Are Helicopter Propellers Normally Oiled? Well, They Can Be, Right?

[amarissia]

Well, I've thrown my literary hat into the Help_Haiti ring! (Just barely in time, I see. Oops.) If anyone is interested in forcing me to write something against my will, you can check out what I'm offering here!

My fingers are crossed for Reno/Helicopter, personally. Just kidding. Or am I?

Comments

[robonun.livejournal.com]

Dammit, am I going to have to resurrect my Paypal account?

[liliesandglory.livejournal.com]

Awww. :( The auction closed while I was still at a class. I didn't realize it was on EST. How sad. I wouldn't have really made you write yuri...I probably would have bid for Cloud topping for once, actually. XD

[amarissia.livejournal.com]

LOL, then I'm relieved. Cloud, the Ultimate Uke, top? Nevah!

[liliesandglory.livejournal.com]

Ch. Cloud could totally top! He does have a backbone, you know. And he does grow up to be older than fifteen. *hugs basketcase!canon!Cloud tight* Fff, I'm going to have to fulfill my own need by writing top!Cloud. And then I'm going to force you to read it. It'll be good for you! Broaden your perspective and all that jazz. >:D Look, I'm even enticing you with my naked Zack icon. Aren't you enticed?

[amarissia.livejournal.com]

Icon? What...oh, that must be what Genesis is licking.

Angeal and Genesis: *begin to scuffle in the background*

Hmm, who will he be topping?

Cloud: "I like toppings. Especially cherries."

...do you see why Top!Cloud is so ahrd to imagine 'round here?

[liliesandglory.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can see how that might be distracting. Here, have a clothed Zack! Just one in a hot suit...sending you a sexy look with his bright blue eyes...hmm. Maybe I should stick to Supafly! more often.

Aww, Zack. Look! They're fighting over your maiden honor! ;D

He tops Zack a lot in fanfic. I've seen a lot of good ones with him and Seph, too. Occasionally he'll top Genesis. Have yet to read him topping Angeal, but mostly because fics like that are rare--I've read a few good top!Zack/bottom!Angeal, though. And he tops with most of the girls, too--a strange amount with Aerith, really, because Aerith strikes me as the type who would be nicely bossy in the bedroom. Oh, and with Vincent. KH-verse, Leon too, though not as often as the other way around. But for some reason, he is always, always bottom with Barret. :P

I'm pretty sure at least half of that has to be an act. Like obfuscating stupidity, but with naivete instead! He's secretly amazingly willful and totally itching to top. Right, Cloud?

[amarissia.livejournal.com]

Ooh, a suit! Never seen Zack in one of those before!

Sephy: *peers* "Why is he dressed as a Turk?"

Zack: "I ain't no maiden, and I hate when people fight over me. Guys?"
Genesis: "Angeal, really - " *dodges* " - must it be this way? If you'd just be reasonable and share - "
Angeal: "MINE!" *finishing blow*
Zack: *rolls eyes, but smiles*

Cloud...topping...system fail, does not compute. Abort Retry Fail? Retry. Um, okay. Agh. My head hurts.

Sephy: *is half intrigued, half disturbed*
Angeal: "Me, with Cloud? That is...wrong."

Well, of course. In FFVII it was always Barret ealking into Cloud, not the other way around. :) And oh yes, our Cloud is apparently very devious once he's behind closed bedroom doors.

Sephy: "He's very demanding. Likes to pull hair, be on top, issue orders, that sort of thing. But when I say 'on top', I mean only the position of our bodies."
Cloud: *giggles* "Sssh."

[liliesandglory.livejournal.com]

I read a very good Turk!Zack AU once. It was a really good exploration about how that cheerful magnetism that draws people in could potentially make for some of the most twisted interrogations ever seen. 'Course, that was pre-CC, when the vision most people had of Zack was much less baby-kitten-like. (I still tend not to write CC!Zack a lot, since I honestly believe that's not what he was meant to be like going by OGC. But hey, that's the great thing about FF7; you can write pretty much any character any way and it'll be more or less in character, since there's so many retcons canons!

