Paradise Kiss 2
Oct. 24th, 2005 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockTwo episodes in, and I'm seriously crushing on Paradise Kiss. Episode 2 was even more interesting than episode 1. Unless it spontaneously nosedives I think I'll be downloading all 12 or 13 episodes as they come out.
You know how one scene can cement your interest in a series? The scene in this episode where character A walks in on characters B and C damn near doing it on a pool table. Great scene. I'm so going to love this anime.
My only complaint still comes back to the use of super-deformed characters. The characters go SD at weird and unpredictable places, and mostly it feels off. For SD to be funny, it has to be well-timed and mesh with the moment. They keep missfiring on that. However, that's a very small aspect and certainly doesn't detract from my overall enjoyment.
It is no longer a theory, it is a fact: George is the love child of Shigure and Ayame Sohma. There's no other explanation. He's got Ayame's looks, fashion sense (well, he is a designer), self-confidence, and show-off nature. Balanced by Shigure's calmness of presence (George is clearly not hyperactive) and coolly manipulative nature. George handles people, just like Shigure does. But just like with Shigure, so far it doesn't seem a bad thing, or mean that he's unreliable or insincere. Just something to be a little cautious of. And of course there's the ragingbisexuality, which of course comes from both! ::snicker::
Since Yukari asked George if he was old enough to drive and he said he got his liscence a few days before, I looked up the driving age in Japan. It's 18 years, which makes him the same age as Yukari, more likely a few months younger since she was already 18 herself. They've animated him to make him look older, though, especially with his outfits.
I didn't like the pink haired girl in the first episode, but I really liked her in this one. Guess I was off the mark about the blond guy having a little crush on Yukari. Way, way, off.
You know how one scene can cement your interest in a series? The scene in this episode where character A walks in on characters B and C damn near doing it on a pool table. Great scene. I'm so going to love this anime.
My only complaint still comes back to the use of super-deformed characters. The characters go SD at weird and unpredictable places, and mostly it feels off. For SD to be funny, it has to be well-timed and mesh with the moment. They keep missfiring on that. However, that's a very small aspect and certainly doesn't detract from my overall enjoyment.
It is no longer a theory, it is a fact: George is the love child of Shigure and Ayame Sohma. There's no other explanation. He's got Ayame's looks, fashion sense (well, he is a designer), self-confidence, and show-off nature. Balanced by Shigure's calmness of presence (George is clearly not hyperactive) and coolly manipulative nature. George handles people, just like Shigure does. But just like with Shigure, so far it doesn't seem a bad thing, or mean that he's unreliable or insincere. Just something to be a little cautious of. And of course there's the raging
Since Yukari asked George if he was old enough to drive and he said he got his liscence a few days before, I looked up the driving age in Japan. It's 18 years, which makes him the same age as Yukari, more likely a few months younger since she was already 18 herself. They've animated him to make him look older, though, especially with his outfits.
I didn't like the pink haired girl in the first episode, but I really liked her in this one. Guess I was off the mark about the blond guy having a little crush on Yukari. Way, way, off.
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FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-26 06:47 pm (UTC)Redrose.
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-26 06:55 pm (UTC)I threatened you before?you commented on my journal before?I could probably help (I love crossovers!), but it would involve spoiling you for the end of the tv series and the movie. That's a serious amount of spoilage.
If you can use bittorrent, you can download the movie in subtitled. It takes a while, but it'd give you a lot better idea of how the characters are at the end of the movie.
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-26 11:00 pm (UTC)I'm on Whofic actually and write Doc 2, (Crimson Sky). I wrote GundamWing, Dragonball Z and Saint Seiya fanfic and sold a Dojinshi with a Japanese manga artist (Morineko) called Paradise Lost. So I've been around for years in many fandoms.
In order to write this, I checked into some serious spoilerage, so I know the end of FMA basically. :P I've also checked into FMA because my son is into it and I was reading the manga and checking it out before he read it.
Anyhow, any help you can give me, I’d be grateful. I have up to 14 pages written (FMA stuff). I’m really worried about characters.
Redrose
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-26 11:42 pm (UTC)I'm not trying to discourage you (I absolutely love the idea of an FMA crossover!) but all my knowledge comes from the anime and the anime and manga are so different that I'm not sure how much help I'd be to you.
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 12:01 am (UTC)Heh, I've got this Great Captain Jack line to Ed..... "So I guess, big things dooo come in little packages..." followed up by a pat on the bottem.. Ed will be speechless, then go into a tyrade!
redrose
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 12:32 am (UTC)The movie takes place after the end of the anime. The anime ends with the following:
-Edward is killed by the homunculus Envy
-Alphonse, whose armor body was made into the physical avatar of the philosopher's stone (thanks to Scar, who used to have it on his arm), uses the philopher's stone to perform a human transmutation, summon the Gate [or summons himself to the Gate], and exchange his soul for his brother's life and soul (presumably Ed's soul was still inside the gate moments after his death, and thus retrievable).
