Motivation - Impression up to chapter 7

[Jason_Miao]

I would have PMed Bri in IRC, but he appears to no longer exists on IRC.  So this seems like the next best option.

Allow me to preface this by saying that this fic is primarily a Naruto fic, and I'm barely familiar with the source material.  I've just seen the first couple of eps/read the first few chapters, so it's entirely possible that I'm missing nuances that are needed to make the story work, and that this review is off kilter.  So take the following with a grain of salt (and if anyone is familiar with the Naruto source material and could pitch in, that would be cool).

First, some good points.  No awkward phrasing, scenes flow smoothly, yay someone writing a story understands that dialogue that isn't really a monologue in disguise exists, characters that aren't cardboard cutouts.  We're all familiar with Bri's other works, so none of this should be a surprise, but given how much out there that sucks, it's always worth pointing out that Bri's fics do not suck.  But after reading what's been written so far, that's about all I can say for it: it doesn't suck.  It also doesn't grab me the way his other fics have.  

The root of my non-engagement with Motivation is that, with the little I know of Naruto, what I'm reading is a very long slice-of-life story.  This works for a couple of chapters, but seven is a bit much.  And to what end are they training?

In martial arts films that are known for interesting training sequences (Drunken Master I, 36th Chamber), before the long and yet very interesting training sequences, the story has established a fundamental and concrete reason why the character is so dedicated towards training.  The tension as to why they need to learn martial arts might not be emphasized in every scene, but it at least persists in the background: Can Gordon Liu free his village from oppression?  Can Jackie Chan avenge his humiliation and his father?  When the protagonists train, they do it to achieve their heroic goals.  The training is not an end unto itself, but to push advance something further.

By contrast, Motivation merely asks: Can a large group of people engage in teamwork exercises to form a team?  That might work for an office drama or reality TV, but it seems somewhat lacking for a martial arts story.  Rescue, revenge, escape from the sordid past, preparations to deal with an impending disaster, conquest, and probably more that I haven't even really considered seem to be more in line with this sort of genre*.  I wonder whether Kakashi was supposed to be that factor, but he instead spends half the fic (so far) worried that he enjoys getting laid, and he's been trying to help the team through confrontation, so he doesn't really strike me as such.

While Naruto wants to be top ninja, the way the fic is written now, I don't see this as a fic about "Naruto" but a fic about "The team, in which Naruto plays a large role".  Also, wanting to be ruler of the world (or at least, the known world) is a goal that is an end unto itself, since it is so absurdly ambitious and such a monumental undertaking.  Wanting to rule the village is somewhat less inspiring.


The comments in chapter 7, state that progress on the fic is glacial.  I bet know why that is: Because writing weird and quirky training scenes is fun as hell.  And they're fun to read, individually.  But I hope that if Bri ever decides to edit past chapters, that he explores a bit more of what's in the title: Motivation, because I'm not seeing why these characters have it.


* Ranma 1/2 didn't.  But Ranma is quintessentially an episodic romantic comedy which parodies martial arts stories, so while it is concerned with martial arts, it's really more of a scenario to introduce slapstick.  That is, the stories don't carry the series, although they help.

[Brian]

Somewhere along the line, I developed a bad habit of drawling on and taking forever to get anywhere in a fic....   This ... kinda worked in AltMHF ... I think?  That's not posted anywhere that exists, and it was never finished, though.

Hmm.  Well, I'd guess a few years ago my writing just took a shift to kind of overexamine everything, which worked in some short stories, but in longer, more ambitious stories....  My mind works kind of like a machine when I write.  I forgot to correctly set the pace when I began the build (should have improved it after chapter one).

At any rate, other than possibly one or two more establishing scenes, I'd pretty much done everything I needed in the way of diverging from canon and aligning the characters ... who, other than the three core genin aren't _actually_ introduced before the chunin exams, which is like ... chapter 34.

Bleah.

Then I could timeskip to the action.  I had a plan covering the D-rank missions, but the character development pretty much got covered for this point in the story, so....

Montage!

Oh, wait, gotta pull the ancestry-research plot-thread first.

Though, in any case, I'm focusing on another chapter of K:BDH at the moment, because it's been languishing a bit.

[Jason_Miao]

Hmm.  Well, I'd guess a few years ago my writing just took a shift to kind of overexamine everything, which worked in some short stories, but in longer, more ambitious stories....  My mind works kind of like a machine when I write. 

