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Sure, but it’s also incredibly boring when a writer’s only way of depicting conflict for women characters is rape. Not combat or privation or torture of any other kind, just rape and always rape. It doesn’t mean the writer is a rapist or a rape fetishist, but it definitely means that the writer is really unimaginative about writing women characters in a fairly gross way  Have read probably most if not all of Ellison, by the way.
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Nov 22, 2019 20:12
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My personal theory is that a lot of authors, particularly in speculative fiction, can't or won't write female characters as being simply human, with the same kinds of issues as the rest of the cast. If you have a woman in your story, you have to justify it by giving her a Woman Role in connection to a male character (love interest, nurturing loved one, dependent to be protected/avenged, or token friend to show the protagonist isn't sexist) and/or Woman Problems, which are all related to appearance/attractiveness, sex/romance/OBGYN, or nurturing. Rape is, of course, the most powerful of Woman Problems in this schema, and often the only one male authors take seriously.
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Nov 22, 2019 23:44
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AlbieQuirky posted:Sure, but it’s also incredibly boring when a writer’s only way of depicting conflict for women characters is rape. Not combat or privation or torture of any other kind, just rape and always rape. Ellison is weird in that he was a giant rear end in a top hat off the page but a lot of his stories were some very moving stuff. The Deathbird is one of my favorite short stories/novellas ever written. (I totally forgot that A Boy and His Dog even existed when I posted that I couldn't recall weird sex poo poo in his books. It's one of his most famous stories but quality wise it's towards the bottom)
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Nov 22, 2019 23:48
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AlbieQuirky posted:Sure, but it’s also incredibly boring when a writer’s only way of depicting conflict for women characters is rape. Not combat or privation or torture of any other kind, just rape and always rape. Absolutely, I have no arguement on that score. It is very often super lazy writing and/or unthinking misogyny, and is depressingly common in genre fiction. For an example I have actually read, I recently tried to read the demon cycle books by peter v brett (the painted man and so on) and man... There is more rape in those books that I was expecting. Both male and female main characters are raped in the first two books, which is about where I quit because no thank you. I'm just pushing back against the idea that it automatically makes the author a "sex weird". My read on it was instead that the author was really loving bad at coming up with motivations for characters to do things, and also that his go-to for "shocking event happens!" or "characters suffer trauma" was "Rape". Now, some authors are absolutely weirdos putting their fetishes right up there on the page, but I feel like you can normally tell from the writing when an author is typing one handed. I'm just not a fan of the immediate assumption that "author writes character doing thing means author is condoning thing". And again, I havent read A Boy and his Dog (or really any Harlan Ellison now that I think about it), so I dont know how it was written and treated in the book. You've actually read it so if you tell me "the text reads very much like it was written like someone who loving loves rape" then I'll accept that, because you are basing it on something more than the wikipedia plot synopsis.
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Nov 23, 2019 01:28
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I was arguing that Ellison was in general sexist, and that his boring overuse of rape as a trope reflects it. Not that he was personally a rape fetishist, though he was a groper. Sorry, the thread got a little multi-tracked.
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Nov 23, 2019 03:53
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Antivehicular posted:The only positive thing I can remember about Harlan Ellison at the moment is his brief feud with the Penny Arcade guys, whom he described as "superannuated teen-age golems," which is a valuable phrase to describe so many kinds of Internet People That sounds like a 90s cartoon.
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Nov 23, 2019 05:16
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Nov 29, 2019 21:13
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Mods namechange me to mega-titted six footer
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Dec 4, 2019 12:52
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Mods namechange me to Loads Of Pretty White Teeth
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Dec 4, 2019 14:16
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IshmaelZarkov posted:Mods namechange me to Loads Of Pretty White Teeth Six-Footed Mega-Titter here.
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Dec 4, 2019 14:30
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I bought The Mister and hoooooo boy this is bad.     
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Dec 5, 2019 21:26
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chitoryu12 posted:I bought The Mister and hoooooo boy this is bad. The text says says this guy is working through his grief with sex and drugs, but it also says that he does this poo poo all the time? Reads like an excuse to put this dude in bed with a bunch of disposable women while making his real love interest clean up afterwards. I would ask the author if everything was okay at home, but...
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Dec 6, 2019 00:30
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Elpato posted:The text says says this guy is working through his grief with sex and drugs, but it also says that he does this poo poo all the time? Maxim Trevelyan, 13th Lord of Trevethick after his brother’s untimely death, is a DJ/model/photographer/pianist who fences for fun. Oh this is how he’s behaving after having a single conversation with the love interest about how she’s the new maid:  
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Dec 6, 2019 01:06
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What this feels like most to me, unsurprisingly from E. L. James, is late-stage fanfic written when a fandom is starting to get bored and the writers have exhausted most of their reasonable story ideas. Suddenly all the fanfic has absurd "alternate universe" situations, often with characters arbitrarily assigned roles but retaining their stock dynamics for reader comfort and to cut down on work for the writer. This sort of instantaneous, irrational attraction is a common shortcut; it's saying to the reader "look, I know it makes no sense in this scenario, but having A and B bone down is the only reason I'm writing this and you're reading it, so let's not waste time making it plausible."
