The bad thing about reading the "Latest" page at TTH...

[Bob Schroeck]

...day in and day out is that by the time someone comes up with that really well-done, time-worthy crossover between two unlikely properties, you've
already seen a dozen other attempts at it already and have no enthusiasm for another one.

Never mind me. I'm sick and propped up in front of the computer and grumpy.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Xenoproctologist]

Need blinders if you're wading through that field, else you'll be distracted by all the crap.

Mine: 10,000+ words; 1,500+ words/chapter; 2+ recs; avoid man-slash and poorly-veiled uber-Xander like the plague.

[zojojojo]

...day in and day out is that by the time someone comes up with that really well-done, time-worthy crossover between two unlikely properties, you've already seen a dozen other attempts at it already and have no enthusiasm for another one.

OOC, which story was this?
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
----
If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

[Bob Schroeck]

Nothing in particular, just a moment's thought while wading through the ten-thousandth Buffy-Harry Potter and the fifteen-thousandth Buffy-Stargate fics there, and realizing that I was so bored by the concepts that I would never make the effort to find out if they were actually good.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[kentmagus]

This is why I filter everything through the forum threads.

[WengFook]

kentmagus wrote:

---

This is why I filter everything through the forum threads.

Ahh.. but where is your sense of adventure? If no one explored new stories then we'd just be chewing old grass day in, day out

and besides.. it takes repeated exposure to really bad stuff to know what the really good stuff reads like
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Necratoid]

It also takes repeated exposure to really good stuff to understand just how bad the bad stuff really is. Though I have managed to dodge the bullet myself,
I am repeatedly told that the book 'Great Expectations' is one of the worst books ever written. Its as bad as the worst thing ever written... but
several times longer than that. Basically literary cancer.

Books like this being mandatory reading in English class is flat out why dozens of high school and middle school students I've talked with gave up entirely
on reading for pleasure. If it wasn't for the random books that come in the fat pack of Magic: the Gathering cards, my brother and at least one of his
friends would still be unable to take reading as anything, but a form of institutional torment. Though the specific books change, I've heard the same
story repeated endlessly. Collectively English teachers' love of bad books is causing generations to hate reading anything.

Anyway, I think the reason that people start tuning out the nth crossover of the same type for the same canons is that it ends up being a larger range version
of 'I've read the canon, stop regurgitating it to me'. That is, that there are only so many ways that you can realistically cram two canons
together before you start repeating the act, of repeating the act, of repeating the same story with a few altered lines of speech. Many of times the altered
lines are basically lines from random story's of this same genre stolen from different fics. Once the crossover hits critical mass its a Pavlovian
response to avoid said crossover.

Its the same thing as I've mentioned before about people when given the choice,, write about the aspects of the topic that interest them. To a large
extent this explains canon and fanon base couples, those pairs interest the people they interest and they either write about those couples or seek out stories
where those couples are written about. Once you reach a critical mass of stories featuring one crossover, you start getting people who write stories only in
context of what they already have written. After a while, this becomes a case of literary inbreeding.

Okay, I'm calling credit for this term 'Literary Inbreeding'. The act of a circle of readers and writers, only using a limited amount of sources
of relevant data sources and deriving the data down to a dull pot of badness and stagnation.

[Black Aeronaut]

Necratoid wrote:

---

Okay, I'm calling credit for this term 'Literary Inbreeding'. The act of a circle of readers and writers, only using a limited amount of
sources of relevant data sources and deriving the data down to a dull pot of badness and stagnation.

Let me know how that turns out. Seriously.

[Acyl]

I don't often find myself thinking this, but I sorta agree with Necratoid.

Well, kind of. I agree with this point, at least: the way Literature is taught in schools does tend to sour people on...I don't know, the idea of good
prose and what makes good prose.

But the problem there is not so much the fact it's boring, but more...the fact that many teachers, and the people who make up school curriculums, sorta
miss the point.

What Literature as a school subject should do...is give students an appreciation of writing.

And I don't mean "The Classics" or anything like that. What book you read...really, that's not the point. Ideally, you're not really
studying the book itself - it's not going to contribute greatly to your growth and value as a human being in later
life to memorize bits of Charles Dickens.

