I'm GethN7, one of the senior administrators of the All The Tropes wiki on the Orain wikifarm service, and one of my fellow admins is Vorticity, a longtime fan of the UF series who recently convinced me to check out the Symphony Of The Sword arc.

I must confess, I was incredibly leery of doing so, mostly because I had been exposed to Neon Exodus Evangelion first, and quite frankly, I despised it with every fiber of my being, and only made it a short way through before quitting it in utter disgust.

I apologize if that sounds harsh, but I have to admit this colored my desire to read anything else produced here, but Vorticity convinced me to give SotS a try anyway.

Now that, I like.

I have to admit the beginning was rough going, especially some cringe inducing zeerust in the first part, not to mention I was dreading what sort of mockery would be done to the characters of Revolutionary Girl Utena and Ah My Goddess (two series I greatly enjoy to this day, as well as Magic Knights Rayearth) like I how I felt NXE committed sacrilege at best to Evangelion.

To my pleasant surprise, this series has handled both rather well, and while I'm generally rather cynical of most crossover fiction and fanfiction in general, I just recently finished the second part of SotS and definitely plan to finish the rest.

I'm especially impressed with how most of the crossover elements make a surprising amount of sense so far, and if the rest of SotS is as high quality as what I've read so far, I may read the rest of UF sooner or later.

Anyway, sorry for the wordiness, but just thought I should tell everyone what made me sign up, and while I'm not sure how much I'll post here, I do hope to have some fun while I'm here.

I still believe that NXE is a good fic, but I've learned not to recommend that one first ;)

Anyway, welcome over here GethN7, as if I don't see you enough places already.

Oh, hey, Geth. Glad to see you here at Madman Omar's House of Fanfiction. If I had known Vorticity had been urging you to read Symphony, I would have added my own vigorous recommendation.

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

LAST EDITED ON May-12-14 AT 08:45 AM (EDT)
 
You may wanna avoid the UF core; I like it, but it's rife with in-jokes, weirdness, and it's about 20 years out of date.

Same goes for some of the Golden Age stuff. I'd say read it first, form a personal judgment, and move on - it's all been discussed to death at this point, no reason to pour more gasoline on that fire.

Exile is where you start getting into newer material. Roughly half of what's there is recent writing, and it most definitely shows. G and co. have come miles since even when I first started reading about ...ye gods, has it really been 10 years?

Future Imperfect is mostly good. There are some older pieces kicking around, and you'll know them when you see them, but for the most part it's all gravy.

Mini stories here on the forums, I'd save for last - it's the bleeding edge of recent material.

If you wanna try reading it all chronologically, then well... may God (or your higher power of choice) have mercy on your soul.

...Oh, and welcome to the freak show.

>If you wanna try reading it all chronologically, then well...
>may God (or your higher power of choice) have mercy on your soul.

That's what I did when I first discovered UF. It's... not an experience I would recommend, since you have to be willing to endure all the in-jokes (and later all the angst) before you can get to the well-written parts.

>I must confess, I was incredibly leery of doing so, mostly because I
>had been exposed to Neon Exodus Evangelion first, and quite frankly, I
>despised it with every fiber of my being, and only made it a short way
>through before quitting it in utter disgust.

Curiously enough, that's a pretty fair summary of my own reaction to Neon Genesis Evangelion:

>I felt NXE committed sacrilege at best to Evangelion.

It's always been striking to me how many people - particularly the ones who hated it, and there were a lot of those - never seemed to cotton onto the fact that "sacrilege at best" was exactly what I was going for. "Mockery" is precisely and deliberately what is going on there, not an accidental consequence of inept handling. Just for the record. :)

>I have to admit the beginning was rough going, especially some cringe
>inducing zeerust in the first part,

Wha - now, hang on, that's not even a word, unless it's the trade name for a Dutch brand of corrosion-resistant spray paint.

>I'm generally rather cynical of most crossover fiction and
>fanfiction in general

"There's two things I really hate, Brawn!"

"What are they?"

"Fire and water."

"Great, you're in the right place."

Anyway! This post is such a mixed bag of aggressive disdain and cautiously backhanded praise that I'm not even sure how to engage with most of it, but I guess I'm glad you're enjoying the Symphony in spite of itself? I don't know for sure. It's hard to get a read on whether you're pleasantly surprised or just feel dirty. :)

Regardless, you're welcome here, and one hopes you find things to enjoy in a rather less qualified manner as you explore. Just keep an eye on the dates - if you thought early S1 had cringeworthy Rust-Oleum in it, you're probably not going to be up for anything from the 20th century...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Zeerust is that feeling you get looking at the future of the past, basically. Like how the world of Fallout gives this very clear impression that the world that was destroyed was THE FUTURE OF THE ATOMIC AGE, or Battletech kind of dates itself as originating in the Eighties.

-----

"V, did you do something foolish?"

"Yes, and it was glorious."

LAST EDITED ON May-12-14 AT 01:31 PM (EDT)
 
>Zeerust is that feeling you get looking at the future of the past,
>basically. Like how the world of Fallout gives this very clear
>impression that the world that was destroyed was THE FUTURE OF THE
>ATOMIC AGE, or Battletech kind of dates itself as originating in the
>Eighties.

Oh.

