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.)
(via noodle-is-gudle)
