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Some smart things people have been saying about a particular thing I could not make any sense of in 'A House Divided': ( cut for spoilers )
Just trying to make sense of things before the new episode.
Just trying to make sense of things before the new episode.
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housefic_meta is having an interesting discussion on the dark!Wilson trend in fanfic here. I don't feel the desire to read such fiction (it's hideously OOC as far as I'm concerned), but it was interesting to hear what other people had to say. ( in conclusion: w00bie )emosional attyachar
Feb. 4th, 2009 12:57 pmI…really liked this episode. Huh. ( House 5.14 The Greater Good )
the obvious
Nov. 13th, 2008 09:43 amI did a little 'Hallelujah!' dance. It wasn't pretty, but it certainly was appropriate. One might say the occasion demanded it.
( House 5.07 The Itch )
( House 5.07 The Itch )
this must be it. welcome to the new year.
Nov. 2nd, 2008 02:30 amThis post is long. There are spoilers.
( tl;dr )
ETA: This post inhouse_cuddy is awesome and thought-provoking: The show is still about House. Cuddy is only one aspect of House. She has been an aspect of House since day one and has become more of an aspect of House over the seasons. Especially as his team and friend deserted him and she had to sit in the hospital and hold his hand so maybe he wouldn't remember that he was lonely and miserable when he woke up.
( tl;dr )
ETA: This post in
house_cuddy is awesome and thought-provoking: The show is still about House. Cuddy is only one aspect of House. She has been an aspect of House since day one and has become more of an aspect of House over the seasons. Especially as his team and friend deserted him and she had to sit in the hospital and hold his hand so maybe he wouldn't remember that he was lonely and miserable when he woke up.shiny ivory towers
Oct. 22nd, 2008 11:59 amI find fandom's anti-academic bias absurd. Furthermore, I find the anti-aca/fen debates that make the rounds in fandom every now and then worrisome, and very opposed to that aspect of fannish culture I've come to cherish over the years: tolerance of other people's weird obsessions.
There, I've said it.
I know my biases. I do, after all, harbour notions of getting myself a Ph.D in English; even teaching, perhaps - even though my thoughts on that topic mostly centre around, 'STOP ASKING ME GROWNUP QUESTIONS OK?' I work in a publishing house that thrives on pretentious academic publications. Where I stand today, I need to validate academia. Ooh, look, isn't the ivory shiny?
I also have difficulty comprehending how analysis is not fun, because it's something that comes very naturally to me. Splitting hairs is fun. Studying everything is fun. Fun me for me, anyway - they might not be for you. Which is not the point of this post here. The point here is very simply, why is my version of fun such an issue for you?
Here, for instance: The older I get and the more I have to do with academicians, the more I agree that academia is the enemy. Not, mind you, through any willful doing of evil, but through an insistence that everything must be studied. I lay the blame for the large number of college-educated people who never read for pleasure at the feet of English lit courses, where one is taught to examine the work at the expense of simply enjoying the story.
This posits 'simply enjoying the story' as opposed to 'analysing and ruining the fun in the story', which, as far as I'm concerned, is a false binary, because no, it doesn't work like that. For one, 'simply enjoying' is a vague and deceptive term. What does 'simply enjoying' mean? One assumes it is the pleasure of reading the story and knowing what happens next - except that this mode of 'simple enjoyment' is not inimical to analysis, and, in case of some stories, impossible, because nothing actually happens in them. Or perhaps it is the pleasure of words - soaking up the beauty of a well-written piece; enjoying the beauty of a metaphor; reveling in the mystery of words; etc. And again, this mode of 'simple enjoyment' is not opposed to an academic's brand of reading a text, either, because a lot of academic analysis follows naturally from this 'simple' pleasure (ref. the five hundred million works on language in Shakespeare, where the authors are thisclose to dying of wordgasm).
But more importantly, take away the theory and big words, and leave just the academic and her and her endless analysis and debates, replace the 'Derrida' and 'Foucault' with 'Joss' and 'SGA', replace the big words with, say, 'slashy' and 'canon', and what do you have? Someone very close to - dare I say? - what we call a Fan.
Fandom takes its Cult of Squee very seriously. It's very serious about not being serious. And in this serious not-seriousness there is a reverse snobbery, which posits that if you're not here just for the LULZ and can't see the simple pleasures of life, you must be a boring idiot or a pseudo-intellectual; which proposes that it isn't possible to be genuinely entertained by anything other than the simple way of reading, whatever that might mean. And in this inverse snobbery, fandom becomes precisely what it claims not to be: intolerant. Like Them.
