alliec7's Xanga

4th of July

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:57:15 GMT

Hi everyone!

In 1862 on July 4th a man named Lewis Carroll told little Alice Liddell a story that we have come to know as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Surprisingly, the book was published three years later on this exact same day! So in the spirit of Alice, let us have a celebration for the fourth day of July and her adventures down the bunny hole.

Ed and I would love to have you and your friends over for a little BBQ and romping around. We will be providing the food so please RSVP by Wednesday July 2nd. We will have some alcoholic beverages, but it would be very helpful to us if you would like bring drinks also. True to form, we usually do not have many non-alcoholic drinks, but we will have water of course.

Who: You + friends
What: Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland celebration
When: 5pm July 4
Where:
81 13th St #2
Troy, NY 12180
Google map: http://tinyurl.com/3277pu
Why: To remember Alice before Disney took over

Call me at (925)639-7026 or email me if you need directions, info, etc

PS: We have a dog, so if you're allergic you may want to pass

We can't wait to see you!!!

Allison, Ed and Emmy

Copyright law question

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:46:12 GMT

Hi guys,

It seems that a lot of people have/had questions regarding fanfiction and copyright laws. I found this FAQ page that goes over copyright laws and how fanfiction treads or doesn't tread on the original author's work. I'm posting this just in case you were still wondering. I found it quite interesting myself.

Fanfiction: "The Burn"

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:46:29 GMT

Blog #21: Wrap up of Pattern Recognition..or lack there of.

Whew! I’m glad that presentation is over! Anyways, lets get on with the show. I’m still not convinced that Cayce’s fashion allergy is really an allergy. I think that she does struggle with her personal critique on Americanism, but I kind of like it. It leaves me thinking that she’s not as perfect as she thinks herself. I mean, it’s inevitable for her to be labeled/logoed in some way. Even if she has all generic stuff in her kitchen as Margot noticed, it is still a brand. Levi jeans are still Levi jeans even if their labels and rivets are gone.

I did like the parallel that was made between the toxic clothing sweatshops and footage prisons. I suppose that it is quite ironic that she was so involved with the footage and uncovering its secret, but tried to separate herself from the logo(mirror)-world…well Gibson probably did this on purpose.

I’m kind of dry of ideas in terms of Pattern Recognition. I can talk for hours about fanfiction so if anyone has any other questions feel free to ask. I’m obviously not an expert on the subject, but will try my best to answer your questions.

Also, I have been getting some requests for my own fan fic so I’ve posted one below. Please, please, please, keep in mind that I was a sophomore in college and had no experience in writing. Seeing as the fan fiction has helped me in the long run, I’m proud, but slightly scared. I’ve actually never “come out” with my real name on any of my stories. You guys don’t have to comment, but if you do, please no flames! On another note, this story was also came to me in a dream. Yes, I'm crazy enough for Harry Potter Fan Fiction to be dreaming about it. Be warned, I was a hardcore Hermione and Draco shipper. I explained to Ryan today in class that there is some logical reasoning for this. Although some people think that canon is the way to go, the Hermione/Draco ship is so out of this world that I could make it happen. Meaning, that I knew that Rowling would never do it so I didn't have to worry about finding it hidden in the tree-flakes that I know as HP and the Deathly Hallows. Harry and Hermione could have happened and we know now that Ron and Hermione did happen. Imagine if I would have tainted the relationships with raunchy smut and then read their beautifully written relationships. I would have been devastated. Hermione and Draco were the best deal.   Okay so now that you're warned that I'm a non-canon writer, onward we go!

For your reading pleasure I have selected a "Flash fic FanFic" that has no plot and is not rated R. I don't think that I could look you guys in the face if I posted something R on my blog post.

