edenfalling | [Meme] Ask me my top 5 whatevers

How about...

Top five favorite small fandom fics.

Top five favorite Naruto fics.

Top five favorite anime series.

Top five favorite fic tropes.

Top five favorite comfort reads. (fanfic or published, whatever you like!)

Top five favorite things you've written.

Answer whichever and whatever of the above you like- no pressure. ^_^

I am twisting anime to mean anime and manga, since I very, very rarely watch anime. Also, my tastes are rather conventional, since I don't actually read all that much manga either. *is ashamed* Anyway, the following are in no particular order.

1. Angel Sanctuary, because it is pretty and fucked up and I love the characters to distraction and I want desperately to make sense of the plot holes and I think underneath all that it says interesting things about the nature of love and obsession and gender roles.

2. Fruits Basket, for similar reasons except for the plot holes. I really wish I could figure out how it manages to break my heart and uplift me in the exact same moment, and also how such a crack premise can be made to seem so plausible and compelling.

3. Code Geass, because it's like they took almost every crazy genre element, character type, and plot device I love, threw it all in a blender, and turned it up to eleven. It is made of crack, and yet somehow it works. Plus it's an alternate history, and I am a sucker for alternate histories.

4. Fullmetal Alchemist, because I love the world-building, and the bleak realism of the military stuff melded with the 'magic' of alchemy and homunculi, and the characters and their desperate quests, and... you know, I think there is a running theme of obsession going on here. I love characters who have something they want, and who work to get it.

5. Saiyuki, for, once again, the obsessive characters I love, the mad quest, the fascinating world-building I want to fill in the details of, and the pretty, pretty art. And there are ideas. There is a palpable point-of-view behind the story; it's not done just for the sake of entertainment, though it is crazy entertaining.

So apparently the story elements that really do it for me are ideas behind the entertainment, and characters who have goals and are by god going to achieve them, no matter what obstacles stand in their way. Huh. I had never put that in words before, but that's useful to know about myself. (Also I have a thing for power fantasies -- you will note there are elements of that trope in most of these stories as well -- but I knew that already.)

The first three are easy:

1. Finding Marea: Truth and Change in the Circle of Kemar. 16,500 words. "Listen, and I will tell you a story. Do not write the story. Writing will freeze it; writing will kill it. Everything always changes; what does not change is dead." A meditation on the nature of truth and faith, refracted through generations of women and stories. Implied suicide of historical figures; implied historical (and possibly present) human sacrifice, voluntary and/or involuntary; historical and continuing religious persecution, inter-religious tension, and religiously-inspired violence. Also theology. (Please note that none of the theologies expressed in the story are mine, though I am more in sympathy with some than with others.) [original fiction]

2. Knives 11,500 words. Beware, you who fight evil, lest you fall into darkness. Beware, you who invite the abyss into your heart. Ginny. Lucius. Harry. Guard your soul. Explicit torture, non-explicit sex, self-harm, clinical depression, societal dysfunction, the aftermath of war. Rendered AU by HBP and DH. [Harry Potter]

3. The Way of the Apartment Manager 74,000 words. Ayakawa Yukiko retired from being a ninja, and she's come to terms with that. Then the Third Hokage summons her for an assignment that will change her life. AU story, set six years pre-manga. Social ostracism and discussion thereof, but mostly adventure, world-building, and, as one reviewer said on TV Tropes, averaging at least one Crowning Moment of Heartwarming every chapter. :-) [Naruto]

The next two... well, these are the ones I chose today. Ask me again tomorrow and I will probably give a different answer. I like a lot of my stories, and ranking them is hard, especially since I like them for different reasons and how I rank those reasons shifts with my mood.

4. Heart's Desire 375 words. Jadis in the garden: separation from God is only a punishment if you believe in him. Discussion of theology. [Chronicles of Narnia]

5. Samsara 3,000 words. Kanan and Gonou: two become nothing. A non-chronological portrait of obsession and death. Incest, rape, torture, madness, murder, suicide. [Saiyuki]

I love Fullmetal Alchemist, Saiyuki, and Fruits Basket. I haven't seen the other two, but maybe when I have time I'll check them out. ^_^

So apparently the story elements that really do it for me are ideas behind the entertainment, and characters who have goals and are by god going to achieve them, no matter what obstacles stand in their way.

