[FIC] X, "The Dead and Dreaming"

[umadoshi]

Usually I post full-length stories to my website first, but I'm hoping to catch hinikuish before she goes away and I'm not in the mood to fidget with HTML. May or may not get around to cross-posting to the various X communities; might wait until it's uploaded to the site. *shrugs*

Anyway: my first longer-than-a-page X fic. Sorata/Arashi, set pretty much

Comments

♥♥♥

[parron]

Umm. Okay. I know I tend to bug people about leaving long, detailed reviews, so it's time for Parron to do some practicing of her preaching, right? Let me just get the inanity (wow, that's actually a real word) out of the way first: OMGQUEEEEEEEEEEE. ♥♥♥ SORATA/ARASHI IS LOVE, AS ARE YOU. (as is you?) You're an irritatingly brilliant writer, I hope you know. ♥

Okay. I loved the mad amount of research you put into the story, the little details and the quotes and the religious stuff. Sometimes that sort of thing ends up feeling a little elitist, like "look at my total smartness," and I must admit that your seemed almost too close to the "show off" line at points, but generally it just added to the coolness. :D My favorite scene was the one with the rain, which I suspect just goes back to my abiding love for Sorata and Yuzuriha being shiny at eachother and the mental image of midnight rain tag is LOVE (esp. with Kamui and Arashi looking on), but the whole story was great. I love the way the story doesn't really conclude their story or go past the manga... normally I like resolution, but in this case it let's me continue my happy denial of sora-chan's impeding death fits nicely.

I like your Arashi, too. ^^ How she's calm and just the right amont of short-tempered. Your Sorata was maybe a little too serious, for my tastes anyway. In the non-flashbacks it makes sense, but there were a couple points where I almost expected him to say something different, more "Sora-chan-ish." Of course, the fact that I could picture it all well enough to feel put off by it is a good thing in itself. :D Besides, Sorata is hard to write. T__T;;

...Okay, that's enough attempts at sounding like I know what I'm talking about seriousness. Once more for the road: OMFG SQUEEE~EEEE ♥♥♥♥ YOU ARE L33T. :D

Re: ♥♥♥

[umadoshi]

Okay. I loved the mad amount of research you put into the story, the little details and the quotes and the religious stuff. Sometimes that sort of thing ends up feeling a little elitist, like "look at my total smartness," and I must admit that your seemed almost too close to the "show off" line at points, but generally it just added to the coolness.

*laughs* Fair enough--I debated taking out the reference to the 14th century monk, but I like the account in the book far too much. ^^ I did think it might be a bit much. (Also, I discovered a tragic inability to be sure whether the Koyasan monks would necessarily use Sanskrit rather than the Japanese, but then I decided that since Shingon is primarily a Japanese sect it would probably be ok since I got the info from a Shingon site.) Butbutbut Shingon (and Shinto) are so very interesting, I had to take advantage of the chance to do research! (And that's not even touching on the part where I was at a yard sale last year that was being run by some local Vajrayana Buddhists, and I asked if they knew anything about Shingon, and they gave me the name and phone number of a man they knew who was planning to be a Shingon monk. >.> If it had been an email address I might even have gotten in touch, but I HATE the phone, and didn't want to have to confess to researching for fanfiction. I mean, it'd be just as honest to say it was research for personal interest, but I also don't want to give anyone the misleading idea that I want to convert, you know?)

This is what comes of filling in my theology minor with classes on Buddhism and Japanese religions, yep. *^^*

Part of me totally wants to avoid theorizing about where things'll go in canon, but another part keeps flashing back to conversations we've had that've made me go "ooooh!" in tempting ways. *cries* So next time I'm X-inspired I really need to get back to the crossover (which will hopefully have much more resolution . . . but then, I've got a hell of a lot more room to play with over there).

The thing that bugs me about this one is the fact that I dislike my attempt at justifying the plausibility of the whole 'shared real-time inside the dream', but after sitting on the fic for a year there was no way I was rewriting the whole second half from scratch. -_-

Hmm. I'll have to try harder with Sora next time--this time 'round I was trying to balance the sporadic feeling that I was writing Arashi as a bit too weak with the fact that I was writing her as she was being brainwashed. :/ Rawr. Writing outside of my primary fandom makes me feel all insecure (the squeeing helps, though, and is much appreciated). (Actually, it's just occurred to me that I have a bit of practice writing Exasperated!girl, since Rin has a bit of that going on too. >.> But in much smaller doses.)

. . . I suppose I'll have to pimp the thing at some point, but X fandom is a little scary. ;_; What if no one comes to my party? *laughs* Ok, and now I'm having way too much fun with this comment. ^^ If you don't get a chance to comment back, I repeat--have a kickass trip. Get online when you can. I know my X fangirling is sporadic, but none of my other friends'll squee about it with me! *hugs* (Oh, and it's ok about the non-postcard. ^^)

Re: ♥♥♥

[parron]

Yey and behold my totally fitting icon. :D

First of all, ha! Believe me, the X fandom will like this story. It's well written and besides, they all liked my crazy Hokuto/Seishiro story and this is way better AND not defying a major canon couple. XD;; If you'd like, I can plug it for you? whore it to the masses? I have a couple of people on my flist that would probably be interested/totally read it. :P X fandom is totally not scary, because we all realize how full of crack the manga really is (read: eyeballs!) and love it anyway. You have nothing to fear. :D

