sparklebutch

Hi, people!

If I would have a blog or similar on my site, would you visit it?

ETA: Or do what Leetal suggested, and have some kind of mailing list. Except, I don't think I have the kind of personality it takes to just post about my life to a mailing list of silent readers, so I'm not sure about that. Unless I can get people to participate. Which has proven itself impossible in the past. I'm going to sleep now and will rethink this ETA later. Who amongst ye would join some kind of email-based conversations?

Previous generations have reached an age, often an old age, where all their friends and close ones began to die off. "It seems," one would say, "that every other week you put on your best black dress and go to a funeral." Some less lucky generations had to go through it at a much younger age, with war harvesting the young and promising among them. Others succumbed to plagues en masse.

But has any other generation before ours faced the death of heroes and legends in such a large number?

Children's tales often involved the death of a much-hated villain, that much is true. Today's media - popular books, television shows, movies - seem to delight in massacring some much-loved characters, finding joy, it appears, in eliciting emotional agony among fans and casual viewers alike.

At first, perhaps, it was a counter-reaction to the golden rule of drama in olden times: "Never Kill The Hero (Or His Girlfriend)". Shows would kill the hero, or, more often, his girlfriend, in order to shock, to stand out. Highlander caused some grief among its fans, Dragonlance offed a major player. That was all nice and well, but lately it seems the trend is to just kill off characters left and right, treat "happy end" as if it's a dirty, evil word, which must not be spoken in polite company.

Characters I have loved since a child were slaughtered one by one. Drama? That's not drama, it's cheap plot devices. From Joss Whedon to Eureka and Supernatural, heroes we cared about dropped off at an alarming rate. We do not need to be told Death Is Sad, we know that, even as children we know it. We do not need it crammed down our throats twice per finale. The melodramatic, almost operatic crescendo and sudden, swift demise of a fictional person we have loved does not give us an emotional high, it makes us callous on the ten-billionth time it's done, overdone, chewed, spat out, and paraded once more in the guise of originality.

We - children, teens, young adults, adults, old adults - are tired of being force fed all this drama and death. Not that we want a return of the fake, pseudo-cheerful, plastic, pasted-on Happy End of the more mundane Hollywood years; that is not what I call for. But the indiscriminate deaths littering our screens - that really must stop. It's tired. It's as believable as presidential speeches. It only shows that writers stopped caring about their humanoid creations, and only care about the gasps and shock. Please, give us, the audience, more credit than that. We are capable of emotion; we do not need to be hit with it in the face like a shovel between the eyes of a minor, negligible character.

=======================

In addition to my earlier rant, regarding the callous, careless deaths in the media:
( ETA, possible trigger; CSI )

Discussion found here.

Robin of Sherwood
Brideshead Revisited
Nickolas Grace
Gay culture in 1920s, 1930s
Omphaloskepsis (no, not really)

[*- partly seen on ij, partly in chat; contact me any way you want, I'm easy]

Was away for most of it. Did eight pieces, which can be found here [LJ] or all together here [IJ]. Mostly Buffy-Angel-Firefly, one Bible, one Labyrinth.

Enjoy fandom.

I sort of hate myself for doing it, but I'm back on lj in a fragmented, tiny way, to pimp the Porn Battle. I don't know if I can write for it, but I will let you know now that the prompt collecting starts (now's your time to influence!), and probably later when the battle itself begins.

Anyone still here? Show of hands please. Scientific purposes.

( Also, questions )

Here are the subjects of all posts by user [Unknown site tag]

the_obscure in April, 2008.