Heh.  I think that's most people who try writing seriously, so that's not really a bad thing.

I also should mention that Drac and I got into a discussion on IRC after I'd posted the review.  I hope he does give his angle on Motivation, since he's quite a fan (I asked for a few good fics, and this was the one that he picked out.  He's familiar with Naruto, so he might be seeing angles you were pursuing or setting up that I completely missed just because I didn't realize they were supposed to be significant). 

[Folcon]

Hi Guys,

I just registered to post this and I'll try and keep up with the thread for a while if people think my viewpoint is relevant. I'm mentioning this because I don't have a strong background about the forum so please feel free to correct me if I err.

This may be somewhat of a personal review so feel free to ignore my opinion.

From my perspective I've been very impressed with Motivation so far and think that Brian's approach as treating naruto's world as a slice of life fic makes a very positive change from many of the much shorter and more direct works in either Naruto or the martial arts genre.

It exposes the capabilities of many "basic" abilities in that universe which I have always thought have been underused. Much of the utility aspects of many abilities seem to always be ignored in favour of "more power", with the pointing out of the value of simply researching your opponent and getting updates while still travelling to the mission objective using bushin a more obvious example.

I agree with Jason insofar as motivation taken by itself is arguably lacking in motivation, from the perspective of a martial arts film the only character with any reasonable motivation and first in line to be the "martial arts protagonist" should be Sasuke due to the death of his family at the hands of his brother. However taking the story as purely a slice of life this isn't a problem as we will undoubtedly discover what motivation the story's title refers to, while at the same time gaining an insight into the world that the author is revealing to us.

So once again, purely my opinion that I've wandered into a new forum to chime in with so hopefully I don't step on anyone's toes here. Mostly I'm enjoying it so far :).

PS: Sorry for Necroing...

[Dracos]

Nothing wrong with necroing.  Nice first post, Folcon. :)  Welcome to the boards.

[Folcon]

Thanks :).

[Jason_Miao]

I agree with Jason insofar as motivation taken by itself is arguably lacking in motivation, from the perspective of a martial arts film the only character with any reasonable motivation and first in line to be the "martial arts protagonist" should be Sasuke due to the death of his family at the hands of his brother. However taking the story as purely a slice of life this isn't a problem as we will undoubtedly discover what motivation the story's title refers to, while at the same time gaining an insight into the world that the author is revealing to us.

Under modern writing styles, the first line needs to frame your story.  But that is because modern audiences tend to have very short attention spans, and I'm not a crazy adherent to that philosophy, and can certainly see taking a scene or two to start off slowly.  In classical fic writing, the first chapter might be used to set up characterization, etc.  Finishing chapter 7 and still no motivation?  That's way too much by any standard.

The fic isn't really about motivation.  It's about teamwork.  There's nothing wrong with basing a story on that (plenty of solid manga series have been written on that premise, after all), but the tagline of this fic is: "Maybe something amazing could happen, with the right...Motivation."  Had Bri titled this Nakama, my review would have been totally different.


Or to put it another way, a story where the first seven chapters are about the effects of phlogiston in flying robots might make for a great victorian steampunk story, but not so much a romantic comedy.  And a great story of a man and a woman learning to work with each other and finding love along the way doesn't suddenly turn into a great science fiction story because one of the two touched a robot.  They may be great stories...but not great examples of certain types of stories.


Motivation is a terrible science fiction story and a terrible romantic comedy.  And that's okay, because it never claimed to be one of those in the first place.  It does claim to be about motivation.

So once again, purely my opinion that I've wandered into a new forum to chime in with so hopefully I don't step on anyone's toes here. Mostly I'm enjoying it so far :).

PS: Sorry for Necroing...

I like how this forum can attract the kind of people where someone preemptively apologizes for writing as thoughtful of a post as that, just in case it wasn't good enough. 

[Brian]

Miao, I confess irritation that you judge me and this work when you don't know the original.

Compared to the original, Naruto is motivated; putting serious effort into becoming Hokage.  But you don't read the original, and are still willing to tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Simply put, your review is the reason why I gave up writing it, so thanks for beating that dead horse once more.

Folcon: Thanks for the kind words; sorry I don't have more of it to offer.

[Folcon]

Jason:
Are you saying your biggest critique is poor titling?