Hmm. The only Zack icon I have left is Supafly!, which is cute but only in a spastic way, and my only other ff7 male is Rude facepalming. Have Tifa looking all badass instead! (I know you don't really like female characters, but you have to appreciate the nice graphics.)

Zack, you really can't tell me you haven't heard the old "my Fair maiden" joke several thousand times by now. Honestly, it's very widely used fanon. :P

Cloud topping is fun and easy to read! It won't make your brain hurt, promise. I'll post a few links to good examples when I'm not using my innocent mother's computer--I know I can just wipe it, but I always feel kind of icky visiting pretty much any site with her computer, like I am somehow corrupting her remotely.

Awww, Sephy! More intrigued, less disturbed, mmkay?

Not really, Angeal. There are plenty of great fics of you with Cloud! Your marked ephebophile tendencies have fueled quite a following. Hell, even on Amarissia's flist there's a bunch--I saw two good oneshots over the past few weeks. Course, you were topping in both, which is kind of irritating. Having an individual preference as the writer for writing it one way/position/top-bottom order is one thing, but the entire fandom discriminates based on looks! Bet you if Angeal was more of a prettyboy there would be plenty of fics of him bending over and [censored for your safety of mind] with the [censored for your safety of mind] and roosters!

Wait, wait. But by that logic, Tifa walks into Cloud too...and so does Nanaki...hmm...*considering look* (<---this is the look that sends the Cloud in my head scrambling as far away as he can go*)

Has Cloud ever tried topping? I realize it's possible to know that you're just not into certain things without trying them, but if you haven't, why not be a little adventurous? I'm sure Cloud will be considerate and not hurt you too much, Sephy. ;D

[amarissia.livejournal.com]

LOL, it's funny how CC changed the wide perception of Zack. When he was Cloud's friend, he was big and manly and cheerful. CC showed him next to Angeal, and boom, another pretty, traumatized uke. Which I appreciate, because otherwise my writing in this fandom would have ended with a Silence of the Lambs parody. Hmm, Zack as a Turk. That would be deadly. Who wouldn't trust such a sweet face? :)

Cloud: "Tifa! HI TIFAAAAAA!"

Zack: "Genesis sometimes refers to me as 'the Fair maiden'. Am I just fated to be tortured by names? It's bad enough the way he says 'Puppy', which he's not supposed to say at all anyway..."

Okay, I'll try the Cloud-topping. *snicker* Not what I usually put on my ice cream...

Angeal: *turns faintly green*

Even more than that mention of roosters, Angeal is bothered by the thought of him doing anything sexual with Cloud. He sees Cloud as Zack's baby brother, and they're very sweet together - Angeal takes him to look for butterflies, tells him stories, spins him around, etc. But Angeal's wonderful ephebophilia stops at Zack.

:) I'm just more of a rigid person when it comes to yaoi. It takes something really good to bend my semes-must-be-older-and-taller rule. So Angeal can't bottom to anyone. He is Uber-Seme, like Cloud is Uber-Uke.

HMMM. The only way I'd ever read FF het is if Tifa topped Cloud, with a toy. :) And Nanaki, hmm. I don't think I could read him with anyone. Not because he's four-legged, just because he's so serious and non-sexual... LOL

Cloud: *bounce* "Seph said I could if I wanted to, but I haven't, at least not yet. I get too excited and jump on him if he's not fast enough."
Sephy: "I believe what Cloud means to say is that while we are adventurous, certain patterns have been set in our bedtime routine, including who does the penetrating."

[liliesandglory.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't like the new perception of Zack. Yeah, he's cute and all, but I really don't think he was supposed to be all "pretty, traumatized uke." The original game already provided us with Cloud, after all. ;P So I tend to write him the way that the common perception used to be--friendly and cheerful, yes, but also confident, relatively mature, and really freaking deadly. (I'm sort of a canon purist, but in a weird way; if I ever get the courage to post any of my longer fics you'd probably notice that Angeal and Genesis don't exist in most of them and even Advent Children events tend to be stripped out. Doesn't stop me from reading all kinds of things, though.)

