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I don't post much meta because unless it's a reprise of an old discussion or a reaction to someone else's meta it requires way too much original thought. XD But I realized something semi-interesting in a comment to rabbitprint on (yes, still talking about it) that anonymous writer meme:

I think the reason I had so much trouble identifying your writing is that I go into your stories knowing that I am not going to comment on them. Although it isn't anything I do on purpose, or something I was thinking about when I decided I was going to comment more often, the truth is that I read fic differently when I know I'm going to comment on it. I pay more attention to detail (so I can pick out lines to praise), I try to guess the effect the author was going for (so I can be on-topic in my praise), and above all I make sure I understand what I'm reading (so I don't look stupid).

On the other hand if I know I'm not going to comment, I read through fic, enjoy it, but probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about its technical construction (although I might think about other aspects, like the plot if it's multichapter or characterization if it’s a vignette). In the end, I'm less likely to remember it. I think that part of the reason Tari, over on her own anonymous meme, has been doing so well is that she makes a point of always commenting to ficposts with something at least semi-substantial. (She also blogs about every book she reads -- and actually, I have started doing this too, because it's the best way to remember them.)

***

Feel free to slap me down for saying something obvious. It IS obvious. Just last month I got a comment from a homeschooling mother who found my journal looking for blogposts on The Sparrow, about how she uses this method to teach her children. Working through literature so that you can write about it aids understanding and memory.

What might not be obvious is that you don't have to write detailed fic analyses (and in fact most authors would prefer that you don't) for the heightened-memory effect to kick in. Even picking out a favorite line can do it. Even saying you liked the way the author threw in funny lines during the separation scene so that it didn't get too mopey can do it. As long as it's a comment more substantial than Nice!!! I think most people, to a greater or lesser extent, will experience this effect.

I guess what I'm saying is that the next time one of those essays on "Feedback, Why Writers Don't Deserve It" goes around, maybe someone could mention this extremely beneficial side-effect for the feedbacker. XD Although naturally if you are reading fic to pass the time, for momentary enjoyment, and don't care whether you remember it in the morning, none of this applies.

But first, linkblogging!

1. Think of Canada as a hockey team, Canadians as the fans, and the Canadian government as the team’s owner, and you’ll see why marketing Canada is such a big deal. The profit that the Canadian government gets from successfully marketing Canada doesn’t come just from having Canadians pay their taxes and follow the law. No, the Canadian government profits from having Canadians believe that Canada exists.

From here. Like cows, the idea of "Canada" is inherently funny. (Or maybe it's that any word can become funny through sheer repetition.)

2. I spent like five hours reading through the archives of Pulp! magazine and though many of the articles were terrible, some were awesome:

http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/6.04/naokiyamamoto_01.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/4.08/feature_03.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/4.08/index.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/4.12/reviews_books.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/5.03/feature_comiketmap.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/5.04/feature_br.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/5.06/reviews_film.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/5.07/feature_miike_interview.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/6.01/film.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/5.08/interview_pope_01.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/6.02/sexandviolence.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/6.04/naokiyamamoto_01.shtml
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/6.08/film.shtml

When it was running, the audience for Pulp! was college-aged kids who like dark, bloody manga and Japanese horror movies. (From a Miike Takashi interview: I think that people who have a high sense of anxiety and that have a survival instinct like to read horror.)

***

Okay, now meme:

Taken from Stacey who took it from hostilecrayon who I suspect can be traced back to Tari Gwaemir in one way or another

i thought it would be fun if you, as a writer, would indulge me by writing a few paragraphs--ANONYMOUSLY--in a comment and let me try to guess who you are. just be yourself as hard as you can be and write some fiction, be it fanfiction or original works.

I don't know if I'll be any good at this, but even if I'm not it should be fun. A lot of you have very distinct writing styles, and I love playing guess-the-author.

Two shortfics with Ritsuka's psychiatrist in them (she is also in the next chapter of Call Me Anytime - what can I say, the woman is convenient. Also, I'd never noticed this before, but SHE HAS NO NAME seems she does have a name, it's Katsuko. Way to not check facts, self!).

Warning, lots of talking in these. Also the second is way too ernest.

Title: Sensation Threshold
Rating: R for topics unsuitable for children
Wordcount: 285
Note: makes more sense if you've read a certain recent Zero Sum chapter (February 2006? March?)

story is @ chain_of_fics

Title: Hypnosis
Rating: G
Wordcount: 601
Note: Lalala, everything I know about hypnosis I learned from popular fiction.

( story is under cut )

I'm still mad at myself for not getting a name before writing these. Maybe I should edit it in, hmmmm.

...you will be manipulated into obsessing over Kingdom Hearts just like everyone else! (I know, I know. Another one bites the dust. But you can watch the gameboy advanced game as a movie and it only takes three hours! Three hours, might I add, of not having to write exposition.)

