[mrarf?]

[reenka]

Man, skimming through ljsecret makes me feel all weird, like I'm 16 again.

I don't have anything like that to say, though I've felt or done several of the things other people say. I think when I feel something bursting inside me, like it's gonna cut me up if I keep it in, I write a poem or a story. If I'm frustrated, if I want to fall in love, if I want to confess, if I want someone to want me, anything-- I can just write it. I'm not sure if this is a secret or not, or does every writer do it? It's like, all these pictures&words are creative, cathartic, and I wonder how you could do it once and not do it all the time. And I also wonder why it's enough for me and not enough for them, but then I remember that 'enough', in my terms, is basically 'enough not to go crazy', and that's probably not a good measure.

This reminds me of anony!memes and such, and how people distrust them and dislike them but I don't, really. I think the urge to say something anonymously, the urge to lie about yourself, the urge to tell the truth and hide the truth all at once-- that is, at heart, the creative urge before it's fully blossomed. I think creativity has something to do with letting go of secrets you didn't know about and the secrets you can never quite tell if you did-- there's that definite purging, cathartic element alongside the storytelling, though for some the storytelling's more important and for some the catharsis.

Looking at ljsecret, it just strikes me that it's not just people who self-identify as writers or artists-- so many of us have these -things-, these obsessions, the words that won't come through normal channels. I think that's what all creative writing feels like, storytelling or cathartic in nature-- it's using that other channel.


Anonymity has something to do with it, too. I mean, unless you're writing an autobiography, you're basically anonymous as soon as you make it 'fiction', in a way, aren't you, because it's not about you anymore. Even though it totally is; it always is, whether or not the writer even realizes it. Not 'about you' in a direct sense necessarily, but in a deeper sense, yeah.

I think another reason I'm fascinated with secrets & anonymity is because I'm so interested in the nature of what you might call 'personal truth'. I think when it comes to the truth about themselves, most people will always hedge their bets, protect their weak points, lie to themselves if there's doubt-- and I can't help it, I always want to see that ripped away. Not in any aggressive sense, but maybe in a voeyuristic one. Voyeurism-- that has something to do with the draw of writing (and reading) stories too, I think. Especially voeyurism about people's most private moments and feelings. I mean, if it's not hidden and deeply guarded and all that, the reward isn't as high, it seems like. It's not as much of a challenge to know, and when known, to understand, because isn't the heart of another person always going to be Other or alien in some way?

It's not always enough to just watch, of course, to just read and understand people. Especially when you feel someone's pain and can't do anything about it, because even if you knew them, you're not close enough to them to ever make a difference-- that really bothers me. I think that's why I wouldn't check such a community regularly; it would frustrate me to the point of depression eventually, I think. Even now, when I think about some of those confessions too long, I feel... I feel like I've let someone down, let all these people down, and I don't even know them.
    (Funny, because some of my actual friends probably think I'm distant and insensitive, and I'm not a very 'hands-on' friend at the best of times-- I just listen and in the end, don't even know how to act if it's all up to me.)

Like that person who wishes they had the 'courage' to blow their brains out, or the person whose friends know they're gay but they wish they didn't.
    I don't know what I could possibly say to them, even if I knew them & we were close friends. That's why perhaps it's easier (and harder) -not- knowing, having it be out of my hands entirely. I always feel I -could- do something, -should- do something, either because I've been there and survived, or because I know they really need help, someone to understand them, and I do understand so doesn't mean I should help?

Aaah, I don't know. I think it's a lot easier to run away from direct contact and trying to reach people in a straightforward sense, just because of various limitations, a lot of them mine, but some of them the limitations of how much people can share with each other in most circumstances. It almost seems like another answer to watch & create & tell your secrets to the reeds-- actually, that fairytale of the farmer who told his secrets to the reeds which then had a flute fashioned from them-- I think, sometimes, that's all I can do as well, and that's what writing gives you.

I also love this quote and think it's appropriate:
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
- Anaïs Nin
~~

In much happier news, wobblygobblin just made me deleriously happy with her pregnant!winged!Draco & vampire!banshee!Harry<3<3<3<3<3<3<3 I think this is currently my fave H/D pic of ALL TIME.

