aria | a quick tour of aria's psyche

Entry tags:

a quick tour of aria's psyche

I have lately (and by "lately" I mean "at various points over the last year or so") been absently tracking down and rewatching favorite childhood films. Among other things, I have discovered that [a] The Lion King is still totally awesome and [b] lots of those childhood films, especially the live action ones, make me cry. Large bits throughout Matilda made me tear up. The end of Homeward Bound made me sob! My inner child is totally bewildered, but apparently my inner child took for granted that the animals would get home or that movie narratives totally understood me and also, obviously, my brain would give me superpowers.

The point is, though, that when I was a kid, the only goddamn movie in the world that made me cry was The Land Before Time, when Littlefoot's mother dies. (You all cried. Don't lie.) I was always mildly embarrassed and totally bewildered when my parents cried at movies, especially at happy endings. But now ... I really love crying at things. I am working through how to phrase that without sounding odd? I think it's something about how I want to function as a sane adult, which means that occasionally I also want to bawl my eyes out because it's the end of Toy Story 3, and know that it's a good emotional outlet. I love good emotional outlets! It probably comes down to how I'd much rather cry because I've been emotionally touched than just because I'm stressed about something.

Some things that make me cry:

+ Vienna Teng songs (City Hall, Grandmother Song, & Lullaby for a Stormy Night)
+ vids to Vienna Teng songs (Lullaby for a Stormy Night, Doctor Who, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.)
+ most vids about awesome ladies being awesome (most consistently One Girl Revolution)
+ many films! Lilo & Stitch (anyone says "ohana means family" and I run for the tissues); Homeward Bound (the endiiiing); Return of the King (it's the Grey Havens! quick, run for the tissues!); Toy Story 3 (the endiiiiiiing, I COULDN'T EVEN SEE); Star Trek reboot (the first five minutes! and now that I have watched lots of TOS, I start crying at the end too, oh self).
+ the ending of Big Fish YES IT GETS ITS OWN BULLET POINT I THINK MY FRIENDS AND I COLLECTIVELY WENT THROUGH A WHOLE BOX OF TISSUES

So ... does anyone else do this? And by 'this' I mean either cry at any of these things also, or actively keep track of go-to things to cry to because emotional outlets are great. (Honestly I just like keeping lists of things that elicit emotional states. For instance, I also have a mental list of Hottest Things Ever, although eventually it'll need more on it than just a lieutenant colonel is being beaten. Strangely I don't have a mental list of Things That Always Make Me Happy, although the answer to that one might be "due South." Hm.)

Threaded | Flat

Toy Story 3 (the endiiiiiiing, I COULDN'T EVEN SEE)

The end was freaking heartbreaking. Happy, but in this bittersweet way; it's as happy as it could be but it's still, you know, Jackie Paper's not coming back anymore, Puff. :(

Star Trek reboot (the first five minutes! and now that I have watched lots of TOS, I start crying at the end too, oh self).

Oh hell yes. The scene where Jim's being born is so well done, it should be totally OTT but somehow it's not. But it's Spock's quiet 'Thrusters on full' at the end that makes my stomach totally hurt every time.

I do indeed have a list of things that I watch/read/listen to for a good cry, because sometimes you really do just need a good emotional outlet. And yes, I would absolutely rather cry because I've been really touched by something than because I'm stressed and upset, so this makes perfect sense to me!

Books: Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, because holy shit, this book had me sobbing inconsolably at 1 AM all through the last 100 pages or so. If you haven't read it, it's the story of a young German girl fostered with a German family during WWII, and her story is told through Death's POV. I found it devastating on first read, but increasingly comforting on reread. It still wrecks me by the end though. Other than that, Deathly Hallows is my go-to for a good, comforting cry.

Music: "Hope There's Someone" by Antony and the Johnson's. I first heard this song in an episode of Torchwood, and it made me cry then even though I didn't give a shit about the episode itself. It's just stunning and vulnerable and gorgeous. And the choral arrangement of Barber's "Adagio for Strings," "Agnus Dei," gives me tears of awe.