-Envy sees the gate for the first time, and sees Ed's spirit there. Ed tells Envy the other side of the gate is a place called London, and that's where their father/ Envy's creator is. Envy goes through the gate, but in doing so assumes the form of a monstrous dragon. He disappears.
-Ed wakes up to find Al gone, and his own body whole for the first time. Ed sends Rose and her baby away, and performs a human transmutation himself.
-Edward summons the Gate (---a metaphysical-y big black gate that resembles Rodin's famous sculpture "Gates of Hell") and trades his life for his brother's soul and body.
-Ed wakes up in London, in his own one-arm, one-leg body once again. He is talking with his father, Hohenheim, who was previously sent through the gate by his ex-lover and series villain Dante, who wanted to stop him from interfering in her evil plans.
-Rose finds 10 year old Alphonse, whole in body, where she last saw Ed. Alphonse was returned at the age he originally lost his body, and the last thing he remembers is doing the human transmutation to try and revive their mother.
-time passes
-1921 Munich, Ed is talking about finding scientists to study with, there's a general post-war depression going on.
-In Risembool, Alphonse goes to study with Izumi again, determined to learn even more and eventually find out how to get Edward back. Because he lost his memory, he alone hasn't learned anything from the 4 year quest for the Philosopher's Stone.
In the movie, It's two years later, making it 1923. Edward is living in Germany, studying with a young man named Alphonse Heinrich (I could be spelling that wrong), who looks freakishly like a grown up version of his brother, though slightly more blonde. Living nearby is a police officer and member of the fledgling Nazi party named Hughes, who bears a freakish resemblence to the Hughes that Edward knew as a child. Gracia is there as well, though in the movie Alter!Hughes and Alter!Gracia are not yet married and don't have a daughter.
Noa is a young gypsy woman that gets sold into servitude. She tries to run away, and comes across Edward. Ed recognizes her from when they met in passing a few days/weeks beforehand on the road, and he helps her escape. Then he takes her back to his apartment and agrees to hide her. She is being pursued by a faction of the German military because she is psychic. At first Ed doesn't believe the psychic part, but she describes things from the other world and he is convinced.
Lots of stuff happens (read an online summary), and the movie ends with Alphonse crossing over into our world. He and Edward and Rose join a band of gypsies and drive off into the afternoon sun. It's still 10 years before WWII.
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 12:53 am (UTC)Does Noah have a family or a tribe?
Is there a way I can send what I have so far?
I understand if you are busy, I virtually have no life here. I have three kids and very little time for fanfiction writing, let a long reading anything. So don't worry about not being able to check it out.
Redrose
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 01:06 am (UTC)There's some UST between Ed and Noa in the film, but it's subtle, and when watching it's difficult to tell if the connection they feel to one another is based on misplaced goals and false dreams, on practical usefulness to one another, on friendship, on pity, or on something with the potential to be romantic. All in all, it's very vague and could be read legitimately a hundred ways. (Ed's German neighbors, for instance, think they're sleeping together-- very scandalous) But certainly by the end of the film there's frienship and trust. Based on a look Edward gives her in a certain scene, I choose to see them as a potential romantic couple (she's certainly got more attention from Ed than any previous female character, and he trusts her absurdly quickly for someone as naturally paranoid as Ed), but we'll never know.
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 01:24 am (UTC)Ok, I was going by the idea Noah was trying to make some amends with her troop/family but gets into some trouble along the way. She gets bribbed into doing something (Betraying Ed and Al to a former Thule Society member), but in her mind it is to save Edward (who she knows from her psychic abilities is rather ill (suffering from the condition his mother died from, (I play it as a form of leukemia)). I and going on the idea she is in love with him, he's cluess to it, but over time will realize he does love her.
Does that sound in Character?
Redrose
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 01:46 am (UTC)But the plot you've set up doesn't fit with the events of the movie. It sounds more like an AU movie. The Thule society wants Noa so they can get her to extract the information/knowledge about alchemy from Hohenheim, whom they've captured, in order to forge a permanent gateway between worlds. Later, they're hoping to get Ed's knowledge from her too. But Edward ends up opening the gate himself anyway, and Noa just sort of gets tossed aside in the resulting chaos. She initially resists the capture, but finally does, believing that the world beyond the gate (Ed's world) is a place she can go and be happy: Shambala, Shangri-La, and any other paradise world. She also wants to give Edward a chance to go home himself.
