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reenkaif you're curious as to why i'm updating (and no you're not, but okay), it's because i'm at what might loosely be considered work and this is a -really- slow 'puter, so no vids. a faster 'puter would mean no vids too, 'cause they're all restricted. but anyway.
since i'm not quite at the withdrawal stage with qaf right now, i'm not reading transcripts but rather thinking slash meta as usual (does anyone else think about this as much as me? i'm a freak aren't i).
actually being in a primarily visually based slashy obsession for the first time (ie, i love them 'cause they look so right together more than any other reason), is making me more conscious than usual of the weird identity issues here. i'm not a straight female, exactly, but... it just seems that identifying with gay males is more... subversive, cuts closer to the quick somehow that just the usual reader identification with a hetero male.
a heterosexual male would be the obvious Other, on the opposite end of the spectrum, but there's such a built-in distance there that one is always aware that one is not that (being a semi-straight girl, anyway). there are all sorts of factors going into that.
but connecting with a gay male character is more complex, because there's more fuzziness, less built-in barriers and reactions. as a ssf (semi-straight female-- not saying queer because the word's too loaded and strong in this case), one doesn't know quite how to relate, so one creates a whole new paradigm, almost. it's not quite as slip-in-easy as with a female, but it's definitely different from a straight male. possibly this is why queer females are not uncommon in the slash-writing circles.
i sort of almost -forget- who i am while lost in this world of two-boys-in-love, and yet i -don't-, i -can't-. it's a weird feeling. possibly, this is why femmeslash doesn't move me so much, usually. instead of forgetting, escaping myself, i would be thrust very very firmly into my own skin-- i -am- a girl who likes girls. somehow being a girl who likes boys isn't as personal, doesn't single me -out- so much. but as a girl who likes girls, i'm very hyper-aware, and there's this groundedness, this enforcing of identity. and that's an attractionin itself-- sometimes it's nice to be closer to yourself. but slash, to me, is all about blurring the boundaries and allowing a sort of delirious fusion. i can be queer and straight and nothing at all. i can just be -sexual-, someone whose mind can almost elude the usual classifications.
which, of course, is as disturbing as it is addictive -.-
somewhat perversely, knowing that some (most?) of the qaf actors are straight (in both versions) is rather bothering me. which might be limited thinking but there you go. it's like, the ice is thin or something. thinking of them as straight men in any degree whatsoever just totally deflates me, even though i'm all going on about the weird fuzzy boundaries. sigh. i was rather ridiculously pleased the guy who plays justin is out. like. eeek. sohappy! a bit guilty about it though. though i mean, it's important to imagine they're enjoying it, somehow, otherwise... i mean. the whole "get into character" thing. can you get into a sexuality as part of getting into character? *laughs* oh man -.-
~~
apropos of nothing except a lame-ish qaf vid, i have this huge urge to do a `closer' layout for this lj (and just how nonfitting would -that- be). how, i dunno, but it would have lots of thorns, red splashes, and black dangling weird objects. anyone who'd look would think i'm this horribly angsty teenager. just, using "you get me closer to god" as a heartfelt curse pushes all the right buttons in my head. rage and divinity and need and fear and descent into madness and love, love everywhere, even in hell. love, especially in hell.
i have this deep need to write fics about love in descent, love that follows-- or at least, it's a major theme in my mind and writing. there are major fairy-tales i associate with it: persephone, orpheus, tam lin, the snow queen, the little mermaid, beauty and the beast to a degree. true love always winds up in hell at one point. the changing psyche can't help but go under-- where the raw things are, where the hidden things are. that's partly why the dv "follow you to the gates of hell" speech evokes such powerful emotional responses-- there are all sorts of pre-existing symbolic resonances there.
