askerian | hmm.

I'm in the process of posting the Teamworkverse on AO3...

... I really don't like the first chapter of Teamwork 2. The scene with Ino works well enough, but the clash between Sakura and her mother is full of bad writing and OOC.

1. at seventeen, after being a ninja for five years, the Sakura I've been writing in the rest of the fic wouldn't let herself be babied so much and Hana wouldn't openly baby her so much (though she would likely want to.)

2. the dialogue is awkward and stilted and doesn't flow, partly because of andom emotional directional shifts, and partly because of the holy infodumps, batman. Which keep interrupting the quick back-and-forth snapping of the argument.

3. i can't manage to sell myself on the idea that this is the mother Sakura came from and they have that many years of history.

Sakura comes from a relatively normal, very civilian family so it's okay if her mom's a housewife and a gossip. But... hrrm. I say Hana has a temper and it's where Sakura gets it from -- so why aren't they more used to disagreeing??? Also, the babying at this point is somewhat pathological, so either I've written it badly and it needs toned down, or it needs to be acknowledged as such and not simply as "she can't stand the risks her daughter deals with, it's just normal motherly instinct in someone who wasn't herself a ninja."

Also, I don't know, they don't resonate like part of a family unit. I mean, in this chapter Ino and Sakura resonate like best friends who snipe at each other nonstop. There's some sense that they've known each other a long time and they have their groove. But the dynamic between Sakura and Hana, I just can't see how it goes on any other day.

... Also I said she had long hair in a bun, but when I draw her she has jaw-length bristly hair. Though that part is really easy to fix. XD

Also there's how when I write Sakura with her (also OC!) dad she seems to get along with and understand him better.

I think maybe if I rewrote it not as "smothering mom and baby daughter who allows it woohoo fusional relationship" but as "mom wants to smother/dominate, daughter sometimes likes it but also often rebels, they rarely understand each other even though they both want to" this scene might work better. But then there might be repercussions for the rest of the fic. Argh.

What to do, what to do. I dun wanna post it like that.

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Do you need the scene? Could you just leave it out?

Considering that scene is what gets Sakura to move out of her parents' home and with Ino and later on with the boys... yeeeah, probably not.

It seems like you could make it work. After all, the pre-timeskip Sakura's "Inner" seems like she's been brought up to be nice and sweet, but she really just wants to have fun and kick ass. So it makes more sense in that fashion. As far as the rest of the fic, Sakura would still have that well-brought-up thing going on, and she would still be shy around Sasuke, right? So I, in all my limited view point of being a reader and not the author, think that you can do it.

This is a very good point, thank you. So, just the choppy writing and infodumps to fix then XD ahh, i'm letting it rest a few days, maybe it'll look different.

Hana does seem a little bit all over the place, worried to authoritarian to weepy to manipulative in a trying to seem reasonable way. I remember really not liking her at all, back in my first reading of T2. As for the infodumps, some of the information is necessary and can't just be excised. I can see that they might work better that you actually stack them together a bit so that they aren't interrupted by the conversation. The civilian vs. shinobi adulthood explanation would work really well if it was all together, right after the "I'm not a baby anymore," and that actually might be a good place to put in the explanation of Hana and Sakura's relationship. I don't see it in the text now that I'm rereading, but I always got the impression that Sakura actually sheltered Hana from the realities of the shinobi lifestyle, kept it separate somewhat so that she could relax and be mom's little princess. So the revelation of the events of Teamwork would be a shock to Hana, a big slap in the face that causes her to react excessively. It also seems like it could work if perhaps her mom is one of those "I'll be your best friend," parents who has been trying to be her daughter's buddy instead of an authority figure. So when she tries to exercise her authority she realizes that she really doesn't have any and doesn't know how to recover when Sakura doesn't just fold to her will. The shopping together and the doing her hair stuff would support that, and just changing 'watching her make treats' into 'making treats together' would shift the babying into buddy-ing.
don't think that's a word....
sorry to de-lurk with such a long post, I'm one of those 'don't reply if you don't have something constructive to say,' people. I'm a longtime fan of your work and I really appreciate how you analyze your character relationships and try to stay true to each character in each verse.

ooooo awesome comment is awesome. Thank you! That's great food for thought. It'll be put to good use. You're especially right about Hana being all over the place. I need to solidify my image of the woman in question. >__>

(also thank you for delurking! ♥)

Hmm... I think it does need some reworking, but I think thats more because your style has improved since you first set out. It is a little stilted and I think it could benefit from some air brushing. However I like the dynamics that are there - I can't tell if I got it right or not but this is how I interpreted it.

The way I've always thought of those two is that they've sort of grown apart. Sakura went through a radical change after sasuke left, and a couple of years of hard shinobi work have clearly changed her in your fic. Of course Hanna is going to still be reeling from the change - her daughter isn't the same little girl anymore. Added to that is the constant stress of Sakura being off doing dangerous ninja things, and now finally, Sakura is moving out - it's going to hit her hard in so many ways.

Basically - I saw that scene as it becoming all too much for Hanna. She's trying every single tactic she can think of to get her daughter to rethink - everything from reason to manipulation - even trying the authoritarian "go to your room" approach because it's actaully just hit her in the face that her daughter is an adult, making adult decisions that she really doesn't like the sound of and she just doesn't know how to cope with a daughter who is suddenly not the same daughter she thought she had.

I think it's also a shock to Sakura - she's realising herself that her mum can't boss her around any more, that she's got to the stage where mummy doesn't really know best.

They have history - but Sakura's a different person now, and thats exactly why they act the way they do.

I also thought Sakura's dad talked her down afterwards, in a scene we didn't see. Maybe if we saw this scene or something like it you could balance out anything you want to leave in the first scene but doesn't quite fit?

If anything, the little chat with Iruka where Naruto drops f-bombs and stuff seems much more awkward and OOC than the scene with Hana. I know it was supposed to be funny, but it just comes off as wrong especially when you have Naruto being curious later on in the chuunin exams regarding the wonders of the natural world. I actually liked the scene with Hana because it provides subtle development for Sakura that was needed to evolve her character. I think another scene depicting the never-ending Yamanaka drama between Ino and her father in the greenhouse might be fun. Another possible inconsistency about TW2, having been written awhile ago, it is the various theories with respect to Kyuubi. You may well prefer to keep it, but readers may do a double-take now that canon says Kyuubi doesn't die or get fully assimilated with the host, even for Naruto. I'd say bleed-over is good, but absorption is not, but it's your fic so feel free to disagree =^v^=.

Yeah, I think I'll just edit out the Iruka scene, I hated it even back when I wrote it and it's pointless as fuck and way too tacked-on.

The scene with Hana needs to stay because it kickstarts the plot, but it also needs to be severely reworked so it doesn't make me hate on all characters and wail for my lack of inner consistency. The Kyuubi theory is a major plot point so it stays. I'm not gonna retcon everything every time canon swerves. Hell, I don't even want a Madara in that fic. >___> Hsss. Tobi will stay a good boy.

hmm.

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It might depend on how big a role Hana has later on but...

Re: It might depend on how big a role Hana has later on but...

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