Posts related to writing and fandoms are usually not locked. Refer to tags for easier search. Content unrelated to fandoms and writing, on the other hand, are likely to be locked.
There are only two notable categories to note of at the moment, but this may change at a later date in the event that more fics of the same type (pairing, focus, character centric, etc) are found. All fictions are listed by categories, and followed by authors where possible. Drabbles are generally also not included unless if I'm really impressed, i.e. below 1000 words.
A slash implies a pairing, coma implies character focus.
Current Fic Count: 26.
( Read more... )
How should I say this?
I don't even --
You know what. I'm just going to say it.
This would have actually been really, really cool. Like, seriously cool, and awesome. By the spades. Seriously.
But.
But.
asdfkhgf.
I...I...god, I don't know what to say.
Dammit, Square. Do something already.
So, what can I say... good, but not best? Hm.
Gameplay is engaging. I do think that the help tutorials/system thing could be fine-tuned a little more, however - it's pretty easy to get confused right off the bat if you know nothing about Tales and their style. For a short while, I had to do things via trial and error. Dualizing, mixer, titles etc; all pretty interesting stuff. I know people who could probably spend hours on them just because of how they were designed to be. Battle system might range from bad to excellent depending on what kind of gamer you are and how quick you can react in an instant. For me, I'd say it ranges from okay to good.
Where Namco and Tales's series is concerned, the rating for graphics probably would be somewhere up there. If compared to other games however - notably, FF13 and etc - it's just not on par. I do detect Visual Novel elements, though, with their use of skits. Which is fine, though I do think they could work in a couple more expressions for the characters.
Music and sound is...I dunno, actually. They don't bore me when I listen while playing, but I wasn't necessarily attracted enough to remember about any of them. I do, however, like the intro song/ed song/rolling credits stuff. White Wishes, or Mamoritai, are both songs to keep. English and japanese version of ED respectively.
On the other hand, dubbing was subpar. They are not that bad to the point I'd cringe, but...I'd give it a 6/10, at best. They really should stop dubbing and just put subs for japanese voices already.
Plot is predictable. Quite cliche. Friends theme and all that. But from what I've heard, it's a trend among Tales's series, so it's probably a moot point. I will, however, say that the plot is solid. While beginning to midpoint was engaging and pretty fun to go through, the near ending part was a wee bit too predictable and obvious. I had to resist pressing the skip button. Well. Summarily, story is okay to decent, but that's just about it.
Future arc is a nice addition, but the predictability element was doubled. It's...well, it's a nice closure, but I think they need to work a little more on subtlety.
I guess the strength of the game lies more with the characters, their growth, and their relationships rather than the actual storyline. Skits have proven particularly useful for that aspect, and for mini-subplots. By the time I was three quarters through the game, skits were my main motivation for finishing the game - especially since I could pretty much tell what the ending was, and predict even the dialogues correctly, gah.
Characters lack originality, however - they are far too predictable, and the personality traits that they have are things that one might claim feels stereotyped. That's not to say that they are typical stereotypes, but if I'm at the point where I could probably categorize them in an instant, well. But again, characterization and growth is solid, and realistic.
tl;dr. It's not the best game I've played, but it's decent enough to keep my attention on it to the point of completion. It helps that the gameplay is engaging, doesn't threaten to make me fall asleep, and made me grind for titles and levels. That's probably saying a lot, because I tend to avoid grinding and usually prefer scraping through with minimal levels and hours (or cheat, if that option is available :p). It is true, however, that my motivation to grind died after 3/4 of the game and I swept through the remaining on easy mode cause I couldn't be bothered.
It's also engaging enough that many gamers would probably do another playthrough to get all the trophies, especially since the Grade Shop makes it so much more easier. Me, it's possible, but...probably not very likely. Maybe sometime in the future when I don't remember the story. Now that I'm done with the future arc, I'm lazy.
Overall...not bad.
