Clair de Lune

also i read original slash from times to times

etrangere — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 21:56:22 GMT

Thoughts of Kings Rising

1- I kind of think it is a mistake to include Laurent PoV chapters, structurally speaking, since it's only two chapters and it doesn't really add any important plot information we don't get latter (I think?); besides the fanservice of getting Laurent PoV. Then again, the whole series is pretty much fanservice, so... heh

2- I guess the Erasmus backstory ended up foreshadowing Jokaste... huh (deliberate or just Cat liking those tropes? Or both?)

3- VINDICATION #Laurent knew

4- See that's how you do a sexy marriage ceremony (what do you mean alliances between kinds do not count?) I think this is now my favourite ceremony of marriage besides the Patryn rituals.

5- There were a few points where I thought the plot was descending into ridiculousness. On the other hand it was always delightful so... heh :D

6- wow I did turned up in thanked commenters at the end!! That's pretty nice since as far as I remember my only comment on livejournal was a little side discussion about the name "Nicaise" and whether it sounded like "Salade Niçoise" o_o

7- we never found out the Regent's name, did we? XD

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etrangere — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 18:21:29 GMT

Just caught up with Killjoys.

Very nice show, starts good with a bit of cheese and builds up to pretty damn good quite quickly. Great world-building especially, with a very evocative tone of noir and pulp built with the recurrent supportive cast. Definitely makes you want to see more of them and of the back-story.

The main cast is good - three characters only, the main one a woman of color with a mysterious past of being trained as an assassin who is extremely badass, and two brother, one a former soldier also with a past, and the second the tech guy / heart of the group. I'm not quite in love, except for the female character being awesome, but they're fun enough.

Plotting's decent, and fairly efficient in term of the story moving fast.

Definitely scratches a farscape / firefly / cowboy bebop / shadowrun IN SPACE itch that I'd been missing for a while!!

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in case anyone's worrying

etrangere — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 22:43:30 GMT

I am fine.

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Fic post

etrangere — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 17:02:38 GMT

I finished writing a full fledged fanfic for the first time in... forever (2008? Around that. I wrote a few very short pieces in between but very slap dash). It's for a minor fandom and a secondary cast of character, so unsurprisingly it didn't exactly draw a lot of attention. I don't a lot of people who read this (amongst the people who still read their lj/dw flist in the first place) are familiar with it, but for my own piece of mind, I like posting it here as well:

Green and Golden (5748 words) by Salinea
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn, Fire Emblem Series
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Naesala/Leanne, Naesala/Reyson
Characters: Naesala (Fire Emblem), Reyson (Fire Emblem), Leanne (Fire Emblem), Nealuchi (Fire Emblem)
Additional Tags: Dramatic Irony, Irony, Puppy Love, Coming of Age, Pre-Canon, Fantastic Racism, Fluff and Angst
Summary: I trust you remember that when you and your sister were young, it was I, and not Tibarn, who watched over you?

The shift to Ao3 does mean a lot less comments, I hadn't quite realised how disheartening that (I mostly leave kudos over comments when I read fics myself). Not that I dislike kudos - I'm always happy receiving them ^^ - but when you have the expectation of a newly posted fic, it does feel a bit... lacking in interaction, I guess. It doesn't help that in the first place the shift to tumblr means much less in-depth fannish interaction. *sighs* Such in the stuff.

So yeah, I haven't written on DW/LJ myself in forever. I always want to post reviews of books I'm reading or such, but I can't summon the motivation for it. Fandom wise, obviously I'm still very much in the fire emblem fandom (mostly Tellius, but also Jugdral remains on my mind. I'm liking the Elibe games but not so much in a fannish way) and I've actually been reading a whole lot of final fantasy 7 fanfics (as my pinboard can attest). Not reading much comics anymore (I vaguely follow and want to get back in it, but also lack the motivation for it) and haven't felt like reading MCU fanfics lately either. Can't say I'm much excited for Age of Apocalypse either given how disappointing i found DoFP.

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Fire Emblem 7: Blazing Swords

etrangere — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 20:44:59 GMT

So my adventures in video games have continued with me trying to play FE 7 (the first Fire Emblem I played on my own instead of with runespoor, although she still provided imput for support advices in particular XD) and I've been documenting my playthrough on tumblr: http://demoiselledefortune.tumblr.com/tagged/dem-plays-fe7/chrono

I finished the game this week end. It’s a pretty awesome game.

My favourite part was the three lords, who are all great in term of characterisations and have awesome interaction with one another. Of the FE I’ve played so far, they are my fave set of lords!

On of the other hand, of the FE I’ve played so far, Nergal is probably my least favourite villain >_>; Also all the narrative around Ninian was pretty awfully sexist :(

Anyway, there were a lot of other awesome, loveable characters, and some which I would not call loveable but who were interesting. A short list of my favourite would be Nino, Erk, Serra, Legault, Mathew, Rebecca, Sain, Canas, Fiora, Pent and Louise, Guy, Rath... and I'll keep it at that because I said it was a SHORT list. XD

The overall story is… I’d say serviceable without being great (certainly no worse than Path of Radiance). The most interesting part of it was the Bern shenanigans, the Black Fang as tragic villains and Nino.

I found the motif of bad and exploitative parenthood unfolded in a very interesting way (and especially as a commentary of Nergal as a would be transcendent immortal vampire), as was the motif of found family. (well tragic family shenanigans is one of my fave things ^^).

So I will want to play FE7 again on Hector mode; and I will also want to play FE6. I’m not actually sure in what order I should do that so do you guys have suggestions?

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Elemental Affinities as Personality Types in Tellius

etrangere — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 21:51:48 GMT

I thought it would be interesting to look at characters’ affinities and see what it tells us about them and about the writers’ intention about them. While Affinities have a direct effect on gameplay via the support bonus and some of them are probably picked based on game balance (see the amount of Earth Affinity people in the Dawn’s Brigade), nevertheless the concept of Elements conveys a rich imagery which often seems at least partially relevant.

Note: In case of contradiction between FE 9 and 10, I go by Radiant Dawn canon.

Fire

Fire characters tend to be fierce and courageous (Reyson, Geoffrey, Skrimir), outgoing and expressive, and often fairly cheerful (Tormod, Heather, Aimee, Marcia) even exuberant (Oliver). They typically like competition and challenges (Mia, Ashnard, Boyd).
Some outlaiers that don’t work as well with those associations: Nealuchi, Danved, Rhys, Shiharam, Numida.

Water

Water characters tend to be very emotional and invested in their relationships with other characters. They can be wonderfully supportive and caring (Mist, Leanne, Sigrun, Brom), can also be prone to melancholy (Pelleas, Leonardo). They can be fairly reserved or quiet while still being helpful to others (Mordecai, Ulki). They may follow their strong relationships onto foolish choices (Levail, Kurthnaga, Hetzel).
No outliers.

(The Woobieness is strong in the Water Affinity!)

(Note: Fire seems to be the opposite of Thunder, rather than Water, in term of support bonuses at least)

Wind

Wind characters are often clever and witty (Ranulf, Bastian), and often good at thinking critically, especially regarding politics (Haar, Nephenee, Sothe) and are fairly independent minded (Volk). They very often have a taste for wandering (Nailah). They follow their own ideas, wherever that might lead them (Astrid, Rolf).
Outliers: Kieran, Largo (both being axe users, I wonder if it isn’t largely for the sake of the accuracy boost) Vika, Laura (I can’t really remember them having personality enough to assess how well they work).

Thunder

Thunder is much more difficult to define!

A lot of Thunder characters have, shall we say, a complicated relationship to loyalty. Not because they’re disloyal, necessarily, but many of them end up being the ones shifting sides often or in remarkably dramatic situations (Jill, Shinon, Tauroneo, Aran) but others really just are that shifty and disloyal (Izuka). A large amount of Thunder characters are fairly ambitious (Jarod, Petrine, Ludveck). I think motivations – or in some weird cases lack thereof (Makalov) – are very important to Thunder characters.
Some outliers: Lyre, Muarim, Gareth, Janaff.

Earth

I want to describe Earth characters as “people with a healthy sense of priorities”. They are not quick to resort to violence, but will go there if necessary (Cainaghis, Fiona), they are relatively practical minded about their sense of ethics and they often move first to prevent unnecessary loss of life (Ziharc, Nolan) – or if devoid of morals they just look out for n°1 (Lekain, Valtome) – but when they have engaged their loyalty to something they will lay down their life for it (Lucia, Renning, Ena, Bryce). They often have a fairly wry sense of humor (Volug, Oscar). And they can be quite abrupt and blunt in demeanor (Ike, Tanith).
No real outliers

Heaven

I find Heaven to be one of the most difficult Affinities to find a commonality in to be honest.

A fair amount of Heaven characters are remarkably high minded and idealist (Elincia, Tibarn), perhaps visionary (Stefan) and attached to a code of honor (Lethe, Greil). And, err, then there’s Rafiel and Meg (I guess Rafiel does have his own code of honor).

Heaven really is difficult to define!

Dark

Darkness characters are all about their secrets (Dheginsea). Many of them go as far as a whole constructed persona (Zelgius, Calill). They are capable of being ruthless (Micaiah, Soren) and they’re good at working in the shadows (Giffca, Naesala).
No outliers. Dark is a very consistent Affinity.

Light

Along with Heaven, I find Light the most difficult Affinity to pinpoint.

Quite a few Light characters have a position of mentorship (Titania, Nasir) or associated with wisdom of a kind (Sanaki, Sephiran). Others seem to have a sort of happy-go-lucky thing going on (lllyana, Edward) or in other ways be at the whims of fate (Gatri). Also there’s Kyza? Maybe I should frame it as Light characters having sort of Wise or Fool dichotomy to them.

Besides what each affinity tends to say about each character; there are also some interesting interplays between some pairs of characters.

- Sanaki and Sephiran having the same Affinity.
- Micaiah and Soren having the same Affinity underlines some of the way they play foils for one another.
- Micaiah and Naesala’s similar Affinity and the way they relate to the Blood Pact.
- Titania and Soren as Ike’s advisers (especially in Path of Radiance) being of opposite Affinities
- Sephiran and Zelgius being of opposite Affinities as partners in crime
- Sanaki and Micaiah being of opposite Affinities as sisters
- Tibarn and Elincia having the same Affinity colors in an interesting ways how impressed he is by her during her pacifist play.
- Rhys’s probably not Mia’s fated rival, but them having the same Affinity makes it more interesting.
- Marcia and Makalov being of opposite Affinities as siblings
- Valtome as the senator who takes on Elincia being of her opposite Affinity
- Almedhea’s father and son are both Dark Affinity.
- Two of the characters Bastian cares for the most are Earth Affinity (Renning and Lucia)

Thoughts?

Also, the only other Fire Emblem game I’ve played was FE4 which did not have any elemental affinity, so if you want to comment or further this with examples from other games, please do although be careful not to put in spoilers (I’ll want to play those games eventually ^^)

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etrangere — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:50:18 GMT

Watched the first two episodes of Yuri Kuma Arashi.

Not sure what to make of it yet… but I think my favorite bit of symbolism is the only male characters present being the judges putting the characters’ love on trial as the arbitrators of beauty, coolness and sexiness. Yeaaaaaah.

Quite a lot of stuff on invisibleness, too. Hmm.

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meme from tumblr

etrangere — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 21:24:22 GMT

SEND ME A FANDOM AND I'LL NAME EVERYTHING I SHIP IN THAT FANDOM

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New anime season with lots of sequels

etrangere — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:41:06 GMT

Of the sequel shows I'm watching...

Kamisama Kiss is probably the one with the most solid new first episode, with a proper story as such and back in great form.

