Originally posted at On The Nightstand.

Online bookseller Amazon.com is in deep doo-doo. You see, in a move tagged with #amazonfail on Twitter, the company has started deranking “adult” titles, which removes them from search queries.

Sounds okay, right? Wrong.

The problem lies in what they are classifying as “adult”: literature with GLBT content or leanings. Even books that don’t have any graphic content, such as non-fiction books, have been labled “adult” and thus deranked.

You can imagine my fury when I saw that Stephen Fry’s memoir and (the hardcover edition of) John Barrowman’s autobiography had both been deranked and removed from search engine result. The same goes for Heather Has Two Mommies, a children’s book. There is a list of affected books over on Meta_Writer.

So what can you do? Let Amazon know that they have done wrong, of course. Tweet about it using the #amazonfail tag. Blog about it. Sign the petition. Get the word out.

Other Links On #Amazonfail

• DearAuthor.com - Amazon Rank
• Jezebel.com - Why Is Amazon Removing The Sales Rankings From Gay and Lesbian Books?
• Mashable.com - Amazon Accused Of Removing Gay Books From Rankings
• BookSquare.com - Open Letter to Amazon Regarding Recent Policy Changes
• Petition - In Protest at Amazon’s New “Adult” Policy
• Smart Bitches, Trashy Books - New definition of Amazon Rank

Looking for an Amazon alternative? Try The Book Depository - same prices, with FREE worldwide shipping.

Originally published at Disdainful-Soul.net. You can comment here or there.

What I am about to say may sound harsh - that’s because it is. It is not directed to all of you¹, but at least a good-sized chunk of the fanbase.

You are by far one of the worst fandoms I have ever had the misfortune to come across² The batshit crazy portion of you can be rude, obnoxious, horrifyingly stupid at times and, if reports are to be believed³, you can also be prone to fits of violence.

Most people understand the concept of opinions, and that people are allowed to have them. Just because someone doesn’t like [insert fandom of mine here] does not mean that they are a horrible person, or that they are stupid. I am not simply better just because I like [insert book/movie/musical artist here] and they don’t. It is their right to not like something, just as it is your right to like it.

Everyone has the right to an opinion, whether it’s a positive one or a negative one. Opinions are a two way street, people.

It is TweenTeacher’s right to be of the opinion that “the books are poorly written” and that “the message of the books is icky” without being bombarded with horrible comments.

You really have no idea of what the books are really about. let meguess you never fallen inlove with some one or even had the experience. You read this books with your eyes closed and with a closed mind as well.

My first impression of your review is that you’re probably a failed writer who is taking it out on Steph Meyer. Five bucks says this is true. If you have never written, I *will* send you the five bucks. Just email me. Then I will ask you what the hell you’re doing teaching if you’ve never written.

LEELAwhereareyou is allowed to have her (incredibly eloquent, especially for a twelve year old) opinion that the books suck without being told she’s ugly, that she “needs to get the fuck over it” or worse things I do not want to repeat on my blog.

Entertainment Weekly is allowed to publish a negative review of Breaking Dawn without the author and the magazine being sent chess pieces in an attempt to change the review. Actually, that goes for any review of Twilight and its sequels, be it from a large site like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books or a random person’s personal blog.

It doesn’t matter - they all have the right to an opinion. Which leads me to…

Stephen King, writer of many, many novels is allowed to say that Stephenie Meyer “can’t write worth a darn”. He knows a thing or two about writing, and guess what: he is allowed to have an opinion. He is not “insecure”, “jealous of Stephenie Meyer’s success” (or of Edward’s good looks!) or “upset that a woman is so successful”. The appropriate response is not to flame him, make nasty comments, suggestions to send him hate mail or promise to throw something at him.

And I am allowed to write a short story poking fun at one of my favourite genres - the very genre I have written a novel for⁴ without receiving a comment about how it is offensive (thanks for saying it’s good though).

wow. as a twilight fan i find this funny yet slightly offensive. i mean its a good story but come on do you really think that writing this story is going to get people to stop talking about Twilight?

Just remember die-hard fans: people have the right to not like Twilight, just as you have the right to like it. They have the right to say they don’t like it, just as you have the right to say you do. Them not liking Twilight is not an attack on you - it is not an appropriate response to attack them back. And if they do start a fight… finish it in a calm, mature and responsible way. Don’t swing right back.

In short: Grow up. Act like the adults some of you are. You’re giving vampire fans - and fandom in general - a bad name.