Fic: Death Mask
[BtVs]
Re Heathrow Terminal 5
[observation, bunny]
Fic: Memento Mori
[BtVS]
Fic: Private Affairs
[BtVS, sequel to "Unwanted"]
Spike and homophobia
[observation, BtVS]
The Gold Eye of the Yellow Goat
[a very messed up poem]
Painting
[art]
Tearoom: a short film
[rec]
Magic: A Fantastic Comedy
[rec]
FTM vid rec
[rec]
Squidge: A Call For Help
[take the poll]
Story Time
[fic, BtVS]
Revelation, 6:8
[Highlander, Beatles]
Reshamim
[My trip to the zoo]

And late March:

Mpreg
[two links to serious RL things]
Ficlet: Dick
[BtVS, indulging]
Summary/FAQ
[on LJ]
Carmina Burana
[link to funny]
Ficlet: Buttons
[BtVS, indulging]
In the Garden of Iden
[rec]
Fic: Unwanted
[BtVS; has sequel, "Private Affairs"]
The Curse of QWERTY
[things to think about]
Silly moment in the jungle
[somewhat Highlander related]

Photography, France, Assorted
Photography, France, Playground
Photography, France, Flowers
Photography, France, Hill
Photography, France, Castle
Photography, France, Forest
[These are all near home; they're the old batch, haven't posted newer ones yet]

Squidge (By Fen, For Fen) is creating a journals system. Do us all a favour and Take This Poll!!! It's quick. It's easy. It's for your own good.

And please, post this too. It's important that others know.

HERE.

LJ is now forcing people to log in if they want to read Adult Filtered entries.

LJ has removed all fandom related interests from the top most popular interests.

LJ owes me, acording to their own email, 632 days of extra userpics, which they don't intend to give me.

The list does go on. I'm not going to tell you everything. I put all my stuff here because all of fandom is here. I curse every day that people stay.

How many here would go to IJ?

---

I don't *like* IJ. More than anything I'd like a squidge service to be available. But it can't be, not now anyway. Still.

---

ETA: A VERY GOOD LINK.

ETA the second: this also is a good link.

ETA March 16: Read what she has to say. That is a creepier problem, and one most of us hadn't encountered, but should know about.

"...But then, you forget how easy it is to kill a transgender person."

ETA, from

psychoadept, something a bit more positive.

Title: The Nature Of Felines
Fandom: Buffy
Pairing: Giles/Ethan, est.ship
Summary: Cali said, "Write cats." She also detailed. [note to self: rupertcats.txt]

( The nature of felines )

Title: Wet Behind The Ears
Fandom: Buffy
Characters: Giles, Wesley
Summary: an offer

( post stuff )

I'm writing the prompts, I'm writing.

I do have a problem though. Some of the ones I got from the meme, plus some of the ones I get from my usual prompts community, they all lead me in one direction. Keep picking at the same wound.

With that, I have two problems. A, just how many times can I write the same basic story obsessively before everyone is sick and tired of it, and B, well, some of the things would be perfect for happy smut, and all I get is torture and torment and lack of joy. Which would probably bring... sharper reactions in readers, maybe, but, I don't *want* to write misery.

Title: Conifer
Fandom: Highlander
Characters: Silas
From

silvercobwebs: Silas, plant; here

He plants a tree and watches it grow, watches it become a giant, and then he watches it die.

He plants flowers every spring. Before he knows it, spring is around the corner again.

He plants those bulbous ones, flowers and vegetables, and they appear to die but every season they return.

Silas is never tired of it, never tires of nature. He plants another tree, and another. They are tall, they are strong. They grow for many years, longer than any other living creature, except him. Silas likes them, his silent companions. When they die, he chops them down and sets them on fire, to keep himself warm during long, hard winters. As the centuries go by, the forest becomes larger around him; leaves change colour every season, and the woods spread far and wide.

*
Methuselah
Prometheus

Title: Pygmalion Has Left The Building
Fandom: Highlander
Characters: Tessa
From

keerawa: Tessa, breakfast; here

Two blobs of clay, and one smaller one, around a large lump of the same substance. Tessa looks at the sculpture-to-be, and sees it complete.

Hiding in the wet mud, she sees a man, a woman, a child; they sit by a breakfast table. They are laughing, maybe sharing an anecdote. They'll seem so vibrant, so full of life. The woman has hair down to her shoulders. The man has longer hair than that. The artist already sees where she'll want to put the statue, on the grass in the middle of an open field, where they will have the sunlight almost all day long.

