telophase | OK BORED NAO

Oh, man, would love to discuss Avatar, but I will be a good Yoon and wait. :-)

I don't have intelligent to say, but that is a discussion I look forward to reading.

The way I've been unable to do anything but sit on the couch and watch, it won't be too long now. XD

Are

sartorias's BitterCon entries from this weekend too old for good discussion (or too played out in your head because you've already said what you have to say)? A day or two is eternity in LJ time.

I posted some book and DVD logging yesterday that I'd love discussion on, but I don't know if there's anything to say on most of it.

They're pretty much too old, because you don't have people coming in and reading them fresh and reading the comments and getting all het up about the topic and posting to agree or argue with people after a day or so. And for most of them, I have nothing to say on the topic.* :)

and I've not actually read or watched any of the things in your list. XD Well, I've read Tramps Like Us 5 and Naruto 27, but not in over a year. :D

* I could say something on the subject of people recommending books on the basis of "If you liked [xxx] you might like [xxx]," but it would turn into a rant on how that always turns into "Since *I* liked [xxx] you'll like [xxx]," and from then into one of my frothing rants on how people constantly recommend Firefly to me, despite me pointing out that yes, I've seen the pilot ep that everyone says I should see and I hated it and I have no interest in watching it.

I find that I like Firefly better in theory than in fact. That is, the story sounds interesting, but I don't necessarily enjoy watching it. (This is a common problem for me. There are a lot things that I want to have *seen* so that I can discuss them and so that I know what happens but that I just can't force myself to actually watch because the process is unpleasant.) I've watched a good bit of it because my husband likes it and because the bits that rub me wrong aren't things that will prompt me to leave the room. (I can't stay in the room for Battlestar Galactica and will usually leave for Heroes.)

I suspect that some of the problem with recommending books is a mistaken assumption-- That is, most people assume that what they like is objectively good and that saying that they didn't like something is the same as saying that it's objectively bad. Some of that is that it can be hard to remember that consistent, fundamental, personal responses are personal. I have to remind myself fairly frequently that most people don't get really ill when they eat oregano or peppers, but it's hard to remember because my body and my consciousness are the media through which I experience everything.

In my experience, the people who are best at recommending books on the basis of if you liked that you'll like this are people who don't love the books in question or who have learned to put that love aside. I'd tend to trust an experienced public service librarian, for example, more than some of my friends. Well, except in cases where I know that my taste reliably matches the particular friend's.

My guess is that part of the difficulty in recommending also lies in knowing one's own literary/narrative kinks and squicks. I'm forty. I've been reading for thirty-five years, and I still don't know all of mine. I know there've been times when I've loved a crappy book simply because it hit the right buttons without doing anything to hit the wrong ones, books that I've later seen people comment on scathingly and had to acknowledge that it's all true and that I love the book anyway.

Most of my friends are Firefly fans and can't quite process the fact that since I'm a friend of theirs and like a lot of the same things they like, that I have zero interest in watching it. Or that, while I like Babylon 5 and have seen about half the episodes, I'm not such a fan that I'm buying the DVDs or have any interest in watching the episodes I haven't seen or re-watching the eps that I've already seen.

The worst case of recommenditis that I was subjected to was at a bachelorette party a couple of years ago, when I was explaining to someone that I had no interest in watching Lost, when someone else at the table, whose sole knowledge of me was my first name and that we had a few of the same friends, immediately said "Have you seen Firefly? You'll love it!" Uh, WTF?! The conversation then had the classic escalation that they all do:

Me: "I don't want to watch it."
Her: "Have you seen any of it?"
Me: "I've seen the pilot. I hated it."
Her: "Did you see the one that was shown as the pilot, or the real pilot, which is much better?"
Me: "The person who showed it to me is a Firefly fan and showed me the real pilot. I didn't like any of the characters and I didn't care about the situation. I'm a very strong character person and I have to like them before I can get into a show."
Her: "You need to keep watching it! The character development is awesome and you'll grow to like the characters!"
Me: "I am not going to waste several hours of my life sitting and watching a show that actively disgusts me on the off chance that I might like some of the characters later! I've got better things to do with that time."

