Guaranteed to blow your mind
Wow, will you look at that? The second post for today, about some shit again)))
I've been thinking about the stuff I like in fiction. Both in terms of reading and writing. It's not kink per se (b/c I tend to apply the word 'kink' to erotic stuff); basically just some elements I find appealing. I wonder what it says about me)))
1. Isolation/Survival - For some reason I like sticking my characters in the middle of nowhere, and I like it when others do it))) There can be only two characters alone with each other or a group of people that have to learn how to deal with each other under extreme circumstances. It can be a locked room or a desert island. It can be a thriller or a melodrama. In any case I'm 99 % guaranteed to read/watch it.
~ Prison: Prison Break (that has unfortunately had its finale recently) is one of my fav shows, and the idea of the characters stuck together in a prison cell is for some reason really appealing. For those who didn't watch PB, there are two prisons in it: Fox River and Sona. The former is a normal prison in Illinois with normal rules and wardens. The latter is "hell on earth" in Panama where cells are unlocked, guards never enter the building and keep on the perimetre with guns, shooting anyone who dares step a toe out of line, and the entire prison is run solely by inmates. Both versions are cool for fiction (though I should say I've never come across anything like Sona and I found the idea cool). Another awesome example of prison fiction is Undergrand Hotel, the manga by Sadahiro Mika. Nox and I had prisons in several of our RP-games; I wrote a couple of PB fics set in Sona; there's a prison sex scene in my upcoming NaruSasu two-shot The Rescue Blues.
~ Random public places to get stuck in (school, supermarket, etc.): I became a fan of that after seeing a Season 3 episode of ER called The Long Way Around. Back then ER was awesome and still on my super-fav shows list. This ep was about Carol being held hostage in a supermarket by two robbers. One of them was played by Ewan McGregor (already one of my fav actors back then). The ep was absolutely gorgeous. There's also some crazy movie based on a Stephen King novel about ppl getting stuck in a supermarket and the mist creeping over the town and producing creepie-crawlies all over. It's called The Mist and it's weird, but it does have one of my fav settings))) And it has Doomsday from Smallville and Marita from the X-Files and a hell of a lot more familiar faces but that's totally irrelevant (And FUCK, it's depressing as hell and ttly makes me sick!) I have yet to write smth like that, I suppose.
~ Traffic: A plane, a train, a bus, a car, a spaceship any moving thing you can't get out of (which freaks the FUCK out of me IRL) seems really intriguing for me in fiction. Even moreso, b/c it's connected with another element: road-trip. But we'll get to that.
~ Desert island: The brightest example here is Lost of course. If you saw it, you know what I mean. There are so many opportunities for everything there: character development, pairing development, action, drama, angst, character death (on Lost character resurrection actually works too)))), etc. Of course, an island isn't a must; basically it just has to be any sort of wilderness that characters can't get out of at once. The first fic out of my own collection that comes to mind is Out of the Sky. It deals with Itachi and Sasuke getting trapped in a strange forest.
~ City: A city/village that you don't know very well/never been to at all/just got lost in at night can be a very scary place to roam. Think Silent Hill f.ex. XDDD I'm currently dealing with that in my original project Jim Steele, a story about three random people that have to wander a large megapolis at night together. Speaking of that, the novel "Jim Steele" originates from, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, is sort of about that too, since Holden wanders the city a lot, meeting various people, talking to them and saying goodbye to them all the time.
2. Road-trip - That blows my mind every time I see it. I can't say why, but the idea of moving from point A to point B, generally speaking, is so simple yet it encompasses so much awesomeness. On the Road by Jack Kerouac is one of my favourite books; Rain Man (that has a road-trip motive) is one of my favourite movies; any tv-show has elements of a road-trip (like Supernatural's Sam and Dean driving aroun the States throughout all seasons of the show; or Sylar and Luke in Heroes Volume 4, etc.). I'm planning to do a road-trip story too. I'm a pro at jumping bandwagons!