Since the Tifa icon received such a warm welcome, she'll stick around again. :) She's curious about and a bit disturbed by Choir!Cloud. From what she remembers of him around the age you keep him at, he was always very serious and withdrawn, but of course he was fourteen when she last saw him (...and twenty-three, but our live-ins are obviously at very different stages of canon) so it makes sense that he's changed over the past two years. She's very glad to see him so happy, if a little shocked about his relationship(s). (Not so much Seph, with whom she's made peace in my head, but the fact that he's apparently with both Sephiroth and Zack, and that Zack is also with Angeal, boggles her a bit. Keeping up with both Choir events on your LJ and the fact that you're going to keep writing Decorum--which I love, by the way!--makes this a bit hard to figure out for her. She'll get over it, though; half the time I write her in a relationship with Aerith, Zack, and Cloud, so it's not like polyamory is a new thing for her!)

Zack, it's your own fault for being so cute. It's your ancestor's fault for deciding on or accepting "Fair" as his or her last name, though. You can blame him or her instead.

What's this about Cloud topping and ice cream? It sounds like a delicious combination...

Actually, now I'm reminded of that Cloud cake someone made and posted that one time. Damn it, where did that go? *hunts*

Bwa ha ha. Angeal, you're supposed to be this big, strong SOLDIER first-class who can beat down monsters without blinking, but a few words from a girl half your size can turn you green? For shame, Angeal, for shame!

I thought the roosters were obvious, given their shared synonym with a certain part of the male anatomy. ;D

Still, fair enough! Who Angeal is interested in is up to himand whoever is writing him, after all. Besides, it's not like the one time I wrote him with Cloud ended up well. *hugs Cloud* I'm sorry that you're my favorite victim! (Well, not actually sorry. But still. Cake?)

And the long response is long! So long, in fact, LJ is yelling at me that it's too big for one comment. You bring out my verbosity, it seems. 8)

[amarissia.livejournal.com]

We're both drawing long comments out of each other, it seems. :)

CC-Zack does seem to be way off from what Zack originally was. Maybe Nomura-san just doesn't know how to make a guy that age without making him adorable? Alas for Zack, CC cemented him as my favorite FFVII uke. I was surprised to see him that way, after Advent Children...and I was only planning to take a brief break from making Cloud the victim in my stories, at the insistence of Choir!Zack, but looks like Cloud is off the hook. :)

I understand Tifa being a bit perplexed by Choir!Cloud. Once she gets more used to him, he'd love to see her. Choir!Cloud relates to people slightly differently than Canon-Cloud, though, so she should be prepared for him to treat her like a big sister. And do assure her that he's very happy, and while not monogamous, he's close to it. (Zack has been spending less time with his Decorum lovers since he and Angeal got back together. Not so much that Sephy's had to complain, though.)

Zack: "What kinda last name is Fair, anyway? I mean, I guess it's good for a hero, but it's not very tough. Not like 'Strife'."

Cloud cake? :)

Zack: "Angeal's tough, very tough. Physically. Not so much emotionally."

...I kinda wanna read your Angeal/Cloud now. Link? I'll make sure Angeal doesn't see it. :)

Cloud: *hug* "I'm your favorite? YAY!"

Notice he doesn't notice the 'victim' part... :)

[liliesandglory.livejournal.com]

It's like an infectious disease, only with fewer hospitals and more fun!

I think Japan in general only knows two flavors of boys that age: belligerent shonen hero or cute uke. I'm guessing they just looked at the sheer number of girls in the FF fanbase and decided on cute uke.

Cloud might be off your hook, but he's definitely on mine. >:D I don't even really try to torture him. I just go along the normal bend of canon and it sort of just happens. (Okay, I'm lying. Sometimes I do try to torture him. But only because he makes it so easy!)

I need a snazzy name for the characters in my head. Calling Tifa Head!Tifa just sounds kind of...dirty, really.

Tifa would be delighted to visit! And then she'll go tease the Cloud in my head about what a nice boy he was. And then the Cloud in my head will sigh and try to burrow into the ground. It all works out!

