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shadowkat1. Sigh, the upstairs tenants have gotten bored and decided to move furniture and go on a cleaning frenzy. I can hear them pounding about upstairs and vacuuming. Reminds me that I need to send the robot vacuum around the apartment again. I'm extremely quiet tenant - because I don't wear shoes, etc. They aren't bad, for the most part they've been relatively quiet - the tenants before them were far worse.
I'm debating what to do with my day off from work. I have a three-day weekend. Considering taking a walk, it's cloudy and cool - maybe there won't be many people outside? Also, considering going on a supply run - but not sure I want to brave the grocery store quite yet. My mother keeps telling me not to whenever I discuss it with her - mainly because my last tale of braving the grocery store was not well, pleasant.
Also debating laundry - it's been three weeks. But it's just me and I'm not that dirty. The towels seem fine. And I have extra towels and sheets, so really not an issue. Plus I'm a New Yorker - I have enough underwear to last a month or two.
Not to mention clothes. Not wearing socks at the moment.
Maybe I should go on a cleaning spree?
2. Eh, scary charts...
But first... Please Don't Try to get Immune By Catching the Virus - it's a Really Dumb Move [I already knew that - I kind of wrote about idiots doing that in the backstory to an unfinished sci-fi novel I was working on about five or six years ago.]
This is a Social Distancing Scoreboard That Demonstrates How Well Your Community is Social Distancing
Mine is not doing that well. It has a C-, Manhattan is doing better - but Manhattan is mainly businesses not residential, and the residents are upper income. The outer boroughs are lower on the economic scale. Although, Queens is also doing better than Brooklyn and the Bronx. And when I also compare upstate and Long Island - which are also in the C- to D range, I'd state that the urban areas are doing better than the residential ones. I think the people who live in the suburbs and rural areas are a little more complacent about it, and think they are safe because hello - just in my neighborhood. I do see more people traveling about where I live than has been reported in Manhattan and areas of Queens which are more dense in population.
Visualization of How COVID-19 Progressed to the Number 1 Killer in a month's time
3. Why I write meta and making sense of the non-sensical.
I've been playing about on a GH fanboard. We've had two lengthy arguments.
The first was about which character has done the most horrid thing possible. Or the old, well "Character A" did these "horrible things" and got redeemed, why can't they redeem Character B, and more importantly why can't you find a way to give Character B the benefit of the doubt and a chance, along with their arc?
Answer? Because I don't want to, dammit.
That's really the most honest answer. Because let's face it any fictional character can be redeemed or be found to be likable by somebody. It's not a matter of whether or not they can be, it's a matter of whether or not the viewer or reader wants to deal with it.
I mean some characters just trigger me. I don't always know why. And while I can change my mind about a few of them, some I can't. I remember having fights with folks about Harmony and Spike back in the day. Harmony triggered me, while I kind of emphasized with Spike. They felt the exact opposite. We both thought we were right and the other person was a nitwit. We didn't listen to each other. We just threw examples of why we were triggered at each other. And then played a game of one-up-manship on whose problems or triggers were the worst and which character was the worst etc. We also had these battles over Angel and Spike, although Angel didn't trigger me. I wasn't bullied that badly by people like Angel, I was bullied badly by people like Harmony. I despised her on site and wanted her dead. Weirdly, Cordelia didn't bother me that much - mainly because it was the Harmonies of the world that make life painful. They are the Trump supporters, they are the mindless hoard or lynch mob. They are the contestants on the Bachelor, the mean girls in the schools, the people who join white supremacist groups, the trolls on social media. My hatred for Harmony knew no bounds. It wasn't rational. Hate as an emotion is rarely rational and it's painful. Triggers aren't rational. Actually I got into a fight once with someone in a group therapy session who couldn't handle the word "trigger" - that in of itself was a trigger for them.
And fighting over the character makes it worse. The more someone attempted to change my mind about Harmony the deeper I dug in my heels. I can be stubborn, I admit this.
Also, when people debate - they often use emotion as a tactic. I see it in political fights as well. And often they will go after the favorite character of the person they are debating. I've used this tactic too, it never ends well. All I end up doing is alienating them further. I can't win an argument by attacking someone else's beliefs, loves, desires, goals, or hopes. I can win by working to get rid of their fears and by chipping away at the anger. But that's hard to do.
