Mobile Suit Gundam SEED DESTINY Alternate Universe

ShadowCell · Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:34 pm

To ring in the new fanfiction board, and because it doesn't say anywhere that I can't ask...

http://www.angelfire.com/mt2/shadowcell

I think Gundam SEED DESTINY sucks. Like, really sucks. In order to rectify this, I am writing an AU version of DESTINY in fanfiction form. To facilitate the changes I am making to DESTINY, I have rewritten the ending of SEED. Based on this reworked ending, I have planned a 6-chapter OVA-style fanfic centering on Kira after the war, a 6-chapter OVA-style fanfic centering on the druggies (Clotho, Orga, and Shani), a 12-chapter OVA-style fanfic centering on Athrun, Cagalli, Lacus, and their pals, a two-chapter OVA-style fic focusing particularly on Athrun, Cagalli, and the Orb crew after the beginning of DESTINY, and the current project, the end-all beast, a 50-chapter TV series-style fanfic focusing on Shinn and the new cast introduced by DESTINY. Each chapter is more or less ten pages long in Microsoft Works. I have tried to gauge this more or less to approximately equal the viewing time of a 6-episode OVA, a 6-episode OVA, a 12-episode OVA, a 2-episode OVA, and a 50-episode series, and ten pages seems like the approximate equivalent of 30 minutes of footage.

I have a beta reader already. She rocks all kinds of socks. I have another beta reader. I've only worked with him for a couple days and we haven't done much in-depth work on this thing yet, so I can't yet pass judgment. However, I need more opinions on this fic. This is where y'all come in. Ideally.

So far, the whole thing's still under production. I'd be mucho appreciative if some of y'all would give it a look and offer your thoughts. Please be aware that this is very much a work in progress, and I know there are currently plot holes large enough to pass a truck through. I still want comments and opinions on what I've got so far. Beware of rough language and some sexual suggestivity, but it shouldn't be anything you haven't heard before, and if you get scared you can just cover your eyes.

Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:58 pm

Sounds interesting to me. Go ahead and post what you've got for all to see.

Folken Fanel · Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:14 pm

Cool. Since SeeD was designed to sell crappy merchandise, having someone rewrite it so that it sounds like an anime is a great idea. Now, if only we could off Fukuda.

ShadowCell · Sun Mar 05, 2006 8:48 pm

Chris wrote:Sounds interesting to me. Go ahead and post what you've got for all to see.

I did.

http://www.angelfire.com/mt2/shadowcell

Folken Fanel wrote:Now, if only we could off Fukuda.

That's in the works, but the CIA says it'll take some time, because he's not very high on the hit list, and they have to work their way down in alphabetical order. Stoopid terrorists whose names start with "al-____."

Sun Mar 05, 2006 9:22 pm

ShadowCell wrote:I did.

Sorry, I meant post stuff here if you want.

Imperial · Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:29 am

I've only read your prologue thus far, so I can't really make any amazing insights.

However, I feel I should say a few things, seeing as how you are looking for input. While Gundam is a war drama about people, the fighting scenes are rather flat. This surprised me, given the detail of your The Eternal Mistake. The Duel fires a few shots into the Dagger's torso. That's not terribly engrossing stuff. It might be more engaging if it went like this...

"Two lances of emerald energy lanced forward, stabbing into the Dagger's midsection. Swelling under the pressure of ignited fuel and ammunition, the Alliance mobile suit ballooned up to nearly twice its size before it blossomed into a flower of fire."

I find that sort of thing more entertaining (of course, I wrote it, so I'm terribly biased). The cliffhanger--which I won't spoil here--shows promise, as does the rest of the story. I share your sentiment that the CE universe really let itself down. I hope to see what you can pull off.

ShadowCell · Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:20 am

Imperial wrote:While Gundam is a war drama about people, the fighting scenes are rather flat. This surprised me, given the detail of your The Eternal Mistake. The Duel fires a few shots into the Dagger's torso. That's not terribly engrossing stuff. It might be more engaging if it went like this...

"Two lances of emerald energy lanced forward, stabbing into the Dagger's midsection. Swelling under the pressure of ignited fuel and ammunition, the Alliance mobile suit ballooned up to nearly twice its size before it blossomed into a flower of fire."

