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kaigouAs 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.
Cue segue to canon characterization analysis:
Trowa is both the infiltrator and the observer, active only while in his Gundam, and relatively silent/passive the rest of the time -- and for him, Heero's bullheaded activity makes Heero the catalyst, and the object to be admired. When I first joined the fandom, I recall arguing that Quatre/Duo and Trowa/Heero are mirrors, in that personality-wise, they're too similar to ever move past contented-friendship into passionate relationships. I'm not sure that's entirely accurate now -- or, at least, my conclusion remains but my path getting there has changed.
I think Trowa is, instead, originally put off by Quatre because the two of them are more similar than they are with any other of the five. Wealth or lack of it notwithstanding, they both were shaped by the force of being the youngest in a group of grown (and fighting) men. They're both used to being discounted and/or underestimated, and compensating in their own ways to gain acknowledgment. Where Trowa's inadvertent betrayal was the cause of him losing his team, Quatre's the flipside: he disobeys/betrays the Maganac orders to "stay put" and instead comes after them to help, and ends up being the just-one-more, the just-enough extra to turn the battle. For both of them, losing, and gaining, a team forms much of their self-identity.
Too, they're both remarkably subtle characters. If Heero and Duo are the bludgeons in the group, and Wufei is the formidable but sharp blade (Chinese swords are more like Western swords in thickness than the thinner Japanese katanas), Trowa and Quatre are the stilletos. The difference in their subtlety though is that Quatre can see the course of action (ref, his long explanation to Duo about the political ramifications of the doves' murder, and taking their own gundams to outer space), yet a good amount of the time counsels inaction. I might even say that his argument to Duo -- about taking the Gundams to outer space -- is probably the best example, at that. His course of action definitively alters the battleground and thrust of the entire war, but his action is to leave the battleground -- and make those fighting follow him. That is, in effect, the activity of retreat.
Trowa appears to discount his own value (as do they all, really), and while he's most definitely active, it's to the extent that he actively chooses to blend in with the wallpaper. The one exception might be his disastrous attempt at going out with a bang, and that failure seems to have driven home to him that he's not the one who's going to get all -- let alone any -- of the flashy glory. (As Duo says while being rescued, "it's always the quiet ones" -- who are secretly flashy, that is.) Trowa, Heero, and Quatre are the most active of the five; they're constantly throwing themselves into the thick of it, while both Wufei and Duo spend long segments away from the battlefield. But I think for Trowa, perhaps, he sees the subtlety as being inactivity, and given his worshipful observation of Heero -- 'stopping at nothing, continuing his path however wrong-headed it might appear to outsiders' -- that Quatre's equal subtlety is taken at face-value as being as passive as Trowa. And Trowa doesn't want that; he's got that in himself, in spades. He wants someone strong; he admires those who barrel in head-first because it's the one thing he's miserable at, himself.
As for Duo, I think the issue there is one of volume: Heero doesn't get noisy about what he plans to do. He simply makes his choice, and off he goes, no need to discuss with anyone. Duo's a lot of "this is what I'm gonna do, so watch out!" bluster, which obviously annoys Trowa during the series (the only scene I recall Trowa not looking annoyed at Duo is when they're playing chess together, and that might be because Trowa is clearly stomping Duo's ass all over the board). Trowa doesn't like Duo's brashness, and Duo doesn't like Trowa's seeming nonchalance; I think it'd take as much character growth, honestly, to create a solid 02/03 relationship (of any kind) as it would to create a solid 02/05 relationship.
ETA: meant to add this, too -- that the 02/04 relationship, and the 01/03 relationship, are clearly sympatico except for one big honkin' elephant each. For Duo and Quatre, it's Duo's awe of and unease with Quatre's revealed wealth; in turn, Quatre seems equally discomfited and annoyed by Duo's reaction. It's somewhere between "don't hate me for being rich," and, "this is who I am, so if you have a problem, it's yours, not mine".