Brian:
I had not considered the title in that light to be honest. I thought it referred to something else, however now that you point it out I agree, he is certainly more focused in his desire to become Hokage, though I'm not sure I'd call it motivation. I thought he always wanted to be Hokage, here he seems to be displaying other valuable attributes, like paying attention to people smarter than him such as Shikamaru. (A good Hokage should know when to listen to his advisors and how to choose them well :)...)

He's for lack of a better word, growing, which isn't a bad thing ;).

I'm glad you chimed in with your point of view, I thought that the story was on hiatus for the moment while you were working with other things.

I'm going to be pretty upfront about this, seeing as I really do enjoy the story and would like you to complete it, as I think it's been a great read. Going by your FF.net profile you like literary criticism so I'd be happy to review/criticize it.

Of course if your done with the story, I'd be sorry to hear that, but I think I'll survive ;)...

PS: Well I try to be polite whenever I go onto a new forum... I think of it like visiting a house or maybe a block of flats, people live there, they have their own conventions and ways of doing things so it never hurts to be polite =D...

[Dracos]

Meh.

And in turn this ends up also being my fault.  Advertising it and then not actually getting out the defense when this came up.  Lots of 'could've beens' and half-written things about actually responding here but bleh.  I write long things, get distracted midway and never post.  So I guess the critical side here is far more obvious.

So this post can be Too Little, Too Late.  And I'll go sulk that a really fun fic was obliterated.  I still think it really has the potential to be one of those stand out tellings of the Naruto universe that we go 'Man, if only canon had been that cool'.

I really liked this story.  I blathered on it a bunch with brian back when he was writing it and it did a lot of things that were fun.  There are lots of reasons I liked it.  The romantic comedy between anko and Kakashi was funny and a spice of humanity that didn't exist for those adults in the original.  Kurenai and Asuma were basically an informed offscreen couple during a timeskip, and again, this plays with that and brings it into perspective.  Adding Ranma and Ukyou as Romantic Mentors/Friends is a cool taste to my fanfic loving mind as a crossover of familiar characters, a cute difference.  On an action front, this is fun and establishes Ninjutsu as a fearsome and interesting force.  Kakashi isn't a smiling idiot bringing them through simple teamwork babysitting exercise and basically being an informed super-martial artist... instead he's an actual badass who can take on a thousand screaming genin.  On a preparation front, I can foresee that the horrible disasters that will face the village in the future have a chance of being met with non-bullshit responses and on a Ninja front, the ninjas are more than all one-trick ponies that casually go 'my trick beats your trick' in most cases.

But this is on a motivation front.  I think Jason misses entirely that in context, this fic delivers a discussion of motivation transforming a group of informed skill jerkoff rookies into The Beginning of Legends, a crew you can look at and believe that In The Future, They Will Accomplish Greatness.

In the original, Naruto is an orphan who shouts out he's gonna be the big boss guy someday who protects everyone but never works at it.  For the first year of the story, it almost doesn't matter what is thrown at him.  He's a clown and his main focus is Sasuke being more awesome than he is.  Despite that he doesn't learn almost anything.  His style is half comedy relief until the timeskip when his whole city is mostly destroyed.  His team resents him (and each other) tremendously, making the overall friendship theme of the whole series retarded because there was very little of that going on.  Friendships for him in the early and even the latter half largely consist of fights with saying 'Look, I understand pain cuz really, life sucked for me too!' and that working after a bit.  He works hard when given the chance, but is rarely given it, and doesn't do it on his own, giving off a petulant showoff vibe to his progress.  He's basically a significantly less cool Black Star, come to think of it.

Here instead, someone precious is taken from him early.  Taken from him in part because he was there and in a very personal sense, he was not good enough.  There was no mass army or other responsible folks.  Instead, his lack of capability created a situation where one of the only ones who cared for him was killed.   Then he finds if he had really worked hard, he could've stopped it.  He defeats the murderer...  And then again is isolated by it.  The world has changed forever for him.  His team setup is different and instead of being placed with folks who assume he's a worthless ninja, he's instead placed with folks that think "If you work hard, you can succeed" and put their hopes on him to be that guy that works hard.  Friendship is something that's worked at genuinely, involving spending time with folks, training with them, and becoming close to them.  It's not an overnight thing.  He can talk with Weight about protecting his precious people because he's genuinely lost one.  He understands!  It's not just something he can cry about saying 'if only I could've done something'.  Altogether, the fic gives him a motivation to be a better person as well as a better ninja.  It explores how this person might build up and how he'll work to become a shining light that pulls his friends forward into becoming the heroes that will save the village.

