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WHAT IS "HARRY POTTER AND THE METHODS OF RATIONALITY"?http://hpmor.com/chapter/1 posted:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality posted:
WHO IS THE AUTHOR? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky posted:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/EliezerYudkowsky posted:
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 16:39 |
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# ? May 6, 2024 04:30 |
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 16:41 |
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CHAPTER 1 - A DAY OF VERY LOW PROBABILITYquote:
The story has barely begun and I already feel like punching these people. Triple-barrelled last names? Really? And why's the husband "Verres-Evans" and the wife "Evans-Verres"? Are they cousins? That's not very rational, given the increased chances of genetic disorders in their offspring arising from such inbreeding. quote:
Shouldn't a "rational" person not be bothered about shouting? After all, the tone and volume of a statement is independent of the content of the statement in question, and calling attention to it distracts from the issue being discussed. Dismissing / Devaluing an argument or statement because it is "shouted" would therefore be less rather than more "rational". quote:
Ah, I see why "the Professor" was burdened with irrationality in that earlier passage. He's such a pompous, condescending rear end in a top hat that we are clearly not meant to like or admire him. quote:
What kind of adoptive parents gives their child a triple-barrelled last name? quote:
It took me until the second chapter of Twisted before I started hating "Railrunner". I'm already hating "the Professor" and we're not even half-way through the first chapter of "Methods of Rationality" yet. Eliezer did a good job on making Harry's adoptive father as loathsome and contemptible as Vernon Dursley in the canon series. quote:
This poor, broken woman needs to check into a domestic violence shelter soon. Also, the Professor clearly doesn't, and never has, respected Petunia. Why then did he marry her? Is it "rational" to marry someone you have so much contempt for? quote:
His adoptive father is a self-absorbed, arrogant, condescending, pompous rear end and his adoptive mother is too drained and shattered to stand up to her husband. It's no wonder they never listen to Harry. quote:
To be fair, most adults don't take ten year olds "seriously". quote:
WTF is this? Which ten year old in all of history has ever, ever spoken like this? The dialogue in "Twisted" feels natural in comparison to this. quote:
Okay, at least that's a realistic portrayal of a child's thought processes. All children and teenagers have at some point thought their parents were totally hopeless. quote:
Harry is remarkably precocious in this story, but I think it's still within the bounds of credibility, save for that bit above about the "Feynman Lectures on Physics". quote:
Again not very "rational" on the Professor's part - reading the book just shows how "educated" you are but not necessarily how "smart". quote:
The author may have a little difficulty with portraying a child's thoughts, but I must concede that he does a good job at writing a dysfunctional marriage. quote:
All in all, not too bad an opening chapter. The Professor's clearly meant to be hated and is indeed loathsome while not being over-the-top; the portrayal of abusive relationship with Petunia is reasonably grounded and believable; and Harry's precociousness stretches a little far at time but is still generally believable. I also like how the author subtly mocks the supposed "rationality" of the Professor throughout the chapter. JosephWongKS fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Feb 21, 2015 |
# ? Feb 21, 2015 17:52 |
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REVIEWS FOR CHAPTER 1quote:
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 18:05 |
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The hyphenated name thing is a fringe liberal reject-the-patriarchy! belief. I've met a few families who did this. In one, the father was Mr. G, the mother was Mrs. S, their son was J G-S and their daughter was J S-G. It's a bit odd, but people do all sorts of crazy things with their names. What's your spoiler policy? The latest few chapters (yes, I've read all of this) reveals a major twist that makes some of this make more sense.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 18:56 |
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I really cannot believe you're actually doing this. And that about-the-author page is a little too generous, so let me crash it back down to reality. Effortpost go. Eliezer Yudkowsky is not an AI researcher, he's merely a dude who runs a blog where he tries to convince everyone that Bayesian probability is literally the best loving thing ever (and though it is indeed a powerful area of mathematical probability, it is easy to misuse and that is exactly what Yudkowsky does). Big Yud never finished high school and has never finished college. He claims he can do it really guys but is "saving up his intellect" for something more dire. Instead he chose to create a site called Less Wrong which analyzes possible AI behavior (so long as the AI uses logic based on Bayesian probability. What who says that people will create Bayesian-probability based AI? What are you, a moron? ) though in reality the site is more about its own insular culture, where nerds invent terms to sound smart and argue about mundane poo poo. Since this is the largest pseudo-intellectual circlejerk to have ever graced the internet, they dislike it fiercely when people critique their work, even if it does have more holes than swiss cheese. Lemme give you an example: quote:Now here's the moral dilemma. If neither event is going to happen to you personally, but you still had to choose one or the other: Oh yeah torture