The Burn
PG-13

“Oh sod off limp dick,” she snaps as she spins on her heel and storms to her room. Slamming the door, she angrily paces around the room. He pounds on her door screaming her name.
“I’m not done with you!” he yells through the wooden plank. She huffs in frustration and yanks it open.
“What more could you want, you ugly baboon?!”
“You will not talk to me like that you filthy Mudblood,” he spits pointing a finger at her.
“Or what? You’ll call your daddy to come fight for you?”
    He is silent but shakes in rage. “Wake up and smell the coffee Malfoy, you’re father is in Azkaban and not going to be here to protect you. What are you going to do now?”
“You’re a piece of slime,” he sneers and lunges for her. She barely escapes his deadly grip.
“You are truly deranged, my friend. It is not me who is the slime, but yourself. Have you looked in the mirror lately?” she yells at him. He grabs her wrist and squeezes it until she winces. Yanking her towards him, he grasps her free one and crushes it beneath his fingers.
“Oww! Malfoy stop!” she begs in agony. Flinging her to the floor like a rag doll he towers above her as she gingerly gets to her feet. Rubbing her soar wrists, she glares at him.
    Her angry manner suddenly changes and her face softens as she eyes him seductively. Slowly walking up to him, she grazes his cheek with her index finger. He flinches at the gentleness of her touch.
“Granger, what are you up to?” he asks suspiciously narrowing his eyes to look at her.
“Oh, nothing. I just love a man who uses brute force to get what he wants,” she coos with a small smile as she unbuttons her shirt making sure he has full view of her cleavage. He looks and smirks. Pulling him down by his tie, she brushes her lips to his. Gently her tongue glides over the pink flesh. His body doesn’t move, but his tongue extends to meet hers. They touch and he shivers. Her hands slide up to his chest under his collard shirt. Finally connecting their lips she kisses him sensually. She chuckles and takes his head into her hands. She bites his lower lip. He gasps as the pain registers in his brain. Breaking the embrace, she wipes the small dribble of plasma from her lips. Her seductive smile has vanished from her face. His hand flies to his mouth and he sees the blood on his finger tips.
“You little bi…” he yells as her right hook connects with his face.
“Don’t fuck with me, Malfoy.” He grabs her around the throat and slams her against the wall. Her feet dangle inches above the floor as she desperately tries to fill her lungs with oxygen. He pulls her away from the wall only to smash against it again.
“Is this what you want? Huh? Is this how you want me to treat you?”
She manages to shake her head. Fear streaks her face and he drops her. She tumbles to the ground clutching her already bruising neck and gasping for air. Crumbled on the floor, she shakes as the oxygen refills her lungs. She rises to her knees to stand but he knocks her back down. “This is where you belong you filthy Mudblood; at my feet,” he sneers. Tears burn at the back of her eyes and her throat tightens with emotion. She looks up at him. Blood from his lip stained his white shirt.
    From the floor she lunges and takes him out at the knees. He crashes to the floor, knocking his head on her bed side table. She crawls on top of him straddling his torso with her legs. He lightly places his hand on her hips.
“What do you want from me?” she asks with tearful eyes.
“I want to know what you did to me.” He says softly as he fights for consciousness. “Granger…” he says as he blinks hard to focus on her face.
“I did nothing.” She says as she grips the fabric of his shirt in her fists.
“Then why are your initials burned onto my chest?” he asks before he faints beneath her.

A/N: So the tense shifts and there is no real plot, but it produced quite a few requests for me to continue it. Since I woke up before anything else happened and I was working on my longer HP piece I never continued.

