Reading roundup (kidlit edition), and memes

[hamsterwoman]

October was weird for me with fannish consumption, because I have in my hands two epic fantasy things that I think are actually good (one Hugo homework reading, one a rec off the Serpentcast), and some other things I've been curious about for a while, and I could've gone on to watch season 2 of The Expanse, but instead I've been: a) (re)reading

Comments

[monkiainen]

For the first meme - Harry Dresden ;)

Harry Dresden

[hamsterwoman]

Holiday headcanon

Re: Harry Dresden

[monkiainen]

Ooh, great answers! You've already covered the last question with all the Maggie feels, so there's no need to do that for another character anymore.

Re: Harry Dresden

[hamsterwoman]

:)

This was fun! thank you for the prompt!

[_profiterole_]

I decided to dedicate 25 minutes of my life to the Miracle Sudoku video and it was bloody brilliant.

[hamsterwoman]

Heh, that's the one I started with, too, and it really hooks you! First it was 25 minutes of Miracle Sudoku, now I've watched probably 10+ hrs of a man solving Sudoku and enjoyed it immensely. (I've learned that if a video is longer than about 45 min, I'll probably get bored part way through, but anything shorter than that has been a good time.)

[author_by_night]

Aww, I loved the Wayside books, but yeah, I think revisiting them decades later may have been ambitious. Especially as Louis was writing about a specific moment in time. But like you pointed out, could also be that some of the stuff works better for younger audiences.

Why not do Willow for #3? And Buffy and Harry Potter for #4. :)

[hamsterwoman]

Especially as Louis was writing about a specific moment in time.

You know, I hadn't thought about that aspect and, hmm... I do think the original books feel sort of timeless despite, like, the total lack of technology in the classroom and other things that you would probably find in an actual modern elementary school. I think the weirdness of the setting makes the time capsule aspect also not feel out of place, if you know what I mean?

Or at least the rodents seemed to enjoy the books / have no trouble relating to them when they read them ~a decade ago.

But part of it might be me knowing that this book was written in the modern world, unlike the previous ones, and so reading it differently even though the setting is the same? It's complicated!

Ohoho, excellent meme prompts! I think BtVS and HP lend themselves beautifully to crossing over, but I don't think I've often be prompted for that. Let me do that as a separate comment, though, 'cos I tend to run out of room on these XD

Willow at Hogwarts (part 1)

[hamsterwoman]

a) Which Hogwarts house I think they’d belong in

RE: Willow at Hogwarts (part 1)

[author_by_night]

The Sorting Hat takes people's wishes into account, and I'm pretty sure shy, nerdy firstie Willow would automatically assume she's going to Ravenclaw, the smart House. And I think any other house than Slytherin would be a better environment for her to grow up in, because Slytherin would feed the darker impules of hers, and nobody wants that. So, anyway, I think the Hat would be receptive to putting her somewhere else, and Willow's assumption of Ravenclaw would be a decent place for her, so that's where she would end up. (I think she'd also do fine in Gryffindor, where I think she'd just naturally slot into the Hermione sort of role, or in Hufflepuff, where she might come out of her shell a bit sooner, but Ravenclaw is a fine choice.)
I like this analysis. :) I can also see Hufflepuff for similar reasons to Slytherin, because I think Hufflepuffs also have a very "maintain the status quo" mentality. But Slytherin is absolutely fodder for dark impulses

[bearshorty]

I am glad you enjoyed the Deniska book, I really liked learning more about the author as well and it was so much fun to reread familiar stories.

For the first meme, any character from Vorkosigan Saga.

[hamsterwoman]

Thank you again for sharing the book! It was apparently just what I needed to tide me over through late October :)

It was really fun to revisit the stories, especially the ones I hadn't read in years. I remember you mentioning that you also didn't recognize the car accident one. Did the "Sinij kinzhal" one seem familiar? I was so shocked by Deniska in it, I feel like I must've never encountered it before...

Thank you for the meme prompt! So many Vorkosigan characters I love, but I think I'm leaning towards Gregor for this meme -- does that work?

And if so, do you want to give me a character for the relationship question ("Relationship with/thoughts on _____ headcanon")?

[bearshorty]

Gregor will be good. For relationship, his relationship with Miles.

Gregor Vorbarra (part 1)

[hamsterwoman]

Man, I forgot just how long this here darn meme is XD

[zvuv]

I read the Deniska stories too, as a kid. That sounds like a fun project. Thank you for sharing some of those details. :)

My mom grew up in a shared apartment, "na obschei kuhne," but not a kommunalka. I was born in a studio kooperativ apartment and then we moved in with my grandparents for the last 5 or so years of life in Minsk. And yeah, my parents slept on a "divan" that was a couch during the day, because it was also the living room. :)

When I was a kid, my mom went to stay at the hospital, for a very vague reason, which later ended up being revealed as an abortion that had gone badly...

[hamsterwoman]

Let me know if you'd like a copy of the book -- it's easily sharable :)

I learned as an adult that my mother had had an abortion between me and F, too, but had noticed nothing at the time. Not sure if it was something that happened while I was away with my grandparents over the summer, or if it had just fit into daily life in a way that wasn't noticeable, or what...

It's so weird to think in retrospect about the housing situation in the USSR, right? Even at the time our generation grew up, post-kommunalki, just the gulf in the standard of living, and how normal it had felt at the time.

[zvuv]

Yeah. I mean on one hand, it's amazing that they solved the housing problem by parceling out housing in a more equitable way, but on the other hand, it was so top-down and crazy-making. It really does feel like living through a human subject experiment of some kind.

I don't know that I'll get around to reading it, but it does sound tempting, so if you can share, sure! Do you need my email address or something?

[hamsterwoman]

Yeah, if you PM me your email, I'll happily send it over :)

It really does feel like living through a human subject experiment of some kind.

Yeah, it really does. And, while it almost certainly was a MORE equitable way, I do think it also illustrated the same thing human subject experiments pretty much always do -- the people doing the experimenting are never themselves the subjects, it's always somebody else getting to live through the consequences of these decisions. (One of the things the Deniska book goes into in more detail than I talked about was that the ministers and marshals Denis Dragunsky and his parents shared the apartment complex with most definitely did not live in parceled out barskie horomy -- they still had the full-size apartments, not the little carved-up ones. And telephones and cars -- although, of course, the difference to the old times was that keeping all this stuff was contingent on remaining in their roles, which was not necessarily straightforward...)