She starts working on the details of the child. Will it be a boy or a girl? She's not sure. Odd, she always sees her art so clearly, always working with a picture in mind, but the more she works on this small mass of clay, the more it blurs. It becomes murky, ambiguous. She can't figure out what kind of hair the child will have, or what it will wear. The more she tries to position its arms, the less she's sure; is the child holding a spoon? Is it holding hands with one, or both, of the larger figures? Or maybe just letting its arms rest on the table, like all kids do, like her own mother always told her not to - elbows don't belong on the table, Tessa!

She tries some more, but the more she works on it, the less like a child the statue appears. She's overworked the clay, ruined her own sculpture. There's only the man and the woman, and nothing more is left of the family breakfast.

Tessa chokes back a cry. She smashes the clay, squashing all the bits together until there is just one large mass, and no figures, no vision. She punches the clay until it is only clay. Breathless, she only looks at it for a long time.

Then she catches her breath. She adds water to the clay, and starts molding it again. This time, it's a statue of a woman, one single woman; Tessa sees in her mind's eye an amazon, standing solitary and proud.

Title: Over The Top
Fandom: Buffy
Characters: Spike, some Spike/Buffy (yeah, I know)
Prompt: From

keerawa: Spike, gratuitous; here
Second half added for Mary

Gratuitous violence, that's what Spike liked on his telly. Blood and gore. Even if it was gruesomely unrealistic - especially if it was gruesomely unrealistic, when he was in the right mood. Heads rolling on the floor with an almost comical sound. Monsters exploding, leaving goo and entrails all over walls and heroes. People beating other people up with sticks for breakfast. Good times. Bad cinema.

But late in the day, after a night of killing and mayhem, he'd curl on the couch or the bed and flip the channels until he'd find something else. He'd watch romantic movies and shows, where the hero took the heroine in his arms and kissed her tenderly, vowing his undying love. Gratuitous emotion, rampantly unrealistic. And all was right in his world.

Life isn't television. He thinks about that often. Life - unlife, at any rate; it's full of violence and blood and gore, which is just great, and also emotion, too much emotion for a dead man. He takes her in his arms and kisses her, and his heart doesn't beat but it feels just the same. The blood doesn't actually pump in his veins, but the reaction is similar. Chest expands, ears thumping, everything in his mind like an orchestra gone mad, higher and higher to a crescendo that shouldn't be there. He wants to die. Or, well...

Gratuitous wallowing in self-involvement, in involvement with *her*, her friends, her mission and her light; it feels all *wrong*. Like he should be sticking to the violence side, to the blood, the gore. Emotion is messier.

Okay, who wants to play that thing where you give me one character name and one (unrelated to anything much) word, and I attempt to write, anything from one line and up?

---

ETA: Okay, anyone (same anyone or any else one) wants to play this game I just picked off Trekker?

(1) Make a list of 10 characters.
(2) Assign each character a number.
(3) Without telling anyone who's on the list or the character's assigned number, get questions from your flist about what they'd like to know about them. IE: "If 3 and 4 were trapped in a cave together with only a blanket and a toothpick, what would they do?" (The more random the better!)
Optional: (3.5) And then you try to guess who is who!
(4) Post the answers and who was who on the list.

*Note to self: the numbered characters are in 10charactersrandom.txt.

Random generator: @ Random.org

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sparklebutch

December 2011

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Recent Entries

I want to say hi to people.

The internet is vast.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him.

Recent interests, as seen on ij*

Porn battle

Porn Battle

IJ posts, partial; May, June

pops in

IJ posts, April and late March

Squidge: A Call For Help

Important note.

I post this on LJ, with self-disgust.

Got this from wanted_a_pony.

The Nature Of Felines

Wet Behind The Ears

I share thought process

Conifer; Silas, plant

Pygmalion Has Left The Building; Tessa, breakfast

Over The Top; Spike, gratuitous

Game of prompts