~~gah. more ramblings on love. and doom. doomy doom. friendship and doom. doomed friendship!

[reenka]

see. this is ...this is... see. i don't know. all the smallville watchers. you knew this was coming. and, well, if i watched the show more than sporadically... well, i wouldn't have. it's just... wrong. it's all wrong. maybe though, i'm just a wimp. see, all the lana/clark shippers (i suppose they must be out there) aren't exactly having the time of their lives either, but...

how can you really keep watching, knowing something is going to come to a bloody end? isn't it like living, knowing you'll die in 3 years or something? i mean, for every squee, for every eye-fuck you bounced over, you're going to pay back in angst and worrying and hating the storyline later. maybe this is just the same as reading angst, and wanting to read angst-- not that i ever do. i write and read angst, but i don't ever -mean- to or -want- to. i just don't get that. who goes out looking for tragedy? and again, maybe i'm just a wimp.

seriously, i'm barely a shipper-- okay, so i read a few smallville stories and i liked them-- really a bunch of good writing there. but. the show is 95% lame and the other 5% are cheesy. sigh. i'm -so- not attracted to clark, and honestly, how can i bear watching lex, knowing that he's like... walking around with a self-destruct button. now, especially.
    i just seriously can't like clark at all. maybe this is why some people have a problem with harry-- you know-- moralistic, straight-laced as a ruler, blinded by his "ethics", casually cruel if he thinks he's right, and so on. i dunno, i don't see harry like that. i could never write harry if i thought he was anything like clark. honestly, people dislike lana because she's vacuous and blind but honestly, clark is sooo much worse because he has -potential- and he just keeps wasting it, trying to be like his father in his way, just like lex. it makes me sick.

i remember last season's buffy after the half-way mark. i was really almost choking on it. it's not that i want there to always be a happy-go-lucky romance. it's not that sex needs to be involved. i'm sort of torn. if i'm a shipper, it's because i -believe- in the two people, and how they're "meant to be together", how they're the "one true pairing"-- ie, they wouldn't really be right or "true" with anyone else. so while i'm okay with friendship and stuff, inevitably it becomes... choosing someone -over- the ex because inevitably that someone will come along, and you're free after all. on the other hand, if you're "together" you can -dump- them, which is even worse (you'd think you can't dump friends, but that's not true, that's basically what clark did this episode, isn't it). i don't know. it's not about sex.
    aja probably understands where i'm coming from in this, because of being an h/d shipper for the draco trilogy, which i am too. it's that same dynamic. friends. maybe they should remain friends. it's better than being enemies, isn't it. things could always be worse. you shouldn't endanger a good thing. count your blessings. and so on. if one was motivated by fear, you'd say it's -safer- and more -stable- for them to remain friends. it works, and they've gotten good at it, even. no guarrantee that anything would improve if they were "more than friends" and indeed things could very easily get worse. even -friends- sour, but common wisdom goes that lovers sour faster.

so what can i say to that?
    yah. it's a danger. you're risking everything, following through on love like that, and you could very easily be left with nothing. you could always, always be left with nothing, at any moment. they're so fleeting, the moments. one minute, you think you're okay, and you're safe, and the next, everything falls apart and you don't know who you are anymore, and you don't know how you can deal with this huge, overwhelming heartache.

you're risking everything. and what do you stand to gain?

well. it sure as hell isn't sex. see, that's just the easy answer. it's not like the only difference between friends and lovers is sex. we all know that, but for some reason we like to forget, for one reason or another. maybe we're too bitter. maybe we're too naive.
    maybe i'm too naive.
    it's about love. it's about being in love. let's forget clark/lex and buffy/spike and trilogy!harry/draco and just go with another, similar pair-- chloe/clark. they're just friends. aren't they? everything is fine. isn't it? they could just keep going like they were and everything will be fine wouldn't it?

and of course, the writers of the show suck, so they too made it a sex issue, at least at the surface. and maybe it's just the stupidities of human nature. when you love someone "like that", you want them, and not just in the physical way. lots of people are in love who are asexual, old, paralyzed, or even children. i believe you can be in love when you're 11, before you want anything more than maybe a kiss. the point is, you -want- them. you want them with you. you want them by you. always. always. always. possessive and regressive and old-fashioned? maybe. but human, isn't it.
    people -bond-. they make pairs. and out of all the human bonds we make, we make one of a special sort. if we truly give our heart to someone, if it's really love-- there isn't room for anything else-- anyone else. and sure, it's a matter of choices. we'd have to choose to not be afraid. we'd have to be honest with ourselves.
    you'd have to ask yourself, what do you want more than anything? what-- and who-- do you need more than anything? if, like in the third task, the person you'd miss most was to be taken from you, who would it be?

