#raksura core
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a raksura core round-up post
for everyone’s incredibly niche raksura/crisis core AU needs (yes! for all ten of you!)
if you want:
humanoid dragon bee people worldbuilding, complete with scent marking and wings
all Raksura canon gender-locks stripped off
Cloud in particular being a short, feral, spikey ball of issues
the hazards of being a little shape-shifting predator guy in a world that fears shape-shifters
AGSZC (ASGZC? how do you decide on a single acronym, people?) with Cloud ignoring the fact that he’s been Wooed with grim determination
background dragon bee Aerith/Tifa, because the girls deserve better than any part of that mess
mad horny Sephiroth
Zack and Sephiroth being the source of all chaos, coincidentally, for some strange reason
Genesis and Angeal being the only source of stability, for some equally horrifyingly domestic reason
Sephiroth and Genesis being very big on sharing
long-suffering Kunsel and Cissnei, who just try to keep Zack alive despite his best efforts
gratuitous depictions of jewelry for everyone, because the Raksura go hard as hell
Aerith and Zack and their happy fun Midgar roadtrip time
“Midgar is not a place of honor. it’s just shit” - Angeal, 2k23
Cloud vs the mortifying ordeal of being known, round ∞
Genesis throwing an apple at Sephiroth on screen
Hojo 🤝 Jenova - the actual bad guys
warnings: implied/referenced past rape/non-con, primarily as a world building plot point and past threat from the Hojo & Jenova camp; see individual fics for further rating/violence warnings
series links
raksura core - the full series, from the top
wipe that ash from your mouth - Zack and Cloud Meetcute: Giant Chicken Tender Attack
body like a wreckage by the side of the road - Zack, Cloud, Kunsel, and Cissnei bonding on their roadtrip back to Edge
who could call you gentle now? - Genesis/Sephiroth banging in a hot tub. then meeting Cloud. this inevitably leads to Violence (chomping and biting and clawing and more violence, etc etc)
sing elegies to the exit wound - Sephiroth pouncing on Cloud when he tries to leave, like a malevolently horny pinball machine with claws
buried to your wrists in the dirt - a Dark Earth Below AU from the Books of the Raksura short stories; Cloud trying to find his place in Edge, while ASGZ desperately figure out how to break this man’s iron-clad self-control so they can all finally Smash
scrape the glass from your throat - the one where they’re all banging. at last. Cloud finds his home. (also, a roadtrip to Midgar, unanimously voted the worst court on the continent twenty years running)
#raksura core#ffvii#final fantasy vii#asgzc#agszc#zakkura for the first two#genseph for the third#raksura#my works#it's about the found family
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I feel like my creative output doesn't properly reflect how much @sunderedstar's raksura core writing has consumed me lately! Also since its inception, but especially lately. So it's time to address that! Which, tragically, means that I need to figure out how to draw raksuran queens, but god gives his toughest battles to his most hyperfixated soldiers, etc. But the scene where Genesis flirts outrageously with Cloud while Cloud is in a certain popular backless ensemble was too good to pass up.
If you don't know what the books of the raksura are, I highly recommend it (it's the fantasy series martha wells wrote before murderbot), and then, you just need to take the ffvii/crisis core cast and drop them into this setting, where everyone is a bunch of lizard bee shifters in a society of feral homesteaders. It's so good, I swear. And the universes slot together better than you'd think! There are remarkable parallels between Cloud and the protagonist of the book series, Moon. And in this setting, Angeal, Sephiroth, Genesis, Zack, and Cloud are able to make out extensively without anyone being tragically dead before that's an option, which is very personally important to me. With any luck, this won't be the past piece of art! If I'm going to work on figuring out how to draw queens, it's ABSOLUTELY getting inflicted on everyone around me!
#genesis rhapsodos#cloud strife#gencloud#final fantasy vii#books of the raksura#fanart#raksura core#i can't remember if that's a tag i use or not :psyduck:#i can't remember how i tag fanart period! so we're doing great over here#sunderedstar
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Second Verse Same as the First
So, I saw a thing I did not expect to see after many years!
See, Martha Wells has written fan fiction. And as far as I know still does write fan fiction. (She has also written Tie-In novels.) And intermittently her works are compared to her fan fic in a "This is derivative and we're not quite accusing her of plagiarism but we are totally doing that thing," kind of way. IIRC, this happened in regards to the Raksura books. Moon was compared to John Sheppard (StarGate Atlantis) and the Fell were compared to the Wraith.
