#whmm

Here it is, I’m done, I know why I don’t try to draw manga.

Sooo, here is some more fanart of die-einzelganges’s fanfiction “When Haru met Makoto”! This is one of the open requests I give for my +100 follower milestone. Since school is starting soon, I have to cut down a bit, but there are still 3 requests open!

decided to go with the penultimate chapter (so episode 13, part 1), because this one is still very special to me for a lot of reasons. my favorite part, and i hope it shows, is the little old lady, tamura obaa-chan - i was fond of her, even though she barely featured in the anime, and felt it would be a disservice not to try and include her, and honestly the result was better than i expected. i adored writing for her and imagining her mannerisms, and it was fun to also use her as an enabler for haruka, ehehe. plus i managed to tie up two loose ends, at least loose ends on my part: why haruka and makoto never met before, and makoto’s fortune. i kept thinking about how there were houses around us, but i never met children from the other houses, so that partly inspired the former, and the latter was something i had been planning since the fortune was introduced earlier and taken home instead of revealed - i always wondered if anyone was curious about it and remembered it until this moment, and i hope they were pleased when i included it!

6: hardest/easiest character to write for?

I’ll answer this in general!

I feel like the hardest ones are usually those whose personalities and motivations/actions are so alien to me that I have a hard time tuning into them, or characters who are so bland or little-established that I find it hard to give them substance (sometimes having too little to go on makes me uncomfortable.)

Meanwhile the easiest ones are definitely those who have very vibrant and established personalities (preferably with a unique voice), because I can hear them very clearly in my head and they just pour out onto the page very willingly. Positive characters are my favorites here.

Last but not least, characters who are very much like me are both the hardest and the easiest. On the one hand I have all the experience and empathy I need, on the other, being so similar can trigger me when I have to write something sad or angsty for them (see that famous one-year hiatus…)

40: chapter you’re most proud of in this verse?

Oh god do I really have to pick just one?! Nooo, I can’t.

1) Chapter 63, because instead of forcing myself to write it, I allowed myself to breathe and dwell on it for as long as I had to so the results could be more graceful and satisfying than if I had rushed into it and possibly let my wounded feelings ruin it.

2) Chapter 51 aka Rin’s flashbacks to elementary school, because it’s one of the longest chapters and I was really proud of what I did to close the gaping holes Makoto’s absence left, and the fact that little Rei and Nagisa absolutely stole the scene they were in because I hoped they would!

3) Chapter 59 because it was the April Fool’s chapter and the comments still make me laugh. Good times!

42: five songs that Arakita has on his iPod/iPhone?

Royal Deluxe - Dangerous

BANNERS - Someone To You

Sleeping Wolf - New Kings

Smash Mouth - All Star

- say it was complete now instead of on-going

- and make this rebuttal (in italics):

Comments: It's an interesting retelling of the anime where it switches two characters and it also expands on some parts. For example Haruka's parents as well as the incident in episode 6 are a couple of the many parts that are expanded on.

To this troper, When Haru Met Makoto comes across as little more than a blatant retelling of season one with a few added bits. It's worth the read, but it sticks a little too close to canon for this troper's taste.

Well, that's basically the point of this fanfic: it is supposed to be a retelling of season one, but also a "what-if" as well (along with a bit of fan service for MakoHaru fans).

i thought about it, but right now, i feel like it would be beyond my strength to undertake another enormous thing again, though i had promised myself ages ago that i would at least “fix” episode 12…

not gonna lie, the thing about eternal summer is that the more i think about it, the weirder and messier it feels to me? free!, while not perfect (god, all the plotholes i had to fix, oh my god), at least felt sort of simple - you could break it down to a few straightforward arcs that all contributed to the plot, and it wasn’t ridiculous and over the top for the most part. es, on the other hand, is all over the place, from weird fanservice, to rei’s learning different strokes and not going anywhere with them afterwards, to nagisa running away for a single episode, to well, whatever happened to sousuke and haruka… and the more i think about this hot mess, the more i feel like i would not be retelling so much as rewriting this, and that would be just way too much to do right now. free!, i felt certain i could keep true to its original core and keep like 95% of the dialogue i transcribed, but i look at es and i’m like, “nope, i’m not doing this”, “why did this even happen”, “this is just so rushed”, “oh god not this” - and normally, i would have ideas on how to fix these, but right now, i genuinely do not have any, and if i don’t, then i don’t want to half-heartedly do it and end up disappointing anyone.

