~~and all you have to fear is fear itself...

there's something about some fics that just really seems to take over my -mind-. i mean, i just got an email, and it was directed towards -me- obviously, but it felt -weird- and -alien- because like, it's not part of the story. i'm seriously spazzing out with the stress. ahahahah, wow, this is really recommending the fic to you all, i'm sure, but. yah. it really is -about- a lot of stressfully, horribly panicky, tense, depressed, frightened people and i've been reading it for -hours- now, and it can't help but get to you, especially when you're doing it all in one sitting (just three chapters, i thought!)

so. i'm sharing my semi-misery, because i'm just nice like that. the fic is `ruses', and it's just one of the many semi-badfic recs from saber shadowkitten's page. i've been getting somewhat desperate for new fic to feed my flagging obsession (must not have obsessions flag, you know). plus it's vacation and i don't want to think. as is evidenced by my not finishing my slashfic meta post from yesterday. i'll probably post it tomorrow.

has anyone read that fic? if so, did it take over your mind? it's really doing a number on me. it's just so... tense. harry's slowly cracking, and it's a little too realistic. i'm getting this feeling of opressive doom, and it's like... well... scary. i don't usually read horror fic, and i don't like it, but this isn't horror, unless you think emotional torture and fear is horrific. and it's not the usual "draco doesn't love me" or vice versa fear/torture, it's more just this collection of circumstances and extreme amounts of guilt and dead people haunting you without actually haunting you, and secrets and more guilt, and how keeping secrets can really drive you insane.

it's sort of like edgar allan poe's `the tell-tale heart', except it's a lot longer. it has lots of really vivid nightmares in it-- not the sort where people die, but just the sort that make you afraid they're real and everyone -is- out to get you. or at least the person you're most afraid of.
    anyway. this is a weird, new sensation for me. i don't really read thrillers or horror novels, as i said. tension for me is usually of the emotional angst variety. and don't get me wrong, this is emotional angst, it's just not coming from internal sources, which adds a lot of notches to the fear factor. in `artful facade', there was a similar dynamic in the latest chapter, but there wasn't as much of it, and there was much more humor and silliness. still, killing someone in a fic where you're not evil or in a war, and are still just a `normal student' for all intents and purposes, is one of the most frightening things i can think of. not being in danger of death, but having killed.

this is really the root of harry's anxiety in so many fics, where he's going nigh insane because of cedric. if he blamed himself-- if he thought he basically killed cedric-- well, that is really a good source of mental devastation. imagine if you killed someone without meaning to. there are probably worse feelings, overall, but not many.
    anyway. that was a really weird fic-rec, if that's what this was. but really. gah. i can't even stop and read fluff instead. it'd just feel -wrong-. i need to know. gah. good thing i don't read many psychological thrillers is all i can say....

~~why smut.

this, in response to quire's latest post, since i don't know if i've exactly delineated my views on why and how smut/sex-scenes can be necessary and important to character development before....
    i think smut is necessary if the tension between two characters is ... combustible. if they spark, and ignite, and kinda are physical with each other. it's a chemistry thing. some people communicate with touch, rather than words. with some people, words always end up being lies, or half-truths, just because they are words. and maybe they can't even truly understand each other, and their deepest feelings, if they don't touch each other.

like... it can be a bridge. instead of dialogue, which often obscures as much as it reveals-- touching is more immediate, more honest. well, if used in a certain way. kissing isn't quite enough because you don't get the full-scale opportunity for body-language and large-scale transfiguration of self and mood-- like, people totally change, often enough, when they're being intimate like that. whole other sides to their personalities emerge, and their interaction with the other person is almost always different, and there's no easy way to reproduce it without the touching going on.

by leaving out the description of the touching, you're really leaving it all up to the imagination, which i think makes the relationship less vivid overall.
    i think if they came together in a non-verbal way, then it's necessary. if they're a cerebral couple, who do most of their bonding and communicating on a superego and ego level, then you may still find it interesting to include smut-- or rather, an account of them being physical-- just to show if they really change their dynamic when they're like that. i mean, you can't really -stay- cerebral very easily while having sex. inhibitions crumble, boundaries fray, repressed feelings emerge, and so on. it may not be considered valid to use a love confession uttered during an orgasmic moment, but there is a reason it often happens.
    so if you think there are repressed emotions there that aren't going to want to come out without prodding, you have three choices-- crying, drinking, or having sex. in the end, having sex allows the most range, i think.

most people writing smut of course, don't use it as a way of finding out about the relationship and the characters, and just have it be a playground for their own fantasies. this sort of smut is never necessary and is indeed probably semi-harmful to the development of the story. this is why i suppose PWPs are problematic, in most cases. you aren't furthering any sort of relationship dynamic, and the characters tend to be merely ciphers. it's also not helpful to have the sex dynamic -define- the overall dynamic. i mean, it happens in real life, but i don't find it enlightening when i'm reading about characters i care about, because it's sort of a short-cut in characterization that you can't really argue with, because in most cases, you don't have any canonical source to contradict you.
    sex, in a way, can be seen as an intimacy short-cut in general, and is often used that way. but it doesn't have to be. it could be a facet, a mirror, an outlet. although i suppose it's a delicate matter, to balance overly romanticizing it, and simply using it as an advancement of our and the characters' understanding.