As near as I can figure people thought this because of superficial comparisons between John and Moon, and also the Fell and the Wraith. And folks, this is not an example of something being derivative nor is it plagiarism. First, Moon and John Sheppard are not actually that close in personality. (Though Sheppard is definitely the kind of protagonist Wells' tends to write.) Second, the Wraith are not the only predatory sentient species to exist in science fiction or fantasy that predate on humans. Some of them are even also Bee People. Third, taking a concept and Doing Different Shit With It is a pretty common method of storytelling.
Most recently, I saw an accusation that Witch King is essentially MDZS with the serial numbers scraped off, and I all I say is...the hell? The reasoning here is that both Wei Wuxian and Kai both begin the story by possessing someone. That they both have to solve their own murders and get to the bottom of a conspiracy. That they both fought in a war against conquerors. <== Apparently the person wasn't aware that this is first, a very common story line in genre fiction, and secondly, the parallels are not actually that similar. Example: The entire Riftwar Saga, Laurie J. Marks Elemental Logic novels, and so on.
Kai and Wei Wuxian's circumstances are extremely different because they are entirely different people with completely different personalities. (Though again, Wei Wuxian is definitely the kind of Protagonist Wells tends to write.) Also, their histories are completely different, and their plots/conspiracies ain't that similar.
Here's a breakdown:
Wei Wuxian: kind of feckless or at least pretends to be. Extremely loyal to his family and friends. Most of his trauma is the loss of his family (multiple times!), but also his family situation is kinda toxic. He has to deal with the misfortune of having a lower social standing and being a genius. Forced to develop the ghost path after giving his golden core to Jiang Wanyin and getting dropped into the Burial Mounds. He dies horribly and brought back to life via a "sacrifice summons" ritual and ends up possessing Mo Xuanyu.
Wei Wuxian, while completely unaware that Lan Wangji like-likes him is still perceptive enough to get to the bottom of a mystery involving the death of Nie Huaisang's brother. (Which is part of Nie Huaisang's Master Plan to utterly destroy his brother's murderer. Nie Huaisang is basically using Wei Wuxian to reveal the conspiracy and Jin Guanyao's actions.)
MDZS is a romantic comedy layered over a tragedy wrapped up in a case fic
Kai: Is your average cheerful kid...who happens to be a demon. Has a high status background, and no trauma up until the bad guys invade. Is already possessing a (dead) someone because he is a demon and that's the only way he can live in the upper world. Ends up making a desperate jump to an evil magic user and since that person was alive at the time, acquires all the guy's knowledge of his magic system. Said magic system is based on pain, and Kai decides to solve the ethical conundrum by using his own pain and trauma on the bad guys.
Kai loses his human family and his entire culture, (and becomes estranged from his birth family/culture) then acquires a new found family and then is betrayed/assassinated by the heir of the prince Kai supported/aided during the war. An evil magic user decides to try controlling him, and this goes very badly for the magic user.
Witch King is a story that happens after the epic fantasy. It's grimdark with a silver lining of hopepunk. Kai's quest here is to find his friend's wife who is missing and find out all the particulars concerning who betrayed him. (Not apparently for revenge. Just to know, and to basically write the betrayer off.) Kai is doing all of this without being manipulated or being used to serve someone else's revenge.
These are similar in a superficial way, but it's clear that these are two distinct stories.
Having said all that, now I want a Witch King/MDZS crossover fic.
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i love looking at sketches vs final product and for these fic covers i've been doing little thumbnail sketches in the same document, and then leaving whichever sketch 'wins' there for... idk. posterity? funsies? am having fun sharing so thought i might share this too bc who knows if i'll ever make full versions of all of these. added numbers in order of drawing. if you squint you can see me putting a bit more effort/details into them as i go
fic links are under the cut
tho not tagging authors bc its just messy wips here
Pandaflower's Don't Be Suspicious
2. Clothonono's Concerning Lace
(which! I would love to make larger but the ANATOMY and the LACE 😭)
3. Oriflamme's Raksura Core (ff7). the sketch in the top right is also for this i just can't get it to work (anatomy!)
4. Clothonono's Rochdeilin
(no the outline of mae's d did not make it to the final version)
5. Dorkangel's The House of his Enemies and the Slayers of His Kin
6. Clothonono's (yes, I do like clotho's fics a lot) The One With All The Birds
7. Pandaflower's Great and Powerful Oz (Scum Villain)
(which. admittedly. when i sketched this i forgot the series was not called "behind the curtains" (thats just one of the fics). the veil is the curtain. u know? don't pay attention to the man behind the curtains.
dat is all for now
#wip#fic book cover#fun fact!!!! you can lightly see the outline of mae's d still lmao#i added it as a joke bc fingon's hands sorta looked like they were cupping it and then i never fully deleted it#hahahahahahahaha
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The books of the Raksura have such a fun worldbuilding core if they weren’t so niche they’d be a massive fandom AU trend.
