In which thinky-thoughts are thunk

[lunasariel]

It looks like a pretty slow weekend here at Casa de Luna. Technically, it's both Homecoming and Parents' Weekend, but A) I'm rapidly discovering that I massively do not give a damn about sports (except for Quidditch, which I'll get to in a sec), and B) I went back up north to see the folks last weekend, so we're all good for another month or so.

I'm really settling in here at Berkeley. I'm not burdened with an over-abundance of friends, but at least I have plenty of time to do all the READING. I just got done with a massive round of midterms/papers, and it was kinda nice to be able to devote an entire day to, say, trying to figure out what the hell Chaucer thought about women. It is a little lonely, yeah, but c'est la vie, and all that.

Of course, Cal isn't all moping and friendlessness. We have a Quidditch team, for one thing. Yes, an actual Quidditch team. I've watched them practice on the green in front of the main library a few times, and now I'm trying to figure out when/where they hold their games, so that I can watch one. Like I said above, I literally could not care less about most traditional college sports, but Quidditch is the perfect blend of nerdiness and physical exertion.

Classes are going fair-to-middlin' to great! My "Intro to Cal for Transfers" class is still a colossal waste of time, but I still need the units. Actually, it's kinda funny how the only times when this class isn't useless is when we're not doing actual class stuff. The professor (who's technically still a grad student) sometimes devotes a portion of class to general announcements/questions, which is really nice. People announce everything from club fairs to protest rallies, and it's also an open forum for people to ask things like "How late is the Golden Bear Café open?" or "Where can I copy/print for free?". But then the class itself is all about things like test-taking and critical reading. My thought on this is, hey, we're at the University of California with the lowest acceptance rate out of all 12(?) campuses. If we're here, then it's assumed that we at least have the academic basics down, so why bother rehashing the same old information when we could actually learn a thing or two about our new chosen institution of higher learning?

Intro to Gender & Women's Studies (the midterm for which is due next Monday. Eeek!) is interesting, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to major in it. I'm discovering that I like my dead white men (and occasional dead white women) a bit too much to get involved with anything too modern, but I feel like, since I'm at Berkeley and all, I should take at least one socially relevant class. Although we do have a portion on the portrayal of women in media coming up soon, so I'm looking forward to ripping Twilight an new one (again).

In the wide, wonderful world of Celtic Mythology, I just had a rather nerve-wracking exam yesterday, and I'm hoping to Dagda Lugh Branwen god whoever's listening that she doesn't grade down for spelling. I mean, I'm having to write about people called things like Gilfaethwy and Llefelys and Gronw and Lleu Llaw Gyffedd. *Nothing* is phonetic and Welsh sounds like everybody has suddenly developed a debilitating lisp and the names are spelled differently every time they show up and AAAAAHHHHH!! *my head asplode* But srsly, I'm really loving this class! I'm seriously thinking of taking a double major in English and Celtic Studies, but I'm not sure how that's going to affect my chances of getting into the School of Library Sciences at UCLA. I'm thinking that Computer Science or something instead of Celtic Studies might look a bit better on my application, but really, I could take or leave comp sci, while things like mythology and literature are what I really love. And it's already time to start picking my classes for next semester (ack!), so I'm going to have to do some thinking.

My final, and favorite, class, Literature in English, is going along pretty well. I just got my first paper, the gist of which was that Chaucer was a horny old bastard, back, and I got an A- on it, which was honestly better than I'd expected. The professor, Maura Nolan, has this half-terrifying and half-refreshing quality where, when you turn something in and she doesn't think it's the best you can do, she smacks you over the head with it, gives it back to you, and tells you to to come back when you've written something decent. When I get a good grade from professors like these, I really feel like I earned it by doing an exceptional job, and not that I'm marginally competent, if that makes any kind of sense. So far, we've gone through Beowulf (loved it!), past Canterbury Tales (difficult, but entertaining [especially because anybody trying to read Chaucer out loud immediately sounds like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets]), we just finished Doctor Faustus, and we're moving on to John Donne on Monday, and Paradise Lost after that.

