ballp.it
Projects => The F Plus => Topic started by: Lemon on November 24, 2013, 09:52:34 pm
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with Isfahan, Bunnybread, Acierocolotl, Boots Raingear, and Lemon.
Edited by Lemon
Content for this episode was provided by Erminea Heart.
Every year when November rolls around, conversation frequently drifts into one of two subjects: The moustache I totally would be growing if circumstances were different, and the novel I totally would be writing if circumstances were different. In this episode, we're concerned with the latter: Persons participating in National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo), mainly by hanging out on a forum and spitballing crappy ideas around. This week, The F Plus buys a hundred head of Satan's cattle.
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I apparently do not know which province contains my nation's capital.
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Even though I live in Ontario, I am the token Quebecois.
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I'm really glad this episode highlighted a major problem with pop culture-soaked internet writing, that being the tendency to overcomplicate an already flawed narrative premise by including god damned everything nerdy you can think of.
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Lemon really hit the nail on the head in the TVTropes (I think?) episode when he said that the new generation being more 'savvy' when it comes to entertainment is really just them spewing out whatever they saw in a comic once.
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I'm not sure that's necessarily true. I think the real problem is that NaNoRefuckit primarily draws in kids and young adults to write. And the fact of the matter is that good writing comes from having lived and experienced a great deal. But these kids haven't experienced anything, so the only other thing they can think to write is the pop-bullshit the culture industry tells them is artistic.
Woah, got a little dialectic of enlightenment-y there at the end.
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I'm really glad this episode highlighted a major problem with pop culture-soaked internet writing, that being the tendency to overcomplicate an already flawed narrative premise by including god damned everything nerdy you can think of.
turkeys UNLIMITED, November 25, 2013, 02:08:03 pm
I think another thing that goes along with that is that too many nerd writers absolutely obsess over the minutia of their work to the detriment of the actual story: Trying to come up with pages and pages and pages of technobabble to explain how their fictional starships' hyperdrives work without ever thinking about the characters who actually pilot these starships.
I think it comes from the fact that the people who write crap like that tend to be the kind of pedantic nerds who look for inconsistencies in Star Trek technobabble and are trying to sort of preemptively prevent other pedantic neckbeards like themselves from poking the same holes in their ""masterpieces" while completely missing the point of what makes for engaging and entertaining fiction.
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ETA: ^^Also that.^^
Lemon really hit the nail on the head in the TVTropes (I think?) episode when he said that the new generation being more 'savvy' when it comes to entertainment is really just them spewing out whatever they saw in a comic once.
Bobalay, November 25, 2013, 03:14:35 pm
It's not so much a generational problem as a subcultural one. It's nerds in general, not newer nerds. Like it or not, there's a certain cluster of bad personality traits that keep a lot of people in the Marvel-Inuyasha-Squaresoft sphere as a means of defining their existence past the age of 14. If playing video games is all you do as opposed to something you do, you're probably suffering some serious arrested development. It doesn't exactly imbue you with enriching life experience or a varied body of work consumed to funnel into your own endeavors. Incubate that in the echo chamber of the internet and you've got a recipe for terrible creative output.
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No, SERIOUSLY, it's nerds in general, it's been as uniform as we've had science. Listen:
A novel I read for my radio show, "Edison's Conquest of Mars," involved pages and pages of description of how Edison mastered electrostatic forces to propel his ships through space. It involved the creation of a superweapon that used resonant frequencies to destroy matter at an atomic level. Not a single character had a single goddamn iota of personality about them, beyond the casually racist depictions of the Chinese and the pretty female captive being kind of helpless and in need of rescue. It's no different than what you describe now, save that it was written in 1880 or thereabouts.
Flimsy grasp of science? CHECK.
Fanfiction? THOMAS EDISON CHECK AND UNAUTHORIZED 'SEQUEL' TO WAR OF THE WORLDS CHECK.
Amazing self-insert? All-around-most-competent himself CHECKITYCHECKCHECK.
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Also completely missing the point of War of the Worlds, which was a pretty clever critique of British Imperialism.