and see, that's why i want to see romance where friendship would suffice. because if you're not with that person, the person who's everything to you, who are you with? what are you doing? why are you limiting yourself? why are you afraid?
    if i'm a shipper, if i believe in a romance, i believe in the power of the love between those two people. i believe they're what the other needs. i believe they're each other's missing piece of the puzzle that makes everything fall into place, that makes everything okay. how can i be okay with them never exploring that, with them trying to find echoes of that feeling with someone else? because isn't that just so -wrong- that it hurts? how can you not be with that person in every way possible-- that person means all those things to you. no one else could mean a -quarter- of those things, so what are you doing, then. how do you justify it? why are you hiding from what could be just-- a miracle, something that's worth -living- for, something that's worth giving everything for?

one loves one's friends, yes, and that's an abiding love. but if you're just staying friends because of something, i don't accept that. it's not natural. friends are friends because they are content to be the way they are, because they have everything they'd want from each other, hopefully. otherwise, there are all sorts of unresolved issues and resentment and pent-up anger. sex, i think, just muddles the issue. you can have sex with anyone-- friends, relatives, bunnies, who the hell cares? it doesn't matter. sure, one or the other may be more sick comparatively, but again, so what? the world didn't end just because you fucked a bunny. okay, so the bunny is traumatized. but you get the idea.
    sex only matters if you're doing it with the one you want in other ways-- hopefully in every way. you want them, you need them, you crave them. they're a drug, they're a star, they're the entire heavens. you need to touch them, to breathe them in, to be inside them, to have them inside you. this is not. sex. this is just-- expressed as sex.

so really, it's pretty simple. if i'm a shipper, i believe character a and character b are in love. someone who thinks anya and giles make a really good partnership isn't an anya/giles shipper. someone who thinks they should always be together, and that anya is secretly pining away for giles and that she will never be happy without giles by her side, and that whether she knows it or not, giles is all she really needs to be complete-- notice, no mention of sex-- that is an anya/giles shipper (to me).
    an example of this would be how i see kirk & spock. i just realized they fit these criteria, in my head. need, want, pine away, need the other by their side. and the idea of reading about sex between them actually squicks me. i mean, seriously. no. i think they're in love. there can be no greater, deeper, stronger love for either of them. i just want them to be together. i'm not saying sex would ruin anything-- i'm just saying it's not necessary for me, in order to see a couple "that way", to see them sexually.
    and if someone seems to act like that-- has all the so-called "symptoms"-- and yet they're calling it "friendship"-- it ain't friendship. it's full-on, raging passionate love. no doubt about it. and if you -don't- have the symptoms-- i mean, that's nice. er. yes. do i care? er.....

so what was my point again? er. i dunno. just trilogy!harry&draco, presently-just-friends!buffy/spike and sort-of-no-longer-friends!clark&lex were all mixing in my head. i dislike the idea of keeping any of these relationships as being "just friends" because i think it cheats the fullness of their essential natures, and being true to your essential nature is the ultimate goal (to me) of any human being. and once again, it's not that i need them to be fucking, as my comp lit professor would say. it is my belief, in all three cases, that the people in question are in love (and they do display the symptoms). friendship is great and fulfilling in its own right, but if you ever cling to it as some sort of refuge, it won't be one. it will crumble around you. the truth will out. and you will have nothing.

sigh. and in conclusion, i'd like to just add, that all that nonwithstanding, yes, i do so want all three couples to be, in fact, fucking. not because they need to, or have to, or would even want to. just because, you know. eheheheh. it'd sure make -me- happy >:D<
~~

and oh. how do i love my fandom, let me count the ways:
bitter-as-ashes!true-love.
mmmm, aja!fic and, mmmmm, ivy!fic.
they stroke each other's hair close their eyes, mouths open, they kiss each other like the world is ending. And for them it always is.

wah. i love you guys.

i am happy.

p.s. - this whole... tearing myself open over fictional characters thing is really... kind of ...on the unhealthy side, isn't it? *sigh*

Comments

Why "Just" Friends?

