Nanoha FanFiction Discussion

[Moczo]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

Just the scorpion pit? How unoriginal. I thought you could do better.

Hmmmmm. Perhaps you are correct. I mean, that is simply not up to Royal standards. Fetch me a pair of pliers, three knives you don't need back, a lighter, thirty pounds of haggis, and the collected works of Stephanie Meyers.

Oh, and don't send away the scorpions, they really add to the atmosphere.

[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by Moczo

Hmmmmm. Perhaps you are correct. I mean, that is simply not up to Royal standards. Fetch me a pair of pliers, three knives you don't need back, a lighter, thirty pounds of haggis, and the collected works of Stephanie Meyers.

Oh, and don't send away the scorpions, they really add to the atmosphere.

Stephanie Meyers? You truly are evil beyond all comprehension.

[00-Raiser]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

Just the scorpion pit? How unoriginal. I thought you could do better.

Hey, don't devalue the classics!

[Moczo]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

Stephanie Meyers? You truly are evil beyond all comprehension.

It's a cheap and reusable pain device, and the scorpions seem to enjoy it.

[shiroi mahotsukai]

Originally Posted by 00-Raiser

Rightfully deserved dig at my expense noted.

Anyways, I can definitely see this happening. Even if you say you'll stop helping people you end up doing it anyways. I've lost count of the number of times I've never said no to a person and did whatever they asked, only for them to turn around and slap me in the face and call me selfish when I ask for a tiny favour. I resolve to start saying no, and yet I never do =/

Well, at least the Yuuno in this fic doesn't have to deal with that latter issue. Hopefully.

I have had the same experiences, though it was with muttered words and hurt glances rather than slaps.

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

They probably just assume he has experience since he's been around so many women since he was nine years old.

A fatal mistake, I mean when that poor boy who will likely get slapped by his girlfriend, who will then go on to refuse to talk to him while simultaniously sending him scathing messages for the nexts several days, before making up due to typical teenage mood swings, gets to that point he will never see the flaw in Yuuno's advice and go back again.

[00-Raiser]

Originally Posted by shiroi mahotsukai

I have had the same experiences, though it was with muttered words and hurt glances rather than slaps.

Well, I meant symbolic slaps Some one does so much for you, but then you refuse to return even the tiniest of favours. That just screams "What you did means absolutely nothing to me." It's quite upsetting =/

[D2]

Originally Posted by Moczo

I see you are a bit upset with Her Majesty. Well, she deserves it. You shall be tossed into the scorpion pit.





Thanks for the reviews, all. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to get any since it was Mother's Day and all. So... yay!

Aahh, and I also noticed in the story that

Spoiler for semantics:

Enlil never specifically said that she would restore Alicia's consciousness after leaving the body. All she said that she would leave the body. Lil' (Bastard) doesn't say whether the body will actually return to living, whether the body will die after she leaves, or if it'll just return to a lifeless husk when she's done. I wouldn't put it past her to just leave the body and scram, leaving Alicia's corpse just the way it was before Precia encountered her.

[DezoPenguin]

Originally Posted by Moczo

I see you are a bit upset with Her Majesty. Well, she deserves it. You shall be tossed into the scorpion pit.

Hm, well, if I survive the scorpions...and the Twilight books...and the haggis (gag!)...I must ask: is Enlil supposed to come off in this chapter as much as a psychopath as she's seeming to me? Because I've already had one reaction in this series (to Ammy's apparent status as a Complete Monster Sexual Predator) that went well beyond what you were trying to convey, it makes me a bit hesitant to make final judgments, but:

Precia attacked Enlil in what amounts to a hysterical fit upon waking up from a comatose state, without any information about where she was or what was happening or any kind of ability to communicate--which to me seems vaguely reasonable even without the idea that hey, two people fall into a dimension together, maybe they could have some kind of relationship that would result in a psychological hot button being pressed (after all, for all Enlil knew, Alicia was Precia's deadly enemy who Precia had just barely managed to kill right before falling into the rift...the point is that Enlil created that aspect of the situation from her own stupidity above and beyond the fact that it was obvious that even without that "trigger" event that Precia couldn't have any rational response and would, indeed, likely react irrationally).

Enlil's reaction?

Subject Precia to days of being operated on without anesthesia.

