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Vive le difference: a portrait

#i would say who is who but that's insulting to all of you #you know

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Going to old 97s!

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Doc what would you rather marathon, every Harry Potter movie or 19 hours of Friends episodes?

Are the Harry Potter movies actually 19 FUCKING HOURS LONG?? Didn't people watch all of them before the new one came out? The fuck is wrong with people?

I am going to level with you, I can't actually watch around more than two, two and a half, hours of programming at a time. Even if I like it. I just can't watch and pay attention for that long and, actually pay attention to what I'm watching. I have no idea how people binge watch shows. It seems so unpleasant to me.

So neither! I am not a person who can marathon, it isn't even about the shows themselves, i couldn't marathon the whole first season of Deadwood either.

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I'm going to a concert tonight!

I don't know that my musical taste is ever something you think or care about, but @keyofjetwolf is taking me to a concert tonight for a band i've been listening to for more than a decade. I'm sure at least SOME of you have heard of them, as their songs have been in a couple things.

Old 97s are an alt-country band, though they do play around with style from time to time and did an indie pop thing for a little bit that it must be said, I fucking hated. I LOVE most, their heavy drawl red dirt country shit.

ANYWAY, I am very excited to see them and in a way that is not at all like me I will probably buy a t-shirt or something.

Here's my favorite five Old 97s songs as of the moment I am sitting here thinking about it, in no particular order. Maybe even let's call is instead, 'Songs I really hope they'll sing tonight" My only consideration was trying to spread the love among their albums. I really do encourage you to give them a listen, if for no other reason than to go, "yeah, this sounds like Holligay shit"

Good With God: To do a Xerox of Xerox type shit, if I ever got the chance to make a show about (and this is a long recall that only a few of you will get) Yael and Jesse and Cary and Bitsy and all them on before OW, this would have been the theme song.

Up The Devil's Pay: This is one of those great songs that's incredibly fun to sing along with. I have some weird feelings about the album it comes from, but this song kicks ass.

Wish the Worst: This would absolutely be on my 'femme breakup mix' I fucking love it, I listen to it all the time, if you've driven with me some distance you have almost certainly heard this song.

You Were Born To Be in Battle: So there's two 'lead' singers in the Old 97s, Rhett Miller, and then Murry Hammond. The band has tended to use Rhett more, especially as they have gained popularity in a more mainstream way. Murry has a much more pronounced drawl, and makes them sound more like a country band, which makes them less likely to get played on say, Scrubs. I have feelings about this, but that's not relevant. I love this song desperately, there's something about it that gets me in such a "old man looking out at the scrub brush" way, and Murry sings it, and I can't imagine anyone else singing it.

Western Stars: I do not like everything off their new album ahaha. This happens to me all the time with these guys, because they're constantly trying new shit, and you know what? Good for them. They don't owe me stagnancy. But THIS, this song is the kind of shit I love from them. And i'll give them this: No matter what kind of new concept they try, every album always has a couple songs like this for those of us who have been here forever ahaha.

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Do you think having such a personalized and detailed headcanon makes it harder to enjoy fic about the show/game that's written by others?

I mean sure, probably.

But unfortunately things I adore, for people named Doc who are me, fall into one of two buckets:

The character work and plot in this show are incredible, I find myself turning it around in my mind like a rotisserie chicken. I constantly discover new things about the show/book/game or the characters in it. I do not read fic about this, because why would I? Every answer I search for is in the text. I want to talk about this with someone, but about what is THERE, not what could be there. Ex: The Haunting of Hill House, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Piranesi, Bioshock:Infinite, Watership Down, Yellowjackets, among others.

The concepts of this could be amazing but are handled so fucking badly so consistently, in a shocking contrast to how INCONSISTENT the character work is, that all I want to do is steal it and make it better. All i want to do is turn it into something that doesn't suck ass when you look at it too hard. So I am going to take it SO seriously, and I am going to develop the rich inner lives for these characters that they lack, with intense backstories and families and motivation for how they got to be the person we know, or know sometimes, in certain episodes or shorts. Ex: Sailor Moon and Overwatch are the biggies here obviously, this is actually not an emotion I feel very often. I don't have intense backstories and extra-textual feelings and ideas about most of the stuff I read and watch, these two are just my Spiders Georg.

So! The odds on me being into something in the correct way to make me want to Seek Treasure Elsewhere but also I have a chill enough attitude about how the characters are that Any Dream Will Do is almost nil. I do not in ANY way mean this in a shady way, but I mostly read published adult fiction for entertainment and not fanfic. I am very picky about my fanfic. So, "plus these two new red and blue girls into Starbucks" often won't work for me, because the reasons to have Haruka and Michiru meet in a coffee shop are completely different from any of the reasons Fareeha and Angela might meet in a coffee shop, and so many of those types are archtypical plug and play stuff. Honestly, I have skated the idea of making a cheat sheet of fanon archetypes of various characters and buying a typewriter to sell 100-200 word 'quick fic' at cons with my sister. That's how common it is to use these archetypes. This is not a criticism! At all!

But, to take the two couples above, I have read so much BORING SHIT about both HM and FA that I could throw up. Lesbian couples have a lot of very milquetoast writing about them, and a lot of meet-cute which isn't really my bag.

But there are authors I love! @oathkeeper-of-tarth was and is one of the best harumichi writers out there and we don't even have all the same headcanons. The rare occasions @verbforverb decides to grace me with "Jewish Mercy I don't Have To Write" I pop a can of bubbly in the tub. And on both fields of battle @keyofjetwolf has stuff I've had bookmarked for years, and there are some things even within Rei's backstory and history that we disagree on.