I think in order to change my mind about Harmony, the other debater would have had to listen to me first. Understand and appreciate why the character triggered me, and then slowly get across to me the differences and find things in the character that we could both agree on or common ground. The trick to winning a debate is not talking or debating, but listening. You don't win by shouting the other person down, but by allowing them to talk at length and listening to everything they said, and then with kindness and compassion, slowly going after the points you agree with and the one's you don't and ask for clarification.
The reason why I think this is very hard to do - outside of the obvious - is I often don't want to do it. I just want to feel the way I do and don't understand why they can't too. It's hard - I think - to get past the self-interest. But I kind of have to in order to truly connect to the other person. It's why I wrote meta to be honest - or one of the many reasons - I wanted to connect with people. And through the writing of the meta, the rational analysis of characters and the reasons why I struggled with them - I was able to make that connection. I was able to find a way to appreciate characters that I despised and the metaphors they represented. In Harmony, I was able to find why she existed in the series, her role in it, and the humor within that. That it was the writers way of dealing with their own childhood demons many of which were similar to my own. Through meta - I was able to get past my anger, hate, fears, and frustrations with my own life and the show I loved, and find the reasons I loved it, it was also how I was able to find others of like minds, and find people who felt the same way I did and needed to do it as well. Most of the time, we didn't agree on the characters we discussed, many of the friends I met online loved the character of Harmony for example, and many despised the character of Spike - but we were able to connect and appreciate each others views through this medium of rational and often scholarly discussion.
If you were to ask me why I wrote meta - that's why. If you were to ask why I like to discuss plot points and characters online - that's why. It's a way to cross boundaries, to find common ground.
Even in the harshest debates about characters - I find myself hunting for the human understanding. Why we do what we do, and how we can find common ground.
Sure I hate Harmony, you love her.
Sure I love Spike, and you hate him.
But that does not mean we can't be friends. Same with politics or so I've found.
Sure you love Bernie, and I despise him.
Sure I love Warren, and you don't.
That does not mean we can't be friends.
The trick is to look past it and find common ground. I do it every day at work. I work with a lot of conservatives, many who voted for he who shall not be named. But, we still have common ground - we have our work, we have our families, we care about each other.
The other thing we fought over was whether a necklace was gold or silver. It's a prop, and obviously fairly cheap - so it can look gold or silver depending on the lighting and definition of the television set. Not all Television Sets are created equal. Several people, including myself, and my mother saw a silver necklace, the rest including the board moderator saw a gold one. (Note - my mother is NOT on the fanboard. I would never go on a discussion board with my mother - and she doesn't like those things anyhow.) It was important, because a character that most of us despised was shown to have the other half of the necklace. That half was gold. It was important - because apparently the character with the necklace that appeared to be silver had a missing daughter. Her mother who sold said daughter on the black market, gave the other half of the necklace to the daughter she'd sold. It was an important detail and people were fighting over it - mainly because they didn't like the direction the story was going and wanted it to go another route.
It reminds me of the arguments we had online in Buffy, Doctor Who, etc - over minute details that didn't work. Such as how come Spike has a reflection in a window, when he's a vampire? Is there inner meaning to that? (No, they forgot to edit it out.)
What works for me is to figure out why. If I can analyze it and come up with an explanation - then I have control. It makes sense. I move on. I like to make rational sense of things, to grab some semblance of control over something that bugs or confuses me. I'm detail oriented and analytical - I like things to make sense sometimes. It comforts me.
So this is the other reason I write meta or long posts on the internet - to make sense of the world around me, and to connect to others of similar dispositions. To make sense, and to feel less alone. Less afraid. Less uncertain. To have control.
If I can make sense of the non-sensical, it helps.
I'm debating what to do with my day off from work. I have a three-day weekend. Considering taking a walk, it's cloudy and cool - maybe there won't be many people outside? Also, considering going on a supply run - but not sure I want to brave the grocery store quite yet. My mother keeps telling me not to whenever I discuss it with her - mainly because my last tale of braving the grocery store was not well, pleasant.
Also debating laundry - it's been three weeks. But it's just me and I'm not that dirty. The towels seem fine. And I have extra towels and sheets, so really not an issue. Plus I'm a New Yorker - I have enough underwear to last a month or two.
Not to mention clothes. Not wearing socks at the moment.
