Club Jade

It’s getting to be that time again… StarWars.com posted their own mammoth Best of 2009 this morning. Below is my personal list. Since it is personal, it’s clearly missing some things. (As always, I don’t speak for all of Club Jade. I just post a lot.) So let’s get to it: (more…)

Will it blend? Saturday Night Live’s Kristen Wiig wore a Darth Vader meets Kiss of the Spider Woman dress to the Emmys. Sorry, Bonnie: I’m pretty sure she full deserves that D. But at least we get blog content out of it.

IMMA LET YOU FINISH. Congratulations, it’s a week-old meme in Star Wars form!

Talkies. If you’re in the mood for some old school audio drama, Star Wars en Direct’s Dany Pépin is starting some aural fan fiction, ‘In the Shadows,’ next month.

Lists of dubious (and not-so-dubious) honors. Luke is #1 on Spike’s list of the top ten white trash heroes of cinema, while Lando is one of io9’s ten most corrupt mayors in science fiction. Uh, thanks? I guess. On an entirely different note, A New Hope tops Paste’s ten most iconic opening scenes. (via)

Han Solo Adventures is a freeware “interactive fan fiction” game currently under development by Stacy Davidson. The video above doubles as a trailer and contribution the the Star Wars Uncut project. (via)

A few things I’ve been micro-blogging @clubjade lately. (300 followers and counting…)

Wowza. Danny Choo discovered Cho Woong’s incredible Star Wars room. I’m not normally a fan of collector chic, but for this guy I’m willing to make an exception.

Lists. Empire Strikes Back comes in at #6 on Empire’s list of the top 50 movie sequels, while Return of the Jedi clocks in at #21. Meanwhile, Star Wars is one of Geek Tyrant’s five films that changed the way people look at sci-fi movies. And Cracked checks out the five strangest post-Star Wars careers.

Tee. The environmentally-correct way to handle those lightsabered droid remains. Also: Hans Solo! (via)

Protip. It’s highly unlikely that Dark Horse was inspired by your fanfic, and saying so is your one-way ticket to a mass mocking.

The term ‘fan fiction’ is one of the new additions to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. Here’s their definition, according to the Associated Press:

Fan fiction (1944): stories involving popular fictional characters that are written by fans and often posted on the Internet.

Other new words and phrases making the cut this year are ‘flash mob,’ ‘frenemy,’ ‘sock puppet,’ ‘vlog,’ and ‘webisode.’

Twilight fans, I’m sorry, but it’s becoming clearer and clearer that there is a deep vein of crazy running through your fandom. Hot on the heels of LadySybilla and her unending spiral of batshit, you now have a second person trying to sell their Twilight fan fiction – and this one is on Amazon.

Seriously guys, when your creator has a history of pitching fits in the style of a 16-year-old BNF who’s not getting enough reviews? It’s probably not wise to gleefully infringe on her copyright. One can be written off as just a random nutter, but two? That’s stupid crazy. Meyer has money, she has lawyers, and I don’t doubt that they will cut you – and maybe everyone else who’s doing their Twilight fan fiction without asking money for it as well.

Here are some of the things I’ve micro-blogged over @clubjade in the last week or so.

Hollywood hyperbole. Sony’s Amy Pascal thinks that James Cameron’s Avatar could be the next Star Wars. I’m just trying to think of an upcoming genre movie I care less about than Avatar and failing miserably.

Duck and cover, Dallas. Will Texas be able to handle the squee produced by an official Twilight convention? We can only hope the lack of Robert Pattinson gives them a fighting chance.

Space blob approaches! Guys. GUYS. Waru is coming! I repent of all my Twilight mocking. Okay, not really.

But the real question is, who did they ship? Wired’s Scott Brown takes a brief look back at Sherlock Holmes fanfic.

Presented without comment. Guess who wants to write a Wonder Woman novel?

With fandom buzzing and several professionals weighing in, Lady Sybilla and her ‘publisher,’ AV Paranormal, are backing off on selling her Twilight fanfic, Russet Noon. But she’s not going to take it laying down!

Swarming with self-righteous judgments and slander galore, some of these postings have gone as far as to threaten Lady Sybilla and her team with everything from boycotting the novel, reporting it to web administrators, and even stalking the addresses listed under Whois registrar entries.

Slander is a term used for defamatory speech. The term she’s actually looking for is libel. But wait, there’s more:

Blown out of proportion falls short of describing the overzealous crusade that has given these teens “a common enemy,” as one of them has called it. Some of these volunteer soldiers are so militant about their cause, that eBay buyers appear to have been contacted one by one in an attempt to persuade them to request refunds on their Russet Noon preorders.

Now we all know that sometimes fandom will get a bit… overzealous in reaction to people trying to publish fan fiction of copyrighted works. Some of it might even qualify as libel, though most of what I’ve seen is simple boggling at her ignorance. But that is the absolute most minor reason not to do it. In short? Lady, if you don’t want people saying mean things about you when you do something stupid on the internet, maybe you should stop fanning the flames.

A recent theory, however, could mean her behavior isn’t born out of arrogance and ignorance, but instead something even less savory. Could Lady Sybilla have manufactured this situation simply to get more views on her site and cash via Amazon affiliate links? If so, she wouldn’t be first in fandom to attempt to (fandom_)wank her way to profit, but perhaps the most successful to date…

Once again, a huge tip of the hat to Caito and the folks at Fandom Wank.

I hate to make two Twilight posts in a week, but now it seems the fandom has their own Lori Jareo wannabe in the form of LadySybill, who’s written Russet Noon, a post-Breaking Dawn story about Bella’s other love interest, Jacob Black. Nothing surprising about that as a fanfic: But she’s calling it a “tribute novel” and was directing readers to… eBay? And it seems she thinks she can get away with it because… Stephenie Meyer didn’t draw pictures of her characters:

The characters in SM’s novels were not copyrighted because she never drew them or hired an artist to draw them. Today she shares her character copyrights with Summit. And, no, Russet Noon does not have direct permission from SM to publish this sequel, which is why the article says that it is a “Tribute” or “Unauthorized” Sequel.

And here’s what her ‘publisher’ has to say:

When fictional characters become such an intricate part of the popular psyche, as is the case with the Twilight Saga, legal boundaries become blurred, and copyright laws become increasingly difficult to define.

Yeah, that would totally hold up in court. Get the rest of the story and boggle at length at Sparklefield and Fandom Wank.

UPDATE: Has LadySybill seen the light?

Here are some of the things I’ve micro-blogged over @clubjade in the past few days.

Simplicity itself. The most surprising thing about this figure is that they haven’t actually tried to market it yet.

Internet famous. I get the feeling I would appreciate this #SXStarWars craze more if my time moderating message boards hadn’t given me a complete disdain for line-by-line thread games.

Hey, it’s better than Anakin. Baby name fail! Or win?

Bad bad bad, wrong wrong wrong. Topless Robot has a regular feature called Fan Fiction Friday, where he rightfully skewers awful (usually ‘erotic’) fanfic. This week’s selection? A Jacen/Leia fic called ‘Sexual Situations.’ Yes, it’s awful. Yes, it’s explicit. But there’s snark! Still, if you click through that link, don’t you dare say I didn’t warn you.

Cleanse your brain. Star Wars lunchbag art!