I desire no more Harry Potter house or what animal Daemon a character would have headcanons, only what type of Raksura characters are. Give them to me. If you know what I’m talking about tag this post with your blorbo and their Raksura caste
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parched rivers run by skadii - final fantasy VII, 9/10 chapters, 136k, zack/cloud
Zack laughs hysterically. “No, no, no. That’s not how this works. Didn’t you hear Jessie the other day? I die for you. Not the other way ‘round.”
Zack lives. What next?
i don't think i've ever read a story where someone was SO enthusiastic about being in love as zack. kept me up way too late last night.
raksura core by oriflamme - final fantasy/books of the raksura crossover, series, around 130k words of the main series in complete fics
cloud as an isolated dragon person in a fantasy setting with complex dragon person social dynamics. being cloud, this gets complicated. masterlist and more info here
how river learned to stop worrying and love the moon also by oriflamme - books of the raksura, 18k, complete
Chime is, apparently, useless. No one else seems to notice or care that their first consort wears almost the exact same jewelry to every formal event. Really. It's been years. So River takes matters into his own hands.
tides don't turn by silentwalrus - ffvii, 20k, wip
It was all because of a stupid cow. Water buffalo. Whatever.
and we're gonna sing it again by procrastinatingbookworm - trigun, 5k oneshot
Wolfwood haunts the narrative — after his death, after it ends, and after a new story begins.
i'm gonna go ahead and rec all of procrastinatingbookworm's stuff for trigun fans, but the ghostwood au by shelternmberone is a SPECIAL treat. set in tristamp era with spoilers for trigun 98/the manga. other top favorites are terrors don't prey on innocent victims and will we ever grow a proper sense of panic
fool in the moon by arahir - trigun, 8k
Vash is a walking death wish. A race between self-sacrifice and skill, and in all Wolfwood’s shitty years on this shit-ass planet he’s never met a man with so much of each.
So maybe Vash taking a bullet to the head for him shouldn’t have been a surprise
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Hi yes hello I am a longtime fan of you/your writing/this blog and I thought I'd let you know that you have successfully sucked me into The Murderbot Diaries and I've read all six books now and am actively searching for Martha Wells' grocery list to start reading. As an update, if you've got any grocery lists, I'd stick those in the immediate TBR pile as well. (bonus note here! Thanks for being you and doing what you do! Your writing inspires mine a LOT!)
This makes me so unspeakably happy. I love those books so much and I'm so happy every time someone new picks them up! There are very few books I have reread over the course of my life - once is normally good enough for me - but Muderbot I have ready many, many times. It just hit sooooo many good buttons for me.
If you haven't already found them, I also enjoyed the Raksura series by Martha Wells. It's a different sort of story and setup, but it's still got that same core of a main character who, due to the life they've been backed into to date, doesn't understand that they are worthy of and can be / are loved by their eventual found family and are adjusting to that new paradigm. It's also got one of my favourite character archetypes, which is to say a large, cranky old man character who has a tendency to adopt anyone feral enough to bite him instead of introducing themself.
They're longer and not as tight as Murderbot, for lack of a better word, probably because they're older (ten-ish years ago for the first book, I think), but that didn't detract for me! Just differentiated them in my head. The gender representation is definitely heavier on cis-gender characters, with a lot of playing with gender roles within that binary. There are some characters in the later books and some peoples referred to has having identities or biological makeups outside that binary, but it's not necessarily a focus for this series or as present in the narrative as it is with Murderbot (which, for those who haven't read it, includes an explicitly non-binary main character, as well as a variety of supporting characters with explicit and varied non-binary identities, non-binary pronouns, and a society where that is entirely normal). The main characters in the Books of the Raksura are binary in terms of gender identities, though the traditional binary roles are aggressively poked at and played with within context. Having said that, there are multiple sexualities represented, and the main characters / people are all poly, culturally speaking (note: I am not poly and I may not have a full understanding of the context of that term, but I'm pretty sure at least some of its nuances would apply here).
I really appreciate this note. You're a peach, thank you so much for sending it!
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TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 33 of 26
Title: The Edge of Worlds (2016) (The Books of the Raksura #4)
Author: Martha Wells
Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, LGBT Protagonist, Third-Person
Rating: 9/10
Date Began: 11/28/2020
Date Finished: 12/09/2020
Two turns after The Siren Depths, Moon has settled into life in the Indigo Cloud colony with young children of his own. But when all the adult Raksura experience a disturbing, shared nightmare that foretells the destruction of their home at the hands of the Fell, things are about to change. Soon an expedition of strange groundlings visit The Reaches, claiming they need the Raksura to help investigate a mysterious abandoned city far to the west. Believing the two events are linked, Moon and the others embark on a journey to avert disaster. However, they soon find more than they bargained for when a Fell attack traps them in the deadly, labyrinthine city ruins.
