Out! Out! You Demons of Stupidity!

There are moments when I feel rather grateful that I was always something of a non-entity in the Harry Potter fandom (and am even more of one now, since I pretty much stopped writing in it or posting on Fiction Alley Park after Rowling killed off Sirius for no apparent reason--but that's a rant for another day. Several very long rants, actually). HP was my introduction to fanfiction (which came simultaneously with my introduction to slash), and to the entire concept of fandom, as well as the first fandom I ever wrote and posted in, and as such it will always hold a special place in my heart no matter how disillusioned I become with Rowling's books themselves.

But damn, the fandom has some scary people in it. Scary, cruel people of questionably emotional/mental stability. They can wank like no other fandom (anyone else remember when Cassandra Claire got kicked off ff.net because some claimed she had plagerised them?), and the wanking gets really damn bitter sometimes.

My case in point? Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I give you fandom_scruples. He/she of the closed comments, the unlisted email address, the "blacklist" of R and NC-17 fic authors fans should boycott, the vicious (if questionably dangerous) threats. Whether or not his/her desire is to become the Senator Joe McCarthy of HP fandom, they're off to a decent start.

And (thanks to elke_tanzer for providing the info), it may now be possible to send email to them at fandom_scruples@livejournal.com, thanks to the generosity of a fan who bought them a paid account for that very purpose. I doubt they'll read it, but I felt compelled to write anyway.

( My passive-agressive, sickeningly polite, email to McCarthy's mini-me )