Not Quite Satisfactory...

[the_rck]

I'm trying to find a good way to tweak a bit of the story I've been working on for the writers' group. I'd wanted to put something in to show that the point of view character was exhausted enough to be distracted but still functional. I chose to have his eyes be irritated. When I get tired, mine tend to itch and water uncontrollably, so I had that happen to the character. One of my readers (my sister-in-law who's doing a surgery residency) commented that she's never seen that happen to anyone. She's certainly observed more utterly exhausted folks than I, so I assume that means that my reaction is idiosyncratic. I haven't come up with anything better yet, however.

I hope to hear soon whether Justin's going to Maryland or staying more or less local soon. Since he's said that he's likely to drop at least some of his gaming (it's that or come over here every Saturday all day) even if he goes to State, I'm going to have to write him out of one game at least. I don't much want to do it, but I'm starting to try to shape ideas. If he leaves my GURPS game, I'll try for some sort of climatic confrontation between his character, Markus, and his enemies. If I can make that work properly, Markus can head off to try to restore a religious order that's supposed to be protecting people from supernatural evil but has lost track of what evil is. If he leaves the Amber game, I think I won't work as hard; we've only played three times so far. I haven't built anything around his character there yet. My selfish impulse is to hope that he not only goes to State but chooses to spend every Saturday here gaming. But Maryland's the better school for what he wants to do.

I've been a bit disappointed by the most recent episodes of Buffy and Angel. I knew Angel was going to be quite dark, but I wasn't prepared for how unsatisfying it felt. They'd attempted to build up to the events in this episode, but somehow I never saw the pieces come together. Buffy didn't work for me for quite a different reason. I'd hoped for something to work right for the characters this season and rather felt cheated. It wasn't that the plot twists were completely unreasonable, but… They'd presented Xander as stronger in recent episodes. Scott has commented that he's not finding Buffy fun any more and may stop watching it if matters don't improve; neither of us take great pleasure in watching the characters being tortured.

And I'd intended to space these entries out a bit, time-wise, but I keep getting socket errors every time I try to do anything except update my journal. Is that normal for this time of night?

Comments

[kyrielle]

I have that happen when I'm very tired, and know a few people who say they do. However, I never see it when it's happening - I don't tend to -register- the signs.

[the_rck]

That's interesting. I wonder how many people that's true for. I know I've noticed people with chapping due to watering eyes (I've had that too; it's very nasty).

Of course, my sister-in-law also mentioned that caffeine consumption makes the eyes dry out faster. I don't do caffeine (nor does she, but most of the other residents do), so I can't speak from personal experience on that. Maybe I should post the paragraph and see what people think...

Buffiness...

[lady-of-mists.livejournal.com]

I'm interested by this week's episode (of course, I'm the one that has little Buffy experience). My family thinks that the writers may have just run out of ideas and are going to pull a Bob Newhart/Dallas ending. We were comparing it to everything from The Shining to the Wizard of Oz tonight. Of course, I said that would probably be what I would do if I went insane and they all laughed. Mom pointed out that we didn't have a basement. I pointed out that it didn't really matter... ;)

I'm hoping to at least watch the new ones until this season is over. I think that this one is the last one, so I'd prefer to at least know how it ends. :)

All the best,

Ariana

Re: Buffiness...

[the_rck]

I'd heard somewhere (can't recall where) that they were aiming for seven seasons. I'll be quite disappointed if they go for an all a dream ending to the series, so I'm hoping they won't. I'll cling to the fact that it would completely undercut their other series, Angel. "Okay, we're writing about the trials and tribulations of a bunch of heroes who are figments of an insane woman's imagination..."

Of course, I have wondered how they'll be able to end the series. There doesn't seem to be much of a retirement plan for Slayers. ("Hi, I'm the Slayer Emeritus...") I'd sort of like them to end on a positive note about events in the series, however. I don't think that turning it all into hallucinations says anything good about what the characters did or didn't do.