Q & A Session 6

Q1. Have you been reading anything interesting lately? Do you have any recommendations because I've run out of things to read.

A. I've been reading a mix of things over the past few months, so I guess I'll recommend the things that were memorable and really stood out to me. 

Fanfiction

The King's Shadow by AntaredTheEighthPleiade. It's Merlin story, and it's a sequel to The Warlock's Quickening. And it's basically a more proactive Merlin which is always a good but rare thing to come across. 

Yesterday Upon The Stair by PitViperOfDoom. A Boku no Hero Academia story. It's a bit of an AU where Izuku has a quirk. He see dead people. It's an interesting idea and I'm intrigued to see how things develop in the future.

Books

The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series by Alexander McCall Smith. I've watched the TV series before but I've finally managed to read a majority of the series recently. The story is set in Botswana with the lead character Mma Precious Ramotswe setting up a detective agency and solving all sorts of problems- both big and small. I love the easy-going voice and the sedate pace of these stories. They're the sort of thing you can read to relax. Currently has 17 novels in the series.

Articles

Angels & Demons by Thomas French. This is not for the faint of heart. It's an article about a real life tragic murder case and the long road to it getting solved. The writing is phenomenal, it really pulls you in and tugs at your emotions as everything comes together. Also a very long read- so set aside some time if you want to read it all in one go.

Q2. If you could change anything about the earlier chapters for Against The Odds, what would you change and why?

A. The question is what wouldn't I change?

No, but seriously, I think the biggest thing I'd change would be my writing style. I feel like my writing style has changed a lot and improved since chapter 1 and I would like to make everything more consistent. 

But I also know that by the time I upload a few more AtO chapters, my writing style will be even more different, so there's no real benefit to changing the earlier chapters. 

Plotwise- I'm sort of okay with what's up. Yes, I could tighten a few things up, but I don't want to get sucked into redoing the earlier chapters

Q3. Did you see the Fantastic Beasts movie? What did you think?

A. I have not. I've heard some good things about it. And I've seen all sorts of gifs and screencaps from the movie on Tumblr- and it does look rather nice. It's on my To-watch list. I'll get to it eventually.

 To read previous Q&As, click here.

Come, procrastinate with me

Actually, with the amount of writing I've managed, I actually don't feel like I've been procrastinating that much.

But I have somehow ended up some fics that I can totally recommend in case you need something to procrastinate relax with.

1. You are the Princess to my Dragon by LullabyKnell (Avengers) WIP

I'm not interested in the Avengers fandom. Other than a few crossovers, I never really bothered to read stories in the fandoms. Especially not multi-chaptered ones. But the concept of this story just got my attention. 

The main character is Darcy Lewis and she's a dragon. That leads to some pretty interesting times in the whole Marvel universe. I'm very interested in learning more about the dragons and their past.

The story is on FFnet as well but it's only been updated to chapter 16 on there.

2. How Long is Forever by tradition (Naruto Time Travel) WIP
A Naruto time travel story with Sakura as the main character. A Sakura who's smart, sassy, sneaky and doing all sorts of dangerous plans to fix things. If you can't tell, I really like how Sakura is in the story. There's no moping around because she's determined to fix things for the better.

The chapters are not in chronological order, but somehow that just works rather well for the story.

There's some really fun bits in the story- Chapter 30 on a whole is my personal favourite because of the complete irony of Sakura's words in a previous chapter.

3. Road Trip at the End of the World by Zenthisoror (Naruto) Complete

This is a very different style of fanfiction. The author describes it as fairytale-esque and I have to agree with that. This oneshot does seem to give off that vibe.

The story revolves around Team 7 after they wake up with no memories in the shadow of a giant tree. I feel like I can't say anymore without spoiling everything. I will however say that this story might give you team 7 feels by the end.

4. Ride the Skies by dollarformyname (SupernaturalxDark Angel crossover) Abandoned
An old crossover between Supernatural (sometime around S5) and Dark Angel- features drunk Castiel at the start and tiny transgenics. Though it's abandoned, I did enjoy reading the chapters that are there.

That's all for now,
Polar

AC_D8: Fantasy Manga Recs

Fantasy is my favourite genre. Anything with swords, magic, interesting worlds and characters is perfect to read when I need a break.

So I thought I'd share a few of my favourite fantasy manga.

1. Saver(Complete)
In a nutshell, the main character, Lena gets transported to a different time and place where she's destined to save the world. Also, she hides the fact that she's woman and calls herself Ley. But there's so much more to that- good artwork as it progresses, a fleshed out interesting world, characters with all sorts of motivations and a really good female lead character.
Lena/Ley is wonderful- she's stoic, a strong fighter and a good leader. 

2. Id
Chunhwa, the super-strong male protagonist who goes by Id, also gets transported to another world filled with elves, dwarves, etc and gets mistaken for a girl. This manga has a very interesting world, unique ideas and generally likeable characters. But I haven't seen an update for this in a while.

3. Claymore (Complete)
In a world where monstrous 'youma' eat people and can disguise themselves as humans, a mysterious organization uses half-human-half-youma female warriors called Claymores to deal with the monsters. Brilliant fight scenes, monster designs and good characters. I've followed this for a while and was sad when it completed this October, but I enjoyed it a lot.

4. Kubera
Having a god's name, Kubera's story starts when she sees her village getting destroyed. In her journey forward, she meets magicians, gods and demons. I've been following this for a while now and I like all the different elements in- mostly the hinted past and possible future. And I'm eager to see what happens in the future.

5. Berserk
Warning: This manga contains mature/horrid subject matter.
This manga has been around for a while. It's grim, tragic and violent and I like it. When I first started reading this, I couldn't stop because I wanted to know what happened next. Most times, horrible things happened. This is a manga that brings tragedy to a whole new level. But I follow it because the story is good. The artwork gets better. I don't expect a happy ending for this but I'm still keen to see how it ends.

I do follow a ton of other fantasy manga (Fairy Tail, Rain, etc), but I don't want to just list them without giving my thoughts on them. So I'll slowly add to this list in the future.

Polar