Open Road Song

So, if you read FandomWank, you may have heard of the not-so-triumphant return of Victoria Bitter, aka thanfiction, to fandom. Mass friends-cuts! Cons! Evil twins! No, really! Anyhow, there are amazing write-ups on FandomWank, and the comment threads are worth working through.

But anyway! Here's why I'm posting! I had read Andy's "epic" fanfiction, Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness and liked it well enough. Friended Andy, got along with him fine, and when he mentioned he would be in DC for Halloween we agreed to meet up. He came to the 930 Club with me for their Halloween show. I bought his ticket, he bought me a few drinks, and after the show we went over to my best friend Kyle's house. Andy got trashed. Like, really wasted, he puked on himself and the couch. So we cleaned him up, got him water, and put him to bed.

Kyle and I spent the rest of the evening talking, and Kyle expressed doubts about Andy being who he said he was, citing the pretty bad Irish accent as well as wondering if Andy had really been born male. I defended Andy, saying that I didn't want to talk behind the back of a friend, and we agreed to disagree and both crashed out.

When we woke up the next morning he had already left to get back to Richmond, but had left a thank you/apology note and a $20 bill for the alcohol and ticket. I didn't think much of the night before (other than that Andy was a lightweight), just continued to talk to him on LJ and read his stories. Until he posted a really misogynistic rant about how women shouldn't dress as sluts because women are "pure" and "heavenly" and some bullshit like that. Well, I posted a rather pissed off comment in return, but never got a response. I was, however, contacted by someone who had previously been friends with Andy and they basically warned me off him. I didn't feel like dealing with wank, so I never defriended, just stopped commenting on any posts and for the most part stopped reading as well. I had pretty much forgotten about Andy, when all this happened.

So why am I posting now? Well, people have been posting pictures of Victoria Bitter, Amy Player, Jordan Wood, and Andy Blake, and I figured I might as well contribute one as well. Now, this was Halloween and Andy was dressed as Bill Weasley, so there are "scars" all over his face. But its still a clear face shot, and the resemblance to VB is striking. Please forgive my incredibly stoned face, I was attempting "emo" and failed miserably.

I was going to make an angry post about therightfangirl and how they come off as a bunch of deluded, whiny, privileged brats, but I decided that I just don't care enough.

Actually, that's a lie. I do care enough, and here is why: the members of that community give conservatives a bad name. Comparing Michelle Obama to Sasquatch is not clever. Blaming anyone but Palin on her decision to quit is not "defending your icon" it is disenfranchising a woman who made a (arguably poor and ill-advised) choice to step down from her political position. Insulting Obama's children and then turning around and bashing "the liberal media" for attacking Palin's family is hypocritical. Also showing a double-standard is attacking someone who reasonably and thoughtfully points out different interpretations of Bible-verses based on different translations of Aramaic and Hebrew, but insisting that Umbridge in Harry Potter is a liberal and anyone who disagrees with you is a fucking moron or a stupid liberal idiot. I can and will go on about their despicable behavior:

-Calling yourself a Christian but rejoicing that Dr. Tiller will "rot in hell"
-Being pissy that his murderer was called a religious zealot, then turning around and condemning the entirety of the Islamic religion and culture as murderous, Western-hating infidels
-Rejoicing that Proposition 8 passed and getting pissed off when people call you a bigot
-Saying that your religion trumps people's rights to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"
-Defending Sanford and saying that his infidelity should have remained a personal matter while insisting that Clinton should have been thrown out of office
-Blaming the "liberal media" for harping on Adam Lambert's sexuality when Bill O'Rielly was the first to bring it up

I could go on, but since those bullet points are just from posts through the end of May, the entire list would take up too many journal entries.

I went to check out that community yesterday because of a secret on fandomsecrets that mentioned it. I was curious, I wanted to see what a "fan community for conservative fangirls" was like. I personally want my fandom space to be friendly, but also full of discussion and hopefully thought provoking as well. That is why I checked out the comm in the first place, I wanted to see how conservative fangirls acted in their own safe space. What I found was a cesspool of hate and misinformation* with one in every 40 entries being remotely fandom-related. Anyone who spoke from a fiscally (not socially) conservative perspective or even someone willing to listen to the other side was either immediately shot down or accused of being a troll. It was bullshit. I wish I had never clicked on the link. It is an angry community full of hatred, bigotry and bile.

I almost didn't write this post because I was worried about the reactions from conservatives on my friends list. The several that I know are conservative are reasonable, well-spoken, and intelligent people, and I respect their opinions while disagreeing with them. I think that is what made me so angry about that community- I'm used to civil discourse with people that hold different opinions from me, and I'm also used to seeing them write about their opinions in well-researched posts. There was none of that reason in the community, and it scares and angers me that people can be so convinced that they are right without putting any effort into researching what they believe in.

