3 things: "Secrets" and two reviews

[edenfalling]

1. I finished the rough draft of "Secrets" chapter 10 last night!

It totally sucks. No really, you have no idea. Melodrama up to here, and with Tom gone (well, for a certain value of 'gone'...) Ginny doesn't have a best friend to talk to, and so there is way too much internalized angsting and not enough dialogue, damnit, despite all the conversations I kept shoving at her.

I swear, next chapter I'm going to make her talk to Xanthe for an entire scene. Just because.

Also! I was nearing the end of the chapter, and I wanted Ginny and Apple to have a thing where Apple kind of apologized, but then Ginny yelled at her and Apple told her off. They both flatly refused to have that conversation. So I looked at them, and it occured to me to ask Apple what the flipping heck she was doing in the infirmary anyway (Percy dragged Ginny there again -- Percy also refused to have the argument I wanted him to have, but in his case I like the resulting conversation much better), and she said to me, "Oh, don't you know I get migraines?" and then! Then she threw me this giant plot point curveball, and now I can't figure out how to write anything else instead.

*fumes*

Tonight I print out the draft. Tomorrow I attack it with the Editing Pen of Death (TM). And trust me, there will be quite a lot of red ink on this sucker.

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2. Gravitation

M. lent me volume 1, and I swear, this is the cutest and dorkiest thing I've read in ages. Shuichi is such a loveable idiot (though he seems to have fairly good stage presence despite that), and there's something weirdly compelling about Eiri, even though he's a massive jerk.

Eiri is totally not kidding when he says that Mika looks just like him, only with makeup. (And boobs and long hair, but that sort of goes without saying.) They even have the same body language.

Toma looks younger than Shuichi. That is just creepy.

Also, Shuichi is an idiot, and he doesn't think before he acts, but I really don't think he's as much of an idiot as he's often made out to be in fanfiction. *sigh* Why do fandoms so often exaggerate certain character traits until they deform the original character past recognition?

...

I want volume 2, yesterday.

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3. Runaways

Volume 2, Teenage Wasteland, is kind of disappointing. It feels like treading water. Yes, that makes sense given revelations in volume 3, but there's still no excuse for bad pacing. And volume 3, The Good Die Young... well, the twist, while an interesting idea, was not properly foreshadowed, nor was it well-explained. Also, the revelation about the Pride's motives? Was just silly. And tacky.

*sigh*

I found myself with a terrible urge to rewrite the damn thing, just so I could make it make sense -- especially the character motivations -- and flow better. It's not a bad idea, and I like the characters, but the way the story was handled is So Damn Clunky.

Typical for Marvel, really. I should've known better.

(Also, Cat? My favorite character turned out to be secretly evil and got messily killed. Please close down that part of the psychic link, thanks!)

Comments

[alliancesjr.livejournal.com]

I love Runaways but am only about halfway through Volume 2.

I would kill to see a rewrite done by you.

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

Also, Shuichi is an idiot, and he doesn't think before he acts, but I really don't think he's as much of an idiot as he's often made out to be in fanfiction.

please rethink this after you've read further. XD i love gravitation almost despite myself, but seriously, i think that first volume is almost misleading with the level of normalcy it maintains.

[acechan.livejournal.com]

Re: Gravitation, I get the impression that Shuichi acts a lot stupider in the anime than in the first part of the manga in particular. Of course, I started out liking the manga, but got turned off around volume 4 or 5-ish. Largely, because none of the characters grew at all over time, but also because it had my least favorite standardized plot element from shonen-ai manga ever around that point.

Also, I'd heard some intriguing things about Runaways, so it's interesting to hear what you think of it.

[supplanter.livejournal.com]

I really liked volume 1; I thought Shuuichi was great.  I couldn't stand his character after that, though, at least not in relation to Yuki.  Somehow I managed up to volume 10, but if there was anything after that I almost definitely will never read it. =.=

[darksideofstorm.livejournal.com]

Gravitation? *sparkles* I adored the anime (you can get it from youtube - alas, there are only 13 episodes ;__;). The dynamic between Eiri and Tohma intrigues me greatly, and Hiro amuses me. I've yet to find any decent fanfiction though *sigh* I really should get around to reading the manga, what's the artwork like?

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

eek. i hope the pritned versio nwont tur nitno a comlete red striekthrough. istn' it horrible when characters just yank the hwoel plot out of order?
(i ahvea friend who has that and as aresult stopped the detailed planning becasue it alwasy went askew).
opey oufeel good though (since in some auld fic thread ou once said when yo ufel blah you tend towrite more angst)

[yuki-buffy.livejournal.com]

Yuki is just the <3. i adore him. i've read all the manga and seen some of the anime. also, there are now novels being translated. Shuuichi is too amusing. wait until you meet K. *snerk*

but Eiri is just drop dead sexy and messed up and tragic and a bastard and so loveable and yeah... i'll just stop now before i really start sounding like Shuuichi.

