Writercon, Farscape, True Blood, and Real Life $!%#@
* I came home from Writercon to find my computer dead. The motherboard is fried. I just spent $350 on replacement parts. (There goes my half-fantasized Labor Day beach vacation.) My brother is going to help me put it back together via phone, which… well, cross your fingers for me. I’m a software person, not a hardware person. He thinks there’s an 80% chance I’ll be able to get my old system working with the new hardware–otherwise I’ll have to buy a new hard drive, install a new operating system, reinstall all my programs, and copy over all my old files. Here’s hoping for that 80% chance.
* And then the next day I made the crazy mistake of turning on the air conditioner (on low, power-saver mode) right before work as I did dishes on a 90+ degree day. The fuse blew. The single fuse that powers my entire apartment. My landlord wasn’t answering his phone and the super’s number was disconnected, so I went down to the cellar to try to replace the fuse myself. This didn’t work as I didn’t know which fuse box was mine, didn’t have a replacement fuse, and didn’t know how to install a fuse without electrocuting myself. I then had something approaching a panic attack because the cellar is huge, barely lit, the floor is layered with 80 years of rat droppings, and the fuse boxes are covered in spider webs full of GIANT FUCKING SPIDERS.
So I called work and told them I’d be late, then called an electrician. He charged me $160 to replace a fuse. He also told me that the wiring is 60-80 years old, that it’s a terrible fire hazard, that I shouldn’t have an air conditioner at all, and that I should move. Repeatedly. He also shined his flashlight around the cellar and actually screamed–this big burly tough NYC guy screamed. Why? “It’s a rat!” “A rat? Where?” “IT’S A DECAYING CORPSE OF A RAT HANGING FROM THE WALL.” Why yes, it was. Caught in the pipes, skeletal, and hanging from the freaking cellar wall. Look, I try really hard to be a tough and unflappable New Yorker, because you have to be to live alone here, but GIANT SPIDERS and DECAYING RAT CORPSES are too much even for me. I cried a lot after this. I’m sure the fact that I had barely slept for days didn’t help.
* And actual Writercon. Gah, I don’t even know what to say. It was wonderful and stressful and my feelings are so mixed and complicated. I will say that it was good to reconnect with people (especially the other concom members who I adore but haven’t seen in years) and to meet so many awesome new people.
I want to write more but I’m really still working out my feelings (mostly about how/whether I fit into the Writercon community and how/whether Writercon fits into my life). So I’ll save that post for some future moment when I’m capable of being coherent about it.
* I finished the first season of True Blood. I’m sorry, but I thought it was absolutely terrible. It’s often beautifully filmed and atmospheric, but it doesn’t engage me intellectually and it’s impossible for me to invest in emotionally. It’s sensationalism without a single idea behind it, and nothing, no matter how shocking, ever seems to have any consequence beyond a single episode. Honestly, you’d think these people would stop pretending to be shocked when they stumble across the corpse of a loved one–it’s not like they didn’t already do so last week and already get over it. The plot wasn’t even compelling–the identity of the killer is obvious as soon as you realize that he’s the only character the narrative isn’t going out of its way to cast suspicion on.
Plus, on a personal level, the gender issues squick me completely. The two big manly men fighting over the tiny blond girl, and their possessiveness and control issues not being treated as deal-breakers? EW. I’d get a restraining order against both of them. I’m also creeped out by the rigid hierarchy of the vampire society–seriously, they’re vampires, isn’t the whole point of the fantasy an escape from social constraints? They have more social constraints than we do! And the thinly veiled metaphor of vampirism = homosexuality seems well intentioned (the show is on the side of vampire rights) but, hello, offensive! Gay people don’t have a long history of killing straight people and drinking their blood!
* I made a deal with ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
cindergal–I’ll watch Farscape if she’ll read the Lymond Chronicles. I’m still at the start of the first season, but I’m starting to get into it. (I just watched “PK Tech Girl,” which was the best yet.) The thing that hooked me was the realization that the dark interesting fucked-up OTC character isn’t John (blech), it’s Aeryn. Which is FANTASTIC. So far I have no complaints about gender issues at all, and lots of compliments about how well they’re handling it. Otherwise… the self-contained episode format bothers me, but I assume it’ll get more arc-oriented over time. I still don’t like muppets, but it’s true that it gets less annoying as you start to see the muppets as characters. So, yeah, I’ll definitely keep going with it. (Plus, I want to know what cindergal thinks about Lymond!)