Gameplay: 8.5
Graphics: 7
Music: 7
Plot: 7.5
Characters: 8
Replay value: 7
Is there anything you are passionate about enough that you'd be able to do a ten minutes presentation on it? Topic can be anything, all sorts of presentation tools is also available, and you can do it whatever way you want.
So...I stole my brother's FF13-2 game and played it for an hour or two or so. This may feel a little pre-emptive since I only finished the first episode but..here we go.
Battle system is familiar. I like the new method of how to launch a pre-emptive strike, and there are probably some other new things that is going to get introduced in episode 2, but yeah. Don't particularly like how they changed the crystarium though. It's difficult to see what skills is attainable, and you don't actually have a free reign of what skills/abilities to pick compared to the predecessor game (unless if the game plans to introduce more things later).
I do not like how they allow only one save file for the entire thing.
Graphics, as expected, is impressive. Not so impressive is the freckles (?) or spots on character's faces, however...I think they overdid it when they are trying to make characters look more realistic. The outfits are ridiculous by my standards. Whatever happened to all the cool looking attires like what they had for Lightning's soldier uniform?
Can't comment much on music, though I do like what I have heard so far and would probably give it a 7/10.
Least impressive of all is the storyline and dialogue, as well as - I must add - the humor at some instances that falls flat and can get a bit lame. Time paradox is an okay idea and all, but...I'm not sure if having Noel around and that 700 year gap is entirely necessary.
Perhaps if Snow had been the one to introduce Serah to time travel, since he's already in the business, I would be a lot less skeptical about this game. Why the hell didn't they just have Snow and Serah as the main protagonists in this game anyway? Noel would have been a total obsolete if the game went for that track, and I could think of so many ways the storyline would have been better. Hell, even Fang, Vanille, Hope or one of the NORA members would've been far more acceptable.
I will, however, refuse to comment on Snow's hair and the possibilities of what I would be saying if they kept the hair that way while having the storyline like I suggested.
I will also not comment on the multiple endings that doesn't particularly seem to have a correlation to each other that actually makes sense. Yes, I watched the endings on youtube. No, I didn't like them.
tl;dr - I'm not impressed. I cannot say I feel like continuing once I've put down the controller. Probably won't even bother continuing. Baaaah.
So. I finally got around to finishing the entire thing. Quite a few years after the release of Episode III. I remember playing Episode I when it was first released...but then I abandoned Episode II just a little after the prologue for some reason I no longer remember.
That being said...there were, of course, a couple of niggling loose ends and a few things in the series that bothered me because there wasn't enough exposition, but overall...this is a series well worth looking into; especially if you're into JRPG. And long cutscenes. Which is my kind of thing, so, eh.
On with some rambling comments.
( Read more... )
Title: Paper Cranes
Summary: Kurosaki Ichigo died when he was twenty nine.
Characters: Ichigo, Rukia, Karin, Toushirou.
Part V is up. After...quite a while. I'll confess that most of this chapter was written quite long ago...specifically in September, then left to collect dust. Oops.
Part V
Rating: T
Genre: Drama
Summary: Kurosaki Ichigo died when he was twenty nine.
Characters: Ichigo, Rukia, Karin.
Additional notes: Plenty of spoilers inbound. Not your typical fanfic either, for reasons that will be very obvious if you end up reading it. :)
Part I Part II Part III Part IV
What can I say? The topic of death struck some inspiration, surprisingly.
Edit (29/08): Snippet deleted.
Paper Cranes, Part I, is posted.
