Alarmist Party: Monster Edition

[harp]

This Party Post is for complaining, griping, and worrying about the mass extinction of monsters. Yes, if challenged, I have three "silver linings" to this phenomenon. Yes, I am fully ready to hear it if "No, Harp, see, Isaac Marion wrote a comedy/actually does it right/wrote something good so give it a chance/be lol-trollin" and even abandon my initial misgivings or give him a chance to see if I like him/it's funny on purpose/he be lol-trollin" or another unforseen... thing.

Later. Let's get our rage on now. The subject is the wrecking of monsters.


We got Smeyer putting a big fluffy bow on vampires and werewolves. No, I don't care if vampires have long since been romanticized; those people didn't literally remove every single thing that's remotely associated with "vampire" and do it on a Hiroshima-sized scale. I mean seriously, it's gotten to the point where even when reasonable people discuss vampires, someone has to evoke the protection shield "but not those vampires".

Then we've got stuff like Beastly, Red Riding Hood, The Vampire Diaries, and more books featuring once delightfully fearful humanoid monsters stripped of their weaknesses and poured into boy band bodies. It's getting very difficult to notice now that they're doing it to Slender Man (admittedly, I don't think it's meant to be good, and also, I personally don't care about Slender Man).

But honestly? They've crossed a line this time. Zombies? No. That's pushing it. That's dirty pool. The fact that Smeyer is "endorsing it", well! So many jokes, don't know which one to pick.

Ok, here's the part where I start breathing fire.

1. Why the flip is it always monster male/hoo-min female? I know the obvious answers, and they make-a me sick. I'm not rolling my eyes. What's happening is that my mouth is in a very tight rage-frown and all the vomit has backed up and my eyeballs are floating around in it.

My kingdom for a Vampire!Female/Hoo-min male story, please. The last female supernatural/male mortal story I got was Ariel from the little mermaid. ... Annnnd I'm just realizing that once again, in the end, she ended up turning into what he was. ... In Thumbelina (Don Bluth's) too. Damn.. now I'm all sad again.

2. (Re-posted from a rant on ONTDCreepy) All of this recent defamation is dumbing down monsters (not just them but the fear, the consequence, the moral and ethical questions, the mythos, the defenses against them) for an oversexed, idiotic society of pre-teen twits more interested in coupling than thought-provoking discussion, real substance, and terror.

3. Call me every synonym for tin-hatter that you want (I mean that, seriously, please; because I want so badly for someone to tell me to stop freaking out; please wake me up) but this whole new gentle luvver-monster fad is the new "prince charming" tale to tell women and girls "look, here is the perfect man. Strive for him and he will be yours". It's sexism that's ok. Seriously think about it for a second- these monsters have no weaknesses anymore. It's always a human female. The only bit of "monster" retained in them gives them just a bit of the physical upper hand on the female.

And now, don't blink or you'll miss it. Never before seen in nature: Harp is about to pay a compliment to Ron/Hermione.
At least with Ron and Hermione, they're both wizards, and when it comes to magic, she could kick his ass before he could so much as reach for his wand. ... Not that she would; they're very good friends and her wife Luna (or Lavender) agreed to be surrogate for his and Draco's baby.



I'm gritting my teeth, and I think it's only partially from the cold. Let us end on two positive notes.

Some Beautiful Minds on W.C, high on Badfic, fell asleep and together dreamed a dream of a beautiful sitcom sort of like The Brady Bunch if the dad was a former librarian at Miskatonic, the mom was an ex cultist, and instead of being from a previous marriage,her kids are from ritualistic cult breeding with starspawn.
This is their chatter

Positive Note B:
As I promised Wolfe- Proof that Twatlight didn't kill the Harry Potter series, but actually revived it for a short while. This was a beautiful night, November 2008. The Harry Potter fans of Livejournal put their differences aside and rose up together, united against a common enemy. Do you understand how epic that is? Livejournal, one of the most violent, cruel, bloody Western Fronts of the Harry Potter Civil Fandom Wars (aside from Fictionally and JournalFen). And on ONTD, the site where What/Who You Like Sucks. That's one of my favorite memories of the Harry Potter Fandom.

Remember the comparison of the fandoms to family homes? My icon is a polaroid taken at the state fair when the H.P family royally kicked the Twilight family's arses at tug of war. Then we pantsed them, painted their kids in the Hogwarts house colors, tagged their campsite, and set their car on fire. And we did it as a family. Harry Potter Fandom, we will always have Super Troll Sunday.


I'm tired; if I needa fix my tags, I'll do it later on; also I still need-a read your comments from last post. Very sorry; got some super unhappy news Tuesday is all.

Comments

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

I was like "Moffat? Is that the actor who plays Sherlock?" Then I looked it up and saw he was the writer. I don't know anything about the series. I do know he said that one thing about... Sherlock's not asexual because it wouldn't be interesting to watch. Being completely outside of the fandom, I know that made some people super mad. Me, I've been watching people misspeak all my life, literally- neither of my parents are native English speakers, my cousins practically refuse to learn English, and the class we were merged with was filled with fresh-outta-high-school English Clutzes. I'm super used to I don't think those words in that order mean what you think they mean" and "It sounds like you're saying X, are you saying X?" I even went back to look at an old JK Rowling interview with two unpleasant people and realized that I'd read it wrong, and that she was totally innocent. (The interviewers, on the other hand, were strictly right out of the septic tank). (No, really, I think that's where they emerged, fully formed)

Then again, if he's high profile, then he should say fuq da police; I write what I want" or just not comment on the subject at all. Our generation of fans will do better, though. We've been through the fandom and we won't make the same mistakes that our elders made.