A big part of Noa's character in the movie is the fact that she's alone in the world, a person with no country and now (thanks to her being sold), no companions either. She's also discriminated against heavily being a gypsy in 1920s Europe. When she first meets Edward she touches his shoulder and says to him that they're the same, that he also has no country. In fact, all through the first half of the movie Ed is disappointed and almost bitter about the fact that he's alone and homesick (his father's long gone off somewhere.) In the end the fact that Ed and Al leave with the gypsies only emphasizes the fact that Edward (and by proxy Al, who refuses to be left behind again) are nomads/gypsies themselves.
I think emphasizing Noa getting her family back would feel off, because she's portrayed as being without anyone. And when her companions sold her, she didn't have a big emotional reaction, just surprise, so I think they weren't her family, just people she was travelling with.
Having Edward get ill is an interesting idea, but it'd have to be set after the movie because Ed's healthy as a horse when the movie ends.
If she were falling in love with him, I'd buy that Ed was being obtuse about it while being her friend. That certainly fits with his character in the tv series. Though (and I'm reaching a bit here) based on the film... he's definitely more mature in the movie, especially about reading people. And there's this one really weighted look he gives her in the movie when he travels through the gate and deliberately leaves her behind... If it were his movie self I think he'd be aware that she had a crush on him, and either react two ways: accept it and possibly return it, or not return the feelings, ignore her crush and pretend it's not happening. Both of those I see as more likely than him being oblivious to it.
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 02:10 am (UTC)The entire plot is a set up by the villain who really wants to use the souls of Al and Ed to obtain powers over dimensiona/temporal travel.
Noah's Psychic powers serve a part, but it's her who will get thought to Ed about his illness.
It happens long after the movie. I imagine it will be rather bitter sweet. I'm still wondering if Ed will make it to the end. Al will help save the day and break several taboos, in an attempt to tap an energry source capable to allowing him to cure his brother's condition. In 1923, there is no cure for Leukemia.
Jack's end of it my answer to why the man has no memory in the show. He will help the Elrics, disobey orders and find a way to send them back where they belong. Ed and AL will think he is from their world and sent by Mustange. He's certianlly annoying enough to Ed.
But is is complex. Lots of sub plots Novel like./ I thought of just doing a fic about a Dying Ed, but to be hoenst, I can't bring myself to doing it. I really don't want to do that to Al....
Redrose
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 02:17 am (UTC)My next advice then is to not bring up the Thule society as villains. The Thule Society part as connected to the Elrics is pretty much concluded in the movie; try creating a new villain or bring in a villain from Whoverse.
But is is complex. Lots of sub plots Novel like
The only thing better than a crossover is a novel-length crossover.
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 02:23 am (UTC)The story is a set up for a another fic involving 9 and rose and Jack. But I have to finish this one first.
I'm tempted to say the gate Al taps in the end is one where the Gelth go.00
Poor AL!
Redrose
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 02:31 am (UTC)Other thoughts on Noa's character:
She's not quite shy, but rather-- reserved. She's thoughtful and in conversation smoothly soft-spoken. She sings gypsy songs and dances gypsy dances. She's very curvy, but wears fairly modest dresses (as did most of the women of that era).
She's fairly well practiced at using her psychic abilities, and she can read the mind best when the subject is asleep. She does read Ed's mind while he's sleeping in one scene in the movie.
The knowledge she gets from reading minds is a mixture of both abstract and concrete: images, memory, people, places, words, thoughts. Although the Thule society wanted her to problem Hohenheim then Edward for alchemic knowledge, she couldn't understand alchemy just by reading their minds, and thus wasn't much help to that end.
When Ed and Alphonse get on a truck with the other gypsies at the end, the two in the driver's seat are a man and woman who look like Scar and Lust. Ed and Al notice, are suprised, but don't bring it up.
Oh, and when Alphonse followed through the gate back into our world, he started to get his full memory back.
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-27 09:52 pm (UTC)Thank you very much! I appreciate it.
How does the Gate of Alchemy work? I understand it only powers Alchemy in the world of Alchemy. But wouldn’t it be logical if another gateway to another parallel world could power similar forces in our world? If Psychic Powers exist, than certainly another gateway exists. It could be something that taps time and dimensional space itself. It just has to be opened and used. That is the basis of my story.
My going theory is Alchemy in the new world works sort of like Block Transfer, by mathematics mixed with the understanding of f the elements at a sub atomic level (Which ED and Al have as Alchemists from their world), Alchemy is very possible. Heck in the whoverse, Adric created Castrovalva (with pure calculation) with the use of the web powering him , then the Elric boys could do so with the right power source….
SHIVER….
Dear GOD they’d turn the WHOVERSE UPSIDE DOWN…..
