Web Crush Wednesdays: Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared

The horror genre is a tricky one. It’s very hard to get the impact you’d like from your audience, or to get people invested enough to see your story through to the end. I’ll admit that I’m personally very picky when it comes to horror stories that I enjoy. Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared was something I never would have considered watching if it didn’t continuously pop up in my related videos on YouTube—it must be interesting since millions of people loved it, right? The video starts out with a bunch of puppets learning to be “creative” and express their emotions, but by the end of the video they’re cutting into a raw meat cake. It wasn’t what I expected, but I loved the video anyway. It wasn’t because of the shock value, or just how outlandish it was; I liked it for the deeper meaning.

The puppets act like they’re hosts of a children’s television show (like Sesame Street), and make fun of the way children are being told exactly how to act and think. It’s the kind of satire that’s not done very often, especially in the horror genre, and I’d love to see more of it! For a while I thought it was meant to be a one shot bit, possibly a student project and nothing more. Luckily the creators produced a second video, and a Kickstarter for more videos of the same nature was funded in 2014. Two more videos have come out within the past year, and they’re still as dedicated, satirical and creepy as their predecessor.

Web Crush Wednesdays: The Hillywood Show

Are you a fan of geeky media and musical theatre? I hope you are, because that’s pretty much our whole website. Today’s web crush, The Hillywood Show, brings you the best of both worlds. Ever wanted to see a zombie apocalypse… with a dance party? What about The Hunger Games… as a really hardcore fashion competition? Click the jump for all that and more.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Fifty Shades of Green Completed

A while back, Rin talked about Fifty Shades of Green as an in-progress experiment by the Nostalgia Chick of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com, and a few others, all co-writing a love story involving Cthulhu. The experimental writing story, now titled Awoken, parodies the common romance themes in popular YA novels nowadays. It is finally on sale, and though my copy has yet to arrive, it sounds all sorts of amazing.

Certainly, NChick and her friends are rather proud of their achievement, as they should be, and what makes the experience even more enjoyable are the reactions people have had to their story. Personally, I find the anger and bile for this book by people who don’t understand the joke to be quite marvelous.

Fanfiction Fridays: Explanation by WriteOnForever

I knew that I can’t have been the only person upset by Young Justice’s premature cancellation, and lo-and-behold, I wasn’t. This particular fic, Explanation by WriteOnForever, is a parody one-shot attempting to explain just what the hell was going on through the writers’ heads when they decided to end the series the way they did.

To recap, for those of you fortunate enough to not remember, the last episode in the series, “Endgame”, was a rushed mess that tried to tie up too many storylines at once, while introducing a few more, before ultimately finishing on a cliffhanger ending. This episode was meant to be a neat little bow to wrap up some loose threads, and it did a really awful job of it. It was rushed, and it felt rushed. It also didn’t help that for the sake of drama, the show decided to kill off one of its main characters.

Clearly, WriteOnForever was also just as upset about all this as I was. Except, while I ranted in a post, this author wrote a hilarious story mocking all the stupid decisions that went into that episode. And it raises some very good questions like:

“Did the trial on Rimbor even have a point to it?”

“Why did we bring in Static for five episodes?”

“When did they all learn Nightwing’s secret identity?”

And many others. I’ve been wondering about some of those myself, and as much as I loved the series, I’m hesitant to re-watch it, since I’ll only wonder about them some more, except that I’ll wonder more angrily. When stories are prematurely cancelled and filled to the brim with unanswered questions, it actually takes away from the value of all the previous episodes, because when we’re presented them, we expect a payoff of some kind, whether good or bad. Young Justice didn’t really have a payoff, and that’s something this author understands as well.

This fic is really short and, at less than one thousand words, it doesn’t take long to read at all. It’s entirely worth it, and you should check it out here.

Web Crush Wednesdays: 50 Shades of Green

It’s no mystery that I love parodies. Everyone loves parodies, or at least they should. It takes a certain type of humor and a certain skill to take an already created work and change it into something amusing, but still faithful to the original. And these days, what’s riper for the picking on than the young adult paranormal romance genre of novels? They’ve got your Twilights, your weird fallen angel stories, fairytales with a twist (the twist is angst), and I’m even going to put 50 Shades of Grey in there because you have to admit, it’s a little supernatural how fast it blew up in the popular media. Within this genre, the worlds and universes that can be tapped for inspiration are a promising parody writer’s oyster. This week’s web crush is much more than a simple parody, however; it’s a hands-on study of the genre and the publishing industry as a whole.

