I wanted my two cents without crowding up the topic. So here. Enlarge it if you want to see.
Honest to God, the distinction between genres, and, really, the general feeling of superiority that certain people seem to lord over speculative fiction for god knows what reason, is absolute bullshit. Absolute, unmitigated, unquestionable bullshit. As a writer who likes fantasy, everytime I hear the general breakdown of science fiction or fantasy in some snobby "oh I am so far beyond that garbage" tone, I really wish I could cram copy of Waiting for Godot down their gullets and let them choke on that for a moment.
Look. Define this shit as you want, but the fact is that genre boils down to a collection of aesthetics/tropes/stylistic choices that ultimately define the general categorical sense of belonging. That is, ultimately, the difference between genres. That's all. The problem, of course, is that people have taken this one step further and feel the need to categorically sequester the "bad stuff" off in the corner under the label of science fiction or fantasy, while cherry picking other material to label as literature.
This is shit, and its frustrating, because it establishes this ridiculous bias against speculative fiction writers, and it is continuously perpetuated by the idea that the speculative fiction genre is for the "bad stuff."
You know what? If you want to talk about the bad stuff, talk about the fucking bad stuff. No, I'm not going to pretend you are simply talking about the bad stuff, because you presented your argument in a generally shitty and insulting way (hey, there might be one or two good fantasy novels, whatever!). I am tired of this sort of crap, where my ability as a writer is demeaned due to the aesthetics and such I choose to use in my writing. You wonder why this pisses me off to such a degree? Because I'm tired of the generalized sneers I get when I say I write fantasy. There's a lot of unnecessary elitism about the whole damn thing, and it annoys me to no end.
What I think really ticked me off about Djinn's statement is that the lack of any sort of context made the entire argument particularly irksome. You set this basic distinction of "good" without really doing anything to quantify what it actually is. This is slap worthy, in my obviously humble opinion, because it directly and thoughtlessly demeans the efforts of a lot of very talented individuals who have a lot of skill.
What this shit boils down to is that you should not make stupid blanket statements, you should take a minute to actually define your own terminology to avoid setting up various sorts of false assumptions and you should actually spell out your grievances so that there can be actual discussion instead of shooting your mouth off with oh-so-fun and quippy jabs.
In other words, don't be a fucking genre elitist.
Now onto other things.
Breath of Fire, Dragon Quarter: Restarted yesterday. After a slight flub at the end of the first dungeon (ran out of healing items and got killed by the Duke Leader when he presented Bosch with an unexpected counter), I've been sailing pretty smoothly. Up to the BioCorps lab.
Resident Evil 5 Demo: Silly fun, but feels worse in nearly every aspect than RE4. It just doesn't play quite as fluidly. We'll see how it develops.