Durarara x2 I found pretty disappointing in that it didn't try at all to kick-start a whole new season and basically relied on our already existing love of the series and characters to carry itself and didn't have a great sense of rhythm. But then again it's Durarara so it's not like it wasn't sufficient but I hope they'll get back in the groove well soon enough.

Aldonah Zero is somewhere in a middle. It mostly focusses on re-establishing the new status quo after a slight cliffhanger ending + time skip. Doing so by withholding a flashback reveal to the end is somewhat clumsy but worked well enough. It leaves questions but not too many related to the cliffhanger itself, so it seems we're back to pick up the plot very quickly which I'm thankful for.

Probably won't bother trying the new season of Tokyo Ghoul.

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Book meme

etrangere — Sun, 04 Jan 2015 19:42:55 GMT

Stolen from flo_nelja

For reference, a list of the books I read.

How many books read in 2014?
About 50.

Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
All fiction

Male/Female authors?
Only 8 books by a male writer this year, the rest by one or two female writers.

Favorite books read?
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore was not flawless but is probably the one that will stay the most with me for its complicated treatment of how one recovers of trauma on a country wide scale.

Least favorite?
Precious Dragon by Liz Williams bored me enough I decided to drop that seire sof book. Also I thought The Winds of Khalakovo by Bradley P Beaulieu was thoroughly confused and mediocre.

Oldest book read?
Probably the Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff, lol. (Which I thought felt rather painfully British at times.)

Newest?
Probably the Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. At least it is the "new hot book people are talking about".

Longest book title?
Well I reread "First Against the Wall" which is always a nice, long title.

Shortest title?
Cold Fire by Kate Elliott

How many re-reads?
About 6

Most books read by one author this year?
I read 10 books by Kate Elliott between the Crown of Stars and the Spirit Walker series.

Any in translation?
All in English.

How many of this year's books were from the library?
Zero. Haven't been much to the library this year.

Book that most changed my perspective:
I don't know that any really did that >_<

Favorite character:
Especially liked the protagonists of Kate Elliott's Spirit Walker trilogy (Cat, Vai and Bee), Alain in her Crown of Stars, Bitterblue in Bitterblue, Oda in the Kate Griffith books, and Sin in Sarah Rees Brennan's Demon series. Oh the protagonist from Slow River was pretty awesomely well realised as well.

Not counting characters from the books I've reread this year because OF COURSE I'm ridiculously fond of them.

Favorite scene:
hahahahahaha, go away.

Favorite quote:
Sorry, I don't write them out while I read, what do you expect?

Most inspirational in terms of own writing?
I don't know. Maybe Song of the Basilisk because Patricia McKillip's writing is always stunningly and hauntingly beautiful.

How many you'd actually read again?
Not quite sure, I could see myself reread about 5 of them (not counting those that were already rereads).

(she had two of them, but I got lazy).

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Happy new year!

etrangere — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 18:38:14 GMT

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Shit I finished on 2014: a long list

etrangere — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 20:27:42 GMT

★ Anime series

Kill La Kill
Tokyo Ravens
Nobunagun
Noragami
Pilot’s Love Song
Sore demo Sekai wa Utsukushi
Ping Pong
Samurai Flamenco
Nobunaga Concerto
Aldnoah Zero S1
Tokyo Ghoul
Zankyuu no Terror
Barakamon
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaku-kun
Ao Haru Ride
Love Stage
Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji

★ Anime series I rewatched

Gatchaman Crowds
Durarara!!
Chihayafuru S1&2
Fruits Basket
Star Driver
Rideback
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Shion no Ou
Kurega Hime
Uchouten Kazoku
Kill la Kill

★ Western series

Sleepy Hollow S1 (twiced
The Bletchley Circle S2
True Detective S1
Community S5
The Good Wife S5
Marvel Agents of Shield S1
Archer S5

★ Books

Mist of Prophecies by Steven Saylor
Judgement of Caesar by Steven Saylor
Cold Magic by Kate Elliott
Cold Fire by Kate Elliott
Cold Steel by Kate Elliott
A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffith
The Magpie Lord: A Charm of Magpies by CJ Charles
The Midnight Mayor by Kate Griffith
Triumph of Caesar by Steven Saylor
A Matter of Oaths by Helen S Wright
A Case of Possession by CJ Charles
Point of Hope by Melissa Scott & Lisa Barnett
Point of Dreams by Melissa Scott & Lisa Barnett
The Neon Court by Kate Griffin
Dynasty of Ghost by PL Nunn
Eona by Alison Goodman
The Seven Wonders by Steven Saylor
The Tempering of Men by Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
When True Night Falls by Celia Friedman (reread)
Precious Dragon by Liz Williams
The Administration series by Manna Francis (reread)
Durarara!! v4
The Creation by Gore Vidal
The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan
The Demon’s Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan
The Demon’s Surrender by Sarah Reeds Brennan
The Winds of Khalakovo by Bradley P Beaulieu
Laying the Ghost by Jane Davitt
The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff
The Minority Council by Kate Griffin
Runemarks by Joannes Harris
Slow River by Nicola Griffith
Stealing Fire by Jo Graham
Blackout / All Clear by Connie Willis
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
King’s Dragon by Kate Elliott
Prince of Dogs by Kate Elliott
The Burning Stone by Kate Elliott
Child of Flame by Kate Elliott
Song for the Basilisk by Patricia McKillip
The Gathering Storm by Kate Elliott
In the Ruins by Kate Elliott
The Crown of Seven by Kate Elliott
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
The Riven Kingdom by Karen Miller

★ Comics and manga

I was very crap at keeping track of what I read this year. There’s a bunch of Marvel NOW series which came to an end, and I also read the Infinity Gauntlet.

Manga wise I read (to the end, at last) Banana Fish and Beauty Pop. And a bunch of BL heh.

★ Games

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
Batten Kaitos Origin
Tales of Xillia
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

★ Movies

Much Ado About Nothing (2013)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Frozen
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Maleficent
Summer War (rewatch)
Guardians of the Galaxy
Millennium Actress (rewatch)

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might as well post this here too...

etrangere — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 00:02:30 GMT

So to do a recap of this week’s American TV shows:

- The Good Wife: Yes, good, show. I still love you the most. Especially you, Kalinda. OMG Eli even got to be COMPETENT. That’s wonderful. Keep on with it. Don’t make me stress too much about Cary though, show, I rather like him, all in all and I don’t watch you to be stressed.

- Sleepy Hollow: tbh you tried to drag this illusion reveal too long and it distracted me and kinda messed up your timing. But you’re still my second favourite show and you were pretty great in your ridiculous yet sassy way. AND YES MY BABY JENNY IS REGULAR NOW YEAH! Please do try to treat Katrina better as a character tho. And bring Orlando back stat.

- Gotham: Well you do the city Gotham pretty good, so that’s a big point in your favourite, and I also I loved baby Selina so far and even baby Bruce. I never like Bruce, wtf. I’m actually not sure what to make of what you’re doing with Renée yet (and Cris) but she’s one of my fav SO DONT MESS UP. I’m afraid your Gordon bores me. I fear this is my white male protagonist fatigue more than anything, cuz he’s not badly acted or anything. Fish Moony is delightful tho, so there’s that. You need to improve on the writing front fast though, otherwise you’ll be as mediocre Agents of Shield.

- Agents of SHIELD: Oh show, I’m afraid you’re on a countdown. Improve quickly and stop mistreating your female characters quickly. Stop making Coulson so fucking aggravating, I’m starting to hate seeing him on screen if you keep doing that raising music and it’s so cheesy and I want to throw things at my screen. Xena better not be dead is what I’m saying because I saw that quote from one of the writer about them initially writing her as Victoria Hand’s girlfriend Isabelle but then realising that would make them the show that killed the two lesbians and scrapping it back AND THIS IS MAKING ME SEE RED. So basically you have a few episodes to improve quickly or I give up on you. Cheers!

- How to Get Away With Murder: Good writing, good plot set up, intriguing characters if not yet quite what I would call sympathetic yet. But I like plotty stories too, I can roll with that rather than character appeal for now. I like the use of male seducing, too, interesting gender reversal in how it was handled. Don’t get too excited with the fancy jumpcut shit, it’s not 2007 any more and it just looks silly. Just, be smart and not too creepy and we’ll be great friends.

so yeah, hi! Anybody still reading?

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crossposted from tumblr

etrangere — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 00:42:54 GMT

Someone on failfandomanon asked for comics recs to learn about Magneto at his morally ambiguous best, and I spent a half an hour typing a huge ass long answer and was late to meet a friend >_>. Anyway, I’ve cleaned it up and clarified some stuff and decided I might as well share it here:

In order of chronology of the character

Magneto - Testament by Greg Pak: Magneto’s youth during the Shoah. Very good and heartbreaking. Highly Reccomended.
Classic X-Men #12 (A Fire in the Night) by Claremont: After the war Magneto tries to settle in Ukraine with his wife & child. It does not go well. Essential reading.
Uncanny X-Men #161 by Claremont: Magneto meets Charles Xavier in a hospital in Israel. It goes well until it doesn’t. Essential reading.
Classic X-Men #19 (I, Magneto) by Claremont: Magneto goes Nazi hunting for the CIA. It does not go well. Highly recommended.

Uncanny X-Men #150 by Claremont: Magneto tries to stop nuclear proliferation by threatening the world’s governments with his power. The first issue in which Claremont gave Magneto’s depth and recreated him as a Holocaust survivor.

God Loves, Man Kills by Claremont: Somebody is targeting mutants. Magneto seeks the X-Men to help. Highly recommended and fairly standalone.

Secret Wars by Shooter: An overly powerful entity decided to summon a bunch of villains and heroes and have them fight against one another for his entertainment. Magneto was summoned among the heroes, to everybody’s shock. Not absolutely necessary but takes place in the lapse of time when Magneto was getting more nuanced and Xavier was using the chance to try to convince his friend to amend his way. Lots of other cool stuff in it otherwise (Doom is the star of this show tho).

Uncanny X-Men #196 by Claremont: Magneto chats with Rachel, who came from the future in which Magneto’s worst nightmares happened.

Uncanny X-Men #199 by Claremont: Kitty takes Magneto to a Holocaust survivors reunion.
Uncanny X-Men #200 by Claremont: Magneto is put on trial. It does not go well. Both of those are highly recommended.

New Mutants v1 #21-75: Charles left Magneto in charge of the kids at his school. It does not go well. In particular issues #35, 38-40, 50-52 by Claremont are highly recommended. #60-61, 64, 73-75 by Louise Simonson for how it goes to hell, but I don’t much like Simonson’s take on the character.

X-Men vs Avengers by Stern & Shooter: The Avengers question Xavier’s choice of substitute teacher. It does not go well.

X-Men vs the Fantastic Four by Claremont - Magneto tries to save Kitty Pryde’s life.

Uncanny X-Men 274-275 by Claremont - Magneto and Rogue in the Savage Land and old ghosts. Highly recommended.

X-Men 1-3 by Jim Lee and Claremont - Magneto’s descent into heartbreaking crazy villainy again and Claremont’s farewell to the X-Men for a while.

IGNORE SHITTY 90S EVENTS

Well, except for:

Legion Quest (Uncanny X-Men #320- X-Men #40- UXM 321 & XM-41) by Nicieza, Lobdell and Waid - Xavier’s crazy and crazy powerful son goes back in the past to Xavier and Magneto’s first meeting in Israel to try to kill Magneto before he becomes a supervillain. It does not go well.

X-Men Unlimited #2 by Nicieza – A story of vengeance and grief.

ANYWAY ON TO THE 00S

Excalibur v3 #1-14 by Claremont - Xavier and Magneto hang out in the ruins of Genosha. Not very good but very, very slashy.

