50 Shad3s: Chapter 25! THE LAST CHAPTER!* *not really the end tho

Hey you know how at the end of Lord of the Rings there's like ten different endings? And then after that there's all those appendixes and whatever? And you read about how Gimli and Legolas sailed off to the Gray Havens together? To the west? Meaning they literally sail off into the sunset together and therefore your Gimli / Legolas fanfic is totally supported by the text and anyone who says otherwise should maybe crack open their copy of Lord of the Rings and like, you know, read it?

Anyway EL does pretty much the same thing here. There's just all this assorted stuff at the end and I mean, this thing is done, right? There's nothing else to happen. Ana threw the one ring into the lava and that totally destroyed Christian and then she and Kate rode on the back of an eagle. But then there's so much stuff after! SO MUCH. After this chapter, there's an epilogue, and a Christmas special, and a ludicrous "Author's note" and also the opening of what would eventually be released as just Grey--the first of these dumb books, only from CG's perspective only. I won't talk about that. I'm just now remembering that, oh shit, I think I read that. Right? Yeah I totally did! Goddamn. It's pretty bad!

But anyway. What I'm saying is that we're not quite up the mountain yet. I'm going to bash on through this chapter, and then do one final post on all the shit that comes after the last chapter. Pretty unfair, I think.

But we're close! We're very close.

I know I sound miserable when I'm doing this. Part of that is just for fun; I sound miserable most of the time. All my friends will attest to this fact. FACT! But anyway. There are parts of each chapter that I really enjoy writing about, or at least that are fun springboards for me to do whatever nonsense joke I want to do.

But yeah. This is a bad book. A thing I mentioned last chapter is that this shit would go a lot faster if I wrote more in line with how I'd normally read a book like this. So here's a confession: like if I'm reading a book, and there's a whole big section in italics? I'm basically not going to read it. Or if a character in a book has a dream? I'm skipping ahead to when they wake up, even if that character is having a green dream. Just can't really be bothered. Or if some character is like, "Oh here let me sing you the song about the maiden and the bear, because that's like Westeros's 'Stairway to Heaven' basically," yeah. I'm totally skipping it. So if I were somehow reading this book for my own amusement, I'd give the emails the most cursory glance and move on. And I basically would've skipped Chapter 23 entirely because it's like, I get it. I get it. She's in the hospital. I get it.

But instead, I'm a completist, so I go through all these little things that have no right to be in this book and there's no reason at all for you to know about them because they don't matter, but somehow I'm like, I SWOAR AN OATH! and I tell you all this shit that doesn't matter. I don't know why either, really!

But hey. We're almost done. We're almost done! There will be much rejoicing!

Oh but where were we?

50 Shad3s: Chapter 21

TLDNR
Ana is mad at CG for seeing Elena and Jack Hyde is back.

We're getting like, rill close you guys. Rill close. I can like, totally see the end from here and it's great! Not the ending--the feeling of being able to see the ending. That's great. The ending isn't that good. It's just like, they catch Jack Hyde and CG decides he's ok being a dad and doing dad stuff and he remembers that he's a billionaire and won't have to do anything unpleasant because he can pay people for that.  And that's the end. Our sexual renegades will conclude their journey by deciding that really, the thing they want is the most conventional lady&man relationship, like from fifties TV or whatever. Radical! Yay. Everyone lives happily ever after by conforming to outdated gender roles! How inventive!

I could be wrong, but I'm going to hypothesize that most people don't read beyond the first book. Curiosity could get you through the first one, I'm sure, because it's an easy read. But I can't imagine reading past that unless you really love these books or are on some kind of mission ala me. If you're just kinda like, "Eh. It was ok I guess," diminishing returns would've set in a long time ago. Same for this blog probably, too--guessing you quit after the first book and that is very fair and I don't blame you. Not even a little! Ok maybe a little. But not much.


Oh but where were we?

50 Shad3s: Chapter 9 part 2

We started this like, when? Ten years ago or something, right? Maybe longer? Seems like it. It literally seems like it. And it would be nice to say that we were closing in on the home stretch but we're not. We're so not. I'm getting slower. Each day that passes sees the average speed of this process decrease. Sadly, the limit of this equation is 0. Did I say that right? I think so.

It's like a blockbuster fantasy series where they split the last book into two movies. And then they see that last movie and they're like "ugh too long!" and split that in half. And keep doing that over and over and anyway here we are still on Chapter 9.

Have I been busy with other things? No. Yes. No. Mostly no but I've been procrastinating by working on music instead of writing which is a lot like when Michael Jordan was a baseball player only like an alternate version of that where instead of going from a thing where I'm an all-time great to a thing where I'm not that good at all, it's more like going from a thing where I'm just ok to a thing where I'm not that good at all. But hey maybe I'll post some here when some is post-able.

I had to remind myself what was going on in our story, because there wasn't much going on and that makes it harder to remember. But the good thing is that it doesn't really matter. This is one of those books you can pick up and start reading from any random page and then put it down again because it's terrible and what's the point and why don't you read a good book instead? That's my advice anyway.