and big numbers (3^^^3 is the same thing as 3^3^3^3 which is the same thing as "a meaninglessly big number"). Big Yud and Less Wrong love torture and big numbers So as you would expect from socially-stunted intellectual masturbators the answers were as follows: quote:Wow. The obvious answer is TORTURE, all else equal, and I'm pretty sure this is obvious to Eliezer too. But even though there are 26 comments here, and many of them probably know in their hearts torture is the right choice, no one but me has said so yet. What does that say about our abilities in moral reasoning? quote:Torture, and Big Yud chimed in with Big Yud posted:I'll go ahead and reveal my answer now: Robin Hanson was correct, I do think that TORTURE is the obvious option, and I think the main instinct behind SPECKS is scope insensitivity. It's like amateur hour in high school philosophy. Let's take an individual and torture them for 50 years because that causes 5000 pain points but a dust speck only causes 0.01 pain points, however when you SHUT UP AND MULTIPLY (actual less wrong term and is the single dumbest loving thing they ever made) that gives us 10000000.....insert long list of zeroes here....0000 pain points! So single person torture is good! Forget about counting the aftereffects, how much life this person will miss out due to 50 loving years of torture, if you do the math it all squares up! Other bullshit: His "organization" basically has only has one person (himself) and the money goes to sponsor himself and the site. Yudkowsky is fiercely afraid of death and these ideas will show up in the book. Anyone who tried to make a statement about accepting death on Less Wrong is labeled a "deathist" And for those who are "well maybe he is right, I mean are you an AI researcher?" I have this quote from a goon who is an AI researcher: SolTerrasa posted:Effortpost incoming, but the short version is that there are so many (so many) unsolved problems before this even makes sense. It's like arguing what color to paint the bikeshed on the orbital habitation units above Jupiter; sure, we'll probably decide on red eventually, but christ, that just doesn't matter right now. What's worse, he's arguing for a color which doesn't exist. Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Feb 21, 2015 |
# ? Feb 21, 2015 19:58 |
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Is it normal for me to look at that quote of word vomit and say "the gently caress did any of that even mean?"
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:39 |
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Arcsquad12 posted:Is it normal for me to look at that quote of word vomit and say "the gently caress did any of that even mean?" Yes. Less Wrong comments are infamously impenetrable to an And to make things worse they use terms incorrectly to boot. The scenario with the skydivers is not a Prisoner's Dilemma. Yes there are some similarities, but that doesn't make them the same thing. Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Feb 21, 2015 |
# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:47 |
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Man, I remember getting linked to this and reading the first few chapters and enjoying the clearly deliberately exaggerated and self-aware Harry who was totally only that way as an excuse for a bit of light-hearted fun-poking at some of the more arbitrary things in Harry Potter and some of the tropes it inherited from being a school story. I was quite surprised by what happened next.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 21:41 |
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I'm just going to say right now that I'm not going to try and rewrite this thing like I did last time.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:57 |
Jesus H. Irrational Christ. Alright, so putting aside the author's supposed ignorance on logical issues (because I'm really not qualified on that), let me shout this question into the void: Why Harry Potter?! I mean, okay, magic and rationality. And it's popular and probably was popular whenever he started commiting this thing. But thinking of a ten-year-old (wizarding genius) just saying these things and thinking these things... ...It's wrong. I'd start organizing a lynch mob when he namedrops Feynman. By the time he's testing a hypothesis, the abomination should be well roasted and pitchforked to the nearest hanging tree. Tree promoted to use for redundant deaths. Whatever. It is not human. I'm following along to see just how much of my childhood this is going to retroactively ruin. edit: VVV I'm not throwing the plate away, I'm putting it behind a concrete wall with a very small bulletproof window and a canister of nerve gas at the ready, horrified and interested at the same time. I mean, let's face it, this is far from the worst that fanfiction has spawned - it's just the ridiculous pretense that comes packaged along with the usual terrible writing this time. Say one thing for fanfic authors, they just tend to pretend their "work" is art; this guy seems to think it's science. And tell me you don't find a ten year old quoting Feynman creepy. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Feb 21, 2015 |
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:14 |
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anilEhilated posted:Jesus H. Irrational Christ. Not really seeing how your "Ew! My peas and carrots touched! Throw away the whole plate!" approach is better.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:16 |
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The thing is, a story about someone from a scientific background getting involved in the wizarding world and being 'Holy poo poo this is amazing! I want to study this!' would be fun as hell! This is not that story.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:22 |
