Fanfic: Ghost Stories

[athenemiranda]

I did just enough research for this fic to start hating on Portugal. Sorry, Portugal. :/

Huge thanks to saphrawn for beta-reading and being German. (All German and Portuguese text has an English tool-tip translation if you put your mouse over it). While I'm at it, thanks to EVERYONE who left me comments on INTRUDE: you guys put a spring in my step

Comments

[frankly_mdear]

K.A.'S FOX ALSO APPROVES THIS FIC.

Like it's been said, your research here definitely paid off in spades. I've seldom seen a writer who can set a scene and a tone as well as you can.

(DITTOING HEADCANON. Even though my Fox is Crazy Sex RP Faux and it isn't how I'd write him if I were doing fic. But this is my headcanon in either case. :D)

[darkfenixrising]

Where did you get that pic from? Is there a second part of the LET comic??

[frankly_mdear]

It's from some two-parter on Hal Akane's site, forgot the exact URL. XD I uploaded both strips to my Scrapbook though if you want to check them out.

[athenemiranda]

Do you have headcanon for how the hell he got to Mozambique in the first place? I don't. I'm even wondering if the whole Vietnamese part has been retconned entirely now (though I am still not cosy with Frank's whiteness, either way). The only thing I can come up with is that he got scouted for his 1337 killing-people skills in Vietnam a little while before this, but his lack of racial purity was an embarrassment so the Commies had him shipped to Africa instead? China was supplying FRELIMO at the time. XD

Research was fudged slightly at the corners; Kaúlza de Arriaga didn't really get into the picture til 1969 but I got looking at pictures of him and headcanon-BB was all 'Him. I know him. I hate him. Put him in it so I can hate him.' Snake, you've caused a time paradox! :O I hate Portugal so much now, though - I'm even wondering if the 1975 Carnation Revolution was something BB & Frank cooked up while they were on vacation after bringing down the Nixon Administration

[frankly_mdear]

I think the anime stylization has a way of making him seem whiter than he is. (And MGS1 doesn't really count because oh GOD the issues with portrayals of ethnicity/nationality in that game.) The one time I've drawn him, I gave him more of a visibly Asian look, and I tend to say his hair went white at an early age, as opposed to him being blond. But that's all because I too :\ at how he tends to be depicted as very Caucasian.

Being scouted/bought up sounds plausible to me. I always assumed he'd been sold off as a child slave and finally wound up in Mozambique that way, where the FRELIMO found more use for him going out and slaughtering than... other things. Or maybe he wasn't really on anyone's side except his own.

XD You're more up on your history than I am; I definitely didn't catch that little fudging of the timeline. (But come on, you're not seriously telling me Fox was that Deep Throat? You just totally unsexied him for me with images of Mark Felt. :[ )

A-are you kidding? After your fic I'd be WAY too intimidated. ;___;

[athenemiranda]

I'm sure you're right about the animeness - it comes with an aesthetic preference for paleness EVEN IN CHARACTERS LIKE NAOMI WHO MAKE PLOT POINTS OUT OF HAVING DARK SKIN, THANKS KONAMI. I tend to think of Frank's face as visibly Asian in shape, and say that the whole culture tank thing caused his skin and eyes to become pale...it's a fudge, but it'll do.

(And MGS1 doesn't really count because oh GOD the issues with portrayals of ethnicity/nationality in that game.) - you wrote the Hathor Legacy series on MGS, right? I was kinda mad at you for the first one because I always liked Naomi, ever since the very start of MGS1, partly for one reason you did not like her; because she had the same accent as me. There's always that gap between who the creator thinks the audience member is and who the audience member really is, and I guess 15-year-old-me fell into that gap AND LOVED IT. Seemed better than all the obnoxious anime dubs with hyper-American voice casts. XD

[frankly_mdear]

Augh, my reputation precedes me that much these days, huh? I don't know if you saw the MGS4 article, but what it got down to is that I'm really more annoyed with Naomi's presentation than her character. She has all these elements that I should like very much, but her execution rubbed me wrong.

(I've been an asshole in my articles anyway. Working on changing that.)

I'm all for fewer Americans overcrowding the voice tracks. That really annoyed me in Mass Effect-- they're in space, for god's sake! Have more than a token British doctor, please! The point that got me about MGS1 was that Naomi and Mei-Ling's accents just didn't make sense in the context. But a lot of things in that game didn't make sense in the context...

Re Nixon: *FIST SHAKE* ... *also bookmarks*

Baw but Ocelot has tons of canon and my Fox is way different than your Fox and probably very OOC and

[athenemiranda]

Not your reputation; I was just stalking you, that's all... *innocence* (I think I found that series via a bad link on your LJ that led to your other website. It was stalkerish, anyway >>>). I left a comment on the MGS4 post - I wanted to leave one on the MGS1 post but it wouldn't post, maybe because threads close after a few days there? I was basically just girlcrushing all over Naomi and ranting about how YES BUT CLEARLY THE WHOLE POINT IS FEMALE POWER > MALE POWER BECAUSE SNAKE FAILS AT KILLING LIQUID 4 TIMES AND THEN NAOMI DOES IT FOR HIM, ALSO, SHE'S LIEK THE ONLY MGS1 CHARACTER WITH ANY FREE WILL AT ALL, AND SHE GETS IN THE VERY FIRST MOVE AND ALSO THE VERY LAST, CAN YOU TELL I HAVE A CRUSH YET? Not that I have a crush or anything. Um.

And hey, I thought being an asshole was what blogging was for.

I kinda love that about Fox - he gets more boss fights than any other baddie (five! six if you include the I Can't Do It scene!) but his canon is a whole series of giant plot holes that you can fill with ANYTHING YOU LIKE. I

I'm just picking these icons based on how sexy they are.

[frankly_mdear]

Ah, that was you? I had the suspicion from the name, but. Yeah, it double-posted, I should go back and delete the extra. I've been sort of bogged down so I don't always check comments on older entries, and after a few days things are screened to prevent bots from just swarming the place.

Yeah, like I said, she's got a lot going for her. It actually concerns me that I can't like her more. Especially because if I'm playing Fox that's kind of obligatory. XD;

Heh, I thought so too, but this latest post of mine has shown me otherwise. I'll keep the assholery to my LJs from now on; it's better if readers arrive at their own conclusions rather than hear some jerk's haughty-ass opinion. *rolls*

Yeah, he IS pretty much the most disturbing thing I've ever played, and one of these days I'm going to seriously break from playing him, I can tell. Have you been able to stalk our Amat logs, by any chance? The network stuff Saph's capped is lulzy, but the sex... I mean, Fox got paired with Ocelot for the Valentine's event, and they basically shut

no one as creepy as Frank should be so fucking sexy. wait. is that why he's sexy?

[athenemiranda]

Fuck. *embarrassed* I kept re-submitting it because GAH IT'S NOT SHOWING UP MY MGS4 COMMENT POSTED JUST FINE WAAH ;____; Sorry about that, I'm inept :/

but! Haughty-ass opinions are the main way blog posts get noticed! (Which is probably why I quit blogging to go back to fandom, hah).

...God, I need to stalk the hell out of that. :s Been a while since I last caught up there.

NAIL, HEAD, YOU'VE HIT IT I THINK.

[frankly_mdear]

No problem, seriously. That's happened to me too, back when I was a reader, heh. :3

(I'm just gonna two-time, I think. Fanbitch to one side, blog on the other. I'm outspoken greedy like that, so it works.)

YES YOU DO. Especially because I'm playing Boss now as well. >3