A collection of musings
Sep. 4th, 2009 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12I can see this post getting quite long, so I'll put most of it behind a cut, but the first bit is the most important, and so I'm keeping it out of the cut.
Request
I've had a (*gasp* *faint*) idea for a multifandom fanfic sitting in the back of my mind for quite a while, but I haven't been able to write it because I can't think of the final character I need for the idea to work. So I'm asking you to help me, flist! Basically, I need you to think of a character who:
Died in the late 90s (1997 or 1998 would be ideal); and
Died with 'unfinished business'. To take an example from the Tomorrow series
Chris would fit these conditions, but Robyn would not.
However, I don't want to use Tomorrow series characters because I'd prefer the fandoms to have supernatural elements if possible.
If anyone can think of characters that fit these characteristics, PM me, don't comment, as I wouldn't want any other readers to be inadvertently spoiled.
Those days of summer are gone
I just got back from watching the film (500) Days of Summer. It disturbed me how much I found myself relating, not to Tom, the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character, but to Summer, the Zooey Deschanel character. Although I would never go quite as far as she did at the end (I have a bit more self-awareness and would NEVER intentionally hurt someone like she did), I am as guilty as she is of that kind of dishonesty in relationships, I share her cynicism about 'true love', and I KNOW that there have been moments in my relationships which, to my partners looked to be full of sweetness and sunshine and butterflies, and I was thinking and feeling something quite different, but said nothing. That being said, I still cried my eyes out during Tom and Summer's final conversation on the bench.
I don't think I'm a very nice person.
Pottermania
The Harry Potter books and I have had a strange relationship. I read Philosopher's Stone when I was 14, when (my mother disputes this version of events, but I know I'm right) some family friends from England gave my sister the book for Christmas. No one else in Australia had heard of the series, and I spent about two years feeling very smug. I've always loved it when the things I love aren't widely known. It wasn't really until Prisoner of Azkaban was written, and the first film was released, that the series became as widely-known and wildly popular in Australia as it was in the rest of the English-speaking world.
At that point, my love for the series abated somewhat. As I said, I don't like it when my fandoms become mainstream. (You should hear me talking about Cirque du Soleil.) I pulled back from the books somewhat, and in effect tried not to love them so much.
For the next few years (2001-2008ish) I appreciated the series in a kind of intellectual way. I watched it become my generation's Beatles or Star Wars: a common cultural experience. I speculated intensely about how the series would end with my friends (and am pleased to say that I worked out almost everything by Book 5). I greeted the arrival of each new book with glee, reading each one on the evening I bought it and then stamping around my house in frustration, waiting for my friends and family to catch up so that I could discuss it with them (I remember when Half-Blood Prince came out, I was actually sitting on the floor thumping it with my fists, raving at my sister: 'Just keep reading, keep reading, I am going to go insane!'). When Deathly Hallows came out in 2007, I wrote several articles attempting to sum up what it meant to be one of the 'Harry Potter generation', growing up with the books. I expressed disappointment with the epilogue. I agreed with Abigail Nussbaum's assessment of the ending of the series and its flaws.
And then I reread them last week. This was not, of course, my first reread. But it was the first time I'd read the books since 2007, and I was trying to read them more thoroughly than I had in the past. I was inspired, in part, by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sibyllevance's detailed posts, which are a chapter-by-chapter commentary. I wanted to notice every single one of the little clues Rowling had scattered through the series. I wanted to see hints in the characters at their motivations (which were only revealed in full towards the end of Deathly Hallows). And I wanted to be moved more than I had been in the past.
I'm pleased to report that I was successful on all counts. But it doesn't make me feel much better. I now feel such deep regret that I let my snobbish feelings about being part of the 'mainstream' compromise my enjoyment so much! I desperately wish I'd been part of the Potter fandom while the books were still being written. (Never mind that this would've been impossible, as I despised the internet until 2007.) Well, it's too late for regrets like that, I suppose.
Speaking of people just discovering Harry Potter, I found this great blog, The Last Muggle to Read Harry Potter. It's written by a 26-year-old who is reading the series for the first time. I think it's very sweet, and I love all her speculations about how things will end. It reminds me of what my friends and I used to do before all the books were published.
Link
My mother sent me this link about how people are 'leaving Facebook in droves'. I'm not entirely convinced. It seems to me that the opposite is occurring. One of my real-life and LJ friends, in fact, announced recently that he was deleting his LJ as the majority of his online interactions now took place on Facebook. Many of my friends post memes on Facebook rather than on their blogs.
I suspect that what the author of the article really means is that Gen Xers are leaving Facebook in droves, after experimenting with online social networking and finding it not to their liking. For all their early embracing of Facebook, I feel that the majority of Xers (and boomers) are still uncomfortable with conducting their lives in such a public way. But we Ys are different. We spent our afternoons on MSN, our relationships originated on ICQ (at least they did in my circle), and the idea of looking for people who share our interests (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to knitting) in LJ communities seems entirely normal. I suspect that Facebook is going the way of MySpace with my generation, but not for the reasons outlined in that article.
