New intro post

[dolorosa_12]

Hello to all the new people now following me as a result of the friending meme (and for those of you who haven't seen the meme yet, it's here).

I thought I'd introduce myself to all of you. Feel free to ask me questions about anything.


My name is Ronni, and I'm a library assistant at one of the academic libraries within the University of Cambridge in the UK. I'm an immigrant — I moved to Cambridge from Australia about seven years ago to do an MPhil in medieval Irish literature. I followed the MPhil with a PhD in the same subject area (my thesis was on literary representations of authority, dispossession, land and history, and the interaction thereof, in five eleventh/twelfth-century Irish texts), which I finished just over a year ago. Academia left me intellectually and emotionally exhausted, and I knew it wasn't for me, so I didn't pursue it beyond the PhD.

I began working in libraries as a weekend job as a way to make some extra money during my PhD. The first library job I took I normally call Original Library Job. I worked there for five years and only recently handed in my notice. In January of last year I began working part-time in another library (New Library Job), and added to this with an evening job in a third library (Newer Library Job). (Cambridge has A LOT of academic libraries.) Since January this year I've been working in pretty much my dream job (Newest Library Job). It's in reader support in yet another academic library in Cambridge, and mainly involves providing teaching and training in information literacy for the library users. I really love it.

Before my postgraduate studies, I worked as a book-reviewer and subeditor at a newspaper in Australia.

My partner is Matthias, and he also did a PhD in an area of medieval studies (in his case, Old English philology, hence my occasional reference to him online as My Favourite Philologist) before moving on to work in libraries. Last academic year he worked in four different libraries, but this year he's full-time in one, also an academic library within the University of Cambridge. He's working on a library and information studies MA via distance learning.

I'm the oldest of five sisters (the next sister down has the same mother and father as me, the other three share a father with us but have a different mother), and talk about them from time to time. Other people I mention here from time to time:

Sraffies are friends I met originally on a His Dark Materials fan forum. Most of us have met in real life now, and our friendship is based more on shared online/real-life experiences than HDM fandom.

Obernetters are friends I met originally on a forum for fans of the Australian YA series Obernewtyn. Again, most of us have met in real life now.

ASNCs are friends I made through the department in Cambridge where I studied for my MPhil and PhD.

I tend to talk about a mixture of fannish and real-life stuff, with a slight preference towards discussing fannish things. I'm interested in people's reviews and reactions to stuff, and finding out why they like (or dislike) the stories they do. I love discovering new books and TV shows with other people.

Forever fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, His Dark Materials, a huge number of books which I will outline in another category.

Current more well-known active fandoms: Mad Max: Fury Road, Orphan Black, Sens8, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (book and TV show), Orange Is The New Black, Pretty Little Liars (although the most recent season finale is making me question my desire to stick with it), The Raven Cycle, Jane The Virgin, The 100, Peaky Blinders, and, for want of a better description, folklore and mythology with a focus on female characters, particularly those that don't get much narrative attention in the source material (a representative example being Briseis and Chryseis from the Iliad).

Tiny fandoms-of-one that are really what I want to talk about: The Romanitas trilogy by Sophia McDougall, The Pagan Chronicles series by Catherine Jinks, Galax Arena, and the Space Demons trilogy by Gillian Rubinstein, The Bone Season series by Samantha Shannon, The Demon's Lexicon trilogy by Sarah Rees Brennan, The Troy Game series by Sara Douglass, the Legendsong series by Isobelle Carmody, the Tomorrow series by John Marsden, basically the entire output of Victor Kelleher, the Crossroads trilogy by Kate Elliott, and Juniper and Wise Child by Monica Furlong.

In other words, if you're a fan of any of these books, or might like to be, let me know!

I also post quite a bit about fannish culture and community issues, within both the pro-SFF and transformative works sides of fandom.

As well as Dreamwidth, you can find me at:
dolorosa_12 (a mirror of my Dreamwidth blog, and if you have accounts in both places, I'd really prefer to be added on Dreamwidth)
ronnidolorosa
dolorosa
Dolorosa

I also have a Wordpress blog where I post reviews and essays; I'm a contributing reviewer at Those Who Run With Wolves, and I've recently got really into making and listening to playlists and fanmixes at 8tracks (where you can find me here).

Feel free to add me at any of these places, although if your username is really different to your Dreamwidth handle, could you let me know, so that I know who you are.

I rarely post under lock. You are welcome to link, share, mention, or reblog any public post I make in any of the places I've listed (so, for example, I have no problem with a fic on Ao3 being shared on Tumblr, a Dreamwidth post referenced on Twitter, a tweet linked on LJ, and so on).

I think that's enough to start with. I look forward to getting to know you all.

