[Mana Khemia] Parlor Tricks

[aphelion_orion]

Why yes, it's round two of "Aphe can write things other than Guilty Gear." XD

Title: Parlor Tricks
Fandom: Mana Khemia - Alchemists of Al-Rhevis
Pairing: hints of Roxis/Vein
Rating: PG
Warnings: set during the Roxis/Vein ending, thus spoilers
Notes: I'll be using the original Japanese names for all the characters, not least because the English

Comments

[twigcollins]

Wow. This is awesome. I really want to play the game now.

[aphelion_orion]

Kweh. ♥ You should! It's really fun and has some wonderful characters, plus an amazing battle system.

[laryna6]

It's great to see the genie metaphor used. It's great to see so much of this fic, and yeah - while the official translation isn't painful to listen to the way so many are, I love my historical & mythical references.

I tend to think that Vain/Vayne's power is capable of pulling off a full transformation to human - but that's a physical transformation. He'd still be six years old, he'd still be marked by trauma... he'd just be lucky that Sulpher's support through his childhood means depression wouldn't hit him. And, of course, while his mana self's death would put the power out of control, that just means it would be easier to control and Vayne has years of practice... oh dear, you gave me another bunny.

Wonderful, wonderful fic. *adds to memories*

I really ought to make a Roxis/Vain icon. >.>

[aphelion_orion]

I love how the game came out and totally surprised me. :) It really made me think about whether Vain actually possessed free will initially, since yeah... if you'd want a being that is essentially an innocent child to kill you, you wouldn't really give it a choice in the matter. At least the poor boy seemed to be in the process of developing it.

And yeah, agreed about the TL. I've seen worse, but at the same time, it's kind of sad when all these cool gems get lost that actually make you look stuff up.

Oh, I think he is human. XD I don't doubt the game ending, I just like to imagine he's still a "special" human because I love the idea of his powers operating on so many levels. I'd be kind of sad to see them go entirely.

*laughs* Glad to inspire something, then. I've been toying with the idea of doing something with all those poor trapped mana in the crystals, myself, but I'd have to research the Atelier Iris world better, first (the games are so hard to find orz).

Aw, thank you. :3

Re: I really ought to make a Roxis/Vain icon. >.>

[laryna6]

I tend to view his free will situation as yes, he just had a hard time figuring out what it was that he wanted. He didn't come with a large set of preset desires like humans do (and it's amazing how many, if not all, of our other wants have something to do with those instinctive priorities and how they get channeled), instead he was the embodiment of this... sort of conflicting sea of wishes and desires. So he had to actually figure out what he wanted, and it would not have been easy, so a learning curve makes sense

Re: I really ought to make a Roxis/Vain icon. >.>

[laryna6]

Ugh, sorry, my net went down and wrecked my original response. I tried to recreate it, but it ended up much more confusingly written.

-Just because Theofratus didn't need to suppress Vayne's free will to ensure his death wish doesn't mean he didn't so so. This whole question is a major plot point in the Tree of Thoth fic I'm working on now.

-Yep, the mana in crystals thing needs to be resolved.

[apathy_irath]

I really liked this. 8D Felt that the characterisation and Vayne and Roxis' interactions were very well done. It also brought up some interesting points about Vayne (I admit that I don't see Vayne as becoming 'completely human' after the game, either, although this is speaking as someone who hasn't actually played the game) that I liked.

Great job, in any case.

[aphelion_orion]

Aw, thank you. I'm glad it worked. :)

Yeah, it's just something I like to toy with because it's such an interesting power. I mean, we get a lot of heroes that are chosen by light/darkness/the gods/etc. but I don't think I've ever played as a wish-granting genie. XD

[michikixthien]

Oh a new Mana-Khemia fic! *squeals*

Just made my day because seriously (oh the Roxis/Vain *swoons*), there are not really much
fics around and it´s such a pity that Mana Khemia ist not really popular...OTL
(ahaha unfortunately fandoms as such are those I support the most...orz)