Cloud's name and yours are equally not-tough, really. I mean, really, the poor guy's first name is Cloud. Not the manliest thing out there. At least yours sounds nice and easygoing, Zack. Besides, Strife means bitter, violent conflict; you really don't want that as your last name, as much as it fits Cloud. *pets*

I can't find the picture! Argh. Someone on lj--I thought it was ardwynna_m, but now I'm not sure--made a chocolate and banana Cloud cake. It was very delicious to look at and also pretty damn funny. Argh, link link link...

I actually never got around to posting that particular fic because of how much I hated the ending. I should probably fix that, though... *adds to list of things to do, after AC!Cloud/CC!Zack and Tifa/Cloud*

Awww, Cloud~! Yes, you are my favorite. My very favorite. That's why I write you getting abused so often! *hugs*

Selective blindness suits Cloud very well, actually. :D

[amarissia.livejournal.com]

:) Cute uke rarely fails, who doesn't love them?

*snicker* Head!Tifa does sound extremely dirty. So I think you should keep it.

Cloud: *bounce* "I can show Tifa my kitty, and my chocobo!"
Zack: "Tifa's cool. Uh, she doesn't still dress like she did in CC, right? The cowgirl-stripper look? She must have been cold, too."
Cloud: "Maybe if me and Zack switched last names, he would sound tougher?"
Zack: "Zack Strife? Yeah, that's kinda badass. But you would be Cloud Fair." *snicker*

Ardwynna, huh? Yes, that does sound like something the Ninja would do...

Yes, definitely add posting that fic to your list, because now I'm all curious. And I kinda like Angeal's disturbed-expression.

Cloud: *giggles* "I'm the favorite!"

Yes, I think he's much happier when he forgets/doesn't hear unpleasant things, it leaves him so positive...

[liliesandglory.livejournal.com]

Guys who are a hundred percent, completely and totally straight. And guys who are so far into the closet that they're in Narnia. And women who are a hundred percent, completely and totally gay. Other than that, though, I think "cute uke" more or less takes care of the rest of the population.

Head!Tifa it is. >:)

Tifa: "I ran around the North Crater in a miniskirt and a tiny T-shirt. I don't get cold easily. And it's not like I can help it!"

She's right, you know--she doesn't exactly get to pick her own wardrobe, and it's not like the straight fanboys played any of the ff7 games for any other reason.

I think I read an AU once where Cloud really was Cloud Fair! He was much happier as Zack's baby bro than he is in canon. It made all the porn I read about them for the rest of that day just that much dirtier, though.

When Angeal is wearing his disturbed expression, you know you have done something right.

*pats Cloud's head* You know, this, uh, kind of seems like the light-and-fluffy version of your canon-self's predilection for repressing memories that are too painful for him to deal with. Huh. Man, you can make anything creepy, can't you, Cloud?

(And an answer to your other comment, too, because I'm lazy and I think I can fit it all in one finally!)

I don't think of it as "depriving others of the joy of you" so much as it is "saving them from a fate too horrible to comprehend." You strike me as terribly high-maintenance and bitchy. Really, people should thank me.

I think I read that one too! Though, really, pickle juice? What situation could you possibly get yourself into where the only safe lubricant on hand was pickle juice?

Besides, isn't pickle juice salty? If you have any cuts down there, that would sting like crazy...

This isn't so much about the happier ending as it is about deconstructing that sort of story to hell and back, and the sex making Cloud suffer more forcing myself to write in a way that I usually wouldn't. Yes, yes, that's obviously my real reason, no doubts about it.

That sounds awesome! A lot more interesting than the standard time travel fic--not that those can't be done well (in fact, they're done well more often than the average story, from my experience), but that I've read those before but I've never read one like you've described. So is Cloud going to be able to change the past as he views it? At what point in canon will Cloud be getting these visions? Why is he going to be able to see these things?

I'm kind of terrible--you flat-out tell me that it's still being figured out, yet I still bombard you with questions. Sorry!

My guess is budget issues--or, more precisely, an unwillingness to spend more money than really necessary. A second translation team would be pretty expensive.

[liliesandglory.livejournal.com]

And it continues!

