Made To Be Broken: The Meta Post

[iwrotestuff]

Made To Be Broken: The Meta Post

So, a lot of things kept coming up in the comments, and I just couldn't really address them at the time without giving away too much of what was always planned.

Just in case it needs to be said, this post contains spoilers for the entire series.

Comments

[brimtoast]

Oh god, if ever there was a moment for this macro:



Reading this makes the entire fic so much more amazing. I *love* how intentional you were about everything. Your thoughts about sex are so interesting and, I think, spot on (and I agree with your issue with the "real" sex label). The bit about sex being a language was particularly cool and an analogy I'd never thought of before.

And I love how, unlike so many stories, it's not that, yes, secretly Darren and Chris were in love with each other all along and were just in denial and are together at the end. Love is not binary. Romance is not binary. It's such an important thing to talk about, because life can become so confusing when with every relationship you have to constantly choose one side or the other of this friendship/romance divide. When it's not even a continuum, really, since friendship and sexual attraction and crush-feelings and wanting-to-cuddle and all sorts of other feelings that are supposed to live neatly on one side of the divide or the other actually do not necessarily all group together. And language doesn't even *try* to cover it. It just has, like, a couple words that you have to stretch to fit yourself into and that almost never feel entirely comfortable.

This has all filled a really major emotional need for me, I think. I am just flappy-handed and *__* and most likely going to read the whole thing again soon and think more thoughts. And download the soundtrack. And pay lots of attention to what you write from now on. Because you know how Chris makes Darren feel safe in this story? Well, the thought you put into writing this makes *me* feel safe and cared for as a reader, which is a way I don't often entirely feel-usually I'm slightly on edge, waiting to see if an author will do something that feels gross to me in its implications and that I have to be on my guard against so that I can notice it and reject it as I read on. But this story, after reading this? This story I feel like I can relax into and trust. And so I pretty much *have* to re-read it, as soon as I can, because what an amazing feeling.

tl;dr you have made me feel a lot of feelings, which I am now gushing onto the page. Just, really, really, thank you.

[brimtoast]

That second paragraph was terribly unclear, and I care about this, so I am going to try to rephrase. Ahem:

Relationships are not binary. And that's such an important thing to talk about, because life can become so confusing when every relationship has to constantly fit into one side or the other of this supposed friendship/romance dichotomy. The reality is that not only do interpersonal relationships not map onto a dichotomy, they don't even map onto a continuum, since that would imply something two-dimensional, and there are so many dimensions to relationships: friendly affection and sexual attraction and crush-feelings and wanting-to-cuddle and all sorts of other feelings that can each vary independently. The words we have to talk about relationships don't even *begin* to cover the actual range of possibilities and complexities for how one person can feel about another. It just has a couple broad labels (boyfriend/girlfriend, friend, crush, fuckbuddy) that you have to stretch to fit yourself into and that almost never feels entirely comfortable. And I think often the tendency is to try to compare oneself to the idea of the label and to always feel anxious about the places of non-matching, like that is somehow a problem with the *relationship,* when of course the truth is that it's a problem with the woefully inadequate label.

I've seen really interesting conversations about the gender binary and all its inadequacies (and how it gives so many of us similar feelings of anxiety because almost nobody actually comfortably fits into it). In my mind, a lot of the same principles that apply to the gender binary apply to the relationship binary. Friends or lovers? Will they or won't they? So much of societal discourse, and the stories we consume, are centered around the idea of this binary, and it's, god, so rare to find a story that not only doesn't play into it but deliberately problematizes it. I am so happy right now. In case my paragraphs of response didn't give that away :)

[iwrotestuff]

Without bringing in too much of my own personal baggage, I have to say that I am beyond frustrated by the notion that Darren articulates of aknowledgement of feeling --leads to--> "dating" --leads to--> "relationship" --leads to--> "happily ever after" I've been there, done that, and came to the hard realization that "happily ever after" really isn't. There are so few socially acceptable options for exploring affection for / connection to another person, and it really, really bothers me.

"And I think often the tendency is to try to compare oneself to the idea of the label and to always feel anxious about the places of non-matching, like that is somehow a problem with the *relationship,* when of course the truth is that it's a problem with the woefully inadequate label."

I love this so much, it almost hurts. The friend who indirectly inspired this is a sworn bachelor. There's nothing wrong with that. What I do think there's something wrong with is the fact that he thinks that never wanting to get married or live with another person means that he should never have another relationship. He's fine with dating, and even dating exclusively, but mention the word "relationship" and he'd bust out the crosses and holy water, if he were Catholic. I've tried explaining to him that he can have everything he wants and still be in a relationship without the things he doesn't, but he just can't get out of that very landlocked mindset that says X=X and it can never equal anything else. It makes me kind of sad, really. He's an amazing person, but he's cutting himself off from so. damn. much. (Can you tell where I got Darren's attitude on the issue from?)

I just wish it weren't such a radical concept for people to just be together, in whatever fashion they choose. I've come to the conclusion that I am ideally suited for very close and egalitarian emotional connections with very independent social lives. Maybe it's just the soon-to-be-divorcee in me talking, but I don't feel like I do a good job being part of a matched set. I am very monogamous by nature, but it's mostly because a) I love myself more than anyone, and the more people I have to make time for, the less I have for myself, and b) I treat my playthings very well, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't like to share. ;)

For what it's worth, I consider myself fairly ambivalent about my gender. I'm a cisgendered female, and there are things I like about that, but I'm not especially attached to it. If I were to wake up tomorrow to find I suddenly had a physically male body, I would probably just shrug my shoulders and go with it. I've been told both that I'm too much of a girl and too much of a guy, and my response is usually just "fuck you, the only thing I'm too much of is myself."

I've loved your paragraphs. I've found them incredibly gratifying, and I love the points you bring up. :)

[iwrotestuff]

Thank you so much - I may have fallen into the initial plot and themes for this series unintentionally, but once I knew what it was about and where it was going, I was very, very serious about it. It's really easy to read smut and just focus on the hormones, and I was intensely concerned about showing that it wasn't just about getting off. It fills a very deep psychological need for each of them, and (not to sound too much like REAL LIFE Darren,) I really wanted to treat that with respect and care.

(I see that you wanted to rephrase the second paragraph, so I'm going to skip commenting on it here.)

Telling me that I made you feel safe is an incredible compliment, and it isn't one that I'm taking lightly. I know there's a school of thought with some writers that says it's important to always leave the reader feeling slightly on edge (and I do love reading things like that at times), but I think there's really something to be said about being able to write about something so potentially uncomfortable and alienating in a way that still leaves the reader trusting you to guide them through unharmed. (God, I feel pretentious saying that with any kind of relation to myself, but I really can't think of any other words in which to say it.)

I try to be very intentional with what I write. I'm very pleased that you're able to see that. <3