Ever Bethany

Twilight may have provided with little beyond GREAT joke fodder, but I will say:
I approve of non-white guys with long black hair going shirtless in a wolfboy manner.

Just
Sayin'.



This message brought to you by Pasadena and the 4th of the July.
I am no longer there, but this is probably just as well...

Cultural Literacy 101, Lesson 104

Today I listened to a Tokio Hotel song for the first time, and had wardrobe envy.
But the thing I admire about these things is guys being the ones to wear them, the audacity and sheer gall of men dressing so splendidly.

So. I would wear it more like I was borrowing their clothes, than becoming them.

***


if i fall and all is lost, by Pis7li (Turkey)

I'm at the point of love with this new story where I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it's all I can think about.

It's an odd feeling. It's easier with a book than with a guy, since the book always works out somehow, and... well anyway.

I only just realized that's what the anxious feeling is. That point of infatuation where it's irreversible, and you don't know whether that's a good thing.
But it has pretty pictures! Apparently a lot of black and white ambiance, too...

Okay, this is my Deviant Art geek-out for the time being...
can I tell you how much I love thinking of something and saying to myself, "I can look at what other people did with that!"

...I won't tell you how many Inuyasha pictures I just collected, because it's silly. Pretty! But RIDICULOUS.


HANDS



by orpheus01, a gorgeous shot Hands in Clay

You may not be aware of this particular issue, but someone's hands in their work or with the marks of work on them, are just attractive.
This topic was renewed between me and fabricalchemist  as I was watching Iron Man last night. Because this is an...interest...we share.



by BreeBitch, Hands

Grimy is good, but even clean is okay in some cases...



Nemseck, Hands On Guitar



The Painter, bingbing51

There tend to be certain features a writer is drawn to, that they use in describing characters a lot. Voices tend to be focal when I describe people, when I set up how a scene is. Because that's something I pay a lot of attention to in real life.
I get less chances to describe hands, because while voices are part of every line of dialogue, sometimes hand action isn't necessary. But I notice them. And I could sure tell you about how any given character's hands look...

A few more from my search if you like: (I've titled them with elements...)

in an engine by setenaykaracay
street artist by jashackh
Painter's Hands by atticpat
bike chain by negrasangre


Take one as a prompt, or something, if you write.
I think I may start my own collection of hands, starting at work if the jewelers are amenable...

To say I watch Asian "doramas" to study writing would be overstating mildly.

Or blatant falsehood.

I do get some value from that, though.
(Like the way I am picking up a good bit of Korean: it would be misrepresentation to say I watch them for that. A beneficial by-product, though.)

Something I've been seeing in them is how direly the pay-off matters.

Placement, content, and intensity all matter.
Yay! ...there are no short-cuts.

< /obscure joke >

A show I've loved dearly just finished today--except that there's an episode next week. I don't know if there's just one more or, as rumored, ten.

But I'm planning to see if there is only one more, and after a while watch it as an epilogue. If it keeps going, I won't.

Dramas have the lovely habit of introducing new complications, which in the middle of the season are what keeps you watching despite the predictability of the end. How are they going to solve the problem?
After the pay-off, though?

...guh.



Hello, Boys Before Flowers.

I know I'm asking for it, watching the Korean Teen Soap Operas. They're the live-action equivalent of Shojo Manga, even when they're not based off of them, and this means, if asked to continue the series they will. Many stories are written so they could be complete in the first chapter, but are popular enough to become a series. Since they've worn out the Shiny Idea of the first bit, it's the whole bag of tricks from the Dollar Tree to keep it running...

It's just a writing aspect I've been thinking about, because I'm hitting a new wall in growth as a writer I have to punch through. I think it has to do with theme--and it's making endings harder than they usually are.

If the pay-off doesn't match the thematic statement or the most important storyline, it feels more like it's tapering off than resolving.

Hello, Boys Before Flowers!



BBF was hugely popular because the tension was almost sickeningly strong, though the romantic pay-off was portioned out in miserly drips. A series in which the hero's amnesia that makes him forget the heroine is resolved in the LAST FIFTEEN MINUTES is both worthy of its roots in shojo angst and more than a little abrupt.

There are a lot more kissing stills on Google Images than I remember the characters getting to make out, incidentally. This is more pertinent than it may appear.

A hard-won romance story should end with a fierce triumph.
This series, instead of the fierce triumph, more implied "you will always be fighting a world full of mean people and meaner circumstances".


In this story, only the minor characters here had an actual arc, with proper climax and denouement.

Luckily, the pretty boy crying above is in a new drama, after a couple of years, and doing excellently in a different role where the world feels less vicious. Yay for a chance to enjoy the eye-candy without biting a razor blade, too!


This has been Lessons from "Dramas" ~ I
because I have a feeling there will be more where this came from.

...boy, that rant was a long time in coming.

I defy you to feel grim while listening to this song:


You may not like it, but I bet you aren't feeling grim!
Ahaha. Basshunter, I loff you.



Aer - Four Elements Journal by paulinepaulette
There are, of course, three others. They are beautiful, too.


And lastly, for the Girl Genius fans out there, excerpts from Othar's Twitter archive, the second story "I Take the Train".


Train whistle sounds as it arrives. Magnificent engine, provided by the Master of Paris. Ultimately he must die, but a fine craftsman.

...