House of M (main series) by Bendis - Magneto’s dream has been made true and replaced reality. His family is the stuff of Greek tragedy.

House of M - Civil War by Gage - How Magneto’s dream came true in the House of M alternate reality.

X-Men Legacy #208-210 by Carey - Xavier was shot in the head during the Messiah Complex events. A depowered Magneto helps him finding himself again.

Magneto gets repowered and then joins the X-Men who are living on an artificial island made of the ruins of Asteroid M off the coast of San Francisco and has declared themselves to be their own nation. Because if they’re copying him he might as well join them, ya know.

(This is Uncanny X-Men #516, but I don’t much like how this issue is written so it’s not highly recommended. OTOH I’m pretty fond of UXM #518-522, in which Magneto does his best to show his use to the X-Men).

Nation X #1 (The Ghost of Asteroid M) by Spurrier - Short story about Magneto settling in with the X-Men and especially their students

Uncanny X-Men #534.1 by Gillen - The X-Men ask their PR agent to deal with Magneto’s joining their team. Hilarity ensues.

X-Men Legacy #231-259 by Carey - Magneto as a member of Rogue’s team. Not always very Magneto focussed, but Carey writes one of the best Magneto outside of Claremont so… Also the Magneto/Rogue romance, if that rocks your boat.

Uncanny X-Men v2 #1-3 by Gillen – Magneto as a member of Cyclops new Extinction team, which he boasts as the world’s mightiest heroes, vs Sinister. Not essential, but has a couple of great Mags moments and is a great mood setting for that point of time in the X-Men.

Magneto: Not a Hero by Skottie Young - A mini about Magneto’s clone re-appearing and starting to kill people in his name. Highly recommended.

Uncanny X-Men v2 #13, #15-20 by Gillen - the Avengers and the X-Men went to war and a few of X-Men became the host of the Phoenix Force. Oh, also Sinister is attacking. What does Mags do?

Avengers vs X-Men – Consequences by Gillen - The Avengers won and the X-Men are on the run. What does Mags do?

All New X-Men #1-5 + Uncanny X-Men v3 #1-3, #8, #16, 21-22 by Bendis – Cyclops’ group of hunted X-Men try to a be a radical force for good for mutants and train new recruits. Magneto plays a dangerous game with SHIELD trying to uncover who is resurrected the Sentinel program.

Magneto v1 1-on going by Bunn - Magneto left Cyclops to go and hunt the enemies of mutantkind by himself. Very good and very dark.

No More Humans by Carey - Humans have mysteriously disappeared from earth, leaving only mutants. What does Mags do? Carey still writes the best Magneto outside of Claremont.

Outside of continuity:

X-Men – Mythos: A rewriting of the first mission of X-Men against the mutant terrorist Magneto.

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Thoughts on the Days of Future Past movie

etrangere — Tue, 27 May 2014 00:31:33 GMT

I thought it was bad.

The first half was actually okay. Enough to raise up my hope so I could be disappointed by the second half, basically.

On the plus side:

Mystique, her importance to the plot and her journey was awesome.

I'm not sure why Tommy Shepherd was in the 70s nor why they called him Peter Maximoff but the was pretty okay (if overpowered)

Kitty Pryde's little presence are mostly used to good effect despite the fact they stole her story to give it to Logan and that tying it to her powers is hilarious nonsense instead of just going with "she made up some science for it". The future cast in general, especially Blink and Bishop had some cool bits of action despite basically no characterizations.

Wolverine does not actually steal too much screen and story time for himself. (Although what little there is - fan service excepted - is not particularly good).

The future sentinels were pretty cool and scary (the past ones less so but we barely saw them anyway).

On the minus side:

the big problem is Charles. Did I mention how much XMFC!Charles is one of my favorite version of the characters? He's so flawed and arrogant yet well meaning and enthusiastic and an actual good teacher. This was supposed to be Xavier's origin story, to be his movie and it completely fails at that. It doesn't start too badly off - Xavier is in a bad place emotionally which is reasonable and interesting. They do the stupid thing with power - walking trade off and it is extremely stupid and ableist BUT it's not why it's there. Xavier's using a kind of drug/medication in order to stop his power because he's not able to handle it anymore - which is interesting - and it happens to have a secondary effect to allow him to walk again (because THAT's likely) so keep the storyline without somehow having it make him walk again and you could have an actual interesting storyline in term of Xavier's journey and how he relates to his power. Then they mostly resolve this journey with a very awkward and stupid scene between Xavier and Wolverina and then Xavier and Xavier!prime and with the flattest, most empty thematics that have been in all X-Men franchise movies so far. YES ALL OF THEM. Somehow that sets Xavierr right for the rest of the movie and doing the right thing with Mystique and it sort of hangs up there with "hope is good!" and "killing people is bad (i know because i'm here with Logan who's a X-Men)" and doesn't even try in the least.

There's also Magneto's sudden yet inevitable betrayal which I was okay with up until after the chat with Raven mostly because 1/ it's remarkably stupid 2/ at this point it is trite 3/ when you're betraying people more often than Loki does and it's not supposed to be a big part of your characterizations it's a little bit of a problem and it really makes the good guys look like idiot. It's mostly in line with Magneto characterizations in all of Singer's movies and even more with X3 of course, but it is a disappointment after XMFC (flawed as that was).

By the final scene of course pretty much everyone is holding the idiot ball. Nobody really seems to have a set of priorities that make any sort of sense.

The way they got rid of most the XMFC cast (which means all of the surviving PoCs of XMFC of course) is pretty unsavory as well (although it still propels Mystique's story in a neat way). (Also apparently Storm doesn't have the right to a first name).

And the least likely X-character to find themselves in a movie by popular fan demand prize is handed to Ink. You know, that guy from Young X-Men? Yeah, after Azazel and him I think there's someone at Fox doing it on purpose because they get sick of everyone demanding for their favourite characters to be shown on screen.

comments at the original post on Dreamwidth

in which i finally talk about Path of Radiance & Radiant Dawn

etrangere — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 23:46:50 GMT

So remember how runespoor had me play Tales of Symphonia?

Well next she made me play Fire Emblem 9/10.

Actually we played Path of Radiance... I think in the spring? I don't actually remember, but I remember we spent the summer with FF9 and Kingdom Heart 2 and fall with FF7 (the final fantasies, I was the one who had already played with them though I hadn't finished either up till then) and I think PoR was before, so.

And in the last few weeks we did Radiant Dawn (there was a big gap because of technical difficulties with the data transfer and all sorts of stuff).

Anyway PoR didn't make that much of an impression on me... it's a fairly nice, but fairly straightforward story. I'm really not much into strategy game, and most of the time "playing" meant moving the characters where runespoor was telling me to. I also found the way that the characters we use in the game to fight the battles and the characters who have the most storytime focus are somewhat... not quite the same a bit hard in term of emotional involvement. Still, I didn't dislike it, by a far mile, I was enjoying the game and found quite a few characters to like. I latched very quickly on Soren and he remained by favorite through the game; also Jill has a most awesome character journey and I also found the birds interaction very entertaining and Ranulf pretty great.

Radiant Dawn worked on another level for me still. Part of it may have been being more used to the gameplay & storytelling style; but also because it's a story that works in a much more interesting and multi layered way. I love the way that each part somewhat deconstructs what has gone before XD I found the way we shifted PoV from sides was brilliant. Part 3 was my favorite, and also liked part 4 a lot (although I wish they had had more discussions addressing the awkwardness of it - likewise the last part and ending doesn't have enough discussions addressing reveals for my taste). I loved the way the theme of loyalties in particular - and following orders - was played with through all steps of the story from different point of views and eventually culminated with the concept of Goddesses of Order & Chaos. I thought by that time they were a bit didactic on the topic of Chaos & Order in a way that didn't quite flow naturally from the story, but Yune and Ashera themselves are pretty interesting. Yune's very fun in her impulsive and free spirited way; and the fact that Ashera's wrong doings were rooted in her trying to erase her own flaws and divorcing herself from part of her nature was fascinating.

As a series dealing with fantasy racism, this one frequently didn't work a whole for various reasons typical of that sort of work; but there are a few times when I liked how they handled things. Ike's reaction to being told that subhuman was a pejorative (even though I'm still facepalming that he hadn't realised that) by simply rectifying from then on and moving on, the whole chapter about Reyson snapping out and trying to use his song to destroy people and the importance of Sanaki apologizing for the massacre of Serenes as the leader of Begnion despite not even having been born at the time, the whole concept that after Laguz slavery was outlawed, it was still happening in effect and needed to be rooted out more effectively.

Anyway if I had to make a list of my favorite 10 characters (in no particular order):

Soren
Sanaki
Naesala
Pelleas (aka "the woobiest")
Elincia
Jill
Heather
Nephenee
Kurth
Ranulf

Should probably also mention Shinon, Reyson, Fiona, Mia, Zihark, Astrid, Haar, Meg, Marcia, Nolan, Mist, Boyd as characters I loved playing with.

Bonus point for characters who are pretty awesome but who we didn't really got the occasion to play with: Tormud, Callil, Lucia, Bastian, Titania, Kieran, Oscar.

I never very much warmed up to Ike as a character - he's a perfectly decent character and person, and he has some moments of pretty refreshing outlooks on things, but he's just not the sort of character I'd ever grow very fond of. (Also I frequently resented the amount of Protagonist-centric stuff with him).

Mikaiah I find extremely interesting as a character... especially her lack of forthrightness and her capacity for ruthlessness contrasted with her... well I said to runespoor when we talked about that "idealism" didn't seem the right word for it, since it doesn't seem to be about principles as such, but I'm not sure what's the best word.

Favourite villains were Pettrine (which I really liked throughout Path of Radiance), and Levail (so adorb). I have to agree with runespoor that Jarod has his moments (mostly his sarcastic reaction to the Black Knight XD as well as his admirative reaction to being betrayed by that senator). I kinda liked Izuka for being such a vile smug snake mindfucking Pelleas XD Also that guy who was the Dolourous Edd of the Senators' army, I thought he was funny.

Sephiran I found almost disappointing in the end in the simplicity of his actual plans compared to when we're figuring out that he's the big bad. He has an interesting story and a lot of interesting stuff in term of characterizations, and I enjoy his relationship with Sanaki, but he somehow doesn't hit me much emotionally speaking.

Zelgius I find rather puzzling with how narrow his priorities are. Frequently amusing throughout Radiant Dawn in various ways (getting the Black Knight on our side was hilarious and Zelgius being all sparkly & shiny in the Begnion army was fun too), but heeeeh. "Fucking lifestyler" would end up my main commentary on him.

.... and in term of fannish reaction I have this weird thing in which I'm apparently obsessed with the birds (by which I mean Tibarn, Reyson, Naesala and Leeane). I don't really know how that happened but here I am with a fandom OTP that is a OT4 about relatively secondary characters that I'm pretty sure nobody else in the fandom actually ships as an OT4 (thankfully some people do ship the subsets and often enough that hits the spot well enough). Stupid birds.

Also I have an extremely.... culturally poly reading of most Laguz (with the notable exception of the dragons) which sometimes clash a bit with fics I've found. (This is pretty much on me since that's an arbitrary headcanon on my part, but yeah.)

comments at the original post on Dreamwidth

Anime shows I watched this year

etrangere — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 19:41:18 GMT

For meganbmoore and veleda_k

To be honest, this wasn't a great year for anime and I was getting a bit disgusted with it by the end of spring. Summer was mostly crap too, except it had those two AWESOME show. So I guess there was that.