The specific book doesn't matter. What you should be learning about is...how an author does what they do.

Use of metaphor, narrative structure. Themes. That sorta thing. All the little tricks and techniques - stuff that if you can spot, makes the whole experience
that much richer. The idea should be that you then take those concepts and apply them when you watch a movie or something.

I'm talking about narrative fiction, of course, but the same applies for...say, poetry. It doesn't matter if you're looking at Shakespeare's
sonnets or a Beatles song. Both are equally valuable in understanding how rhyme, rhythm, and imagery can be brought across in words - either on a page or
spoken.

Unfortunately, chances are, what you end up studying in a high school literature course is gonna be some dry text written by a dead guy ages ago. And chances
are your teacher's gonna focus a lot on the book in and of itself rather than using it as an example of what a writer can do.

Sadly, many Literature teachers are stodgy old straightlaced elitists who'd bristle at the notion that...say, the metaphysical love poetry of John Donne
can be compared to Britney Spears. That's not a hypothetical example; friends and I made that comparison, once, and were blasted for it.

What I'm saying is...really, Literature is about themes and technique. Stuff that applies even to fanfiction. Now, there's some people who...can sort
of write good stories unconsciously. Folks who have an instinctive grasp of good narrative. But I honestly think that most of the time, good stories are the
ones that are planned and consciously crafted. And it's more than just
plot - there's pacing, the kind of language used, the subject matter tackled by the story, so on.

You don't need a Literary education to write a good story. Certainly not. But you don't need to know all the proper Literature jargon to understand the
concepts and use them. A lot of fanfic writers, though, don't really try.

Good storytelling is a talent. But a talent is both something you're born with...and something you can hone.
-- Acyl

[yesilmavi]

a talent is both something you're born with...and something you can hone.

Agree with this.

Also agree on most selected literature being 'institutional torment'. Some are good though.

"What you should be learning about is...how an author does what they do.

Use of metaphor, narrative structure. Themes. That sorta thing. All the little tricks and techniques - stuff that if you can spot, makes the whole experience
that much richer."

Didn't you get this? (I remember classes in my high school days where we did get this. With example text, short story's etc. An example would be using
the same words with a number of different meanings depending on context. (number was 6? or 8? or something)

I think, though i don't remember my book tests well, that i did get questions about some of these things in relation to assigned books, beside stuff about
the book itself. )

Don't totally agree with this:

'Literary Inbreeding'. The act of a circle of readers and writers, only using a limited amount of sources of relevant data sources and deriving the
data down to a dull pot of badness and stagnation.

There are good writers who see this (don't like it) and write a 'response'.
Acyl: were blasted for it.

Was it about the arguments or something else?

[Acyl]

yesilmavi wrote:

---

Didn't you get this? (I remember classes in my high school days where we did get this. With example text, short story's etc. An example would be
using the same words with a number of different meanings depending on context. (number was 6? or 8? or something)


I think, though i don't remember my book tests well, that i did get questions about some of these things in relation to assigned books, beside stuff
about the book itself. )

Yes and no. My point is that the tendency is for a teacher to start waxing lyrical about what a wonderful dude
Shakespeare was and how his plays are really really fine...now memorise these lines by tomorrow, please.

As opposed to holding, say, one of his pieces up and going - okay, see here, this King Lear guy? He's an example of a tragic hero. And here's what tragedy means...

I'm not saying that never occurs. Just that many teachers don't do that well. And as a consequence, many students don't look beyond the books in
front of 'em.

I only really started enjoying Literature in my last couple years of high school education, when I got a chance to do modern stuff and practical
criticism.
But even then, I still had to do a class entitled 'Shakespeare and Classic Writers'. If you'll pardon the stereotype...it was a
course taught by a prudish uptight Catholic woman. Now, one day in particular, I - and a few other students - suggested that 17th century metaphysical love
poetry could be compared to pop songs.

