not exactly a guilty pleasure exactly (fuck yeah i like norm the genie and fop in general and no one's stopping me) but when it comes to, like, promoting fop, trying to get new people in the fandom (like, those powerpoint "why this is awesome" posts, for example) or whatever... i'm honestly at a loss 'cause basically: 1) many people in the current fandom think the new eps (from about season 6 - 9) are absolutely horrible 2) while i wouldn't call them "absolutely horrible," they aren't exactly the best 3) it's one of those not-actually-90s kids cartoons that people think of as nostalgia, not fandom, and everyone has probs seen it already 4) my hyperfocus on one particular character really influences how i feel about fop; like, norm is basically what pushed it up to fave, i think, and made it the thing that lead me to discover fandom when i was twelve 5) it's not as progressive as the popular shows on tumblr are so yeah, i don't feel guilty sperging about fop, just recommending it.
No, self, self-harm is not a reasonable response to someone you like saying they dislike something you like. :I
Necroing the thread because I didn't have guilty pleasure but I accidentally picked a couple up and im mad about it Corruption of Champions (thanks Kintusugi) its so dumb and everything is just an excuse for sex because its porn but a part of me genuinely enjoys exploring the world? Pro-wrestling??? (THANKS @Nochi you jerk) like i cant even explain this one to myself. i dont like sports and hate sports culture (and im pretty vocal about that bc i live in an area that's big on football and there's no way to ignore it) and i've never been interested in soap operas so why the fuck do i like this and why am i actually invested in it???
I think all my favorite books are guilty pleasures. Anne Bishop's Black Jewels novels are not very sophisticated writing but I adore the characters and the fantasy concepts. Her books of the Others are kind of awful, like amaturish, but I am stupidly invested, the first book makes me cry at stupid times. Much the same for Mercedes Lackey, I'm embarrassed to admit I read the Heralds of Valdemar books to any of my fantasy-lovin' friends, but I know most of them will hate on them for the wrong reasons. Mostly they'll treat them as trash for 12 year old girls but fuck that, they're awkwardly paced, poorly plotted, and clumsily written and I LOVE THEM. Some of my other favorite fantasy drek is so paleomasculine and thoughtlessly racist and misogynistic it's embarrassing. R.E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Karl Edward Wagner, the kindest thing I can say is that they are products of an earlier era. But man oh man can they write! Even their less creative plots are engaging, and they can turn a phrase. (If I could find an author with the wordcraft of Howard and the aesthetics of Bishop or Lackey, I'd be in heaven. Gaiman comes to mind, but he doesn't write sword & sorcery.) I quite like TBBT, and I feel like most of the criticisms I've seen against it are criticisms of the sitcom genre, as if the detractors had never previously watched such a show or maybe they just weren't paying attention. I acknowledge that there are some legit flaws but I sort of get stubborn about not caring. Likewise, I adore almost everything Joss Whedon has done. Huge guilty pleasures here. I recognize his shortcomings as a creator and as a feminist - I think Robert Anton Wilson's sentiment applies here, that anyone who fails to move forward is effectively moving backward, and the difference between a progressive and a conservative is just the passage of time - but I enjoy (most of) the characters he creates, and I (mostly) enjoy the way he tells stories. And Buffy may be super dated now, but it gave me what I needed when I needed it, and it has done the same for friends I've shared it with, so it's always going to have a place in my heart. The only other thing that comes to mind is that when I was young I really liked "girly" stuff like Rainbow Brite and She-Ra, and I kind of knew I wasn't supposed to, so I was very secretive about it.
I also like TBBT, I have two T-shirts, I know it is not always that good and also kinda Problematic but you know what, when I'm home with my family, we watch sitcoms, and that's the only one that didn't annoy the heck out of me so I will keep my love of it. Most of the TV I watch is anime, specifically mecha (a lot of Gundam) and Detective Conan. And I mean, like, some Gundam shows are really good, but then there's SeeD Destiny, and meanwhile Detective Conan, while my favorite thing, is also a near-thousand-chapter children's murder mystery comic with really variable writing quality, no discernible timeline, and spotty character development. Also I listen to Vocaloid, which I tell people IRL is Japanese indie techno because it technically is. Erm.
I love vocaloid and nightcore. my music needs to be absurdly high pitched and incomprehensibly fast!!! I feel weird telling people about how much I enjoy agatha christie's books, because they are Old and English and therefore I''m being pretenious or something. I love the dresden files, which plenty of people have probably noticed, and it is hells of problematic, but one thing I really enjoy ARE the weird over descriptions of female characters. like, I mean, I know logically it's ridiculous but they just give me such a good mental image and they're just fun to read coffee shop aus with ridiculous crack pairings are super fun. I love monster high dolls, which I feel kinda childish for, cause my mom mocks me for it um, I love makeup and impractically cleavage showing clothing, which makes me a bad Feminist
Excuse U the Valdemar books are flawless. They just use a very different style from most modern fantasy, so they come across a little anachronistic. If you look at Asimov and Anne McCaffery books, you can get more of a taste of where the Valdamar style came from - and remember, all three of the authors have/had huuuuuuuge fanbases. (Although... in Valdamar, the first couple and some of the middle ones she clearly lost investment on... but honest to god, I've never read a writer so consistently enjoyable except for Terry Pratchett, and he's basically a god.) (This is all meant in good fun, ofc) (I reserve the title of "guilty" pleasure for, well, you know... because I've been so awash in nerds my entire life I really like vociferously liking stuff even if other people think it's silly.)
Got to strongly disagree with you there. I have read a fair amount of Asimov (more of his short stories, a few of his novels) and a handful of McCaffrey's novels, and the bulk of my fantasy reading is less modern than Lackey (I'm very big on Leigh Brackett, Patricia C. Wrede, & Lawrence Watt-Evans, not to mention the old schoolers Howard, Lieber, and Wagner). You are certainly right that different waves of fantasy authors show different priorities in terms of pacing, dialog, and characterization. Some writers excell at conveying exciting action, some at weaving atmosphere, some write snappy dialog, some craft engaging characters. I don't think Lackey does any of that. Like, she turns a clever phrase sometimes, and a few characters feel like individual personalities rather than person-shaped suits with facts attached. Her plots and pacing are kinda whatever to me, and her approach to So Many fantasy tropes just leave me cold. Her dialog is... I want to say "cloying." Some of this might be explained by style, or by targeting teen readers, but I persistently feel a lack of sophistication in the text. But that underneath the text is a feeling, something I can't get enough of. It's something I rarely find in authors of any generation and I don't think I word to describe it, but it's the reason I love her work in a way I'll never love Asimov or McCaffrey. Maybe it's as simple as saying that while other fantasy worlds are exciting to read about, Valdemar is one of the few I'd actually want to live in. Maybe it's just that her aim, to merge the romance of arthurian knights with more modern ideas of a just society, speaks to me. So, yeah, my friends who are also fantasy readers are either fellow lovers of Valdemar or they are folks who shun and disparage the books; hence a guilty pleasure. (also all in good fun, I just really enjoy a good argument ^_^ and a chance to write too much about frivolous opinions and sound Very Serious about it)
