December Blogging Meme Topic #9:
Do you have fictional buttons, character constellations, or themes that you particularly love to read (and/or write) about? Are there clichés that you love?
-rheasilvia
This will sound slightly absurd, but I didn't catch on till this year that I have a definite thing for thwarted apocalypses wherein the world (whether it's the microcosm of a relationship or the world as in the world) gets a second chance. Good Omens hitting my radar in 2004, sticking, and never going away wasn't even sufficient to clue me in; it took Pacific Rim hitting my radar in late 2013, sticking, and (so far) having not gone away to make me stop and think, Wait a minute. If I operate under this assumption and consider most of my other narrative preoccupations, the pattern holds. Hot Fuzz is another great example, and you can also make the argument for Toy Soldiers. Past that point, you really are getting down to looking at relationship microcosms wherein something cataclysmic happens, the relationship survives it, and then I'm left dealing with fall-out and all of its bewildering, miraculous consequences. You even get the relationship microcosms within the worlds where an almost-apocalypse literally occurs at the broader-world lever. It doesn't matter if that apocalypse is the one mentioned in the Bible or a plague of alien monsters emerging from the sea; it doesn't matter if it's a quiet English town threatened by murderous civic officials or a rural prep school besieged by terrorists. When worlds very nearly end and then don't, I'm left standing in awe at the enormity of life being handed back to the characters I love. These are only a few examples in the broader scope of my fascinations over the years, but if you've been here for the past twelve years (and most of you have), this is the most accurate explanation of what will enthrall my devotion and never let it go.
-rheasilvia
This will sound slightly absurd, but I didn't catch on till this year that I have a definite thing for thwarted apocalypses wherein the world (whether it's the microcosm of a relationship or the world as in the world) gets a second chance. Good Omens hitting my radar in 2004, sticking, and never going away wasn't even sufficient to clue me in; it took Pacific Rim hitting my radar in late 2013, sticking, and (so far) having not gone away to make me stop and think, Wait a minute. If I operate under this assumption and consider most of my other narrative preoccupations, the pattern holds. Hot Fuzz is another great example, and you can also make the argument for Toy Soldiers. Past that point, you really are getting down to looking at relationship microcosms wherein something cataclysmic happens, the relationship survives it, and then I'm left dealing with fall-out and all of its bewildering, miraculous consequences. You even get the relationship microcosms within the worlds where an almost-apocalypse literally occurs at the broader-world lever. It doesn't matter if that apocalypse is the one mentioned in the Bible or a plague of alien monsters emerging from the sea; it doesn't matter if it's a quiet English town threatened by murderous civic officials or a rural prep school besieged by terrorists. When worlds very nearly end and then don't, I'm left standing in awe at the enormity of life being handed back to the characters I love. These are only a few examples in the broader scope of my fascinations over the years, but if you've been here for the past twelve years (and most of you have), this is the most accurate explanation of what will enthrall my devotion and never let it go.