Butterfly Sunrider (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
butterfly_sunrider) wrote2008-07-28 10:19 am
butterfly_sunrider) wrote2008-07-28 10:19 am
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Get your fucking emo crap out of my fandom
I have had an epiphany. Perhaps it's the hormones or that I've had too much time alone to think about it, but nonetheless, I think I might actually have something.
I have been despairing on and off these last few weeks about Forgotten Realms new 4.0 system, in which rocks fall, everyone dies and only WOW fans and mechanics nerds are happy. I have realized something about this new, dark, edgy, emo universe thatHasbro Wizards of the Coast has created. This bastardization of something complicated, beautiful and fun has been done before...now where was that?
Comics.
Alan Moore, Frank Miller (before he went batshit insane), Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison created some really interesting dark, introspective takes on the comics genre. Too bad the industry decided that everything would be better if it were just more dark and edgy! Case in point, the book we've all been waiting to be made into a movie (god knows why), Watchmen. How many out there have read Watchmen? Do you remember what happens at the end?
The bad guy wins (massacring everyone in New York City in the process), the "good guys" are either too weak, too dead or too godlike and detached from humanity to do anything about it. But that's okay, because the conspiracy theorist guy's diary makes it to the editor's desk of a conspiracy rag no one takes seriously and the lone female heroine learns to accept her dead, rapist, serial killing daddy. THE. END. How Snyder is going to make this palatable for a bunch of douchebags who probably didn't even read the book and are thinking they are going to see another fun and thrilling popcorn flick like Iron Man, I have no idea. How he is going to do it without recieving death threats from Alan Moore fans and curses on his his spawn for all eternity from Moore himself, I have even less of a clue.
And this is a classic of the genre. I have read it, as have many of you who take your "graphic novels" seriously. Like many of you, I've read Miller's best works, like The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One and 300. I've read Gaiman's Sandman output, as well as his brilliant 1602. I've read some of Moore's work, including V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. All great works of art, but unfortunately great artists and great works of art inspire imitators, movements. Look at comics of the late 80's, early 90's and look at it now.
Okay, the artistic standards have risen since then, I will give you that much. However...do the words Identity Crisis, One More Day and Anal Skrulls mean anything to you? Everything has to be big and dark and tragic and things get amped up more and more in efforts to top the last event. Because apparently the universe they had wasn't interesting enough to continue good storytelling without demolishing everything. Because of great artists like Moore, Gaiman, Miller and Morrison, we have pale imitations like Mark Millar and Joss Whedon (who really needs to turn in his feminist card right now - I'll get to this in a moment) and backlashing idiots fighting against anything intelligent or coherent whatsoever like Jeff Loeb (look at what's he's done to Ultimates and Hulk in the short-ass time he's had them).
About Joss Whedon needing to turn in his feminist card, to use his own words against him, we need equality, kinda now. NOT MORE FRIDGING, YOU FUCKING DOUCHEBAG!!! I used to think Joss was witty and funny and progressive, but he keeps falling back on the same puppy-kicking crap to resolve his storylines and sometimes for no apparent reason whatsoever (Wash, anyone??!). How is it feminist to sacrifice a character many comics-reading women grew up admiring so that she could save the earth from aGIANT COCK BIG PHALLIC BULLET about to impale it? How is it feminist to flaut convention by portraying a happy, relatively stable lesbian relationship in a popular network program only to violently spilt up that couple for no good reason (oh, the same goes for interracial couples too, DOUCHE) ?
I could go on and on about the current douchebaggery infecting comics and in the Whedonverse, but this was originally about Forgotten Realms. So, trends cross genres. The darkness that came to comics via the masters was twisted by the incompetent and spread, zombie-like (Marvel Zombie-like...ugh) into other modes of geekdom. It spread to video games as well as table top. Anyone remember the abysmal downer endings for KotoR 2 and even the recent, otherwise brilliant GTA IV (talk about taking your $60, kicking you in the teeth and calling you a sucker for even playing the game)?
Who influenced the Masters? Most of them are British. Judging by the age group, I'd say Pink Floyd's The Wall is the genesis of all this emo crap (because, let's face it, it was whiny, emo crap), but...The Wall was surely influenced by The Who's Tommy, which was in turn both influenced by The Beatles' proclamation that ROCK MUSIC IS SERIOUS BUSINESS, and WW2's effect on British youth as they grw up during the Blitz.
WW2 can be at least halfway blamed on the stupid Treaty of Versailles (which both effectively ended WW1 and made WW2 inevitable).
WW1, WW2, British emo crap, dark and edgy comics and the shitstorm that has befallen the Forgotten Realms can therefore be blamed on Gavrilo Princip. Thanks a lot, you fucking douchebag.
I have been despairing on and off these last few weeks about Forgotten Realms new 4.0 system, in which rocks fall, everyone dies and only WOW fans and mechanics nerds are happy. I have realized something about this new, dark, edgy, emo universe that
Comics.