YUKIYUKIYUKIYUKIYUKIYUKIYUKIYUKIYUKIYUKIYUKIYUKI

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

it's like something happened at the end of volume one to the mangaka, like maybe she got punched in the head or something, and the story veered from almost-believable and capable of growth to being this cracked-out story full of guns and mecha and omgangstypasts. XD i think part of why i still enjoyed it was just that it was so over the top; plus, shuuichi made me feel better about my life. XD

[edenfalling]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!

No time! No time! Too many other stories that I'm already working on and way, way, inexcusably too far behind schedule on!

...

Damn, I want to do it, though.

[edenfalling]

Okay -- I will make sure to keep the question of Shuichi's intelligence and common sense levels open as I read further. :-)

*makes premptive warding gestures against the probable impulse to write fanfiction in which Shuichi's general distractibility, gullibility, and lack of common sense are, if not erased, then at least explained and somewhat moderated*

[edenfalling]

In almost every manga-based anime that I've ever heard of, the characters are drawn more broadly than in the manga, which means certain traits end up exaggerated. I think it's related to the way that their visual designs also get simplified -- there just isn't time to be too complex, and since anime is a multi-creator thing (whereas manga is usually the vision of one or two people), it's easiest to have a few basic points all the writers and artists can fall back on.

Runaways is, as I said, a really intriguing idea, which is not handled as well as it deserves to be handled. Some of that may simply be lack of time and space, but some of it is definitely the fault of awkward storytelling on Brian Vaughan's part. (I like Alphona's art -- I'm not in love with it, but it's clear and fairly clean, and I never really noticed it, which generally means the artist's storytelling, at least, is working.)

[edenfalling]

The artwork is... it's like a sloppier version of Matsuri Akino's artwork in Petshop of Horrors, I guess. Akino and Maki Murakami have a similar default style for drawing faces. Murakami uses fine lines, like a lot of shojo stuff, but without any floating petals or weird things like that. The chibi reaction figures are fairly minimal in their deformation, which I like -- I loathe excessive humorous deformation, but that's a pet peeve that I know not everyone shares. Apparently she has people helping her with the shading, which means a lot of that isn't done in pen-and-ink, but in greyscale or whatever you call it.

...

I dunno. I'm more interested in stories than artwork, really, and I don't have a good art critic vocabulary. As long as the pictures aren't horribly ugly, I can work with just about anything. (Except too much deformation. That drives me up the wall.)

[edenfalling]

Oh, Apple didn't yank the whole plot out of order, but I wasn't looking for any new things to work in at this point. *sigh* At least it gives her something to talk about with Ginny in chapter 11.

"Secrets" is kind of angsty by definition, since Ginny's first year was anything but happy and fluffy. But I try to toss in more lighthearted intervals -- I just couldn't squeeze many into chapter 10 because of plot requirements imposed on my by the timing of events in CoS.

[edenfalling]

I dunno. I'm kind of iffy on bastards with tragic pasts -- I can understand a certain amount of acting out, but there are points past which you just cease to be a worthwhile human being, and playing the victim card doesn't change that -- but so far Eiri is walking on the likeable side of the line. I may change my mind depending on what happens in the next volumes.

He's damn sexy, though, I will definitely give him that. ;-)

[mrsdoodlepunk.livejournal.com]

Watch the anime (TV or OVA) and then read the manga. That way the character's voices will speak in your head as you read. Or at least K-san does, *shrug*. I only saw the fansubbed version years ago and finished reading the manga recently so he's the only one who's still floating around in my head.

And next time you're in New York, don't forget to watch out for giant flying mecha pandas chasing airplanes.

[edenfalling]

Watch the anime (TV or OVA) and then read the manga. That way the character's voices will speak in your head as you read.

Why? I've read thousands of books just fine without particularly caring what the characters sound like. I've even read movie novelizations without seeing the movies, and that doesn't bother me.

You know, I think I don't read the same way a lot of other people do. I don't 'see' characters or scenery very much. I don't 'hear' them speak with real voices. Instead, I get a vague kinesthetic sense of how they move, and a detailed emotional-mental running commentary, as if I'm riding in the backs of their heads. So for me, having a definitive voice to attach to each character is really not important, since I almost never 'hear' a voice to start with.

*shrug* YMMV. I'll definitely keep an eye out for weird stuff in the city, though!

