(no subject)

It was a very, very frustrating day today.

But I still went to the gym afterwards, and put in my full hour. So, my feet hurt, and I am tired, but I feel vaguely pleased with myself nonetheless. Also, I suspect that the coming off of caffeine is what's making me rather tired and grumpy. I haven't had any caffeine since Sunday. I am a Good Girl. All I have been drinking's been water and orange juice in the evenings. I cannot say that it's the most thrilling thing in the world, but it's probably better for me than sweet tea and Coke.

Fandom Geeking

I just realized why I've always been frustrated with the phrase "it's genre convention". Yes, it's /true/, every genre has certain conventions that are intrinsic to what the whole genre is all about: in most superhero comics, the good guys don't kill and the bad guys never stay in prison; in horror movies, sex will get you killed and they ALWAYS go back into the house; in cyberpunk, the world has always ended up even more screwed up and cynical that it is now, and technology only corrupts rather than enlightens. Sure. These things are true.

BUT. What separates a bad genre piece from a good genre piece is that the /good/ genre pieces never make you justify what happens with "genre convention". There's always a reason why the world works like that, and in the GREAT genre pieces, it's arranged in such a way that the reader/viewer never even has to ask the question...because they understand why, in this story, with these people, and these events that it could never happen any other way.

And that's why using the genre convention as a justification bothers me. It's essentially saying, "The creator(s) are too lazy to make this make sense in the world as written."