Oh, yes. Me too.

I love your fic The Way of the Apartment Manager! You have a real talent for writing interesting original characters, believable children, and worldbuilding. ^_^

Code Geass is an original anime; all the manga adaptations and tie-ins are a little off one way or another. Although one of them -- Nightmare of Nunnally -- is quite entertaining in its own right, and seems to explicitly declare itself an alternate universe to the main anime universe and timeline.

With Angel Sanctuary, though, you want to read the manga. It was never made into a proper anime series -- just an OVA, I think -- and in any case the animated version only goes up to about volume 4 of a 20 volume series. It's like all the introduction and none of the actual story. (Apparently Kaori Yuki liked the voice actor choices, though, so maybe it's worth watching to get a sense of how she means the people to sound?)

I really need to finish reading FMA and Fruits Basket -- I left them hanging a couple years ago when I hit the end of my 18-month mad obsession with manga (also, I got tired of waiting for new volumes to be translated), but I very badly want to know how the stories end. Hmm. You know, I think my goal for my days off next week will be to hit a bookstore and spend some quality time reading. :-)

I cheat on writing children, you know. *grin* In other words, I based pretty much all of Naruto's behavior on things kids in my religious education classes have said and done over the years. (This is, incidentally, why the kids in "Secrets" tend to skew older than their actual ages; I don't have a lot of real life experience with pre-teens as a corrective, the way I do with 6-to-8-year-old kids.)

As for original characters, well, I did not discover fanfiction until I was almost 20 years old, so all my practice from 12 to 19 was done in original fiction, where you have to get good at creating and introducing worlds and characters or you won't have anything to work with! This is actually potentially counterproductive for fanfiction, because it means my instinct is to create OCs to fill any story roles rather than search for a minor canon character who could fit the position, and that has the potential to turn readers off -- you will note, for example, that when I needed an assassination target for "The Guardian in Spite of Herself," I invented Amane Eiji and all his entanglements rather than, say, deciding to kill Gato several years early -- but I think it does also lead me to be more mindful of a fictional world as a world, so overall the effect is probably a wash. And it does mean I've never had any fear of creating OCs for fanfiction stories, if only because I've always been sure that I could invent a person and make sure she or he fit into the world I designed him or her to live in. The only difference between doing that in fanfiction and doing that in original fiction is that in fanfic, I'm not the one who set the initial rules for the world. *wry* Either way, the rules are the rules.

Top Five Fanfics You Will Never Write (But Want to Read)

1. The epic story of how the colonization of America was affected by the existence of magic -- including things like the relationship of Native American wizards to Native American Muggles (because I'm convinced the international statute of secrecy was a European and Middle Eastern thing extended to the rest of the world by colonial fiat, not something organic to the Americas); why European wizards felt a need to emigrate (were they Muggle-born? how did this affect their social organization?); issues with Muggle-born slave wizards and witches; how to make magical philosophies from Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia mesh in a useful system of education; etc. I'm not writing this because I have no plot and no characters, and the idea requires so much historical research and racial/cultural sensitivity that it has at least a 90% chance of blowing up in its author's face. But oh, I want to read it!

2. An epic Naruto story wherein Sakura's family, though still civilians, have a connection to some big complicated plot that will overturn the entire ninja world. She's torn between family loyalty (saving her parents, and also thinking that the civilian revolution may have a point) and loyalty to the ninja system and her teammates and friends, we get to learn about her family background and the civilian half of Konoha, Sakura gets to go undercover as a spy among her cousins and her family's sponsors, and for once she gets to be the star of the story and the boys are playing support to her traumas and choices. ...Actually, if I ever think of a reasonable plot, I may write that myself, but so far, I have nothing. So I wish someone else would think of the plot and write it for me. :-)