One thing I really don't like about many Shakespearean scholars is that they try to romanticize Shakespeare's life, using the vaguest clues from his plays and what little we know about his personal life to  turn him into this swashbuckling badass, when, like I said, we have so very, very few concrete details about the man's life. The worst offender here, IMHO, is Stephen Greenblatt, who, while a wonderful Shakespeare scholar otherwise, wrote Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, which claims, among other things, that Shakespeare was a Catholic spy/ninja who hung out with famous Catholic rebel leaders and ran secret messages under the very nose of a hostile government. The real kicker here is that, yes, there *was* an Elizabethan playwright who lived as a well-respected writer/actor by day, but a globe-trotting spy/adventurer by night...it just wasn't Shakespeare. It was Christopher Marlowe, who wrote (among other things) Doctor Faustus. Unlike the Bard, we actually do have a fairly good record of Kit's life, and know more or less for certain that he worked for the Elizabethan equivalent of the CIA, and that he was killed (in what was either an unlucky barroom brawl or a clever assassination) when he was only in his 20s. I've been doing some reading on my own on his life, and he was a *fascinating* guy. Unlike Shakespeare, who left nothing but a body of truly brilliant work and some legal documents for us to remember him by, Marlowe's life was fairly well-documented, and I'm really enjoying learning more about him and his real-life swashbuckling (in my head, he invariably appears as Sea Hawk-era Erroll Flynn).

In Nerd News, we're getting more casting decisions from the Game of Thrones people, and I've been happy with every single one. Quorin Halfhand looks suitably grizzled and badass, Ygritte has a sort of puckishness about her that seems very appropriate, and while it took me a second to remember who Lord Karstark is, he looks like he could pull of "grief-stricken" pretty well. Otherwise, it looks like we're getting a lot of extra roles written in, which has me wary, but the GoT people have earned at least *some* trust from me, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. In the same vein, I'm not entirely sure about re-casting Gregor (I'm going to miss Conan Stevens' grunting and bellowing), but the new guy looks decent, too. I'm still waiting for my Blackfish, though. C'mon, Nina Gold! Jamie needs someone to fanboy over, and Edmure needs someone to make him look silly when Robb isn't around (I kid, I kid! Love ya, Eddy, but the Blackfish is the Blackfish).

I've started to read Mistborn: the Final Empire, which I was given as a birthday gift several years ago, but just recently picked up at the library. Go figure. Mistborn seems to fall into a category I like to call sword-and-sorcery-and-lockpick, where you take your usual Tolkien/GRR Martin/Robert Jordan/etc. high fantasy epic, sling it in a blender, mix it with Ocean's 11, garnish with Inception, and serve cold. It's good, but doesn't really capture my attention. I know plenty of books that, from the very first page (or at least from fairly early on) reach out, grab you by the collar, and refuse to let you look away until you've goddamn finished. This is...not that. The characters are enjoyable, the plot is pleasingly twisty, the villains suitably evil, and the society gleefully dystopian, so I'll definitely be finishing it. I just don't expect it to go on my "Top 10 Books EVAAAAR" list. Although ya never know, and I'm still kinda hoping to be surprised.

In TV-Land, Doctor Who recently went out with its usual bang, and the latest season of Supernatural is just now getting its bearings. Doctor Who did that thing that Steven Moffat always does, where it takes you right up to the very brink of disaster, and then yanking you back at the very last second, in the most amazing, wonderful way possible. You're absolutely certain that this time they've had it, that there's no coming back from this one, and then presenting you with a solution so simple and perfect that you wonder why you didn't see it all along (although, to be fair, I *did* call the ending of the finale near the beginning of the episode). Basically, it makes you ask, "how are they going to get out of this one?" (in the style of the cheesy old Batman series), and then surprising you with the answer each and every time.

Supernatural is...somewhat less impressive. Castiel is apparently off the team roster (which is VERY VERY BAD, at least for me), the boys are back on the road (which has turned out to be a surprisingly good thing so far, getting back to the show's roots and all that), and the new Big Bads look like the inbred children of the Killer Rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (silly and stupid, so bad).

