Bay:
Someone battling in the nude? Awesome. XD; I think that somewhat inspired from Breezy and me.
You may have ... encouraged it. Just a little. X3
I also find it interesting the huge conflict between the ninjas and dragons and you laid out their history very well by a mixture of the two girls’ POV, Lady Ryukko’s journal, and Lance’s thoughts on the matter. I think I remember hearing something about that, but not sure where. ^^; No matter, though. Have to agree on Breezy though this is awesome you’re able to come up with a story just from those signposts. Neato. *runs and looks at the signposts at my neighborhood*
Thanks~ ^^ Now I'm curious to see where you might have heard about the history, because as far as I know there's nothing about it in canon ... I suppose it's possible I've mentioned it someplace before. XD; Heh, I do have a habit of running around reading things and talking to everyone in the games. X3 You never know when you might find something with an interesting quirk or implication.
Speaking of POV, you’re able to do the switching POV thing well in your story. Usually authors have trouble with that as sometimes they would repeat the same event and the different character might feel the same thing. Also, the emotions might be lacking. However, you did well. Both the ninja and Lady Ryukko’s emotions were laid out well, both when they were thinking about their battle and also about how their clans are going against each other. I also love Lady Ryukko’s journal. Really adds a touch to her strong willed personality and also shows more on her thoughts on the warring clans.
Hogood; I recall being a tad uncertain about the POV switches, particularly between the ninja woman to Ryuuko, especially since I was going to lengths not to name either of them. I actually got to be quite fond of them both in the writing … if I ever get the chance I’d revisit them both, even if the ninja is being a little close-mouthed about her name. XD I think it might be Anzu, and then Janine was unknowingly named after her … or something. Originally there was going to be a subtle name-theme-link thing there, but I scrapped it.
The last part of the story I thought is both thoughtful and cute at the same time. :3 First off, I actually find it funny the last contest you have Lance lost his sanity after the tragic incident at the Rocket’s headquarters and here you have him all calm and playful.
I see anime Lance more like that than game Lance (like I said to Ysavvryl, able to watch the episodes that featured him) because the former is more compassionate and fatherlike while game Lance is like that too, but with more attitude. Didn’t say anything about manga Lance as I haven’t read the Special manga, so for now I’m going by Lance’s personality in the anime and the game. You know more about Lance than me, though. XD; Besides Lance, I also like his granddaughter. She’s so adorable, that all I got to say.
Have to say very nice that after that battle scene you have the two clans come to terms in the present and Lance thinking what would the two women think of that (I’m wondering about that myself too
).
XDD Yes, well, I have to be nice to him
sometimes, otherwise he’d explode and kill me. Besides, it’s fun. =3 It gets his hopes up.
Anime!Lance is more predisposed to being calm and fatherly, yeah. In the games, and especially in FRLG, Lance is pretty hard-assed; I think he’d be similar to manga!Lance (especially post manga!Lance's heel face turn; yes, he is indeed a villain) in that he wouldn’t quite know how to handle kids on a full-time basis: both versions’d probably be distant and a little demanding (unintentionally in FRLG!Lance’s case, obliviously in manga!Lance’s case). By the time of GSC he’s actually undergone a noticeable personality shift, what with being fairly jovial and almost deliberately oblivious and all-knowing … still fatherly, moreso than in FRLG, but a little eccentric/quirky at the same time. I figured by the time he hits his grandfather years he’ll have slowed down a lot in terms of his drive: he’d still be passionate about certain things, yes, but he will have achieved enough and feel secure enough in those achievements that the more personal aspects of his life will become more important and foregrounded, if that makes sense.
Woot~ \o/ Is it sad that I’m not even sure of that girl’s name? I think I’d planned for her to be named after Ryuuko, actually, and that was why Ryuuko was her hero … but I’d intended, at the beginning of that scene, to try and make the reader think that she was
Clair, and Lance was Clair and Lance's grandfather, and the cousin who lived apart from the Clan grounds was Lance himself (as a way of symbolically integrating the past/more immediate present/future, given the theme is the changing of situations over the course of time). So stating her name was something of a moot point given her identity wasn’t meant to come until the end. It took a while to get her personality down pat, though. XD; She gave me a bit of trouble, that one.
