AMP wrote:

           The blind truth

Need to capitalize the title.

A nicely written brief piece for the type that it is, save that the
viewpoint is too detatched. Try to make it first person narrative, IMO. The
fic does suffer from the same thing all such 'Character X is secretly far
smarter/more manipulative than they appear on the surface' fics do:
Inconsistant behavior throughout the series with the 'secret goals'
attributed to them, internal monolgues and thoughts, that only said
character is privy to, which go against the basic premise of their secret
motivations and actions, and that fact that if they are this brilliant in a
world full of headcases, they would have achieved their goals much quicker
and/or much more easily than they have demonstrated so far. I know firsthand
because I've done the same thing on a larger scale with the cast. It's
amusing and entertaining on the surface, but you'll quickly discover when
you scratch away at it, that underneath you can't reconcile the behaviors
demonstrated in the real series with the secret motives. There's nothing you
can do about it, just keep the fic brief and try to keep from getting too
deep into motives.

That's why these sorts of fics can only be done in short stories, like this
or Gary Kleppe's, 'Tangled Web'. Try to string the premise out, and an
increasing number of glaring inconsistancies crop up. Best to leave this as
is rather than trying to make it longer and have this happen. It was one of
the problems I had when a sequal to 'Masks We Must Wear' came out. Masks
laid out the premise, which was flawed (for the same reasons all these types
of fics, including mine, were), but as long as you didn't look too closely,
you can suspend your disbelief long enough to enjoy the story. Carrying it
as long as 'Cut Wood' though, and it doesn't ring true and disbelief becomes
harder to suspend.

There probably is one problem I personally have with 'blind truth': Mousse
is too successful at playing the pupper master not just with Cologne, but
everyone. He's like the spider at the center of the web and everyone reacts
to his pulls. That's appropriate for a bad guy, but not good for someone
you're supposed to be sympathetic with. You might want to set this apart
from these sort of fics by throwing in an ironic twist. For exampel, having
a brief insight at the very end of Cologne thinking about how happy she is
in Japan since she has no desire to ever return to the village, and is going
to stay around no matter what. The irony of course being Mousse is putting
himself through hell for no reason, since her goals are in line with his.
It's also keeping more in flavor in R 1/2. After all, since when did anyone
initiating a 'clever' plan ever have it succeed? :)

There are alternative courses as well, though I like the above the best
since it's sort of the 'Hell of your own making' type. If you want to make
it a cruel irony, instead have Cologne think to herself in amused thought at
Mousse's departing form that she knows damn well what he's up to, and has
been from the start. Her and the rest of the village women were well aware
of the 'secret rebellion' the men wanted to start, and that it had been
broken up shortly after Cologne left (Cologne: The silly boys might cause
some actual mischief if I'm gone for any length of time). Since then any
updates that Mousse had been getting from his cohorts were forged so that he
remained in Japan and that she's just been allowing him to think he's been
successful in manipulating her because she finds his antics amusing. Of
course this falls under the same problem with Mousse being the mastermind,
in that he's being manipulated by someone shiftier than he.

The most grandiose irony could be you shifting to several months later back
at the village, where the coup was successful and the men are now in charge.
The only problem is, they've tried to get Mousse to come back by sending him
letters, but he's stopped responding. So one of the men sets out to secretly
smuggle himelf to Japan. When he gets there, he manages to sneak through the
city all the way to the Nekohanton and finds Mousse. Mousse then informs his
friend that he's made a horrible mistake in coming to Japan, and that the
Japanese women, tired of being treated like second class citizens by the
government, rose in revolt and are now calling the shots, and are not
letting men leave the country. ^_^ This is the sort of twist they would do
in stuff like 'The Twilight Zone' though, and would  require this to be way
longer than it should be. It's mostly just me giving examples of the sorts
of ironic twists that could be done and set this apart from other such
'Character X, the Master Manipulator' fics. But it stands fine if that's
what you were going for and are happy with the end result. It just comes
across as being a bit 'standard' to me.

Hope it helps some.

DB Sommer

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