The Essence of Good Fiction

[nivenus]

Well, considering I had to get an account here to participate in the RP I suppose it's only proper that I get started on a blog. Of course, this will be my first blog ever so forgive me it does not meet sufficient qualities of blogginess

Comments

[plutospawn]

There's a time and a place for everything and I think that can affect enjoyment a lot. Like me, for instance, I have a huge soft spot for comics written by Chris Claremont. Why? His dialogue's like cardboard and there's always a love triangle and if women are mad at each other they call each other "cows" and couples always call each other "lover" and really, why can't I stop buying this stuff?

But Claremont also created Kitty Pryde among many other characters, defined the preexisting ones and put together some of the arcs still talked about thirty years after the fact, like the Dark Phoenix Saga. He's a huge chunk of my childhood and even now, if you picked up something that's supposedly incredible, like the Dark Phoenix Saga, it's so flat and cardboard-y, if you weren't a comic junky or sentimentalist digging out a copy for nostalgia, you'd probably toss it at the wall.

I've taken to reading classic children's lit lately, just because it's the only thing available in the classroom during my lunch breaks and it's the same thing again. There's certain books that I used to see everywhere in elementary school as a kid (like "Where the Red Fern Grows") that as an adult, I can't even get past chapter one. But then there are others, like "The Magician's Nephew" that I've been burning through.

Right on that mark

[nivenus]

You're definitely right about time and place playing a role in enjoyment, and I totally forgot to mention that in my piece. For instance, I have a sort of soft spot for Sonic stuff, since it's part of my childhood, in spite of the fact that almost all of the stories (w/the exception of some Archie stuff and perhaps SATAM (though I never watched it so I wouldn't know)) are ridiculous.

And it's also true that some stuff we outgrow. For instance, I really couldn't care less about most of the stuff I watched as a kid growing up even though it seemed brilliant when I was four. But then there's other things, like the aforementioned Sonic, which I still hold dear.

As for a place rather than time I've found some things, like Kung Pow, are far more enjoyable when you watch them as a group than you watch them alone. In the latter case they're just stupid. In the former, they're actually very entertaining, even though they still are stupid.