DVD commentary : Beautiful Things
18 Aug 2004 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salineaAnd one other DVD commentary for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shisakura, one !
For people who didn't read it yet, you can check it there.
Warning, I went on rambling on things for a long time. I think I actually wrote as much commentary as there is of fic. Why, yes, I am a very narcissist, full of myself writer :p
Beautiful Things
I had two driving ideas in mind when I wrote Beautiful Things. The first one was Seishirou as the Death card in Tarot. As people interested in Tarot may know already, Death is all about change and metamorphosis, therefore one of my starting point was those two lines of dialogue at Rainbow Bridge where Subaru says "You've changed me". The second idea was about exploring Seishirou's mind as someone who doesn't feel for people. Now this is one of the first fic and idea of fic I had for this fandom, right after I had read an insanely huge number of fics in a very short time. I mean by this that there were a few things I had read so often I was slightly sick of them. One of them was the whole "Predator & Prey" dynamic of SxS. I wanted to do something slightly different, so I used the artistic view point. I went overboard with it actually. You could do a drinking game with how many time I use artistic metaphores for Seishirou.
Part 1
RICKY : I was filming this dead bird.
ANGELA : Why?
RICKY : Because it's beautiful.
American Beauty
Oh ! Quotes ! Isn't it swell and elegant ? aaah, anyway I was quoting from American Beauty (apart from the fact it's one of my favourite movies) because I wanted to capture that feel of wonder at very crass, ugly and horrible things, of touching the divine throught the most common banal things. And among which the pure meaningfulness of death.
The first lesson was observation.
That first line came quickly to me. Lessons rythm the first part of this fic, I'm trying to find explanations for what Seishirou is. So the first one is "Look". Can't be a proper artist if you haven't learned first how to appreciate the works of others.
He had learned that one very early, when his mother used to take him with her to work. He could remember with amusement the variety of behaviours from the people she would introduce him to before killing them. Some would greet him fondly, others looked annoyed. They all ended up in a pool of blood at the end of the evening.
This simple logic was driven early in the head of chibi Seishirou. Not matter what they do, are, feel, everyone dies. It's not a big deal, it's just a natural, common part of life.
One of his most vivid early memory was of being locked up with corpse in decomposition for three days. He had spent those hours in close intimacy with the slow and ineluctable maturation of flesh. Entranced, he had smelled, eyed, heard, felt, tasted the long transformation of the tense body through the relaxing process of decay into a blossoming nest of worms and flies. Few things are as alive as a dead body. He had never forgotten that lesson that in the end people where just that much of meat. She had never again left him for that long in the presence of her work's leftover, but when she took him with her she always made him look hard at the remains, lest he forget that truth.
I see this as a sort of test that every potential Sakurazukamori was passed throught. I wanted something deeply traumatic without being physicaly violent, something that could explain why the human being who went throught it would have a very hard time connecting with people afterwhile. Most probably if the child couldn't pass the test and ended up too panicked, Setsuka would have killed him and searched for another heir.
I meant the description of the decomposing body to convey fascinated horror. The reader knows a dead body is something repulsive, i'm trying to make him see that from another point of view, one of clinical observation, it can also be seen a beautiful process, even sensual.
"smelled, eyes, heard, felt, tasted" is boring. I should have found another way to express that all encompassing of senses of the experience. And, nah, I don't want to know how exactly chibi Sei "tasted" this.
Afterward she would ask him questions about the target, the situation, how she had killed them, and could he remember their name, what they had said ? He was to listen with attention, watch with all his eyes, and remember it all. She would always bring him to the dead body to examine it and he used to watch with fascination the grim sneer settle on their visage. He liked how people looked after they were dead. They didn't look the same. They weren't so loud, so jarring, so false anymore. They were fixed, anchored like a photograph by the moment of their death at the hand of his mother. He thought it was beautiful, to be able to fashion so definitely the way people looked like.
Chibi Sei thinks that live people look loud, jarring and false. Irony anyone ? You can check my post on the Seishirou discussion at togakushi shrine for more about the Truth / Lies thing I think his character deals with.
First artistic metaphore about killing ! Oh, and the birth of a vocation - isn't it cute ? Did I mention this fic is full of necrophiliac subtext ?
But it was all see, don't touch. One time, when he had raised his hand to feel the gaping wound, his mother had taken his arm gently and broke each finger, one after one, followed up with a kiss on each nail. He had never tried again to touch a corpse without her agreement. He was, as she was fond to say, a fast learner.
I always thought that Seishirou's iron discipline was scary, and I shudder to think of what costed to teach it. Just a snapshot of what it could have been. Breaking bones and re-mending them is vivid visual of the shaping of a human being. It's reminescing of what many tribes do as initiation rituals, the need to carve flesh and bones so as to make a proper human being. Or in this case a proper Sakurazukamori.
The last line of this paragraph is meant to show a casual indifference from Seishirou to what he has gone throught. He doesn't see it as anything out of the ordinary.
Later, the lessons of observation had become more complicated. He was to shadow someone in the street taken randomly and to report to her within twelve hours anything of interest about this person. Or he was to listen to a registered conversation, and identify the interlocutors' gender, age, profession and relationship from it. On some occasions, she only gave him a name, or a telephone number, or an address, and he was to find out that person, and what kind of secret he or she had that justified an assassination. Everyone deserved to die if you looked hard enough, she would say to him.
Mostly a boring paragraph. More assassin training. More repetition that death is perfectly normal for everyone to undergo.
Watch and report. Listen and analyse. She had made him practice it so often it had become a routine, something as natural as breathing to him. She had taught him the art and the rapture of stalking, the pleasure of succeeding to decipher people's secrets and hidden fears, feels and wishes. She had given him eyes to appreciate the magnificence of death setting in like a dark sun. When he had for the first time summoned a shikigami and it had been a goshawk, he had thought it was a homage to her good teaching.
Stalker!Seishirou ! I make Sei's shiki to be a goshawk. Not special reason, I just like goshawks. Notice the drifting away from it being a bird of prey to a theme of aesthetic contemplation.
The second lesson had been about hiding. Disappearing into shadows, finding the good spots to take cover and concealing things was easy. Less so where the lessons of faking what he thought and what he felt. She took her time, spending unending hours to patiently and tenderly inscribe in his body the ways of keeping his face neutral and pleasant as she made him endure pain and pleasure, hunger and thirst, sleepiness and intoxication. She taught him how to make his own body a tool of his mind, how to shape his face into a mask that would reflect only what he meant to show. He underwent her lessons of discipline gladly knowing it meant that one day he would be the shaper.
After watching, the lesson of not being watched. Let the work speak for itself and stuff. More discipline and shaping of Seishirou. He doesn't only objectify other people, he does the same thing for his own body and life. Foreshadowing : he will relate in the same way to Subaru.
She was an attentive teacher, using reward and punishment alike with prodigality. Assessing sharply like a cook preparing a difficult receipt the balance of pressures and releases needed to mould him into the perfect Sakurazukamori.
Does cooking count as yet-another-art-metaphore ? I say it does. I'm vague by now about what exactly those lessons entail. But I don't think they're very pleasant to undergo.
