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reenkai realized i'm a hypocrite.
ok so, no big newsflash here, but still worth mentioning.
i'm all like-- `so how could people want different things for the same characters at once??' and being all, `it's incomprehensible!'
...
i think i want characters to be more straightforward, more linear, more true to themselves than real-life people ever are. of -course- it's natural to want both draco/harry and draco/whoever and etc, etc., to most people because they're probably more honest with themselves than me, and in their own lives, they're confused and/or want more than one person and/or have contradictory romantic (and otherwise) impulses all the time.
and so do i.
i just want different things of -fiction-. but that doesn't mean they're better or more honest things. i think they're -less- honest, more fantasy-oriented things, in this case. i don't want to remind myself of how stupid and muddled and hopeless life can seem (ok so it does make for some good stories, but um, still). i don't want to think that even the most perfect match made in whatever passes for heaven, isn't "meant to be" and in other circumstances those same exact characters would have done wildly different things, and not even realized they could've done them differently, and maybe not even cared if they knew.
i'm writing draco/ginny and i cannot bear to have draco have no feelings for harry, or ginny to have no feelings left for harry either, for that matter. to me, love is a permanent, binding thing, cross stories, cross universes. well, in my imagination, i mean, not in my own heart. though that too. i never get over things. i may feel things for a number of different people in a number of different ways, but i don't really choose except by circumstance, and i want my characters to choose, and then stick to it forever and ever.
it shouldn't even matter to me what other stories a particular writer has written, i realize that, but it just changes something in my own head, and i can't help it. i'm like, so torn. on the one hand, i'm a realist, but i hate being a realist-- and on the other hand, i'm a complete fluffy-headed romantic, and i'm ashamed of that in a way, because it's not intellectually defensible. and on the non-existent hand, i'm just-- self-aware and realize that contradictions are almost unavoidable and these things just kind of co-exist in everybody to some extent. this ties in with-- how can you `ship a couple you think is doomed? how can you believe in something you think will die? how can you, but people do, in real life, people do all the time.
you go and do things you know are wrong, are 100% aware are going to end up badly, and you sit there and invite your own destruction and almost all of us do it, except most of us aren't that self-aware a lot of times. everyone is both delusional and self-aware, no matter how clear-headed they think they are. most people also have this tendency to want to have their cake and eat it too. i know i do. i don't `ship people in contradictory ways, but i'm just a hypocrite, like i said, because really, haven't i `shipped myself in contradictory ways?? i have.
i'm perfectly aware there's no such thing as ``meant to be" because if there was, that would imply a whole lot of things i don't want to believe in, like pre-destination, lack of free will, even the deliberate creation of the universe by a very anal-retentive god who paired every single human being for the rest of eternity before he even created the first atom (yes that's where my mind goes). and yet for most of my life i have waited-- waited for that one perfect thing, that one perfect-for-me person who i'd share my life with and never need another. i believed and who am i kidding, a part of me still believes. that there is such a thing as "right" and "wrong" and that it matters, even more in imagination that in reality.
i don't actually -stop- my imagination from roaming where-ever, but i indulge the side of me that wants to fantasize more than the side of me that is just perverse and wants to explore everything, sometimes. a lot of times.
i can't even name one thing that is Perfectly Right, so perfectly right i would never assail its rightness by imagining alternatives, not if i was honest. in fact, if you don't imagine alternatives, you're actually debasing, and insulting this perfectly right thing, implying that it can't stand the pressure, that it can't prevail and resist tinkering and stuff. in fact, i adore perversive subvertive thinking of all kinds, i believe it is essential and wonderful, just because without it everything would turn stale and boring.
i guess i can cheat and say, Love, Beauty, and Poetry are perfectly right, but what does that say, really? these are just concepts, not actual things, i can point at-- okay so they are-- but you know what i mean. all of them have "non-perfectly right" examples, where it all goes wrong and doesn't go according to plan, and is actually horribly bad (in the case of poetry, really really bad) and twisted. love can be wrong-- i don't want to say it-- i don't want to believe it-- i hate even touching that concept-- but it can be.
i mean, it's not love, not really, if it is wrong, but some people can't even -feel- anything else, so i can't deny them, i have to admit they feel what translates as love to our minds. everything comes in so many shapes and sizes, and so many different shades of right and wrong and somewhere entirely unrelated to either of these concepts, that the mind boggles. and i am selling my own intelligence short if i say, for example, harry & draco are perfectly right, unassailably right together. even though i -want- to say it, want that to be true, want the world to be simple enough and sweet enough to allow this point of light to be completely true and symmetrical and.... perfect.