MY LOFF KNOWS NO BOUNDS *_______*!!1 XD

Comments

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Ah, it's so nice to be back in thinking mode. I hate my weekends in the broadbandless waste so much.

I like the thought that all hardcore readers are voyeurs. It's very true. I often thought that as a writer you get the best of every world and career you could imagine; you don't have to go through four years of training to be a nurse, you could just write yourself a nurse and there you go. Et cetera et cetera.

However, it does make me wonder -- say when it comes to sex scenes and that, or writing a viewpoint that is not yours (a racist one, for eg). How then can you seperate yourself? It's all very well to remain anonymous, but I'm just thinking if anyone I knew found out what exactly I write. If they could lose themself in the story well and good, but could they ever forget that it was me, their friend/daughter, writing about cocks and two boys doing all sorts of dirty things to each other, and that I know about this stuff? For some reason other authors seem more distant, but I sometimes wonder how, say, chicklit writers, people who write about rape and incest, can look their readers in the face sometimes.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I was just sort of spewing random crap, so I'm sort of amazed you think this is 'thinking mode-y'. Er. I was assuming no one said anything because it wasn't all that interesting of a post and/or no one knows what to say when I ramble about what a voyeuristic self-important pervert I am ^^;;;; Or... something :>

Although what you're descripting with the 'writing yourself as a nurse' is more self-delusion than voyeurism... but perhaps it's all mixed up :-? Experiencing other people's lives is the ticket, though. I think the boundary between 'real' and 'unreal' can't possibly be all that thick, right?

The way I go about writing a viewpoint that isn't mine (like Draco, racist little shit that he is), is to like, look at my 'dark' side, y'know, all the things I don't actively show or consciously acknowledge or whatever. I think you could empathize with someone's emotions that motivate them to act in pretty alien ways, because basically people have that core similarity, y'know? I think it was Oscar Wilde that said, 'nothing human is alien to me', and I definitely feel like that. It's not that hard to imagine what it's like to want to kill someone; just take away your empathy, self-control, focus on your rage and sense of disenfranchisement and loneliness or whatever. It's kind of scary, but I like looking at all those things... I mean, in a morbid sort of way :>

With sex, I always thought smut writers were particularly exhibitionist, especially writing smut that people you know (even online) will read. That always makes me feel a bit dirty when I think about it, and I feel slightly odd reading the smut of people I know well (usually it doesn't turn me on -that- much, ahahah, though sometimes it does and it's usually when it's really well-written and I forget about the writer). So I myself don't separate myself but rather 'forget' myself a bit. I feel a bit odd, though, when it's not something good enough to distract me utterly, so I'm more likely to snicker or something. Though I'm pretty open about sex so it's not -that- embarrassing... and probably I'm rather used to it. I've even cowritten RP porn at this point, though even that-- at some points got weirdly personal and I had to stop. -.-;;;;;

It's a lot easier looking readers in the face when a) you don't have to 'cause you don't really know them; b) the reader in question is a huge pervert, possibly moreso than you are as a writer :))

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Well, I hang around people whose idea of useful thinking is learning off all the muscles in the neck and spewing them out to impress tutors. I like my artsy outlets.

Mmm, for me, I know I write from a very observationalist point of view. Like, I've read about (both in fiction and say newspapers) things like horrible racists comments, like the word 'faggot', and I can use them as long as it's clear that it's coming from this person and not me. I know that makes no sense, but my characters very firmly aren't me, whether they're from HP or my own head.

Really? Because I don't think smut is perverted per se. Some smut is, like all that stuff with the nipple clamps and, oh god, fisting and stuff. But there's some things that I regard as clean porn, if you know what I mean -- it's just drawing back the curtain on what goes on in the lives of two ordinary people with normal sexual appetites in their bedrooms. That's why I love kabeyk's stuff so much. And yeah, I think we connect on a more 'base' level than other people I know on lj, but that's only because I know I'll offend other people's delicacies if I go on like that with them. That's why I'd never, say, write about two boys fucking each other the first time -- because how many boys would do that, when it's all so new and scary and yeah it feels good but it shouldn't? Or seriously perverted kinks, or even threesomes (but that's mainly because I'm staunchly monogamist myself and the whole idea of sharing is repulsive to me).