"You'll make me so proud", she would say. "You know I love you so much, that's why I want you to be the best."
"I know, Okaa-san." He'd answer levelly.
"You love me too, ne ?", she'd say, putting a hand lightly to raise his chin.
"Of course, I do. You know I love beautiful things."
She would laugh then, with a delightful, musical mirth.
"I'm not a thing, Seishirou."
"But one day you'll be one.", he'd say, smiling to her like she taught him to smile.
"You're such a wonderful, eager child.", she'd answer and she would kiss him.
Yeah... cold. Can you see people as anythings else but things when you know you can so easily make them so, and that everyone eventualy becomes one ?
And yeah, Seishirou shows his good training, and Setsuka is soooo proud.
She taught him to lie, in every way you can lie. With his words, with his silence, with his body. She taught him to use his voice to suggest things that were never said and how to act so people would assume what he wanted them to assume. She taught him to blend in, wherever he was, or to stand out with whatever impression he wanted to produce. She taught him how to radiate dread so that no one would ever doubt they had been faced with death itself. It was interesting, to mimic the strange expressions of emotions he didn't feel, he liked the challenge of it. It was just as if he'd use a knife to carve whatever expression he wanted them to display, and that pleased him.
Again, Seishirou sees very much himself as much as a tool, a thing, as he sees other people.
It's so much easier to lie by not saying something sometimes, people are so eager to just /assume/ about what you never said. I'm not much a liar, but this is something I do a lot.
With those lessons, as well, came the instruction of illusions and make-believe. The subtle spells of trickery and deception, the common glamours, guise and vanishing, and the glorious execution of the maboroshi.
This paragraph is just boring. I don't know why I kept it there, except that I wanted to mention maboroshi and other magical deceptions. But it doesn't add anything.
The last lesson was the art of killing.
He had been taught most of them, using all kind of tools and instruments, and the different kind slaying spells and silent incantations. By then, he was already very intimate with the working of the body from his previous lessons, so it wasn't difficult knowing the weak points to strike at. She had made him exercise himself every day to the gracious patterns of strikes, parades and evasions, his now well-disciplined body answering the training with ease and a pleasant readiness.
Seishirou's shaping is almost done. Isn't he so happy to be this perfect instrument of killing !
She wouldn't let him kill for real of course. He was only to study the ways and the movements until they became part of him just as the onmyoujutsu practice was part of his soul. He yearned for the day he would at last know death by giving it, watching that red veil settle on the gaze of his target. He longed for his turn at making beautiful things out of warm bodies.
I think I use a thousand times the words "beauty" and "beautiful" in this fic. Anyway, having the title in the body of the fic. I am strangely proud of this title. It's nothing special, and pretty obvious, but I think it suits very well the story. And yes, the beautiful things are the dead body. Or the potential dead body things that people are. Seishirou prefers people when they're dead. Yay for necrophiliac undertones !
When it came, it came like a grace. The lovely February day, full of promises and inviting white snow under a perfect blue sky, had put him into a cheerful mood. He liked snow, when it was still fresh and glittering he always felt the appeal to step into it, as if purity only existed to be shattered. Watching his footprints in the snow behind him, he had decided it would be today. He took his last lesson from her that day, watching death sets down softly and her eyes becoming glassy and hollow like a doll.
Narcissit!Seishirou ! And "as if purity only existed to be shattered", it's an obvious, conventionnal line, yet it very much fits Seishirou. Snow being another of those pure, virginal, untainted thing that exists to be /shaped/ by him.
"You are so beautiful." He had whispered to her, softly.
I use too much softly. I like this word, damnit !
Thus, he had become the Sakurazukamori, the one who killed with a genial smile and who carved the dead into that final expression of themselves. He had experimented, in those first years, with a glorious eagerness, amusing himself with trying out different techniques to give death and to display the remains; composing so many macabre tableau waiting to be discovered. It was a subtle art, all in the arc of one falling hand, the cryptic tracing of blood, and the pale mask of death looking up.
Depending on the way he killed them, they didn't die the same way, showing either quiet peacefulness, deep anguish, mute pleas, acute horror, or the cruel illusion of liveliness. For each quarry, he would ponder earnestly how he would slay them, depending on who they were and why they were to be killed.
I could see Seishirou being so genuinely worried about giving a proper death to people. As if it actually mattered a lot. It does, for him, it's of primal importance. There's a genuine care for those dead bodies from him in this fic. More about it later.
He knew so many manners of murder, but his favourite one was with his naked hands. He liked the sensuality of it, to be able to feel the warm flesh break under his fingers, to sense the heart flutter and halt as he closed his grasp on it. It was like seizing life itself. Things were never as true, as beautiful as in the perfect moment they ceased to be. He used his very hands to birth a new, unfathomable butterfly out of the disgracious vulgarity of those living things.
I do see Seishirou as a very sensual being. That he does express it in weird way is another peculiarity of his ^^ Butterfly is a classic symbol for metamorphosis, death and souls, as anyone who read XXXholic knows.
And I don't think I've seen anyone mention it so I will even if it's pretty obvious, all those killing scenes with a hand plundging into flesh, from Clamp, are very much, well, penetrations. So I did try to write this as I would a sex scene.
He had started to smoke for the same reason. It was a genuinely sensuous habit, combining the pleasure of many senses as you could smell, taste, watch and touch the consumption of matter into an elusive, flying smoke. Yes, it was very much like killing.
Hehe, more of a comment from me. I don't smoke, but that's only because I was very careful never to begin, I do love smoking.
Yet, despite all the satisfaction he could have taken into his labour, he had still felt like something was missing from his life. It was a distressing thought, nabbing him when he was contemplating the execution of his daily activities. His world, his existence, had to be perfect into its every little aspect. How could it not be so ?
Again with Seishirou seeing himself and his little universe as much as a thing as the rest. Control freak that he is, he tries to make it perfect and harmonous. And of course he can't even understand that he's just lonely.
The answer had come with the running steps of a small boy, catching him by surprise while he was proceeding to the feeding of the Sakura.
He had looked into the young child's wide, innocent eyes
/ Do you like sakura ? /
And he must have said something to test this prey's reaction
/ Did you know that there are corpses buried under the sakura tree ? /
To see if it could appreciate the beauty of death like it appreciated the beauty of the cherry blossom
/ It's because of the corpses buried beneath the roots that the sakura blossoms every year /
And what manner of death it was worth
/ Do you know why these sakura blossoms are pink ? It's because the sakura feeds on the blood of the corpses buried beneath it /
But the boy had said something that had surprised him
/ But don't the people under the sakura suffer ? /
Such concern, such grief in its eyes for the dead... he had wondered
/ Let's make a bet /
was it possible...? could this child come to understand, to appreciate... ?
/ So today... I'll let you go /
He was ready to wager on it. He would fashion the boy into the audience that his art so desperately craved.
After all, what was beauty that nobody ever gazed at ?
I wrote this in a very strange way. I see Seishirou narrating from posteriori and the little dialogue lines as present tense flash backs. Does it make any sense ?