there's a reason these are called the orphic Mysteries (which probably means next to nothing to most of you and i can't even coherently explain it so i'm sorry). that's why, i think, i want to write my tam-lin!h/d one day, partly where my carnival!h/d was drawing from-- the mysteries of desire & wish-fulfillment, the quest to see the Other as they truly are, and discover who you are in the bargain. peeling away the layers of masks, going deeper and deeper until all is darkness and pain is a tangible thing, breatheable like the air.
i guess it's just that one day, i want to write that story about love in descent, truly symbolically fleshed out, something that traces the path of the lover to what is really self-realization, the discovery of self within a mirror of the Other. the mirror-world, the world of darkness, of mysteries. and since i love harry&draco so much, i wanted to write it about -them-.
i don't think this darkness is usually portrayed the way -i- see it-- as cathartic, as necessary. i don't see "angst" that's written in an intensely fearless way, where all this pain and desecration is meant almost as worship. (romantic) love needs pain-- it feeds off of it, just as people in general feed off the source of the darkness in them, let it heal them. darkness isn't just fear and lostness-- it's also starlit skies, the knowledge that you've got nothing to lose, the ability to feel awe, the need for mysteries.
life is a fleeting thing-- especially life in the sunlight. stretching out everywhere, to every side of us, is the endless dark, like the ocean covering most of the planet, and us standing on one small sandy shore. everything that's hidden and yet true is waiting for us to be able to see without illumination-- or perhaps without external light. it is only in darkness that you realize you always carried a fiercely bright internal light, a homing beacon. i've always intuitively believed that this descent into darkness is really a home-coming, a return to a deeper self. the pain recedes when you accept it, just as the darkness fades when you let it inside you, because in the end it was always there, baring its teeth at you every night. and you were baring your teeth back at it. you were always old friends, you and the darkness. your stories can only be stronger if they're stories told -in- the dark, with the dark wrapped around you and whispering in your ear, reminding you of the mysteries you can only sense and never really uncover. and neither were they meant to be.
the thing is, death isn't the worst thing-- believing in endings, that's the worst thing. loss isn't final. pain is a message to pay attention, not an answer to the question of, "why" or "what" or "how". love can be a message to pay attention too, just like pain-- and so often, they go together, pushing you down, threatening to drown you. i want to see more fic about what happens when you let yourself drown, not in a resigned, passive way, but in an entirely active and hopeful way. this descent, this drowning, is merely another journey, merely another direction. even if you're lost, you're going the right way because in the end, you don't have to move. all you have to do is see without looking-- encompass the contradictions. accept love and hate both. believe that you're alive. and then suddenly the barren wasteland where you thought you stood becomes something else entirely, and you're closer.
since i'm not quite at the withdrawal stage with qaf right now, i'm not reading transcripts but rather thinking slash meta as usual (does anyone else think about this as much as me? i'm a freak aren't i).
actually being in a primarily visually based slashy obsession for the first time (ie, i love them 'cause they look so right together more than any other reason), is making me more conscious than usual of the weird identity issues here. i'm not a straight female, exactly, but... it just seems that identifying with gay males is more... subversive, cuts closer to the quick somehow that just the usual reader identification with a hetero male.
a heterosexual male would be the obvious Other, on the opposite end of the spectrum, but there's such a built-in distance there that one is always aware that one is not that (being a semi-straight girl, anyway). there are all sorts of factors going into that.
but connecting with a gay male character is more complex, because there's more fuzziness, less built-in barriers and reactions. as a ssf (semi-straight female-- not saying queer because the word's too loaded and strong in this case), one doesn't know quite how to relate, so one creates a whole new paradigm, almost. it's not quite as slip-in-easy as with a female, but it's definitely different from a straight male. possibly this is why queer females are not uncommon in the slash-writing circles.