Okay. Back to the story part... Sorata is painfully hard to write. Not just his outlook on life, which is crazy enough, but coming up with the right kind of humor for him is... arrgh. It's really easy to see him as OOC, which is probably why it bugs me and doesn't bug me all at once, you know? The canon whore in me hates it, but then I have to admit I'd have trouble doing better. :D Arashi's easier, because she follows a nice pattern of "I am calm, I am calm, I am not loosing my temper with you, I am calm, I am calm, OMG SHUT UP, calm, calm, dotdotdot, CALM." XD;; She's nicely exasperated, isn't she? Not quite bad tempered, but short tempered to be sure. And she probably hates that about herself... Um. My, I got off track quickly... *flails* I blame you! You always make me want to tangent about X! :D

Back to your LOVELY story... man, it must be cool to know stuff about religion. Um... I mean... I like researching stuff, too. But when I started writing I was literarily the 13 Year Old Fangirl, and in an effort to improve myself I sort of took a few things too far. Seeming like I know too much (i.e: putting lots of details into a story, like those religiony things you had) really scares me, because I have an innate fear of people hating me for seeming showoffish. It's entirely possible I'll be the only of your hundreds of reviewers (*innocent whistle*) to so much as bring the subject up, because I'm weirdly oversensitive like that. Research always is nice, though. I'd rather see someone over research then under... I mean, seemingly "showing off" is much better then getting something blinding simple wrong, because that just makes me exercise my "back" button. (My favorite example is one story where character A and B more or less made out in public in Tokyo)

Uhh... damn. This comment is really self centered. I shall ♥ more at you as remedy. :D ♥♥♥STORYLUV♥♥♥

Re: ♥♥♥

[umadoshi]

That icon is fabulous. *_*

*laughs* If you feel inclined to rec it, I don't mind. If you do, though, I should probably know where, so that I don't spam the same people. That's the hardest part about fic-pimping--I know I should mention it in the obvious places, like togakushishrine and sorashiholics, but then I wonder if there's too much overlap, since the latter is a very small and fairly lifeless place. But given the subject matter, I can't *not* pimp it there. >.< See, I overthink everything. Buuu. I don't mind admitting that I've worked hard on something, but actually promoting it makes me get all queasy inside. Bad combination. ^^

"I am calm, I am calm, I am not losing my temper with you, I am calm, I am calm, OMG SHUT UP, calm, calm, dotdotdot, CALM."

*grins* Ohhh, yeah, that's her. I do love your summaries. ^_^ Poor Arashi. *pets* (I just had this sudden image of Sora giving her chronic migraines. O_O She seems like the type to carry tension badly, barring meditation . . . )

It's entirely possible I'll be the only of your hundreds of reviewers (*innocent whistle*) to so much as bring the subject up, because I'm weirdly oversensitive like that.

Wow, you're ambitious. *laughs* And if this is the only place the story is for a while, everyone who looks at it will have the same thoughts, 'cause of the comments thread. (Which is perfectly fine. ^^ Yay fic discussion! And I like solid criticism, because it's not terribly common in fandom, and how am I supposed to get better if no one says "um . . . " when something doesn't quite work?)

I should try to update my website soonish . . . and probably deal with the archive sites. :/ (I'm backlogged again.) Not terribly in the mood after this week's run-in with ff.net, but so it goes. -_-

Oh, and theology minors are definitely fun. I enjoyed it more than my actual degree. ^^

Re: ♥♥♥

[parron]

I'd say, on the subject of reccing, togakushishrine and x1999 would be the places to go. There would be a lot of xposting, but they're the two biggest X communities and they're both active, right? :D sorashiholics is completetly dead, far as I know, and most of the people in it seem to be out of the fandom completely or part of the other two communities. As for ff.net, well... better put it there yourself, huh? :/ At least then it'll most certainly be known that you wrote it, I guess. The section's pretty small, so I doubt you'd have much trouble with anything bad... and there are hit counters! And favorites lists! XD Just what you need for needless ego boosts! <--i've been posting at the pit for four years now haha.

And if this is the only place the story is for a while, everyone who looks at it will have the same thoughts, 'cause of the comments thread.

Well, then, they won't think it until after they see me? :D I'll be like a trendsetter, or something. But I really do think that I was being oversensitive to the whole thing. You should consider yourself lucky I didn't nitpick the honorifics, because I almost did that, too. :P But anyway... yeah. Discussion is so cool. *__* No one ever discusses my 'fics, though, but series discussion? I'm all over that. :P actually, oddly enough you're the only one that'll sit still long enough inspire discussion in the first place. most of my friends fall more on the "crack" side of things... I have to say, though, I totally know why good CC is hard to find... it's a real pain to right, even when you know the author wouldn't mind it. :/ Sometimes its hard just to place what you didn't like, or did like, or what didn't ring true. Haha... there's a reason I usually "forget" to review things...

XD Arashi totally has a constant headache. She strikes me as the type to... not repress, but sort of try to ignore everything she doesn't like. So either things get built up, or she probably ends up with these killer migraines. I keep thinking of Tsubasa here, where everytime Sorata went into one of his tangents, Arashi got a "..." face and the kanji "IGNORE" appeared. XD Like that. (now entering: tangent land!) She's probably very self aware and critical of herself, and it probably just drives her crazy that she even gets worked up over Sorata's idiocy in the first place. She strikes me as having very little sense of humor, but possibly a very sarcastic sense of humor when it does surface...