I simultaneously thank (and blame) Mai-HiME for luring me into the world of shoujo-ai (“girls love”/femslash/whatever-you-want-to-call-it) fan-fiction. Loads of pretty girls + magical powers + subtext + one dirty-minded 27-year-old = Hilarity Ensuing. It helps that there’s an actual lesbian character in canon (Shizuru, though at the point I am in the series, she isn’t quite as open about it as Bleach’s Chizuru). Surprisingly, she’s not the one character who’s the focus of my “pairing du jour”, but according to FanFiction.net, she’s practically the focus of everyone else’s. That honor would go to Mai and Natsuki, two of the main characters. What can I say? I like a challenge. Plus, they both have pretty good chemistry when they’re on screen, so…why the heck not? :heart:

Sadly, it’s very hard to find good fiction on these two at FF.net, since the search engine doesn’t recognize the slash (“/”), leading me to find completely unrelated pairings (and I really don’t like using “cutesy” portmanteau couple names, which this fandom and Avatar are completely nuts about). I find this little omission completely absurd, since most of fanfiction is “all about the slash” (bad pun very much intended). As I’ve already written 19 chapters of a planned 30 in a story for this pairing, I’ve been inspired to do even more in this category.

Next up: Sakura and Karin from Street Fighter, inspired partially after reading this story written a long time ago by someone named Kaiser Ryouga II. Say what? Rivalshipping? Happens all the time in Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! I’m a sucker for these two…rivals on the battlefield, and friends off it.

That’s not to say that I don’t have other non-femslashy projects waiting in the wings. I have this little Dark Cloud 2 Max/Monica friendship fic that I sat aside once I started working on my Mai/Natsuki story, and I might later do a little something revolving around Read or Die’s Yomiko/Donnie relationship, which is pretty much central to her character. I plan to get all of these projects off the backburner before the end of the year.

That’s all I have today. Oh, wait…a link to the Mai/Natsuki story:
Table of Contents on my LJ

Cheers!

Category: Anime/Manga, Literature, Video Games
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: dark cloud 2, fanfiction, het, livejournal, mai-hime, on deck, projects, read or die, shoujo-ai, street fighter

Whew…my keyboard hands are tired. I’ve spent that last month or so writing fanfiction, and I’m already ahead of my planned schedule for “One Wonderful April“, having completed 18 of the 30 specified chapters, and experiencing a surprising jump in popularity at FanFiction.net since I started writing it.  I honestly didn’t think my story would be that well received, since I’m writing for a rare pairing and all.

However, I should probably give my fingers a rest and my thumbs a workout for the night, because I haven’t been playing any video games in quite a while. Sonic Rush Adventure and Thrillville: Off the Rails just came in for me through GameFly today, and I’m going to try both of them to see how good they really are. Sonic hasn’t been looking too good since his jump to the big 3D consoles, so hopefully a run on the DS would do him some good. Thrillvile…well, it’s a theme park simulator. I haven’t played one of those since the original Roller Coaster Tycoon. Looks like it’s time to get to work!

Category: Life, Literature, Video Games
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: break, fanfiction, mai-hime, pet projects, shoujo-ai, sonic the hedgehog, thrillville

Say what? A Read or Die recap? Yeah, I can do that, too. Gotta give Mai a break for a week, especially when I’m in the midst of still writing fanfiction on her (by the way, Chapter 17 is available if you want to read it).

Anyway, back to the topic at hand…I decided to re-watch the Read or Die OVA (it’s basically a short animated movie consisting of three episodes). One of these days, I’ll get the TV series on DVD, which kinda picks up where this one left off, but anything where a chick can fight off super-powered clones with sheets of paper and index cards is all right in my book. The first episode alone ends in a dogfight between a paper airplane and a hang-glider above the New York City skyline (this is pre-9/11, where the Twin Towers are still standing, so sensitive viewers might want to stay away from this one) Yeah, I know how ridiculous it sounds, but it’s an action show, so that automatically makes it cool. The first episode recap can be read here, and I’ll post my final thoughts on the OVA in a separate post I’ve finished watching all three parts.

EDIT: The original version of this post linked to an HTML page that no longer exists on the server.

Category: Anime/Manga, Movies
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: ova, read or die, recaps

Okey-dokey. I’ve put up a few more stories in the last week that I’ve simul-posted on LiveJournal, two of which are 200 words or less. One is from Azumanga Daioh, centering around a little dream-like episode of Osaka’s, because she’s goofy like that. Another is from Suikoden, where Viktor and his Star Dragon Sword get into a little argument (yes, the sword can talk). I could get used to writing short vignettes like that. Then there’s my big in-progress Mai-HiME fanfic starring Mai and Natsuki. There is lots of kissing involved (16 chapters so far), but it’s all PG-13 stuff, because I suck at smut. I realize I made a few factual mistakes in previous chapters, so I’ll have to go correct them tonight or early tomorrow when I get a chance.

EDIT: The original version of this post linked to HTML pages that no longer exist on the server. The links have been changed to a place in the “Fiction” section of the blog.

Category: Anime/Manga, Literature, Video Games
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: ayumu kasuga, azumanga daioh, drabbles, fanfiction, mai tokiha, mai-hime, natsuki, serials, star dragon sword, suikoden, viktor, writing

Oh, how I love hanging around the TV Tropes Wiki…so many interesting things to learn about series that I have yet to watch. A few days ago, someone toyed around with the idea of adding a “Trope Pantheon” to the site – something that lists fictional characters as gods of something-or-other. For example, we elected Star Trek’s Captain Kirk as God of Space, and Yu-Gi-Oh!’s Seto Kaiba as God of Wealth (anybody who’s familiar with the Abridged Series will know him mostly by his “Screw the rules, I have money” credo). At first, it started out as a single page, but then morphed into a section of the site all on its own in just three days. Still more gods are ascending to the Trope Pantheon even as we speak. I’ve never had so much fun organizing a project like this…

Category: Internet
Author: WillyFourEyes
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Tags: fictional characters, just for fun, mythology, pantheon, tv tropes, wiki