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anilEhilated posted:I'm following along to see just how much of my childhood this is going to retroactively ruin. I'd rate the writing as above average. There's a decent sense of mystery and progressive discovery. The characters have unique and identifiable voices. Any technical mistakes are minor and don't detract from the story. There's a bit of bullshit science, but unless you're reading something specifically written to be accurate by an expert in a particular field that's inevitable. The story is too drat long, but that's not a major point for me. There's some issues I have that haven't really come up yet, I'll mention them when they're relevant. The writing is not great, mind you, just better then the average fanfiction. I only read one Feynman book several years ago, but he seemed like a pretty chill guy who was interested in making science accessible. He'd probably be happy a child was following his work. Why would it be creepy? Because I wouldn't expect a child that young to be that well read? All that would mean is my expectation was wrong. I'm a fairly smart guy, and I've been outsmarted in small ways by ten year olds before. I didn't find it creepy, I just laughed and praised them for being clever. To get a bit liberal, I always find the impulse to hate and destroy (or just stridently distance yourself from) things that violate someone's sense of normalcy to be questionable. Night10194 posted:The thing is, a story about someone from a scientific background getting involved in the wizarding world and being 'Holy poo poo this is amazing! I want to study this!' would be fun as hell! This is not that story. ... Yep, that would have probably been a better story.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 01:05 |
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:I'm just going to say right now that I'm not going to try and rewrite this thing like I did last time.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 01:33 |
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:I'm just going to say right now that I'm not going to try and rewrite this thing like I did last time. Someone was complaining about HP&tMoR and I offered "there has to be some way to make it entertaining, maybe a cheap find-and-replace trick? Like, magic -> ballsacks." The results were magical: Harry took a deep breath. "Mum, your parents didn't have ballsacks, did they?" "They sent a professor from Hogwarts. He -" Petunia's eyes flicked to Michael. "He showed us some ballsacks." Harry was finding himself just expecting that, yes, a Hogwarts professor would show up and wave a wand and ballsacks would come out. "Something went wrong," Harry said. "The resonance in our ballsacks," Professor Quirrell said quietly. Try it with "magical" to "erotic" and "wand" to "dong" too: Neither side would have dongs or any other device of ballsacks, and the goblin guards would attack immediately if anyone dared to use dongless ballsacks
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 02:04 |
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Night10194 posted:The thing is, a story about someone from a scientific background getting involved in the wizarding world and being 'Holy poo poo this is amazing! I want to study this!' would be fun as hell! This is not that story. Yeah I was pretty disappointed when I expected that from the story and instead we got... well, what you'll see.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 03:01 |
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Arcsquad12 posted:Is it normal for me to look at that quote of word vomit and say "the gently caress did any of that even mean?" no because it's pretty much time cube. don't stare too hard into the abyss. his net circle of assholes are obsessed with his dumbass ai mumbo-jumbo and have a cult around him, and they know they come off as a cult so they use the word "phyg" instead (rot 13 of cult)
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 03:01 |
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I'm not reading any of this
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 03:26 |
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Ysengrin posted:Yeah I was pretty disappointed when I expected that from the story and instead we got... well, what you'll see. A long time ago, I saw a story about a crashed space pilot and his science buddy having to deal with weird magic using aliens that saved them. They assume at first the magic is just a superstition, until they see someone actually cast an observable spell and the scientist freaks out. Not because he's mad or having a crisis of belief, but because "HOLY poo poo YOU GUYS, if we live I am going to get all the nobel prizes for this discovery and I want measuring tools right now so I can study this incredible phenomena." More sci-fi meeting fantasy needs that attitude. It's fun as hell.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 05:07 |
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Night10194 posted:A long time ago, I saw a story about a crashed space pilot and his science buddy having to deal with weird magic using aliens that saved them. They assume at first the magic is just a superstition, until they see someone actually cast an observable spell and the scientist freaks out. Not because he's mad or having a crisis of belief, but because "HOLY poo poo YOU GUYS, if we live I am going to get all the nobel prizes for this discovery and I want measuring tools right now so I can study this incredible phenomena." http://www.amazon.com/Interstellar-Patrol-Christopher-Anvil/dp/0743488482 I'm reminded of a similar story, about a space traveler who was marooned while surveying a planet of reality-bending aliens. The crew that rescued him were convinced by all the nonsense that went on, but realized that if they tried to claim they found a race of magic aliens they'd be kicked out of the service for psych reasons. However, if they lied and said nothing was wrong, a planned colony would go ahead and a lot more people would be affected. So they sent in an accurate account of what they witnessed - and then warned that the planet probably had a hallucinogenic atmosphere.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 06:59 |