I've been re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer recently, and I think there's a lot that Supernatural owes to it, but also a lot of ways in which incorporating a few BTVS elements could really give SPN that little extra punch it needs to move from "okay, occasionally good" to "good, occasionally great". Over the past few days, I've been compiling a list of Things That Supernatural Could Learn From Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

1. Variety in characters. On Buffy, if you didn't like how Buffy was behaving at the moment, you watched Willow. If you didn't like Willow, you watched Xander. If not Xander, then Giles. If not Giles, then Cordelia, or Angel, or Anya, or Tara, or Spike, or Dawn, or Joyce, or Oz...you get my point. But on SPN, if you don't like Dean, there's Sam. If you don't like Sam, there's Bobby (usually). If you don't like Bobby, there's Cas (sometimes). And if you don't like how any of them are acting at this particular moment, then you're pretty much screwed. Buffy was able to maintain such high critical acclaim and such a long run (in part) because of the large, diverse, well-rounded cast. Whatever floated your boat, you were pretty much guaranteed to find it *somewhere* in the Buffyverse. But if you don't like denim-clad, shotgun-wielding, grunting men, then you're pretty much SOL on SPN.
2. Strong female characters. Part of the appeal of Buffy's diverse cast was the comparatively large number of physically and emotionally competent women. Willow, Anya, Tara, and of course Buffy herself, these were not girls that you wanted to mess with. But on SPN, I don't think there's been a female character in the last two or three seasons who A) appears in more than two episodes, B) is not evil, and C) can take care of herself (and C.a) can do so without practically stripping). Yeah, I know I've gone over this before. It's a point that bears repeating, though.
3. Iconic villains. Who could forget the vampires from Buffy? Sure, they looked a little silly sometimes, but overall they were genuinely menacing, interesting, and overall memorable. Other Big Bads came and went, but the good ol' vamps could always be relied on to have some plot or other cooking. Even better, from a writing perspective, vampires gave the writers of Buffy a chance to catch their breath, so to speak. Their motivations and methods were pretty clear-cut, so vampire-related plots were easy to come up with, and their distinctive style gave the writers a break from having to design a new ghoulie, ghostie, or long-legged beastie every week. Supernatural writers haven't really taken advantage of this, and it's starting to show. They had a pretty good design going with the demons: simple, elegant, and scary. But then the vast majority of demons were defeated, and after having to come up with unique designs for six seasons' worth of demons, ghosts, and other monsters, and it's painfully obvious that they're just plain out of ideas. I mean, they went from this (seasons four-ish, I think): , to this (season seven):. Somehow, it's not quite as threatening, is it? To me, at least, it just looks...stupid. Not scary, or interesting, or even particularly convincing. If I were a prospective new vierwer, a main villain as ridiculous-looking as this would probably turn me off the show rather than entice me to watch more.
4. Allow for some genuine levity. On SPN, especially these days, all the funny moments are either tinged with sorrow, gallows humor, or both. On Buffy, even the darkest episodes usually had a few actually-pretty-funny moments thrown in. A lot of this was in the dialogue, and while I understand we can't all write like Joss Whedon, having all the characters moping all over the place, throwing hissy fits, and generally being a bunch of drama queens just does not make for good television.
5. Strong love interests. One of the reasons SPN fangirls have reacted so badly to most of the boys' love interests is that they're a succession of screechy, wimpy damsels in distress. You remember how Buffy and Angel had each others' backs both in and out of battle? How they trusted and relied on each other? How they respected each other? I don't think the SPN writers have once been able to strike a balance between "evil bitch" and "utterly helpless." I know I'm not the only one who breathed a sigh of relief when Dean's longtime girlfriend, Lisa, walked off the show for good, because EVERY SINGLE Lisa episode followed the same pattern: weird stuff starts to happen to Lisa, Ben (Lisa's son and Dean's occasional foster-son) calls Dean, Sam & Dean decide that she's in trouble and go to help her, Lisa screeches at Dean for bringing danger back with him, Lisa screeches at the monster when it captures her and Ben (as it invariably does), Sam & Dean rescue them, Lisa screeches at Dean for putting them in danger (again), Dean puts on his Sad Face, declares that they're better off without him, and walks off into the sunset, vowing to never return, lest he bring the monsters back with him. Rinse and repeat. Can ya see how this would get annoying after a little while?
6. Know when to let it die. It's a common complaint among Supernatural fans (what fans are left, anyway, which it telling in itself) that the show has gotten off-base: they've exhausted their initial premise of "two bickering and ill-fated brothers travel the continental U.S. fighting paranormal monsters while listening to classic rock," and gone on to...meander, I guess. There was a clear ending point, everyone had gone through their various character arcs, all the mysteries had been explained, they'd said what they set out to say. But it turned out that there was still money in the kitty, so someone zombified the show. But like any zombie, the only semblance of life left was motion and maybe some noise. But there's no more soul in it, no more fun, it fails to hold an audience's interest, the people who initially loved it got bored and restless, and they left. Now think of Buffy. When quality started to slide, when it was clear that the writers were running out of ideas, Joss knew to go out with a bang, and it's the bang we remember, even remember with gratitude, as it provided a satisfying stop into the otherwise ignomious long, slow slide into mediocrity. Of course, then the comic books came along, but with a change in medium came a revitilization, and that's an entirely different story.
7. Death shouldn't be cheap. Remember when Buffy died at the end of the fifth season? Remember how huge a deal that was? How miraculous and unexpected her return to life was? How both she and her friends had to spend months coping with the effects and rammifications of both death and resurrection? Keep all that in mine the next time one of the Winchesters die. It seems to be happening, on average, two or three times a season, and by this point, both characters and audience pretty much just shrug it off and get on with their lives. Both they and we know that it's not going to be permanent; someone or something is sure to bring them back before too long. Conversely, when people like Tara or Joyce died, we knew it was for good. It was heartwrenching and tragic, yes, but their deaths had some real weight to them, which allowed for genuine, deeply felt emotion, not just a shrug and an "eh, he'll be back next week." This is possibly an effect of #1, wherein Supernatural's cast is so limited that they can't afford to kill off recurring characters, whereas Buffy has a large enough cast so that the showrunners can afford to kill off someone every so often and have it stick, but still do it rarely enough so that it maintains its impact. (Addendum: same rule goes for maiming. It was hard to get all worked up about Bobby becoming a paraplegic, because he was literally back on his feet within a few episodes. When Xander lost an eye, conversely, it was gone for good. There was never any question of Plot Convenience Power returning it; it was just gone, and he and the others had to deal with it.)

