author_by_night: (Default)
I put up a discussion post of the Baby-Sitter's Club Netflix Series on bsc_snark. We'd love to have your thoughts! There are episode-by-episode threads, non-spoilery threads and threads for the whole series. https://bsc-snark.dreamwidth.org/744227.html
author_by_night: (cool_large)
 In short, the prompt is to talk about things that need more love. I think love is so subjective, but there ARE a lot of things I think people would like, so I'm going to create ingredients instead. You'll see what I mean below.
Read more... )

I could go on all day, so I'll stop there. :P 
author_by_night: (From Pexels)
I realize book blogging is more about book reviews, but the book I'm reading is more of the self-help variety, so while it's definitely a book, I think I'll wait until I find something more literary. :) In the meantime, let's play a game.

Vaguely describe a book in the comments - the plot, one story arc, characters. Then have people guess which books you're talking about.  Once enough people have guessed or enough time has passed (give 24 hours, LJ/DW move slow these days), leave a comment with the book you were describing. 

Example 1:

Girls take each other's clothes and write about it.

Book: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Example 2:

A man in Salinas kills his friend.

Book: Of Mice and Men.

Ready... set... go!
author_by_night: (coexist by unknown)
 I was inspired by this post to book blog. I probably won't be doing it exactly the way they had in mind, but I probably will talk about books I'm currently reading. After all, the original point of this blog was  mostly to blog about a particular book series. I'll probably mix and mash topics - current reads, old reads, want-to-reads, how certain books have impacted me, and general thoughts about books.

Today I'm going to talk about Earth's Children by Jean Auel, in particular the sixth book, Land of the Painted Caves. I may or may not do a longer post on the clusterfuck that was the originally strong series. There will be spoilers for Land of the What Just Happened? Painted Caves, and this post assumes you have at least some familiarity with the books (although I do include a basic recap/explanation for anyone whose memory needs a quick jog.) I'm also making this post public so I can share with my ecfans friends. :)
Read more... )
author_by_night: (cool_large)
From blog prompts I devised a while back. I'm actually doing a few that I have shorter answers for. These are all fandom.  
 
 What was the first fandom you were in?

Everyone might guess Harry Potter, but actually, no! I was in the Baby-Sitter's Club fandom first. I already wrote things based on books I liked, but I didn't know there was a name for it - fanfiction. I think I visited forums more than wrote fic, but I know I dabbled in both.
 
I was also in the Sweet Valley universe fandom. There was this site where we could co-write the characters' diaries. The thing is that it was for the new Sweet Valley high series (not Sweet Valley High, there was a new one called Sweet Valley Senior Year, but everyone wanted it to be considerably soapier than what I wanted. Also, I actually wasn't into SVH or SVSY; I'd really only read Sweet Valley Twins, and I think I was twelve or thirteen by then, so I had outgrown them and mostly still read for nostalgia purposes. (Same with BSC, actually.) So this meant I was a little out of my league. It was fun for the brief time  that it lasted, though! 

What fandoms did you stick with even after the original canon closed?
 
I'm the kind of person who tends to dabble in and out of a lot of things,so this could be almost anything I like on some level, but I'd say Harry Potter is the best answer here. I still dabble a bit, but I don't think I've really been wholly involved for a few years. Still, it was really cool to see it evolve from 100 fics on fanfiction.net  and a few websites in 2000(!!!) to the huge fandom it became, and interesting - if, arguably, a little sad in some ways - to see it morph into "modern" fandom.  I can say with complete honesty that if it hadn't been for the Harry Potter fandom, my life would not have been the same.  
 
 I also got into Firefly and Buffyverse, but only after they'd been off of the air for a while, and I never got that into their fandoms. (Unfortunately with Firefly, I felt I kinda came in at the tail END of all the Browncoat Madness.) I was in the Earth's Children fandom (a lot of people know it by the first book, Clan of the Cave Bear) for a while after the sixth and (hopefully) last book came out, but I don't think I stuck around that long. I still sometimes visit the forums, though!  And like Harry Potter, I was in that fandom starting back in 2000. 
author_by_night: (LeslieBen by nuv0le_rapide)
I got this from a fandomsecrets post, because yes, I sometimes go there despite the trolls. (I even met some of you there.) Although I go far less than I used to and don't comment much. 

