[small enough to matter]
Jan. 15th, 2006 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI'm starting to truly think that in fact, talking to tech-support people is pure torture, designed to test the mind and break the spirit. Yes.
You know why? WHY?? YES, OH YES, I CAN TELL YOU WHY.
THEY ARE TOO POLITE. They are so polite, and non-offensive, and non-information-volunteering that I want to wring their scrawny little necks, oh yes I do. Talking to a person who treats you as if you're a (vaguely mentally disabled) 5 year-old is... well, it's bad enough if you don't feel you should keep your temper too. And of course I don't push too hard because that would make me feel ungrateful and silly, and also a bitch ('what's going on?' 'oh, some settings got changed.') ARGH.
My problem, really, is that overly polite professional people somehow come off as inhuman. Except a machine would offer to give you information more; come to think of it, I like computers themselves like, tons more than chippery tech-support girls. Die, tech-support girls, die!!1
They're really like... the human incarnations of AOL. -.-
And then people say 'if you haven't got anything nice to say, say nothing at all'. Riiiight. Because that doesn't lead to 'if you don't think it'll be useful, say nothing' and 'if you don't think The Little People can understand, say nothing' and 'if you think it'll make people listen to The Authority That Is You, keep on saying nothing'. Of course.
~~
I've been reading fantasy novels recently, both set partly in Scotland. Mmmm, Scotland... I'm not sure if I'm more enamoured with the faerie lore or the actual history (the Picts! Eee!), but-- well, that's normal for me.
Back when I first went to the fantasy section of Barnes & Noble several days back, I had some major headdesk...ing regarding everything being part of some crappy serial (trilogy being getting off lightly), but my real problem is actually things being crappy. It's just somehow worse when it's also 'part three of five'. (And then they say it's hard to break into the writing business-- I mean, can't be that hard when 90% of what I see is awwwwful.)
But Lisa Tuttle's stuff is really promising and Juliet Marillier is one of the very few people who do historical fantasy to my tastes these days. In epic fantasy especially, my tastes seem to be more exacting than with other types (well, than with urban fantasy), because people seem more likely to write in a dry, ponderous manner and use lots of flowery cliches-- I mean, even the best (Marillier or the other recent Australian, Alison Croggon) have this thing with the flowery descriptions and over-elaborate pretty much everything, and that sense of pompousness which I hate-- but it's more bearable somehow. Probably an actual talent for writing helps.
Though yeah, my issue is generally that when people focus on far-reaching plot and 'environment' or 'social issues' in their writing, the immediacy level goes way way down. Everything, even how things are -described- starts to feel predictable and boring when the focus becomes on the story to the point where the actual writing part is irrelevant. Like, I really don't know how people stand to read it-- not that some cliches aren't comfortingly familiar, but a constant barrage of them with no random sparkle feels like a recitation of a memorized play, doesn't it?
This is why I don't tend to read all the more famous fantasy epics that mark everyone else as a fantasy fan, man. It really takes way more talent than most writers have to make a big story still seem small enough to matter.
Actually, what I really like is some self-consciousness on the part of the narrative-- especially when things become cliche, it really amuses me when the characters are aware they're in a story (not literally, but more in a 'this is like this sort of story' sense). In stories which are based on fairy-tales but set in modern times especially, that works well for me. In a historical fantasy, characters being aware of myths or telling folktales for some reason frames things nicely as well-- or there being other (positive) characters who 'talk sense' or think in a skeptical fashion allows me to identify more with the main heroes. Though too much self-awareness makes for tell-not-show, methinks.
When the nay-saying character is merely there to be the enemy (and no real attempt at winning anyone over exists), I just get tired of being proselytized at.
Actually, it seems a lot of the fantasy books I've read lately off the top of my head, the main 'sympathetic' character is a 'true believer' or becomes one by necessity or revelation. Generally, I identify with that sort quite well, but when the skeptic or heretic is portrayed sympathetically as being intelligent and discerning and grows as a person without becoming a 'convert', that's even more appealing somehow. Maybe I'm just doomed to liking anti-heroes, I dunno.