Alan Moore, Frank Miller (before he went batshit insane), Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison created some really interesting dark, introspective takes on the comics genre. Too bad the industry decided that everything would be better if it were just more dark and edgy! Case in point, the book we've all been waiting to be made into a movie (god knows why), Watchmen. How many out there have read Watchmen? Do you remember what happens at the end?
The bad guy wins (massacring everyone in New York City in the process), the "good guys" are either too weak, too dead or too godlike and detached from humanity to do anything about it. But that's okay, because the conspiracy theorist guy's diary makes it to the editor's desk of a conspiracy rag no one takes seriously and the lone female heroine learns to accept her dead, rapist, serial killing daddy. THE. END. How Snyder is going to make this palatable for a bunch of douchebags who probably didn't even read the book and are thinking they are going to see another fun and thrilling popcorn flick like Iron Man, I have no idea. How he is going to do it without recieving death threats from Alan Moore fans and curses on his his spawn for all eternity from Moore himself, I have even less of a clue.
And this is a classic of the genre. I have read it, as have many of you who take your "graphic novels" seriously. Like many of you, I've read Miller's best works, like The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One and 300. I've read Gaiman's Sandman output, as well as his brilliant 1602. I've read some of Moore's work, including V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. All great works of art, but unfortunately great artists and great works of art inspire imitators, movements. Look at comics of the late 80's, early 90's and look at it now.
Okay, the artistic standards have risen since then, I will give you that much. However...do the words Identity Crisis, One More Day and Anal Skrulls mean anything to you? Everything has to be big and dark and tragic and things get amped up more and more in efforts to top the last event. Because apparently the universe they had wasn't interesting enough to continue good storytelling without demolishing everything. Because of great artists like Moore, Gaiman, Miller and Morrison, we have pale imitations like Mark Millar and Joss Whedon (who really needs to turn in his feminist card right now - I'll get to this in a moment) and backlashing idiots fighting against anything intelligent or coherent whatsoever like Jeff Loeb (look at what's he's done to Ultimates and Hulk in the short-ass time he's had them).
About Joss Whedon needing to turn in his feminist card, to use his own words against him, we need equality, kinda now. NOT MORE FRIDGING, YOU FUCKING DOUCHEBAG!!! I used to think Joss was witty and funny and progressive, but he keeps falling back on the same puppy-kicking crap to resolve his storylines and sometimes for no apparent reason whatsoever (Wash, anyone??!). How is it feminist to sacrifice a character many comics-reading women grew up admiring so that she could save the earth from a
I could go on and on about the current douchebaggery infecting comics and in the Whedonverse, but this was originally about Forgotten Realms. So, trends cross genres. The darkness that came to comics via the masters was twisted by the incompetent and spread, zombie-like (Marvel Zombie-like...ugh) into other modes of geekdom. It spread to video games as well as table top. Anyone remember the abysmal downer endings for KotoR 2 and even the recent, otherwise brilliant GTA IV (talk about taking your $60, kicking you in the teeth and calling you a sucker for even playing the game)?
Who influenced the Masters? Most of them are British. Judging by the age group, I'd say Pink Floyd's The Wall is the genesis of all this emo crap (because, let's face it, it was whiny, emo crap), but...The Wall was surely influenced by The Who's Tommy, which was in turn both influenced by The Beatles' proclamation that ROCK MUSIC IS SERIOUS BUSINESS, and WW2's effect on British youth as they grw up during the Blitz.
WW2 can be at least halfway blamed on the stupid Treaty of Versailles (which both effectively ended WW1 and made WW2 inevitable).
WW1, WW2, British emo crap, dark and edgy comics and the shitstorm that has befallen the Forgotten Realms can therefore be blamed on Gavrilo Princip. Thanks a lot, you fucking douchebag.
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2. Know why I could never get into Fred/Gunn? Because they were obviously only doing it because everyone expected Fred/Wes. I never doubted that they'd eventually break them up and go for Fred/Wes.
Most of the things you listed? Pretty darn good. Most of the "Awesome" "edgy" etc. stuff? Crap.
Take a look at what Marvel just did with Jubilee. For twenty years, she's been at least partly defined by her fear of accidentally killing someone, even to the point where it's been stated in the books that she created a mental block on her powers to keep them from ever reaching lethal levels. She's been in several situations (including wars with alien races) where she chose to not kill (making it clear that being raised by a killer contributed to her stance on the subject) even though few would hold her morally responsible for at least 2 instances, and in other cases, the choice to not kill, and even save the life of her opponent, was the choice that was detrimental to her, which she knew even as she did it.
So Marvel had her teammates shrink down a skrull and have her step on it, essentially saying it would happen eventually anyway, with no consideration or sign of remorse, portraying it as a very casual decision. They also had her scraping the remains off her shoe, to make sure we had no doubts.
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