...blaaaaaaah
Jan. 23rd, 2005 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaSo far in my adventures with yaoi manga, I've realized that one of my favorite things is when the uke is... well... non-ukish-- like, non-submissive, which is weird 'cause recently in HP fandom I've gotten a little too invested in who tops and so on, which is actually funny to me now. I don't know... it's just my luck that recently I keep reading mangas where the bottom boy is all tough-assed and violent and sulky and so on, while the top is gentler and more love-love and such. Ahahaha it's so great. Sometimes it's pretty emotionally unrealistic, but who cares? I love seeing the tough guy be all, *mewl!!1* no matter how much he resists, heeeee. (*sekritly mean*)
Okay, that was random. Also, it seems like one of my greatest joys in manga, if not in life, is witnessing the obligatory (dark-haired!) Expressionless Icy Cool Boy (who's annoying as hell in HP, but let's not go there) get all 'omg, you TOUCHED MY PENIS!! I BLUSH NOW!!'. That's beautiful. It seems like a lot of the High School stories are about the Uber-Cool Cucumber meeting Sunny Naive Dork boy (who is sometimes violent). And I know I said no manga meta for me, but this isn't meta, it's... er... silly commentary, so there.
I played a bit of Final Fantasy X for the first time recently. Okay, no slash yet, but... see, I'm branching out in my dorkishness. Brings out the full-bodied flavor... or something.
~~
The thing about fandom is... it's implicitly about sharing things you're understood to see in a similar way with people, right? You all like something together. I suppose it's easy to feel you understand things together, too, like... suppose other people see the characters the same way I do if they ship them, but this doesn't seem true. Then again, that's what subjectivity is all about.
It doesn't work that way for me, at least. It feels like the roots and the heart of my fannishness are very personal... and its flowers may attract attention, but aren't capable of sustaining me.
I think my base inspiration lies in images and symbols-- in feelings-- in inner associations between words and memories and emotions. It's not about any two people-- it's not about a pairing. It's about the constant fascination with reaching out into the abyss, with needing the thing you cannot have, with desperation and despair and obsession and violence.
What it comes down to is that I don't care what pairing it is... what fandom it is... I don't care, as long as it's telling a version of that story in my head-- the one that haunts me. And in a way, I think there's only one story I'm ever after, telling or wanting others to tell... that story changes during different times in my life, but H/D, for instance, represents something like this fic snippet by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jadedroses. I suppose this is about my love-affair with, well, love, and my tendency to want it to be near-impossible, almost to escape it even as it draws near.
In my head, Draco is always saying he hates Harry, and he means he wants him (to pay attention). He is impotent yet constant-- this is why I always thought ghost!Draco made such perfect sense. He is a ghost-- you cannot truly kill the idea of him, or stop his pain, or even really change him, perhaps. He is everything bright and hopeless, the pretty boy suicide. He's the idiot in me, wanting things too much, never being enough, not seeing the truth until it's too late, clinging to childhood past reason, succumbing to jealousy, living in circles of self-fulfilling prophecies.
I sort of see this boy, and it doesn't matter what his name is-- and he's reaching out, so desperately-- he's reaching out and his eyes are shut and his fingers are cold and there's nothing there anymore but winter wind.
Okay, that was random. Also, it seems like one of my greatest joys in manga, if not in life, is witnessing the obligatory (dark-haired!) Expressionless Icy Cool Boy (who's annoying as hell in HP, but let's not go there) get all 'omg, you TOUCHED MY PENIS!! I BLUSH NOW!!'. That's beautiful. It seems like a lot of the High School stories are about the Uber-Cool Cucumber meeting Sunny Naive Dork boy (who is sometimes violent). And I know I said no manga meta for me, but this isn't meta, it's... er... silly commentary, so there.
I played a bit of Final Fantasy X for the first time recently. Okay, no slash yet, but... see, I'm branching out in my dorkishness. Brings out the full-bodied flavor... or something.
~~
The thing about fandom is... it's implicitly about sharing things you're understood to see in a similar way with people, right? You all like something together. I suppose it's easy to feel you understand things together, too, like... suppose other people see the characters the same way I do if they ship them, but this doesn't seem true. Then again, that's what subjectivity is all about.
It doesn't work that way for me, at least. It feels like the roots and the heart of my fannishness are very personal... and its flowers may attract attention, but aren't capable of sustaining me.