1. Those of you who are sane Twilight fans, I applaud you. This blog entry is for the really obsessive, over-reactionary fans. [↩]
2. The dubious honour of being the worst goes to the K-Pop band Super Junior’s fanclub E.L.F. And they only win because there are no confirmed Twilight deaths. [↩]
3. The “Twihard Attack Directory”. Some of these reports do sound fake/exaggerated, but some do not. I speak from personal experience when I say teenage girls can be batshit insane at times, and can do unspeakable things. [↩]
4. Blood Bound is currently in the first round of editing. You can read more about it, and my other works, at the projects page of my writing blog, Working Title. [↩]

Originally published at Disdainful-Soul.net. You can comment here or there.

When you log onto the internet you can pretty much become whoever you want. You don’t have to post your real name or location, or give your age. Heck, you can grab a photo of someone else and pretend it’s you.

I’m sure we’ve all been warned about internet predators who use this anonymity to find their prey, those innocent young girls and boys, but there’s another kind of problem that results from the anonymity of the internet: the internet asshole.

It’s very easy to type “fuck you!” or “go die in a fire” or “your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries” when on a forum or whatever. You don’t have to see the person on the other end. You don’t have to think about what they think of your comments.

What’s sparked this off? Nothing against me personally. Just yet another case of out of control Twilight fangirls, in this case attacking the maker of some “anti” Twilight videos: LEELAwhereareyou.

Some choice gems:

“i bet her parents threw her on her head. LOL pause it at 0:02 and look at her mug”

“brush your hair? or your dad is going to rape you again”

“oh my god, get the fuck over it little girl.? shouldn’t you be outside playing jumprope and making friends? you’re a dyke”

It was bad enough to attack Tweenteacher and say she doesn’t know what real love is, but this? This is insane.

LEELAwhereareyou is twelve, people. Your profiles say you are 28 and 37 and all sorts of ages. You should know better, you should know how to behave yourselves.

Shame on you.

Many thanks to Penny Arcade for the image.

Originally published at Disdainful-Soul.net. You can comment here or there.

1. a medieval Icelandic or Norse prose narrative of achievements and events in the history of a personage, family, etc.
2. any narrative or legend of heroic exploits.
3. Also called saga novel. a form of the novel in which the members or generations of a family or social group are chronicled in a long and leisurely narrative.

1. noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style: Homer's Iliad is an epic poem.
2. resembling or suggesting such poetry: an epic novel on the founding of the country.
3. heroic; majestic; impressively great: the epic events of the war.
4. of unusually great size or extent: a crime wave of epic proportions.

1. an epic poem.
2. epic poetry.
3. any composition resembling an epic.
4. something worthy to form the subject of an epic: The defense of the Alamo is an American epic.

Invisionfree’s main server just got hacked. Fuck.

Originally published at Disdainful-Soul.net. You can comment here or there.

I’m sure we’ve all come across it during our time on the Interbutts so I don’t think I need to give too many horrific examples of this menace. I am talking about… really really bad spelling and grammar.

On a forum I frequent I ranted about, well, a lot of stuff that really grinds my gears. Because of the nature of the forum, most of the rants were about online roleplaying, in a play-by-post format. Because of the nature of this kind of roleplaying (where you write scenes etc), several of these were focussed on spelling/grammar.

• The constant confusion of your/you’re. It’s like the icon says: “Your stupid.” “My stupid what?”
• Apostrophes being used for plurals. No. Stop it. Please.
• Errors that could have easily been picked up with spellcheck, but obviously haven’t.
• “I’m an excellent writer, I don’t make mistakes.” YOU MAKE OVER A DOZEN IN A POST! AND LOOK! LOOK! A SENTENCE WITH EIGHT %$#@ING ERRORS IN IT. EIGHT!

Most people agreed with me on everything, but I frowned when someone replied with the following:

I will not be bothered by people not knowing how to use apostrophes correctly, because I didn’t know until recently and my science teacher didn’t even know. It is actually not very common for people to know about that. Moreso in the RPing world, but still not common.

I’m sorry, what?

My response:

It’s only in the rping world that I have discovered this problem, and it really bothers me. If you are playing a game where the means of playing is writing, you need to be able to get your point across. Basic grammar and spelling is part of that. So if you are going to do something incorrectly and it completely changes the meaning of what you have written, then you have failed.

And theirs:

I know no one in RL except my boyfriend and my English teacher who actually knows that you don’t spell the possessive its with an apostrophe. Many people also don’t know about plurals. I don’t believe it’s a part of ‘basic’ spelling and grammar. To me, that’s being able to write ‘I have a cat’ and spell it correctly, in the right order, using capital letters and a period.

What has happened to our educational system (and I do mean “our”, because this person is from New Zealand, like me) if plurals aren’t considered part of basic writing? Who the hell teaches people some habits?