Huh...I see. Usually I hate writing fight scenes in that manner, since there's so much detail to be had that I would get bogged down describing how the shards of the Dagger's armor look kind of like a rose blossoming as it explodes, and since fights are supposed to be fast-paced, I want to move quickly. But I'll take a look at it anyways.

Imperial · Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:08 pm

There is something to be said for that school of thought. I just happen to be the type who focuses on the nitty gritty details which, as you said, sometimes leads to my getting bogged down in tedious descriptions of rooms, characters, etc.

It's your story. Do as you please.

Pegasus · Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:39 pm

Well I've read the first ten "Phases" of your Destiny re-write. It's no In Vain Doth Valour Bleed or What Cost For Freedom but we can hardly expect every fic to reach that level. I have liked parts of what you've done. The general compacting of the early sections of the story into something more streamline is nice. However the sheer number of different groups running around can get a little confusing at times. Having Kira as "evil", so to speak, it's a particularly new idea but I like the way we've done it. Valentine as a character seems quite interesting especially considering her roll.

Unfortunately I think what spoils your fic has been all this stuff about newtypes and the Black History. Frankly I don't think there really is any need to bring in all that old baggage to the CE universe. Of course it is entirely your choice to do so but having Rau talk about Amuro and Char just seems frankly wrong. Rau's assessment is right of course, newtypes exist to suffer.

Overall it a good piece of work that could possibly do with a little more description in scenes. Keep up the good work.

Folken Fanel · Mon Mar 13, 2006 1:45 am

1) Pegasus, shut up. It's a good story.
2) Shadowcell, when can we expect the rest?

Pegasus · Mon Mar 13, 2006 2:32 pm

1) Pegasus, shut up. It's a good story.

He asked for opinions so I gave him mine. I did not say that it wasn't a good story. I merely pointed out the items that I believed to be preventing it from becoming a great story.

Folken Fanel · Mon Mar 13, 2006 5:27 pm

It is a great story.

wing zero alpha · Mon Mar 13, 2006 5:34 pm

Folken Fanel wrote:It is a great story.

There is such things as other people's opinions you know; not everyone is going to think this is a great story no matter what you do. For example, I'm not exactly sold on Shiho being the pilot of the Saviour instead of Athrun. Although Athrun messed up the Saviour in Destiny, it was his mobile suit and his poor performance can be explained as bad script writing. Not sure if I like Kira's appearence in Destiny early on either; with the way ShadowCell is writing him, he's the type of character that would appear in the middle of the story to screw everyone instead of early on, like what Gym Ghingham did.

And Pegasus, as good as this story is, it's not fair to compare this story to fictions like What Cost For Freedom? or In Vain Doth Valour Bleed. Those were original stories with original characters, with one of which practically being its own universe, whereas this is a rewrite of an already existing series with set characters. There are different rules to follow compared to those two stories. Besides, nobody, and I do mean nobody in the Gundam fandom as we know could out write and out detail His Divine Shadow. That alone is a very unfair comparison.

Pegasus · Mon Mar 13, 2006 5:52 pm

And Pegasus, as good as this story is, it's not fair to compare this story to fictions like What Cost For Freedom? or In Vain Doth Valour Bleed. Those were original stories with original characters, with one of which practically being its own universe, whereas this is a rewrite of an already existing series with set characters. There are different rules to follow compared to those two stories. Besides, nobody, and I do mean nobody in the Gundam fandom as we know could out write and out detail His Divine Shadow. That alone is a very unfair comparison.

Just because this story happens to be a rewrite I don't think it's unfair to compare it against the likes of What Cost For Freedom? or In Vain Both Valour Bleed. From the looks of it ShadowCell's work appears to be sufficiently different to the original to qualify it more as an "alternate" telling rather than just a rewrite. To become a great story in the same league as those one doesn't have to match them in the level of detail. Frankly HDS gets a bit overly detailed a times. You can read vast stretches of his work and realise at the end that not much as actually happened. What Cost For Freedom? or In Vain Both Valour Bleed might well be the pinnacle of Gundam fan fiction writing that so many authors aspire too but that doesn't mean ShadowCell can't match them just because he's using an existing property.

