EXCERPT IS HERE:
http://sagnessagiel.webs.com/(11/22/10: EXCERPT COMPLETE. With music it's so much better. Now it's time to begin writing the story from the beginning.)
If you have no idea what I am, or what I am doing, this post will explain most of that.
http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,7615.0.htmlOtherwise, I am releasing this part of the story out of the blue. Since I was at a loss at what to write, I decided to type out whatever I had in mind at the time.
Reader's notes:The black/Gray text is Matthias (pronounced MUT-DIAS), the red text is Reimu, the blue text Marisa, and the green, Tanaka, who is an character of my own creation, who is a farmer in Gensokyo.
For clarification, they are all speaking in Standard Human Dialect, a Gensokyo sprachbund based on Japanese, with a lot of loanwords from an Indic language and Hokkien, and a grammatical structure that strongly prefers Subject-Verb-Object, rather than the Subject-Object-Verb endemic to Modern Japanese. Also, as stated in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, the people do not use Kana or Kanji/Chinese characters to write. So, in my interpretation, they use a abugida which I am still developing.
More info here:
http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,7612.0.htmlTherefore, a lot of things may not make sense. First, I don't like to write names, and I never even call my friends by their names most of the time.
Second, there are some puns, and things in (parentheses). The puns don't make sense in English. The guy asks, "Have you eaten", which is a Hokkien greeting. The words in parentheses are predicted loanwords that Gensokyo people use, which I have not thought up yet.
RATIONALEI wanted to rewrite Gensokyo from another perspective. I saw that no one had ever tried to do it before, so I felt like doing it. It is because Gensokyo is a fully realized fictional world, even while it totally lacks description or pictures of any sort.
But, it is literally a framework, with only a few facts and and very little explanation for things. The majority of Gensokyo is left to the reader as a variable, where they put their ideas to work.
This site may make more sense.
While others would only show a little peek into their ideas and let it slip back into uncertainty, I felt like filling in as many of those plot holes as possible. I thought up a history for youkai, a preliminary written script, and a story that would be able to explore various aspects of the world of Gensokyo, and fill it in with ideas I had myself.
I wrote this excerpt as I feel that it can show what I had in mind in the best way. Also, I needed something to start out with.
My story contains an ensemble cast, inspired by "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World", that gives each character equal importance and screen time. This is quite fitting, as it would be impossible for one person to totally explore all aspects of Gensokyo.
Another major aspect is symbolism. Every one of the 10 characters (which are American special forces, sent to fight somewhere) represents a piece of my personality at some time or another. Some of their back stories are literally my past. Gensokyo is presented as a place that holds something that they have lost, each of which is different for each character. This was strongly inspired by CLANNAD, one of the few animes which accept imperfection, as opposed to the moeblobs today.
The final aspect is a wish to write something that returns people back to the days when anime was really, really awesome, and sharply contrasts with the "cleanliness" (well, in some ways) of today's anime. I really liked Akira, Inuyasha, and Studio Ghibli's various movies, and after watching those, I just can't help but feel that something important disappeared from the commericalized, samey stuff that exemplifies the modern styles.
I am writing my this story with two ideals in mind.
1) That fanfiction exists to fill in the blanks of official writings.
2) That music is half the story.
And music is something important that is missing from most fanfictions. At worst, it will distract from a bad plot. At best, it can add to the atmosphere, and add something special to the story. I think that is what ZUN had in mind when he released music with his printed works. I am currently testing it in this excerpt, so tell me about how you like it.