Fannish 50: Post 2!
Jan. 8th, 2026 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soricel"What she wanted was a job that wouldn’t suck all the thoughts out of her head and replace them with the leering call of a synthesizer. Sometimes, Blue would creep outside for an infinitesimal break, and as she lay her head back against the brick wall of the alley behind the restaurant, she’d dream idly about careers studying tree rings. Swimming with manta rays. Scouring Costa Rica to find out more about the scale-crested pygmy tyrant."
1.) Narrative (what's going on when the quote appears?)
This is from chapter 6. Blue is at work at Nino's, the pizza place that's frequented by the loudest and most annoying Aglionby boys. This is a pretty big chapter! Blue's first encounter with the gang. It goes badly: Gansey approaches her, asking her to go talk to Adam, who thinks she's cute; she says she's working, and he says he'll pay her, which she rightly takes great umbrage at. Characteristically, Gansey doesn't seem to understand he's said something wrong; because he's rich and kind of in his own world a lot of the time, he can be very oblivious and insensitive when it comes to money things. Anyway, after this awkward interaction, Gansey and co. talk about ley lines and how to amplify them, and then they fly outside where Ronan and Declan are duking it out in the parking lot, and later, Adam will try to patch things up with Blue, and also, Blue will be given Gansey's left behind diary/scrapbook thing, which I can picture so vividly in my head and just love.
But anyway, before all that, Blue is thinking about how much she hates her job, in no small part because it involves having to serve all these Aglionby jerks. And here she's thinking about what she'd rather be doing. This quote stood out to me because I feel like I didn't really pick up on the ecological themes of these books until I started reading The Dreamer Trilogy, where Ronan, Hennessy, and Bryde essentially become an Earth Liberation Front cell for a little bit. Like, I remembered that Blue was sort of environmentally-minded, but I don't think I appreciated how important that stuff is to her. And then there's her whole...tree-being thing...which will come way later.
Another thing I'm picking up on here is that Blue is kind of the only one in the group who seems to care much about things beyond herself or her immediate sphere of friends and family. Like, her aspirations here are to study nature, and we'll later see that she has this conservationist streak. Gansey, despite everything I wrote last time about him wanting to do something to sort of make up for his privilege (and to "earn" his second shot at life), doesn't seem to think about using Glendower's favor to help solve some social problem or something, and Ronan doesn't really use his power to do much besides make stuff he wants or thinks is cool (unfair?). And Adam is focused on his own survival, so fair enough. Anyway, not really judging any of them for that, just noticing.
But yeah, beyond Blue, I feel like there's this sort of capital-R Romantic modernity vs. nature theme running through both of these series, and I feel like this is one of the first hints of that: like, it feels significant that what's contrasted here with studying tree rings and stuff is "the leering call of a synthesizer," this electronic instrument, here I guess associated with crass, commercial, modern music, and not, for instance, the leering calls of rich, goonish teens. There's something similar in chapter 8, when Blue leaves work: "She sucked in a huge breath of the cool night air. It didn’t even seem like it could be the same substance that filtered through Nino’s air-conditioning vents. She tilted her head back to look at the stars. Here, on the edge of downtown, there weren’t enough streetlights to obliterate the stars completely." It's a theme I want to keep my eyes on during this re-read.
2.) Connections (what does this quote remind you of?)
One thing that comes to mind is Saved By the Bell--specifically, the Max. None of the high schools I've attended or taught at had this sort of place, where all the kids went and hung out, but it seems like a staple of teen sitcoms. I can understand why, from a storytelling point of view (especially in a sitcom, where you typically have a limited number of sets where action happens), but I also always wondered if there were actual places like this in the real world. Anyway, I can imagine the difficulty that Kelly, Jessie, and Lisa (they all worked there, right? Am I remembering that correctly?) might have had working there, the weird power dynamic it creates between them and their peers, especially their male classmates.
I'm also thinking about Lisa Simpson, and how often young people with any kind of social conscience/consciousness--especially any concern for the environment--are portrayed as naive, self-righteous, or just generally annoying. I appreciate that these books don't treat Blue's beliefs that way, though I do wish this side of Blue was maybe given a little more attention.
3.) Contemplation (how does the quote relate to your own life?)
So yeah, that whole modernity vs. romanticized nature thing really took hold of me in my early teen years, in part, probably, because I spent a lot of time alone in the woods, and also because Thoreau and Emerson and all of those guys loomed large in my English classes back then and would continue to do so when I started teaching (I wonder if the Transcendentalists were as big a thing in high school English curricula outside of New England?). This sentiment would lead me to animal rights/environmental activism in my college and post-college years, but I'd eventually see some of the problematic aspects of this...philosophy/worldview/whatever, and it definitely isn't as resonant for me now as it was when I was younger. But yeah, when I was Blue's age, I definitely thought and felt some similar things.
4.) Invitation (what does the quote call you to do?)
