boysboysboys!

[reenka]

You know what just struck me? How important visuals are for being inspired with writing slash (for me).

I don't mean fanart or photomanips-- though that's inspiring, it seems to put me in a very specific mood-- I'm sort of a slave to the precise mood/expression/emotion in any piece of fanart, and it sometimes feels like it overpowers my writing, it influences it so much. If you're talking movie!canon pics, they're both too specific and too distracting, 'cause I have a clear enough idea of Draco & Harry's faces in my head, but not so much with their bodies & body-language.
    And with music-- that's really inspiring too, but even more overpowering, to the point where whether or not I quote lyrics, listening to music while I write = a songfic -.-

No, what I was thinking struck me while I was on the bus, partly, and this skinny 14-15 year old English boy with a skateboard sat next to me. He looked nothing like Harry, but that doesn't matter-- suddenly I realized how important very generalized physicality is. Because I slash 14-17 year old boys, I realized don't have a lot of opportunity to hang around them-- and there's just so much material in how boys move, especially athletic skinny boys, not too outgoing perhaps. And then I was walking back to my dorm & saw a half-naked blond guy in long shorts & realized hey! It's summer! Harry would wear shorts! :P

It's just amazing how important these little details are which people don't seem to have in my head but do in real life. I don't get this from watching most movies, either, 'cause they're too staged/directed (and thus artificial to a degree), but-- I was wondering--

If any of you guys have links to photos of teenage boys, hopefully lightly dressed (in summer casual or for the beach), not model types or actors, preferrably, but just boys, hanging out with each other or playing sports or just chillin' or whatever-- POINT ME TO THEM! *__*
    EDIT - I caved and made an lj gallery of playful 'ordinary' teenage boys I found at gettyone.com! -->>HERE!!1 :D :D :D So! If you point me to more, I'll add them to my gallery :D One of them is supposedly two gay boys, too :> Hehehe GUESS WHICH :>
    It's funny how I have girls' bodies in my head in a way I just don't have boys'-- probably because I -am- a girl, huh.
    I think there'd probably be a lot less bullshitty dialogue and m/m interaction in fics if people had direct visual access to real-life boy behavior. Like, how they laugh, how they talk (...or grunt monosyllabically), how their bodies look if they're on the skinny/active side (smooth, flat, surprisingly small or just compact), the sort of unselfconsciousness and brisk aggressiveness of the walk, etc.

I looked at that boy from the back-- and okay, I'm a perv, so I was imagining his body-twin in a slashfic-- but I couldn't imagine writing him in some complex sex-scene or heart-to-heart dialogue. I just couldn't. Adolescent boys are the living antithesis of sap. They kill sap dead! Like bug-zapper! Just look at one & you'll see what I mean! It's AMAZING! It makes me realize just how much the model-type body-shots you see in fandom are meant to arouse rather than represent; in other words, the usual boys are WAY TOO HOT :P
    Looking at a real boy in a slashy way sort of reawakened me to why I slash boys so much more than grown men in my head-- they're much more androgynous yet totally male, just in a different way than men are. It seems less aggressively overpowering to me, leaves room for more possibilities of behavior.

...In reality, seeing those bodies is rather helpful for visualizing awkward handjobs, mumbled slangy dialogue and sports-obsessed geekery, mostly :D And hey, both Harry & Draco -are- rather sports-obsessed, come to think of it :> Hahaha, too great.
    AND!! Speaking of exactly what I had in mind, kasche just posted a shirtless!Remus on a bicycle pic!! MMMM, YES! :D :D :3
    (And yes, I'm taking the desire for realism for granted, but I -am- mostly just talking about what appeals to me, so.)

Comments

[mark356.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, but real-life teenage boys honestly scare me-- if I see them on the street, I either cross to the other side or stare at my watch until they're gone. I'd be happier just reading yaoi_daily!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Haha, they actually sort of scare me also, but then most kinds of people scare me or make me anxious on some level, male-type people especially, so I've learned to watch from a sort of distant/uninvolved place in my head. I totally do the crossing-the-street thing with almost anyone if I'm in a mood, not just teenage boys. But if I'm feeling a bit more social, I can go into a headspace where I'm just there to observe & don't need to feel vulnerable. They're just so... interesting. Like monkeys :D

Plus, you could also get a sense of things with pictures, like my new teenage boy gallery (http://pics.livejournal.com/lunacy/gallery/00001fec), ahahah. Though I love yaoi_daily & yaoi in general, it's a bit like reading an alien's account of what human boy 'love rituals' might be like. A girl alien :>

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

[grin] That makes me think of the line in Liveship Traders, where Ophelia says of whatshisface, "Men have no idea of their own beauty." Ditto boys. I mean, some might think they're good looking, but they never realise how rawly beautiful they are. You know, no makeup, no artifice, all stubble and spots and tufty hair.

Yum.

In reality, seeing those bodies is rather helpful for visualizing awkward handjobs, mumbled slangy dialogue and sports-obsessed geekery, mostly :D And hey, both Harry & Draco -are- rather sports-obsessed, come to think of it :> Hahaha, too great.

God, I wish I could WRITE it. Will you?

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Last sentence -- laughing too hard to quote -- WORD!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Yesh, I love the brash roughness coupled with a hidden harmony of form and function. Or something. I didn't mean for this to read as a paean to young male beauty, but I guess it was, sort of :) It's also kind of sad/funny to me that in reality, I get attracted to geeks who're never that intensely physical in body-language, so I've definitely missed that boyishness in my boyfriends. But it's mostly that I admire them than want to date them, anyway :>

Hahah, I try! I dunno, didn't the pics inspire -you-?? Just think of Harry in shorts!! :D :D :D