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anilEhilated posted:Jesus H. Irrational Christ. The best part is that he's never actually read Harry Potter, only fanfic of it.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 09:13 |
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Moddington posted:The best part is that he's never actually read Harry Potter, only fanfic of it. It really sounds like "close enough" is his raison d'ętre.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 09:44 |
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JosephWongKS posted:WHO IS THE AUTHOR? Who needs those when we have this song.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 09:45 |
This scares me.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 15:10 |
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I think I just don't "get" Fanfiction myself, especially the ones which take the characters are create a whole new story. Why not just, I don't know, write your own? Do you really need to have Harry Potter in your space opera about aliens? Just change the name or something.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 15:35 |
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Moddington posted:The best part is that he's never actually read Harry Potter, only fanfic of it. This is a lie, I refuse to believe it. I will believe anything else about the Yud, but not this.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 15:46 |
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Moddington posted:The best part is that he's never actually read Harry Potter, only fanfic of it. You're right... that really is the best part. I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around the why of the whole thing. I mean, if you want to be a respected blogger and "AI researcher" then obviously the best medium to speak to people is Harry Potter fanfiction. e: also, I've read the sentence below about 4 times now and my mind is still recovering. tvtropes posted:Almost all of his works, whether fanfic or original, are highly philosophical Author Tracts. And then there's Peggy Susie, which is merely a Calvin and Hobbes fic and parody of The Terminator... with no philosophical elements whatsoever. metricchip fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Feb 22, 2015 |
# ? Feb 22, 2015 15:49 |
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Captain Mog posted:I think I just don't "get" Fanfiction myself, especially the ones which take the characters are create a whole new story. Why not just, I don't know, write your own? Do you really need to have Harry Potter in your space opera about aliens? Just change the name or something. Because this way he has a built in audience and won't need to worry about the scary process of actually writing his own work.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 15:57 |
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Captain Mog posted:I think I just don't "get" Fanfiction myself, especially the ones which take the characters are create a whole new story. Why not just, I don't know, write your own? Do you really need to have Harry Potter in your space opera about aliens? Just change the name or something. I'm with you. I mean, I've watched films, read books, etc, and have idly wondered what else might have happened to them outside of said story. But even as someone who writes, I've never considered writing it out. Maybe it's because I'm not arrogant enough to believe that I could accurately capture the characters' voices. Besides, I find writing my own characters, my own stories, far more satisfying.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:09 |
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Captain Mog posted:I think I just don't "get" Fanfiction myself, especially the ones which take the characters are create a whole new story. Why not just, I don't know, write your own? Do you really need to have Harry Potter in your space opera about aliens? Just change the name or something. People like writing stories + people are bad at making interesting characters + there's an abundance of interesting characters in existing works.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:17 |
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Night10194 posted:Because this way he has a built in audience and won't need to worry about the scary process of actually writing his own work. IIRC this is more or less the explicit reason, he chose HP because he wanted to reach people and get their interest for his computer pseudoscience.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:44 |
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Peel posted:IIRC this is more or less the explicit reason, he chose HP because he wanted to reach people and get their interest for his computer pseudoscience. Yeah, you have to remember, HPMOR is a religious tract. This is the crazy tech cult equivalent of an incredibly long Chick Tract, as will become obvious as we go.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:46 |
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I've made the same argument about fanfic to a good friend who writes it. He didn't really have a good answer, but I reckon part of it might be that you know there's an audience for it - 'Harry Potter-but-with-Y' is an easier sell than 'Y', and there are (presumably) a ton of sites where you can trawl for people who love 'Harry Potter but with...'. Not to mention that even mediocre writing makes yours 'best fanfic evar' rather than 'mediocre story'. e: Having said that, I quite enjoyed this. It's fun to see an utterly different take on HP, though I refuse to believe he's never read the original. Unless he's watched the films and basing it off them?
