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natsubeatsrock · 3 years ago

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Should Hiro Mashima die?

My answer is no.

Though, this isn't about actually killing Hiro Mashima. Kinda got you with the title, though, huh? (This was originally going to be titled “Is Hiro Mashima dead?” and released on his birthday. You’re welcome.)

This post is about a widely debated topic of analysis known as the "death of the author." I've talked about this a few different times in passing in a few posts over the years. You could argue that this belongs in my series rewriting Fairy Tail and I considered placing it there. However, I feel that it's better that I keep this detached from that series. This topic concerns criticism of any series. Naturally, being a Fairy Tail blog, I plan on engaging this with the context of Fairy Tail's author being dead or not, hence the title. Still, this is helpful to think about for analysis of plenty of other series.

Again, though, my answer is still no.

Let's start with the origin of this term. The term comes from an essay by Roland Barthes called "La mort de l'auteur". Use your best guess as to what that translates to. I highly encourage you to read the essay as it's pretty short. It's about six or seven pages, depending on the version. There are three main points to his essay.

Creative works are products of the culture they come from and less original than people expect.

The idea of the author as the sole creator and authority of creative works is fairly modern.

The author's interpretation of a work shouldn't be considered the main or only interpretation of a work.

Of these three points, I'm sure you recognize the last point. But first, I want to talk about the other points. I believe it is important to understand the arguments being made as a whole.

The first point should be fairly uncontroversial. The vast majority of creative works use established language, tropes, and elements to create a new thing. I wouldn't go as far as Barthes does in this regard. Not to mention, this is somewhat weird to know considering his third point. However, I agree that creative works should be considered products of the culture and genre they come from.

The second point is a bit trickier for me. To be clear, the point is true. You only have to look at various cultural mythologies as an example. There isn't a single version of the Greek myths. There are several versions and interpretations of the various stories and myths.

Even recent popular fictional characters have had several different interpretations. This is especially true with comics. There have been multiple different Batman interpretations, Spiderman runs, and X-Men teams that fans love. Fans even love and appreciate numerous forms of established characters like Frankenstein's monster and Sherlock Holmes. So, as a consumer and critic of art, I can understand this.

My problem is as a creator of art. I understand this being contentious when it comes to something like religious myths. But, if I create something, I want to get the credit for it. I want people to love my music or writing. But I also want people to recognize me for my skill in crafting it.

This is true even if you hold to the first point Barthes made. Even if you believe that no art is truly unique, isn't the skill of synthesizing the various tropes and influences around a person worthy of credit in and of itself?

Then again, I am not without bias in this. Barthes says that the modern interpretation of the author is a product of the Protestant Reformation. As a Protestant myself, I get that my background plays no part in my view of this. Barthes also blames English empiricism and French rationalism, but personal faith is the biggest influence on me that Barthes lists.

That being said, there's also something Barthes completely misses in his essay. In the past, stories were passed down by oral tradition. As the stories were passed down from generation to generation, they slowly evolved and became what they are known today. Scholars today can gather a general consensus of what a story was meant to be and some traditions were more faithful about passing traditions down than others. However, you can't always tell the original author of a mythological story the same way we know who gave us stuff like the Quran or the Bible.

As time passed, stories were written down. With this, it was easy to share single versions of a story and identify its creator. We know who made certain writing of works even before the 1500s. For example, we have the Travels of Marco Polo and Dante's Inferno and know their authors. We could tell the authors of works were before the Protestant Reformation.

By the way, the Reformation happened to coincide with one of the most important inventions in human history: the printing press. Now you can easily make copies of an individual's works and you don't have to rely on word of mouth to share stories.

I can't stress how important an omission this is. The printing press changed the way we interact with media as a whole and might be the most important invention on this side of the wheel. And yet Barthes doesn't even mention as even a potential factor in "the modern concept of the author"? In his essay about understanding written media? That’s like ignoring Jim Crow in your essay about Birth of a Nation bringing back the KKK.

Now, we get to the final point. The author's original intentions of their works are not the main interpretation. This is understood as being the case after they create the series. Once the work is written and sent into the public, they cease to be an authority on it.

It's worth recognizing how this flows from the other two points. Barthes argued that works of fiction are products of their culture and our current understanding of an author is fairly modern. Therefore, the interpretation of the reader is just as valuable as that of the author. As Barthes himself wrote, "the birth of the reader must be at cost of the death of the author."

At best, this means that a reader can come away with an interpretation of a work that isn't the one intended. With Fairy Tail, my mind goes to the final moments of the Grand Magic Games. My view of Gray's line "I've got to smile for her sake" has to do with romantic feelings for Ultear. I don't know of a single person who agrees with this. Mashima certainly hasn't come out and affirmed this as the right view.

It's good to recognize that a work can have more meanings behind it than the ones intended by its creator. Part of the performing process is coming to a personal interpretation of a work. In many cases, two different performances will have different interpretations of the same work, neither of which went through the creator's mind. At the same time, both work and are valid.

That being said, there is an obvious problem with this: readers are idiots. Not all readers are necessarily idiots. But enough of them are idiots. The views of idiots should have as much weight as that of the creator. Full stop. Frankly, I maintain that idiots are the worst possible sources to gauge anything of note. (At the very least, policy decisions.)

I know this as a reader who has not been alone in misunderstanding a work. I know this as an analyst who has had to sift through all kinds of cold takes on Fairy Tail. (Takes that are proven wrong simply by going through it a second time. Or a first.) And I definitely know this as a creator who has to see people butcher my works through nonsensical "interpretations."

At the same time, the argument Barthes made comes with an important caveat. He also argued that works are the products of the culture and surroundings of the author. Barthes isn’t making the argument that author’s arguments don’t matter.

As far as I can tell, Barthes doesn't take this to mean that those influences are worth analyzing. Doing so would be giving life to the author. However, there should be some recognition that a creative work didn't come to exist out of nowhere. There's a sense in which Fairy Tail didn't just wash up on the shore chapter by chapter or episode by episode. It came to be as part of the culture it came from.

Now, you'll never guess what happened. Over the years, the concept of "death of the author" lost its original intent. Nowadays, people usually only care about the third point. "Death of the author" is only brought up to dismiss "word of God" explanations of work, after its release. I'd venture to guess that most people using the term casually don't know anything about its roots. I honestly don't know how Barthes would feel about this.

I can understand what might fuel this view. A writer should do their best to write their intended meanings in a work. It would be wrong of a writer to make up for their poor writing after the fact. I don't love Mashima's "Lucy's dreams" explanation for omakes. I know Harry Potter fans don't love the stuff J.K. Rowling has said over the years.

At the same time, my (admittedly Protestant) understanding of "word of God" and "canon" is that they have the same authority. After all, the canon IS the word of God. It is a small section of what God has said, but it isn't less than that.

Of course, it's worth recognizing that nearly every writer we're talking about isn't even remotely divinely inspired or incapable of contradiction. This understanding should cut two ways. An author should never contradict their work in talking about it. Write what you want and make clear what you want to. On the other hand, writers can't fit everything they want to in a work. I'll get to this soon, but their interpretation should be treated with some value.

By the way, people will do this while throwing out the other arguments made by Barthes in the same essay. People will outright ignore the culture and context that a work comes from in order to justify their views. Creators are worshiped and praised for their works or seen as the sole problem for the bad views on works.

What worries me most about this modern interpretation of "the death of the author" is its use in fan analysis. People seem to outright not care about the author's intent in writing a story. They only care about their own interpretation of the work. Worse still, people will insist that any explanation an author gives is them covering up their mistakes. Naturally, this often leads to negative views of the work in question.

This is just something I'll never fully understand. It's one thing if you don't like something. If you don't get why something happened, shouldn't your first move be to figure out what the author was thinking? Instead, people move to the idea that it makes no sense and the writer's a hack.

If all of this seems too heady, let's try to bring this down to earth. Should Hiro Mashima die so that his readers can be born?

Hiro Mashima is one of many mangakas who were influenced by Akira and Dragon Ball. He considers J.R.R. Tolkien to be one of his favorite writers. Monster Hunter is one of his favorite game series. He's even written a manga series with the world in mind.

It would make sense to look at Fairy Tail purely through this lens. You could see Fairy Tail as a shonen action guild story. Rather than seeing the guild as a hub for its members, Fairy Tail's members treat those within it as family. Rather than focusing on one overarching quest, the story is about how various smaller quests relating to its main characters threaten their guild. Adopting this view wouldn't necessarily be an incorrect way to engage with the series. (Mind you, I haven’t seen this view shared by many people who “kill Mashima”.)

Though, there's more to Fairy Tail than the various tropes that make it up. If you were to divorce Fairy Tail entirely from its creator, you'd miss out on understanding them. There are ways Mashima has written bits of himself into the series. Things that go farther than Rave Master cameos and references.

My favorite example is motion sickness. I often think back to Craftsdwarf mocking motion sickness as a useless quirk Dragon Slayers have. It turns out that its origin comes from his personal life. Apparently, one of his friends gets motion sickness. He decided to write this as part of his world.

This gets to the biggest reason I don't love "death of the author" as a framework for analysis. I believe the biggest question analysts should answer is why. Why did an author make certain decisions? You can't do this kind of thing well if you shut out the author's interpretation of their own work. Maybe that can work for some things, but not everything.

I've had tons of fun going through Fairy Tail and talking about it over the past seven years. More recently, I've been going through the series with the intent to rewrite the series. I've made it clear multiple times in that series that I'm trying to understand and explain Mashima's decisions in the series. I don't always agree with what I find. However, trying to understand what happened in Fairy Tail is very important to me.

It's gotten to the point that I love interacting with Mashima's writing. I talk about EZ on my main blog. I can't tell you how much fun I've been having. I'll see things and go "man, that's so Mashima" or "wow, I didn't expect that from him." HERO'S was one of my favorite things of last year and I regularly revisit it for fun. It's the simplest microcosm of what makes each series which Mashima has made both similar and distinct.

Barthes was on to something with his essay. I think there should be a sense where people should feel that their views of the media they consume are valid. This should be true even if we disagree with the author's views on the series. But I don't know that the solution is to treat the author's word on their own work as irrelevant.

