A fannish day
So I’ve begun sending things out on fanfiction.net, because as much as I detest, and I mean detest both the site and everything it stands for, it seems to be one of those tools you can use to your own advantage.
And since I’m part of that site I decided to see what they had to offer. Not like I’ll actually read anything from said site as it seems to be made up of teenagers who don’t know how to write at all, and those who can only write clearly in another language, but I still like to know what’s being produced…what the next big fandom is going to be, if you know what I mean.
So after looking over some of the television fandoms and finding some premises that actually sound decent, miracle of miracles, I happen to wander into the book section. Now, if I’d been thinking at all I would never have opened that can of worms, because honestly the one big fandom that I cannot help but loathe is HP. But for some reason I conveniently forgot and stumbled into Pride and Prejudice-which may have been the worst idea I’ve ever had. Now don’t get me wrong, I use and abuse characters in my fics until no one knows what’s up or down, doubtless, but that being said, just reading the plot for these fics made my hair stand up on end. Because although there were a couple of continuations and a one decent sounding complete reworking, no one changed the pairings at all.
I’m quite open to most fic, but to me, if you aren’t willing to try something new in fandom, please, don’t try anything at all. I’m sure that maybe one fic in the entire section was actually readable. But come on people, why take the biggest classic of all time and try to either re-write it with the same characters or (worse yet) write yourself into it (and don’t y’all tell me you’re not doing it). There’s no real reason to do it. If I would have seen a single new pairing of the same old characters I might have considered reading, but instead I found atrocity upon atrocity.
So I went to bed telling myself, I could never even read a book fanfic. The arguments were: a book is good enough that the idea of changing it in any way is mock-able, and unlike television and movies where about ten people go into the making of each character, one person makes every character in a book and trying to change any of them would be irreverent. So here I am with my whole high and mighty attitude, when I start to think, Huh, wonder what a Darcy/Bingley fic would be like, and then of course I start writing it out in my head before I can even tell myself how wrong wrong wrong it is. And then I remember fics like That Summer and Jolie Couer which are both BTVS/Anita Blake crossovers, both of which I really liked, almost better than the books, partly because of the irreverence.
And granted there are reasons why I should like someone who rewrote the Anita Blake ‘Verse. And they are strong and many. But honestly there is a reason behind rewriting any book, or at least adding to it. So here I am feeling like I did back when I discovered that mocking Buffy had been pretty funny considering how in love I was after watching the first episode, or back to the day when I read my first allaboutspike fic after the double whammy of mocking fanfic before reading any based on the overly dramatic people on the old buffyworld and the horror of my first foray into fanfic-bad Spuffy (and we all know Spuffy is bad enough on it’s own that no one needs to write actual bad versions of it). And so, I’m left still thinking, in part at least, that every really well written book shouldn’t be fanficced, but I’m also left thinking that any time you want to take a more questionable epic it’s more a good idea than a questionable one. And I’m sure eventually someone will take something like Pride and Prejudice and write a fic that totally makes me look like a crazy person for even having concerns at all.
Now on to rant the first-Project Runway-what’s up with this season? I mean, if I was lifetime I would have done anything to keep the two judges who are able to judge and make long term decisions. I don’t know if lifetime decided they couldn’t afford those two, or if Heidi Klum asked lifetime for total creative control, or what happened. But I’ll tell you, this new girl is perfectly useless and the rotating peanut gallery is perfectly useless, so suddenly this seems to be the Heidi Klum show.
And this also seems to be the flying under the radar show. I mean, practically the only people still in the show are the middle men. Every week they send the person home who has done poorly in that single competition, they never consider the big picture of long term. So instead of seeing Johnny and R’amon in the finals (like we doubtless would have in former seasons) we’re going to see Carol Hannah and Logan who are never in either the top or the bottom.
Lifetime, listen up, we want the actual designers to win this. We don’t want to see the milquetoasts that have no real creativity or originality in the final three. Call us crazy, but we really think sending the people who’ve been in the top more often than not home every week just because of one slightly faulty design is more idiotic than y’all taking a berretta and shooting yourselves in the foot. Repeatedly. Please get Michael Kors and Nina Garcia back for next season. Or we will not watch. Sincerely, the three muses.
