What Does 'Junction Magic' Mean? I'm Sure It's Not Important.

[rionaleonhart]

alwaysbeenasmiler asked this question, and I thought it was interesting, so I've stolen it to ask here: who was your first favourite fictional character? Who was the first character you really loved? Is there a story behind that love?

I won't go into too much detail because I've talked about this before, but Squall Leonhart of Final Fantasy VIII was the first character I really connected with. I was an insular, awkward, confused thirteen-year-old, bad at interaction, bad at reading people, and suddenly I found I wasn't alone in any of that; here was a guy who was just like me, only he had a cool gun-sword and fought dinosaurs. I was so excited.

It's a good thing I loved Squall so much, because I was terrible at playing Final Fantasy VIII, and he was the reason I happily persevered with it.

Unsurprisingly, I hate the popular theory that Squall died at the end of Disc 1 and the other three discs were ~just a dream~. It's not interesting; it just makes most of the game feel like a waste of time! Also, Squall is my favourite, so he's alive. Solid reasoning, I think you'll find.

My preferred answer to the question 'why does Squall wake up without a wound after being impaled?' is 'Seifer begs Edea to save him. NOT THAT SEIFER CARES OR ANYTHING. Obviously he just wants Squall to live so they can interrogate him. Obviously. Edea is so amused by this that she heals Squall.'


I'd forgotten how messed up the Second Hand of Time arc in DN Angel is. A young woman is reunited at last with her lost love! Her lost love is a sword that romantically impales her through the chest. DN Angel, you seemed to be a romantic comedy when you started out.

I always resented the fact that the Second Hand of Time arc went 'oh, it's a school play! Satoshi and Daisuke have been cast as the romantic leads! Oh, no, wait: we've set up this classic slashfic premise, but now Daisuke's out of action and Dark has to pretend to be him, so you don't actually get Satoshi and Daisuke acting out romantic scenes together.' But, on this reread, I will concede that Satoshi and Dark trying to get through a romantic scene when they loathe each other is pretty hilarious.

(Speaking of classic slashfic premises: the manga is better than the anime in many ways, but the anime does has an episode where Satoshi and Daisuke are locked in a freezer and have to huddle for warmth.)


It's only just occurred to me that we say dial to mean 'enter a person's number on a telephone' because of the dial on rotary phones. What an odd linguistic fossil.

Comments

[orcofnewyork]

Wow, I can't even remember if I got up to that arc in the DN Angel manga before I stopped reading. DN Angel, so much potential, and then...

You're making me want to re-read it, but I know that will end in frustration (why can't Daisuke see that Satoshi loves hiiiiiiiim?).

[rionaleonhart]

I'm certainly enjoying this reread! Although it's absolutely breaking my heart (poor, poor Satoshi), and it's a little frustrating that the manga isn't actually finished.