In the 01/03, it's Trowa who's a bit awed by Heero's dedication/determination. And Heero, in turn, swings between baffled and discomfited by Trowa's obvious worship -- but where Duo makes himself scarce after discovering the extent of the chasm between himself and Quatre, Trowa hangs even closer. It's not like Duo can get richer and/or gain a family by osmosis if he hangs around Quatre, whereas for Trowa, he seems to hope that some of Heero's seeming 'perfection' will rub off on him. (Compare that to Trowa's disinterest in what Quatre can offer on a material level, and Duo's pointed eye-rolling over Heero's dedication to working on Wing.)
I think for Heero, Trowa is performing a corollary function to Duo: to remind Heero of his humanity. Where Duo alternately puffed up Heero and then teased him, seeking a reaction, Trowa is the one to tell Heero to take it easy on his injured arm, to fight only after he's recovered, to get some sleep and Trowa will fix those last few bolts. The context of Duo's friendship is that Heero needs the emotional validation just like any human; the context of Trowa's is that Heero can be as exhausted, hurt, and weak, and it means only that he's as human as the rest of them.
(Which stands in stark contrast to both Sally's and Zechs' assessments of Heero's medical reports, that the boy is "simply not human" to have withstood everything his old injuries tell them he must've survived in training. Hidden between the lines are some implications of a pretty brutal history, really.)
And back to the story crit:
Duo is remarkably protective of Heero as an emotional entity, not as a solider/fellow-pilot (as he is of Hilde, and perhaps people in general). I base that on the number of places in the series where Duo -- from almost the beginning of their second meeting -- is consistently willing to affirm Heero -- as a person. He gives Heero little slack -- "shit, you're an idiot for not using the parachute I gave you, but come on, let's get you fixed up" -- that is, he doesn't play the "omg you're so awesome and amazing!" card, but he also supports Heero in some curious ways. Like pointing out to Heero that girls notice him ("wave to your fans!") -- which I always read as a "hey, there are other people, and they acknowledge you, too." Duo freely annexes Heero's relationships, too, such as his cheerful greeting to Relena (and she reacts with the surprise I'd expect from someone being greeted in such a friendly manner by a stranger).
And, too, much of his support is in the ways Heero needs it most -- "okay, I've taken out the minions on the ground, now you go for the target!" -- which gives Heero the satisfaction of believing he 'achieved' the mission target, even if that may be solely because Duo was there to pave the way for him. It doesn't seem to matter that Duo's the one who challenged Heero to strike the base, in the first place -- I might even say Duo set up the "you can't beat me" premise, which intrigued Heero enough to take him on -- and then Duo promptly sidesteps and lets Heero win the challenge. (I don't recall, either, that Heero registers this; if he does, I suspect he misinterprets it as meaning that Duo talks big but doesn't have the guts to be a Real Soldier.)
When Heero snarks on Duo for 'botching' the mission, again, Duo seems unbothered by it; perhaps he instinctively knows that Heero requires at least the appearance of Doing Something Right, even if that comes at the cost of Duo's chances at glory. Duo just doesn't seem to have any cares about proving himself to anyone, while Heero's nothing but one big drive to prove himself to everyone.
In fact, I might even say Duo's a bit amused by Heero's obsession with "now we're even" and the whole "won't be in debt to anyone" (as Kracken pointed out in her response to my last post). I don't get the impression, given Duo's reactions, that he even really keeps score. But he knows Heero does, so he gently and patiently steers Heero in the direction of winning; if it doesn't matter all that much to Duo who really scores the final point so long as the team wins, why not let Heero have it?
Hrm, perhaps then, this would lead to later-in-life resentment, in hindsight. Heero may have been working hard to protect Duo from the fight and/or prevent him from getting involved as an untrained civilian, but Duo was sure working damn hard in the opposite direction to keep Heero confident and strong in his skills, and to remind him of his humanity whenever possible. That's a lot of emotional investment, in some ways; Duo might not care about who scored the winning point but eventually I think it would rankle that Heero didn't care, either. It's like a strange reversal on the usual "if I can't have it, you can't" -- instead, it's perhaps, "it's okay if I don't care but you have to care because otherwise nothing I've done for you really matters".
Maybe that would be the true reason Duo was hurt/angered by Heero departing. "After all I've done for you!"
