What insomniacs do: look for plotholes

[taotrooper]

I look at this Neil Gaiman book cover and I think: uh, CLAMPish. I'm that one-minded like that.

Gah, FMA chapter, come early T_T

At, I don't know, 2:00 am of today I decided to make notes on the entire Card Captor Sakura timeline in manga, to indulge my precanon bunnies.

...

Except I discovered there isn't one. Fuuuuuuuck.

No, really. Decembers, Valentine days, change of uniforms. Those things occur too fast. From one chapter to another there can be an unspoken transition of months, even whole seasons!

It's just that it doesn't match. I counted four springs! We started in 4th grade and 2nd of high school. When the cards are changed, Sakura shouldn't still be in elementary school, while Touya shouldn't still be in school period.

CLAMP just didn't care. That's it, simple as that.

But then again, unlike the anime, it's never mentioned they actually pass to a new school term (yes, I checked). So is this a case of a Peter Pan kind of manga, Ouran style, in which they never change the age and school year?! How old are they, then? Are they permanently 10 the kids and 17 the teens?

I love this. The time is all fucked up. This kills so many in-between-canon bunnies.

Notes to myself: (all in Touya's time)

• Touya meets Kaho on 2nd of junior high; it looks like it could be spring. He'd be, suposedly, 14.
  
• Kaho leaves on his 3rd of junior high. She says he confessed his crush a year before, when she had finished her practice period. Therefore, she was just his teacher for some months. They break up in a shrine festival; Tsukimine has done summer and autumn festivals, but considering the yukata I'd say it's summertime. He's 15.
  
• Yukito "arrives" on 1st of high school, third trimester (I assume that could be between January and March). Touya is either 15 or just turned 16.
  
• Cards start being captured on April next year. Touya is in 2nd of high school, just turned 17.
  
• Kaho is first seen on the Valentine's day after that, stalking around. However, the timeline is wonky as fuck, so I don't dare to say "a year later!" Either way, Touya would still be in his 2nd year, although he shouldn't be around the time Kaho gets the substitute Math teacher job. However, *points above*

Theorical conclusions: T/Y friendship (and love) had one year to develop before canon. It wasn't possible in manga for Kaho to do Touya in the school janitor room. There are at least two years for Eriol to meet Kaho before she leaves England.

Comments

[x-reggg.livejournal.com]

i like what the mangaka for ouran said: don't think about it too much. XDD

[rainmage.livejournal.com]

Well, Ouran is a parody of a shoujo itself, so it's part of the teasing. There are a lot of shoujos in which they forget about aging.

[paper-seagulls.livejournal.com]

Like the begining of 'Here is Greenwood' or 'Hana-Kimi' where the manga-ka honestly has no idea how long their story is gonna last and then they have to go back and fix the timeline later.

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

I never even tried to make sense of the CCS timeline, precisely because I noticed the "too many springs" thing.

That's the kind of things where I put canon before realism: if CLAMP didn't care, neither do I.

Chances are that the people who read your precanon fic(s) won't even notice the timeline problems, or they'll blame it on canon and not you (which is true).

[rainmage.livejournal.com]

However, for the fics I want to write there IS a problem. Precanon thing aside, because that one makes more sense than the during-canon mess, I want to kill some T/Y and E/K fill-the-blanks and postcanon bunnies, and I can't use now the phrases "I've been ___ months in Japan" or "we've met each other for ___ years". You know. I'll feel bad if I randomly make numbers up, even though no one will notice.

I get the feeling they're doing the same in HOLiC, because Elihice and I tried to figure Watanuki's current age and, by my calculations, he's 'supposed' to be in his last high school year. The hell he'll graduate before the manga is over!

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

Um. Vagueness is good? I don't know exactly what your bunnies are about, of course, but maybe you can work around the actual numbers. There is no way on earth to make that timeline make sense.

... yeah, how many times was it summer in HOLiC already?

[rainmage.livejournal.com]

Being a CLAMP high school student sucks. You never graduate. At ALL.

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

And your teachers wgive you suspicious looks...

[rainmage.livejournal.com]

Elementary schoolers get that, too.

[dowjon-kun.livejournal.com]

Lol that cover really look like CLAMP could make it o_O Interesting xD

Heh I agree with other many readers don't notice timeline problems. I think many of them are like pigs they only want to read next fanfic about their beloved series xD

[rainmage.livejournal.com]

However, it affects my ideas directly. I hate being vague, and I hate making stuff up to compensate plotholes. In the end, I'm the one all fucked up.

[the-great-elk.livejournal.com]

BE VAGUE! Ignore the passing of time at all!

Aside from snow and summer break, I was always under the impression that it was spring in CCS. And I definitely wasn't counting.

*pet pet* CLAMP begs for vagueness. If you're too specific, everything just goes to hell. It's like actually trying to intellectualize CCS--you can't do it, so just smile and enjoy the ride.

[rainmage.livejournal.com]

*sighs*

[the-great-elk.livejournal.com]

*huggles* You'll be fine!!!