[FFML] [C&C] Re: [Fanfic][Naruto] Suiren, Chapter 13: Wolves...

[Eimii]

>> Apparently, when i say, 'i'll have a new chapter finished soon,' what
>> i actually _mean_ is, 'i'll have a new chapter finished within 1~2
>> years.'
>
> Hey, for certain things 1-2 years _is_ soon!  :)

If only that were the case here. When i was writing the first ten
chapters of this series, i had a 2-week average turnaround per chapter
-_-;...

>
>> No, really- i do. But that's all i'm going to say about it here; if
>> you want to know _why_ i blame Hinata, you can look at my blog,
>> eimii.wordpress.com. This entire chapter was posted there, scene by
>> scene, as it was being written. I intend to do the same for the next
>> chapter as well. It's very motivating, in a terrifying, public
>> exposure sort of way...
>
> I thought about doing something similar with 100 Days, releasing it day
> by day.  But the chapter I really got stuck on only covered one day, anyway.

I get horribly stuck whenever i try to write female characters i'm not
familiar with; they're just not very well fleshed out in canon, for
the most part...

>> Waaaay Too Much _Emphasis Text_ Warning: I must have used an entire
>> year's worth of underscores for this chapter. It works way better when
>> i can convert them to italics -_-;...
>
> Hmm.  How many underscores is a years worth?

Depends on who you ask, but i used over 100 in this chapter >_>;...

>
> Anyway, I'm pretty sure you've used up your warning quota, also. :)

Indeed...

>> When Momiji was finished, the other girl pulled out a chair at the end
>> of the security console and sat down, putting her feet up. In a nod to
>> modesty, she'd let her hair down so that her dark locks fell over the
>> front of her mesh undershirt, but she hadn't donned the rest of her
>> armor, leaving her in her underwear.
>
> Hmm... this seems a little... gratuitous, but we'll see how the scene
> goes...

There's a reason for this, really, but i don't want to say what it is >_<;...

>
> I've already snipped the relevant transition, but the jump from "new
> characters recapping part of the last episode, but not Hinata's
> fainting" to "after Hinata recovers from fainting" is awkward.

I've rewritten the 'recovery' scene more than a dozen times in the
last year. I found every version very awkward; it's hard to start the
chapter when the section is being told from the POV of the person
waking up, and that she's recovering in the presence of someone who
just molsted her into not-so-blissful unconsciousness...

There's also a plot-relevant reason why the 'recap' ended where it
did; this isn't the last we'll be seeing of those two...

>
>> Still, it was possible that Kiba was mistaken. Hinata had wanted to
>> keep an open mind, but her own bias had outed itself when Sakura asked
>> her how she felt about it. *'I- I like you a lot, Sakura chan! But not
>> like- I mean, I really admire you!'*
>
> ...hmm.
>

Hmm?

>> Her shock must have shown, for Sakura's expression froze, then became
>> extremely strained. Burying her face between her knees, Sakura emitted
>> a groan of despair. "Dammit! This _has_ to be her fault..." she
>> whispered, the last part so low that Hinata didn't think that she was
>> meant to hear.
>
> Oh no, Sakura.  You're doing this to yourself by now...

But she can still blame it on Anko just to make herself feel better, can't she?

>> The gesture helped, though. By the time she opened her eyes, Hinata
>> had calmed down enough to offer Sakura a sincere look of apology. "I-
>> I'm not supposed to be on this mission," she explained unhappily.
>
> Aha!  I do believe I called this one!

I can't remember, but i hope so; i tried to foreshadow it last chapter ^_^;...

>> Kurenai opened her mouth to protest, but then a blinding, white-hot
>> bar of pain lashed across the back of her neck and she saw no more.
>
> ...huh.  Did not expect that.

And that was the point, in this case, though apparently a lot of folks
thing it shouldn't have been so unexpected...

>> Noting her return, the final billed player in this dangerous comedy
>> errors pushed off of a nearby wall and stalked closer. A low-brimmed
>> straw hat concealed much of the younger girl's face, as did the sandy
>> blond hair that fell free and wild around her shoulders, but Kurenai
>> had no trouble seeing the scowl of impatience that tightened Sabaku no
>> Temari's lips.
>
> ...hmm.  Interesting.

At some point, i had been planning to foreshadow this in Blood as
well, but i never got around to it.

>
> Wound up not having terribly much in the way of useful line-by-line
> comments on first read through; I'll try to give this another pass later
> to see if I can come up with any nitpicks.

Anything helps!

>
> Meanwhile, some somewhat longer nitpicks:
>
> The political maneuvering going on behind the scenes here is intriguing,
> but not enough pieces on the board have been made clear to the reader to
> draw much in the way of conclusions here.  I believe I've commented
> along these lines on prior chapters, but the degree to and casualness
> with which Lord Haruno is willing to antagonize Konoha, even in its
> weakened state, is a bit hard to believe, unless the balance of power is
> drastically different from canon Naruto, he has his own source of ninja,
> and/or there's a serious "ace in the hole" that hasn't yet been revealed.

