funny effects of living in finland #1,600,042: "Snowed In" cliché fic

[cimorene]

I used to be fairly fascinated with the snowed-in cliché fic, from childhood, you understand, even before I encountered the popular and thriving version of it that exists in the paperback romance novel genre. Now, up to the age of seven I lived in Kansas, Canada and upstate New York, and frequent visits to Kansas and Washington DC throughout the rest of my childhood made sure that I wasn't unfamiliar with snow, but the last time I saw huge drifts of it was at dad's old bff's old farm in upstate New York, where we went out sledding on hills covered in tremendous snow drifts, and I sank in sometimes to the thighs of my little snowsuit when I walked. But that was a distant and exotic memory; as a city girl, most of my acquaintance with snow - even the healthy amount that lets you build snowmen - was at most four or five inches, I guess. Rarely that. So blizzard fic held a thrilling threat, a frisson of the unknown and fantastic.

Well, it's been quite a while since I've read any serious paperback romance type blizzard fic - kind of odd since I read so much slash, but what can you do? I guess media fandom is moving away from that type of plot nowadays - so when I started rereading one today, the blizzard scene became distinctly surreal. There are still echoes in my head of the impressions I used to hold about it, formed, no doubt, from the Little House on the Prairie books at an impressionable age. But now I'm like: "Wading through calf-high snow? But what's the big deal? That's fun!" and I can't help thinking this heroine is a moron if she lives anywhere in New York at all and doesn't have appropriate outer garments for that.

Comments

[dreamnnightmare.livejournal.com]

"...moron..." -- too true. Though shoveling it, or getting cars unstuck, can b tiresome.

[gules]

I can't help thinking this heroine is a moron if she lives anywhere in New York at all and doesn't have appropriate outer garments for that.

well, anywhere other than new york city, at least. :D

[ambrose66.livejournal.com]

I'm such a dork...

Snowdrifts

[indolentncrazy.livejournal.com]

On a few occasions I have waded into snowdrifts that were clearly going to be shoulder high or higher, so I waded back out of thigh-high snow. I have been driving in a genuine blizzard, and it was scary. The kind where automobiles make a mile or less an hour, and the heater in the car does no noticeable good, and the road is not really visible. That is what is in my head when I come across the blizzard books, but they are not really ones I look for. Or maybe they are just less common

Re: Snowdrifts

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the blizzard was at a lull in the point where they waded outside to visit the woodpile. It said that it was zero-visibility before, although the car hearter still worked. But cars are a bit more advanced now. It definitely described calf-high snow and only scattered, slow snowfall.