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No, SERIOUSLY, it's nerds in general, it's been as uniform as we've had science. Listen:
A novel I read for my radio show, "Edison's Conquest of Mars," involved pages and pages of description of how Edison mastered electrostatic forces to propel his ships through space.
Acierocolotl, November 25, 2013, 09:50:48 pm
IN A WORLD WHERE OUR HOUSES, STORES AND EVEN OUR CARS ARE POWERED BY, YES, ELECTRICITY: ELECTROPUNK
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These people are going to regret not just keeping their stupid ideas on paper, where it is more easily disposed of in the event they gain any sort of self-awareness. They are going to remember this one day, and think "Why did I do this thing? Why did I think this was a good idea?" while grasping their head tightly and cringing.
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These people are going to regret not just keeping their stupid ideas on paper, where it is more easily disposed of in the event they gain any sort of self-awareness. They are going to remember this one day, and think "Why did I do this thing? Why did I think this was a good idea?" while grasping their head tightly and cringing.
MicroMissles, November 26, 2013, 09:36:33 am
This could be said of most internet output created before one reaches emotional maturity.
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The ASOIAF segment was a nice reminder to self that no matter how big a shitnerd these guys might be, I can be just as bad. Although how the hell can you fit a Billy Goats Gruff story into 50k words? Pull a classic GRRM and fill half of those with descriptions of food and women's nipples?
Boots saying "and then they did it" at the end of that terrible excerpt of the... what the hell would you even call it, fighting guy LARP story I guess?, was hilarious to me because I had just been thinking the story was so poorly written and confusing it was like bad slash fanfiction of its own self.
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Somewhere around the second or third bit, I was reminded of what Isfahan said during the J. Jenny Jay whatever thing (I think): "I just realized something. I'm not that bad of a writer."
Of course, this episode prompted me to go hard drive-spelunking and find the "book" I started writing my senior year of high school, and I immediately took back the sentiment. It really was a situation where I had virtually no life experience to draw from, so I wrote a bunch of confusing, directionless crap, instead. I'm sure I could write something better than that, but that doesn't make re-reading it any less cringe-inducing.
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Boots saying "and then they did it" at the end of that terrible excerpt of the... what the hell would you even call it, fighting guy LARP story I guess?, was hilarious to me because I had just been thinking the story was so poorly written and confusing it was like bad slash fanfiction of its own self.Dacey Mormont, November 26, 2013, 10:27:05 pm
Yep. LARP transcript. It read like two nerds who know they have to fight but don't want to get to the physical part of it so they put it off through awkward, incessant repartée.
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You know, I think there's a $10 Secrets thread around here somewhere. You know how to copy/paste, doncha?
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You know, I think there's a $10 Secrets thread around here somewhere. You know how to copy/paste, doncha?
Lemon, November 27, 2013, 09:24:56 am
It's easy - you just put your links together and PoE.
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Ulillillia's sister wants to take her NaNoWriMo novel on the road. Will you help her?
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-arcane-campaign (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-arcane-campaign)
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I have been writing science fiction/fantasy for almost fourteen years, but 2013 is special. This year I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
It hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrts.
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Somewhere around the second or third bit, I was reminded of what Isfahan said during the J. Jenny Jay whatever thing (I think): "I just realized something. I'm not that bad of a writer."
Of course, this episode prompted me to go hard drive-spelunking and find the "book" I started writing my senior year of high school, and I immediately took back the sentiment. It really was a situation where I had virtually no life experience to draw from, so I wrote a bunch of confusing, directionless crap, instead. I'm sure I could write something better than that, but that doesn't make re-reading it any less cringe-inducing.
Navigator, November 27, 2013, 05:59:38 am
See, my realization was more along the lines of "I may write stupid, horrifying fanfiction, but at least I am aware of that fact and have the decency not to share it with everyone I can."
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Ulillillia's sister wants to take her NaNoWriMo novel on the road. Will you help her?
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-arcane-campaign (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-arcane-campaign)
Boots Raingear, November 29, 2013, 06:11:55 am
She's Ulillillia's sister, all right. They share a gift of intense focus on detail.
Perhaps "gift" is the wrong word here.
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I did NaNoWriMo once, intentionally avoiding genre fiction for this very reason. The result was sloppily written and kind of a mess, but nothing compared to this shit.
