Redline Hearts (and Swords and Flowers)

[incandescens]

It's good to find that huge amounts of work aren't required. I'm looking forward to seeing how this (aka the Shoujo Book) turns out. Fingers crossed for really excellent art.

Tragic conventions in shoujo: find out that you've been manipulated/brainwashed through most of the series into working for your villains.

I would add "have your sister who you're incestuously in love with kill herself because she was raped by youkai after you've slaughtered an entire castleful of them to save her", April, but I'm not sure it's that common a convention in the genre. Okay, so I like Cho Hakkai. So sue me.

I'm finding my writing not too bad, in retrospect. Oh hell, okay, some of it's quite decent.

What do you do when the fate of the world depends on you, when your best friend has betrayed you, when your brother from a previous incarnation wants to kill you (or worse), when you’re on a quest to destroy the usurping God-Emperor but know that your travelling companion is fated to kill you, and when you’re going to fail your college exams at this rate? The answer, in shoujo, is simple. Angst. Angst with a luxurious abandon which would turn most vampires (assuming you aren’t one already) green with envy. Stare at the horizon, refuse assistance from well-meaning friends, deliver long soliloquies while sitting on the roof at night, explain to everyone that you can’t cope any longer, and hesitate fatally before finally taking action. Then angst some more about the tragic consequences of your hesitation.

Star Wars 2 tomorrow! Nobilis 2nd edition tomorrow! Sounds like a program, if not one where I should put the two together.

Comments

[zamiel.livejournal.com]

[laugh] True, that was one of the better sequences. And I think you should inject the bit about being raped by oni. :)

[incandescens]

Ah, that only happens to angstful heroes in doujinshi, or in the more hentai sort of manga/anime. If you want to read that section, Squid, write your own book for it! Hentai: The Wriggling, perhaps?

[zamiel.livejournal.com]

[laugh] Disturbingly, I've considered covering hentai somewhere, but I really do want to see what shoujo hentai would look like. The sensibilities would be largely compatible.

[incandescens]

Hentai: The Fanfic, I suspect. And all the semes can comfort the poor little ukes afterwards. :)

[zamiel.livejournal.com]

[grin] I wonder if scripting a hentai series would be a worthwhile passtime ... ?

[incandescens]

Define "worthwhile". I don't know, you might be able to sell it to interested parties . . . ;) (OTOH, given that I wrote fanfic just to see if I could, and if I could do it well, then I can't talk.)

[zamiel.livejournal.com]

If you've looked in http://www.chancel.org/WyvEnt/texts much, you'd know the answer to that on my part. :)

[incandescens]

It's on my to-do list . . .

[drivingblind.livejournal.com]

I actually really like that section of writing -- you've shared that snippet before, online. It's grab-ful. For an uninitiated git like myself, in that one paragraph you're telling me some critical genre info, with both cues for RP and expectations for plot. Plus, it's entertaining. Full marks and all that.

Tragic conventions in shoujo: find out that you've been manipulated/brainwashed through most of the series into working for your villains.

Heh. I'm actually pretty fond of that trope myself, but where shoujo appears to toss its heros into the Angst Machine, my "and then what?" amounts to something a bit more immediately active and violent. Hell, that kind of reversal is exactly what the whole Cymnea-in-rebellion plot hinged on in Born to be Kings...

[incandescens]

I'm still enjoying the hell out of Born to be Kings. And heh, yes, I'm enjoying watching that part of the plotline too.

[summer-queen.livejournal.com]

I would add "have your sister who you're incestuously in love with kill herself because she was raped by youkai after you've slaughtered an entire castleful of them to save her", April, but I'm not sure it's that common a convention in the genre. Okay, so I like Cho Hakkai. So sue me.

Heh. Maybe that full scenario isn't common, but the incestuous love and imouto-in-danger/needing assistance certainly are. Right off the top of my head I think of Setsuna and Sarah (incest), Ran and Aya-chan (little sis in trouble), Hakkai (both), Touga and Nanami (reversal of roles, there), Aki and Aya (a little of both), Keisuke and Miaka (sis in trouble), and so on. I would posit that as plot device, there may not be a more important familial relationship than onii-san and imouto-chan in shoujo. Even without "in danger" or incest factored in (Touya and Sakura), it's often present. It even bleeds over into shounen (Hiei and Yukina, Yu Yu Hakusho).

As for hentai for women ... I've been told that there's yaoi manga with much tentacle-ness. I'm not keen on tentacles of any kind, so I haven't sought any out. ^_^ I'll take my yaoi tentacle-free, thank you!

[incandescens]

Hm - okay, you have a point about the brother-sister relationship (both incestuous and affectionate). I'll see what I can do with that.

And I take my yaoi tentacle-free, too! (Besides, the semes are _much_ more gorgeous than any monster. :))