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

Yeah well, istil wish yo ugod luck. I still need to get over some prejudiced stuff. when i hear snape/hermien I think regency romance.
when ihear ginny I almsto smell angst (well i cone saw afic going as far as havign her so posesed by tom she sneaked into (ithink) th room ofa hufflepufffrom her year and set her bed i ncold flaemsand raped her. I am NOT makign ths up. i'm amost tempted to loook the thing up to make sure i iddn't dream it. ack.
wel li know you're workig nwit hcanon!Ginny as far as you can pick up stofffrom cos about her character at all.

[alliancesjr.livejournal.com]

Put it back in the vault for later, then?

And if you would like someone to collaborate with, to make it easier...

[edenfalling]

I once saw a fic going as far as having her so possessed by Tom she sneaked into (i think) the room of a Hufflepuff from her year and set her bed in cold flames and raped her. I am NOT making this up. I'm amost tempted to look the thing up to make sure I didn't dream it.

Okay, that? That sort of thing will never happen in "Secrets," because "Secrets" is an attempt to do a 'backstage' version of CANON. In other words, if an action or character trait isn't plausible for CoS, it will not appear in "Secrets." Period.

I admit that I tweaked the Valentine's Day scene just a wee bit, mostly because Valentine's Day would have been a Sunday during 1993 and I don't believe Hogwarts offers classes on Sundays -- and also because I'd unfortunately arranged Ginny's class schedule in such a way that she didn't have a lesson to duck into when Draco humiliated her -- but beyond that, I think I haven't contradicted a damn thing. I even went to the bother of changing my portrayal of Tom's possession when OotP made my original theory non-canon, and let me tell you, changing that was no picnic.

That sort of thing will also not happen in "Secrets" simply because I think it's a damn stupid idea in general. There's no motivation for it. Ginny's defining negative traits are anger, vindictiveness, and possessiveness -- she doesn't go after people unless they hurt people she cares about. Attacking a random Hufflepuff makes no sense. Furthermore, Tom's influence doesn't work that way. Tom is sociopathic, not psychotic. He wouldn't do anything likely to draw attention to Ginny or himself, at least not until he'd managed to get out of the diary.

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

Well, you know al lthat, I know all that, butthere's these kids who somehow get pressured into thinking if htey do this kidn of stuff htey'll become the cool kids in town (whic his somethign that totally seeped over form the real world I think).
the are manystrange trends, like trippling the angst inastory and makign it unecessarily big. Adn finding one sinister trait about someone and maing that the main focus. I coudl go onaboutthis for horus but last time itried that somehwo i clicked a wrong buten and the whole ratn was gone .GOod for yo uperhaps. SO this is taek 2and I hope it still makes sense. IN gnereal I'vej ust met so much mischaracterisation and overdone portrayals inthe past that isometimes put these automatic keywords to thigns lie kthe ones I first gave. I'm al lfor takig as muc hfro mcano nas yo ucan find ther and if your'e workign with minor characters or just names liek tonks's parents for isntancey ou'll haveto put a bit of thought in them to make the r ealistic. adn again i coudl go on for hours .odds are i'll never write a two-threepart essay abouthis like I perhaps should.

[supplanter.livejournal.com]

I think a large part of why I didn't enjoy it (in spite of my continuing to read it) is that for a long time I still thought it was taking itself seriously.  This assumption may have wavered from time to time, but because I was reading so sporadically by the time I got to the next volume it had always reset itself.  It might not have been till Rage/Reiji and the panda that I went "heyWAIT >.>". orz

It makes me cranky because I feel like Yuki is the mangaka's favorite and she wants him to be bastardly and cool while sort of having a sympathetic past (at some point the bastardliness cancels this out, surely; it goes above and beyond the call of his ANGST) and the only way to make sure he got love was to make Shuuichi as retarded as possible. >.>  And then there's Touma....

[supplanter.livejournal.com]

*makes premptive warding gestures against the probable impulse to write fanfiction in which Shuichi's general distractibility, gullibility, and lack of common sense are, if not erased, then at least explained and somewhat moderated*

Hey!  But.. but that would be cool. :D?

Dunno if you wanted any, but recs:

backspace (http://glitterati.illuminatedtext.com/fiction/backspace.html) by rageprufrock

stuff (http://www.contrary-perfection.net/gravi/) by eidolontree; do not fear the peculiar spellings of "Shuuici"!  I've never read the ASK stuff, but all the rest is good.

... did you continue to read gravitation after all? :D;;;;

[edenfalling]

I have yet to return a CD M. lent me, so I feel a little weird asking her for the next couple volumes of Gravitation. Once I listen to the CD, though... *rubs hands evilly*

[edenfalling]

Aha. *makes note: do not take Gravitation too seriously* Thanks for the recs, btw!