I wanna know what love is; I want you to show me.

[thefourthvine]

Older fandoms, you confuse me so. The story I'm reading right now has piercing gazes, searing gazes, cuddling, comforting, lengthy descriptions of eyes that change color (Green! Hazel! Gold! No, I'm not kidding - really, gold, and this isn't the right fandom for him to have been implanted with a Goa'uld.), marriage proposals, men of action sharing their feelings in astonishing detail and with great (sometimes searing) honesty, a guy telling another guy how beautiful he is, holding hands, kissing, and two adult men (of action!) with extensive disposable incomes living together and sharing a bed.

And it's gen.*

I am patiently waiting for the mutual declarations of eternal love while hugging (or crying; I'd totally take crying) in the rain. Then, and only then, will I be able to stop reading.

So, does anyone have a story from an older fandom to recommend to me? You people have mostly been at this longer than me - surely you've got some nice gen or slash story favorite from a pre-LJ fandom that you could link me to. Gen or slash welcome - especially gen that I can read as gen. Seriously. Save me from myself. And this story. I am just bewildered, here.

-Footnote-

* Another gen story in the same fandom (but by a different person) features a noted canonical horndog turning down NSA sex with a beautiful woman because he's in love with someone else - that someone being, of course, the guy who is his Entirely Not Slashy Totally Hetero Life Partner. (It also had a paragraph about their great and abiding love, and the Totally Hetero Life Partner isn't even in the story. Nor is there any explanation of why the THLP would want his "friend" to turn down the sex - I mean, seriously, it was just presented as "this is what you do when you're in love with your THLP, forswear sex and cleave only unto him, but in a straight and manly way." I guess I am just not straight enough to understand that.) And the author's note contained a diatribe against slash. Oh, my people.

Comments

[ratcreature]

How does that work? I mean, it's not like human irises are like chameleon skin afaik, so how do you make the pigmentation change? I mean, my eyes appear different colors as well, although none of that glamorous green-gold thing. Mine just aren't any kind of brilliant clear color in the first place, but more or less brackish variants of blue though there's a small brownish ring around the pupils, so with a couple of rare lighting conditions in they look actually more or less proper blue, against other backdrops more like some kind of dull greyish mud color with a couple of stages inbetween, but nothing I do nor my mood influences them. It would be really cool to be able to make my eyes look a clear blue. I suspect things like eye shadows in certain colors might be a favorable influence on the appearance, but I don't wear make-up so that's out as an option.

[boogieshoes.livejournal.com]

i don't wear make-up either. i had an ex tell me this, and because i'm a dork, at one point, i spent a lot of time in front of the mirror studying the physical make-up of my eyes. (it must have looked like i was being *entirely* too vain.) the iris bit of my eye looks like it's made up of 'crystals' of gold, green, and blue, and there's a darker blue ring around the outside. this is pretty common in eyes described as hazel - a mix of pigmentations.

i'm only guessing, mind, but i think what's going on is that
1) the different color splotches are different 'patches' of cells and
2) the different patches of cells dilate or contract based on hormones/ chemicals released in various moods - similar to the way the pupil reacts not just to light, but also to mood.

but i'm not a biologist, so i have no idea if that's how it actually works. i just know that when i'm calm, my eyes are dominant-green, and sometimes when i'm worked up, my eyes are dominant cloudy/grey blue. a darker shade of blue - but definately blue.

-bs

[franzeska]

*wanders by* I can't find any scientific reference to eyes genuinely changing color with mood, but I did see one bit of dubious speculation that it might have to do with blood flow.

What happens to me personally is that my eyes look completely different depending on how much my pupil is dialated. This is common in people with multicolored eyes since we tend to have concentric circles of different colors. Mine have a small area of army green around the pupil with a streaky white and dark blue area intruding on it, all of which is surrounded by a thin, even ring of dark blue-gray. Needless to say, depending on clothing and pupil state, they can look dramatically different. Also, pupils routinely change size much more quickly than hormones would be likely to affect the eye. I suppose a blushing type effect might be to blame, but I'd guess it's all the pupils and how wide you open your eyes.