* I feel kind of bad about dissing John Hughes in a post the other day. Despite my reservations about a lot of his work, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is one of my all-time favorite movies. I give Hughes major props for that if nothing else. (And, okay, The Breakfast Club is a total guilty pleasure, even though I want to scream and break things every time Ally Sheedy gets that horrible “makeover”).
Current Mood: 
stressed & stressed
25 Responses to “Writercon, Farscape, True Blood, and Real Life $!%#@”
cindergal on August 7, 2009 4:08 pm | Link
I can’t even comment on the…basement, because OMG ewww! ::pours you a stiff drink::
As for Writercon, I can’t imagine the stress you and Deb were under, since I was only responsible for a little piece of it. But it was great to see you again.
And I was sure you would love Aeryn Sun! Pretty much everyone starts out saying – seriously, Muppets? But you get over it. *g* The first season is a typical first season with self-contained episodes, but it gets much more arc-oriented in S2. I look forward to reading your reactions. You’ve got DNA Mad Scientist coming up – silly title, serious episode. Let me know what you think!
::goes back to reading Lymond::
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Jerry on August 7, 2009 5:44 pm | Link
I really never got past the Muppets, but John and Aeryn are great characters.
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cindergal on August 7, 2009 6:04 pm | Link
Hee! I have mad love for Pilot, and Rygel is so funny – so yeah, no problem with muppets. :-)
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rusty-halo on August 7, 2009 6:41 pm | Link
Thanks. I seriously needed a drink after that experience!
It was wonderful to see you at Writercon. I think my favorite part was getting to see you guys again and spend time talking. Having dinner together was awesome. Hell, I even enjoyed the SRS BSNS late-night Sunday concom meeting… you guys are such smart, interesting, complicated, wonderful people. It meant so much to connect in person again after years of online-only interaction.
I am definitely looking forward to seeing where Farscape goes. I’ll keep posting!
*can’t wait to read more of your thoughts on Lymond*
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Amy Bennett on August 7, 2009 4:28 pm | Link
GIANT SPIDERS and DECAYING RAT CORPSES are too much even for me.
I hear you girl. Damn, that’s rough stuff you really shouldn’t have to deal with. All New York basements are creepy horror movie sets.
the realization that the dark interesting fucked-up OTC character isn’t John
Heh, heh, oh rly? I love that you have Farscape ahead of you. That was the thing that propelled me into fandom full force. And it didn’t happen in the first season. The show becomes a TOTAL ARC where you basically cannot possibly watch any ep as a standalone – it gets so awesome.
And Aeryn Sun will rule your world. And so will the damn muppets. *wipes tear* That is so much more than a show to me.
Sorry you hated True Blood. I did too, but now in the second season I’m on board just for the crack cocaine. Like life, all the peripheral characters are the most interesting and the central figures are whitewashed drywall. (And eye-bleedingly bad actors with godawful lines.)
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rusty-halo on August 7, 2009 6:38 pm | Link
The actor who plays Bill makes me want to claw my eyes out every time he’s onscreen. Who in god’s name cast that guy?? I like Tara a lot… I wish the show was more about her. Well, and I wish it was a better show, period.
I’m looking forward to seeing where Farscape goes. It gets such great word of mouth from the people who’ve seen it.
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orange_crushed on August 7, 2009 4:42 pm | Link
RATS AND SPIDERS, DO NOT WANT.
I’m also creeped out by the rigid hierarchy of the vampire society–seriously, they’re vampires, isn’t the whole point of the fantasy an escape from social constraints?
Yeah. I like Sookie, I like Tara and Lafayette, against my better judgment I even like Jason some of the time, but the insane rigidness of the vampire rulebook sometimes makes me go “…buwh ?” I don’t like the complex punishment games that keep getting played. I do enjoy Eric, mostly because he’s one of the few vampires who shows a spark of human personality or humor.
