As a counterpoint, we could reframe some of the known facts:
Lorraine hated gamers/geeks.-> First let me tell you, I'm part of this community, but boy some geeks are very hard to love! I mean have you been to an event in an LGS? You will find lots of crass guys with poor personal care, lack of self control and creepy attitude... working everyday with lots and lots of them -especially for a non-gamer- wouldn't be easy. Second, even the anecdotes about Lorraine acting all snob and putting the community down are nebulous. Then we have the facts that, well, Lorraine sold rights for very little if she was on it just for the money. Would a corrupt businesswoman give the chance to a small indie studio (SSI) over bigger companies with larger pockets (like EA)? Would a greedy woman truly give the movie rights to a friend of her brother who needed his first break for "a song"? Why would she keep an employee in deep need in the payroll if not out of the goodness of her heart? In conclusion, she liked geeks, and supported them when it mattered, despite most of them getting on her nerves.
You know, to be fair, I find this used to be true. I've seen a marked improvement in the general behavior and hygiene among gamers in general at the FLGS. Cat Piss Man* used to be a known element of every game store and convention I went to but I cannot remember the last time I saw him. Ass cracks used to abound at the local game stores but in recent years they've all but disappeared. (Part of me wants to give credit to 2014's Ass-Gate where someone posted pictures of them posing next to ass cracks at a Magic Tournament looking disappointed.)
*I remember at my first convention I ran into a girl my age (we were teenagers) who had been to several conventions. We got to chatting and somehow ended up talking about this one guy there who was heavy set, crude, and stank to high heavens and she said, "Of course his name is Ogre. And he smells like one. You'll find an Ogre at every convention."
I think the focus on hygiene was an internet meme (with the potential to have
some basis in real life) to go along with body pillows, fedoras, basement-dwelling, and all the rest. I think Moonsong's point about crass, lack of self control, and creepy attitudes are more timeless. This is of course in the aggregate* rather than an absolute, and in some ways speaks to a potentially positive aspect of nerd-dom -- accepting people who don't have all the societal check-boxes ticked off*. Nerdy pastimes are a refuge to the person who doesn't get other people, or such and such societal norm, or when it is or isn't appropriate to make an off-color joke. Unsurprisingly there is a hard-to-define line somewhere between sympathetic levels of social maladaptation and
'seriously, you're making other people uncomfortable/feel unwelcome'-levels, and it's really hard for a group to include one but not the other. Also, those people in nerd-dom who were picked on as teens that never got past that and use it as a sub-conscious justification for their own abusiveness***.
*there are plenty of people in nerd-dom who do not have any of these qualities
**admittedly often thereafter being absolutely horrible to each other for other completely arbitrary sub-distinctions within the social sub-group
***especially to other nerds. Man, are we sometimes worse to each other than anyone could ever be to us (and often for completely arbitrary hair-splitting gatekeeping reasons)!
Obviously I have no idea if any of the instances that inspired the LW-hates-gamers ideas were because of her reacting to gamers-acting-badly (and I've made clear my position that I'm not exactly trusting peoples' takes not at least written down at the time it happened), but I agree with the assessment that, y'know, sometimes we're really hard to love.
I know what and where Mrs. Williams has most likely been up to, at least as of 2-3 years ago. Also, some of the rest of the family.
However, I've already left the thread for the most part (though, perhaps I should read more of it) as I don't think people are actually interested in hearing personal accounts or anything like that.
They want it sourced from...what...the book?
As I said, I have defended Mrs. Williams in the past in certain areas, but people were so interested in tearing me down (and I think I mentioned it multiple times) because I took a realistic look at the whys and hows that they never stopped to actually listen or read what I actually said or wrote.
That said, it's NOT BEEN a mystery of what they've been up to or what they have been doing.
Mr. Dille and Mrs. Williams may actually be quite big in the News within the next year or two, but NOT for D&D. (or, that's the hope at least). Actually, their names may not be, but they have interests in a Major project that should hopefully show fruition in the next year or two).
If it's Buck Rogers, that's been circling around in the back of entertainment new for a bit. Will be interesting to see what actually comes out at the end. I've never really had particularly strong opinions about Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, or John Carter, but the over concept of 'regular (if pretty awesome) Earth dude caught up in the machinations of larger space-culture conflict is a great premise. It'd be nice to see one or all of them return to popular imaginations.
Sorry to hear that people haven't been kind to your personal accounts.
