And I wish the Eye of Argon were longer, because it actually gets interesting at the end there, and then abruptly stops :(. The thing I find interesting about the Eye of Argon is that it actually follows the style of the purple-prose barbarians-and-evil-gods stories it was trying to imitate. It's completely ridiculous-looking because Jim Theis had neither the vocabulary to pull it off nor the writing skills to make it flow smoothly, but half its hilarity for most readers may be that they simply aren't familiar with the genre.
Frankly, with its fondness for elaborate purple prose, rigid-and-stereotyped plots, and bombastic declarations of love for the most exaggerated versions of unrealistic gender roles, I'm suspecting the 'barbarian' subgenre (and subgenres like it) is secretly the stereotypically-male equivalent of the oft-derided Mills&Boon romances.
Whereas Shutdown -- it could only be palatable if it switched to Ellen's pov and was entirely sympathetic to her. As for non-sexual, it's like Danse Macabre: there is very little actual sex happening, and yet it's all about sex, because it's all about people sitting around nattering and bickering and complaining and posturing about sex. I do not understand how anyone can want to read LKH's stuff for smut purposes. Anita seems to have serious difficulty determining her own emotions, desires, and beliefs without having somebody tell her what they are. It is an actual condition...
...Actually, HOLY SHIT. This IS Anita.
The core characteristics of alexithymia are marked dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal relating.[2] Furthermore, individuals suffering from alexithymia also have difficulty in distinguishing and appreciating the emotions of others, which is thought to lead to unempathic and ineffective emotional responding.[2] [...] According to Henry Krystal, individuals suffering from alexithymia think in an operative way and may appear to be superadjusted to reality. In psychotherapy, however, a cognitive disturbance becomes apparent as patients tend to recount trivial, chronologically ordered actions, reactions, and events of daily life with monotonous detail.[21][22] In general, these individuals lack imagination, intuition, empathy, and drive-fulfillment fantasy, especially in relation to objects. Instead, they seem oriented toward things and even treat themselves as robots. These problems seriously limit their responsiveness to psychoanalytic psychotherapy; psychosomatic illness or substance abuse is frequently exacerbated should these individuals enter psychotherapy.[9]
Micah is so creepy in this. It's something I didn't notice because I was overwhelmed with other stuff. But he is so creepy. I feel like his manipulation of Anita makes this into some kind of contest between Micah and Richard. The more I think about it, the creepier and creepier he gets. I remember an actual description of a cult leader accompanying a victim on a visit to her family that sounded almost exactly like this, minus the constant cuddling. The cult leader was constantly whispering in the woman's ear, and she seemed like a withdrawn shell of her former self, only doing whatever he commanded.
I don't like to speculate about an author's personal life, but fuck it. If this is what LKH has come to believe is true love, she needs help. And I don't mean [solely] the psychiatric variety.
Absolutely. She does this a lot, but she usually doesn't get so granular about it. I have to wonder if this is why she has such trouble writing Merry Gentry now. Merry, at least nominally, doesn't have sexual hang-ups. I swear LKH's are getting worse with every story. It will be interesting to see just how much of a mess the current story turns into - I just can't imagine LKH managing to reconcile her neuroses with Merry's (nominal) what-me-worry attitude without either snapping something upstairs or permanently wrecking what characterization Merry has.
She says Richard's hair is three completely different shades in Danse Macabre without realizing that's what she's doing. Stephenie Meyer does exactly the same thing with Edward's hair in Twilight. Aaaah, yes. You mean Edward's red/bronze hair? (I mercifully have never read Danse Macabre unsporked. I am taking every single sporker's word on it.)
That is very tough. It helps if your Sim is Romance/Popularity with all the perks, but still, tough. Yeah, it often doesn't work. The heart-shaped hedgemaze area is the best, as I recall, but it's luck as much as skill. (And the fine art of staying away from Mrs. Crumplebottom and/or any other lovers...)
