Author Topic: PC218: Insect Joy  (Read 13606 times)

Swamp

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Reply #25 on: August 02, 2012, 05:04:06 PM
This story drew me in due to the MC's ability to communicate or at least empathize with insects.  I was interested to see where it went.  However, where it went left me pretty flat.

But I REALLY enjoyed hearing Julie's voice here on PC.  More Julie please. :)

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SarahinSC

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Reply #26 on: August 05, 2012, 07:37:47 PM
I didn't care for this story much. I pretty much agree with everyone else but also, I really didn't like the reader's character voices. Especially the main character, the Southern/Valley Girl accent was grating. I was happy there wasn't much dialogue. The reader has a beautiful voice but that particularly take on a Southern accent was distracting.



kibitzer

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Reply #27 on: August 06, 2012, 03:54:55 AM
I think it was an interesting story but... ooh, Rocket. That was the last thing I heard just before sitting at my desk Monday morning. Didn't make for a good start to the week. (I'm not blaming y'all for running it's just that something like that with dogs is always gonna affect me).


Listener

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Reply #28 on: August 08, 2012, 01:13:34 PM
I couldn't finish this story. I gave it until the first break-point (where we switch scenes from the pet shop to the MC's house) but it just didn't grab me. I didn't feel invested enough in the characters, and I don't think enough happened in the first part to get my attention. I'd probably be willing to read this in text form if it showed up in my feeds, but given my enormous podcast backlog, I have to be really strict about how much time I give each thing -- I unfortunately don't have time for a slow burn on anything longer than one commute (about 30 minutes, give or take traffic).

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ElectricPaladin

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Reply #29 on: August 08, 2012, 03:15:33 PM
I appreciated the theme of "a terrible price paid," but I think I would have found the story more meaningful if the character had known what she was getting into and made a terrible, irrevocably choice for the sake of her lover. Characters stumbling ass-backwards into sacrifice just doesn't appeal to me. It doesn't tell me anything about the character other than "she made a mistake in her ignorance."

My enjoyment of this story might have been hindered by the fact that I do own a bearded dragon and I did feed him crickets and those little f*ckers are awful. They stink. They chirp. They get everywhere. They are so God-damned stupid that they will actually drown in their own water bowls. I have zero sympathy for crickets. Their pain and joy means nothing to me. As a result, I wasn't horrified when their deaths started the narrator down the path of healing her lover.

The dog, though. That hurt. My best friend growing up was a standard poodle.

Anyway, kind of a mid-range story for me. Not awful, not great, not terribly meaningful, not enigmatic. Written well enough that I undesrtood what was going on, but not shining with poetry and truth.

Two out of five zeppelins, and a handful of dead, dead crickets.

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kibitzer

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Reply #30 on: August 08, 2012, 11:05:29 PM
I appreciated the theme of "a terrible price paid," but I think I would have found the story more meaningful if the character had known what she was getting into and made a terrible, irrevocably choice for the sake of her lover. Characters stumbling ass-backwards into sacrifice just doesn't appeal to me. It doesn't tell me anything about the character other than "she made a mistake in her ignorance."

But isn't that the point -- that's like life? You start something with the best of intentions and it's not until you're right in the thick of things you discover the real cost? I think it's a rare situation where you fully understand the cost before proceeding.


ElectricPaladin

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Reply #31 on: August 11, 2012, 05:15:18 AM
I appreciated the theme of "a terrible price paid," but I think I would have found the story more meaningful if the character had known what she was getting into and made a terrible, irrevocably choice for the sake of her lover. Characters stumbling ass-backwards into sacrifice just doesn't appeal to me. It doesn't tell me anything about the character other than "she made a mistake in her ignorance."

But isn't that the point -- that's like life? You start something with the best of intentions and it's not until you're right in the thick of things you discover the real cost? I think it's a rare situation where you fully understand the cost before proceeding.

But if that's the case, then it isn't a choice. It's an accident.

Or, rather, I feel that characters - and the character of real people, too - are defined by choices made with some understanding of the circumstances. What's interesting to me is the choices people make - and the prices they pay - when they think they understand the situation. What's also interesting to me are the mental vicissitudes that people are willing to put themselves through in order to avoid facing uncomfortable truths. These are interesting.

On the other hand, I get that unintended consequences can be a totally compelling thing. However, there's a fine line.

I get into my car, drive down the street, run into you, and you die. Your death is an unintended consequence of my driving, but it doesn't say a lot about my character. In fact, it doesn't say anything about my character. As they say: shit happens. This is not really a story (sorry).