I think NaNoWriMo and TvTropes has this in common. They are both premises that, on their face, are sound, harmless exercises in narrative, but when opened up to the cesspool of the internet, becomes something so bad it's F+ worthy.
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What I notice is the formulaic, RPG-like method by which these people seek to write their story.
TvTropes has gifted them with this idea that writing is finding the right combination of Plot N with Character Types 3, 5,-17 and 89b (for a twist!) on a [[Steampunk] Desert Planet] ruled by [[Zombie] Alien Ninjas], and job done.
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What I notice is the formulaic, RPG-like method by which these people seek to write their story.
TvTropes has gifted them with this idea that writing is finding the right combination of Plot N with Character Types 3, 5,-17 and 89b (for a twist!) on a [[Steampunk] Desert Planet] ruled by [[Zombie] Alien Ninjas], and job done.
Horza, December 09, 2013, 03:16:09 am
You best not be insulting generation tables if you know what's good for you.
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I did NaNoWriMo once, intentionally avoiding genre fiction for this very reason. The result was sloppily written and kind of a mess, but nothing compared to this shit.
Triggerhappy938, December 08, 2013, 09:23:14 pm
So young, so naive (http://nanowrimo.org/forums/literary-fiction).
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Also, I never checked the forums. Why must you ceush my blissful ignorance.
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It is our way.
ETA:
You know you're writing Lit-Fic when...
You are a serious writer, writing very serious subjects... xxoo!
When people ask you the plot of your novel and you have to think for ten minutes about what a plot even is until you finally answer "um...well...it's about trains...and the meaning of life???"
...puns, assonance, and alliteration become your chief concerns at the expense of plot, character, and theme.
…suddenly the point of view changes to that of a character who we have never met before.
... when you realize that all your world-building has been in your characters' heads.
... you have no idea what the character looks like, but you know exactly how they would answer the question "would you like fries with that?" and the psychological reasons behind said answer.
...when every paragraph has to sound pretty.
Definitely. And furthermore,
...when every forum post has to sound pretty. And be grammatically correct. Unless that's the point.
A bunch of dumb dildos
Wwwwhackity schmackity doooooooooooooooooooooo
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It is our way.
ETA:
You know you're writing Lit-Fic when...
You are a serious writer, writing very serious subjects... xxoo!
When people ask you the plot of your novel and you have to think for ten minutes about what a plot even is until you finally answer "um...well...it's about trains...and the meaning of life???"
...puns, assonance, and alliteration become your chief concerns at the expense of plot, character, and theme.
…suddenly the point of view changes to that of a character who we have never met before.
... when you realize that all your world-building has been in your characters' heads.
... you have no idea what the character looks like, but you know exactly how they would answer the question "would you like fries with that?" and the psychological reasons behind said answer.
...when every paragraph has to sound pretty.
Definitely. And furthermore,
...when every forum post has to sound pretty. And be grammatically correct. Unless that's the point.
A bunch of dumb dildos
Wwwwhackity schmackity doooooooooooooooooooooo
THE TRUE JUICE, December 10, 2013, 04:28:49 pm
Oh my god, these people have literally never read a book before. I hadn't realized how deep the rabbit-hole went.
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Oh my god, these people have literally never read a book before. I hadn't realized how deep the rabbit-hole went.
kal-elk, December 11, 2013, 01:06:03 am
I am going to be generous and give them the befit of the doubt in that they could have read Japanese light-fiction. Japanese light-fiction follows conventions of storytelling that are completely alien to western styles. It doesn't help that it is a genre intimately connected to novels written in and for cellphones.
As a random example I'll pick a chapter from a series of light novels extremely popular in Japan and abroad: "Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai", a touching story of two siblings who try to reconnect after years of coldly disregarding each other.
http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Ore_no_Im%C5%8Dto_ga_Konna_ni_Kawaii_Wake_ga_Nai:Volume_5_Chapter_3 (http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Ore_no_Im%C5%8Dto_ga_Konna_ni_Kawaii_Wake_ga_Nai:Volume_5_Chapter_3)
(http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/images/thumb/8/8e/Ore_no_imouto_novel_v1_cover.jpg/250px-Ore_no_imouto_novel_v1_cover.jpg)
Notice how it is a first-person perspective story that jumbles actual actions with the thoughts of the narrator and his imagination. How in conversations with more than two characters reading it requires guesswork. Count the ellipsis. After a while you will begin to see the similarities between this published and well-regarded work of art and the writing they have described.
