The Wanlorn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_wanlorn) wrote2010-02-18 07:08 am
the_wanlorn) wrote2010-02-18 07:08 am
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Penultimate Round of the Interview Meme
I was going to put both of the last interviews into one entry but this got kind of fucking long. LESSON LEARNED: DON'T ASK ME TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS.
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graymary asked me questions here.
1) what got you into knitting?
You know what? I honestly don't remember. When I was five or so, my aunt taught my sister and I how to do a long tail cast on, the knit stitch, and cast off. I used to make these awful, misshapen, hideous rectangles out of cheapshit acrylic. Then I just... stopped. Until a couple years ago, that is.
I somehow landed on the pattern for Knucks (I seriously have no fucking clue how since I didn't know how to knit) and fell so fucking in love with the embroidery on them in that first picture that I was like "Well, shit, I'm going to make these!" So I bought two balls of that yarn in a navy blue, a set of 3.5mm DPNs, watched a couple videos on KnittingHelp.com, and I made them. Sort of. I got as far as the thumb gusset when I got distracted by another project (no, I don't remember what). They're still sitting at the bottom of one of my totes, waiting for me to finish them.
Since then, I've been knitting off and on. I'll knit up a storm for a month, and then just... stop for a couple months. I have lots and lots of unfinished projects lying around.
2) OS systems, what is your favorite and what is your least favorite?
I am big on 1) lightweight and 2) easy to customize OSes. So, in general, linux is, by far, my favorite. On the other end of the spectrum is macs. The thing about the mac OS is that, if you've never used a computer before, it's a pretty intuitive OS! That's great! But, the OS is really built for, well. People who've never used a computer before, and won't be doing anything complicated with it. For a lot of the shit I do, it took forfuckingever to figure out how to do it on a mac. Fuck you macs. Plus, I hate Apple. So, that might bias me a little.
3) how long have you been using computers?
WELL. My brother decided it was okay for me to use his computer when I was three, because I A) knew how to read, and B) knew how to get into trouble if I wasn't being entertained. So, uh, twenty years? D: Him and his friends wrote a lot of homebrew games back then, so all of my absolutely favorite computer games from when I was a kid I basically can't play anymore because I don't have the room to set up that computer right now.
Yeah, that's right. It's a 23 year old computer and it still works and I still have it.
I've been "programming" for slightly less time, but not much. The first language I remember learning was Logo. One of the programs he had was a learn Logo program, and I'd sit there for hours, writing little programs for the turtle to draw. I was in kindergarten, I think? So I was, I don't know, five or six? After that, I got into the learn BASIC program and started making "real" programs.
4) what was your first online fandom?
AHAHAHA OH GOD. :( WHY WOULD YOU ASK ME THIS??? WHYYYYYY? I opened up FFN to make sure and, yeah. Um. My first fandom was the Forgotten Realms books. I wrote quite a bit of fic involving RA Salvatore's characters. I was maybe a massive Drizzt fangirl. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS ANYMORE.
5) name one (or two, or three) fundamental books of your SOOOOUL
I basically sat here for like ten minutes, staring at this question in horror. How do I choose??? Why would you do this to me??? I just. I can't even choose. FUCK YOU, EM, FUCK YOU.
Okay, it is an hour later, and I think I can answer this now. But! I am going to split it into two parts! One will be for a book (SORT OF), and one will be for an author (BECAUSE ALL HIS BOOKS ARE BASICALLY THE SAME SHUT UP).
The first set are the first two books in Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series: The Book of Three and The Black Cauldron. They were the only books from that series that my mum owned, and I read them to tatters. Seriously, I was constantly having to glue pages back in or fix them up with library tape. The only other book I've ever done this to is The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper. Which, uh, maybe I should also have that on this list, because that book informed a lot about my spirituality (in a general way, not specifics). BUT I DON'T REALLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT SO NO.
I took a whole lot of shit away from those two Prydain books. One of the most important things was that it didn't fucking matter who you were, you could be a hero. Which sounds so cheesy, but I don't know how else to say it. Those books taught me that you didn't have to be of noble birth to be a hero. Hell, you didn't even have to be human. I mean, in essence, they're about a group of massive failbots saving the world.
And to me, as a kid, that lack of Being Special was important, because I was never going to be someone special. I mean, jesus, Taran was a pigfarmer, and he even kind of sucked at that. Fflewddur was a shitty bard. Doli failed pretty hard at turning invisible. Eilonwy was a ditz. Gurgi was, well, Gurgi. And yet, even though they were massive fuckups and got themselves in tons of trouble that, if they were even halfway competent, they would have avoided- Even with all of that, at the end of the day, they were fucking heroes. They saved people's lives because they tried hard and they didn't let setbacks like getting captured, or nearly killed, or falling ill stop them. And that was what was important about being a hero. It wasn't that you were Special, it was that you did your god damn best, no matter what.
