sparklebutch

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.

Okay, I do not get.


Paid account expired. Okay.

But I still have "Extra Userpics: 632 days"?

Which I do not get?

Unless I pay them *more*?

In the weeks since I heard about [event from Buffy s8], I've been writing quite a bit around that, but did not post. Not planning to, either.

I also wrote other things. Some of which won't be posted, but a few will, because some were for the Porn Battle [thanks oxoniensis], which means they'll be over there, so why not here, and while I'm at it, I'll add a couple more to the mix. That will include Mighty Boosh fic. None of you will read it, but I still find it better than having to join one of their comms and admitting I'm "in fandom". For several reasons. Which I won't disclose here.

I will disclose that I was planning to steer clear of the fandom's OTP and only write rarities, but that didn't work out too well. I wrote a first-time fic for them, no less. Very unlike me. I also wrote young!Xander [of legal age], in another fic, which is also unlike me. And Buffy naked and getting some, which also, yeah, unlike me.

Re the Porn [again], I try to write what inspires me and not "for" people, but I will share with you what I prompted/requested, just in case you like. I recommend you'll check everyone's prompts though because that's just fun.


List of things ceruleancat and sparklebutch thought of:

( Under here. )

I am posting this on LJ. Why? Because I'm tired of telling you people that LJ is a curse and you're all idiots. I tried IJ. If there are half a dozen people reading this, there's about two reading there. I'll take my chances here.

Re RL. France, yeah. I was trying to write a post - I am trying, just not very hard anymore. So if you have any specific questions, more specific than "whatever happened to you in the past six months or so", please comment here.

Oh, and I still do owe replies. Lots of them.

Did I miss anything?

Can people please stop saying "I'm an obscure unknown little fan, I only get about 30 feedback comments per fic"? It's really, really annoying.



ETA after several hours of sleep: now I feel a bit guilty for posting this, because while it's not aimed at one particular person (I've seen too many with this complaint), it seems more people read this entry than I thought would!

Incan bones found in Norway. And I'm the only one going "did you just say two older men and a baby?"



PS and unrelated, I posted those bad fics you told me to. The finished ones anyway, not the random snippets.

More on livejournal and fandom in general:

YES! What she said.

Also what they are saying, except I have been saying the same thing over and over again since about 2002 at the very least (which is when I was dragged kicking and screaming... but that's another story).

I suspect you all already saw this and its brother.



LJ had an issue with me for days, in the sense that posting, commenting, uploading and everything else didn't go. It was angry with me or just sad. I don't like hurting the feelings of inanimate objects and of concepts. People, I'm okay with.

ETA: If nothing else, at least on lj I learned to make icons. People get very creative in 100x100 pixel format.






On a similar but unrelated "we get screwed" business: life_wo_fanlib.

test
can't post
comments only on ie
can't do icons
why

I'm going to sulk now.
I don't usually, but I think I earned the right.

[Poll #962125]

From cyberducks:


For Valentine's Day. I needed this. Now I want these for other holidays.

I especially liked this one and this one.