zvi likes tv

Can we, first of all, deal with the reality that fridgepunk's story was written to punish Ogi and Sai? Even if Fridgepunk had not intended it to humiliate them, the reference to micropenis, the implication that Sai secretly wished Ogi were Heathcliff, and the floridly badfic style of the whole piece would have led me to assume that it was mocking them. Because that's how stories intended to mock others are generally written in fandom. I am just saying.

Secondly, the picture of Ogi and Sai isn't just a boy and a squid canoodling in front of a sympathetic audience, you guys. I admit, I don't like visual art, but I have seen some hentai. In my admittedly totally random sample of very small amounts of hentai, tentacle rape actually does look exactly like that picture: clothes torn aside rather than removed, subject suspended, subject restrained. The crowd in the back is darkly-lit and looming, grimly looking on at what's happening below. And Sai's been turned into a tentacle monster, not a penguin or a pelican or a guy with some extra bits.

Third, there have been some interpretations that this was a way of bringing those guys into our domain and making them more like us. (First of all, ewww. I don't want to get their crappy scientist cooties anywhere near me, thanks.) But, uh, in the usual course of a fanfiction story or fanart piece, the fan does not depict themself. That's not the way we usually roll as a community. So, the symbolism doesn't work for me. If I want to make someone like me as a fan, I don't turn them into a BSO. I am not now, and have only rarely ever been, a BSO. I point out how they are like…a fan. (I'm also, frankly, puzzled as hell by the desire to do something like that. I mean, these guys failed so damn hard on their own academic level, and also on the general human being level, I really don't see what we get from making them more like us. I don't need another failbot around here, do you?)

Fourth, people seem distressed that I could interpret something that is a happy celebration of sex when done to Rodney McKay, Lex Luthor, or some other object of fannish desire, and read it as punishment and sexual humiliation when done to someone we dislike. Well (1) tentacle sex is not universally depicted as a joyous union of like-minded individuals in fanfiction and (2) the object and subject of an act make a difference in the interpretation of the act. Some examples: dudes don't get to call me bitch. Some of my female friends do. Calling Barak Obama a monkey is racist, calling George W. Bush a monkey, not so much. Perez Hilton (gay) can't call Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas (?straight?) a faggot. Adviceseekers from 1991-1997 (all sexual orientations) addressed Dan Savage (gay) as Hey, Faggot at his instigation. So, yes, Kris/Tentacle!Adam (American Idol) is an act of public fondness for two public persons. Ogi/TentacleMonster!Sai? Interpretations clearly differ.

Fifth, everything we do is not an act of love. Fanfiction is written and fanart is constructed to point out how Horrible, Terrible, No Good, and Very Bad some character or plotline or tv show is all the time. Very often, the method by which this schooling takes place is parody.

Last but not least, can I just point out that I assumed the porn about these 'researchers' was talking smack about them because everything I have read about these two for the past week (with the exception of two posts by shaggirl which have now been recanted) has been talking about how these dudes fail (and hard) as people, academics, and neuroscientists? I admit it, in a flood of essays, cat macros, and witty bon mots about how much these two guys were pieces of shit, I figured that the pornographic artwork about these two guys was carrying a related message, and did not dig out my teeny-tiny, rarely used art critic hat to search for a different meaning.

P.S. I think that mocking people who fail as hard as these 'researchers' is an awesome plan. My concern is for the method of mockery, because I like sex and want people to think it is awesome.

That being said, in at least one of the cases, mockery was not the artist's intent. Here's the frustration of letting other people see one's words and art. There is no guarantee that the message one meant is the message one sent. To a non-zero percentage of viewers, humiliation was definitely the word.