Fashion allergies are bogus

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:06:20 GMT

    Blog #20: Initial reactions to Pattern Recognition

    I commend Gibson’s ability to write an entire book in present tense…I’m pretty sure that the whole thing is in present tense anyway. I haven’t finished yet. I find myself looking for slip-ups as I go through the book. At first I had a difficult time reading the book at all because of the tense. It seemed awkward and made the tone unfriendly.
    What I immediately noticed about the narrative is Cayce’s fascination with clothing brands. She takes such pains to have the labels cut off and the rivets of jeans smoothed down. At first I thought that it was an interesting concept, but as I read more about her obsession, the more it began to irritate me. In her attempt to be “original” she seems incredibly pretentious. The fact that she has to try so hard to be label-less makes me think of an Emo kid. They try so hard to be different, but end up being even more the same than if they were just being themselves. Kids who listen to rock bands and wear black to “express” themselves conform just as much as the popular kid wearing Abercrombie and Fitch. (Sorry Emo kids, I know you already get a lot of slack from your parents, but seriously, can you blame them?) I remember one of my undergrad professors telling a story about his Emo son whom he was picking up at a concert. The prof had asked his son why he wore all black and painted his nails. The son had told him that he wanted to be different. My prof then said “Then why can’t I pick you out of this crowd?” All of the kids looked the same! This is how I view Cayce and her fashion sense.
    I originally thought that Gibson was trying to make a statement about our materialistic generation. “What people take for relentless minimalism is a side effect of too much exposure to the reactor-cores of fashion. This has resulted in a remorseless paring-down of what she can and will wear. She is literally, allergic to fashion” (Gibson 8). So here we are reading along and BAM! We know that Gibson is trying to tell us something. Eight pages in and we know that Cayce is “allergic” to fashion. Why then, are there such detailed descriptions of what she wears and how she looks at others? She’s not “allergic” to fashion, she’s just an Emo kid who wants to be different.

This is all I have to rant about right now. When I get further into the book I will try to post again.

What is Fanfiction?

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:33:12 GMT

Ah, the lovely world of fanfiction! Can you hear the little clicks of budding writers’ keyboards as they frantically develop their own stories? When it comes to filling the void in between book releases and the completion of the series, Harry Potter (HP) fans have found an alternative outlet for HP fulfillment.

What is Fanfiction?
I think that HollyLime, a The Leaky Cauldron forum member, puts it the best in her fantastic essay “Modern Genre Theory Examines the World of Harry Potter Fanfiction”:

“Fanfiction is the creative product of a distinctive, fan community and is typically posted on sites devoted to fanfiction. Each site organizes its li brary of fanfiction into very important groupings that act as organizers and labels for the individual stories. These are typically referred to by the users as ‘the genres’. Common examples include romance, humor, angst, crossover, alternative universe or adventure” (HollyLime 2).

If you think back to the beginning of the semester (I know, it feels like it was years ago) you will recall that Henry Jenkins also describes the world of fanfiction in Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. He uses it in the context of spoiling Survivor, but the same general theory applies.

“While spoiling tries to anticipate how they will react to the incidents depicted in the series, the fan fiction takes this one step further, trying to imagine how they would respond confronting challenges and dilemmas that they never faced in real life” (Jenkins 39).

To the already reeling imaginations of Potter fans, fanfiction allows obsessive readers to continue their love for the boy wizard as well as to venture into their own fantasies for the adored boy. Scores of people across the globe find that fanfiction is a useful outlet for reliving their glorious Harry filled days. Fanfiction is specific to its personal fandom and cannot be generalized throughout the masses of fanfiction readers. While this is true to the HP community, fanfiction allows readers to constantly have new adventures and romances to follow and enjoy.

As an imagination-developing tool fanfiction is a good way for young and old hopeful writers to try their hands at full-length stories. With the characters already de veloped, fanfiction poses as a useful tool for writers to start with without the need to develop their own backstory and character descriptions. Of course, this means that readers of fanfiction must be active in the canon of the stories.

The Network in fanfiction
Fanfiction creates a network of people who can relate to one another. The network within the fandom becomes essential in the growth of individual writers. Not only are the writers able to converse with people who have similar interests as they do, they are also receiving positive feedback from their readers. “Writing was seen as a way to have fun, exercise one’s imagination, and avoid boredom. Rhiannon also characterized it as ‘stress relief’. What they were less likely to say explicitly, but what seemed clear to us, was that fanfiction writing also helped to develop and solidify relationships with various friends, online or otherwise” (Chandler-Olcott & Mahar 560). For the average fanfiction writer the fanfic world becomes their haven where they can be part of the “popular” crowd. Hidden by pennames and a computer screen, fanfiction networks feel safe for writers. Scrutiny can be taken at a distance and are taken as constructive pointers.