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-28 01:58 am (UTC)However, when doing transmutations involving human alchemy the gate appears before them, literally. They don't go physically go anywhere, but in their vision they've gone somewhere and are standing in front of the gate, surrounded by sort of a big yellow emptiness-- like the concept of a white room. They can see the gate, and anyone else participating can see the gate, but to other people in the room it just looks like the alchemist is talking to/ looking at thin air.
When you do human transmutation, you are gifted by the gate with mass amounts of knowledge-- like it's being poured into your head. You get just enough to almost entirely understand the secrets of life and alchemy. (oh damn, now I want to do a hitchhiker's guide icon to this! idea!) But in exchange some part of your body is taken, and what you get in exchange is a homunculus. Because on his/her own, an alchemist's individual power and sacrifice is not enough to make a true human.
That's what the p-stone is for. Because life enegery=alchemic energy, that's why thousands of lives have to be sacrificed to make a p-stone. The p-stone allows you to perform a perfect exchange of human alchemy, and get a true person instead of a homunculus as a result. Al and Ed both do this at the end-- Al uses his own soul and the p-stone as sacrifices; Ed uses his culminated knowledge from the gate and his entire body/soul, making him a) the subject of the first sucessful human transmutation, and b) the first person to perform a successful human transmutation without a p-stone. But since he'd just been remade with the p-stone, and been through the gave several times, he's probably the only one able to do so, and probably only once.
In our world, they don't have access to alchemy. It appears the energy only travels one-way through the gate, though souls and bodies can be forced/made to travel both ways.
In the film, Envy (in monster form) was captured, and his body used to anchor the gate to a location, allowing for a physical manifestation of the gate that many people could travel through (though they came out the other end dead and possessed by gate demons.) Because a homunculus has a gate demon instead of a human soul, it's tied to the gate. Without Envy they could never have opened the gate from Europe-side in the film.
I don't know anything about whoverse except for the tv movie and the ninth doc series, so I can't comment on your analogy.
But I think mathematics are only the tool, the device-- the gate is a spiritual/metaphisical thing. It stands between worlds, and theoretically it is Hell-- like you have world A, the gate, and world B, and the possibility of other worlds or even heaven or purgatory. Because a newly dead person's soul goes into the gate, but it's not always there. There's the implication that there's a limited time period by which you can access someone's soul from the gate. But the gate is a sort of contained sub-universe, a hell-universe, and to access or cross it you need sacrifices and to summon it is to be forever altered in your knowledge (seeing inside the gate is what taught Ed to do alchemy without a circle.)
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-28 04:06 am (UTC)Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-28 11:49 pm (UTC)Does the film take place after the November 8th Beer Hall rally. Hitler is Jailed, and the uprising is thwarted. I need to know this because I havea short discussion on the Nazi's.
Redrose
Heh, the research in this is fun actually. I have a great picture of the streets of Munich in 1923.
Redrose
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-28 11:58 pm (UTC)Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-29 04:08 pm (UTC)Anyhow, I will rewrite the beginning. I'm on page 14 already, and well into the Elric boys hip deep in trouble while trapped din their little gilded cage.
Did they have any friends in Munich? Folks who’d miss them? I'm going on the idea that they've parted from the Gypsies because Edward got some misguided notion he had to clean up after he and Alter Al. I'm assuming they were friends and that Edward would try to sent Alter Al's stuff off so it could get used in Obreth's research. Sort of like having it published officially in honor of his friend, giving of course, Alter Al the credit. It was Alter Al's dream and Ed, being the sort of fellow he was would try to finish it for him. This of course in Edward's mind is temporary, because he is a nomadic fellow and would really like to establish himself as a traveling Sage of sorts,learning whatever he can from various universities and scientists that exist here.
I also see him having an extreme sense of responsibility to Al because he is physically so young, and in this world he just can’t conjure up a life for them that is safe and stable. A nice insular university life, is safe, even if it means getting established some place and traveling all over to learn. Its something he, Noa and Al could do without much question.
I’m going on the idea that Noa stayed with Alter Scar and Lust because she didn’t want to return to Munich right away and will show up later so she can leave with Edward and Al…
Anyhow, let me know what you think. Bugger, I have to redo the entire first ten pages… OH well. This is helping me to plan out the new stuff…
Oh, here is a picture of my daughter, Victoria with her Movie ED doll……
http://pics.livejournal.com/redrose999/pic/00016p59/g6
Redrose
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-29 10:18 pm (UTC)Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-31 08:29 pm (UTC)Are theri pictures of the appartment he lived in? Heh, can;t down loard the movie with my Mac so I have no idea what things look like. Has anyone posted screne caps?
Thank you again for the help!
Redrose
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-10-31 08:43 pm (UTC)I'm sorry, I don't really have time to answer any more questions for you. But I encourage you to ask someone else (try
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-11-01 06:36 pm (UTC)Redrose
Re: FMA Fanfic
Date: 2005-11-01 07:11 pm (UTC)