but some we light on fire

It is really stupid late here and I'm going to be so miserable tomorrow (though that was already a given, really), and I don't really do this kind of thing a lot, but... it's going to be a long, cold winter here, and I'm about to have an almost certainly miserable day that will likely bleed into a hard week and a birthday that will optimistically be mostly spent with me in bed only getting out to put more wood on the fire, so. I could probably really use this right now, if anyone can spare the time. Thank you!

holiday love meme 2015
my thread here

So it is... a little over a month before I am leaving, and mostly at the moment I'm kind of like – I wish I was here or there, rather than being in this weird leading-up-to-the-end kind of tandem between the two. Which is pretty typical for me, I like change but hate transitions. There are a lot of things I still want to get done before I leave, but I guess I'm... looking forward to be there rather than panicking over packing.

So I'm following up my last post in asking about Things That You Like, with ... even more questions asking about things that you like! I have a giant external hard drive that needs filling, okay?

- What artists/albums would you recommend to me? I actually have… way too much music as it is, but whatever, recommend me more anyway! I wish I could give an example of what I like, but I… have zero consistency when it comes to music. I will say that I'm actually interested in compilations of classical music if anyone happens to have any recommendations for that. Otherwise, I mean... the most recent album I bought was the new Delta Rae one, and I'm super eager to get the soundtrack for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. I like basically everything!

- What are your favorite episodes of television? I'm asking this specifically because what I'm thinking of is getting recommendations for episodes from TV shows I've already seen, but might like to have with me when I'm there. I've already been going through this with some shows like The Office and picking out absolute favorites. This could also work if you have episodes from shows you like that I haven't seen, but which stand alone reasonably well enough that you think they're worth getting anyway. I can't really afford to buy entire series/seasons (only Parks and Rec got this honor and I REGRET NOTHING), but if you have specific suggestions as to episodes I may check them out and then… see what I can do later on if I want to see more.

- What were your favorite books as children? While I'll be teaching high school English, it looks like at least some of my training will involve younger children, so having simple English books might be helpful. And I remember zero about what I read as a child. Like literally nothing. I vaguely remember something about The Wind in the Willows and that super elaborate mystery picture book with all the animals and I guess East of the Sun and West of the Moon (though I less remember reading that than having it) and mom trying to get me to read Boxcar Children books and then at some point I was 11 and read Harry Potter. I was not a great reader as a child.

Finally, for those of you who have blogs/websites outside Dreamwidth/Tumblr, do any of you use third-party hosting services for your content (i.e., Dreamhost), and if so what do you recommend? I want to set up a blog before I leave, and I'm kind of on the fence about how I want to do it. I may end up just going through Tumblr anyway, but regardless I'd like a host that could store audio files and I wouldn't want to use Tumblr's audioposting for that, so. If you have opinions let me know!

Last Korra meta post ever YAY :D

Unlike the previous two, I don't think this contains much that I need to warn for, except for ( Snipped for spoilers )

. But other than that it's me being a gushing fangirl for a word count that at least stays at four figures.

Veronica's Very Long Legend of Korra Meta That I Told You Would End, Parts: 1     2      3

( The Final Scene in Legend of Korra )

And that's the end, I swear. And look, I don't say things like this a lot because I don't really like it when people tell me what I MUST WATCH and that it's SO MUCH BETTER than anything else or whatever. (Broad recommendations make me nervous as shit, I don't know what you like!) So I'll just phrase it like this: in its third and fourth seasons especially, I thought Legend of Korra became something really special, and not like anything I've felt I've really had before. And I'm really grateful that I got it. And… that's it. If you actually read all of that, or even just parts of it, ahah wow seriously go you! I'm mostly glad that I can now move on to writing things that are not this.

Hi! This, I swear, will be the last time I write Korra meta monstrosities. I mean, we can all hope so, anyway. But before the end of Book 4, I'd decided that I wanted to do meta for the series as a whole, after I'd seen all of it and could reflect back on the earlier seasons from the that perspective. ... and then when I was still writing a month after the finale, I began to see how everything was going terribly, terribly wrong.

The point is, I'm too embarrassed to state the wordcount for this, but it's very long. I initially thought it actually exceeded Dreamwidth's entry limit, but I had that mixed up with LiveJournal. It's really only… slightly more than half of Dreamwidth's limit. (Let me put it this way, if you don't know: you could fit your NaNoWriMo into a DW post before you started coming up on that limit.) But even so, it is stupid long, and because of that I'm still going to split it up into three posts over three days.

This first post is going to be about Books 1 thru 3. (So everything except the season that actually just aired, ha ha >___>) It does include spoilers for the entire series, including the end of the finale. As a warning, I discuss what happens in the show, which yeah, obviously, but I mean that this included content such as violence, suicide, and the lasting effects of trauma. This also focuses on Korra's arc through the show, with some smaller discussion of other characters. One character in particular ended up getting a lot of discussion in the next post, including a review of her storyline beginning in Book 1, but I didn't have a good way to integrate that, so I left it where it was.

So, Veronica's Long Legend of Korra Meta, Parts: 1     2     3

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I want to introduce this without putting it behind a cut, so as non-spoilery as possible: one of the many ways Legend of Korra differed from Avatar: The Last Airbender was that rather than one overall series arc, the show split into four more or less contained seasonal arcs, each with a different primary villain. The nature of that villain, as one would expect, heavily influenced the sort of conflicts Korra faced. But ideally (if not always in execution), they also helped define the season's major themes and ultimate conclusion. As I'll argue, I think the primary theme of the series concerns duality: how various elements can conflict with and complement one another, and the cost of taking any one such element too far. To illustrate this, I'm using what I call the four "Villainous Virtues" of LoK: Equality, Harmony, Freedom, and Order.

( Book 1: Equality /// Air )

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( Book 2: Harmony /// Spirits )

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( Book 3: Freedom /// Change )

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And that's Books 1 – 3. Tomorrow: I actually talk about Book 4 :O :O :O Except for the last minute and a half. Because that gets its own post. I'm sorry.

In case you see what is apparently some random person on your friendlist suddenly - I changed my username! I'd been meaning to do it for a while and finally stopped stressing over what to change it to and just pressed the button. I'll be going around and making a few more changes (I've also changed my Twitter handle, though I'm also considering making a separate, private Twitter account as well), though contact info like AIM and e-mail will stay the same because that's too difficult to deal with. But yes, I am shoroko! I've just had that online name for so long and felt like it was time for a change.

P.S.: I swear Korra meta is coming. I plan to have it up by the 20th (lol only two months late). But uh, there was a reason it took so long >___>