Ungrateful wretch

[BlackShanglan]

Shanglan is George Lucas writing Return of the Jedi and I claim my £5.

The Earl

If anyone - anyone at all, even dearest amicus - sees an Ewok appear in my writing ...

Shoot me. Please.

 

[minsue]

If anyone - anyone at all, even dearest amicus - sees an Ewok appear in my writing ...

Shoot me. Please.

Done.

But I'll miss you.

 

[BlackShanglan]

if it's the story I think it is...

I love it!

Werewolf crap. Yes. I know this ending is right; I'm liking the whole story better now. I thought I was happy with it before, but now I'm really excited.

delete

No. I'm not that mad at him.

I me some Carson . .and Shanglan.

Mmmm. Preferably both at once?

 

[carsonshepherd]

If anyone - anyone at all, even dearest amicus - sees an Ewok appear in my writing ...

Shoot me. Please.

Don't worry, I'll be first in line!

and yes... it was almost inevitable.

 

[Dar~]

Mmmm. Preferably both at once?

Want my address? I have the riding crop

 

[BlackShanglan]

Done.

But I'll miss you.

I'll give you a scope. That should improve your aim.

 

[minsue]

I'll give you a scope. That should improve your aim.

 

[rikaaim]

I may be mistaken, but isn't this the line for the "Spaking Carson while riding Shanglan who's being tossed into the briar patch (again!) Dar," ride? If so, I have my ticket. When do I get a turn?

*waits anxiously to ride Shanglan being spanked by Carson whilst being tossed into a briar patch by Dar*

 

[BlackShanglan]

I may be mistaken, but isn't this the line for the "Spaking Carson while riding Shanglan who's being tossed into the briar patch (again!) Dar," ride? If so, I have my ticket. When do I get a turn?

*waits anxiously to ride Shanglan being spanked by Carson whilst being tossed into a briar patch by Dar*

I love that ride.

Disneyland, here we come!

 

[minsue]

The Magic Kingdom will never be the same.

 

[rikaaim]

The Magic Kingdom will never be the same.

We just have our own kinda magic. Usually though it requires lots of leather, a little lubrication, and lots of luck...oh...and a great health plan.

 

[Dar~]

Meh, blame it on me, then Tricare will pay for it

 

[shereads]

Damnit.

I should be happy. I have been fretting over the ending of a work in progress for days, trying to get it in place to help guide the rest of the piece. I have 20 pages of handwritten notes mapping out the scenes for the entire (half-written, probably novel-length) work, and was stuck because the ending I had originally imagined seemed weak when I finally came to it after working out the rest. Now I finally have the answer, which came to me when shopping and made the nice lady at the checkout think I'd lost my mind as I stared suddenly off into space with an expression of delighted discovery.

The problem?

The ungrateful sod has gone and gotten himself killed! This was supposed to have a happy ending. Instead, I end up standing in the checkout line at J. C. Penny with visions of Anglo-Saxon warriors in battle, horses screaming, and my hero dying on the battlefield.

*grumble*

Oh, all right. It will have the power the original lacked. But I'm still pissed. Bloody cheek of him ... running off and writing his own ending ... you'd think he might have consulted the author ...

Shanglan

I'd focus-group both endings and choose the one that gets more smiley-faces and thumbs-up. Either that, or kill everyone but please don't make those poor horses scream. Remember what we said about The Red Pony.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I'd focus-group both endings and choose the one that gets more smiley-faces and thumbs-up. Either that, or kill everyone but please don't make those poor horses scream. Remember what we said about The Red Pony.

Too late. Sorry, some of them already got disemboweled in the first battle scene. Oh, and all of them hate the male lead. (Not unreasonable given that he was doing the disemboweling.)

Shanglan

 

[shereads]

Too late. Sorry, some of them already got disemboweled in the first battle scene. Oh, and all of them hate the male lead. (Not unreasonable given that he was doing the disemboweling.)

Shanglan

Nooooooooooo! You...You...Steinbeck!

Questions:

Is ingratitude a common symptom of wretchedness, or are the two states independent of one another, but frequently concurrent?

Can someone be emboweled?

 

[shereads]

"Consuelo took pity on Karl's wretchedness, and he seemed grateful. Could his gratitude be genuine? Should she trust him? Had the wretch really emboweled her horse, or was he lying?"

 

[BlackShanglan]

"Consuelo took pity on Karl's wretchedness, and he seemed grateful. Could his gratitude be genuine? Should she trust him? Had the wretch really emboweled her horse, or was he lying?"

I love you with all my heart.

(It's been recently returned in the emboweling process.)