Actually, to that point what I like is good writing. You can write me into believing nearly anything. There are things I believe about Amelie when I'm reading @lemon-embalmer's stuff that when I go back to my own world, aren't true, but when I'm in her world who the fuck cares, I'm having a great time. EVEN MORE to the point, I read @moonlight-frittata's stupid sun and moon lesbian League of Legends shit and I would rather shoot myslef than know ANYTHING about the game, but unfortunately she has a beautiful turn of phrase and plot flow to her work that I just....read anyway, because it is good. Fucking @tallangrycockatiel had me like 25 pages or so into a story before I was like, "OH SHIT, IS THIS SLASH??? WAIT I DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT BOYS' LOVE!! NO!!" *hits next page* And I still could not care less about that podcast and would never listen to it, and if I did I would be massively disappointed because to my mind, her John and Arthur are the actual article, and whatever the fuck is going on in the source material can eat my dick.

So, yes, I DO think that having a very particular point of view is going to mean I back out of a story where like, "Lena stepped out of her Chelsea flat, custom leather high heels clicking against the step" sometimes, or, you know, "Haruka put down her copy of War and Peace, each meticulous note codified by a color-coded tab. Blue was for historical references to research, green for character analysis, yellow for themes, blah blah blah*" But I am actually shockingly open minded in what I will read, often to the point that I'm reading stuff from SHIT I DO NOT LIKE OR CARE ABOUT, because the quality of the writing is excellent. So, also no.

*I met someone who read books like this and I suddenly realized what the literary equivalent of 'knowing someone is a serial killer' was.

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And I'm back to considering reading Tana French when I've got a lull on my list!

Full review to follow

#mick Kennedy for 'tana french character who has made me grit my teeth the most' #rob and cassie and frank did not ever make me uncomfortable #love him though we love someone who lives and dies on principles #and doesn't excuse themselves

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Had a crash, buy now we're back!

USONATSU

What could possibly be surprising us this time? I have no idea, but I'm sure something kookoo bananas is coming. We start at 7, but the room is open now!

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USONATSU

What could possibly be surprising us this time? I have no idea, but I'm sure something kookoo bananas is coming. We start at 7, but the room is open now!

#Youtube

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I just had that particular and wild joy of telling someone about something they're going to love. My mom is watching the old '81 Brideshead Revisted, and offhandedly I was like, "Oh man, I remember really liking that book. I have no idea if it'd hold up for me, but I loved it at the time."

And she goes, "Wait, it's a BOOK??"

We're going to stop in the used bookstore--she was thinking they might not have it, I told her that I read it in the context of my Brit Lit class and it's considered among some of the classics of British Literature, don't worry about it--on Saturday and she's going to pick it up, I'm so jazzed for her.

#I may reread it so we can argue about it

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Completely realizing you may not know and/or you have the complete right to point me to a book or some shit: So why do so many novels, movies, shows etc pin around this and always bring in a cousin to inherit? Is that what you mean by it's complicated? That's been a plot point in at least three things I can think of off the top of my head, is it just bullshit?

And I assume that being no sons means there has to be no sons, not just, 'My son fucking sucks, no being a magistrate for you'

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@elleskinner-justart I'M OBSESSED WITH YOU OH MY GOD

#just opened my mail!!

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Patreon poll results!

Gamestream: I guess we're returning to Slay the Princess! I did want to finish Fatala Twelve and I'll be real I have forgotten a lot of the details of slay the princess but I remember liking it so we'll see how it goes! I KNOW I had a real cogent idea of something about the game putting in mind of the experience of god but now I can't remember why I thought that.

Liveblog: Tied between the second utena musical and Paranoia Agent, so I'll have to decide what I want to do before we start!

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A great stop point!

If you enjoyed this, please tell @incorrecttact who made the sacrifice of not only reading my garbage, but commenting on it, in order to pick this! I also would like to hear if you did!

I am so tired and I am going to bed, but tomorrow night, we have the stream of UsoNatsu!

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I'm not going to complain too much about how quick this was resolved, both because we are in the first fifteen minutes and this is all actually stage-setting, and because it must be said that I have a soft spot for a truly close parent-child relationship. Even and especially when they are allowed to also sometimes be annoyed with each other.

Please read me before commenting~!

#Doc watches Renegade Nell #RN episode 1

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I suppose this, to a point, is also me, at least when whoever it was that hurt me and I have a lot of history together. Because of course he loves her, and of course all of his anger comes out of a place of hurt, and of the grieving, and know that the last conversation you had was one in anger. And then she strolls right back in and doesn't even say she's sorry! I would be hot too! I would understand if someone were hot at me! But it's hard to stay mad at someone who, mostly, did one fucking stupid thing in a lifetime of love. We are, in our relationships, in our moralities, in everything, the accumulation of the things we've done.

Please read me before commenting~!

#Doc watches Renegade Nell #RN episode 1

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EXACTLY WHAT I WAS SAYING EARLIER. Putting a headstone out is saying something. It's saying you know they will never come back, and you've accepted that, and you're at least beginning to deal with it. He was not yet ready to deal with that, and couldn't imagine it being true, as is often the problem with a death when you don't have a body. It's just so hard to IMAGINE, someone you loved so dearly, when all you have a is a word to go on.

There's a reason in Judaism you set the stone a year after death, because who could be expected to deal with that, in the whole tangle of early grief?

#Doc watches Renegade Nell #RN episode 1

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I love her farther and feel a certain spiritual kinship with him. We both react astoundingly well to having our feelings hurt.

Please read me before commenting~!

#Doc watches Renegade Nell #RN episode 1