(Untitled)

[redbrickrose]

So I finished Origins and now I'm playing Dragon Age II. (I'm a completist, I can't just skip to Inquisition, so I will be playing all of them. I played ALL of the DLC in Origins too. Also, my brother gave me all of Mass Effect for my birthday. HELP. There is a reason I have spent years only playing Halo. That reason is my time-management

Comments

[redbrickrose]

Will keep you both posted on my "get rich off mediocre fanfic" plan. It's in the works.

So I read 50 Shades - the whole trilogy. It's...just a bad Twilight AU (bad as badly written, and also bad as in, however one feels about Twilight, the 50 Shades characterizations are completely off). Like, had I encountered the original in it's fanfic context, I'd have back-buttoned, but it wouldn't have fazed me at all. (Even stuff like the infamous tampon scene, which only even sort of works in a vampire-AU context). So it's a bad Twilight AU, but it's also a pretty standard romance novel (at least the old-school ones), except for the explicit bdsm (which isn't nothing, but is also not...actually that kinky as portrayed, but is kind of telling in the way foregrounds that romance-novel dynamic).

I don't know! I was fascinated by it for awhile, because I wanted to understand why it was such a big deal, and what kind of cultural nerve it was hitting, but I really don't get it. It's kind of boring, honestly? The most interesting thing about it was the cultural response to it. But I actually also don't think the way it romanticizes the Christian/Ana dynamic is unique in any way, or really any different from the traditional romance novel formula. It's pretty generic, standard stuff that somehow got a huge cultural reaction - probably largely the Twilight connection and the bdsm thing being kind of different. I mean, it hit some nerve - that nerve may just be "women need better porn." Because for real.

Anyway, my thoughts on 50 Shades, the short version, even though you didn't really ask. /o\

[kita0610]

I guess it shouldn't be surprising? I mean, most best sellers in any genre are poorly written. And there's definitely a feminist part of me that's like FUCK YOU WOMEN LIKE IT WOMEN BOUGHT IT TO JACK OFF TO. But the rest - also feminist- of me is just shaking my head bc SERIOUSLY WE DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT CRAP TO JACK OFF TO.

[redbrickrose]

I have the same struggle! Like, I am sympathetic to the argument that things women like tend to be dismissed. This article is completely true, and ALSO 50 Shades of Grey is bad.

I am not here to judge other people's ids. And I actually get that the central fantasy of 50 Shades - of being desired that intensely - is potent. It's potent even if you're not kinking on the bdsm stuff; if you ARE and didn't know that about yourself before, like, wow, okay, I actually get how that would really resonate.

But then we're still back to "we deserve better porn." Because 50 Shades might not actually BE what women want/like, it might just be all there IS as far as the mainstream is concerned.

Thank God, for fandom. Of course, 50 Shades came out of fandom, and also we live in a post omegaverse world, so I wouldn't WANT most of our porn being mainstream, but the general point stands. "Like 50 Shades, but BETTER" is a totally reasonable to wish for.

[elucidate_this]

Oh god omegaverse in mainstream society. Terrifying. But also I predict it happening in the next 10 years.

[redbrickrose]

hahahaha oh god. /o\

[netweight]

we live in a post omegaverse world

*snerk*

Year four. Though more in dog years.