What's in a name? That depends.

A mysterious and controversial (officially) world (-like sphere) out in the lawless and terrifying fringes of the solar system has a proper name at last... and it's Eris. As for myself, I think it sounds more interesting and fitting than its previous half-joking, half-dismissive nickname of "Xena," and it commemorates its significance to the discord over how much and just how we should care about what's way out there.

One point about this does stick for me, though. I get the significance of the name in part because I spent a period of time grappling with the simple fact of a fan collective churning out self-insertion fanfics where characters piled up harems of previously existing female characters and promoted various obscure and half-obscure things in a "everything we follow is intrinsically interesting!" way. (Later, I just grappled with their work in a different way by working on a MSTing of it.) One thing among their ragbag of unashamed yet unexplained obscure references was the (apparent) joke religion of Discordianism, in which the original Eris, Greek goddess of discord, holds an important role. The joke somehow wound up on me as the irritating aspects of the stories rubbed off on the references I hadn't experienced beforehand, regardless of whatever qualities might have made them references to start with. In the end, the news reminds me again of the faint yet nagging ache of not being quite sure if I shouldn't just turn away from someone else's elaborate and public self-indulgence...

There's No Such Thing as a "Real Fan"

When I first heard about the plans to release the "Vintage Editions" of the three old Star Wars movies, I have to admit I flashed back to a dismissive comment I read back in 2004, that George Lucas wouldn't release them because he didn't want them to outsell the Special Editions by some huge margin. That comment seems moot now... but some may try to explain it by bringing in other people who have started making a big deal about the Vintage Editions not being in "anamorphic widescreen." Unfortunately, while the song has changed, the key of annoyance remains the same.

I had noticed that D. Trull was working on rebuilding his Lard Biscuit site, and checked it out... to see, right on the front page, a post about how he wouldn't be getting the new release because of the widescreen issue. I can understand that; when you're a videophile, you want a release that suits you, and there's always the question "Could things have been different?" However, right at the start he said that "real" Star Wars fans prefer the 1977-1995 versions... and that grated on me.

To me, saying "real fan" or "true fan" means only "the fans I agree with." It's meaningless in a bad way. With that thought, I proceeded to remember a page I have bookmarked, a subsection of a Transformer fan's site where he contemplates how to be a positive force in fandom, which preserves a post taking on the comment "true fan" probably much better than I ever could. The references are fandom-specific, of course, but I'd hope the sentiment is universal... although it can chide me as well, given that I try to pride myself on accepting all six Star Wars movies as a unit but I don't read the books of the Expanded Universe.