These are just a few little notes off the top of my head; I'm sure I'll come up with something more substantial in due course. For now, though, I'm still tootling about in various X-Men fandoms (mostly X-Men: First Class, of course), so it's back to the fanfic mines for me! (Oh, and yes, I'm still keeping an eye on the DC Reboot, and no, I still don't like it.)

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

Oh wow, Cal didn't have a Qudditch team when I was there -- how cool!

but I feel like, since I'm at Berkeley and all, I should take at least one socially relevant class

Heh, I'll confess that I never did this and never felt the lack -- there was too much stuff I wanted to learn about the dead white men (and occasional dead white women, and occasional dead non-white persons -- my English 45B class ended up featuring several slave narratives, which were very impressive).

We read the Mabinogion in my Medieval Lit class, and the Welsh names made my head explode, too. And my tongue, when I tried to pronounce them.

[especially because anybody trying to read Chaucer out loud immediately sounds like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets]

LOL. I ended up falling in love with the sound of (approximated) Middle-English when we were reading Canterbury Tales in 45A, because it was both neat and hilarious. I will still launch into reciting the prologue at any provocation ("Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote\The droghte of March hath perced to the roote...." XP)

I've been meaning to give Mistborn a try... I tend to like lockpicks mixed in with my fantasy, and din't realize it was part of the subgenre.

BTW, if you get bored of Berkeley and come to SF, let me know -- would love to get together at some point and have lunch/dinner/something! :)

[lunasariel.livejournal.com]

I will still launch into reciting the prologue at any provocation ("Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote\The droghte of March hath perced to the roote...." XP)
lol! I'm beginning to find that, *every single time* I mention that I'm reading Canterbury Tales to someone who has studied English, they immediately start reciting the prologue! I hear that a lot of professors make you memorize the first 18 lines, but mine didn't.

I tend to like lockpicks mixed in with my fantasy, and din't realize it was part of the subgenre.
Oh, yes! A RL friend of mine calls it sword-and-sorcery-and-skullduggery, which I'm thinking of stealing adopting. It's definitely one of my favorite subgenres; it's just so hard to resist a cheerful rogue!

BTW, if you get bored of Berkeley and come to SF, let me know -- would love to get together at some point and have lunch/dinner/something! :)
Actually, that sounds kind of awesome! I harbor a secret terror of BART/MUNI/public transportation in general, so I've been kinda putting off finding my way around anywhere that's more than walking distance from Cal. This would make me take the plunge, and, of course, I'd love to meet you IRL!