In all honesty, my dislike of it would probably not be so extreme if people didn't keep evangelizing at me. It would be a "meh, don't care" show except that my attitude gets a little more bad every single time I have to go through the above exchange. *twitch* And that also guarantees that even if someone *did* sit me down and make me watch it, I would not like it, even if I'd like it normally, because BY GOD I WILL NOT BACK DOWN IN THE FACE OF EVANGELISTS.

Er. Anyway.

I am so strongly a character person that I cannot read a book or watch a show if I don't get some sort of connection to the characters - so it's not just that the characters have to be well-written and rounded, it's that they have to speak to me in some way that I can't necessarily articulate. I think that's why Heroes lost me partway through the first season. And that's definitely why I'm mainstreaming Avatar right now: it has an extremely high proportion of characters that I like, way more so than most shows and books.

And I know what you mean about loving a crappy book that hits all the right buttons - I do that with movies and TV, too.

I just recently had an experience where I bounced hard off a show that would normally hit all the right buttons. I have no idea if you're familiar with the anime Tactics, but it's got lots of my buttons: historical Japan, folklore, Japanese supernatural, mysteries, etc. And the main character, a folklore scholar, has a couple of youkai bound to him. I would have been K with that, except that they addressed the issue of them being bound to his will, and then laughed it off. The scene with the fox-girl crying hysterically as she was compelled to write an article for him bounced me so hard and so fast that I'm still angry about it, because it was meant to be funny.

I think I'd be forgiving up to the exchange about the different pilot episodes. That's an okay question (depending on tone), but everything after that is way out of bounds. I suspect that Firefly fans get more evangelical because they've been told that more DVD sales might translate into more movies, more story, more whatever. Then again, I've had people try to beat me into liking something without that excuse, so...

I'm generally but not always a character person. I want a connection. Some things that I read or watch seem too distanced for me to really like them. I describe it as being like a clear wall between me and the story, something that won't let me touch anything, won't let me get inside the story and characters and try them on for a while.

I do find that, if there are other things I like, I can make shallow or inconsistent characters real in my own head. I also sometimes find myself watching something for the sake of what it *could* be if it were just tweaked a little. (That carried me through watching all of Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok. I kept thinking about what it could be and not turning away when it wasn't that.) Falling in love with the potential of a story and characters can be heartbreaking, especially if there isn't fan fiction that goes the rest of the way.

I'm vaguely familiar with Tactics in that my public library has the first two volumes of the manga. I read them and wasn't too impressed because they weren't very coherent (the ADV translation rather than the more recent release). I have the first DVD of the anime somewhere in the depths of my Netflix queue but haven't given it any sort of priority because, although I thought it could surprise me, I don't expect it to be quite my thing.

Sometimes, I can get enough into a world to find things funny because they're meant to be (I've watched and read a lot of Ranma 1/2), but that mismatch of humor is one of the big ways in which a story can sever itself from its audience. There are things that aren't really that funny when one stops to think.

Wow, I made the right call not to watching anything after the first episode. I actually found it boring, but if I had watched that scene, I think I would have put my fist through my computer, and dear Angelina doesn't deserve that.

I'm going to keep with the manga for a bit more, because the anime and manga part ways, people tell me, and the above-mentioned Cool Bits really resonate with me. :) But if it treats the binding issue the same way, I'll have to drop it. (I think we're supposed to forgive the main character because he really doesn't maltreat the youkai like another character we see who captures them, but STILL...)

Um, forcing someone to do something they don't want to is maltreatment. It's still rape - only less-bad than the physical act. (And to some characters, it would actually be worse.)

Which is why that scene in the anime squicked the hell out of me and still induces blind rage, as I said above. I'm going to see how he concept's handled in the manga - I don't know if that particular scene is even *in* the manga.

I would be interested to hear if it's the same or played differently or if it's not there at all.

>> I am so strongly a character person that I cannot read a book or watch a show if I don't get some sort of connection to the characters <<

Amen! I think that's going to turn out to be my problem with all the shoujo manga I'm not liking even when people whose opinions I respect love them. (The latest "victim" was The Wallflower. Didn't do it for me. But Ouran still does. Oh well.)