I think that about porn in general too. My friends that know about it -- the ones, I mean, that aren't boys and therefore don't instrically 'get' it -- think it's a bit sad and stuff. But really I don't think so, mainly because I regard it as something that forms an essential part of a story about relationships. And those are the only stories I really love to read, when all comes to all. Given that this is Holy Catholic Ireland after all perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at the tight-laced attitude, though ...

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heh, well, that definitely makes sense-- the observationalist thing, I mean, as per your Myers-Briggs profile (and me being 'intuitive'). Um, though I think everyone's a bit of both, but-- I usually 'know' through understanding how someone feels or thinks rather than observing how they act or speak or interact with others. It's kind of like coming at it from opposite but complementary angles-- like, I think my characters aren't me either, it's just that I can still empathize with them & know how they feel because I can 'escape' my own identity while writing in a way, or imagine way out of it. Nothing really disturbs me in people when I write it-- I can basically write any pairing, and psychosis, because I just find it interesting/exciting rather than disturbing while I write...

I try not to project myself onto other people but rather allow them into my own headspace where I can make sense of them-- though observing plays a part too.... I don't tend to write 'large' stories with many characters interacting where observing groups and social settings plays a large role, though. Well, yet. I should work on that.

And I didn't mean to say I thought porn was 'perverted'! Just somewhat 'dirty' in an intimacy sense-- like, sure, it's good clean fun, but it's still somewhat weird (to me) to share sexual stories with people I know somewhat, because sometimes it feels almost personal, like I know too much. Not that it's 'wrong', but just too much sometimes, and at times also it feels less hot if I know the person behind the fic and don't see them sexually.... I tend not to write stuff that feels 'unrealistic' or unlikely (with sex) too, mostly 'cause if I or the characters don't have the experience to support it, it'll just sound fake ^^;

Ideally, sex really is just a part of human relationships... though it's a bit like chocolate or what have you, in that it's easy to focus on to the exclusion of other things, easy to caricaturize and get bloated on, and also people have lots of issues about it even if they aren't Catholic :> Come to think of it, I like very few people's porn consistently, but the ones I do like tend to have a naturalist, playful approach. Not that I don't go for certain kinks, because fandom -has- corrupted me, ahahah. -.-

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Whereas I've always believed that saying, that the observer sees most of the game. Now I'll admit to getting pretty involved in socialising with others and getting heart-rending crushes yet, at the same time, I can step out of myself and look at other people and sort of ... hypothesize what they're thinking and feeling about other people. It's all guesswork, naturally, but I like the idea of there being this emotional web you can look down on if you try. I'd love to be more detached, like all the time, but sometimes I also think that if I didn't feel everything so (too) deeply, I wouldn't be able to convey it in writing. So it's a sacrifice worth making.

See, I don't know if I do that. I can't classify my own work. Certainly I like it when things come together in a story, especially when I realise I've left my own hints for things to come without realising it -- and sometimes I like to think that there is a story outside of just two people and their relationship -- but, yeah. No idea, really.

That's true. I wonder if people would think of me differently if they knew. But the thing is, I absolutely hate hiding things from people, even things like that that they don't really need to know. I want everything I regard as important out there for people to see, so if they don't like it I can cross them off my list of people worth bothering about. Or something. I'm trying to imagine if Claire or Eoin wrote fic, though ... Eoin seems the type to be into fandom ... but I don't think it'd be less hot because I knew them -- not to me. Now, if it was badly written it'd be less hot.

Actually, I find that (because I was always writing in school and people always wanted to read it simply because they could see me doing it, and had some wierd fascination with the whole 'process') and people tend to be easily satisfied. I know what I wrote back then was undiluted shlock, yet they loved it, simply because it was someone they knew. To this day I still don't understand that reaction.

Yup. With sex, I never write things I don't find, personally, very hot. And well, we don't need to go into details, but the mechanics of boyonboy action was always something that I could apply to myself in a mmmyeah kind of way.

Here (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25609-1962560,00.html), read this. Trust me, it's worth it. I know you don't get him over there, obviously, but the Gill is my personal little god. That is exactly how I think, or at least would like to think, about sex.

Ooh, what kinks? Do tell. It's brought the whole spanking thing home to me in a big way ...