i sort of almost -forget- who i am while lost in this world of two-boys-in-love, and yet i -don't-, i -can't-. it's a weird feeling. possibly, this is why femmeslash doesn't move me so much, usually. instead of forgetting, escaping myself, i would be thrust very very firmly into my own skin-- i -am- a girl who likes girls. somehow being a girl who likes boys isn't as personal, doesn't single me -out- so much. but as a girl who likes girls, i'm very hyper-aware, and there's this groundedness, this enforcing of identity. and that's an attractionin itself-- sometimes it's nice to be closer to yourself. but slash, to me, is all about blurring the boundaries and allowing a sort of delirious fusion. i can be queer and straight and nothing at all. i can just be -sexual-, someone whose mind can almost elude the usual classifications.
which, of course, is as disturbing as it is addictive -.-
somewhat perversely, knowing that some (most?) of the qaf actors are straight (in both versions) is rather bothering me. which might be limited thinking but there you go. it's like, the ice is thin or something. thinking of them as straight men in any degree whatsoever just totally deflates me, even though i'm all going on about the weird fuzzy boundaries. sigh. i was rather ridiculously pleased the guy who plays justin is out. like. eeek. sohappy! a bit guilty about it though. though i mean, it's important to imagine they're enjoying it, somehow, otherwise... i mean. the whole "get into character" thing. can you get into a sexuality as part of getting into character? *laughs* oh man -.-
~~
apropos of nothing except a lame-ish qaf vid, i have this huge urge to do a `closer' layout for this lj (and just how nonfitting would -that- be). how, i dunno, but it would have lots of thorns, red splashes, and black dangling weird objects. anyone who'd look would think i'm this horribly angsty teenager. just, using "you get me closer to god" as a heartfelt curse pushes all the right buttons in my head. rage and divinity and need and fear and descent into madness and love, love everywhere, even in hell. love, especially in hell.
i have this deep need to write fics about love in descent, love that follows-- or at least, it's a major theme in my mind and writing. there are major fairy-tales i associate with it: persephone, orpheus, tam lin, the snow queen, the little mermaid, beauty and the beast to a degree. true love always winds up in hell at one point. the changing psyche can't help but go under-- where the raw things are, where the hidden things are. that's partly why the dv "follow you to the gates of hell" speech evokes such powerful emotional responses-- there are all sorts of pre-existing symbolic resonances there.
there's a reason these are called the orphic Mysteries (which probably means next to nothing to most of you and i can't even coherently explain it so i'm sorry). that's why, i think, i want to write my tam-lin!h/d one day, partly where my carnival!h/d was drawing from-- the mysteries of desire & wish-fulfillment, the quest to see the Other as they truly are, and discover who you are in the bargain. peeling away the layers of masks, going deeper and deeper until all is darkness and pain is a tangible thing, breatheable like the air.
i guess it's just that one day, i want to write that story about love in descent, truly symbolically fleshed out, something that traces the path of the lover to what is really self-realization, the discovery of self within a mirror of the Other. the mirror-world, the world of darkness, of mysteries. and since i love harry&draco so much, i wanted to write it about -them-.
i don't think this darkness is usually portrayed the way -i- see it-- as cathartic, as necessary. i don't see "angst" that's written in an intensely fearless way, where all this pain and desecration is meant almost as worship. (romantic) love needs pain-- it feeds off of it, just as people in general feed off the source of the darkness in them, let it heal them. darkness isn't just fear and lostness-- it's also starlit skies, the knowledge that you've got nothing to lose, the ability to feel awe, the need for mysteries.
life is a fleeting thing-- especially life in the sunlight. stretching out everywhere, to every side of us, is the endless dark, like the ocean covering most of the planet, and us standing on one small sandy shore. everything that's hidden and yet true is waiting for us to be able to see without illumination-- or perhaps without external light. it is only in darkness that you realize you always carried a fiercely bright internal light, a homing beacon. i've always intuitively believed that this descent into darkness is really a home-coming, a return to a deeper self. the pain recedes when you accept it, just as the darkness fades when you let it inside you, because in the end it was always there, baring its teeth at you every night. and you were baring your teeth back at it. you were always old friends, you and the darkness. your stories can only be stronger if they're stories told -in- the dark, with the dark wrapped around you and whispering in your ear, reminding you of the mysteries you can only sense and never really uncover. and neither were they meant to be.