Okay, and on to rant the second-Nine-dude, what was the goal here? Now I’m fond of movies. Wait, let’s try I’m fond of good movies. And I will admit that there were good parts to this movie. But c’mon people.
To start off with I should mention that I really thought that this was a Tim Burton film before going. So I was expecting his quirky sense of humor. And granted beautiful visuals as well, but mostly the quirky plot. So I’m sitting in the theater watching the beginning of this and I’m thinking, okay, this is not exactly the movie I was expecting. I mean the visuals from the start, while stimulating, were not even approaching beauty. And honestly both the people and the machines weren’t even visually stimulating. They looked like something that could have been produced ten years ago easily.
And then there was the lack of dialogue. I mean, when you have a total of nine characters, two of them never talk, one of them doesn’t talk for the first few scenes he’s in, and there’s never more than five on screen at once you’re already shooting blanks, but to actually write as boring of dialogue as was written for this-it’s completely unsupportable. And then there was the lack of contrast between voices, the fact (which we will get into later) that there was only one female character, and worst of all, the fact that the villain had no voice. When I was growing up and we read plays in class I would always want to be the villain. They always had the best lines. So to have a villain who doesn’t talk…pissed me off.
Now we’re going to imagine that each movie is a table with three legs. So if the first is visuals and the second is dialogue, the last is plot. (Non-cartoons have the fourth leg of acting as well.) Now this plot wasn’t the worst of all. It was fairly unusual, if not really original. Let’s all admit that both evil robots taking over the world and the rise of another Hitler has been done to death. Let’s also focus on the fact that the entire movie was able to be called. The biggest issue was the fact that, unlike other films put out in similar genres recently, not only was the whole movie predictable, it was actually overpredictable. I mean, I was sitting there in the theater thinking, okay so this is going to happen (which did) but since everything was predicting that this would happen I started to think that maybe that would actually be what happened. So when this happened, it was definitely disappointing. And then there’s the whole ending. Which was just plain stupid. I mean it was doody-face stupid. They didn’t even leave it open for another story to tell.
Now a table is made up of not only legs but also a top, and in my opinion the table-top to a movie is its soundtrack. If the legs are strong, a firm and beautiful table-top can add nothing but beauty. And a weak and faulty table-top will still lead to the table breaking. And if we really consider a movie, more than likely there will be songs that are better than others, but the most important song is the opening credits. It’s the center of the table, if you will. Although a table-top can survive without a center, the edges (or the rest of the music) then need to be exceptionally strong. In this case, we have a beautiful firm table top. But the thing is, it has no legs to stand on.
Now I know we need to consider what age group a movie is for before we judge it. Obviously children are supposed to use small tables, so the idea of a movie equally lacking in just about everything other than music is not the worst thing for children. But Nine was one of those movies that I wouldn’t let my children see until they were at least twelve due to violence and strong suspense. And this is where the real problem is. This movie is aimed at no age group.
If I’m fair, I have to mention there was one moment that was actually so good I couldn’t help but be a bit in love with it. The Somewhere Over the Rainbow scene was a beauty.
And now I’m spent. Also, I’m really pissy right now because two people have taken my seat at my café already. I mean the first guy leaves and the second guy just leaps to take his seat. And I’m like What’cha doing asshole? but he’s this dude who’s like my grandpa’s age so I can’t scare him away. And I think he’s another regular here who sits and reads the entire paper here every day. So I’m going to be sitting in this wrong seat for the foreseeable future. (And since this seat isn’t actually against the wall that means no reading fanfic, and probably no writing fanfic. Damnit!)
Oh, and then I should say I’ve mainly been living on caffeine the past week or so…I’m talking a maximum of four hours of sleep a night. So last night I decide to have a Mellow Yellow at nine pm and so when I go to bed I can’t fall asleep. My mind’s racing at about a thousand miles an hour and I can’t even start to calm it down. Then suddenly I’m not there. I see a guy sitting at a coffee bar facing away from me. He’s halfway across the room, then suddenly I’m there and I tap him on the shoulder. And of course, when he turns around he has a black void where his face should be. And then suddenly I’m back in my bed and my heart is racing and I’m like freaking the fuck out. And of course I fall right asleep after that. But anyhow, I totally blame Nine for that, cause I don’t like scary movies and don’t watch scary movies
So I’ve begun sending things out on fanfiction.net, because as much as I detest, and I mean detest both the site and everything it stands for, it seems to be one of those tools you can use to your own advantage.