If eyes fall on this, and no one is here to greet you, then we have failed. Yet you exist, so our failure is not complete.
Full review, some spoilers, and content warning(s) under the cut.
Content warnings for the book: Graphic violence and action. Some mind control stuff (par for the course at this point).
This is a difficult book to review because it is, for all intents and purposes, part one of a longer two-part story. While the three previous books were all self-contained, The Edge of Worlds isn't, even ending on a cliffhanger. I feel like this duology might have been written as a single book but got split for publishing reasons. As of this writing I have not read the next book, The Harbors of the Sun. So take what I say with a grain of salt, because my commentary assumes the next book will address certain things.
The Edge of Worlds’ core plot builds on threads from the previous book-- mysterious ancestors, bizarre dead cities, the Fell/Raksura crossbreeds, and so on. This book doesn't include any new details about the ancestors, which are just called "the forerunners", but I expect the next book to touch on this more, as it’s been a consistent Thing in the series. There's also another mysterious, ancient ruin critical to the plot. However, it’s pretty different than the underwater city in The Siren Depths, so doesn't seem repetitive. Oddly, it reminds me of House Of Leaves with its vast size, impenetrable darkness, and sentient (?) traps.
The book also explores Fell/Raksura crossbreeds in yet another way. Previous books depicted them as terrifying weapons (The Cloud Roads) or just weird looking Raksura (The Siren Depths). The Edge of Worlds splits the difference, introducing a Fell flight that seems much more sympathetic and reasonable than any encountered thus far-- led by a crossbreed queen. My criticism of the Fell way back in The Cloud Roads is they're basically an Always Chaotic Evil horde of predators, but this new idea adds a lot of nuance. Though I am assuming the next book goes into this more, as they’re just introduced here. It's important to remember the Fell and Raksura are descended from the same ancestor, and even though Raksura are the heroes of the story, there are a lot of similarities between the two species. Overall this is one of the most intriguing threads in the series, and I'm glad we keep coming back to it in new ways.
Another thing this book does differently is perspective. Moon is the POV character in the other main entries. While that's still true, there are several interludes from the perspectives of others. For practical purposes this is to show what's going on outside of the main party, particularly so Malachite showing up at the end doesn't feel like an asspull. Also, certain events really do need to be explained when Moon isn't present. I can respect that.
From a reading standpoint I really like these alternate points of view. They're all minor characters-- Lithe, Ember, Merit, River, and Niran-- which is an interesting choice. Ember's interlude is actually my favorite part of the book. It's fun to see a more "traditional" consort approach an awkward situation, and I like his initial struggle to accept and treat Shade (one of the crossbreeds and a personal fave of mine from the last book) as a regular consort. Ember comes off as very submissive in the rest of the series so it's fun to see him take charge. Also this part features a scene in which two intimidating Raksuran queens, Pearl and Malachite, have the most tense tea service of all time. It's just hilarious.
This book actually has a trans analogue with the Janderan, the primary groundling species, who apparently choose their gender when they reach adulthood. Specifically there’s a focus on a young man named Kalam, who just took that step. This doesn't feel like the standard fantasy/scifi copout because humans literally do not exist in the series. Wells handles trans/nonbinary/agender characters (human and otherwise) extremely well in The Murderbot Diaries so I feel it’s in good faith. LGBT rep in the Raksura series has been great so far, honestly. Moon/Jade/Chime is like... canon, man.
Another general observation I haven't previously noted... I love how many interesting and varied flying ships there are in this world. They're all boat-like (nothing like airplanes) but there has been a different kind in each book. Considering that most of the main cast can fly it's interesting that flying ships are consistently integral to the plot. It would be so easy to cop out and design one ship that every society uses, but Wells really makes them all unique despite serving similar functions to the story. The ship in this one is organic, powered by living, cultivated moss. I dunno! I just think it’s neat.
I do have one criticism for The Edge of Worlds, keeping in mind it's part one of a longer story. The pacing. This book is pretty slow; it takes a while to get going and then there are lots of lengthy travel sequences. As long as there’s interesting flavor to it, I generally don't mind this approach. It allows for breathing room and character interaction. But even I started feeling bored at points and had to power through. It feels like a lot of the travel could have been cut from the book without losing much. For example, the journey to the colony tree in The Serpent Sea took up maybe a few chapters. I appreciate travel in this series from a worldbuilding perspective, but in this case I think some time gaps would have been fine. The action doesn't pick up until the party arrives at the ruin, in the latter half of the book.