nature is perfectly right and real. i believe that. every single plant, every single tree, and animal, and drop of water, and atom comprising everything living and not, is perfect and does exactly what it should. yes.
its imperfections and "mistakes" are also its triumphs and it's pure creativity at work. i believe it's only our minds that make things muddled, because in actuality everything just Is, and is just as it should be, before we mess it up with our consciousness (not that i'm knocking consciousness of course). i muck everything up with -my- consciousness, but i mean, it's not as if i'd trade it for being a rock.....
i'm not saying that we should somehow achieve the state where life is like nature, and everything is perfectly right and real, because that's just not possible or even desireable. i like the wrinkles, and i even enjoy conflict and anger and jealousy and all that. it makes things interesting, shakes things up.
if harry & draco were perfect, they wouldn't even be harry & draco, they'd be harry & ginny (not that they're perfect in actuality, but that's how people think of them, well, the people that do think of them in a positive light). we love them because it's twisted yet right. so maybe i'm missing the point. it's not an angelic light sort of deal, so of course you have lots of alternative realities where they never get together, just because this reality (in my head, at least) where they -are- together is thus made more precious, more exhilarating, more shocking, more sexy. if it was a "sure thing", it'd be boring, wouldn't it?
but then again, my initial quibble wasn't with whether they were meant to be, but really with people who can both believe it and not, and also believe draco/whoever were sexy too. it's like you're making them cheat (or cheating, somehow), to me. but cheating is ... natural. not that that excuses bad things, necessarily, naturalness i mean, but still. it lets me understand. and that's all i wanted, to understand. i want a world where there is Destiny and Magic and True Love and Endless Possibilities and Free Will, and Really Good Chocolate all at the same time. and maybe this world is that world. and maybe it's not. but i like this world anyway. not that i wouldn't run away to that other one if i could, let's face it, who am i kidding. if i had to pick just one out of those things to be real-- it wouldn't be True Love anyway. no, any sort of love is ok. well, i'd rather it was symmetrical and ideal, but i mean, even plato didn't believe his own hype, he was just ... saying. but anyway. if you know me even a tiny bit, you'd know what i'd pick.
well?
yeah.
Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic.
magic.
ok so, no big newsflash here, but still worth mentioning.
i'm all like-- `so how could people want different things for the same characters at once??' and being all, `it's incomprehensible!'
...
i think i want characters to be more straightforward, more linear, more true to themselves than real-life people ever are. of -course- it's natural to want both draco/harry and draco/whoever and etc, etc., to most people because they're probably more honest with themselves than me, and in their own lives, they're confused and/or want more than one person and/or have contradictory romantic (and otherwise) impulses all the time.
and so do i.
i just want different things of -fiction-. but that doesn't mean they're better or more honest things. i think they're -less- honest, more fantasy-oriented things, in this case. i don't want to remind myself of how stupid and muddled and hopeless life can seem (ok so it does make for some good stories, but um, still). i don't want to think that even the most perfect match made in whatever passes for heaven, isn't "meant to be" and in other circumstances those same exact characters would have done wildly different things, and not even realized they could've done them differently, and maybe not even cared if they knew.
i'm writing draco/ginny and i cannot bear to have draco have no feelings for harry, or ginny to have no feelings left for harry either, for that matter. to me, love is a permanent, binding thing, cross stories, cross universes. well, in my imagination, i mean, not in my own heart. though that too. i never get over things. i may feel things for a number of different people in a number of different ways, but i don't really choose except by circumstance, and i want my characters to choose, and then stick to it forever and ever.
it shouldn't even matter to me what other stories a particular writer has written, i realize that, but it just changes something in my own head, and i can't help it. i'm like, so torn. on the one hand, i'm a realist, but i hate being a realist-- and on the other hand, i'm a complete fluffy-headed romantic, and i'm ashamed of that in a way, because it's not intellectually defensible. and on the non-existent hand, i'm just-- self-aware and realize that contradictions are almost unavoidable and these things just kind of co-exist in everybody to some extent. this ties in with-- how can you `ship a couple you think is doomed? how can you believe in something you think will die? how can you, but people do, in real life, people do all the time.
you go and do things you know are wrong, are 100% aware are going to end up badly, and you sit there and invite your own destruction and almost all of us do it, except most of us aren't that self-aware a lot of times. everyone is both delusional and self-aware, no matter how clear-headed they think they are. most people also have this tendency to want to have their cake and eat it too. i know i do. i don't `ship people in contradictory ways, but i'm just a hypocrite, like i said, because really, haven't i `shipped myself in contradictory ways?? i have.
