theinkedcrow:
ladyyatexel:
theinkedcrow:
ladyyatexel:
I wish I could talk more in depth with my experience with the Reprise, but I only get 250 words (Eheh). I hope to read more on the reincarnation too, as that was mentioned more in depth in the…
Oh, I’m just wanting to break into this topic. In all honesty, the topic of SWAN/ISH is always one that I have been fond of, so let the match begin.
Yes, Operation Reincarnation (was that the name?) was always one that, in the beginning, was a little funky, unless you kind of were able to pick up from the comics as Johnny was, in a sense, “reincarnated”. So, actually, it wasn’t that bad if you could really look past the words. I at least understood the two different lives, though the second life was still a mystery in the end. I think that the different lives should at least be discussed in more depth, of course, this time around. The reflections really are a nice touch for the characters. (I’m afraid that if Edgar looks in the mirror with Johnny he’ll see how they both died each time, one by one, but at the same time it’s amusing.)
Pepito, I think, this time around, should have more of a “Devil’s tongue”, twisting more words and giving false meanings of sorts. I feel that it would keep readers going “Do they know what he just said?!” or “What is THAT supposed to mean?! Johnny, figure it out for me!”
I guess I should have expected the story to move faster now, because we ALL know the characters, and we all know how it ends (hush hush). We get that they’re newer, poorly made versions of our comic characters, and we’ve greatly accepted that, so yeah, this is gonna go smoothly with less blank gasp, if I can even call them that. The long period of paragraphs of thoughts. Straight to the point is the new black!
The one thing that seemed the most murky to me was the explanation of songs in SWAN. The idea of songs being part of people was the confusing part for me at the time, but that’s just my opinion. I always found myself rereading that part just to make sure I could follow it. Maybe a stronger explanation is in order. Now that I think about it, the song “Song To Say Goodbye” by Placebo would have been a good song for ISH in its own way. I don’t know if you’ve heard it, but it’s worth a listen to.
I’m still in high school, and I think I will always hold the original fanfic in my heart like another “parent”, but this updated version is still welcomed into the family with open arms. SWAN/ISH is still my favorite coming of age novel XD
Find yourself, some awesome music, and live.
Yess, I’m going to do my best to clear all that life stuff up as much as possible. SWAN was my first everything - first fanfic, first writing shared with the outside world, first AU, first real contribution to a fandom, first all the things - so it was kind of ridiculously ambitious for where I was. (“I’m gonna take all these fanfic cliches and smash them together on purpose and try to make it awesome!” ”Yeah, you write fanfic a lot?” ”Nope.” But people cosplayed my fanfic, hypothetical question asker, so I made it awesome anyway~) Still, this rewrite is definitely a fun exercise for me, so I’ll be doing work I think SWAN deserves, but probably not ALL it deserves just because I don’t have the resources. I want the clarity, I want to see what other new scenes happen, and I love these deeply fucked up people, but I don’t want all the bad things that came with working myself mad over this story the first time through, so the effort will not be exhaustive. Anything will be an improvement, probably, but forgive me if it’s still not so clear it’s transparent. I’m lucky that this story has lies and fogginess built right into it!
The name of the reincarnation project is just going to cease being a thing. That was one of the instances of some forced wacky in the original. There should be wacky, this is based on a Jhonen universe afterall, but there were places where I piled on some GIR level stuff that just got to be a little confusing. (There was a point in time where my 17 year old self could have written this wearing GIR on everything but her underwear, so we will forgive her.)
Pacing is just turning out to be stronger people again, and not ‘You already know this story, move it along.’ I’d like someone who never read the first one to read a hypothetical finished reprise and not need the first one to feel the same things. With things explained gradually and where they belong, and with fewer crisp memories, Edgar doesn’t need to stop to info dump, so things can just move and it should be like that. Now that I know everything that needs to happen in the whole story, I can space it better. Large bits of the original didn’t do anything to help the story along, so I dropped it all. Even if it moves faster, it still feels richer to me than the first chapter of the original, because the stuff that matters - the people and the place where they spend so much time - are being explored more than Edgar’s background blah about his house and his morning and commentary about being kind of shit at everything.