Think about it for a second. Sonnets about love and sex aren't all that different from contemporary pop music. Heck, even some of the imagery is damn near identical. And that shouldn't be surprising. It makes sense. They're the same thing. Of course, our
teacher was shocked, nay, horrified that we even thought the great poets were at all
comparable to Britney Spears, and had an epic meltdown right there.

There's an academic award for the best GCE A-Level Literature exam answer outside the United Kingdom - ie, among the Commonwealth countries that use a
British education system. I won it when I graduated some years ago. So obviously I was doing something right, even
though I loathe Charles bloody Dickens, barely tolerate Shakespeare, had a terribly antagonistic relationship with my Classic Lit teacher, and ultimately
skipped half her classes.

My point is, the way Literature is taught by most teachers puts emphasis on the wrong things. It manages to turn
people off the idea of books and reading, rather than equip 'em with the
tools to better appreciate them.

The latter is purportedly the point of Literature. And yet, what we get is boring old books taught by boring teachers who think they're the be-all and end
all.

Shakespeare's good, certainly, but he wasn't the Second Coming of Jesus, and his stuff isn't meant to be
read as scripture. That's what a lot of people forget.

Back home, for a while...there was actually a debate whether Literature should even be taught in schools. Because it's a "hard" subject that most students don't like and don't score well in. Plus, it's a
subject "without practical application".

And that's a shame.

Because if our next generation of kids is a bunch who don't know how to appreciate a good story, they're just gonna grow up and write even more dross
on fanfiction.net, and we'll all be doomed.
-- Acyl

[firvulag]

My experiences have been somewhat similar.  Although I was one of those weird kids who spent a lot of time in the Library, knew the librarians by first name and often got strange looks from other kids by answer the question "What class are you reading that for?" with "None, I just wanted to read it."
Don't care much for Charles Dickens, though we never had to read him, and I actually sort of like some Shakespeare, though they're better performed than read.
I still hated those parts of English classes which were devoted to Literature though.  Mostly it was the fact that when we analyzed a story or a poem there was A) a specific reaction we were supposed to have had, and if you didn't have that reaction, you were wrong.  And B)  There was What The Author Meant and we had to be able to infer that from context.  Now, if the author's good at what they're doing, this shouldn't be that hard, assuming you're from a similar enough culture and time period.  However, I had a poem I'd written analyzed by my grade 11 English teacher once, and I know damn well I didn't mean any of the things that were claimed I'd meant.
I've also had English teachers tell me, in great detail, what an author meant in a particular story.  Yet when I read the story I didn't get any of that from it.  And of course there was only one right answer.  If most of the teachers hadn't told us what that was ahead of time I'd have never passed those classes.  Which is another thing I never understood.  If we were supposed to analyze the story/poem/play/whatever why didn't they teach us analysis techniques instead of telling us the answers and then having us write the essay?
Literature didn't put me off reading,  what it really put me off of was Literary Analysis and Literary Criticism as from what I could see it was mostly people full hot air, trying to sound deep and meaningful.  I've since learned there can be meaningful Literary Criticism, but it can be hard to find.
I'm also profoundly glad I didn't take CanLit in grade 12, as the teacher, while not a straight laced Catholic type, had this massive fetish for Margret Atwood.  There are people who like Atwood, there must be, but I'm apparently not one of them.  I've tried a few of her books, 'The Edible Woman', 'The Handmaid's Tale' and 'Oryx and Crake'[sp?] and most of the time I get to a point fairly quickly, where I wonder why I should care about the story/characters.  The thought of doing a Literature class entirely devoted to her work... *shudder*.  I'm definitely not her target audience.
F
--
"Your ability to bang your head against reality in the hope that
reality will crack first is impressive, but futile."
  -- Geoffrey Brent, in rec.games.frp.dnd

[Necratoid]

There are good writers who see this (don't like it) and write a 'response'.

Which is why I stated it gets down to the point of "a dull pot of badness and stagnation". The good writers that get annoyed and
actively write against it are attempting to inject 'new blood', a fresh perspective into the Literarily inbred group. They flip out when you do that.
Parody is often a response to literary inbreeding. (I think this is an issue of phrasement rather than actually being counter to each other.