Movies: Ahahah, I am with you on RotK. It was airing on TNT the other night, and it made me all teary eyed all over again. For a recent movie that gets the waterworks going, Up makes me cry an embarrassingly lot.

There's probably a bunch of other stuff I'm not thinking of, but those are the main ones!

My list used to go:

Bambi (I was five)
My Girl (I was twelve)
Spock's death in Star Trek II
One scene in A Few Good Men
Lower Decks (season 7 TNG)

The list has significantly expanded since then, to the extent that I can't keep track of it. But Spock's death still does it every time.

I feel like all I ever do is post on your journal saying THANK YOU FOR THAT LINK EH, but, uh, thank-you for the Doctor Who/Vienna Teng link! They are two awesome things that go together very well. You've seen Stray Italian Greyhound, right? (What am I saying, I probably found it through a link in one of your posts. Life's like that.) Also, if you like Torchwood, Kan is another excellent Vienna Teng/Whoniverse vid.

In the interest of responding to the actual topic of your post, I also track things that make me cry. Although at the moment it's a pretty short list:

1) Bridge to Terrebithia, book or movie. (Heck, the movie made my Dad cry too, and the last time I'd seen anything do THAT was when Grandma died, so, you know. Very sad story.)
2) Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "The Body", which may be the saddest piece of television I've ever seen in my life. (Although SG1's "Heros" and Torchwood's "Exit Wounds" are also serious contenders; I just havn't tried re-watching them enough to know if they're reliable criers or not.)

I cry at lots of things, but those are the only two that are guarenteed to set me off. Sometimes a piece of music will make me cry; sometimes, it does nothing. On one viewing I'll laugh off a movie; on another, I'll bawl my eyes out. Heck, I just watched the Eleventh Hour again, and got all teary when the new sonic screwdriver pops up and the Doctor whispers "thanks, dear" to the TARDIS, which was definitly not a moment that I thought was a misty-eyes moment the first time through.

Movies where the main character is a dog and it dies. That gets me every. single. time. Examples: Marley & Me, Hachiko, Old Yeller (I was in 6th grade, and it was some reward getting to go to the art room and watch the movie. I ended up under the teacher's table sobbing.)

Oh man, things make me cry really easily. And sometimes that's embarrassing -- but yeah, sometimes it can feel really good to just cry like that.

Some things that will reliably make me cry:
- a ridiculous number of Stan Rogers songs, but chiefly "White Squall" and "First Christmas". Heck, I cry just telling other people what those songs are about
- The bit in Little Women where Beth dies
- "The Corinthian", a song by Aengus Finnan
- probably other stuff too, I just haven't seen/read/heard it often enough to know how reliable a tearjerker it is

Other things that have made me cry:
- every sad movie I have ever watched
- a whole lot of fanfic
- the occasional sad book
- tv episodes where a character dies in a particularly tragic way ("Exit Wounds", "The Body", for example)
- I'm with you on on the first five minutes of Star Trek XI. I didn't cry the first time I saw it, but the second time through, wow, hello unexpected tears.
- many other things

But mostly if I'm in a mood to cry I go to Stan Rogers or Little Women. I don't really NEED a list beyond that.

I rarely re-read this book, because I have this weird thing about over-indulging in emotions through media cheapens both the media item in question and the emotions induced, but A Ring of Endless Light by Madeline L'Engle has never failed to make me bawl.

Also, a song called "Mein Berlin" by the German singer Reinhard Mey that is a beautiful, beautiful song-history about the division and reunion of Berlin. There's a bit near the end where he sings "Freiheit-- endlich Freiheit über meiner Stadt" (Freedom, finally freedom in my city) and his voice soars up over recordings of the crowds cheering at the Brandenburg Gate the night the Wall came down and even writing this has made me teary-eyed. But yeah. Same weird thing about not listening to it too often.

I've never cried at anything fictional before, ever. I get weirdly despondent but never full on crying, even for things that gut me (David Tennant's Hamlet put me into a weird mental fugue state for, like, a week, but I never cried). I honestly don't know why, I've always felt kinda weird about it. (Tangental, but the end of Homeward Bound is one of my favorite things ever on film. You get that whole emotional rollercoaster, and then the very last thing you hear is Chance going mad over the turkey.)