Anyway. I don't know what's happening. Our heroes are still caught in a bad romance and Ana's ex boss is still trying to murder Christian and Christian is still legit spying on one of his ex gfs and Ana, in turn, is jealous that he might still like his ex.

Think about that right?

• CG is getting updates on Leila from her therapist, which is totes illegal
• He's probably paying her tuition just so he can keep track of her better
• He has her gun in his office, stolen from a crime scene.

Look: if I'm Ana, I'm less worried that my husband likes his ex better than he likes me, and more worried that my husband is plotting his ex's murder because CG looks like a full-on murderer. I mean he's so murdery! Everything he does pretty much always is so murdery!

Wow. This book might actually end with Ana's former boss getting shot by CG and probably we'll be expected to applaud that or whatever. I mean we've been told all this shit about how Ana is a gun expert which is fitting because she's so competent and outdoorsy and stuff. But this is mostly a book about Ana doing absolutely nothing, so my bet is that CG is the shooter, and Jack Hyde is the die-er. I know this is pretty obvious but I just put it together now because I've been paying almost no attention to this book this year. 

Anyway let's see if I'm right! And if I'm wrong, I'll go back later and edit this shit so that future generations will be tricked into thinking I was right all along. 

Wait so where were we?

50 Shad3s: Chapter 7 part 1

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Christian starts flipping out about Ana keeping the last name "Steele" in her professional life. 

Warning: 
This is just several pages of me being angry about how bad this book is. I know it's always just that, but I get angrier than usual. Like, I literally take a break in the middle, leave, come back, and then I'm angrier than ever. 


I've threatened, at various points, to abridge my own edit of one or more of these books and I still think it's kind of a good idea because I bet I could get it down to like, 100 pages per book and then if people really wanted to know what the deal was they could just read those. And the main reason that I think this would be plausible is just how repetitive everything is, all the time. Every chapter just circles through these repeated bits where CG and Ana say the same goddamn things to each other and my eyes kind of glaze over because I'm like, "Oh this again" and I start scanning more and more rapidly and then pretty soon I'm at the end of the chapter and I realize that I've gotten all the way through to the end and nothing at all has happened. Not anything.

So anyway take this chapter, for example. Where nothing happens. Oh! But you might want me to catch you up on the previous nothing that already happened. Or didn't happen. Since what did happen was nothing. Right? Cool.

So where were we?

50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 22

This is it, friends! The end of the line.

Well. The end of one line. So you do have to get off the train here, but there are other trains you can transfer onto but those are different lines. Sorry. Just didn't want my metaphor to sound too dramatic because if you're reading this you probably don't enjoy things that are too dramatic. Again: this is sort of like when you watched The Two Towers and you were like, "Oh man. I can't wait a whole nother year to watch The Return of the King! I really need to watch that third movie to make sure that this trilogy rights itself after the second entry's slight decline in quality!"

(Editor's note: we're talking about the fall-off in blog quality, which we may be able to correct for Book 3. We're assuming that Book 3 itself is even worse.)

Anyway. Before we get to the last chapter--one of the really great things about writing this blog is that everyone I know considers me basically a clearinghouse for everything 50 Shades-related. Cool, right? V. cool. But anyway this is a pretty interesting read courtesy of someone on reddit. The highlighted comment was sent my way and while it doesn't contain any surprises, it did tell me a lot I didn't know about the particulars of Twilight fanfic and how EL used fanfic boards to build up popularity for her terrible book. The commenter also argues, quite persuasively, that EL will never write anything again. I assumed the same, but more because why should she even bother now that she has all the money in the world. The commenter's point is that EL is a product of a fanfic culture in which lots of writers are working through similar ideas simultaneously. Meaning there's nothing to indicate that EL even could sit by herself and write a book without a fanfic community to help generate all the ideas with her.

Glad I'm so clever and original! I never rely on anyone for anything! Oh except for how I rely on the existence of these books as a launching pad for my cheap jokes. But otherwise I'm practically my own island I swear.


Anyway where were we?

50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 21 part 2

tldnr
Ana and Christian eat lunch and then go to Christian's house for his party and learn that Kate is mad at them. 

We're so very close to the end! I mean the end of the first 2/3! That's almost the end of the end tho, right? Getting there!

I'm going to have to figure out something else to do for a while now, because I can't jump into the next book yet. I just can't. So I'm open to suggestions. Optimal scenario: I do a couple of different, ongoing things at the same time. I bet I could start in on the third book more promptly if I weren't only writing about it. Like if I had some kind of palate cleanser, too. That's fair, right? I deserve that. I welcome your suggestions.

