To sell your love for peace
Three things on romance, because three is enough to put random topics in one post.
- thelittlebang, a challenge comm for femslash fanfic with complementary art and vids, now has submissions rolling in. Check the fanworks masterlist on the profile page for things you might be interested in. There's fic for things you only need a general familiarity with like fairytales and Arthurian legend.
- (Hetero) Male Romance in Avatar: the Last Airbender :
I thought my first post on AtLA would be a rant about the series finale, a mention of race and the casting fail of the movie, a general squee post, or about Katara. But it ends up being about romance, because it's a shorter topic to cover. Okay, it makes me skeptical whenever I hear that romance is for women, and action is for men, and that the romance plot in action movies is for the girlfriends of the presumed straight male audience. I always had a suspicion that there are romances for men/boys, but it would look different than romances for women/girls. I couldn't think of any examples off the top of my head. But watching AtLA, Aang/Katara is like a textbook case of what hetero male romance looks like. One form of hetero male romance is about earning the girl's love/first date/hand in marriage/etc, trying to impress the girl and get her attention.
Avatar's AU Short, School Time Shipping, is an example of what I mean. (It's non-spoilery.) - Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem, Love is Not All, is the most romantic thing ever. It spans mundane and epic sentiments; a dry sense of humor threads together cynicism and idealism; it's sublimely bittersweet. It's, guh.
Love is Not All
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.