Spring Green

Spoilers: Spoilers through vol. 16 or so.
Summary: Because girl groups, childhood games, henshin pens, secret passwords, and shoujo manga can save the world.
Notes: Written for ambientlight for Yuletide 2010.

Thanks so much to etothey for beta-ing despite not knowing the source; to busaikko for answering completely random questions about growing up in Japan in the 1990s and 2000s (all cultural mistakes are my fault, not hirs!); and to edonohana for basically coming up with my plot, beta-ing and pointing out that things were entirely too confusing, and mutual moaning and whining as we procrastinated.

Read 21st Century Girls

Source information

２０世紀少年/20th Century Boys is a 24-volume seinen manga series by Urasawa Naoki (the final two volumes are published as ２１世紀少年/21st Century Boys) about a group of boys growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. They have a secret base where they read shounen manga and the occasional porn magazine spirited away from their dads, and while there, they invent a complicated scenario in which they defeat a supervillain trying to take over the world via an ebola-esque virus, giant robots, possible psychic powers, and laser guns. Fast forward to the 1990s, and Kenji is your average convenience store owner who has put aside childhood dreams of rock and roll and is currently raising his sister Kiriko's infant Kanna. A cult leader called Friend has grown in popularity, and suddenly, things that are eerily like Kenji's boyhood games are happening around the world. The series goes through several timeskips and numerous flashbacks, and I think I spent the first three weeks just re-reading and trying to piece together the timeline.

I love everything of Urasawa's that I've read, and although I don't think 20thCB is his best series, it's my favorite. (The ending is kind of incoherent, even on a reread. Or should I say, especially on a reread when one is attempting to map out when and where everything happens and getting extremely frustrated by the lack of months.) I love it because as with all Urasawa series I've read, it has awesome side characters and kitchen-sink plotting and plot twists like whoa and ordinary people being heroes, but I love it best because you can tell Urasawa crammed it full of all his own id buttons—secret forts and shounen manga and rock and roll and pulp sf, that he loves all the boys in the gang, that even though the specific scenarios are made up, he's drawing from his own boyhood memories.

I actually have no idea how necessary previous knowledge of the source is. The fic spoils a few plot points around volume 16 or so, but mostly in the background as worldbuilding. I think it's confusing if you don't even know the premise of the series, but several people have commented saying that they've only read one volume, or a few volumes, and it was fine. YMMV?

Everything after this has spoilers for the story itself (I can't believe I actually wrote a story that can be spoiled). I'll warn for additional spoilers for 20thCB and other manga as it comes up.

Embarrassingly, this may be longer than the fic itself. It should not be necessary for reading the fic, which hopefully stands by itself without explanations! It's just here for anyone who was curious about details, references, etc.

( Process notes )

( Language notes )

( References (spoilers for 20CB through vol. 14 or so and for Sailor Moon through Death Busters) )

( Final notes (vague spoilers for vol. 18 or so of 20thCB) )

Re: guessing, I suspect the question isn't so much "what gave me away?" so much as "what didn't?"

Also, I had figured a grand total of two people would read this, especially compared to the Nikita story, since this one is a) 9000+ words long, b) with almost all original characters, c) and series spoilers, d) for a 24-volume long series, e) that hasn't finished coming out in the US, and f) is from a non-Western fandom. YAY YULETIDE for proving me wrong!

Spoilers: For the entire movie
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: In which dragons and boys both must find their own tale.
Notes: Written for Hikario for Yuletide 2009. Many thanks to edonohana, who did an extremely quick beta and helped me brainstorm the ending.
(Me: It's such a typical fic for me!
Her: Pretty prose, Asian mythology, and food?
Me: Oooh, I should add food...)

Read Becoming

Series information

Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi/Spirited Away is one of my favorite Miyazaki movies (as a side note, I love that AO3 puts the original language transliteration first, then the English translation). Ten-year-old Chihiro and her parents find themselves in a magical world, and Chihiro must find work in order to save her parents, who have been turned into pigs. She ends up in a bathhouse that serves spirits and gods. I love the movie for the imagery and for Chihiro and the daikon radish spirit and the river god and everything, and I was delighted when I got it as my assignment. Then I was absolutely terrified, because damn it's hard to live up to Miyazaki.