As diversions go, Chain of Memories was pretty entertaining. XD but you sort of have to care about the issues, or it just becomes tedious. Since I happen to care about memory I lot, I liked it. The story is divided between Sora and Riku: Sora is looking for Riku, but the further into Castle Oblivion he goes the more he forgets what he's looking for; meanwhile, Riku must struggle with his inner darkness.

I described the plot to my mother as a "movie" and she immediately asked whether I really meant to say "anime". ^^; it is an anime-ish plot. But structured progressive memory loss (and with it, loss or corruption of purpose) isn't a phenomenon confined to anime. Did anyone else see Neverending Story II? The main character in that movie is sucked into the Neverland world because he's trying to escape from his fear of the high-dive (LAME). He is given a quest and also, an object that allows him to wish for things -- spray cans, swords, whatever he thinks will be useful -- but in return, he loses one memory every time he makes a wish. Eventually he forgets why he's even on this quest in the first place, and then the evil woman who gave him the object...but anyway, Sora's story is like that. He's tricked into entering the castle and lied to to keep him there, and as he progresses his real memories are replaced with fake ones that draw him deeper into the castle, until he's forgotten nearly everything except for the fake memories. It is really arresting because you know what's going on, but Sora doesn't.

What kept me amused, though ('cause I'm not fooling myself thinking this stuff is deep or anything: it was about as deep as Riku's half of the story, which bored me silly what with all of the "you belong to the darkness" "no, the light will never abandon you!" "no, darkness!" "no, light!" talk (ALTHOUGH OMG THE ENDING, that is so cool, I want to be Sora so I can have a pet Riku of my very own!)) was thinking about all this memory stuff in a larger context. Although I have blocked out most of that class on modern intellectualism that nearly killed my soul, I do remember that towards the end there was a section on memory, which the professor claimed was one of the "dominating forces of current intellectual discourse". As I matter of fact, I still have about half of the reading we were assigned that day:

Patrick H. Hutton - The Art of Memory Reconceived: From Rhetoric to Psychoanalysis
Pierre Nora - Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire
Kerwin Klein - On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse

This one has no bearing on KH, but is referred to by the other three and was also assigned that day: Collective Memory and Cultural Identity. (Actually, I saved most of the reading for that class to my webspace if you want to take a look. Distributing it like this is illegal, but whatever!)

( Summary of articles, for those who are interested )

...what I learned from all this is that squishy is too an academic word.

To get somewhat back on track, memory is a Big Thing, and it is particularly big in Japan, where is currently being expressed as a desire to face up to Japan's WWII atrocities, or at least to consider how fifty years of whitewashed textbooks may have harmed the national character. (So my professor said, anyway. I will note that our Japanese exchange student wrote her final paper on memory and WWII (I wrote mine on Intellectual Identity Crises, OH GOD IT WAS AWFUL.))

The best way to express how Kingdom Hearts figures in all this is with screenshots.



( SPOILERS for Chain of Memories (Sora's story) )
( SPOILERS for Riku's story )
( Not-really spoilers for something with Axel )

Hmm, I appear to have spent many hours on this post. OH WELL, IT'S EASIER THAN WRITING ANYWAY. Note to all, I played about halfway through the first Kingdom Hearts and I haven't played the second at all, but I've been willingly spoiled to hell and back so I don't mind spoilers in comments. Overall I feel that the game is a lot of pretentious nonsense, but it's topical, and certainly TRIES to be more than what you'd expect from a title like this.

EDIT EDIT EDIT Fic rec:
Imaginary Friends by rabbitprint. Axel and Roxas pre-Chain of Memories. Gen. I dunno, sometimes you just want to read something where the characters are together, but not in that way.

Thinking about it, there is someone on my flist I am 80% sure is evil. I mean, not EVIL. Questionable. Prone to drama. Lies occasionally. Possibly someone I shouldn't be sharing personal information with**. But very entertaining.

**though I think it's harmless. I don't say anything damaging and none of it is a secret, so who cares?

[Poll #754240]

Poll results aren't viewable because it's bad enough I said it, the only way I can see this ending is with lots and lots of undue paranoia. Maybe I'm being overcautious.

(Trustflow: the most inaccurately-named livejournal tool since "friends" list!)

...anyway, here is a meme and some linkblogging.

States I've Visited (from here). Only the states I spent a couple days in and that I remember spending a couple days in. For instance I know I've been to Oklahoma, but I was like one or two so it doesn't count. And I've driven (more accurately: been driven) through all of those states south of Tennessee, but the longest I remember stopping in any of them was for lunch.

Books to read for a science education. I've read fewer of these than I really ought to have (as a physics major). It's just...I'm only starting on hard books now, I read way more often in middle school and early high school, when the books in the school library were easier.

Speaking of books, I really hate Amazon's Text Stats. Or actually, I don't hate them, they're awesome, but I hate their descriptions. "The Complexity calculations indicate the complexity of the words and sentence structure in the text of a book" tells me nothing.