Hey, so I believe in a higher power but I’m not on board with any particular religion. Anyone else think it’s cool to just fly solo as a good human, no religion attached?
In my experience, this usually fills in for something that people need to be true.
I’m not religious, but I’ve noticed religion can (successfully) act as a mental buffer to help people through hard times. To keep them from simply clocking themselves out during the lowest of lows.
Whether someone else likes that idea or not because it’s “lies” doesn’t really matter if it’s a technique for pure animal survival that works for some members of a species.
Personally, I’ve seen a lot of damage done to perfectly good people done via religious institutions, so I’d prefer if a formalized network of mental health services that was affordable and accessible existed. But, again, my preferences for the type of system that performs a function aren’t going to erase what happens in real life with real people faced with survival problems on the ground.
Fitz, Althea, or the entire series as a whole with all the casts?
I feel like it’d be hard to adapt Robin Hobb’s work, mostly because it’d be so easy to get the wrong tone. She has a very specific tone with her work, and I have no idea how one would work it for TV without making the entire series too light or too dark.
I have to reread that series. I loved it, but it’s not easy to digest in one sitting.
I kinda think it’d do better as a high-concept anime, like the original Ghost in the Shell anime. I think some of the concepts/cultures would be easier to render in animated form than live action.
Huh–crossing my fingers then! It’ll be interesting to see if it actually gets into development.
I was thinking about casting Corwin, and after the finale of Loki, I kinda think Tom Hiddleston would do a great Corwin. I think he could portray Corwin’s arc of fighting for the throne at first just so his brother wouldn’t get it, to someone who doesn’t even want the throne wonderfully. He’d also do great as one of Corwin’s brothers.
But I’d also kinda like to see some newcomer knock it out of the park too.
Man, I’ve been stuck in this place where I really want to read those books (somehow I missed them), but I write SFF too and have some near-future thoughts that I don’t want to get tangled up with his stuff. (Part of the reason I went back and read the Chronicles of Amber was to keep my mind away from modern SFF while I work on projects.)
Some day I think I’ll just have to give in and read it and my own stuff is too close to his…oh well. I feel like I’d enjoy his work based on what everyone says about it.
I read the original two trilogies in the 80s so I’ve forgotten some bits, but what were the things that would be problematic today? I don’t think I remember any details relating to the above. Lessa is always one of the first people I think of when someone says “so and so was the first strong woman in scifi” and it’s a character that came 30+ years later.
So, when the books were originally published, it actually was pretty feminist/forward-thinking that Lessa got to lead Benden Weyr as an equal partner, and she’s the one that saved Pern, and she’s the heroine who gets songs sung about her. Sure, F’lar “saved” her by slaying Fax and bringing her to Benden, but she mind-manipulated him into it so it was really her using him as her tool, and then she went on to save the WORLD all on her own. And that was all pretty forward-thinking, when most SFF of the era had ladies being damsels in distress, or running around in chainmail bikinis.
The bits that haven’t aged well today is how Anne McCaffrey writes romance. Basically, back when the books were written, there was this cultural trope that “good” women didn’t want sex. Like, even if the main gal obviously wanted the romantic lead, you had to put up a show of resisting, of saying no, for some dramatic tension or something, because if you said yes too quickly you were a slutty slut just slutting around or the like. Good girls don’t say yes, even to the people they want, too quickly. And it was “romantic” for the man to be pushy and not take no for an answer.
So McCaffrey has a lot of her lead men “ravishing” their partners in some way after the female resists or says no, which reads as really rapey with today’s understanding of sex and consent. F’lar grabs and shakes Lessa physically at times (I don’t recall if he outright hits her at all or not–he might, once or twice. I’d have to re-read). And Jaxom basically rapes Corana–she says no, but he’s just so horned up by dragons and goes ahead anyway, and the whole scene seems to be some attempt by the author to “show” that Jaxom is as virile a lead as any other dragonman, even if Ruth is asexual. It reads as if she were afraid Ruth not being a bronze would make people doubt Jaxom’s manhood or something, so she writes a scene to supposedly “prove” it.
And then the dragonlust thing during mating flights initially suggests between the lines the queen rider is going to have sex with the bronzerider whose dragon catches her queen, whether she wants to or not. “Aliens made us do it” is totally an old-school SFF trope especially any time a human or alien is telepathic, but again, in modern eyes it’s super-rapey since consent and being able to say no is important.