I think I got right that Duo would do anything for Hilde; as Relena represents peace to Heero, Hilde represents innocence to Duo -- and those who'd put Relena's peace at risk (like Mariemaia) get it worst from Heero, so too would those who put Hilde's innocence at risk. Trowa, I think, follows this pattern; Cathy represents hope, and his attempted suicide brings her to despair, and that seems to be worse (for him) than anything else she could suffer.
A few last things, bigger issues but just requiring better skill at emphasizing the stakes, both prompted by recent crit-remarks:
...and that's probably more than enough of that.
One last thing (and should I be posting this on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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?
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.
- There's one thing I'd ditch right off the bat, hands down: the goddamned epithets!
From the dictionary: "An epithet (Greek — επιθετον and Latin — epitheton; literally meaning 'imposed') is a descriptive word or phrase that has become a fixed formula." Yeah, like the Deathscythe pilot and the thief and the hacker and the long-haired man (that would be my version of trying to avoid "braided", though in hindsight "long-haired" ain't much of an improvement). In the 2004 edition, I focused most severely on the epithets, and yet there are still so many in every chapter that it boggles my mind: I believe the revision really consisted mostly of going through and removing every first, second, and third epithet, and leaving every fourth one. Just how many was I using per paragraph? And what's wrong with just saying Duo? - I'd cut back on the photography metaphor, and streamline it. I still like the concept of Heero still "shooting" people but now with different weapon; I still like the idea that he doesn't consider himself "in the frame" and sees the world as an observer, a passerby. But I think some of the passages take the geekiness to heights -- while matching the relative geekiness I'd gotten from Heero's character in the anime -- that just bog down the story. They pass the point of illustrating his mindset and enter just plain geeking out on my part (as opposed to his).
- I'd give Heero more of a temper, and cut back on his expressed humor (leaving it more as deadpan, per his canon characterization). I suspect, looking back, that my perspective in writing Drums was a combination of really liking the possibilities in the post-war years, and a certain frustration with what seemed like an overwhelming number of "Duo is now a street prostitute and/or thief" and "Heero is a wooden automaton" stories. I never liked the Perfect Soldier label; it wasn't until I rewatched the Trowa/Heero episodes that I realized that yes, dub-Trowa does call Heero 'perfect' -- but that Heero never once takes that title upon himself (if Trowa ever even says anything to him, which I'd doubt).
So I think I was trying to write Heero's human side, to show the interior of what had seemed to me, while watching, to be a young man with a huge range of emotions and yet no real handle on how to deal with/interpret/comprehend any of them. And, too, I wanted a Duo that was as abrasive, brash, and steadfast as what I'd seen in the anime, and not some dickless wonder who wears makeup and sobs at the drop of a hat. Part of that, though, could be alleviated if... - Heero gets more activity. He spends a lot of time waffling over things; granted, I do recall trying to characterize him at a point where he's sort of lost focus, and has little real objective/purpose. (I always saw him, and still see him, as someone whose purpose is always going to be primarily external.) I think I got right that when he loses purpose in the series, the immediate assumption is that it's his fault, and therefore it's within his power to fix it somehow -- but where I went wrong was in not letting him be as stupidly stubborn in Drums as he is in the series. That is, Heero is always active, in canon; it's just the constructiveness of his activity is sometimes highly questionable -- see also, "Heero decides to assuage his guilt over killing the doves by visiting Every Blooming Relative And Handing Over A Gun." It's not the brightest course of action, but it is a course of action.
- I'd do something about the BIGGEST PLOTHOLE OF THEM ALL: the pilots themselves.
Oh, man, it's been four years, and not a single person has ever pointed out the one thing that slapped me in the face, while reading last night. At least five or six times, over the first fifteen or so chapters, it's mentioned that Heero left, and thus avoided the fuss/nonsense of the "post-war gundam hero craze". Duo's own braid-cutting incident is related directly to people knowing who he is; buried in there (whether I meant to or not), there's also implications that the other pilots' resented Heero slipping away, because it meant he escaped being in the public eye.
Which rather undermines the fact that the final culmination of the story hinges so thoroughly on the idea that to the general public, the pilots' identities are a total mystery.
Whoops.