Spoilers: [spoilerz]They fuck.[/spoilerz]
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Wait did you just confess to reading a pedo manga
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why do you know so much about pedophile incest animes?
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Cartoon incest porn.
Odd, December 11, 2013, 05:35:46 am
...Delcat, is that you?
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1. Light novels are basically novellas printed cheaply for teen audiences. They're pulp. The styles and genres are geared toward the audience, but they're a lot more varied than what you'll find on a site for fan translations by gross otaku. They predate the concept of cellphones, but some stories originally written on cellphones have been printed in the format after achieving success online.
2. Thanks for that gross story, you're misinformed AND bad at judging what you should share!
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Thanks for your comparison of bad writing styles, I will now shame you for sharing a thing that I clearly know more about
THE TRUE JUICE, December 11, 2013, 07:18:45 am
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I don't know a goddamn thing about Japanese cell phone books, but I will say that rarely is an entire medium uniformly awful. There are probably some things in that genre that are worth reading just like there are some sci-fi and fantasy books worth reading, or some anime worth watching. So we probably shouldn't assume that someone is terrible just because they are familiar with those things in general.
Detailed knowledge of a thing where underage siblings fuck is still kind of a red flag mind you, but the medium itself might not be.
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Detailed knowledge of a thing where underage siblings fuck is still kind of a red flag mind you, but the medium itself might not be.
Runic, December 11, 2013, 12:51:04 pm
There are a TON of light novels that are nerdy but not weird-fetishy. About five minutes of research will turn up some titles that don't have underage cartoon siblings fucking.
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Detailed knowledge of a thing where underage siblings fuck is still kind of a red flag mind you, but the medium itself might not be.
Runic, December 11, 2013, 12:51:04 pm
There are a TON of light novels that are nerdy but not weird-fetishy. About five minutes of research will turn up some titles that don't have underage cartoon siblings fucking.
Cuddlekrampus, December 11, 2013, 02:24:56 pm
P much. Google, 'light novel wiki,' scroll, scroll, oh okay.
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Wait did you just confess to reading a pedo manga
kal-elk, December 11, 2013, 06:42:14 am
I could give you three different answer about how I know the things I know:
- A boring truth.
- An interesting lie.
- What you want to hear.
Cartoon incest porn.
Odd, December 11, 2013, 05:35:46 am
...Delcat, is that you?
Bobalay, December 11, 2013, 06:46:28 am
No I am Odd and have always been Odd except in the long-gone past when I was somebody else who got banned from Portalofevil.com. Lets not derail this discussion.
There are a TON of light novels that are nerdy but not weird-fetishy. About five minutes of research will turn up some titles that don't have underage cartoon siblings fucking.
Cuddlekrampus, December 11, 2013, 02:24:56 pm
Yes, but why would you bother?
But alright, can somebody recommend me a Japanese light novel that doesn't suck-ass and/or satisfy a fetish? Preferably something I can pirate or get off the web. I am in enough government lists as it is.
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Yes, but why would you bother?
But alright, can somebody recommend me a Japanese light novel that doesn't suck-ass and/or satisfy a fetish? Preferably something I can pirate or get off the web. I am in enough government lists as it is.
Odd, December 11, 2013, 06:12:43 pm
Here are light novels I know are well-received, and do not contain sex:
"Durarara!!", a horror thriller about a bunch of teenagers and a centuries old Irish ghost with no head. Also the "Baccano!" series, by the same author, is a non-linear fantasy about train robbers and demon summoning. "Kyoukai no Kanata" is about demon fighting high schoolers and is ridiculous but well-written. The "Haruhi Suzumiya" series is also popular, well-written as well as officially licensed and sold in English.
"Gundam Wing: Frozen Teardrop" is arguably decently written, even if it screws up a decade of fanon.
