(no subject)
vivien529 asked me for my top five "fandom wtf!?!?" moments, which is a question that could be interpreted two ways!
The first way - and the way I think Viv probably meant it - is the top five times that fandom made me spit my diet coke out at the screen, but to be honest there are SO MANY of these moments that narrowing them down would be simultaneously well-nigh impossible and almost pointless, seeing as for lo these several years I have reached the kind of zen state re: fandom in which I can't even be shocked anymore, just laugh. Of course there is Care Bears BDSM fic! IT'S INEVITABLE. Certainly SGA needs a girl scout cookies AU! WHY NOT. There are so many points of similarity between Giles and a weretiger? WELL OBVIOUSLY. This is just what fandom does.
What is far more likely to make me go WTF!?!?! is when an actual for-profit piece of fiction seems to think that it is in fact cracktastic fanfic, and this is how I have chosen to compile my list!
1. RETURN TO THE SECRET GARDEN
fire_and_a_rose was so kind as to not only discover this book, but mail me a copy. Someday I will be able to thank her properly - and yes, you should be hearing that in tones of faint menace.
I have yet to be brave enough to do more than flip through it. Someday, perhaps, I will feel both masochistic and sadistic enough to read fully and review. For now, I will summarize with a brief list of the plot points I know the book to contain:
1. Mary and Colin are both in love with Dickon
2. Mary marries Colin, but has a torrid affair with Dickon
3. Meanwhile, Colin is bringing rentboys to the garden
4. And Dickon is sleeping with prostitutes and calling them by Mary's name. So romantic!
5. Eventually Dickon commits suicide. IN THE GARDEN.
6. But it's okay because of their magical miracle somehow-the-child-of-all-three-of-them baby???
2. MOHINDERFLY
All right, there was plenty of WTF to be found in season 2 of Heroes but season 3. OH SEASON 3. Mohinder's development of random fly-webbing powers was just the icing on the cake, honestly, but it's nicely symptomatic and also totally hilarious so we'll go with it. shati and genarti and I even wrote a song!
he's got some friends and neighbors
and he keeps them glued to the wall with a creepy web
SCIENCESQUE
CREEPY WEB
. . . I don't actually remember how the rest of it goes, but it was a work of genius, you can be assured of that.
3. Tealiel the Littlest Cannibal Angel
Okay, so anyone remember the part in Angel Sanctuary when Katan, upright and beautiful angel boy, had turned into a zombie tentacle monster kept in a box, and then he made friends with Tealiel the littlest angel who was outcast because another angel had been like "eat of my flesh to keep yourself alive!" and then they were going to run away together and be cannibal outcast bffs except then Tealiel got killed dramatically somehow and Katan went back to lonely zombie tentacledom?
This is actually not at all unusual for Angel Sanctuary. The whole manga is like this, that's just how Kaori Yuki rolls. But I mark this plot development as the point where I just, you know, accepted it. Nay, embraced it. BRING ON THE ZOMBIE CANNIBAL TENTACLES, KAORU YUKI, I AM PREPARED.
(I am not sure I was prepared for the rain of angry angel fetuses, but you know.)
4. THE UTENACAR
Honestly, I don't think the Utena movie would have rated a slot on here by itself - I mean, yes, Utena going through a carwash and turning into a magical car that Anthy could then race out of the school was pretty hallucinogenic, but I guess not all that much moreso than most of the actual series - if dopplegl and I hadn't decided to watch it in a double billing with End of Evangelion. I very much recommend this course of action . . . for anyone who is looking to induce a mind-altering state without the inconvenience of drugs, anyway.
Seriously, don't even ask me what actually happened in either of those movies, because other than the Utenacar I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING. By the end of that day, my brains had officially leaked out my ears, and I'm pretty sure I never got all of them back.
5. LOVE NEVER DIES
This slot was actually a battle in my heart; I almost put one of the major plot developments in the last of Kage Baker's Company books, but that plot development is SO SPOILERY (and so full of WTF) that I would not have felt right talking about it (and anyway, I prefer to ignore it as much as possible and pretend the whole book is about Lewis the fanfic-writing cyborg and his adopted daughter Princess Tiana Parakeet.)
So instead, let us talk about PHANTOM 2: LOVE NEVER DIES. Let us indeed talk about Andrew Lloyd Webber's SECRET BABY SEQUEL to Phantom of the Opera, i.e. his own hilariously terrible fanfic.
(Let's talk about how desperately I want to see it on Broadway, and how drunk I will have to be beforehand.)
. . . actually, I think I've pretty much said all I need to.
Honorable Mention 6. Two to the OMGWTF
This is an honorable mention because I like to pretend that year when I was thirteen and devouring Piers Anthony books like candy never happened. Also because I have never read the book in question and I never ever ever ever intend to. On the other hand, sometimes you just have to scream anyway. The thing is, a month or so ago, I somehow found myself on TVTropes (I know) reading the Xanth page (I KNOW), which is when I found out that the plot of one of the most recent Xanth books just straight-up focuses on the relationship between a dude and an occasionally-magically-aged-up TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL.
OH PIERS ANTHONY NO FOREVER.
OKAY, GUYS, YOUR TURN. I will be disappointed if I don't spend today shrieking either because of things I tragically forgot to include, or because of things I was probably much happier not knowing!