Maybe I should go on a cleaning spree?
2. Eh, scary charts...
But first... Please Don't Try to get Immune By Catching the Virus - it's a Really Dumb Move [I already knew that - I kind of wrote about idiots doing that in the backstory to an unfinished sci-fi novel I was working on about five or six years ago.]
This is a Social Distancing Scoreboard That Demonstrates How Well Your Community is Social Distancing
Mine is not doing that well. It has a C-, Manhattan is doing better - but Manhattan is mainly businesses not residential, and the residents are upper income. The outer boroughs are lower on the economic scale. Although, Queens is also doing better than Brooklyn and the Bronx. And when I also compare upstate and Long Island - which are also in the C- to D range, I'd state that the urban areas are doing better than the residential ones. I think the people who live in the suburbs and rural areas are a little more complacent about it, and think they are safe because hello - just in my neighborhood. I do see more people traveling about where I live than has been reported in Manhattan and areas of Queens which are more dense in population.
Visualization of How COVID-19 Progressed to the Number 1 Killer in a month's time
3. Why I write meta and making sense of the non-sensical.
I've been playing about on a GH fanboard. We've had two lengthy arguments.
The first was about which character has done the most horrid thing possible. Or the old, well "Character A" did these "horrible things" and got redeemed, why can't they redeem Character B, and more importantly why can't you find a way to give Character B the benefit of the doubt and a chance, along with their arc?
Answer? Because I don't want to, dammit.
That's really the most honest answer. Because let's face it any fictional character can be redeemed or be found to be likable by somebody. It's not a matter of whether or not they can be, it's a matter of whether or not the viewer or reader wants to deal with it.
I mean some characters just trigger me. I don't always know why. And while I can change my mind about a few of them, some I can't. I remember having fights with folks about Harmony and Spike back in the day. Harmony triggered me, while I kind of emphasized with Spike. They felt the exact opposite. We both thought we were right and the other person was a nitwit. We didn't listen to each other. We just threw examples of why we were triggered at each other. And then played a game of one-up-manship on whose problems or triggers were the worst and which character was the worst etc. We also had these battles over Angel and Spike, although Angel didn't trigger me. I wasn't bullied that badly by people like Angel, I was bullied badly by people like Harmony. I despised her on site and wanted her dead. Weirdly, Cordelia didn't bother me that much - mainly because it was the Harmonies of the world that make life painful. They are the Trump supporters, they are the mindless hoard or lynch mob. They are the contestants on the Bachelor, the mean girls in the schools, the people who join white supremacist groups, the trolls on social media. My hatred for Harmony knew no bounds. It wasn't rational. Hate as an emotion is rarely rational and it's painful. Triggers aren't rational. Actually I got into a fight once with someone in a group therapy session who couldn't handle the word "trigger" - that in of itself was a trigger for them.
And fighting over the character makes it worse. The more someone attempted to change my mind about Harmony the deeper I dug in my heels. I can be stubborn, I admit this.
Also, when people debate - they often use emotion as a tactic. I see it in political fights as well. And often they will go after the favorite character of the person they are debating. I've used this tactic too, it never ends well. All I end up doing is alienating them further. I can't win an argument by attacking someone else's beliefs, loves, desires, goals, or hopes. I can win by working to get rid of their fears and by chipping away at the anger. But that's hard to do.
I think in order to change my mind about Harmony, the other debater would have had to listen to me first. Understand and appreciate why the character triggered me, and then slowly get across to me the differences and find things in the character that we could both agree on or common ground. The trick to winning a debate is not talking or debating, but listening. You don't win by shouting the other person down, but by allowing them to talk at length and listening to everything they said, and then with kindness and compassion, slowly going after the points you agree with and the one's you don't and ask for clarification.
The reason why I think this is very hard to do - outside of the obvious - is I often don't want to do it. I just want to feel the way I do and don't understand why they can't too. It's hard - I think - to get past the self-interest. But I kind of have to in order to truly connect to the other person. It's why I wrote meta to be honest - or one of the many reasons - I wanted to connect with people. And through the writing of the meta, the rational analysis of characters and the reasons why I struggled with them - I was able to make that connection. I was able to find a way to appreciate characters that I despised and the metaphors they represented. In Harmony, I was able to find why she existed in the series, her role in it, and the humor within that. That it was the writers way of dealing with their own childhood demons many of which were similar to my own. Through meta - I was able to get past my anger, hate, fears, and frustrations with my own life and the show I loved, and find the reasons I loved it, it was also how I was able to find others of like minds, and find people who felt the same way I did and needed to do it as well. Most of the time, we didn't agree on the characters we discussed, many of the friends I met online loved the character of Harmony for example, and many despised the character of Spike - but we were able to connect and appreciate each others views through this medium of rational and often scholarly discussion.
