Nihon: Lantern Lights

[shadow_of_egypt]

Title: Lantern Lights
Characters/Pairings: KuroFai, Syaoran, others mentioned
Rating: T - heading towards an M? *fails at rating things*
Summary: Chinese New Year in a new world brings back old memories, and the usual insanity. Post-series.  
A/N: Another instalment in the Nihon series, chronologically set sometime after We Go Ever Onwards, before the

Comments

[mikkeneko]

That was wonderful! The best part definitely has to be when Fai gives Syaoran the envelopes... and he gets so sad and yet so happy at the same time.

Also, I notice that you refer to Mokona as 'she!' I've considered doing that as well -- it's one thing to avoid gender pronouns in comic form, but much harder in prose.

[shadow_of_egypt]

Kindness towards Real!Syaoran seems heavily like a double-edged sword to me. I mean, the kid goes through so much pain is inevitable alongside nostalgia, but he has a new family of sorts to give him the happiness to go with the hurt.

As for the Mokona - I took the decision to give them gender pronouns a little while back, mostly because by calling them 'it' in the narrative ruined the cry of 'Mokona is not an it!' That, and there are only so many times you can say 'Mokona' - especially since what she is exactly is never quite specified. The White Mokona - Soel - became female because she's often dressed in female clothing, particularly in the Horitsuba Gakuen omakes, and her voice is a little higher than the other Mokona. I think she also states she's a girl in one of those, although I forget right now. ;;

[mikkeneko]

Yeah... I think with your example, I may start doing that too. It's never really been an issue for me so far because I haven't written anything extensive with Mokona in it (not because I dislike the character -- there just hasn't really been an opportunity yet!) but when I do, it's going to become a problem. XD You really only can go so far in English prose while avoiding pronouns before you start to sound ridiculous. Plus, it gives Sakura some female company! ^_~

I seem to recall that the pertinent line is that when differentiating the white and black Mokonas, they state that white Mokona is 'slightly more girlish' while black Mokona is 'slightly more boyish.'

Damn, I need more Tsubasa icons!

[phlogistics]

This fic was spectacularly cute. Thank you so much for writing this!