3. The story where instead of Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie, we have Mary, Stephen, Edith, and Laurence Pevensie. Same basic character traits as expressed via opposite genders and constrained and influenced by the expected roles of those genders in 1930s-1940s England. Laurie finds a way into Narnia; Edith follows him later and meets the White Witch. Eventually all four end up going through the wardrobe, and things change, because Edith won't react the same way Edmund did, nor for the same reasons. And some of Lewis's plot contrivances won't work, because even if Mary is the leader and a warrior, Stephen wouldn't go off with Laurie and abandon his sister the way Susan is so easily absent from the battle. So maybe Edith goes to the Stone Table instead, and watches Aslan's sacrifice as Edmund never did. You see? I want to follow the implications all the way through HHB, where it's Stephen and Edith in Tashbaan instead of Susan and Edmund, and just watch the changes. It would be fascinating. It would also be a very delicate dance, and I don't have the time or the patience to do the idea justice. But I'd read it in a heartbeat.

4. On a lighter note, I want a White Collar/Chuck crossover where Bryce Larkin and Neal Caffrey were identical twin orphans separated shortly after birth and adopted by different families. Bryce is not, in fact, dead, and somehow they get tangled in the same case from different angles, and hijinks and character development occur and, I dunno, stuff. I'm not writing that because I don't have anything like a good enough grasp on either canon.

5. And on a self-indulgent note, a continuation of More Subtle Than Any Beast of the Field, because I love Slytherin!Harry stories but have yet to find one (besides "Laocoon's Children") that makes only the necessary and logical changes without veering too dark, or too romancy, or otherwise falling too far away from Rowling's tone -- I don't want somebody else's idea of what the wizarding world ought to be like. I want to see what Harry in Slytherin would do to Rowling's world as shown in her books. And I also want Ginny to play a bigger role in the series from the word go, because sidelining her in the first four books made her importance later on feel imbalanced and awkward in all kinds of ways. I'm not writing this because the last thing I need is a 7-book WIP series hanging around my neck like an albatross.

Top 5 Naruto Characters Who've Had All of Five Panels, But Are Awesome/Interesting Enough For Their Own Story Arcs/Gaidens.

I am playing a little fast and loose with your panel limitations, but I have tried to be true to the general sense of "stuff Kishimoto will never elaborate upon but which would be all kinds of interesting to read." :-)

1. The epic romance (or arranged marriage, whichever) of Sasuke's parents.

2. Likewise the story of Sakura's parents, who I don't think have ever appeared in the manga -- if I'm wrong, please tell me where to find them!

3. I want to actually see Anko's apprenticeship to Orochimaru, from beginning to end. It would be fucked up and fascinating.

4. I have been persuaded that Shino needs more moments to shine and his clan could always use more backstory. Maybe the tale of how he got his first few kikkai? (I am assuming the Aburame are not born infested, since I think that would be very hard on embryonic development.)

5. Um. I dunno really. Kishimoto's world is open-ended enough that I get the sense pretty much every character had a life before entering Naruto's story and will have a life after exiting it, so almost all of them are fair game for backstory elaboration or future adventures. But to return to my initial theme, I would like to see how the fourth Kazekage and his wife agreed to bind Shukaku into Gaara, and whether (and when) Gaara's mother realized that the ritual would entail her death. Because that is all kinds of interesting.

Five favorite things to eat and Five favorite Narnia scenes

Ah, the Aburume clan does some sort of scarifical looking ritual, where a few days after a newborn is born they lay it down and let the bugs eat/infest the child, so that they develop in a sybionic manner. Kakashi briefly gives this explanation during the Chuunin exams.

Uh, your Sakura story would be the most awesome thing ever. Just sayin'. :D

Top five tropes you love or love to hate and why.

...I have no memory of this. Is it in the manga, or is it anime-only?

These chosen somewhat at random off the top of my head:

1. Coca-cola classic (...yes, it's a drink; I don't care; I love the stuff no matter HOW bad it is for my teeth)

2. rare steak with a bit of charcoal smoke from a grill and some A1 steak sauce and/or crispy bacon for flavor

3. alu palak and basmati rice (mmm, spinach and spice... alternatively, one can swap the rice out in favor of naan, which is the best bread in the history of ever)

4. dark chocolate with orange flavoring

5. cherry-flavored mini-strudel pastries

Bonus #6. calamari!