(for WHMM!)

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

I’m crying because there is no way I can pick just one from a fic this large… I’ll try and put down the ones I remember off the top of my head!

Episode 1: Part 1

[Haru] doubted that any one person could ever learn to navigate the maze of his mind when he said so little and kept to himself so much, and it seemed like an unreasonable demand to be understood without explanation, to be accepted without any desire to fix him, and to not be entirely forgotten or reproached whenever he went off to do as he would, which was to simply exist.

Episode 3: Part 1

“You are impossible, Haruka-senpai!!” screeched Rei, tearing at his hair, and Haru decided then and there never to ask Tachibana just for being so needlessly harangued on his sickbed by the obnoxious vice-captain and his loudmouth treasurer.

Episode 4: Part 5

His throat clamped shut in an instant and the terrible truth sank to the bottom of his stomach. All that remained were a few scraps of the surface, yet Makoto’s mouth opened in relief so profound it nearly broke his heart.

Episode 7: Part 5

Rin’s fist felt cold and lifeless against the headstone of the Matsuoka family grave, but as he stood there for a moment longer, eyes closed and hair clawed by the wind, a spark of energy stirred behind his knuckles, tingling in his palm like the crawl of a thousand ants. Toraichi.

Rin twitched away from the headstone, but that crackling sting remained. It pulsed across his skin as he turned around and broke into a run, down the winding path of that hill of restless souls and buried dreams. Toraichi’s red eyes hung upon his back, wide and burning like the morning sun that made Rin spill a shapeless shadow on the ground in front of him.

Episode 8: Part 4

The water below lay stagnant, a wet yawn in the concrete that breathed stale emptiness into the air of the stadium, and doomed to remain where he was, Haru could not escape it.

Episode 11: Part 1

Over the years, Rin must have left him behind a thousand times, but that little boy just kept coming back to haunt him, and now his nightmare was standing right in front of him, that same look of horror in those large, green, drooping eyes…

Yes, and thank you for sending some! <3 I already answered 2, but I can answer the rest! <3

5: What part was hardest to write?

The majority of Episode 12. I remember being terribly exhausted by that time, so I could manage the first part with some difficulty, but the second part just fell apart in my hands, because of the emotional strain. The hiatus was kind of unfortunate, but I need that year or so to process that I was going to have to put Makoto through hell before he would get his happy ending, and thanks to letting all of this simmer down in me, I eventually managed to write it with more grace than I would have, had I forced myself. I cried every time I wrote those parts, including the actual writing process and every edit I did of those chapters. Each and every one, I thought my head was going to explode from sheer misery. I was so glad when I finished Episode 12. Compared to that, the epilogue, despite the weight it had to carry, was a breeze.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

2: What scene did you first put down?

I’m pretty sure that the very first scene was Nagisa and Rei visiting Haru in Episode 1: Part 1 - I know that the draft version of that is buried in my writing tag somewhere… I still cannot believe.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

Oh lord, many, many things:

- by far the longest fic I’ve ever written- by far the most popular fic of all my fics- the only fic where I transcribed every single episode to get it right- the fic with the most positive responses- the sheer effort I had to put into it- the design of the title cards is unique, etc.

7: Where did the title come from?

From the start, I wanted to give it a romantic title of sorts - one that would speak to the core of it, which was Makoto and Haru’s developing relationship. When Harry Met Sally is one of my favorite romantic movies, and I thought of how the two of them met, how their first impressions were really mixed, and how they gradually developed, and something in my heart said it would work out. Even that first fanart cover was based off my DVD’s cover, hehe.

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

Honestly, if there could be one thing, it would be to appreciate and love these characters more. I specifically fell in love with the concept of this UA because I realized it would make me think about the characters in a new depth, and make me more familiar with them, more in love with them, then I was back when I started out. Whenever someone told me that I made them like Makoto better than they have, or that I made Rin feel more likeable, or they got a huge kick out of Nagisa, or how much they rooted for Haru, etc. I felt so much better.