For the Winter shows that I mentioned before and which ended this year... Psycho Pass and From the New World are two that stand out as very well done, very terrifying dystopia which I'm disappointed in because I find them morally bankrupt. They have weird similarities underneath a very different style, too:
They both follow a heroine whose biggest distinction is an ability for emotional stability and recovery from psychological trauma. This ability, as recognized by their society, grants them special dispensation and decisional status.
They both end up having the heroines nominally repudiate the horrible control of their dystopia by the end, but really only for the form, while supporting them in their actions because the enemy they face, who try to uproot the horribly controlling dystopic societies are obviously manipulative, murderous bastards. Said enemies are the only genuine opponents to the dystopic society we ever really see (there are hints of more in one episode of Psycho Pass but it's n ever followed up on), therefore it seems to tacitly say that people's alternatives are between embracing horribly murderous and controlling dystopic societies or condoning horrible acts of murder in order to oppose them, despite the nominal rejections of the former we see in the ending. That's what I felt was morally bankrupt.
Of the two, I liked From the New World more, I found it much more fresh and original in its world building, with a much more interesting and genuine sense of horror (which kept getting deeper and more existential as we went in); whereas Psycho Pass' cyberpunk and gory aesthetics felt at times rather smug and patronizing. People who prefer Psycho Pass would probably rightly emphasize its heroine great agency in the plot by the ending. But they're both very well done stories, with excellent character work, atmosphere building and world building; and both are great SF works. Too bad that they end up being so conservative in the end in effect :/ I'm not even sure that was intentional (well it might have been with Psycho Pass, but I don't get the feeling from From the New World)

The second season of Chihayafuru was very, very good, although with a very different pacing from the first one. A lot of it was taken with a tournament arc, although it still feel as fresh as ever, with great, subtle characterization. We also got a few new characters, which I liked a lot, especially Sumire. And also loved all the developments to Shinobu. I hope there'll be more anime someday. I need to try out the manga too.

As for Zetsuen no Tempest, I felt it had a pretty weak ending. Overall it was weird, rather entertaining show, which sometimes delighted in doing quirky, anti-climatic stuff. I also loved the way Aika was characterized as the "already dead at the start little sister". She's not as awesome as Lia de Beaumont, but she was pretty cool ;) but yeah, often it was just... weird and not particularly coherent. Although, if several billions of the world population die in the middle of the show, I'd like to have more of a feel for that having happened >_>; mass slaughters with no real effect to the world is starting to be one of my peeves. I blame comics.

For the other shows I watched this year...
In the "why did I watch that again?" category, there was Karneval and Valrave S1 (I didn't actually watch the S2 which is currently broadcasting).

Karneval is a steampunk show has bishounens and pretty aesthetics and very little else. It's one of those show that tries to float by with cute charadesigns and tropish characterizations and thoroughly failed at plot. I mean, it did try to have a plot, it was just mostly incoherent and badly thought of, kind of mildly pleasant to watch if you didn't care too much about the plot or pacing though.

Valrave is space mecha/political drama/bodyjacking vampire show. It is a pretty weird case of trying to be like Code Geass but with a boring lead, more creepy gender dynamics (it's pretty infamous on the internet as The One in Which the Main Character Rapes a Girl) and not as interesting politics (it might get better in the second season). It did do a couple of things that were interesting, especially with the two female leads, and it did have a rather over the top "what the fuck" quality that made it interesting, but it's mostly a failure. (And I'm one of the people who think that despite being flawed, Code Geas was not a trainwreck).

Another SF mecha show, Gargantia was slightly more successful, in that it does end up being a mostly coherent story from start to finish, despite having an extremely weak middle. This one revolves around a genetically programmed space soldier who is shipwrecked with his mecha (and its AI) on a peaceful, low tech, sea covered planet. It's biggest failure, IMHO, is that it never properly lives up to the brilliance that was the first episode. It sets up some interesting things about cultural clashes and learning to communicate, but then is more interested in cute girls and cheap jokes to really pull it off. Then it ends up with info dumping a lot of interesting SF stuff about the history of the world and resolve them overly quickly. Wasted potential overall.

I watched a couple episodes of another mecha show before dropping it, and also the show in which they wish they had mechas, Attack on Titan, but quickly found myself bored/uninterested in either.

I also watched Red Data Girl, a shoujo romance with a supernatural premise about a girl who has a special connection to a powerful Goddess getting sent to a highschool for people with an affinity with the occult. I rather liked it, although it's a little bit weak and badly paced. The heroine is a very much on the overly timid and lacking confidence side, but I thought that made her character journey all the more interesting; and it had an interesting atmosphere.

And I watched an action shounen, Zettai Karen Children: The Unlimited; mostly because I wanted to watch the show about not!Magneto and the not!Brotherhood of mutants, which it was wonderfully and crackfully entertaining as. It's also pretty fun and entertaining on its own right. Anyway, it's a spin off of Zettai Karen Children, a not!X-Men manga, which is supposed to be quite a bit too much on the loli, harem & comedy side to be something I'd be interesting in watching or reading; but The Unlimited is much more of a traditional shounen in mood, with a more dramatic tone and the lolicon jokes kept to a minimum. It did a few clever things with the plot, especially with the contrast of the PoV lead, a guy who joins the not!Brotherhood of Mutants at random but is actually infiltrating into them to spy and undermine them, and his reaction to Hyobu Kyosuke, the charismatic leader of radical ~~mutant~~ ESPer organisation, who is interesting in his own right although he's very much ridiculously overpowered (I mean, even compared to Magneto!!!), and very entertainingly mischievous and trollish as well as bombastically awesome. Overall, I found this to be a lot of fun.
Remembering my reactions to it, I'm very much glad we're finally getting a Magneto ongoing soon in comics ^_^

And at last the two great shows from this summer:
Gatchaman CROWDS is a weird beast. In name it's a part of a very old sentai franchise, although it was really conceived as a story separately and tied to the franchise for production reason and doesn't end up having all that much to do with it. It is a pretty awesome reconstruction of superhero tropes in many ways, although it doesn't even have all that much action in it. It's one of the very rare case with an aspirational character as lead which I actually liked. I found it extremely thematically brilliant, in particular; although it also have a great visual style, a very catchy sountrack and some great characters. It does suffer a bit of a rushed ending (which might be fixed in the DVD release and/or planned second season) and of some characters being not as developped than others. But otherwise, I really found it brilliant. It's one of the most positive and empowering story I have ever seen on the topic of heroism. And it tackles the theme of heroism in the age of crowdsourcing especially in a way I found especially fascinating, inspiring and democratic. A lot of the discussions I've seen about it revolves around the lead, Hajime, who is incredibly upbeat and cheerful and also unbearingly independently minded (she tends to do what she decides is best, disregarding others opinions unless they give her a good justification); and - weirdly enough - not a PoV character, which makes her nearly hermetic at times. Careful watching does show her being extremely smart, observant and intuitive in her decision making; but she's actually pretty bad at communicating straightforwardly, so I understand why watchers sometimes found her frustrating. She is a little bit overly perfect at times (as I said, she is an aspirational character rather than an identifying one) but I still found her interesting. My emotional interest, however, was mostly triggered by Rui, who is introduced a few episodes in, as a not-quite-antagonist character and who is very earnestly, very passionately believes in saving people but has a lot more obvious emotional weaknesses in the way he holds himself.

Uchouten Kazoku is not quite slice of life urban fantasy show set in Kyoto, adapted of the same novelist who did the also excellent Tatami Galaxy. It revolves around a family of Tanuki, 4 brothers and their mother, who are held as losers since the death of their father who was a pillar of the community. We especially follow the third brother, a laid back guy, as he takes care of his sensei, a bad tempered Tengu with a bad back, is teased to death by the human woman who learned magic from the Tengu, and deals with his family. It is gorgeous, with brilliant characterization, multi-layered relationships, wonderful storytelling, and great production value. It handles both comedy and emotionally poignant moments with brio. Can't think of any reason not to watch it. It did have a properly great conclusion, although it still made me yearn for more at the ending (there will be more novels but I don't think any ready for more animation anytime soon, sadly.) I don't have all that much to say about it, but it's just very, very good.

Of the Autumn shows I'm currently watching, there's mostly Kill La Kill (which is pretty insane in an over the top ridiculous way but also very clever and filled to the brink with political commentary IN A VERY WEIRD WAY. Also sexual objectification.) and Tokyo Ravens (a supernatural shounen series, in which I like most of the characters a lot but which isn't going anywhere yet in terms of plot and has annoying harem dynamics). Will have more to say about both once they'll be wrapped up. I also watched Samurai Flamenco for a while, but kinda got bored with it.

This year I also watched Sailor Moon S & R, which was wonderful. I did love Michiru and Haruka a lot. I also really loved Chibi Usa which I didn't think would be so hardcore as she turned out. That girl is wickedly brave and underhanded which is awesome. And also Hotaru! I had never really been told about Hotaru and her epic love story with Chibi Usa!!! There are a lot of hilarious quirky villains (runespoor decided that Eudial went off to work for Tony Stark after her apparent demise, which why not). It was funny to see all the... idiosyncrasies that I associate with Revolutionary Girl Utena appear more and more in episodes. I ended up a bit disappointed by the final for reasons which have more to do with reminding me of Magik's fate in Inferno (see my rant on it here). But overall, great stuff!! I dunno if I should watch the further seasons since as far as I've heard it all goes downhill from there.

I also watched Eden of East, a pretty weird political thriller series about an anmesia guy with a weird cellphone which holds money enough to fulfill all his wish as he's apparently taking part in a weird context to change Japan and the girl he meets who helps him out. That one has an interesting premise and some nice storytelling, and, at heart, a political critique that I didn't feel it really went far enough or consistent enough in order to tackle properly. A bit like Gatachaman CROWDS (which it suffers in comparison of) it talks of crowdsourcing and online communities pulling resources together as a source of positive change for the world, but actually felt pretty backward and anti-democratic in the way it tries to pull it through. Couldn't quite decide whether to be optimistic or cynical, I guess. Disappointing, although it's still a very interesting and mostly very well done anime.

For the most part, I did a lot of rewatch this years. I'm just listing them:
12 Kingdoms
Kaleido Stars S2 + OAV
Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Seirei no Moribito
Slayers
Slayers NEXT
Towards the Terra
Slayers Try
Hikaru no Go
N°6

comments at the original post on Dreamwidth

etrangere — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 14:40:22 GMT

Heyyyy!

Haven't posted in an eternity, have I? The sad thing is, it's not even because I'm using tumblr instead. Haven't been posting on that either. (I've still been reading my flist on LJ/DW though). I don't have much interesting news to talk about (there was that time when my computer broke down during the summer and I lost all my files of comics, manga & music as a result. Still trying to recover from that -_-;) but I figure I still might use the end-of-year-surveys to talk about all the media from this year I haven't said anything about. So what do you guys want me to start with? Anime, TV shows, comics, books, something else? (well if anyone's still interested after my long absence and everyone leaving journalling that is).

comments at the original post on Dreamwidth

sighs Placeholder

etrangere — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 22:20:43 GMT

Dear Yuletide writer,

I hope it's still time for me to post this! Sorry it took me so long!!

First thank you for writing my fic. I'm sure I'll love it :D

I have some pretty wide tastes, so don't feel very restrained. I enjoy gen, het, maleslash and femslash pretty much equally... I think I emphasized shippy requests in my requests, but I certainly love plotty gen and character exploration gen a whole lot, so don't strain yourself if those ships aren't your things.

I have a bigger weakness for darkfics and angst in general, but I definitely enjoy fluffy and humorous stuff as well. Bittersweet feeling is one of my favourite thing.

I love love canon AUs, but I tend to be fairly picky about alternate setting and "genre" AUs because it feels too close to OOCness to me very easily.

