In Their Wake / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page In Their Wake.

AKAM80 21 Dec 2023 22:17

Collap piece with Vishardsh for TitanClash: LIVE. I'm calling this my 1 1/2 TitanClash post since I only did the first half. Shoutout to Vish for putting out the second half. Not at all my plan for the ending before I passed it on, but still a banger! Wahoo!

Oh and uh "lol american setting uses 'torch' so unrealistic -1"

Of course, neither of us are Washington Irving, the author of The Devil and Tom Walker. All credit goes to him for the excerpts used. The story itself is in the public domain.

Last edited on 08 Feb 2024 22:53 by AKAM80 Show more

Vishardsh 22 Dec 2023 00:03

AKAM80 has been incredibly patient with my snail's pace at finishing this off. It's a little past the deadline I think

It took me a while to finish this off because, unlike most of my drafts, which reach a certain stage of polish at which I decide they are good enough and I post them, I had to uphold the standard of AKAM80's first half. The idea for the kaiju came from one of the four TitanClash drafts I scrapped because I couldn't fit a plot into it, but in that the bio-suit operator was just… living in the walls of a giant server room and stealing data with a USB stick??? ?????? That was a thing. My abandoned drafts were Sad Kaiju Tries to Befriend a Sunken Boat, which I should probably make a little sillier and post because it was kind of cute and two different approaches towards a piece about London being destroyed because I thought that the canon was a bit empty of hope. I hope I did both the first part of this, and REVERENCE/REVULSION justice.

zipzipskins 24 Dec 2023 15:48

I have been mulling over my thoughts on this one for a bit now. It's obviously excellently written — no surprise given the authors — and establishes so many fascinating things about the canon. Trip's emotional arc is very strong and very believable. It's heartbreaking, what this world and her military service has done to her, and it has a lot of parallels in the real world that are gut-wrenching. It's also completely on point thematically, like, triumphantly so.

However, I struggled slightly with it because the author transition is definitely noticeable, partly because the subject matter shift feels abrupt. There are a few breadcrumbs laid in the first two thirds that are suggestive of what might be coming in the factory (the reticence of the parents to enter the school/factory, for instance) but for me I would have liked a bit more dovetailing to smooth it out.

All that aside, it's so well-done on its writing, world building, emotional, and mood merits that I upvoted anyhow. Excellent work to both of you.

Last edited on 24 Dec 2023 15:52 by zipzipskins Show more

Maxyfran73 09 Jan 2024 04:25

While I loved the piece, and I loved seeing Trip return, I must agree with Zip here: The transition between authors is too strong. Jarringly so. We start with a solid idea, then we immediately skip to another, and it ends up with the latter not resolving the former, so it really feels like there was a first story here, and someone saved a second one on top like a VHS tape. It's just… I dunno, there's definitely something that needs to be reworked cuz while I don't mind either of the halves, both together in the shape that they ended up coming out does makes for an underwhelming ending.

That being said, the exploration of the character alongside the stellar writing definitely deserve an upvote. I just wish this piece had been overall written a lot tighter. +1

FleshMaddAvalon 30 Jan 2024 12:52

God this was depressing. As someone who comes from one of those towns it hurt a lot to read. But it also felt meandering, and unfortunately a little bloated. I still enjoyed it, but there was more than enough that could be cut. Thank you for this glimpse into Trip's world.

---

I watch the yonder hills
See foodwrenches toil in dust
Let their cacophonous calls
Rend our bodies to rust

Snapdragon133 07 Feb 2024 14:38

Agree with the criticism's above, but man I did love that ending. I couldn't help but hold out hope for Harriet and Trip finding common ground, even though it felt doomed from the start. Kaiju are meant to kill kaiju, after all (fantastic line btw, comes with some crazy implications and metaphor I want to devour).

I think you could easily keep going with writing about Trip if you wanted to, she's pretty great. One of the first iconic re-occuring characters from an SSS canon I'd say