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lunasarielIt's a bit weird, but after the whole "random RTE disappearance" thing, I've gotten kinda paranoid about losing my draft, and now I have this compulsion to post everything NOW NOW NOW before it disappears again and to save my draft to a Word doc every time I leave my computer, because another random tech problem I've been having is pages refreshing themselves of their own volition. So, yeah, tech paranoia FTW!
First up, I'm actually getting along really well with The Roomie, AM, now. At the beginning of the semester there was this weird thing where she didn't show up for the first week and a half, and when she did show up she never talked, which intimidated me into not talking, which (I'm pretty sure) intimidated *her* into not talking...it was a cycle. But the combination of sleep deprivation on both sides and a mutual love of Harry Potter finally broke the ice a couple of weeks ago, and now we've entered the "old married couple" stage, at least on my end, where she does little things that drive me crazy, and I almost certainly do little things that drive her crazy, but we sync really well. We're both the same type of introverted nerd, so spending all of Saturday holed up in the dorm, the occasional bout of yelling at computers, and breaking into fits of giggles over things like the latest Potter Puppet Pals is considered perfectly normal. TBH, when I first moved in, I dreaded getting an extremely extroverted roomate who partied all the time and brought a different guy (or girl, as the case may be) in every night, and AM is pretty much the direct opposite of that, so my overall opinion of the situation hovers somewhere between "it could be worse" and "score!", although leaning more towards the latter than the former.
In other news, I'm slogging my way through The Mysteries of Udolpho. This started out as purely research for my imminent fic, because I've seen too many parodies go wrong when the parodier didn't really understand the material, but I'm finding that Gothic romances are actually kinda enjoyable, in a so-bad-it's-good, ham-and-cheese way. The heroine, of course, is a virtuous, spineless waif who's always either fainting, bursting into tears, or both, and is always, always in peril. I'm pretty sure that the hero has Tourette's, or at least some sort of disorder that makes him start yelling at random. But my favorite part is the villain, who couldn't be more blatantly evil if he had a black twirly mustache and a black cape. In fact, I think he's actually got the cape. He's also got a big spooky castle, in a range of big spooky mountains, in an effort to force Our Heroine to marry against her will. Also, the castle may or may not be haunted by a woman he may or may not have loved and may or may not have killed, which may or may not have been an accident. All the other characters are either various minor baddies who offend Our Heroine's delicate sensibilities more or less by existing, or servants, who are all hysterical, superstitious morons. In addition, if you took every passage that says, essentially, "Emily looked at the mountains and trees and thought they were really pretty," and boiled it down to basics, the novel would be about 100 pages long. So, yeah, you can see why I love how deliciously overwrought this book is.
But lol-worthy-ness aside, it's very much a product of its time. It definitely tends more towards visceral emotional appeal than psychological realism, although that's okay with me, as I secretly like the Romantics, in all their overemotional melodrama. As long as I can occasionally leaven them with something a bit more down-to-earth, that is. I've been more or less mainlining Udolpho for a few days, and it can get a little wearying after a while. This is somewhat alleviated, though, by imagining the cast of Temeraire MST3K-ing it, which is A) entertaining as hell, and B) useful for upcoming fic. Let's just say that I find the idea of Iskierka complaining about Our Heroine turning down the rich, cruel suitor in favor of the poor, kind one because the rich one would be able to give her as many jewels as she could ever want, while all the poor one can do is sit and talk about Nature and Love with her, infinitely entertaining.
I met up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hamsterwoman again last night, and, like last time, it was a blast! I had a better knowledge of the various San Francisco public transit systems than last time, so I wasn't as drastically late. Of course, there were a few unexpected delays, but at least there weren't any actual earthquakes this time, so I was only about 15 minutes behind schedule.
We met for dinner at the Parkside Tavern, a fantastic little pub near her house. I got a taste for pub food in the UK, so it's always a treat to have some. Also, and I'm sure I'm not the first one to remark on this, but for some reason, pub food is best enjoyed on a cold, preferably foggy night, and while last night wasn't particularly foggy (at least by San Francisco/Bay Area standards), my lovely warm cottage pie was made all the better by the knowledge that it was 45° and breezy outside. But food aside, it was great to unleash my inner literature nerd and spend three hours just geeking out about Berkeley, ASOIAF, Tolkien, Milton, Tamora Pierce, Temeraire, literature in translation, travel, and how all of the above relate to each other. Basically, as my brother would say, we went "THOUGHT RINGS: ACTIVATE!" for the entire evening. And it was glorious. She also lent me an omnibus of the first three Dragaera books, which I'll be beginning forthwith, although the way things are going I might not be able to get to it until finals, the first of which is looming on *checks* the day after tomorrow. Meep!
First up, I'm actually getting along really well with The Roomie, AM, now. At the beginning of the semester there was this weird thing where she didn't show up for the first week and a half, and when she did show up she never talked, which intimidated me into not talking, which (I'm pretty sure) intimidated *her* into not talking...it was a cycle. But the combination of sleep deprivation on both sides and a mutual love of Harry Potter finally broke the ice a couple of weeks ago, and now we've entered the "old married couple" stage, at least on my end, where she does little things that drive me crazy, and I almost certainly do little things that drive her crazy, but we sync really well. We're both the same type of introverted nerd, so spending all of Saturday holed up in the dorm, the occasional bout of yelling at computers, and breaking into fits of giggles over things like the latest Potter Puppet Pals is considered perfectly normal. TBH, when I first moved in, I dreaded getting an extremely extroverted roomate who partied all the time and brought a different guy (or girl, as the case may be) in every night, and AM is pretty much the direct opposite of that, so my overall opinion of the situation hovers somewhere between "it could be worse" and "score!", although leaning more towards the latter than the former.