There's one thing I absolutely do not want in my fanfic, and that's Christmas-y and other Holiday-ish themes.

I'm much more into ships with a darker edge to them, antagonistic, bickering and trading barbs, mindfuckery, hateshipping and that sort of things.

For the specificities of my fandom requests:

Black Lagoon

Rebecca "Revy"
Eda (Black Lagoon)

Anything shippy against those two would be great, especially with a darker under current (drawing from Eda's real role as a CIA plant), mindfuckery and hatesex or even ending in murder. But just them having some banter and Eda teasing Revy about Rock would be awesome too. Telling the story of how they first met could also be fun.

I also love Shenhua if you're game to do something with that.

One of my favourite thing about this canon is how it manages to balance some of the trashy and fun exploitation with acknowledgement of its how fucked up the set up is... episodes always ending up on that down note rather than an uplifting one no matter how cathartic and entertaining the violence may have been before that. I'd love something that still played up with that.

I love most of the characters. I especially love Revy.

Darker than Black

Kirihara Misaki
November 11
Hei (Darker Than BLACK)

I'm looking for something centred on Kirihara if possible, and I love both her relationship with Hei and with November 11, so anything along those lines is good to me.

Besides shippy stuff, I love anything with plot and spy action. Oh, also, despite the flaws of the sequel, I do love Suouh, so if you're game to write something with her, I wouldn't mind at all.

Any further exploration of the canon, of the characters, the setting, the atmosphere, would work great for me.

I really don't like the idea of Hei/Yin as a romantic ship, so please avoid that. I already said I'd welcome Kirihara/Hei and Kirihara/November 11 but I forgot to mention that there's a lot of female characters I'd love to read shipped with Kirihara as well, from her childhood friend the Triad heiress to the other friends who work with her.

Something like a case fic with the dysfunctional family of the MI6 would be great too (but I'd really like for something that included Kirihara).

Deadpool & Cable

Wade Wilson (Deadpool & Cable)
Nathan Summers (Deadpool & Cable)
Hope Summers (Deadpool & Cable)
Neena Thurman (Deadpool & Cable)

Any Cable/Deadpool fic would be great! I prefer stuff with a bit of angst and darker elements to it as well as the usual humour - their relationship definitely has a lot of up and down even at the best of time, and they both have their issues as characters. I prefer first time to assuming they're already together.

I love Domino, and I wouldn't hate some Wade/Dom/Nathan. Just Domino and Wade drinking together and reminiscing (or killing people together and reminiscing) post Nathan's death definitely could work as well, or anything along those lines.

Anything branching up from the Cable series with him in the future raising Hope that manages to include Deadpool somehow would be great as well (Deadpool also coming to the future, Future!Deadpool meeting with Cable instead of future!Cannonball...)

At last, Deadpool meeting up with Hope, pre Cable resurrection and chatting with her about Cable or saving her life to honour his memory could be very interesting.

A branching off from Avengers vs X-Men could also be very interesting.

I think the only thing I forgot to mention is also I love Hope and Domino's relationship in the current Cable & X-Force, so just a gen piece of their relationship would be great too!!

OTOH I'm not up to date with the current Deadpool series (although that could change before the end of December so heh)

Death Gate Cycle

Alfred Montbank
Haplo

Anything about their relationship, mid or post canon; shippy or platonic.

Alfred/Haplo/Marit also works for me.

Post endings stuff or missing scenes would be great.

Hey, on this one something a little bit alternate setting on this could also be fun, actually.

I don't have much to say otherwise, been too long since I last read the canon; but I have a lot of attachment to it from when I was a wee teen and I was overjoyed to find fanfic for them before so I would be doubly so to receive one this year.

I'm pretty ridiculously fond of the intricate magic system and world design as well.

Kaleido Stars

Layla Hamilton
Naegino Sora
Ken Robbins

I'd love to read the great epic romance of how Layla and Sora finally got together. Just any sort of first time fanfiction with more than musings.

Ken's crush on Sora is also darling, and I love how he supports her. Something drawing on from that with a mix of angst and bittersweet friendship would be great as well. I certainly wouldn't hate some sort of Layla/Sora/Ken story.

I love many other characters in that fandom (asides from Leon), so if you want to draw from other characters NO PROBLEM.

Probably the fandom in which I'd welcome something more alternate setting A/U the most (not because I don't like the circus setting, but because the conventions of the genre of that sort of story lend themselves to see what happens in a slightly different AU with slightly different conventions - for ex I have had discussions with a friend about how Layla is Batman and Sora is Dick Grayson :p).

Something a little bit meta and story-within-story with the structure of spectacles could be great fun too!

Young Avengers

Tommy Shepherd (Young Avengers)
Billy Kaplan (Young Avengers)

I'd love anything exploring their weird brotherly relationships, and their family in general (I'm a pretty big fan of Magneto, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Polaris and Luna as well...).

If you can write anything about the Kaplans dealing with them, semi adopting Tommy and so on, I'll be happy. I would kill for a fic in which Rebecca Kaplan decides to invite the whole Magneto & co at a family dinner and all the awkwardness that could ensue from that (triple points if it's for a Jewish holiday that is not Hannukah).

I always love House of M fics that explore what kind of people they could have been in that 'verse.

I'd not say no to any Billy/Teddy/Tommy (because OMG those scenes between Teddy and Tommy at the end of Children's Crusade).

Of course I do like Teddy/Billy and I wouldn't mind having it be in the background at all.

I just don't want them to take centre stage :p

Also I love most of the other Young Avengers, especially Kate, Eli and Teddy. (Oh, and Loki, in so far as he counts). I don't really ship Tommy with either Kate or Eli for the record, although I don't hate it either if you write it convincingly enough as part of the background *shrugs* I don't think I really have an opinion on Tommy/David yet, but I do like Prodigy a fair deal.

All right, I hope that was at least a little bit helpful. Err, I'd say if you have any question don't hesitate to ask - but I'm not sure how feasible that is? I'll turn anon on I guess.

comments at the original post on Dreamwidth

writing meme?

etrangere — Fri, 31 May 2013 19:45:47 GMT

Trying a writing meme here. The meme's written in French but the list of fandoms & characters is transparent enough:
http://ishime.livejournal.com/108557.html?thread=662797#t662797

For the rules, here is the English version:
1. I'm going to comment to this post with a list of fandoms and/or pairings I feel like writing.
2. Reply to said comment with requests and a prompt, and I'll do my best to write something.
3. If you want to write as well, then post your own list of fandoms and/or pairings you're in
the mood to play with as a separate comment to this post--so that people can request
something from you!
4. Feel free to pimp to your flist! New blood is always welcome.

comments at the original post on Dreamwidth

reposting stuff from tumblr

etrangere — Wed, 29 May 2013 18:47:55 GMT

in which vejigante what thoughts I had about Tales of Symphonia and what I thought of the main characters:

well, I loved it. Pretty awesome story. Pretty awesome characters. Pretty awesome themes & stuff. Pretty cool gameplay too in so far as I can judge (not exactly a video game expert ^^). Very much hit me in the feels.</p>

I just love the depth that all the main characters have. Nobody’s just an archetype/trope; they are really well layered and thought out psychologically speaking (and also very appealing!!!). There’s also a lot of random cool minor characters like Chocolate and Kate and Linart and so on, which are very well realised as characters. Obviously the villains (at least the big ones, the Desian Cardinals are pretty threadthin) are also extremely well characterised and multi-layered. I do love how much the antagonists spend their time plotting & scheming against one in the background while the protagonists do their stuff XD (there were several moments where I was like: “should I draw a diagram or relationship map of the Desian&Cruxis&Renegate politicking?”) And how much the story overall had twists & betrayals & double agenting. Bet on rewatch there’s a lot of hilarious moments of “you know that I know that you know and meanwhile we’re pretending for everyone else”.

Thematically, I love a lot of the subtleties and nuances although I think they are also weakened by the flaws of world building (I don’t think the discrimination of Half-Elves is well established as part of the setting on Sylvarant; and you keep butting on the weirdness of the discrimination against Half Elves being THE thing while there’s barely any Elves around so you wonder where they come from…) but from the very beginning with the situation in Isolia and the Human Ranch they set up things as pretty complicated and nuanced as well as completely appalling. And they typically don’t take the easy way out in term of calling out any characters on the mistakes or over simplification they may do, I like that.

Idk, does that answer your questions and do you want answers to something else? I definitly don’t mind talking about ToS right now ^^

Lloyd: Like him a lot. I think I liked him more at the beginning of the game because I get annoyed by how narratives are protagonist centric and the date sim like relationship system did not help at all on that front; but it’s not really fair to Lloyd because he’s actually a very nice boy and very nuanced main character. Definitly not just your average stereotypical shounen lead (I especially have that in mind because I watched the OAV adaption and Lloyd’s the biggest victim of mischaracterisation in it). I like that Lloyd is pretty damn smart, even if he passes for an idiot because he’s so incapable of focussing on studies and most of his intelligence works in intuitive way. Man, that boy is very and scarily intuitive. Anyway, otherwise, I love his sense of humour, there’s a lot of adorb dialogues between him a Genis and Colette especially and latter Zelos too. Also some of the sweet stuff he said to Genis and Colette again.

Colette: Love her!! She’s so adorable but OMG BB! stop having such a low self esteem *hugshugshugs* I think I spent a lot of time in the early stage of the game being aghast by her low self-esteem and wondering where it had come from. I love that she’s such a liar, and the whole deconstruction of the Chosen One trope, and underneath how very strong and brave she is. I love her character journey and how she becomes more self-assured after she regains her soul, and when she insists to go with the group when they try to have her stay behind at one point. Oh, and I love how she’s willing to reach out to people, and the way she did to Sheena and Presea especially and how that had a deep effect on the two of them (also Zelos, although that was a mixed endeavour from Colette and Lloyd, but I love that z-skit where Colette and Zelos speak about being the Chosen). I could have lived with her getting damselled a little bit less; but I like that even when she does, it’s about her and her story not about Lloyd. Also: my favourite voice of the english dub.

Genis: MY BB!!!! OKay, Genis was my favourite character very early in; I just loved his snarkiness and sass and arrogance. Adorable brat ♥ And OMG, the way he escapes the Renegades when Lloyd gets captured early on by going all “i’m just a weak kid!” then go seek help. Just… that kid <3 Then latter we got more into his issues, and there’s so much bitterness and genuine issues with contempt and anger and having to live his whole life lying about who he is because Raine and him were persuaded that they told anyone they’d end up hated and driven away again. Anyway, the whole sarcastic, fronting as cynical because he’s been burned and precocious brat thing is something I always like; mostly because I can relate (I was a bit of a precocious insolent brat myself ^^). But underneath he’s just a kid and you see that at other times, like the how completely clumsy and awkward he is with his crush on Presea. And OMG that scene in the Tower of Salvation when he tells Lloyd about how afraid he is and BB!!!!

Grrr, really can’t forgive the OAV for mischaracterising him a lot (which was not as important than mischaracterisation Lloyd but I play favourites okay!!)

Raine: Took me a bit to warm up to her when when I did I thought she was completely awesome. Great, great character. Very subversive personality for a Staff Chick lol. I love how pragmatic and downright ruthless and merciless she can be. And I love how you can see it grows from her experience in life, and having to grow up and raise her baby brother when she was basically still a child herself, and how she had to learn to sacrifice and plan and especially plan for the worse a lot, and how she wants to put faith in idealism, especially by the end, but mostly she can’t afford to until she can. I did not like the way the story handled her being physically violent with Genis (even if she was right about what she was correcting him about) because I’m not comfortable with parental violence treated as comedy; but then when we find more about her it makes a lot of sense for someone who was so young when she had to take care of him to get that sort of bad habits. You can see how much she cared and wanted to protect Genis, but you can also see some of the things she did wrong and that makes her a very well rounded character. Of course I also love what a big geek she is and her obsession about archeology and the lot <3 And when we deal with her backstory, I have so many feels about her and her issues with her mother. And I love how self-possessed and assured she is, and how she doesn’t get ruffled easily and what a badass motherfucker she basically is. She’s not one to mess with.