Yes! There are so many layers of bad to this thing, I think everyone has something new to bring to the table. Thanks for the advice! I'll post a link.
no subject
The thing I find interesting about the Eye of Argon is that it actually follows the style of the purple-prose barbarians-and-evil-gods stories it was trying to imitate. It's completely ridiculous-looking because Jim Theis had neither the vocabulary to pull it off nor the writing skills to make it flow smoothly, but half its hilarity for most readers may be that they simply aren't familiar with the genre.
Frankly, with its fondness for elaborate purple prose, rigid-and-stereotyped plots, and bombastic declarations of love for the most exaggerated versions of unrealistic gender roles, I'm suspecting the 'barbarian' subgenre (and subgenres like it) is secretly the stereotypically-male equivalent of the oft-derided Mills&Boon romances.
Whereas Shutdown -- it could only be palatable if it switched to Ellen's pov and was entirely sympathetic to her. As for non-sexual, it's like Danse Macabre: there is very little actual sex happening, and yet it's all about sex, because it's all about people sitting around nattering and bickering and complaining and posturing about sex. I do not understand how anyone can want to read LKH's stuff for smut purposes.
Anita seems to have serious difficulty determining her own emotions, desires, and beliefs without having somebody tell her what they are. It is an actual condition...
...Actually, HOLY SHIT. This IS Anita.
The core characteristics of alexithymia are marked dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal relating.[2] Furthermore, individuals suffering from alexithymia also have difficulty in distinguishing and appreciating the emotions of others, which is thought to lead to unempathic and ineffective emotional responding.[2]
[...]
According to Henry Krystal, individuals suffering from alexithymia think in an operative way and may appear to be superadjusted to reality. In psychotherapy, however, a cognitive disturbance becomes apparent as patients tend to recount trivial, chronologically ordered actions, reactions, and events of daily life with monotonous detail.[21][22] In general, these individuals lack imagination, intuition, empathy, and drive-fulfillment fantasy, especially in relation to objects. Instead, they seem oriented toward things and even treat themselves as robots. These problems seriously limit their responsiveness to psychoanalytic psychotherapy; psychosomatic illness or substance abuse is frequently exacerbated should these individuals enter psychotherapy.[9]
Micah is so creepy in this. It's something I didn't notice because I was overwhelmed with other stuff. But he is so creepy. I feel like his manipulation of Anita makes this into some kind of contest between Micah and Richard.
The more I think about it, the creepier and creepier he gets. I remember an actual description of a cult leader accompanying a victim on a visit to her family that sounded almost exactly like this, minus the constant cuddling. The cult leader was constantly whispering in the woman's ear, and she seemed like a withdrawn shell of her former self, only doing whatever he commanded.
I don't like to speculate about an author's personal life, but fuck it. If this is what LKH has come to believe is true love, she needs help. And I don't mean [solely] the psychiatric variety.
Absolutely. She does this a lot, but she usually doesn't get so granular about it.
I have to wonder if this is why she has such trouble writing Merry Gentry now. Merry, at least nominally, doesn't have sexual hang-ups. I swear LKH's are getting worse with every story. It will be interesting to see just how much of a mess the current story turns into - I just can't imagine LKH managing to reconcile her neuroses with Merry's (nominal) what-me-worry attitude without either snapping something upstairs or permanently wrecking what characterization Merry has.
She says Richard's hair is three completely different shades in Danse Macabre without realizing that's what she's doing. Stephenie Meyer does exactly the same thing with Edward's hair in Twilight.
Aaaah, yes. You mean Edward's red/bronze hair? (I mercifully have never read Danse Macabre unsporked. I am taking every single sporker's word on it.)
That is very tough. It helps if your Sim is Romance/Popularity with all the perks, but still, tough.
Yeah, it often doesn't work. The heart-shaped hedgemaze area is the best, as I recall, but it's luck as much as skill. (And the fine art of staying away from Mrs. Crumplebottom and/or any other lovers...)
Yes! There are so many layers of bad to this thing, I think everyone has something new to bring to the table.
Thanks for the advice! I'll post a link.