It wasn't all a lie

[gwyn]

I'm being spammed by some LJ accounts, which probably a lot of people are (they have a huge crush on me!). What's bothering me most about this though is that all the old posts they're spamming me in are ones that are about sis_r and her battle with cancer, and her death. To say this is upsetting me is putting it mildly, particularly because this is the time of year I have to deal with huge depression and facing our birthday alone. I know we can ban users, but since these are all different accounts, I'm not sure what the best tack to take is?

But I need bigger help than that, oh Flist of wonder. I was at my writing group today, and one of the authors has just recently sold her second-world fantasy book and they want it to be a trilogy, so she's bringing new stuff. In her submission today, she had something that I said was a missed opportunity for my favorite romantical trope of all time -- the "It wasn't all a lie" line, where one person in said liason had to string the other along for some endgame or play them, and when the other person finds out that the relationship wasn't true, the player says, "It wasn't all a lie" or "In all this mess, you were the only true good thing" or something to that effect.

She looked at me so blankly, and she had NO idea what I was talking about. Weirdly, as much as I love this, I couldn't think of anything except the episode of Streets of San Francisco where I first discovered that I adored this trope, which, you know, is 40 years old and not going to pass (also, Days of Our Lives, where Steve says it to Kayla, but I can't use that either).

I need help for resources I can point her to -- movies and books would be especially helpful, as she has two kids and has all these rewrites to do on top of her job, so she doesn't have a lot of time to search out TV (though if anything's up on YouTube, that would be cool). Come on, SOMEone else besides me has to love the "it wasn't all a lie" trope...

Comments

[nagasvoice]

Arggh, I'm blanking on the name of it, that website about fandom tropes that lists infamous examples of said trope??

[hypertwink]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WasItAllALie

[devilc]

Casablanca.

[gwyn]

Good one!

[hypertwink]

1) Maid in Manhattan

Marisa: There was a part of me that wanted to know what it felt like, to have someone like you look at me the way you did just once. And I'm sorry. Truly. If I could rewind the past week, I would.

Christopher: Was any of it real?

Marisa: Yeah, it was real. It was so real I wondered how I was ever gonna give you up. But I had to give you up. That was the plan. And then, last night, I couldn't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdhZAIPrIog&feature=youtu.be (Too bad, the above quote isn't in the trailer)

Also, with bonus Tiny!Tyler Posey.

2) The Prince & Me

3) She's The Man

4) White Collar has shades of that, between Neal and Peter.

(I just realized that most of these are romcoms hee)

p.s. I just got spammed yesterday from an old rec post I had. Sorry that someone's being a jerk. You should report them.

[gwyn]

Thanks! I found out that part of the reason my friend doesn't watch much movies or TV is that she's intensely face blind, so I've tried to point her to things that might either be in text or stuff she can watch on YouTube to get a feel for it, without having to invest time in things she can't follow well.

[dine]

you're definitely not the only one who loves that! sadly, I'm drawing a complete blank on examples, but I do adore the trope

[raine]

Soap operas use that trope a lot, IIRC, especially when they're testing out the new hotness of the month or trying to explain a new actor in a main character's role. To me, it's a cousin of the "It's my evil twin's fault."

[gwyn]

I know -- one of my favorites was, well, one of my favorite -- no, really, my FAVORITE -- couple in all of soapdom, Steve and Kayla from Days of Our LIves. I remember him saying that to her after she'd walked away from him at one point...my heart!

[montanaharper]

Re: the spammers. You can freeze comments on old posts. It'd mean going back to all those posts to freeze them (I don't think there's a bulk option for doing it, though there might be some kind of app like the one that flocks/unflocks everything at once), but it would mean no one could leave spam (or any other comments).

*hugs*

[gwyn]

Yeah, since I never knew where they were going to strike, it didn't seem like an option. And right after, they moved on to recent posts about my dad dying. Nice people.

Hey, I still have all your stuff from the loan a couple years ago for making my vid -- I'm totally up for a roadtrip if you might want to meet up for lunch in someplace close by -- maybe Poulsbo or Sequim or something? Or I could come up to Ludlow -- just let me know! I'd love to see you.

[liviapenn]

http://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/?cat=privacy

Under "Enable comments" you can set your LJ to only accept comments from people you have friended. I think if you keep this on for 24-48 hours or so, the spammers give up and go away, and at least you have a DW so non-friended people can comment on entries here, if they need to.

[gwyn]

Thanks for this!!

[klia]

Hmm... the only recent thing I can think of that comes close to that trope is what Vesper did to James in Casino Royale.

Seconding what liviapenn said about restricting who can comment on your LJ, which is easier than having to go freeze comments on each individual entry. Spammers suck. UGH.

[gwyn]

What I like about Casino Royale is that it was M who did the pointing out that it wasn't all a lie for Vesper -- I adored that. She had to practically hit James over the head with it.

this is horrible of me, but...

[talking_sock]

that woman is clearly a moron and you shouldn't waste your time... also, how can she seriously be selling books if she's that emotionally and media-plot-insulated?

Re: this is horrible of me, but...

