ellie_sparks

 Not that I know of anyone reading this, but here's what I've been up to since I was last on LJ.

Last I mentioned, I was finishing up a writing project ( and then my tumor happened. )

So that's the short version of where I've been.  Also to come: Texas Guy and Ellie Pass Each Other In The Night, Tumors Are Not a Good Birthday Present, Ellie Files An Incident Report, Ellie Almost Gets Scammed By A Pretend Modeling Agency, and Why I Should Be A Pixar Employee (a.k.a. What I Actually Sent To HR).

 First, let me remind you of my last post: the closest I've come to a relationship is my epic "romance" with Batman, who is not, technically, a person.  But that hasn't stopped me from observing relationships around me, and how crazy they make people.  So now I shall proceed to examine some "romantic" gestures that I have observed, all of which are totally pointless.

1. Giving people flowers.  Here's the thing about flowers: you have to kill the flowers to give them to people, which is kind of disturbing.  I've seen vegans, who won't drink even organic milk because the farmer might have squeezed a little too hard on the udder of the cow, give flowers.  You're getting rid of plants!  How is that better than consuming humanely-gathered milk?  Would people give flowers if the plants bled when you picked them?  I honestly don't think so.  What if they had faces?  That would be so creepy!

Also, they've been unromanticized over the years.  People get flowers for birthdays, funerals, graduations, winning a beauty pageant, appearing for 2 seconds in a play, first dates, Christmas, Valentine's day, anniversaries.  Only a few of those things are romantic events, but somehow appearing with a handful of flowers and saying "Look, I killed these for you!" is supposed to be a fantastic romantic gesture.

Potted plants?  I'll consider it.

2. Red roses.  This is one that really gets me.  I see no redeeming qualities to roses.  They're not overly pretty, they don't smell that great, and they've become shorthand for romance.  You aren't really expected to think too much about what to do for your significant other, or the person whose pants you're trying to get into.  Maybe their favorite flower is bluebells, or orchids, or daisies.  It might actually mean more to them if you learned and remembered what their favorite flower is.  But do you do that, boys?  Nope, she's getting red roses, whether she likes it or not.

And somehow, lack of original thought counts as romance.  Don't look at me, I can't explain it.

3. Flirting.  This isn't a gesture, per se, more of an activity, but it's something I have a lot of problems with simply because I'm not very good at it, mostly because I'm dense and definitions of flirting vary greatly from person to person.  When Adorable Artist's boyfriend was originally trying to flirt with her, he considered it very obvious that he was flirting because he was, wait for it, talking to her.  Seriously?  That's what flirting means to you?

Then there are guys who act flirty to everyone, regardless of interest.  When you bring it up to someone, they go "Oh, yeah, he's like that with everyone."  So how do you tell when he's interested?  Based on my observations, talking can be considered flirting to some people, but in other cases, outright flirty behavior is not flirting because they don't mean it that way.  Well, guess what?  I'm not in your head.  I don't know what you mean.

I have no possible way of knowing what a guy is thinking unless someone tells me "Hey, that guy was into you!"  By that point we're in the car driving home, and the guy in the coffee shop is long gone.  Great.  Thanks loads, Noisy One.

4. Valentine's Day.  I HATE Valentine's Day.  It's pointless, it encourages people to be distant and not caring to their loved ones because hey, they can make it up on Valentine's Day with some flowers.  This is a day where individual thought is discouraged.  Red roses and chocolate?  Great, get into her pants and now you don't have to do anything nice for her for the rest of the year.  Cheap assholes.

5. Diamond rings.  These are the things that piss me off the most of anything on this list, because I think diamonds are the most pointless gem in history.  Ignoring for a second how pointless gemstones are, because you spend a fortune on something that just sits there on your hand, diamonds have no reason for being the most coveted gemstone in the world.  They're not that rare (prices are kept artificially high by jewelers) and to be honest, they're not overly pretty.  You'd be just fine with a Swarovski crystal, because let's face it, IT'S A CLEAR ROCK.  And before you argue that not all of them are clear, and you can get colored ones, why not get an actual colored gem?  Sapphires, rubies, and emeralds have better colors, don't have artificially inflated prices, and will look just as pretty on your finger.  Or how about something really original, like a topaz, amethyst, or lapis lazuli?  

I'll let you think on that.

6. Weddings.  Why are you so focused on one day??? It's just a day with cake and a dress.  It's not about the wedding, it's about the marriage, Bridezilla, so you can take your matching favors and centerpieces and whatever else and shove them up your...

Whoa, sorry.  I think I need some sugar.  And don't try to give it to me, I'll buy my own.

Have fun attempting to woo me, boys.  Woo.

 It's been a while since I did anything bloggy, but it's late and I'm feeling chatty and wearing the Spectacles of Power, which always make me feel more epic and important than when I wear my contacts, for reasons that I don't understand.  Maybe because these Spectacles of Power have plastic frames in black and purple, and are more fashion statement-y than my previous pair, which were Spectacles of Geekery.  Plus, I don't wear the Spectacles of Power much, so I always feel like people should take notice when I do.

Also, then I look like I should be friends with Nanao Ise from Bleach, who is my favorite character for all of her maybe ten lines of dialogue because she wears glasses and will kick your ass and I can totally respect that.  I also respect Rukia's tiny-person ass-kicking abilities, and feel that Orihime can take all of her yelling and whining and almost molesting Ichigo off a cliff for all I care.