Also, this isn't really a criticism, but there are several references to the Raksura novellas and short stories. I haven't read them (yet) so they’re totally lost on me. I can't blame Wells for including references, both as a wink/nudge to people who have read them and because ignoring relevant ideas makes no sense. But as someone lacking context it comes off as awkward to have a character think “WOW, this is just like that one time Jade had to do this one thing!” and I’m just like “...it is???”
Despite this I like just about everything else in the story, especially the second half. It really does feel like a proper finale, bringing back notable characters from throughout the series (not anyone from The Serpent Sea yet... I do have my suspicions here, though). River seems to be getting a mini redemption? The labyrinthine, dark city is creepy, and the artifact they find inside it is super unsettling. All the climactic action is intriguing, particularly regarding the new Fell crossbreeds. The novel ends abruptly, but that’s understandable since the next book leads right off from it. I'm really excited to see how the Raksura story concludes.
#taylor reads#2020 reading challenge#BONUS ROUND#9/10#me: well that line is foreboding and probably foreshadowing let's use it with no context
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“Cannot Help Our Nature”
“Cannot Help Our Nature”, or a text post by Tye about why that one line bothers me so much.
So, let me start by saying there are a few things in fiction that I cannot stand. One of them is the concept that a whole species can be evil, no exceptions. Each member of an entire species is 100% evil from birth to death. Most of the time these species are a hive-mind or have a hive social structure. The Illithids in DnD, the Fell in The Books of the Raksura, and even in kids shows like the Changelings in MLP: FiM. We’ve seen time and time again that species with a hive society or hive-mind are evil. I’m very against the idea that a whole species can be born evil, it doesn’t sit well with me and probably never well. And if a hive-mind society is “evil” are they really? Or is just whatever is at the core? Can we say for certain that all the members of the hive-mind want to do what they’re doing? I’d venture a guess we can’t.
So why does this panel bother me more than any of the others in the whole issue? Well lets take a moment to explore something, what IS the Venom Symbiote’s nature?
It’s been established very early on in Planet of the Symbiotes that the Venom Symbiote has always been different from the other corrupted Klyntar. In fact, this difference in nature nearly got it culled to safeguard the gene pool. The Venom Symbiote has always been about living with and being one with a host. The middle panel is very important and we’ll swing back to it in a few heartbeats.
What about the Klyntar themselves? What is their nature? Well, that depends on where we are in the Venom canon. Because it’s evolved over the years. With the Symbiotes in Planet of the Symbiotes we see a species that is probably 100% evil. The fact that they were ready to cull Venom for being different speaks of this. However, even these Symbiotes don’t act like how Venom is in issue 11. These Symbiotes use up and dispose of their hosts, tossing them away like garbage. Their nature is consume and destroy. Emotional manipulation is not among their nature. They care not for the host, the host is just a food source to power their march across the galaxy.
Of course this view of the Klyntar shifted with expanded history in Guardians of the Galaxy 2013 issue 23. Like it or not, the Klyntar were given a name and a few interesting facts. The first is that they are, at their core, a species that seeks peace in the galaxy. The second is that their species lives to form a close bond with a host, something they consider sacred (sound familiar? maybe like a certain symbiote deemed an aberration?). The third is that there is a renegade group of Klyntar who desire to do harm and spread like a disease. The Klyntar of the homeworld reject and are ashamed of this subsection of their kind. This history change keeps Planet of the Symbiotes canon, as the ones they fought were part of this subgroup of destroyers. (I should mention the above image is from Venom 2016 issue 3)
So we know what the nature of the Klyntar are, they are either uncaring monsters who suck all life from their hosts and move on, or they’re a species that treats the bond as something sacred to be treasured. None of those include emotional manipulation of the host and abuse of the host mentally.
But what about Venom? What is the Venom Symbiotes nature? What does Venom do when scared?
In issue 11 of the 2018 run it would seem that the Venom Symbiote’s nature when scared is to create false memories, force a co-dependence, and manipulate Eddie so that he is too scared to leave.
I’d argue that that is a completely false reading of the Venom Symbiote. To me, the Venom Symbiote’s nature when scared is to withhold information, clam up, hide, and on occasion lie. The Venom Symbiote, when scared will not admit that it is scared, it will say that everything is ok, fine, there is nothing wrong. Venom lies to itself.
Venom has always been scared of being rejected, that fear has been documented for ages. It hid that it was alive from Peter out of fear of rejection, it hid it’s true nature from Eddie because it thought Eddie would reject it for being different. Once more it hid it was alive to Ben Reilly out of fear of rejection. It hid that it was falling off the Path to Flash out of fear that Flash would leave. And again it hid that they were ready to spawn to Eddie out of fear. It was afraid Eddie would leave, was afraid the child would be a monster, so Venom claimed everything was fine.