Well, that's it from me for now.
Request
I've had a (*gasp* *faint*) idea for a multifandom fanfic sitting in the back of my mind for quite a while, but I haven't been able to write it because I can't think of the final character I need for the idea to work. So I'm asking you to help me, flist! Basically, I need you to think of a character who:
Died in the late 90s (1997 or 1998 would be ideal); and
Died with 'unfinished business'. To take an example from the Tomorrow series
Chris would fit these conditions, but Robyn would not.
However, I don't want to use Tomorrow series characters because I'd prefer the fandoms to have supernatural elements if possible.
If anyone can think of characters that fit these characteristics, PM me, don't comment, as I wouldn't want any other readers to be inadvertently spoiled.
Those days of summer are gone
I just got back from watching the film (500) Days of Summer. It disturbed me how much I found myself relating, not to Tom, the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character, but to Summer, the Zooey Deschanel character. Although I would never go quite as far as she did at the end (I have a bit more self-awareness and would NEVER intentionally hurt someone like she did), I am as guilty as she is of that kind of dishonesty in relationships, I share her cynicism about 'true love', and I KNOW that there have been moments in my relationships which, to my partners looked to be full of sweetness and sunshine and butterflies, and I was thinking and feeling something quite different, but said nothing. That being said, I still cried my eyes out during Tom and Summer's final conversation on the bench.
I don't think I'm a very nice person.
Pottermania
The Harry Potter books and I have had a strange relationship. I read Philosopher's Stone when I was 14, when (my mother disputes this version of events, but I know I'm right) some family friends from England gave my sister the book for Christmas. No one else in Australia had heard of the series, and I spent about two years feeling very smug. I've always loved it when the things I love aren't widely known. It wasn't really until Prisoner of Azkaban was written, and the first film was released, that the series became as widely-known and wildly popular in Australia as it was in the rest of the English-speaking world.
At that point, my love for the series abated somewhat. As I said, I don't like it when my fandoms become mainstream. (You should hear me talking about Cirque du Soleil.) I pulled back from the books somewhat, and in effect tried not to love them so much.
For the next few years (2001-2008ish) I appreciated the series in a kind of intellectual way. I watched it become my generation's Beatles or Star Wars: a common cultural experience. I speculated intensely about how the series would end with my friends (and am pleased to say that I worked out almost everything by Book 5). I greeted the arrival of each new book with glee, reading each one on the evening I bought it and then stamping around my house in frustration, waiting for my friends and family to catch up so that I could discuss it with them (I remember when Half-Blood Prince came out, I was actually sitting on the floor thumping it with my fists, raving at my sister: 'Just keep reading, keep reading, I am going to go insane!'). When Deathly Hallows came out in 2007, I wrote several articles attempting to sum up what it meant to be one of the 'Harry Potter generation', growing up with the books. I expressed disappointment with the epilogue. I agreed with Abigail Nussbaum's assessment of the ending of the series and its flaws.
And then I reread them last week. This was not, of course, my first reread. But it was the first time I'd read the books since 2007, and I was trying to read them more thoroughly than I had in the past. I was inspired, in part, by
sibyllevance's detailed posts, which are a chapter-by-chapter commentary. I wanted to notice every single one of the little clues Rowling had scattered through the series. I wanted to see hints in the characters at their motivations (which were only revealed in full towards the end of Deathly Hallows). And I wanted to be moved more than I had been in the past.I'm pleased to report that I was successful on all counts. But it doesn't make me feel much better. I now feel such deep regret that I let my snobbish feelings about being part of the 'mainstream' compromise my enjoyment so much! I desperately wish I'd been part of the Potter fandom while the books were still being written. (Never mind that this would've been impossible, as I despised the internet until 2007.) Well, it's too late for regrets like that, I suppose.
Speaking of people just discovering Harry Potter, I found this great blog, The Last Muggle to Read Harry Potter. It's written by a 26-year-old who is reading the series for the first time. I think it's very sweet, and I love all her speculations about how things will end. It reminds me of what my friends and I used to do before all the books were published.
Link
My mother sent me this link about how people are 'leaving Facebook in droves'. I'm not entirely convinced. It seems to me that the opposite is occurring. One of my real-life and LJ friends, in fact, announced recently that he was deleting his LJ as the majority of his online interactions now took place on Facebook. Many of my friends post memes on Facebook rather than on their blogs.
I suspect that what the author of the article really means is that Gen Xers are leaving Facebook in droves, after experimenting with online social networking and finding it not to their liking. For all their early embracing of Facebook, I feel that the majority of Xers (and boomers) are still uncomfortable with conducting their lives in such a public way. But we Ys are different. We spent our afternoons on MSN, our relationships originated on ICQ (at least they did in my circle), and the idea of looking for people who share our interests (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to knitting) in LJ communities seems entirely normal. I suspect that Facebook is going the way of MySpace with my generation, but not for the reasons outlined in that article.
Well, that's it from me for now.
