(no subject)

Santa came on the firetruck yesterday. I went out just to greet him, and so did our neighbors Eddie and Donna Stein. Oddly enough, their kids weren't with them, just their dogs Romeo and Juliet. Even more curiously, only I got a bag of candy, even though none of us are kids anyway.

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And, I still wonder if my aversion to Crap Unread actually has anything to do with the shit that happens to the characters, or if it really is about his shitty writing. Stage One: Thwarted is the most direct reason why I deny its events, so let's just do the math once and for all:

If it were written much better, I wouldn't have critiqued it in the first place, and Blood and I would be on much better terms, although I'd still be waiting for him to finish the fic already. If he continued to update regularly after August 3, I don't know what I would have done to get back at him, other than writing a fuck-you review, and I wouldn't have found out how shoddily-written the fic really is, although at least then I'd get to see the fates of the antagonists play out once and for all. If any of Fanfiction.net's moderators actually took the damn fic down, I would've been able to just forget about it like I did with Battle Star Royale, since at least it wouldn't be coexisting right with my own two stories. If it were the first fic of his that I ever read, I would've backed out after reading "school ends for summer vacation", and there wouldn't be any issues to start with.

And finally, if I actually do change my mind at any point and give it a second chance, not only is there the fact that Blood officially wants nothing more to do with me thanks to SOT, but I'd have to swallow an inconsistent school schedule with canon, some blatantly out-of-character behavior on Kagami's part, and some epic Fridge Logic by virtue of the antagonists being brilliant enough to keep everyone divided but lacking the common sense (a fundamental element of planning) to get information directly from those it pertains to. Summer vacation between school years was also present in I Was Kagami Hiiragi, but at least that fic was believable in general. And even though I never did like Bonds ever since that fic was completed, I can still appreciate it as part of an anthology of Lucky Star fics written by a single person.

I've just come to realize that how I feel about that whole fic is exactly how Chelle felt about Shinzo, an anime which she used to project her values upon, but upon realizing how shitty it actually was, spent some time rationalizing its flaws (if I recall correctly) before hating it with all passion. Kagami's first time out with Satoshi and meeting Riku really is a bunch of, should I say "Kagamimi*"? The only thing explained (poorly, at that) is why she decides to come with Satoshi into the urban part of Tokyo. She flat-out ignores Tsukasa while talking to him and Riku, even leaves her to fend for herself while they go see a scary movie**, and in the next chapter, ditches her for Riku during a shopping trip she specifically meant to make it up with. In fact, Tsukasa is rather OOC herself; apparently, she didn't even try to be involved in their conversations, which she is in every canon conversation involving her.

(*Here, have yourself a bilingual bonus.)

(**It is true that Kagami and Konata once did bring her to see a horror movie against her will, but that's likely mainly because she didn't have the will to voice her opinion against it. She tells Miyuki that if she had a choice, she never would sit through any such movies, but it seems likely she actually does have a choice but doesn't want to impose her own wishes upon her friends or family or deny them her company. I don't think they'd actually force her to sit through one, but my actual point is that Kagami would never leave her all by herself just to see the damn movie that she and the boys watched. She would've more likely picked a different movie instead.)

Here's the thing: Attachments to a particular author's works make it harder to part with any of theirs in particular than it normally would be. Personal animosity, on the other hand, makes it easier, but those two opposing things were the reason I was still torn as to whether to read it or not even after he jumped down my throat and then ignored me when I did the mature thing and said "sorry" instead of "fine!"

Finally, let me just say, that writing is an art. You can do it sloppily, or you can make an effort to do it elegantly. If something fails to make sense in order for something else to make sense, then there's no point trying to make sense in the first place, which is exactly one of the core aspects of writing itself. I already scrapped most of Monster Collection Chronicles due to so many things failing to make sense, after having discussed it with Chelle and failed to rework it, and I am not interested in reading anything similarly illogical and broken. To read something is to acknowledge that it happened, and I'd rather not acknowledge such inconsistency with world rules, a character's behavior with her character, or the idea of a big, cunning plan born from a critical, fundamental error that only a dumbass could make. (Getting security information from a CEO's daughter? Geez, just take your secret footage of Miyuki in the shower, threaten Jiro with it, and leave Miyuki herself out of it.)

(If Blood ever does update again, and especially if he says anything about Stage One: Thwarted, I am planning to leave one, last, abusive review on his story, just to make it clear to anyone who may have read my previous reviews, that my main issue isn't with the "seasons" so much as the way he fucking treated me even after I apologized for my errors.)