Dreams of the Quill

Sixten of Heart’s Content read and wrote about Night Switch. This is a response to his blog post.

First, yes, Sixten, the two handles you mention in your post are in fact the same person. They’re both me. Second, I’d like to apologize a little: the circumstances under which you decided to read Night Switch were hardly the most pleasant for you. I was having a bit of the usual mindless fun with my other site, and never expected you to see—or care—or follow up on my mention of Night Switch.

Whew, good to have that out of the way. Now.

Sixten’s Post

Within 20 hours of my having posted a comment on his site, Sixten read all 60+ installments of Night Switch. He also wrote the above linked post, which includes a plot synopsis and character descriptions for Jason, Marin, and the dachshund. Character descriptions are accompanied by portraits, which I have included here. (I can remove these if you like, Sixten—they’re your art.)

After the character descriptions, Sixten writes out some of his thoughts on Night Switch—how it compares to a work of his (Miao Diary, also featuring a Jason character), what he finds interesting in it, and so on. He includes a cover he made for the story (oddly devoid of Joe). He goes on to recommend Night Switch to his readers.

Before anything else: thank you, Sixten. The attention you gave my story is astonishing and very kind.

My Response

And now, there are a few specific things in Sixten’s post that I would like to respond to, for Sixten, for Sixten’s readers, and for anyone else who might be interested.

“[Jason's] team is assigned to monitor the students of one of the most dangerous bastions of independent thought remaining in the United States - the University of California at Berkeley.”

This is not quite true. Jason’s team (LAW1 as a whole) is assigned to many different locations in the SF Bay Area. Jason’s team (the smaller group of him and Frog) is assigned to a city, and it just so happens that that city houses a university and that Marin goes to that university. They are not specifically watching all the students. Also, the school is not a bastion of independent thought—if it were, Marin would not be so bored with the people around her.

“[Marin] decides to bring the United States back to its state before “the switch”, even if it means committing acts of terrorism.”

I don’t believe Marin ever decides to commit acts of terrorism. This might just be a technicality, but fighting the power is not inherently terrorism. Marin most certainly does not intend to control people with fear; she wants to tear down an oppressive system. We see this misuse of the term “terrorism” in Code Geass (which Sixten mentions in his post)—the Japanese in R1 who are struggling against the Brittanian regime are labeled “terrorists,” though they do nothing but sacrifice themselves to save the lives of those around them from a government that slaughters its subjects for fun and profit (that is a form of terrorism, rebellion is not).

Actually, that’s all I really had anything to say about. Sixten’s summaries are pretty on-target, and do a better job of describing the current state of the story than does the “one sentence summary” someone demanded of me in an IRC channel. I think I belched something like “OMG PONIES!!!111one.” That wasn’t so hot. I’m kind of embarrassed at the praise Sixten heaped on Night Switch, and afraid that it might get peoples’ hopes up, but I suppose the only thing I can do about that now that Sixten’s post has hit the blogosphere is live up to those hopes.

Regarding Sixten’s art—I’m touched that he took the time to make it. I’m not sure what purpose he had in mind for it (did he want me to use it? He surely didn’t draw it just to illustrate his post!), but it’s lovely. The characters look a -lot- younger than they should, but that seems to be the guy’s style: he leans toward the absurdly cute. There’s a science to it, I hear.

Sooo. Thank you Sixten, and thanks to all my readers who have given me the confidence to show Night Switch to more people. Who knows? I might even submit it to the WFG some day.