(Screens from Venom Super Special, Venom Space Knight issue 6, Venom 2016 issues 164 and 165)
Venom hides and retreats when scared. Venom has never been shown to do this type of emotional damage when frightened. Even when Venom is aware that it’s manipulating Eddie, it questions itself, asks if its wrong to influence Eddie to fight crimes? Is it ok to lie to Eddie? Does that make it a monster? Venom seems to be very aware that it’s a bad thing, and it doesn’t do it often. We’ve had whole arcs about who is influencing who, Planet of the Symbiotes, Separation Anxiety, even the Hunger touched on the fact that they have a bond that affects both of them. The outcome of all of these moments of questioning seems to be that, no, Venom does not make Eddie do things that Eddie wouldn’t do. There’s no insidious manipulation at play.
I just cannot see that Venom has been creating false memories, fake cancer, seeding fear, seeding doubt, and playing Eddie for their entire relationship. There’s just far too much to the contrary out there with this character. We’ve never seen Venom behave in that way. When Venom is scared, Venom hides.
Venom was born to be an Agent of the Cosmos. Venom’s nature has always been to create a healthy bond, because an unhealthy one destroys the host and corrupts the Klyntar. Venom has always wanted to be a hero, be good. And even after all the people who used and abused it, it still firmly believes that its nature is good.
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Trivia Tuesday - 1/14/2020
I started writing this up from last week and the Trivia Tuesday for The Frost King--it started running too long, so have some dummied-out story bits from the sequel that's hopefully coming next winter. :)
Although the sequel isn't posted yet, it is being worked on and beta-read, and some dummied-out portions from that include:
The griffins from Jess E. Owen's Summer King series and the Raksura from Martha Wells' Books of the Raksura. When starting a sequel, the temptation is to throw everything in, especially with a fanfiction that doesn't have to follow conventional means. Working with it told me that neither one of these points really add to the story, actually end up cluttering it up, and in the case of the latter defeats some of the later points of the story. The Pale Skins fled their home country because of people turning into monsters, some of which could fly--and from a groundling perspective, Raksura are people who can turn into monsters, some of which can fly. It would have made the storyline too problematic. Griffins do still exist in the storyline as it sits right now, with some of the same points from The Summer King, and there's still a reference to the Three Worlds with mention of Kish, but both story points have been axed.
Further delving into surrounding kingdoms. I want to do that SO BADLY, but with the storyline that is the core point of the sequel, we won't be able to do too much of that. So far though we are getting more of an inkling of what the surrounding area looks like, and the plot points do demand that we visit at least one before the main plot thread kicks into high gear.
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New Years Fandom Meme
And once again, my annual New Years fandom meme, under the cut.
1. Your main fandom of the year: I'm not sure I... even... had one this year? I can't think of one thing I had extended interest in for more than a month or so. Honestly this year feels kind of like blur at the moment. I know I really enjoyed Good Omens and the Fruits Basket revival, both of which were not really on my radar until they came out and so came as something of a surprise. And then there was the two weeks during the summer where all I could think about was Detective Pikachu... and the two weeks in spring where I was majorly sick and binged all four seasons of the Flash... but something that stands out as my main focus this year? I honestly can't say.
2. Your favorite film this year: Probably Spiderman: Far From Home. It was endearing and funny and a good look at what the Marvel universe looks like after the events of Endgame (all criticisms of how quickly the world went back to normal life after half the population disappeared and returned aside). And then we panicked for a month or so when it looked like Spiderman was about to leave the MCU, but it's all okay now. I also was oddly fascinated Detective Pikachu despite not being a fan of Pokemon as a kid, likely because they hit me with one of my favorite tropes right at the very end.
3. Your favorite book this year: I barely visited the library this year, but I did do a lot of Kindle reading. The series I enjoyed the most was the Raksura books by Martha Wells (the same author who wrote the Murderbot books I loved last year). I found the world-building in these stories fascinating. It's a fantasy series that takes place on one planet(?), but there are so many different intelligent species without any one dominant culture, plus a bunch of ancient civilizations and secrets no one really understands. The main character is part of race of shapeshifting dragon-type humanoids, but he's an orphan who has never met another member of his species until adulthood, and has spent his life looking for somewhere to belong. The writing itself is actually pretty simplistic, so it's not a difficult read, and I got through all five books fairly quickly.
4. Your favorite album or song this year: I've been listening to some David Hodges lately, though I miss the bands he was involved with. Also I enjoy the salty post-breakup song "Happy" by Beth Crowley, despite never having been in a relationship.