There's a sense where I think we should mesh the understandings of media engagement. We recognize that Mashima wrote Fairy Tail. There are reasons that he wrote the series as we got it and they're worth knowing and understanding. However, our own interpretation of the series doesn't have to be exactly what Mashima intended. We can even disagree with how Mashima did things.

I know fans who do this all the time. They love whatever series they follow, but wish things happened differently. Fans of Your Lie in April will joke about [situation redacted] as well as write stories where it never happens. You love a series, warts and all, but wish for the series to get cosmetic surgery, or take matters into your own hands.

And who knows? It's not as if fans haven't affected an author's writing of a series. Mashima's the perfect example. I've said this a few times before, but Fairy Tail has gone well past its original end at Phantom Lord (or Daphne for the anime fans). Levy rose to importance as fans wanted to see more of her.

Could Mashima have done that if we killed him?

Before the conclusion, I should mention another way “death of the author“ comes up. People will invoke “death of the author“ to encourage people to enjoy works they love made by messed up people. Given everything we’ve said up to this point, that’s obviously not what should be intended by its use. For now, though, I do think that we can admit that we like the works of someone even if we don’t agree with everything they did as a person. (Another rant for another day.)

In Conclusion:

“Death of the Author” is an imperfect concept, but it’s not without its points. I don’t think we should throw out the author’s intent behind a work. However, we should be able to have our disagreements with the author’s views without killing them.

#fairy tail #hiro mashima #death of the author #i'm back #and what a way to return #i've been meaning to do this forever #fav

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eastonia-blog · 5 years ago

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I’m going to do a weird.

I know a whole lot of us are stuck at home due to the COVID19 outbreak and all our respective governments attempting to flatten the curve. So I’m going to break out my VAST library of fanfiction recommendations for you to read! Please bear in mind that my tastes in fics are not necessarily like yours so the following 15 Fandom reccs might be hit or miss. All ships and above T ratings will be tagged with brackets, all crossovers will be mentioned in those same brackets. Also, if I mention it’s part of a series, I’m not just recommending the fic I mentioned, I’m recommending the whole series. I’ve tried to recommend a different author’s fic each time. So! Let’s start with the 3 fandoms I mention in my blog description.

1) ATLA Fate Deferred (Zutara) Aang remains in the iceberg ten years longer. Sozin’s comet comes, the world keeps turning with no Avatar to save it, and by the time he’s finally found by a waterbender and her Fire Nation husband, a lot has changed. [Zutara established relationship full series rewrite; Now on Book II: Earth] Cheating at Pai Sho (Canon Divergence) “You said you were the Avatar!” “…I lied?” Aang doesn’t get rescued in episode two, and no one’s seen him go glowy yet… so he starts bluffing. Hard. Or: “The Avatar joins Zuko’s quest to find the Avatar.” In which Zuko doesn’t join the Gaang, the Gaang joins Zuko. The Undying Fire: Blood and Fire (First in the Undying Fire Series, eventual Zutara) Book 1. In which rescuing the Avatar from Pohuai Stronghold doesn’t end so well. It’s a tough life being a banished prince trying to get home, especially when the Avatar just wants to be your friend and keeps making everything confusing. Oh, and did Zuko mention he somehow healed the kid? Yeah, that happened. Stalking Zuko (First in the Stalking Zuko Series, eventual Zutara) Katara has developed a new hobby. At the Western Air Temple she takes to stalking Zuko. Much silliness and shenanigans follow. In chapter 20: Katara and Zuko return home to the others. Katara hates the F word and she comes to a decision regarding Zuko. Embers (Canon divergence) Dragon’s fire is not so easily extinguished; when Zuko rediscovers a lost firebending technique, shifting flames can shift the world… 2) Percy Jackson and the Olympians The Father (Percabeth in the GFFA, eventual Anidala) It all started with a wish, but because it was Percy Jackson it couldn’t have been a friendly goddess granting him a wish. No, it had to be Nemesis, goddess of revenge and balance. Now Percy and Annabeth are stuck in a strange new galaxy right when an ancient and powerful darkness finally begins to stir. Glass Figures (MCU Mashup) I lifted my gun, pointing it towards the minefield of shattered fragments, and kicked the small coffee table out of the way.Only to stare down at an awfully familiar face, which split into a somewhat lopsided grin. The intruder raised his hands in a mocking surrender. //“Long time no see, dude.” //I lowered the gun. “What the hell are you doing in South Peru?” //Or in which Clint Barton and Percy Jackson have a long personal history that starts in high school. All Together, Cousins (Canon divergence) When Thalia ran away with her toddler brother, Jason, she slowly gathered her cousins: she and her cousins being Big Three children. As Jason gets older and their motley group expands to six, Thalia resigns herself to the fact that she won’t always be the leader of the pack. As she accepts that, something more is coming, able to challenge even the gods above. A Crown of Golden Leaves (Historical AU) Annabeth, a Lady from the declining polis of Athens, must marry the Heir Apparent of Rome to save the rapidly expanding world from a threat even the gods couldn’t foresee. Deluge (Percy in the Arrowverse) Barry has to deal with yet another Metahuman that Zoom has pitted against him. But this ‘Metahuman’ is an unwilling pawn in Zoom’s plan and really wants to find a way around killing the Scarlet Speester. But how can he when Zoom is holding something against him?

3) DC Firework (First in the Sparks in the Dark Series) Orphaned and removed from the only life he’s ever known, Dick feels like there’s no light left for him in the world. His new benefactor, however, still sees something worth saving… Chronological beginning of the Spark in the Dark series. Iron, Fire, Mirror-Glass After a brutal confrontation with Bane, Bruce comes away with a broken spine and the certainty that his days as Batman are over. An unexpected discovery offers him another chance—but at what price? The story of a man who risks his soul for the sake of his mission, the dangerous creature he names Robin, and the unlikely partnership that will shape the legend of Gotham’s Dark Knight. Get Back Up There was a mole, one who played a long game. The team was betrayed, crushed. Robin nearly died. What are they going to do now? Only one chirped the answer. Get back up. WARNING: lots of talking, little action, many follow ups Five Times …Five times Damian thought of Dick Grayson as his father, and the one time Dick thought of Damian as his son. Future-fic. YJ characters will show up later. Batman!Dick and Damian as Robin. With guest appearances from Jason, Tim, Cass, and Steph. Unveiling the Mystery Series of one-shots about the team learning a little about Robin (Dick Grayson). With all the fics, I heavily suggest you also read what else these authors have to offer in their archive.

And now here’s the plethora of other fandoms I read fics in under the cut!

4) Harry Potter The Horse (Mature) Looking after a Muggle animal should be easy compared to saving Hogwarts from Voldemort. Harry and Draco might disagree with that. Featuring Luna, Marauders, peppermints and, of course, a tall, black, badtempered horse named Simon. The Potions Master’s Nephew An accident occurs and Professor Snape finds himself trapped in his fifteen-year-old body. Enrolled into Harry Potter’s fifth year, he is forced to hide his true identity. Girls, drama and teenage angst do not bode well with Severus. Keeping Up with the Grangers (Dramione, Mature) Mr. Malfoy, I invite you and your mother to tea next Tuesday, May 25th at 2o’clock to discuss recent events. Dr. Helen Granger //… …// He glances at the boxy too-uniform numbers flashing on the face of Richard’s radio. It’s nearly noon, and he should be getting ready to leave; but there is still a harsh tension in his shoulders and neck that he wants to work out before Hermione finds him. It is, after all, Tuesday; and while his Tuesdays were designated ‘tea with Helen’ days previously, they are now ‘lunch with Granger’ days, ever since the chance meet-up with the Weasel’s wife and the insufferable swot herself. Faceless (Dramione, Mature) New year. New love. New threat. A powerful enemy is on the rise, and Hermione Granger finds herself intertwined in a relationship with Draco Malfoy – only she doesn’t know it’s him. / / RUNNER-UP: Enchanted Awards Summer 2017 for Best Relationship Development

5) Devil May Cry And the Rest is Silence (Mature) The destruction of the Saviour wasn’t the end. Too many people had too much invested. An Uncle’s Thoughts Dante’s thoughts and feelings regarding one particular quarter-demon kid. Vignettes that span from the start of Devil May Cry 4 through Devil May Cry 5, and beyond. Fortuna’s Fool Events after DMC5 with flashbacks to the events we briefly see in DMC4SE only with Vergil telling Dante all about Nero’s mother. Family ties are so complicated, aren’t they? Family of Happenstance Some orphans have happy endings, getting adopted or finding their family. Having a demon slaying half devil for a father tends to throw a tiny monkey wrench in the process. AU Father!Dante, Son!Nero. Rated because hunters don’t exactly have clean mouths.

6) Power Rangers (Focus on Might Morphin’ and Dino Thunder teams) Of Love and Bunnies Set just after Dino Thunder. When Angel Grove announces another Power Rangers Day, Tommy takes the Dino Rangers to Angel Grove for a reunion with the original team… including Kimberly. TommyKim, JasonTrini, KiraTrent. The Reason (Part 1 of eclyptyk neo‘s Dino Thunder AU) COMPLETED. DT. AU. Years go by as Tommy Oliver becomes accustomed to his job as a teacher. A person from his past returns. The new ranger team grows interested in its outcome. How will these new changes between rangers young and old be? Sequel: Ordinary World Change of Hearts (Wild Force) PRWF: When Jindrax and Toxica set out to find themselves, they had no idea that their greatest adventure was only beginning. Chronology Conundrum DT/MMPR - After a strange mutation is released in Reefside, the five Dino Thunder Ranges find themselves thrown back into the past, circa 1995 Angel Grove. Somehow, they have to figure out how to make it back to their present without destroying it or themselves. And if they succeed, they must navigate the consequences of their actions in the past, while still protecting Reefside. 7) Merlin (Mergana leaning) The Other Version of Events What if Merlin and Arthur had met when they were children? What if a mysterious illness fell over Ealdor and Merlin was blamed? What if Arthur had actually felt sorry for him? What if destiny was thrown at them in a whole new way? AU, no slash, Bromance, A/G M/M… You get the idea. Flipping the Coin, Part 2 of Coins (2nd story in the Coins Sage but 1st multichapter) Merlin and Gwaine are sent on an adventure to discover their past and stay one step ahead of Morgana. Fearing for them, Arthur and the other knights set out to find them, but soon discover much more than they bargained for. Alt version Season 5. Sequel to “Two Sides of the Coin” Angst, Adventure, BAMF, Bromance, Redemption, Twists on Arthurian Legends. The King’s Legacy “I hope you are rolling in your grave brother, I will find your son, and I hope he is like you. I will ruin him and gain a lovely weapon in the process.” Cenred spat on the grave, “I win Balinor.” .Sequel posted. The Warlock’s Quickening (First in the Albion Cycle) Merlin might have come to Camelot to master his magic, not to end the Purge, but he’s not going to sit idly by while his kin suffer. Oh no. Whether it’s releasing a chained dragon, smuggling sorcerers out of the city, or trying to change Arthur’s mind, he’s fighting back. Now. Series rewrite beginning after 1X02 featuring Proactive!Merlin. AU.

