I think the problem with me is that as much as I might hate canon (the actual original piece itself), I believe the fanfiction can actually be redeeming.  I'll literally read anything.  Literally (which is actually quasi pun-ny?  :D)  Don't ask me why when there's so much crap fanfiction out there. And dude... there is.  I thought my eyes were going to start bleeding from the atrocities I was reading, which is way overdramatic, but I just couldn't believe it and let's just say that the (many) reviews were not concrits, they were 'omg, awesome chapter' kinds.  I decided to not review in general. 

Let's start at the beginnging I was reading Twilight fanfiction - yeah, I know.  I freaking hate Twilight.  The movie - man the movie was killer, I was laughing which is mean because I don't laugh quietly.  I can't even voice the problems I have with the story itself... but (and it's a huge but) I like vampires and werewolves (though they're technically not lycanthropes though, right?  More like shapeshifters?) and all that jazz (blame LJ Smith for that) so the fanfiction is do-able.  Except that I forgot that when you have so many people in a fandom (so many young young people), the fanfiction kind of sucks until you find (like really search desperately for) good fic.  It's like I know given time these writers will look back on what they wrote and go 'wth was wrong with me?'.  I'm certain they'll improve, but right now, it's like they don't care about characterization (/I/ still have problems with characterization at the best of times, but I try to at least build something up.  /something/.) 

Stories where the characters move about with the heavy hand of the author are not fun reads.  If you know what I mean, where you don't get the feeling that a character is so much making choices in a story so much as the author decides 'hey, he should go here' or 'he should suddenly feel this.'  That is the biggest problem I've seen in the several fics I've tried to muscle through.  I could get pretty far in reading some because like I said I have lower standards (and that's kind of mean isn't it?) and I was itching for a good fic, but I couldn't even finish more than half the stories I read in that fandom.  I didn't realize that was a big problem in writing.  But I guess it makes sense because that's all about build-up right?  When you're young, instant gratification is everything, isn't it?  So I guess it makes sense.

Conclusion: I'm going to Livejournal for my fics if I do still read more, which is a high probability. 

ps
reviewing other pieces of work like that actually is iffy on my part because I know I still need a lot of improvement in my own writing, but still. 

Today's a fanfiction day - I'm so bad with reading fanfiction (read, really bad.  I can go on multiple day stints just reading fanfiction... yeah, I have an addictive personality; at least it's not with drugs).  I was so excited to read that I totally forgot to post.  My bad.  >__<

What was I going to talk about today?  I actually did finish Dune yesterday, wait... the day before yesterday even though I said I was going to wait until Saturday.  Yeah, that didn't happen. 

What did I thnk?  Still not joining the fandom (you know, I'm not the greatest thing since sliced bread or anything but I still think any fans in a new fandom would be good.  I didn't want to sound arrogant or something.  That's just stupid - I suck as a fan technically, especially when I don't read the books (which is more often than not).  It's just, more people = more active fandom, or at least you'd hope).  Anyway, Dune (the 2000) version was a three part ishness.  I thought it was pretty good as far as stories go.  The ending didn't suck, which is always good.  Um, the fighting was good. 

However, whenever I saw Feyd, I thought of Percival in Safe Passage, which is really an obscure movie but I had my RSL (Robert Sean Leonard) phase and such phases include buying every movie of said actor that I can get my hands on.  I had to go through Hallmark to get Safe Passage and dude, it was worth it.  Boys Next Door is also a good movie with RSL, but Drive... uh, not so much.  Anyway, Percival has an incredibly small part in the movie but it's all I could think of because I was like 'Yes!  That's him!' 

Anyway, back to Dune.  I think the story is pretty damn epic.  It's something I could see myself really getting into if I read it.  Who knows if such a thing will happen?  I'm interested in watching the older version of Dune though.  It has piqued my interest.

Well, not really an aftermath.  Perhaps a summary? 

What did I do yesterday to celebrate the 4th of July (and Cap's birthday)?  Nothing.  It was just a normal Saturday for me.  Well, sorta. 

We, as in the family, used to go to the Hollywood Bowl with people from our parish church to celebrate, but no one else in my family likes to go anymore.  I kind of really like it actually.  It's fun to go to those sort of events and connect with other people, especially on a holiday such as July 4th.  I mean, we're all countrymen.  :)  And dude, the LA Philharmonic is awesome.  Pure awesome-ness. 

That and there are fireworks at the end.  I didn't see any fireworks yesterday!  T-T  I heard illegal fireworks being set off, but I didn't see any.  How sad, right?  No live music and no fireworks.  What a crappy 4th of July.  Okay, not so much.  Any day that I can spend reading fanfiction and eating to my heart's content is a pretty damn good day, if I say so myself.

I didn't even leave the house yesterday.  I was going to go to Universal Studios but I was like... I don't want to deal with the traffic and the people going out.  The traffic on the 101 is always so damn horrible.

We did have a family (of sorts since my sister was working) lunch.  Then, everyone was off to do their own thing.  Literally.

I started to watch Dune (the 2000 version) and got through 2 cds (of 3).  I bought it on an impulse because I thought I remembered one of my cinema teachers talking about it.  So, I went into it knowing absolutely nothing.

I hate that freaking DVD just for the fact that the sound level for the actor's voices are so fucking low while the sound effects are loud.  As in really loud.  I was listening at sound=50 (I watch my movies around 35 normally okay) and I still couldn't hear what they were saying.  I was so fucking pissed off because there wasn't even subtitles.  What dvd doesn't have subtitles!?!  And then, I was going deaf whenever a plane flew by or something.  Shit.  Annoyed doesn't even begin to cover it.  But I muscled through it and got super pissed off when they started whispering in some parts. 