5. Your favorite TV show this year: It's a tie between Good Omens and Fruits Basket. I wasn't even planning on watching Good Omens but then all the gifs of David Tennant started flooding my dash and I couldn't help checking it out. It was a compelling story with a fascinating relationship at its core and a lot of heart, and I'm glad I gave it a chance. Fruits Basket has been a favorite of mine since high school, so I was thrilled to see it was returning with updated animation and almost all the original English cast. Watching it was like being back with old friends. I hope they are able to complete the whole story this time!
6. Your favorite tumblr moment this year: Area 51 raid- absurd, sci-fi, humorous, and no one got hurt.
7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year: I guess Good Omens? I ended up reading the book as well after watching the miniseries and it was pretty good, although I think I prefer the TV version. Once again David Tennant is my weakness. It's probably a good thing he spends most of his time doing serious dramas and crime TV that I have no interest in, honestly.
8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year: Let's see, should it be a) the new Lion King movie, an embarrassing parody of my childhood favorite Disney film, b) the expose about the original plan for Dragon Age 4 which was Everything I Wanted but ended up getting scrapped because EA is a terrible boss and game development is hell, or c) the last movie in the "Skywalker Saga" being an absolute mess in which Palpatine came out of nowhere and I had to watch Rey kiss Kylo Ren onscreen? Currently C hits the hardest but it's hard to say which was the biggest. Runner up: that bizarre fanficcy Target storybook where TenToo gets renamed Corin and Rose barely sees him as a person. wtf.
9. Your favorite male character of the year: My boy Kyo has returned from war with the same grumpy attitude and a newfound love of Adidas.
10. Your favorite female character of the year: My girl Tohru showing unconditional love to all her friends and making me cry like five times.
11. Your biggest squee moment of the year:
12. Your most missed old fandom: My family had a Merlin rewatch in anticipation of the show being removed from Netflix (boooo). It was very nostalgic but also disappointing in a way? Watching all 5 seasons in a row makes it even more clear that the things that were promised in the first few seasons never actually happen- Arthur never brings magic back to Camelot and his reign as king is at best five or six years, making it hard to see why he became such a legendary character. The writers seem too afraid to shift the dynamic between Merlin and Arthur and wanted to keep to the safety of the status quo, so Arthur doesn't find out about Merlin's magic until the very final episode and the show suffers for it. What a shame.
13. Your fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to: I want to play The Outer Worlds and in fact my mom bought it for me for Christmas... only for us to realize that I can't install it on my computer because I'm not using Windows 10 and there's no way to return the digital copy. Ha. Ha. Ha.
14. Your biggest anticipation of the New Year: The new Murderbot novel comes out in spring! Also hope we will get some info- any info- on Dragon Age 4.
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forgive the sea, follow the tide (219944 words)
Chapters: 17-18/?
Fandoms: Final Fantasy VII, The Books of the Raksura
Rating: E
Pairings: Zack Fair/Angeal Hewley/Genesis Rhapsodos/Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Tags: We? Gongaga. The Best Poly Negotiations Ever Conceived Of By Dragon Bee People Kind, Which Is To Say – They're Winging It Unforgivably But They're Doing Their Best
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"Man, though! How long can they keep this up for?" Zack groans, flopping back with a groan.
"Sephiroth once sat on me for two hours so that Angeal could finish reading me the riot act," Genesis says, turning another page in his book. He adds, philosophically, "And then he sat on me for a third, just to prove he could, after which Angeal lost control of the situation. Which was really our childhood in a nutshell, now that I think about it."
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It's a double feature...two chapters for the price of two chapters!
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RAKSURA TIME! I live for this book series, guys, I know murderbot really caught the internet's attention, but Martha Wells wrote such a good fantasy series before that, I highly recommend.
First up, we've got a fusion fic! Imagine ffvii. Imagine cloud. And then just.... superimpose him onto moon. It matches so well. And then you just need to stack a good four loving husbands on top of him to love and cherish him deeply! Look. I promise. Just read the Raksura Core series, there's even a fresh new au of an au that didn't make it into this edition, so I'm gonna be rebinding this at LEAST once more in the future.
Then, pure raksura fic! How River Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Moon. River.... River. He's exactly my kind of character, which means he's an asshole who almost burns down his whole life in ways that are largely but not wholly self-inflicted and I derive great, GREAT joy by watching him attempt to scrape the ashes back together and seek personal growth and happiness. I find it so, so rewarding. I ran out of gold foil this week, but I may be attempting some more elaborate cover decoration one more arrives, only the best for my best boy.