8) Dragon Ball Under the Radar (Gohan/Videl) Gohan is living life as a secret superhero, but Videl is making it her business to find him out! How will Gohan manage her and Saiyan hormones? Will he fess up? Or will he try to live his life -puts on sunglasses- “Under the Radar”? *applause* Thank you! Thank you! And GOODNIGHT! G/V obviously. Rated T because adult situations and language in later chapters. COMPLETE! Golden God (Mature) To save the lives of millions, Gohan is forced to expose himself as a Super Saiyan, proving that his tricks are indeed very real. And it drives the whole world to insanity. Warning; becomes a little graphic goes as it on. Walking Towards the Sunset Bardock’s curse sends him to a mysterious place where weaklings are abundant and an odd trio claim to be his family. Eventually giving in, he stays with them to discover that Earth is more unlucky than Planet Vegeta. Impatiently waiting for his son’s arrival, Bardock has to survive a new life with his estranged family and a certain girl set on finding the truth. (Saiyaman-Buu Saga) Plus One (Gohan/Videl, Mature) Tired of being pursued by the gold-digging, glory-seeking, Satan obsessed freaks of the world, Videl will resort to the only method open to a celebrity like her to find Mr. Right. 9) Sailor Moon (Mainly SenshiShitennou) The Crystal Age (Rewritten) In an alternate version of Season 1, as a result of Beryl’s curse at the end of the Silver Age, Tuxedo Mask and the reincarnated Shitennou are fighting a losing battle to save the city and find the lost princess. Sailor Moon has disappeared, Sailor V is working on her own, and the other Senshi are still just ordinary girls. Sequel to The Silver Age. MxU, SxS. Please R&R. Hooligans It’s after Galaxia and time for University. The Senshi and Mamoru settle into life in Great Britain and meet some old friends. Inner Senshi x Shitennou and Usagi x Mamoru. Modern Timeline. Strong language, crude humour, hilarity and sexual situations abound, be warned, there will be some heavy angst later on too. Never Gone R A single choice can change the course of Fate: a choice, say, like waking up on time. If that choice were made, Chiba Mamoru would never meet Tsukino Usagi; but, he WOULD meet Unami Seiya and the burden of Terra’s future would fall onto his shoulders. Never Gone AU. The Dinner Hour (Part of The Dinner Series) It can be hard to be patient in the face of eternity. But good things come to those who search and refuse to give up on their dreams. R/J. (Sequels: Dinner And Again, Dinner at Last completed!)

10) Les Miserables (Warning: Enjonine ahead) When Apollo Met Persephone (1st of the 1830s AU) The revolution, or at least the first part of it succeeds. Enjolras confronts political and personal realities. Eponine is suddenly faced with more opportunities than she ever thought. Can they guide each other in a world that needs them as much as they need it? Les Choses Qui Sont Arrivées Après “You must flee Paris at once.” Enjolras and Eponine. The thief and the leader, the marble Apollo and the dark street girl… two wholly different survivors of the Revolution are forced together under a dangerous circumstance. Can they successfully fight their demons as well as each other? Neither of them knows quite what is going on, or what will happen when they figure it out. Teacher of Man The first time Enjolras and Éponine meet, it is their wedding day. (arranged marriage AU) My Best Friend’s Wedding Éponine Thenardiér always thought that Marius would eventually come back to her, until the wedding invitation came in the mail. Now she is going to do everything that she can to get him back from that blonde tart Cosette. Nothing goes according to plan and even her partner in crime Enjolras is becoming an obstacle. E/E. 11) Naruto Beginnings Naruto was six years old when he met the man who changed his life. …Now he’s kind of just hoping he survives it. An Inch of Gold (Part of the Legacy of Fire series) Team 7 is sent on a mission to investigate a disturbance outside of the village, where they encounter an unconscious girl in a crater. The mysterious Sarada insists she’s a shinobi from the Hidden Leaf trying to rescue her teammates. When the team discovers she possesses a Sharingan, things become even more unbelievable. [Part of the Legacy of Fire Series] Guilt of Innocence Uchiha Sasuke abandoned Konoha in his persute of power to join Orochimaru. However, this was only a cover story. In fact, on Tsunade’s orders, Sasuke is to act as Konoha’s spy within Otogakure. One agreement and his path had changed forever… Blind (SasuSaku) It was almost time, Orochimaru was going to take his body as a vessel. He hated being used…he refused to be used. With that thought, he took the kunai in his hand and slashed across his eyes.

12) Legend of Zelda (Zelink) The Conviction to Save The princess is dead. Those are the words being whispered in the streets. A great shudder sweeps across the land of Hyrule as news of its beloved monarch’s passing spreads like wildfire. In the midst of the ensuing chaos, a humble village doctor happens upon the body of a gravely injured young woman on the road. Legend of the Miraculous (Concepts taken from Miraculous Ladybug) A legend retold through many a tale, but when a darkness resurfaces after so long, Athena and Sheikhan Wolf must return again! Will Link and Zelda be able to combat this threat? and will they figure out each others’ identities? Come inside and take a look! Hit List AU. It all started as a typical day at Ordon High, until a sudden school shooting turns the life of Link Hero upside down. Now, surrounded by enemies, can Link save his friends and escape the school alive? (Edit 10/2015) Counting Stars Link finds himself caught in the middle of an elaborate gang war. Lucky for him, being a B-list superhero makes that predicament a tiny bit easier. / Modern AU ZeLink, inspired by Spider-Man. Under Revision! 13) Hunger Games Vox Libertas Due to things playing out a bit differently in the last few minutes of the Quell, the rescue also goes a bit differently than expected. Now Peeta has the responsibility of representing the Rebellion thrust upon him. No pressure. *AU Mockingjay. Part I of Dandelion in the Storm AU. Mainly Peeta POV.* Someone To Watch Over Me (Everlark, 1st in the Series) A HG rewrite. What would happen if Peeta was just a little bit bolder, and Katniss a little less emotionally confused? You’d be surprised. Let the Games begin. This is an AU, but I’ve tried to stay as canon as possible. Rated T to be safe. Enthralled (Everlark, Gadge, Mature) Thrall (þræll), n., a slave or serf in Viking Age Scandinavia. After a successful raid, Gale is rewarded with a slave girl: the Saxon noblewoman Madge. Meanwhile, shieldmaiden Katniss grows closer to captive monk Peeta. Gadge/Everlark historical AU with background Odesta and other pairings. Katniss, Vampire Slayer (Mature) “Into every generation a slayer is born.” the man droned out slowly, quietly, in a way that made her think he was quoting something. “One girl in all the world. A chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer.” // Haymitch mocked. “One girl in all the world. Ain’t I just lucky it had to be you.” 14) How To Train Your Dragon Becoming Lífþrasir (Hiccstrid) People often wondered what kept Hiccup going during those early years. When that single, most-treasured thing is taken from him, there is little left to keep him on Berk. The day Stoick returns, and the day before the best recruit is finally chosen, Hiccup leaves Berk; little knowing that he would one day return under … strange circumstances. H/A, R/F, rated for violence. HTTYD Easter Special Sequel to “The Unholy Offspring,” set after the season finale. When Alvin the Treacherous threatens Asgard with a rogue demigod’s help, Hiccup and Berk’s Dragon Riders must prevent an early Ragnorak. It doesn’t help that Alvin has learned to tame dragons, and that the only god that can help Hiccup is a sullen, suspicious boy named Mud. Happy Eos week, Hiccup! The Blacksmith’s Apprentice (Hiccstrid) AU. Hiccup never took the shot on that fateful night-and the war continued. Three years later, Berk is beset by dragon raids and hostile tribes while the boy who should have saved the island is merely the assistant in the forge. With only Astrid as his friend, fate gives Hiccup one more chance to end the war and become the hero he was meant to be. Hiccstrid. Snap (Hiccstrid, Mature) He was just supposed to fix her back, and she doubted that at first. She definitely didn’t expect to get dragged into the ethics of a girlish crush. Modern AU. 15) Star Wars Double Agent Vader The one where Vader turned double agent for the Rebellion about three years after ROTS, and Leia is now his primary contact with the Rebellion. Or, a man attempts to escape slavery by turning into one of his culture heroes, teaching his daughter how to do magic, killing people, and flower arranging. A New History During a heated battle, Dooku escaped into the past! Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker follow to stop him, but discover that Dooku went to the past where Obi-Wan is a young padawan to a very much alive Qui-Gon Jinn. Now, the two must go undercover to stop Dooku’s plans from coming to fruition in order to save not only the future, but also young Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. Pulse AU for ROTS. As Padme’s life hangs in the balance on Mustafar, a stream of brilliant light causes Anakin to reconsider his choices. Jedi Shmi AU Shmi leaves Tatooine with Anakin and goes to the Jedi Temple.

#Stuff to do #while youre stuck inside #due to coronavirus #eastonia reccs #fanfiction recommendation

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power-of-ages-writeblr · 5 years ago

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11/11/11 Tag (22/11/11? Tag?)

Another one of these! This time, I was tagged TWICE by the wonderful @sassypandacandy (go read her books,, i love them). I’ve gotta answer the questions, come up with my OWN questions, and then tag 11 people to answer, only I’m not going to tag eleven people because I still don’t think I quite KNOW eleven people yet. Also, because I got tagged twice with two different sets of questions, I’m going to answer both sets in one post, and then just come up with eleven questions of my own, because it takes me yonks to come up with questions and I’m lazy. Eso si que es, y’know?

What’s the first thing you remember writing?

A four-page story about a Diplodocus when I was… definitely before I was ten years old. Maybe like five or six. I was very proud of it.