And I'm sorry I wasn't around to chat!

:D For some reason, there's something in the air that's making lots of people who could normally be counted on to wander by and ~~ENTERTAIN ME, PEONS!~~ chat all had other things - midterms, RSI, internet access flaking out, etc.

What about heroes and BSG are rage-making for you? And are they the same things?

It's not rage making. It's anxiety and stress inducing. There's no pleasure in the experience. I don't deal well with violence, hopelessness and so on when paired with suspense, high stakes, etc. I also avoid horror, cop shows and any murder mystery series that aren't angled toward the comic. (I also have an embarrassment/humiliation squick, so most outright comedies make me cringe.)

If I watch the wrong things, I can end up going into severe hyper-vigilance to the point that I may not sleep that night. I can also end up feeling fear to the point of depression. No appeal at all there. I have a disabling anxiety disorder. Being careful about what I watch (or read) is simply part of managing the illness.

GAH I've got the embarassment/humiliation squick, too. There's been scenes in Avatar where, if I think a character's going to get embarassed or humiliated, I have to take the earphones out or turn the iPod away from me until the scene's over. There's something about the audio being fed directly into your ears that makes it even *more* immediate.

I find that, when I'm watching something alone, I often end up pausing the DVD because I just can't watch the next bit yet. I used to enjoy the old screwball comedies, but I can't watch them any more because they spend more time paused-- or with me looking away and covering my ears-- than they do playing. That causes some confusion in my Netflix ratings because I rate the screwball comedies that I watched twenty years ago very highly and any I watch now quite low.

Watching with other people can get me past those moments of cringing. I may look away for a few seconds, but I don't do it as often and can come back and enjoy the rest. I mean, I managed to watch all of Hana Yori Dango with friends.

Do you find it hard to read or watch when you know that a character's about to make a plot-required mistake? I have trouble with that, especially if it's something the character sets out to do deliberately and with thought.

I pause the DVD too. Or get up and make myself busy in the kitchen or the bedroom. Or grab a book and attempt to bury myself in it. Or talk loudly to the cat.

Do you find it hard to read or watch when you know that a character's about to make a plot-required mistake? I have trouble with that, especially if it's something the character sets out to do deliberately and with thought.

Have you read Bujold's A Civil Campaign? The Dinner Party Chapter? I cannot read it. I've never actually read it - I was on the Bujold mailing list at the time she wrote the book, and IIRC, we got a preview of that chapter, and I read enough to get the gist, and have never been able to read it since, skipping it in the book every time I reread.

::shudders:: Yes! The dinner party scene is impossible for me to reread. It's such a train wreck, and it's a train wreck that the characters set up and caused for themselves, Miles especially. I love A Civil Campaign, but I keep running into one problem with it in that I can think of a way that Ekaterin might possibly have gotten around Tien's cousin (Vassily?). If she'd sat him down and talked about Tien's brother's suicide and the fact that Tien and Nikki both had the same mutation, she could have implied heavily that she and Miles and her uncle all believed that Tien had committed suicide and had hushed it up for the sake of Nikki and of Tien's mother. Of course, then a major portion of the book-- a portion I quite enjoy-- would be gone or heavily altered.

The bit of Bujold that I've never managed to read is the first part of Mirror Dance. I'm okay once Mark's on Barrayar, but there's a large chunk of the previous text that I never read (and the rest I've only read once).

I managed to read the first part of Mirror Dance once. I just skim it very, very quickly now.

Just to be clear-- I wasn't meaning to imply that rage-making stuff was fun. Rather, I don't find anxiety/stress pleasurable. I *really* don't understand the appeal of stories that are designed to induce that sort of tension.

Rage-making responses tend to come rapidly and then move into anxiety before I can analyze them, but my after the fact analysis is that it's not rage in those two cases. Possibly because I haven't paid enough attention to the canon and possibly because the things that might anger me are completely hidden by the things that otherwise freak me out.

