Ambivalence - 01

[linsetsu]

Title: Ambivalence - 01
Fandom: Gundam 00
Characters/Pairing: Ali-Al-Saachez x Lockon Stratos  
Rating: T
Warnings:  There is no love. In this chapter, there are some swearing, and nothing awfully explicit.
Summary: Post episode 23. Lockon is alive and taken captive. He meets...
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam 00, nor any of its characters.

Since my

Comments

[impervection]

I was wondering about the numbers, couldn't quite get it to fit. :)

Ir's nice to see that someone else thinks that Neil was not an innocent orphan until he joined up with CB. He's got too much rage inside of him. And there are a couple of years in between to account for. Thus far, anyway.

Ali continues to be his lovable self; cruel and witty, and Neil refuses to be a victim even when victimized. I like.

[linsetsu]

"Neil refuses to be a victim even when victimized." <-- I laughed. But it's true! Ah, Neil...how long will you be able to bear it? ~.~

And Neil, an innocent orphan until he joined CB? Pffft. Yeah right. He had to learn how to snipe with a conventional rifle /somewhere/. CB wouldn't have picked a no-experience civilian as a Meister. And yes, the rage and how he kept it alive all these years meant he was constantly in an environment that reminded him of it, unlike Lyle, who led a more-or-less normal life and found a reason to look towards the future.

Anyways, thanks for the comment! I hope you continue to like it ^_^
(and, yeah, numbers... I'm too lazy... ¬_¬)

[impervection]

I don't think that tyhey recruited their meisters based on their convictions alone, they have to have had some sort of skills from the start that suited the goal. We know that Setsuna and Allelujah were trained from a young age and Tieria... well, still a mystery, but I don't imagine that someone who was engineered especially for the assignment lacks the combat training to go with it. That just leaves Neil. There was a fic at the kinkmeme that speculated in his past too, which I thought was interesting. It's good when they leave us with this much room to play, the creator of the anime. That always spawns the best fanfics.

I suspect that he'll be broken down eventyually - this is Ali, after all. And I'm looking forwards to seeing how you're going to accomplish it. Will require going some seriously dark places. And always get the shivers when writers do that to me. :)

[linsetsu]

Ooh, do you remember what the speculation was in that kinkmeme entry? (I'd ask for a link, but I reckon you don't have it, and there are simply too many for me to be bothered to check each one...)

It's really a bad habit, but often times when I read a number of good fanfictions about something that has not (yet) been elaborated on by the anime/manga, I tend to be disappointed with what the original creators end up revealing. It makes sense, actually, since anyone would want their favourite characters to have the deepest (most painful, I did not say that) past, and the creators obviously don't have the leeway to spend so much time on one character... Meh, I'll enjoy my fanfictions ^^;

So there's no way Neil was an innocent orphan XD

Ah, yes, this is Ali... Aliiiii~! hahaha, I look forward to it too! I hope I manage to get dark enough to not make you disappointed o.o

[impervection]

There's a masterlist at the start with links to all the fics, so yes, I could easily find it. It's the Neil/Lyle one.
http://kinkmeme.livejournal.com/3608.html?thread=1389592#t1389592

I agree that canon sometimes ends up disappointing, because the fanfiction is so much better. When there are this many characters it's bound to be this waY; also, with anime in general, I think, where there's never enough time. I have read some few books where I don't dare venture into the fandom because I cannot imagine that any fanfic writer could possibly do the characters justice, but that has never been the case with any anime I've seen. Whenever canon ends up taking the easy way out, we must remember that there's always post-canon and in between the scenes fanfiction to re-interpret it. :)

[linsetsu]

Just read that entry, and it's an interesting take. Given the prompt, I guess having the twins live with a foster family was the most natural setting, though it's not the scenario I would usually ship. What I liked, though, is that the writer took a few sentences to clearly differentiate Neil from Lyle when it came to how they handled the loss of their family. I liked that part. Thanks for the exact link!! ^_^

I don't search for fanfics based on novels that often either. I wonder if writing gives us more time and space than anime...? Or maybe it's just because novels tend to have less characters. I don't know...

Haha, yes, fanfiction is (very often) my best friend XD

[impervection]

It's probably not the background I'd have chosen either, but I still like seeing how other writers tackle the downtime, the years we don't know about. It's interesting to see other people's speculation. And not a lot of fics have thus far has dealt with Neil and Lyle's childhood; there have been a lot of Allelujah and a bit of Setsuna. No one has even dared attempt Tieria. Some day I want to see a fic of little Ali. I rather doubt that we'll get an explanation for how he came to be how he is in the anime, it's not that kind of character. We're not supposed to care

[linsetsu]

...Tiera's past... that's something I'd be way too afraid to tackle too. Do I get the feeling that the 00 fandom doesn't have a lot of in-depth, character background fics? Hm...maybe I've just spent too long in the Naruto fandom...

But a fic based on Ali's past? DO WANT!!!! Will you write it? XD

Mm, I agree with what you say about canon and fandom. Like "One Piece" manga, I love it to bits, but I've never felt an urge to write fanfics about it, since mostly everything is explained in so much detail. So I guess, on the other hand, as anime-only-viewers, stories with large character and/or plot holes can be a little disappointing. Lucky I discovered the joys of fan creations years ago ^o^

I don't mind canon pairings in romance stories, but in the more general stories, where lovelove is not the main point, I like it when the creators don't specify anything. I found "Code Geass" managed this well. Sure, they gave a hell of a lot of fanservice, but in the end, nothing was solidified. Which was good.

[impervection]

It doesn't yet, but that's only natural since the anime isn't over yet. And unlike Naruto, this is an anime that had a set number of episodes from the start. I will probably write some fics like that myself, but not while there are still pieces missing to the puzzle. I don't want my fics to end up becoming AU because we find something out later that goes against the speculation. And Tieria is a grey zone that I think is especially susceptible to many important revelations later on, so I'm staying clear of his past too - for now

[linsetsu]

I think all the characters are bound to have quite a few things revealed now that we're in the second season. Ali's past will be quite difficult at this point, since we've not been given a single hint of his history before KPSA. But it /is/ a temptation... I may think about doing a short, ambiguous oneshot sometime, if time allows ^^;

Hahaha! True, in CG, we do see quite a few of as-good-as-naked girls, but it's not all that bad. It's a series where I surprisingly didn't sympathise with any of the characters, and yet found myself enjoying it until the end. The story is good, and the irony/psychology (?) of no-one-is-the-ultimate-evil appealed to me.

I'm not in that majortiy either, it seems. In a kind of anime like 00, I don't need romance. Just deep, dark (if appropriate), interesting characters and a good plot is enough. And Lockon just about covered half of that criteria by the 2nd episode, so... XDDD