Bonus #7. chicken-flavor ramen noodles with no broth eaten as a side-dish (I do not care if this is weird; it was a staple of my childhood)

Bonus #8. Kalamata olives

I want to read it so badly. Alas, Kishimoto is never going to write it for me in canon, and I don't know where to find it in fandom. ("Suiren" comes closest, I think, but it's not really what I'm looking for here. I want a canon-flavor gen epic, not a femslashy sideways epic, no matter how cool the latter may be.)

I am going book-canon only, and these are not in any particular order.

1. Everything in Charn, especially once Digory and Polly find the bell. The bleak desolation is amazingly powerful -- the silence and cold and despair shine through despite Lewis's limited descriptive talents -- and Jadis is chilling and awesome.

2. Aslan's death on the Stone Table. Again, very dark and powerful. (Also, I just love Jadis.)

3. Aravis and Lasaraleen hiding behind the sofa listening in on the Tisroc, Ahoshta, and Rabadash planning the invasion of Archenland. Chilling and tense and yet not without moments of humor. Also it brings realism to the Narnian's world's occasional ridiculously idealistic politics.

4. Puddleglum's speech to the Lady of the Green Kirtle, which may have been intended as a defense of Christianity but which I have always read as a defence of fantasy literature and just of living a moral and caring life in general despite an indifferent or hostile world (whatever the source of one's morality and connection to humanity and the world).

5. Either the final sections of VDT as they approach the uttermost East (from the Star's island onwards -- it's one of the best descriptions of the sublime bleeding into the regular world I have ever read, barring the climax of Diane Duane's The Wounded Sky, and also I love the passage about the Sea People), or the parts in the ruins of Cair Paravel and Aslan's How during PC when the sheer length of time between LWW and PC is brought viscerally home.

This will require some careful thought! I will answer tomorrow, after I have lost the requisite five hours on TV Tropes. *grin*

Top five favorite female characters!

I am going to give you characters from my childhood (ages 8-12), as they have had the longest and deepest effect on me.

1. Arha/Tenar from Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series. I first read The Tombs of Atuan when I was about eight years old, and it's sad that even then it was a revelation to me that a girl could be the hero of her own story, and that her choices mattered. In retrospect, I am so, so grateful I read that series out of order so I read Tombs before I read A Wizard of Earthsea, because otherwise I have a terrible feeling I would have spent most of Tombs waiting impatiently for Ged to appear, whereas without the primer of the first book, I was able to get to know, love, and respect Arha on her own terms in her own right, and Ged appeared to me as a supporting character to her quest for self-definition and freedom.

2. Nita Callahan, from Diane Duane's Young Wizards series. Because she was intelligent and socially inept and had an annoying little sister who seemed to get the world more than Nita ever could, and yet she found a calling, made a lifelong friend, and by god saved the universe. Also, she found her calling in a library, which is about the most awesome thing ever. :-)

3. Cimorene, from Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles and sequels, because she might have been a beautiful princess in a fairy-tale inspired world, but those were just trappings. She was awesome because she went out and made her own life, and because she used not only her brain but also her common sense, which is much, much rarer. Plus she liked books.

4. Eowyn, from The Lord of the Rings, because she found the stupid male chauvinist loophole and killed the Witch-King of Angmar. Also, she went to war to protect her family and her way of life, which is usually reserved for men. Also also, she was a subsidiary potential love interest for Aragon without being turned into a conniving bitch, and she loved a second time (Faramir) without being denigrated as a slut -- and I really liked that she and Faramir got together because of shared experiences and seemed to genuinely get along instead of just being shoved at each other by authorial fiat. (YMMV, as always, but that's how I read it at age 10.)

5. Guinevere from Parke Godwin's Firelord and Beloved Exile, because she wasn't just a king's wife. She was a ruling queen in her own right. And she had a personality shaped by her history, so even when she was in the wrong, she was understandable. Also, she grew and changed over those two books until by the end of the second, even she realized that the person she was at the start of the first would have found her current self incomprehensible. So often change and growth are only for male characters, so it was wonderful to get a whole book about what happened after Arthur died and left Guinevere to hold Britain alone. (Also, there were a bunch of female supporting characters, who were all people in their own right and not just recapitulations of Guinevere.)