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Dec 6, 2019 01:23
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Jenny Trout covered The Mister and while she begins to like the first chapter a reader familiar with the premise revealed that all the book is is a modern retooling of a book series called Poldark. It’s essentially modern AU fanfic. Also it has all the usual abuse apologia and misogyny one expects from James, plus classist/bigoted takes on immigrants. James is genuinely an awful person.
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Dec 6, 2019 03:24
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chitoryu12 posted:I bought The Mister and hoooooo boy this is bad. You haven't got the best quote "Music to my dick." The 372 pages guys did that book and they are drat funny.... Conor Lastowka and Michael J. Nelson (Rifftrax and MST3k Guys) riff on bad books http://372pages.com/
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Dec 6, 2019 07:31
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are there any objections to Post Your Favorite (or Request): Coldly Compiled Lists › PYF terrible book: Music to my dick I mean other than it's a sentence that should not be? we seem spoiled for choice for new thread titles courtesy of The Mister
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Dec 6, 2019 12:47
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Pastry of the Year posted:are there any objections to PYF terrible book: Music to my dick, ft. Daddy and the Stepsow
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Dec 6, 2019 14:44
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I do plan on doing a Let's Read eventually because I promise this book really is this bad from start to finish. Apparently later Alessia describes Maxim Trevelyan (13th Lord Trevethick)'s penis as "large, hooded, flexible."
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Dec 6, 2019 15:27
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vyelkin posted:Music to my dick, ft. Daddy and the Stepsow chitoryu12 posted:I do plan on doing a Let's Read eventually You know what you must do. Thanks thread for reminding me about 372 Pages, I need something funny to listen to while I’m finishing holiday convention and gift stuff.
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Dec 6, 2019 15:45
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how do you write multiple bestselling erotic romance novels and still sound like a middle schooler talking about their conception of what they think sex must be like
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Dec 6, 2019 15:54
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Straight White Shark posted:how do you write multiple bestselling erotic romance novels and still sound like a middle schooler talking about their conception of what they think sex must be like Have you ever watched porn
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Dec 6, 2019 16:29
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Straight White Shark posted:how do you write multiple bestselling erotic romance novels and still sound like a middle schooler talking about their conception of what they think sex must be like Let me pull up the original Master of the Universe, the fic that she turned into Fifty Shades. Somehow it’s worse than what got published.
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Dec 6, 2019 16:32
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He-Man deserved better than that
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Dec 6, 2019 17:02
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https://docs.google.com/file/d/1rEIa7x3FpJzTv11hTT_ZESO9QKVfzPdicwmyGMb5il0ZodNPC764ye47cyRk/edit?pli=1quote:The restaurant is intimate. A wooden chalet in the middle of a forest. The décor is rustic: random chairs and tables with gingham tablecloths, wild flowers in little vases. Cuisine Sauvage, it boasts above the door. That scene went into the book almost unchanged. This scene, on the other hand, was moved to Fifty Shades Darker. quote:He retaliates with his crooked smile, and pulls the silver ball egg-things from his pocket, stopping me in my tracks. Holy poo poo! He wants to spank me? Now? Why? Several pages later: quote:Edward takes my hand and gently skims his thumb across my knuckles as we sit in the back of the Mercedes heading north. I squirm slightly, the sensation felt in my groin. I resist the urge to moan, as Taylor is in the front, not wearing his iPod, with one of the security guys, whose name I think is Stuart. I am beginning to feel a dull, pleasurable ache, deep in my belly, caused by the balls, and I idly wonder how long will I be able to manage, without some um... relief? I cross my legs. As I do, something that’s been niggling me in the back of my mind suddenly surfaces. Then another few pages: quote:I spend the next half hour in a whirlwind of introductions. I meet two Hollywood actors... holy poo poo. But there is no way I am going to remember everyone else’s name. Edward keeps me close at his side, and I’m grateful. Frankly, I am intimidated by the wealth, the glamour, and the sheer lavish scale of it all. I have never been to anything like this in my life. You keep forgetting they're there. It's like, a full chapter and a half of text where they just keep going back to the balls in her vagina.
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Dec 6, 2019 18:58
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Have you ever watched porn not a ton of it, apparently I missed out on sexy porn tropes like "oh myyy, your dick is so flexible" and "wow, look at all the condoms you go through"
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Dec 6, 2019 19:13
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Oh, having never read the thing, I assumed they were anal beads. Is it clearer later on, or is it continually stupidly vague? Incidentally, if any man says the phrase "Good girl" to me, I will kick him in the balls. Repeatedly.
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Dec 6, 2019 19:17
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Domus posted:Oh, having never read the thing, I assumed they were anal beads. Is it clearer later on, or is it continually stupidly vague? What about "Stinky bastard girl"?