3. Quest - That's a recurring theme in sooo many stories that I'm scared to even go there. The different between a quest and a road-trip? Quest is on foot, road-trip is by car. Quest is to find smth, road-trip no necessarily. Essentially, the point is the same: there is a distance you have to cross and a place you have to get to. Everything from Lord of the Rings to Shrek deals with it, yet no matter how frequently this element appears, I'm always happy to see it. A hell of a lot of my own stories deal with that, most notably: Lunar, Solar and No Major Harm. Speaking of the latter, it has a road-trip in it too)))
4. Time-travel - That can be done incredibly well and incredibly banal too. It really depends heavily on a writer. But I absolutely adore stories where a character goes to the past to meet his young parents or himself or just witness some crazy historic events. Father's Day, an episode of Doctor Who where Rose meets her deceased father and nearly causes the end of the world (and basically the entire DW in general); an episode in Heroes Volume 3 where Claire babysits herself; time-flashes in Lost Season 5, particularly the one where Sawyer witnessed the birth of Aaron. This list can be endless. Nox and I played once a pretty monumental SasuNaru rpg where they traveled to the past because of a screwed-up battle jutsu and ended up first in the pre-Konoha times meeting Madara and Hashirama, then during the Third Ninja War meeting Minato and his team and then in the future learning Madara had killed Sakura. XDDD As for fanfics, my favourites here would be:
Ripple by miforever29 [Naruto meeting his parents]
Author's summary: When the impossible becomes possible and the line between dreams and reality blurs, what will Naruto do when he’s confronted with the past? And what does this mean for the present and the future? Time travel fic.
Mixed With the Lightning of Slaughter by dayadhvam_triad [Sasuke-centric]
Author's summary: He keeps dreaming of a future gone to hell, but it’s irrational to think that his visions would actually happen, right? Or so Sasuke thinks... but there are too many coincidences that prevent him from dismissing his dreams as mere illusions. Timetravel.
+ a hell of a lot Star Wars fics that deal with Luke and Leia going to the past to meet Anakin or [rarely done well] Anakin traveling to the future to meet them (and learn he'll become Vader and freak out over it extensively)))
5. AU - A character crossing over to some parallel reality or creating it or whatever... that's a goldmine if done well! Seen the recent Star Trek? Spock talking to Spock - gotta love that scene))) There's also a priceless episode in Star Trek: The Original Series called Mirror, Mirror: AU!Spock with a beard ftw)) In my writing the most notable example is No Major Harm. In other people's writing one of my top fav fics is Parallels by questofdreams and Lazuli.
6. Dreamworlds - An artificial world constructed to contain a character and fuck with his brain? Yes, please! Most of my Harry Potter fics deal with that and that shows just how much I love it. A world where real things aren't always real and unreal things can be more real than you thought? I'll take two! Blame it on Matrix, I suppose.
7. Fantasy worlds - A world that is real but you never thought it existed. A world full of magic, and you've just accidentally stumbled into it? Or a person from that world stumbled into your world? There are many stories like that, not all of them good, but I like that element overall. One of my top fav book series of all times, The Labyrinths of Eho by Max Frei, deals with a regular character from our world becoming a detective in a fantasy world. Stardust by Neil Gaiman is about a youth venturing into the world of magic to get a fallen star for his beloved. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke - book characters showing up in the real world. Of course in fanfiction such things usually end up being a third-rate Mary-Sue or a self-insert fic. Too bad.
8. Crazy substances that make a character act OOC - Lucky for me, Star Trek has loads of that))) The Naked Time, This Side of Paradise (TOS), Strange New World (ENT) - this list can definitely last forever. In my own writing, it's Out of the Sky again: both Sasuke and Itachi have been heavily drugged, and it affects Sasuke's behaviour greatly. Such justified version of OOC is the only version I can stand. Normally, I won't hesitate to hit the back button if I come across a character acting OOC. The trick is to let the character retain his regular qualities while he's under the influence of any substance like that.
9. Dystopia/Anti-utopia - A pseudo-perfect society complete with emotion suppressants, revolutionaries, underground, lonely heroes, etc. A lot of classical literature deals with that, such as We by Zamyatin, Brave New World by Auldos Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, 1984 by George Orwell, etc. This theme never gets old. My top fav movie about it is Kurt Wimmer's Equilibrium.
