Berandor
lunatic
First off, thanks to the judges for your comments!
I'd like to address a few things. These are not excuses, but merely intended to shed light on my decisions.
First, the "politicalness" of the story, as Rodrigo Istalindir remarked on it. I really, really tried to keep away from making this political or sharing my views on coma patients. So the "school medicine" was relegated to a plot device. As I wanted the end that I had, I also needed the reader to be there when the machines were cut off from Sharon; now, I'd probably make it a post-sciptum to the story, but then I wanted to make it happen right then. So the doctors came off as very uncaring. I mean, effectively killing Sharon in front of her husband, and then doing it so matter-of-factly? But that was a case of me having the ending firmly in my mind and being unable to change it on such short notice
I toyed with the idea of having Sharon's jumps be her heartbeat; in fact, I even toyed with having doctors trying to re-animate her, with the defibrillator making "fthump". But that would have totally changed the ending, and as I was pondering revisiting Cassie in later stories, I abstained from it even though I recognized the parallels - probably a story flaw.
Finally, the blob. It really seems to have been a very weak connection - not surprising, since it's still confusing in my own mind -, but the bubbles reflected Cassie's (transformed) face. I wanted to say that there really wasn't a monster there, but that part of Sharon didn't want Cassie to rescue her - she was relying on "modern medicine" to be saved, waiting for the doctors to do their thing. So Sharon invented a cave monster, in a way confronted Cassie with herself and made the monster immune to Cassie's weapon. It was a way of just scaring Cassie with a mirror. I still don't know if that makes sense, but that's what was going on in my head when I wrote it.
Again, thanks a lot for the comments!
Oh, and BSF:
[sblock]If at all possible, I would extremely appreciate having at least one day of the weekend to write. If you post the pics like this time, that'd mean a wednesday posting (which is thursday morning for me, giving me the saturday to work on the story). We're gaming on sunday, so that day's out anyway. I'll be on vacation starting the 8th of July to the 15th or 16th - just to look ahead However, from 4th on I'll be off work, so weekday's no problem anymore then.
So, if it's not possible to have a wednesday picture, I'll try to make do as best as I can, but knowing how tired I am on weeknights I'd rather not have to.
[/sblock]
I'd like to address a few things. These are not excuses, but merely intended to shed light on my decisions.
First, the "politicalness" of the story, as Rodrigo Istalindir remarked on it. I really, really tried to keep away from making this political or sharing my views on coma patients. So the "school medicine" was relegated to a plot device. As I wanted the end that I had, I also needed the reader to be there when the machines were cut off from Sharon; now, I'd probably make it a post-sciptum to the story, but then I wanted to make it happen right then. So the doctors came off as very uncaring. I mean, effectively killing Sharon in front of her husband, and then doing it so matter-of-factly? But that was a case of me having the ending firmly in my mind and being unable to change it on such short notice
I toyed with the idea of having Sharon's jumps be her heartbeat; in fact, I even toyed with having doctors trying to re-animate her, with the defibrillator making "fthump". But that would have totally changed the ending, and as I was pondering revisiting Cassie in later stories, I abstained from it even though I recognized the parallels - probably a story flaw.
Finally, the blob. It really seems to have been a very weak connection - not surprising, since it's still confusing in my own mind -, but the bubbles reflected Cassie's (transformed) face. I wanted to say that there really wasn't a monster there, but that part of Sharon didn't want Cassie to rescue her - she was relying on "modern medicine" to be saved, waiting for the doctors to do their thing. So Sharon invented a cave monster, in a way confronted Cassie with herself and made the monster immune to Cassie's weapon. It was a way of just scaring Cassie with a mirror. I still don't know if that makes sense, but that's what was going on in my head when I wrote it.
Again, thanks a lot for the comments!
Oh, and BSF:
[sblock]If at all possible, I would extremely appreciate having at least one day of the weekend to write. If you post the pics like this time, that'd mean a wednesday posting (which is thursday morning for me, giving me the saturday to work on the story). We're gaming on sunday, so that day's out anyway. I'll be on vacation starting the 8th of July to the 15th or 16th - just to look ahead
However, from 4th on I'll be off work, so weekday's no problem anymore then. So, if it's not possible to have a wednesday picture, I'll try to make do as best as I can, but knowing how tired I am on weeknights I'd rather not have to.
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