Anyway, here I'm trying to get across two points. One, is a little funny hypothesis that Subaru catches Seishirou's eye because he expressed concern for the /deads/. Something that Sei wouldn't expect to see in anyone else than himself. The other is Subaru-as-an-audience-for-seishirou's-art. Basicaly Seishirou comes to all this troubles to master the art of killing and dispose the bodies in a suitable ways and he's starting to wonder what is the point of that if no one can actually appreciate it like he used to appreciate his mother's work. Art, after all, is basicaly a medium for communication, so what does it mean if there's no one to communicate it to ? So yeah, Seishirou is lonely, he just puts a weird name on it.
Part 2
"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." Goethe
I think i divided this into two parts only because I couldn't manage to write a good transition between the teaching of Seishirou part and the one which relates with his relation with Subaru.
Anyway, new quote ! I found this one in a pretty random way. I don't actually know much about Goethe. I love poetry, but german poets isn't an area I master very well. However, once I found it I thought it was pretty perfect for the themes of this fanfic.
So, here Seishirou spent all of the first part to learn how to consider everyone and everything as mere things. He's going to spent the second part to learn how to not do this anymore ^_^
When he had met the boy, so many years ago, he had been stricken by the purity of its soul and the kindness of its feelings. The child had been so full of feelings reaching for others, so ready to answer to others' emotions. That was so much the opposite of him, and yet, that had made the boy feel for the dead like he thought no one else than himself did.
That had intrigued him. If you put such contrary beings in contact with each others, what would happen ? Surely they couldn't remain apart, which one of them would share its essence, transform the other and thus destroy all that it had been ? Could this kind soul remain as innocent as it was despite all he could do to it, or could it in answer make him see and experience the emotions that had always evaded him ?
Seishirou isn't very consistent. He said he wanted Subaru to be an audience for his art, and now he wants him for the Bet. Well, let's just say he's slightly confused. ^^
Transformation is, of course, destruction. This is the Death card point. Every change is a death, a not being anymore what it used to be.
Oh, and, yes, I'm rewriting the Bet. So that it's not only about making Seishirou feel, but also about /shaping/ Subaru into what Seishirou is. Does Sei realize that means he chose Subaru to be the next Sakurazukamori ? I'm not sure. Seishirou is also being rather stupid if he thinks only one of them will be changed by it.
Seven years afterward, at the end of the bet, the answer was unclear. Evidently, he didn't feel any kind of concern for the well being of Subaru-kun, as delightful and enjoyable a thing it was to contemplate and play with. However, neither was the result of his actions on him totally satisfying. When Subaru's eyes had filled with tears and it laid motionless under his blows, he had felt frustrated. Despite this betrayal, despite his actions, the boy was still as pure and innocent as it had been when he had first met it. Neither had won out. He had almost been glad for Hokuto's excuse for not killing it right out. Maybe with a longer timeframe he would have the answer to his question. He was sure he could make more of the other onmyouji. Certain he could impart some of his ruthless point of view into this beautifully responsive face, and thus resolve the enigma that it had been to him.
"almost glad for Hokuto's excuse", are you ? Yeah right ! Deeply relieved more like... Seishirou's frustration at Subaru's still innocent heart and sorrow is inspired by a discussion withhalcyon_libra. I do think Sei is totally obsessed and idealizing Subaru's purity. And because of that, of course, he wants to destroy it.
And in the meantime, the youth was still the perfect mirror to appreciate his performance.
The start of the mirror metaphore. I did say I loved mirror symbolism, didn't I ? ^^ Right now, Subaru is a perfect mirror.
After a work of nine years, he was rather satisfied by the result of his effort. During this time of isolation and chasing, the once young and pure boy had matured into a fascinating, broken thing, so fragile yet enduring by the force of the twin strains of obsessive guilt and anger. It was a beautiful sight to behold, really. He couldn't wait to test it more, to see what reactions he could trigger in it, what new odd expressions this face could stress itself into, what unfathomable anguish would drift through those clear eyes.
"twin strains", I like this... I see Subaru as being litteraly quartered by his feelings, his love, his guilt and his anger. And more confused!Seishirou, does he want Subaru to be his audience, or does he want him to be his object of art ?
He would not be disappointed.
He played it tentatively, with light touches and delicate strokes, teasing and casual. A random meeting with abrasive words catching it unprepared, a tender compliment when it was looking for a fight, a courteous dedication, left with the cooling remains of his art and a dozen of red roses. Let it not be said he wasn't a considerate enemy.
Seishirou is having fun. I could totally see Seishirou dedicating his assassinations to Subaru as if it was a loving gift.
He got a response of delightful anger, sweet desperation and ringing sorrow. It was pleasing. There was yet so much innocence and gentleness in this soul to blemish and mar, so many virgin territories in this tender heart to explore, so much more lessons to imprint in the very flesh and being of the younger onmyouji.
I love oxymorons too much for my own good.
There were more surprises to come, too.
He hadn't expected to see it express desire and want, but it did make sense. After all, death had always been tinted with lust, waltzing in the oldest dance of Eros and Thanatos. It just meant he could bring the game to a whole new level.
Note that Subaru is the one who initiate the sexual aspect in their game. Why ? I don't know, I can't see Seishirou doing it. It's got to be Subaru opening that door, even in an insignificant way.
Eros and Thanatos is a phrase I want to stick everywhere about relationships in my favourite Clamp mangas. It just seem like no one can define their love without bringing death, killing or dying, into the deal.
He could break and mend the young man, again and again, in the way he favoured, stroking it, tasting it, holding it, and making beautiful new shapes and patterns out of this naked flesh as he felt the life twist and quiver within his own hands, teeth and skin. He had always preferred the most intimate way to work his skill.
Break and mend, like for the bones, it's all about re-shaping Subaru. And yes, this is the closest thing to a sex description I've written. "intimate way to work his skill" is definitely meant to compare it to the killing scene earlier.
He could also make it wait for days and weeks, let it feel ignored, freed maybe, and appear at the least expected moment to ravish what they both wanted, and give as much, in a price of blood and scathing indifference that cut and cut more into his prey, more than true cruelty would have. And taking note of the self-loathing that surged with a greater intensity every time he could wonder how many more dimensions of pain and care the boy was able to give him, how many more beautiful emotions he would watch unfurl and ripple over this face until he consumed them all. He loved to enjoy things as they walked the path of destruction, and with that one there was just no end to it. It was a captivating pastime, and he could not grow weary of it.
Paraphrasing Tokyo Babylon. "Because it's the only city on this earth that enjoys itself as it walks on the path to destruction" Obviously a key line in constructing the character of Seishirou in this fic. The beauty of things that are ephemeral.
But Seishirou is starting to wonder wether he /can/ win this bet, totally change Subaru into someone who doesn't feel so much, and wether he /wants/ to do such a thing.
Holding that thin body against him as it finally fell into slumber, observing it with an attentive eye, he thought it was more like narcissism than anything else in truth. To watch himself reflected into the broken mirror of these green eyes, to listen to the bitter curse and low moans he could goad in it, to trace wistful calligraphy on the white scroll of its skin and feel it shudder in answer. How easily did that skin bruise ! It was a wonder to see the beautiful patterns slowly colour as the blood flowed underneath with a pink bluish hue that told so many fables of hurt and need.