Hilarious that you should bring up the personal song thing, the music and inner songs thing is actually exactly why chapter three is getting an overhaul in its second half (possibly leaking into 4???), so this should help! Edgar’s already experiencing some stuff relating to the songs in the first bit of the reprise (those funny notes he hits in the choir room when he’s playing by himself are part of his song, which I doubt I’ll get to any time soon and thus don’t have many qualms about telling you! He also experiences the tiniest hint of Johnny’s near where they recognize each other, though neither of them have any idea about any of this.). Originally, I had the idea, but forgot to properly plan for it and had to do some backtracking at like, chapter 16, which was too late for something that important. So Johnny will be bringing as much as he can to the song table while still preserving the plot this early, haha. Again, so much saved by having them be stronger people.
And weirdly enough, having written the Other!Edgar and Johnny way back helped these two out too. (I don’t even know if you know about that, but let me know if you don’t, and I’ll explode about that too, because why the fuck not.) Weirdly enough, having a stronger Edgar made Johnny sliiightly less abrasive just because Johnny responded to him better. He’s definitely still pretty much a charming unstable asshole, but what positive qualities he has are evened out a little and make more sense for Edgar to really like. At least so far! Granted, I’ve had him doing extended interaction with Edgar for only the last bit of the writing as it stands now, so he could have a flareup at any time. The original SWAN 3 says he’s due for an outburst that I’m not even sure will happen now, but one step at a time!
I haven’t decided what Pepito will be doing yet, but I think, like the others, he’ll do it well when I get there. Johnny talks about him a bit in what I have so far, but only in the context of ‘That creepy guy with the wonky eyes who lives by the school’. I’d love for him to twist things a bit more, but what he tells them will depend on what Johnny and and company know this time around, and riddles and shit always run a risk of “That’s hokey/too easy, why can’t your characters figure this out” or ‘what the fuck, who do you think you are, the sphinx?’. Soooo there’s some tightrope shit happening with Pepito. I love him, though, I’d love for him to get some time in this rewrite too.
I will check out the song at some point. Songs are already being added and moved around in the reprise, so somewhere along the line, I may need more songs for this mess!
(Awww, your favorite, that’s lovely of you to say~ The moral here is ‘your coming of age will be fucked up, a little bloody, filled with hallucinations, and musical’, apparently.)
I’m surprised I’m following a lot of this at three, almost 4, in the morning while working on other things right now, lol.
I get where you’re going and I do see how GIR-y some spots were, but I guess that’s what kind of made it fun in a sense. We all had that phase, but it’s amazing still that your work here was a first for a lot of things for you. It’s really amazing and I’m sure your 17 year old self is so proud of her work, we don’t need to forgive her. She gave us a world that some of us awkward teens could escape too, along with the music provided.
I also remember A LOT of the story being Edgar’s background, and yes, that kinda needed to take five steps back and fall of the cliff at some points, but either way, it got the story moving along in some odd Edgar-ish way. Though, yes, the first chapter was like a whole background that could have easily been spaced around in different chapters.
I guess what I wrote about the pacing was worded a little weirdly. I guess what I’m saying on that note is that a lot of us GET it, those who read it, so seeing that things are moved a bit quicker will feel rushed because we’re asking “Where’s this and that”. Those who have yet to read the original SWAN/ISH will think that it’s just right, and it is a lot nicer not having that huge reincarnation part.
I have seen a lot of your art work (your work is the most beautiful stuff I have seen) and I think I came walking past Other!Edgar and Nny, but I think that was back in the Cherry Doom era (which completely soared over my head like an eagle on crack). Is that the one where they were reincarnated with parents? If so, all I got from it was that Johnny was stuck with a crazy mom and sisters and Edgar had swingin’ parents. That’s about it. I’d love to hear about it though! I actually thought that this whole thing was going to be that.
Yeah, a stronger Edgar should actually get conversations more in depth, I think, with Johnny. He won’t be as timid towards certain topics now and will try to ACTUALLY understand things by pushing a bit more (at least I hope so).