In other news, I'm slogging my way through The Mysteries of Udolpho. This started out as purely research for my imminent fic, because I've seen too many parodies go wrong when the parodier didn't really understand the material, but I'm finding that Gothic romances are actually kinda enjoyable, in a so-bad-it's-good, ham-and-cheese way. The heroine, of course, is a virtuous, spineless waif who's always either fainting, bursting into tears, or both, and is always, always in peril. I'm pretty sure that the hero has Tourette's, or at least some sort of disorder that makes him start yelling at random. But my favorite part is the villain, who couldn't be more blatantly evil if he had a black twirly mustache and a black cape. In fact, I think he's actually got the cape. He's also got a big spooky castle, in a range of big spooky mountains, in an effort to force Our Heroine to marry against her will. Also, the castle may or may not be haunted by a woman he may or may not have loved and may or may not have killed, which may or may not have been an accident. All the other characters are either various minor baddies who offend Our Heroine's delicate sensibilities more or less by existing, or servants, who are all hysterical, superstitious morons. In addition, if you took every passage that says, essentially, "Emily looked at the mountains and trees and thought they were really pretty," and boiled it down to basics, the novel would be about 100 pages long. So, yeah, you can see why I love how deliciously overwrought this book is.
But lol-worthy-ness aside, it's very much a product of its time. It definitely tends more towards visceral emotional appeal than psychological realism, although that's okay with me, as I secretly like the Romantics, in all their overemotional melodrama. As long as I can occasionally leaven them with something a bit more down-to-earth, that is. I've been more or less mainlining Udolpho for a few days, and it can get a little wearying after a while. This is somewhat alleviated, though, by imagining the cast of Temeraire MST3K-ing it, which is A) entertaining as hell, and B) useful for upcoming fic. Let's just say that I find the idea of Iskierka complaining about Our Heroine turning down the rich, cruel suitor in favor of the poor, kind one because the rich one would be able to give her as many jewels as she could ever want, while all the poor one can do is sit and talk about Nature and Love with her, infinitely entertaining.
I met up with
hamsterwoman again last night, and, like last time, it was a blast! I had a better knowledge of the various San Francisco public transit systems than last time, so I wasn't as drastically late. Of course, there were a few unexpected delays, but at least there weren't any actual earthquakes this time, so I was only about 15 minutes behind schedule.We met for dinner at the Parkside Tavern, a fantastic little pub near her house. I got a taste for pub food in the UK, so it's always a treat to have some. Also, and I'm sure I'm not the first one to remark on this, but for some reason, pub food is best enjoyed on a cold, preferably foggy night, and while last night wasn't particularly foggy (at least by San Francisco/Bay Area standards), my lovely warm cottage pie was made all the better by the knowledge that it was 45° and breezy outside. But food aside, it was great to unleash my inner literature nerd and spend three hours just geeking out about Berkeley, ASOIAF, Tolkien, Milton, Tamora Pierce, Temeraire, literature in translation, travel, and how all of the above relate to each other. Basically, as my brother would say, we went "THOUGHT RINGS: ACTIVATE!" for the entire evening. And it was glorious. She also lent me an omnibus of the first three Dragaera books, which I'll be beginning forthwith, although the way things are going I might not be able to get to it until finals, the first of which is looming on *checks* the day after tomorrow. Meep!
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 06:07 am (UTC)Ahaha, she so would! :D
we went "THOUGHT RINGS: ACTIVATE!" for the entire evening
Yes, totally! I had a blast, too -- it's wonderfully refreshing to be able to geek out over this stuff in real time and face to face, with the same meandering between fandom and serious canon and real life that I so love about LJ. Thank you so much for coming out to hang out with me! (And hope you had a fast and easy ride back.)
I hope you enjoy the Dragaera books when you have a chance to start on them. One thing I should've mentioned is that you will probably notice some inconsistencies between books. Brust delights in doing the unreliable narrator thing, so many of those are intentional, and he's made a point to shore up even the accidental slips with stuff that retroactively makes the inconsistencies a feature, not a bug.
Good luck on your finals!!
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 07:31 pm (UTC)It really is! Face-to-face geeking out is one of life's little joys, at least for me.
My ride back was nice and uneventful, although it looks like that gaming store across from the Berkeley BART you mentioned has, indeed gone out of business. :(
Thanks for the heads-up on Dragaera! I'm glad you let me know, because little inconsistencies like that drive me nuts, but the whole "unreliable narrator" thing gets him a free pass, now that I'm aware of it.
Good luck on your finals!!
Thanks, I'll probably need it! XD
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 10:24 pm (UTC)Aww, too bad! (I mean, I'm sure there are others, but I spent many happy hours in that place, browsing manuals and figurines and stuffed animals and craft kids for my little brother.)
BTW! Speaking of geeky places in Berkeley, have you been to the Other Change of Hobbit bookstore yet? It's moved since I last was there, and I'm not sure what the new place is like. The old one wasn't very large, but was just cool for the SFF selection and, of course, the name :)
little inconsistencies like that drive me nuts, but the whole "unreliable narrator" thing gets him a free pass, now that I'm aware of it.
There is at least one minor thing that seems to be a genuine and difficult-to-rationalize goof, but it's sort of like Watson's wandering wound and not relevant to the plot (a character's hair changes length and style within a couple of pages). Then there are various other things that are very clear inconsistencies, and the fans love arguing over what they could possibly mean.
I'm sure you will do just fine on you finals! :)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 01:22 am (UTC)but it's sort of like Watson's wandering wound and not relevant to the plot
GRRM occasionally does the same thing, so I've learned not to sweat it. It's good to know that he doesn't make any big (unintentional) mistakes, though!