oof. so tired.
Guys, this holiday retail thing? Still exhausting! Who knew?
As a result, I've been minimally interactive online, though I've tried to keep up with reading. (I gather this is true for many while LJ works out the kinks in its latest release, because I've seen sad notes about commenting gone awry. Sadly, I cannot use this excuse for my lack of interactivity -- I've yet to bump into the problem. See: minimally interactive.)
In my absence, someone wrote me a fic! Out in the Cold, a due South F/K/V story. It's an established relationship fic, with some cute/believable domestic details - check it out and give my sekrit santa some love!
My sister came to visit and has now abandoned me! And the cats! We are full of woe. While she was here, we attempted to watch more of Supernatural: The Anime. Still. Terrible. You know, there are rules that govern the way supernatural stuff works in the original series... and they all just got thrown out the window for the animated version. Nothing makes sense! Ever! We talked vaguely of creating a drinking game, but everything we came up with was either rare enough that one would end up watching sober (untenable!) or so frequently that a single episode might result in alcohol poisoning.
I'm trying to finish (reading) some books before the new year. I probably will not get through The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling as I'm three hundred pages into a seven hundred some edition and I've been reading it off and on since summer. But I hopefully will finish Tiptree's Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. I'm only a couple stories in, but I'm pretty sure I've read some of the latter ones in other collections.
Speaking of re-reading, I assume everyone's weighed in with all the thoughts on this research article, Story Spoilers Don't Spoil Stories? (Yes, this is a request to point me toward the clever people!) It's a small study, so I don't know how representative it would turn out to be if recreated on a larger scale. Still, as someone who avoids spoilers and doesn't understand her friends who actively seek them out, I did find this piece of the conclusion interesting:
It is possible that spoilers enhance enjoyment by actually increasing tension. Knowing the ending of Oedipus Rex may heighten the pleasurable tension caused by the disparity in knowledge between the omniscient reader and the character marching to his doom. This notion is consistent with the assertion that stories can be reread with no diminution of suspense(Carroll, 1996).
A point made in the Wired coverage* of the article also touched a chord --
After all, mass culture consisted for thousands of years of stories that were incredibly predictable, from the Greek tragedy to the Shakespearean wedding to the Hollywood happy ending. (Did this hankering for shocking endings begin with The Usual Suspects? It’s not like Twitter could ruin the end of a John Wayne movie.) What this research suggests is that the lack of surprise was part of the pleasure: We like it best when the suspense is contained by the formulaic, when we never have to really worry about the death of the protagonist or the lovers in a romantic comedy. I’d argue that, in many instances, the very fact that we’re seeing a particular type of movie (or reading a particular type of book) is itself a giveaway, a reminder that we know how it will all turn out. Every genre is a kind of spoiler.
I avoid spoilers. The back button is my friend, and I have rl friends whom I have avoided when not caught up on shared shows. But figuring out "who done it" for every television crime show in the first fifteen minutes certainly doesn't stop me from watching them. And I was just bitching on FB about how lately there's been no way to distinguish the happy-ending romances from the tragic ones based on their ads, and I don't want to accidentally watch any tragic ones (meaning on some level, I want to know how these movies end!). I am a big-time re-reader/re-watcher, even of mysteries and stories with a good twist. I'm not sure how to reconcile that with my spoiler aversion, other than to say, my enjoyment clearly must not be entirely predicated upon going into a story unspoiled, much though I prefer it. More thinking is clearly required.
*Um. I feel I should mention that there is a spoiler for book 6 of Harry Potter in a banner right at the top of the page and possibly other pop culture spoilers within the article [I only register spoilers for things I actively anticipate seeing]. But is anyone online still successfully avoiding HP spoilers?
I am done with this year, but not ready for the next. Argh. Ok. Heading offline again, where perhaps I will get things done. (More likely? Sleep. But at least there are fewer parentheses for me to abuse offline.)
