[Avatar Fic] Savages

[beckyh2112]

Title: Savages
Character: Piandao, assorted named and unnamed dead people
Word Count: 700+
Rating: R
Warnings: This is a horror piece. Read at your own risk.
Summary: In the aftermath of his first battle with the Northern Water Tribe, a young Piandao does something unspeakable.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to spyridona and dark_puck for encouraging me, and for charles_rb for

Comments

[lunatron]

...yeah, there's something wrong with me that I don't see this as unspeakable.

[beckyh2112]

That was the best summary I could manage to come up with without giving the game away. *grins*

Though, Piandao probably never will speak of this. He will just cling to Jeong Jeong once he gets his head back in order, and Jeong Jeong will be all "no, really, WHAT?".

[lunatron]

Well, having all of one's fellow soldiers die horribly around you is probably going to put you in a bad space mentally, and there is definitely some cultural hatred, culture shock, and xenophobia going on, so I could see some, "Nyargh, you want to eat my friends? I'll eat you first!" going on. Not the most rational reaction, but I can kinda see why he'd do it.

[beckyh2112]

Yes. THAT. That. Someone gets it!

*hugs and refuses to let go*

[rosehiptea]

That was great! I mean, very dark and scary but great. I can completely see Piandao doing that.

[beckyh2112]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I'm glad the situation came across as believable.

[plushulala]

That was sexy. <3

[beckyh2112]

...It was?

[hedgehog39]

Wow.
Definite "Do not stare too long into the abyss" vibe here. That's... that's pretty messed up.

[beckyh2112]

Thank you!

Sometimes I just really need to write something messed up and try to pull it off as well as possible. Also, horror is really difficult for me to write, I find. There's a lot more lingering over word-choices and rewriting lines than I do in my romances or political stories.

*stops babbling*

So, yeah. Your reaction is awesome. ^__^

[blue_lacquer]

I like how the gore is firmly tied to the psychological horror, and not just thrown in purely for shock value (as I've seen entirely too often in horror stories). Piandao is a warrior, and went to war expecting violence, but he never expected to end up eating a human heart out on the ice.

Horror is really hard to write well, because the writer wants people to be disturbed (or else why write horror?) but not so put off they just stop reading.

[beckyh2112]

Thank you! Yeah, gore for the sake of gore/shock value is really not my thing. Especially when the shock value of gore really loses a lot in text format - the gore of someone's head exploding, for instance, is much more visceral when you can watch it than when you read about it.

Piandao is going to have a wibblefit once he's had his wounds treated and had a good night's sleep. *pets him*

There's also the problem of making it frightening. People have vastly different fears, so writing horror is as difficult as writing erotica/smut in some ways. There's far too much personal taste - for instance, any given collection of Stephen King short stories will have several stories that horrify or terrify me, but a lot of the others will just be interesting reads.

("Trucks" = gave me nightmares. "Jerusalem's Lot" = ohai, Stephen King is trying a Lovecraft pastiche! "They Always Come Back" = ohai, kind of creepy and I hope the poor teacher doesn't regret the demon thing too much.)