Imperial · Mon Mar 13, 2006 6:47 pm

He was just giving some constructive criticism. So the comparison to those other stories may have been a bit out of place, given the context.

It's not as if he's mindlessly flaming the guy.

ShadowCell · Mon Mar 13, 2006 6:55 pm

Like holy yikes.

Folken Fanel wrote:2) Shadowcell, when can we expect the rest?

Eventually. Life gets in the way of me completing this thing, so whenever the chapters go up is when they go up.

And zwoahmgbbq, I don't think I can be compared to His Divine Shadow thus far. I'm pretty sure he's been writing longer than I've been alive. However, I am not trying to be His Divine Shadow, nor do I want to be. He has his own style and characters, he's gone into an absolute mass of detail, he's brought his characters alive and carved out a niche of his own in the Universal Century, which is no small feat, seeing as how the Universal Century is about twenty-five years old and plenty of other people have already carved plenty of other niches out of it. That's all well and good, he has an excellent story on his hands and he's an excellent writer. But I want to have my own story that does not have angry German Zeon men out to take over the world.

Nonetheless, I came here seeking opinions, both good and bad, since I previously only had one beta reader, and although she'd done as good a job as I can ask for, that's still only one opinion. For example, she never complained of my emphasis on Newtypes, whereas it's met with a bit more controversy here, and I never would have considered it at all. Granted, I don't necessarily agree with what seems to be the consensus here?I think that since Fukuda sort of haltingly tried to incorporate Newtypes into CE, I should develop it further. However, I still want opinions, good or bad. If you've got good opinions, great. If you've got bad opinions, also great. I'm never going to know otherwise if there's something wrong, or something I need to pay specific attention to.

wing zero alpha · Mon Mar 13, 2006 8:41 pm

Pegasus wrote:Just because this story happens to be a rewrite I don't think it's unfair to compare it against the likes of What Cost For Freedom? or In Vain Both Valour Bleed. From the looks of it ShadowCell's work appears to be sufficiently different to the original to qualify it more as an "alternate" telling rather than just a rewrite. To become a great story in the same league as those one doesn't have to match them in the level of detail. Frankly HDS gets a bit overly detailed a times. You can read vast stretches of his work and realise at the end that not much as actually happened. What Cost For Freedom? or In Vain Both Valour Bleed might well be the pinnacle of Gundam fan fiction writing that so many authors aspire too but that doesn't mean ShadowCell can't match them just because he's using an existing property.

No offense to Redcomet, but that's a matter of opinion to claim WCfF is the pinnacle of Gundam fanfiction. I think it's okay, but compared to certain other Gundam works, I don't think it's something to model ones own writing off of, and thus, I don't think it should be set up higher. As for HDS' work, I might be the only one that thinks the detail he puts in is necessary, because it gives better in sight on the setting than most stories do, especially since his descriptions are based on real world views or settings. But that's an argument for another time.

SC pretty much set it for me: it's his story, and as you can see, it's not the average "side story of cannon fodder" type that UC writers love to go on. It's something different, and to compare the his story to those two would be like to compare the Matrix to Battlestar Galactica. But again, this is an argument that should not be present in this thread, and I apologize to ShadowCell for insiting it.

Folken Fanel · Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:21 pm

Shadowcell, no oneis as good as his divine shadow. No offense, but he's a fanfiction god. Your style of writing is brilliant though. I mean, who could have seen Shinn going to a strip cluib coming? Keep up the good work.

ZeonsGhost · Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:56 am

Just finished what you've written so far, and I must say that it is a lot better than the source. The Dark History stuff really seems unneccisary(except for making the suffering newtypes point), but I kinda like the newtype shinn. Also, its good to see his character actually develop. The pirate crew is pretty cool.

Just one question. Are Neo and Mwu sepearate people? I couldn't really tell.

ShadowCell · Tue Mar 14, 2006 12:41 pm

ZeonsGhost wrote:Just one question. Are Neo and Mwu sepearate people? I couldn't really tell.

Neo and Mwu are separate people, although I have yet to do any in-depth writing with the Orb crew, of which Mwu is still a part.

Besides, I didn't have the heart to subject Murrue to all that teenage angst alone. She doesn't deserve that.