Word and image

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

This is another one of Gackt's complex facial expressions.  It's a fairly uncomfortable picture, which I found thought-provoking but not easy to enjoy.  The poem is from the same set as the last Word and Image I posted.  

I'm not sure of the origin of this picture as there was no credit where I found it, but it looks to be from the Crescent/Last Song era and may be a screen cap e.g. from the photobook  "making of" video.  I've looked through the Crescent photobook itself fairly carefully and I can't see this picture there.  The words are mine.

Comments

[wandering-son.livejournal.com]

The image is a screencapture from the making of the Last Song music video.

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Ah - thank you! That would explain the drooped eye position: the frame has probably caught the eyes mid-blink or mid-movement.

You must have a very detailed knowledge to pinpoint this so well. The hair was an era giveaway but I certainly wouldn't be able to narrow the origin of the image down as you have. Thanks.

[wandering-son.livejournal.com]

Detailed knowledge Thank you for kindly wording 'unhealthy obsession' XD

[susan-11.livejournal.com]

XD

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Well, if you've decided to have an obsession, good on you for choosing Gackt!

I can't help thinking that, if everyone was as hard-working, imaginative, balanced, responsible and self-reliant as he seems to be, our world would be a much nicer place (with more eye-liner!)

[shinimegami21]

Well, if he's gonna discard all of that stuff, at least take off the clothes. Damn he looks so...sweaty and hot. XD

But hormones aside, he looks like he's been through the ringer in the poem and image. Interesting...

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Yes, doesn't he look defeated and on the point of grasping some dreadful self-truth? It's an arresting image but "interesting" is probably the most pleasant comment one can make! If it helps, there are some more positive poems in this set.

Thanks for taking the trouble to read and comment - even if your comment leads me to say...

What's with you and the sweat theme at the moment?! You expect ME to sleep after filling my head with sweaty spiders and all that?? If I have sleepless nights, I write truly bad "poems" - probably about sake. And Kenshin. And the UG Mod will suffer for it!

And does your request to remove clothes include the necklace - or does that stay on?! Sadly for you, my picture editing skills just ain't up to the job!

Question: how come your hormones seem to be more energetic when the rest of you should be extra tired?? Er - no need to answer! I'm curious though. You appear to be quite a phenomenon!

But your icon overcomes all. If I can't sleep, I will make your icon dance for me :)

[shinimegami21]

Well, it's summer. I can't think of anything else except sweaty bodies and removing clothing. The necklace can stay. :D and When tired, I get delirious and giddy. Go figure.

LOL My icon is more famous than me. XD

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Delirious and giddy?? Uh-oh! You is dangerous! Yeah, I thought the necklace ought to stay too ;)

You wanna plead summer, eh? Listen - I got assaulted by a hail storm yesterday. It's mid-August and we have lumps of ice falling out of the sky! Man, you won't get any sweat from the weather here.

Ah - your icon isn't more famous than you: it's just more visible :) You're famous cos of UG which I found and liked first. I know I'm only one person but you are so famous in my head!

[lilyginnyblack.livejournal.com]

Oh~ I love this, both the image and poem! ^0^

The image is quite hot! xD

But, the poem is just amazing, I personally think, because it captures the "complex facial expression" as you put it. And I especially adore that last line, "I can feel the future/ my back to the wall." It just a certainty about it, that I really like.

Anyway, thank you for posting and sharing this! ^^

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words; I'm pleased that you like the combination. I usually start with a picture that has a bit of depth to it, and this one certainly has.

Gackt's "stories" (e.g. the implications of the image sequences in his MVs) are always fairly oblique, so that allows for lots of different possibilities in plot terms. I've tried to keep this ambiguity in the words that I've used so that each reader can imagine their own more detailed storyline.

Hot, eh? That'll be the dishevelled hair and the um - rather unresistant mouth then!

[lilyginnyblack.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! ^^ And, yep, you bet! ^.~

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Hee - I think I'm the one that "tried" here!

