MISC: Analysis, The Waste Land, What the Thunder Said, lines 400-410...

[etherati]

...as loosely related to eventual zombie!porn. D: D: YES I'M GOING TO GO THERE. BLAME LIODAIN. Well no that's not fair. Blame me. It's my freaking AU.  D|

11 lines from Eliot's Waste Land, analyzed, free associated, dumped into the stream of consciousness. Thought it might be of vague interest. If not, feel free to ignore.

Transcribed from paper!journal:

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"Then spoke the thunder                                                          400
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed."

Eliot is for once (and only once) condoning and accepting our lust and our surrender to it as conditional to existence. Sinful action at least signifies existence, and is therefore better than inaction, which signifies nothing. Reference? Earlier work, covered this already. Moving on.

Moments that hang on past themselves and give a sense of self, of a position within time; surrender to ourselves shows us who we are. I exist I exist I exist. He says 'friend'; contrast this with the anonymous encounter in the fire sermon so roundly condemned. (Ref to Jean possibly? Am I seeing slash in everything?) Is the end goal(life vs satisfaction of base desires) the important part, or is the context more significant - lust wrapped in love rather than more lust. Water a constant theme. Water is a symbol for life all throughout but water is also a common cultural symbol for love. Condoning surrender to emotion perhaps, rather than surrender to physical sensation, with the goal irrelevant.

"Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms."                                                               410

Imagery speaks very solidly - that after we have gone to dust, the existence we have cultivated in the space between ourselves evaporates, with no one ever the wiser - no one understanding our motivations, our reasons, our excuses, our follies. Why we chose to make our home amongst these strewn moments of dissonance and fear. We become bodies in empty rooms and the intangible connections between us do not linger. There is value in these connections, or the language describing their dissipation would not read like mourning.

What have we given? We give the only thing that is ours to give. We give connection, we give self, we give sin and evil and grace and surrender, we give sympathy and control and isn't that the rest of the story? Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata. Give, sympathize, control. We give when we cannot bear to take, accept when we cannot ask. Control when sympathy is not enough to quell the chorus in our heads. Sympathize when control shatters. Give of ourselves and hope that it is enough, that blood shakes the heart in relief rather than fear, that the daring is worth its risk, that the surrender is received as the fragile gift it is, handled lightly, unbroken. That we do not wish to retract it. That the giving does not diminish the greater scope of our existence. My friend. My friend. Blood shaking my heart - "My friend," he says. "Love," he does not say, as friends never do, as no one who really should ever does, because there are too many kinds and only one word and language cows the spirit every time. My friend.

Eventually all the rooms will be empty, all surrenders forgotten with the reasons and the excuses and the guilt - all friends dead and gone. Will it have been worth it? And would an age of prudence have been worth it? At death's door, would any of us ask for the memory of a pure life and in the bargain, trade away a hand, a breath, a voice in the darkness, tears to fall on a numb cheek, arms to die in? These connections hum in our hearts and if the giving is base and vulgar, it is still better than giving nothing at all.

My friend.

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Yeah, so. THIS IS THE KIND OF SHIT I THINK ABOUT WHILE PLANNING FICS. Brought to you by Bic and Moleskine, and by the letter C. For CRAAAAAZY.

Comments

[tuff-ghost.livejournal.com]

eventual zombie!porn. D: D: YES I'M GOING TO GO THERE

!!!!!!!!!
&hearts

[brancher.livejournal.com]

OMFG YOU ARE GOING TO WRITE MORE ZOMBIE FIC

AND PORN


ILU FOREVER

[liodain.livejournal.com]

I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE HAPPY TO TAKE THE BLAME FOR SOMETHING :D

[xiangru-yan.livejournal.com]

Hello! Like many others, I have read and loved your Zombie fic. I know many others have said it in lengthier words, but I found your fic very heartwarming. What I would like to ask is, how do you plan your fics? I want to write some, also for the Watchmen fandom, but so far I only deal with drabbles as more lengthy fics tend to go awry along the way.

Be waiting for your future ficlets for the Zombie AU =)

[22by7.livejournal.com]

Possibly I will sound drunk, I apologise, I just looked at the threads preceding my comment here, and. And. Watchmen has always had this air of seductive, defiant difference around it: it's the Original Serious Gritty Philosophical Comicbook Graphic Novel. But yknow what. It's a text. It's a piece of art. It wakes up a little more every time you poke at it and turn it over and maybe inside out. I don't know, hence the drunk!warning, being in this fandom has made me ferociously optimistic about imagination and art and ridiculously huge things like that, because it's pure play, but there's also all this touching conscience, and really what I get from this particular combination is (not that I don't get this from other fandoms, just more intensely here) that people are creative, texts are meant to be played with, and Rory and Dan BFF T.S. Eliot, Amiri Baraka, Alexander the Great, zombies and Nazi costume fetishes are getting down and dirty on the same plane and LOVING IT. Sweet, beautiful bricolage. It makes me happy. Now somebody step in and tell me to take a deep breath and get a life, because it's just the internet. But that's the thing, it's not just the internet. It's YOU. Really you. It's really us, making this crazy shit. AND THAT'S GREAT. Oh god, what was I actually trying to say? Yeah, I was trying to say that... that I totally agree with brancher about the weirdshit kinkery giving rise to fucking fantastic fanfics, and that this fandom is so constantly full of surprises that in it I do not think, 'That would NEVER EVER WORK. Ever.' without reading the fic in question first. I will try anything, and more often than not I will be happy I did. I was on the fringes of Harry Potter fandom ages ago, should probably have learned my lesson there, but this one burns brighter and crazier, somehow.

Ok, I think I lost all track of what I was trying to say. But... zombie!porn? Go there, for we shall follow.