This list got longer than I expected)))) The point of this post was basically to ask you, guys, what you like))) So... any specific preferences while reading or writing a story? Anything that's absolutely guaranteed to make you read it? ;) Share it with me, let's talk! XD
I've been thinking about the stuff I like in fiction. Both in terms of reading and writing. It's not kink per se (b/c I tend to apply the word 'kink' to erotic stuff); basically just some elements I find appealing. I wonder what it says about me)))
1. Isolation/Survival - For some reason I like sticking my characters in the middle of nowhere, and I like it when others do it))) There can be only two characters alone with each other or a group of people that have to learn how to deal with each other under extreme circumstances. It can be a locked room or a desert island. It can be a thriller or a melodrama. In any case I'm 99 % guaranteed to read/watch it.
~ Prison: Prison Break (that has unfortunately had its finale recently) is one of my fav shows, and the idea of the characters stuck together in a prison cell is for some reason really appealing. For those who didn't watch PB, there are two prisons in it: Fox River and Sona. The former is a normal prison in Illinois with normal rules and wardens. The latter is "hell on earth" in Panama where cells are unlocked, guards never enter the building and keep on the perimetre with guns, shooting anyone who dares step a toe out of line, and the entire prison is run solely by inmates. Both versions are cool for fiction (though I should say I've never come across anything like Sona and I found the idea cool). Another awesome example of prison fiction is Undergrand Hotel, the manga by Sadahiro Mika. Nox and I had prisons in several of our RP-games; I wrote a couple of PB fics set in Sona; there's a prison sex scene in my upcoming NaruSasu two-shot The Rescue Blues.
~ Random public places to get stuck in (school, supermarket, etc.): I became a fan of that after seeing a Season 3 episode of ER called The Long Way Around. Back then ER was awesome and still on my super-fav shows list. This ep was about Carol being held hostage in a supermarket by two robbers. One of them was played by Ewan McGregor (already one of my fav actors back then). The ep was absolutely gorgeous. There's also some crazy movie based on a Stephen King novel about ppl getting stuck in a supermarket and the mist creeping over the town and producing creepie-crawlies all over. It's called The Mist and it's weird, but it does have one of my fav settings))) And it has Doomsday from Smallville and Marita from the X-Files and a hell of a lot more familiar faces but that's totally irrelevant (And FUCK, it's depressing as hell and ttly makes me sick!) I have yet to write smth like that, I suppose.
~ Traffic: A plane, a train, a bus, a car, a spaceship any moving thing you can't get out of (which freaks the FUCK out of me IRL) seems really intriguing for me in fiction. Even moreso, b/c it's connected with another element: road-trip. But we'll get to that.
~ Desert island: The brightest example here is Lost of course. If you saw it, you know what I mean. There are so many opportunities for everything there: character development, pairing development, action, drama, angst, character death (on Lost character resurrection actually works too)))), etc. Of course, an island isn't a must; basically it just has to be any sort of wilderness that characters can't get out of at once. The first fic out of my own collection that comes to mind is Out of the Sky. It deals with Itachi and Sasuke getting trapped in a strange forest.
~ City: A city/village that you don't know very well/never been to at all/just got lost in at night can be a very scary place to roam. Think Silent Hill f.ex. XDDD I'm currently dealing with that in my original project Jim Steele, a story about three random people that have to wander a large megapolis at night together. Speaking of that, the novel "Jim Steele" originates from, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, is sort of about that too, since Holden wanders the city a lot, meeting various people, talking to them and saying goodbye to them all the time.
2. Road-trip - That blows my mind every time I see it. I can't say why, but the idea of moving from point A to point B, generally speaking, is so simple yet it encompasses so much awesomeness. On the Road by Jack Kerouac is one of my favourite books; Rain Man (that has a road-trip motive) is one of my favourite movies; any tv-show has elements of a road-trip (like Supernatural's Sam and Dean driving aroun the States throughout all seasons of the show; or Sylar and Luke in Heroes Volume 4, etc.). I'm planning to do a road-trip story too. I'm a pro at jumping bandwagons!
