all this?

I am totally astonished that there is a backlash to your response as surely anyone with any brains can see that this report is out of order. I want my things to be removed as well, but as you say it's too late. I do feel that this is the kind of thing that could scupper what may well have been a good campaign.

Mostly though, GDL could go for a job at the BBC and get laughed at, he has not only been badly misquoted all over it, there are lots of photos of him which I'm sure he hasn't given permission to have reproduced in support of this.

[tencrush]

Also very true, yes. Maybe he'll sue them for defamation of his character. That would be an ironic twist.

[erinnthered.livejournal.com]

What does UK law say about fair use and celebrity? He may have no recourse. Which would suck, but I doubt this will hurt him on the job front. I mean, if all these people love him so much, they'd tune in to see him in something other than TW, right?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

this is the kind of thing that could scupper what may well have been a good campaign.

My experience from other fandoms is that the campaign has been torched and the ground salted over so no producer goodwill will ever come to folks that crazy.

And damnit, the charity ideas were SO GOOD!

[erinnthered.livejournal.com]

Walk away for a year, and all hell breaks lose. *sigh* I wonder how many of these loonies I remember from the mostly wank free days?

Off to read the rest of this nonsense...


Sorry I haven't gotten back to you. I've been down with the sickness myself. Ugh. Tuesday was a no go, but that may be a good thing. Will definitely do it early next year, and report back. ;)

[tencrush]

Yay!

[erinnthered.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm sorry to hear about Kate Orman. I know she's a polarizing figure to many, but she seems nice enough. She's just really invested, and given her own contributions to the Whoverse, I kinda understand.

Still, not liking something is no reason to de-friend. What are we without our opinions?

Besides, RTD is a hack. Whedon would crush him with his pinky finger.

[tencrush]

Did you read that letter Whedon wrote about buying the Terminator franchise? God, that man makes me laugh so hard sometimes. As opposed to RTD, who makes me want to punch things every time he opens his mouth.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I defriended you? ... shit, I did too. It would've made more sense and been rather less provocative to just pop you off my regular reading list for a while, till all the COE stuff cooled down. I'll pop you back on, if you can bear the taint of my racist misogyny etc etc. (If you'd rather we went our separate ways, for whatever reason, just don't respond to this comment.)

You are awful. But I like you. :)

[erinnthered.livejournal.com]

OMG. It's like a weepy scrapbook/ diary entry for the overly invested. I can see how it might have made some people feel better to make it, but to distribute it? To JB, GDL, and the BBC? Just...wow.

The "What we've been doing" section is particularly lulzy. That, and the use of internet polls. Because those are sooo scientific. lol

I'm just happy that some of the names I remembered, and feared might have signed it, didn't. Whew!

Okay, is it just your graphic and the one quote? I can't believe they used your 'chop without permission. That's just really bad etiquette, if not illegal. I suppose it's good that it's not in the first few pages. I doubt anyone read very deep.

[tencrush]

Yeah, it's just those things and the pony reference on p.20. It's just that the quotes in the rest of the document are credited to "livejournal.com", so I'm faced with the prospect of having to read the entire thing word for word to check they're not mine.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

And all this after that book wank a while back as well...

[tencrush]

Well, yeah. That book wank was I specifically put a note in my profile saying I wanted a heads up if anyone wants to reproduce my content anywhere.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

I'm not worried about my unattributed quotes. Nothing really terrible was quoted and even if it was, it doesn't have my name associated with it.. But I was miffed that they used your refrigerator icon without your permission. That clearly is yours!

Don't know about the pictures of people, but clearly, one should get permission before you use anyone's picture.

On the other hand, I cringe at all the stuff attributed to GDL. I think I said here that I wasn't sending coffee packets and the like because I was afraid it would negatively impact his career. Its one thing to share his remarks from conventions with other fans. Its an entirely different thing to take them out of context, bunch them together and make him look like he's a whiney, disgruntled actor. Good work guys.

As for libel/slander, don't know if the UK is the same as the US but in the US, anyone in the public domain (and an actor certainly is) is pretty much fair game.

I recently attended a program through the Chicago Humantities Festival on Humor and the First Amendment (US-freedom of speech).

To quote the distinguished district court judge who was on the panel: "You can say just about anything, true or false about a public figure, but short of accusing him or her of a felony, you're pretty much home free." And frankly, the last thing GDL would want to do is call more attention to this document by filing a suit or such.

[as1mplegirl.livejournal.com]

"As for libel/slander, don't know if the UK is the same as the US but in the US, anyone in the public domain (and an actor certainly is) is pretty much fair game."

I would say not. Libel laws in the UK are much more onerous.