You know why? WHY?? YES, OH YES, I CAN TELL YOU WHY.
THEY ARE TOO POLITE. They are so polite, and non-offensive, and non-information-volunteering that I want to wring their scrawny little necks, oh yes I do. Talking to a person who treats you as if you're a (vaguely mentally disabled) 5 year-old is... well, it's bad enough if you don't feel you should keep your temper too. And of course I don't push too hard because that would make me feel ungrateful and silly, and also a bitch ('what's going on?' 'oh, some settings got changed.') ARGH.
My problem, really, is that overly polite professional people somehow come off as inhuman. Except a machine would offer to give you information more; come to think of it, I like computers themselves like, tons more than chippery tech-support girls. Die, tech-support girls, die!!1
They're really like... the human incarnations of AOL. -.-
And then people say 'if you haven't got anything nice to say, say nothing at all'. Riiiight. Because that doesn't lead to 'if you don't think it'll be useful, say nothing' and 'if you don't think The Little People can understand, say nothing' and 'if you think it'll make people listen to The Authority That Is You, keep on saying nothing'. Of course.
~~
I've been reading fantasy novels recently, both set partly in Scotland. Mmmm, Scotland... I'm not sure if I'm more enamoured with the faerie lore or the actual history (the Picts! Eee!), but-- well, that's normal for me.
Back when I first went to the fantasy section of Barnes & Noble several days back, I had some major headdesk...ing regarding everything being part of some crappy serial (trilogy being getting off lightly), but my real problem is actually things being crappy. It's just somehow worse when it's also 'part three of five'. (And then they say it's hard to break into the writing business-- I mean, can't be that hard when 90% of what I see is awwwwful.)
But Lisa Tuttle's stuff is really promising and Juliet Marillier is one of the very few people who do historical fantasy to my tastes these days. In epic fantasy especially, my tastes seem to be more exacting than with other types (well, than with urban fantasy), because people seem more likely to write in a dry, ponderous manner and use lots of flowery cliches-- I mean, even the best (Marillier or the other recent Australian, Alison Croggon) have this thing with the flowery descriptions and over-elaborate pretty much everything, and that sense of pompousness which I hate-- but it's more bearable somehow. Probably an actual talent for writing helps.
Though yeah, my issue is generally that when people focus on far-reaching plot and 'environment' or 'social issues' in their writing, the immediacy level goes way way down. Everything, even how things are -described- starts to feel predictable and boring when the focus becomes on the story to the point where the actual writing part is irrelevant. Like, I really don't know how people stand to read it-- not that some cliches aren't comfortingly familiar, but a constant barrage of them with no random sparkle feels like a recitation of a memorized play, doesn't it?
This is why I don't tend to read all the more famous fantasy epics that mark everyone else as a fantasy fan, man. It really takes way more talent than most writers have to make a big story still seem small enough to matter.
Actually, what I really like is some self-consciousness on the part of the narrative-- especially when things become cliche, it really amuses me when the characters are aware they're in a story (not literally, but more in a 'this is like this sort of story' sense). In stories which are based on fairy-tales but set in modern times especially, that works well for me. In a historical fantasy, characters being aware of myths or telling folktales for some reason frames things nicely as well-- or there being other (positive) characters who 'talk sense' or think in a skeptical fashion allows me to identify more with the main heroes. Though too much self-awareness makes for tell-not-show, methinks.
When the nay-saying character is merely there to be the enemy (and no real attempt at winning anyone over exists), I just get tired of being proselytized at.
Actually, it seems a lot of the fantasy books I've read lately off the top of my head, the main 'sympathetic' character is a 'true believer' or becomes one by necessity or revelation. Generally, I identify with that sort quite well, but when the skeptic or heretic is portrayed sympathetically as being intelligent and discerning and grows as a person without becoming a 'convert', that's even more appealing somehow. Maybe I'm just doomed to liking anti-heroes, I dunno.