In canon, Shikimaru is the son of the city's leading genius strategist... and despite that is a lazy slacker c-student type, who is put onto a well known team and never works hard.  He wins a lot of fights, but generally out of outhinking guys.  It's hard to picture him succeeding his father because on screen he never shows any desire.  Why would anyone pick the talented/supersmart slacker who doesn't want to do anything?  Basically, significant capability with no motivation.  He's a Captain Tylor without the War or the Old Generals.

In Motivation, Shikimaru is thrown out of his comfort zone and kept out of it.  Instead of being placed with a shrew and a fat enabler, he has a serious mystery waved in front of his face... that he can't figure out.  He's separated from his class all of a sudden and given the moniker of Killer.  And in this...he grows a bit.  He's upset but takes that and turns around and goes "Fuck them, we're gonna be awesome."  He looks at what's around him and starts improving it.  He's still lazy, but again, he loses his chance to be so.  His new friends put upon him the responsibility of figuring out what is going on and getting them to pass.  It's a pain, sure, but it's something that visibly shows him beginning to grow into someone that could be the successor to his father: Someone who thinks of others, improves their strengths and his own, and sees the field at large using his keen intellect to make the right moves.  Laziness literally hurts as he's smashed around by Kakashi.  Being ineffective is painful and subjects him shrew filled days.  I'd say compared to the original, he is far more motivated and is becoming a better person because of it.

Yes, I'm actually going to talk on all of them.  Jason commented on there being a lack of motivation in a far view sense, and in doing so completely misunderstood the importance of all the motivation going on in a short term view that was taking part to transform these kids into better people and better ninjas.  The series itself provides a number of ridiculous challenges that request better ninjas and better people, whether in the light of protecting the village from open warfare, assassination, kidnapping, Guys who can blow up the entire village, or also surpassing the cycle of hatred that has been keeping war going for generations.

Ino in canon is a shrew mostly defined by her competition with Sakura over Sasuke.  She doesn't get a tremendous amount of screen time to grow out of it, yells at her team-mates a lot, and relies a ton on her super-family jutsu.  This has good reason because her best jutsu is obnoxious in the sense that she's totally vulnerable and can't fight when she uses it.  It's clear she makes bullshit progress in the first year of canon, barely matching up with the equally bullshit progress that Sakura makes.  She doesn't learn anything that she can use as a partner and appears sort of isolated.  She's stuck on a generic copy team and basically only shows up in scenes where that copy team is naturally the right answer to the problem (cuz her abilities are super situational).

Ino in motivation is no better at first.  She fawns over Sasuke, fights with Sakura, and views the rest of the team with contempt.  She's a manipulative slacker who wants to be treated as an awesome princess.  And it doesn't work.  She's abandoned by the one she cares about in a scenario where it hurts but doesn't kill her.  Her lack of friends leaves her vulnerable.  Her fighting with sakura is shoved up as a contemptuous thing (Not that it stops).  And she's beaten black and blue.  Because Kakashi is a bastard, and instead of slacking is beating the truth of the ninja world into these children every day with his fists.  Because she's lazy, she asks someone else to solve her problem.  Because she's manipulative, she tries to solve it with manipulation.  ...And it works.  And for a brief instance she reaches out her hand and is rewarded for doing so while also being punished for doing it half-heartedly in a way that makes sense to her as a person.  What starts as manipulation blossoms into friendship.  Honest helping is rewarded!  The more folks who like her, the safer she is on the battle field!  So being helpful earns help in turn.  Sure, she's only got a little bit so far, but it's a step in the right direction of being a better person.  Since she's not locked on a team, she can actually dream and consider "Hey, I might be working with others, so I should look further".

In canon, hinata is a mostly offscreen shy stalker lover character.  Team 8 doesn't get a ton of play early on, which makes it hard to really say how they were as kids.  She idolizes the never give up attitude of Naruto the Clown, and is an abused princess.  She's beaten by Neji who loses lamely to Naruto.  She's the aspect of Unrequited love and as such ends up a favorite in fanfic to pair up with the guy who never once turns his eyes towards her, even after she literally dies for him.  She never pushes herself to get out of her shy not good enough persona and faints a lot.  She's fawned on by her teacher, and while she does eventually get good as a ninja, she's under-developed as a person.