The think that makes me question whether or not Enlil is somehow not the Complete Monster she appears to be is that she did not order Tsuku, Susa, and Ammy to butcher the TSAB mages like hogs. Particularly in the final encounter, there was no chance that any of them could have possibly survived had the Three Gods actually been trying to kill them (especially Ammy, who kills heartlessly without a twinge of conscience, unlike, say, Susa). You're a far better writer than to have the heroes survive solely because, well, they're the heroes and Plot Demands They Live, and anyone who reacts like Enlil did to Precia isn't the kind of person who'd let her enemies off easily. ("He dared to not kneel to me fast enough as I passed by? Torture everyone on his home planet to death!") So...yeah, this is why I suspect that I'm missing something.

(Either that or she's just crazy, in that her actions are often completely random and unpredictable rather than being insane in the Precia sense where she's disconnected from reality yet has a specific world-view that makes her predictable when you understand that world-view. Which would make that Caligula metaphor work better than I originally thought it might...)

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by Moczo

I see you are a bit upset with Her Majesty. Well, she deserves it. You shall be tossed into the scorpion pit.

Whatever happened to the traditional "tie the arms and legs to four elephants and let them go to four different directions?" It's not like scorpions produces explosions anyway

Btw, left a comment for you, but then I realized that there are more things I've yet to say.

TBH I don't really agree with the notion of Enlil as a complete monster, but then again I may have different understanding on the term - for me, a complete monster is one that is truly black-hearted, the one that causes pain, suffering and hate to everyone, regarding the outcome.

Enlil on the other hand is more of a, well...Machiavellianly pragmatic tyrant. She's nice towards her guards because they're loyal and extremely useful, she's vicious towards the elder Testarossa to instill fear (not that it worked, of course, since this is Precia we're talking about), and she didn't adopt a kill em all policy against the TSAB because it's unfeasible (her base may be impenetrable, but she lacks the necessities to go offense yet). She's still evil, but of different flavor.

She's like your average medieval absolute monarchs, actually.

And I couldn't help but wonder just how nasty Al-Hazard was for Enlil to claim the moral high ground against them. Or maybe it's a case of "he who fights monsters"?

[Moczo]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

Hm, well, if I survive the scorpions...and the Twilight books...and the haggis (gag!)...I must ask: is Enlil supposed to come off in this chapter as much as a psychopath as she's seeming to me? Because I've already had one reaction in this series (to Ammy's apparent status as a Complete Monster Sexual Predator) that went well beyond what you were trying to convey, it makes me a bit hesitant to make final judgments, but:

Precia attacked Enlil in what amounts to a hysterical fit upon waking up from a comatose state, without any information about where she was or what was happening or any kind of ability to communicate--which to me seems vaguely reasonable even without the idea that hey, two people fall into a dimension together, maybe they could have some kind of relationship that would result in a psychological hot button being pressed (after all, for all Enlil knew, Alicia was Precia's deadly enemy who Precia had just barely managed to kill right before falling into the rift...the point is that Enlil created that aspect of the situation from her own stupidity above and beyond the fact that it was obvious that even without that "trigger" event that Precia couldn't have any rational response and would, indeed, likely react irrationally).

Enlil's reaction?

Subject Precia to days of being operated on without anesthesia.

The think that makes me question whether or not Enlil is somehow not the Complete Monster she appears to be is that she did not order Tsuku, Susa, and Ammy to butcher the TSAB mages like hogs. Particularly in the final encounter, there was no chance that any of them could have possibly survived had the Three Gods actually been trying to kill them (especially Ammy, who kills heartlessly without a twinge of conscience, unlike, say, Susa). You're a far better writer than to have the heroes survive solely because, well, they're the heroes and Plot Demands They Live, and anyone who reacts like Enlil did to Precia isn't the kind of person who'd let her enemies off easily. ("He dared to not kneel to me fast enough as I passed by? Torture everyone on his home planet to death!") So...yeah, this is why I suspect that I'm missing something.

(Either that or she's just crazy, in that her actions are often completely random and unpredictable rather than being insane in the Precia sense where she's disconnected from reality yet has a specific world-view that makes her predictable when you understand that world-view. Which would make that Caligula metaphor work better than I originally thought it might...)