And yes, so much yes, on the makeover thing. My girlfriend and I were talking about that on the phone yesterday. I love the Breakfast Club, I love John Hughes, but everybody else in that movie gets a lesson about being themselves and she gets “put on makeup and pull your hair back and suddenly you’re a person.” As if teenage girls needed one more reinforcement that they are awful and need to change.
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rusty-halo on August 7, 2009 5:02 pm | Link
I forgot to mention how much I like Tara. She’s pretty much the only thing that got me to the end of the season.
I liked Lafayette at first, but the drug dealer thing is a major turnoff. :(
I like Anna Paquin as an actress, but Sookie doesn’t ring true for me as a character. I have very little respect for her (note the part about how I’d respond to both of those guys with a restraining order) and I lost interest in her once I realized that they killed off her sole parental figure for shock value and had no intention whatsoever of dealing with the actual consequences of it.
I have occasional pity for Jason but… gah, he’s just so stupid and offensive.
Eric is okay, but this thing about vampires not speaking with contractions is absurd and makes it pretty much impossible for me to take any of them seriously. Accents evolve. If they can pick up new languages they can pick up colloquial dialects.
Yes, no matter how wonderful The Breakfast Club is, that makeover scene just kills it for me. She is the character I identified with and the way they just … ruined her … was so offensive. “Just conform and you’ll be happy and a popular boy will want you.” Like snagging a jock is the goal every unpopular girl dreams of…? We find our own meaning in a hell of a lot of more interesting things, thanks.
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Jerry on August 7, 2009 7:01 pm | Link
I was just re-watching The Breakfast Club, since I was able to find it on one of my On Demand channels. It holds up surprisingly well (I haven’t seen it in at least 15 years), but the makeover didn’t really seem right to me even when I was in high school. I thought she was the most interesting character in the movie, and it would have been gutsier for Hughes to have Emilio go for her more or less as she was (which the movie showed signs he might have, anyway).
And, of course, the hot actress playing the outcast girl who can become cool just by taking off her glasses and fixing her hair is a pretty well-worn cliche, anyway.
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Chase820 on August 7, 2009 5:20 pm | Link
That’s really scary news about your electrical system. Maybe you should get a second opinion before you consider moving, though, considering what a pain in the ass moving is. If the electrical system is that screwed up, wouldn’t your landlord by law be required to fix it?
I’m enjoying True Blood season 2 twice as much as season 1. The gender politics have gotten more interesting, and there’s less direct focus on Sookie/Bill and more focus on the ancillary characters, who are much more compelling.
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rusty-halo on August 7, 2009 6:36 pm | Link
The electrician said that a lot of old buildings like this are grandfathered in, but the landlord is supposed to tell you that you can’t have an air conditioner. (Which he didn’t, because, duh, who would move into an apartment where you can’t have an air conditioner?)
I don’t have the money for a second opinion (it cost $150 for the single minute it took this guy to replace the fuse). I’m sure there are government agencies that I could call that would ignore me completely. This is NYC–no one here cares if you live or die. At best they’ll tell me to remove my air conditioners, which, hell no.
I can’t afford to move anyway, so it’s a moot point, but I’ll make sure to replace the batteries in my fire alarm and get renters insurance. I wouldn’t care so much if I lived alone, but my cats… :(
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Paratti on August 7, 2009 6:17 pm | Link
Pours you a restorative cuppa for the basement horror. That sounds awful.
I’m watching TB for the vampire component of my televisual diet but it hasn’t emotionally grabbed me. I know I should like Farscape but I hate muppets.
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rusty-halo on August 7, 2009 6:37 pm | Link
Thanks. :)
I wish I could find a current vampire story that works for me. I love vampires but all the popular ones right now have dealbreaking flaws.
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soundingsea on August 7, 2009 11:11 pm | Link
Wow, between the computer and the basement of horrors, going back to reality was unfun for you. Sorry to hear that! :(
I loathe muppets, but still managed to enjoy most of Farscape. It’s kinda like Cowboy Bebop; there are aspects I don’t care for, but the rest is good enough to balance them out.
