Does the fandom have anniversary coins or something?

I posted the first chapter of Drums on July 21st, 2003.

And today, a short review arrived, on the second chapter. (Don't you just adore ff.net's message forwarding, no matter how long it's been since posting?) Normally I wouldn't snark on reviews -- and this isn't truly meant to have the tone of snark, honestly -- but still. The reviewer noted, the heero once being in love with relena thing kinda made me laugh. there's just ZERO sign of it in the anime, that's all.

Sometimes I wonder if I watched the same GW episodes as everyone else.

Or there's a simpler explanation. Perhaps the fangirl contingent sent out warning notes that Milliardo's Decision (ep45) wasn't worth watching. New flash: Heero goes to Libra, talks to Relena, tries to threaten Zechs but it turns out to be a hologram, and then Heero leaves. No reason to watch, nothing to see here, move along, now. No, you really don't need to see the obvious shift from tension and uncertainty at episode start, to the affectionate, hopeful, even warm, tete-a-tete at episode end... y'know, just before Heero shoves Relena back and then tells her not see you later but fare well. Thanks for the moon eyes, I'm off to die!

Suicide boy.

Or maybe it's just something in fandoms that's all-or-nothing. Either you meet the love of your life at 15 and that's it -- with addendum to fanfic author, don't you dare break them up or ever even hint they could love another -- or the people you met at 15 and/or in the course of the story are all friends, only friends, and never breathe a hint of anything more. I can't be the only fanfic writer who would beat myself -- or anyone else -- senseless if forced to live the rest of my life with anyone I liked at 15. Oh, holy hells, no, please. Sometimes we crush on the absolute worst choices, but that's part of being 15...

Besides, in the series? Relena spends a lot of the time crushing on Heero, in her own idealistic/confused way, but he spends even more time stalking her. Tthen again, Quatre does the same to/for Trowa, as do Duo and Heero for each other, and even those can't come close to the investment Trowa makes in Heero.

Hell, at that, Noin's worship of Zechs comes in second to the blatant level of Trowa's worship of Heero. Hell, if there's any sort of truly obvious crushing going on in the series, I'd say it's Trowa for Heero -- and I don't mean automatically in the sexual sense, so much as the pure form of a crush: utter infatuation and a whole heaping of worship. Even Relena doesn't have stars quite that big in her eyes, when it comes to Heero.



So, about that anniversary. Maybe a special four-year cookie. Or better yet, a stiff drink, because if it's going to be four years from now and I'm still getting reviews on Drums, I'm going to need all the alcohol I can get.

if I could revise the world (or at least my half)

As long as we're on Old Stories Week -- and given some of the possibly* accurate criticisms coming down the ff.net pipe -- what the hell, I went back and reread the first twenty or so chapters of Drums. I don't think I've done that since I revised, back in Jan 2004.

O, M, G, the pain.

Not because I think the story's truly atrocious in a plotline sense (overall), but because the craftsmanship is just so... and, damn it, the characterizations, too. There are good points -- and where those counteract fanon, it may have been enough to offset the bad points of slipping into fanon -- but some things just make me cringe.

[*I say 'possibly' because when the critique-review arrived, I couldn't actually remember enough details to know whether the crit was based on story flaws or were opinion. That's a good chunk of why I went back and finally, after all this time, reread.]

Ah, well, though I don't think I'd ever revise -- I wouldn't do that to any of the long-suffering archivists who had to code the 2003 edition, then the 2004 semi-revision -- there's a part of me that wishes I could, just as a matter of principle. Because I know I can write better than that, now, that is. What I wrote then was pretty complex and not too bad for someone who'd never written something that long and involved before, but compared to now?

Did I mention the cringing?

If you're one of the folks who've not read, and don't want spoilers, then skip this. If you have read and hated it, maybe you'll find I agree -- lo these years later -- with your complaints. Or if you didn't read because you knew beforehand you'd hate it, then maybe you'll enjoy me staring critique in the face. Who knows.

( Anyway, there be spoilers here, if such matters to you; otherwise, here be major segues into characterization analysis, too. )

...and that's probably more than enough of that.

One last thing (and should I be posting this on gw_analysis, instead?) -- I just realized. With the exception of Relena, all the other 'mirror' female characters at some point or another strike out at their male counterparts. Doesn't Sally pull a gun on Wufei at some point? Hrm, I thought she did... but I know Hilde has Duo at gunpoint and backs off when he talks about his genuine reasons for assuming his role; Cathy strikes Trowa outright to snap him out of his suicidal intentions; Dorothy does her best to gut Quatre. They're not all at the same point, either, in their relationships -- Hilde's met Duo once or twice by then, and then has to apprehend him as a felon, while Cathy's been a sort of big sister to Trowa for half of the series by then, and Dorothy had only just met Quatre in person. But for each, I find it curious that they're antagonistical towards their counterpart-pilot -- and Relena is the flipside, in that it's Heero who's constantly pulling a gun on her, instead.

Hrmmm. Damn it, why does this storyline always pull me back in?