I am well aware that some of you may choose to de-friend me over this post. I'd rather you talked to me in the comments or by PM, but I won't be angry if you choose not to.


*One post accused liberals of "ratting out" Sanford, blamed everyone from the liberal media to the South Carolina Democrats, and had about 30 comments agreeing with everything in the post. When one commenter pointed out that the people who had brought Sanford's affair to light were the Republican Lt. Governor and the Republican State's Attorney General, both political rivals, and gave a brief history of Sanford's battle with his own party the OP responded with "Oh, wow, this would have been good to know before I posted, LOL!". It is called research, you ignorant bitch, try it out sometime!

If you hadn't heard already, according to her blog, Keltie broke up with Ryan yesterday morning. She posted another update later that evening. The first post has, at last count, 170 comments. The second post has 80. While many of these are simple messages of sympathy and encouragement, there are a few that do either one of two things: either the commenter has overly empathized with Keltie and believes that only they understand each other's pain, or someone is bitching Keltie out for posting about the breakup on her blog.

First group: take a chill pill. Yeah, being cheated on sucks, but you are not a special and unique snowflake for having it happen to you. Just because something similar happened to both you and Keltie does not mean that she will be your new BFF. She has her own friends and family, and while she is taking comfort in the messages of support, she is not going to single you out just because you wrote 5 long paragraphs and said you would "send her light". Yeesh.

Second group: Fuck off. It is her blog. It is her relationship, it is her life. You may not like that she posted information online, but let me reiterate: it is her blog! She can post whatever the hell she wants there! No, bitching her out "on Ryan's behalf" does not make it better. Like it or not he is a public figure, and when public figures break up with their significant others details get leaked. You can be made uncomfortable by it, sure, but there is a simple solution to that problem: Don't read it! Don't read her blog posts, don't follow her on Twitter, don't find her everywhere she is online and then get pissed off when you read personal stuff! She is a woman who has just had her heart broken, let her fucking vent and get what comfort she can from those who understand and sympathize.

Another thing? Trashing another girl doesn't make guys like you. Shocker! I know. But its true! So all you little fans who hate every single girl the boys interact with? Stop it. Hating them will get you nowhere. It will get you pitying condescending looks from me, but thats about it. Because here's the secret: guys like girls (and girls like girls, if thats what you're into) who are wholly their own person. Who are self-actualized, have their own goals and ambitions and don't let their lives revolve around whoever they are or want to be sleeping with. Remember how all those YM and Seventeen interview with guys have the guys saying confidence is sexy? That's because it is!

One thing that can turn me off anyone, no matter how good looking they are, is constant bitter trash-talking. There is a difference between snark and jealous ranting, and if you are constantly doing the second then I don't want to be around you. For example: The Fug Girls are snarky. They mock clothing, hairstyles, career paths- but they do it humorously, with more than a grain of self-deprecating humor thrown in. fbr_secrets? You're doing it wrong. The amount of hate directed towards Victoria, Cassadee, Greta, Ashlee, Keltie, etc is staggering. And frankly, disgusting. Why would I want to talk to someone who can't think of anything to say but nasty shit about other people? That shows me that you don't care enough about yourself for me to invest any of my time or energy into you. In short, no matter how pretty your outside is, your inside is fug and it drives people away.

So, lets go over this one last time, shall we? 1)Don't overidentify with celebrities you do not know. 2)Tearing apart other people makes you look bad.

Got it? Awesome.

For those of you who were upset about Rick Warren being chosen to deliver the inauguration invocation, Dan Savage held a contest. A contest similar to the one he held back in 2004, when Rick Santorum was revealed to be a disgusting, prejudiced homophobe; Dan Savage held a contest to determine a new meaning for "saddlebacking", i.e. The Saddleback Church that Rick Warren is minister of. You may have heard the new definition for santorum, that actually came out as the number one result on Google search, over the senator's own homepage: the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is the occasional byproduct of anal sex. Disgusting, right? A gross definition for a morally reprehensible man, right on. Well, the nominations were posted, the votes were counted, and ladies and gentlemen, we have a new definition for saddlebacking:

Saddlebacking: sad•dle•back•ing \ˈsa-dəl-ˈba-kiŋ\ vb [fr. Saddleback Church] (2009): the phenomenon of Christian teens engaging in unprotected anal sex in order to preserve their virginities

After attending the Purity Ball, Heather and Bill saddlebacked all night because she’s saving herself for marriage. Unfortunately her parents found out because they got santorum all over the sheets.

Be sure to check out the site! Be sure to link to it! Be sure to Googlebomb the shit out of it! Let's make sure that Rick Warren is forever associated with stupid teenagers assfucking due to ground-in sexual shame. Rock on!

And that was my daily dose of shit-stirring. Good times!