I think the mention of the Aburame ritual might have been in the manga - possibly during Shino's fight with Zaku, someone's rattling off Aburame exposition from the balcony - but I can't say for sure.

Yeah, it didn't need to be literal, I actually took the phrase from someone talking about Uzumaki Mito. You got the point :P

1. That would be awesome. I'd love to know more about them as characters - especially during those last few years with the coup - and the larger implications of how the Uchiha clan worked (also, population). >_> They're a fixation of mine...

2. Also potentially cool. I don't think they even get a mention. Sakura implies she has them, when she blames Naruto's bad behavior on the fact that he doesn't, but... Jeez, Kishi.

3. Ohh, it would be ^_^ 'Course, I'd be glad to see more of Anko, period.

4. So much. Easily one of the most competent and powerful of the Rookie 9, but he's rarely used because (I think) he's too skilled and would mess with the plot (mainly thinking of the Retrieve Sasuke arc). ~~He was also the only person to have any seeming effect on Tobidara the GodTroll.~~
But it would be great to get more background on the clan itself. How many people are in the clan. Is it large enough that they intermarry or what steps are necessary for someone to be brought in? Actually, I want to know these for all the clans.

5. Ooh, that would be interesting. Learn more about them, and the interpolitics of Suna.

Oh wow I got wordy. <_<;; ^_^; TD;DR - I agree.

Manga. I'd link the chapters, but don't know where to find them online anymore.... its when Shino is fighting during the chuunin exam. THeres a creepy picture of a baby.

2. Yes! I was rereading it yesterday, and it's so wonderful... but I must admit, I always liked Dairine a bit better.

I vote for 3. ^_^ I SO need to finish my Narnia fic before the next movie comes out...

We will never dine together.

Funnily enough, I think my little sister likes Dairine better too. :-) I have always assumed our preferences were based on which sister we could better relate to both in terms of family position and personality traits.

Ah well. Still, there's no logic to taste, and no point arguing about it either.

Out of curiosity, what specific items are turnoffs for you?

Huh! I must make a point of looking for that passage when I reach that section in my manga reread. (I am currently stalled out in the middle of Sasuke and Lee fighting before the first test, because those chapters feel so pointless.)

I would almost be willing to try writing it myself, if only because the idea fascinates me so, but I know myself too well to think it would turn into anything but another epic WIP that would drag on unfinished for years and years. *sigh*

I'm the oldest though!

...I should get my little sister to read them and see who she likes

I am world's pickiest eater... I like very, very simple foods. ^^;;

*looks at you speculatively* Ever think of cowriting or a shared uni?

Okay, five tropes, now with links! (These are listed by the order in which I thought of them, not by order of preference.)

1. The Reveal, because when pulled off properly, these can be made of awesome. They're tricky to get right, though.

2. Happily Married, Good Parents, and other forms of functional relationships, because not every story needs to be about people falling in or out of love and being wracked by relationship-oriented sturm und drang. I like it when families work.

3. Magic A Is Magic A, because things ought to be consistent and make sense, unless you have a very good reason to throw all your world-building out the window for some particular effect.

4. Power Fantasy, though not quite in the sense they mean. I am not interested in characters who have power fantasies, and also not interested in revenge-specific power fantasies. I am interested in stories that are heroic-oriented or value-neutral power fantasies, because I like tropes that have to do with power -- most notably the willing restraint of power, but sometimes also the blatant use of power. It's a nearly bulletproof narrative kink for me, no matter how embarrassing this kind of story can sometimes get. (Only nearly bulletproof, though. I have read power fantasies that were so egregiously awful on various levels that I could not set aside their problems and get the vicarious kick I usually get from them.)

5. Earn Your Happy Ending, overlapping with Bittersweet Ending, because I like things to work out for the characters I like, but I also like some realism and uncertainty in a world and story, and furthermore I find that this type of ending can feel both conclusive and as if the world is greater and wider and deeper than the one story I just read -- as if it's continuing on instead of being wrapped up in a tidy little package now that the main characters' stories are done.