Originally Posted by Tiresias

Whatever happened to the traditional "tie the arms and legs to four elephants and let them go to four different directions?" It's not like scorpions produces explosions anyway

Btw, left a comment for you, but then I realized that there are more things I've yet to say.

TBH I don't really agree with the notion of Enlil as a complete monster, but then again I may have different understanding on the term - for me, a complete monster is one that is truly black-hearted, the one that causes pain, suffering and hate to everyone, regarding the outcome.

Enlil on the other hand is more of a, well...Machiavellianly pragmatic tyrant. She's nice towards her guards because they're loyal and extremely useful, she's vicious towards the elder Testarossa to instill fear (not that it worked, of course, since this is Precia we're talking about), and she didn't adopt a kill em all policy against the TSAB because it's unfeasible (her base may be impenetrable, but she lacks the necessities to go offense yet). She's still evil, but of different flavor.

She's like your average medieval absolute monarchs, actually.

And I couldn't help but wonder just how nasty Al-Hazard was for Enlil to claim the moral high ground against them. Or maybe it's a case of "he who fights monsters"?

Hmmmmmm... to answer this without spoiling future plot points... kinda both.

On the one hand, Tiresias is closer to the characterization I am going for in an overall sense. Enlil is an amoral tyrant, but she does not inflict suffering for pleasure. Revenge, though, certainly. An attack on her person, directly? Precia's usefulness is the only reason she was allowed to keep her skin. As it is, something had to be done (or rather, attempted) to instill terror and humility in her, to strike home that she is lucky to be alive after she laid hands on the Queen and to inform her she does not get a second offense. She is generous, even caring, to those who obey loyally; will be cold but willing to work with those who are not yet her subjects might someday might be (The TSAB); and is utterly ruthless to outright hostility.

On the other, in THIS CHAPTER, Enlil really is not in her right mind. This assault truly scared her (mostly because she spent her entire life with people around to make certain things like this DIDN'T HAPPEN. Even Susa would have responded to Precia's little episode there by slicing her head off the second her hands closed around Enlil's throat.), and it came on the heels of Lil being told "You are dead, everything you worked for your entire life is dust, and I hope you enjoyed being a child...". She's feeling broken and vulnerable, and doesn't even have her Guardians to be a stabilizing factor yet. When presented with a threat, she snapped in a big way and reverted to the cruelest she could manage to regain some feeling of control over her situation. This is not the same as being GOOD; merely that in normal circumstances she wouldn't have been as vicious as she was to Precia here. She still would have been... harsh.

And of course, there is still PLOT rearing its ugly head in the background, so I can't be too detailed on everything going on. Still, I hope this explanation helped.

EDIT: Hmmmmm... actually, I may have revamp Enlil's reactions a bit since they don't exactly get across the feeling I was trying to convey (some bizarre combination of Machiavellian/crazed/treaumatized).

[Justin_Brett]

So is this supposed to be the 'look how evil Enlil really is' chapter?

The nastiest things she did in it was make a fairly reasonable offer and get angry at being strangled after getting revived on a completely dead world. Some of it verged on stuff you'd find in a sitcom.

Really, most people who steal bodies in media do way worse stuff than she's done with Alicia's. And they usually aren't functionally dead, either.

[Rising Dragon]

God, my muse has been such a bitch lately. >.> Been stuck on the next chapter of The Collared, but I have my final exam for my Japanese class coming up next week. So I dedicate this week to studying for its oral exam... and naturally, naturally, I strike inspiration that gets me past the scene I'm stuck on.

Bah.

[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

God, my muse has been such a bitch lately. >.> Been stuck on the next chapter of The Collared, but I have my final exam for my Japanese class coming up next week. So I dedicate this week to studying for its oral exam... and naturally, naturally, I strike inspiration that gets me past the scene I'm stuck on.

Bah.

I understand your pain. My plotbunnies have been good and quiet for a long while, and then they suddenly roared back to life and demanded LDG updates right when my finals started. I just had my last final this afternoon, and I'm still feeling worn out from it, but I'd like to try and get the next section of LDG up tonight if I can, or maybe tomorrow. I'm going home soon, so I don't know when my next best chance will be.