Everything’s still gotta be fucked up, because, yeah, Vasquez. But the best thing about this rewrite should be that you won’t have to really slam your head against your keyboard to write, or at least not as much.
For the song, I had a strong feeling that Edgar had found keys to his song. That was an ‘OMG’ moment for me and I really liked that a lot more compared to the first way he found it (though it was kinda funny at the time). Yeah, he hasn’t FOUND it yet, but just discovering the key… Yeah, that was awesome.
I can’t wait for the song list for this one!
The time was why I had to bow out last night! I was really excited, but I’m supposed to be going out with my mother and my brother today and the longer I SWAN-d, the less sleep I was going to get, and I aim to at least be more functional than Johnny is.
Well, some GIR is staying, don’t worry! The way it is now, there’s less wacky before Edgar meets everyone, and more the longer he spends with them, which I think is appropriate and will help to emphasize the changes he goes through and the themes he’s currently working with. One of the things Johnny says to him in the mess of ¾ is “Wow, you are really not having enough fun in here,” and the first thing he does upon inviting himself in is tell Edgar that the house is not suitably fortified against a few varieties of the undead, so there is still some wacky going down. I think before Pepito, they’re almost as normal as you can get and still be invisible-ish.
Which was another thing I wanted to sketch out a bit better! I think it’s a little clearer exactly how visible and tangible Edgar and the others are now (and they’ll talk more about it, even). When I started SWAN the first time, even I wasn’t sure how visible they were, so there are places where it’s inconsistent and there’s stuff I just ignored as soon as I was further down the rabbit whole, which then surprised me as I re-read the first chapter.
AH, okay, I see what you’re getting at now with the pacing and people who have read it before! It would look like I’m just speed boating over things if you don’t know I’m going to work them in more gradually, yes, yes, okay. We are on the same page now! I think I’ll make a note that it’s all still coming up the next time I update this!
(I’ll address Other!Edgar and Nny at the end of this behind a read more so I don’t drown my followers in even more words.)
Correct on all accounts about Edgar and his conversations with Johnny. I think they’ll actually be a bit more of a solid team this time around. (This possibly means Jimmy will be angrier, sooner, haha.) Edgar is always going to be on uneven footing when it comes to Johnny, because Johnny is a fucking mess, but now he’s not afraid of him immediately out of the gate, so they’ll do some better communicating from the get go (which is why Johnny’s first outburst of anger in chapter 3 might not even happen anymore). Edgar may come to be a little afraid of him later, but even then it might be more afraid for him.
And this is a spot where things are difficult, because Johnny is fucked up and I want to keep that, because why Johnny otherwise, but I want there to be some more obvious features of his relationship with Edgar that are worth preserving and are good. Original Edgar took a bit more abuse than he should have and I don’t think enough people believed Tess when she said the relationship was unhealthy. I don’t think they will ever have a totally healthy connection because they’re both damaged (and in Johnny’s case heavily damaged), but I think it will probably be the healthiest relationship Johnny will ever have, and I’d like to make it not the least healthy of Edgar’s. It’s a balance that will be both easier to make since Edgar is not so much of a doormat, but also harder to make for that same reason, because he’s going to want to take less bullshit. And Johnny is really adept at bullshit.
I haven’t decided anything about the Homicides’ songs yet (this is in some hypothetical universe in which I make it to number 16, haha), but I knew I wanted them to be present and hinted at from much, much earlier than they were originally, so I’m glad you had a feeling that that’s what those notes were! Until Edgar can hear them, the rest of the group has like a sixth sense about each other that he’ll be unable to understand. For them, especially Johnny, they’ll feel the changes in each other’s songs to know how they’re feeling and what they might be thinking. This is why there’s a good bit of them shushing and stopping each other before they even act in the first chapter (and in the ones until Edgar can hear them!), because they don’t need to see each other or hear each other speak to react to big situations; they can feel the change in the background hum of each other’s songs. Devi and Tenna communicate well with each other this way, and Jimmy is so loud in every sense that he’s easy to pick up on.
SO YES, the OTHER!Stuff below the Read More! I think you were probably not the only person who thought this was what I was cooking up because it’s been a Thing for a while.
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(via noodle-is-gudle)
