Feelin' ranty.

[lyssie]

Things that irritate me:

Made up fandom words. 'mun', 'cosplay', 'acafen', etc. WTF?

Whoever came up with 'cosplay' needs to fuck off and die now. That's costuming, fuckers. I'm so fucking sick of hearing it called 'cosplay' that if I ever meet the person that first coined the term I *will* smack them and possibly attempt murder.

'mun'. This word is so fucking pretentious. And I think I realized why it's used. It's because the people who role-play, and have RP-character journals don't want to be associated with the unwashed masses known as 'gamers'. Since, really, a 'mun' is a gamer.

Is 'Academic fandom' so hard to type out? Really? Apparently all of those big words you use to sound important aren't, though.

Anyone claiming a show 'is Whedon-esque, becuz, like, OMG, someone MIGHT DIE.' Please step off, fuckers. Doctor Who and Blake's 7 did it long before Whedon wanked his first screenplay onto the air. And they did it without writing the same fucking characters in every single fucking show. Corrollary: stop telling me how New and Edgy Whedon is. He's neither. He's taken existing concepts and ideas and simply written them with leet-speak.

Stargate's inability to have more than two leading female characters. Let's review, shall we?

SG-1: Three guys, one girl. When one of the guys leaves, do we get another girl? No. We get another guy. When one of the women leaves for personal reasons, we get another girl. But she's not sticking around so that there are two major female characters.

Atlantis: Well, it's a slight improvement. To the *counts* SIX guys, we have two women. So, I guess the way it works is "one woman for every three guys".

Gosh. I feel so represented.

Comments

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

As I pointed out to the wankers acafen earlier, they may be academics, and they may be in fandom, but the title is misleading as they are only a proportionately small subset of the intersection of the two sets 'academics' and 'fans'. After all, I'm a hobbyist academic in terms of some branches of biological science but I have no idea what the 'acafen' are talking about most of the time.

Hey, d'you think *they* know what they're talking about half the time?

Gina

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

It sounds like some kind of medication. Or maybe a European coffee-substitute drink mix.

[fallenbelle.livejournal.com]

Seriously... that's what I thought too. I assumed it was a drug somehow related to acetomenophin (Tylenol).

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell most of them are/do both. I want to talk about issues of reading and writing with more people than just my F'List but the big words used in eg fanthropology.

Gina

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Should read 'the big words... tend to scare me off.'

Sorry

Gina

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

Mun's not really a made up word either.

It's short for "mundane" which is what everyone is outside their fandom since they can't do the stuff they fangirl/fanboy over.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Which has NEVER made sense to me. Because then, you're basically being derogatory about yourself in regards to playing a game.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure they see it as derogatory so much as "*sigh* -- I'm mundane. I wish I could be more like the character I play."

But maybe that's just me and my overly optimistic viewpoint.

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

*I* don't find the term 'mun' derogatory. And I'm pretty much of the opinion that if you don't like a term... *don't use it*. Irritation removed.

*shrugs*

Whatever.

I don't like the word Cosplay in association with anything that's not anime. It engenders a whole "Argh!" reaction from me; perhaps I just take costuming too seriously.

'Acafen' is new on me, though. Good grief, are people never happy until they've reduced the entire world's descriptive vocabulary to two-syllable compound words?!

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

So... I just shouldn't use them. I'm not allowed to bitch about how fucking stupid they sound?

Good to know.

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

Curb the bile. It doesn't become you. I'm agreeing with you on all but one of those words.

I'm allowed to do that, like you're allowed to rant about it. But that's the beauty/downside of Teh Intarweb. Not everyone will say "you're so right."

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

Mun's not really a made up word either.

It's short for "mundane" which is what everyone is outside their fandom since they can't do the stuff they fangirl/fanboy over.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

Cosplay is more Engrish than just a madeup fandom word. The Japanese call it that. It was called that there years before the fans here picked it up. Rather like the Japanimation, no, anime! thing.

[drake57.livejournal.com]

cosplay i've heard of,usually with the anime costuming crowd.

Mun and acafen are new ones to me and sound silly.

Why can't Stargate have both ladies and the 3 guys on the stargate missions?

[ness-va.livejournal.com]

Stargate's inability to have more than two leading female characters.
I was actually thinking the same thing when I watched Stargate just then. It seems a bit pointless to be so thin on the ground with female characters. And any guest stars, like the Jaffa women, or Anise, all have to be some sex symbol.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

'Cosplay' was a word and phenomenon in Japan for a long time... it's English adapted for Japanese. For the most part in the West it refers specifically to anime-inspired costuming, although I am seeing the younger costumers use it to refer to any fandom-inspired costumes (can't remember where-- it was either on DeviantArt or sew_hip that I saw it).

[vampirehunter85.livejournal.com]

I have actually never heard those other two words used before, but I think the reason Cosplay has a whole different word for it is because of it's Japanese origins. Sort of an Engrish contraction used to describe their costuming.

The term floated over here and anime fans jumped on it, because it's the Official Term For Anime Costuming. Thus differentiating it from regular costuming.