McCaffrey rolled the rapey sort of thing back in later Pern books as social mores changed going into the 90s–but the books written in the 60s and 70s mostly didn’t age great when it came to romance/sex. So there’s inconsistencies between the Pern portrayed in the early Pern books, vs. the ones written before her death in the 2000s, with the early Pern having some of the “heros” doing kinda awful things, and the later ones sort of forgetting or erasing that.
I don’t think it’d be going against the spirit of the books to update the mores here, though, for a modern audience. Anne McCaffrey was obviously trying to be forward-thinking with certain things, and it’s honestly really hard to be ahead of your time when it comes to the social/cultural stuff, esp. in the pre-internet era.
Personally, if I were to update Pern for a modern audience, I’d keep some of the dragon mating stuff, like I’d purposefully keep some of the huge downsides of being telepathically bonded to a mind that is not fully human and which can cause a human to act in inhuman ways when the dragon gets over-emotional. Mostly so there can be this cultural tension between the Weyrs and the Holds so that the Oldtimer storylines work better. Dramatically-speaking, it’d be a great scene to watch a dragon get hurt–but it’s the dragonman howling and clutching his eye or something, when he clearly isn’t bleeding at all and is getting feedback from his dragon. (Or, dragonwoman…I think I’m recalling Brekke right there.) And there’d be a huge contrast between the weyrs who have fluid relationships with other riders that start and stop on a whim, and the Holds that are very traditional and still do arranged marriages and such.
Also, if the Weyrs are seen as hotbeds of greed and depravity, it’ll be easier to take Pern through a story such as Dragonquest where the Holds and Halls start to rebel against the people who saved them from thread. The Oldtimer storylines from the books. Cultural friction, where the planet’s heroes also act in ways that are strange and different to ordinary men and women, and a way to play with modern cultural concerns too.
But I’d do away with things like the Jaxom and Corana plotline because there’s tons of other ways to make Jaxom an appealing lead character that don’t involve the future Lord of Ruatha Hold abusing his power over a peasant girl. I don’t think a modern audience would consider Jaxom weak or feminine just because Ruth is ace/nonbinary. In fact, him having a possibly nonbinary dragon might be a super-interesting story to follow. ::shrug::
That seems common–books are optioned, then the project never gets out of the ground. Then the options are sold again for X number of years, and rinse and repeat.
Are you sure about that? Wizard’s First Rule was great, and they slowly (then quickly) started to unravel.
Richard being a white savior showing the mud people how to make tile roofs seems like it’d be nigh-unfilmable/unwatchable if it were rendered book-accurately cuz boy is it chock-full of veiled racism!
Stranger in a Strange Land was popular enough and written late enough in Heinlein’s career that I’d be somewhat surprised if movie options truly earned him more than book sales (I mean, “stranger in a strange land” and “grok” both entered common parlance)–then again, it’s possible Heinlein got a shit contract for that book, or there were some heavy-hitters optioning the movie for tons of money even if it never got made. He was savvy enough too that he might have jacked up the cost of optioning the book a lot if it was getting a lot of Hollywood nibbles. So maybe it’s not urban legend.
I bet some sci-fi author out there knows if it’s true or not.
I suspect the big thing that’s always held Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series back from being made into a movie or television show is Miles being disabled. Peter Dinklage could’ve played him, but he’s too old at this point for young Miles. And there’s probably not a lot of acting talent with dwarfism AND the manic charisma that playing a proper Miles needs.
I wonder if it’d work as an anime though? Lois McMaster Bujold reviews a lot of manga on Goodreads so I imagine she might at least entertain the idea if anyone ever approached her.
I think her Chalion series would work as an excellent series of shows, either live action or animated. Penric is, personality-wise, a lot like Miles, but easier to cast.
It’s unlikely Hollywood will ever touch Piers Anthony with a ten foot pole after some of the stuff he’s self-published in his later years. Like Marion Zimmer Bradley, the SFF world has decided it’s wisest to quietly forget him.
They’re only trivial to separate if you think the only “real” sci-fi is hard sci-fi. Star Wars, Star Trek, and plenty of other beloved sci-fi series that blur the lines would get lost in the infighting.
I mean, the “war” between sci-fi and fantasy has been going on for decades, and it’s always been ridiculous.
My entry into Discworld was Guards! Guards! and I’d love to see a really good rendition of that. I know a lot of people loves Vimes, and I do too, but I also love Carrot and his werewolf girlfriend and I’d like to see Carrot being Carrot.
I think Susan’s story as the grand-daughter of Death could be great, too.
I know Neil Gaiman has a great deal on his plate shepherding his own works onto the screen, but I wish he magically had a bit of extra time and energy to do something (besides Good Omens) of Pratchett’s.