*nods*

Okay, I can understand that. And I never thought it was a pleasurable experience for you. I was just wanting if it was particular narratives things (I have several for those shows, which I used to love, that now might make me leave the room) and I was wondering if anything related to those was what was making you leave the room.

And I don't enjoy reading/watchign things that cause me anxiety/stress either. I've found there are shows that I perfectly fine watching and love during the summer when it's light and I'm relaxed that I cannot watch during the winter when I'm stressed out.

I haven't watched enough of either Battlestar Galactica or Heroes to have an opinion about some of the issues I've seen discussed in meta (I read the meta because it fascinates me to see the things that people can pull out of the text and because I'm curious about the stories being told). Rather, I have opinions about the issues discussed in the meta, but those opinions aren't based in the text but tend to be more, "Hm. If I were watching and if I noticed that, it would bother me." (Or appeal to me or intrigue me or bore me or...)

I watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries and decided, based on that, that the series would be too much for me. I've seen occasional scenes from later episodes (mostly at times when my husband was watching episodes while they aired and so couldn't pause them while I had business in the living room). The omnipresent violence and depression overwhelm me. I don't relate to any of the characters who're likely to survive, so my emotional response comes from the certainty that, in any situation remotely like that, me and mine would die or worse.

My response to Heroes is more complicated, but I think it combines anxiety with not finding anything in the story that I wanted to connect with. That is, the level of anxiety it produces is less and is something that I could tolerate if there were something about the show that drew me in strongly enough, but there isn't. Perhaps if I'd watched it from the beginning, it would have appealed to me, but I suspect not.

I watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries and decided, based on that, that the series would be too much for me. I've seen occasional scenes from later episodes (mostly at times when my husband was watching episodes while they aired and so couldn't pause them while I had business in the living room).

That was a good call. In doesn't get better or happier, and then the writers ruin the characters (who I loved) which ads a whole nother level of insulting to it. *points to icon* I love her like burning, and they totally raped her character, as well as basically all the characters who interact with her, especially her love interest, who I also shipped like burning.

A friend of mine has several times floated the theory that Ron Moore plots for maximum emotional whiplash rather than for consistency, logic or story. If true, I suspect it would explain some of the things that I've seen people complain about in the series.

My friend has spent some time trying to decide what the biggest possible emotional 180 is for Battlestar Galactica because he's certain that that's what's coming. He may be right, but I haven't encouraged him to discuss his theories because they tend to pivot on things that I know nothing about.

That is just so true. And I would be totally interested in hearing your friends theories.

I find that I like Firefly better in theory than in fact.

Yes, me too. 100%. The fact I sometimes catch myself thinking "Trigun did this better" helps not one bit.

Sorry, I'm almost at the point of just laying down on the couch and staring at the TV for a day myself. I know there are ideas for 4th Div. Irregulars in my head, but my brain is too clouded by cotton to think of them.

Yeah. I'm just at the point where if I think of putting something down, I get ambushed by "Is this too much? Is it not enough? Am I even addressing the stuff that should be addressed, or am I obsessing over something that doesn't matter?"

Aaaaaaargh! *headdesk*

Ahem. I think most of us just want another excuse to spend more time with your whimsical imagination and your superlative natural snark. So stop worrying so much!

The problem is, I kill things with too many rules. :)

Watch the Avatar! Join us, the Impatient Throng, as we wait for the next episode of season 3 to air. I think the show has gone on a break or something though, because it's been about 3 weeks without a new episode. I half hate the wait because I want to devour the entire season in one go, but the other half of me says it's worth the wait. :)

I have the TiVo primed to catch any episodes of Avatar that happen to air. XD And I've got the available episodes of season 3 on iTunes purchased and downloaded onto the iPod. Whee!

It sounds like you have everything under control then :D

On a completely unrelated note, I wouldn't feel that bad about not liking Firefly. :) I only got around to watching it a week or two ago and whilst I enjoyed it, it wasn't the awesometastic better-than-sliced-bread-athon I was promised. The characters do get more developed as it goes on, but it also seemed quite obvious that they were expecting a much longer run than the 14 episodes they got, so a lot of stuff is left hanging with no conclusion.

OK BORED NAO

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