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The Death of FanLib, Twilight, and HSM
Jul. 26th, 2008 01:42 amIn order of appearance:
FanLib's going to disappear, as everyone predicted it would when it first made its bright, shiny appearance some 15 months ago (or so). I think it improved a whole lot since the wankfest first started, which is why I bothered to sign up against it, but I'm not crying over the loss. It's not like half the stuff there is any good anyway, whether that's writers or readers/reviewers. Anyone I did bother to read there I knew from other sites, namely this one, DA, and/or Fanfiction.net.
The thing that sucks is that they didn't just come out and say why they're going under, nor did they invite discussion of the topic on their homepage. Everyone on fandom_wank says it's because they're out of their $3 million (srsly!?) investment, which wouldn't surprise me, but since I haven't seen any sort of official statement regarding the "why," I'll take that with a grain of salt.
Twilight - Cause for fangirls of all ages to be bitches, mainly because the poor sap who's playing Edward in the upcoming movie is "hot." Me? I haven't heard anything good about the book series OR the upcoming movie, but my roommate (who is a few months older than me) got into the series via her (14-year-old) sister. She admits that the series is targeted toward a younger audience than even Harry Potter (thus making both her and her sister part of that oddball crowd of fangirls), but she likes it so far, as it's a "simple read." I cringed a bit when reading the back cover, but don't dare to actually explore beyond that (yet?).
Why? Well, I went to the Anaheim Public Library tonight after work and finally got myself some other books: two on the craft of writing (one's a standby favorite on the Middle Ages, which I use as a great reference for "The Rose Chronicles"), one dark rewrite of "Snow White" and other fairy tales (love those sort of stories!) and one Myst novel (because I've never read them and I thought it was high time I ought to). Oh, and a High School Musical book.
High School Musical - So, working at Disneyland means I see this High School Musical stuff every day, and I often dealt with (child) Guests who would come up to me screaming about how HOTTTTTT Troy is (If I had to pick between Zac Efron and Robert Pattinson or whatever his name is -even if he was in Harry Potter before- I'd pick Zac any day of the week. The other guys IS somewhat cute and has nice eyes/hair/smile, etc. but Zac just seems... well, more human. And this is my impression of Rob based off an interview where he WAS NOT in Vampire!Mode) and I would have NO idea what they were going on about. I took a glance at the Junior Novel and decided that it sounded fluffy enough for me to warrant getting the movie as soon as it came back into our Clubhouse rentals, so I grabbed it as soon as it did. And... it's pretty darn catchy! The acting isn't half-bad, either, which is saying something, especially when you look at some of the other Disney Channel stuff (*cough*Camp Rock*cough*) So I got the second one too, and I like it a lot! I'm really looking forward to HSM3 coming out on the silver screen in October, and I'm betting I'll get a first-hand look at some of the merchandise before it hits the shelves, too! :D
That said, I'm already half-in the fandom, but in the way a cat might be in a bathtub-- one paw in, hackles raised. At FFnet alone, the tripe level is at an all-time high; people can't seem to summarize AT ALL in the HSM section (and again, this is FFnet, so that's saying something!, and they confuse the real-life actors with their characters, so you'll often see pairing portmanteaus like Zanessa or Zashley. Uh, hello, people? Zac =/= Troy, Vanessa =/= Gabriella, and so on and so forth! Let these people have lives outside their movies, please! Besides, RPF isn't even allowed on FFnet! (If everything that was RPF got taken off there, I'm sure 75% of the section would be gone.)
But for every 100 or so horrible fics, there might just be one good fic (emphasis on the might there). I've already read a few, but usually once I do, I discover one of two things:
* I can get through the author's other good HSM fics (assuming there are any) rather rapidly, even if they're multi-chapter; I'm still left wanting more
* If the author DOES have other HSM fics, they suck, and then I'm back to square one; it's one of those "rare moments of genius" circumstances, and then I don't know what to tell the author that, moments ago, I'd been praising and now want to thwap with a Clue-By-Four
That's a dangerous place to be in, mind, because it's got me thinking "I could do better than these people!" Especially with writing challenges like those of ZAAngels (or something like that), which explore topics that Disney will NEVER EVER do, e.g. how Gabriella officially became Troy's girlfriend (because at the end of HSM1, they were just "best friends," and by HSM2, they were quite clearly in a romantic relationship, broke up, and got back together again in time for HSM3), or Troy and Gabriella's first time. ^_~
FanLib's going to disappear, as everyone predicted it would when it first made its bright, shiny appearance some 15 months ago (or so). I think it improved a whole lot since the wankfest first started, which is why I bothered to sign up against it, but I'm not crying over the loss. It's not like half the stuff there is any good anyway, whether that's writers or readers/reviewers. Anyone I did bother to read there I knew from other sites, namely this one, DA, and/or Fanfiction.net.