The other thing that I took away from them was that everything has a cost, and what you think you're willing to pay often isn't enough, and that you're actually willing to pay so much more. I could talk about Gwydion's (seeming) death, or Adaon's death, etc etc. But, I think, what really made that stick for me, was the Cauldron. Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch eventually give Taran the Cauldron, in exchange for Adaon's brooch. Which was costly enough, but they thought they were home free. They'd destroy the Cauldron and that would be it. It came at a high cost, but it didn't come at a terrible cost.
But no. In order to destroy the Cauldron, a willing, living being must climb into it. Which will kill that person. And that's just, no, so they drag this huge, heavy cauldron through the marshes, back to the Sons of Don. And it's an awful journey, and people get hurt and nearly die, but that's it. They paid enough, they were done, it was out of their hands. Except the guy who they brought it to is going to use it to raise an army. So Ellidyr sacrifices himself to the Cauldron.
I think what I'm trying to say here is that I took away that life was fucking hard, and it would fucking suck sometimes, and it would be hard and it would hurt, but you'd get through it because you're tougher than you think.
The final thing that really stuck with me was that if you bide your time, you could get out of a bad situation. You didn't need anyone to come rescue you. If you were patient and looked for opportunities, one would present itself to you, and you'd be fucking out of there. This was extremely helpful to me as a kid, and, really, it still is.
I should make it clear here that, in retrospect, the books actually contradict two thirds of these. But this isn't about what the books are actually saying, it's about what I got from them that stuck with me.
OH MAN NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT STEPHEN KING. This is not about all of the huge host of problems in King's books. This is about what they taught me and why they're so fucking important to me, in spite of their fail.
King's books taught me that there is Good, and there is Evil, and there is a whole fucking lot of Gray in between. That all those books I read/was reading were sort of bullshit on that entire point, because in them there was Good and Evil and nothing in between, and life wasn't like that. People had their own motivations for things, and a lot of the time they thought they were doing the right thing. Or they thought that other people had forced them into doing what they were doing.
And his books kind of cemented whole loss bit from the Prydain Chronicles. Good people die for no reason. Bad things happen for no reason. Good will always triumph over evil, but the price of that is phenomenally high. And even though good always triumphs over evil, evil always comes back.
I took away that people you love are going to hurt you. And sometimes, it's not the sort of hurt that you can ignore or keep living with. Sometimes it's the sort of hurt that's going to kill you if it keeps up. And it's okay to leave those people. It's okay to keep loving them. The two things are not mutually exclusive.
There's so much more I could say about his books. I mean, those are the tersest paragraphs ever. But it's late and this entry is already way too fucking long and if I wanted to talk about all the ways Stephen King's books affected my view of life I'd have to devote an entire entry to it. So there you have it.
graymary asked me questions here.1) what got you into knitting?
You know what? I honestly don't remember. When I was five or so, my aunt taught my sister and I how to do a long tail cast on, the knit stitch, and cast off. I used to make these awful, misshapen, hideous rectangles out of cheapshit acrylic. Then I just... stopped. Until a couple years ago, that is.
I somehow landed on the pattern for Knucks (I seriously have no fucking clue how since I didn't know how to knit) and fell so fucking in love with the embroidery on them in that first picture that I was like "Well, shit, I'm going to make these!" So I bought two balls of that yarn in a navy blue, a set of 3.5mm DPNs, watched a couple videos on KnittingHelp.com, and I made them. Sort of. I got as far as the thumb gusset when I got distracted by another project (no, I don't remember what). They're still sitting at the bottom of one of my totes, waiting for me to finish them.
Since then, I've been knitting off and on. I'll knit up a storm for a month, and then just... stop for a couple months. I have lots and lots of unfinished projects lying around.
2) OS systems, what is your favorite and what is your least favorite?
I am big on 1) lightweight and 2) easy to customize OSes. So, in general, linux is, by far, my favorite. On the other end of the spectrum is macs. The thing about the mac OS is that, if you've never used a computer before, it's a pretty intuitive OS! That's great! But, the OS is really built for, well. People who've never used a computer before, and won't be doing anything complicated with it. For a lot of the shit I do, it took forfuckingever to figure out how to do it on a mac. Fuck you macs. Plus, I hate Apple. So, that might bias me a little.
3) how long have you been using computers?
WELL. My brother decided it was okay for me to use his computer when I was three, because I A) knew how to read, and B) knew how to get into trouble if I wasn't being entertained. So, uh, twenty years? D: Him and his friends wrote a lot of homebrew games back then, so all of my absolutely favorite computer games from when I was a kid I basically can't play anymore because I don't have the room to set up that computer right now.
Yeah, that's right. It's a 23 year old computer and it still works and I still have it.
I've been "programming" for slightly less time, but not much. The first language I remember learning was Logo. One of the programs he had was a learn Logo program, and I'd sit there for hours, writing little programs for the turtle to draw. I was in kindergarten, I think? So I was, I don't know, five or six? After that, I got into the learn BASIC program and started making "real" programs.
4) what was your first online fandom?
AHAHAHA OH GOD. :( WHY WOULD YOU ASK ME THIS??? WHYYYYYY? I opened up FFN to make sure and, yeah. Um. My first fandom was the Forgotten Realms books. I wrote quite a bit of fic involving RA Salvatore's characters. I was maybe a massive Drizzt fangirl. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS ANYMORE.