Playing by the rules
Rules within the fanfiction world apply as if it were a giant workshopping community. Most sites discourage “flaming” or destructive and useless feedback. Many sites will moderate these comments and not post them at all. Although this shields writers from the true feelings of their readers, it helps writers become more confident with themselves and their writing.

Fanfic communities have a stream of resources for aspiring writers. Beta-readers, proofreaders, are one of the most valuable tools to the writing process of fanfic writers. This process of Beta-reading is much like having an invisible writing guardian angel. Readers volunteer to proofread writers’ work to help improve the narratives before they are posted onto the sites. Not only does this help the writer improve their storytelling skills and grammar, it makes the experience better for the writer’s fans. Yes, fans! One of the beauties of fanfiction is that the writers can gain their own following of readers. The encouragement that writer’s fans give motivates the writers to keep writing, even if they feel dry of ideas.
This is an example of one of the reviews I received back in the day:

October 9, 2005: The Struggle
By: Quotewhore7
“This is a wonderful, fantastic story!!! I love it! If you don't mind, I'll point out a few grammar mistakes. When someone says something, you put a comma before 'he said, he screamed, he whispered, etc." and the next word is not capitalized. Example: “Malfoy,” she said. You have the quite a lot, so I thought I'd point it out to you. :D I always try to help as best as I can, I hope you don't get mad. Also, perhaps it would be much easier to read if you spaced paragraphs. Love ya!”
--Football Girl (Harrypotterfanfiction.com)

There is definitely an extreme amount of fluff, but there are some good tips in this review. All of my stories were written in my pre-creative writing days and I had no idea how to structure my narratives. Football Girl’s tips helped me sort out all of my dialogue mistakes.

Artwork among the community
Out of the millions of stories to read how does fanfic reader know which one to choose? Pretty much all HP fanfiction sites require that the writer give some sort of summary. As a bonus, sometimes writers will create or have someone else create banners for their stories. These banners tend to be very colorful and sometimes have flashing images and scrolling banners. They can be extremely complex. In the writer’s account s/he can see how many times their story has been opened, “hits”, all the way down to which chapters have been read the most. Stories with banners, no matter how poorly made the banner is, get more attention than stories without them.

This is a banner I made for my story “In the Shadows”. You wouldn’t believe how long this little thing took me in Photoshop. I am definitely not a Photoshop guru.

HP Fanfiction sites
Harry Potter Fan Fiction (This is where I used to post to.)
The Sugar Quill
MuggleNet Fan Fiction

Alienation
To the average person (not a fan) fanfiction can be very alienating. Without knowing the canon, an outsider rarely has access to the backstory that the writers are building off of. Not only does the outsider not have the basic information of the fanfic, they are also lacking the passion and patience that is required for a fanfiction reader. Since a majority of the stories are written by young writers, the content as well as proper grammar and style can sometimes be messy. Fanfiction is written for small niches of readers who enjoy the expansion of their particular sect of canon. With the passion from the fans comes patience for said faults.

Rowling on fanfiction
In 2004 an article emerged on BBC News about Rowling’s reaction to fan fiction. Her representative, Christopher Little, reports that she is flattered by the fan’s reactions, but reminds them that her stories are for kids. “A spokesman for Rowling's literary agent said she was ‘flattered people wanted to write their own stories’ based on her characters… He said ‘The books may be getting older, but they are still aimed at young children.’ ‘If young children were to stumble on Harry Potter in a an x-rated story, that would be a problem’” (Waters 2004).

Unfortunately for me, I was red flagged by HarryPotterFanFiction.com because of my rated R fanfic. I was a little hurt and irritated when I first found out, but I had long since fell away from this particular part of fandom so I wasn’t too upset about it. Now that I’m older I’m glad that they did take off my story.

