Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2020-04-22 01:27 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2020-04-22 01:27 pm
I'm Going To Kill You, Edgar.
Once again, I find myself compelled to ramble about something nobody's heard of, just when my journal was in danger of becoming accessible. A seventeen-year-old fic should do it.
Ginger: Are you okay? You've spent a lot of today just lying in bed, staring at your phone.
Riona: I've been reading a fic I loved as a teenager! It's about a guy falling into a reluctant friendship with a serial killer while arguing with the dark reflection of himself who lives in his mind.
Ginger: ...yes, that does sound very you.
It's strange to go back to something you loved at a formative age and realise how much it influenced your tastes.
I've been rereadingzarla's Vargas, a Johnny the Homicidal Maniac fic I first read when I was fifteen. I have never read so much as a page of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac itself. But I read this fic, and I loved it intensely.
And, on this reread, I've noticed a lot of themes that I've been drawn to in fiction ever since. The self-loathing protagonist has an intense, unhealthy, antagonistic, sexually tinged relationship with a duplicate of himself who may or may not be imaginary; there are so many things I love in that one sentence! (Other fictional themes I love in here: intense relationships with a constant undercurrent of distrust or fear, massive levels of repression, a strangely thin line between love and murder.)
(Just as a heads-up if you're checking it out: the fic is long, violent and unfinished, and it was written between 2003 and 2015, so there's some of the natural development of style you'd expect from a fic written over the course of twelve years.)
Vargas really had an impact on me, I've come to realise. It didn't seem right that I'd never mentioned it here. So I thought I'd give it a quick salute in this entry. THANKS FOR SCREWING ME UP, ZARLA.
And now I've got to resist the temptation to write about Scriabin, because writing fanfiction about someone else's OC for a canon I've never consumed would be ridiculous.
I mean, yes, I technically have done that before. Shhh.
I'm curious now: what are the works of fiction you'd consider particularly influential in forming your tastes? In my case, apart from Vargas, the biggest ones are probably Animorphs, Life on Mars and Silent Hill 2. Animorphs also had a heavy impact on my writing style.
(I've asked the same thing over at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fictional_fans, a general fandom discussion community, if you'd prefer to answer there.)
Ginger: Are you okay? You've spent a lot of today just lying in bed, staring at your phone.
Riona: I've been reading a fic I loved as a teenager! It's about a guy falling into a reluctant friendship with a serial killer while arguing with the dark reflection of himself who lives in his mind.
Ginger: ...yes, that does sound very you.
It's strange to go back to something you loved at a formative age and realise how much it influenced your tastes.
I've been rereading
zarla's Vargas, a Johnny the Homicidal Maniac fic I first read when I was fifteen. I have never read so much as a page of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac itself. But I read this fic, and I loved it intensely.And, on this reread, I've noticed a lot of themes that I've been drawn to in fiction ever since. The self-loathing protagonist has an intense, unhealthy, antagonistic, sexually tinged relationship with a duplicate of himself who may or may not be imaginary; there are so many things I love in that one sentence! (Other fictional themes I love in here: intense relationships with a constant undercurrent of distrust or fear, massive levels of repression, a strangely thin line between love and murder.)
(Just as a heads-up if you're checking it out: the fic is long, violent and unfinished, and it was written between 2003 and 2015, so there's some of the natural development of style you'd expect from a fic written over the course of twelve years.)
Vargas really had an impact on me, I've come to realise. It didn't seem right that I'd never mentioned it here. So I thought I'd give it a quick salute in this entry. THANKS FOR SCREWING ME UP, ZARLA.
And now I've got to resist the temptation to write about Scriabin, because writing fanfiction about someone else's OC for a canon I've never consumed would be ridiculous.
I mean, yes, I technically have done that before. Shhh.
I'm curious now: what are the works of fiction you'd consider particularly influential in forming your tastes? In my case, apart from Vargas, the biggest ones are probably Animorphs, Life on Mars and Silent Hill 2. Animorphs also had a heavy impact on my writing style.
(I've asked the same thing over at
fictional_fans, a general fandom discussion community, if you'd prefer to answer there.)
no subject
Gargoyles - This show was what began my love affair with fantasy elements in a futuristic (or at least contemporary) settings. It spoiled me with longterm storytelling, well-rounded characters, compelling and likeable antagonists, a diverse cast, consequences, reasonable aesops, Shakespeare characters because why not... it was So Much for little me. It set a high standard of quality storytelling that I either expect everything I consume to reach or will happily rip it apart if it does not. You would think it would not be difficult to surpass a children's show with a twenty minute run time. However!
The love of fantasy elements in sci-fi settings has stayed with me to this day. A fantasy setting by itself needs a strong story or well-rounded characters to keep me invested; a fantasy setting that's actually post-apocalyptic sci-fi in disguise? Sign me up, I don't care if everything else about it completely falls apart (also known as Attack on Titan).
When I was a kid, I also read a lot of Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike (to the point where I knew of the latter as an author before a Star Trek character, and only learned a few years ago that his pen name was deliberately picked in reference) - and that shit was dark for a nine year-old. In fact, I remember showing some friends a passage in one particular Lois Duncan book concerning feminism in the seventies and they were scandalised--I didn't realise it at the time but it was basically a rape scene and involved some tongue gore. Christopher Pike, on the other hand, was very much bad end supernatural on a world-ending scale. It was all very bleak and hopeless and basically forced me to reconcile the insignificance of my own existence at a very young age. With all this in mind, I shouldn't wonder why I'm constantly searching for the most brutal horror and throw myself headlong into dark themes!
no subject
It's interesting to hear about Gargoyles! I heard it mentioned a lot on the Internet when I was younger, but I never had a clear idea of what it was. (I just looked up pictures, and EVERYONE'S SO BUFF.)
I don't care if everything else about it completely falls apart (also known as Attack on Titan).
Ha! I watched the entire first series of Attack on Titan, always hoping it'd live up to the promise it had shown in the early episodes, and it never quite did. I did love Jean, though.