All throught the fic, Seishirou is often thinking about Subaru with distant "this" or "that", picking his body apart mentally. With the fact he's refering to Subaru as "it", it's an obvious stylical mean of reification.
Note that Subaru is now a broken mirror. "wistful calligraph", hehe... more artistic metaphore, of course, and there was a point where I wanted to go all "pillow book" with this, but finaly decided against it. The mention of blood flowing to colour the white skin to pink is, of course, a reference to the Sakura blossoms turning pink.
And Seishirou totally deluding himself when he thinks it's narcissism, only a way to love himself by loving what he makes Subaru into. Ooops, did I say that nasty, dirty L-word ?
Such a white skin you have, Subaru-kun. When I finally kill you, I'll have to keep it.
More necrophiliac cutesie. Isn't it endearing ? ^^
But despite it all, despite all the changes and the lines he had carved into the young man, there was still a well of gentleness within it, and he came to wonder whether he would be able to empty it all to nothingness or rather would go on sculpting it until the inner core of purity beneath it would be revealed like a shining diamond. Which would win out in the end ? It was still a question.
Scupltor!Seishirou ! Or is that jewelsmith ? So, yeah... can you change a person totally ? Or do all those change allow to glimpse what is underneath, what is truer about a person ? What is identity ? Because, of course, if people have an identity strong enough to resist all this shaping, if they have a /soul/, then they're not /things/ only anymore. They are independant beings. And that's all the issue.
The boy was still kind enough to let his eye be taken in a vain guilt wish. It was infuriating, seeing his masterwork despoiled by another, wondering if the boy had learned nothing all this time, if he had listened to nothing that he had been imprinting into his flesh...
And if people are not things, then they make unexpecting actions, things that you wouldn't want them to do. Watch Seishirou come up to the frustration of daily life when dealing with Others. Aren't you proud of him ?
So yeah, eye scene leading to Seishirou realizing his feelings. Mostly because it's a good mark to put the change (since I wanted to be true to cannon, even the Character file), and because of the obvious echo from Tokyo Babylon. Like for Subaru, Seishirou understands his own emotion when he realizes he wanted Subaru to feel certain things and that he can't make him feel that. Emphasis on can't where Subaru was emphasing the want.
But still, he came, he came to him, and laid in an embrace made of shadowed bliss and soothing distress, to whisper to an indifferent, mercilessly impartial face words of longing and inquiry.
I meant this paragraph to be confusing as to who is "he".
An endless blabber of hushed words, why, why do you do this to me ? Why don't you let me be alone, why don't you let me hate you when I know you care nothing for me ? I know you care more for the people you kill than you do for me, so why do you hold me like this, why won't you kill me ?
Subaru also thinks that there are too many necrophiliac undertones to this fic. Hey ! That's /one/ explanation for his wish...
I have already killed you, Subaru-kun. I just can't stop killing you.
I would have added some sort of French ref to the Little death, but that would be redundant.
He never answered aloud. Wearing still in silence the affable, easy smile, or just leaning in for a kiss or a bruise, both equally hurting.
He never answered, because he didn't believe anymore that he could touch the bottom of this one, that he could unfurl all the transformations, beautiful and unique, that he wanted to see refracted in these eyes. And maybe, just maybe, death was more interesting when it kept on going, everyday a little more ending, every time a new beginning. And that was a worthy lesson in itself, one he had never learned with his mother.
And now the "perfect mirror" had become a "refracting" one. Others are the things who transmit back to you something different to what you conveyed to them.
The end of the point about Death-as-Change is that life is as much death as anything, as it keeps changing you.
So it came that he took his decision, accepting the result of a long timed bet, in all the ironic nuance it answered. He set the stage and waited, in this place of in between where two opposite essences could walk and meet each other, transform each other, and destroy each other.
Answering the bets in the terms I had set before. I love the fact that Rainbow Bridge happened on, well, a bridge. It's a perfect symbol of neitherland, of liminarity. Thus it's the perfect spot for a meeting of dual contraries.
Subaru was still kind, as ever. He told him so.
"I have changed."
Yes and no. Not that much, Subaru-kun. Not enough.
"You have changed me."
Ending the fic where it started as a concept XD
Of course I have. But you have too.
"You've killed someone here..."
But I haven't changed that much either.
He was still the Sakurazukamori.
So, even if Seishirou admits to have been changed by Subaru, he's still enough what he is to not surrunder his own core identity (No more than Subaru does).
He would change him more. He would keep on carving and shaping him into new beautiful metamorphoseses. Even if he won't see them, he would go on killing him, killing him without an end.
Everything ends except change.
The ending is slightly inspired by Skuld's fic "Tonight" I must admit. Seishirou as I see it is perfectly aware of how much killing him and then recieving his love declaration will fuck Subaru up, and that's exactly what he wants to keep on changing him. The paradox of death, of change, is that it never dies.
I can't believe I spent hours making this O_o
Hummm so, a little game to see if you people followed... how many artistic metaphores were there ? Humm ? ^_^
shisakura, one !For people who didn't read it yet, you can check it there.
Warning, I went on rambling on things for a long time. I think I actually wrote as much commentary as there is of fic. Why, yes, I am a very narcissist, full of myself writer :p
Beautiful Things
I had two driving ideas in mind when I wrote Beautiful Things. The first one was Seishirou as the Death card in Tarot. As people interested in Tarot may know already, Death is all about change and metamorphosis, therefore one of my starting point was those two lines of dialogue at Rainbow Bridge where Subaru says "You've changed me". The second idea was about exploring Seishirou's mind as someone who doesn't feel for people. Now this is one of the first fic and idea of fic I had for this fandom, right after I had read an insanely huge number of fics in a very short time. I mean by this that there were a few things I had read so often I was slightly sick of them. One of them was the whole "Predator & Prey" dynamic of SxS. I wanted to do something slightly different, so I used the artistic view point. I went overboard with it actually. You could do a drinking game with how many time I use artistic metaphores for Seishirou.
Part 1
RICKY : I was filming this dead bird.
ANGELA : Why?
RICKY : Because it's beautiful.
American Beauty
Oh ! Quotes ! Isn't it swell and elegant ? aaah, anyway I was quoting from American Beauty (apart from the fact it's one of my favourite movies) because I wanted to capture that feel of wonder at very crass, ugly and horrible things, of touching the divine throught the most common banal things. And among which the pure meaningfulness of death.
The first lesson was observation.
That first line came quickly to me. Lessons rythm the first part of this fic, I'm trying to find explanations for what Seishirou is. So the first one is "Look". Can't be a proper artist if you haven't learned first how to appreciate the works of others.
He had learned that one very early, when his mother used to take him with her to work. He could remember with amusement the variety of behaviours from the people she would introduce him to before killing them. Some would greet him fondly, others looked annoyed. They all ended up in a pool of blood at the end of the evening.