The thing that sucks is that they didn't just come out and say why they're going under, nor did they invite discussion of the topic on their homepage. Everyone on fandom_wank says it's because they're out of their $3 million (srsly!?) investment, which wouldn't surprise me, but since I haven't seen any sort of official statement regarding the "why," I'll take that with a grain of salt.
Twilight - Cause for fangirls of all ages to be bitches, mainly because the poor sap who's playing Edward in the upcoming movie is "hot." Me? I haven't heard anything good about the book series OR the upcoming movie, but my roommate (who is a few months older than me) got into the series via her (14-year-old) sister. She admits that the series is targeted toward a younger audience than even Harry Potter (thus making both her and her sister part of that oddball crowd of fangirls), but she likes it so far, as it's a "simple read." I cringed a bit when reading the back cover, but don't dare to actually explore beyond that (yet?).
Why? Well, I went to the Anaheim Public Library tonight after work and finally got myself some other books: two on the craft of writing (one's a standby favorite on the Middle Ages, which I use as a great reference for "The Rose Chronicles"), one dark rewrite of "Snow White" and other fairy tales (love those sort of stories!) and one Myst novel (because I've never read them and I thought it was high time I ought to). Oh, and a High School Musical book.
High School Musical - So, working at Disneyland means I see this High School Musical stuff every day, and I often dealt with (child) Guests who would come up to me screaming about how HOTTTTTT Troy is (If I had to pick between Zac Efron and Robert Pattinson or whatever his name is -even if he was in Harry Potter before- I'd pick Zac any day of the week. The other guys IS somewhat cute and has nice eyes/hair/smile, etc. but Zac just seems... well, more human. And this is my impression of Rob based off an interview where he WAS NOT in Vampire!Mode) and I would have NO idea what they were going on about. I took a glance at the Junior Novel and decided that it sounded fluffy enough for me to warrant getting the movie as soon as it came back into our Clubhouse rentals, so I grabbed it as soon as it did. And... it's pretty darn catchy! The acting isn't half-bad, either, which is saying something, especially when you look at some of the other Disney Channel stuff (*cough*Camp Rock*cough*) So I got the second one too, and I like it a lot! I'm really looking forward to HSM3 coming out on the silver screen in October, and I'm betting I'll get a first-hand look at some of the merchandise before it hits the shelves, too! :D
That said, I'm already half-in the fandom, but in the way a cat might be in a bathtub-- one paw in, hackles raised. At FFnet alone, the tripe level is at an all-time high; people can't seem to summarize AT ALL in the HSM section (and again, this is FFnet, so that's saying something!, and they confuse the real-life actors with their characters, so you'll often see pairing portmanteaus like Zanessa or Zashley. Uh, hello, people? Zac =/= Troy, Vanessa =/= Gabriella, and so on and so forth! Let these people have lives outside their movies, please! Besides, RPF isn't even allowed on FFnet! (If everything that was RPF got taken off there, I'm sure 75% of the section would be gone.)
But for every 100 or so horrible fics, there might just be one good fic (emphasis on the might there). I've already read a few, but usually once I do, I discover one of two things:
* I can get through the author's other good HSM fics (assuming there are any) rather rapidly, even if they're multi-chapter; I'm still left wanting more
* If the author DOES have other HSM fics, they suck, and then I'm back to square one; it's one of those "rare moments of genius" circumstances, and then I don't know what to tell the author that, moments ago, I'd been praising and now want to thwap with a Clue-By-Four
That's a dangerous place to be in, mind, because it's got me thinking "I could do better than these people!" Especially with writing challenges like those of ZAAngels (or something like that), which explore topics that Disney will NEVER EVER do, e.g. how Gabriella officially became Troy's girlfriend (because at the end of HSM1, they were just "best friends," and by HSM2, they were quite clearly in a romantic relationship, broke up, and got back together again in time for HSM3), or Troy and Gabriella's first time. ^_~
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