[gwyn]

She's really not -- she's actually just incredibly faceblind, even worse than Sandy, and so she doesn't watch much TV or movies because it's a frustrating experience for her. She also has trouble envisioning characters from descriptions in books, which is something she's worked on a lot with her novels, and we've helped her with when we call out "white room syndrome" and blank face syndrome. She also an engineer, and creative space didn't come naturally, so I'm really amazed that she's come so far with her writing and she's turned out to be my favorite writer in the group. A lot of this stuff -- tropes, themes, cliches -- seem to be less visible for people who I think aren't necessarily designed that way, to be creative and writerly. But she picks things up remarkably quickly, possibly because she's a gamer.

[viverra-libro.livejournal.com]

Ugh, so sorry for the trouble with the accounts. :(

I was just watching "Deliver us from Eva" today, which uses that trope - that's the whole plot of the film! Let me think about whether I can find more!

*hugs*

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I had no idea! THis movie comes up all the time on pay cable -- I'll have to look out for it.

[ixchel55.livejournal.com]

Hunh. I wonder if my secret admirer is stepping out on me with you.

I am sorry though, that what should be a minor nuisance is attached to such a difficult time in your life.

About the trope you mentioned, I know I've seen it quite often also, but the only example I can think of right now was - I think it was S4 of NCIS when Tony was meant to romance Jeanne (daughter of a French arms dealer) to get close to her old man and wound up falling in love with her. He had to have the same conversation with her. I'll try to think of other examples.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the problem with TV is that she doesn't watch much, and it's hard to find what you want later if you don't have all the eps. Unfortunately, also, TV uses it more than anyone else!!

[anoel.livejournal.com]

Homeland! At the end of 107 Carrie says something to that effect. I love this trope too. Another one is Jack/Irina specifically in 203 Irina mentions something similar to Jack. There's also Beecher/Keller but I doubt that'll work.

I feel like there's a million examples I'm forgetting...

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

OH yeah, good one!

[smithereen.livejournal.com]

I immediately thought of the episode "War" of the USA network La Femme Nikita series. I think it's sort of stand-aloneish? In that the trope comes through even if the emotional resonance might not without seeing the earlier episodes. If I can think of any good movie examples I'll come back. A

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

This is actually my first and favorite -- I could only find the clip of the cage scene, though, online, so I at least pointed my friend toward that and explained the final clip of him saying, "It wasn't all a lie."

UGH, I love that SCENE SO MUCH. Still to this day. I miss that show, too. While I've enjoyed the new one, the feeling just isn't the same for me.

[silk-knickers.livejournal.com]

I love that trope. A Fish Called Wanda has it, with Jaime Lee Curtis and John Cleese.

And I think a Shakespeare play that I haven't seen or read had a plot like that, didn't it? That was used as the basis for one of those 90s teen comedies... She's All That or Ten Things I Hate About You or maybe both of them, IDK. (Hmm, IMDB says both of them, and The Taming of the Shrew. Which I have seen, oops. I don't remember if the Shakespeare version has the confrontation that you're talking about, but I'm pretty sure both of the 90s teen comedies do.)

[silk-knickers.livejournal.com]

And How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, maybe?

[mackiemesser.livejournal.com]

Urgh, sorry about the horrible spammers.

Does The Maltese Falcon fit the trope?

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

That was the one I was trying to think of!
But it's a fairly simple concept ...

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

Mr and Mrs Smith might count? And Casino Royale, actually?

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was definitely thinking of both of those. Since her genre is second-world fantasy romance, I'm never sure what she's seen/read, and she's face blind, to boot.

[greenpear.livejournal.com]

I know I've seen it before but as soon as someone asks I can't remember where.

And I'm getting those spammers too.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Here via a Google search for "LJ spam huge crush". My LJ & comms are getting hit with this crap, too. We've managed to get 6 fake accounts suspended via multiple reporting:
http://daniel-vala.livejournal.com/652544.html

Wish I could help you with the trope, but I'd be hours on http://tvtropes.org/ getting destracted looking for it.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

I can't think of specific examples right now, but I'm also familiar with that.

Sorry about the terrible spam. What about locking the commenting on those entries? (http://www.livejournal.com/support/faq/23.html)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

The locking problem is that I never knew where they were going to strike -- I can't batch lock all old posts, and they just picked things at random. Fortunately they seem to be going away, I guess because of the efforts of people to block them.

[nikitangel.livejournal.com]

Hunger Games!

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

THanks! I've heard that -- I still haven't read/seen it, but that's definitely a plus for moving it up on my list.

[mystic-savage.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the spam. Good to see you still on here on LJ. Ran into Jenny at Fiore's the other day -- made me miss you. Currently watching Doc Martin (BIG LOVE!) and Breaking Bad.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Apparently I cannot send you party deets through LJ and I wasn't sure I had a current address for you -- but it's at my house, Nov. 30, from 7 to 11:30. If you need the address for the house (don't know if you remember it or not), send me mail privately at gwyneth at drizzle dot com.

I hope you can make it!

[belmanoir.livejournal.com]

I love that trope too! Wasn't there something like that at the end of The Enterprise Incident?

[belmanoir.livejournal.com]

Also that sucks about the spam. I've been getting it too! You should be able to delete the comm

[amnisias.livejournal.com]

I've had a spambot recently as well, since it was an old thread I just locked the comments down, it wasn't a vid or anything that people might still seek out. That might work for you, too?

As to the trope, the first movie that comes to my mind is Masquerade, an 80's thriller with Rob Lowe. Only problem - they never actually have that conversation, she only finds out through his testament. Dear god, I loved that movie....

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I remember that movie!!!!