I cannot be having with this.
There, I've said it.
I know my biases. I do, after all, harbour notions of getting myself a Ph.D in English; even teaching, perhaps - even though my thoughts on that topic mostly centre around, 'STOP ASKING ME GROWNUP QUESTIONS OK?' I work in a publishing house that thrives on pretentious academic publications. Where I stand today, I need to validate academia. Ooh, look, isn't the ivory shiny?
I also have difficulty comprehending how analysis is not fun, because it's something that comes very naturally to me. Splitting hairs is fun. Studying everything is fun. Fun me for me, anyway - they might not be for you. Which is not the point of this post here. The point here is very simply, why is my version of fun such an issue for you?
Here, for instance: The older I get and the more I have to do with academicians, the more I agree that academia is the enemy. Not, mind you, through any willful doing of evil, but through an insistence that everything must be studied. I lay the blame for the large number of college-educated people who never read for pleasure at the feet of English lit courses, where one is taught to examine the work at the expense of simply enjoying the story.
This posits 'simply enjoying the story' as opposed to 'analysing and ruining the fun in the story', which, as far as I'm concerned, is a false binary, because no, it doesn't work like that. For one, 'simply enjoying' is a vague and deceptive term. What does 'simply enjoying' mean? One assumes it is the pleasure of reading the story and knowing what happens next - except that this mode of 'simple enjoyment' is not inimical to analysis, and, in case of some stories, impossible, because nothing actually happens in them. Or perhaps it is the pleasure of words - soaking up the beauty of a well-written piece; enjoying the beauty of a metaphor; reveling in the mystery of words; etc. And again, this mode of 'simple enjoyment' is not opposed to an academic's brand of reading a text, either, because a lot of academic analysis follows naturally from this 'simple' pleasure (ref. the five hundred million works on language in Shakespeare, where the authors are thisclose to dying of wordgasm).
But more importantly, take away the theory and big words, and leave just the academic and her and her endless analysis and debates, replace the 'Derrida' and 'Foucault' with 'Joss' and 'SGA', replace the big words with, say, 'slashy' and 'canon', and what do you have? Someone very close to - dare I say? - what we call a Fan.
Fandom takes its Cult of Squee very seriously. It's very serious about not being serious. And in this serious not-seriousness there is a reverse snobbery, which posits that if you're not here just for the LULZ and can't see the simple pleasures of life, you must be a boring idiot or a pseudo-intellectual; which proposes that it isn't possible to be genuinely entertained by anything other than the simple way of reading, whatever that might mean. And in this inverse snobbery, fandom becomes precisely what it claims not to be: intolerant. Like Them.
I cannot be having with this.
adverse events
Oct. 11th, 2008 01:24 pmHere. Something to distract you from financial gloom and doom, flist. Stop staring at the plummetting stocks, it's not healthy.
( House 5.03 Adverse Events )
*
Also a rec: Rest Stop by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
magical24: I don't read a lot of AUs in this fandom, but I was intrigued by a rec in house_cuddy and so I followed the link. I'm glad to say I wasn't disappointed. It features a House who dropped out of medical school after his incident in Hopkins, opting to join Dylan Crandall's band instead. The pairing is House/Cuddy, but I wouldn't really call it a ship fic - it's more of a House AU, with House/Cuddy playing an important role in House's journey. I was particularly enchanted by this universe's Cuddy, and the way the author portrays the class issues in House and Cuddy's relationship. There's also a nice cameo by Wilson. I found the end a bit abrupt, to be honest, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the universe. If you're in the mood for a long, well-written AU, you might want to give this a try.
( House 5.03 Adverse Events )
*
Also a rec: Rest Stop by
magical24: I don't read a lot of AUs in this fandom, but I was intrigued by a rec in house_cuddy and so I followed the link. I'm glad to say I wasn't disappointed. It features a House who dropped out of medical school after his incident in Hopkins, opting to join Dylan Crandall's band instead. The pairing is House/Cuddy, but I wouldn't really call it a ship fic - it's more of a House AU, with House/Cuddy playing an important role in House's journey. I was particularly enchanted by this universe's Cuddy, and the way the author portrays the class issues in House and Cuddy's relationship. There's also a nice cameo by Wilson. I found the end a bit abrupt, to be honest, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the universe. If you're in the mood for a long, well-written AU, you might want to give this a try.The Boy Who Lived
Jul. 16th, 2007 01:26 amLess than a week left for HP 7. I'm excited. I don't have words to express how excited I am. How nervous. There's this feeling of dread, butterflies in my stomach every time I think about what will happen. Because nothing will be the same after this.