Sheena: I kinda fell in love with Sheena right away. Or at least I really digged her charadesign lol. Sheena’s one of my top favourite character of the game, she’s wonderful. She’s a very…. all-in character, very genuine and upfront and sincere and she tries so very fucking hard despite having so much stuff to deal with that scares and eats away at her. She’s very emotional and also very smart. In many ways she’s not a very good ninja, lol. At least stealth and ruthlessness and being guarded are really not her things. Though she’s good at running away (Sheena, bb *hugs*). She’s very generous, idealist and has a very strong sense of responsability. And she’s completely adorable <3 I love how downright awkward and sweet she is, at the same time as she is tough and determined. And how shocking I thought it was when we found out the whole deal with Volt was when she was fucking seven urgh. I especially loved the evolution of her relationship with Raine, because they distrusted one another a lot at first, but then they became much more friendly. I like the ways in which she function like a mirror to Lloyd (same as Zelos function as a mirror to Colette).</p>

Zelos: haha, my other top favourite character ♥ Besides the fact that he’s very easy on the eyes and that I love how funny a character he is, and also that I loved his gameplay the most and he ended up my default character in combat because I love polyvalent characters in abilities, I really love the whole “act like a fool as a front to how underhanded he actually is” thing, although I feel it’s a bit more than just putting a front, it’s a whole coping & survival strategy. And I love the whole deals with angst and self loathing issues by acting in a very cheerful and effervescent and avoidant way because I relate with that a lot ^_^;. So yeah, I love how that boy is in “deflect deflect deflect” mode all the time, and how conflicted he feels anytime someone does see through the mask. I love that this is the kid who decided that since his life was a joke, he was going to act and treat it like it was a joke. He is such a nihilistic guy. And underneath that, he was so eager for a little bit of appreciation, because even if he won’t like admitting it, when someone has faith in him, he will try very hard and will like that it’s appreciated (urgh, the way the Curry cooking sidequest, if you give it to him, function as a mirror/reveal of his character arc). And the whole complexity of what Zelos thought of Half Elves and how full of contradiction he was about that. So yeah, I really love the way he functions as a mirror to Colette, because they are very different on first glimpse, yet when you get into it they have very similar issues with self esteem and ~lying~ and being self-destructive and in itself that’s pretty fascinating. And of course, I love his relationship with Sheena, because it’s full of self sabotaging and giving a lot of fuck at the same time and when he totally got serious when he stopped her from sacrificing herself to Kuchinawa and how genuinely angry he was about despite the irony of how he would have himself acted if Lloyd didn’t trust him. And I also really love his relationship with Seles, we only see a few glimpses of it but they are so fascinatingly complex and those two kids are so AWFUL at communicating with one another and both persuaded that the other hate them while caring a whole fucking lot and OMG all the feels.

Regal: I have a VERY HARD time taking Regal seriously. Mostly I like him as a comic characters, lol. But seriously I see his FULL OF MANPAIN AND ANGST backstory and I’m like “this is a parody right?” sorry Regal. But I love how deadpan and EARNEST he is as a character otherwise, he’s pretty adorable in many z-skits and function great in term of being the straight man to the others’ antics (sometimes intentionally, because he’s pretty smart and sharp too.) I do love watching him fight, because the whole fighting acrobatically with your feet like that looks pretty neat visually, but still ended up the character that was the less often in my team. Sorry Regal. It’s not that I didn’t like you, it’s that I liked everyone else more. Also your outfit was very, very silly even if I appreciate the effort taken in equal opportunity fanservice.

Presea: Liked her a lot! For a character who I kinda pegged as yet another Emotionless Girl very quickly, she also turned out to be subversive in interesting ways, especially with the focus on anger and learning to letting go partially, but not necessarily forgive anything when it wasn’t deserved either. That was well handled. And also how she deals with her age, and how old she feels on the inside compared to how others take her. I also loved playing with her, I think after Zelos and Lloyd she may have been the distant third character I was playing in combat the most (well, her or Sheena, but the friend I was playing with was so much better with Sheena than I was that I let her play with her most of the time), because there’s something very rejoycing about playing such a small character who does so much damage with a huge axe MWAHAHAHAHAHA. *cough* I do love Cute Bruiser characters. But yeah, otherwise I want to give a lot of hugs to her because she went through so much and when she comes back to herself, she soon finds out even her sister dies and there’s basically nobody left who cares for her; but at the same time it feels like she has a lot of dignity. I also really loved how her relationship with Colette played out, because at first she felt guilty about the way she had been used against her; but then they bonded and it felt like Presea had a bit of a crush on her XD

So I might do a third part to this later because I have to talk about the Cruxis character too, don’t I.

Yuan: The amusing thing about Yuan is that even though he’s the least fail member of the Cruxis, he still manages to be full of fail. I mean who knows how many years of leading the Renegades and the most he could do was murdering a bunch of innocent Chosens and making a plan that when applied turned out to almost destroy the world and did destroy quite a lot of landscape… not to mention how turned out that last ditch effort to blackmail Kratos into releasing the Origin Seal. Yeaaaaah, not a lot of successes in there - besides rescuing and helping the protatonists - usually right before turning against them. The Renegades are soooo amusing in their unrelieable way. Actually I love that about them, that they’re working for an undeniably good cause overall and ready to sacrifice themselves altruistically and courageously for it… and at the same time are utterly pragmatic and ruthless and deceptive and pretty damn callous.

So yeah, I do love Yuan. Pretty much did on his first appearance on screen - he has a great intro. Do love the smug smirking fabulous asshole thing, you know? And when you know him, he’s a very fascinating character full of a lot of interesting contradiction. He’s very practical minded and result orientated, but his motivation comes from his romantic love for Martell. He’s very smooth and suave, but also hot tempered and easily riled. He was as willing to risk trying to murder Kratos than he was to save his life later. So yeah, pretty awesome, complicated character (“Lord Botta loves complicated things.”), who is never exactly a bad guy or a good guy in the story, while also being very far from a wild card archetype. Just.. doing his thing for what he believes in in his own way.

Kratos: I actually really like Kratos, although I swear the fandom and the oav adaptations are doing their best to make me dislike him by trying to portray him as this very cool guy and best dad ever and at which point I have to laugh a lot. I loved Kratos early in the game in the role of constant facepalming tsundere mentor “what am I doing with those idiots?” guy; which he does adorably well. I also loved him as the “surprise! Actually I worked for the Cruxis all along unreliable mentor still giving cryptic advice while doing his mysterious things.” I like him slightly less as Lloyd’s dad; mostly because of all the MANPAIN he immediatly inherits which makes me roll my eyes a little; and also a little bit because of the cliche aspect of that particular narrative trope. But yeah, I also get annoyed by the gloss over the fail, because the fail is pretty epic. What’s staggering about Kratos is the amount of time he spends doing utterly nothing. That guy has taken apathy to an art form. Granted, that was probably because he was clinically depressed after Anna’s death. Not sure how you explain the millenias before (besides the “well I’m the only human in the group and it’s humans who killed Martell” awkwardness and shame; but that only goes so far. And granted, he did eventually do some stuff, but they strike me as being the bare minimum of stuff he could do for Lloyd at this point. So yeah, Kratos failed very, very badly as a teacher to Mithos (and after Martell’s death I assume he was probably the person who was the closest to him) and then as a human being who stood by while horrible things happened which he didn’t agree with but couldn’t find in himself to oppose directly or covertly; and then as a father to Lloyd. Because even though there was a lot of bad luck in there he handled things pretty horribly with Lloyd (he’s lucky Lloyd is such a good boy, a fact that can be laid to Dirk’s door a lot I guess). Kratos is a pretty terribly awkward person and terrible with the expression of emotions. Which is rather endearing, in a face-palmy sort of way. And he does have all this manpain and tragedy in his life which I do feel sorry about when I’m not busy rolling my eyes at it.

Mithos: Oh, Mithos. It says something when you have a villain who commits such horrifying and terrible deeds while being given so many chances to not do them and yet you can’t help but want to give him a lot of hugs and a few thousand years of therapy. Gah. What a wonderful, terrifying, tragical little yandere baby.

And, well, you know how much I love tragic anti-villains?

I’ve got to give kudos to the English dub again, because the voice acting for him is a key reasons why you do actually feel sorry for him, I think.

Another thing that makes him work is just adorable and innocent and sad he looks. I don’t think I can ever get over that z-skit he has with Noishe when he talks about what he’s doing being wrong and being tired of life, and then ends up saying how this isn’t like him and to never mind with a lot of sweet, haunting smiles. Of course asides from that Mithos appears to be very, very good at denial. He strikes me as being incapable of turning back because doing so would mean facing up to the staggering amount of horrible thing that he’s done, and that’s why he ends up snapping completely.

I’m much less fond of Mithos in his “adult” form (though it is hilariously disco). In many ways I find it ridiculous, which of course is fitting. It’s very much a form created by a child who meant it to look intimidating and regal while not really knowing how to accomplish that. There is a lot about Mithos that is childish (such as his plan to end discrimination, ouch), I get the impression that in 4,000 years he never grew up much beyond 14. I wonder how much of what he’s done was being trapped by his own power and earlier success when he really didn’t have the maturity to handle it.

One of the hardiest thing to forgive thing about Mithos is how nasty he is to the Half Elves. Cuz, asides from Genis which I think was a special case in term of how he bonded with him and if you look besides all the “Age of the Half Elves” rhetorics he really is. He basically using the Desians, and you see how well that ended for Pronyma; and when you consider that the Pope was working for Cruxis while he was enacting all those discriminatory policies against the Half Elves…. yeah.

But I do love the way he bonded with Genis, and couldn’t help to defend him; and was unable to attack him latter on. It’s one of the thing that can’t help but break your heart. That and when you think of him as the young and idealist hero Mithos. Precious bb. Horrible, nasty, tragic precious baby.

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my journey in the lands of video games

etrangere — Mon, 13 May 2013 02:33:13 GMT

runespoor is an enabler. She made me play Tales of Symphonia.

Okay, first she made me play Batten Kaitos, which was also good and also swallowed my life. But TALES OF SYMPHONIA OMG THAT STUPID GAME THOSE STUPID CHARACTERS ZEFOHZFOFHZIEUGREIBYHCFYUIFHEIUR

CUTEST GAME EVER

And by "CUTEST" I mean in the way that CLAMP does cute and I am not speaking of Card Captor Sakura, okay? OKAY.

some reaction shots as I remember them, spoilered:

Me: "human farms.
Runespoor: Yup. It is a dystopia.
Me: BUT IT LOOKS SO CUTE.

Colette, I want to you to take some notes when you give a peep talk to someone and then to apply those advices to yourself, okay? Okay!

Raine, why so violent?

(to Runespoor): wait you thought I was gonna like Lloyd less than Kallas (aka protagonist of Batten Kaitos) what? WHY? He's a good kid. He's... pretty smart too.

(upon meeting Yuan): I like that guy's charadesign. Why is he flirting with Lloyd?

(after the first evening of playing): I like everyone, but I'm not gonna lie, Genis is my favourite so far.

(as Runespoor kept dissing Kratos): awww, I kinda like him. He reminds me of a character from Slayers who's always trying to be serious while everyone is goofing off. He's always facepalming. Also tsundere mentor.