the thing is, death isn't the worst thing-- believing in endings, that's the worst thing. loss isn't final. pain is a message to pay attention, not an answer to the question of, "why" or "what" or "how". love can be a message to pay attention too, just like pain-- and so often, they go together, pushing you down, threatening to drown you. i want to see more fic about what happens when you let yourself drown, not in a resigned, passive way, but in an entirely active and hopeful way. this descent, this drowning, is merely another journey, merely another direction. even if you're lost, you're going the right way because in the end, you don't have to move. all you have to do is see without looking-- encompass the contradictions. accept love and hate both. believe that you're alive. and then suddenly the barren wasteland where you thought you stood becomes something else entirely, and you're closer.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-29 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-29 11:18 am (UTC)thanks~:) man, sometimes i need to know i'm not tripping alone :D
no subject
Date: 2003-05-30 07:37 am (UTC)I just want to say that your comment to Aja's last post was really...wow. I agree. Lots. *respects you*
~Chresimos
no subject
Date: 2003-05-30 10:03 am (UTC)heh. i was afraid that comment was too harsh somehow, and i'm glad people seemed to think it was well thought-out (since er... that's not exactly usual for me ^^; hee)
and i don't really expect people to respond to stuff like this. like, once you start talking about the orphic mysteries and queer as folk in one post, you know you've lost most people >:D
no subject
Date: 2003-05-30 09:01 am (UTC)oddly, i kind of like when straight boys play gay. like, ewan and jonny rhys meyers smooching in velvet golmine is amazing to me, super-hot, because they are straight. yet. they are kissing other boys and let's face it, probably enjoying it. kissing is usually nice, so i doubt that the straight boys are all 'eww, eww'. but i find it kind of...romantic? that these boys who wouldn't normally think to kiss each other are. that makes very little sense, is not clear at all. but still. point it? i like it.
the thing is, death isn't the worst thing-- believing in endings, that's the worst thing.
that's true, if you mean what i think that you mean. i really like stories that explore - in an intelligent, creative way- what happens after the big end, the curtain closes on the fial smooch. a big thing that i had to learn is that there is no happy ending. i have always been a faeie tale girl, drifting from moment to moment, expecting the one person to sweep me off my feet and voila! save me, rescue me, lead me off to some castle in scotland. but then i met that one person and there was no castle; there was a broken fridge where everything goes bad after two days, getting addicted to cigarettes, no money, no food, working too much, three pairs of torn sneakers, a cluttered apartment. that's my greatest disappointment, that love came with bandaids and tears and weeds and "don't touch me right now".
love can be a message to pay attention too, just like pain-- and so often, they go together, pushing you down, threatening to drown you.
and too many people just let themselves drown. i think that there is real bravery in a person fighting to stay above the water.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-30 10:26 am (UTC)when they kiss they smile and justin....well.... okay i'm getting carried away here... but let's just say i wouldn't care if they were straight if it's brian and justin because ooooooh they want each other. heeee. (my new obsession, can you tell?)
but.
say, more inhibited actors-- they don't sell me. and most people are more inhibited than gale, brian's actor. that man is sex, i'm telling you. and justin is, too. ahem.
anyway, but say, michael & his doctor totally don't sell me. most of them only sort of sell me when they kiss, -forget- when they touch. i can see that they're not into it. i mean, they're comfortable, yeah okay, but they're not -into- it.
so i suppose it's a question of each particular actor, then. hee. and if they're -not- sex (like velvet goldmine's actors), then it's more difficult to provide your own viewing hormones when you watch (like i probably do with brian&justin), and you notice the lack of chemistry.
and sure, straight men can have chemistry. hello, michael rosenbaum and everything that moves ^^;
but yah. most actors aren't that way ^^;;
and, heh. my whole shtick was about letting yourself drown, man. listen to `closer'. yeah, it's all about the destructive erotic force. it's all about dying to live. and it's not a healthy thing or a brave thing, but it fascinates me, the way darkness fascinates me. the way being flawed and angry and in love with madness fascinates me.
i'm rather darker than you, i think >:D
oh, and believing in no endings.... i was going more with this, which is a quote from `the last unicorn':
MOLLY GRUE: But what if there isn't a happy ending at all?