The Dreamwidth version of this entry currently has
comments.
As a result, I've been minimally interactive online, though I've tried to keep up with reading. (I gather this is true for many while LJ works out the kinks in its latest release, because I've seen sad notes about commenting gone awry. Sadly, I cannot use this excuse for my lack of interactivity -- I've yet to bump into the problem. See: minimally interactive.)
In my absence, someone wrote me a fic! Out in the Cold, a due South F/K/V story. It's an established relationship fic, with some cute/believable domestic details - check it out and give my sekrit santa some love!
My sister came to visit and has now abandoned me! And the cats! We are full of woe. While she was here, we attempted to watch more of Supernatural: The Anime. Still. Terrible. You know, there are rules that govern the way supernatural stuff works in the original series... and they all just got thrown out the window for the animated version. Nothing makes sense! Ever! We talked vaguely of creating a drinking game, but everything we came up with was either rare enough that one would end up watching sober (untenable!) or so frequently that a single episode might result in alcohol poisoning.
I'm trying to finish (reading) some books before the new year. I probably will not get through The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling as I'm three hundred pages into a seven hundred some edition and I've been reading it off and on since summer. But I hopefully will finish Tiptree's Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. I'm only a couple stories in, but I'm pretty sure I've read some of the latter ones in other collections.
Speaking of re-reading, I assume everyone's weighed in with all the thoughts on this research article, Story Spoilers Don't Spoil Stories? (Yes, this is a request to point me toward the clever people!) It's a small study, so I don't know how representative it would turn out to be if recreated on a larger scale. Still, as someone who avoids spoilers and doesn't understand her friends who actively seek them out, I did find this piece of the conclusion interesting:
It is possible that spoilers enhance enjoyment by actually increasing tension. Knowing the ending of Oedipus Rex may heighten the pleasurable tension caused by the disparity in knowledge between the omniscient reader and the character marching to his doom. This notion is consistent with the assertion that stories can be reread with no diminution of suspense(Carroll, 1996).
A point made in the Wired coverage* of the article also touched a chord --
After all, mass culture consisted for thousands of years of stories that were incredibly predictable, from the Greek tragedy to the Shakespearean wedding to the Hollywood happy ending. (Did this hankering for shocking endings begin with The Usual Suspects? It’s not like Twitter could ruin the end of a John Wayne movie.) What this research suggests is that the lack of surprise was part of the pleasure: We like it best when the suspense is contained by the formulaic, when we never have to really worry about the death of the protagonist or the lovers in a romantic comedy. I’d argue that, in many instances, the very fact that we’re seeing a particular type of movie (or reading a particular type of book) is itself a giveaway, a reminder that we know how it will all turn out. Every genre is a kind of spoiler.
I avoid spoilers. The back button is my friend, and I have rl friends whom I have avoided when not caught up on shared shows. But figuring out "who done it" for every television crime show in the first fifteen minutes certainly doesn't stop me from watching them. And I was just bitching on FB about how lately there's been no way to distinguish the happy-ending romances from the tragic ones based on their ads, and I don't want to accidentally watch any tragic ones (meaning on some level, I want to know how these movies end!). I am a big-time re-reader/re-watcher, even of mysteries and stories with a good twist. I'm not sure how to reconcile that with my spoiler aversion, other than to say, my enjoyment clearly must not be entirely predicated upon going into a story unspoiled, much though I prefer it. More thinking is clearly required.
*Um. I feel I should mention that there is a spoiler for book 6 of Harry Potter in a banner right at the top of the page and possibly other pop culture spoilers within the article [I only register spoilers for things I actively anticipate seeing]. But is anyone online still successfully avoiding HP spoilers?
I am done with this year, but not ready for the next. Argh. Ok. Heading offline again, where perhaps I will get things done. (More likely? Sleep. But at least there are fewer parentheses for me to abuse offline.)
The Dreamwidth version of this entry currently has
comments.