I had no intention of reading Harry Potter the first time I heard about it. A book about witches and wizards? Silly. For children. That's what I thought.
Then I picked it up out of curiosity, a few years later, in a tiny bookstore in a train station. I picked it up and I read the first chapter of the very first book, 'The Boy Who Lived.' And nothing has been the same ever since.
JKR has written about this chapter afterwards. Says some of the writing makes her cringe, and I don't know, maybe it should. But to me – it's perfect as it is, one of the most magical things I've ever read. The cat reading the map and Professor Dumbledore with his half-moon glasses. Hagrid in a motorbike and wizards celebrating everywhere. Petunia Dursley waking up one fine morning to find the Boy Who Lived at her doorstep. It's perfect. It's magical. There is no other word for it. I read it and my world changed.
I picked up the next book, and the snake whispering at the background, "Rip! Tear! Kill!" made me shiver. Azkaban left me breathless and overwhelmed and in love with everyone and everything about this 'verse. I read GoF, and Cedric died, and I knew I had to read more. I had to read something, anything.
So I came online and googled Harry Potter fansites. And then I discovered ff.net. I discovered fandom, and nothing was the same after that.
Harry Potter gave me fandom. You know what that means, right? Harry Potter gave me *fandom*. I'm here with you and I'm talking to you because I picked up Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that day in the train station.
And now here we are, waiting with bated breath for what happens next, what happens in the *end*.
Fandom will be different after this. Canon will be closed. Our endless fascination with the 'war' scenario will have to be dealt with in a different way, now that JKR will give us her version of the war. Things will change and fandom will change and I don't want them to change. Except that I do.
Does that even make sense?
I don't care if JKR, in someone else's opinion, is a hack who can't string two sentences together. She wrote Harry Potter. And no matter how much the hype is, no matter how much money mediahouses spend on this, it takes a little more than a hack to have the so many people in love with her world and her characters. I hope, someday, I can write as badly as she does.
And maybe some day, years later, our grandchildren will discover the Potter books in our bookshelves, as I discovered The Fellowship of the Ring in my grandfather's bookshelf. And we will tell them, 'We were there when it happened. We were a part of the story.'
To Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. *raises glass*
I had no intention of reading Harry Potter the first time I heard about it. A book about witches and wizards? Silly. For children. That's what I thought.
Then I picked it up out of curiosity, a few years later, in a tiny bookstore in a train station. I picked it up and I read the first chapter of the very first book, 'The Boy Who Lived.' And nothing has been the same ever since.
JKR has written about this chapter afterwards. Says some of the writing makes her cringe, and I don't know, maybe it should. But to me – it's perfect as it is, one of the most magical things I've ever read. The cat reading the map and Professor Dumbledore with his half-moon glasses. Hagrid in a motorbike and wizards celebrating everywhere. Petunia Dursley waking up one fine morning to find the Boy Who Lived at her doorstep. It's perfect. It's magical. There is no other word for it. I read it and my world changed.
I picked up the next book, and the snake whispering at the background, "Rip! Tear! Kill!" made me shiver. Azkaban left me breathless and overwhelmed and in love with everyone and everything about this 'verse. I read GoF, and Cedric died, and I knew I had to read more. I had to read something, anything.
So I came online and googled Harry Potter fansites. And then I discovered ff.net. I discovered fandom, and nothing was the same after that.
Harry Potter gave me fandom. You know what that means, right? Harry Potter gave me *fandom*. I'm here with you and I'm talking to you because I picked up Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that day in the train station.
And now here we are, waiting with bated breath for what happens next, what happens in the *end*.
Fandom will be different after this. Canon will be closed. Our endless fascination with the 'war' scenario will have to be dealt with in a different way, now that JKR will give us her version of the war. Things will change and fandom will change and I don't want them to change. Except that I do.
Does that even make sense?
I don't care if JKR, in someone else's opinion, is a hack who can't string two sentences together. She wrote Harry Potter. And no matter how much the hype is, no matter how much money mediahouses spend on this, it takes a little more than a hack to have the so many people in love with her world and her characters. I hope, someday, I can write as badly as she does.
And maybe some day, years later, our grandchildren will discover the Potter books in our bookshelves, as I discovered The Fellowship of the Ring in my grandfather's bookshelf. And we will tell them, 'We were there when it happened. We were a part of the story.'
To Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. *raises glass*