Not that literature and English classes are the only classes that are 'quote my response or fail' classes. I took the mandatory intro to Philosophy
course.... and got a lot of... "Though I have no actual specific coherent counter to your rebuttal, as its not the one that some guy came up with 500
years ago, your wrong. Dramatically wrong, for no reason I can specifically share at this point. Now copy down this rote response the other guy gave, the one
that is textbook canon, word for word, and therefore where I'm going next."

One of the things I did in school that most baffled a teacher was in ninth grade English. The teacher was teaching the normal English, this is important
because the previous year she was teacher AP 12th grade, Honors English and the English department head. This was the kind of teacher that literally assigned
us 10 vocabulary words a week... and required so much info on each word that each word took up Ten hours a week on words I mostly knew was insane. So in
the middle of year we got a book that contained both 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'West Side Story'.

We read R&J and I told the class and teacher that I hated it. Clearly, I must not have understood it or I'd love was the jist of the teachers
response. So I answered every question correctly, and explained all the plot elements of it they requested, even answered some of the classes questions. Then
I reminded them I hated this story. They asked me again how I could hate it, its a great story... I pointed out again that I was the only one in the class who
understood the story and the only one that hated it. They where confused that I pointed out there could be a connection there.

Next we read West Side Story. We where mostly done with the thing (reading the lines as the teacher read the stage notes... and we should read them at home
beforehand)... when I brought up that the two stories where the same story. This universally startled the class, the teacher told them I was right. They
where stunned. I pointed out that they were in the same book (all two plays of it) for a reason... this hadn't occurred to them. I pointed out the two
pages in the front of the book explained this point, as did the back cover. None of them knew this. I have one of the low scores in the class somehow... many
where honors students.

I think I hated it so much because they are both stories written for a romance with the rest of the plot as dressing and to make it a tragedy. On the other
hand having to read Paris' deadpan death speech, in class, left me crippled with laughter for over a half hour. Added to Macbeth and Hamlet in later years
Shakespeare made up for it. Then later the move the Globe Theatre across the river in one night to dodge taxes thing amused me greatly.. I've also seen
other stuff of his since and enjoyed it. The abridged works of Shakespeare as a two man show notably.

I also remember a college teacher telling us about how many of the Dickens era writers he liked... and that what they all had in common was that they all were
heavy drinkers, got lead poisoning from the lead crystal containers the booze was aged in and all had syphilis destroying there brains. Apparently this is a
large part of what made them good... this also happened with the academics of the time.

[Jinx999]

I remember a lot of books they gave us to read for English lit at school.

The Mill on the Floss

Romeo and Juliet

Great Expectations

Lord of the Flies

Hamlet

They are all really depressing books where all the striving and effort of the central characters achieves nothing and leaves them worse off than before. At
best (Siege of Krishnapur), they survive at the end even though left pretty messed up. I wonder if they were trying to tell us something. The primary effect on
me was a deep and abiding distaste for anything that could be considered "classical literature".

[Kaze no Ryuu]

That's why I always hated reading for school classes. They always had us read books that were supposed to be very meaningful and deep and crap. They were
also very depressing (C'mon, Lord of the Flies?) and not very FUN... the exact opposite of the type of books I'd read for during my free time.

Also, did any of you ever read too fast? Like you had to read chapter every few days in class (not even out loud), and you'd end up finishing the book
during the first one? I think I did that at least once I can remember.
(DISCLAIMER: The Internet is a medium for the exchange of ideas. Thoughts and concepts are shared there. It is possible that people who use it may begin thinking about things they never did before. If this idea disgusts, frightens, or revolts you, please refrain from using the Internet in any way, shape, or form.)

[firvulag]

I finished books too fast all the time. I remember reading "I am David" in Junior High. We took turns reading it aloud. It took the class a couple
of months to finish it. I was done the first couple of days.

Aside from the fact I got into trouble occasionally for not paying attention the most aggravating thing was the teachers who insisted that we could
not read ahead! Which I still don't understand. Why should I have taken a week to read a chapter when I
could finish the book in a day or two? It wasn't like I didn't do the associated work.

F

--

Still not King, but at least Boromir seemed to

think I was. Might however have been blood loss.