Sources

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:39:52 GMT

Blog #19: Works Cited with annotations

Alvermann, Donna and Hagood, Margaret. “Fandom and Critical Media Literacy.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 43:5 (2000): 436-446.

Chandler-Olcott, Kelly and Mahar, Donna. “Adolescents’ Anime-Inspired “Fanfictions”: An Exploration of Multiliteracies.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 46:7 (2003): 556-566.

Fiske, John. “The Cultural Economy of Fandom.” Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media. Ed. Lewis, Lisa A. Florence: Routledge, 1992. 30-49.

HollyLime. “Modern Genre Theory Examines the World of Harry Potter Fan Fiction.” June 2006. 29 Mar. 2008. < http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/essays/issue4/GenreTheory>.

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006.

Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge, 1992.

Jenson, Joli. “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization.” Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media. Ed. Lewis, Lisa A. Florence: Routledge, 1992. 9-29.

Lerer, Seth. “‘Thy Life to Mend, This Book Attend’: Reading and Healing in the Arc of Children’s Literature.” New Literary History 37 (2006): 631-642.

Rowling, J[oanne] K[athleen]. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Levine-Scholastic, 1997.

Tanaqui. “Harry Potter and the Literacy Phenomenon.” The Leaky Cauldron: Scribbulus Nov. 2006. 29 Mar. 2008. < http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/essays/issue10/Literacy>.

Waters, Darren. “Rowling Backs Potter Fan Fiction.” BBC News. 27 May 2004. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3753001.stm>

These articles go into what fandom is. I think that it will help me define what fandom and what fandoms do in my paper. One of the articles is a study that the two women conducted. They looked at two teens who participate in music fandoms. They go into interviews that detail how the students view their bands of choice. Even though this article is focusing on music, the same general rules apply.

I have already found a couple of these articles very helpful. I think that the anime fanfiction essay was the most beneficial by far. Two teachers were looking at their middle school students’ addiction/obsession to anime. The two girls were writing their own fanfiction stories as well as illustrating them. The teachers went through why they thought that fanfiction is beneficial to their students. I thought that the interviews that they conducted with their students was very interesting. Even though they are young, I was able to connect with them. We had the same ideas about fanfiction even though we have a big age difference. This article also discusses how fanfiction creates a network for fans.

The only problem that I’m having is that all of these articles seem to be supporting fanfiction and I wanted to bring out how fanfiction is hurting the Harry Potter canon. I can think of my own reasons, but I would like to find some stuff to back me up.

Harry Potter argument

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:52:39 GMT

Blog #18: Paper Argument

I think that my argument for my paper boils down to the question of canon within the Harry Potter series. I have heard from many people, including my parents, that they just couldn't get into the series because the first few chapters of the first installation was too dry. Harry Potter dry? This can't be! After thinking about this I've come to realized that they can't handle the establishment of backstory, which we all know is essential to developing canon.

My argument is the development of personal fantasy and how fan fiction manages to upset the canon. I have noticed from personal experience that Fan Fiction has actually changed what I believe is HP canon. When I would listen to my HP podcasts some of the things the hosts would say just wouldn't add up. I'd be standing in my kitchen saying "No, that did happen!" Then I realized that I was taking fan writing to be canon. Horrible! I had to go read the series again for the fourth time! Although I think Fan Fiction is great for writers to experiment with, there is no denying that it is corrupting the canon. What readers can depend on as HP fact is easily blurred into fiction. Writers will try to stay in HP canon, but no matter how close they are to character voice and plot tidbits, Fan Fiction will never be canon. As far as I'm concerned, canon is anything that JK Rowling produces, including Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, and anything on her site that pertains to HP.

Originally I wanted to explore all of the outlets of HP spin offs eg. Fan Fiction, video games, movies, fan videos, MUDs, reading companions, theories, fandom, and whatever else that I've missed. Just looking at this list is scary. I'd have to write an entire book to address all of these things. So since I've delved into the world of Fan Fiction for personal entertainment and my presentation, I think I might stick with it. Beth, I know you said that you were interested Fan Fiction also so maybe we can share resources if our topics cross.