True Blood, otoh, had pretty much no redeeming qualities. I think I made it two episodes in.
The Breakfast Club! I just watched it again tonight. I decided that the very next scene post-credits is Jock telling Basket Case that he really thought she was prettier with her own look.
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Peasant on August 8, 2009 12:07 am | Link
Actually I find the opposite. I’ve never seen True Blood, but certainly in my BTVS fic part of my pleasure comes from creating a very hierarchical society. This is partly a kink, and partly historical authenticity, but it does also have advantages in story-telling terms. It gives a structure for characters to react against, and hence tension. If they were really running around with no limits whatsoever it would be far harder to create an engaging story. If characters can solve every problem by doing whatever the hell they like, including running away from their actions without moral consequences, I think it becomes almost impossible to make them interesting.
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trepkos on August 9, 2009 3:32 am | Link
I enjoyed Farscape but some of the crew do a really bad thing quite a short way in. It’s hard to like them afterwards.
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rusty-halo on August 14, 2009 11:15 am | Link
Do you mean cutting off Pilot’s arm? That didn’t bother me–I like my characters dark and fucked up, as long as the text acknowledges that what they’re doing is dark and fucked up, which I think it did here.
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trepkos on August 14, 2009 12:43 pm | Link
Yes that was what I meant.
I know Pilot forgave them, but I sure as hell wouldn’t have, not unless I’d volunteered it.
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rusty-halo on August 14, 2009 2:23 pm | Link
Yeah, I wouldn’t have forgiven them either. It was evil–a horrific violation.
But I love stories where characters start out fucked up and grow over time (with lots of relapses along the way). Isn’t that what Spike was all about? And one of my all time favorite fictional characters is Jaime Lannister, who enters the story by committing incest, treason, and the attempted murder of a small child all in the same scene.
As long as the narrative recognizes that wrong is wrong, I’m fine with it. Human beings are messy and fucked up, and I’m most interested in characters who are too.
But stories lose me when the narrative doesn’t recognize when its characters are doing evil–Torchwood is a good example. The characters commit torture, rape, murder, gross violations of privacy, and the show still expects us to cheer when Jack Harkness strides into a room with his long coat billowing. *eyeroll* They play with darkness but fail because the narrative never recognizes the severity of the characters’ mistakes.
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trepkos on August 14, 2009 2:37 pm | Link
I agree, TW is not a great moral lesson.
But I don’t remember any of the Farscape inhabitants who participated in that wrong committed against Pilot admitting they were wrong to do it or apologising for it.
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rusty-halo on August 14, 2009 2:57 pm | Link
I don’t need them to admit that they’re wrong or apologize. Plenty of people in real life don’t. I just need the narrative to recognize that they’re wrong. It’s a complicated thing–it’s about the subtleties of the writing and the mise en scene. Is the story being written and portrayed as though they’ve done something wrong or not?
Torchwood is written and portrayed as if its protagonists are heroes doing a tough job and occasionally getting their hands dirty, but ultimately being justified. This clashes with my view of them as complete fuckups who generally do more harm than good and constantly injure and violate others with impunity.
That episode of Farscape was written and portrayed as if its characters were behaving cruelly and selfishly. There was never any suggestion that they were right to cut off Pilot’s arm, just a suggestion that what they did was understandable from their points of view (but also that they kind of knew it was repugnant and did it anyway, which is interesting and complex but still recognizes the underlying repugnance).
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trepkos on August 14, 2009 3:58 pm | Link
I just feel that if I’m going to watch a long series, I want to care about what happens to most of the main protagonists, and after they did that, I didn’t care what happened to the ones who participated, so it spoiled it a bit. I watched it because it was there and it had some interesting stuff in it, but I couldn’t get so invested in it.
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rusty-halo on August 14, 2009 4:39 pm | Link
Ah. I understand what you mean. I think we’re probably just looking for different things from our entertainment.
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trepkos on August 14, 2009 4:42 pm | Link
I’m looking for imaginary friends!
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rusty-halo on August 18, 2009 11:52 pm | Link
That would explain it. I don’t think I’d want to be RL friends with any of my favorite fictional characters!
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