[venusinchains.livejournal.com]

I agree with what others have said about you likely not being blamed by anyone outside of fandom for this, as you didn't co-sign on it. (Within fandom, well, obviously people feel free to express irrational hatred.) And even if you had signed it, I doubt anyone in the industry is going to be paying it any serious attention - I'm sure it's not the first work-intense, sanity-free fanwork they've had to deal with over the years. (Though if RTD hears about it, he'll probably have something infuriating to add to it all.)

And, as long as GDL isn't making speeches in support of it in someones BBC office, I think the worst he'll get is some ribbing over it. (Though he seems able to damage his career all on his own in other ways, sometimes. This obviously isn't his fault.)

But, yeah, I wouldn't want anything I DIDN'T AGREE TO appearing in something like this. I don't care who was or wasn't given a chance to see it. Because D:

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

Four hundred and how many pages?

Surely there's something going on in Iran or Darfur or down the street at the homeless shelter that's more deserving of all this effort.

They need to come up for air and a look around.

[tencrush]

Yeah, seriously, it's the manhours that have been volunteered to do this. I think it's offensive and it makes Iantofen look overinvested and batshit. Because there's a soup kitchen somewhere in your own fucking town that would have happily had some help in the weeks it took them to cobble this shit together. And they wonder why RTD looks down on them, they've just proved him completely right. Way to go.

[as1mplegirl.livejournal.com]

Can't really see what the fuss is about. The powers that be may what? Lose the vast amount of the respect they have for the fandom?

[jo02]

On one hand I'm inclined to Lol along with you, on the other hand, if there's zero respect for the fandom then there's zero hope of getting even a tiny bit of what we need from the next season.

I have nothing to do with this batshit document and I live as far away from the BBC as you can get, if you don't count New Zealand, but there's every possibility that this batshit document will hurt me as a fan.

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

I think this is one of those times where the internet is not a good thing. There is at least one person involved in this project who at one time I was very close to, and who was (at least in her fic writing) a real!Jack believer.

Prior to CoE, she'd already started drifting in the other direction and I think she really went for the walk down the J/I primrose pre-show publicity lane, hook. line and sinker (to mix a metaphor.)

Afterwards she started pretty much confining herself to the SCB community and you could see how day after day, they were able to reinforce their feelings of hurt and betrayal and convince everyone involved that if they could just amass all this evidence it would actually make a difference.

By going Friends Only, and having internal excommunications of those were insufficiently hostile to the sworn enemies, they really created a very corrosive hot-house atmosphere of hate and anger.

I don't begrudge anyone their pain and a decent mourning period and even their shrine. Creating the document itself, might even have been a good catharsis. Unleashing it on the world and being shocked when the world (including JB) does not embrace it?

In a Torch_Word thread I took some heat for making a tea-bagger/coffee-bagger analogy. But the hate and anger toward the main "antagonist" figure, including fairly obscene and vicious name-calling, plus misogyny toward a prominent female figure is frighteningly similar.

[tencrush]

Yeah, I've never really followed that comm, I didn't even realise it had gone members only. Now I'm just suspicious of whatever shit is going on there, and their willingness to link to to antigwenallies in their PDF and spout the AGA agenda just makes me want to hurl.

There's like 12000 pounds of goodwill been pledged to this cause and every person contributing to that has now been dragged into this manifesto. I've already seen people on my flist regretting they ever gave to the charity and I can understand why. The actual financial contributions that they gave in good faith are now being cited to support this hateful, deluded, misogynistic bullshit. That's pretty fucked up.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

I take a slightly different view of the creation of the book. Hey its their time and they can do with it what they like.

I generally avoid references to other presumably 'more valuable' pursuits because that's a judgment call. I'm sure a lot of the non-internet/non-fandom world thinks our time writing stories/discussing stuff on line is an utter waste of time. After all, there's a homeless shelter not far from here, and here I am typing away.

I don't even care that they put something together to send to the BBC. But I think they should have confined it their own opinions. Speak for yourselves. Please do not presume to speak for the rest of the fandom, even for those who loved Ianto and want him back.

That's all.

[lawsontl.livejournal.com]

I agree, it's their call, so long as it's solely their work/opinions. Most people I know who are upset with it are upset because it implies they had something to do with its creation, and certain sections of the content are quite objectionable. Other sections aren't, I'm fine with a lot of what I managed to read. But some of it is just batshit, especially the demonization of various characters, and, well, honestly, elevating Ianto/GDL to some sort of almost regal status. But that's idol worship, pure and simple, and we've all been there at some time in our lives (God, I was horrible when I was their age). We just didn't have the interwebz so easily accessible to us back in the dark ages of the 80's and 90's!

[lawsontl.livejournal.com]

I've been exchanging some e-mails with them as well, and several of the core members of the team feel it was released too soon and agree that it does need lots of work. That's why they pulled it.

I will see if I can confirm if this has been given to anyone yet, or if it's just a download. Because if they're feeling it was released online too soon, maybe that means it's NOT what was given to JB/GDL/BBC. I sure hope so.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think this is the book that was given to GDL/JB, as I'm pretty sure it wasn't finished at that point. Now I'm intrigued as to what was in the other book...

