Monday, December 12, 2011

Files of Fanfic recommendations: the works of Andrew Joshua Talon

While the laptop that can support my recording tech is down, there's not going to be much for me to post for some time.
So, to fill the void, I'm going to be over-viewing some of the works of a few authors I follow for laughs.
We're Starting with the wacky AJ Talon.
Bronies, keep hold of you Abacus'.

So...Andrew Talon.  I first came across this author Back in 2005, when he produced the wacky story Bat Tales: NERV's Belfry.
Essentially it was a crossover where The author parodied the prospects of the Chaos God Toltiir's 'the bet' series threw a 'how to be batman' manual into an Interdimensional portal, which was picked up by a young shinji Ikari.
Andrew later rewrote how the story started out to be less...Self-insertion-y, but the initial point stands.  Shinji Ikari, the second most Wimpy Japanese Protagonist (First, as I have stated before, to Be Leo Stenbuck from the first ZOE) goes Batman.
And it.  Was.  Glorious.  Especially when Rei Became Batgirl, and Maya Ibuki Robin.  Comedy, angst, the non-angel storylines flipped on their heads.
So naturally, as I am prone to do when I find someone who makes me laugh at a pseudo-serious attempt at this kind of crossover, I kept a track of his later stuff.  Here are some notable ones:

-Plugsuits was another Evangelion Ficlet parodying the Self-insertion craze common in fanfiction.  Essentially, in that universe they all turned out to be angels.  My favorite was the murder of the Stereotypical Mary sue.
Come to think of it, he's done a few fics where the self-insert concept is turned on it's head and mocks it.

-April Ninth was weird, but in a good way, Crossing over Stargate Atlantis and Final Fantasy X.  And it worked, first starting off as a Diary of Lt. Colonel John Sheppard after crash landing on Spira from the season Finale of Season 2 of Atlantis, and it went from there.  A Side-long Story, April tenth, expanded on plot elements introduced that fleshed out quite a few inconsistencies.

-PuddleJumper Dairies explores the concept of the Alterans of Stargate Atlantis having friendly sentient AI installed in their shout ships and Atlantis itself.  More crackish feeling, but it had a few good serious moments.

-BOOM, or Bonding over explosives is Fun, was a silly look into the Narutoverse where Jiraiya started on Teaching Naruto seals before heading off on that timeskip training trip...With Explosive tags and Tenten.  Hilarity ensues.

-Homecoming is another Evangelion Fic where Lucifer is actually a nicer guy than one would expect.  Though, He likes to go by Doctor to lose the stigma Religion has stymied him with.  Yes, That Doctor.

-Little Hints is a one-shot taken from the view of Harley Quinn, dissecting the psychosis of Bruce Wayne with a little more respect to the doctoral and logical roots of DC's infamous Joker Sidekick.  She was once a Psychologist, after all.  It's short, but it is good.

-Crumple-horned Plot Bunnies, Ramen Doodles, and Spare Parts are all oneshot plotbunny collections AJ has put out there for Harry Potter, Naruto and Evangelion respectively. Generally they are hit and miss, but worth a browsing.  Ramen Doodles even features some original takes on the endless groundhog day time-loop scenarios inspired by the author Innortal, who I'll get to in a later post.

-Lost heart and Missing No Coda are another pair of Oneshots based upon the Bleedman Powerpuff girls webcomic and the Weboriginal review Series Atop the Fourth Wall.  The latter of which I am a Loyal fan ("He's a Man, Punch!  Wears a Pretty hat.").  Mainly additions to them that the producers could have placed in, but as one who has run through those series and liked them, they're worth mentioning.

-Apollo 18 the Nixon Files is arguably his best recent work.  It essentially lifts the Doctor who version of Richard Nixon, and sets him in a universe where the rockspiders from the craptastic movie Apollo 18 are real, as is Aperture Science.
That's right, Aperture Science, from Portal and Portal 2.  Cue Cave Johnson and Caorline before GLADOS took over!  Oh, so Much Cave Johnson and Caroline.

Then We Get to the Brony Stuff.  Yeah.  Andrew, Like myself and a good portion of the Internet have been swept up by the craze centering around My Little Pony; Friendship is Magic.  What did he start with for this? Progress, a story based around Princess Luna adapting to the Modern world after being trapped on the Moon for a Thousand Years.
Hilarity ensues, repeatedly.  In fact, the fans adopted an aspect of his story into their fanon; Luna's obsessive doting on an ancient calculator known as an Abacus.  Think of it as a security blanket or favorite stuffed animal taken to the extremes of one's personification of it, to the point where she tucks it into a little bed every night.
I'm Joking...Sort of.  The most recent arc is Luna improving the Equestrian Space program.
He also produced two one-shots mixing up Doctor who and the background character seemingly based off of the time lord, Doctor Whooves, and two others of lesser note.  Most recently he's been writing a crackfic in concert with The Sage of Toads (an infamous Crack writer I'll hit later) called Beating the Heat.  And it's not about summer heat waves, though thankfully he skips over anything too...above rating.
Speaking of Sage of the Toads, Andrew also hosts the Sage's Evangelion Deconstruction fic ARSENAL.  Which is worth a look, though later parts might turn one off of it.  It's better than I've found Beautiful Destroyer Sailor Moon and The Key to a Successful interview to be at least.

What else...Well, he's written a crapload of Love Hina Fics, but since I found the source material at it's core to be about spousal abuse by women in an environment where Man Can Do No Right, I tend to avoid anything primarily related to that series on principle.  His Bleach fics I tend to similarly avoid, though mainly because I'm not big on how he takes them.  Likewise his Harry potter works for the most part  Though considering my personal grievances with that series, it's not surprising.

I think that's all of the major one's I've read.  Like I stated earlier on, I enjoy his work because it's primarily funny, and he can produce original plotlines relatively well without the story crumbling around it due to conflict with the source material.  His Original characters (when not mocking the Mary Sue method) are realistic, something not a lot of added character do beyond filling a required role.
So, If you want to take a look at the works I've mentioned and others, He's on Fanfiction.net.

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