Is it shallow, or petty, to decide based on name alone? Yeah, pretty much, but there’s probably something, a product or service or site, that the name has made you gloss right over it or jump to it ASAP....
I think part of the reason I use Zenni Optical online is because Warby Parker sounds like a place that’ll offer grandma glasses for stupid-expensive prices.
If someone will legit get hurt or killed by incompetence, you speak up. That’s time-sensitive, and you can’t afford to twiddle your thumbs just because you’re anxious or whatever. Immediacy of physical harm is the one situation where action is most important above all and even if you’re shy and withdrawn and generally don’t get along socially with people, you can’t cater to that in certain situations and you have to do something yourself to fix the situation if incompetence is going to cause physical harm.
In situations where an entire company is being incompetent as a whole or is doing something terrible, you leave/quit. Yes, it’s sometimes a choice between removing yourself from an immoral situation or starving–and I have, absolutely, chosen to be poorer and starving rather than be a part of certain things. But other people make that choice on their own knowing their own internal situation and context.
If someone’s just being dumb and the consequences of their dumbness are my own irritation or frustration but nothing that actually matters but my poor feelings, I often ignore it. There is no way as a human to fix everything that is wrong with everyone everywhere, so it becomes important to learn how to internally deal with your disappointment when you discover that the world is imperfect.
Online, I don’t believe really in “debate” (I don’t learn from active, aggressive live-action debate–it’s more likely to trigger me to shut down and STOP learning, which is bad), I learn more from reading other people’s convos. So I will sometimes respond to someone who is being dumb, not as a way to get into a debate with them, but to get my perspective out there so lurkers who learn as I do by reading more than interacting have something to chew over that’s better than the bullshit I saw. I don’t expect anyone to take my words uncritically–that’s not how people learn–I’m just massively disinterested in debate since it fucks up my own ability to keep pressing forward with learning. (Trauma in my past means my responses to stress are all fucky, so I jury-rig things to work around it.)
I got pics of my foot during surgery and pics of it a week after the operation. I’d love to share it with people and discuss how neat the human body is. I don’t want to subject people to it who aren’t interested in it, though.
I’m glad you’re healing well. I broke my foot earlier in the year in July…lis franc injury, but mild enough that they decided not to do surgery for fear of fucking up with the tiny foot bones (I got a lot of little breaks at the end of the bones which are nigh-impossible to put screws through without making it worse), which seems to have been the right call as I’m walking on it 4 months later.
I absolutely loved the doctors that got all excited and doctory talking about stuff! With me, I ended up with some of the history of lis franc injuries, which used to be common for soldiers on horseback, as they’d fall from their horse and get the midfoot stuck in the stirrup, breaking it.
I also had an unrelated small skin biopsy, and my surgeon was happily chattering away about doing it by hand so I don’t get weird skin flaps by the punch, and how the little cauterization tool worked. You know, as I lay there with bits of my flesh burning, lol.
Honestly, it’d be easier to say which books have GOOD adaptations, since the norm is poor adaptations and it’s hard to choose which one is the worst since so many suck in different ways.
Because you have to lead by example. For very new communities, that means one person carrying the new content on their back, until other people decide to chip in.
That you consider it “spam” suggests to me that maybe you weren’t around when the internet was small, and never saw a small message board still in its new/growth phase, and are conflating a single member or mod carrying the content on their back with the karma-farmers that pop up on the better-established forums.
What are your thoughts on the concept of having faith in a Higher Power but choosing to distance oneself from established religious doctrines?
Hey, so I believe in a higher power but I’m not on board with any particular religion. Anyone else think it’s cool to just fly solo as a good human, no religion attached?
What's a sci-fi or fantasy book or series that you want to see adapted as a movie/television series?
I didn’t read this series when I was a kid, but I finally got around to reading Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber....
Which things have you avoided or embraced on the name alone?
Is it shallow, or petty, to decide based on name alone? Yeah, pretty much, but there’s probably something, a product or service or site, that the name has made you gloss right over it or jump to it ASAP....
How do you deal with incompetence?
Especially paired with ignorance.
Are there any communities here where I can share NSFW medical images?
I got pics of my foot during surgery and pics of it a week after the operation. I’d love to share it with people and discuss how neat the human body is. I don’t want to subject people to it who aren’t interested in it, though.
Which books have the worst video adaptation?
For me it’s definitely the Dark Tower, but the Golden Compas was also a huge letdown.
Have you ever come across some sort of container or organizer for anything that ended up being strangely useful?
I’m not a natural organizer, but I’m starting to appreciate things that help me organize as I get older....
deleted_by_author