The Garden of Discordia

Okay, the fightscenes and retro video game stuff? Really cool, mhmm. And it was great to see a movie made from a comic book that (according to the Scott Pilgrim readers in our group) was faithful and kept so many nerdy injokes.

But I'm really glad I didn't pay for this movie, because then I would probably have been disappointed ^^; Sorry, but the whole "guy fights for girl who stands there staring in adoration in vague hipster-angst" really isn't my thing. There were also several points where my embarassment squick got so triggered (mostly by Scott himself) that I had to fight to keep my eyes open. And, y'know, the whole pretty sucky race/gender thing which I'm sure someone else has said better than I did

But! Free movie = better movie, yes? And the video game-y gimmicks were super cute and well done, the fight scenes pretty awesome and the whole "and how many people will wake up in gay roommates bed this time?" deadpan and funny.

Not to mention a surprisingly good soundtrack.

But some of those scenes, oh man, trainwrecks galore... Couldn't we have replaced them with more DDR/Mortal Combat fighting? That looked good

So apparantly Jasper Fforde has a problem with fanfic. This is me when I first read this:

- Wait, Jasper Fforde? Isn't he -
*checks heap'o'books to get rid of*
- Well fuck. Jasper Fucking Fforde is the author of the Thursday Next books which, whoops, are pretty much crossover fanfic to literary classics. With his own OC, Thursday Next, as the main character.

I was planning to write a thoughtful, well-researched post here. Then I thought, fuck it, I'll just rant. So, rant ahoy!

I will angrily type about the sheer entitlement that comes of a male author using (mainly) female author's works for his post-modern meta-commentary series, and then forbidding other authors to re-contextualize his stories once more. I mean, it just gets better when you consider that Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and other early female novelists faced various levels of prejudice and ridicule because they were 1) female and 2) wrote stuff. oh hai, that's kinda like fanfic!*

F-u-r-t-h-e-r, the dickhead isn't even only hiding behind (faulty) legalese protection, i.e. my copyright won't work if I allow fanfic, oh noez, but he's taking some moral high ground.

Because his characters "mean so much" to him. Ummm... When your first book is called The Eeyre Affair and your main chara interacts with the main chara of that book, I think it's a leeetle biit hypocritial to discuss respecting other characters. What does it matter if the author is dead? Is smearing someones name less bad, just because that person isn't around to hear it? Should I, as a reader, have to investigate what you the author thinks on every little issue before I comment on your work?
Honestly, if all that respect entails means is that you don't want the author to see the icky, icky fic, then firmly tell your readers not to show it to you. Most readers won't even try - the ones that do, smack them down.

Now I definitely regret wasting fifty crowns or so on his book during the book sale.

In fact, a staunch (and stupid) anti-fanfic stance is one of the few things that really makes me a firm boycotter of an author whose books I might otherwise buy. Iffy political opinions and general euugh-ness tends to be less of a problem, since I often don't like those books anyway. It'd be a bit like boycotting bananas for me - I've hated them with passion since I was 6, so it's not as if its a sacrifice to avoid Chiquita. Aand I mean, I've heard from several people at work that John Ringo, David Weber et al don't just write military sf gun-porn, but are severely right-wing themselves - hey, no problem. I can totally avoid buying your books, any day *sincere nod*

What sucks is when it's authors I enjoy, or that I would like to fic.

Authors I know are anti-fanfic & have expressed it in a way that really irks me:
- Anne Rice
Ah, the classic! Her writing is crap these days, anyway, but this means I'll definitely never buy some nostalgic hardcover of the first three books or so. I will however still read the old VC fic I've saved - some of it was pretty good ^_^ And, I mean, I would probably have kept buying her for a while after the books themselves turned to shit - I mean, I collected merchandize and comics and stuff - but when I can't even use the universe for ficcing purposes? What's the point?
- Jasper Fforde
- George R. R. Martin
Not that I'm likely to ever be in danger of being tempted with a finished Song of Ice and Fire, anyway, but if I want to read/re-read his epics, there are workmates. And heaps of smushed books, sooner or later a Martin turns up.
- Diana Gabaldon
Just heard of her (and had to link to fandom_wank due to deleted posts), which is kind of a shame, since her books were on the queer-rec list at work and I was slightly interested in them. After the descriptions of Outlander as 600 pages of badly written romance smut, with one scene of torture-porn, I am feeling less inclined to do so anyway...
- Robin Hobb
Also deleted her rant, but fear not, the Internet remembers!
- C.S Friedman
Deserves a special mention! Because while she is pretty much in the don't ask, don't tell (but do disclaim) camp about fic, she comes off as rather homophobic in her reply about slash fanfic. And as I feel the same urge every time I read this sentence:
As [slash] this kind of material often deals with subjects and character interpretations I emphatically disagree with, I do ask you make it very clear to any potential readers that it does not reflect my work except in the broadest inspirational sense.
...I will now indulge in it. Ahem.
IF YOU DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO SLASH YOUR GUYS, TRY LEAVING AT LEAST ONE FEMALE CHARACTER OF IMPORTANCE ALIVE/NON-AMNESIAC! I mean, jeez, I liked the Coldfire trilogy (and it was slashy as hell btw) but the women getting killed thing was really, reeeaaally obvious. And of course I know that slash happens, and wtf woman, let it happen and just don't read, but. Come on. There's making it easy, and making it pretty much inevitable.
- Ursula Le Guin
Aww, it makes me sad to include her there. Otoh, she's an author that can be found in the library pretty easily, so no big loss. (but why, Ms Le Guin? U b so cool otherwise!)
- Katherine Kerr
:( Another delete, another f_w write-up. Kerr was one of the first authors whose characters I mentally slashed, years before I found out about fanfic
(And it wasn't even Rhodry/that elf guy. I thought about the tragic'n'smutty non-con story of the dark magic apprentice and his boytoy sexslave young Lord what's-his-name that appeared in one of the early books. No, the internet didn't make me depraved - I was like that before I turned 13 and ever turned on a computer. Oh, and Salamander. I slashed him with eeeeverything.)

That was a depressing list to write/collect links for. Here, see some squee which I found/remembered while doing it
Patrick Rothfuss upon finding the first slashfic of his work: YES!
Cory Doctorow: In praise of fanfic

* not saying that fanfic in general is Austen-level good. But, y'know, there were probably a whole bunch of women who wrote stuff and put in their drawers that was just as non-literary-classicy as the average fic.

See... this is what happens when I have the laptop in bed. Late night rantings. 01.40 - logging off the internet now.

So, alright, I understand that even if one wants to sell a risque calender there are limits.

But honestly, if you call it Porn for Women 2010 Wall Calendar I'd expect more than one shirtless pic. Gosh, I think I've bought completely non-porny anime calenders that had more of a pin-up feel in their pictures

And the text, then!
Finally, wall-worthy eye candy for the ladies! Steamy enough for the bedroom yet tame enough for the office, this calendar features alluring (PG-rated) photographs of hunky men doing what women really want them to cooking, offering massages, asking for directions, and more. Hubba hubba!

Yeaaahh... That's exactly the kind of porn women want. Uh-huh

/goes back to reading her slashfic