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Of homes and SVU.
May. 6th, 2013 06:07 am...So. House with postage stamp kitchen has lowered its price to something that's still a little high for a postage stamp kitchen but has entered the arena of "do us a favor and check out the utility prices for real. Also, the washer/dryer sitch."
Because I realized yesterday that my other problem with this lovely place was that my brain kept trying to cram my room into one smaller room. Only, wait for it, since the boy will only be temporary, I can put my stuff wherever I want outside the bathroom/kitchen/their bedrooms. So if I want MH in the living room, guess what? MH party in the living room!
Which should be true of any place. Still, I would like very much to have found a place so that I can put in my vacation time and move. I don't like things unsettled.
There's another possibility too, so we'll see if either pans out once it's not unreasonably early to call people.
eta: Called both the water and the electric and I'm not 100% they did all they could do (Mums seemed to get a different kind of answer when she called on Smurf House) but if my information is correct, this could work. Maybe. Possibly. If they don't have kittens over the pets, that is. Now to find out about the washer/dryer.
Can we take a moment to discuss some Sweet Valley? I think we can.
I recently completed my SVU collection. :D The final book to live here was Chloe's Secret Love Diary and that's mostly because I couldn't stand paying money for a whole book about Chloe.
Still, when it arrived, I re-read it. While I do not pretend SV anything will ever be something of truly great literary merit, I do love it for what it is. And the diaries in SVH were really, really fabulously over the top. At the time it was pretty much wide-eyed shock that they'd retcon some of this stuff so thoroughly. In hindsight, it wasn't the best idea ever. The twins sharing almost every single boyfriend just seems so very wrong and it also kind of ruined the Sam/Jessica 'ship for me a little. Because one has to assume she never knew that Sam, who I will argue is the love of her SVH life (and I say this as a serious Ken/Jessica shipper) hooked up with her after things went nowhere with Liz. Sorry, where were we?
Thing is, SVU's attempt to cash in on the diary thing didn't pan out so well. I've read (and re-read) Jessica's the most simply because it kind of followed me around (read a chapter, put it down wherever, pick it up a few days later because oh, look, a book in the kitchen) and it's awful. It is so bad, I don't even have the words for it aside from: Devon Whitelaw. NO.
If memory serves, Lizbeth's is about hooking back up with Todd for a wedding or something. I have blocked Sam's from memory entirely. Much the same way I try and block inferior!Sam from memory in general.
Chloe's, however, is a bit of a strange thing. I can remember, at some point or another, throughout the history of ALL TIME (maybe) just about every semi major SV character having at least one person stand up for them and say, "you. I like you." SVH:Senior Year has fans and most of that cast, even the terribly bitchy in every damn way Melissa has friends. I cannot say this about Chloe. I can't even make myself try and play devil's advocate or anything for her, like I can with other characters I might not like but feel bad for when everyone else hates them.
Chloe just hurts me whenever I read her books or sections in any given book. It'd be one thing if she was always the same pain in the ass character, but she has flashes of insight that mean she should have grown as a character. Nope, every time we cut away from that reveal, she reverts back to clingy Chloe and you just want to smack her. Rumor has it that when she first appeared she was kind of nifty, but I have no memory of Chloe's "first" appearance. Truthfully, after awhile my SVU love waned and school work actually had to carve out a place somewhere in my memory.
So. I re-read it to see how much of the cringing was deserved and how much was simply years of character hate focused so strongly on one book that it should have spontaneously combusted upon arrival.
I got sidetracked by the complete character assassination that happened to Tom Watts. You remember Tom, right? He was essentially Todd only older, smarter, and with brooding backstory. Todd 2.0 if you will, when Todd 1.0 decided he wanted to have sex and Liz didn't and that broke them up and in theory I could get behind this but the way it was written was just so... ugh. I still remember the slap in the face of reading the first book and realizing holyshit, they were taking all my SV love and setting it on FIRE. It was traumatic to say the least.
Anyway. Tom. Tom and Liz hook up and things are fine until his birth father enters the picture and hits on Liz and Tom can't handle this and they implode and... I dunno, really. He reverts back to Wildman Watts and that is essentially that.
But why? Why do all that in the first place? Just to break up T/L? Really? It's weird to look back on this with only half a working memory of what happened (the first half of SVU is pretty solid, but the second half not so much. There is a problem when getting rid of the psychopath gazillionaire obsessed with Elizabeth is when the series jumps the shark) and wonder what the fuck.
T/L 2.0 weren't really my favorite couple but even at the time I thought having him revert without it being a phase just seemed wholly out of character for Tom. Him reverting temporarily? Yes. Him realizing that he wasn't Wildman or Clark Kent? Also could have worked. Having him try to marry the two? I'd have been down for that, actually. But having him just say, "nope. Can't have the older Wakefield, need beer now!" was just lazy.
Also, Watts needed some therapy something serious. His long lost father hits on his girlfriend. That alone is worth a session or two, never mind the whole guilt over his family dying and then the fallout of the father and Liz debacle. Or his humiliation when Sam enters the picture officially.
I just find it very difficult to look at where Tom began in the series and see where they dumped him: cheating on his very pretty but very dim (but malicious) girlfriend all to hold onto a spot on the football team which is pretty fucking stupid, really since we're told that Wildman Watts is the best thing to have EVER hit SVU's football scene. I sincerely doubt he would ever consider his position in jeopardy, even over the coach's niece. Which either means someone was just not thinking when mapping this out, or he's just a lowlife cheater at this point and I would like to hope this is less the final nail in his coffin and more "sounds good, let's go with the whole blackmail thing."
Chloe herself I think was supposed to be a bit of a stand in for the try-hards of the world who were apparently reading SVU for life advice? Stop trying so damn hard and the world will open up to you. Stop trying to plan everything and just experience life. Stop chasing after this ideal version of your life and live the one you've got.
Only Chloe actually needs this spelled out repeatedly. In neon lights. After sixteen scenes where it's about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
Chloe, for someone who found sophomore Liz to be as annoying as I did, you still have no place on my island.
Because I realized yesterday that my other problem with this lovely place was that my brain kept trying to cram my room into one smaller room. Only, wait for it, since the boy will only be temporary, I can put my stuff wherever I want outside the bathroom/kitchen/their bedrooms. So if I want MH in the living room, guess what? MH party in the living room!
Which should be true of any place. Still, I would like very much to have found a place so that I can put in my vacation time and move. I don't like things unsettled.
There's another possibility too, so we'll see if either pans out once it's not unreasonably early to call people.
eta: Called both the water and the electric and I'm not 100% they did all they could do (Mums seemed to get a different kind of answer when she called on Smurf House) but if my information is correct, this could work. Maybe. Possibly. If they don't have kittens over the pets, that is. Now to find out about the washer/dryer.
Can we take a moment to discuss some Sweet Valley? I think we can.
I recently completed my SVU collection. :D The final book to live here was Chloe's Secret Love Diary and that's mostly because I couldn't stand paying money for a whole book about Chloe.
Still, when it arrived, I re-read it. While I do not pretend SV anything will ever be something of truly great literary merit, I do love it for what it is. And the diaries in SVH were really, really fabulously over the top. At the time it was pretty much wide-eyed shock that they'd retcon some of this stuff so thoroughly. In hindsight, it wasn't the best idea ever. The twins sharing almost every single boyfriend just seems so very wrong and it also kind of ruined the Sam/Jessica 'ship for me a little. Because one has to assume she never knew that Sam, who I will argue is the love of her SVH life (and I say this as a serious Ken/Jessica shipper) hooked up with her after things went nowhere with Liz. Sorry, where were we?
Thing is, SVU's attempt to cash in on the diary thing didn't pan out so well. I've read (and re-read) Jessica's the most simply because it kind of followed me around (read a chapter, put it down wherever, pick it up a few days later because oh, look, a book in the kitchen) and it's awful. It is so bad, I don't even have the words for it aside from: Devon Whitelaw. NO.
If memory serves, Lizbeth's is about hooking back up with Todd for a wedding or something. I have blocked Sam's from memory entirely. Much the same way I try and block inferior!Sam from memory in general.
Chloe's, however, is a bit of a strange thing. I can remember, at some point or another, throughout the history of ALL TIME (maybe) just about every semi major SV character having at least one person stand up for them and say, "you. I like you." SVH:Senior Year has fans and most of that cast, even the terribly bitchy in every damn way Melissa has friends. I cannot say this about Chloe. I can't even make myself try and play devil's advocate or anything for her, like I can with other characters I might not like but feel bad for when everyone else hates them.
Chloe just hurts me whenever I read her books or sections in any given book. It'd be one thing if she was always the same pain in the ass character, but she has flashes of insight that mean she should have grown as a character. Nope, every time we cut away from that reveal, she reverts back to clingy Chloe and you just want to smack her. Rumor has it that when she first appeared she was kind of nifty, but I have no memory of Chloe's "first" appearance. Truthfully, after awhile my SVU love waned and school work actually had to carve out a place somewhere in my memory.
So. I re-read it to see how much of the cringing was deserved and how much was simply years of character hate focused so strongly on one book that it should have spontaneously combusted upon arrival.
I got sidetracked by the complete character assassination that happened to Tom Watts. You remember Tom, right? He was essentially Todd only older, smarter, and with brooding backstory. Todd 2.0 if you will, when Todd 1.0 decided he wanted to have sex and Liz didn't and that broke them up and in theory I could get behind this but the way it was written was just so... ugh. I still remember the slap in the face of reading the first book and realizing holyshit, they were taking all my SV love and setting it on FIRE. It was traumatic to say the least.
Anyway. Tom. Tom and Liz hook up and things are fine until his birth father enters the picture and hits on Liz and Tom can't handle this and they implode and... I dunno, really. He reverts back to Wildman Watts and that is essentially that.
But why? Why do all that in the first place? Just to break up T/L? Really? It's weird to look back on this with only half a working memory of what happened (the first half of SVU is pretty solid, but the second half not so much. There is a problem when getting rid of the psychopath gazillionaire obsessed with Elizabeth is when the series jumps the shark) and wonder what the fuck.
T/L 2.0 weren't really my favorite couple but even at the time I thought having him revert without it being a phase just seemed wholly out of character for Tom. Him reverting temporarily? Yes. Him realizing that he wasn't Wildman or Clark Kent? Also could have worked. Having him try to marry the two? I'd have been down for that, actually. But having him just say, "nope. Can't have the older Wakefield, need beer now!" was just lazy.
Also, Watts needed some therapy something serious. His long lost father hits on his girlfriend. That alone is worth a session or two, never mind the whole guilt over his family dying and then the fallout of the father and Liz debacle. Or his humiliation when Sam enters the picture officially.
I just find it very difficult to look at where Tom began in the series and see where they dumped him: cheating on his very pretty but very dim (but malicious) girlfriend all to hold onto a spot on the football team which is pretty fucking stupid, really since we're told that Wildman Watts is the best thing to have EVER hit SVU's football scene. I sincerely doubt he would ever consider his position in jeopardy, even over the coach's niece. Which either means someone was just not thinking when mapping this out, or he's just a lowlife cheater at this point and I would like to hope this is less the final nail in his coffin and more "sounds good, let's go with the whole blackmail thing."
Chloe herself I think was supposed to be a bit of a stand in for the try-hards of the world who were apparently reading SVU for life advice? Stop trying so damn hard and the world will open up to you. Stop trying to plan everything and just experience life. Stop chasing after this ideal version of your life and live the one you've got.
Only Chloe actually needs this spelled out repeatedly. In neon lights. After sixteen scenes where it's about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
Chloe, for someone who found sophomore Liz to be as annoying as I did, you still have no place on my island.
