'Richie, who calls Eddie up sometimes in the middle of the night to explain the entire plot of a novel he just read in two hours to him.'
This is a weird one - and not in the usual way that fanfiction is weird.
This is weird because it's so... grown-up.
I mean... grown-up fanfiction, who knew?
(And no, I don't mean in an 18+ sexy-times way - that's way more common. 😅)
This is based on the IT films
(like, the Stephen King IT films - I always feel like I have to be more specific because just saying IT potentially creates a bunch of confusion)
More specifically, it's based on the semi-canon of Reddie. And it runs with it.
(Fandom notes:
Canon = 'official' stuff in the book/film/whatever
Reddie = a romantic and/or sexual relationship between Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak )
This fic reads like a 'literary' short story.
I use quote marks for literary because I'm determined that it's not actual genre - it has no conventions, aside from a tendency towards pretentious White men, so how could it be?
Like women's fiction - also, not a genre. And mostly exactly the same type of books as literary.
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| Via Giphy |
Anyway, rants aside, I only bring up the 'literary' so-called genre because this has a similar vibe.
And yes, I partly mean pretentiousness, but here the self-awareness over-rules most pretention (there's a limit to how much pretention someone's gonna indulge in while writing fanfiction, after all.)
I guess you could also say this has kinda a Dark Academia vibe, but there's no schools, no universities or colleges, and the characters are too old to be in college or whatever.
So it's got that kind of 'dusty bookshelf in an airy well-furnished room with dried flowers and old books' instagram vibe.
It's possible I'm not making any sense, and I don't actually care 😅
I don't like pretention - if that's all this fic was, I'd have yeeted it, and not read it as eagerly and happily as I did.
(And yes, I said yeeted - I don't know why either. I've been on the Internet too long 😅)
Richie in this fic loves all the artsy foreign-language films and obscure books and poetry and art no-one's ever heard of and...
And that's the thing. He loves it. He doesn't think it makes him better than anyone else. He just honestly, genuinely, loves it. And Eddie sees that - and it's part of what he loves about him.
So yes, this fic occasionally dips its toes into pretention.
But it's aware of when it does, and pulls itself back. Mostly though, it just loves things. Thoroughly. Fully. Nerdily.
Yes, it's an IT fic. It references the killer clown and everything.
(It probably has SPOILERS, just - FYI 😅)
It's also a love letter to Walt Whitman.
And to fandom - in all its forms.
And to loving things that not everyone understands. And that's OK.
Some Content Warnings for this one:
- abusive relationship (emotional, verbal)
- messy divorce
- refs. to supernatural clowns, murder, etc.
- refs. to childhood abuse and Munchausen's via proxy
- internalised Homophobia
- press invasion of privacy
- sexy-times references/adult humour
- discussions of intimate anatomy and masturbation, because Walt Whitman
...I think that's everything. As always, I might've missed something, so read careful!
This week's fic, then, is:
Man About Town by avocadomoon
Did I make the slightest bit of sense here? 😅
Do you think so-called 'literary' writing is, y'know, pretentious?
Talk to me! 😘💬
Related Reading:
Sharing and commenting keeps me making bizarre fanfiction literary rants! 💃
You did make sense here, Cee! I totally get what you were saying. I too dislike the term "literary," though sometimes that seems like the only word available to get my point across.
ReplyDeleteOh good! I kind of double-backed and looped-in on myself a lot writing this, and it got to the point where it was like, '...what am I even *saying*' lol.
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