The first way - and the way I think Viv probably meant it - is the top five times that fandom made me spit my diet coke out at the screen, but to be honest there are SO MANY of these moments that narrowing them down would be simultaneously well-nigh impossible and almost pointless, seeing as for lo these several years I have reached the kind of zen state re: fandom in which I can't even be shocked anymore, just laugh. Of course there is Care Bears BDSM fic! IT'S INEVITABLE. Certainly SGA needs a girl scout cookies AU! WHY NOT. There are so many points of similarity between Giles and a weretiger? WELL OBVIOUSLY. This is just what fandom does.
What is far more likely to make me go WTF!?!?! is when an actual for-profit piece of fiction seems to think that it is in fact cracktastic fanfic, and this is how I have chosen to compile my list!
1. RETURN TO THE SECRET GARDEN
fire_and_a_rose was so kind as to not only discover this book, but mail me a copy. Someday I will be able to thank her properly - and yes, you should be hearing that in tones of faint menace.
I have yet to be brave enough to do more than flip through it. Someday, perhaps, I will feel both masochistic and sadistic enough to read fully and review. For now, I will summarize with a brief list of the plot points I know the book to contain:
1. Mary and Colin are both in love with Dickon
2. Mary marries Colin, but has a torrid affair with Dickon
3. Meanwhile, Colin is bringing rentboys to the garden
4. And Dickon is sleeping with prostitutes and calling them by Mary's name. So romantic!
5. Eventually Dickon commits suicide. IN THE GARDEN.
6. But it's okay because of their magical miracle somehow-the-child-of-all-three-of-them baby???
2. MOHINDERFLY
All right, there was plenty of WTF to be found in season 2 of Heroes but season 3. OH SEASON 3. Mohinder's development of random fly-webbing powers was just the icing on the cake, honestly, but it's nicely symptomatic and also totally hilarious so we'll go with it. shati and genarti and I even wrote a song!
he's got some friends and neighbors
and he keeps them glued to the wall with a creepy web
SCIENCESQUE
CREEPY WEB
. . . I don't actually remember how the rest of it goes, but it was a work of genius, you can be assured of that.
3. Tealiel the Littlest Cannibal Angel
Okay, so anyone remember the part in Angel Sanctuary when Katan, upright and beautiful angel boy, had turned into a zombie tentacle monster kept in a box, and then he made friends with Tealiel the littlest angel who was outcast because another angel had been like "eat of my flesh to keep yourself alive!" and then they were going to run away together and be cannibal outcast bffs except then Tealiel got killed dramatically somehow and Katan went back to lonely zombie tentacledom?
This is actually not at all unusual for Angel Sanctuary. The whole manga is like this, that's just how Kaori Yuki rolls. But I mark this plot development as the point where I just, you know, accepted it. Nay, embraced it. BRING ON THE ZOMBIE CANNIBAL TENTACLES, KAORU YUKI, I AM PREPARED.
(I am not sure I was prepared for the rain of angry angel fetuses, but you know.)
4. THE UTENACAR
Honestly, I don't think the Utena movie would have rated a slot on here by itself - I mean, yes, Utena going through a carwash and turning into a magical car that Anthy could then race out of the school was pretty hallucinogenic, but I guess not all that much moreso than most of the actual series - if dopplegl and I hadn't decided to watch it in a double billing with End of Evangelion. I very much recommend this course of action . . . for anyone who is looking to induce a mind-altering state without the inconvenience of drugs, anyway.
Seriously, don't even ask me what actually happened in either of those movies, because other than the Utenacar I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING. By the end of that day, my brains had officially leaked out my ears, and I'm pretty sure I never got all of them back.
5. LOVE NEVER DIES
This slot was actually a battle in my heart; I almost put one of the major plot developments in the last of Kage Baker's Company books, but that plot development is SO SPOILERY (and so full of WTF) that I would not have felt right talking about it (and anyway, I prefer to ignore it as much as possible and pretend the whole book is about Lewis the fanfic-writing cyborg and his adopted daughter Princess Tiana Parakeet.)
So instead, let us talk about PHANTOM 2: LOVE NEVER DIES. Let us indeed talk about Andrew Lloyd Webber's SECRET BABY SEQUEL to Phantom of the Opera, i.e. his own hilariously terrible fanfic.
(Let's talk about how desperately I want to see it on Broadway, and how drunk I will have to be beforehand.)
. . . actually, I think I've pretty much said all I need to.
Honorable Mention 6. Two to the OMGWTF
This is an honorable mention because I like to pretend that year when I was thirteen and devouring Piers Anthony books like candy never happened. Also because I have never read the book in question and I never ever ever ever intend to. On the other hand, sometimes you just have to scream anyway. The thing is, a month or so ago, I somehow found myself on TVTropes (I know) reading the Xanth page (I KNOW), which is when I found out that the plot of one of the most recent Xanth books just straight-up focuses on the relationship between a dude and an occasionally-magically-aged-up TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL.
OH PIERS ANTHONY NO FOREVER.
OKAY, GUYS, YOUR TURN. I will be disappointed if I don't spend today shrieking either because of things I tragically forgot to include, or because of things I was probably much happier not knowing!