The next train won't be by for at least 24 hours. A good roof and chinked walls. The professor builds a sophisticated firepit & chimney.

The professor built some snares and we have 3 rabbits and a squirrel for roasting on the fire. The Jäger decides to build a swimming pool.

Starbucks inquires: How Many Cups Do You Drink Per Day?

Bethany replies: Too many today, owch, get out of my face...


PASCALLE inquires: what fairy tale would you like to be in? WHY? WOULD THE ENDING CHANGE?

Which sounds like a deviously pointed question. But anyway.



I'm making a package up for a George MacDonald fan, and since that was on my mind, considered Little Daylight and The Light Princess. These two stories are inspired by almost the same sort of pun but they are sweet--true fairytales. They almost seem to have sprung out of a single moment's inspiration, into two pieces.
They both involve a condition of life, a curse, though. I'm not fascinated by that sort of thing.
I've lived as an alien enough in my own life.

I just like the resolutions to those stories, and the sweetness of the guys.

So as always, it comes back to Beauty and  the Beast.


To me, the most basic idea in Beauty and the Beast is that the Beast is Human.
The flip side of this is that The Human is a Beast. This is the essential underpinnings of good romance, where people have to accept and work past problems.

Mr. Darcy may be misunderstood, but he's also a self-righteous, inconsiderate person. His desire to change is what makes him a real man instead of the charicature that Mr. Collins is. (There are certain parallels between these two that are undeniable....)



But enough with the theory.

The world of Beauty and the Beast will always be grounded in Robin McKinley's Beauty for me.
Whether or no there are enchanted servants cluttering the scenery, the world is deliciously gothic--a house mostly empty, full of a rich solitude, set in the middle of a wood with history and weight. In both versions I've pictured, there is a splendid library, which to me becomes an integral part of the story--over books, minds meet and come to know each other in ways appearances forestall.

Beauty is from the beginning both loving and powerful--she chooses to go. She still has to fight herself--there is growth, but she is a woman of agency and wisdom. This balance is one I admire. Sophie of Howl's Moving Castle is part of this archetype-pool. That is for sure a B&tB story, albeit skewed with the outwardly beautiful and inwardly monstrous Howl.

The interior life of this story is very attractive. Things happen slowly, unfold, and when the crisis comes it is the internal resolve and the personal interactions that make the victory.


If it were me, the only thing liable to change would be going home. I'm not sure I would feel so strongly to fight for being released. Then again, maybe I would. I can't imagine having a parent alone without help except mine...




If you want to challenge me to blog about something, I will. I want to talk but am casting about for topics...

I was a bit pleased by a Criminal Minds quote while surfing some fan videos to get acquainted with fabricalchemist  's Spencer Reid that went something like this:

"Amazing what he knows, and he's just 24." "Imagine what he'll know by 40..."

Last year the Anberlin lyric "So beautiful and only 23" was my theme, and I was afraid the only 24 theme I would know for this year was Switchfoot's rather melancholy ballad that goes "24 failures, 24 tries. 24 finds me in 24th place, 24 drop-outs at the end of the day..."

Meet Sabriel.



The Abhorsen tunic and her bells are the primary inspirations here. She's prettier in person.

And this:

This is Love Me! Kyoko.

It's a progressing yarn, a little like The Thief, though not quite so specific. She goes between really good times of learning, and dark times, where vengeance is her obsession. For that first era of being consumed with rage, I've got smears of dark colors, like her swirling hate-imps. There are other seasons with a little gray, but it ends light and happy.

Here's hoping!

...oh, I gotta go get these guys out of the freezer now. I'd forgotten they were in there...

It really takes so little to make me happy...

+ AstroBoy Boxers = EEEEEE. kawai sugite, shini-sooooo*
(My day has officially been made...)

Also, looking at my flowers:



Doing henna...having henna to look at... (didn't get pictures of it developed, just with the paste still on...



And having my ten-year-old brother ask for a gyroscope, with his:



I was like, "A what-now?"
And then, "Can it look like a top?"

I'm sure they're supposed to be symmetrical and all that, but I just had to go with what I could...


Next you should be seeing some Sabriel and Love-Me Kyoko. Look forward to it!



*So cute, I might die from it...

...also.

Image-Googling for "sleeping beauty fanart" has an inexplicable amount of slash-pairing portraits.

Just thought you might need to know.

I culled my interests list for LJ the other day.

No one surfs interest, really, and most of mine were painfully obvious, if not repetitive. So now they're more the kind of list I'd actually write up, if I were compiling interests that would surprise people and entertain them.

(I love making lists like that, by the way. It's one of those little broken things in my personality...)



Patrolling Gotham
A yarn to debut at Conestoga and no sooner, if my will-power holds...



This yarn is much superior in person, because the nuance of the color is hard to capture, first of all. Black is deucedly hard to photograph, two shades of it even moreso.

It's also the softest, most fluffy yarn I have ever made, which can only be experienced by holding it.
I can't even describe it. Just wow.

When spinning up the deep purple-black side, I was much amused by the steampunk look of it...just being a sepia-tone sort of color made it automatically steampunk to my mind.
Which led to the idea that Batman would lend himself to steampunk--which started firing neurons like you wouldn't believe.

There was a suppression of that, since I'm not ready to write more fan-fic until I've finished this Skip-Beat nonsense...

  Which is actually the next yarn I'm working on. That exact pink...