[Fic] Claymore: Pretty Monsters
Spoilers: Through Claymore chapter 80 or so
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: Ugly manners, her mother would say, pretty is as pretty does, but she never told her pretty girl that monsters ate pretty and ugly girls alike.
Notes: Written for woodburner for Yuletide 2008. Many thanks to magicnoire for the quick beta!
Read Pretty Monsters
Series information
Claymore is a shounen manga series by Yagi Norihiro about half-human half-yoma women called Claymores who go around killing yoma with giant swords. There is a lot of blood, which I do not like so much, and a whole lot of stoic icy warriors, interesting backstory, worldbuilding, and awesome relationships among the many warriors, which I like A LOT. The story is pretty spoilery for the series, and I have no idea how well it stands alone.
Some commentary
The perils of Yuletide: sign up for a fandom in which you have not read all the canon! Yes, this was indeed the reason for my mad rush through the rest of Claymore (and my watching almost the entire anime series) while attempting to do finals and other school things at the same time. Even though I would not recommend this to anyone who is not insane, I would so totally do it again! I had tremendous amounts of fun reading and re-reading the series to pick up tiny snippets about a character who gets very memorable screen time, but not very much of it.
I briefly toyed with the idea of reading KJ Bishop or re-reading Orphan's Tales for the recipients' other requests but ended up not, thanks to the lateness of inter-library loans.
I wanted to do something about prettiness and Galatea for the obvious reasons, but also something with monstrous mothers and monstrous humans and human monsters, because we don't get to see much of humans in the series and because one of my favorite things about the series is how it plays with the line between human and monster. So that and prettiness and ugliness got all jumbled together, and nothing made much sense until I randomly threw in some twins.
Suddenly, Galatea was raising her own small army, human and female, and it was a homage to Buffy as well, which worked for me, since Claymore often feels like a very dark version of the Slayers and the Watchers' Council for me.
I am still somewhat worried that the prose is too ornate for the series and that the entire pretty/ugly/beautiful dynamic and monster/human dynamic is hammered in instead of hinted at. But overall, I like the story, and it was very fun writing.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: Ugly manners, her mother would say, pretty is as pretty does, but she never told her pretty girl that monsters ate pretty and ugly girls alike.
Notes: Written for woodburner for Yuletide 2008. Many thanks to magicnoire for the quick beta!
Read Pretty Monsters
Series information
Claymore is a shounen manga series by Yagi Norihiro about half-human half-yoma women called Claymores who go around killing yoma with giant swords. There is a lot of blood, which I do not like so much, and a whole lot of stoic icy warriors, interesting backstory, worldbuilding, and awesome relationships among the many warriors, which I like A LOT. The story is pretty spoilery for the series, and I have no idea how well it stands alone.
Some commentary
The perils of Yuletide: sign up for a fandom in which you have not read all the canon! Yes, this was indeed the reason for my mad rush through the rest of Claymore (and my watching almost the entire anime series) while attempting to do finals and other school things at the same time. Even though I would not recommend this to anyone who is not insane, I would so totally do it again! I had tremendous amounts of fun reading and re-reading the series to pick up tiny snippets about a character who gets very memorable screen time, but not very much of it.
I briefly toyed with the idea of reading KJ Bishop or re-reading Orphan's Tales for the recipients' other requests but ended up not, thanks to the lateness of inter-library loans.
I wanted to do something about prettiness and Galatea for the obvious reasons, but also something with monstrous mothers and monstrous humans and human monsters, because we don't get to see much of humans in the series and because one of my favorite things about the series is how it plays with the line between human and monster. So that and prettiness and ugliness got all jumbled together, and nothing made much sense until I randomly threw in some twins.
Suddenly, Galatea was raising her own small army, human and female, and it was a homage to Buffy as well, which worked for me, since Claymore often feels like a very dark version of the Slayers and the Watchers' Council for me.
I am still somewhat worried that the prose is too ornate for the series and that the entire pretty/ugly/beautiful dynamic and monster/human dynamic is hammered in instead of hinted at. But overall, I like the story, and it was very fun writing.