Lost my G1 Spark?
Apr. 20th, 2009 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragoness_eLast night I watched a bunch of G1 season 3 episodes for the first time in quite a while, all the way through "Ghost in the Machine", and realized something.
.
My attitudes toward the episodes and the characters have changed. My G1 Starscream obsession is gone. My G1 Ghostie-Scream obsession, particularly, is gone. I find myself watching the episodes more as a whole, enjoying the story and ALL the characters, not just the targets of my obsessions.
My appreciation of the episodes in general has gone up. But... I no longer feel the need to write fanfiction to fill in the holes anymore. I've already done that, for the object of my obsessions, and I don't have the driving obsession and passion any more to motivate me.
It's not that I dislike Starscream suddenly. I still find him an engaging, crazy bastard of a villainous trickster--but he no longer has that special pull on my psyche. (Read: Obsession). In fact, I find myself with a most heretical opinion: Chris Latta is not the only, best Starscream ever anymore. Tom Kenny does a damn good TFA Starscream, and I almost prefer his Starscream voice now.
I like TFA Starscream, but I never obsessed over him. He's lacking the component that the two Starscreams I ever did obsess over (G1 & Armada) had: sympathetic vulnerability. Both G1 and Armada Starscream had their moments where you glimpsed a vulnerable, wounded soul underneath the defensive lies and angry lashing-out. TFA Starscream lacks that glimpse of vulnerability.
I was in a state of creative shock after my father's death and Katrina in 2005; I wrote nothing until half-way through 2006, when I wrote my first Transformer's fanfic. After that I wrote furiously, churning out sometimes multiple fics a month... many dealing with dead characters. The ghost of Duskwing, Starscream's ghost, the death-obsessed Dead End, the characters killed in TF:TM... After that, I turned to roleplay, interactively writing many of the same characters with others on LiveJournal RPs. I see a common theme, now. I think I was dealing with the trauma of loss and devastation through writing, writing that let me change the fictional loss and devastation in the G1 world. I could make it not happen, or work characters through acceptance and a better resolution than we were given; such is the power of writing.
I have different issues now; I think perhaps I've dealt with the traumas of 2005, and that is why the obsession and the identification with certain characters is gone. The traumas of 2008 are something else entirely, but the Transformers have no balm for me there.
What does this mean? It means I'm not likely to write any more Starscream or Duskwing ghost stories. They've found their way to the Allspark and their own brand of peace, and no longer really speak to me. I have stories from Starscream--an AU where humans and Starscream's Decepticons dominate space while the Cybertronians go into their 300-year isolation and history-suppression a la "Beast Wars"-- that probably will never get written now, because the spark is gone. (It was a little too AU for me to write then, and definitely too much so now).
I still enjoy roleplaying a living Duskwing in TF:Deadzone, though, and Dead End sometimes has something to say to me, though less than he used to as I move away from depression myself. Skyfire remains an enigma to me beyond "steady counter-balance to flighty Starscream". Perhaps he'll have more to say to me about himself later on.
In general, I find my interest is more in living characters now, and those closer to human.
.
My attitudes toward the episodes and the characters have changed. My G1 Starscream obsession is gone. My G1 Ghostie-Scream obsession, particularly, is gone. I find myself watching the episodes more as a whole, enjoying the story and ALL the characters, not just the targets of my obsessions.
My appreciation of the episodes in general has gone up. But... I no longer feel the need to write fanfiction to fill in the holes anymore. I've already done that, for the object of my obsessions, and I don't have the driving obsession and passion any more to motivate me.
It's not that I dislike Starscream suddenly. I still find him an engaging, crazy bastard of a villainous trickster--but he no longer has that special pull on my psyche. (Read: Obsession). In fact, I find myself with a most heretical opinion: Chris Latta is not the only, best Starscream ever anymore. Tom Kenny does a damn good TFA Starscream, and I almost prefer his Starscream voice now.
I like TFA Starscream, but I never obsessed over him. He's lacking the component that the two Starscreams I ever did obsess over (G1 & Armada) had: sympathetic vulnerability. Both G1 and Armada Starscream had their moments where you glimpsed a vulnerable, wounded soul underneath the defensive lies and angry lashing-out. TFA Starscream lacks that glimpse of vulnerability.
I was in a state of creative shock after my father's death and Katrina in 2005; I wrote nothing until half-way through 2006, when I wrote my first Transformer's fanfic. After that I wrote furiously, churning out sometimes multiple fics a month... many dealing with dead characters. The ghost of Duskwing, Starscream's ghost, the death-obsessed Dead End, the characters killed in TF:TM... After that, I turned to roleplay, interactively writing many of the same characters with others on LiveJournal RPs. I see a common theme, now. I think I was dealing with the trauma of loss and devastation through writing, writing that let me change the fictional loss and devastation in the G1 world. I could make it not happen, or work characters through acceptance and a better resolution than we were given; such is the power of writing.
I have different issues now; I think perhaps I've dealt with the traumas of 2005, and that is why the obsession and the identification with certain characters is gone. The traumas of 2008 are something else entirely, but the Transformers have no balm for me there.
What does this mean? It means I'm not likely to write any more Starscream or Duskwing ghost stories. They've found their way to the Allspark and their own brand of peace, and no longer really speak to me. I have stories from Starscream--an AU where humans and Starscream's Decepticons dominate space while the Cybertronians go into their 300-year isolation and history-suppression a la "Beast Wars"-- that probably will never get written now, because the spark is gone. (It was a little too AU for me to write then, and definitely too much so now).
I still enjoy roleplaying a living Duskwing in TF:Deadzone, though, and Dead End sometimes has something to say to me, though less than he used to as I move away from depression myself. Skyfire remains an enigma to me beyond "steady counter-balance to flighty Starscream". Perhaps he'll have more to say to me about himself later on.
In general, I find my interest is more in living characters now, and those closer to human.
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Date: 2009-04-22 02:26 am (UTC)Still, I get where you're coming from, a person's interests should change and grow along with them. I do hope that you'll keep writing in a general sense - you've got so much talent. ^_^
Me? If I liked something that much I'll often come back to it - like me suddenly getting interested in TFs again after being obsessed with Beast Wars as a young teen - almost ten friggin' years ago! <_<