SCHMENDRICK: There are no happy endings, because nothing ends.
it's nothing i can encapsulate, but i just mean believing in endings is the source of grief. the discovery that there is no happily ever after, there is only happily (and that's a quote from somewhere too, btw).
i'm never really all that specific. but i guess it's a semi-spiritual idea, that of infinity.
believing in endings means you will see them everywhere, means you will be always grieving, always missing things, nostalgic or avoidant or afraid. and the idea that death is the end is probably one of the biggest fears.
and there are-- endings everywhere. neverending.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-02 07:33 am (UTC)michael seems very straight to me. his doctor is really gay, you know, but i never believe michael. that's one of the things i liked about the british qaf - i believed it with all of them. and why i like the movie 'get real' despite it's sillyness - i like the dorky led boy, i really thought that he was gay for ages. you don't find ewan and jonny from velvet goldmine to be sex? they are so sex. and they totally liked it, jonny said that ewan was beautiful and that kissing him was a "perk" of the role. *fans self* i find that a lot of straight actors do have chemistry, personally, because it doesn't matter who they actually sleep with - it's a character they are playing. and as actors, they will usually not just lie in bed like fish going "when is this same-sex kissing going to be over?" you know? besides that, michelle williams and chloe sevigny making out on a bed is hot to me no matter what. doesn't matter if the two of them were the straightest of the straight in real life, if they can convince me on screen, that is what works.
must read 'the last unicorn'. perhaps i will hunt it down today...
no subject
Date: 2003-06-02 12:33 am (UTC)I totally feel that sexuality can be part of a skilled actor's role. (Of course, I also like to think that people of different sexualities aren't particularly different from each other, so you don't need to pay attention to me.) Actors routinely portray things much more complicated than who they're attracted to or even what type of person they're attracted to, so it seems perfectly natural to me for good actors to portray people of different sexualities than they are. Witness Iam McKellen; he pulled off an asexual Gandalf beautifully, and he has also played hetersexual people.
If you ever write a story like that, I'd certainly give it a try; it sounds fascinating and so much more fulfilling than so much other fiction if done properly.
I'm so glad I added you!
no subject
Date: 2003-06-02 12:55 am (UTC)the -sensation- of what it's -like- to act is a bit hard to grasp on an intuitive level without having tried it, and maybe you can't fully know, 'cause people have different techniques, too. i feel like i -sort- of know, being a writer and having characters speak to me, but it's still really different...
i really wonder how you can emote so much without getting caught up in it-- and i imagine some actors do-- get into character, get caught up in it. and if/when that happens... do you still retain your straightness? i bet some actors do-- ie, they're kissing this other guy but they feel nothing and are just making these noises. but... i dunno... if they -do- get into it, do they shake it off and immediately go back to being straight afterwards? silly questions, but i suppose it's just intuitively problematic for me, even though i know it's "just acting". heh.
i would be satisfied if it was as real as the tears they cry in sad scenes. like, i've heard that some actors really do get upset-- not just "think of something sad", but they do -get upset- at that time. when i was little, i'd heard that it's a common practice to use tear-drops or think of your dog dying. but if it was me, i'd just be crying 'cause i'm into the scene.
so by that extension, if i was kissing and i was in character, i'd get turned on. heh. if i was straight... i dunno. i think that'd make me feel weird. but i dunno, probably depends on the actor, really.
oh, and thanks for reading, btw~:)