In Motivation, her character is skewed.  AWESOMELY.  Here, her stalkerness is rewarded a bit, taking her down the road from timid shy girl who gets fawned on by her teacher to a creepy yandere that sneaks in and cleans up Naruto's room.  This is hillarious.  I could read yandere Hinata antics all day.  Sure, Nugar's Hinata of Lies is more motivated, but that's fine.  Hinata here is adorable and even though it's only taking her motivation up a small step (She gets to be with her Naruto instead of being isolated from him), it does it in such a precious way that adds a lot of flavor and charm to the fic.  Folks were constantly yammering for and against this take on hinata and I think overall it added a lot of fun.   It also is a particularly fun take on the clan stuff.  "We know what you're up to.  Don't get pregnant."  Hah!  It's fun and rare seeing a supportive Hiashi.

Hmm, I admit, I'm less familiar with Kiba in canon.  He's sort of a side support character for Hinata which tends to be his motivation and is just sort of a general non-stand out dog ninja.  Sure he's a cool guy, but it's hard to speak on what drives him.  Sure he says he wants to be the boss ninja, and wants to lead.  He thinks he deserves to be the leader of the pack.  But I dunno.  In the manga he has almost no scenes, and while the anime fleshes him out, I am always kinda skeptical of it.

Motivation still has that problem in a way.  It's somewhat intrinsic to the character because for kiba there really doesn't exist any driving need for awesome for him.  He's still a kid in a way that the others are almost not anymore.  But that's important too.  Where as the others focus on ninja skills for their own sake, he focuses on it as part of being a friend, playing with others, and being a good pack.  It doesn't particularly stand out, but it's still in the better way to take it.  Most of the ninjas don't understand any of those ideas and so even if he's not particularly standing out, they're things that he brings to the table: It's okay to play.  A good pack tries together.  Hey, meet my family, aren't they cool?  Come on, let's roughhouse!  It's the same motivation as the original (Be a good ninja, be a good friend, be a good pack), but with a wider crew, which gives him more opportunity to shine.  He's also repeatedly blocked from leading and starts in a weaker position (So you didn't kill anyone yet?  What a lame ninja!), but since its not a one on one deal, he gets a chance to develop more as a person (Instead of it being resentment that someone is challenging his leadership).

Choji the fatty.  Don't call him fat, he gets angry about it.  Hey, let's put the laid back fat guy on the team with the slackers.  That'll go awesome.  He's an uninspiring and uninteresting ninja that largely doesn't stand out and is used only for specific scenes in the manga.  Same as Kiba really.  It isn't until really the city is being attacked that he seems to evolve into a serious ninja that isn't just sort of enjoying his bag of chips.

In Motivation, he is Standing Still.  His friends are busy or isolated, then moving quickly.  Getting stronger, trying hard, becoming better people.  And he's not doing anything about it.  He's reflecting and seeing that he's being left behind...  and then they reach back for him.  This isn't a group of lazy people.  Of folks that will be going 'it's too troublesome' come chuunin exams.  His motivation is simple: If he doesn't move, his friends will think less of him.  If he doesn't become stronger...what friends will he have?  How will he relate to these folks if he doesn't step forward with them?  Even if he isn't sure how.  It's an interesting question that I know from blather with Brian was to be addressed eventually.  (Teleporting Fist Of Doom!)  At the least, Choji is being made to approach the question of "If he wants to be friends with Ninja, he can't just sit around".

Sakura, canon superbitch of Sasuke Love.  Whiny so bitchy.  Huh, was I saying something?  I lost it in the forehead, SHANNARO.  Yeah, I don't like canon Sakura.  I don't think she works for anything, is constantly informed/rewarded for it, and even her ultimate fight scene against the puppet master involved someone else doing most the work.  She gets trained by a sannin largely because the others are also trained by sannin, not because she isn't a little bitch.  Because of that, I kinda appreciate fics where other characters get her star power.  Time Braid is one of the only Sakura-centric fics where she makes something of herself in a fun way.