If you were to ask me why I wrote meta - that's why. If you were to ask why I like to discuss plot points and characters online - that's why. It's a way to cross boundaries, to find common ground.
Even in the harshest debates about characters - I find myself hunting for the human understanding. Why we do what we do, and how we can find common ground.
Sure I hate Harmony, you love her.
Sure I love Spike, and you hate him.
But that does not mean we can't be friends. Same with politics or so I've found.
Sure you love Bernie, and I despise him.
Sure I love Warren, and you don't.
That does not mean we can't be friends.
The trick is to look past it and find common ground. I do it every day at work. I work with a lot of conservatives, many who voted for he who shall not be named. But, we still have common ground - we have our work, we have our families, we care about each other.
The other thing we fought over was whether a necklace was gold or silver. It's a prop, and obviously fairly cheap - so it can look gold or silver depending on the lighting and definition of the television set. Not all Television Sets are created equal. Several people, including myself, and my mother saw a silver necklace, the rest including the board moderator saw a gold one. (Note - my mother is NOT on the fanboard. I would never go on a discussion board with my mother - and she doesn't like those things anyhow.) It was important, because a character that most of us despised was shown to have the other half of the necklace. That half was gold. It was important - because apparently the character with the necklace that appeared to be silver had a missing daughter. Her mother who sold said daughter on the black market, gave the other half of the necklace to the daughter she'd sold. It was an important detail and people were fighting over it - mainly because they didn't like the direction the story was going and wanted it to go another route.
It reminds me of the arguments we had online in Buffy, Doctor Who, etc - over minute details that didn't work. Such as how come Spike has a reflection in a window, when he's a vampire? Is there inner meaning to that? (No, they forgot to edit it out.)
What works for me is to figure out why. If I can analyze it and come up with an explanation - then I have control. It makes sense. I move on. I like to make rational sense of things, to grab some semblance of control over something that bugs or confuses me. I'm detail oriented and analytical - I like things to make sense sometimes. It comforts me.
So this is the other reason I write meta or long posts on the internet - to make sense of the world around me, and to connect to others of similar dispositions. To make sense, and to feel less alone. Less afraid. Less uncertain. To have control.
If I can make sense of the non-sensical, it helps.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-13 05:36 am (UTC)I totally get that. For myself, I'm nearly always in your group #3, which is partly my basic personality, but for quality films and TV like GoT, I find most of my "processing/analysis" while watching goes to primarily the visuals and secondarily the sound (score, music, effects, etc.) Unless dialog sounds stupid/poorly written, it registers at a much lower, albeit still important level.
But I get your sitch, because when I was in my late teens to early 30's I was similarly obsessed with audio-- the slightest faults in a recording or reproduction in a system would drive me up that proverbial wall. When I was in the trade, there were plenty of audiophiles like me, and I have a number of customers to this day whose equipment I repair that are still like I was... searching for the perfect sound is their holy grail, and some of them are as old as I am or older.
I have no idea if I just grew frustrated as time passed, but I discovered that the less carefully I listened-- analytically, that is-- and just emotionally got into the music, the sound quality aspects became less important. While I still expect a certain base level of technical performance from my system, I mostly now just go with the flow.
That was my deal with audio, but for visual media, I was fortunately not blessed/cursed with the same dilemma.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-13 05:16 pm (UTC)Season 6 - Buffy, didn't bother me all that much quality wise, S7, bothered me because the plot did NOT work, and it had from my perspective up to that point. So it's usually - if I think a show is brilliant and then it...screws up do to obvious writer burn-out and/or laziness -- that I get annoyed.
So no, I'm not quite THAT obsessed with it. I just like to be critical of things I love - to pick them apart - to see what works and what doesn't and why. But, I do handwave a lot, or I wouldn't love comic books, superhero films, Star Wars, and soap operas. Or romance novels for that matter. Hee Hee.