~~wrongness and rightness and goodfic, at least, prevails against Evil

[reenka]

i have no great understanding of human cruelty, or the desire to gain it. sometimes this bothers me, making me feel childish and naive. while i appreciate gallows humor, that guy posting the ripped-up hand as "art" on blood_art, while seemingly good-intentioned, kind of bothered me. gore doesn't bother me, i don't know why-- so it's not that. it bothers me that people -like- it, or find it funny, it bothers me imagining people who would do this to their bodies, it bothers me, contemplating evil and how it feels to be mean and to want to seriously hurt someone, even if that someone is yourself. i've wanted to hurt people-- ok, one person-- before. i had endless daydreams where i was this kung-fu master and i could kick his butt all the way to texas. um. but i wouldn't do it. i wouldn't. even if i went insane as well as acquired super butt-kicking powers, -maybe- i'd fight with him-- in a fair fight. i would never hurt anyone in a, "i'm wielding the power of pain over you, bow down before me and bleed, bleed, bleed" sort of way.

while people who write or read or obsess over evil and death and pain don't bother me-- in fact, i don't even blink, reading or seeing anything violent or morbid-- it's still-- i mean-- i'm not like that at all. while it doesn't -hurt- me to see gore and blood, i avoid looking at the screen in movies when the scary music comes on, and i know something scary is happening. i just look at my hands. is it because i would scream or faint or something if i did watch it? no. it's just, i don't want to feel scared or disturbed-- i don't like feeling ill, either, so i avoid rollercoasters-- i don't like having to shut myself off and see things philosophically, in a book/movie i otherwise enjoy and put myself into.
    people who write about rape and evil and graphic violent death, if they write about it well, have nothing except my respect and admiration. it's just, i'm not like that, and that bothers me somewhat, because i want to understand, and i do, intellectually, but not emotionally, no. i don't -feel- it, that need to dwell in the morbid and the bleak and the disgusting. so no, i don't seek out fics about tom riddle, for example. he's not any better, any cleaner to me, just because he's not voldemort yet. he's going to be evil-- anything i feel for him would have to be either pity, horror, or some sort of psychological fascination, like the sort my mother feels, reading all those serial-killer nonfiction novels.

maybe the people who read/write this stuff are like my mother-- analytical, sarcastic, weird, humorous, emotionally distant, somewhat pessimistic, fascinated with the human psyche. yes. well you if wanted to, you could apply all those adjectives to me, too, so... it must be something else, i guess. i don't mind -meanness- in characters-- i enjoy it-- arrogance, meanness, smugness, unsentimentality, coldness even. it's when it crosses the line to actual sadism that i'm bothered. in my mind, draco malfoy, for example, isn't a sadist. if he was, i wouldn't like him in a million, trillion years. you don't have to be kind and nice to get my interest, but you have to have a certain humanity. i think sadism, cruelty, robs one of humanity-- of any shred of empathy-- it kills your soul, bit by bit. and yes, i've liked plenty of unempathic characters/people too. it's not exactly a well-defined barrier. i know it when i see it. anyway. enough of that.
~~

um. well. i deflated my raging enthusiasm for penelope_z's latest ficlet with all this-- and in fact right now i just feel sort of wan and bleh. but. i have, have, have to insist everyone who likes goodfic read it, because it is just-- absolutely stunning. it's harry/ron. it's ron. and-- what ron..! human ron. hee~! i feel like laughing again, remembering it, because i'm so glad she wrote a non-dark ficlet, so simple and yet ringing so true, so smoothly integrated and vivid. wholeness, integration within a story's metaphors, is always something that completely sells me on a fic. it's when you attain that feel of poetry-- really good poetry-- when everything just comes together and moves you, and moves the story, when nothing seems extraneous and every word rings-- that seems to be the absolute grail of short-shorts. so yes. it's a happy thing, to see things done right. in 10 frikkin minutes, apparently. *cries* that just rubs it in, totally ^^;; maybe i'll be a carpenter.... heh.

and yo. serious_black wrote that ron pome i've been meaning to link to, so here is `Secondhand Soul Brother', this seems like a good time. both pieces riff on this secondhand idea, but in such different directions.

you can’t help
returning to your reflection
in a sugar-birthing moonheavy metal dish,

can i just die now?? or maybe, can i just get born now? along with these words, their birth seems so right, i want everything to be that right.

Maybe you’ll be Nobody, forever.

it is so beautiful i am fucking breathless.
~~
so. to celebrate wrongness along with rightness-- or else for some really stupid other reason-- i went to a harry/ginny shipper's site. i think i like torturing myself, what can i say.

i really like this draco though-- he's got the trademark pissy look just right. i worship anyone who can do The Look(tm). yes. then there's this harry-- looking good in his robes, man-- and that rounds out the list of pics which -didn't- make me sick in some way.

so. the attack of the ginnys!
there's creepy!ginny, and slayers!ginny, and sex-kitten!ginny, and finally all-american!ginny.
    & ``the happy couple"~
playtime!h/g (v. v. disturbing), and disney!h/g (actually sort of cute, if you're an 11-year-old, really).

ahem. will post `armchair slash' seasonal-h/d-challenge fic later. oh joy. *deflated*

*sobs* i am so not worthy. but. oh well, i amuse myself.