(Although I suppose that kind of plothole is due less to bad writing and more to planning-as-I-wrote; I got the pilots into spots and then couldn't figure out how to get them out again. Come to think of it, 90% of the story is really the author saying, "this would be cool," followed rapidly by a "crap, how do I get them out of there?") - I'd cut back on Heero's leadership in the team itself. Not that he does it all the time, but Hilde & co are too quick to allow, and accept, Heero's advice. If they're that distrustful of him, the situations should be flipped. That is, keep all the events the same but the driving force isn't Heero; it's the team itself laying down all orders and seeing whether he'll tough it out.
- I'd build more into the hindsight of Duo's perspective on things. I don't think his external behavior (overall) would change, but I don't think I had a solid handle on what might drive someone to treat a former friend that way. Err, that is: I don't think I had a solid handle on how to consistently express that motivation. Duo does, at times, seem either too over-the-top in his anger, or too oblique in his non-anger. There should be consistency even where there's not coherency (for Heero).
- I'd remove some of the explanations. The recent critter noted that it doesn't make sense for Quatre to go against so much else of his father's positions and then hold fast to a traditional Muslim anti-homosexuality stance; my thought process (as I recall) was that Quatre was choosing that kind of self-punishment as a sort of penance. I guess a better way to put it is this: do characters explain the history, or do they explain what they think is going on? In some cases, it'd be the latter -- and when Trowa is explaining to Heero why he and Quatre aren't together, I think I chose the wrong explanation.
By that point in the story, Heero (and the reader) does need some kind of payoff, but I gave the wrong one. First, because an IC-Heero would say, "that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," instead of numbly accepting the news Trowa was so thoroughly rejected.
Second, because the Trowa-Heero interaction, in the series, doesn't touch on specifics; they speak more often of hypotheticals. Perhaps the translation isn't very good (always possible), but I recall their tete-a-tetes being more focused on "how I feel about this" and "this is what I believe". So in that explanation-instance, I think it'd be far more IC for Trowa to say, "Quatre has a lot of reasons for his choices, but it all boils down to a penance, and I don't see reason/have need to suffer that, as well." - Speaking of Trowa, I'd reasses his behavior almost entirely, at least in terms of tensions. He's too solidly with Duo (and they're nothing but antagonistical in the series; I'd caught the first time watching that they're hardly 'best friends' but I didn't realize the extent of their competition until rewatching two years later); an IC Trowa would be heartened and pleased when Heero shows up, and probably highly pissed at Duo for working so hard to alienate Heero. He might not break away from the team over it, but I'd revise to include more tension between them, from the first. Just enough for Heero to pick up on it.
Cue segue to canon characterization analysis:
Trowa is both the infiltrator and the observer, active only while in his Gundam, and relatively silent/passive the rest of the time -- and for him, Heero's bullheaded activity makes Heero the catalyst, and the object to be admired. When I first joined the fandom, I recall arguing that Quatre/Duo and Trowa/Heero are mirrors, in that personality-wise, they're too similar to ever move past contented-friendship into passionate relationships. I'm not sure that's entirely accurate now -- or, at least, my conclusion remains but my path getting there has changed.
I think Trowa is, instead, originally put off by Quatre because the two of them are more similar than they are with any other of the five. Wealth or lack of it notwithstanding, they both were shaped by the force of being the youngest in a group of grown (and fighting) men. They're both used to being discounted and/or underestimated, and compensating in their own ways to gain acknowledgment. Where Trowa's inadvertent betrayal was the cause of him losing his team, Quatre's the flipside: he disobeys/betrays the Maganac orders to "stay put" and instead comes after them to help, and ends up being the just-one-more, the just-enough extra to turn the battle. For both of them, losing, and gaining, a team forms much of their self-identity.
Too, they're both remarkably subtle characters. If Heero and Duo are the bludgeons in the group, and Wufei is the formidable but sharp blade (Chinese swords are more like Western swords in thickness than the thinner Japanese katanas), Trowa and Quatre are the stilletos. The difference in their subtlety though is that Quatre can see the course of action (ref, his long explanation to Duo about the political ramifications of the doves' murder, and taking their own gundams to outer space), yet a good amount of the time counsels inaction. I might even say that his argument to Duo -- about taking the Gundams to outer space -- is probably the best example, at that. His course of action definitively alters the battleground and thrust of the entire war, but his action is to leave the battleground -- and make those fighting follow him. That is, in effect, the activity of retreat.