To pretty much quote an idiot I came across in my rping time who insisted that the plural of “beheading” is spelt “beheading’s”, and when corrected said “Well, you can spell it both ways, and I prefer to spell it that way“.

Where’s that Queen of Wands comic with the old lady attacking the girl for txtspeak when you need it, huh? Meanwhile, I think I need to write more on this subject.

Originally published at Disdainful-Soul.net. You can comment here or there.

Here are some things that I have learnt over the last few days:

• Constantly refreshing the screen will not result in your Internet order suddenly being shipped. Dark Passion Play may be shipped within 48 hours… when it’s not a weekend. The rest are due in a few weeks.
• Do not try and reason with those who think that disagreeing with them means that you have just proved their point. Especially when their “point” is that tiny text is better and that because you can read their “argument” it proves that tiny text is easier to read
• You are still allergic to cats. In fact, without Bronson being around all the time, you have lost the resistance that his constant presence provided.
• Some people actually think High School Musical is cool. Try to stop questioning their sanity.
• You no longer have to deal with the 9 o’clock pr0n runs on Sunday mornings.
• Although no job = no money. No job also = no having to look at pr0n title such as House of the Shemales and Salad-Eating Sluts
• You and your sister still do not get along.
• Chocolates thrown in the direction of head hurt.
• After discussing the reasoning behind a roleplaying character’s fears about being infertile and what that does to her, and having to deal with her being upset to the point where it invades your dreams, it is never a good idea to watch an episode of House MD in which a mother kills her baby!
• Everybody lies. Also, “Hugh Laurie is hot” needs to replace “Alan Rickman is hot” as the standard response to someone stating the obvious.

On another note, I have just discovered the side of last.fm that does more than record your music. How cool is that? Here’s mine.

Originally published at Disdainful-Soul.net. You can comment here or there.

Even though this happened nearly 24 hours ago, I am still so pissed off I am shaking.

My grandfather is a very sweet old man. He’s at the point in his life where he is very childlike in some ways (like zooming away with the shopping trolley, pretending to hit cars), and he doesn’t get to go out very often. His days are spent taking care of my grandmother, and filling in the time until my grandmother needs help. His world revolves around her, and it’s not a new thing - when he was much younger, he called my grandmother back from her holiday because he couldn’t bear to be apart from her.

He only goes out twice a week, both times to go to the supermarket and get what he and Nana needs. On Tuesdays he goes by himself; on Fridays my mother comes along. Whenever I don’t have classes, I come along and help the two of them. Grandad enjoys going out to the shops because it’s a chance to interact with other people. The people at the supermarket all know him well now, and always stop to talk to him and such. Occassionally other shoppers talk to him as well, and I’ve received a lot of kind words from people, saying how nice it is that I am taking care of my grandfather so well and spending time with him.

It is not these people I am angry with.

Yesterday, on one of my rare Fridays off, I went with Mum and Grandad to the supermarket, happy to see my Nana and Grandad. However, because of my Grandad being like a child and getting into everything/wandering off, I have to keep watch on him. When he wandered off at one point I called after him: “Grandad”.

And that’s when I heard it. Snickers and someone mimicking my call to my Grandad. I looked back to see two workers (both male, and in their late teens, early twenties) peering around corners and snickering to each other about my Grandad and me. When I spoke to Grandad again, I heard more mimicking and laughing. They watched us for a while, and snickered when I glared at them.

What the hell makes it okay to laugh at customers like that? Heck, what makes it okay to laugh at anyone like that? Would they like it if they were in my place and I laughed at them? Of course not. My Grandad is a sweet old man, and it would really hurt him to know that people were laughing at him like that (thankfully he was out of range and is losing his hearing - I never thought I would be grateful for the latter).

I hate people sometimes. I hope life comes back and bites them in the ass.

Originally published at Disdainful-Soul.net. You can comment here or there.

Yet another tale from the HP Uni Game of Fail, concerning Princess MadeUpName. Previously posted at Bad RPers Suck.

This may be a novel concept, but my character? Is my character. Here, let me add a little bit more emphasis to that for you. My character? Is my character. That means I get to make choices about her. Like what her name is - isn’t that what parents generally do?

I have made one post - ONE POST - with this character when you IM me yelling at me for naming my character wrong. No, it’s not that I named her Angstaria Perfektia McSparklypants, it’s because I apparently “stole your character’s name” and have “ruined everything”.

Last time I checked, you didn’t have any characters that had a name anywhere close to what this one is named.

I’m sorry, what? The character you were going to create, but had yet to mention to anyone, especially me?

What’s that? Your character’s intended surname is only somewhat similar to my girl’s?