What’s the last thing you wrote purely for yourself?

Actually, I pretty much always write for myself, so the last thing that I wrote/started to write… ooh-er. That’d be the Warrior Cats fanfiction I’ve been working on. :P

Are you a WIP playlist person or a WIP aesthetics person?

Playlist, probably. I tend not to make playlists specifically for WIPs – instead, I’ll assign songs and soundtracks to specific characters and scenes – but I’m still better at throwing together playlists then making aesthetics LMAO

What’s a book you wish you’d written?

Uuuuh… maybe it’s just because I’m young (barely an adult), but I don’t have anything where it’s like “ah I wish I’d used that idea” or “wish I’d written this book”. I still have a lot of writing ahead of me, hopefully, so all my ideas I hope to actually get out some day. (Assuming that’s,,, what the question is asking me)

What’s your favourite book adaptation?

Ironic because it doesn’t follow the books that closely, but I love the How To Train Your Dragon films very much.

Which of your characters would you like to have a conversation with? What would you like to talk about?

The downside to Pandemonium’s Bane being filled with eccentric personalities and cooky characters means that there’s actually few of them I’d LIKE to have a conversation with, because most would be too dickish or too annoying for my tastes xDD That being said, I think me and Plue are on very similar wavelengths, and we have a lot in common (such as both of us wanting to write), so I wouldn’t mind chatting with her for a bit if I had to.

Which of your WIP worlds would you most like to live in?

The Power of Ages stories are mostly set in one universe (the Nimbus System) so I guess I’d have to go with that one by default. There’s Neil’s dimension, I guess, but it’s destroyed, so…

Have you ever written anything inspired purely by a song? If so, what song was it?

I haven’t written anything inspired just by a single song, but I HAVE got certain scenes or character backstories based off of songs, or even the concepts they’re based around. I have a whole battle between brothers planned out to the soundtrack that plays when Shifu fights Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda, and listening to the Iron Man soundtracks helped me with both the conception of a new character and her placement in my roster (and yes, she does invent things and fly around, although there are also some major differences)

Have you ever written poetry? Do you still? Why or why not?

I… haven’t written poetry. And the reason for that is… I mean, I guess it doesn’t really jibe with me? Granted I haven’t considered it heavily, but it was always my least favourite aspect of learning English at school, and I just never fell in love with it the same way I fell in love with writing conventional narratives.

Who would direct an adaptation of your writing?

I ain’t big on directors, so IDEK. I guess in terms of the rewrite of Maelstrom (my current main WIP) I’d pick Sam Raimi, who proved with his Spider-Man films that he can blend fun superhero narratives with slightly darker elements pretty well.

How do you motivate yourself when you don’t feel like writing?

Mainly by having multiple projects to work on! That way, if I ain’t feeling what I’m working on, I can switch over to another one, and bingo bango, I can keep writing. (Hypothetically. Sometimes it ain’t that simple, obviously.) I also use music, and I also take advantage of being in situations where it’s like, I’d rather write then do the alternative. Do you know how much writing I got done in lessons? So much. :P

What scenes are the worst to write?

The ones that I haven’t planned out – sometimes I have very specific ideas for how I want scenes to happen, and I’m excited to get to them, but other times they’re just obligatory because there’s certain information I have to convey. That makes it a challenge to write it in a compelling way, because why should the reader care if I don’t?

What can you say is a thing you love most about your writing?

I’d say I like the dialogue/character interplay/narrative description-y sort of stuff. I think I’m good at giving everything levity, and keeping it breezy and entertaining even if I myself find the writing process to be a bit of a slog. Plus, it’s funny to read back over, and it’s also funny to watch my discord quote a line and then keysmash at it. :P

What is writing advice that you take to heart?

It’s from Aaron Sorkin’s writing masterclass – the idea that a story is defined by the main character’s INTENTION, the OBSTACLE facing them, and the TACTICS they use to overcome it.

How do you keep yourself from quitting writing together?

Honestly, it’s not like I have to try that hard! By this point I’m desperate to tell these stories that I have in mind, so I have a sort of innate compulsion to write because I wanna get it all out there. I’ll get back to you if that compulsion runs out, but for now, I see myself writing long into the future.

What is the strangest thing you’ve searched up on the internet for writing purposes?

Probably the capabilities of medieval-era people to recognise nuclear technology. (And for the record, the answer is “pretty low”.)

Not a question, but shoutout a writeblr (or multiple) that you think needs to hear that they are awesome and doing a great job (by the way everyone, you all are awesome and doing a great job. Keep it up.)

Well obviously I’m gonna shout out the person who tagged me in the first place – Kels. I await the final(?) book in the DOOT series with great anticipation.

Your OCs are trapped on a deserted island, what would they be doing?

I WANNA say they’d try and work as a team, but, uh. It may not go so well. Dante and Plue would probably be the most practical. Gaia would be good at grunt work but not focus on the task at hand, Rose would be functionally useless but good at moral support, Jacen would try to organise things but Gaia would just push him in the sea for jokes… I reckon they’d escape eventually, I suppose, but it wouldn’t exactly be a clean-cut affair, you know? xD

What is your biggest inspiration for your WIPs?

I actually have various inspirations – I think collectively my biggest inspiration is the MCU, in that it’s a bunch of interconnected stories set in the same universe about different characters and also there are superpowers. xDD

A habit you have when it comes to writing?

Not doing it (thank you writer’s block)

A fact about your world and/or characters?

I have debated killing of MANY of my characters, but have only actually come to concrete decisions one way or the other with a few.

If your WIP/s got turned into a movie or series, what would be the quote on the promotional poster or trailer?

Oh, I’m gonna do this for ALL the WIPs, this seems fun!

Of Encounters and Trysts – Two Hearts, One Soul (or something equally cheesy)

Hit and Run – Even the indomitable aren’t invincible

Maelstrom – Destiny Begins

The Destroyer of Worlds – One Case, One Team, One Superpower

Survivor – It’s every man for themselves

Savants – Not so different

Omnia Vincit Amor – Good things come to those who get traumatised

Cometh the Hour – Six thousand years from home

Alright, now it’s (finally!) time for my eleven questiones:

1 – Does music help you write, or does it just distract you?

2 – What’s your favourite writing tool? A laptop? Notepad and pens? Quills and inkpot?

3 – Do you have to physically go to places to get a feel for them and feel as though you can set writing in them?

4 – What got you into writeblr?

5 – How well can your OCs dance, do you think?

6 – Do you have a favourite writing snack? If so, what is it?

7 – Bionicle. Thoughts?

8 – Is there a specific piece of media (movie, show, book, w/e) that you could say has been more of an inspiration to you than anything else?

9 – What’s the best soundtrack you know for getting pumped and hyped up?

10 – If you could only write one genre for the rest of your writing career, what would you go with?

11 – What’s your favourite music-based meme? (Examples include “LET’S GO”, “CREEPER/AWW MAN” and “We Are Number One But ___”)

Tagging… @thelimeonade, and @dawnuchiha!

#Not Power of Ages #Tag Game #11/11/11 tag #these questions are always fun to answer!!!

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sansy-fresh · 6 years ago

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halp

It’s time for the Semi-Annual “Fresh is Never Leaving This Fandom!” fic idea tour! In which under the cut I’m going to talk about fics I’m currently working on and how much longer I expect them to be, as well as long fics I have ideas for and how lengthy I expect them to be in the long run. There’s gonna be probably spoilers so look away if you don’t wanna see them! Also this is really long so be prepared for that.

I’m also going to be discussing some of the mini series that people have funded recently, so there’s that lol

Anyways, ranting and rambling under the cut!! This is more or less a way to keep excited about some of my ideas and get some of you hyped as well ^^ (And also a way to assure anyone wondering “hey, fresh has been here for a while, are they ever leaving?” that the answer is no, apparently not)

Current Fics

Okay so I have around 5 long fics, 1 series, and 1 mini series I’m currently working on. They are as follows:

A Silver Chain: A fic about vampire Honey and polyruses with the other Paps being hunters. Is well on its way but needs re-done in a few places so its currently on hiatus.

Little Fangs: A fic about Dadby and older bro Papyrus with babybones and Badster. Is not even close to halfway done, depending on how far I end up going with the narrative. Might end up being one of the longest fics I write.

Moral Compass: A fic about assumed bad brothers and possible Blackcherry goodness. Is basically 3/4ths done at this point, isn’t meant to be a super long one. Was pretty much completely funded by @1readervb so shout out to them for being a super cool peep.

Hold Myself Together: A fic about Bad Bro Red and how Fell gets a better life. Just started, but based on how long the first iteration of this story was, I’d say this one will be a little longer than C&S ended up being.

Garish: A fic about a Reader who ends up with the Swell bros as roommates. Might end up being both Reader/Swell bros and Reader/Fell bros, but I haven’t decided. Just started, might be a long one.

Bitter White Memory: A series about how Fell and Stretch get together based on an attempt to keep the Edgelord feeling safe. Only has two parts so far so nowhere near done. I’ve just been too busy to write the next part lol whoopsies

Cherries in Snow: A funded mini series about abused Red falling into Undertale, with Kustard and a little tiny helping of Cherryblossom. One chapter so far, but there should only be about five so it won’t take super long.

There’s also two more mini series that have been funded, but one I only have part of the info on and the other I have no info on, so they haven’t been started yet. (One of them is about Omega Paps in a A/B/O world so that’ll be fun ;;;))

Fics I want to Continue/Rewrite

This is a list I didn’t know I was adding until I was in the middle of making this post. There are a few fics I’ve started and then pretty much abandoned, or that I left behind because I no longer wanted to write them. They are:

The Reset Conundrum: A fic that I wrote a long time ago and never finished about Papyrus and Sans going through the Resets and various endings together, with a happy ending of course. It was a popular one, but I never finished it because I got bored with the idea. I was thinking about it recently and kind of wanted to revisit the idea. Its on this list because I might just do it.

The Ole Razzle Dazzle: A fic I started and then revamped as a fic about Razz and Slim and how they react to a pacifist Chara moving through the Underground. Kinda looking forward to this one, not going to lie.