Here are the topics that I will explore:

Fan Fiction genre

General
Romance
Drama
Fluff
Angst
Horror/Dark
Mystery
etc

Fan Fiction sites

HarryPotterFanfiction.com
Fictionalley.org
Mugglenet Fan Fiction
The Sugar Quill
The Seventh Horcrux- This story was mistaken as a leaked copy of HP 7. Apparently this story was so good that people thought that it was the real thing! You would not believe how long it took me to find this in the PotterCast transcripts, but I'm glad that I finally did.

Canon theory

Harry Potter And the Sorcerer's Stone

Harry Potter And the Philosopher's Stone (UK)

How Canon differs due to reading ability/education

Fan sites?

The Leaky Cauldron

Scribbulus- Essay Project

Patchwork Girl

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 03:41:07 GMT

Blog #17: Initial reactions to Patchwork Girl

Can I please get an Ahhhh!? Okay, so now that is done with. My initial thoughts about Patchwork Girl by Shelly Jackson was that it was a chaotic mess. Once I was able to get through the Title Page section, I had a difficult time navigating the program. I tried using the long list of links, but it was out of order and the narrative made no sense to me. Also, as my eyes began to glaze over, I realized that some of the hyper links brought me back to the same segments. I would read and be like "hey, didn't I just read this?" During my navigation of the Title Page, I found it useful to write down the map so that when I was clicking the text I knew where I was going. Yes, I could have just kept the window open on the side, but it was easier to read when the text was expanded to the size of my screen. Plus I thought it would be useful for class discussion. After a while I began to tire of this though and started to focus more on themes of the narrative rather than proper navigation.

   I’m proud to say that even if Kim hadn’t said that we should think about Frankenstein while going through the CD-ROM I would have caught on that they are very similar. Stylistically I thought that some of the parts were a little choppy and difficult to read, while others had nice flow. I think part of what was bothering me was that I had to keep clicking on the text to get the next segment. I’m not sure why this bothered me so much since I surf the web all the time.

   I was particularly intrigued by the Notes section, which I think was at the end of the Title Page section... I’m not actually sure how I got there. At first I had no idea what was going on but then I had a revelation. All of the bold, italics, underlined, and natural fonts were quotes from other sources. Jackson was putting totally different texts into a coherent narrative! Correct me if I’m wrong, but I felt very accomplished when I figured this out. I really enjoyed this section after I realized that she was connecting quotations from unrelated sources together. I myself enjoy collecting quotes that I think are significant or catchy, but would have never thought to try to put them together to make some sort of sensible narrative.

   As for the other parts of narrative, my interpretation is that the Patchwork Girl is really the piece of writing. There were so many references to the stylistic writing such as “cut” and “flow”. I thought that the segment entitled “(One Sip)” sounded like a description exercise. I was like, “I could see Hollis having us describe how we drink a can of Coke.” When I was thinking this, my mind tracked back to Harry Potter (of course) and how much I’d love to get my hands on JK Rowlings notebooks. I can imagine “(One Sip)” or exercises like this in pretty much any writer’s notebook. However, I didn’t think that it would be included in a published work. This is all assuming that this was an exercise. It just seems like it would have been.

   I’m hoping that I was able to get to all of the narratives. I wasn’t able to click on any of the places in the brain. It looked like there were links there, but I couldn’t access them by clicking. This is when I went to that long list, but then that went down in flames.

   I haven’t tried out Mark Amerika yet. After Patchwork Girl I think I need to give myself a day to regenerate before I move onto more abstract narratives.

   Happy Easter everyone!

The Diamond Age Part 2 Wrap up

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:18:49 GMT

This is my initial wrap up thought.

Can someone please, please, please tell me what canon is? After yesterdays class I became confused. Isn't part of canon being a part of a “book”? I mean, Stephenson was trying to make it seem that the Primer was the all-powerful source within Nell’s life. We have done all of this speculation of what the Primer is, but isn’t Stephenson reverting back to the canon? Even though the Primer seems a like a laptop in the form of a book, the fact that it is in the form of the book is what I'm hung up on.