I have a drink, get into my car, drive down the street, run into you, and you die. Your death is an unintended consequence of my driving, but there's more to the story. I rendered myself unsafe to drive before I got into the car. I probably have all sorts of fascinating narrative crap going on in my head. Why did I have that drink? Why did I get behind the wheel? How did I convince myself that it was going to be ok, even though I knew it was stupid? Your death is an unintended consequence of my driving, but it still says a lot about my character that you were killed. Again, sorry about that.

While the first story certainly happens in real life, I'm not all that interested in seeing it reflected in fiction. The second story has a lot more potential.

I think this story was very close to being exactly what I would have wanted. I would have liked to see the narrator given more of a chance to understand what she was doing. I would have liked for her to be given clearer warnings, and then I would have liked to see more of a glimpse into why she ignored those warnings. Then, when the story concludes and "justice" is done, and she is left in the wreckage of her choices, we have completion.

What we have now just felt like a sad joke, and the punchline is "bad things happen, and sometimes you never had a chance." And while that's true in life, I don't find it compelling in fiction. If the story was more of a tragedy, and the lesson was "be ruthlessly honest with yourself; your self-deceptions could lead you and others to grief," I would have found that more interesting.

But I totally admit that I am a bad choices junky. I come to fiction to see characters making bad choices. Even when the story ends well, I need to see lots of bad choices along the way. I understand that this isn't everyone's favorite aesthetic, but it is definitely mine.

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Devoted135

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Reply #32 on: August 12, 2012, 01:31:16 AM
But I totally admit that I am a bad choices junky. I come to fiction to see characters making bad choices. Even when the story ends well, I need to see lots of bad choices along the way. I understand that this isn't everyone's favorite aesthetic, but it is definitely mine.

So I'm guessing that "The Axiom of Choice" was right up your alley?



ElectricPaladin

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Reply #33 on: August 12, 2012, 04:36:42 AM
But I totally admit that I am a bad choices junky. I come to fiction to see characters making bad choices. Even when the story ends well, I need to see lots of bad choices along the way. I understand that this isn't everyone's favorite aesthetic, but it is definitely mine.

So I'm guessing that "The Axiom of Choice" was right up your alley?

Blew. My freaking. Mind.

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Unblinking

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Reply #34 on: August 13, 2012, 02:41:48 PM
I have a drink, get into my car, drive down the street, run into you, and you die. Your death is an unintended consequence of my driving, but there's more to the story. I rendered myself unsafe to drive before I got into the car.

Well, if you take my view on it, it wasn't exactly an accident.  Yes, she didn't KNOW that she would kill Rocket and the other animals, but if she'd taken the time to think about it she would've realized that she KNEW how little she knew, and wouldn't have jumped from one minor accidental transfer to a massive "let's fix everything" transfer without at least trying intermediate steps to gauge their effects.  Maybe it's just my engineering experience that makes me fault her for that, but yes I do think much of the fault fell on her for rushing into something she knew she didn't understand.

To use your driving analogy, I don't see what she did the same way you did.  To me this would be like so:
Woman invents a bicycle for the first time.  She figures out how to ride it and realizes she can cover distances much more quickly than she could before.  Woman is happy and excited about the future.
As a next step, woman invents mass transportation in the form of a bus, and drives in mountainous country with narrow icy winding mountain roads with no guard rails.  Woman drives bus off the mountain, and kills 50 people.  "What a tragedy," people said.  "She couldn't have known how dangerous those roads were on a bus."
---"Okay I admit it's a bit of a stretch in the analogy, inventing the bus from seeing a bicycle and all, but more or less I think it makes my point.  There was no time limit on giving him his walking legs back, so why didn't she take more caution?  She should have.  She didn't.  And she paid for her arrogance and shortsightedness.



ElectricPaladin

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Reply #35 on: August 13, 2012, 05:37:03 PM
I have a drink, get into my car, drive down the street, run into you, and you die. Your death is an unintended consequence of my driving, but there's more to the story. I rendered myself unsafe to drive before I got into the car.

Well, if you take my view on it, it wasn't exactly an accident.  Yes, she didn't KNOW that she would kill Rocket and the other animals, but if she'd taken the time to think about it she would've realized that she KNEW how little she knew, and wouldn't have jumped from one minor accidental transfer to a massive "let's fix everything" transfer without at least trying intermediate steps to gauge their effects.  Maybe it's just my engineering experience that makes me fault her for that, but yes I do think much of the fault fell on her for rushing into something she knew she didn't understand.