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Date: 2006-01-15 10:47 pm (UTC)OMG I KNOW. I really do think that I'd love to read a story where the person is just an ordinary Joe Soap, with acne, and spindly legs, who just gets caught up in the tide of things. Much like, oh, REAL LIFE is. Two of my favourite fantasy books get that -- Morningstar, by David Gemmell. 'The' Morningstar is the most amazing hero. He's not a hero, and he's without conscience, he doesn't get redeemed -- overall it's a good story, unlike, eg, anything else I've read by Gemmell. And the Ordinary Princess, by MM Kaye. Now that was one of the stories that shaped my childhood. Perhaps I would be all "PERFECTION IS GOD" if I hadn't loved that story so very, very much.
That's just it, ain't it? There ISN'T someone sitting behind the scenes, pulling levers and saying 'WELL NOW WE SHALL HAVE A GENOCIDE, I THINK.' I think Pterry coined this one, but history is like a blooper reel, the same mistakes over and over. Often the politico writers are trying to get across the message for eternal peace and goodwill among men and shit, which is frankly impossible. Humans go to war. That's it.
Not to mention the opposing side HAS to be evil, with horns or some other disfigurement, and the evil leader's megalomaniac tendencies just come out of nowhere. PAH. PAH, I SAY.
Oh, Neil does like him. But Neil is ... how do I put this ... a little too enchanted with the dark for the way he writes. Or something. I can never really get a handle on him. I sometimes just think he's a pretenious ass.
I swear, if I ever did write 'a book' -- and of course that's part of The Plan -- it'd be about gay books. QUEERLIT. LOVE IT. So totally would like to write a simple little story about, say, a rugby player and a geek, or summat.
Maybe by the time I get around to it publishing houses wouldn't totally wig at the thought. ♥
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Date: 2006-01-15 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 11:09 pm (UTC)Love the icon, babes.
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Date: 2006-01-15 11:08 pm (UTC)argh.
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Date: 2006-01-15 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 11:12 pm (UTC)(In other words, my mom likes 'em a lil too much, and I've known a few too many geeks in my day. Boy-geeks are really punning machines, it's SCARY.)
That's her Koi ga Bokura fanart, which is like one of my favorite yaoi mangas EVAR!!1 It's just... reeeeeally good, and pretty, and romantic, and not too predictable and SMART andandand. Yes. *___*
As for fandom bumper-stickers, I imagine something like 'honk if you're a fan-geek with no life' would do :>
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Date: 2006-01-15 11:16 pm (UTC)Oh gosh, I must try find that, now. Do you happen to know if it's recently been up on
I know you don't get Waterstones in Amery-K, but it's like Barnes and Noble, and I got a hundred euro voucher for it for Christmas, and this is what it said:
They say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
Now I just need those charming pom-pom things to emphasise my point ...
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Date: 2006-01-15 11:37 pm (UTC)Oh man, that's been on my streamload hosting account (http://www.streamload.com/elfee) for ages now, ever since I got djinn into it :D :D :D I LOVE IT SO, of course it must SPREAD :D! I'd also host Junjou Romantica and UGH and what else... Sex Pistols (EEEEEEEeeeee) because I love them all to pieces. Though the more I'm exposed to Misara Minase and Asami Tohjoh, the less I'm attached to their style... woe. :(
Ahahaha, they probably didn't believe you out of self-protection, right. So as to protect themselves from the horror and/or cooties--?? :)) I always wind up telling everyone, but then I like to see people freak out :>
Man, that should be my motto. With sparkly text and porn in small letters at the end :D
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Date: 2006-01-16 09:04 am (UTC)I. love. you! Thatisall. Eee, am sitting here downloading when I should be having breakfast. WHO NEEDS IT ANYWAY. And saving it to My Music. Think that is some kind of subliminal message.
Yup. Or the 'but GIRLS don't look at porn!! OMG OMG!!" mindset. I'm unsure as to whether I should define what kind of porn it is; I feel telling them I'm looking at two boys would only freak them out more. So I settle for 'yaoi.' They don't know what I mean. (Except for that one geek boy, who said 'manga porn.' I was like, 'No, tool, not ALL manga is porn. A lot. NOT ALL.')
I like the way you think.
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Date: 2006-01-16 12:08 am (UTC)...You know something's wrong with the universe when even the Porn has a predictable Plot. Le sigh.