... are they gonna do something lame like have Kratos be Lloyd's dad?

Me: (speaking of ~~Sheena~~Mysterious Assassin: No, really I love her charadesign!
Runespoor: Oh? Is that a new way to flirt: *flirty voice* "Hello, Miss, I like your charadesign" (little did I know)

... I see Colette is trying to recruit the Mysterious Assassin for her harem.

*Sheena joins the party*
Runespoor: OKAY NOW GIVE HER TO ME.
Me: O-okay?
Runespoor: BEST CHARACTER!

*Colette becoming mute* CUTEST GAME EVER

Kratos, what kind of stupid thing are you gonna do?

So are those guys pulling an Akio with all the Chosen each time trying to do something they know they'll never reach?

Soulless Colette meets a dog in Meltokyo.

*whimpering noises*

*noiseless screaming*

*whimpering noises*

CUTEST GAME EVER!!!

Oh, it's that other character in the intro whose charadesign I liked. (+25% on my scale of liking a character eventually btw)

... well that was subtle. -5% on my liking scale.

Runespoor: Okay, now that he joined the party, put him as the character on screen and go talk to a random female npc.

OMG.

OMG. IT WORKS ON OLD LADIES.

CHARACTER USES "SO OVER THE TOP IT REVERSES NEGATIVE POINTS INTO POSITIVE. It is very efficient."

*starts singing* "I'm Gigolo, just a gigolo."

OKay, I let you play, Sheena before; so now, no more kidding around; I'm using him.

(*ends up using Zelos as default character for most of the game; with runespoor playing Sheena meanwhile, except when she was handling Raine (as she was in the beginning).* At some point we ended up roleplaying at them too.)

Oh, look an emotionless girl.

OMG GENIS you're so adorb when you fail at flirting.

*theorises about Sheena being a Magical Girl because she has a magical mascot*

*may or may not be connected to the former, I don't remember: theorises about Zelos being a Sailor Moon fan*

OMG Zelos gave actual genuine good advice to Genis about giving a present to Presea.

*At some random point* You know, if Kratos turns out to be the Pontiff my affection for him will really decrease this time.

Me: Oh look a Persocom!
Me: I did think this game was very CLAMPESQUE.

Runespoor: SQUEES about Mithos' introduction and joining our party and laments about the fact we can't play him.
Me: I think he's suspicious. Very suspicious.
Runespoor: No! Look at him, isn't he adorable? He's Genis boyfriend!
Me: I think he's a bad guy in disguise.
Runespoor: OTP!!!!
Me: I think he looks like Yggdrasil.

Me: OOooh. You ship it because it's canon.
Runespoor: Right? Aren't they adorable?
Me:... did Genis just ask Presea to a threesome with Mithos and him?

Me: Okay! Actually Mithos is a magical creature! Look he's in the skits like Corinne and Noishe.
Runespoor: No, he's Genis' Magical Boyfriend.

Me: So anyway, why were you shipping Botta and Yuan again?
Runespoor: "Lord Botta likes complicated things".
Me: Ooooooooooh.
Me: Well it's not like they said "Lord Botta likes fabulous things" either.

*Mithos rescues the party with Aska.* Oh, he's Genis' Magical Boyfriend. I see. -_-

Me: Is Presea hitting on Colette? OKay then! Colette's harem widens, mwahahaha.

Runespoor: So did you decide on which characters to develop the relationship with?
Me: Well, I guess I'm fine with Colette. I mean, I wouldn't want to leave Colette alone anyway, so since she wants Lloyd.
Runespoor: Yeah, but you can pick between the three top characters when you make the final choice so we can save and see the scenes in Flanoir for the others.
Me: Okay. Well, Genis is pretty high already and I'm fine with that. Otherwise... we did pick a lot of choices negative for Zelos...?
Runespoor: Yes, but his scene is very good. Don't worry, we'll manage. We'll spam with cooking if we have too since we found out it works too.
Me: Okay if you say so.

*puts Colette, Lloyd, Zelos and Sheena in the same party for a short while*
Runespoor: Double date party!
Me: Double date in which Lloyd amorously keeps cooking Bouillabaisse in order to attraction Zelos' affection?
Runespoor: OT4?

*at some point, not sure which* Yuan's just cranky because Zelos is more fabulous than him.

And we broke the world. Again. Did try to warn the characters about trying to do stuff to manalinks that caused earthquakes without being sure about what it would do BUT DID THEY LISTEN TO ME.

Runespoor: Well to be fair, the guy who was supposed to know about such things, Yuan, told them it was okay.
Me: Yeah, but Kratos warned them against it.
Runespoor: Yeah but it was Kratos.
Me: Point.

Runespoor: OKay, now, go to Palmacosta.
Me: what.
Runespoor: We destroyed it ♥ ♥
Me: OMG. BUT WHERE AM I GONNA BUY TUNA TO RAISE ZELOS' AFFECTION NOW?

also: CUTEST GAME EVER!!!!

A WILD YUAN APPEARS!

Aww, Mithos bb, no.

why so yandere, Mithos?

Mithos, give Dazzler back her costume, 'kay?

So he's not pulling an Akio, he's, like, the anti-Akio.

Runespoor: SO ARENT OUR VILLAINS GOOD?
Me: Yup.
Runespoor: OTP?
Me: OTP.

Runespoor (as Genis): My first boyfriend turned into the Cruxis leader.
Me (as Zelos): That's rough buddy.

Tower of Mana:
Zelos: and I was spying on you for the Renegade...
Me: well, duh.
Zelos: ... and the Cruxis...
Me: Them too? Okay.
Runespoor: Not just a Double Agent! But a Triple Agent!! Yuan truly is outmatched.
Me: Duh.
Me: Shit I have a train to catch to go to sleep.
Runespoor: So what did you think?
Me: We saw him being suspicious in a Renegade's base that time.
Me: Also he told them he was there to "keep an eye" on them when he joined the party.
Me: Anyway I don't know what Zelos is scheming but OF COURSE it is to the party's benefit and he'll end up joining them again.
Me: I mean, duh. Also what we saw him scheme in Flanoir we haven't seen the outcome of that yet.
Runespoor: You're so adorb.
Me: OH YEAH? WAS I ADORB WHEN I SAID MITHOS WAS SUSPICIOUS? WAS I ADORB WHEN I SAID HE LOOKED LIKE A BAD GUY IN DISGUISE?
*runs catch train*

*the morrow*
Me: SO I SPENT A VERY RESTFUL NIGHT AS YOU CAN IMAGINE ALSO I STARTED FREAKING OUT ABOUT ZELOS NOT JOINING THE PARTY BACK BECAUSE OF MAYBE SPOILING MYSELF A BIT WITH SOMETHING FROM THE TECH FAQS

Me: So is it the time when all the sailors sacrifice themselves so Sailor Moon can go ahead? (it was. *remains stoic except when Genis because Genis, bb. Also Raine.*)

Zelos rescued the other characters from their trap.
Me: Duh.
Runespoor: QUADRUPLE AGENT.
Me: I think they still call them triple agent? There's still three parties.
Runespoor: But he was betraying them for the Renegade who he was betraying for the Cruxis who he betrayed for the PCs.
Me: Still three sides?

Runespoor: OKAY! So now we can watch the scenes with Genis and Zelos and ~Kratos~ from Flanoir.
Me: OMG Zelos' backstory.
Me: OMG Kratos' backstory.
Runespoor: Now to the Tower of Mana!
Runespoor: SEE THIS IS WHY YOUR SO ADORB ThERE IS A LEG IN THE TROUSER OF TIME WHERE THIS HAPPENS AND SUICIDE BY FRIENDS LOL.
Me: It is a dark au. It is not canon. It does not count.
Runespoor: It's a possibility.
ME: ONE OUT OF 8 IT IS A DARK AU
Runespoor: but it's what he started out to do ♥
ME: lalalalala cant hear you. (it's a good dark au tho).
Runespoor: And if you got that road Kratos does join your party back.
Me: Oh, okay, so that was what i was freaking out about.

Mithos, bb. Why so yandere?

Runespoor: And if the character you have the most affection for is Genis, he says "Genis, your body will do." and if it's Raine it's "Genis, your sister will do."
Me: *whimpers*

Yuan, with a rare earnest, wide eyed expression on his face: "you want him to be doomed to a life of endless damnation" (without commentary, but repeated often).

OMG SELES

OMG SELES KICKED MY ASS

*SQUEE*

...well that was not humiliating at all.

Me: I start to see why you crack ship Seles with Genis.
Runespoor: Right!
Me: Imagine the bad end in which they join together and take over the world; also with help from Zelos and Raine.
Runespoor: Truly a fearsome foursome. And Sheena leads the rebellion against them. ~~obviously Lloyd and Colette are dead in this badend.~~
Me: At first Zelos would try to have Sheena stay away from this, but then she would start to realise what happens and...
Runespoor: He'd end up the Yuan of his generation?
Me: Yeah. But complicated because Seles.
Runespoor: GOOD BAD END!
Me: And Genis might have better luck with a threesome off with Mithos in this configuration.
Runespoor: Of course!

*after many harrowing Coliseum fights*

... and in the end it is Raine that beat Seles? -_-;

Raine.

Runespoor: In Tales, there is no Chuck Norris, so they tell facts about Raine.
Me: "I heard one day, someone tried to blow up some ruins to threaten her, so she set off the bomb herself and then destroyed it before it could do anything!

*wins Cook title for Regal that gives him an alternate outfit. Puts Regal in said outfit until the end of the game.*
Me: Still less silly than his usual outfit.

All right so we did all the sidequests and won all the Coliseum titles+weapons for everyone - except Regal but who cares about that - we can play the ending now.

Game: stops randomly in the middle of the animated sequence of the ending with an error message.
Game: LULZ. PSYCHE!
Me: *starts laughing hysterically*

(we did the ending again. It worked this time.)

Me: I did think Martel looked like Colette.
Runespoor: Colette looks more like Mithos. Martel's hair is green.
Me: Martel's hair was green? what!

Runespoor: ... and Zelos is still politicking.
Me: well, duh.

Runespoor: Let's watch some z-skit that we missed!

*early z-skit with Kratos dissing Colette's cookin* Runespoor: YOUR RIGHT TO SPEECH HAS BEEN REVOQUED.

*early z-skit with Kratos saying his he failed as a teacher before*: Both: OMG.
Me: That awful moment when we think "Kratos, bb."
Runespoor: Yeah :(

*rewatching z-skit with Mithos* And the Kendama hits Zelos totally accidentally on purpose.
Me: OMG he's not even the anti-Akio, now he's being Anthy.
Runespoor: I don't think this crossover works as well as the EVA one.
Me: True, the EVA crossover works a bit too well.

IN CONCLUSION: OMG THAT STUPID GAME THOSE STUPID CHARACTERS CUTEST GAME CVNDFUHEZIRFHIHDFEUIHDUSIHD

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Miscelleanous fanfic recs

etrangere — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 22:20:09 GMT

Most of those are Yuletide fics; but perhaps not all. So yeah I finally finished reading all the Yuletide fics I meant to read this year - four months late! - but on the plus I'm pretty sure it's the first year I actually manage doing that instead of letting the last fics trail into forgettingness.

Odinstattur (1711 words) by Neotoma
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Norse Mythology
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Loki/Odin, Odin/Frigg
Characters: Óðinn | Odin, Loki (Norse Mythology), Frigg (Norse Mythology)
Summary:

Once, Odin was young. Once, Odin was foolish. Once, Odin cross-dressed. And thereby hangs a tale.