I wonder that too, to be honest. XD;
There are a couple things I want to mention. While the battle between the women itself is well done, I think you could have make the Pokemon (or demons
) be more involved in the battle. There have been a couple parts where you did that, like the Crobat attacking Lady Ryuuko. I would like to see more of the Pokemon attacking the girls and the Pokemon attacking at one another since it looks like the Pokemon didn’t do much but stand there.
Yeah, that was one of the things I was most worried about, actually: I had a hard time getting the pokémon involved the whole way through. Part of it is because the perspective is third-person limited, and in those life-threatening circumstances, in the middle of a battle like that, there’s really no easy way to include things that are happening outside of their little bubbles of action; there’s only so much spatial awareness they’d have, especially given that each of them knew they had a demon for backup. Trying to insert too much of the pokémon completely destroyed the flow in some places while I was writing it, which is why I went for less rather than more … I’ll see if I can’t tweak it to add in a little more action on their part, though—or at least implied action.
Another problem is I would be confused who’s doing what in the battle a couple times. Part of the reason is because you didn’t mention their names during the battle. I know you don’t want to reveal their names to keep that a secret or something, but it would be much easier to keep track of the battle if their names were revealed (I know you revealed Lady Ryuuko’s name later in the story, but you could have done it sooner). Actually, the ninja’s POV I’m able to figure out who’s doing who fine, but in Lady Ryuuko’s POV that was when I got confused. :x
That was also something I was worried about, particularly with the names thing. I originally hadn’t intended to introduce either of their names at all, but then that just got clumsy in the second part with trying to describe Ryuuko. But when I tried to introduce Ryuuko’s name in the first part, it just seemed … lopsided. I mean, the idea was the have the two women on pretty much equal footing, symbolically: both warriors, both Clan members, both demon trainers, similar thoughts and attitudes … giving one a name and not the other just seemed, iunno, wrong, at least at that point.
I’m not sure how I could make who’s who much clearer, though, given that I was deliberately avoiding having to refer to the narrator directly—more of a problem during Ryuuko’s perspective, given that that’s when most of the action happens. It seemed about as clear as I could make it without disrupting the kind of style I was striving for, though I’ll keep it in mind for further rereads
because I’m mostly definitely anal enough for that.
One final thing is the writing style. Well actually, I love this new writing style you’re going for this story. It gives the quick pace of the battle and also a nice way of showing the women’s emotions during battle. However, there were a couple places where you have two colons in one sentence, which I have never seen before.
On the bolded part, it’s a bit weird to have two close to each other like that. Perhaps get rid of a dragon as the next part you already described the Pokemon to be of a dragon.
Another one of those sentences. Not going say how to change that as there’s actually a couple different ways, but I would rather let you decide that on your own.
Aha, I was wondering if that would get picked up. XD; I did say the style was experimental!
I actually saw that technique relatively recently—albeit in an essay, not a creative piece—and it had a nice sort of staccato rhythm that I liked and thought could go well with repetition and the reinforcement of their thoughts, and keeping the flow fast-paced and a little … hurried? If that made sense. I wasn’t sure how well it would succeed, especially given it
isn’t exactly the standard way of using colons, but yeah. The essay was by Tolkien, though, so I figured if he thought it was okay to use colons like that in a lecture piece then it was prolly okay for me to try it out in a creative one. X3
Well, to sum it up, excellent story here. The battle is pure awesome and love the ending with Lance and his granddaughter to bits. The colons being close to one another is what that threw me off and so is the confusion on who’s doing what and the Pokemon not involved much during the battle. Still though, it’s a fun read and I enjoyed this study very much.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed. ^__^ Was great fun for me, too, especially given the archaic style I was trying for while writing a battle scene … man, that was tough. But fun.