This simple logic was driven early in the head of chibi Seishirou. Not matter what they do, are, feel, everyone dies. It's not a big deal, it's just a natural, common part of life.
One of his most vivid early memory was of being locked up with corpse in decomposition for three days. He had spent those hours in close intimacy with the slow and ineluctable maturation of flesh. Entranced, he had smelled, eyed, heard, felt, tasted the long transformation of the tense body through the relaxing process of decay into a blossoming nest of worms and flies. Few things are as alive as a dead body. He had never forgotten that lesson that in the end people where just that much of meat. She had never again left him for that long in the presence of her work's leftover, but when she took him with her she always made him look hard at the remains, lest he forget that truth.
I see this as a sort of test that every potential Sakurazukamori was passed throught. I wanted something deeply traumatic without being physicaly violent, something that could explain why the human being who went throught it would have a very hard time connecting with people afterwhile. Most probably if the child couldn't pass the test and ended up too panicked, Setsuka would have killed him and searched for another heir.
I meant the description of the decomposing body to convey fascinated horror. The reader knows a dead body is something repulsive, i'm trying to make him see that from another point of view, one of clinical observation, it can also be seen a beautiful process, even sensual.
"smelled, eyes, heard, felt, tasted" is boring. I should have found another way to express that all encompassing of senses of the experience. And, nah, I don't want to know how exactly chibi Sei "tasted" this.
Afterward she would ask him questions about the target, the situation, how she had killed them, and could he remember their name, what they had said ? He was to listen with attention, watch with all his eyes, and remember it all. She would always bring him to the dead body to examine it and he used to watch with fascination the grim sneer settle on their visage. He liked how people looked after they were dead. They didn't look the same. They weren't so loud, so jarring, so false anymore. They were fixed, anchored like a photograph by the moment of their death at the hand of his mother. He thought it was beautiful, to be able to fashion so definitely the way people looked like.
Chibi Sei thinks that live people look loud, jarring and false. Irony anyone ? You can check my post on the Seishirou discussion at togakushi shrine for more about the Truth / Lies thing I think his character deals with.
First artistic metaphore about killing ! Oh, and the birth of a vocation - isn't it cute ? Did I mention this fic is full of necrophiliac subtext ?
But it was all see, don't touch. One time, when he had raised his hand to feel the gaping wound, his mother had taken his arm gently and broke each finger, one after one, followed up with a kiss on each nail. He had never tried again to touch a corpse without her agreement. He was, as she was fond to say, a fast learner.
I always thought that Seishirou's iron discipline was scary, and I shudder to think of what costed to teach it. Just a snapshot of what it could have been. Breaking bones and re-mending them is vivid visual of the shaping of a human being. It's reminescing of what many tribes do as initiation rituals, the need to carve flesh and bones so as to make a proper human being. Or in this case a proper Sakurazukamori.
The last line of this paragraph is meant to show a casual indifference from Seishirou to what he has gone throught. He doesn't see it as anything out of the ordinary.
Later, the lessons of observation had become more complicated. He was to shadow someone in the street taken randomly and to report to her within twelve hours anything of interest about this person. Or he was to listen to a registered conversation, and identify the interlocutors' gender, age, profession and relationship from it. On some occasions, she only gave him a name, or a telephone number, or an address, and he was to find out that person, and what kind of secret he or she had that justified an assassination. Everyone deserved to die if you looked hard enough, she would say to him.
Mostly a boring paragraph. More assassin training. More repetition that death is perfectly normal for everyone to undergo.
Watch and report. Listen and analyse. She had made him practice it so often it had become a routine, something as natural as breathing to him. She had taught him the art and the rapture of stalking, the pleasure of succeeding to decipher people's secrets and hidden fears, feels and wishes. She had given him eyes to appreciate the magnificence of death setting in like a dark sun. When he had for the first time summoned a shikigami and it had been a goshawk, he had thought it was a homage to her good teaching.
Stalker!Seishirou ! I make Sei's shiki to be a goshawk. Not special reason, I just like goshawks. Notice the drifting away from it being a bird of prey to a theme of aesthetic contemplation.
The second lesson had been about hiding. Disappearing into shadows, finding the good spots to take cover and concealing things was easy. Less so where the lessons of faking what he thought and what he felt. She took her time, spending unending hours to patiently and tenderly inscribe in his body the ways of keeping his face neutral and pleasant as she made him endure pain and pleasure, hunger and thirst, sleepiness and intoxication. She taught him how to make his own body a tool of his mind, how to shape his face into a mask that would reflect only what he meant to show. He underwent her lessons of discipline gladly knowing it meant that one day he would be the shaper.
After watching, the lesson of not being watched. Let the work speak for itself and stuff. More discipline and shaping of Seishirou. He doesn't only objectify other people, he does the same thing for his own body and life. Foreshadowing : he will relate in the same way to Subaru.
She was an attentive teacher, using reward and punishment alike with prodigality. Assessing sharply like a cook preparing a difficult receipt the balance of pressures and releases needed to mould him into the perfect Sakurazukamori.
Does cooking count as yet-another-art-metaphore ? I say it does. I'm vague by now about what exactly those lessons entail. But I don't think they're very pleasant to undergo.
"You'll make me so proud", she would say. "You know I love you so much, that's why I want you to be the best."
"I know, Okaa-san." He'd answer levelly.
"You love me too, ne ?", she'd say, putting a hand lightly to raise his chin.
"Of course, I do. You know I love beautiful things."
She would laugh then, with a delightful, musical mirth.
"I'm not a thing, Seishirou."
"But one day you'll be one.", he'd say, smiling to her like she taught him to smile.
"You're such a wonderful, eager child.", she'd answer and she would kiss him.
Yeah... cold. Can you see people as anythings else but things when you know you can so easily make them so, and that everyone eventualy becomes one ?
And yeah, Seishirou shows his good training, and Setsuka is soooo proud.
She taught him to lie, in every way you can lie. With his words, with his silence, with his body. She taught him to use his voice to suggest things that were never said and how to act so people would assume what he wanted them to assume. She taught him to blend in, wherever he was, or to stand out with whatever impression he wanted to produce. She taught him how to radiate dread so that no one would ever doubt they had been faced with death itself. It was interesting, to mimic the strange expressions of emotions he didn't feel, he liked the challenge of it. It was just as if he'd use a knife to carve whatever expression he wanted them to display, and that pleased him.
Again, Seishirou sees very much himself as much as a tool, a thing, as he sees other people.
It's so much easier to lie by not saying something sometimes, people are so eager to just /assume/ about what you never said. I'm not much a liar, but this is something I do a lot.
With those lessons, as well, came the instruction of illusions and make-believe. The subtle spells of trickery and deception, the common glamours, guise and vanishing, and the glorious execution of the maboroshi.
This paragraph is just boring. I don't know why I kept it there, except that I wanted to mention maboroshi and other magical deceptions. But it doesn't add anything.
The last lesson was the art of killing.