In Motivation, Sakura is a little know it all selfish bitch.  And it doesn't impress anyone.  Not one god damn person.  The jonin actively comment that 'no, her book smarts aren't up to stuff and she's fatally unprepared as a ninja still'.  Sure, she wins in some things, but it doesn't get her closer to her goal.  Meanwhile, she's seeing herself getting more isolated.  Her motivations?  Entirely selfish all the time.  And yet, they still teach the others things.  And they improve her in a way.  She's not getting to 'be with her sasuke-kun!'.  The dream is there...distant, hard to reach...Requiring Work.  Her competition with Ino is given a more productive bent and Sasuke demands improvement from her in order to pay any attention to her at all.  So, selfish little bitch...  but getting somewhere.  Moving beyond just that being 'enough by itself'.  Maybe at some point she'll be dangerous, and that will forgive her being a selfish little bitch.  Maybe she'll see a need to be a better person, and that'll forgive her being weak.  Either way, she's not staying still, satisfied with the Status Quo with her as the victor.

Sasuke is the only one in canon with a strong non-sensical (JUMPTHESHARK) motivation.  I'm gonna kill THAT MAN!  His super martial artist brother who wiped out his whole clan and tortured him before running away.  Or maybe sealed his eyes until he got older.  Dunno, author sucked at that.  Simple as can be.  Anyhow though, he's an emo self-absorbed jerk who largely exists to provide a Final Friendship Challenge that Friendship can Conquer All (even in ninja-world).  A lame motivation for Naruto and one that really should've been addressed in the series before he defected (Why isn't he motivated at all to be a leaf nin?).

In motivation, it starts the same.  He's self-absorbed, expects to be the best, trains hard and selfishly, and generally keeps his eye on the murder victim.  But...in motivation, two things happen.  1)Naruto gets to win a fight.  Instead of nobody being a comparison of his own age, he's put behind in the kills and even loses a sparring match against 'deadlast naruto'.  2)Someone calls him on his bullshit (Go Kakashi!).  They're training Ninja to exist for the sake of their country.  Not because they want to be whiny murderers hunting their brother.  The Village Hidden in the Leaves does not need an avenger.  Doesn't want one.  So he's put under pressure: Grow up and be a ninja, learn to have friends and rivals...  Or be abandoned.  Fall behind with a lack of training.  This is done when he's younger.  Before he gets his special eye power.  Before he gets other opportunities.  By addressing it here, he can't petulantly go off and say 'someone else will teach him'.  He's being forced to choose: Avenge at all costs...  Or treat being a ninja and a member of the community as important too.  Motivation explores a conflict between the objectives of the person and the society, of the tragedy and the humanity.  It ends up pushing Sasuke into a likeable framework where he rarely sits as a cast member.

In canon, Shino is a blank.  He doesn't talk so people write into him whatever they want.  He's there to fill out a team in a sense and provide one more strange ninja.  Many fanfics end up drawing from Team 8 because of this.  He's at the back of popularity polls and barely gets any screentime at all.  Much like Kiba, he's pretty much a Named Ninja.  He's used anytime a generic ninja ally is needed with a recognizable style.  He's more filled out by data books then by real scenes.  His 'goal' is to fight someone strong.  So lame.

This is not the case in Motivation.  Isolated at the beginning, he reaches out in friendship to his potential teammates, showing intelligence and cunning and more importantly Dignity, something the Class Clown doesn't quite understand.  He acknowledges Naruto. He shares a private trust and sets forth a goal for himself that's a challenge: Be one of the special forces ninja of the village.  This, unlike Fight a Strong enemy, is a human and obtainable goal.  it's a profession that requires hard work to achieve, and in such, Shino instantly is moved forward into being a more understandable ninja.  His screen time isn't used so much to elaborate further on his motivation, but instead to develop him as a unique character at all, something desperately needed in order for him to take steps toward his goal.

I'm gonna post to make sure this doesn't get deleted, then edit and keep going.  And yes, I realize this is blathery.  It's how I write responses these days.  Well, it's how I used to write them too when I wrote C&C.

Okay, finished.  Blathery I am.  Anyhow, I hope that yammering helps communicate that Motivation has spent a considerable amount of time fleshing out the characters and both establishing motivations as well as giving them enough character that the motivations can matter.

As much as in some, it's okay to say 'yes, your father died, killed by evil emperor.  Your motivation is revenge!' it's a simplification that misses that it is important to understand the character first.  A living character can have motivations that are simply more interesting to travel their their lives with then the grandoise flat demands.

[Jason_Miao]

Miao, I confess irritation that you judge me and this work when you don't know the original.

Compared to the original, Naruto is motivated; putting serious effort into becoming Hokage.  But you don't read the original, and are still willing to tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Simply put, your review is the reason why I gave up writing it, so thanks for beating that dead horse once more.

