follow me into the rain

I've just rewatched the epic and highly emotional fight between Gintoki and Takasugi in episode 304 and 305 of Gintama. It made me think of other one-on-one fights I've read and watched that got me similarly by the feelings. The first one that actually came to mind was Luffy vs Usopp in One Piece, Water 7 arc. But I think you run through the gamut of emotions pretty differently in those two fights, because when you read or watch the latter you're all "nooo what are you two doing stop it STOP IT goddamnit WHY MUST THIS HAPPEN NOBODY WINS WITH THIS DDDDD:", and that from the very beginning. With the former it's more of a rollercoaster, you start by going, "All right, Gintoki stopped him in the nick of time and now FINALLY EPIC SHOWDOWN WE'VE WAITED FOR SINCE LIKE 240-SOMETHING EPISODES!!!" and by the end you're sobbing.

And so now I wonder: what's the one fight scene between two people in any manga or anime that hit you the most emotionally? Or if it's hard to pick one, which are the top contenders?

I picked up a fun icons meme from sara_tanaquil! I did this once before, but I wanted to try again - and happily five different icons were picked from the first time.

Meme rules:

1. Reply to this post and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

Behind the cut are the ones sara_tanaquil picked for me, with my comments!

( a lot of babbling )

Foolish by chibi_trillian is a sweet 375-word ficlet, rated PG-15 for implications. Author's summary is "Usopp thinks too goddamn much". Set at an unspecified time, but likely pre-water 7. The prose might be a little purple at the start, but it's a good read all the same in my opinion (this is my favourite couple, though, which might affect my judgment ^_^).

Usopp worried constantly; it was part of his nature. His mind saw situations and immediately started looking for possible dangers, things to flee and hide from. This arrangement wasn’t precisely dangerous, but it wasn’t safe either. His heart said one thing, his head another, and his gut something else entirely.

I posted a rambling Plurk about this yesterday, then thought it would be cool to hear my f-list's thoughts about this, too, should anyone be interested in sharing.

I was having some vague thoughts about common fan speculations about the future of One Piece, and that led to thinking about how Oda tends to write child characters, and that led to more general ponderings about how a "true pirate" should act according to Luffy. (And probably also according to Shanks, Gol D. Roger, Whitebeard and perhaps other non-evil pirates in the story.)

( More behind the cut )

Writing Luffy in fics often feels like a constant struggle between making sure he's not too dumb and making sure he's not too normal. If a line satisfies me in one of those regards, it often makes me anxious for the other one instead.

And then there's also the worry of making him too wise - only in other people's POV, though./random venting

ETA: This is a silly thing to post.

Title: Absence, chapter 9. Part two.
Continued from Chapter 9, part 1. For disclaimer, warning and more info, see that part.

( 9.2 - the wall crumbles )
- To be continued in Chapter 10: The Truth

So! I got tagged - or rather, asked to be tagged - by scribe_protra a week or so back (*checks* uh, actually it was New Year's Eve - I'm even slower than I thought!) for a writing meme! This one is connected to user pics.

This is how the meme goes officially, though as you see below I didn't follow all of it:

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and write a drabble about (each of) the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

Beside the icon glee, I think - though I could have this all wrong - that the point is to write something brief and fast without taking it too seriously. Unfortunately, I normally fail at brevity and quickness, so that failed, even though I cheated and asked scribe_protra to only pick four of my icons rather than six. And I wound up way over 100-word length for all of them - though I did hold on to the "not taking it too seriously" part. Anyway, it was still fun to do, and I'd love to pass it on in case anyone's interested.

If you do want to do this, please ask how many icons I should pick - since I only had four, I can hardly demand anyone else must write six!

Concrit is welcome as always - this is just for fun, but it's always good to get tips on wording, correction on typoes etc!

( here we go )

Chapter 8 of my longest (and slowest, and saddest) fic is finished now. Here's the first part of two.

As noted when chapter 7 was posted, this is now a Divergence AU. Events happened differently at Marineford (for details see chapter 7, part 1, with spoilers for the real Marineford arc).

This chapter has been betaed by tonko, to whom I am very much obliged for her much-needed efforts. Any remaining errors are my responsibility alone. Nitpicks and other forms of concrit are much appreciated! ♥

I believe I'm finally ready to crosspost this fic to one_piece. While I still haven't ironed out all the wrinkles in the plot yet, now it feels as if the ending is at least in sight, if still a few chapters away. I know... famous last words... *knocks on wood*

Title: Absence, chapter 8, part 1
Previous chapters: Chapter One here, fic tag here; the whole fic on AO3 here
Rating: PG for language and dark themes
Warning For major angst and sadness
Summary: The crew copes with loss. Luffy doesn’t take it well (for more, see the ‘What has gone before’ section right behind the cut).
Characters: Strawhats

( What has gone before )

( 8.1: the last few days of sailing )
Chapter continues in Part 2

Happy Birthday, shayera!

Birthday pics behind the cuts.

( spoilers for One Piece up through chapter 585 )

And this one's just an extra. I have no excuses.
( random pointless crossover pic )