I believe that ingratitude and the state of being a wretch - not to be confused with being wretched - have a long history of coordination, such that one may posit that they are inherently linked. Wretched, on the other hand, shares that relationship with poverty. If Karl had merely been wretched, Consuelo might have trusted him, but the fact that he's also a wretch means that he undoubtedly emboweled most of her horse and then poached the kidneys for himself. In a nice white wine sauce with lemon.

Shanglan

 

[shereads]

I love you with all my heart.

(It's been recently returned in the emboweling process.)

I believe that ingratitude and the state of being a wretch - not to be confused with being wretched - have a long history of coordination, such that one may posit that they are inherently linked. Wretched, on the other hand, shares that relationship with poverty. If Karl had merely been wretched, Consuelo might have trusted him, but the fact that he's also a wretch means that he undoubtedly emboweled most of her horse and then poached the kidneys for himself. In a nice white wine sauce with lemon.

Shanglan

Whoa, boy. Are you saying that a wretch need not be wretched, or that the state of wretchedness does not make one a wretch?

I need protein.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Whoa, boy. Are you saying that a wretch need not be wretched, or that the state of wretchedness does not make one a wretch?

I need protein.

Such is the case. One may live in wretched poverty without being an ungrateful wretch. In fact, if one is in wretched poverty, it's hard to see what one has to be ungrateful about.

I would elaborate, but the Webster Death Ninjas appear to be massing on the front lawn. Death to the oppression of language (and dictionaries)!

 

[neonlyte]

I love you with all my heart.

(It's been recently returned in the emboweling process.)

I believe that ingratitude and the state of being a wretch - not to be confused with being wretched - have a long history of coordination, such that one may posit that they are inherently linked. Wretched, on the other hand, shares that relationship with poverty. If Karl had merely been wretched, Consuelo might have trusted him, but the fact that he's also a wretch means that he undoubtedly emboweled most of her horse and then poached the kidneys for himself. In a nice white wine sauce with lemon.

Shanglan

I can't quite work out whether you are training as a butcher or a chef.

 

[Kassiana]

I wrote one story where it was entirely possible that the main character would die. However, the way it turned out, it was much sadder and harder if she lived than if she died.

Also, her mutation would have made it hard for her to die anyway, but that's another story.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I can't quite work out whether you are training as a butcher or a chef.

Possibly somewhere between the two. I love cooking with meat and vegetables, and I can manage pies, but otherwise I am the world's worst baker. I cook by what I feel like using that day in the proportions I'm in the mood for; this is a (har har) recipe for disaster in baking, as I am sure at least one of us knows. On the plus side, I can run the bread machine competantly, and I make a decent Yorkshire pudding.

Shanglan

 

[shereads]

I wrote one story where it was entirely possible that the main character would die. However, the way it turned out, it was much sadder and harder if she lived than if she died.

Also, her mutation would have made it hard for her to die anyway, but that's another story.

As a reader and patroness of dirty stories, I admit that I prefer happy endings, but remember the other kind. An exception is the rare happy ending that is entirely credible; given human nature and the randomness of tragedy, it has to be enormously challenging to write a happy ending that seems like the natural, inevitable conclusion of a story.

"And they lived happily ever" stops working when the reader has a first brush with the kind of tragedy that doesn't need a villain or respect a hero. The death of a grandparent, and witnessing the pain of the one left behind, is probably the most common way to learn that life, death, love and loss are inextricable.

Happy endings are a gift to the reader. As children, they protect us from developing a fear of stories. As adults, having accepted that happiness is both essential and temporary, we crave them as an antidote to too much reality.

 

[neonlyte]

Possibly somewhere between the two. I love cooking with meat and vegetables, and I can manage pies, but otherwise I am the world's worst baker. I cook by what I feel like using that day in the proportions I'm in the mood for; this is a (har har) recipe for disaster in baking, as I am sure at least one of us knows. On the plus side, I can run the bread machine competantly, and I make a decent Yorkshire pudding.

Shanglan

Not quite as dire as the poor Finns in the late 1800's famine reduced to using ground animal bone and birch bark to extend their dwindling supplies of flour.

 

[BlackShanglan]

As a reader and patroness of dirty stories, I admit that I prefer happy endings, but remember the other kind. An exception is the rare happy ending that is entirely credible; given human nature and the randomness of tragedy, it has to be enormously challenging to write a happy ending that seems like the natural, inevitable conclusion of a story.

"And they lived happily ever" stops working when the reader has a first brush with the kind of tragedy that doesn't need a villain or respect a hero. The death of a grandparent, and witnessing the pain of the one left behind, is probably the most common way to learn that life, death, love and loss are inextricable.

Happy endings are a gift to the reader. As children, they protect us from developing a fear of stories. As adults, having accepted that happiness is both essential and temporary, we crave them as an antidote to too much reality.

Shereads, that is beautiful and profound.