Apr 11, 2010 21:56
Ahh golden walls. So lovely to look at. Rich. Beautiful. Give me blinding headaches because I can't turn my eyes away from the screen.
So I was bored and I really wanted to read fanfiction. Genius is a Curse ( from here on known as GC) was a story recommended to me by best friend and beta about a year or two ago. I stuck it in my fav folder and it's been there ever since. Didn't read it. But boredom got to me recently and I was checking out my list. GC popped out at me and I thought "Maybe I should read a chapter or two." life sucks in the way it has different plans. 35 chapters all in one go. One massive headache and one very happy reader. One thing I realize with Death Note fanfiction is that most of the good ones are driven by emotion and character development. That's really hard. Wow that was weak. I would amputate and sell both my legs (not my arms because I need those to write) to be able to write "emotion" well. GC is certainly no exception. Light is clinically depressed and honestly I felt it... Painfully. There's a period for about 4 chapters that goes through worst stages of his depression. It was agonizing because I felt depressed reading about. Towards the end of the stage, I was begging the author to end my misery, to just kill Light off or make him call Watari already. I even felt for an hour truly depressed, though I couldn't help but think my life troubles were squat compared to Light's. That's how well I could empathize with the characters. Simply amazing. It blew my mind away, and the details of emotions are painful reminders of how terrible it feels to be in depression. The feelings described were certainly no strangers to me, and I felt slightly sick as I vividly and instantly felt pangs of my own moments of depression in the past. God it was an amazing story.
So after being pulled back into DN fanfiction, I couldn't just stop. I began to look for other stories through which I have come to a conclusion. I am not very picky with KHR or HP ff but I am extremely so with Naruto and DN. Mostly with depictions of characters. There has to be a certain balance in the character. L must never be too normal or too eccentric (always 100% analytical). Light can never be too crazy or too emotional or too subdued. They're difficult characters to write well. Often, the characters slip into realm of OOC ( which for DN is very close to IC) and i immediately abandon the story. In DN there is a fine line between a good story and insanity.
I did find another I loved though. Asylum. God, spine tingling. Nerve-wracking. Absolutely amazing. Though through it, I've learned that I have trouble stomaching torture. There was a scene where Light's Achilles tendon was mercilessly sliced through with a scalpel. My mind convulsed. The sheer detail made it seem frighteningly real, and my own foot involuntarily twitched. Then I cried when we were allowed insight into Light's head. The confusion. The chaos. The pain. The terror. The desperation. The feeling of betrayal. It was honestly too much and my eyes began to tear. The story is sheer raw power and really just snaps one's mind back. A brilliant story and I can't wait to get started on the sequel.
Well, honestly I'm exhausted. I applaud Bloodshot Eyes and Bahari for absolutely beautiful and heart-wrenching pieces of art. Truly two golden walls.
fanfiction,
golden walls