I do have a mental list of Hottest Things Ever, though, and a haphazard one for "when I'm in a Mood and I just want to stew in it a while".

Go-to books for crying are the end of The Amber Spyglass and the end of RotK, yes, the Grey Havens, I sob like a child. I also sobbed like a child at the end of Deathly Hallows, when Harry is walking through the wood to meet Voldemort--I honestly haven't reread that chapter since the first time, so I don't know if it would have the same effect on me.

Movies I find it less easy to cry at. I cried at the beginning of Up! and I generally get teary at the end of RotK.

On the other hand, I've been known to tear up on the tour of Independence Hall. Oh, self.

ETA: OMG, how could I forget the Arcade Fire!? "Wake Up", "Keep the Car Running", and unpredictable songs on The Suburbs make me cry pretty easily.

Edited (The Arcade Fire!!) 2010-09-17 05:38 (UTC)

Okay, you have to keep in mind that between the ages of 12 and 22 I didn't actually cry at all, ever, and that 12 was the last time I cried in front of another human being.

BUT. My list, such as it is:

- Dot and the Kangaroo, the movie, when I was 6
- one episode of Grey's Anatomy
- my girls-are-great vid for cathartic teariness (which I am still terrible at, but sometimes it works!) is the one to What About Everything.

Songs that make me FEEL like crying are Brothers in Arms (DAMN YOU AARON SORKIN) and Heather Dale's Trial of Lancelot which is basically the most heartbreaking thing you've ever heard if you were even a LITTLE bit Arthurian-obsessed as a kid.

AS YOU KNOW I AM AN ALIEN and have never cried at media and find the concept kind of perplexing, but off the top of my head some of the media I have consumed that has resulted in FEELINGS (measured very scientifically by amount of capslocking and "NOOOO WOOBIE"):

- The Fall
- In Bruges
- Reservoir Dogs
- FEELINGS EXPLOSION ALCHEMIST OF MY GOD THEY SO WERE NOT KIDDING.

It is possible I have forgotten something but probably not since in general most of my feelings consist of "FUCK YEAH!!!!!"

~~who is procrastinating? i am procrastinating! HOW CAN THIS BE.~~

(Lullaby for a Stormy Night, Doctor Who, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.)

Oh, gosh, me too. EVERY TIME. And I'd even heard the song before, so the emotional impact should have been dulled for me. BUT NO.

Hi, you don't know me, I've just read a bunch of things you wrote and now that I'm here on DW I decided to subscribe. I take it that's the accepted protocol around here? But since it seems slightly stalkerish to subscribe and run, this is me, saying HI.

I don't really keep a list of media that makes me cry, but if you want a really fantastic tearjerker of a movie, rent Wit. I cried like a baby.

Although I'm not actually a huge fan of "Sleeping in Light," Ivanova's speech about new beginnings, over the image of Babylon 5 being decommissioned, does make me a little misty.

The first and so far as I remember only fanfic I ever cried at was one that Google is just not producing for me right now. But it was an SG-1 fic that involved this apocalyptic, SG-1-tries-to-fend-off-Goa'uld-invaders-style situation, and they're losing. At the end, Sam and Jack are huddled together under a table or something and he starts talking about his cabin and recites some lines from "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," and then they get up and go out to make a last, fatal stand against the Goa'uld. It was really affecting; my summary doesn't do it justice.

I cried a lot as a very little kid, and then not at all from seven through fifteen (I had this idea that They Were Not Going To Make Me Cry, despite the total absence of anyone in my life who might Try To Make Me Cry -- hero novels, they are bad for you) and now I'm a crier again. I cried at the end of Despicable Me which I disliked and bawled at the end of Toy Story 4 which I loved. I cried consistently the first five times I saw New Trek. I teared ALMOST CONSTANTLY through the last episode of Fullmetal Alchemist. Driving down to school last winter I started crying hysterically at the opening notes of "Blame it on the Pop." Like, pull-off-the-road-if-it-wasn't-already-raining crying, and yet I did not start crying at Lizstomania which is a much sadder song. I of course teared up while watching the end of DW and then had to pretend it was raining on my face. I am capable of crying while watching Flight of the Conchords, Blackadder, and A Very Potter Musical. I have read Going Postal twice: once in which I loved Moist, and one in which I closed the book and cried for thirty minutes. I could barely see the end of the Fall.