So, like NXE's mockery of NGE, something that is there on purpose.

Yes, I fear Mr. Geth is in for some rough sledding. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>So, like NXE's mockery of NGE, something that is there on purpose.

Technically, zeerust is usually understood to mean things that are dated now but were futuristic when they were created, i.e., not deliberately retro-futuristic (think TOS). Though, as with all neologisms, whether this is worth splitting hairs over is debatable.

---

"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding

---

LAST EDITED ON May-12-14 AT 05:35 PM (EDT)
 
Just to be clear, I'm not a total putz.

As for NXE, it's clearly a love or hate it kind of story, so given that it was a purposeful mockery, I guess I can dial down on the disgust for it, now that I know it was intentional.

When I first read it, I thought it was a serious Mary Sue rewrite of the series, but now that I know it was parodic in nature, I can amend my position, especially since that was the whole point.

As for the "Zeerust" that made me cringe, I'm one of those types that can adjust, I'm just one of those types who likes the Zeerust to have some clear justification (the Fallout series is a good example of that) up front, and having read awhile into SotS, I now understand the logic behind it and have gotten over it.

To be honest, I am rather cynical by nature, so forgive me if I came across as overly negative, but I went into this expecting the worst, and to my surprise, Symphony of the Sword turned out to be surprisingly good, my initial trepidation aside, and while I've been made aware the earlier parts of UF are rough around the edges and not all of the series is as high quality, I'm willing to be open minded and keep that in consideration.

I would also like to apologize if I offended anyone with my bluntness.

Oh man, this whole thread is comedy gold to me.

> I'm GethN7, one of the senior administrators of the All The Tropes wiki
I'm a guy who has a website, too!

> I apologize if that sounds harsh, but I have to admit this colored my desire
> to read anything else produced here, but Vorticity convinced me to give SotS
> a try anyway.
Luckily, I left out the part about the crypto-lesbians.

>>You may wanna avoid the UF core; I like it, but it's rife with in-jokes,
>> weirdness, and it's about 20 years out of date.
>> ...
>>If you wanna try reading it all chronologically, then well...
>>may God (or your higher power of choice) have mercy on your soul.
>
> That's what I did when I first discovered UF. It's...
> not an experience I would recommend

I still don't understand the CORE hate. It's not the most well-written part, to be sure, but it's still fun to read. And it's still produced a stable framework upon which hundreds of stories have been built, which is pretty damn impressive for a story intended to be a big in-joke for a few friends.

The core stories are like being invited into someone else's social group, and getting to see how all the people interact and have fun. And then getting to think about how you could be a part of such a cool crowd. Like what Utena and Miki and Juri felt when joining the WPI band geeks.

>Anyway! This post is such a mixed bag of aggressive disdain and cautiously
>backhanded praise that I'm not even sure how to engage with most of it, but I
>guess I'm glad you're enjoying the Symphony in spite of itself? I don't know
>for sure. It's hard to get a read on whether you're pleasantly surprised or
>just feel dirty. :)

LOL! Having worked with Geth-kun, let me sum it up: he is in love with the Symphony, abhors NXE, and cannot reconcile the two opinions. Since Geth-chan can't synthesize a clear opinion without additional Geth to help on the calculations, he just kind of word dumped whatever was going on in his head (which sounded polite internally, anyway).

>Just to be clear, I'm not a total putz.
Dude it doesn't work when you're saying it yourself.

>I would also like to apologize if I offended anyone with my bluntness.
No one was offended, just confused. Again, welcome.

>>>You may wanna avoid the UF core; I like it, but it's rife with in-jokes,
>>> weirdness, and it's about 20 years out of date.
>>> ...
>>>If you wanna try reading it all chronologically, then well...
>>>may God (or your higher power of choice) have mercy on your soul.
>>
>> That's what I did when I first discovered UF. It's...
>> not an experience I would recommend
>
>I still don't understand the CORE hate. It's not the most
>well-written part, to be sure, but it's still fun to read. And it's
>still produced a stable framework upon which hundreds of stories have
>been built, which is pretty damn impressive for a story intended to be
>a big in-joke for a few friends.
>
>The core stories are like being invited into someone else's social
>group, and getting to see how all the people interact and have fun.
>And then getting to think about how you could be a part of such a cool
>crowd. Like what Utena and Miki and Juri felt when joining the WPI
>band geeks.

Just a minor clarification: I happen to like the Core (and its glimpses into this particular social group's dynamics), I was just offering fair warning that it's ...well, dated, to put it mildly. :)

>>Just to be clear, I'm not a total putz.
>Dude it doesn't work when you're saying it yourself.

Just to be clear, he's not a total putz.

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

Much better :D

LAST EDITED ON May-13-14 AT 05:13 PM (EDT)
 
>I still don't understand the CORE hate.

I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying I wouldn't recommend starting with it.

>Zeerust is that feeling you get looking at the future of the past,
>basically. Like how the world of Fallout gives this very clear
>impression that the world that was destroyed was THE FUTURE OF THE
>ATOMIC AGE, or Battletech kind of dates itself as originating in the
>Eighties.
>
>-----
>
>"V, did you do something foolish?"
>
>"Yes, and it was glorious."

Hey, I esemble that remark! (About Battletech anyway...):)

Craig

Howdy.