[Team Drama] (Rule 63) Her eyes you'll remember

[zelinxia]

Title: Her eyes you'll remember
Prompt: Rule 63
Rating: M
Warnings: Violence, torture towards the end, and a short sex scene
Author's Note: Apparently can never write something short for a fem!KuroFai fanfic. Oh well. With that said, I'm done, whoo!

Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue
~the end.

Thank you for reading! How did I do?
Please score my fic according to these guidelines:
1. How in-character was this fic? (1-10)
2. How well did this fic handle the trope? (1-10)
3. How much did you enjoy this fic overall? (1-10)
Remember, if you are voting anonymously, you must provide some form of identification (a link to a blog or profile on another site will suffice) for your vote to be counted!

Comments

[carmenwoods.livejournal.com]

I was completely thrilled to see a genderswap trope fic use trans characters for once instead of just cis-swapped ones, such a delight. The writing, however, was honestly hard to get through - I hope you keep writing and improving, though!

1. How in-character was this fic? 8
2. How well did this fic handle the trope? 10
3. How much did you enjoy this fic overall? 6.5

[zelinxia]

Gosh, I'm super happy you are happy I wrote them as trans for Rule 63. For them, true Rule 63 is male to female --> trans ladies, ehehehe.

I don't know if you'll get this reply via open ID, but I ask everyone who mentioned constructive criticism to elaborate. When you said it was hard to read through, was it grammar/syntax, plot pacing, or something else/everything? I really want to revise this since this is a rough draft. And I am definitely going to keep writing...slowly...while my Muse keeps throwing ideas and piling WIPs. I digress.

Thank you for reading and scoring!

[carmenwoods.livejournal.com]

Reading is a really subjective thing, so feel free to totally disregard my opinions on it! I really don't want to be a picky jackass. (I feel really bad saying anything, but I didn't want to not vote on some fics either... So I'm very sorry for mentioning anything. DX) I'll try to explain what I felt, though, since you asked.

Your grammar tended to be fine, mostly it was word choice, word use, and sort of incomplete translation of the scene to the page in places, if that makes sense. Stuff that a beta-reader should have caught for you, or a thorough editing would have cleaned up. An early bit that stood out (to me) was this:

When the sun set – streaks of blue and violet splashed across the twilit sky – the vicinity had transformed into nightlife mode. Some people were dressed down, but mostly the rest were very dressed up. Sleek clothes, studded heels, and the strong mixes of perfume and cologne littered the streets.

Kurogane was hanging outside of a dive bar on her bike, but she had no such intentions of going out tonight. Dressed in faded denims and a classic white beater tank, she contented herself to observe the small, dilapidated eyewear shop a few hundred feet down from her spot.

Some word choices that don't fit the meaning of what I felt you were trying to convey. Like 'vicinity', when area or neighborhood would have made more sense. 'Littered' when you're talking about incorporeal smells and you could have used something more apt like permeated instead. Then redundant phrasing with "no such intentions of going out tonight" - it's obvious you meant to clarify what her intentions were, but having 'such' in there throws the sentence off. Also with 'twilit sky' earlier, twilight already does imply those softer darker blue shades, so it's hard to picture how blue and violet would stand out against that sort of sky. And lastly, just some jarring slight misuse of 'contented herself to observe', which should instead have been contented herself with observing.

Going back to find specific bits, I think nearly all of my discomfort reading was due to word choice. (Which could be entirely due to reading as a subjective experience, please don't take me as being critical just to be mean.) Truthfully, I started going down the list of fics reading, and this was one (not the only one...I feel so awful) that I started and dropped, and came back to to be thorough. Your second paragraph, for example:

And three, the ghosts of a ringing bell alerted the presence of a late-night client.

'Ghosts' didn't make much sense to me - like, did the bell ring or not? Should I interpret that as echoes? And 'alerted the presence' should have either been alerted her to the presence or something like signaled the presence.

Followed by:

“Didn’t you notice the sign? Office’s closed. Come back some other time with your case,” she said.

But she didn’t hear the front door open and closing from outside in the waiting room. Nor did the visitor say something back.

It's hard to tell the spatial layout of this scene, but it seems that Kurogane is in an interior office without a view of the front door, so called instead of 'said' would have been a lot clearer. Using 'said' made it seem as if Kurogane and her visitor were in the same room and for some reason she wasn't looking to see what was going on, which contradicts the 'outside in the waiting room'.

And to explain what I meant by incomplete translation of the scene to the page, this part:

The gun slipped out of her hands.

And.. clattered to the floor? That line could have used something as a follow-up. Plus, for Kurogane, who has handled firearms for years, dropping a gun like that is an irresponsible thing to do, which, yes, totally speaks of her extreme shock here, but it would be good to allude to that within the text. Without a nod towards yes, dropping her gun like that is a really big deal (and also we're lucky it didn't go off), it just feels kind of incomplete.

Anyway, I hope that helps you see where I was coming from. And in fact it could very easily be that your writing is just fine and I am just a bad reader! :x

[zelinxia]

Those make sense, thank you! I'll be more careful when I revise and edit (alas, I didn't have any time at all to do so...), particularly the gun incident. I did not think of that foolish consequence at all. Instead, Kurogane will shakily lower her gun when she recognizes 'Fai'.

I want to keep the word 'ghost' though, however, because I specifically chose it to foreshadow that Kurogane's visitor is a ghost, as fully revisited and revealed in Part 4.