Monday, October 20, 2014

Book Talk: Desperation In The Time Of Fan Fiction

There was a time, that when I heard the phrase fan fiction in my mind I used to picture those weird doujinshi* mangas. In the coming years after Twilight (2005 and on), what came to my mind was, of course, the word Twilight, sparkly vampires, the idea of the most perfectly mysterious boyfriend out there and of course honey dripping romance. And I am wondering what the hell happened to modern literature.

We all know Twilight! Most of us read the books in a few hours since we opened them, most of us read them more times than we want to admit and of course, hated/loved equally as much. Let's face it then, I was a teenager when Twilight came out and everyone went crazy about it. It was one of the reasons I started reading Paranormal books and at the time I was mesmerized because I had never ever read something as awesome as Twilight (back then at least). It was the beginning of my reading journey and exploration of different genres, until I noticed it: (drumroll please) 70% of the books I was reading or wanted to read felt and read like Twilight.

Emotions, scenes, plot direction, everything felt like the monster Stephanie Meyer created. Initially, I was excited, I mean the series where my personal fave and I loved what I was reading, but after a while it got boring and stupid. I felt like I was being cheated, especially when more books came out (Hush,Hush , Vampire Academy, The Mortal Instruments) although, each of these series where different than Twilight (characters, plot etc) it felt to me that all of them circled the same notion: Forbidden Love, The Art Of Meeting Someone Completely Different Than You and (yes!) How To Conquer Him, Danger?Who Cares I;m All For It. And my personal favorite: Depressed Boyfriends. Emo suddenly became sexy as hell but without the piercings and black eyes. And then it happened!

Fifty Shades Of Grey released and everyone lost their minds. And I had it. It was Twilight itself without the sparkly vamps but with a whole lot more sex. I love reading books. Its one thing I always did and will probably continue to do, but lately I feel like I have been reading the same stories over and over again but the writing is kind of different. Feels like the rivers of Fantasyland have gone dry and authors from all walks of life try to just copy paste each other. It is unnerving. Okay, I am not saying that there are not people out there that write original plots and stories, I am speaking generally. Because, it is not only about Twilight, the same applies to The Hunger Games which got its inspiration from Battle Royale and then from those two hybrids like Divergent and Legend came out, adapted (naturally) into movies and everyone is going berzeck for them without actually seeing the similarities. I pretty much think it may be copyright infringement as well.

It is such shame that we live in a world where pretty much everything from the last 40 years are being mixed and re-consumed over and over again and right now Im not only speaking about books but also about music. If the present shows signs of decadence and lack of fantasy, I wonder what the future will bring.



*A Japanese word meaning a work published by a specific interest group for other members of that interest group. Doujinshi usually refers to fan made mangaor soft. Because of the copyright laws in Japan fans can get away with making and selling doujinshi featuring their favorite characters from animeand video games although doujinshi also often times feature original characters and stories. A common misunderstanding is that all doujinshi are x-rated fan works but this is not always the case.

You can comment freely below with your opinion on this matter or just vent or anything.
Thanx


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