5) name one (or two, or three) fundamental books of your SOOOOUL
I basically sat here for like ten minutes, staring at this question in horror. How do I choose??? Why would you do this to me??? I just. I can't even choose. FUCK YOU, EM, FUCK YOU.
Okay, it is an hour later, and I think I can answer this now. But! I am going to split it into two parts! One will be for a book (SORT OF), and one will be for an author (BECAUSE ALL HIS BOOKS ARE BASICALLY THE SAME SHUT UP).
The first set are the first two books in Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series: The Book of Three and The Black Cauldron. They were the only books from that series that my mum owned, and I read them to tatters. Seriously, I was constantly having to glue pages back in or fix them up with library tape. The only other book I've ever done this to is The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper. Which, uh, maybe I should also have that on this list, because that book informed a lot about my spirituality (in a general way, not specifics). BUT I DON'T REALLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT SO NO.
I took a whole lot of shit away from those two Prydain books. One of the most important things was that it didn't fucking matter who you were, you could be a hero. Which sounds so cheesy, but I don't know how else to say it. Those books taught me that you didn't have to be of noble birth to be a hero. Hell, you didn't even have to be human. I mean, in essence, they're about a group of massive failbots saving the world.
And to me, as a kid, that lack of Being Special was important, because I was never going to be someone special. I mean, jesus, Taran was a pigfarmer, and he even kind of sucked at that. Fflewddur was a shitty bard. Doli failed pretty hard at turning invisible. Eilonwy was a ditz. Gurgi was, well, Gurgi. And yet, even though they were massive fuckups and got themselves in tons of trouble that, if they were even halfway competent, they would have avoided- Even with all of that, at the end of the day, they were fucking heroes. They saved people's lives because they tried hard and they didn't let setbacks like getting captured, or nearly killed, or falling ill stop them. And that was what was important about being a hero. It wasn't that you were Special, it was that you did your god damn best, no matter what.
The other thing that I took away from them was that everything has a cost, and what you think you're willing to pay often isn't enough, and that you're actually willing to pay so much more. I could talk about Gwydion's (seeming) death, or Adaon's death, etc etc. But, I think, what really made that stick for me, was the Cauldron. Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch eventually give Taran the Cauldron, in exchange for Adaon's brooch. Which was costly enough, but they thought they were home free. They'd destroy the Cauldron and that would be it. It came at a high cost, but it didn't come at a terrible cost.
But no. In order to destroy the Cauldron, a willing, living being must climb into it. Which will kill that person. And that's just, no, so they drag this huge, heavy cauldron through the marshes, back to the Sons of Don. And it's an awful journey, and people get hurt and nearly die, but that's it. They paid enough, they were done, it was out of their hands. Except the guy who they brought it to is going to use it to raise an army. So Ellidyr sacrifices himself to the Cauldron.
I think what I'm trying to say here is that I took away that life was fucking hard, and it would fucking suck sometimes, and it would be hard and it would hurt, but you'd get through it because you're tougher than you think.
The final thing that really stuck with me was that if you bide your time, you could get out of a bad situation. You didn't need anyone to come rescue you. If you were patient and looked for opportunities, one would present itself to you, and you'd be fucking out of there. This was extremely helpful to me as a kid, and, really, it still is.
I should make it clear here that, in retrospect, the books actually contradict two thirds of these. But this isn't about what the books are actually saying, it's about what I got from them that stuck with me.
OH MAN NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT STEPHEN KING. This is not about all of the huge host of problems in King's books. This is about what they taught me and why they're so fucking important to me, in spite of their fail.
King's books taught me that there is Good, and there is Evil, and there is a whole fucking lot of Gray in between. That all those books I read/was reading were sort of bullshit on that entire point, because in them there was Good and Evil and nothing in between, and life wasn't like that. People had their own motivations for things, and a lot of the time they thought they were doing the right thing. Or they thought that other people had forced them into doing what they were doing.
And his books kind of cemented whole loss bit from the Prydain Chronicles. Good people die for no reason. Bad things happen for no reason. Good will always triumph over evil, but the price of that is phenomenally high. And even though good always triumphs over evil, evil always comes back.
I took away that people you love are going to hurt you. And sometimes, it's not the sort of hurt that you can ignore or keep living with. Sometimes it's the sort of hurt that's going to kill you if it keeps up. And it's okay to leave those people. It's okay to keep loving them. The two things are not mutually exclusive.
There's so much more I could say about his books. I mean, those are the tersest paragraphs ever. But it's late and this entry is already way too fucking long and if I wanted to talk about all the ways Stephen King's books affected my view of life I'd have to devote an entire entry to it. So there you have it.
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Ahahahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. I love those books.
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i am maybe considering picking up where i left off with that RA Salvatore series though D:
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D:
I once flipped my dad's copy of Dreamcatcher open and there was a dude jamming a biro into his eye and I was like "this is not the book for me, where is my copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar".
^I was like six obviously.
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That's so cool. *_________*
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