Spindly legs and acne, huh-- well, you can find that quite literally in a lot of the more comedic fantasy novels (Piers Anthony likes acne, though he sucks in general), but of course I know what you mean. Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series is sorta like that, I guess, in that the protagonist isn't really either likable or all that special (being a regular Joe, but also a bastard), but he has specialness thrust upon him 'cause he possesses a ring (well, I think that's where the Tolkien resemblance ends). A lot of times, I think the 'ordinary guy on his own' stories are pessimistic because that guy either makes tons of mistakes or just generally Can't Win against all the epic stuff the story inevitably throws at him, y'know. Or if he can win, there's always the Terrible Price that is also unrealistic and scarring, and in the end he's more like some scarred warrior than the geek next door... alas. Well, some people like that sort of thing :>
I think the problem with Thomas Covenant and books like it is that they take an ordinary but he still becomes Important 'cause they have to be at the center of things and then, through facing the extraordinary, they basically... change (for the better or worse). There's that quote, right, about 'having greatness thrust upon them'. It takes a special sort of person, a special sort of talent, probably, to remain sane & 'normal', just yourself, even if the whole world around you goes insane. My favorite sort of story is like that, though-- like, um, well, the comic, Books of Magic as written by John Ney Reiber-- sure, Tim Hunter's the Opener, but really he always remains a dorkish, loserish teenage boy. With comics, perhaps it's easier because of the episodic nature and that might give more opportunity for smaller, episodic stories, I'm not sure. I also like Hellblazer for that same reason.
If you like stories where the character doesn't get redeemed and really, that's beside the point (and that Morningstar reference helped), you should check out the recent run of Lucifer (the comic). Man. After you love Lucifer Morningstar, nothing else measures up, you know :D :D :D Not that he's particularly normal, but issues of free will and choosing your destiny are the stuff that comic's made of <3<3<3 OH I LOVE IT SO. I'd even host it for ya if you want and/or if you're willing to read scanned comics :D
Well, on the other hand, I think change in human nature is possible if ridiculously slow & uber-hard to come by (through changes in environment, technological advancement level, economic stability). There would less war if everyone had loads of land, say. Settle the galaxy and you've fixed some problems and of course acquired others. But then, I'm a bit of a futurist -.- People will always retain their most basic characteristics, of course. Even so, like, Japan and the Viking countries used to be quite militant and now they're... not (especially if we start talkin' Canada). So it's really like... people are more pissed off if they're unhappy and such... well, obviously :>
Hahaha, you're walking a fine line, there, with wanting unhappy endings -and- not wanting the fics too dark :> He really -is- a pretentious ass (but aren't they all? Or something like that.) Moorcock is even more blatantly dark, so it's more straightforward, at least?? Trying to think of a vaguely balanced realistic epic fantasy writer.... I draw a blank. Damn. :/
Though RUGBY PLAYERS + GEEKS = YES.
it's like Remus/Sirius in a way :>
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Date: 2006-01-16 08:58 am (UTC)(Speaking of manga, you know when it says "Support the mangaka, buy this if you like it" -- well, I like a lot of things, but if I buy them will they be in Japanese? As essentially that would be useless to me. You seem to Know Things, that is why I ask.)
I ask for a lot, don't I? I guess, when the writer is skilled, that transition from 'ordinary' to 'capable of greatness' seems natural. It could be argued that everyone has the capacity for greatness and that it take adversity to bring it out. It is the basis for every alternate dimension story, after all, where the protagonist gets shoved into another reality after being, like, a clerk their whole lives, and ends up saving the country.
Maybe it's the saving thing. I'm just trying to imagine if you wrote it the other way around, with people coming to our world from another. What would they do, band with George Bush to crush people like Saddam Hussein? I mean, here, all the leaders are as bad as each other, whether it's in killing people they don't like or in plain incompetence. (Am thinking of Ireland's PM, here.) Not to turn this into some kind of political debate, but you know. It'd be great if people could actually write fantasy without the definition it seems to require. As in people are stupid bastards no matter where you go ... ahem.