I've tried doing a few original fiction projects with my sister, but we are both hopelessly bad at motivating each other beyond basic world-building (though we are probably each other's best editors), so they never got much of anywhere. Also, I have a tendency to get possessive about ideas that I have mentally tagged as 'mine' in some form, which means if I am actively trying to write them, it's really hard for me to see them done 'wrong' by someone else, which is the other reason those attempted collaborations fell apart; Vicky and I construct stories along notably different patterns, and we got into intractable arguments over plot and character arcs.

But I have done some world-building for Vicky that I then handed over to her as a base for her own stories, since she isn't very detail-oriented in that particular way, and I had no problem working in

icedark_elf's

mercverse shared FF7 AU. My guess is that if I'm starting from someone else's idea, it's easier for me to relax, and also that it's easier for me to see someone else use my basic ideas in her own story than to let someone else co-write a story I see as 'mine.'

It really annoys me that we get all this background on Naruto's family and Sasuke's family, but Sakura's parents only exist by implication. And I am a sucker for backstory and world-exploration in general, which is why I listed the others. :-)

*understands* I was going to suggest you share-universe it (I wouldn't mind doing a short scene, but I can't commit to an epic). However, I do understand how watching someone else screw up your plot/idea can hurt. Especially since you're almost obligated to lie through your teeth and say you loved it.

Actually, I think a shared universe might work, if I can lay out a basic framework of world-building, character snapshots, and 'canon' timeline; pick a couple short ideas to write myself; and then convince myself to back off the rest of it because there is no way on earth I have time to write the whole epic. Hmm. I could maybe work up some background and, I dunno, episode summaries over the next week.

Would you still be interested in working under those constraints? (Meaning that if I've claimed an incident/story/episode, it's mine, but anything aside from those few reserved ideas is fair game, and you can always take the basic idea and go AU from my idea of the 'canon' timeline?)

Bonus #6. A fusion between Code Geass and Anne Bishop's Black Jewels series, which imposes the social structure and magic of the Blood onto the world, plot, and characters of Code Geass. So Charles zi Britannia is a Warlord Prince who has upset the balance of the world not just by conquering other nations, but by being a man who rules in his own right without serving a Queen. I think Euphemia and Nunnally are both Queens, so Lelouch's goal is to put one of them on the throne of Britannia and thus rebalance the world (and to free Japan, of course, but mostly to fix his own country).

Kallen and Cornelia are cut from the same general character mold as Surreal, though without her explicit background as a prostitute -- they just have the warrior/assassin/take-no-shit attributes. CC is an enigmatic Black Widow. I am honstly undecided what castes to put Lelouch and Suzaku in -- Lelouch would either be a Warlord Prince or a Prince, while Suzaku would be a Warlord or a Warlord Prince. (Either way, Suzaku would be heavily engaged in trying to deny the violent aspects of his nature.) The thing is, Lelouch is vicious and possessive/protective enough to be a Warlord Prince, but he doesn't seem to have that hair-trigger temper in his everyday persona, and the coolness and remove he exhibits might fit better for a Prince thinking of ways to maneuver around nominally higher-ranking castes. Suzaku has the unstoppable-in-battle traits of a Warlord Prince, and he can be dedicated and vindictive, but he really doesn't seem to have the personality. I think, on reflection, he'd be a Warlord with a very dark Jewel. I'm still undecided about Lelouch though. *sigh*

The Britannian nobility would obviously all be Blood, but I am unsure whether the Japanese rebellion might include landens as well -- the presence of technology would give them options not available in Bishop's world. It would be interesting to see landens and Blood interact on a slightly less unequal footing. Also, it would be neat if Ashford Academy were deliberately founded as a school for both Blood and landens, to teach integration (and then they use that as a rationale to admit Suzaku, since they're all about erasing barriers).

Anyway, the world-building would be absurdly extensive, and I don't care enough to bother... but it would be such a wonderful guilty pleasure to read. :-)

We could try? I'm not sure - I'd have to see what you'd laid out. Knowing me, I'd fixate on Peter/Mary...

[Meme] Ask me my top 5 whatevers

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Top 5 favorite manga and/or anime series (plus some thoughts on story tropes)

Top 5 favorite stories I've written

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5 favorite things to eat

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5 tropes I love

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