Sparks and Wires: A fic that I started because of my love for the game D:BH and its androids. About Android Honey and his owner Fell, and how they fall in love. Basically self indulgent Spicyhoney lol

Long Fic Ideas

So just about once every other week I get a new fic idea, and if I like them enough (and can actually imagine myself writing them) I write them down in a doc. Now I’m going to talk about them all in as much detail as I have so ya’ll get comfy this is gonna be a long’n. (These are not up for adoption they are things I plan to write myself.)

The Great: A fic idea @badgertablet came up with and I helped round out. Ambassador Paps with a side of Polyruses and lots of angsty pining and hurt/comfort. Is going to be a longer fic, since there’s a lot of background stuff and quite a bit to set up. I’m really really looking forward to this one though, is going to be a gift for Badg (but shoosh no one tell them).

Family Portrait: A fic idea for Middle Bro Gaster with Paps and Sans. Basically going from Sans’ birth to Gaster falling into the Core to the kid saving everyone and Sans pulling Gaster back out of the Void. Is going to be super long, so probably won’t get to this one for a while lol

Scattered Pieces: A fic idea for a character getting bitties that helps their life out. Lots of angst and hurt/comfort, as each bitty has its own backstory of woe. One I’ve had planned for a while but haven’t been able to sit down a write.

A Concerted Effort: A fic idea where Fell and Stretch have a one night stand and Fell ends up pregnant. The two of them don’t get along super well most of the time so its not like he can tell him, right?? Another old idea I just haven’t started yet lol.

Itty Bitty Teenie Weenie: A fic idea where a different character gets some specialty bitties, ones that need a bit more help than others. In the same universe as Scattered Pieces, probably going to be written after that one.

Segregation: A fic idea that @nurse-gaster came up with that I adopted. Bledgeup in a world where Fell monsters and Tale monsters live on different sides of the fence, a literal fence in this case. Going to be a gift for Nurse when I start writing it lol.

Recovery: A fic idea where a personal character of mine fosters special needs bitties and ends up with one for himself. Is part of a two fic series.

Caramelized Apples: A fic idea where my Caramel version of Slim ends up pregnant. I haven’t decided how yet, but its hurt/comfort and fluff, so no hard angst here!

Edgy but Smiling: A fic idea where an anxious Reader ends up with a Sansy and an Edgy who just want a good home.

You Got Me All Fired Up: A fic idea with Sans/Dante (my UF Grillby). I don’t know I just really like Sans and Fellby together and I want to write a slowburn.

Harried and Torn: A fic idea about Spicykustardpuff with lots of angst and hurt/comfort and maybe some fluff along the way. A slowburn because I’m a masochist.

Nice To Eat’cha: A fic idea based on the Asian side of the fandom’s art of Farmer Sans/HT Sans. Won’t be farmer Sans, but it will be a slowburn of Sans and Butch learning how to not judge each other for their own sins.

Seen in Glorious Splendor: A fic idea I had earlier today actually. King Fell, with possible Edgepuff or Polyruses, I haven’t decided yet. My own take on how Fell takes over as King of the Underground from Asgore.

There are a lot of iterations of Skelebros/Reader I want to write, so I’m just throwing a blanket over them called “Eventually”. Them being namely Swap Bros/Reader, Tale Bros/Reader, a reverse harem in my style, HT Bros/Reader, and something just Papyrus/Reader (which Papyrus you ask? all.)

And my Magnum Opus, Safe House, will be the last fic I write for this fandom. So when I start posting that, you’ll know we’re nearing the end.

#fresh babbles #fic plans #long fic ideas #oneshot ideas #series ideas #fresh rants #spoilers #idk a lot of rambling #if i forgot a fic idea then ill just die i guess

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a-tale-of-legends · 3 years ago

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Okay. So. With my oc's comes the question: are there any harbored feelings against the adults? Let's start with Jin.

Jin, as I've said before, started their journey with a strained relationship with their father, but as the years went by that relationship started to get better. No lingering feelings there( okay just a little buts it's fine).

Wallace and Steven.... In emerald, Steven helps a tad, and in my version of this story Zinnia is, well, she's not an ally but she's not an enemy( depending on what she needs anyway). However, having to face Team Magma and Team Aqua( with the assistance of Kohaku and Wally) AND summon Rayquaza by themselves, I wouldn't be surprised if they're some resentment there in the Jin's earlier years. Maybe, I'll have to think about it.

As much as I like to joke about Maxie and Archie being better father figures than Norman, they still did endanger a child, as well as kinda just, force them to fix the problem. It takes a while for Jin to actually talk to them ( mind you, they don't forgive them for their actions, but they do appreciate the effort to right there wrongs.....after their released from jail.)

In my HGSS rewrite, Lance and the gym leaders all help out, and Lance generally tries to keep the kids out of harms way( but he fails because those kids are noisy and will get involved)

I'm rewriting Cynthia to be more involved in the plot, maybe having some connections to Cyrus. She's actually deemed as a threat to Team Galactic, so they're actively trying to take her out. It doesn't work....until it does. Take away her pokemon and trap her in the distortion world. Well, the last part was an in the moment thing given Giratina, but it works! So, sadly, Danica has to face Giratina and Cyrus by herself ( this might be changed in the future, especially since this is kinda a reckon of what I've said earlier about the events that happen in the Distortion World)

Alexis and Elliot: No hard feelings. They helped saved Unova. Alder only really pushed Alexis' role as the Hero due to N literally giving no other options. And N( who was 18 then in my universe), is well....N. They're relationship is for a different post.

B2W2 is going to be weird, cause the majority of the adults don't do much.....which is weird. Now, your probably thinking " oh what about Cheren and Bianca?!" There canonically 16 by B2W2, as well as in my universe. So it's just a bunch of teens trying to fix this terrorist problem. Given I really loved how the gym leaders came in and helped save the day, I want something similar to happen here. But you could also argue that the gym leaders like Burgh, Clay, Roxie, Drayden, and kinda Marlon helped the protagonist in a way. Burgh and Roxie helping take care of team Plasma on their towns, Clay giving a bit of introspection, Drayden literally trying to save his City from completely turning to ice, and Marlon opening the gates. Oh! And N tried to help to.

Here the thing. B2W2 is strange in the sense that after Opelucid City, which should have been a bug wake up call, other gym leaders/ adults should have helped. But where would that even go? The story is not about them anymore. There's no debating here, its just violence. The ex- Team Plasma members actually contribute to the story and help the trainer in a similar fashion to the gym leaders in BW. But it still weird that there isn't much of a reaction? Idk, what are y'all's thoughts.

I love Sycamore and Diantha with all my heart and soul, and they were most definitely more proactive in the Team Flare debacle. But they also failed these kids. Augustine did try to talk to Lysandre. But it wasn't enough, he was to far gone. But Dante? There was a chance, and sadly he missed it. This man is horribly at pre-planning. Dante forgives him, especially since he had nothing to apologize for, but Jude was a bit more hesitant. With Diantha, Jude hated her guts for a while because they thought she did absolutely nothing, even after she revealed her ( and the E4) identities.

Aster......oof. Another hard one. I feel like Kukui would know before hand about what this child has been through. That plus Lillie,the takes extra care to make sure the kids are okay. For example, when Guzma shows up, instead of letting the Aster battle him, he's more protective of her, and confronts Guzma himself ( especially with Guzma's signature line, even if he just means pokemon battles). However, given with literally everything else happening, and Alola's tendency to just sweep everything under a rug and outcast those who don't fit, there is some neglect when it comes to Lillie's situation. Party because they want Lillie to feel comfortable and grow on her own, and partly because that would mean taking on Lusamine who has lots of money and a gaint Island to herself. That doesn't justify anything, but yeah. Pretty bad. Aster doesn't really connect the dots until she's a bit older tho.

I've made that big post about the pokemon champions and adults, so you can already assume how Naomi and Carol feel about this. But long story short: Naomi is okay with it until she isn't, growing tired of constantly being sidelined from helping. And Carol never liked it but held their tongue for Naomi and Hop. There relationship with Leon is.... complicated. Wut Sonia and Raihan though, it's all chill.

#my pokemon oc

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arisefairsun · 7 years ago

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What books and/or other works of Shakespeare do you recommend for someone who is undeniably obsessed with Romeo and Juliet and fascinated with Macbeth?

Ah, these are my two favorite plays! Let’s see now.

You might enjoy the following Shakespearean plays if you are undeniably obsessed with Romeo and Juliet (it’s a beautiful feeling that, isn’t it?):

Antony and Cleopatra. It is no coincidence that Juliet’s mother is dressed up as Cleopatra in Luhrmann’s movie. The play is filled with unrestrained sensuality, with a very strong-minded woman as one of its leading roles. (Cleopatra is also the female character with most lines in all of Shakespeare’s plays.) It also offers an interesting insight into gender roles, which are to an extent subverted again. Moreover, the deaths of the protagonists resemble those of Romeo and Juliet in that they die partly as a consequence of misleading circumstances: Romeo and Antony believe their lovers to be dead, so they lamentably commit suicide. Coleridge himself thought that Antony and Cleopatra should be ‘perused in mental contrast with Romeo and Juliet’, so do give it a try!

Othello. It is similar to Romeo and Juliet in that Desdemona and Juliet both defy the conventions of their world in marrying a man who is not socially acceptable for them. Though their love stories evolve differently, both couples are very affectionate, inherently good to each other—but they are lamentably destroyed by social oppression. Othello is one of the most sorrowful and sublime stories I have ever read, so I truly recommend it!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’m not that into the comedies, but I believe it would also be a good read. Both were written around the same time and share numerous themes. For instance, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe is considerably relevant in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, something that clearly echoes the love of Romeo and Juliet. The play presents, again, patriarchs refusing to acknowledge their daughters’s liberty; but it’s a comedy, so nobody dies for once! ;)

Richard II. Yet another play that’s especially preoccupied with language.

The sonnets. They are a must read if you wish to read more about love.

“The Phoenix and the Turtle”. It is a beautiful poem about ideal, perennial love, capable of merging the lovers so profoundly that they become a single entity. It is quite obscure, though, but you will find a lot of analyses on the Internet.

As for non-Shakespearean stories, it can be interesting to have a look at the various versions of the Romeo and Juliet story through the centuries:

La Divina Commedia (Purgatorio VI, vv.106-108) by Dante. He mentions the feud between the Montagues (Montecchi) and the Capulets (Cappelletti).

Novellino (33rd story) by Masuccio Salernitano.

Hystoria novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti by Luigi da Porto.