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think I myself am pretty detached in 'reality', in terms of yeah, I'm always the silent observer unless someone actively engages me, but in stories, I'm the opposite and always get (too) involved, identifying with people in order to understand them. I think it's partly the fact that I'm so distant and always observing-but-not-participating in real life that drives me to being all touchy-feely in fiction :> Also, I don't -make sense- of people through impersonal judgment or anything-- I may observe their behavior for ages, but not truly 'get' it until I put myself in their shoes. That's just how I work ^^; So I agree, in that if I didn't feel it, I couldn't convey it.

And with me, there's often a story outside -just- to people; the trick to why I say I think of myself as 'intuitive' rather than 'observant' is that the 'outside' is always -filtered- through the pov-character's perspective-- I think to this day I still haven't written omniscient narrator, which probably means I should try. But this is still progress from when I totally wrote first-person all the time, or a thin excuse for it... :/

But yeah, the 'well-written' would definitely overcome most difficulties when it comes to porn, whether or not I knew the person-- I just feel a little awkward/exposed/embarrassed if it's not -quite- that hot, y'know? Knowing people's kinks is a little too easy from reading their fics :> Sometimes it almost gets into TMI territory, but the hotness definitely compensates :>

The only kink I've really -not- warmed to much at all is BDSM stuff, like tying up & all that, though extreme bottoms can be hot sometimes, if there's not too much of it (or I start to feel a bit like Draco is the slime under my shoe). I've been corrupted into spanking, oh definitely, that nearly always does it, as does public sex fics (that's a kink, right-- especially if someone comes in full view of people and has to hide it but maybe can't), frottage (does that count? especially semi-public frottage, and especially-especially semi-public H/D frottage, oh yes), against-the-wall (it's not vannila! at least!), literally-turning-into-a-girl (genderfucking? does it count if it only seems hot on Draco? though that one girl!Ron/Harry fic was hot, ahahah) and just plain old crossdressing, telepathic!sex (it's a major kink that doesn't get much play, ahaha), violent sex (mmm, bruises), anything involving the bottom being slightly humiliated (light, like the crossdressing or 'facials'), and some watersports but only control-related and not actual... um.... more extreme humiliation, which just sounds vague but there you have it :D I -think- that's all *___* OMG THAT'S A LONG LIST. *cringes*

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

I dno, I've wondered about it and stuff -- why people write hateful characters. Perhaps there is some perverse enjoyment in it, although most of the time, with me, it's setting up another part of the story. No one is horrible for the sake of it. In fact, I don't think in real life that people are, there's always a reason. That's what makes people so fascinating and infuriating. You can never pigeonhole anyone with good reason.

I wonder though, do people write some of those extreme kinks because they really slobber over them, or for attention? Someone on my flist was talking about the difference between a kink -- which is something you'd like/fantasise about -- and a fetish, that you can't get off without. No one writes fetishes. Like, ever. I don't think there's a fic dealing with cross-dressing on a long-term basis, for eg.

Speaking of which, I actually can't stand cross-dressing. It and genderfucking seem so pointless to me, because if that was the case -- 'you', the reader, wants to see someone in a dress/lingerie and someone not, why not just write a girl and a boy? I guess that goes back to social indoctrination, but if going against social indoctrination isn't accepting cross-dressing, because the point of it in fandom context is, as you said, mainly a humiliation thing. As for the rest, I just can't get my head around why it's hot.

For some reason, I like tying up. Not so it hurts the character, but so they definitely know they can't get away. Could come in useful with our boys, I imagine. And public frottage and wallsex never get old.

Blow-jobs rule, though. Especially in yaoi ...

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I just realized the only reason I listed all those kinks were because I thought 'hey, there was a fic I remember with that one that seemed hot at the time', ahahah, even though it's likely 10 more fics didn't work for me with the same kink-- so it's entirely likely you just haven't read as much H/D porn as me ;) Or, y'know, not. But, that's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it!