Oh, I’m not sorry that you have to shelf creating your new Sue character for the time being until you think of a new name. But what’s this? I should at least give my character a “real” surname, like the one you were going to use?

Aw, geez. Now I am going to have to open up the phonebook I used to pick that surname and call all the people with that name and let them know some girl on the Internet told me it wasn’t real. And that the “correct” spelling comes up in Google as an error.

On second thoughts… nah. You’re known for making up names on the fly or “making names fancier” - I’m not gonna take any of your “advice”.

Die in a fire.

P.S. Oh, and the name you suggested? I finally found it. Apparently it’s the name of a small park that was once a rubbish dump. So I don’t mind if you name your character that now. ^_^

Originally published at Disdainful-Soul.net. You can comment here or there.

This post has been a long time coming, but even as I write it I have this feeling that this is just the surface of the whole thing.

Back in October 2005 I joined a reasonably popular Harry Potter university roleplaying game. The game was/is Ardnieu University, and despite what is on the surface, the whole thing is a steaming pile of shit. It may not have been so bad when I started, but by the time I left… whoo boy.

Before I go into the whole thing, let me go into a few of the cast of characters with you. As I add more and more posts about this whole festering shit-hole, I’ll describe other players to you.

Root Admin: Although she’s generally referred to in chats by many other names by the many people she’s offended over the years of her tenure, I’m just going to call her that today. I have plenty of other words I would like to call her, but I won’t.

The main problem I have with her is her favouritism. Most of the players I will list below are members of what we have come to term “the Mod Squad”, because despite obviously points lacking in their moderating ability (like basic spelling, or understanding of canon…) she moves them up the ladder and lets them get away with everything. They are, ICly and OOCly, allowed to break rules that would be enforced on others. Spelling, massive amounts of characters, copying, OOC harassment, IC rape, IC use of Unforgiveables etc. And whenever someone complained about things, Mod Squad was always favoured.

Princess MadeUpName: Known for making up names and playing characters who belonged as members of the real-life royal families, Princess MadeUpName is one of the Mod Squad and has been favoured many times. When “elections” were held, the polling was closed several days later than they were supposed to, without public explanation. Those who paid attention would note that they were closed the moment Princess MadeUpName’s character moved into the leading spot.

Princess MadeUpName’s worst habit - besides the flat characters, the wangst, and the bad English (any forgiveness for her being ESOL is dashed by her correcting other people’s English), amongst other things - is her nasty habit of IMing non-Mod Squad players under fake identities, and pretending to be other players in order to extract information out of them.

PeeGeeThirteen: PeeGeeThirteen, interestingly enough, is not Mod Squad, but she’s one of the subjects of today’s rant as I could simply say “it’s all her fault”. She kept us censored on everything that she didn’t like - on our occassional F-bombs, on our dislike of George Bush, on any sexuality other than hetero etc - but had free reign on everything she did like. She got passive aggressive towards the end, and is now happily at Ardnieu with her characters filling in the spaces left by mine.

Back sometime around April, a group of us were getting really sick of what was going down at Ardnieu. There were several of us and occasional off-hand comments to the tune of “we might as well leave and start our own” were made. PeeGeeThirteen took this to heart and raced off to start a new game, lifting a good chunk of Ardnieu in the process (The Room of Illusion, the war plot, the Tritons etc, Horus and the tower system etc). The rest of us disagreed with this and together we built a new game which we named Wydan University. At this time, PeeGeeThirteen was in charge with the rest of us helping. I had access to the admin panel and had volunteered a premade character of mine to sit in as Chancellor, as no one else had one. I also had access to the admin CP for skinning purposes.

I come back from a weekend without internet to find several angry PMs and emails from Root Admin, the final one (delivered at 2 in the morning, no less) stating that I had 2 hours to reply or be banned. I didn’t bother to open these emails as I had received them over a day after the two hour time limit had expired.

Not long after this, PeeGeeThirteen left the Wydan project in my hands and I actually became the person in charge - the reason I had been banned from Ardnieu. PeeGeeThirteen still has her original game with ideas copied wholesale from Ardnieu, while Wydan has made a point of rejecting anything too similar. Beyond the idea of a university (which, contrary to what Mod Squad believes, they were not the first to come up with - there are more than a dozen games older than AU, and several more contemporaries) and a similar set of classes (most of which are Hogwarts classes anyway) there’s not much similar, and no direct rippings a la PeeGeeThirteen.

The other big difference is that Wydan is actually Harry Potter, not some barely fantasy university drama game masquerading as a “canon Harry Potter game”. Well, that and we actually enforce our rules fairly and are what we claim to be.

Originally published at Disdainful-Soul.net. You can comment here or there.