( Merlin. )

I fake-purchased $2500 in books today, and never want to go near a book ever again. That's going to make librarianship hard, but I'll manage somehow.

I've been reading recent Supernatural commentaries. From what I can gather, Supernatural is a show that occasionally interacts with its fandom, its fans, and its fan fiction. And a recent episode apparently conveyed the sense that male fans interact with their texts by identifying with the characters (and therefore, it is implied, they understand and embrace the spirit of the text), and female fans interact with their texts by wanting to date the characters.

I've never watched Supernatural and thus have none of the specific contexts, but I'm a bit confused by the wide response. Not because this isn't infuriating - because it is - but because it isn't new. At all. This is a fairly standard attitude toward female fans of male characters. I would understand if the producer of the show were usually better about gender than his peers, but I'm not really getting that impression from the commentaries. And I also wish people would stop being offended at the idea that producers think women are attracted to their characters. There's nothing wrong with being attracted to them. And I don't think "being attracted to a character" and "identifying with a character" are mutually exclusive modes of interaction with a text.

I think it's fairly well-established that women have an easier time relating to male characters than men do with female characters. And, like most women on the planet, I find Mr. Darcy stupidly hot and I want a Darcy of my own (I am embarrassingly fond of Lost in Austen). But while Pride and Prejudice actually was aimed at women and I'm supposed to identify with Elizabeth, I can't even really like her, let alone relate to her* - but also, while I can't really identify with Darcy, I have always been far more sympathetic to his point of view than to Elizabeth's. He just makes more sense to me. And when I watch White Collar (or anything else that appeals to me because of my early fixation on Robin Hood) I'm never quite certain whether I want to date Neal Caffery or be Neal Caffery. And hey, that's fine. It's multiple levels of fun.

Hm. Part of why I love Bones-the-character so damned much is that not only is she awesome and brilliant and I want to be her, but also that I really do identify/empathize with her (which you don't - or I don't - have to do to love a character). I've seen a few people put up lists of favorite female characters. I might make one. I'd have to work on mine for awhile, because I truly doubt that I'd be able to come up with 50 in one shot - which is depressing but not surprising, I think - but it might be worth it, just to be able to see that long list of names. Now I really want lots of female characters I can identify with. I don't even care where they're from (a character in a romantic comedy that I can identify with would also be rare).


_____
*I can, however, identify with both Charlotte Collins and Mary Bennett. Which may be part of why I'm not particularly fond of Pride and Prejudice, despite the presence of a hero whom I don't believe has been overrated in the slightest by his rabid fans.

Glee!!!!

( It just seems to need exclamation points. Spoilers, obviously. )

And speaking of spoilers - Nice. I'm glad some of y'all want to read it! I love it! And I'm sorry I explained the end! The book was relevant to other musings, and thus on my brain, and I was thinking of a re-read and just reminiscing, and I didn't think about the fact that I was essentially recommending a book and probably shouldn't have gone into how she ends up. I hope you like the book anyhow.

My next post requires cocoa.

A couple years ago I found this awesome book - Nice, by Jen Sacks - that I am re-reading now. It is a mystery/romance about two sociopaths.

The main character is nice. Really, really nice. She worries about hurting peoples' feelings. So when men ask her out she says yes, and if they ask she sleeps with them, and she really, really doesn't want to have to reject them because that would make them feel bad, so to solve the conundrum she kills them. They were accidents, mostly, but it did solve her problem.

Let's just say the plot has always sounded entirely too plausible.

( And I love the ending. )

I really love this book.

MERLIN. Oh my God. Wow.

This is an episode I've wanted all season.

( Merlin, Arthur, and obligatory Morgana musing. Spoilers, obviously. )

Oh, wow, no more tipsy LJ for me. I seem to get even more flippant-weird. Is there an etiquette concerning the deletion of your own comments in other peoples' journals? *headdesk* lol? Eek.

I am moving! I am moving to a building where there is a very enthusiastic drum player, and he practices, often. I am absolutely thrilled by this and don't mind his practicing at all. That is how glad I am to be gone from where I am (well, but also - he's really quite good).

I've just finished catching up with White Collar, and I love it. I seem to be watching a lot of television this season. The only weeknight with nothing is Tuesday. I haven't watched TV this regularly since high school.

I tried to write something today, from one of my many One-Day-I'll-Write-That daydreams (the one with the aristocratic bully who gets turned into a werewolf and finds himself at the bottom of the pack's pecking order and subsequently becomes hapless and flaily and pissed-off), and all I ended up doing was writing fourteen more pages of character notes. I loved RPing, and it did a lot to help me be willing to be creative in public, but the flipside of that is that I now primarily think with character sheets. And now I am hapless and flaily and pissed-off. Argh. And you all write, or wrote, so clearly I have no excuse. Argh Argh Argh.

I made Halloween cupcakes, but that has been the extent of my Halloween celebrating this evening. They have orange and brown sprinkles on them. They are delicious. I have outside confirmation on this; my ego has been nicely stroked.

I am going home for Thanksgiving, which is good, because I miss my family. My eighteen-year-old self would be disgusted. What my eighteen-year-old self would have thought used to matter to me, but usually I no longer care.

I'm not sure where to settle. FindYourSpot seems to think I'd be best off in Tacoma, WA or Lewiston, ME. That's a lot of ground to choose between.

Oh, just - fuck it. Danny? Rusty? I don't know what an Ella Fitzgerald is, but if you find me, I'm certain I could learn.

So, this was mostly a gigglefest. ( Merlin 107. Spoilers )

I finally finished On the Road. It's a work of sheer mad genius, worthy of its characters, but I'm never reading it again. It spoke to me on a lot of levels, but its casual misogyny was a constant reminder that none of this was for me. I never felt offended by it, just shut out: as if Kerouac's response, were he to hear that someone like me would read his book, would have been, "why?"