( Commentary )

Spoilers: For the entire song
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: Hell's queen is its ruler and its most enslaved soul.
Notes: Written for Avendya for Yuletide 2008.

Read Cruel Hope and Gray Despair

Series information

"The Queen and the Soldier" is a song by Suzanne Vega (lyrics), but my favorite version is the cover by Kate Rusby and Kathryn Roberts. coffeeandink introduced me to it, and I love it to pieces and keep almost requesting it for Yuletide and then not. The fandom as far as I know has one other story, edonohana's lovely The Queen Knew She'd Seen His Face Some Place Before.

( Some commentary )

Spoilers: Through Claymore chapter 80 or so
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: Ugly manners, her mother would say, pretty is as pretty does, but she never told her pretty girl that monsters ate pretty and ugly girls alike.
Notes: Written for woodburner for Yuletide 2008. Many thanks to magicnoire for the quick beta!

Read Pretty Monsters

Series information

Claymore is a shounen manga series by Yagi Norihiro about half-human half-yoma women called Claymores who go around killing yoma with giant swords. There is a lot of blood, which I do not like so much, and a whole lot of stoic icy warriors, interesting backstory, worldbuilding, and awesome relationships among the many warriors, which I like A LOT. The story is pretty spoilery for the series, and I have no idea how well it stands alone.

( Some commentary )

Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: Listen, and I will tell you how Monkey comes to America.
Notes: Written for st_aurafina for Yuletide 2007. Rachel, Yoon, Vom Marlowe, and Mely all guessed me correctly! (I felt so obvious writing this!)

Read The Journey West

Fandom information

American Gods is a book by Neil Gaiman about old myths and gods coming to America. There is also other stuff, but really, all you need to know is that Gaiman posits that gods come to America with their believers.

( Factual notes )

( Some commentary )

Spoilers: For the entire series
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: These were the memories he didn't have of Sei: growing up, growing different, growing apart.
Notes: Written for Tou-chan for Yuletide 2007. Includes work-safe image done by the wonderful vom_marlowe!

Read Skin Shallow, Bone Deep

Series information

Mars is by Soryo Fuyumi (author of Eternal Sabbath), published by TokyoPop. It's about shy artist good girl Kira and destructive motorcycle-racing bad boy Sei, and it's also about two damaged people trying to heal themselves. Well, that, a lot of of Gothic plot twists involving twins, psychotic mass murderers, parentage, and who knows what else!

It was one of the first shoujo manga series I ever read, and I devoured it in the space of a few days. Later on, it was one of the first shoujo manga series brought over to the States; I found out it had been translated when I spotted a young girl reading a volume of it on the subway in New York, just like a schoolgirl in Tokyo or Taipei.

I don't think the story will make much sense without knowledge of the canon, since a lot of what I was trying to do was to change the characters in canon, to age them plausibly, to turn a Gothic high-school romance to a romance that could work in the real world. Also, I totally spoil almost all the plot twists of the manga.

( Some commentary (series spoilers) )

DVD commentary for lybra87!

( Commentary here )

edonohana asked for the DVD commentary to Promises Unbroken, so here it is! The original story has spoilers for Gaiden up till ch. 20, and the commentary probably has spoilers for Saiyuki through the Burial arc.

I'm going to be a little biased here -- this is my favorite of all the pieces I've written. It was also one of the hardest, because it didn't spring off a challenge. Also, I think it's the longest thing I've written (uh... yeah, obviously, I haven't written much!).

This is going to be a really, really long commentary, btw, because this story gave me so much trouble!

You may want to skip this if you don't like knowing the behind-the-scenes -- this commentary is probably five times longer than the story itself and includes all the completely random references that I tried to sneak in, along with math, faux Chinese history, and my own personal Gaiden incarnation canon.

( DVD Commentary begins! )

Um, so, I am dipping my toe into the DVD Commentary thing. All stories here are up for grabs.

Also, on the alternate side, I am volunteering to do DVD commentaries for my own stories if anyone is interested.