Trowa appears to discount his own value (as do they all, really), and while he's most definitely active, it's to the extent that he actively chooses to blend in with the wallpaper. The one exception might be his disastrous attempt at going out with a bang, and that failure seems to have driven home to him that he's not the one who's going to get all -- let alone any -- of the flashy glory. (As Duo says while being rescued, "it's always the quiet ones" -- who are secretly flashy, that is.) Trowa, Heero, and Quatre are the most active of the five; they're constantly throwing themselves into the thick of it, while both Wufei and Duo spend long segments away from the battlefield. But I think for Trowa, perhaps, he sees the subtlety as being inactivity, and given his worshipful observation of Heero -- 'stopping at nothing, continuing his path however wrong-headed it might appear to outsiders' -- that Quatre's equal subtlety is taken at face-value as being as passive as Trowa. And Trowa doesn't want that; he's got that in himself, in spades. He wants someone strong; he admires those who barrel in head-first because it's the one thing he's miserable at, himself.
As for Duo, I think the issue there is one of volume: Heero doesn't get noisy about what he plans to do. He simply makes his choice, and off he goes, no need to discuss with anyone. Duo's a lot of "this is what I'm gonna do, so watch out!" bluster, which obviously annoys Trowa during the series (the only scene I recall Trowa not looking annoyed at Duo is when they're playing chess together, and that might be because Trowa is clearly stomping Duo's ass all over the board). Trowa doesn't like Duo's brashness, and Duo doesn't like Trowa's seeming nonchalance; I think it'd take as much character growth, honestly, to create a solid 02/03 relationship (of any kind) as it would to create a solid 02/05 relationship.
ETA: meant to add this, too -- that the 02/04 relationship, and the 01/03 relationship, are clearly sympatico except for one big honkin' elephant each. For Duo and Quatre, it's Duo's awe of and unease with Quatre's revealed wealth; in turn, Quatre seems equally discomfited and annoyed by Duo's reaction. It's somewhere between "don't hate me for being rich," and, "this is who I am, so if you have a problem, it's yours, not mine".
In the 01/03, it's Trowa who's a bit awed by Heero's dedication/determination. And Heero, in turn, swings between baffled and discomfited by Trowa's obvious worship -- but where Duo makes himself scarce after discovering the extent of the chasm between himself and Quatre, Trowa hangs even closer. It's not like Duo can get richer and/or gain a family by osmosis if he hangs around Quatre, whereas for Trowa, he seems to hope that some of Heero's seeming 'perfection' will rub off on him. (Compare that to Trowa's disinterest in what Quatre can offer on a material level, and Duo's pointed eye-rolling over Heero's dedication to working on Wing.)
I think for Heero, Trowa is performing a corollary function to Duo: to remind Heero of his humanity. Where Duo alternately puffed up Heero and then teased him, seeking a reaction, Trowa is the one to tell Heero to take it easy on his injured arm, to fight only after he's recovered, to get some sleep and Trowa will fix those last few bolts. The context of Duo's friendship is that Heero needs the emotional validation just like any human; the context of Trowa's is that Heero can be as exhausted, hurt, and weak, and it means only that he's as human as the rest of them.
(Which stands in stark contrast to both Sally's and Zechs' assessments of Heero's medical reports, that the boy is "simply not human" to have withstood everything his old injuries tell them he must've survived in training. Hidden between the lines are some implications of a pretty brutal history, really.)
And back to the story crit:
- I'd think Trowa would see Heero joining the group as a sort of stamp of approval: now, here's someone who can get things done. Trowa might go off with Duo with a sense of general loyalty (and assuming some character development in the five year gap between series and Drums), but Heero's reappearance might almost be a sort of credibility-gain to Trowa. And, in light of that, if Duo were to remain the brash, angry, anti-Heero character, there should be tension from Trowa. At least some strong hints of inner conflict, if not outright betrayal of Duo/Hilde confidences.