3. Quest - That's a recurring theme in sooo many stories that I'm scared to even go there. The different between a quest and a road-trip? Quest is on foot, road-trip is by car. Quest is to find smth, road-trip no necessarily. Essentially, the point is the same: there is a distance you have to cross and a place you have to get to. Everything from Lord of the Rings to Shrek deals with it, yet no matter how frequently this element appears, I'm always happy to see it. A hell of a lot of my own stories deal with that, most notably: Lunar, Solar and No Major Harm. Speaking of the latter, it has a road-trip in it too)))
4. Time-travel - That can be done incredibly well and incredibly banal too. It really depends heavily on a writer. But I absolutely adore stories where a character goes to the past to meet his young parents or himself or just witness some crazy historic events. Father's Day, an episode of Doctor Who where Rose meets her deceased father and nearly causes the end of the world (and basically the entire DW in general); an episode in Heroes Volume 3 where Claire babysits herself; time-flashes in Lost Season 5, particularly the one where Sawyer witnessed the birth of Aaron. This list can be endless. Nox and I played once a pretty monumental SasuNaru rpg where they traveled to the past because of a screwed-up battle jutsu and ended up first in the pre-Konoha times meeting Madara and Hashirama, then during the Third Ninja War meeting Minato and his team and then in the future learning Madara had killed Sakura. XDDD As for fanfics, my favourites here would be:
Ripple by miforever29 [Naruto meeting his parents]
Author's summary: When the impossible becomes possible and the line between dreams and reality blurs, what will Naruto do when he’s confronted with the past? And what does this mean for the present and the future? Time travel fic.
Mixed With the Lightning of Slaughter by dayadhvam_triad [Sasuke-centric]
Author's summary: He keeps dreaming of a future gone to hell, but it’s irrational to think that his visions would actually happen, right? Or so Sasuke thinks... but there are too many coincidences that prevent him from dismissing his dreams as mere illusions. Timetravel.
+ a hell of a lot Star Wars fics that deal with Luke and Leia going to the past to meet Anakin or [rarely done well] Anakin traveling to the future to meet them (and learn he'll become Vader and freak out over it extensively)))
5. AU - A character crossing over to some parallel reality or creating it or whatever... that's a goldmine if done well! Seen the recent Star Trek? Spock talking to Spock - gotta love that scene))) There's also a priceless episode in Star Trek: The Original Series called Mirror, Mirror: AU!Spock with a beard ftw)) In my writing the most notable example is No Major Harm. In other people's writing one of my top fav fics is Parallels by questofdreams and Lazuli.
6. Dreamworlds - An artificial world constructed to contain a character and fuck with his brain? Yes, please! Most of my Harry Potter fics deal with that and that shows just how much I love it. A world where real things aren't always real and unreal things can be more real than you thought? I'll take two! Blame it on Matrix, I suppose.
7. Fantasy worlds - A world that is real but you never thought it existed. A world full of magic, and you've just accidentally stumbled into it? Or a person from that world stumbled into your world? There are many stories like that, not all of them good, but I like that element overall. One of my top fav book series of all times, The Labyrinths of Eho by Max Frei, deals with a regular character from our world becoming a detective in a fantasy world. Stardust by Neil Gaiman is about a youth venturing into the world of magic to get a fallen star for his beloved. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke - book characters showing up in the real world. Of course in fanfiction such things usually end up being a third-rate Mary-Sue or a self-insert fic. Too bad.
8. Crazy substances that make a character act OOC - Lucky for me, Star Trek has loads of that))) The Naked Time, This Side of Paradise (TOS), Strange New World (ENT) - this list can definitely last forever. In my own writing, it's Out of the Sky again: both Sasuke and Itachi have been heavily drugged, and it affects Sasuke's behaviour greatly. Such justified version of OOC is the only version I can stand. Normally, I won't hesitate to hit the back button if I come across a character acting OOC. The trick is to let the character retain his regular qualities while he's under the influence of any substance like that.
9. Dystopia/Anti-utopia - A pseudo-perfect society complete with emotion suppressants, revolutionaries, underground, lonely heroes, etc. A lot of classical literature deals with that, such as We by Zamyatin, Brave New World by Auldos Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, 1984 by George Orwell, etc. This theme never gets old. My top fav movie about it is Kurt Wimmer's Equilibrium.
This list got longer than I expected)))) The point of this post was basically to ask you, guys, what you like))) So... any specific preferences while reading or writing a story? Anything that's absolutely guaranteed to make you read it? ;) Share it with me, let's talk! XD