[bleh]

[reenka]

"Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back -- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you." - Frederick Buechner

I love that quote, man.


There's something delightfully evil about it, something that reaches into me and -squeezes-. It is, in itself, what writing should be-- full of dark, potent, fearsome truth, told in ways that startle you.

I mean, I disagree. I think the funnest sin is probably lust (heh), but yes. I forget what draws me forward, this strange greed for insight I have. I feel like if I -understand- what makes people tick, if I really get a grasp on reality somehow, then... maybe the torment of living will be a little less. It's silly, I guess. Knowledge is more likely to be a burden than a source of peace. Peace probably comes from the acceptance of one's unknowing. Something like "I am foolish but I love."

Anger always seemed rather sexual to me. It makes sense on some sort of visceral level-- adrenaline, desire, consumption, greed, death. It's all rolled together in rage. Primal, raw fury at the elements and our own mortality. If life is pain, then the instinctive response to life is anger, in a way, isn't it? It's either that or the flat limpness of despair. Same thing, except you don't enjoy it and drown soundlessly, your emotions eaten up along with everything else.

I'm scared of the darkness in some people's writing a lot of times. Well, not that, but just how normal those writers themselves usually seem. They hide their darkness, they pretend(?) this little box is their writing and their pain and this little box is their "hello, pleased to meet you" self. I read their journals looking for hints of the dark passions and fears and the sheer rage I notice in their fics, and all I see is "I walked my dog today". Perhaps it's just that people pretend they're something they're not, and perhaps it's just that I myself should learn restraint.

It's scary to be naked and honest about it, I guess. Vulnerability, all that. But to me, it's scarier to pretend you're something other than what you are. What if the real self disappears if you hide it long enough? What if the darkness settles in deeper while you're not looking? It's just... something tells me that the only real way to escape the rage is to say 'yes, this is what I am, and I consume myself; I want you to see me'.
~~

I'm really liking the Rentboy!Malfoy fic by shaggirl-- which, for some reason, is one of the very very few I stumble across without trying-- but... heh. It reminds me how I can't really enjoy writing angry!humiliating!H/D myself (though I can read it). If I ever could. This whole "life is rage" phenomenon has always been the driving emotion behind H/D for me, but I think it's gotten more difficult for me to really enjoy it. I've never wanted to really see them hurt. I don't enjoy hurting them. And yet... it's hard not to, considering their situation.


I can't really empathize with people who like to torture Draco (or any other character), I think. I just don't get it. It's the whole sadism thing, even in a fictional scenario. While I understand -pain- and -anger- and all that seems related, I think anything that makes the interaction between two people sadistic in nature (to them as well as to the other) is... wrong. Sad, I guess. Broken. Not only -dark- but... fatalistic, which is what really bothers me. I'd get pretty upset if I had to write something I saw as being fatalistic and probably kill off the main characters in a fit of pique. Though... I mean, I don't see the Rentboy!Malfoy H/D as being sadistic in nature. It's more hurt/comfort (where they both hurt and both comfort). Which just messes with me, but. It's different.

Maybe it's that even as I think a lot of people over-nicefy their characters and blunt their edges, neither do I want to read a romance about two people I find emotionally blind and unlikable. I won't -care- if you tell me that Harry and Draco are just emotional pain-junkies and their own bond is that of the power games they'd always played out together. Yes, I think there's inevitably going to be pain and humiliation and darkness there, but there has to be more, or it's pointless.

I overreact to the idea of enjoying (fictional) pain, even as I totally understand it, I think. A part of me just thinks it's cruel and cruelty and love... shouldn't be in bed together. Though this hasn't stopped me from writing it, of course. Ahhh, contradictions feeding upon contradictions.

Regardless, I definitely think that Harry's rage against Draco is really rage against himself. That's what makes it so powerful. And that if/when he -forgave- Draco, he'd be making peace with himself. (And I mean that metaphorically. No need to hit me over the head.) I just wish the reader wasn't supposed to enjoy the painful process of it. I just wish witnessing the destruction of self wasn't somehow pretty.
~~

Says here that Aja's H/D dynamic is that of "best enemies". Heeeee!! That just made me happy.

See, the thing about them is... in a way, they don't make sense nearly at all without this healthy pinch of idealism thrown in. No idealism? No worky. Seriously! It's almost like learning to hear the secret music... or seeing dead people or something. A little insanity is in order.

I think that's why if you asked me right now who writes the best H/D, I'd say Aja, actually. Huh. I never realized -why- before, though. It's because, well... there's always that sense of magic, I guess. No matter what they do, it's just clear to the reader that there's Something Going On there. It's clear they need each other, not because of lust or starcrossed love or disillusionment, but because of who they are as characters when seen through this lens. I can't explain what this lens -is- any more than I can explain how you -know- when you're in love. You just -know-.

Best enemies, indeed. See, it's all about the contradictions.

...Don't worry, I sound like a lunatic to myself, too. That is, when I'm not beating my chest and growling, or something. Yeah. The problem with me is... okay, the problem is... everything has to be either Very Deep or Very Funny. And if it's neither, it had better be -good- porn. Pretty much. Yeah.