- In that vein, too, I'd also cut back on Heero's agonizing over the whys of the situation. I think I got him half-right, but he still spends a crapload of time in the story trying to figure out what's going on. He spends the entire series with pretty much a minimal sense of the bigger picture; he just kinda muddles his way through, screwing up much of the time, making amends where he can and then carrying on again. (I think, too, this is why Zero is such a major mindfuck for Heero; Zero's all about the big picture, and that kind of broad sweep just doesn't compute -- let alone even matter, perhaps -- to Heero. Contrast that with Quatre, whose mind is already so very much about the overall scope.) One of the best analyses I ever read about Heero was some now-forgotten wise person who observed, Heero offers no explanations, and asks for none. There's a lot of Heero asking/wishing for someone to tell him what's going on -- and to be truly IC, he needs to make a decision despite little information, but a decision based on his gut, no matter how wrong or right it is in the overall scheme of things.
That means cutting back on a lot of the places where Heero Tries To Figure It All Out. He's not really the sort to care; he'll leave the political to Duo and Quatre, and the emotional to Trowa and Wufei, and just carry on based on whatever limited info he does have. The corrollary to that is that Heero wouldn't really require a major explanation on how the team got to where it is, or why; if he's certain that he's throwing his lot in with the good guys, then that might be about all the assurance he requires. The particulars aren't as important (and again with the "taking on external purposes for his own"). - I'd also streamline and solidfy Heero's sexual history. At one point, I think I describe him as having had three or four sexual partners while in college, but then later retcon that number down lower. Just how much had he experienced? And just how inactive/uncertain is he, and at what point does that uncertainty give way to his more centered, more self-confident, bullheaded true self? He can be semi-experienced with women (if uncertain and not so confident about it), and still show major vulnerability when it comes to the unknown territory of being with a man -- but at the same time, within the first six or so chapters, I put him into several situations that should've had him recoiling in uncertainty/unknowingness, if he were truly that inexperienced. The balance isn't very good.
- I'd fix the not-quite-a-plothole (so much as a premise flaw) of how Heero does finally meet up with Duo. I repeat too many times (seven times, which is probably seven times too many) that for Heero, "he's on L2 and therefore 'in Duo's world' and therefore everything he does in some way is connected to Duo" -- and then lo and behold, it is. What a lucky random chance, running into those guys! That would be the sort of premise flaw that bugs me in other folks' stories, though I admit that's in great part because I have played that card one too many times myself, and it's a big fat sign of inexperienced and/or lazy author.
The annoying part about that revision wish? The connection -- of Heero being in the right place to meet the right people to connect him to Duo -- is right there in the story, already -- but I passed it up, choosing to make that possible connection a red herring. "Heero traces Duo's online identity to an address in L2, but there's no building there! Oh noes! What happens next?" -- and yet, just randomly walking around the block and Heero runs into someone who just happens to want someone to deliver a message to someone who just happens to be another Gundam pilot. Gee, what are the odds. - I'd give Hilde a better cover, or at least imply there's a means she's unrecognized. So the Syndicate can't find Trowa's full history, and they're suspicious about this, but hello! Hilde was in the Alliance's Junior ROTC, and on L2, at that. She's 15 or 16 and already either running or owning her own scrapyard/business. What are the odds that while doing an undercover op -- on L2, fer crying out loud -- that she wouldn't run into someone who recognized her face? Even just one person calling her by the wrong name would blow it, from the way I write the Syndicate as so paranoid. She's a big honkin' plothole, damn it, even if I like so much else about her.
Sigh. - I'd revise Quatre and Wufei to play more on Heero's canon characteristics -- his determination to act even if everyone else is recuperating or down and out with no Gundam or whatever. Rather than have Quatre and Wufei do the whole "we don't know where they are," instead, play the card of that inactive-activity, the too-subtle passive aggression, which Heero doesn't stop to contemplate (unless forced to), and ultimately has little patience for. It would make more sense to me, reading as a reader and not the author, if Heero's manipulated by dint of his truest flaw/quality -- of saying, "you're doing nothing, but I'm going to do something, no matter how counterproductive, at least I'm not just sitting there." That would cut back on a lot of Quatre and Wufei mopey time, where they're going on about how Duo's up to something and Trowa's gone, and they don't know what's going on -- in hindsight, I think Heero would react far faster if Quatre and Wufei said, we have a pretty good idea what's going on, but we see no reason to get involved, and don't you do it, either.
