To be honest, I was half torn between leaving that line in or not. I considered that it might detract from the story, but I guess in the end my indecisiveness got the better of me.
But I still appreciate the critique. I'll (hopefully) know better next time.
I'm gonna be straight-up with ya. This was a little hard for me to decide on whether to publish this or not. In fact, I feel as though I may get criticized by some for publishing this.
That said, I think your main story was excellent. Very well written, funny, good sense of this alternate universe you've invented for the Bleach characters, and as far as fanfic goes you did the romance story well. I loved the characterizations, I enjoyed the phone conversations as they were very natural-sounding and fun, and the awkward-but-relieved end felt really good. I'm even willing to forgive that little "weather in Arizona" 4th wall bit just 'cause I remember your last FMA story and that it worked well for that.
This story left me in a great-feeling place. Just finished a short little one-shot, the story ran well, and it was a very pleasant read . . .
. . . and then your final, final line broke that.
The final text message was a bad ending to this story. I can understand your reasoning that this was maybe to just kinda break the awkward moment with an even more awkward moment, or maybe even that the rest of the world is going to focus on that instead of Hitsu' and Momo getting together . . . but this particular line just wasn't a good choice. I'm not even being prudish or offended or anything, if you wanna make a gay/yaoi joke then by all means make a gay/yaoi joke; but gay/yaoi in and of itself can only be a means to a joke, not the ends.
It'd be like if you went to dinner, had fresh bread a flavourful soup, a delicious steak with fine wine . . . and then when your fruit tart dessert arrives you find one of the strawberries is rotten on it. No matter how good everything up until that point was, that end just leaves a really bad taste in your mouth.
So yeah. End left much to be desired; everything else was gold.
I thought you had a neat idea, considering it was that "what if all the characters were in high school?!?" idea. You really took that theme and made it your own unique idea which was refreshing. You also did a really nice job keeping the characters, well, in character. The writing was solid, too.
The only thing I'd say here is the ending (the last text message part) didn't seem to fit at all. It wasn't really relevant, and personally, I think it detracts from the story.
cardcaptorryoko
Title: Senior Otaku | Posted 05/15/08 | Reply
@SomeGuy:
To be honest, I was half torn between leaving that line in or not. I considered that it might detract from the story, but I guess in the end my indecisiveness got the better of me.
But I still appreciate the critique. I'll (hopefully) know better next time.
SomeGuy
Title: Team | Posted 05/14/08 | Reply
I'm gonna be straight-up with ya. This was a little hard for me to decide on whether to publish this or not. In fact, I feel as though I may get criticized by some for publishing this.
That said, I think your main story was excellent. Very well written, funny, good sense of this alternate universe you've invented for the Bleach characters, and as far as fanfic goes you did the romance story well. I loved the characterizations, I enjoyed the phone conversations as they were very natural-sounding and fun, and the awkward-but-relieved end felt really good. I'm even willing to forgive that little "weather in Arizona" 4th wall bit just 'cause I remember your last FMA story and that it worked well for that.
This story left me in a great-feeling place. Just finished a short little one-shot, the story ran well, and it was a very pleasant read . . .
. . . and then your final, final line broke that.
The final text message was a bad ending to this story. I can understand your reasoning that this was maybe to just kinda break the awkward moment with an even more awkward moment, or maybe even that the rest of the world is going to focus on that instead of Hitsu' and Momo getting together . . . but this particular line just wasn't a good choice. I'm not even being prudish or offended or anything, if you wanna make a gay/yaoi joke then by all means make a gay/yaoi joke; but gay/yaoi in and of itself can only be a means to a joke, not the ends.
It'd be like if you went to dinner, had fresh bread a flavourful soup, a delicious steak with fine wine . . . and then when your fruit tart dessert arrives you find one of the strawberries is rotten on it. No matter how good everything up until that point was, that end just leaves a really bad taste in your mouth.
So yeah. End left much to be desired; everything else was gold.
red tigress
Title: Senior Otaku | Posted 05/14/08 | Reply
I thought you had a neat idea, considering it was that "what if all the characters were in high school?!?" idea. You really took that theme and made it your own unique idea which was refreshing. You also did a really nice job keeping the characters, well, in character. The writing was solid, too.
The only thing I'd say here is the ending (the last text message part) didn't seem to fit at all. It wasn't really relevant, and personally, I think it detracts from the story.
But other than that, well done.