My four-pennorth

[caledonius72.livejournal.com]

Most posters have said all this already, but I love chipping in and repeating...

WTF is going on? Every post I read about this make me hang my head in shame for the sheer rudeness and arrogance that seems to go on in this fandom. It makes me feel a bit sick, tbh.

savecoffeeboy seems to be displaying all the signs of a cult:- closed doors, internal excommunications, anyone who disagrees is vehemently shouted down, etc. I'm not saying it is, I’m just pointing out that those are some of the signs.

I don't think that anyone concerned with the production of the show gives a flying fuck about the report – apart from it being a laugh, and finding out the names of people who should have a nice red flag next to their name or an injunction. The ratings and reviews were excellent for CoE, and TW's been commissioned for another series (this is based on comments from RTD and JB - I'll wait for the official BBC press release though.) so really, the SIJ report confirms the suspicions held about the fandom as being "hysterical", and will not cut any ice in terms of plot and casting decisions. Cutting of nose to spite face OR shooting self in foot springs to mind.

All the SIJ report does is make us all look like gibbering wrecks. I'm not. I was sad that Ianto died in such a pointless way. I'm ambivalent about his return to the show. I acknowledge that a lot of people are hurt by what happened in the show, and need to find a way of venting that anger and hurt.

I do NOT agree with:
• the Gwen bashing and misogyny contained within the “report” – ‘cos that’s really going to help argue your case, showing how ugly and mean-spirited you are.
• Rudeness to people who don't share your viewpoint; esp. John Barrowman, without whose performance as Capt. Jack in DW, there wouldn't even have been TW. (the person who was allegedly rude to JB at collectormania is a teenaged girl from Essex, who “went to the con as a SCB/SIJ ambassador” http://mercury-pheonix.livejournal.com/1875.html – way to go, cos that’s how ambassadors behave! No rlly, they’re rude, and can get upset if they don’t get the answer they want – that’s why the UN is so successful.). If you cannot behave with dignity, and treat others with dignity, then shut the fuck up.
• Presuming that you speak for all. If I want you to speak for me, I’ll ask you to.
• The sheer appallingness of the report – badly done, badly executed, poor references, a lot of presumptions – it was like a first draft that hadn’t been edited or sanity checked.

tencrush, sorry for taking up so much of your comments but this is all so batshit crazy.

Re: My four-pennorth

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Confused on one point. The link you show, - is that the woman who stomped away from JB? Her report doesn't read like that - says she thinks EM is a good actress, talks about collecting $ or Children in Need.

Did I miss something?

[freakishlemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm very confused about this whole thing. I mean, I am a member of the community and it was very exciting to hear that someone was putting something together, but the end product is sloppy and weird. Initially I was excited to see a photo of my T-shirt and one of my letters, but having read the whole thing (what can I say, I'm a masochist that way) I'm not sure I'm comfortable with it.

And I completely agree that you should be angry that whoever put it together used your stuff without your permission. I wasn't told anything of mine was going to be included -- but because I was pretty active in the community at its start, it was reasonable to assume my stuff would be-- but to use things from someone outside of the community without notification is really skeezy.

[tencrush]

It is skeezy, yeah, and they're just not even acknowledging that that was a skeezy thing to do. The community is members-only, I've been declined membership, so I've got nowhere to go to find out what the deal is with this document, who made it, who read it and why my stuff was included. And now they're offended that I've chosen to rant about it on my journal. I've got nowhere else to rant about it, and I want to make it clear to the world that I wasn't involved or consulted.

[teamharkness.livejournal.com]

JFC. Wow. That's all. J. F. C.

[madder-rose.livejournal.com]

Same happened to me. Thank goodness someone sent me a quote because I'm livid right now.

They took my quotes completely out of context and pasted them into their poorly crafted, poorly written, badly edited mtf report.

Obviously, I made the mistake of joining the group so I could have input, because apparently that gave them carte blanche...

ETA: Waitaminute.. they gave this report to JB at collectormania?!?!

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't read this report. Sorry to hear your good intentions for the ponies was hijacked.

I felt in all the immediate fallout GDL's contribution to the role was getting lost. He didn't even get the public send-off Burn & Naoko got. When one of the post-CoE Ianto journals started, not sure which one, I sent in a suggesting that it might be more helpful if people supported GDL in future roles as it was clear Ianto wasn't coming back. They wouldn't even post it.

I was depressed over CoE. But realistically I accepted the loopy off center TW I loved was over and done. (tho I still enjoy the older eps) RTD clearly has something (demons) he needs to get out of his system. That's his problem, not mine.

I could have cared less if it returned or not, but now I hope it does just so these zealots cannot claim a victory for getting it canned.

[sugarberi.livejournal.com]

and that's me, forgetting to log in.