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:06 |
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Davros1 posted:I'm with you. I mean, I've watched films, read books, etc, and have idly wondered what else might have happened to them outside of said story. But even as someone who writes, I've never considered writing it out. Maybe it's because I'm not arrogant enough to believe that I could accurately capture the characters' voices. Yeah, it's the same way with me. If anything, reading a good fantasy novel with great world-building challenges me to come up with my own even more. I remember back in the day when the big thing were all those stories which somehow made Cloud and Sephiroth into lovers, and I thought it was pretty odd back then, too. I was under the impression that fanfiction was mainly a late 90s/00s thing but I guess it's still going strong? petrol blue posted:I've made the same argument about fanfic to a good friend who writes it. He didn't really have a good answer, but I reckon part of it might be that you know there's an audience for it - 'Harry Potter-but-with-Y' is an easier sell than 'Y', and there are (presumably) a ton of sites where you can trawl for people who love 'Harry Potter but with...'. I guess I can see the appeal with this. Aren't there some now-famous authors who got their start writing fanfic? It'd certainly make signing a book deal easier if you can approach the publisher and say "My Buffy fanfiction has like 30,000 followers and they're all excited to read my own story". Captain Mog fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Feb 22, 2015 |
# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:06 |
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Honestly, I can see some reason for this to exist. One of the really off parts of Harry Potter to me was always how utterly devoid of curiosity or joy the characters were with magic. Especially Harry/hermione given their background; the idea that kids find magic so utterly dull and uninteresting that it's drudgery to learn, say, transfiguration or whatever just seemed really off key. As if it's just intended to make it more familiar to kids in mundane school. From that standpoint, taking the existing IP and trying to "improve" it is at least sensical. But the 11 year old Godel Escher Bach loving AI theoretician Harry Potter is completely nuts. There must be some middle ground of reasonableness that doesn't lead to head conversations with hats that become self aware because of how awesome your internal monologue is.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:06 |
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Stravinsky posted:I'm not reading any of this I am going to read all of it.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:09 |
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Velius posted:Honestly, I can see some reason for this to exist. One of the really off parts of Harry Potter to me was always how utterly devoid of curiosity or joy the characters were with magic. Especially Harry/hermione given their background; the idea that kids find magic so utterly dull and uninteresting that it's drudgery to learn, say, transfiguration or whatever just seemed really off key. As if it's just intended to make it more familiar to kids in mundane school. Velius posted:self aware Good point (especially about Hermione), but I think you answered yourself.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:10 |
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Captain Mog posted:Aren't there some now-famous authors who got their start writing fanfic? It'd certainly make signing a book deal easier if you can approach the publisher and say "My Buffy fanfiction has like 30,000 followers and they're all excited to read my own story". I believe 50 shades of grey started out as a Twilight fanfic. e: Quote != Edit. Unless it's Bayesian. e2: Can we just change the thread title to petrol blue fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Feb 22, 2015 |
# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:12 |
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# ? May 6, 2024 04:30 |
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Some say, in theory fanfiction is a way to practice writing without getting hung up on inventing characters and places and things. Others say that different writers continue each others series all the time (movie adaptations, superhero comics, posthumous additions to series, etc) but they just have someone paying for it, so why can't they do it for fun. Neither explains harry potter fanfiction of harry potter fanfiction from some rear end in a top hat who already thinks he's king poo poo and good at everything.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:13 |