Anyway, one of the secrets was about stupid/awkward questions at interviews and panels. I was going to write an entry on this anyway, so many as well roll with it.
Read more... )
author_by_night: (LeslieBen by nuv0le_rapide)
Same old same old - I put a bunch of things into google translate and LOL (or shudder) at the results. This round was literary titles.

(I can't tell you the exact languages, because I actually compiled these ages ago. I will tell you it's actually quite difficult to translate book titles, because google translate just tells you the official translated title. You have to "trick" it.)

A Song of Ice and Fire: Gal Man Track

A Tale of Two Cities: Describe Two Big Cities

Harry Potter and the...

Philosopher's Stone: In the Book

Sorcerer's Stone: Location and Use

Goblet of Fire: I Do Not for Example - D is Your Brother

Deathly Hallows: Halloween Fair

A Christmas Carol: Class Began Employment

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: Whistle, Leaving Fried Green Tomatoes in a Restaurant

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: The Girl Did Not Have That

Pride and Prejudice: Iron Chain Leech

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants: I Have Come, Sister

A Midsummer's Night Dream: Midsummer Night Lotto Review
author_by_night: (coexist by unknown)
And behold, my childhood as told by the books I read.

Feel free to do something similar yourself! I'd love to see what other people come up with. Therefore, I'm making this public. :)

Read more... )
author_by_night: (cool_large)
So a blogger and school head supposes that popular books like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games cause brain damage.

Let's get our spork on! (NOTE: I did leave some parts out. You can suffer through the entire thing if you'd like.)

Read more... )
author_by_night: (Folks by ozqueen (quoted from To Kill a)
Because why not?

Quotes of course will be taken out of context. And characters.

Granted, it's more Mad Men quotes than P&P quotes, because matching Mad Men characters with Jane Austen characters is considerably difficult. There's too much tact.. :P

Read more... )
author_by_night: (coexist by unknown)
So I've been watching Girl Meets World, which is basically a sequel series to Boy Meets World. It veers a little close for comfort at first towards being a "next gen fanfic" (where everyone's basically a xerox copy of their parents), but fortunately it avoids it, and even Maya, who is a bit of a Shawn expy, is very much her own person. I'm not watching the show faithfully, just a few episodes I've heard were good, but it's fun nonetheless.

Here's my question, though - what series did you grow up with do you think could have a plausible continuation, either a "next gen" thing or even the characters as being older? OR, what other series have done this that you enjoy? Spiritual successors don't really count, unless you want to argue that they could very well be in the same universe (that would be interesting, so let's hear it).
author_by_night: (cool_large)
Why teenagers shouldn't read adult books )

(For those of you who might be utterly lost right now, this is a response to an article criticizing adults who read Young Adult literature. For some reason I can't find the link, but I think it's been passed around the internet enough that you should be able to find it somewhere.)
author_by_night: (Sarcasm by justbolognese)
The other day I posted about morbid sequels to children's/YA works, OR the story getting more morbid as the characters aged, and how that can be annoying. So in honor of that, I bring you: The Morbid Games, which is sort of a parody.

Pick a series, and fill in the categories - all of them, some of them, and/or create your own - whatever you'd like. Bonus points if you create a fic out of it - if you do, let me know and I will link!  I'll leave this public so anyone can play. Make this as ridiculous as you'd like, that's the point. (Although if it's sadder than ridiculous, that's fine too. I'm really not a rules person, can you tell?) You can play more than once, but make a new comment.

And if you're still not sure what I mean, I'm referring not necessarily to adult versions of series or later books/episodes/movies where the characters are older and therefore face more mature situations (that's realistic), but where it's so contrived it's like the writers wanted to be sure you realized They Are Adults Now, or where it wasn't necessarily contrived, but a bit OOC. Of course, Your Mileage May Very here.