Actually the balance of power is probably very close to the way it is
in canon. The Fire Country, like most of the 'Great Ninja Nations,'
has almost no standing military of its own, and relies entirely on the
ninja village it 'hosts' for the projection of martial power. The
military nobility, the samurai, were a relatively small and elite
class to begin with, and their prestige has been dwindling steadily.
This affects the Lord Haruno the most; the Lord of Ryuuzen is the
Minister of the Right, the traditional head of the country's land
forces, which means almost nothing in the current paradigm.

So basically, the Fire Country holds the reigns of industry,
agriculture and trade, the purse strings of the nation, and uses its
wealth to buy the loyalty of Konoha. Konoha is perfectly fine with
this, as it has made them prosperous beyond imagining and frees them
from the responsibility of governing the country. The Lord Haruho is
personally offended by this arrangement, but can't do anything about
it at all. They have no reason to feel threatened by him, and seldom
actually have to deal with him, so crushing him in retaliation for his
poor behavior would be a little extreme for the Third and Fourth
(though maybe not the second and first, but he wasn't around back
then). Most of the time they just ignore him.

The only reason he's important in this case is because, at the end of
the ninja wars, Konoha set up shop right next to traditional hub of
the Fire Country's military might, Ryuuzai Castle, as a demonstration
of strength. This means they technically live within his domain, so
that's where the invasion took place. They're trying to 'contain' the
invasion, to make it seem like less of an event than it was by showing
as few of their cards as possible to as few people as possible.

I hope this doesn't sound like a load of BS justification. I really
don't want him to seem more powerful or important than he is, but he
actively tries to make _himself_ seem that way -_-;...

>
> Between that, some other bits this chapter, and some bits from the
> previous couple chapters, and the lack of much to counter the... hmm...
> "show off how cool the new character/setting element is by comparing
> preexisting stuff to it unfavorably" factor, it starts to rub me the
> wrong way a bit.  Even a little solid hinting that the matters with
> this... umm... conflict between Lord Haruno and Konoha aren't quite so
> one-sided would go a long way to alleviate matters.

They _are_ pretty one-sided, though. He's a hawk and an agitator, but
before the war he was relatively harmless, and even now he doesn't
have nearly enough men to be a credible threat. Konoha isn't afraid of
him, it's just easier to put up with his eccentricities than it would
be to eliminate him.

>
> Kurenai's "death" might be a good place.  She's a jounin; even as just a
> kage bunshin with her guard down, it's a bit... iffy, that Lord Haruno's
> men are able to get the drop on her so easily.  It'd be really easy to
> justify her being aware of the attack.  Maybe have her _let_ them
> decapitate her, because there's no reason to "upset Lord Haruno's power
> games" until there's some advantage to be gained from it?

Given how quickly the high-level ninja on either side seemed to be
cutting each other down during the war, is it really so hard for
everyone to believe that a highly trained swordsman would be able to
get the drop on an infiltration/genjutsu specialist? Despite how the
main characters make it seem, sometimes people die really, really fast
in combat- like poor Hayate -_-;...

>
> Or even just adding to her musing at the end of the chapter that Lord
> Haruno was lucky that the Third Hokage was easy going and hadn't
> considered him a serious threat, but that he might not be so lucky with
> whoever became the Fifth, could work.

Maybe i could do that, i suppose, but as small of a threat that he is,
he isn't _totally_ harmless. He hardly ever leaves his castle, where
he is (relatively) safe, but he can still do them a small amount of
political damage; for instance, he may now know the identity of a spy
that Konoha had in the Fire Country court. Konoha depends on their
good relationship with the Fire Country, and right now they won't want
to do anything to sour it- such as assassinating noblemen. The Sand
had the opposite of a good relationship with their host country, and
ended up so poor that Orochimaru was able to convince the Kazekage
that attacking Konoha was a good idea.

>
> ...I don't want you to mistake the number of words I spent on this with
> the seriousness of the issue.  This is all mostly nitpicking; it's still
> a good story and a good chapter.
>

That makes me feel... a little better ^_^;...

The 'new elements' are have been kind of over-emphasized in this
chapter and the last, but i'm not sure how to remedy that without
having a lot of denigrating asides regarding the lord's 'true'
importance in the world. It seemed inappropriate to me for Hinata or
Sakura to belittle the man, and Kurenai has some valid political
worries on her plate...

> And, as ever, I hope I said something useful, and I look forward to
> seeing more of this story.  Even if it occasionally takes a while.  :)

I'm not gonna make any promises that i'll end up breaking, so i'll
just say that i'll try my best. Thanks for responding!

~Eimii