Whammo -- and I'd think Heero's first reaction would be to jump in with both feet. There's a fight being held and no one told him, but he'll put on the gloves and go anyway.
Duo is remarkably protective of Heero as an emotional entity, not as a solider/fellow-pilot (as he is of Hilde, and perhaps people in general). I base that on the number of places in the series where Duo -- from almost the beginning of their second meeting -- is consistently willing to affirm Heero -- as a person. He gives Heero little slack -- "shit, you're an idiot for not using the parachute I gave you, but come on, let's get you fixed up" -- that is, he doesn't play the "omg you're so awesome and amazing!" card, but he also supports Heero in some curious ways. Like pointing out to Heero that girls notice him ("wave to your fans!") -- which I always read as a "hey, there are other people, and they acknowledge you, too." Duo freely annexes Heero's relationships, too, such as his cheerful greeting to Relena (and she reacts with the surprise I'd expect from someone being greeted in such a friendly manner by a stranger).
And, too, much of his support is in the ways Heero needs it most -- "okay, I've taken out the minions on the ground, now you go for the target!" -- which gives Heero the satisfaction of believing he 'achieved' the mission target, even if that may be solely because Duo was there to pave the way for him. It doesn't seem to matter that Duo's the one who challenged Heero to strike the base, in the first place -- I might even say Duo set up the "you can't beat me" premise, which intrigued Heero enough to take him on -- and then Duo promptly sidesteps and lets Heero win the challenge. (I don't recall, either, that Heero registers this; if he does, I suspect he misinterprets it as meaning that Duo talks big but doesn't have the guts to be a Real Soldier.)
When Heero snarks on Duo for 'botching' the mission, again, Duo seems unbothered by it; perhaps he instinctively knows that Heero requires at least the appearance of Doing Something Right, even if that comes at the cost of Duo's chances at glory. Duo just doesn't seem to have any cares about proving himself to anyone, while Heero's nothing but one big drive to prove himself to everyone.
In fact, I might even say Duo's a bit amused by Heero's obsession with "now we're even" and the whole "won't be in debt to anyone" (as Kracken pointed out in her response to my last post). I don't get the impression, given Duo's reactions, that he even really keeps score. But he knows Heero does, so he gently and patiently steers Heero in the direction of winning; if it doesn't matter all that much to Duo who really scores the final point so long as the team wins, why not let Heero have it?
Hrm, perhaps then, this would lead to later-in-life resentment, in hindsight. Heero may have been working hard to protect Duo from the fight and/or prevent him from getting involved as an untrained civilian, but Duo was sure working damn hard in the opposite direction to keep Heero confident and strong in his skills, and to remind him of his humanity whenever possible. That's a lot of emotional investment, in some ways; Duo might not care about who scored the winning point but eventually I think it would rankle that Heero didn't care, either. It's like a strange reversal on the usual "if I can't have it, you can't" -- instead, it's perhaps, "it's okay if I don't care but you have to care because otherwise nothing I've done for you really matters".
Maybe that would be the true reason Duo was hurt/angered by Heero departing. "After all I've done for you!"
I think I got right that Duo would do anything for Hilde; as Relena represents peace to Heero, Hilde represents innocence to Duo -- and those who'd put Relena's peace at risk (like Mariemaia) get it worst from Heero, so too would those who put Hilde's innocence at risk. Trowa, I think, follows this pattern; Cathy represents hope, and his attempted suicide brings her to despair, and that seems to be worse (for him) than anything else she could suffer.
A few last things, bigger issues but just requiring better skill at emphasizing the stakes, both prompted by recent crit-remarks:
- The reader got the impression that Duo, and Trowa by extension, are aiding Hilde in finding Joe's murderer, and thus the entire group is going through these escapades solely to assist Hilde in her grieving process.
My intentions were more that the pilots are the kind of people to repeat what they've once done: seen a horrible wrong, and been willing to step up and right the world, even if that means paying a hard price themselves. In the case of an undercover agent's murder, it's not truly about "finding who killed him" so much as realizing that an agent's death, in those circumstances, mean there's something major going on, and knowing if everyone else is going to turn a blind eye, then it's up to them -- again -- to do something about it.
