Natural vs. Pretenatural
I'm getting obsessed again. Well, we knew that, we knew it since January when I was allowed to play Holliday and suddenly remembered how much I loved that insane bastard. But - well - how to explain myself?
I think a Raven's world is divided into two: but I'm not entirely sure how to label them correctly without sounding insulting - and no slight is intended. Let me attempt for now to label them 'natural' and 'preternatural'.
The natural is the everyday and contains the spectrum of everyday things. It ranges from the tired and depressed to the happy and amused. It encompasses work and games and relationships and all manner of things. It all in all encompasses about 90% plus of my life.
The final 10% is the preternatural - and is what I am quietly addicted to. It's anything that makes me feel something so intently I have a physical reaction to it or mentally circle it round and round for months trying to find a way further in. The preternatural is the unseen and the unexplained - it's when my body or mind is blindsided by something.
Some examples to attempt to illustrate...
Magic is natural. Magic when it runs away with you and stomps all over the world is preternatural.
Engaging with a character from a book or film is natural. Seeing that character in danger and suddenly getting mad shakey adrenaline spikes of longing and fear in your stomach is preternatural.
Being depressed is natural. Carving a hole in your neck so you can physically bleed to match the soul wound you can feel killing you - preternatural.
Listening to a song is natural. Listening to a song and wanting to drop to your knees and weep or spin around like a top until you're sick? Definitely preternatural.
Perhaps one could say that the natural is like being in love, whereas the preternatural is *falling* in love. In the long term and in the quest for a sane life, being happily in love is better. But that beginning bit of angst and despair and hope and insanity? - what a rush.
I believe it is why I fell in love with Reagan - I was obsessed with Cinnamon and he insinuated himself neatly into that obsession, thereby ensuring I bought into him if I wished to buy into her.
I started to write this because I have been watching my odd neuron-behaviour re: Doc Holliday and Kate. When we are writing DT stuff and emailing it to each other my neurons become intensely jealous. Elle is actually quite good at writing - a few bits of phrasing make me squirm, but mostly she's got a balanced hand and a good eye for description. So when she writes about Kate sitting and drinking with Holliday my neurons scream out, "You BITCH - you're sitting there drinking with Holliday and he LIKES you! Why can't we do that?" I'm basically expending all this creative energy crafting a fiction where Holliday is falling in love (or at least fancy) with a girl - and the girl's not me. It's very vexing =P
I should be writing 'The girl who...' stories - but mostly I'm stockpiling angst, amusement and randomness for Holliday for later. I can't help it - reading it back gives me the shakes and my neurons swoon - happy to have their preternatural 10%.
The length and depth of obsessions has also always depended on how much I can submerge myself in it. Is there a film, a book, a song, a picture, a story, a legend to unpick fact from fiction? Can I dream them, draw them, speak them, be them? Can I share their hobbies, their triumphs and their scars?
I was talking to James the other night on yahoo (waiting for Elle to turn up - heh - she never did) and he was confused as to my wanting to be Holliday. I couldn't explain it to him. I do and I don't. Mostly I think I just want to know him well in some impossible way. I want to know his thoughts and opinions, his mannerisms - perhaps more than anything I would like to meet and effect him in some possitive way. All rather impossible of course which is probably why I continue to be haunted by it =P
Honestly, I'm not sure if getting a gunbelt and frock-coat was the best or the stupidest thing I've done in recent times - but it's certainly made me dress smarter and my neurons are grinning like bastards...
I think a Raven's world is divided into two: but I'm not entirely sure how to label them correctly without sounding insulting - and no slight is intended. Let me attempt for now to label them 'natural' and 'preternatural'.
The natural is the everyday and contains the spectrum of everyday things. It ranges from the tired and depressed to the happy and amused. It encompasses work and games and relationships and all manner of things. It all in all encompasses about 90% plus of my life.
The final 10% is the preternatural - and is what I am quietly addicted to. It's anything that makes me feel something so intently I have a physical reaction to it or mentally circle it round and round for months trying to find a way further in. The preternatural is the unseen and the unexplained - it's when my body or mind is blindsided by something.
Some examples to attempt to illustrate...
Magic is natural. Magic when it runs away with you and stomps all over the world is preternatural.
Engaging with a character from a book or film is natural. Seeing that character in danger and suddenly getting mad shakey adrenaline spikes of longing and fear in your stomach is preternatural.
Being depressed is natural. Carving a hole in your neck so you can physically bleed to match the soul wound you can feel killing you - preternatural.
Listening to a song is natural. Listening to a song and wanting to drop to your knees and weep or spin around like a top until you're sick? Definitely preternatural.
Perhaps one could say that the natural is like being in love, whereas the preternatural is *falling* in love. In the long term and in the quest for a sane life, being happily in love is better. But that beginning bit of angst and despair and hope and insanity? - what a rush.
I believe it is why I fell in love with Reagan - I was obsessed with Cinnamon and he insinuated himself neatly into that obsession, thereby ensuring I bought into him if I wished to buy into her.
I started to write this because I have been watching my odd neuron-behaviour re: Doc Holliday and Kate. When we are writing DT stuff and emailing it to each other my neurons become intensely jealous. Elle is actually quite good at writing - a few bits of phrasing make me squirm, but mostly she's got a balanced hand and a good eye for description. So when she writes about Kate sitting and drinking with Holliday my neurons scream out, "You BITCH - you're sitting there drinking with Holliday and he LIKES you! Why can't we do that?" I'm basically expending all this creative energy crafting a fiction where Holliday is falling in love (or at least fancy) with a girl - and the girl's not me. It's very vexing =P
I should be writing 'The girl who...' stories - but mostly I'm stockpiling angst, amusement and randomness for Holliday for later. I can't help it - reading it back gives me the shakes and my neurons swoon - happy to have their preternatural 10%.
The length and depth of obsessions has also always depended on how much I can submerge myself in it. Is there a film, a book, a song, a picture, a story, a legend to unpick fact from fiction? Can I dream them, draw them, speak them, be them? Can I share their hobbies, their triumphs and their scars?
I was talking to James the other night on yahoo (waiting for Elle to turn up - heh - she never did) and he was confused as to my wanting to be Holliday. I couldn't explain it to him. I do and I don't. Mostly I think I just want to know him well in some impossible way. I want to know his thoughts and opinions, his mannerisms - perhaps more than anything I would like to meet and effect him in some possitive way. All rather impossible of course which is probably why I continue to be haunted by it =P
Honestly, I'm not sure if getting a gunbelt and frock-coat was the best or the stupidest thing I've done in recent times - but it's certainly made me dress smarter and my neurons are grinning like bastards...