Update From The Realm: Sporking Information

[zelda_queen]

Hello everyone, just a few brief announcements, regarding how things will be going in the Realm.

First of all, I am going to be posting sporkings on das_sporking. I'm not sure exactly when I'll start, but I suspect that it will be at some point shortly after I finish that wretched Ghosts of the Abyss. When I begin however, I'm going to do things here a little differently. For the foreseeable future, all sporkings of fanfiction will be posted only atdas_sporking. I will have links here leading to them, but the sporkings themselves will be over there. I would like to ask everyone to please be patient for this transition, as this will be the first time that I've posted in any place on LiveJournal besides the Realm. If I randomly post a fanfiction sporking here instead of at the community it's not because it's special, it's because I'm an idiot. Yeah.

At the Realm, I will continue to post my recappings of published works, as well as anything that would fall in the Other Box (memes, sporked articles, etc). The only published work I'm planning on posting to das_sporking is the City of Bones group sporking, since a lot of you guys are also members of that community and all.

Which leads nicely to our next announcement - I would like to remind everyone involved in the group sporking that if they have not handed in their sporking or given me some sort of notification regarding when the sporking will be ready, they must do so by May 25th. If I have not received anything from you - either recap or a notification of some kind - I will assume that you are no longer interested and give your chapter to someone else!!! If you sent something and you didn't get some sort of reply from me, please send it again to make sure I get it. Remember, a PM, a comment, an e-mail, any of that is fine.

Finally, I know everyone has busy lives. If you have a lot of stuff going on and you honestly don't think you can get the recap in, it's perfectly fine. Don't worry about it. Do, however, let me know, so that I'll know to pass it to someone else.

That's about it. If anyone has any questions about how many recaps have been turned in, or who is doing what chapter, or if the recapping you sent in got through alright, you can check here for that. Besides that though, have a lot of fun! Woot!

Comments

[carmyn]

I think it has to do with Jace's 'bad boy' image. People are willing to give him more leeway because of that. Only, people don't realize, that in both real life and in literary fiction, in the end the bad boy never gets the girl unless he makes some drastic changes. Could just be me, I was never one of those 'bad boy loving' types. But! I do know in literary fiction, the bad boy always has something that sort of redeems them. Whether it's that they love animals, or are great around children, or something along those lines. Jace has...well nothing because I don't count the Tragic Past Of Doom(tm) because so do many of the 'nice guys' (both characters and actual people). I mean, honestly, personality wise, what redeems him?

You should see the reviews for the Clockwork Angel. Apparently the main male protagonist is exactly like Jace...only 10x worst. Actually, all the characters in Clockwork Angel seem like all of the characters in City of Bones. Shocker, because she didn't have original characters in the first place.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like some 'bad boy' characters myself, but they have to have redeeming qualities. There's only so much that I can take from a bad boy character before I become disgusted with him. And you're right; the bad boy often has to realize what's wrong, take steps to change himself and his behavior, and grow as a person. Jace does not. He's a smug, conceited, and nasty bigot at the beginning of "City of Bones" and he's a smug, conceited, and nasty bigot by the end of it.

Normally, I do feel sympathetic to characters with tragic pasts, but I don't feel sympathy for Jace because he's just so loathsome and because his past doesn't seem to have had any credible effect on him. I just can't see a connection between the sad little boy of the past and the obnoxious, vain, and entitled jerk of the present. Jace's angst-ridden mood swings just never seemed believable to me. Plus, like I said to Zelda_Queen in another post, there's another character who shows up in the third book who has had (in my opinion) a far worse life than Jace and yet we're supposed to view that character as pure evil.

/You should see the reviews for the Clockwork Angel. Apparently the main male protagonist is exactly like Jace...only 10x worst./

Oh, yes, I've heard that the main characters in "Clockwork Angel" are basically Clary, Simon, Isabelle, and Jace with different names and looks. I've heard that the male love interest is nasty, but you're telling me that he's *worse* than Jace? How is that possible? Or am I better off not knowing?

[carmyn]

Normally, I do feel sympathetic to characters with tragic pasts

Don't get me wrong, so do I...if it's done right. I agree there is a major disconnect between Jace in the present and Jace in the past. I just feel like she is talking about two completely different people. As a reader, I honestly cannot see who Jace is suppose to be because I keep getting conflicting information about him. Ah, well, on the plus side, as a writer I learned something about characterization.

Well, you can take it with a grain of salt because a lot of the reviews for Clockwork Angel were from people who liked the first trilogy. Apparently THAT is where all the people who hated Jace went. I think any sane person is better off not knowing.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/As a reader, I honestly cannot see who Jace is suppose to be because I keep getting conflicting information about him./

Exactly, which is why Clare's attempts to paint him as misunderstood and sympathetic fall flat. He angsts and broods for one minute and then spitefully taunts other people the next. He throws fits of self-pity, but then prevents the reader from feeling sorry for him by showing no consideration for other people's feelings and acting like a horrible brat.

[turtlecrackers.livejournal.com]

[...] I don't feel sympathy for Jace because he's just so loathsome and because his past doesn't seem to have had any credible effect on him.

I felt that too, when I read that story about his bird. I mean, I felt sorry for the bird, but when it came to Jace, I just found myself thinking "No, sorry. It's not enough. That is not enough for me to like this guy or even feel the slightest bIt still wouldn't make me sympathize with him, of course.it sorry for him."

Now, if Jace had actually made the whole thing up just to manipulate Clary, that sounds a bit more in character for the person I saw when I read the book. It wouldn't make me any more sympathetic towards him, but there wouldn't be that huge disconnection between his child-self and his current personality.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

It also didn't help that that passage was copied word-for-word from Cassandra Cla(i)re's fanfic, "Draco Veritas." In that story, Draco is the little boy and Lucius is the cruel father. The whole time that I was reading that section, I was thinking, "Wait a minute...I've seen this before."

[turtlecrackers.livejournal.com]

Really? That makes it even worse!

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. It's mentioned on the top of the page, under "Plagiarism Accusations," here:

http://www.fanhistory.com/wiki/Mortal_Instruments

It's also brought up here (even though the writer of the post likes the book):

http://ishafel.livejournal.com/87122.html?style=mine

[turtlecrackers.livejournal.com]

Jeez... I mean, I get that sometimes, you can get attached to something you write, but... Don't add in stuff that doesn't make sense just because you really, really want to write it, Claire! D8