Also: I overheard a pair of undergraduates discussing Catullus 16 in the library, yesterday. They were really amusing - reminded me of characters I once saw in a movie, twelve year olds gawking over an unexpurgated full translation of The Arabian Nights. Because ages past were more exciting than our staid modern one, but it's still a gigantic revelation that people have always been oscene. :D

Lastly: my interview yesterday went really well (much better than the other, in which I couldn't seem to say anything of substance whatsoever), but that just means I can't book a flight home for December until I find out if I've gotten the job, and they interviewed a lot of people. I won't find out for two to three weeks, and meanwhile, prices are steadily rising. Eluch.

I am going to go buy a pumpkin. A teeny one.

The Uther Show! I maybe loved this episode more than any normal adult should have. I think my enjoyment came from the same place that made me create characters like Flynt.

( Merlin 205, spoilers )

--

(My uneasiness re:Morgana keeps escalating the more I ponder the issue - I have another rant in me about her, actually, though now is not the time for it. This episode gave no more fuel! But I've been meaning to watch 204 again, a little more closely this time, and - well, that'll probably do it.)

I am sick. I walked to get cold medicine. In the cold, because I am an idiot. I just grabbed a twenty, okay - I don't have a car and the bus wasn't running, so I did not bring my purse or ID, and then after a half-hour walk I am staring at the check-out girl through my disgusting haze of snot and watery eyes, and she would not sell me cold medicine without my driver's license. I will grant you I'm not the most observant of people when it comes to things everyone else knows, but seriously, when did this shit happen? Apparently I have to be sick in order to prevent the manufacture of methamphetamines.

And now I would like to sleep and I have no antihistamine.

Also, my classes are really boring, and to top it all off, when I get out of here, having earned a 50,000 dollar debt and a piece of paper, I have to be a librarian. I DON'T WANT TO BE A LIBRARIAN. I am never going to get away from books. They're going to cover me in dust and weigh me down and swallow me whole and I won't even do anything about it.

I'm kind of cranky.

But also: oh, hey. Our president won a Nobel.

:DDD

Is this because we haven't invaded anyone new in the last year? Positive reinforcement? :D

Really, this is nifty.

Dollhouse (yes, really)

1) Alisoun is not from the Wife of Bath's tale, idiot. She is from the Miller's tale.
2) Alisoun is not stupid. I didn't like her (or Chaucer), but she's not stupid. With all the epic bad of this show, I nevertheless can no longer suspend my disbelief here, because a man who would invent a Kiki thinking she's a modern-day Alisoun is not qualified to teach college Chaucer. Major fail.

That said, ( small spoiler )
___

Merlin

Isolated moments of awesome, but my unhappy meter was going off quietly but persistently in the background. Reference to the actual legend does that to me. So.

( Merlin 204. Spoilers. )

Good night.

Merlin!

This episode has co-opted one of Lancelot's well-known stories for Arthur, but that is okay. And "Sir William" was adorable.

I really liked this episode. I think it's interesting that the first thing established in the last episode is that Merlin doesn't feel that Arthur knows or appreciates him, and after setting the tone for the season in that way, the show proceeds to develop Arthur's relationship with Gwen. The disonance is interesting. Merlin is the one who so badly wants to be recognized, but Gwen is the one teaching Arthur that servants are people. Obviously it will be a continuing process.

( Cut for spoilers )

Also, as part of my recent YA-Lit phase, I have been reading and am almost finished with Gaiman's The Graveyard Book and I love it, love it, love it. I recommend it unconditionally.

The thing about tabloids is that they exaggerate and lie and so I don't even scan them all that often and when I do I tend to think that if they're screaming about someone's imminent death, the personage in question simply has a cold and his/her relatives would really appreciate a cessation of all condolence calls. But. Patrick Swayze died last week. I just found out. That's. Johnny Castle just died.

Is that horrible? To equate everything he was to one roll he played twenty years ago? I hope not, because I am genuinely saddened by this. And anyway, I always think you kind of miss the point if you think you're making a connection with someone other than the characters they craft and present to you. I didn't know him, but I was a fan of that movie before I had any clue what it was actually about, so.

I don't know. This doesn't affect me and I'll have forgotten about it in a day. I'm sorry. I am. Rest in peace.

Merlin!

...Hahhah, are those railings?

( Spoilers )

Avast, ye bilge rats!

IT BE TH' DAY O' TH' PIRATES. WHERE'S ME SWAG? Loot! Ahoy! ARR!

DRINK UP ME 'EARTIES YO HO.

REALLY BAD EGGS.

Planning is one of many of the librarian's responsibilities. Planning means devising a method for accomplishing something. Planning takes place every day because outcomes are sought, decisions are made to reach those outcomes, and actions are taken based on those decisions. The distinction is between informal planning, which people do daily, and formal planning, which has a structure within which conscious, intentional planning occurs.

It's a good thing there are $70 textbooks to inform me of these things. But, also:

...and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

From On the Road. I've always wanted to be that, though who knows whether I mean the mad ones or the narrator when I say that. I don't suppose it matters. I've tried at both but have never really been near to either.

I'm going to love this book.

Well. And I just checked out Gossip Girl, so if it gets too pretentious I can take a break.

I just watched series three of Torchwood. I'm still numb, but I can feel the anger building somewhere.

( I think I might be pissed off? Cut for spoilers. )

Link from Julia. Rest in peace, Steelsings.

I'm so glad I found SS. There are so many wonderful people I never would have met otherwise, so many stories I wouldn't have been part of.

Thank you, SS and SSers. You made me very happy.