Comments

[alasse_irena]

Some of your tiny fandoms of one are about to become tiny fandoms of two! =D I am here for Demon's Lexicon, Pagan, and the Tomorrow series, although it's been so long since I read the later that I don't know what coherent things I'd have to say anymore.

[dolorosa_12]

YOU'VE READ THE PAGAN SERIES?! Sorry for the caplock, but it's so rare to find anyone online who's read these books, let alone feels fannish about them. The fandom basically consists of me and about two other people, a deadish LJ comm, and two pieces of fic, both written by me. (They're about characters from the fifth book in the series, Pagan's Daughter, which was published about a decade after the rest of the series, so you may not have read it. But if you're interested, you can find the fics at my Ao3 account, Dolorosa.)

Also, hooray for The Demon's Lexicon and Tomorrow series! I would love to discuss them with you. Which characters did you like the most? Did you see the big twists coming in the Lexicon books?

It's always great to meet people who have read the Australian YA that I grew up with.

[alasse_irena]

Yes, I read the Pagan series! I loved them dearly. (Jordan. Oh Jordan. My fave.) I did read Pagan's Daughter, but I didn't like it as much as the books featuring actual Pagan. I will have a look at your fic though - any Pagan fic is good Pagan fic! <3

Demon's Lexicon! Let us talk about that! I...love all the characters in that book sooooo much, but if you had to make me choose favourites, I'd probably say, Nick, Sin and Jamie?

Let me just talk about Nick for a second. I am just very fond of the way Sarah Rees Brennan presents humanity and family and love as things that can be learnt. I mean, to make a comparison - there's none of JK Rowling's "born from a loveless union? You are incapable of feeling love" thing here. Also, I care a lot about the relationship between Nick and Alan! Fictional sibling relationships are just absolutely my thing.

I really must reread the Tomorrow series. It's been so long, but I forever have love for the mismatched group of people who circumstances force to work to a common goal trope, and also, war stories set in Australia? Yes please.

I feel like we must collect all us people who were reading YA in Australia in the 90s and early 2000s and get some fandom going.

[dolorosa_12]

I did read Pagan's Daughter, but I didn't like it as much as the books featuring actual Pagan.

That seems to be the general consensus. I did miss Pagan's voice a lot when reading it, but I just loved Babylonne so much that I think the book ended up being my second-favourite in the series. I think I subconsciously decided that writing fic capturing Pagan's voice was too hard, so I stuck to writing other characters.

Let me just talk about Nick for a second. I am just very fond of the way Sarah Rees Brennan presents humanity and family and love as things that can be learnt. I mean, to make a comparison - there's none of JK Rowling's "born from a loveless union? You are incapable of feeling love" thing here. Also, I care a lot about the relationship between Nick and Alan! Fictional sibling relationships are just absolutely my thing.

Yes, me too! I like how Sarah Rees Brennan writes siblings in general (Angela and Rusty are great in The Lynburn Legacy books as well), and Alan and Nick's relationship is particularly well done. I have lots of sisters, and I often find that fictional depictions of sibling relationships don't portray them accurately. But Nick and Alan have that fabulous mixture of mutual concern and protectiveness, love built on shared experiences, and realistic frustration on occasion. (I like the other sibling relationships in the series too - Mae and Jamie, and Sin and her younger siblings.)

Mae is probably my favourite character, followed by Nick and Sin. I just really like characters who have no superpowers, or background knowledge of the supernatural world, who wind up as part of a group of supernatural/superpowered individuals, with nothing more than their wits to keep them safe. I also love characters who use words as defensive weapons (although this could probably describe any of Sarah Rees Brennan's characters, not just Mae). I also just adore the fact that she's realistically frightened by the things she faces, and has a realistic estimation of her abilities, takes help when it's offered, but ultimately wants to control her own destiny (rejecting Nick's offer to get things for her by supernatural means, and so on).

I really must reread the Tomorrow series. It's been so long, but I forever have love for the mismatched group of people who circumstances force to work to a common goal trope, and also, war stories set in Australia? Yes please.

For me, the powerful thing about the Tomorrow series was that it took the things that adults normally deplore in teenagers - their adaptability, intense friendships, and deeply felt emotions - and made them heroic, demonstrating that these were the reasons they were able to survive the invasion where inflexible adults could not. Also, the fact that the series focused the minds of an entire generation of Australian teenagers on the realities of wars that were taking place beyond their borders, particularly the way they affected every aspect of people's lives and existences.

I used to be a book reviewer, and I had the good fortune to interview John Marsden at one point. It was terribly unprofessional of me, but after the interview was done, I gushingly thanked him for being such a presence in my teenage years, and for how important his stories were to me and my friends. I'm glad I got that opportunity.

I feel like we must collect all us people who were reading YA in Australia in the 90s and early 2000s and get some fandom going.

