tbh im kinda glad that a lot of the realistic pokemon in the detective pikachu trailer are high key teetering on the edge of uncanny valley because like.. these are fantasy creatures that sort of talk and shoot fucking electricity and vines and fire and psychic energy out their eyeballs, they SHOULD look weird and alien. psyduck is a pokemon defined by the fact that it is experiencing an unending headache that motherfucker better look like he has seen the rise and fall of civilization itself. mr mime is literally like three brain cells away from being straight up human the sight of one should make me uncomfortable.
basically what im saying is we have been spoon-fed woobified anime pokemon for too long. put the monster back in pocket monsters.
Okay, some fandom history, why show writers and authors say “for legal reasons” the can’t read fan fic.
Back in ancient times in the 1970s there was a show called Star Trek the Animated Series. It was on the air as fandom culture around Star Trek was really taking route and there were many fanzines (things on actual paper that people bought) being published and the first conventions to attend.
David Gerrold was a writer for Star Trek the Animated Series who had also written one of the most famous episodes of the original series The Trouble with Tribbles. While he was around the production office for STtAS he was introduced to a couple of fans who proceeded to tell him all about their ideas for an episode–essentially a sequel to his famous episode–which it so happens he had already written a script for. When that episode aired he received a letter from one of those fans lawyers demanding “credit”. It so happened that he could prove that the episode existed before the meeting but the involvement of lawyers and a threat to sue became widely known.
Marion Zimmer Bradly was, before recent horrifying revelations decades after her death, a titan of fantasy writing. She also welcome fan fiction and published it in anthologies and in a magazine she published. One day she opened a story sent to her and the plot of the story was essentially the plot of a a novel she had nearly finished writing. More than a years worth of her work was now unpublishable because it was provable that she had read this story with this similar plot and she couldn’t prove the work on the novel existed before she saw the story. She stopped publishing anthologies and fan fiction and in particular the MZB story is the one a lot of professional writers know as representative of the dangers of fan fiction.
So when a writer says they can’t read fan fiction for legal reasons it’s that their own lawyers are protecting them from outside lawsuits.
And this is why knowing your fandom history matters.
Exactly.
And writers don’t want to be influenced by your fan-fic either. We don’t want to end up inadvertently stealing your ideas because we read them three years ago and forgot we did.
So, just don’t show fan fiction or sequential fan art to writers. Actors also often have contracts that prevent them from reading it so they aren’t influenced.
If some people are wondering why I rarely read extended/worldbuilding fanfic set in the Ash universe, even if you send them to me (i.e., I usually say sorry but I can’t read this), this is why 🙂
Even if it won’t come down to legalities I don’t want to accidentally use someone else’s idea and create conflict over it.
It’s true! Cinnamon (or more commonly cassia because it’s cheaper) is the bark from trees of the Cinnamomum family. It curls up when it’s been peeled and dried, thus cinnamon sticks. But we grind it down to use it, so it’s pretty much sawdust.
Well shoot. I guess you really do learn something new every day
So the subplot of Holes is that Kate Barlow deals with the politically-sanctioned execution of her black boyfriend—who unlawfully kissed a white woman who was in love with him!!!—by becoming a serial killer who targets racist/sexist white dudes who harassed her, were rejected, then went after her boyfriend as revenge from the depths of the “friend zone”.
Go off Louis Sachar, let em know!
Don’t forget the main plot was a damning satire of the brokenness and inherent racism of the American justice and prison systems! Louis Sachar does not fuck about
It always fuck me up that older people don’t understand how this story is as essential to most american children as Gone with the Wind or Mary Poppins was.
unironically, this is one of the best books/movies for young people that exists
Kissing Kate Did Nothing Wrong
And the technical writing of Holes is perfect. Like, it’s one of the most technically-perfect books ever written. Basically any plotting or pacing or characterization issue you’re having, read Holes and really study how Sachar did it. THE LIZARDS! THE LIZARDS.
the twisty prophecies! the lizards! the lipstick! the humor! this book doesn’t play. a true classic.
Solfege Navigator 