Is a book that performs like a computer really a book? Well, let’s look at it this way. Apple’s new line of laptop computer is called MacBookPro. The word “book” is in the title, but the product is clearly not a traditional book. The computer functions as a computer, therefore it is a computer. I feel like the Primer is somewhat going in this direction. The formatting of the Primer is a book, but it operates like a computer. Although my example leaves room for many flaws, if we stick with this logic the Primer should also fall under the computer category. At best it should be called a Booter. What is Stephenson trying to get at? A book that acts like a computer should be a computer, but he wants us to see it as a book. Is Stephenson trying to push canon into this SciFi world by making a Booter?

We said in class that the book eventually becomes the medium that allows Nell to bring down the hegemony. It doesn’t seem to me that real-time book can be can be capable of such things. It isn’t the Primer that is helping her. It is Miranda. Then can we continue to think of the Primer as a medium? I’m spinning myself into a loop of confusion. I feel like I have more questions about the Primer now than I did before class.

I am glad that we went over who the Drummers were. I admit that while reading I didn’t really think about them in great detail. I took them to be another weird society that Stephenson dreamed up. Now their society leaves much to be examined, though there is so little factual information about them that I still don’t know what to think.

Diamond Age--Part 2

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 21:46:32 GMT

So far I'd have to say that the second half of Diamond Age is much more enjoyable. The style is not so choppy and it reads much more like a fictional story rather than Science Fiction. Perhaps this is because I have settled into the twisted world that Neal Stephenson has imagined up. I am currently about a hundred pages into the second section and feel as though I am still reading the character's separate narratives. By this time I expected to have all the characters converge a little more. I was sure that Miranda would have at least had a glimpse at Nell even if it was in passing and neither character had recognition of what was happening. Although I enjoy Miranda as a "mother figure", I'm growing wary of what will happen to Nell. Elizabeth and Fiona have already seemed to have abandoned the Primer, which leads me to believe that they have outgrown it. So why hasn't Nell outgrown hers? She still lives in her reactive world, though her Night friends are no longer with her. Why is a grown up Nell still practicing in little girl Nell stories? Has the Primer become her form of a Mediatron? In section one we saw that Burt, one of Tequila's abusive boyfriends, try to jump down the stairs like he had done in the reactives that he participated in on the Mediatron. Is this what the Primer has become for Nell?
As the style of the story is beginning to flow for me now, I'm actually finding myself enjoying the book a little. I am definitely invested in Nell's story, though I'm not sure where it is going. The quick jump cuts that we encounter in her Primer story is leading me to believe that she will be disposing of the book soon. I'm not sure how Stephenson can pull of a climatic ending since there doesn't seem like there is a whole lot of tension right now or any clues of future conflict. The possible plot points that I can see Stephenson wrapping up are:

Miranda finds Nell
Nell's Primer story (though I've already said that I think it will end soon)
Hackworth completes his secret mission
Harv's health/death
Constable Moore goes to war
The babies

Okay, seems like there is a lot going on right? Not really. In my opinion these are the only things going on right now. I think the biggest interest grabber is the Primer story and its affect on Nell. I'm currently on page 335. If Stephenson drags the Primer story out for another 164 pages I can guarantee that I'll want to rip the book into pieces by the end.
    There is always the story of the babies, which I almost forgot. If the last lecture hadn't somewhat spoiled it, I would probably have hope that there was something extremely interesting happening with the babies. Though from Eva and Beth's reactions, it's not all that wonderful.
    So where does the book have to go? I'm almost beginning to convince myself that Stephenson wasn't sure how he was going to end this novel. I'm going to hope I'm wrong.

    On a side note, while looking up to make sure that I was spelling "Mediatron" correctly (I didn't feel like trying to hunt it down in the book) I came across this article. Siemens is trying to actually make a Mediatron. I guess my laziness was a good thing in this particular circumstance.