Hmm...I feel like this quote is making me want to read some more books about ecology and environmentalism. I feel like I've really numbed myself to the climate crisis, and gotten extremely doomerish about the prospects of anything happening to save us from the worst of it, and that doesn't feel good. It also makes me want to touch on some of these themes in my teaching again, because I know I have at least a couple students like Blue who care a lot about this stuff.
1.) Narrative (what's going on when the quote appears?)
This is from chapter 6. Blue is at work at Nino's, the pizza place that's frequented by the loudest and most annoying Aglionby boys. This is a pretty big chapter! Blue's first encounter with the gang. It goes badly: Gansey approaches her, asking her to go talk to Adam, who thinks she's cute; she says she's working, and he says he'll pay her, which she rightly takes great umbrage at. Characteristically, Gansey doesn't seem to understand he's said something wrong; because he's rich and kind of in his own world a lot of the time, he can be very oblivious and insensitive when it comes to money things. Anyway, after this awkward interaction, Gansey and co. talk about ley lines and how to amplify them, and then they fly outside where Ronan and Declan are duking it out in the parking lot, and later, Adam will try to patch things up with Blue, and also, Blue will be given Gansey's left behind diary/scrapbook thing, which I can picture so vividly in my head and just love.
But anyway, before all that, Blue is thinking about how much she hates her job, in no small part because it involves having to serve all these Aglionby jerks. And here she's thinking about what she'd rather be doing. This quote stood out to me because I feel like I didn't really pick up on the ecological themes of these books until I started reading The Dreamer Trilogy, where Ronan, Hennessy, and Bryde essentially become an Earth Liberation Front cell for a little bit. Like, I remembered that Blue was sort of environmentally-minded, but I don't think I appreciated how important that stuff is to her. And then there's her whole...tree-being thing...which will come way later.
Another thing I'm picking up on here is that Blue is kind of the only one in the group who seems to care much about things beyond herself or her immediate sphere of friends and family. Like, her aspirations here are to study nature, and we'll later see that she has this conservationist streak. Gansey, despite everything I wrote last time about him wanting to do something to sort of make up for his privilege (and to "earn" his second shot at life), doesn't seem to think about using Glendower's favor to help solve some social problem or something, and Ronan doesn't really use his power to do much besides make stuff he wants or thinks is cool (unfair?). And Adam is focused on his own survival, so fair enough. Anyway, not really judging any of them for that, just noticing.
But yeah, beyond Blue, I feel like there's this sort of capital-R Romantic modernity vs. nature theme running through both of these series, and I feel like this is one of the first hints of that: like, it feels significant that what's contrasted here with studying tree rings and stuff is "the leering call of a synthesizer," this electronic instrument, here I guess associated with crass, commercial, modern music, and not, for instance, the leering calls of rich, goonish teens. There's something similar in chapter 8, when Blue leaves work: "She sucked in a huge breath of the cool night air. It didn’t even seem like it could be the same substance that filtered through Nino’s air-conditioning vents. She tilted her head back to look at the stars. Here, on the edge of downtown, there weren’t enough streetlights to obliterate the stars completely." It's a theme I want to keep my eyes on during this re-read.
2.) Connections (what does this quote remind you of?)
One thing that comes to mind is Saved By the Bell--specifically, the Max. None of the high schools I've attended or taught at had this sort of place, where all the kids went and hung out, but it seems like a staple of teen sitcoms. I can understand why, from a storytelling point of view (especially in a sitcom, where you typically have a limited number of sets where action happens), but I also always wondered if there were actual places like this in the real world. Anyway, I can imagine the difficulty that Kelly, Jessie, and Lisa (they all worked there, right? Am I remembering that correctly?) might have had working there, the weird power dynamic it creates between them and their peers, especially their male classmates.
I'm also thinking about Lisa Simpson, and how often young people with any kind of social conscience/consciousness--especially any concern for the environment--are portrayed as naive, self-righteous, or just generally annoying. I appreciate that these books don't treat Blue's beliefs that way, though I do wish this side of Blue was maybe given a little more attention.
3.) Contemplation (how does the quote relate to your own life?)
So yeah, that whole modernity vs. romanticized nature thing really took hold of me in my early teen years, in part, probably, because I spent a lot of time alone in the woods, and also because Thoreau and Emerson and all of those guys loomed large in my English classes back then and would continue to do so when I started teaching (I wonder if the Transcendentalists were as big a thing in high school English curricula outside of New England?). This sentiment would lead me to animal rights/environmental activism in my college and post-college years, but I'd eventually see some of the problematic aspects of this...philosophy/worldview/whatever, and it definitely isn't as resonant for me now as it was when I was younger. But yeah, when I was Blue's age, I definitely thought and felt some similar things.
4.) Invitation (what does the quote call you to do?)
Hmm...I feel like this quote is making me want to read some more books about ecology and environmentalism. I feel like I've really numbed myself to the climate crisis, and gotten extremely doomerish about the prospects of anything happening to save us from the worst of it, and that doesn't feel good. It also makes me want to touch on some of these themes in my teaching again, because I know I have at least a couple students like Blue who care a lot about this stuff.