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Dec 6, 2019 19:44
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Domus posted:Oh, having never read the thing, I assumed they were anal beads. Is it clearer later on, or is it continually stupidly vague? There’s good money in that 
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Dec 6, 2019 20:53
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Domus posted:Oh, having never read the thing, I assumed they were anal beads. Is it clearer later on, or is it continually stupidly vague? The balls get used on her earlier for actual sex, and then he pulls them out again for her to walk around the auction with them. It's mostly just boring writing talking about how rich people do rich people things interspersed every few paragraphs with "I felt my vagina clench up around those silver balls again." It's shockingly blasé for something so incredibly filthy, like wearing uncomfortable shoes. The Mister also has more of EL James namedropping expensive and fashionable stuff to show off how classy and rich Maxim Trevelyan (13th Lord Trevethick) is, but she doesn't know a whole lot about actual fancy things and consuming them so you get stuff like "1992 vintage Glenrothes" and a "double Negroni."
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Dec 6, 2019 21:35
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And of course since MotU was Twilight fanfic, that’s why the wealth porn is there because once Bella married Edward a lot of the focus shifted to how Bella was gifted one expensive item after the other thanks to literal centuries of money hoarding, including a priceless oil painting that goes unprotected in their cabin in the woods dream house (not making a pun, their marital home is literally that). Years ago the live journal group Das Sporking took on 50 Shades and one of the reviewers explained how their grandparents were “old money” wealthy and although the money is no longer in the family, they still were brought up with a certain perspective on behavior, quality over quantity, etc. The portrayal of wealth in Meyers’s work, and even moreso in James’s, is very “new money” where there’s a lack of understanding in how to maintain that wealth and use it socially, as well as a lack of research on both authors’ parts when it comes to what disgustingly rich people eat, buy, drive, etc.
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Dec 6, 2019 21:56
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Speaking of Twilight, my thread just got to the point where everyone just suddenly transforms into a psychopath.
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Dec 6, 2019 21:58
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 This is possibly the least erotic way this scene could have been written. Also it’s been like one day since he learned she’s the new maid and he’s perving on her so hard.
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Dec 6, 2019 22:57
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Um, I don’t think you can have underwear that doesn’t come up to your waist. It’s kinda what holds them up. Or have I been wearing my undies wrong all these years? I guess technically it’s the hips, but unless you wear your pants like Urkel it seems one and the same.
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Dec 6, 2019 23:25
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Domus posted:Um, I don’t think you can have underwear that doesn’t come up to your waist. It’s kinda what holds them up. Or have I been wearing my undies wrong all these years? I guess technically it’s the hips, but unless you wear your pants like Urkel it seems one and the same. What? e: Waist is not the same as hips and hips are not the same as waist as you appear to know but still confuse the two  Some underpants come up to your waste, some don't.
3D Megadoodoo has a new favorite as of 23:32 on Dec 6, 2019 |
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Dec 6, 2019 23:30
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Domus posted:Um, I don’t think you can have underwear that doesn’t come up to your waist. It’s kinda what holds them up. Or have I been wearing my undies wrong all these years? I guess technically it’s the hips, but unless you wear your pants like Urkel it seems one and the same. Hips and waist are two different measurements for women. Hips are the same as a man's waist, but waist is up further where the smallest part of the torso is.
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Dec 6, 2019 23:32
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:And of course since MotU was Twilight fanfic, that’s why the wealth porn is there because once Bella married Edward a lot of the focus shifted to how Bella was gifted one expensive item after the other thanks to literal centuries of money hoarding, including a priceless oil painting that goes unprotected in their cabin in the woods dream house (not making a pun, their marital home is literally that). See, I'll admit that I like the idea of wealthy, "aristocratic" vampires who are actually really bad with their money, because they don't bother with wealth-management strategies besides "sit on it for centuries," and who spend extravagantly and nonsensically when they have to look good for mortals... but nobody in MotU is a vampire, right? Edit: re: clotheschat -- I'm trying to figure out the shapeless nylon housedress that exposes the wearer's underwear, personally. I guess James is imagining loungewear here, but the maid is at work! Her clothes are going to be functional and opaque! Antivehicular has a new favorite as of 23:39 on Dec 6, 2019 |
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Dec 6, 2019 23:36
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Antivehicular posted:See, I'll admit that I like the idea of wealthy, "aristocratic" vampires who are actually really bad with their money, because they don't bother with wealth-management strategies besides "sit on it for centuries," and who spend extravagantly and nonsensically when they have to look good for mortals.. So, The Addams family?
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Dec 6, 2019 23:54
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Strom Cuzewon posted:So, The Addams family? Gomez Addams is the only good billionaire because he will literally just give anyone money if they ask him for it.
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Dec 6, 2019 23:57
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Domus posted:Um, I don’t think you can have underwear that doesn’t come up to your waist. It’s kinda what holds them up. Or have I been wearing my undies wrong all these years? I guess technically it’s the hips, but unless you wear your pants like Urkel it seems one and the same. Ladies’ underpants come in a lot of different styles. Briefs come up to the waist, hipsters at the top of the hip, bikinis at the low hip, and so on.
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Dec 6, 2019 23:59
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