La sfortunata morte di dui infelicissimi amanti by Matteo Bandello.

Histoire troisième de deux Amants by Pierre Boaistuau (translated from Bandello).

The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke. This one is particularly interesting, given that Shakespeare’s play is mainly based on it. Knowing which aspects of Brooke’s poem Shakespeare decided to keep and which he decided to alter can enrich your reading of Romeo and Juliet. It is available as a PDF here.

The Palace of Pleasure by William Painter. Shakespeare is also thought to have consulted this version.

If you are interested in reading the Italian sources, I suggest that you buy Romeo and Juliet: Original Text of Masuccio, da Porto, Bandello and Shakespeare (all the texts are translated into English).

Here are some interesting rewritings which were very influential over the centuries and are therefore worth considering:

Castelvines y Monteses (so Capulets and Montagues) by Spanish playwright Lope de Vega. Written a few decades after the Bard’s play, his ending might not be so tragic ;)

The History and Fall of Caius Marius by Restoration writer Thomas Otway. Combining Shakespeare’s plot and characters with one of Plutarch’s stories, it is extremely similar to Romeo and Juliet (to the point that it keeps many of the Bard’s words, namely the ‘wherefore art thou’ line). Set in ancient Rome and especially preoccupied with politics, it displaced Shakespeare’s version from the stage from 1680 to 1735. Although Otway’s play is rather unknown nowadays, our perception of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is still influenced by it. He is the reason we still believe there is a balcony scene in the play even if it is undeniably a window in Shakespeare. Such was the success of his retelling that its influence still lives nowadays. It’s interesting to consider that Romeo and Juliet was constantly subject to rewritings and revisions over the centuries, so its current status as one of the most iconic stories of Western culture partly comes from these adapted texts as well as Shakespeare’s original play. While it is indeed fascinating to read these rewritings and discover how the story was perceived by each generation, they are not particularly interesting from a feminist point of view. Otway’s version, among many others that followed, manages to contain Juliet’s boldness and also deprive Romeo of his ‘unmanly’ behavior, which I think is an important ingredient of his character. Their relationship is far less subversive and they do not transcend the social conventions of their world as intensely as Shakespeare’s lovers. But this conception of Romeo and Juliet is still present nowadays to some extent. In paintings and other portrayals of the scene, why is Juliet usually represented as a timid, still woman up on the balcony, with an ardent Romeo wooing her underneath? That reminds me of Otway’s characters rather than those of the Bard. In Shakespeare, Juliet takes control of the scene: not only is she equally passionate, but she is also far more straightforward than Romeo, encouraging him to express himself earnestly and actively making wedding plans on her own. Food for thought.

David Garrick’s rewriting of Romeo and Juliet. Adjusting the play to the preferences of his time, he revised Shakespeare’s text, adding new dialogue and altering that which did not please him. For instance, he made Juliet wake in time to share one last dialogue with Romeo (something that can be found in Otway’s play as well as in some of the Italian sources). This was the preferred ending in performances of the play until the 19th century, and is still quite recurrent nowadays, perhaps most famously in Luhrmann’s movie.

Other stories similar to Romeo and Juliet which come to my mind are the following:

“Pyramus and Thisbe” by Ovid. These star-crossed lovers attempt to escape together when their parents oppose to their love. Pyramus, believing Thisbe to be dead, takes his own life; after finding his lifeless body, she takes his sword and joins him in death. The tragic deaths of the lovers as a consequence of mischance inspired Italian writers to frame the deaths of Romeo and Juliet in a similar fashion. Perhaps you will also enjoy other stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. These may not be straightforwardly reminiscent of Shakespeare’s lovers, but they are all splendid and therefore worth a read. My favorites are Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion and Galatea, Psyche and Cupid, and Echo and Narcissus—Juliet actually mentions Echo in the orchard scene, so it can enrich your understanding of Romeo and Juliet. (Other classical characters mentioned in the play are Cupid, Aurora, Phaeton, Venus, Diana, Jove, Danae, Dido, Hero, Helen of Troy… I hope I don’t forget any.) I truly recommend that you get your hands on a copy of the Metamorphoses, not only because it is a magnificent book but because Shakespeare’s plays are all replete with references to Ovid. Other classical lovers worth mentioning are Dido and Aeneas, and Hero and Leander. (Kit Marlowe wrote a poem about the latter.)

The Ephesian Tale of Anthia and Habrocomes by Xenophon. This is where the idea of Juliet’s faked death comes from.

Have With You To Saffron-Walden by Thomas Nashe. Many of Mercutio’s and the Nurse’s lines, among others, might have been inspired by this pamphlet—including the allusion to Tybalt as the Prince of Cats.

‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford. This is one of the wildest plays I’ve read and also one of my favorites. It is full of trigger warnings, though, so proceed with caution. The plot follows the love affair between two siblings, and it is similar to Romeo and Juliet in that there is a friar who functions as the counselor of the male lead, while the female protagonist has a nurse as her confidant.

“To a Lady Who Presented to the Author a Lock of Hair Braded With His Own, and Appointed a Night in December to Meet Him in the Garden” by Lord Byron. This is probably the most hilarious poem I know. Byron basically declines the lady’s proposal arguing that if Shakespeare had written Romeo and Juliet at Christmas, or if he had set the story in England, surely he wouldn’t have chosen a garden for the passionate scene between Romeo and Juliet. It’s. Just. Pure. Sass.

Tristan and Iseult by Béroul. Although there are various versions of this tale, that of Béroul is most likely the most famous one. This is a story about star-crossed, tragic love, its force capable of transcending the confines of death itself. Interestingly, Wagner’s Liebestod, originally composed for Isolde’s bereavement after Tristan’s death and a tribute to the consummation of love in death, starts playing after Juliet’s suicide in Luhrmann’s movie. What a beautiful and symbolic choice by Luhrmann!

Il canzioniere by Petrarch, of course. Romeo is an ardent diehard fan of that book and probably has a poster of Petrarch in his room. Shakespeare’s play is full of Petrarchan motifs, so it’s worth a try! Romeo will be offended if you don’t read it (but Mercutio will give you a high five).

La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas. This Spanish tragicomedy has been compared to Romeo and Juliet, not only because both plays tell the story of ill-starred lovers, but because the protagonist of La Celestina is similar to Juliet’s Nurse. Do read it if you are interested in this archetype and tragic love, combined with comic undertones.

Galician-Portuguese poetry. For me, the poems written in Galicia and Portugal in the Middle Ages are some of the most beautiful expressions of love ever created. The soul of these poems is very close to that of Romeo and Juliet; you’ll find that many of the themes appear also in the dialogues between Shakespeare’s famous lovers. For instance, there are many examples of an aubade in Galician-Portuguese literature, so if you enjoy Romeo and Juliet’s morning song, you should give it a try. I especially recommend the compositions known as cantigas de amigo because they are generally spoken by a woman. (Amigo means ‘friend’ in modern Galician and Portuguese, but back then it could also be used to refer to a lover—much like Juliet’s use of the word when she says: ‘Love, lord, ay husband, friend.’) Those known as cantigas de amor usually express a man’s grief over his unrequited love for a woman who is either married, sworn to chastity, or simply uninterested—much like Romeo in the first act of the play. If you enjoy the silly jokes of Romeo and Juliet, i.e. Mercutio’s constant use of double entendres, then do read some cantigas de escarnio e maldicir, which are basically satirical and witty compositions written to insult someone.

As for Macbeth, some Shakespearean plays worth reading are his other major tragedies:

Hamlet.

Othello.

King Lear.

Do read Richard III and Julius Caesar for more exploration of tyranny and the destructiveness of power.

As for other writings relevant to Shakespeare’s play, I should mention Holinshed’s Chronicles, which supplied the Bard with the main plot of the Scottish play. (He also might have consulted George Buchanan’s Rerum Scoticarum Historia and John Leslie’s De Origine, Moribus, te Rebus Gesties Scotorum.)

These are other stories that you may enjoy, some of which could have also inspired Shakespeare while writing Macbeth:

Medea. She is the true queen of my heart: an indomitable and unstoppable woman whose insatiable need for vengeance incites her to cruelty. She is a wonderful character, her course of thought and action forming one the most compelling fictional masterpieces I have ever read. There are several writings dealing with this character, namely Euripides’s tragedy Medea, or Ovid’s narration of her deeds in Book 7 of his Metamorphoses. However, perhaps the most relevant version here is Seneca’s play, also titled Medea: his heroine and Lady Macbeth share, among other things, their rejection of female nature in order to achieve the boldness necessary for their sinister plans. Lady Macbeth’s speech at 1.5 may echo that of Medea in Act 4.

Seneca’s work. Apart from his Medea, other plays reminiscent of Shakespeare’s play are Hercules Furens and Agamemnon. Other classical references in Macbeth include Hecate, Neptune, Bellona, Tarquin (also present in Shakespeare’s wonderful poem The Rape of Lucrece) and one of my favorite characters of all time, Medusa. (I hope I don’t forget any again?)

Montaigne’s Essays. Macbeth’s destructive need to control the future and the baleful force of imagination can be found in some of Montaigne’s writings, especially ‘Of the force of imagination’ and ‘Our affections are transported beyond our selves’.

As for witchcraft, I’m sure there are multiple writings about this matter in the early modern period, but these are the ones that I either have read or look forward to doing so eventually:

Newes from Scotland.

Daemonologie by James VI and I. Quite a few themes present in this work are echoed in Macbeth.

The Witch by Thomas Middleton.

The Late Lancashire Witches by Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome. It is based on the real-life events of some women who were accused of witchcraft.

Enjoy!

#answered #thoughts #Shakespeare #Romeo and Juliet #Macbeth #long post #thanks for the ask!#for Macbeth I would recommend my *future* book if it were finished #it's some kind of Gothic mixture of Macbeth and Jane Eyre

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mosylufanfic · 7 years ago

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Signs of Trauma

Written for Killervibe Week, Day 6 - Future

Well, this is extremely near future, but it’s still future at the moment. Earlier this week, I woke up with this concept in my head and thought, Awww, that shouldn’t be too hard to write. I can knock it out in about 500 words.

2.5k words and no fewer than three rewrites of the ending later: Fucking hell.

It’s also a loose sequel to Forgiveness (you can’t imagine) so there’s that.

