redwoodalchan

Have they forgotten that my Harry Potter Abridged series isn't meant to be a serious discussion of the books? Like, I tried to make a joke about Voldemort emulating Hitler in the first chapter of DH and they just had to turn it into a thing about how the Nazis bombed the orphanage he grew up in. Yes, that's a theory that's out there, and it does make sense; but a) it's fanon, not canon and b) it's not half as funny as mocking Rowling's utter inability to write her villains as convincing Nazis! What's it to them whether it finds its way into my parody or not?

And I'll admit I've been known to incorporate bits of fanon I like into my Abridged series, but the focus, first and foremost, is on making fun of the stupid crap that's in the books, not on rewriting the series to account for every theory the DTCLers have ever entertained. If I really think a fan theory is important and want to talk about it, I'll write an essay on it!

Also, I wish they'd stop fighting each other about what this or that Slytherin or Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw is really like, when the essential problem is that we have no way of knowing what Slytherins and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws are really like or really think or feel about anything because we never get anyone but the Gryffindors' side of the story. To be fair, that's not limited to DTCL, but it's still stupid and I wish people would stop (this might make a good rant in its own right, thinking on it...).

Am I the only one who's a bit frustrated by the tendency of some fans to treat the regions in the Pokemon games like they're exactly the same as the place they're based on? I mean, they're fairly obviously not--Unova, to cite an example I'd be most familiar with, may be based on New York City, but it clearly isn't New York City. If it were actually New York City it would have a stage theatre district, not a big-budget film studio. It would have a subway which everybody used, a park containing its central reservoir which everyone knew about, and a natural history museum that showed exhibits about dinosaurs and space rather than dragons. It wouldn't have tons of woods that anyone could get lost in between developed points--every inch of it would be developed with some areas clearly set aside to allow for greenery. It would have specific streets dedicated to Chinese culture, Italian culture, Jewish culture, and the list goes on. And near as we can tell, Unova has none of these things at all.

Similarly, if Sinnoh were actually Hokkaido it would mostly be a national park, which would be home to raccoon-dogs instead of Houndour. It would also have a train line that could take you to the other regions, but no such train line exists. If Hoenn were truly Kyushu it wouldn't have a community of people who live entirely in trees, or on the water. If Johto were really Chubu region (I believe that's what it's based on), it would have lead and zinc mines that made rural women living downstream sick. And so on. Even if you accept that certain facets of the culture of these places aren't shown because they're not relevant to the gameplay, the mere fact that there are pokemon living there, and that the cities have names unlike any seen in the real world (if, indeed, they're based on real-life places), makes it pretty clear that these aren't places that exist in the real world.

I mean, I get that the Pokemon regions are based on those of the real world, and I can even buy that their cultures would be similar to those of the real-world places. But some fans seem to want to argue that they're exactly the same, down to the last details of ethnicity and history, and I just don't get that at all.

You know one really annoying trend I've seen among sporkers lately? Too many counts!

Like, if you want one or two counts, or even a small handful, in your sporking job to call attention to the most pernicious and annoying things about the work, that's one thing. But why on earth would you have upwards of ten or twenty different counts, pointing out every single thing you think is wrong with a work (including things so obvious or so revoltingly common they're not worth calling attention to, like sociopathy in a work by Stephenie Meyer or one of her hangers-on)? For me, at least, it starts to make it look like you're using them as a crutch, to avoid spending time actually talking about the work (which is what we came for anyway). And if you need to clarify why you assigned a count to a particular occasion, you're inevitably explaining what your issue is with the work anyway, and could just as easily have left the count out of it entirely. The counts will have mostly become useful in illustrating just how useless they really are!

 You know, I've tried to get into feminist discourse about anime (and to a lesser extent video games) for awhile now, but it often seems like every time I try, I'm disappointed with the way it goes. So, lemme see if I can lay it on the line just what it is about a lot of these discussions that bugs me so much.

( This got long )

This has been bugging me for awhile, and now I feel it's about time I vented.

( cut because it got long )So, yeah! Enough with the nostalgia whoring already! The first generation is not objectively better than the later ones, so just shut up and enjoy the damn games!

 I would treat the slash ships in your fandom with more gravity if you didn't treat them like they were the end-all be-all of shipping and the "Death Note" fandom in general.

Seriously--the mind boggles at how SO MANY PEOPLE could watch a psychological murder mystery about a notebook that kills people, and come out of it with nothing but gay bishounen porn to show for it!

(Before anyone asks, I'm not trying to come across as homophobic. I actually buy that Light and L might have a thing for each other. I'm complaining about how very, very overgrown this fandom is with shipping in general and slash shipping in particular)

 You know, there are times when I think TVTropes just criticizes a thing without realizing why it's a thing. The Draco in Leather Pants page for Harry Potter, for instance, is excruciating for me to read because it seems to assume the worst of everyone who liked Snape, Draco, or Slytherin and disliked one or more Gryffindors they regularly interact with. I've seen people on that site try to argue that people only ship Snape with Lily or think Lily was ever unfair to Snape because they're misogynist and think Lily should have ended up with someone who was racist toward everyone but her, or that fans of Snape were racist themselves because one person who happened to like Snape made a racist comment once that was only tangentially related to Snape in the first place (I'm not trying to argue that her comment was okay, of course, but if she's racist that's her problem and it shouldn't be treated as the problem of all Snape fans). Most likely, 99.9% of Slytherfen don't think that way at all--they probably aren't even considering "racism" when they prefer Slytherin. If my own fandom experience is to be believed, they're just sick and tired of seeing Slytherin and its inhabitants get bashed in book after book and so they feel compelled to sympathize because no one else will (I'll probably write a longer article addressing this point sometime in the future). 

I'll never understand TVTropes' approach to certain things. The notion that Rowling might have not actually represented Slytherin or her bad guys all that well never seems to cross their mind. And I don't get it--they're perfectly willing to point out how bad books like Twilight are, but you're not allowed to voice opinions on that site that differ from what the writer of Harry Potter believes, because Harry Potter is just that good? Really?