-- The Very Secret Diary of Aragorn, Son of Arathorn

[Florin]

I didn't mind reading Romeo and Juliet. I did mind reading every year for five years. Come on people! He wrote other things!

Also, if I ever find the teacher who made me read The Shipping News, I will end them.
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

[Norgarth]

let's see, in my OAC/grade 13 English class we went through, A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, Equis, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,
Fifth Business, King Lear (the only one besides Fifth Business I actually enjoyed that year), and a couple others I can't recall. I had trouble forcing
myself to finish them (and I'm a voracious reader), I would have gleefully killed a few of the lead characters from some of those books)

The year we did Romeo and Juliet was actually kinda fun. The teacher broke us in to groups and had us videotape ourselves doing our own take on a scene. My
team took the extended fight scene where Mercutio and Tybalt die and made it into a kungfu flick. Most of it in double speed fight scenes with dubbed sound
effects from a Bruce Lee movie.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[drakensis]

When I was taking my GCSEs for English (for the Americans, the two years of school equivalent to 4th & 5th year or 10th & 11th grade IIRC) the teacher made the mistake of asking everyone in the class to keep a written record of every book that they read and gave leaflets out to use for this purpose. In fairness, most of the class only listed the books assigned for the class. I was meticulous. The look on her face was... interesting.
I still feel a bit miffed about some of the tests she scroed me on though. The question said 'using a book I'd read'. It didn't specify a book she'd set me to read so it's not my fault I based it on books she'd never read. And the question asking me to match book covers to first paragraphs was a bad joke - I'd read the books. They were in the school library. What's the point in two years of coursework if I'm supposed to pretend that I never read any books when I take the exam?
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[darwithe]

Sounds like I got very lucky. My first 3 years didn't assign any specific reading outside of class, instead we were told to read a book and she would ask
us individual questions/discussions about the book each week to ensure we were doing some reading. Was a lot of
individual attention those classes. She was quite happy with me since I was nearly the only student that came in with a new book each week and asked for
recommendations. Never regret anything I read in that class. Any class where you can count reading Discworld as an assignment is cool ^_^

Pity I got a different teacher 4th year. *shrug* But I don't actually remember much of his classes.

[CattyNebulart]

About to only way to prevent me from reading a book is to tell me to read it. An ingrained reaction from school reading I'm still trying to shake.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Necratoid]

Come to think of it I remember a short story from middle school where there were two clans in a blood feud. The to clan leaders ran into each other alone in
the woods and for some reason the had a tree fall on them and pin them/mess up there legs. So anyway the scream and curse and yell and verbally fight with
each other... eventually being forced to be together and unable to fight each they got down the the meat of the feud and worked it out. They basically were
acting like old friends at the end. So they here here someone coming... they both promise each other that if its their group they'd treat them well and
end this now stupid blood feud... I still remember the last line in the story. One word.... "Wolves".

I also remember in third grade we had to do book reports of a book of our own choosing... fantasy adventures with knights and dragons were banned for no reason
I remember.... One of the girls did a report on one of those 'Romance Novels'... the kind with the torrid porn scene on page 234... I remember she got
a good grade on it. We had two teachers and 50 students in the class.

Now ask yourself two questions: 1: What was the moral of the first story? and 2: What is the moral of the second story?

[OpMegs]

Y'know, it's funny. I read this thread and found myself nodding repeatedly because I've had the same thoughts.

I'm a compulsive reader. I don't so much read books as devour them, and have from a very young age. Summer reading programs were the best thing for me because, dude, they give you REWARDS for reading stuff. That's like giving you candy for eating cake, from my perspective.

In college, however, I had a need of a fill in course. I picked a literature class because, y'know, it'd be stuff I'd be interested in.

The readings were some of the most horrifically boring pieces I've ever read, and writing reports on them was worse. Then, heaven preserve me, we got to the chapter dedicated to the concept of poetry. Two WEEKS of nothing but poems. While my teacher wasn't necessarily as stringent on what a right answer consisted of, I was so bored that I'd fall asleep in class, read the material later, and still pass with As because I knew the answers they wanted. I didn't have to think hard, or even in unusual ways. The rut was there and all I had to do was follow it.