If there's interest, I could start up some kind of Dreamwidth comm and/or themed Tumblr for this. I just need to come up with a catchy name!

[alasse_irena]

I have lots of sisters, and I often find that fictional depictions of sibling relationships don't portray them accurately.

Yes, this! I have an older brother and a younger sister, both of whom I'm really close with, and I find that it's really rare to find a work of fiction that manages to portray anything like my experience. You always find either a relationship which involves endless petty bickering, or the author treats any pair of siblings that are able to express their affection for each other as uncomfortably close/bordering on incest, and I just feel like Sarah Rees Brennan did a really good job of siblings who are each other's most significant relationship without acting as though she was courting controversy by making siblings who are also friends.

I love Sin. I love Sin so much. I have a bit of a bias for dancers, and also family-oriented characters, because it's so rare to find that in a main character - although that's actually true of pretty much all the major characters in those books, and I just really enjoy it. I also enjoyed her the way her relationship with Mae developed throughout the book.


I think when I read the Tomorrow series, I was still young enough that what struck me most was the fact that the books talked about things I hadn't heard people talk about much - like that sex can be awkward, and your first relationship is not always the best decision. And yes, they also do feel like a celebration of the resourcefulness and adaptability of a generation which I wasn't really aware enough to have heard demonised then, but I have now, and in hindsight I really appreciate that passionate defence of Gen Y.
(To be fair, I really enjoyed the first three books, but I felt after that that they went downhill a bit. Not sure what popular opinion is on that.)

If there's interest, I could start up some kind of Dreamwidth comm and/or themed Tumblr for this.
I for one am putting my hand up! I'll let you know if any catchy names come to mind.
(How do you feel about Melina Marchetta (particularly Jellicoe Road?))

[dolorosa_12]

I find that it's really rare to find a work of fiction that manages to portray anything like my experience. You always find either a relationship which involves endless petty bickering, or the author treats any pair of siblings that are able to express their affection for each other as uncomfortably close/bordering on incest

Yes, this is exactly what I was getting at. It's as if it's unthinkable that siblings could enjoy one another's company without it becoming unhealthily codependent. Sarah Rees Brennan gets it right.

I think when I read the Tomorrow series, I was still young enough that what struck me most was the fact that the books talked about things I hadn't heard people talk about much - like that sex can be awkward, and your first relationship is not always the best decision.

Oh, this, so much. The Dead of Night was actually the first time I read sex explicitly described on the page - I was ten years old and remember thinking to myself, a writer can actually DO that? - and now you bring it up, it makes me grateful that that was the first depiction I encountered. Because Marsden depicted the messiness, and the awkwardness, and the fact that a teenage girl might actually want sex, and that she would worry about contraception (because being pregnant in a war zone would be really difficult). All this matters, and it was powerful.

I saw an Australian YA author (who really should know better) opining in her blog the other day that YA was really sanitised until recently, and was unable to adequately address these kinds of issues or portray these kinds of characters, and I wanted to drop the entire Marsden bibliography in her lap in frustration. People were talking about it, and writing about it, before 2010, and not just Marsden. You mention Melina Marchetta, and I feel like Looking For Alibrandi and Saving Francesca in particular covered similar ground.

in hindsight I really appreciate that passionate defence of Gen Y

Yes! He really respected his readers and their concerns, and had, as you say, this passionate belief in Gen Y and its values.

To be fair, I really enjoyed the first three books, but I felt after that that they went downhill a bit. Not sure what popular opinion is on that.

In that your opinion is pretty much the dominant one. I agree with you, and feel that while the first three books described situations that a band of untrained teenage guerrillas could realistically have experienced, it started to get ridiculous in the later books. (Indeed, the whole thing was supposed to be a trilogy to begin with, and it could've stopped after The Third Day, The Frost with Ellie and co. in New Zealand.) I've also read the spin-off trilogy (I think it was called The Ellie Chronicles), as I had to review it for work, and it's really weak.

I for one am putting my hand up! I'll let you know if any catchy names come to mind.
(How do you feel about Melina Marchetta (particularly Jellicoe Road?))

Excellent! I'll try to think of a name, and try to build up a backlog of content to populate it with before I make the comm/Tumblr visible, but it really is something I'd be interested in doing, and it's good to know there'd be other readers.

I LOVE Melina Marchetta, although I must admit that I'm more of a fan of Looking For Alibrandi and the Francesca books. I think it's because I grew up in Canberra with my extended family in Sydney (and then moved to Sydney during uni), so I found it really moving to read stories that were so rooted in the Sydney landscape, with characters who hung out in places I knew intimately. I was also already an adult when On The Jellicoe Road came out - and indeed had to review it for work - and that may have coloured my opinion slightly. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!