I'm waiting until next Saturday to finish it because Saturdays are movie nights and that thing's an hour and a half long - I should be doing other stuff with that time, but I'm thinking I'm going to try to finish it today but only if I finish some work first.

Anyway, me being me I immediately checked if there's fanfiction because the potential is awesome.  It is.  It's a really small (and from what I've seen, dead) fandom.  There's only like 6 pages of fanfiction for it (for comparison purposes, I think the Phantom of the Opera fandom is medium(to small)-sized - filled with crazies of course, and the movie helped a lot with infusing the fandom with youngings - has 306 pages of fanfiction; while Harry Potter is what I consider is freaking huge fandom with 10,645 pages of fanfiction.  Each page has 25 fics, and those are only the fics that aren't M rated, so those numbers might not be accurate.  But just so you know.  Dune fandom=small, tiny). 

And I don't like them (the fans).  Of course I didn't check all the fics, but I read a fic and checked the reviews (which is how I usually gauge how nice a fandom is - I know that's not the most accurate, but really though, it's helpful to see what kind of responses you get from people).  The story I read had seven reviews and only one of them was 'good' (using that term very lightly).  I mean, these reviewers got on the writer like no one's business - they left flames (knowingly). 

It was a pretty bad fic but dude.  Let's give examples:

This might be one of the worst things i've ever read. I am disgusted. [...] Personally, i think the site makers should go through the stories and weed out the stupid ones, like this one. I have one real question to end this review: What in the name of God's green earth were you thinking?!
(oh yeah, P.S.) SPELL CHECK IS YOUR FRIEND!

Err... right... How can I put this nicely? This is horrible. I swear to God, I didn't think it could get worse after the first line but it did. Horrible. Maybe I shouldn't even review is just that the shock is compelling me to do so. Reading the other two reviews, I have to agree this is a complete insult to Frank Herbert's creation, to the fans and the actors portraying the characters. [...] Plus, you write something that's three paragraphs long and with lack of logic.
Ew

Prepare to be flamed into next week.
WTF is wrong with you?!?!
[...] I'm sorry, that's just wrong. Like, insanely wrong. And disgusting. And I won't even start talking about the misspellings and typos. I highly recommend that if you are intent on writing more Dune fanfiction that you make it of both a higher caliber and a higher appealment rating. This is just... disturbing.

You're disgusting.

Okay, and sometimes people use the [...] in quotes to take things out of context.  Nope, context remains the same; in fact, I might have just made them nicer by taking those bits out.

Now tell me, would you like to join this fandom?  Elitist sonsofbitches who don't know what constructive criticism is.  I was so freaking annoyed when I saw that.  I mean really. 

oh, and here's a review someone left on another fic they'd written:
This is good? I nearly puked reading this. Then I read the Dune fanfic. I puked. And hemmorhaged. And my guts went spilling fantastically over the keyboard.

At least the other three reviews were nicer.

I understand, deeply understand that there will be flamers out there in every fandom.  I know.  You can't stop jackassery.  It's impossible, especially online jackassery.  I'm prone to it myself sometimes - though I've never left a flame ever in my life.  That's just rude.  I wank (which is also rude but I don't do it to fanfiction) but I don't flame.  I've been flamed but never like that where it's consecutive people and a vast majority of the reviews. 

You know, maybe the writer was a troll, but still, does it warrant that kind of response?  I don't even know how to begin with how 'disgusted' I am with that fandom.  Sure, a select few people shouldn't represent the whole but that's an impressive cutout and it's my first impression.  No good there.  And I was sort of excited to join the fandom (maybe revive it with some stuff), but screw that.

I watch movies to be entertained, and my taste of movies (which is admittedly kind of bad; I'd go for 'random') leans away from the sad ones, especially when I start craving chocolate (if you know what I mean... don't make me say it :D). 

I kind of like explosions but I guess lately, I've been wanting to see comedies more than anything (I don't mind stupid humor - depends how stupid though.  The Hangover was pretty hilarious to me). 

Oh, I'm hyped about GI Joe; that's coming out in August 7th, but the previews make me worry.  I want it to be really good and maybe I'm just too stuck in the old version of it (that's in my head, it's a mix of the really old cartoons/comics and the new cartoons that pretty much failed to last very long IMHO) that's making me wary of the newness of the film.  I understand you can't make a movie that you expect to gross any money with costumes/dialogue/basic coloring as it was in the past; everything needs an upgrade, but still.  I'm worried.  Exoskeletons?  Some of the casting choices... seems odd to me.  But yay for General Hawk - sometimes he gets pushed to the sidelines in things for the sake of Duke being the leader and all, but I actually like Hawk. 

That's not what I was going to talk about - talk about distracted.

I watched My Sister's Keeper yesterday with my sister and some friends.  Fffff-.  I hate sad movies.  And that's the sort of movie you know people are going to cry in.  That's the point.  You don't watch that sort of movie hoping to be entertained; it's a full-blown I want to cry sort of movie.  There were about like three guys in the whole theatre, the rest were girls. 

It's slow (and could potentially be made shorter by a few minutes).  Like I was sad at times and then just waiting for something to happen.  Really, waiting.  It got to me in the end though.  But it was kind of funny because at silent moments of the film (and there were a lot of them), you could hear people sniffling and doing that whole shaky breath intake.  It was really funny because you know people were trying to be silent about it. 

Yeah.  Don't like that movie.  I hear the book's better anyway.

... but yeah.  Totally.

Hands down.  Yes.