Back at the beginning of February, media commentators Lindsay Ellis and Nella Inserra, more commonly known as the Nostalgia Chick and Nella respectively, started an amazing journey under the catchy title, ‘50 Shades of Green’; a project whose goal was to get a terrible paranormal romance written within about a month and then pitch it to actual publishers. Not on their own, of course. Every aspect of this novel was a collaborative effort between the two ladies and their audience of video viewers and followers from various other social media sites. After listening to the comments and ideas put forth by the enthusiastic viewership the final product was imagined under the name of Awoken, a paranormal romance staring Cthulhu. I know, right? And trust me, with their desire to keep is as close to Twilight-level as possible, it’s going to be as terrible as it sounds.

Keeping with the community input, even the original manuscript of the story (only shared with the publishing companies it was sent to) was co-written by around six different authors—this was most likely due to the time constraints they placed on themselves—but the impressiveness of getting a novel-length manuscript written and edited so that each different author’s part homogenized with the rest cannot be ignored. In a further attempt to continue their ruse, a community-formed pseudonym was created: the “author” of Awoken, Sarah Ellenson. This fictitious person would allow those that were in on the joke the experience, the joy of being an over-defensive author willing to go the extra mile to attack the ‘haters’ of the book, as real authors in this genre are stereotypically wont to do.

But, as I said earlier, this journey isn’t just about the writing process; it’s also about the publishing process. In their newest update, they actually received feedback from various publishers in response to their query letters (the letters authors sent out to companies trying to make their book sound appealing and profitable) and, as opposed to what one may think due to the brutally critical nature of the publishing industry, not all the feedback was negative. In fact, one small publishing company even offered them a chance to publish their book legitimately rather than leaving them to deal with the beast that is self-publishing. It brings up an interesting conundrum of retaining the artistic freedom allowed by self-publishing versus gaining a wider audience with a more well-known publisher and even now I’m not sure with method of publication they’ll end up picking.

No matter what they choose, I’m too invested. I want to see how this ends, and what possible implications this could have on the publishing industry and the genre as a whole. What would a project like this reveal to up and coming writers? What are the lessons that can be gained? I’ll have to watch through to the bitter (bittersweet?) conclusion of this epic to find the answers to those, but it’s something to ponder. Here at BlipTV you can watch the entire process from beginning to present, and I highly encourage you to do so. I’ll even embed the first part below. Here’s hoping that these ‘50 Shades’ see as much green as those shades of Grey did.

Fanfiction Fridays: An Unexpected Reward

This foreboding trek of mine all started with a conversation I had with Ace a couple days ago. It was an innocent conversation, an innocent question with undertones far more sinister than I could possibly fathom.

“Are there any Twilight/50 Shades of Grey crossover fics?”

As someone who has read the entire trilogy of 50 Shades and has a small grasp on the events of Twilight, I had an idea of what I would be in for. However, until reading what would spawn from a union of the two, it would be impossible to say just how terrible it would get.

I Wish I Could Quit You

And honestly, readers, I want to tell you that I found the most sexually explicit, vile, terribly written fic I’ve ever laid my eyes on. I want to link you to a debauched story about how Anastasia Steele met Edward and became a vampire so that they along with Christian and Bella could have a BDSM foursome with bloodplay and probably something about werewolves on the side, but I can’t. It brings me great pain to say this: everything went better than expected.

Save for around five fics—three of which were in languages that I had no way of checking the sincerity of—the authors of all the 50 Shades crossover fics seem to have realized just how ridiculous not only the original novel was, but also the idea of forcing the rules of their universe onto any other universe. It’s an extreme case of ‘don’t cross the streams’, but damned if some people did it anyway. What did they get for their efforts? For my efforts? Well, I don’t know about them, but what I got were three hilarious parody fics. I’m sharing them all with you guys today because, to my great displeasure, they all managed to finish their experiment in one chapter.

The first one that caught my eye, and this may be giving away my highbrow sense of humor here, was the more-aptly-titled-than-I-thought Fifty Farts of Darker by Teresa Greyjoy. Rejoice, Game of Thrones fandom! You’re the first victim!

Taking the place of the unwitting Anastasia and the ever-stoic Christian are Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryeon and instead of BDSM we have… well, you can probably guess the kink from the title. Aside from the sheer absurdity of this crossover, what I love most about this is how perfectly Lyanna reflects Anastasia. Clearly Teresa Greyjoy has read the books enough to create a perfect replica of Miss Steele in the Stark woman. It’s also more engaging than the original 50 Shades, somehow. If Teresa wanted to continue writing this story, prime piece of literary real estate that it is, I would gladly read on. I might die from laughing, though.