[00-Raiser]

It stems from the fact that you likely don't want to study, and thus your mind tries to focus on 'anything else.' I remember this bit from Lucky Star where the girls were talking about how they get the sudden urge to clean their rooms when they had a test coming up.

Personally I think studying for long periods of time is pointless. I retain information from the first time I hear it and only need a brief refresher so I only study the night before the test. I might not be able to recite info on the spot, but when I see the questions on the test, the answer pops into my head. I got an A and two A-'s this semester so I guess it worked out just fine.

[nemo1986]

your lucky most have to study like hell.

[DezoPenguin]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

I understand your pain. My plotbunnies have been good and quiet for a long while, and then they suddenly roared back to life and demanded LDG updates right when my finals started. I just had my last final this afternoon, and I'm still feeling worn out from it, but I'd like to try and get the next section of LDG up tonight if I can, or maybe tomorrow. I'm going home soon, so I don't know when my next best chance will be.

Oooh, LDG! I note that today fanfiction.net's document upload function seems to have shut down, but at least you can post it here!

[Rising Dragon]

Originally Posted by 00-Raiser

Personally I think studying for long periods of time is pointless. I retain information from the first time I hear it and only need a brief refresher so I only study the night before the test. I might not be able to recite info on the spot, but when I see the questions on the test, the answer pops into my head. I got an A and two A-'s this semester so I guess it worked out just fine.

I'm mostly the same, actually; the first time I hear it I'll retain it up until the moment I need it. If I actually do any kind of studying, all I succeed in doing is jumbling up information--whenever I study, I actually do worse on tests compared to when I let things go at their own pace. But, there are two subjects that this little oddity about me are exempt from: Math, in which I'll fail regardless (damn my math-related learning disorder!), and as I discovered, Japanese.

So I have to do the studying for this one if I want to pass the oral part of my exam. Which is exactly why my muse decides to get cooperative. At this rate, it's going to go yandere on me.

[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

Oooh, LDG! I note that today fanfiction.net's document upload function seems to have shut down, but at least you can post it here!

I'll probably put it off until tomorrow. I don't have to go to work until two, and classes are over, so even if I get up late I have a lot of time. It's only the Vivio interlude anyway, so it probably won't be very long.

[yuiseppe]

Originally Posted by Moczo

EDIT: Hmmmmm... actually, I may have revamp Enlil's reactions a bit since they don't exactly get across the feeling I was trying to convey (some bizarre combination of Machiavellian/crazed/treaumatized).

Well, I feel like I should be locked up in a padded cell somewhere because I still like Enlil after that chapter. Would you be able to post your original version as well?

Ok, so the treatment without anesthetics is well, torture. Quite evil, and an overreaction to Precia's breakdown. The woman was obviously not in top form mentally or physically, but Enlil wouldn't be understanding of that. After all, 'lil is the kind of being born and bred to be able to compartmentalise the shock of being revived, then learning her entire empire had been dust for 500,000 years, in what basically seems like an instant. But she gets evil points for carrying on the torture for MONTHS.

And while the language learning program was adorable, if it weren't for the hilarious narrative, it would have been utterly sick from Precia's perspective. The torture wouldn't be nearly as complete if it hadn't reminded Precia of something she bought Alicia. But... Enlil wouldn't have known that.

So yes, Enlil's acts may be cruel, but I'm inclined to believe that's it's mostly a result of what she is, rather than who she is. If that makes any sense

[shiroi mahotsukai]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

I'm mostly the same, actually; the first time I hear it I'll retain it up until the moment I need it. If I actually do any kind of studying, all I succeed in doing is jumbling up information--whenever I study, I actually do worse on tests compared to when I let things go at their own pace. But, there are two subjects that this little oddity about me are exempt from: Math, in which I'll fail regardless (damn my math-related learning disorder!), and as I discovered, Japanese.

So I have to do the studying for this one if I want to pass the oral part of my exam. Which is exactly why my muse decides to get cooperative. At this rate, it's going to go yandere on me.

It's almost like that for me, but with French instead of Japanese, and Biology is the subject I fail no matter what. I have learned that information is like a nail, you can only hammer it so far into the wood before you start damaging things, thus i only study things I don't know but should.

EDIT: Document uploading seems to work again, uploaded The Go-to Guy to ff.net