~~the artist in the art, and why it's important to have the love, baby.

so i'm thinking about the fact that out of all the smallville fic out there that i've read (not -that- much, but still), the only writer who makes me fall in love with them and -want- to read about them is thamiris. and the thing that strikes me the most, when thinking of her, is just how much -she- loves them, how blindingly clear that is. and that maybe this love (and love-based understanding) for characters is essential to me, for my own enjoyment of the fic. i mean, definitely, a distant narrator and an unsentimental style can win me over also-- but really, the best stories of that type rely heavily on emotion as well-- just, supressed, sublimated emotion. they -imply- rather than -evoke- directly.

so maybe i'm just extremist in that i want my fiction to be mainly an emotional outlet for me, and i respond best to things where i feel that emotion informing the narrative. i feel that affectionateness, that lightness and ease, that -investment-. i don't mean that it's within the romance, but within the meta level, where you feel the attitude and path the author is taking with their own characters. that's similar to the way silvia and aja and ivy and maya make me adore h/d-- right along with them. that's blatantly clear, even though i couldn't pin it down, in anything they write. just, that -presence-, that sense of emotional weight.

i don't know, really, if my own love for harry & draco seeps into my fic. some of it, i think. i mean... i think it's more evident in the fluff, really. i seem to either write snarky fluff or really angry smutty angst. gar. i think the trick for that "love" button is (for me) humorous drama with smutty bits. heh.
    it seems obvious, i guess. if you don't love the characters, you're not likely to understand them as intimately. love-- i don't mean some shallow interest, i mean, love-- breeds understanding, i think. at least it does for a large number of writers, anyway. i don't know about "real people"-- i'm tempted to say in general, true love breeds understanding, but i'm sure a lot of people would argue with me.

i think a failure of understanding is really a failure of love.

( it gets way more meta and abstract(!!) from here on in, so. this all ties into my desire to see the artist in the artwork, and the sort of issues i have with my own need for sympathetic characterizations, which i'm wary of. and the relationship characterization has to `truth', either for the ideal character or the artist, is also interesting. )

... i should really have an icon for, `ponderous', shouldn't i ....
~~

and for everyone who (doesn't) care -
my reaction to last night's buffy:

guh! guh!
argh! argh! ARGH! nooooooo. *sniffle* wah.
THEY ARE SO EVIL... they can't do this to my widdle spikey-kins
*siiiigh*
*relief*
oh yes. i um... liked the flashbacks. ahahaha, oh, the glories of jossification >:D< *dances*