Stray (fanfic): Difference between revisions

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[[File:stray_picture_small.jpg|frame|Romance, Time Paradoxes, and small hostile cats]]

 

 

Apart from its unusual pairing and premise, the story is notable for its length (71 chapters plus prologue and epilogue), its multiple plot arcs, its blend of serious character-driven drama and quirky humor, and writing [[Purple Prose|a bit towards the lower-wavelength end of the visible spectrum.]] And Otacon's adorable in it.

 

* [[Actor Allusion]]: "the cold, thousand-yard glare [[David Hayter|Snake]] would give anybody who spoke ill of the first two X-Men movies."

* [[Adorkable]]: Otacon. Even Raikov thinks he's cute! ([[It Makes Sense in Context]].)

* [[Afraid of Needles]]: variation - Adamska's not afraid of ''needles'', he's afraid of what might be in the shot, on principle.

* [[Anti-Hero]]: Adamska. He starts out as a [[Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes|Type IV]] - he's done plenty of dubious things, but has enough in the way of [[Even Evil Has Standards|personal standards]] that the [[Future Me Scares Me|prospect of developing into]] a creepy old [[Torture Technician|torture fetishist]] [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|with a ponytail]] still [[Squick|Squicks]] him.

* [[Arc Words]]: "What can change the nature of a man?" and variations.

** Also, "Find what your enemy wants, and do the opposite."

* [[Badass Longcoat]]: Big Boss wears one. Lampshaded when another character remarks that he must do so for the dramatic effect.

* [[Batman Gambit]]: the story has ''[[Magnificent Bastard|Ocelot]]'' (admittedly a younger and better-natured version) and an entire international conspiracy of [[The Chessmaster|Chessmasters]]. It's not exactly surprising that someone tries to pull one of these.

* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]

* [[Bi the Way]]: Otacon.

* [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]]: Otacon. He's a massive [[Otaku]], and Adamska is convinced in the early chapters that he's thoroughly - although harmlessly - insane, but the man managed to build a functioning time machine in his garage.

* [[Cats Are Mean]]: a running gag with Tanya, a scrawny little stray with violent [[Tsundere]] tendencies.

* [[I Cannot Self-Terminate]]: {{spoiler|Adamska mercy kills older-Ocelot (who had been partially converted into his continuity's version of the Cyborg Ninja) at Shadow Moses at his older self's request, Hal does the same for a gut-shot Esau.}}

* [[I See Dead People]]: Ocelot can see ghosts. The Sorrow also makes an appearance, and has the same abilities he does in canon.

* [[Jossed]]: on a few issues. This was probably inevitable, since the story was started well before ''Guns of the Patriots'' came out and gave the official explanation for the series' [[Gambit Pileup]].

* [[Kansas City Shuffle]]: {{spoiler|It wasn't Adamska the Patriots wanted.}}

* [[May-December Romance|May/September Romance]]: Adamska's twenty, Otacon's in his thirties.

** If you consider birth date and not years spent living, it's a May/December romance the other way, since Adamska was born decades before Hal.

* [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]]

* [[Shadow Archetype]]: Adamska gets two - his older self, and {{spoiler|Esau, another former Tykebomb agent of the [[Ancient Conspiracy]].}}

** Philip K. Dick gets a few references, too, in phrases like "I hope cyborgs dream of electric sheep, I really do" and "I saw him through glass, darkly."

* [[Shrouded in Myth]]: Big Boss, who is a [[Memetic Badass]] to his own troops.

* [[Sleep Cute]]

* [[Spy Catsuit]]: one of the later plot arcs gets Adamska into one of these. He's not impressed.

* [[Spy Couple]]: Adamska and Otacon, eventually.

* [[Techno Wizard]]: Otacon. He built a time machine [[Homemade Inventions|in his garage, out of parts scavenged from household appliances.]]

* [[Techno Babble]]: a lot of this in the scenes with Otacon and Ocelot working on the time machine. To be fair, it's not like there's an accepted scientific vocabulary for this sort of thing. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] when Otacon admits that he made a lot of it up himself.

** Otacon's anime-inspired names for the dogs would also count.

** Esau would be a villainous version.

** {{spoiler|Esau was, as well, by the Patriots.}}

* [[Unholy Matrimony]]: Volgin and Raikov, in flashbacks. "The two of them complimented each other, he supposed. Like oil and fire. Or potassium and cyanide."

* [[The Woobie]]: Otacon is a self-deprecating [[Shrinking Violet]] with a screwed up and fairly traumatizing romantic past - and the events of the story aren't entirely easy on him either. Adamska has moments of woobieness as well, due to some rather traumatic plot developments and his own personal issues.

 

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