Also, what should I do about the first book? Now that the movie is a real thing, There's going to be a lot more discussion RE: all things 50 Shades. Last spring I registered for a one-day seminar about how to find a literary agent and get your book published. I paid money and everything. But then I forgot when it was and didn't receive any follow-up and so I guess I missed it. And that is the true story of how I didn't find out how to get an agent and publish a book. Should I just self-publish an ebook? I mean I might as well, right? What's the worst that could happen--I make zero dollars on it? Get this: I already make zero dollars.

Follow-up question: is anyone interested or should I say "willing" to look at any of the ebook version of my essays on the first book? I did try my best to chop it into something more book-like, but I'm sure there are still plenty of repetitive parts and mistakes. It's also 120,000 words. I know right? I'm the guy who wrote 120,000 words about 50 Shades. Oh and a bunch more about this other book, too. That's how I introduce myself at parties. I mean at party. I don't get invited to many.

But wait where were we?

Our story thus far:

50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 3, part 1

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Ana is confronted by one of Christian's former lovers.

Just so you know, I'm aware that a lot of these posts seem nit-picky. I know that you may read some of my complaints and say, "What's the big deal? EL James doesn't understand iTunes? Fine. Who cares?"

And yeah. Does it matter that EL doesn't understand that the songs on Ana's new iPad are available to her for use on her other devices? No. No writer is going to get every little detail right in a 1,500-page trilogy. And even if a writer were to get everything right about these little technical points, that's the sort of thing that won't matter in a few years anyway. So, for instance, Ana's excitement about the iPad already seems a little silly now that the things are everywhere. The fact that EL doesn't seem to understand how iPads work is obnoxious, but it takes more than a little thing like that to ruin a scene.

The problem with this book isn't that EL gets the occasional detail wrong. The thing about this book is that EL gets absolutely everything wrong. Ana is confused about every detail of modern life, and then most of the details about modern life that are offered to her are at least slightly askew. And as the mistakes pile on, smaller little issues start to take on added significance. A mistake that we might've overlooked if it were an isolated incident starts to seem huge.

So, yeah. It's completely insignificant that EL James doesn't get how iPads work, but when you've been suffering through all these similar screw-ups for hundreds of pages, you find yourself yelling at your book over the most insignificant bullshit.

Plus, EL James is a billionaire because of these terrible books. If this thing were just another story on a fanfic message board, I wouldn't complain in the slightest. But somehow, EL James is the most widely-read author of the 21st century, but can't even be bothered to figure out how an iPad works, and I'm pretty upset about it.

But back to our story, such as it is.

Our story thus far:

Ana is a naive college student who dated a billionaire for a couple weeks but broke things off with him because he spanked her too hard.

1. Ana starts her new job at a publishing company and agrees to let Christian give her a ride to José’s art show. It turns out they both miss each other or whatever.
2. Ana and Christian eat steaks at a restaurant. They rekindle their “romance” and Christian says that they won’t have to have rules anymore and he won’t punish Ana. They drive back to Seattle and Christian gives Ana back the expensive gifts that she'd returned to him when they broke up, along with a new iPad.

So, Chapter 3.

50 Shades of the Complainist: Chapter 11

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Ana reads some stuff and sends some emails. 

Warnings: I have lost all passion for life. Also, the usual warnings.

Most of this was written before the sort of vacation that all sensible people try to avoid. Wanted to get it finished in time to post while I was away, but failed! Now I will try again. Expect regular Tuesday schedule to return next week. Also, this post is pure text! That's what happens when I hate a chapter particularly much: I press on, and don't include any internet memes or whatever. Oh well. 

Last chapter we learned a bit about Christian Grey's background, at least sex-wise: when he was a teenager, an older woman seduced him and he was her submissive and obviously that's why he enjoys dominating women now because that's how it works, right? We don't need to rehash that bit too much. Just seems that EL wants to have her cake and eat it, too--on the one hand she wants CG to be edgy and enticing, but she also establishes that his sexuality a result of an inequitable relationship when he was younger. Hence she sets up the most obvious (Editor's note: and least interesting!) arc for the trilogy: at least as far as the bedroom (or sex dungeon) is concerned, CG and Ana Steele are going to meet somewhere in the middle. Which is to say, by the end, I presume CG will still be bossing Ana around because gender roles, but they'll be married and stuff and the kinkiest thing they're likely to do is to have the occasional episode of tied-up-with-a-necktie sex. See? CG will be "cured"! Isn't that so exciting? Terribly.

But before that digression, I wanted to compare how EL offers us some background for CG but none for Ana. Granted, he still doesn't quite make sense--he's a billionaire at 27, but lives like a man twice his age. And how did he make his money? Don't know. "Business." (When I rewrite this book I'll call it alternate-universe fan fiction--What if 50 Shades were set in an alternate universe where the standard conventions of narrative applied?! And then I'll make him a tech billionaire because obviously I will.) And is he from the northwest? Probably, because his mom and bro live close, but who knows. Don't really know anything about him other than the fact that he likes people tied up when he has sex with them, probably because he got tied up in his own first sexual encounters. (EL's psychology speaking here, not mine.)

So what do we know about Ana?