[franzeska]

Why can't friendship be the most important thing? This keeps coming up in my Rennaisance English classes. In England, in that period, the Cult of Male Friendship was in full flower and many of those vaunted friendships contained what we would now identify as sexual or romantic elements. They were still classified as friendships because that was considered more important than (heterosexual) romantic love... or sometimes the het love is more important. It's hard to tell. Some plays seem to be all about negotiating between the relationship with the best friend and the relationship with the mistress. We might say that the men were actually in love with each other and not with their women, but I think that ignores that culture's preference for friendship as the primary emotional bond.

To me, the difference between friends and lovers is sex and nothing more. I don't view being 'in love' as fundamentally different from 'loving' someone. Both exist on an emotional continuum for me that ranges from indifferent to... something? I personally am not capable of having a real best friend and a real romantic partner at the same time. I can have casual friends and a lover I'm crazy about. I can have an intense friendship with the dynamics of a romantic relationship but with no sex and no sexual interest (I've had a couple of those). I can have a casual fling and a best friend. I am monogamous not in my dating habits but in my strong emotional attachments. I would be interested to see how polyamorous people handle their various friendships.

Re: Why "Just" Friends?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

hmmm. well, i didn't mean to say, "just". did i say just?
er. i worship friendship just like those people in the rennaisance, i do. and i understand where you're coming from.
it's just... hmm. my main point is that you shouldn't have sex with someone other than your best friend if you care about them that much. like, i find that silly.
if you REALLY REALLY LOVE THEM, how/why is it "not sexual"? to me almost all love is sexual except if i find the person actively squicky-- ie, my relatives, some of my more ill-washed friends. sex is easy. like i said, sex is ...well... sex. why not add it to this great central relationship? why is it desireable to just have semi-meaningless sex with someone while really loving someone else, "platonically"?

i don't know if it's an issue of "in love" vs "loving", for me. i know i can be (as usual) obscure and not clear... but honestly, there aren't a lot of words for it.
i meant... one "loves" -all- one's friends. one's dog. one's third-grade teacher. one's little sister. and so on.
and then there's the person one REALLY loves. you're right ,it's a continuum, of course. but did i say it was qualitatively different? i suppose it may have seemed that way.

i just meant... when you have That One Person, it is the most important thing, i just don't know if it's "Friendship". because as huge and overwhelming and strong as it is, if you don't call it love, then how can "romantic love" be more spectacular? it can't. i think romantic love is a misleading concept, anyway.

i just like the idea of "one love". you really really love one person, and it's love. you have a layer of need/want/obsessiveness that can flare up, that makes it "in love". er. not that being in love is better or stronger. mostly, i just think that if people care so very much for each other, extraneous terms and relationships that take up spaces this one relationship isn't taking up are... pointless.

maybe i don't understand the idea of not wanting sex with this person who means everything to you. i mean... if you'd have sex with someone who means -less- to you, how can you not want -them-? i dunno. i suppose that blur all boundaries completely, but then, boundaries are pretty blurred in my head. sex doesn't decide anything, to me, simply because in my world, one can easily fuck anything/anyone. not that sex isn't meaningful. it is. it should/could be. but really, it's not enough for me to separate anything with, simply because it's so easy, somehow. maybe i'm just weird, and have a looser & much more fluid concept of sexuality than most people.

i mean, there are people who aren't bi, for instance, so a "best friend" of the "wrong gender" would be a serious obstacle. that just kind of annoys me, the wrong gender thing. hmm. it's a "love the one you're with" kind of deal, to me. really really loving someone and yet thinking their body is icky and boring hasn't really happened to me. but, you know, that's just me ^^

[franzeska]

I agree with most of what you've said as applied to *me*. I'm just arguing that it doesn't apply to everyone. Some people don't seem to function on the monogamy model in the first place. Some other people have... err... special sexual needs. Granted, I could never really connect emotionally with anyone who couldn't deal with my interest in BDSM, but some people do and they tend to look elsewhere to satisfy those needs. People can also be more or less physical. I am 100% physical. Love/emotion/whathaveyou is never, ever a cerebral thing divorced from the flesh for me. I try not to become too emotionally involved with people who I could *never* be attracted to sexually, but such people do exist and sometimes they sneak under my guard.