[Meme] Ask me my top 5 whatevers

[edenfalling]

Slightly modified from various places: Ask me my Top Five Whatevers, fannish or literary or otherwise. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really. I will answer them all in comments or a new post. (But definitely not with pictures. *grin*)

Because I am bored and I hate all my WIPs -- including the two things I was trying to write for Femgenficathon and which I failed miserably to finish by even the extended deadline. Please help distract me?

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ETA:

--5 fanfics I will never write (but want to read), courtesy of aishuu

--5 favorite manga and/or anime series, courtesy of theodosia21

--5 favorite stories I've written, also courtesy of theodosia21

--5 Naruto characters who've had all of five panels, but deserve their own story arcs/gaidens, courtesy of leahnari

--8 favorite things to eat, courtesy of hungrytiger11

--5 favorite scenes from The Chronicles of Narnia, also courtesy of hungrytiger11

--5 favorite female characters (from my childhood), courtesy of uminohikari

--5 tropes I love, courtesy of rianax

Comments

[theodosia21]

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. ^_^

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

[edenfalling]

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.)

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

[theodosia21]

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.

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

[edenfalling]

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. :-)

Top 5 favorite stories I've written

[edenfalling]

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]

Re: Top 5 favorite stories I've written

[theodosia21]

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

Re: Top 5 favorite stories I've written

[edenfalling]

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.