100 Demons fic

[flemmings]

mikeneko says Finished is better than Good. This one is Finished too and she's welcome to it. The only respectable bit is the opening section because that's practically a word for word rendition of one of tammylee's marvellous dreams. I'm sorry I couldn't do better with it; and sorry too that this turned out to be, in the end, so very western a story where All Must Be Explained.

The Children of the Storm

Utterly gen, FWIW, with only minor appearances by the Iijimas.

Comments

[flo-nelja.livejournal.com]

Well I'm not sure all is explained, at least I didn't understand everything. Still I loved it. I wasn't expecting the ending at all. And the imagery is striking.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Ah good. Maybe I'm more obscure than I thought. ^_^ I was hoping to do an Ima Ichiko thing where the readers would go WTF? at the end and reread to see if it made any more sense the second time through.

FWIW the guy in the cemetray is Lafcadio Hearn, a Big Name in Ritsu's field of study. (I believe the translations don't have him in university yet, do they? The long delayed next volume has him just-entered IIRC.) Ritsu rather resents the protag conjuring Hearn back into existence during her dream-state, because of her free-association of tumours with his story of the mujina.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Ah, see, I didn't get who was supposed to be the one behind her. Thanks.

I read "Children's Palace" and thought "Wait, doesn't that mean...?" Yep.

You got the impression you wanted. When I finished, I duly thought "WTF?" went back, read it through, and said "Ah." With a few "ooohs" thrown in.

Magnificent story, VERY chilling.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I should put warnings on- 'Some knowledge of Japanese helpful.'

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Damn that was creepy. And yes I went wtf? and had to re-read it.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you. I'm glad if I can be creepy, though tammylee's unconscious did most of the work there.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

...bbb but you wouldn't be upset ...if, I did get it, all in the first go!

I did but I loved it, even with the odd back and forthing.

It's like opening a musical box, and the music is the same, but everytime you open it, its the same but different. Something about evoking familiar things but capturing different memories, and in the now always far away.

Ok, maybe that was a bad analogy.

But I love it.

I will re-read if only to evoke the loveliness of it. ^__^

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

...bbb but you wouldn't be upset ...if, I did get it, all in the first go!

No, reassured. There's flat-foot obvious, there's subtlety, and there's midnight obscurity, and I have no idea which one I'm being ever.

And I like your analogy too. ^_^

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to like it too so much that I may just use it for a fic that I'm writing. - the analogy that is! ^__^

Silly me ... I went for 7 Springkink prompts. 3, I have written already (two Samurai 7 ones and a Saiyuki one) another is writ but is looking to be a bad idea every time I go back to it. ... and may have to use the philosophy you do, that FInished is better than Good! Although in my case it just screams awfulness. Aaarggh!

[incandescens]

Oh, this is definitely Better Than Good. Enjoyed muchly.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it. ^_^

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

I loved it! What an image you created! I can totally see Ima Ichiko actually writing this! You are amazing. You captured her story telling style as well as images perfectly... Wow
BTW, I suppose knowing Ima's style helped, cause you did not lose me! Does Western ghost stories have a concept of 生霊-living ghost? I have never read one..

I just laughed a little bit about the Children's Castle, see it is right in front of my school!! When it was being built, my friends and I had so much expectation about it. Thinking having a name like "kodomono Shiro," it will have a lot of fun things to do like a mini-amusement park. I was sooooo dissapointed when I found out it wasn't like that^^;

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I kept trying to see this as if it were a manga so I'd know what came next, but Ima Ichiko's level of narration is so complex I can't even come close. (For one thing, if this were hers, there'd be two other stories happening simultaneously around the living ghost one.)

No, we don't have the concept of living ghosts at all. This century we have 'out of body' experiences, but not that unconscious wandering of a person's spirit that happens without them even knowing it. The closest is maybe the ghost who appears to a loved one at the moment when the person it belongs to dies, but that's still the spirit of a dead person, just 'very newly dead' and not 'long dead' like most ghosts are.

I thought kodomono shiro was a kind of fun amusement park too, but no-- a worthy enterprise, of course, but not what it could have been.