Signs of Trauma

When Cisco opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Caitlin sitting at her computer.

He was always shocked by her pale hair, even though he'd been looking at it for two and a half months now, ever since she'd come back to Central City. It always seemed as if she should be able to shed it like an unflattering wig and be old Caitlin again, dark reddish hair and no powers at all.

But she couldn't, of course. This was who she was now.

She held something in her hands, rubbing her thumbs over it.

He shifted in the bed and couldn't stop the groan of pain. Everything hurt. Everything. Especially his head. Man oh man, why could his head never win a game of Skull vs. Concrete?

Caitlin's head jerked around, and then she got to her feet, dropping the thing she held next to her keyboard. It was something on a chain, slithering silvery out of her fingers. "Stay still," she said, checking things on the machines he was hooked up to.

"Not a problem," he mumbled.

She reached out toward his face. He jerked away and then wished he hadn't, because it made his head bang like a drum, and her face had gone curiously still.

"Your fingers are cold," he said, although she hadn't managed to touch him.

"Yes," she said. "They are."

She dropped one hand to her side and lifted the other a little higher, with the penlight in it, flicking it into his eyes. Checking for uneven pupils or delayed dilation. He held very still even though he wanted to flinch again.

She clicked the light off and dropped the penlight into the pocket of her lab coat. "Do you know your name?"

"Francisco Armando Ramon," he recited. "I'm on Earth-1, in Central City at Star Labs. The date is October 12, 2017. I'm in my right mind."

A year ago, she would have sniped "Debateable" if she'd thought he'd taken a ridiculous risk, and it was always her opinion that his risks were ridiculous when they got him hurt.

Now, she just said, "Anything else hurt besides your head?"

"Yeah, but not in the broken bone kind of way."

"Just in the general bounced-off-the-street kind of way?"

"Uh-huh."

"I'll get you some pain meds."

He glanced over at the sliver of the cortex he could see. It looked like evening, or the middle of the night. He frowned, which made his temples throb. "Hey, how long was I out?"

"Over three hours."

He gulped. "That's not good, is it?" The longer you were out after hitting your head, the more of a chance you wouldn't wake up. He knew that after Dante -

Well, anyway. He knew that.

"Better now that you're awake," she said. "But I'm going to be monitoring you." She stepped out of the room, and he heard her sternest voice say, "Five minutes."

Barry and Wally both swarmed in, talking like speedsters, apologizing, asking how he was doing, telling him how awesome he'd been in the fight before he'd gotten bounced off the street. All that was pretty nice, but it was making his head throb again, so when Caitlin glared her iciest glare and they both left, he breathed a very small sigh of relief.

"Pain meds," she said, and handed him two pills and a large glass of water. He gulped both down, praying for them start working ASAP.

She took the glass back. "Do you want me to contact Cindy?"

The water had hit his stomach like a bowling ball. Maybe chugging it had been a bad plan. He rubbed his belly. "How? She's on 19."

"I don't know. Don't you have ways?"

"Yeah, opening a breach. And I don't think that's a good idea right now, do you?"

"I'm just saying, I think she'd want to know that you got hurt."

Cisco tried not to clench his teeth. She hadn't been around for most of Cindy's time on Earth-1. Why was Caitlin acting like she knew his girlfriend now? "She has her ways of knowing when I'm in real danger. Actually, the fact that she's not here is a good sign."

"Oh, is it?"

"Mmmhm. I'll let her know what happened later, when my head's better."

She held her hand out. He put the glass in it. She took it away.

He rubbed his stomach some more and scowled.

The thing was, he had a gadget in his lab that could toss a targeted message in a bottle through the dimensions. He always felt the effect of it, like a brief gnawing on his brain stem, and it would probably be worse right now. But he could do it.

He didn't want to worry Cindy, though. She was tracking a rough customer right now, and he wasn't about to distract her in the middle of that. Like he'd told Caitlin, if he was in real danger, Cindy would know.

He ignored the thought of how pissed off she'd be when he finally did get around to mentioning it.

He glanced at the door, then slipped off the bed. For some reason, he was incredibly curious about what Caitlin had been looking at when he came to.

It sat next to her keyboard, a dark-blue enameled Star of David on a sterling silver chain that squiggled around it like a moat.

He caught his breath.

He'd bought it at a farmer's market, one day when they were cutting through for - actually, he didn't remember. He did remember her pausing at the jewelry stand, lingering over this pendent the longest before saying, "Come on, we'll be late," and setting off again. He'd delayed long enough to buy it before chasing after her.

She'd said, "Oh, Cisco!" and "No, it's too much," and he'd finally gotten around her objections by reminding her that he'd forgotten to buy her a birthday gift the previous year. She'd taken it and put it on then, and for the rest of the afternoon, she would touch it with two fingers and a little smile.

Her voice said, "You shouldn't be out of bed," and he jerked. The necklace slithered out of his fingers and fell to the floor.

She crouched to pick it up. He stared at the side of her head, at the ice-white curl that had escaped her barrette and fell against her cheek. There was a wound turning to a scar on the side of her neck, livid against the pale skin. It hadn't been there when she came back, but it had appeared not too long after. Every time he asked what had happened, she suddenly developed temporary deafness.

The six-pointed star swung from her fingers, a holy pendulum twisting in the air.

"I didn't know you still had that," he said awkwardly.

"It was in a drawer," she said. "Back in the corner. You must have missed it when you cleaned out my desk."

"I - " he said. "We didn't know when - or if - "

"I didn't ask," she said, and put the necklace back in her top drawer.

He turned his back and went to the bed, climbing in, deliberately not lying down because he was doing just fine even if the pain pills had only cut the headache in half.

He watched her check numbers and make annotations and seethed with a resentment he didn't completely understand.

Of course she hadn't asked why they'd cleaned out her desk. Just like she hadn't asked why they hadn't contacted her when Barry went into the Speed Force, leaving him and Wally trying to keep a lid on Central City all by themselves. Or why Cisco hadn't told her mother what had happened or where she had gone.

She didn't ask for anything anymore.

"So, why were you looking at it?" he asked in a hard voice. "Were you praying or something?"

He didn't know why he said that. She hadn't been very observant even before Killer Frost, and that wasn't what it was for anyway. Maybe something about the way her head had been bowed.

She shook her head. "No," she said. "More like having a word."

He frowned. "With - ?" He pointed upward.

She looked at him sidelong as if to say, Who else?

He digested that. "So, what was the word?"

"It doesn't matter."

"The logical scientist having a word with the man upstairs? No, I think it matters, actually."

"Fine," she said. "If you must know, I was giving him fair warning that if you died, I was going to rip down the gates of heaven to get you back."

He didn't know what to say.

He settled on, "Oh." And then, "Will you need to?"

She looked at her numbers. "No, probably not."

"Good to hear."

She fussed with something on her desk. How often had he watched her fussing with something just like that? How many times had he waited for her to crack and tell him what was wrong?

That was before, though.

He said, "Caitlin - "

She said, "You can forget I said that if you want."

Then he really didn't know what to say

She shut down her computer. "I'm going to work in the next room."

"I thought you were going to monitor me."

She held up her tablet, where all his machines fed her data. "Hit the button if you need me," she said, and stepped into the next room.

He sat on the bed for awhile, feeling the pain in his head ebb like the outgoing tide. He kept hearing her voice, promising to bust him out of the afterlife when they barely even talked most days.

He slid off the bed again and went to the door between the two rooms.

"You know," she said without looking up. "I don't say things like you should be in bed and stay in bed and you need your rest to exercise my vocal cords."

"You need to give me time," he said.

She did look up then, staring at him out of those familiar root-beer-colored eyes. He'd seen them awash with tears and wide with horror and crinkled with laughter, but now they were a stranger’s eyes, flat and unreadable.

"I look at you," he stuttered. "And I - I see both of you. Caitlin, my best friend, and - and - "

"Killer Frost," she said, when his words lurched to a halt. "The monster who tried to kill you and all your friends on multiple occasions."

He swallowed. "It's not fair. I know it's not. But I can't stop seeing both of you, and it's like those old-timey 3-D movies, where you had to put on the special glasses, and if you didn't there were these two pictures just a little offset, in different colors, and they sort of gave you a headache and they sort of made you motion sick."

"Always nice to hear that you induce nausea," she said.

"You need to give me time," he said again.

She rested her head in her hand. "What do you think I've been doing, Cisco?" she asked, and her voice wasn't the cool, detached, occasionally sarcastic voice she'd been using ever since she'd returned. It trembled, as if tears nibbled at the edges of her throat. "I've been giving you nothing but time."

He shook his head. "Not true. You've been giving me space, too. Way too much. It feels like you're on the moon even when you're two feet away." And I miss you.

"What else should I do, when you can't even stand for me to touch you?"

He remembered flinching away from her earlier, and bit his lip. "Not just physical space. You're doing that turtle thing you do. Closing yourself in. And I - " This was hard to admit. He had always been able to do this. “I don’t know how to coax you out again.”

"Are you sure you want to? Or is this just misplaced sentimentality for the person I used to be?"

"Cut me a fucking break," he said impatiently. "You've been busting your ass for this team. People have done worse to us than you did, and we still worked with them even when they didn’t so much as say sorry. We're tender-hearted idiots who believe in people. It's our thing."

"But you never trusted them. Not really."

"None of them were you. And Caitlin - even if we never talk anymore, even if I'm still struggling with reconciling the two pieces of you - listen to me. I'm not lyin' here." He looked her in the eyes. "I'd still rip down the gates of heaven for you."

Her eyes widened. She closed them and swallowed. He watched the swallow move down her throat, flexing the mysterious scar.

She opened her eyes again. "I want to believe you," she said. "But I'm not the person I used to be. That person was your friend, and I'm - "

"Different," he finished. "Yeah, I know. But we never signed an oath in blood that we'd stay exactly the same for the rest of our lives. That's not a condition of friendship. How much have I changed, just since we met? A lot, I bet."

She worried her bottom lip. God, how familiar was that little tic?

He wanted to see her, he realized with a jolt. The real her. Not his memories of Killer Frost or of old Caitlin. Both those women were gone. Maybe forever. And this woman here in front of him - she was who had come back. And he wanted to learn who she was.

"Come back in the lab," he said. "Hang out with me for a little while. We'll watch a movie or something, I don't know. Just let me get to know the person you are now, because I have a pretty good feeling I'll like her."