i'm perfectly aware there's no such thing as ``meant to be" because if there was, that would imply a whole lot of things i don't want to believe in, like pre-destination, lack of free will, even the deliberate creation of the universe by a very anal-retentive god who paired every single human being for the rest of eternity before he even created the first atom (yes that's where my mind goes). and yet for most of my life i have waited-- waited for that one perfect thing, that one perfect-for-me person who i'd share my life with and never need another. i believed and who am i kidding, a part of me still believes. that there is such a thing as "right" and "wrong" and that it matters, even more in imagination that in reality.
i don't actually -stop- my imagination from roaming where-ever, but i indulge the side of me that wants to fantasize more than the side of me that is just perverse and wants to explore everything, sometimes. a lot of times.
i can't even name one thing that is Perfectly Right, so perfectly right i would never assail its rightness by imagining alternatives, not if i was honest. in fact, if you don't imagine alternatives, you're actually debasing, and insulting this perfectly right thing, implying that it can't stand the pressure, that it can't prevail and resist tinkering and stuff. in fact, i adore perversive subvertive thinking of all kinds, i believe it is essential and wonderful, just because without it everything would turn stale and boring.
i guess i can cheat and say, Love, Beauty, and Poetry are perfectly right, but what does that say, really? these are just concepts, not actual things, i can point at-- okay so they are-- but you know what i mean. all of them have "non-perfectly right" examples, where it all goes wrong and doesn't go according to plan, and is actually horribly bad (in the case of poetry, really really bad) and twisted. love can be wrong-- i don't want to say it-- i don't want to believe it-- i hate even touching that concept-- but it can be.
i mean, it's not love, not really, if it is wrong, but some people can't even -feel- anything else, so i can't deny them, i have to admit they feel what translates as love to our minds. everything comes in so many shapes and sizes, and so many different shades of right and wrong and somewhere entirely unrelated to either of these concepts, that the mind boggles. and i am selling my own intelligence short if i say, for example, harry & draco are perfectly right, unassailably right together. even though i -want- to say it, want that to be true, want the world to be simple enough and sweet enough to allow this point of light to be completely true and symmetrical and.... perfect.
nature is perfectly right and real. i believe that. every single plant, every single tree, and animal, and drop of water, and atom comprising everything living and not, is perfect and does exactly what it should. yes.
its imperfections and "mistakes" are also its triumphs and it's pure creativity at work. i believe it's only our minds that make things muddled, because in actuality everything just Is, and is just as it should be, before we mess it up with our consciousness (not that i'm knocking consciousness of course). i muck everything up with -my- consciousness, but i mean, it's not as if i'd trade it for being a rock.....
i'm not saying that we should somehow achieve the state where life is like nature, and everything is perfectly right and real, because that's just not possible or even desireable. i like the wrinkles, and i even enjoy conflict and anger and jealousy and all that. it makes things interesting, shakes things up.
if harry & draco were perfect, they wouldn't even be harry & draco, they'd be harry & ginny (not that they're perfect in actuality, but that's how people think of them, well, the people that do think of them in a positive light). we love them because it's twisted yet right. so maybe i'm missing the point. it's not an angelic light sort of deal, so of course you have lots of alternative realities where they never get together, just because this reality (in my head, at least) where they -are- together is thus made more precious, more exhilarating, more shocking, more sexy. if it was a "sure thing", it'd be boring, wouldn't it?
but then again, my initial quibble wasn't with whether they were meant to be, but really with people who can both believe it and not, and also believe draco/whoever were sexy too. it's like you're making them cheat (or cheating, somehow), to me. but cheating is ... natural. not that that excuses bad things, necessarily, naturalness i mean, but still. it lets me understand. and that's all i wanted, to understand. i want a world where there is Destiny and Magic and True Love and Endless Possibilities and Free Will, and Really Good Chocolate all at the same time. and maybe this world is that world. and maybe it's not. but i like this world anyway. not that i wouldn't run away to that other one if i could, let's face it, who am i kidding. if i had to pick just one out of those things to be real-- it wouldn't be True Love anyway. no, any sort of love is ok. well, i'd rather it was symmetrical and ideal, but i mean, even plato didn't believe his own hype, he was just ... saying. but anyway. if you know me even a tiny bit, you'd know what i'd pick.
well?
yeah.
Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic. Magic.
magic.