With the tying-up, it doesn't seem all that exciting for -H/D-, and since that's most of what I've read, that's most of what doesn't excite me-- probably not least 'cause it's done all the time and it's become Everyone's Favorite H/D Kink (especially involving Slytherin ties... why is EVERYONE into that... god). But I too have Bulletproof Kinks-- funny since I forgot to list two of them, masturbation & dirty talk. The only other one is actually public sex-- so basically if you combine all three, say, I'm -really- likely to like that fic :> Man, there's some stellar 'public dirty talk' fics, especially with Snape, but sometimes Harry's written as weirdly eloquent, ahaha. Oh, come shots are also bulletproof, but who writes that? Well, besides Aspen. :>

Most cross-dressing fic and the whole hard-on fandom has about it is kinda lame, though, especially with the rampant uke-fication of Draco to the point of making him a total idiot. Heh. Sometimes it works (for me) if it includes a slight public humiliation element-- like, none of the feminizing of the character's mannerisms or 'maleness', so it's sort of comedic yet titillating 'cause they -hate- it, y'know, and it's just naturally funny. So it has to also have that bit of cognitive dissonance-- not just 'acting like a girl', which is boringboringboring! :D I can just read any old fic for that, 'cause everyone feminizes their characaters ;P heh. The unexpected, I think, can easily be hot-- like a boy who's really boyish and angry and macho-- in a skirt. But it has to be written right.

I think most people (er, me) write kinks mainly for experimentation purposes, 'cause after you've written enough 'vanilla' porn, you start to want to mix it up a bit-- though I imagine more extraverted types do like the comments they get :> I just don't care about comments to my porn. Any monkey could get someone off. Er. So to speak :>

I don't think there -are- any black-and-white 'hateful' characters, only really annoying characters that most people will probably hate :>

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that is so true. I mean I dislike most non-con, but Cybele's Just Add Water is still, after all this time, one of the hottest fics I've ever read.

O.M.G. Why doesn't anyone get that there is no such thing as a Slytherin tie? Or a Gryffindor tie, for that matter. I mean, I'm sure they have silk scarves and shit in the magical world too. An ultimate symbol of subjugation it is, I suppose.

Oh, masturbation (mutual and shared) is just, like, the most plausible thing of all. The very nearness of the reality of it makes it sooo hot. Boys would definitely do that when they wouldn't do, well, everything else.

It's the 'you look so cute in lingerie' element that bugs me. I could just about buy it if it's the way you describe, but you know what? I've never seen a story like that, where they're angry and punishing each other and the only thing either of them finds hot is the other's utter humiliation. It ALWAYS ends up in Harry/Draco saying, "You look so hot like this," which is so not the point. IMHO.

Hahaha, I always angst about that feminising issue. Nothing I can do about it, obviously, but I do try to keep the analysing stuff to a minimum. Never gonna get it right until I turn into a boy, I suppose.

Heh, I've never set out to consciously write 'different' porn. It's an achievement just to be able to write it at all, for me; I had a long pg13 apprenticeship. I'd just write what I imagine, and I guess my imagination is pretty vanilla in that sense!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

It is sad to say, what I usually like is a certain kind of dub-con (No! Noooo! YES! YES! YESSSS! *facepalm* Except reading too much yaoi made me prefer the person on the buggering end yells out something else. ANYTHING else.)

I think I've a pretty vanilla imagination, in that the only kinks I've actually written have been public sex (voyeurism/exhibitionism), wanking (obviously! I write about boys!! heh), coming-untouched-and-with-clothes-on (forgot that one), wallsex (of course... or have I?? am not sure!), frottage of course... man, just. Not a lot *__* I usually just like describing new-but-familiar situations rather than something I've just never done. *cough* Writing that one (unposted) 69 was fun though, I haveta say :>

As for cross-dressing! If you wanna see it done right (or 'hot in Reena's opinion', which is CLEARLY THE SAME THING), there's Aspen's The Ol' Switcheroo (http://community.livejournal.com/pornish_pixies/292679.html#cutid1) and this (http://community.livejournal.com/hardcore_hp/3527.html) beautiful piece of... highly satisfying porn (for me), as it features something like 5 of my kinks, maaaan. *___* I forgot rimming was even one of them, ahaha. I think the question you should really wonder about is 'what -don't- I like when done right', and that's a pretty short list :>

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

By the way, I actually can't spell several small words. Because I pronounce sentance like that, I spell it like that, and precense and weird are never, ever right with me.

Just so you know.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

...I myself have the weird yet vaguely useless gift of actually spelling many words wrong but always -knowing- it's wrong even though... uh... I still don't know what's right ^^;;;;