Yes, I know what you mean: he does look pretty exhausted, but I wanted to provoke people to think about what might have happened to make him so tired.

So, has he been chased? Did he have a fight with someone? Has he been making a huge effort to do something - to give effect to a dream - which has just failed in front of him? You get the idea.

I'm happy for everyone to think of their own story - perhaps he's just had a hard day being photographed ;)

[karadin.livejournal.com]

I can almost hear your poem set to music.

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

That's very clever of you! Actually, this whole set is largely written in the style of lyrics; I won't normally use such overt rhyme schemes otherwise. Still, lyrics are not inappropriate for Gackt, eh?

[mingoes.livejournal.com]

Trying for a third time to leave a comment. I'm hated by computers and internet. T_T
So just a shorter recap

yay photobooks. pretty ne? you have big inspiration source now.

like train from set better. but this is pretty too. but hard to enjoy more due to his expression.
sprinkle of hope should get him back on his feet.

enlighten more on your set maybe?

pah take that internet! grrr

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Sadly, no photobooks have arrived. This is a bit of a sore point but I am still hoping for something. Buying like this is always risky, eh? Sigh. This image is a screen cap I've now been told (see first comment above for the real detail) so, sorry, that's why his expression is difficult.

But you're not curious as to what has happened to get him into this state? I'm curious that the train pic-poem filled your head with questions but that this one only makes you want to "cure" him!

Well, there is indeed a small set of these and it does include some happier ideas, so I've promised myself that the next one to be offered for W&I should be more upbeat. You'll know from my LJ that my usual format is pretty much full screen, so I'm having to adapt to post to the 400 pixel width here - quite an interesting challenge! Maybe I was getting too formulaic anyway ;) It's certainly made me look at the pictures in quite a different way (rather than just to reduce the scale) so not a bad thing.

Thanks for coming back to comment and for braving the internet demons so many times; I hope that they find your persistence gives them such indigestion that they leave you alone for a while.

[mingoes.livejournal.com]

oh oh doh..misread..but you have crescent ^^ anway hope you get them soon enough. risky indeed...
hmm..isn't the expression difficult because you choose to cap that? and not because it is a screencap it looks difficult?

Well it's not that I'm not curious..but in this current shape, it's first cure and then try to understand. but due to that sprinkle of hope, it sounds as if he is positive enough so don't want to remind him of that what got him like that. Or perhaps the small source of hope is small, so needs to be hold on tight and anything reminding of the process getting in this state extinguishes the hope. (you still follow??...)
Either way respect that, so no ask how he got there but support... and perhaps something recently irl that influenced in how I responded.

hmm I see.any titling for this set? Can't wait to see more of your set. :)

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Oh - just found your comment! I didn't get any heads-up in my Inbox as usual (strange) so big apologies for appearing to ignore you.

Re the "difiicult" epxression, I meant that the expression from a screencap is sometimes caught mid-movement and is not a "pose" where the subject necessarily has the chance to make his face show something intentional. Hence the added ambiguity! (nice toy for the imagination)

I like your kind response in terms of curing first! Ah - Gackt-san is lucky to have such kind fans. Yes, you are right about the small hope thing: to look back with a small flame of hope in your hand can allow the cold wind of the past to extinguish the fire. You say "something recently irl" - hope this was nothing bad for you? I'd hate to think of you looking as beaten as poor Gackt here. Really hope that didn't happen to you

No, some of these poems don't have titles because they just unfold for themselves. One or two of the others do have a title to avoid a misunderstanding. Usually, my stuff in this lyric style is so simple that no misunderstanding is possible!

Can't wait to see more, eh? Well, here's a teaser trailer for you: the next poem in this set, to be offered here, could be titled, "Carry me closer to the sun", but that's the first line anyway so what would be the point? ;) See if you can guess, from that first line, which picture I've used! (Clue: it's from one of the photobooks).

Thanks for giving your further thoughts. So sorry I didn't see earlier; just didn't have any reason to check back here.