it's 5:35 am, on June 22, 2003 - dire flesh wounds: the long story..
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The short story goes like this: you finish reading the book of the summer, and can't stop crying.
The long story - which, apparently that entry about OZ is password protected, but really, how hard is it to guess what my password is anyway? - goes like this:
You're in first year, you're an admittedly vulnerable headcase. �You start watching OZ, a television show with such broken horrid people that try so hard not to be, and you get sucked in pretty easily - because hey, there are boys kissing on screen, and breaking each other's legs, and hating and loving all at once.
It's an HBO show, moreover, and so it's easy to do truely horrible things to the people - and so instead of ever getting better? the kissing boys just get worse and worse.
Flash forward a month, you've watched like, three and a half seasons. �During fourth season, the kissing boys look like they're doing the best they possibly can, actually starting to trust one another, and then you see the next two episodes, and the rest of the season, and you find out - that is the best they ever get. �They never, ever get anything else from each other, it never gets fixed. �They just want it to be, and it's not.
So you're in first year, and remember, more than a little crazy. �You start watching your dubbed tapes every day, instead of going to class, you try and avoid your roommates - who're only too happy to leave you alone - so you can cry all by yourself. You sit on the couch, and wrap yourself up in blankets, and can't ever let your muscles relax because you're so tense and so emotionally drained from investing in these fictional characters that don't get better. Every time you see a scene with them in it your muscles seize up, waiting and hoping for them to fix themselves.
But it never happens, those flesh wounds just keep re-opening. Eventually you have to stop watching the show, push it away, because it still has the power to undo you.
Fast forward a few years, you're watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. �Joyce dies. �You watch the episode eight times, and the ones after, and cannot shake that sense of emptiness - it sticks to you like fine film, it embeds itself in your very bones. �But at least it's purposeful writing, you tell yourself, it felt like there was a point. Not like OZ.
Fast forward. �You're watching Angel season one on DVD, and all of a sudden in the middle of the season your very favorite character up and dies for what appears like no reason - not from a thematic storytelling point of view, and not from any kind of logical well-though-out plot perspective either. �He's just there, and then he's not, and they end the episode with Cordelia and Angel watching a videotape blankly - the same face you wear - and it all boils down to: what's happened? How does this happen? How can someone all of a sudden stop existing?
You don't want to see any of the rest of the season, because how could that kind of loss be made-up for?
Around the same time, mind, you're also watching another Joss Whedon show, that gives you more joy than any other show you've ever watched. �It becomes your favorite show ever by the fifth episode, and you watch and you clap and you rewatch and you love it so hard your heart hurts - and then FOX cancels it.
What, you think? How can they cancel Firefly? How can something that you've put so much faith into be shunted to the side? �And you're absolutely heartbroken, but you know you're not the only one. Even Joss is absolutely devestated. �So it's a little easier to bear, knowing that, because it wasn't his fault, he tried and tried and tried.
Everyone who loved the show tried and tried and tried, and so, you think, knowing that helps the pain a little.
But that's all prologue.
Now, you're involved in a large online fandom based on a series of children's books, something that gives you so much joy that whenever you get together with like-minded fans you can't help but clap and beam and giggle because the whole experience is the happiest thing ever. �The theory is, when you put this much love into something it cannot let you down. �When you put this much spirituality and faith into anything - the church, the pope, a children's book, whatever - it should not let you down.
Like John Knowles says, when you love something this hard, it has to love you back in whatever way it can. �You just have faith that it'll turn out to be a good way. �Not like OZ.
So then the newest book comes out, and you wait and you wait and you go crazy because you want to know, you want more, you can't help but be excited because it's your favorite current fandom and you love it as hard as you've loved anything.
And then you read the book - and a character you can't stand to be apart from dies.
Now, it's not that you can't handle character death, though that's a contributing factor, sure. But you were prepared for a variety of deaths, because the spoiler said someone would die - and those deaths would be sad, and you would cry, and then you would accept it as part of the story and move on.
The thing is, you can't handle certain character death, because you've put so much emotion and faith into, say, one pairing of secondary characters, that you can't let them go. �The thought that the writer would conceive of writing - creating - the circumstances that would lead to one of their deaths feels like a betrayal so deep it makes your whole chest hurt.
So it doesn't matter how good the rest of the book is, and how much you loved with all your heart ninety percent of it for its amazing qualities - that one character death leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth for the whole fandom, the whole thing, everything about it.
You can't stop crying, and you don't want to do anything. �You go and you drive out to the middle of nowhere - which granted, is only about fifteen minutes away - get out of your car and stand there, looking at the sky. �You start to wonder if you're cracking up, because you feel this intense loss every time you even consider anything to do with anything even related. The computer, the movies, the other books, your friends and family, who are also fans. The thought of going near any of it fills your whole chest with tightness.
And this is the reason: you're pretty sure that the entire fandom, because of this one thing, will never, ever, have any joy for you again.
Which leads to the anger, and that sense of betrayal. �How could something you love this much do this to you? how could what should have been the most exciting event of the summer leave you feeling so empty you feel like you'll never be happy again?
This anger and betrayal is, as well, warring for dominance with your complete and utter sense of loss and grief - because it doesn't matter if he was fictional, you put love into him because that's what you do as a fan. �It's also warring with the sense of guilt that you liked most of it, and until about page seven hundred you were still so in love with the whole thing you could burst.
You know that it's irrational to feel betrayed by the whole fandom, and that it's childish to want to dump the rest of the greatness because of this one sad thing, which shouldn't even be affecting you this much, but you can't help it. you can't help weeping for the whole day. �You can't help the fact that the bad taste in your mouth extends to everything - like the way getting bad seats for concerts spoils the whole experience.
so you avoid your family, because they might ask what you thought of the book and you're afraid you'll just start crying in front of them; you avoid IM for the most part, because talking just makes you feel worse and let's face it, it's more than a little psychotic to feel grief for a fictional character. �But you can't help it. �You don't want to hear his name ever again, you don't want to say or type his name ever again, you don't want to have anything to do with anything that might mention the books.
The only thing you can picture ever writing again is a scene where your other favorite character - the one who loved him most - says he's ready to get back to work, and when people say maybe he should take a few days, if he needs anything, just ask, he'd answer,
"Don't ever ask me to speak or hear his name. Ever again."
How long is this entry, and I can't even type their names. this is my bruise.
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