Argh.  And this is the reason why I was reluctant to post the initial review in the first place, rather than wait for you to return from your IRC hiatus.

Firstly, "judge me and this work?"  Where am I "judging you"?  No wait, I did.  I wrote "We're all familiar with Bri's other works, so none of this should be a surprise, but given how much out there that sucks, it's always worth pointing out that Bri's fics do not suck."  In my review, that was my judgement of you.  You're irritated at this?  You're really pissed off that I pointed out that I think you're a 1 percenter in terms of people who write?  I have no fucking clue how to deal with that statement.

Secondly, judge this work?  Yes, I am.   Why the hell not?  Good stories are usually what get me curious to go read the manga, not the other way around.  Given my "judgement of you", why wouldn't I go read your fic?  As for the criticism, I've indicated ONE point - a technical point of literary style - one that is pretty common to most any story no matter what the setting/plot/characters are being used (unless you're trying to write Finnegan Wake).  Since the point is a framing issue, I suppose you could say I'm judging your fic.  I think of it as judging chapter 1, and how it sets up the rest of your fic, but I suppose you can pick whatever nomenclature you want.

Thirdly, you gave up writing this because I responded to one specific point about a framing issue?  One that, considering your last post, you as the writer don't agree with my stance on?  Why the freaking hell would you do that?  Especially when I specifically pointed out that Drac, someone who has read the source, repeatedly suggests this fic for other people to read... I mean, in a twisted sense, it's nice that you value my opinion over others here, but for this fic, Drac really is a better qualified judge and I thought I'd acknowledged that.  I thought I stressed how much weight you should give my opinion for this fic in not only the initial post, but the followup.  If you actually quit writing over this thread, then I suppose I didn't - but I don't really know what would have been more overt.

I wrote the review because (1) we were both on the FFML once upon a time, and you know exactly how I write reviews for fics I think that suck versus ones that are basically sound: saccharine/sarcasm that takes any point I find flawed and extensive use reductio ad absurdum versus a brief listing of points where I found something.  (2) I thought that you, being a writer who cares about the craftsmanship of a fic, would have appreciated my pointing out a detail which I think drags down the otherwise quality writing.

@Drac:
I'm not sure if you remember, but we had a fair bit of discussion in #soulriders proper.  I thought that raised quite a number of good points, including ones I might not have considered.  If you still have copies of those logs, you might consider posting them?  I don't mind you posting my part of the discussion.

[Folcon]

Suddenly I'm less sorry for Necroing :)...

[Dracos]

We're a slow and lethargic group.  Necro'ing is fine.

[Folcon]

Also loving your thoughts Dracos, it makes for an interesting read :)...

[Arakawa]

I had an unexpected moment of apparent empathy, so I'll do the foolish thing (given my track record) and share it with everyone.

What's in Jason's review and subsequent commentary could easily be read as follows:

This is evidently not a martial arts story, but judging it as a martial arts story, it does not live up to the expectations of a martial arts story, in spite of being otherwise extremely well written. Also, had it been named something like 'Nakama' I would have been judging it on different terms and I would have written a different review. {implication: there exists other feedback I could be giving, but I'm not giving it essentially because of one word at the top of the story}

Which is probably frustrating and unhelpful for Brian to read. (Seems a reasonable conclusion to me. I've been guilty of offering a similar caliber of criticism to Brian both on the forums and on IRC, and he told me that it was mostly unhelpful -- basically (additional drama aside) because I was making assumptions about what he was trying to write / should be trying to write, to the extent of attempting to jump ahead of his own thought process on the story.

After that experience and a judicious amount of lurking and self-contemplation, I've formed the opinion that Brian is such a skilled writer that everyone (myself included, unfortunately) consciously or unconsciously wants him to write / continue writing their favourite story idea, but he is not yet a master writer who can formulate an intent/idea for the story with absolute certainty that it will be perceived as intended at the other end. This seems to translate to a lot of pressure on Brian to do this or that, and not a lot of genuine advice regarding how to hone a particular skillset... whose existence many fanfiction writers don't even seem to worry about.)

I have to admit this exchange has made me curious to read Motivation to see what the fuss is about. (Not being familiar with Naruto except for the first few episodes of the anime, which were not-particularly-inspiring viewing, I wasn't particularly inspired to read the Naruto manga, nor Naruto fanfiction either, so I will unfortunately end up in the 'did not read the original but insists on forming an opinion on the fanfiction' category.)