And how broadly are we defining "satisfy a fetish" here? Both "Gosick" and "The Mystic Archives of Dantalion" are fantasy mysteries with, but they also feature the brilliant, if tsundere, underage moe girl and her older minder tropes. "High Speed" is a serious, and kind of depressing, novel about a high school swim team but the anime based on it (Free!) is aimed hardcore at yaoi fans. The "Fate/(&)" novels are great, but are based on a visual novel that has erogame elements (that is to say, there's no porn in the novels, but there are two versions of the game and one has sex).
Literature is literature, dude. It's just pulpy fiction for easy consumption, not some weird underground fetish thing.
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Here are light novels I know are well-received, and do not contain sex:
"Durarara!!", a horror thriller about a bunch of teenagers and a centuries old Irish ghost with no head. Also the "Baccano!" series, by the same author, is a non-linear fantasy about train robbers and demon summoning.sherlockian, December 11, 2013, 06:45:03 pm
Is this a good translation of that light novel, "Dararara!!"?
http://anni-fiesta.livejournal.com/4169.html# (http://anni-fiesta.livejournal.com/4169.html#)
Because I may be too dumb to understand the intricacies of Light Novels, but this snippet reads remarkably similarly to the one I posted as an example. Down to the abuse of... ellipses.
"Kyoukai no Kanata" is about demon fighting high schoolers and is ridiculous but well-written.
This is better but...
She threw open the door of a nearby supply closet and leapt into it to hide. She must've gotten her foot caught in a bucket or something, judging from the awful clatter that followed. She fell back into the hall, covered in brooms and mops and things of that ilk. In a situation like that, your typical adolescent male might try to look up her skirt. I, on the other hand, would not. No, I was far more concerned about her red-rimmed glasses - had they fallen off? Did something fall on them and break them? Seeing that they were unharmed, I felt a kind of subtle delight slowly welling up within me. That was no time to be laughing out of relief, of course. I knew that she didn't want to hear me say it, but I said it anyway.
"Are you okay?"
She slowly lifted her upper body off the ground.
As she adjusted her glasses, she replied, "Oh, Kanbara. What a coincidence."
"Coincidence, my foot! If 'it was a coincidence' was a good enough explanation of why you just fell out of a supply closet, 'What a coincidence!' would be the motto of trespassers everywhere!"
"This is unpleasant."
...I still see similarities in storytelling between this and the kind of stories that were read in this episode of the podcast.
And how broadly are we defining "satisfy a fetish" here? Both "Gosick" and "The Mystic Archives of Dantalion" are fantasy mysteries with, but they also feature the brilliant, if tsundere, underage moe girl and her older minder tropes. "High Speed" is a serious, and kind of depressing, novel about a high school swim team but the anime based on it (Free!) is aimed hardcore at yaoi fans. The "Fate/(&)" novels are great, but are based on a visual novel that has erogame elements (that is to say, there's no porn in the novels, but there are two versions of the game and one has sex).
Literature is literature, dude. It's just pulpy fiction for easy consumption, not some weird underground fetish thing.
I would say that "satisfying a fetish" means that the novel was intended to satisfy a niche of fetishists so certain aspects of the story or qualities of the characters are repeated and remarked upon in a way that doesn't actually contribute to building a good plot or storytelling atmosphere.
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You're correct, Jesus, A+, gold star, move on.
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"Kyoukai no Kanata" is about demon fighting high schoolers and is ridiculous but well-written.
This is better but...
...I still see similarities in storytelling between this and the kind of stories that were read in this episode of the podcast.Odd, December 11, 2013, 07:25:35 pm
Support your thesis better.
On second thought, don't bother.
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"Kyoukai no Kanata" is about demon fighting high schoolers and is ridiculous but well-written.
This is better but...
...I still see similarities in storytelling between this and the kind of stories that were read in this episode of the podcast.Odd, December 11, 2013, 07:25:35 pm
Support your thesis better.