Never - outside of Manara's Borgias - had the phrase "bag of dicks" taken such a literal meaning. It makes me giggle extra whenever I see Loki describe in those terms because of that! Anyway, wonderful Norse Mythology fic, with all the sense of fun and raunchiness of mythology, and also some clever characterisation.

Strange Aeons (6758 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Journey into Mystery, Young Avengers
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Victor von Doom, Valeria Richards, Leah (Marvel), Loki (Marvel), Cassie Lang
Additional Tags: timetravel
Summary:

Victor von Doom is not a babysitter, glorified or otherwise, despite the way his day is going.

This is a very nice fic, and not only because it manages to use three of my favourite bits of the Marvel Universe into one fic (Young Avengers, Journey into Mystery, a FF's Val & Doom's relationship). Sometimes a little bit hard to follow (time travel does that), but wonderful in any case.

Closer (1903 words) by DeliaIsNotMyName
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dark Avengers (Comic), Dark Wolverine (Comics)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Daken Akihiro/Johnny Storm, Bullseye (comics)/Daken
Characters: Daken Akihiro, Johnny Storm, Bullseye (comics)
Additional Tags: UST that gets resolved, Non-Explicit Hate Sex, Violence, Bad Guy's POV, Adult Language, Screwed-up Bullseye/Daken, Implied or Pre-Slash Daken/Johnny depending on how you look at it, A Daken character study through someone else's POV
Summary:

"Lester had seen some fucked up things in his fucked up life, so walking into his kitchen to see a dead man eating the last of his pudding didn't even make the top ten list."

I don't think I'll ever get tired of the fuckedupness that is Bullseye/Daken. They really scratch a part of my id well.

Ares: Father of the Year (1141 words) by DeliaIsNotMyName
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dark Avengers (Comic)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Daken Akihiro, Ares (comics), Alexander Aaron, Mac Gargan, Noh-Varr
Additional Tags: Father issues, Yuletide Treat, Grant Morrison-style Noh-Varr, Banter, Daken being jealous
Summary:

"You're kidding me. He works for a lunatic like Norman Osborne, he's the fucking God of War, and he's doing domestic shit like putting his kid's pictures up in the communal kitchen?"

"You know how proud papas are," Mac said. "Oh, wait, I guess you don't."

And for the rest of the Dark Avengers; maaaan, I miss Ares and Alexander and how he was such a wonderful dad (or at least well meaning despite his flaws).

Restart in Safe Mode (2355 words) by Dira Sudis
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Administration - Manna Francis
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Val Toreth/Keir Warrick
Characters: Val Toreth, Leo Warrick
Additional Tags: Brainwashing, Suicide, Knives
Summary:

Leo Warrick's version of the "if you hurt my son I'll kill you" talk is specially engineered for maximum effectiveness.

A fic that hit the edge of mindfuckery in such a delightful, wonderful true to canon way.

Games of Attrition (2414 words) by sithwitch13
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: New X-Men: Academy X
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Cessily Kincaid, Julian Keller, Sooraya Qadir, Brian Cruz, Kevin Ford, Emma Frost, Santo Vaccarro
Additional Tags: Families of Choice
Summary:

Things may be overwhelming (exhaustive, breathtaking, monumental), and they may be dysfunctional (impaired, damaged, maladjusted), but they will always be awesome (amazing, remarkable, majestic).

Some spoilers for Childhood's End, Young X-men, Necrosha, Second Coming, To Serve and Protect, and Wolverine and the X-men.

I miss those kids :( Wonderfully well done fic.

Passage (5942 words) by DragonSteel
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: Death Gate Cycle - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Haplo/Alfred Montbank, Haplo/Marit
Characters: Alfred Montbank, Haplo, Marit
Additional Tags: Drabble Collection
Summary:

Life is a journey with snapshots kept in your memories

Death Gate was a special series of books for me when I was 15 or so; the sort I woudln't want to reread nowadays because I'd end up disapointed compared to my memory and I NEVER THOUGHT I'd find good fanfics for it; but OMG this fic is it. Series of little scenes spread through the series, with wonderful, subtle characterisation.

Children of the New Court (13032 words) by pentapus
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jade/Moon (Cloud Roads), Moon/Chime (Cloud Roads), Jade/Moon/Chime (Cloud Roads)
Characters: Chime (Cloud Roads), Moon (Cloud Roads), Jade (Cloud Roads), Pearl (Cloud Roads), Stone (Cloud Roads)
Additional Tags: Moon loves babies, Chime also loves babies
Summary:

Chime had his hands full of babies.

Chime ♥ ♥ ♥

Her Brother's Keeper (1932 words) by Serenade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Fiona daughter of Clarissa, Bleys son of Clarissa, Brand son of Clarissa
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Yuletide 2012
Summary:

Fiona has always taken care of her brothers.

Great character portray of Fiona (who is the best).

cast no shadow. (2145 words) by Pitseleh
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin, Hainish Cycle - Ursula K. Le Guin
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Genly Ai/Therem Harth
Characters: Genly Ai, Therem Harth rem ir Estraven
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Kissing, Worldbuilding, Hurt/Comfort, Unreliable Narrator
Summary:

“A lack of feeling is a symptom of freeze,” he said, still grimacing. “Perhaps... well.” It was not like him to mince words, and I slowly began to worry. Perhaps this was some attempt at shifgrethor, or another incomprehensible Gethenian ritual which he assumed I knew and at which I could only balk. “To know anything of the intensity of it, I'll have to unfreeze it. To keep it from dying, if it hasn't. I've wasted enough time already; lie down.”

Very subtle story.

An imprint set in wax (2073 words) by Nary
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Lion in Winter (1968), 12th Century CE RPF
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Philip II of France/Richard I of England
Characters: Philip II of France, Richard I of England
Additional Tags: Future Fic, Past Relationship(s), Canon Gay Relationship, Snark, Reunions, Negotiations, Power Dynamics, Dysfunctional Relationships, Banter, Historical Accuracy, Historical Inaccuracy, Past Character Death
Summary:

Philip's journey from Paris was the shorter distance, yet he arrived later, almost as dark was falling. Richard, knowing his tactics well, refused to be goaded so easily into impatience. "I'll wager you wish you hadn't burned the bridge at Porte Joie now," he said cheerfully by way of greeting. "You could have been here in time for dinner. It was splendid, by the way. We saved you some scraps."

:D

Die ente magd (4500 words) by emid
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Princess Tutu
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ahiru/Rue | Duck/Rue, Mytho/Rue
Characters: Ahiru | Duck, Rue (Princess Tutu), Fakir (Princess Tutu), Mytho (Princess Tutu), Drosselmeyer, Edel (Princess Tutu), Lilie (Princess Tutu), Ms. Goatette
Additional Tags: Fairy Tale Retellings
Summary:

There is always a heroine and a villainess, and the villainess always gets her just rewards.

*

Wonderful and clever Princess Tutu fic.

To Boldly Go (2803 words) by likeadeuce
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mad Men
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sally Draper, Don Draper, Megan Calvet
Summary:

The pon farr of young Sally Draper.

Oh yes! Great story; which works as wonderfully with the canon as it does as a celebration of fannishness.

The Road Ahead by deviouslyratedm
Fandom: X-Men
Characters: Magneto
Summary: After burying Anya, Erik began to walk.
deviouslyratedm posted this on tumblr and I basically begged them to post it somewhere else so I could link to it because Oh, Erik.
I need more comics!Erik fics in my life.

Tour Guide (4835 words) by Philomytha
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Duv Galeni, Ivan Vorpatril, Alys Vorpatril, Aral Vorkosigan
Summary:

Ivan offers to show Galeni around Vorbarr Sultana, but is accidentally double-booked for the morning.

Wonderfully nuanced fic.

Epilogue for a Dancing Girl (3101 words) by veleda_k
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kiryuu Nanami, Kiryuu Touga, Sonoda Keiko, Tsuwabuki Mitsuru, Kaoru Miki
Additional Tags: Post-Series, Spoilers, Growing Up
Summary:

Nanami in the aftermath. Sometimes the revolution is quiet. Sometimes it starts inside you.

Nanami ♥ ♥ ♥

Our Lady of the Cloven Hooves (15794 words) by TW Lewis
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: X-Men (Comicverse), New Mutants
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Kitty Pryde/Illyana Rasputin/Douglas Ramsey
Characters: Illyana Rasputin, Douglas Ramsey, Kitty Pryde, S'ym, Logan (X-Men), Piotr Rasputin, Rahne Sinclair, Erik Lehnsherr, N’astirh, Roberto da Costa, Moira MacTaggert
Summary:

Kitty and Doug help Illyana take control of Limbo.

Great starting point and an interesting story overall even if I found the ending disapointing. Also that short scene with Magneto (in his role as a teacher to the New Mutants) was great.

Eight Candles (5720 words) by innerbrat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batwoman (Comic), DCU - Comicverse
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Bette Kane, Kate Kane, Garfield Logan, Jake Kane, Catherine Kane, Beth Kane
Additional Tags: Backstory, comic continuity is hard, Family, Misses Clause Challenge
Summary:

Eight times Bette Kane lit the menorah.

I didn't know much about Bette asides from what we know in Batwoman, but this story really made me feel for her. Wonderful sequence of snapshots.

Heartlines (10373 words) by Tangerine
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: X-Factor (Comics)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Monet St. Croix/Theresa Cassidy
Characters: Monet St. Croix, Theresa Cassidy, Layla Miller, Jamie Madrox, Longshot (X-Men), Julio Richter, Shatterstar, Lorna Dane
Summary:

Monet is bad at exactly three things: emotions, magic, and cheesecake.

Oh, Monet!

Blink (7621 words) by Misachan
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: X-Factor (Comics)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Julio Richter/Shatterstar
Characters: Julio Richter, Shatterstar, Rahne Sinclair, Jamie Madrox, Layla Miller, Theresa Cassidy
Additional Tags: Rescue, Layla Miller Knows Stuff, Alternate Reality, Mojoverse
Summary:

The universe gets shuffled and Rictor remembers.

Works perfectly as a case story as well as a good Rictor/Star fic.

The Cuckoo's Agenda (4813 words) by vanillafluffy
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Cyteen - Fandom
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Ariane Emory II, Grette Pedersen (OFC)
Additional Tags: MissesClause2012, Bechdel Pass, Alliance-Union, Union-Alliance, CJ Cherryh
Summary:

There is more than just a scientific breakthrough on the table when the second Ariane Emory meets with a spacer of humble origins.

Clever story, works well with canon.

The Lidless Eyes Of Night (2894 words) by Morgan
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Norse Mythology
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Loki/Sigyn
Characters: Loki (Norse Mythology), Sigyn (Norse Mythology)
Additional Tags: Yuletide 2012, Yuletide Treat
Summary:

Sigyn is holding the bowl.

The writing in this one is just beautiful, even if not much happens in it.

comments at the original post on Dreamwidth

etrangere — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:08:41 GMT

Hiiii!

So it's been a pretty busy week for me, so I didn't have much time to say hello to the new followers from the comics friendmeme. So I do it now, hello !

If you guys have any question to ask me, go ahead :3

comments at the original post on Dreamwidth

Clair de Lune

also i read original slash from times to times

in case anyone's worrying

Fic post

Fire Emblem 7: Blazing Swords

Elemental Affinities as Personality Types in Tellius

meme from tumblr

New anime season with lots of sequels

Book meme

Happy new year!

Shit I finished on 2014: a long list

more experiences in video games

might as well post this here too...

crossposted from tumblr

Thoughts on the Days of Future Past movie

in which i finally talk about Path of Radiance & Radiant Dawn

Anime shows I watched this year

*sighs* Placeholder

writing meme?

reposting stuff from tumblr

my journey in the lands of video games

Miscelleanous fanfic recs

sighs Placeholder