Let the random, sporadic writing
I was honestly expecting to see a couple angst fics that I would actually like...but I didn't. Or maybe I couldn't find them. :(
And people like to write drabbles in this fandom. Like, a hell lot of it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3630586/1/P
Not usually a fan of a story from an OC-pov, but this takes the cake. I like it enough to have it in my favourites list.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3666303/1/S
Future-fic. Points for the plot/settings. Characterization...well, not saying it's not good, but. There were some parts where I went, "hmmm.."
http://ramblinprose.livejournal.com/283
Rec-ed for pure, priceless crack value.
http://ramblinprose.livejournal.com/471
This Is Epic.
http://raynos.livejournal.com/37528.htm
Warning. Not work-safe. Basically pwp with what I think is one of the most well done characterizations. And a theme that is, uh, priceless. The dialogues at the end of the fic, even more so.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/88570
http://archiveofourown.org/works/88581
The Eyes Series:
1- http://ichi-ruki.livejournal.com/16
2- http://ichi-ruki.livejournal.com/17
3- http://ichi-ruki.livejournal.com/1
4- http://ichi-ruki.livejournal.com/1
5- http://ichi-ruki.livejournal.com/1
6- http://ichi-ruki.livejournal.com/1
7- http://ichi-ruki.livejournal.com/1
Authors who can express humor and angst at the same time in one story without making it look awkward is impressive. And did I mention that Chad is awesome? He's awesome.
The Music of the Night
Part 1: http://green-amberjade.livejournal.c
Part 2: http://green-amberjade.livejournal.c
A gorgeous, haunting story. One of a kind. A must read.
The humor (crack) stuff:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2875458/1/O
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2755528/1/E
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5720108/1/S
..For a fandom so big, I guess it's a bit surprising that I found very few to my liking. But then, there's a lot I couldn't bring myself to click...and some that were okay, but makes me grimace when the characterizations spiral downwards all of a sudden. I probably missed a lot of other good ones as well.
Looking back, I think Ichigo/Rukia is one of the more harder pairings to write - and this is mostly because their dynamics isn't your typical sort of romantic dynamic. That, and majority of the Bleach fanfic writers apparently like it when Rukia is submissive (is she submissive? Really?)...or Ichigo is a wailing, possessive brat. Or some variation of those. I should also say that Rukia only hits Ichigo when it's deserved, not every minute of the time they spend together.
Though, that being said, there were some AU fics I thought was okay...but only that. Might change later, who knows. It's a little harder to define characterizations for AU fics. Different circumstances will change different things. It's one of the reasons I'm not usually keen on AU fics.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5829207/1/W
One of the better AU fics out there. Not sure where she's going with Karin, however, so I won't say anything on that till I see it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5987255/1/S
Well-paced plot. Though an abrupt ending - which the author knows and noted in A/N as well. Maybe he/she will come back and fix it, who knows.
Kay, that's it. I want more fics. Rec me some. :(
As always, Kubo is not bad at showing expressions, but the plot...the plot is meh. Why is it that things with a few long arcs always tend to spiral downwards or the wrong way, and only the first and/or second arc is great?
Here's a small list of Things Worth Watching as of now:
- White Collar
- Season 1 is great. Especially loved the interactions between the FBI agent and his wife. There's a scene in particular I tagged as favourite, but I'll leave it to you to figure which one if you ever watch it. Season 2, riddled with plot holes. Season 3, Neal annoys me.
- Anime: None. :|
- Silver Spoon
- Author/Artist of Full Metal Alchemist. Points for originality. Don't expect action-based stuff, though. This is more of a high school kid growing up thing.
- Ouran Host High School Jdrama.
- Once you get past certain, certain things that might make you twitch and want to pinch the bridge of your nose..
- Iris Zero
- Just started not too long ago, but not a bad manga thus far where characterizations are concerned.
- Fortune Arterial
- Anything that's not shiny, glowy vampires is a plus.
- Break Blade (manga)
List of Things Spiralling Downwards:
- Hitman Reborn: Redundant.
- Grey's Anatomy: Characterization going wrong in soooo many ways.
- One Piece: Redundant.
- Dog Days: omgwtfbbq
- Anything from the current season: No.
Doooooone.
Never writing something this long again. Neveeeeeer.
Circuit Clout
In a time where Fate did not become an enforcer but a convict-turned-civilian collaborator. A world where TSAB is forgiving, but not forgiving enough to let ex-convicts into its organization. This is how her path was re-shaped.
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chasethestars
chasethestars