He had been taught most of them, using all kind of tools and instruments, and the different kind slaying spells and silent incantations. By then, he was already very intimate with the working of the body from his previous lessons, so it wasn't difficult knowing the weak points to strike at. She had made him exercise himself every day to the gracious patterns of strikes, parades and evasions, his now well-disciplined body answering the training with ease and a pleasant readiness.
Seishirou's shaping is almost done. Isn't he so happy to be this perfect instrument of killing !
She wouldn't let him kill for real of course. He was only to study the ways and the movements until they became part of him just as the onmyoujutsu practice was part of his soul. He yearned for the day he would at last know death by giving it, watching that red veil settle on the gaze of his target. He longed for his turn at making beautiful things out of warm bodies.
I think I use a thousand times the words "beauty" and "beautiful" in this fic. Anyway, having the title in the body of the fic. I am strangely proud of this title. It's nothing special, and pretty obvious, but I think it suits very well the story. And yes, the beautiful things are the dead body. Or the potential dead body things that people are. Seishirou prefers people when they're dead. Yay for necrophiliac undertones !
When it came, it came like a grace. The lovely February day, full of promises and inviting white snow under a perfect blue sky, had put him into a cheerful mood. He liked snow, when it was still fresh and glittering he always felt the appeal to step into it, as if purity only existed to be shattered. Watching his footprints in the snow behind him, he had decided it would be today. He took his last lesson from her that day, watching death sets down softly and her eyes becoming glassy and hollow like a doll.
Narcissit!Seishirou ! And "as if purity only existed to be shattered", it's an obvious, conventionnal line, yet it very much fits Seishirou. Snow being another of those pure, virginal, untainted thing that exists to be /shaped/ by him.
"You are so beautiful." He had whispered to her, softly.
I use too much softly. I like this word, damnit !
Thus, he had become the Sakurazukamori, the one who killed with a genial smile and who carved the dead into that final expression of themselves. He had experimented, in those first years, with a glorious eagerness, amusing himself with trying out different techniques to give death and to display the remains; composing so many macabre tableau waiting to be discovered. It was a subtle art, all in the arc of one falling hand, the cryptic tracing of blood, and the pale mask of death looking up.
Depending on the way he killed them, they didn't die the same way, showing either quiet peacefulness, deep anguish, mute pleas, acute horror, or the cruel illusion of liveliness. For each quarry, he would ponder earnestly how he would slay them, depending on who they were and why they were to be killed.
I could see Seishirou being so genuinely worried about giving a proper death to people. As if it actually mattered a lot. It does, for him, it's of primal importance. There's a genuine care for those dead bodies from him in this fic. More about it later.
He knew so many manners of murder, but his favourite one was with his naked hands. He liked the sensuality of it, to be able to feel the warm flesh break under his fingers, to sense the heart flutter and halt as he closed his grasp on it. It was like seizing life itself. Things were never as true, as beautiful as in the perfect moment they ceased to be. He used his very hands to birth a new, unfathomable butterfly out of the disgracious vulgarity of those living things.
I do see Seishirou as a very sensual being. That he does express it in weird way is another peculiarity of his ^^ Butterfly is a classic symbol for metamorphosis, death and souls, as anyone who read XXXholic knows.
And I don't think I've seen anyone mention it so I will even if it's pretty obvious, all those killing scenes with a hand plundging into flesh, from Clamp, are very much, well, penetrations. So I did try to write this as I would a sex scene.
He had started to smoke for the same reason. It was a genuinely sensuous habit, combining the pleasure of many senses as you could smell, taste, watch and touch the consumption of matter into an elusive, flying smoke. Yes, it was very much like killing.
Hehe, more of a comment from me. I don't smoke, but that's only because I was very careful never to begin, I do love smoking.
Yet, despite all the satisfaction he could have taken into his labour, he had still felt like something was missing from his life. It was a distressing thought, nabbing him when he was contemplating the execution of his daily activities. His world, his existence, had to be perfect into its every little aspect. How could it not be so ?
Again with Seishirou seeing himself and his little universe as much as a thing as the rest. Control freak that he is, he tries to make it perfect and harmonous. And of course he can't even understand that he's just lonely.
The answer had come with the running steps of a small boy, catching him by surprise while he was proceeding to the feeding of the Sakura.
He had looked into the young child's wide, innocent eyes
/ Do you like sakura ? /
And he must have said something to test this prey's reaction
/ Did you know that there are corpses buried under the sakura tree ? /
To see if it could appreciate the beauty of death like it appreciated the beauty of the cherry blossom
/ It's because of the corpses buried beneath the roots that the sakura blossoms every year /
And what manner of death it was worth
/ Do you know why these sakura blossoms are pink ? It's because the sakura feeds on the blood of the corpses buried beneath it /
But the boy had said something that had surprised him
/ But don't the people under the sakura suffer ? /
Such concern, such grief in its eyes for the dead... he had wondered
/ Let's make a bet /
was it possible...? could this child come to understand, to appreciate... ?
/ So today... I'll let you go /
He was ready to wager on it. He would fashion the boy into the audience that his art so desperately craved.
After all, what was beauty that nobody ever gazed at ?
I wrote this in a very strange way. I see Seishirou narrating from posteriori and the little dialogue lines as present tense flash backs. Does it make any sense ?
Anyway, here I'm trying to get across two points. One, is a little funny hypothesis that Subaru catches Seishirou's eye because he expressed concern for the /deads/. Something that Sei wouldn't expect to see in anyone else than himself. The other is Subaru-as-an-audience-for-seishirou's-art. Basicaly Seishirou comes to all this troubles to master the art of killing and dispose the bodies in a suitable ways and he's starting to wonder what is the point of that if no one can actually appreciate it like he used to appreciate his mother's work. Art, after all, is basicaly a medium for communication, so what does it mean if there's no one to communicate it to ? So yeah, Seishirou is lonely, he just puts a weird name on it.
Part 2
"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." Goethe
I think i divided this into two parts only because I couldn't manage to write a good transition between the teaching of Seishirou part and the one which relates with his relation with Subaru.
Anyway, new quote ! I found this one in a pretty random way. I don't actually know much about Goethe. I love poetry, but german poets isn't an area I master very well. However, once I found it I thought it was pretty perfect for the themes of this fanfic.
So, here Seishirou spent all of the first part to learn how to consider everyone and everything as mere things. He's going to spent the second part to learn how to not do this anymore ^_^
When he had met the boy, so many years ago, he had been stricken by the purity of its soul and the kindness of its feelings. The child had been so full of feelings reaching for others, so ready to answer to others' emotions. That was so much the opposite of him, and yet, that had made the boy feel for the dead like he thought no one else than himself did.
That had intrigued him. If you put such contrary beings in contact with each others, what would happen ? Surely they couldn't remain apart, which one of them would share its essence, transform the other and thus destroy all that it had been ? Could this kind soul remain as innocent as it was despite all he could do to it, or could it in answer make him see and experience the emotions that had always evaded him ?
Seishirou isn't very consistent. He said he wanted Subaru to be an audience for his art, and now he wants him for the Bet. Well, let's just say he's slightly confused. ^^
Transformation is, of course, destruction. This is the Death card point. Every change is a death, a not being anymore what it used to be.
