misc.

[biggersandwich]

I'm enjoying Welcome to Night Vale a lot. I'm not very far into it so far, but the pastiche of community radio is spot-on, and I really appreciate that it punches up its shadowy and inexplicable conspiracies with an onslaught of cryptic details, rather than trying to wring too much drama out of a small number of very creepy things. I hadn't

Comments

[asimplechord]

I like the idea of Sydney Crosby cutting her braids off at 14, and keeping her hair short forever after that, at first because she hated them because the braids were the symbol of all the things she hated about being a girl when being a girl made playing pro hockey that much more difficult. But then she likes the way her hair curls like crazy when it starts to grow out a little and she decides to leave it like that. Eventually, when she gets drafted and starts spending so much time doing press and such, if she has to style it or whatever the PR people want her to do with it, well, she learns to deal.

[biggersandwich]

Aww, that's really cute and makes complete sense to me! I'm just confused by the ones where players have elaborate under-helmet styles, which a)require really, really long hair and b)are WAY too much work to have UNDER YOUR HELMET.

I always feel like Sid is so conservative about his appearance when he's wearing a suit, I have a hard time believing that Syd wouldn't also be, in that way where she would wear at least a little makeup and do something with her hair, even if she wasn't particularly interested.

[asimplechord]

Yeah, that seems impractical when it could be just pulled back in a braid or pony-tail and be out of the way.

And again yes! For all that genderswapped Sid is usually written as awkward about clothes and not into fashion and such, I feel like she might not like it, but she'd learn how to dress and apply subtle makeup etc. because it's just one more thing that she has to do well to have hockey.

[biggersandwich]

Exactly. Lots of guys play with their hair all over the place; ponytails are sufficient for longer hair.

And Sid gets so much shit about being a role model or about being "acceptably" masculine already and mostly just goes along with it, avoids visible drinking, avoids touching people in photos, points out that he does fight, etc. I'm sure he'd have a slightly more nuanced view as Syd, but I doubt she'd care enough to make arguments about unfair standards for female acceptability, rather than just wearing unexciting skirts and doing a minimum of makeup as one more part of her routine, whatever her personal ideals of beauty.

[lesstraveled]

Oh, cool, I'm working my way through Night Vale right now too :) I've never really listened to podcasts before, it's hard for me to really track what's going on, but it's fun.

[biggersandwich]

I know what you mean, I find it really hard to keep my attention on something that's audio-only. I'm liking it so far though! And I guess the advantage to it being all the plots in all the directions at all times is that zoning out for 30 seconds means you've only missed one out of 5 thousand bizarre and creepifying details? ;)

[lesstraveled]

Same, I have to be doing nothing but listening to the podcast or else I'll automatically tune it out. There's a person on DW who's in the process of transcribing the episodes, which I've found very helpful! It's true that it's episodic but certain plot elements keep being repeated over and over (the dog park, etc.) so that's also nice because eventually, even my mind lets details sink in :D;;

[biggersandwich]

But doing nothing else at all is so difficult, haha! I couldn't do podcasts at all until I started knitting, because it's automatic enough that I don't have other words clogging up my brain when I'm trying to listen, but I don't feel like I'm doing nothing when I try to concentrate.

The transcripts are great, though I'm really liking Cecil's voice and how well he slides between the cliches of ominous narrator and public radio.