And since I’m part of that site I decided to see what they had to offer. Not like I’ll actually read anything from said site as it seems to be made up of teenagers who don’t know how to write at all, and those who can only write clearly in another language, but I still like to know what’s being produced…what the next big fandom is going to be, if you know what I mean.
So after looking over some of the television fandoms and finding some premises that actually sound decent, miracle of miracles, I happen to wander into the book section. Now, if I’d been thinking at all I would never have opened that can of worms, because honestly the one big fandom that I cannot help but loathe is HP. But for some reason I conveniently forgot and stumbled into Pride and Prejudice-which may have been the worst idea I’ve ever had. Now don’t get me wrong, I use and abuse characters in my fics until no one knows what’s up or down, doubtless, but that being said, just reading the plot for these fics made my hair stand up on end. Because although there were a couple of continuations and a one decent sounding complete reworking, no one changed the pairings at all.
I’m quite open to most fic, but to me, if you aren’t willing to try something new in fandom, please, don’t try anything at all. I’m sure that maybe one fic in the entire section was actually readable. But come on people, why take the biggest classic of all time and try to either re-write it with the same characters or (worse yet) write yourself into it (and don’t y’all tell me you’re not doing it). There’s no real reason to do it. If I would have seen a single new pairing of the same old characters I might have considered reading, but instead I found atrocity upon atrocity.
So I went to bed telling myself, I could never even read a book fanfic. The arguments were: a book is good enough that the idea of changing it in any way is mock-able, and unlike television and movies where about ten people go into the making of each character, one person makes every character in a book and trying to change any of them would be irreverent. So here I am with my whole high and mighty attitude, when I start to think, Huh, wonder what a Darcy/Bingley fic would be like, and then of course I start writing it out in my head before I can even tell myself how wrong wrong wrong it is. And then I remember fics like That Summer and Jolie Couer which are both BTVS/Anita Blake crossovers, both of which I really liked, almost better than the books, partly because of the irreverence.
And granted there are reasons why I should like someone who rewrote the Anita Blake ‘Verse. And they are strong and many. But honestly there is a reason behind rewriting any book, or at least adding to it. So here I am feeling like I did back when I discovered that mocking Buffy had been pretty funny considering how in love I was after watching the first episode, or back to the day when I read my first allaboutspike fic after the double whammy of mocking fanfic before reading any based on the overly dramatic people on the old buffyworld and the horror of my first foray into fanfic-bad Spuffy (and we all know Spuffy is bad enough on it’s own that no one needs to write actual bad versions of it). And so, I’m left still thinking, in part at least, that every really well written book shouldn’t be fanficced, but I’m also left thinking that any time you want to take a more questionable epic it’s more a good idea than a questionable one. And I’m sure eventually someone will take something like Pride and Prejudice and write a fic that totally makes me look like a crazy person for even having concerns at all.
Now on to rant the first-Project Runway-what’s up with this season? I mean, if I was lifetime I would have done anything to keep the two judges who are able to judge and make long term decisions. I don’t know if lifetime decided they couldn’t afford those two, or if Heidi Klum asked lifetime for total creative control, or what happened. But I’ll tell you, this new girl is perfectly useless and the rotating peanut gallery is perfectly useless, so suddenly this seems to be the Heidi Klum show.
And this also seems to be the flying under the radar show. I mean, practically the only people still in the show are the middle men. Every week they send the person home who has done poorly in that single competition, they never consider the big picture of long term. So instead of seeing Johnny and R’amon in the finals (like we doubtless would have in former seasons) we’re going to see Carol Hannah and Logan who are never in either the top or the bottom.
Lifetime, listen up, we want the actual designers to win this. We don’t want to see the milquetoasts that have no real creativity or originality in the final three. Call us crazy, but we really think sending the people who’ve been in the top more often than not home every week just because of one slightly faulty design is more idiotic than y’all taking a berretta and shooting yourselves in the foot. Repeatedly. Please get Michael Kors and Nina Garcia back for next season. Or we will not watch. Sincerely, the three muses.