Back to the topic: It was really pleasant to read,
the text was written fluently and I didn´t have to look
any words up for my english still has quite a lot of room for improvement left xD"
I also like that you used their japanese names <3 I never thought of that but the concept of Vain still being a "something-in-between" is really convincing...
very interesting! ouwy now I want to draw something again

And now that you´ve mentioned oh my gawd it´s really Roxis Rosenkreuz written in atakana orz *fail*

Thank you for sharing this wonderful work <3

[aphelion_orion]

Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. ^^

It's kind of a shame that so few people know about this fun game, but I'm in the process of pestering everyone I know into giving it a try. XD I'm mostly involved in small or half-dead fandoms, as well, so it'd be nice to be able to discuss it with someone.

Thank you. And yeah, Vain as a go-between is something that I like toying with for the amount of possibilities, partly because it also forces Roxis to think about him more (since he was under the impression that Vain is getting off easy for most of the game).

Hey, fanart is great! :3 I was pretty sad when I looked around for MK art and found so little of it.

*laughs* I'm really not sure why they've misspelled his name... it's pretty obvious what it was meant to read. Maybe too much of a fixation on rosaries? XD

PS: Looking at your profile, you're from Germany?

[michikixthien]

you´re welcome ^w^/)

I´m...kinda stuck in the process of pestering people instead of moving forward since my Mana Khemia doujinshi contains merely three pages at the moment OTL

when I started playing that game it was really bugging me
to see that Roxis disliked Vain so much at the beginning D:
good thing they´re on good terms when the story develops fufufu~ <3

thank you! :3 internet sure is lacking of Mana Khemia fanarts,
even on the japanese page pixiv.net there´s not much orz

aw yup I´m from Germany (but Asian) and when I read "Rosenkrantz" I was like "wait, whut? gotta look that up to be sure it´s misspelled" D: but since there are quite a bunch of mistakes when Japanese fling german words around as they like I was like "hey who cares" again XDDD

[aphelion_orion]

Oh, well, it didn't bother me that much. I guess it's understandable for someone like Roxis to only respect those who have worked to earn their spot. And he's not exactly a social guy, either. XD For someone who's got that whole family tradition pressuring him, it probably weighed on him.

*sigh* Yeah, it's really quite sad. I've been trying to find good images of their ending CGs, but to no avail.

I wouldn't even count that as a misspell, to be honest, since people tend to have spelling variations on their names all the time. But then I read Wiki and noticed that Roxis' katakana totally read "kuraitsu" so I was all o.o. And hey, it could be worse, somebody could be called Reicher Wallach. Which, uh, means "Rich Castrated Horse." THAT is true fail naming. *sporfles*

[execharmonious]

Mmm, niiiice. I was reading through my old Mana Khemia fic today in the process of putting them on Archive of Our Own, and your writing reminds me a lot of mine. I'm fascinated with Vayne/Vain as forever notquitehuman, too, though I dealt with it much more drastically in my work: in the one fic I've written that didn't throw the ending entirely out the window, he was desperately unhappy.

And I'm all over real-world alchemy too, so yay for wanting to remain faithful to that. :) I've definitely tried, in my work; it's hard when you have a canon that's basically a highly liberal, videogame-based, fantasy interpretation of the concept, but there's stuff to be played with.

I'm just all squee, because I thinkhopefeelmaybe that we appreciate some of the same things about the series that not many fans do? IDK. Anyway, I loved the characterisations here. You have Vayne-as-six-year-old-going-on-teenage down really well.

[aphelion_orion]

Thank you.^^ I really like the concept because it's such a fascinating source for contemplation (what makes a human, anyway?) and Mana Khemia's got a very rich universe to explore it. I'll have to remember to bring more crack, next time. *laughs*

*nod* I treat the real-world alchemy as a pick-and-choose for interesting ideas. And yeah... Vain, I think he's going to grow up fast. Almost all the endings show him as a much happier and confident kind of person (well maybe except Mupe's, but being asked to become an alien queen's got to be an experience lol). I loved Roxis' because it seemed to be a cross between them actually doing serious work and then fighting like kids in a sandbox (and Vain seems so happy about that). *giggles*