*sigh*

[reenka]

All right, I know this'll sound stupid, but bear with me:
    I was rereading bits of Prufrock's Levity series, and even reading little snippets of `Levity' hits me where it hurts (and by that I mean: it kills me), and I was actually surprised. Just because I care so much and it's not that I'm as obsessed and fixated on the pairing as I am with H/D, so a part of me thinks it shouldn't be able to hurt me that much.
    I mean, I'm not addicted or anything-- I can go months without a single S/R fic, so you'd think I wouldn't be this sensitive, y'know, just because the writing is gorgeous and the characterizations are unbelievable and the emotion is palpable. Right. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Pru is bloody brilliant, of course. All I can say is, thank god for the happy of `Vector' and `Gasp', which I hadn't actually read before today, and ohhhh how happy did it make me?? SO HAPPY. LIKE THE VERY GOOD CRACK, I tell you.

And then it hit me (duh!)-- love is universal.
    It's always the same thing, the same emotion being tapped, no matter who the characters are. Love is universal. It seems painfully obvious, but it's so easy to forget, in fandom, among all the ship debates and the way one starts to -identify- with a (one true) pairing to the point that it's like there needs to be a formula to touch one's heart. Take Character A, add Character B, and you have "investment" and therefore (vicariously) "love". And of course we will always have our individual favorites-- but underneath it all-- well, there's the truth, and the truth taps into... well, us. The same source.... Which is why one starts to care about the love lives of original characters one has only 'known' for like, 10 pages. And by 'someone' I mean me. It can't be the -character- alone, precisely.

Of course one cares about some characters more than others, and fact is, some pairings allow a writer to explore certain themes more than others, which some readers may be most drawn to-- but even so, whether one's writing Harry/Hermione, Sirius/Remus, Lucius/Narcissa or Harry/Draco, the journey may be different in each case, but what you have is the same destination-- the human heart. If one steps back, one can sort of see it-- how easily love can be recreated in each case with only that initial leap of faith that one makes, believing in the possibility. Really, understanding the emotional center of a love-story is a bit like falling in love all by itself-- it all starts with a leap of faith. You allow yourself to believe-- you let down your barriers and... fall in love with their love.

That essential moment when something is created from nothing through a sort of metamorphosis of vision. Where before there were only two people, on the brink-- now there are two people falling, the earth dropping away beneath them. That 'moment of seeing' that Aja talked about as being central to the nature of an H/D fic-- I really think it's central to all romance.

It's not who they are. It's how they feel.

It's... it's all the same story, really. I mean, I knew that. But still, funny how one can forget, isn't it?

Comments

[ex-monochro174.livejournal.com]

Because in some sense, we're always writing about ourselves. Haha, that makes me think of a Queen song, but it is okay, as that's what made me believe in love, really. (Crazy, I know.) Oh you, I love you. I put off reading this for hours because I needed to digest it, you know? Also, I wrote this a couple months ago, but I thought maybe you'd enjoy it because it reminds me of your stories, in the way you have so many, but in a way, they're all the same, the way that every story is the same. A thousand stories and one telling. A thousand tellings and one story. Anyway. I feel very self-indulgent sharing, but:

We are storytellers by nature, you and I. I think of nights we laid awake telling tales, shadows for the shadows, wide open stories flying out the window like clouds to the moon. You will say, but we never stayed to see the morning. I will say, but I dreamt of you, and isn’t that the same?

When I met you I had a thousand stories and none of them were mine. A thousand doves, no messages; fairy tales with no backbones of truth. Light without quality, shapes without names. I knew time but I did not know its pulse. I knew love, a word on my tongue, but I did not know its taste. I knew you. I did not know you at all. You took my hand, felt the shape of my heart there, clenched between my fingers, ready for the giving. You said, Everything begins here.

Here. Now. The twilight stretching and a thousand stories to be told and between our heartbeats, between the night, the stars, the steps of waltzing time: another chance.

The moral of this story is you.

*

Good-night stories, face-the-morning stories, stories for the days in between. First-day stories. Last-day stories. Past and present and future stories, one on top the other, this tapestry to time. Stop the day, the hour, the moment: pare between the seconds and pull out this ticking photograph. The closer we get to infinity. Snapshots into time, moment to moment, spun together.

Dark: the night winging shadows and you in my arms. I said, Once upon a time. You kissed me like Scheherazade and all of them dissolved.

A thousand times upon this time. A thousand stories and one telling. A thousand nights, one night. You.

I am learning.

*

I dream of things that have never happened: soft gold afternoons, the patterned lights of evening, blue mornings of rain. Time blurs between my eyelids when the day sinks into sleep. I think you are here, wake casting in the open air for a memory or a shade of the future. I think myself back to solidity, settle with an armful of the present, shut my eyes. When I met you there was space without a name. Now I tie its emptiness to yours.

This is a story, too.

When I met you I knew the bright arrows of dawn and the wide slow shadows that streetlights cast, but I could not touch them, dive there, find the pearls of meaning cast amongst the moments. You poured each day into my hands like water. You said, Listen carefully. Or maybe I did. A thousand times upon this time and we rewrote all that was known.

These stories are enough.

Someday. Someday: this is what I have learned, I’ll say, sleep-heavy in your arms. (Past, present, future: does it matter? I loved you today.) This is what I have learned, this tale: I love you. And you will say, but I hate endings. And I’ll say, wait. Wait.

Everything begins here.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeee, I love that so much!!1 <33333333333333 Did you post it before? How did I miss it? Wah. It's... it's secret-telling and joy-inducing and memory-holding and all the beautiful things in the world touched upon and implied and hinted at and insinuated :D I love the way every single sentence is heavy with meaning & truth like poetry is, and like, I almost know exactly what you're going to say before you say it and yet I don't, and the way you just... say all the right things. You just do.

Man, that's also a lot like the stuff I write~:))) <3
It's all about dualities and the in-betweens-- the way one starts living when one figures out that the words are hiding & obscuring & revealing at the same time, and that first love affair we had with stories is nothing compared to love and yet love encompasses it, recreates it, makes it stronger. Yes, completely.

This makes me think you'd probably like reading John Barth's `Chimera', which it totally made me think of. You should totally read it. I'll find a copy & send it to you if I have to, man :D :D

...Which Queen song?? ~:))
♥♥♥!!

[ex-monochro174.livejournal.com]

:D! I wrote it for Jen one night, but I never posted it anywhere, really. I love you, yes! Stories & love and, oh, yes.

I totally have Chimera, and I know I at least read half of it, but now I don't remember it. When I'm home for Thanksgiving I'll bring it back with me and dive in, I promise!

*laughs* Under Pressure. The whole:

Why can't we give love that one more chance?
Why can't we give love give love give love,
Give love give love give love give love give love?

and

And love dares you to change our way
Of caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves

*laughs* No, really. But you know, you know so much about stories and love that sometimes I think you are magic. <3.