elisteran wrote:

"DB Sommer" <sommer@3rdm.net> writes:

Literary Hell
A Read or Die! OVA shortfic

Excellent. ROD is a fun little series which doesn't have enough fics.

Agree. I have at least one more shorter humor piece in mind called 'Scraping
the Bottom of the Barrel' for it, and ideally might do a multi-part  serious
one (that won't be too long) if I have the time and finish other projects
first.

"None that I'm aware of. Mr. Joker instructed me to follow you and

assist

you in any way I can. I hope it's for something of vital importance that
they could only trust me to do." Wendy blushed slightly at the idea of

YOMIKO: And me.
WENDY: Oh, yeah.

Wendy: But it would be cool if I could save the world using my vast resevoir
of secretarial skills.

Wendy took a deep breath and nearly gagged. Where they were standing on

the

library grounds was close to a taxi stand, and the whole area retained

the

heady aroma associated with burning fossil fuels, grease, and other

motor

related paraphernalia. "Perhaps we should go inside?"

Seems overly wordy.

Will trim.

As Yomiko and Wendy stopped to assess the situation, a man that had been
waiting nearby approached. At a glance, it was easy to tell  he was very
different from the others. He was tall, well over six feet in height,

but

very slender, though not to the point of gauntness. He appeared to be in

his

early to mid-thirties, with a narrow face and pointy nose that was
reminiscent of a hunting bird. His gray trenchcoat and matching

wide-brimmed

hat complimented the mood he was projecting: that of dourness.

You spend a lot of time on a character that, in the end, doesn't seem
to add anything to the fic, except one somewhat weak joke. Is this an
allusion to something? At any rate, I'd suggest basically stripping
him out. Have Wendy carry some orders, have Joker call them on
telephone, or something.

This is something I threw in for two reasons:

One, I plan on using the headmaster in a longer ROD fic and this was a sort
of try out for him to see if I thought he fit in.
Two, I like the idea of showing everything doesn't revolve around Yomiko and
that there are other exceptional people in the organization besides Yomiko,
and he sort of works out that way, if that makes any sense.

I'll throw in a mention of that in the end notes.

"Just more paperwork then." Wendy sighed. And she had gotten her hopes

up

YOMIKO: Yeah, you'll be handling Paper all night long
WENDY: *blush*

Heh. No, sorry, no yuri here.

Wendy supposed it had been a silly question, knowing Yomiko and her

tastes.

"Is there anything you don't like to read? Pornography magazines,

perhaps?"

She snickered at the joke.

Hmm. That didn't all that Wendy-like to me, but I've only watched the
OVAs once.

You might be right.We don't see much of her, so I don't have the greatest
grip on her character.

[End Notes] Well, can you think of a book that could picture anything

worse

than that for Yomiko? The girl just ain't right in the head when it

comes to

books. ^_^ And I admit to taking liberties in her powers, and implying

she

had the ability to control the paper to the degree that she could force

the

ink to slide off it, but I thought it worked better that way, especially
with the symmetry with the dead body she mentions earlier and Wendy's
actions at the end matching Yomiko's comparison. Consider it literary
license.]

Nice ending. I was one of those fooled into thinking Necronomicon at
the beginning. So the ending came as a nice surprise (a little less
fantastic, a little real).

I guess that works out for the best, then. The Necronomicon idea never even
occurred to me.

And, yes, it doesn't make perfect sense,

but Yomiko Readman has some clearly irrational aspects to her.

My thought on it as well, since she is obsessive about books. Not that I
think this would be her first reaction, as much as a possible one, and it
makes for an interesting (to me) idea to see fleshed out just a bit..

I think the story got off to a rocky start; it wasn't really clear
where it was going for the first half. Once they actually get into the
library, though, it smoothed out quite a bit, and had some really
excellent passages. And, as I said, the ending has a nice subtlety to
it.

Thanks. I wanted to ease into things, since the entire thing revolves around
only one idea. Glad it seemed to work.

Hope this helps,

Yep. Thanks a lot for it.

DB Sommer



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