But I didn't actually cry that much during the last Harry Potter book, so go figure.

Your list and mine are identical. Well, except for the fact that I still haven't seen Toy Story 3 and I was never that big of a fan of Homeward Bound. BUT. Oh god Vienna Teng (I have to add Passage to that list, but that one might be a given?), and Doctor Who and Vienna Teng, and Star Trek, and ohhhh Return of the King. I'd also add Up! and the majority of Deathly Hallows to that list.

I don't seek things out just to cry, but I do have a few surefire things that will make me cry if I read them.

- the ending of Kipling's "Jungle Books", where Mowgli leaves the jungle.
- the last chapters in "Call of the Wild" (the Jack London book, that is).
- the ending of

troyswann's story Dysmas.

Oh yeah, and have you seen this vid? It is "Lullaby for a stormy night" + Sound of Music.

Things That Make Me Cry:

(Lullaby for a Stormy Night, Doctor Who, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.)

YES. That makes me cry. I'm not even sure why, but it does.

The death of Tara Maclay made me cry. And the death of Tessa Noel. Most of all, the death of Joyce Summers.

Return of the King. Every single time.

Things That Don't:

Never saw any of the Land Before Time movies. However, I didn't cry when Bambi's mother bought it. Does that give you an idea?

I was actually relieved when Beth March died. This was probably because she was suffering from the literary symptoms of TB, which, in Victorian lit, always seemed to involve getting paler, thinner, frailer and more angelic. Quite a few virtuous souls in Victorian lit seemed to perish that way, especially if they were women or young girls.

(The prevalence of this in nineteenth-century literature convinced me when I was very young that there was no percentage in overwhelming amounts of virtue, because if you were excessively kind, merciful, helpful and humble, you would be declared Too Good For This World, and then God would kill you. I did not understand why God made a habit of killing off good people, but I had read about the Greek gods and none of them had been particularly rational, either.)

Star Trek Reboot didn't make me cry--probably because that isn't MY Star Trek. I didn't believe for one minute that Chris Pine grew up to be William Shatner or that Zoe Saldana became Nichelle Nicholls or that Karl Urban had ANYTHING in common with DeForrest Kelley. They didn't act poorly; I just didn't believe that they were Kirk, Uhura or McCoy. They didn't look like them, and they sure didn't behave like them. It's just a fanfic in the form of a movie...and I feel free to ignore fanfic if it fucks with canon in a way that I can't find credible.

most vids about awesome ladies being awesome (most consistently One Girl Revolution)

One Girl Revolution didn't make me cry. It made me CHEER. (And request permission of the vidder to put it in Femgenficathon's profile. With credit, of course.)

I don't keep lists of things that make me cry; the things that stick in my head tend to be the things that made me cry in a not-so-good way. The two that come most readily to mind:

1. The ending of The Fall. That affected me so badly that I was still crying several hours later. For weeks afterwards I'd be going about my business and then I'd randomly remember it and I'd start crying again. I could hardly stand it because it was so, so similar to the way the inside of my head works sometimes (if you imagine that I'm both Alexandria and Roy in this scenario) and I had no idea it was going to happen so it caught me completely off-guard. The DVD was a Christmas present, that was the first time I'd watched it, and I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it again.
2. The scene in Watchmen where Rorschach is given the Rorschach test. Specifically, his answers and the tone of voice in which he gives them. God knows why that set me off as badly as it did but I was crying on-and-off for the rest of the film. I own that DVD too, and haven't rewatched it.

Loads of music makes me cry. Most live music will, actually, unless I dislike it.

OH GOD THE ENDING TO LAND BEFORE TIME. WHERE HE'S SHOUTING 'MOTHER MOTHER' AND IT'S JUST A CLOUD. FUCCCCCK.

Sometimes when you post I feel like we should have been best friends in grade school. That's weird. I could have introduced you to Star Trek and we could have watched X-Men cartoons.

Threaded | Flat

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject