The Charles Loren Mini-Mix

[3pipeproblem]

Since several (read: precisely three) people on my FL have finished/are in the process of reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics, what better time could there be to upload a few songs that remind me of my favorite secondary character who nobody else cares about?

Quick! A multiple choice question. I love and adore Charles beyond all reason because:

a) Marisha Pessl makes it quite easy to imagine James Spader in the role and he reminds me of Alan maybejustalittle.
b) "He was the gold-limbed kid Fitzgerald would've picked out of the senior class photo and described with sun-soaked words like 'patrician' and 'of eternal reassurance.'"
c) He is endearingly sweet, frighteningly obsessive, and always sincere. And he tries to beat someone (a girl) up while on crutches.
d) He probably emerges from this whole debacle more fucked-up than anyone realizes.

The songs are all pretty much pop, but then he is a teenage boy. So without further ado...



Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Going Down

Smashing Pumpkins - The Boy

The Killers - Under the Gun

Brand New - Magazines

Dashboard Confessional feat. Michael Stipe - Hands Down



And since I saw Once on Saturday and it's been in my head ever since, I'll throw in this, too.

Comments

[3pipeproblem.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, I only know about Pretty in Pink because Spader's in it. I haven't even seen The Breakfast Club.

HAHAHA. I have an irrational aversion to Viggo's face. I would weep tears of blood if they cast him as Gareth. Though I think chances of that happening are slim.

Man, I really want someone to fic the roadtrip. Because regardless of what happened during it, Blue still ended up alone at Harvard, which is sad but kind of awesome. You could do all sorts of interesting things to/with Zach. And hmm. The usual line is that good guys aren't as complex--and sometimes they aren't--but I think my other problem is being told who to root for. I don't like an author tipping his hand by portraying a protagonist too sympathetically (this actually doesn't apply in Zach's case, since he's pretty much scorned by everyone in the book). Well, and maybe 'good' guys aren't as complex, which is sort of a failing in itself, but one that some authors choose to ignore. Witness my hatred of Peter Petrelli.

I didn't think he was perfect at all. And sure, Blue revered him, but a lot of kids think their parents are the sun, the moon and the stars. He seemed so flawed and human already. I didn't think he'd up and leave his kid, too! (My friend threw up at both those movies. Um. I had to lie about my age to get into Memento.)

Totally random, but have you read A Series of Unfortunate Events?

[treelines.livejournal.com]

*gratuitous Breakfast Club icon* I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU, WOMAN. Not that I've ever seen Pretty in Pink, to be fair, but.

I am very tempted to write the roadtrip. I have experience, and I think I could manage Zach's POV. Hahaha, Peter Petrelli. I got frustrated with Heroes well into the first episode. I would watch a show all about Hiro and the cheerleader and the artist, but everyone else on that show makes me want to throttle them. Peter seems like a whiny Harry Potter who just happens to leech fame and fortune off everyone else around him.

Hmm. Jimmy is very simple, in a lot of the senses of things. But there are very few people who are morally simple. Having reflected on it, a little, some of the challenge of writing a 'good' guy is resisting the temptation to give them that edgy depth. I remember wanting to add a lot of OOC angst and mishap to Jimmy's life in the very beginning and realizing as I went on that Jimmy just didn't have that. His dad went to prison and his mum's a prostitute, but that hasn't fucked Jimmy up. He's a little slow, and he kinda worships his dad, but he's still good.

LOL, TL:DR.

I trust narrators too much, haha. When Blue said he was the moon and the stars, I took that as his intended surface characterization. I have also been tempted to set up a Calamity Physics community on LJ and GJ. It'll catch on, I'm sure of it.

I saw the movie. I love the soundtrack! But I haven't read the books.

[3pipeproblem.livejournal.com]

...that's from The Breakfast Club? Really? Okay, here's the deal: I will watch The Breakfast Club if you watch Apocalypse Now (watch the original version). We could even watch simultaneously, for the lulz.

DO IT. Man, I need to get a Charles fic going. I'm just torn about when to set it. I'd like to write an all-night stakeout at the motel, but then again I'd like to write something set in the fuuuuuture too.

Hahahaha, oh, Heroes annoyed me by the first scene. I definitely stopped watching (until my friend prodded me to give it another try) because Mohinder's exposition was that painful. My ideal show would be Bennet and Claire (& company), Hiro and Ando, Parkman, and maybe the occasional appearance by Nathan Petrelli and Claude. The artist did nothing for me--they never bothered to develop his character beyond giving him a heroin addiction. I HATE PETER PETRELLI SO MUCH. First of all, his name's Peter Petrelli, which is pretty much like naming someone "Peter Peter." Now, if he were a pumpkin-eater, maybe that would be okay... And. Just. UGH. Milo Ventaldashdasksd FAILS AT ACTING. He cannot even writhe in pain convincingly. He has no chemistry with anybody. Anybody! And he's supposed to be so EMPATHIC. I think "empathic" is really just another word for "douchebag."

Hahaha, I read it, and I think you're right, but I don't have much to add. Good guys don't hold my interest unless they have some sort of complexity (and I do think your Jimmy is, if not complex, at least very human).

I just read a ton of books with unreliable narrators--Calamity Physics, Lolita, House of Leaves, all of Daniel Handler's books--in a row. They're kind of awesome. The last few all have moments where the narrator gleefully informs the reader that they lied about something. It's fun, but I'm about ready to come crawling back to third-person omniscient just for a break. You should start one!

OMG read them! They're wonderful. The first three aren't really anything special (compared to those that follow), but you can breeze through them in an afternoon. It's just...as the series goes on, they keep adding more and more shades of gray and everything gets more and more muddled. Plus, Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler love peppering the books with literary allusions and there's twisted humor throughout.

And I adore Lemony Snicket. There's this entire backstory about him and a secret organization that's somehow connected with Count Olaf and the Baudelaires' parents, but it only comes out bit by bit. You'll be reading along and he'll throw out some crazy reference, like: "Whenever I hear the clink of swords clashing I am reminded of a swordfight I had with a television repairman not long ago."