Maybe I'll write about Bleach when I actually finish writing about Avatar: The Last Airbender.  We'll see.

Anyway, this is not a story about Bleach.  This is about my epic romance with Batman.  I'm not sure how funny others will find it, but I almost died laughing.

( What a silly notion. I laugh at you, silly notion. Haha. )
This is the closest I get to a relationship.

Dear Mr. Paolini,

Sigh. How to begin? Your books have become a sore point on the internet. Some love them, some hate them, some are indifferent and want to stop hearing about them, and some (like me) would like to see an editing eye turned to them.

( Hurrah for education! )

So my posts about the second and third seasons of Avatar will have to wait (I know, I know, but I'm swamped). I haven't written about my personal life for freakin' ever, but this story is so elaborate I had to tell it. I tried to use rough time guesstimates, but that didn't work, so you have to infer the times for yourselves.

The event started with me not sleeping well the night before, because I had a dream about The Noisy One getting possessed by a ghost in this abandoned victorian mansion that we broke into, then trying to kill me with a knife. Also, Jackson from Gilmore Girls was there? Yeah, I found it odd, too. I woke up around 10, then went back to sleep and woke up at 12.

I( Goddamn, that was a lot of saline. )

  My Thoughts on Avatar, Let Me Show You Them, Part I:  

 

Water, Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Drink

 

So for those who were not previously aware (which is probably just about all of you), I frequently moonlight as a camp counselor, which means many, many hours with the 4- to 10-year-old demographic.  They spend a lot of time talking about the shows they watch, so occasionally I like to do some research.  That’s why I review kids’ programming almost entirely.  After hearing A LOT about Avatar: The Last Airbender from the small people and Tea Fellow (who is not a small person), I decided to track the series down.

 

And before I say anything about the plot, characters, setting, art design, dialogue, or rabid fandom, I have to talk about how freakin’ hard it is to find the show.  Not because Nick doesn’t show it, but because I don’t have regular access to a TV, I don’t want to shell out big bucks for the DVDs, and Viacom is a raging bitch about people putting the stuff online.  The only episodes I could find at first were the last five of the series: “The Ember Island Players” and the four episodes of the finale.  So I watched “Ember Island Players,” not realizing how amazingly non-episodic the show was.  I had no idea what was going on.

 

They did have a “Previously on Avatar” section, but all it seemed to explain was that... someone... had a house on Ember Island and that Ember Island is the answer to all life’s problems.  Well, that was helpful.  Thanks, editors.

 

( Sort of Asian or Something )

 OK, so I can't get messages on JDate right now because it costs too much.  I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars for this.

So just leave me a message below (I do accept anonymous/unregistered comments) if you saw my message on JDate.

~Ellie

 Yes, it's partially because I have to focus on my Big Kahuna, but mostly because I could see the gravy conversations forming.

Oh, yes.  It occurs to me that you may not know what a gravy conversation is.  It comes from the commentary for "The Incredibles," with director Brad Bird and producer John Walker discussing the trials they faced making their first Pixar film.  One such trouble was the dinner table scene near the beginning of the film.  The scene was complicated because it's the first time we really see the kids use their powers, but even before the kids start fighting, the scene was very complicated.  Why?

Well, you have to look at how a Pixar movie is made.  They spend years in story and tests before they ever make it to animation, and nothing makes it to rendering until the very end of the project.  So for a while, there's nothing for the animators to do.  When a scene came out of boarding before any of the others, Bird wanted to get his animators started, so he divided up the quiet part of the dinner table scene among quite a few animators so they would all have something to do.

This was where the trouble began.  Too many transitions, and trying to keep track of where everyone, and everything, is, is very difficult.  The "everything" I'm referring to was, of course, the food on the table.  See, they all put the food on the table they way it worked best for their individual scenes, which meant that the food was never in the same place for two animators.

What did this mean?  Meetings!  Dozens and dozens of meetings about getting the food to the right places, and trying to get everything to have continuity.  And it was meat juice and "what about the peas?" and "There's no continuity on the broccoli! The broccoli is moving!" "Well, clearly the broccoli is next to Dad in this angle..."

But everyone was tired, and raising their voices, and sick of dealing with digital food and all these little things and just tired of discussing every single detail.  And one of the guys at the meeting -- I don't remember his job, but his name was Nigel -- raised his voice a bit and went "can we get back to the issue of the gravy, please?"

And I could see Oh Shi-Ana going in that direction.  Short-tempered discussions of every little thing, with no director to put their foot down and say HERE!  Do THIS!!

So as I leave, may I say: please, guys, get back to the issue of the gravy!

My just-for-funsies better-than-canon-characters person, created over on anti-shurtugal, being awesome and cute.  This scene exists in a vacuum.  If people like it, I may write more.


 ( Few humans understand balance and honor as dragons do, and elves have no hope. )

 A few people asked what kind of cake Bella would be, so I found the cake forms of various characters.

Bella: burnt.



Edward: FunFetti



Alice: Wedding cake



Jacob: White cake with chocolate frosting



Renesmee: hello kitty zombie cake



Twilight, overall: Disaster cake