To use your driving analogy, I don't see what she did the same way you did.  To me this would be like so:
Woman invents a bicycle for the first time.  She figures out how to ride it and realizes she can cover distances much more quickly than she could before.  Woman is happy and excited about the future.
As a next step, woman invents mass transportation in the form of a bus, and drives in mountainous country with narrow icy winding mountain roads with no guard rails.  Woman drives bus off the mountain, and kills 50 people.  "What a tragedy," people said.  "She couldn't have known how dangerous those roads were on a bus."
---"Okay I admit it's a bit of a stretch in the analogy, inventing the bus from seeing a bicycle and all, but more or less I think it makes my point.  There was no time limit on giving him his walking legs back, so why didn't she take more caution?  She should have.  She didn't.  And she paid for her arrogance and shortsightedness.


Ethically, you are correct. I would view the woman as responsible for what ensues. Narratively, however, it doesn't really stick for me unless the person is given more clues, and/or more time is spent on their dawning realizations and efforts to not realize things that are inconvenient for their ambitions.

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eytanz

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Reply #36 on: August 16, 2012, 07:04:47 AM
This was a rarity - a podcastle story I really disliked. First, I'm not a big fan of stories where the only emotional tone is misery - I'm not saying that stories have to be positive, just that there has to be *something* else. Part of the problem was that I found the descriptions of the only other emotion really invoked in this story - anger - to be unconvincing. Second, I was consistently confused by how Amy's healing was supposed to work. In the first occasion, it involved already-dead crickets. In the second occasion, it involved the dog but nothing happened to him. In the third occasion, her powers were actively killing things.

So yeah, between finding the emotional core of this story unpleasant and unrewarding, and having issues with the actual plotline, this one just wasn't for me.



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Reply #37 on: August 16, 2012, 01:32:02 PM
This was a rarity - a podcastle story I really disliked. First, I'm not a big fan of stories where the only emotional tone is misery - I'm not saying that stories have to be positive, just that there has to be *something* else. Part of the problem was that I found the descriptions of the only other emotion really invoked in this story - anger - to be unconvincing. Second, I was consistently confused by how Amy's healing was supposed to work. In the first occasion, it involved already-dead crickets. In the second occasion, it involved the dog but nothing happened to him. In the third occasion, her powers were actively killing things.

So yeah, between finding the emotional core of this story unpleasant and unrewarding, and having issues with the actual plotline, this one just wasn't for me.

I was a little bit confused by that as well.  The best I could guess is that together she and Rocket formed a conduit of sorts that could funnel lifeforce from one end to the other.  The first time it happened the crickets had been smushed, but I figured that lifeforce hadn't actually dissipated yet, and so she was able to shift it.



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Reply #38 on: September 25, 2012, 07:31:56 PM
Huh. I may be among the few people who somewhat liked this story. My feelings are closer to Talia's in that the relationship the MC and Luis had was painfully awkward, which made the situation more real to me.

And yes, this is a poster-board story of what happens when you fool around with magic and you have no freakin clue with what you're doing. But for me, it was justified by the MC unwillingness to leave the situation she was in. Her wanting the salvage the situation, to put things back the way they were, made sense. True, she could have left, but I think the idea of dumping Luis, after all he had been through, was too much for her. Nevermind that Luis was a dick...

Guh. Gotta go pick up my son. Will edit this when I get back.

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Reply #39 on: September 30, 2012, 04:28:10 PM
I need to jump in here late and agree with LaShawn. I don't know why killing the dog makes everyone hate the story, I quite liked it. It made me sad, I was not happy the cute doggy died, but it was a good kind of sad that allowed me to enjoy the story even more. It's funny how we all have an even more visceral reaction to the death of animals in fiction compared to humans.

I was really touched by the story, and with how much of a dick Luis was, not even caring about all the dead animals, and how she really wished she could have kept the dog and lost him, on some emotional level anyway, well that was something I could sympathize with, and she loses the more loyal friend to fix the one that our society thinks she should value more. Maybe she should, who knows, but it is about the unhappiest miracle I've ever read about and I loved it.



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Reply #40 on: October 30, 2012, 01:39:20 PM
It's funny how we all have an even more visceral reaction to the death of animals in fiction compared to humans.

The death of pets, at least.  To me, at least, when you take a pet you are committing to caring for that animal the best you can.  Humans are generally going to have to make their own place in the world eventually, but not pets.  So, yes, I generally do react more strongly to that.



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Reply #41 on: December 07, 2012, 06:37:18 PM
The imagery of the screaming of the crickets was stunning. Not surprisingly, I also loved "In Bloom".

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