[IC][WIP][Arc 1] How I Managed to Quit Worrying and Love The Grief Seed

[Labster]

“...a possibility," said Rei at barely more than a whisper, her voice filled with awe.  "Something that could have been, but never was.”
Aside: That along with Hild-chan's part of the story makes me wonder if OA is in doublet with Hap, but I'm not sure I'm cruel enough inflict to The OA on y'all.  But your scene would have been one of the more normal things that happens on that show, seriously I haven't been so surprised by an octopus since Anthy's closet.

The OA?  You don't happen to mean Akio Ohtori, do you?

As for this scene seeming odd, well, that's the beauty of the new setup I came up with for the cosmology.  It's easy enough in this case to say that, somewhere, sometime, Benjamin was actually Hino Ichirou, older brother of Hino Rei* and Almighty Lord of "Your Shit Doesn't Smell Like Roses".

And now, one of my favorite bits from Jonathan Livingston Seagull comes to mind...

If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?

It's really very romantic to think about: a couple of lost bits of causality, finally meeting each other again between Here and Now.

The OA is a mind screw drama on Netflix. Parts of it are horror, with torture and escape, parts of it are just elaborate storytelling, parts of it are philosophy, and then there's the weird modern dance bit. Spoilers, but in a lot of ways it doesn't really matter because the show is all about mood and storytelling. The first season is largely about the question, can you believe someone who claims to have had a religious experience? It ends rather inconclusively, which is par for the mind screw genre. The second season kinda throws all this out by assuming, yes, it's true, and here's what's happening in an AU. (Addendum: and your enemies have followed you.) I suppose more than anything else, the second season is about fate and destiny, and the extent to which we would go to achieve or escape it.

You will like it if you're the kind of person who can step back and let the plot happen without asking too many questions, it's enjoyable, if not, you're gonna have a hard time. Example: At a certain point, Prairie decides her real name is OA, like the letters. But what the letters mean, she doesn't even know. So she's telling this story, and eventually finds out her name means Original Angel. It feels like a total revelation. But what does that mean about her? Well, it's kinda discarded as a plot point. So it makes you feel something is important, but it's not really important at all, it's just the journey to getting there. So um, spoiler not spoiler.

HAP is not too dissimilar from Akio Ohtori, though.

* This could be a sign of how horrible Rei's father was - since in this continuity, he would have had a son already, Rei would have literally meant nothing to him, a zero, and thus, Rei.  Their mother made sure, though, that the kana on the birth certificate didn't have that implication.  Fodder, perhaps, for one of Ben's and Rei's little get-togethers.

and I love her more than anything else in all of existence.
Then why don't you marry her? … … Hey come back, I didn't mean right now!

PFFT!  I think I can work this in...

Unnoticed by either of them, Kuroko had been creeping closer and closer to eavesdrop on the very personal conversation.  So it was natural that the both of them nearly jumped out of their skin when she suddenly and loudly piped up,

"Well if you love her so much, why don't you -ULP!-"

Kuroko never got to finish that last bit as a glowing golden chain of heart-shaped links suddenly wrapped itself around her, covered her mouth, and then yanked her clear over to Rail Gun, who swiftly dispensed punishment.

You could almost actually see the sweat drops forming on the backs of Ben's and Rei's heads.

With a visible effort, Rei continued where she left off despite Kuroko getting read the riot act in the background.

Um, I'm not sure that's better <grin>

I have an admission to make.
I'm curious what Rei looks like around this soliloquy.  Is there nervousness, like the tapping of a foot, or she staring directly into Ben's eyes?

Yes, this wasn't up to my usual standards.  I'll be going back to fill in these little details.  The wonder of the [WIP] tag is that we can take it to mean that the contents of the story posts are subject to change.

Don't worry about standards. I'm just pointing out things I notice as an editor. I'm the kind of person where I give something like three readthroughs before I even consider posting it, and then I sit on it for at least a week, but more likely a month and then it goes on the wiki, and then I still want to improve it. I'm probably a better editor than a writer.

Fortunately, Rin was able to complete her task with no incident.
Show don't tell please.

.... you do realize you're asking me to describe several minutes of "nothing really notable happens here", right?

Magic should feel like magic. What did her magic circle look like? Did a gem glow, were her eyes closed in meditation? What kind of gem is it anyway? What room is the ritual happening in, can you describe it? Was there a nervous energy among those who were waiting? You can give the reader the sensation of time passing slowly by throwing in description here, with the side effect of making the magic seem momentous.

Or alternatively, you can remove the line entirely if you want a boring part to feel faster, because "Alright, it’s done" conveys all of the meaning of that sentence in less words.

the Onsen here.
and that one should be lowercase.  Italics if you like, but I wouldn't bother -- I tend to reserve italics for foreign words that would otherwise be parse errors for readers, either for being too strange, or being too much like an English word.

Eh.  I kinda did that because, in my mind, that is THE Onsen.  I just haven't gotten around to writing scene in there yet.  I really should - that can be the source of some great shenanigans despite Washu's safety measures.  

Oh you mean "The Onsen". Got it.