You know who would know? Wikipedia. *goes to check*

[rosewildeirish.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia knows everything. *nods*

[paigedayspring.livejournal.com]

I always thought a fen was a pretty glen in the woods but possibly wetter.

[paigedayspring.livejournal.com]

*takes a bow*

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

Fen / fan is a parallel structure to men / man or women / woman. At least, that's the logic I always put behind it, even though I don't think I've ever caught myself saying 'fen'.

It's not unlike computer geeks who call computer boxes or towers 'boxen'. I do have a soft spot for that one. ^^;

[angualupin.livejournal.com]

Wait, I'm confused. "Fen" is supposed to be a plural for "fan"?

What's wrong with English?

[jim-smith.livejournal.com]

Not zany enough.

[blinovitch.livejournal.com]

So mun is what? A word for online roleplaying? Maybe it descends from the MUD/MUSH/MUX etymology.

[alkam.livejournal.com]

"mun" is a RPing word for the player. Like, say, if you're talking to people in the game, and you want to say something referring to the person who plays Batman, but you don't remember anything but who they play, you can say "Batman's mun".

[blinovitch.livejournal.com]

Yep, that does make no sense.

[alkam.livejournal.com]

It works for us. *shrug*

[gordon-r-d.livejournal.com]

I don't mind cosplay in the slightest, because as other have pointed out, it's been used in Japan for years and years and years but has been jumped on by everyone.

Never heard "mun" or "acafen" before. But then I kind of avoid the deeper depths of all fandoms. :)

RE: SG-1 is Lexa Doig not being a regular now? Or did I misread something? I'd rather Vana stayed though.

[million-moments.livejournal.com]

*has to go to urbandictionary.com to look up those words*

"acafen" isn't in there, perhaps you should go add it and enlighten us all...

[rosewildeirish.livejournal.com]

*thinks that if I had three guys, there's a chance that at any given time, there'd be one I wasn't uber-pissed at, so mabye not so bad*

[lavidaessueno.livejournal.com]

When one of the guys leaves, do we get another girl? No. We get another guy. When one of the women leaves for personal reasons, we get another girl. But she's not sticking around so that there are two major female characters.

I've already gone off on this enough that I just rage now.

I don't know why, but the nepotism on SG1 is really starting to get to me. I know to a lot of people this is heresy, but I'm going to say it: Lexa Doig can't act. I've seen her on three shows now, and while she was just annoying on two of them, in this one all I can think is, "they killed of Janet to bring in Michael Shanks's wife." And then I really get angry.

[lavidaessueno.livejournal.com]

and one day I'll even learn how to do html tags properly...

[liminalliz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Lexia person is going right up my nose. ::smushes her::

[lavidaessueno.livejournal.com]

*is very glad someone agrees*

What annoys me the most is when RDA left, TPTB brought in two of the leads from another show in the same genre. It's adding insult to injury to bring in Lexa Doig, who is not only from another show in the same genre but is married to one of the leads on this show.

And if THAT weren't bad enough, they did precisely what I had feared: they included a bunch of in-jokes from Farscape. Most of my non-sci-fi friends who love Stargate (mostly military types) have completely given up on the show, and I don't blame them one bit. And this is part of why the ratings are going down: the online fandom may be more vocal, but there are a lot of fans who aren't online, and they're not watching anymore.

[liminalliz.livejournal.com]

Same thing happened with the X-Files viewership. Except most of the online fans gave up on it too. :(

Now, to BSG's discredit, the cute medic with the english accent in the past two BSG episodes is Jamie Bamber's wife.... lol. But that wasn't noticable; it's NOTICABLE in how Andromeda touches Daniel. Which makes me want to be a militant Janet/Daniel shipper for some odd reason...

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but unlike Dr. Rommie, the phrase 'Mary Sue' doesn't come to mind.

[liminalliz.livejournal.com]

::nods::

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

And, see, there's been one, as far as I can tell, in-joke to Farscape. The "you could be the father" bit. Otherwise, it's all been SG stuff.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Well, no. They didn't kill off Janet to bring Shanks' wife on the show. They killed off Janet because they wanted to have a Dramatic Series End.

Then they had a new doc. Or two. Or three.

Then MS said, "My wife has no work, hire her or I leave." (supposition)

So they hired her, because if he left they'd lose more people watching.

[liminalliz.livejournal.com]

*hates on everything this crankypants morning*

And acafen?! That makes me never want to write anything fandom-related in academia EVER if I get that little epiteph. WTF. What a shit word. GOD.

*grumbles*

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I wasn't cranky, I really wasn't... And then I was. A nap didn't help, either.

[liminalliz.livejournal.com]

Errr... I was meaning that I was liz's crankypants this morning. ::clings::

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I know. Am joining you in being cranky. sigh.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I am ashamed to admit how long it took me to work out what cosplay meant and that cos related to costume. It may look obvious to others but it wasn't to me (and that's why I hate terms like these). But then I am a bit stupid about things sometimes.