[hamsterwoman]

I can't remember if we had to memorize the first 18 lines or I just did... But there was a great moment when I was walking around the College of Chemistry with my friend and another friend of his, and somehow the Canterbury Tales came up. I started reciting the prologue and the other guy, on the other side of my friend, joined in. The look of shock and no small degree of horror on my friend's face was PRICELESS. He expected me to do it, by then, but not another engineer. (The other guy must've learned it in high school.)

I'd love to meet you IRL!

Yay! BART/MUNI is actually pretty easy -- or used to be when I was taking BART -- I commuted to Berkeley on both all four years. What you do is walk to Downtown BART and get on the Daly City/Milbrae/Colma train, get off anywhere between Embarcadero and Civic Center and, if you're trying to get over to our neck of the woods, catch an L Taraval, which runs all along my favorite lunch/dinner places.

My weekends generally tend to be relatively low key most of the time, so let me know if you have a likely weekend that hasn't got too much homework or whatever, and we can see if it would work. Weekdays can also work on my end, on days when I'm working from home, which includes many Fridays, but I imagine that's harder for you, unless you have some days with no classes.

Anyway, it'll be awesome if we can meet up -- I bet we can talk about Cal and geek out about books for hours! :D

[lunasariel.livejournal.com]

The look of shock and no small degree of horror on my friend's face was PRICELESS.
Well do I know that look! A little while ago, I was playing Dungeons & Dragons with some friends, and I got into a SRS BIZNESS argument on Elrond's genetics, and the DM declared himself "out-geeked" before telling the two of us to shut it and start playing again before something ate us. XD

Thanks for the BART/MUNI help! It's always nice to get a native's opinion when trying to figure out public transportation.

Anyway, it'll be awesome if we can meet up -- I bet we can talk about Cal and geek out about books for hours! :D
Damn straight! I just finished up a monster round of papers/midterms, so my weekends are looking pretty light for awhile. Tuesdays and Thursdays would work for me, but I'm in class until late afternoon M/W/F. Do you have a preference?

[hamsterwoman]

shut it and start playing again before something ate us. XD

Haha!

Looks like we have opposite weekday schedules, in that I tend to work from home on one or more of MWF and be at work and coming back late on Tue/Thurs. However! I'm actually working from home this Thursday (10/20) and free after 5:30. Probably too short notice, but if not, let me know and maybe we can figure out dinner? I might also have time this weekend, but not totally sure if/when because it's my aunt's birthday and I don't know yet it/when she'll be celebrating it. Anyway, let me know if something this near term work, and if not, we can look at Novermber, although November is pretty sucky on my end with travel and holidays and stuff...

[lunasariel.livejournal.com]

Thursday works! I get out of class at 12:30, so I'm free anytime after that. November is shaping up to be pretty busy for me, too. Dammit, Thanksgiving!

[hamsterwoman]

Clearly this is a sign that we should strike while the iron is hot! How about dinner this Thursday at 5:45/6 then? Later is fine, too, but you probably want to get back at a decent hour.

(Do you have objections to me bringing one or both kids along? They'll read quietly or something -- they're well-behaved and used to meeting LJ folk by now -- I should give my husband a break as he'll be grading exams.)

Any dietary preferences or limitations? My default lately has been this fusion-y neighborhood pub, but if you're a vegetarian/not a big meat eater, there's an equally convenient (that is, on the L line) and pleasant Thai place, really good pizza (not Blondie's good, but close! and with more interesting toppings), a suitable diner (and also pretty good Chinese, Japanese, and Korean restaurants, but they tend to be more crowded/loud).

[lunasariel.livejournal.com]

5:45/6 on Thursday it is! And no worries about the kids; honestly, I'm kind of curious to meet them after hearing so much about them.

That pub sounds great! I'm an omnivore (with the possible exception of seafood, of which I'm not a huge fan), and I've missed pub food ever since I left the UK, so your fusion-y neighborhood pub sounds awesome!

[hamsterwoman]

Yay!!! super excited! :D

5:45 (ish) at the pub sounds great! :D

To get to it, you just need to get on L Taraval at Embarcadero (you go upstairs from BART station then back downstairs to MUNI) and ride the L until you get to Taraval and 30th (about 25 min from Embaracadero if there are no delays), and the pub will be on your right.

I'll leave a separate comment with my phone number (in case anything comes up), just so I can then delete it :)

[hamsterwoman]

Perfect, thank you! :)

See you tonight! :D