Oh, and, yes, I'm rewriting the Bet. So that it's not only about making Seishirou feel, but also about /shaping/ Subaru into what Seishirou is. Does Sei realize that means he chose Subaru to be the next Sakurazukamori ? I'm not sure. Seishirou is also being rather stupid if he thinks only one of them will be changed by it.
Seven years afterward, at the end of the bet, the answer was unclear. Evidently, he didn't feel any kind of concern for the well being of Subaru-kun, as delightful and enjoyable a thing it was to contemplate and play with. However, neither was the result of his actions on him totally satisfying. When Subaru's eyes had filled with tears and it laid motionless under his blows, he had felt frustrated. Despite this betrayal, despite his actions, the boy was still as pure and innocent as it had been when he had first met it. Neither had won out. He had almost been glad for Hokuto's excuse for not killing it right out. Maybe with a longer timeframe he would have the answer to his question. He was sure he could make more of the other onmyouji. Certain he could impart some of his ruthless point of view into this beautifully responsive face, and thus resolve the enigma that it had been to him.
"almost glad for Hokuto's excuse", are you ? Yeah right ! Deeply relieved more like... Seishirou's frustration at Subaru's still innocent heart and sorrow is inspired by a discussion with
halcyon_libra. I do think Sei is totally obsessed and idealizing Subaru's purity. And because of that, of course, he wants to destroy it.And in the meantime, the youth was still the perfect mirror to appreciate his performance.
The start of the mirror metaphore. I did say I loved mirror symbolism, didn't I ? ^^ Right now, Subaru is a perfect mirror.
After a work of nine years, he was rather satisfied by the result of his effort. During this time of isolation and chasing, the once young and pure boy had matured into a fascinating, broken thing, so fragile yet enduring by the force of the twin strains of obsessive guilt and anger. It was a beautiful sight to behold, really. He couldn't wait to test it more, to see what reactions he could trigger in it, what new odd expressions this face could stress itself into, what unfathomable anguish would drift through those clear eyes.
"twin strains", I like this... I see Subaru as being litteraly quartered by his feelings, his love, his guilt and his anger. And more confused!Seishirou, does he want Subaru to be his audience, or does he want him to be his object of art ?
He would not be disappointed.
He played it tentatively, with light touches and delicate strokes, teasing and casual. A random meeting with abrasive words catching it unprepared, a tender compliment when it was looking for a fight, a courteous dedication, left with the cooling remains of his art and a dozen of red roses. Let it not be said he wasn't a considerate enemy.
Seishirou is having fun. I could totally see Seishirou dedicating his assassinations to Subaru as if it was a loving gift.
He got a response of delightful anger, sweet desperation and ringing sorrow. It was pleasing. There was yet so much innocence and gentleness in this soul to blemish and mar, so many virgin territories in this tender heart to explore, so much more lessons to imprint in the very flesh and being of the younger onmyouji.
I love oxymorons too much for my own good.
There were more surprises to come, too.
He hadn't expected to see it express desire and want, but it did make sense. After all, death had always been tinted with lust, waltzing in the oldest dance of Eros and Thanatos. It just meant he could bring the game to a whole new level.
Note that Subaru is the one who initiate the sexual aspect in their game. Why ? I don't know, I can't see Seishirou doing it. It's got to be Subaru opening that door, even in an insignificant way.
Eros and Thanatos is a phrase I want to stick everywhere about relationships in my favourite Clamp mangas. It just seem like no one can define their love without bringing death, killing or dying, into the deal.
He could break and mend the young man, again and again, in the way he favoured, stroking it, tasting it, holding it, and making beautiful new shapes and patterns out of this naked flesh as he felt the life twist and quiver within his own hands, teeth and skin. He had always preferred the most intimate way to work his skill.
Break and mend, like for the bones, it's all about re-shaping Subaru. And yes, this is the closest thing to a sex description I've written. "intimate way to work his skill" is definitely meant to compare it to the killing scene earlier.
He could also make it wait for days and weeks, let it feel ignored, freed maybe, and appear at the least expected moment to ravish what they both wanted, and give as much, in a price of blood and scathing indifference that cut and cut more into his prey, more than true cruelty would have. And taking note of the self-loathing that surged with a greater intensity every time he could wonder how many more dimensions of pain and care the boy was able to give him, how many more beautiful emotions he would watch unfurl and ripple over this face until he consumed them all. He loved to enjoy things as they walked the path of destruction, and with that one there was just no end to it. It was a captivating pastime, and he could not grow weary of it.
Paraphrasing Tokyo Babylon. "Because it's the only city on this earth that enjoys itself as it walks on the path to destruction" Obviously a key line in constructing the character of Seishirou in this fic. The beauty of things that are ephemeral.
But Seishirou is starting to wonder wether he /can/ win this bet, totally change Subaru into someone who doesn't feel so much, and wether he /wants/ to do such a thing.
Holding that thin body against him as it finally fell into slumber, observing it with an attentive eye, he thought it was more like narcissism than anything else in truth. To watch himself reflected into the broken mirror of these green eyes, to listen to the bitter curse and low moans he could goad in it, to trace wistful calligraphy on the white scroll of its skin and feel it shudder in answer. How easily did that skin bruise ! It was a wonder to see the beautiful patterns slowly colour as the blood flowed underneath with a pink bluish hue that told so many fables of hurt and need.
All throught the fic, Seishirou is often thinking about Subaru with distant "this" or "that", picking his body apart mentally. With the fact he's refering to Subaru as "it", it's an obvious stylical mean of reification.
Note that Subaru is now a broken mirror. "wistful calligraph", hehe... more artistic metaphore, of course, and there was a point where I wanted to go all "pillow book" with this, but finaly decided against it. The mention of blood flowing to colour the white skin to pink is, of course, a reference to the Sakura blossoms turning pink.
And Seishirou totally deluding himself when he thinks it's narcissism, only a way to love himself by loving what he makes Subaru into. Ooops, did I say that nasty, dirty L-word ?
Such a white skin you have, Subaru-kun. When I finally kill you, I'll have to keep it.
More necrophiliac cutesie. Isn't it endearing ? ^^
But despite it all, despite all the changes and the lines he had carved into the young man, there was still a well of gentleness within it, and he came to wonder whether he would be able to empty it all to nothingness or rather would go on sculpting it until the inner core of purity beneath it would be revealed like a shining diamond. Which would win out in the end ? It was still a question.
Scupltor!Seishirou ! Or is that jewelsmith ? So, yeah... can you change a person totally ? Or do all those change allow to glimpse what is underneath, what is truer about a person ? What is identity ? Because, of course, if people have an identity strong enough to resist all this shaping, if they have a /soul/, then they're not /things/ only anymore. They are independant beings. And that's all the issue.
The boy was still kind enough to let his eye be taken in a vain guilt wish. It was infuriating, seeing his masterwork despoiled by another, wondering if the boy had learned nothing all this time, if he had listened to nothing that he had been imprinting into his flesh...
And if people are not things, then they make unexpecting actions, things that you wouldn't want them to do. Watch Seishirou come up to the frustration of daily life when dealing with Others. Aren't you proud of him ?