Okay, and on to rant the second-Nine-dude, what was the goal here? Now I’m fond of movies. Wait, let’s try I’m fond of good movies. And I will admit that there were good parts to this movie. But c’mon people.
To start off with I should mention that I really thought that this was a Tim Burton film before going. So I was expecting his quirky sense of humor. And granted beautiful visuals as well, but mostly the quirky plot. So I’m sitting in the theater watching the beginning of this and I’m thinking, okay, this is not exactly the movie I was expecting. I mean the visuals from the start, while stimulating, were not even approaching beauty. And honestly both the people and the machines weren’t even visually stimulating. They looked like something that could have been produced ten years ago easily.
And then there was the lack of dialogue. I mean, when you have a total of nine characters, two of them never talk, one of them doesn’t talk for the first few scenes he’s in, and there’s never more than five on screen at once you’re already shooting blanks, but to actually write as boring of dialogue as was written for this-it’s completely unsupportable. And then there was the lack of contrast between voices, the fact (which we will get into later) that there was only one female character, and worst of all, the fact that the villain had no voice. When I was growing up and we read plays in class I would always want to be the villain. They always had the best lines. So to have a villain who doesn’t talk…pissed me off.
Now we’re going to imagine that each movie is a table with three legs. So if the first is visuals and the second is dialogue, the last is plot. (Non-cartoons have the fourth leg of acting as well.) Now this plot wasn’t the worst of all. It was fairly unusual, if not really original. Let’s all admit that both evil robots taking over the world and the rise of another Hitler has been done to death. Let’s also focus on the fact that the entire movie was able to be called. The biggest issue was the fact that, unlike other films put out in similar genres recently, not only was the whole movie predictable, it was actually overpredictable. I mean, I was sitting there in the theater thinking, okay so this is going to happen (which did) but since everything was predicting that this would happen I started to think that maybe that would actually be what happened. So when this happened, it was definitely disappointing. And then there’s the whole ending. Which was just plain stupid. I mean it was doody-face stupid. They didn’t even leave it open for another story to tell.
Now a table is made up of not only legs but also a top, and in my opinion the table-top to a movie is its soundtrack. If the legs are strong, a firm and beautiful table-top can add nothing but beauty. And a weak and faulty table-top will still lead to the table breaking. And if we really consider a movie, more than likely there will be songs that are better than others, but the most important song is the opening credits. It’s the center of the table, if you will. Although a table-top can survive without a center, the edges (or the rest of the music) then need to be exceptionally strong. In this case, we have a beautiful firm table top. But the thing is, it has no legs to stand on.
Now I know we need to consider what age group a movie is for before we judge it. Obviously children are supposed to use small tables, so the idea of a movie equally lacking in just about everything other than music is not the worst thing for children. But Nine was one of those movies that I wouldn’t let my children see until they were at least twelve due to violence and strong suspense. And this is where the real problem is. This movie is aimed at no age group.
If I’m fair, I have to mention there was one moment that was actually so good I couldn’t help but be a bit in love with it. The Somewhere Over the Rainbow scene was a beauty.
And now I’m spent. Also, I’m really pissy right now because two people have taken my seat at my café already. I mean the first guy leaves and the second guy just leaps to take his seat. And I’m like What’cha doing asshole? but he’s this dude who’s like my grandpa’s age so I can’t scare him away. And I think he’s another regular here who sits and reads the entire paper here every day. So I’m going to be sitting in this wrong seat for the foreseeable future. (And since this seat isn’t actually against the wall that means no reading fanfic, and probably no writing fanfic. Damnit!)
Oh, and then I should say I’ve mainly been living on caffeine the past week or so…I’m talking a maximum of four hours of sleep a night. So last night I decide to have a Mellow Yellow at nine pm and so when I go to bed I can’t fall asleep. My mind’s racing at about a thousand miles an hour and I can’t even start to calm it down. Then suddenly I’m not there. I see a guy sitting at a coffee bar facing away from me. He’s halfway across the room, then suddenly I’m there and I tap him on the shoulder. And of course, when he turns around he has a black void where his face should be. And then suddenly I’m back in my bed and my heart is racing and I’m like freaking the fuck out. And of course I fall right asleep after that. But anyhow, I totally blame Nine for that, cause I don’t like scary movies and don’t watch scary movies