The way to fix that, clearly, is to soften any emphasis on Joe's role as a contentious point between Duo & Hilde (just making it more subtext, I mean). His role as discovering agent is still crucial, but rereading tells me I came down a bit too strongly on the emotional side. - Find a way to increase the stakes that require the pilots to go through with their final, bloody mission. I don't agree it's out of character for them to murder people -- and I do think there's a delicious irony in Heero agreeing to do it, being both a trained assassin and the one who was once tricked into murdering a number of doves -- but I think it does require a seriously huge price to pay if they don't succeed.
Would their own lives be enough? Probably not. I think they'd all sacrifice each other willingly, if that's what stood between them and peace -- and they'd expect the others to sacrifice them in turn; that means no hostage situations. (It'd be far more OOC for them to kill bystanders as a means to save one another.) They'd go back to try and rescue the person (like Duo and Heero did for each other), but they'd do that after they dealt with the issue at hand.
No, I think it requires realizing before the big event just how much they might gain if they follow through. It's not really spelled out, as I recall, until afterwards -- it's hinted at, but not really tackled head-on, that if they don't carry out their roles, that they'll lose their own lives and lose any headway they'd gained in catching the bad guys.
Then again, good story craftsmanship seems to really require nuance comprehension. You can repeat something five or six times in a chapter because it's in your brain while you're writing, and so you figure, throw that in, that sounds good. You don't realize until much later that the point you really wanted to make, you only mentioned once -- but you sure mentioned about nineteen times that Duo has blue (or purple, your pick) eyes. As readers, we do register the emphasis and allot for it accordingly.
Hah, if this were a profic work, I'd be thinking, "okay, there's got to be a plot-point coming up about his eye color!"
Although that sort of red herring can be used to huge impact in a mystery or suspense novel, where the author keeps your focus over here instead of over there -- but by that point in Drums, I think the suspense was more of a "will they survive intact, and sane," rather than a "what's going on here" issue. Maybe it if were less of a mystery -- by that point -- then the stakes would be clearer and the emotional impact would be doubled, since the reader would be fully aware the pilots are trapped.
(Then, too, Duo's decision to volunteer Trowa would be as tragically pointless as I wanted it to be: that Duo's trying to protect Heero from the emotional agony of taking life again, but asking Trowa to kill a relative of his former lover isn't much of an improvement. I wanted it to be a deal with the devil, that no matter who pulled the trigger, there was no good choice and no one who'd not suffer in some way.)
...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?
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Date: 26 Jun 2007 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Jul 2007 08:05 am (UTC)Drums of Heaven wasn't *that* bad!
Date: 1 Jul 2007 03:58 am (UTC)I've been reading (and sometimes writing) GW fanfiction for four years now, and I like to, lamely, consider myself well versed in the series and the characters and which fan stories are good. I wont even bother with a story if I don't automatically love it.
So I just finished reading Drums for the first time ever. It took me three days, but I made it through the whole story. From a first time reader's pov, I loved Drums to death. I didn't notice any of the plot holes, I found your writing style to be excellent, I loved the romance and I loved the plot. It was delightfully fresh and complicated and everything was covered in a honey-angst glaze.
Really, in my opinion, Drums was quite good. Much MUCH better than a lot of the GW dribble that's coming out these days. So don't beat yourself up too bad, you really deserve a pat on the back for a rather well done story that completely tickled this fan's fancy.
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Date: 4 Jul 2007 08:09 am (UTC)I think it's a rite of passage: when a story hits a certain age, that's when you can truly stop and say, "man, that sucked." And not be fishing for compliments so much as wishing you had the time/energy to do it the justice it deserves.
What I find more illuminating, though -- and possibly (if oddly) the reason I wouldn't revise -- is noting the patterns I used and comparing them to now. Like some grammatical constructions, oi, the burn:
Opening the door, he took off his shoes. Walking across the room, he waved to a friend.
Cripes. Or my other now-hated construct, "blah blah blah AS blah blah blah; blah blah AS blah blah." As, as, as, you'd think there's no other way to connect two thoughts in one sentence.
But then, hell, it's cool if no one else notices the plot holes either. I mean, it did take me four years to notice some of them, and I wrote the bloody thing!