But I can at least kind of understand why a writer would get defensive, because to them, you're actually saying, "Hey, you kind of fucked up, here. Maybe don't do that."
This is true.

Are we talking about writers who write screwed up relationship dynamics? If so, I challenge them to say "how exactly did I mess up? I wrote their story. I wrote what happened to these individuals as independent variables in their own universe, making their own choices based on their own experiences. If I wrote your life story down, do you think people would say I messed up in places?" So I guess my problem with Smeyer is that in her world, that crap actually is an ok relationship. That and the willful ignorance she has to employ to be totally blind to it.

They really should do what you said and look back at their choices. What is that critic saying? "I don't like this thing you don't like and here is why." Those people really do not strike me as fans. Maybe it's because you 'n I have been through a fandom or two, but it really is true- insecurity cannot handle criticism. It's 'cause those critical remarks are taking the biggest spotlight and pointing it at something they have doubts about themselves. But maybe they're just young and brainless. Maybe they'll grow up and learn how to say "yeah, that part was stupid". Or just "I didn't read it that way. I read it as this way." And then, that's the end of the discussion. You said how you read it. They're not going to change their minds, and if they don't then how--

and here's the big, 20/15 hindsight question that I am just furious with myself for not asking the Harry Potter Fandom Jackoffs back during the war...

-- How does their reading or enjoyment of that thing in any effing God Damned way take away from your enjoyment of the series?! What is it to you that some internet derp in some other place is deriving or not deriving joy from something you don't or do enjoy? Just tell me. Lay out specifically how this works. (Added frustration snarl out of spite: "OOoh, some person thirty miles away likes something I don't like! Wah, wah, wah" you spoiled infant; go stand in the corner until you can learn to act like a person worthy of being a member of society.)
(Oh, you don't know how I wish I could just go back and leave that loaded machine gun to my old fandom self. I would fire it on so many fandom bullies...)

[nobleplatypus]

Regarding my beef with Moffat, it's less about screwy character dynamics. He HAS totally written that, but my reaction was less "this is bad writing" and more "this is too painfully similar to actual terrible relationships I've witnessed for me to ship this." Now, whether he knows that he's written something screwy is another matter, and part of my concern (and a good chunk of the fandom's concern) is that, like Smeyer, he actually thinks that what he's writing is an excellent romance and that the haters don't understaaaand.

Plus, there's the fact that he only really seems to have one female character in his head, so every female character he writes is just a subtle variation on a theme. And that the 'theme' contains some problematic, sexist bullcrap that he refuses to acknowledge. And that he's so interested in maintaining a certain status quo re: his characters that he doesn't actually allow them to grow, or to be realistically affected by the shit they go through. I could really go on about this all day.

A lot of fans are WAY too insecure, as you said. One of my younger cousins had a friend snap at her because she'd posted something gently critical of One Direction. "It might be funny to you guys, but it isn't funny to any Directioners who read this!" And I probably should have stayed out of it, but I was indignant enough on my cousin's behalf to be like, "Actually, you know what's REALLY funny? The notion that an artist should be exempt from criticism because their fandom can't handle it."

Mindless flaming isn't cool, but no one should feel compelled to censor their legitimate criticisms because it might hurt the fee-fees of someone too hypersensitive to even be on the internet in the first place.

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

So weird how that last sentence wasn't supposed to tie in to the first part of the comment, and yet, it did.

I saw the word sexist and had an involuntary reaction* (thanks to Intarnet-Social-Slactivism crying wolf about that word) for two seconds until I remembered that I have no idea even who you're talking about. Then the last sentence tied in completely and I smiled because I remembered you made the comment on ONTDCreepy that time where we were all "DNW these SJA's on my ONTDCreepy". ... on that note, I think they got the hint for the most part. I haven't seen jack_rowen around ever since**. ...

And then I laughed because I imagined someone writing "TRIGGER WARNING:ONE DIRECTION CRITICISM". ... Now I'm troll-laughing and imagining someone posting "omg u need to tw for 1D crit ok my friend is gonna injur herself now u are such ASSHOLES!"

Even so, I do agree with your last sentence 100% with the mindless flaming. That's why in the Harry Potter Fandom, I sided with the H/Hr people- they had this little website, "Portkey", an independent website for their ship(s) and people felt free to go in there, make accounts, and flame them or take clips from their forums and post them on stupid journal sites. That's just wrong. It's one thing if it's a shared space, like a Harry Potter General Forum (the town commons), another thing to attack someone in a journal (kinda like a road or path), and just completely unacceptable to go into someone's private forum to bash their ship. They aren't bothering anyone there, and it takes deliberate effort to go into someone's "home". That's going out of the way, and I'm all for the public posting of e-mail addresses and ip numbers if someone does that. (Ok, maybe not the posting thing, but I'm speaking out of annoyance right now and I know it)


(*I'll tell you in the car at FFA)

**Which I'm super glad about; every single comment that kid ever made to me just screamed "I have no idea where I am".*Still kinda annoyed about how during the vampires post, j_r first-responded in the dhampir post about how "dhampirs were impossible" so that the comment was all that would be seen when the thread collapsed.* Ugh, so glad that kid is gone...