So yeah, eye scene leading to Seishirou realizing his feelings. Mostly because it's a good mark to put the change (since I wanted to be true to cannon, even the Character file), and because of the obvious echo from Tokyo Babylon. Like for Subaru, Seishirou understands his own emotion when he realizes he wanted Subaru to feel certain things and that he can't make him feel that. Emphasis on can't where Subaru was emphasing the want.
But still, he came, he came to him, and laid in an embrace made of shadowed bliss and soothing distress, to whisper to an indifferent, mercilessly impartial face words of longing and inquiry.
I meant this paragraph to be confusing as to who is "he".
An endless blabber of hushed words, why, why do you do this to me ? Why don't you let me be alone, why don't you let me hate you when I know you care nothing for me ? I know you care more for the people you kill than you do for me, so why do you hold me like this, why won't you kill me ?
Subaru also thinks that there are too many necrophiliac undertones to this fic. Hey ! That's /one/ explanation for his wish...
I have already killed you, Subaru-kun. I just can't stop killing you.
I would have added some sort of French ref to the Little death, but that would be redundant.
He never answered aloud. Wearing still in silence the affable, easy smile, or just leaning in for a kiss or a bruise, both equally hurting.
He never answered, because he didn't believe anymore that he could touch the bottom of this one, that he could unfurl all the transformations, beautiful and unique, that he wanted to see refracted in these eyes. And maybe, just maybe, death was more interesting when it kept on going, everyday a little more ending, every time a new beginning. And that was a worthy lesson in itself, one he had never learned with his mother.
And now the "perfect mirror" had become a "refracting" one. Others are the things who transmit back to you something different to what you conveyed to them.
The end of the point about Death-as-Change is that life is as much death as anything, as it keeps changing you.
So it came that he took his decision, accepting the result of a long timed bet, in all the ironic nuance it answered. He set the stage and waited, in this place of in between where two opposite essences could walk and meet each other, transform each other, and destroy each other.
Answering the bets in the terms I had set before. I love the fact that Rainbow Bridge happened on, well, a bridge. It's a perfect symbol of neitherland, of liminarity. Thus it's the perfect spot for a meeting of dual contraries.
Subaru was still kind, as ever. He told him so.
"I have changed."
Yes and no. Not that much, Subaru-kun. Not enough.
"You have changed me."
Ending the fic where it started as a concept XD
Of course I have. But you have too.
"You've killed someone here..."
But I haven't changed that much either.
He was still the Sakurazukamori.
So, even if Seishirou admits to have been changed by Subaru, he's still enough what he is to not surrunder his own core identity (No more than Subaru does).
He would change him more. He would keep on carving and shaping him into new beautiful metamorphoseses. Even if he won't see them, he would go on killing him, killing him without an end.
Everything ends except change.
The ending is slightly inspired by Skuld's fic "Tonight" I must admit. Seishirou as I see it is perfectly aware of how much killing him and then recieving his love declaration will fuck Subaru up, and that's exactly what he wants to keep on changing him. The paradox of death, of change, is that it never dies.
I can't believe I spent hours making this O_o
Hummm so, a little game to see if you people followed... how many artistic metaphores were there ? Humm ? ^_^
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 18 August 2004 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18 August 2004 02:48 pm (UTC)'welcome, it was fun ^^
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Date: 18 August 2004 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18 August 2004 06:34 pm (UTC)Sei-chan's very warped but I love him abyway :p
Happy ending ? I don't know... I think Rainbow Bridge is one of the most beautiful ending to a romance I've ever seen... In a way, it is satisfying, and for both of them too. I trust Fuuma when he said so, strangely.
Maybe I'm slightly warped too...
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Date: 18 August 2004 06:40 pm (UTC)... and this is what happens when I write commentaries. I get overly analytical. ^^;
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Date: 18 August 2004 06:56 pm (UTC)You say that as if it was a bad thing ! ^^
Aye, I see your point, that the best they could hope was dying in the arms of each others and a wind-blown love declaration... is sad.
Maybe happiness is overrated too.
Except they weren't as stupid as Romeo & Juliette ! Those two were only separated from each others by their families (ie external circumstances), with SeixSub, it is their personnality, their own identity and drives that keep them apart.
And that's why we love them so. There's as much tension that pulls them together as there is that pulls them apart. Such opposite pressure is the stuff of mythology. It's Structural ^^
Stars... did you know it was the Pleiade (the "Subaru" constellation) that is depicted on the Star card in Tarot ? The one that comes just after the Tower (of Babel) and is hands down the most hopeful and positive card of the deck ?
Sorry, just my usual symbolical rambling. I'm too much of a tarot geek ^^
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Date: 18 August 2004 07:05 pm (UTC)I DIDN'T know that was the Pleiades, though. Studying Japanese I did know that Subaru's kanji meant that, so that's a very interesting additional fact, there.
As for the Romeo and Juliet, Subaru and Seishirou are a LOT smarter. Which makes them all the more tragic. I mean, Romeo and Juliet only knew each other for 3 days before they got married; Subaru and Seishirou truly loved each other, and their tangled web was a lot more hopeless. They're kind of like oppositely charged particles; they attract each other, but they're complete opposites. They were initially, anyway, before Subaru tried to become Seishirou. And while the black of Seishirou and the white of Subaru do bleed together into grey, they're still essentially as opposite as they were when they met. Subaru can TRY to be Seishirou, but he can never succeed; instead he ends up being the mirror image to him, the same but the opposite.
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Date: 18 August 2004 07:34 pm (UTC)*is impressed by anyone who's taken study of japanese*
Love your description of Seishirou and Subaru's opposition. They have a lot in common, in way, but still diametricaly opposite.
What I love the most about the taoist ying and yang is the fact it puts this white dot within the darkness tear, and the black one within the light part.
For me Tokyo Babylon is a tragedy of miscommunication, of the impossibility of true intimacy. We stand face to face and can never touch who's behind the mirror.
And when they do finally touch, they destroy each others.
Subaru, Subaru... I'm not sure what becomes of Subaru with the yellow and the green eye. He's not Subaru and he's not Seishirou. He's a child concieved in death, a mandragore.
He said to Fuuma that his new eye did see, but he didn't say what it saw. I do wonder about that.
Sorry for being so rambly, it's getting late ^^
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Date: 18 August 2004 07:41 pm (UTC)Yes, Ying and Yang are not only evenly balanced, they need each other. Which is very interesting from a Seishirou/Subaru perspective, because as the Sumeragi and the Sakurazukamori, Subaru is essentially the blend of light and dark. It's bringing the two halves too close to each other, I think; he can't remain himself, because he was of light. Either he will morph into a mixture of both, which would be very much an Apocalyptic symbol and wouldn't bode all that well, or he'd destroy himself between the two warring sides. I don't think Subaru can exist without Seishirou, really. They're two sides to the same coin; if Seishirou dies, Subaru must also, and the pattern has to be repeated in a new pair of ying-and-yang.
On a completely random but interesting note, in Feng Shui North is Light and South is Darkness.