This summer, coworkers at the bookstore I work at started a book club. The first book chosen was "The Quickie", by some random prolific author I forget the name of. Something Anderson. Anyway, it was horrific, cliche', and so bad that I felt the need to MST it as I read it. And I said as much at the next meeting. And then sent the entire group into gales of laughter over the line(I kid you not) "knocked her up like a stud bull". We discussed it, gave our opinions, and enjoyed ourselves.

I think I'd learn more about literature in that book club than I ever did in any literature class, because there's no pressure of finding some baseline to judge grades by. When discussing literature, the points shouldn't be determined by whether your opinion is right but by the level of thought and effort you put into coming to those opinions.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Matrix Dragon]

Kaze no Ryuu wrote:

---

Also, did any of you ever read too fast? Like you had to read chapter every few days in class (not even out loud), and you'd end up finishing the book
during the first one? I think I did that at least once I can remember.

If I hadn't read a book before we were told to in class (Which happened only a few times), I would be halfway through it by the end of the first class.
And EACH and EVERY time they came to me, the teacher would act disgusted that I hadn't been paying attention to other students struggling with four letter
words, and disbelieving that I was so far ahead. Several of my friends sitting next to me would slide their book over, their finger on the starting
point.
The problem is, English teachers - well, the ones I dealt with in school (As I'm friends with a teacher in my everyday life now) - don't
really CARE. I had English teachers that told us to read out loud and handed out questions. I've had others that would go on about how a certain book had
such a message in it, and wasn't it obvious to all of us... I had one English teacher that made us watch the Leonardo DeCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet
for chrissakes. As a side note, I suspect Shakesphere is brilliant on stage, but I've never seen it, much to my regret. All I've had is English
teachers slap the scripts down in front of me and say "Can't you see the glory?"

They were given books chosen by a committee, and they simply pass on their own required comments and opinions. Often, they were confused, and rather annoyed,
when I pulled together rather different messages from a book then they'd told us to take away from it... The most memorable of this one was Caberet, the
movie (The really old one I think. I'm not sure, it's been nearly eight years). They arranged for it to be shown at a local cinema, and one day, the
entire year level walked down and watched it on the big screen, "as all great movies deserve to be seen."

I hated it. Actually, the entire year level hated it, and many walked out to get food or something, certain they wouldn't be missing quality. We were given
a big lecture by furious teachers for not understanding the vision and the glory and such. Then they asked us to do an oral review, where they actively said
"give your honest opinion." So I did. In front of about twenty of my peers and an increasingly angry woman in her late twenties, I criticized the
acting, the script, the layout of the reveals and themes (When a love triangle is revealed that all both of the main couple are having sex with the third man,
despite both men seemingly hating each other, it needs to be handled a lot better, even IF that was a workable cover for the two men with gay/bi preferences in
the 1930s), so on and so on.

In fact, looking back on it, the only parts I did like were the parts with the Nazis, because these people that would, only a few years later, be some of the
primary victims of these monsters, looked upon them with such admiration and respect. My teacher went on about how it showed the desire of those that were
different to conform, to be accepted as 'normal'. Personally, I saw it as more an example of how the Nazis were able to manipulate the public, making
scapegoats and targets of hate, to the point that they were seen as grand and noble, no matter what crimes they committed openly, even in the mid-30s.
Naturally, my teacher was upset at me.

So for me, English teachers weren't about the writing, but their specific opinions, and god help you if you didn't share them. They didn't teach
the language. I'm embarrassed to admit that, even now, I honestly don't know what verbs and nouns are, or what the difference between them is. I've
been a bookworm all my life. What does that mean for people that don't grasp the written word so easily? People who, like I said at the start of this
somewhat random rant, were having difficulty sounding out four letter words?

[Black Aeronaut]

It seems to me that we need more teachers like E.B. White's own instructor, Professor William Strunk, Jr., who was largely responsible for the book,
The Elements of Style. If ever there is a book that needs to be taught in high school English, hell, even in the
college levels, it's that one.