On second thought, don't bother.
sherlockian, December 11, 2013, 08:39:34 pm
A disorderly first person perspective that that jumbles too frequently the actions presently occurring with the random thoughts and jokes of the narrator, very often using referential humor. Multi-sentence paragraphs are exceedingly rare, with single-sentences being the norm. The conversations are also very unnaturally scripted, with one joke setup quickly following another.
It reads badly.
On third thought don't bother to respond. I am declaring myself right.
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I took a look at a couple of the light novels mentioned and didn't see anything that looked great, just probably better-than-others.
Aldo Odd, the correct answer was and always has been 'yeah, that's gross, someone just finished telling me about how awful it was and I thought I'd share', regardless of if that's true or not. Wisecracking about watchlists...did not help your case.
Anyways, new topic - what the shit is up with terrible nerds and wanting things they make to be trilogies? There are way too many of these people for it to be simple coincidence. This comes up in the kickstarter episode too, iirc.
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Anyways, new topic - what the shit is up with terrible nerds and wanting things they make to be trilogies?
kal-elk, December 11, 2013, 11:22:18 pm
A formative experience with Star Wars and/or Lord of the Rings. The only problem is, those were created by entire teams of talented people who shared and contributed to a strong and coherent vision, not internet forums.
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Anyways, new topic - what the shit is up with terrible nerds and wanting things they make to be trilogies? There are way too many of these people for it to be simple coincidence. This comes up in the kickstarter episode too, iirc.
kal-elk, December 11, 2013, 11:22:18 pm
For once, this reflects a real pressure in the legit publishing industry. It is currently very hard to sell a science fiction, fantasy, or mystery novel that doesn't have "series potential".
Of course these chucklefucks disregard every other pressure from the publishing industry, like "being literate," "making an ounce of fucking sense," and "writing dialogue that human beings might possibly have spoken," but that's how cargo cults work---you take one element of a real thing out of context and then construct an elaborate straw framework for your pretendy games.
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Aldo Odd, the correct answer was and always has been 'yeah, that's gross, someone just finished telling me about how awful it was and I thought I'd share', regardless of if that's true or not. Wisecracking about watchlists...did not help your case.kal-elk, December 11, 2013, 11:22:18 pm
No, I read all 12 volumes. I could write you a detailed synopsis. It is a series of books that sold nearly two million copies of the last volume alone, was a huge mainstream media phenomenon that spawned an anime adaptation, manga, videogames, radio shows, a lot of merchandise and was even emblazoned on several train cars:
(http://yattarjapan.com/admin/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/main16.jpg)
The story is fucking weird but not as weird as how popular it is.
The correct counter question is: "How can you not understand the pleasure of reading horrible things with objectionable content if you enjoy hearing F+?"
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How can i balk at reading things with objectionable content because I like the F Plus? Because I find certain subjects (pedophilia, bestiality, incest) too vile to willingly consume media which endorses them. It's not like I'm going to go and burn all the Nabokov books I own because he wrote Lolita, because Humbert Humbert is a sick, disgusting man. I enjoyed Top Of The Lake because even though it's a mystery about a small town and the rape of a child, it doesn't portray that rape as morally neutral or even good. But a series in which the main relationship is an incestuous one and it's all a-okay disgusts me and you're damn right I'm going to judge. That it "spawned an anime adaptation, manga, videogames, radio shows, a lot of merchandise and was even emblazoned on several train cars" is bizarre and might be worth mocking or investigating if it wasn't already about incest. (e: underaged incest no less!) I think I agree with you that the popularity of it is the weirdest part, but it definitely has competition!
Regarding trilogies, both of those explanations seem reasonable to me. Thanks!
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How can i balk at reading things with objectionable content because I like the F Plus? Because I find certain subjects (pedophilia, bestiality, incest) too vile to willingly consume media which endorses them.
kal-reindeer, December 12, 2013, 06:32:30 am
I have a stronger stomach. Precisely because it is wrong reading it was interesting. It turns out Oreimo is just an atypical take on a "Forbidden Romance" plot. Stuff like "Story of O" is more disgusting and Anais Nin's books are more disturbing.
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This is odd we're talking about. He's like your weird friend who will occasionally show up with some nice stuff that he's willing to share, but it's really probably for the best that you not inquire too closely into where he gets it from. You won't like the answer.