I'm not rigid at all when it comes to what I'll read. (I was going to put "flexible," but there are all sorts of dirty jokes to be made there, and Genesis really doesn't need the ammunition.) Het, slash, femslash, it's all good. Top, bottom, topping from the bottom, bottoming from the top, whatever. Really, I'm lucky--that means I've got so many more fics I can read, and that means I'm more likely to find good fic. (Though honestly I find femslash written by guys to be disgusting most of the time. I can always tell when it was written by a woman because it'll at least be decent. Guys really suck at writing it. Hmm...I wonder if guys trying to read good slash feel the same way about female authors of it?)

That goes on my list, then, write after I finish start the AC!Cloud/CC!Zack fic! (It looks like it's going to be a long fic. A really long fic. Hoo boy.)

The thing about Nanaki is that he's actually about fifteen. He's very young, and he's really not sure of his place in the world. He's not quite an animal, but he's not quite human either, and he has to struggle to live in a human world when he doesn't quite fit into it. And I kind of forgot where I was going with this, but he's young and he could just be a late bloomer, or he thinks the quest to save the world takes precedence over getting some, or a bunch of things. And woah, it's hard to keep track of what I'm trying to say with people yelling so loudly in the background. I wish I had noise-cancelling headphones, this just got really annoying.

...Seph, you're so weird. (I mean this in the nicest way possible.)

[amarissia.livejournal.com]

Genesis: "I also am often quite rigid." *smirk*

Ha, he still got you. :)

That is lucky, you have so much more you can read! And yeah, I always wonder what a guy would think of the way we yaoi girls write male/male sex. That's why we need more guys in the fandom, so they can tell us if we've gotten it right. A couple times, I thought I'd found one, but alas, no. We've stolen video games and made them a girls' club. :)

AC-Cloud and CC-Zack? OH, you've got my interest, oh yes. How is that gonna work?

That's right...it's easy to forget how young Nanaki is, since he's the most articulate member of the party. Also, during my first play-through, I was distracted by his weird floating grandfather, and by wondering how the hell they could be blood-related. This was before I knew that 'grandfather' can be a term of respect to an old man, and before I knew how wonky the translation tends to be for Japanese RPGs.

Sephy: "Ah. Thank you, then."

[liliesandglory.livejournal.com]

Damn it, Genesis! I'm writing you as not getting any in the new fic (which I still need to name...what the hell am I going to call it?).

I haven't met any guys in the FFVII fandom who write slash, actually. It's kind of disappointed--there's always a few in my live-action fandoms, and those are always a treat to read.

There are actually a bunch of guides on how to write gay sex floating around on the internet. A good number of them were written by actual gay guys! They're pretty disillusioning, actually. XD

Uh. You know all those fics where Cloud goes back in time, sets right everything that could possibly go wrong, and everyone lives happily ever after instead of the downer that is canon? I'm doing that, only without the happy or anything working out right. (Sorry ahead of time, Cloud.)

The translation for FFVII especially was kind of insane. "This guy are sick." "Off course!" "No, way!" "Beacause, you are... a puppet." I can understand some of the noun usage they mixed up, like Aerith accidentally telling Cloud off for the church almost falling on her instead of for Cloud almost falling on her, but the typos reek of laziness.

[amarissia.livejournal.com]

Genesis: "HEY!" *pout* "Don't deprive others of the joy of me just because I'm a bit, erm, dirty-minded. I happen to think it's a good quality!"

LOL, I think I read one of those guides, a long time ago by a guy who called himself Minotaur. I don't know if it's still around, but it was popular and highly recommended. What I remember most is the list he had for possible lubricants, that was hilarious. It was all stuff he had tested himself, and I believe pickle juice was on there.

Kewl! :) It's hard to resist doing one of those fics, isn't it? We love Cloud and the rest, we want to tinker with their universe and give them a happier ending. I'm actually doing something sort of similar for the Madness sequel, which I haven't told anyone...well you can tell me if it sounds good or dreadful. Rather than simply going back in time, Cloud will be viewing pieces of the past from other people's points of view. That is, Tseng and Reno's first meeting (which I've gotten asked for a lot), will be seen from Cloud's POV, as one of them, perhaps. He goes through quite a lot of this in an effort to stop Sephy from going all psycho...it's still being figured out...

LOL, I always wonder - why not have the text go through a second translation team, who could clean it up and make it sound like actual English speech?