For a minute, he thought she was going to stay where she was, stuck in her chair, too far away. And he didn't know if he had the strength to drag her out the way he had so many times before. All those times, the chasm hadn't been between them. This time, it was.

Then - "Okay," she whispered. "Okay."

FINIS

#Cisco Ramon #Caitlin Snow #killervibeweek #fanfiction #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #writing as therapy #I have too many Feelings #the flash

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evajellion · 8 years ago

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Part 4, where things get really dumb

Hey, wanna see a team-up and rivalry that makes zero sense as I continue this riff?

Because you’re going to get one.

A/N: You guys want it? You got it. The Samus and Luigi and Dante and Nariko chapter. Enjoy.

That means this was someone’s fan suggestion, which I checked the reviews to confirm.

Richie didn’t plan all of this ahead of time that means, which is… kind of a bad decision, unless you really, really know what you’re doing. Richie of course, does not. He could have benefitted from planning all of the rivalries, and how each scenario would play out so they aren’t ridiculous and one-sided.

Luigi was exploring Haunted Mansions where he hear some footsteps behind him. Taking out his Poltergust 3000, he turns to the footsteps nervously.

Bolding the hilarious typo, I should be on the look out for these more often.

I know it’s a simple mistake and I do it to, but that’s why I ask for friends to help me in case my proofreading doesn’t catch everything.

Then Zero Suit Samus came around the corner. Luigi panicked and ducked under a piano. Samus approached him.

"Luigi! It's me, Samus!" She said banging on the piano top.

Luigi crawled out of the piano. "Oh… it's you, Samus. Why are you here?"

"I came here to find you. There been some recent activity going on. It seem that the Hands are back, being controlled by an unknown being" Samus said.

"What?! W-W-W-Why do you need my help?" Luigi asked.

"Because Mario is with Link at the moment and there been some merge with the other world too, now come along" Samus snarled as she dragged Luigi out.

"But what if the ghosts begin rampaging about?" Luigi cried.

"Then you can stop them later" Samus said. And they set off towards their destination.

Alright, now while the intro is creative, I still gotta ask, why this partnership?

Especially when the rivals they face have nothing in common. Also, Samus is a little too snippy here for my liking. I can understand not having the highest patience, but she should try to understand Luigi’s uncertainty about the situation.

Granted, I dunno much about Metroid to begin with, so eh.

"Oh wow. Some of those fighters-a are pretty scary" Luigi said scared as he and Samus walked by another.

"Courage, Luigi. It won't be far now. We're very close soon" Samus said.

"Soon? Soon it would be already too late" said a voice behind them. They turned to see Dante behind them pointing his twin pistols at Luigi.

"AAARRGGH! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!" Luigi pleaded.

OOC Counter: 11

Calm the fuck down Luigi, this is really out there for him. He would probably more likely just hide behind Samus.

Samus ran up to help him but Nariko blocked her path with her sword.

"You two should not be here. Leave now or face the power of my sword" said Nariko.

"OK. I choose… face the power of your sword" Samus said as she took out her whip-gun and clanged against Nariko's sword. Luigi ran away from Dante as Nariko joins Dante's side and Luigi joins Samus.

"Your friend here is a coward little girl" Dante smirked as he take out his rebellion sword "You two should forfeit when you have the chance."

"Don't count us out just yet. Luigi! Stop being afraid. Give them everything we got!" Samus ordered.

Luigi swallowed what most of his courage left and takes out his Poltergust 3000. "Alright, Samus. I'm ready."

Why are Nariko and Dont-- excuse me, Dante, antagonizing them? Dante is a jerk, but Nariko has no reason to. She would question them first on what they are doing there, then tell them that they should walk away from the situation at hand.

OOC Counter: 12

Generic scene where Master Hand begs for help, nothing new other than repetitive wording. Yawn.

Arriving back outside the mansion, Luigi turned to Samus.

"Tell-a me, Samus. Did Mario sent you to try to teach me how to be-a brave?" Luigi asked.

"He did. About time you noticed" Samus said "He wanted you to be more courageous to teach King Boo a lesson. Also, from our journey, you helped us save the universe."

"You're-a welcome" Luigi said as he prepared to head towards the mansion. "Thanks to you, I'm more prepared for any ghost, Boos or anything-a else that the mansions throw at me."

Samus and Luigi glowed blue. "That's more like it. Mission accomplished" Samus said.

This would be a nice scene you know, if there was any build-up to it.

Mainly in the rival scene, and against Polygon Man. Also, bolded the obvious typo.

… Ironically, I think their team-up, while nonsensical, is better than Nariko and Dante’s.

Dante was once again fighting demons as usual, till he received an surprising guest.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the 'princess'. What do you want, sweetheart?" Dante said as he held his rebellion high.

"I came not to have a quarrel with you" Nariko said "I still need to find a way to master this sword. But I came to ask for your assistance."

"Oh really? Well I fight alone, thank you very much" Dante said.

"Hear me out. The huge purple head has returned and seem to be merging worlds together, and soon, ours will be next" Nariko said.

"What? That huge purple bozo?" Dante smirked. "Alright... and it seem these other worlds has demons too right? This could be fun."

"I hope you feel like talking with your sword" Nariko said as she and Dante begin their journey together "cause there are opponents whom we have not crossed before."

Someone doesn’t know how Heavenly Sword ends, I bet you…

Why would Nariko ask a douche-y demon hunter to help her master her own sword? If she said “the worlds are being threatened, and I cannot go after King Bohan until I make sure that power hungry deity is gone for good”… that would be way more in her character, for one.

OOC Counter: 13

On that note, there are better options for Nariko to choose from. I don’t think she would have picked the demon hunter who she got into a pretty hostile fight with. The other opponents who were much friendlier, but just as skilled, would have been a much more reasonable choice.

And it’s obviously not because the characters were rivals in PSASBR, so they have to team up. Toro and Sackboy weren’t rivals, and later down the road, we have Heihachi and Zeus, along with Colonel Radec and Evil Cole (that chapter, I’m going to love tearing apart…)

Anyway, the rivalry scene is just copied from both Nariko and Dante’s. There’s nothing interesting, so I won’t paste it.

"If it ain't the sword wielding duo" Polygon Man said "Have you come to get beaten by me again?"

Polygon Man I think would be a bit more “high and mighty” when addressing former enemies. Here, he says “ain’t”… like he isn’t serious about this at all. Yeah, that isn’t something I could ever imagine Polygon Man using in a sentence.

Pretty clear Polygon Man is just a generic villain to Richie, thus why we had nothing interesting written about him, because he can’t do anything creative with our favorite, rejected mascot.

OOC Counter: 14

"It's not the sword, it's me. I have the power to control this sword" Nariko said.

No.

Fucking.

Shit.

This was already gone over in Nariko’s own scenario. If this takes place after her story in Arcade Mode, which is before the ending of Heavenly Sword. Why do you feel the need to repeat all of this, Richie?

This whole chapter proved that outside of a silly partnership, Richie didn’t know what to do with all four of these characters. Luigi and Samus are ridiculous, and have no reason to be fighting the two All-Stars… while Nariko and Dante here are just boring.

A/N: Now I'm gonna do a Villain chapter next with Bowser and Ganondorf and Zeus and Heihachi, and then place whom you wanna see next. Yeah, I beginning swapping partners so Heihachi will be with Zeus and Big Daddy will be with another character. So stayed tuned.

You should have planned this ahead of time then! Goddammit Richie, this isn’t hard! Go back and edit the intro then! Discuss with others what you should do!

Big Daddy never shows up anyway since Richie canned the fan-fic after 9-10 chapters, so there isn’t even a real loss…

Anyway, how can we improve this? Because I certainly have a bunch of pressing issues here.

And this one isn’t short either. This chapter? I made it go through a whole fucking rewrite, just so it made a lick of sense for my own satisfaction. Something I know I shouldn’t be doing probably, but fuck it!

Revoke having Luigi there, and make it normal Samus instead of the Zero Suit one. Instead, Samus decides to drag out Roy for the adventure, with the cooperation just as bizarre, but at least slightly sensible. Roy doesn’t get why Samus wants his help, when there were several options to choose from, but accompanies her willingly, and courageously.

Revoke Dante being there, and replace him with Isaac Clarke, to present a more interesting scenario. Isaac accidentally lands in her world, and Nariko says he would be able to return to his era possibly if they defeat Polygon Man. Isaac suddenly gets a headache with a vision, and Nariko says that his “strange power” could play a hand in locating Polygon Man. Isaac doesn’t know what he should do, other than help Nariko for now.

In the rival scene for the All-Star side, Isaac Clarke keeps questioning all the stuff that happens. He has constant visions about a pair of white gloves, being controlled by Polygon Man. Before he and Nariko go any further, they’re stopped by Samus and Roy, who heard what they had to say. Questioning the two All-Stars, Isaac is about to tell them what’s going on to avoid a fight, but Nariko tells them that its “their enemy”, so Roy and Samus have no business in it, thus leading to their battle.

In the alternate rival scene for the Smash side, Samus and Roy see the two All-Stars talking to each other. Samus questions if Issac is with the Galactic Federation, which Isaac denies, saying he’s just an engineer, one that’s been through “a lot”. Roy meanwhile, shows concern over the blade that Nariko wields, noting how it appears to be a powerful, legendary weapon. Nariko informs him that she’s a on a path that she cannot take back so easily. Roy learns that she means to exchange her life for using the sword. In order to “save them” from the madness they’ve gone through, Samus and Roy hope to make Nariko and Isaac turn back from the path they’re on.

Change the endings. On the Smash side, Samus and Roy are confused about what had happened, but believe that both worlds are at least at peace now, and they hope that the ones they faced are still alive. For the All-Star side, Isaac Clarke returns to his era, and Nariko is prepared to give up her life soon, something that Isaac tries to convince her not to do. It’s too late though, as she leaves to fight Bohan’s army one last time.

Whew… yeah, this won’t be the uh, last time I have to rewrite the whole damn rivalry that Richie made. Like this one, some of them are a complete mess. Granted, I’ve never played an FE game, so I doubt I’d do Roy any justice if I had to rewrite this.

The next chapter… will be easy for me at least. I’m not gonna have to change much.

#goddammitsupersaiyancrash

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