And then some miscellaneous short stories from the author's patreon! I live in a state of perpetual low key stress over the impermanence of digital media and that goes extra for sites that aren't designed to work well as archives. I hope, desperately, that someday Martha Wells publishes more raksura, maybe even including these stories! I will buy it immediately. No thoughts, wallet empty. I own all her other raksura books in literally three formats, fingers crossed that by printing this, I can actualize a formal official printing of these stories by the author 😂
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Spending Time With a Murderbot: All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Liz Bourke
Mon May 1, 2017 4:00pm
Martha Wells is an author for whom I’ve long had no small amount of respect and admiration. Her first novel, The Element of Fire, remains one of my favourites, as does Wheel of the Infinite, while Death of a Necromancer and her Fall of Île-Rien trilogy made deep impressions. In recent years, her Books of the Raksura have received their share of critical attention and acclaim. So when I heard that Wells was to be publishing at least two novellas with Tor.com Publishing in a new series called The Murderbot Diaries, you can be pretty sure I was interested.
All Systems Red is the first novella of those Murderbot Diaries, and it really doesn’t disappoint.
The narrator and main character of All Systems Red is a part-synthetic, part-organic intelligence, a “SecUnit” rented as part of a corporate package by a survey team. This SecUnit has hacked their protocols so that they are capable of independent thought and action, and refers to theirself as a murderbot—although they haven’t done much murdering, preferring instead to download and consume media like vids, books, plays, and music in order to keep entertained. Murderbot doesn’t like humans very much, and doesn’t enjoy interacting with them (if they were completely human, the reader would suspect them of having a form of social anxiety) but Murderbot has both a personality and a conscience. When things start going wrong—when the local fauna attempt to eat two of the surveyors, when it turns out that parts of the map the team has for the planet are incomplete, and then when a neighbouring survey mission stops responding to communications attempts—Murderbot is pretty unwilling, if at times reluctantly so, to let anything happen to their humans.
It transpires that there’s sabotage and conspiracy afoot. Conspiracy that kills people, and may kill all of Murderbot’s humans if they and the survey team can’t figure out how to stop people who both outnumber and outgun them.
The action-mystery-adventure element to All Systems Red is a lot of fun. Wells has a really tight grasp of tension and pacing, and a truly polished skill with turning a phrase. The language in All Systems Red draws no attention to itself, but Wells has a knack for making even unobtrusive prose slid into a vivid line that brings a whole paragraph to life.
But the real appeal of All Systems Red is the voice. The character of Murderbot, indifferent to and somewhat annoyed by things outside their area of interest, intensely human—and relatable—in their desire for continued existence and autonomy, and in the vaguely baffled, vaguely irritated way they react to the humans’ attempts to socialise with them, and treat them as a person. (The gallows-edge of graveyard humour only adds savour.)
The character of Murderbot is really compelling. (You may notice I am not calling them it.Murderbot isn’t a thing. Murderbot might not be a human, and might not have a name, but Murderbot is definitely a person.) The other characters are interesting, but we see them only through Murderbot’s perceptions—and Murderbot isn’t especially interested in most of them. But Murderbot? Murderbot isn’t interested in being told what they want, or what they ought to want. Murderbot’s determination on self-determination is the thematic and emotional core of this novella.
All Systems Red a really fun piece of science fiction adventure with compelling characters and great pacing. I really enjoyed it.
And I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes next.
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if you ever want to rethread your ribcage (21673 words)
Chapters: 1/?
Fandoms: Final Fantasy VII, The Books of the Raksura
Rating: M
Pairings: Zack Fair/Angeal Hewley/Genesis Rhapsodos/Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Tags: The One Where They Banora, Return of the Dragon Bee People
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Zack's talking faster. Like he can sense the ominous force rising in the background. "And actually when you think about it, you're the first consort. You visiting would show some major respect for an old ally like that," he assures Angeal.
"I see. So this plan would involve leaving you here to –" Angeal twists his torso slightly to break Zack's hold again, and sits up to pin him. "– hold down the fort, so to speak?"
Zack splutters and tries to sit up. Angeal restrains his squirming without any apparent effort, a look of a distant contemplation on his face. "No way, man! For real?! Of course I've gotta go with you! Say psych!"
"Do I get a say in this?!" Genesis demands, throwing up both arms up to the sides and then letting them drop.
"At some point," Angeal says, cryptically.
The noise that Genesis makes cannot be quantified.
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forgive the sea, follow the tide (93482 words)
Chapters: 7/?
Fandoms: Final Fantasy VII, The Books of the Raksura
Rating: T
Pairings: Zack Fair/Cloud Strife, Angeal Hewley/Genesis Rhapsodos/Sephiroth, eventual Zack Fair/Angeal Hewley/Genesis Rhapsodos/Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Tags: We? Gongaga.
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(with the monsters on your shoulder)
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Cloud is five years out of Nibelheim when he doesn’t go to Saraseil.
(raksura core AU)
#my works#ffvii#agszc#zakkura#final fantasy vii#raksura core#once again writing just an insane amount of words about dragon bee people
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