Have fun!


Categories )
author_by_night: (River-Llama song by active_apathy)
First, here is the link to the original questions. I apologize for the confusion before.

Day 2 - Name the fandoms you've written in, and how much you've written in that fandom, and if you still write in it.

Day 2 )

And this is really for Day 3, but I didn't see the point of waiting...

Day 3 )

Poll time!

Jan. 27th, 2011 06:12 pm
author_by_night: (Default)
This is in response to another poll a friend did regarding characters that were messed up because of bad writing. So here's my question - can writers (of shows, books or movies) mess up characters?[Poll #1673373]

Twilight

May. 29th, 2010 05:43 pm
author_by_night: (? by rainnluv)
Twilight fans:

So I'm researching teenager literature and culture due to wanting to try and write in that genre, and it is evident that Twilight is what piques the interest of many teen girls right now.

So whether you're a teen or not, I'm going to put my personal opinion of the books aside and ask - why do you like them?

If you don't like the books, why do you think others do?

ETA: I initially screened comments, but I decided against it. However, I do ask that everyone keep things civil - this is not the place to debate other people's opinions. I'm just curious about yours. 
author_by_night: (Ravenclaw)
[Error: unknown template qotd]

Quick note: The "worst" section has minor spoilers for the first Twilight book and a major spoiler for Son of a Witch, the sequel to Wicked.

The Best and Worst )
author_by_night: (kaylee train job by hobbitseeker)
As I have mentioned, I've been watching Buffy. I've seasons 1-2 countless times, and have managed to catch some of the other seasons. Once in a while I'll pop in on some discussion, if I'm bored/procrastinating/whatever else. I've also discussed the show with friends.

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of Buffy fans say that they liked the show - until a particular season. The consensus is usually season four, sometimes season five.

I don't know whether they're right or wrong - what I've seen seems just fine,  but hey, what do I know? 

I've noticed this in the Harry Potter fandom as well. Harry Potter is to me what I think Buffy was to a lot of people - I followed it for years, speculated on pairings, read every fic out there, etc. In short, I was a bit of a Potterhead. (Okay, maybe I  still am just a little.)

I loved all the books. Sure, there were things I might have done differently, but I loved the first book the moment I picked it up, and the seventh book the moment I put it down. However, I've noticed a lot of people really disliked the last two or three books. (I've even heard of some people who only liked the first three books, but not as many. Mostly the cut off seems to be OoTP/HBP.)

I've had this experience with other shows and books too, either in terms of seeing that reaction or even feeling it myself. The Earth's Children series... Ugly Betty... Boy Meets World...

In short, it seems that along the way, fans and fanbases may stay, but not for the same reasons they originally got into the series.

My question is... why is that?

I think that it's just really interesting to see, albeit definitely not a new phenomenon - I have been asking myself this question since I was fourteen and realized a show I used to love, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, made me want to poke my eyes out. Was it that I could no longer appreciate the fact that it was really for preteens and I was growing up, or had the plot really become just that horrible? I blamed the show, but part of me wasn't sure.

Sometimes I do think it's the creator(s). I think that some things should just stop before they get out of hand. (Especially "the college years" - I have never heard of that concept working.) And sometimes they decide to try "new things" that just don't... work.

There are also times, apparently, that the creator(s) will intentionally ruin something. I heard that the show Gilmore Girls got pretty stupid in one of the later seasons; after that, I heard that apparently one of the writers/directors (something like that) had intentionally butchered the show. (I could be completely wrong on one or both counts, of course - this is hearsay, if from a source whom I trust.)

Other times, I wonder if it's the fans, especially for long-running series. Do we expect too much? Do we want everything to stay too close to the original? Is it hard for us to accept when characters we love change too much - or at all?

I don't think there's really a universal answer for all of those - I think it depends on the show and even your own opinion. I'm just curious as to what everyone thinks.



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