I think my base inspiration lies in images and symbols-- in feelings-- in inner associations between words and memories and emotions. It's not about any two people-- it's not about a pairing. It's about the constant fascination with reaching out into the abyss, with needing the thing you cannot have, with desperation and despair and obsession and violence.
What it comes down to is that I don't care what pairing it is... what fandom it is... I don't care, as long as it's telling a version of that story in my head-- the one that haunts me. And in a way, I think there's only one story I'm ever after, telling or wanting others to tell... that story changes during different times in my life, but H/D, for instance, represents something like this fic snippet by
jadedroses. I suppose this is about my love-affair with, well, love, and my tendency to want it to be near-impossible, almost to escape it even as it draws near. In my head, Draco is always saying he hates Harry, and he means he wants him (to pay attention). He is impotent yet constant-- this is why I always thought ghost!Draco made such perfect sense. He is a ghost-- you cannot truly kill the idea of him, or stop his pain, or even really change him, perhaps. He is everything bright and hopeless, the pretty boy suicide. He's the idiot in me, wanting things too much, never being enough, not seeing the truth until it's too late, clinging to childhood past reason, succumbing to jealousy, living in circles of self-fulfilling prophecies.
I sort of see this boy, and it doesn't matter what his name is-- and he's reaching out, so desperately-- he's reaching out and his eyes are shut and his fingers are cold and there's nothing there anymore but winter wind.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-23 11:13 pm (UTC)Sasoi, huh. Noted :D Er, the haunted-story thing and the manga thing aren't really related anyway :)) I'm usually looking for several different types of relationship, though I have my favorites... but usually my UBER favorites have the feistiness in common, like... uh... in shoujo especially, if the girl isn't feisty... well, the boy can be feisty but it's JUST NOT THE SAME. Either way, SOMEONE HAS TO BE FEISTY :)) I was thinking... hmm, I wonder why I like Kyou/Tohru so much where Tohru's such a wet stocking, and then I realized, it's Kyou who's the feisty one. I like it best when they're both feisty though, but in different ways. Then they can hiss, claw and generally fight to the sex >:D
no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 11:11 pm (UTC)sasoi uke= an uke that does the tempting actively
Am with you on the fiesty so 100%.
What series is Kyou/Tohru from?
no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 11:43 pm (UTC)I haven't thought about it, but you're right... he probably would break like glass, moreso than Duo. I mean, I like them switching, I just dislike -bottom- Heero who's all submissive to Duo, 'cause that freaks me out, I guess. I love talking about GW yaoi <3<3 Awww, sweet nostalgia.
Kyou/Tohru is het from Fruits Basket WHICH YOU MUST SEE. I LOVE IT SO MUCH OMG <3333333333333333333333 cat!boy! mouse!boy! all the animals of the Chinese zodiac are bishounen and there are girls too and they're like... cursed to turn into their animal when hugged by humans! omg, love! And cat!boy (Kyou) is all feisty and angsty and red-headed and omg THE LOVE!!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-27 02:01 am (UTC)ah, I loves the grumpy not-too-bright ones.
Good old GW... did you ever read the Death Arc? aka how English-speaking yaoi fangirldom was gently eased into GW from YYH? good times. good times. I still have a bunch of fanart here from those heady days.
I must add now that Trowa is my fav despite having, like, 1 good fic written for him ever.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-27 02:22 am (UTC)HanaDan ends... ambiguously I guess. Wah. But not like, WRONGLY. He sort of triumphs? Oh, I love Doumyouji too <3<3<3<3 And I love his name <3<3<3<3 I can never decide who my favorite anime character is because whenever I think of one I'm like OMG THE LOVE and then I remember one of the like, 3 others and I'm like WAH SQUARED. But they're all... er... special. Doumyouji is like... probably my favorite type of angry. The others' anger is cool too (OMG KYOU! OMG SHION!!! AAaaaahhhh), but... they're just not... I dunno, he makes me think of a big dog, y'know, slobbery and well-groomed but with big teeth, and he likes to carry the teddy-bears to the children in their beds. Or something. I love Tsukasa so. I think I want him to be my boyfriend, ahahah <3<3 Every now and then I rewatch bits of the HanaDan episodes and I NEVER do that with any other series.
Omg but grumpy bright ones are good too!! They're posting `I'm Not Your Stepping Stone' at
...You've told me, about Trowa. That's pretty much what you tell me when we bring up GW :)) I remember talking about it when I visited you in DC and you said that just as we were leaving the train. I have a clear memory for the weirdest things, man ^^;;;