Ooh, am taking note. Comics have just started to appear in bookshops around here (which is why I'm buying Chobits avidly -- it's just about the only decent manga on sale. I think they pulled Gravitation and Ghost because someone actually looked inside). Still, one day my father will give me his credit card and let me run amok on Amazon, and then all will be right with the world. Until that day, I stockpile names.
I was just thinking about how uninterested Japan does seem in blowing other countries to bits and stuff. Then again, they got pretty smashed in WWII. It's hard to equate the Vikings with the Swedes, though. OMG, like, Scandinavians are so polite and cultured these days ... perhaps they're eventually going to come to the end of their tether and just SNAP.
And, there was a yaoi story about that, too ...
I always would have said Robin Hobb and George RR Martin are 'balanced' in that sense, until I read their latest offerings. FOR SHAME, GUYS.
Noooo, it's all about the James/Sirius!!
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Date: 2006-01-17 11:22 am (UTC)(Yeah, about the 'buy' thing, it annoys me but I suspect that's to cover their ass. And also, uh, if you know what's going on, I -guess- you can enjoy the pretty art and um, follow along from memory. Or something. I myself would never waste my money, but-- um, it's that whole 'we're not REALLY pirates, we SUPPORT THE INDUSTRY thing.)
Yeah, the character development being natural = major skill, ahahah. It should be noted what I read isn't epic fantasy or sci-fi but rather urban fantasy or dark fantasy one-offs. I've -heard- of a lot of it, but usually put off reading even the popular/recced stuff like George RR Martin and such 'cause, um, y'know, bored by wars/politics/etc. I like saying etc a lot :> But I mean, I -wanted- to read Martin's stuff, read & loved the novella that got the whole cycle started, but. Just. All that politics stuff. Grargh. I dunno, I just. I don't have that desire for... uh... um... pompousness? Social issues exploration? I like v. few 'socially-minded' writers, usually sci-fi, quirky, character-focused anyway, and somehow Really Strange. I can't quite even get up to reading much LeGuin. -.-
There's lots of 'weird' or off-kilter fantasy, just not in the alternate-world epic genre where you have all the trilogies and the stuffy prose and such. With the whole rational exploration of possibilities thing, I go more with the aliens than the, um, 'other' people. Or whatever. If I go rationalist, I go -really- rationalist, what can I say :)) I really like the sci-fi of Nancy Kress & Joan D. Vinge & Vernor Vinge, say, and all write pretty socially-aware stuff that's still... character focused. There's possibly even more crap in sci-fi than fantasy, though, so I dunno.
I like the Japanese tendency to make comics/anime about future!Japan snapping (oooh, repression! sexy!), but. What I meant was, people aren't... *totally* predictable, that's what's so maddening.
Admittedly, most S/R as written is fluffy crap, but same goes for H/D, heh. It's just that James/Sirius = HOT RUGBY PLAYER
LURVEEXPERIMENTATION, no geeks :( :(no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 09:19 pm (UTC)Yet I still suck, because I probably would spend my time finding ways to passively thwart the rules. But still. It's like that phrase from The God Of Small Things, about the Great Stories. (God, google is wonderful. I don't have a copy on me, but here it is:)
“It didn’t matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen.. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again.
That's how I excuse writing cliches or, at the very least, stories that are extremely simple and don't address any great Issues or encompass any social debate, difficult characterisation etc etc ad infinitum. Hey, it works for me ...
So it's in Japanese? Eh, screw that. The only reason I would buy is to free up some harddrive, and also the constant fear that my laptop will explode and take my life with it.
The novella! I read that when I was eleven, and found the actual books two years later. Initially I was charmed by the, you know, hardcore sex. Naturally. I can't say much against him except that his latest was a disappointment, because I think he's pretty fabulous otherwise. Westeros is one of the few fantasy lands I can fully believe in. That, and the Seven Duchies, and Narnia -- I still check any new wardrobes, which is why the end of the movie made me burst into tears. OMG I KNOW -- SAP.
Is true. I can't really explain my penchant for S/J, no more than I can my one for H/D. It works for me. Because it was it, because it was I ...? Arglebarf.