I beat bitches asses

[seraphcelene]

tkp has written disturbing, heart breaking Angel/Connor. If the pairing disturbs you DON’T read it. What made this difficult reading for me were Connor’s exquisite vulnerability and Angel’s fractured longing. They’re both looking for connection. The fact that this is written in the Jasmine-verse makes it a million times more poignant because of Jasmine’s influence and the way that it has changed Angel, but perhaps more importantly, the way that it has not changed Connor.

Title: Pretty Screams In Paradise
Author: tkp
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Angel/Connor. Explicit Angel/Connor sex. If the concept offends you, please don’t click, read, or comment on this fic, and we’ll both be happier.
Summary: You can’t be saved by a lie.




I don’t know what it is about fights that are so fascinating. Last night’s episode of College Hill closed with a fight between two of the girls and I, who usually abhor all physical violence outside of a video game, was enthralled and deeply satisfied by the melee. It wasn’t the most violent of fights, no where near the UFC stuff that I absolutely cannot bring myself to watch, mostly just hair pulling, but I loved it. I loved that Crystal pretty much got her ass kicked because that girl has too big a mouth and talks way too much shit. I find all of that odd because I REALLY don’t like violence. Absolutely do not condone striking people, especially in anger. It’s a head scratcher, that one.

Drive is looking interesting. I love Nathan Fillion on my TV, that tiny, unholy curl of his lip at the end of that race got my heart pumping. That man is just made for moral ambiguity. And torture. He looks really good with bruises.

Heroes in less than a week, Woot!!




Yesterday’s Poem:


One Flesh by Elizabeth Jennings
Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhere - it is as if they wait
Some new event: the book he holds unread,
Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.

Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,
How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do, it is like a confession
Of having little feeling - or too much.
Chastity faces them, a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.

Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold
And not wind in. And time itself's a feather
Touching them gently. Do they know they're old,
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?



Today’s poem:


Poppies in October by Sylvia Plath
Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly ----

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.

Comments

[lettered.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! I'm very pleased you appreciated it. Yeah, the only way I could really write A/Connor that'd I'd believe is when Angel's under Jasmine's influence, because then to him nothing can really be too awful as her love will supposedly set all things to right.

You are so cute, liking people getting their hair pulled.

I love that Plath poem!

[seraphcelene]

I don't know if I expressed in my rec how amazing a job you did. I need to sit down and gather my thoughts into something more coherent than "guh"! Reading it was just so damn painful and awkward because they were both so needy. I still don't think that I'm expressing myself well enough, but I will. I'm going to get myself together and give this a proper rec.

Re Sylvia Plath: Everyone knows Lady Lazarus. It's the one everyone reads in High School so I really wanted to include her with something people aren't necessarily familiar with. I love the image of the woman's red heart blooming through her coat. How terrible and awesome that is.

[lettered.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, you made me feel amazing, so :o)

Several people said stuff like it was awkward or hard to read, and I felt that myself when I was writing it and reading it over, and I'm very confused about whether it's a good thing, or whether the sex scenes were just unnatural. Everyone's saying it praisefully, so I'm glad they and you liked it, but I wonder myself if it's what I really wanted.

This rec was lovely!

I don't know Lady Lazarus. I read very few things in highschool because it was a craptastic highschool, and the things I did read on my own were not poetry because in general I dislike poetry. So...*shrugs* It's why I'm so glad you're doing this!

[seraphcelene]

It's not the sex that makes it difficult to read. It is, I think, the intimacy behind the sex. It's like, for me anyway, the difference between watching porn and a really good love scene. The porn shows you everything, but it's just sex. It doesn't mean anything, there's no emotional resonance. A really good love scene shows you next to nothing and you're embarrassed because you're watching two people experience something really deep.

Reading Pretty Screams in Paradise is like watching something you really shouldn't be watching because these are people caught in a very real, very terrible moment. They are at their most vulnerable, without their clothes, without their skin, without any sort of protective layer. With Angel I mean that in the most superficial way; I mean it in exactly the way that you have demonstrated in the fic. He's open, completely bare and exposed and it makes you hurt for him because you *know* Connor is taking advantage of Jasmine's influence. With Connor that exposure is a result of the way you so beautifully tangle his past relationship with Holtz, and his understanding of that relationship, with his relationship with Angel. Connor's defensiveness, the defensiveness that we as readers are privileged to see past, is the most cutting sort of nakedness there is. It makes me want to turn away because I'm left with this feeling that in this moment, with his pain exposed to the sun, Connor deserves privacy. He deserves time and a few minutes to gather himself and to deal with his emotions. It's too real, too raw.

As I sat in the waiting room of my doctor's office, with my jaw on the floor, I kept thinking that this had to be really difficult to write because you really *go* there. You go to that dark, ugly and uncomfortable place that was Connor's childhood. You paint a picture that could easily have been true for Connor. Considering the things that he did, the betrayals and the anger and the way that he craves family and love, but at the same time he rejects it.

So, me saying that it's uncomfortable or difficult is definitely praise because it means that you really touched something inside. You captured something elusive and real, and elicited a very basic, knee jerk reaction. It's hard to put it into words because that sort of ugliness isn't something that people want to face and having to think about it, and in my case wanting to articulate my response, means that I must acknowledge and ponder my reaction.

I don't know if that made any real sense, but I can only say how amazed I am by you. By your willingness to push yourself beyond your comfort zone. By your willingness to be excruciatingly honest and real. By the grace and elegance with which you handled the piece and the characters. I am always impressed by your writing and this continues the trend. I am blown away.

[lettered.livejournal.com]

I was saying I loved you before I even read this.

Now I just feel really humbled. You just--I don't know, you really make me feel like not only my effort on this piece but my efforts as a writer are really justified, you know, and since that's who I want to be I feel...I feel very confident. And somehow just having got lost my job that's extremely cool. I feel as if the world is opening up to me again and that is a very nice feeling. Thanks for helping me like that--it's so much more than just feel-goodingness to know I wrote something that could make you feel this way.

I actually didn't find it that difficult to write--I mean, I put a *lot* of effort into it but I didn't find it that difficult emotionally, but I think that's because when I first came to really start trying to understand Connor, that's when I had emotional difficulty. He caught me up for months. To me he's what should be the very best of humanity manipulated into it's very worst, you know? 'Cause sure he's some vamp's kid in some campy show played by a cute girly boy, but fiction always becomes so much for and this character allowed for that and...your comments are making me ramble on so hard right now.

And you make a lot of sense here because this, especially this:
Connor's defensiveness, the defensiveness that we as readers are privileged to see past, is the most cutting sort of nakedness there is.
is what I was going for. I did want *that* to be hard to read.

It really touches me deeply that this touched you so deeply. Thank you so much for going through the time and the effort to express it. It means so much to me.

How did your doctor's appointment go?

[seraphcelene]

Mamacita -- I'm out the door in five, but I wanted to reply really quick because you're made of awesome and I'm smiling because you're in a good place (despite the job thing) and that is FABULOUS!

The doctor visit was good and questionable. What we thought was Osteoarthritis isn't and so now I have to go see a Rheumatologist and an Orthopod. It's something with the connective tissue, so we'll see. That's the questionable bit. The good bit is that otherwise I am healthy as a g-damn horse!! All tests results were normal or better than normal. I'm a poster child for a ridiculous number of tests. :)

Okay. I'm out for the evening, but enjoy your night and rest assured that I *will* be re-reading Pretty Screams in Paradise tonight!