This second one grabbed my attention from the simple “what the fuck” factor caused by the series chosen to crossover with. While Eighty Four Shades of Grey may give the impression of the kink du jour being age, instead it relates to the fandom. What I’m saying is that firebird377 crossed 50 Shades with 1984. If there was a series I would least expect to be ravished by the shades of grey, it would be this one. However, the result is hilarious and ends exactly how you would want it to and expect it to (given that you’ve read Orwell’s original novel).

But how could I be content with just these two treasures when I finally came across what I had been searching for all along? Yes, The Unlikely Meeting by giselle-lx combines the characters of the two series, making a statement in the meantime that maybe these protagonists really aren’t all that different in the end. As opposed to the other two fics, this one almost word for word replicates the first chapter of the original 50 Shades, but while exploiting its inherent ridiculousness, it also pokes fun at the stupid tropes that seem to be present in every paranormal young adult fiction these days. I think my favorite exchange in this fic is the following:

“Lie back on the desk, Miss Stolen,” he commanded, and his fingers fumbled for his steel grey tie.

“Why?” I murmured, but my Goddess was already telling me in a Goddessy way, to do it.

“Because,” he muttered, “if I don’t start to have sex with you now, there will be too much plot.”

Isn’t that just perfect? I am terribly disappointed that giselle-lx didn’t continue on with the parody, but my life will be forever changed with the parts they did gift the internet.

Perhaps I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, but if I can put off losing the remaining faith in humanity that I somehow have just that much longer, I may as well take that opportunity. Don’t think my search stops here, though! I will find that terribad crossover fic yet! Even if it kills me. (If you know of one, please, by all means, link me to it in the comments.)

Yes, I’m Still Searching. Don’t Look At Me Like That.

The Lucky 10,000: The Venture Bros.

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these segments, but, as the recent and ongoing ‘fake geek girl’ nonsense continues to illustrate, there still seems to be some sort of ‘required reading’ list that you have to complete before you can call yourself a nerd. As a quick refresher, in this series I watch/read/participate in these things for you, and let you know if they’re actually worth your time.

So without further ado, on to The Venture Bros.!

Go Team Venture!

The Venture Bros. has been on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block on and off again since I was in high school, but it’s not something I ever thought I’d enjoy watching. The commercials seemed to appeal to the lowest common denominator of dick jokes, and although I’ve done my fair share of laughing at dick jokes, I feel like a show needs more than that to survive. Well, it turns out that The Venture Bros. does have more than that after all.

Not new, but worth sharing

A few weeks ago I had the song ‘I Know Him So Well’ from the musical Chess stuck in my head so I went to the good ol’ YouTube to satisfy my need to hear it. In doing so, I found this video parody starring Susan Boyle and Peter Kay:

Can I just say perfect parody is perfect? Everything is spot on in this from the hair, to the sets, to the little bits of visual comedy thrown in. If you’re not familiar with Chess, the music was written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA so there was plenty of popular interest in the show. As such, several of the songs had music videos created for them and had success on the pop charts. You can view the original video for this song here to compare it to the parody. Seriously, everything is captured and parodied perfectly.

One song in particular from the show can still be heard fairly often on the radio (well, I guess I have no basis to say it’s played often. I very rarely listen to the radio but I’ve heard it played at work at least once):

Oh, eighties.

BTW, the actor performing the song is Murray Head. You know, original Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar and Anthony Stewart Head‘s brother? Damn, that’s a talented family.

Web Crush Wednesdays: Broadway Abridged

This hilarious website sends up some of your favorite Broadway musicals by re-writing them in shorter, more honest ways.

Broadway Abridged writes out scripts with characters given names like “LATINA CHICK” (AKA Mimi Marquez of Rent) and stage directions such as “From the flyspace, enter VAUDEVILLIAN DISTRACTION”.

It’s not necessary to know the shows that are being mocked (though that certainly helps) because the humor is apparent and with just a little imagination one can easily picture what would be happening onstage.

 

 

 

Web Crush Wednesdays: The Curiosity Landing Team!

Science is awesome. We don’t post a lot about hard science stuff here a lot, (which may be vaguely related to the fact that most if not all of our writers are or were liberal arts majors) but it nevertheless is really, really cool. And one of the coolest things that science has done lately is to put a new rover/laboratory (the Mars Science Laboratory, aka Curiosity) on Mars!

But obviously ‘Science’ isn’t a concrete entity, capable of building skycranes and calculating trajectories. This awesome sciencing didn’t happen without a metric crapton of human effort, and so that’s why today’s Web Crush is the Curiosity Landing Team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory!

These awesome sciencey ladies and gents have been working on this project for eight years, and in the last week following their tremendous success, they’ve become bona-fide internet celebrities. They get major props from me for several reasons (above and beyond the whole ‘bein really smart and good at science’ thing):