6/8/11 to 8/30/11
No Matter How Far (Droog (Slick, Boxcars, MOC))
[“I remember you now! You’re Jack Noir!”
Every eye turned you way. You froze with that bottle half-way to you lips, you eyes growing impossibly wide. The room was completely still, and breaths were held as people waited for you response.]
[I mean, I always love to see someone get their comeuppances. Hell, I had been about to hit the guy just a moment before. But your reaction made no sense. Both the violent outburst and the denial. You were Jack Noir. What was wrong with that?]
This seems to contradict. If no one was expecting Slick to flip out over this, then why would everyone freeze up? The story is about this being unexpected, so it’d make more sense for people to be maybe expecting the guy to insulted for bugging Slick than holding their breath in total silence.
Aside from that, I like how you characterize everyone, and you do a good job of keeping Droog cool without making him impossibly collected.
Crisis in Government (PM (AR, WV))
This is really cute!
Billiards (Slick, Droog (Boxcars, Deuce))
Hm. You do the setting of this really well, but the characters all seem the same. Droog and Slick are little different, Deuce is as bad-tempered as the rest… And the game doesn’t seem to really be showing much of their characters. There’s the bit at the end where Slick’s saying the Felt need to die, but that’s seems a really simplistic look at the whole thing.
Midnight Strikes (Droog, Slick, Deuce, Boxcars)
Drabble is a term for a writing exercise of exactly 100 words, not any short fic.
[However, to make room for the game room (Pool tables and such) and the kitchen it was two crewmembers to a room.]
Don’t capitalize words at random, and the doors have their symbols on them, so it’s really unlikely they’d share rooms. If there was limited space, they’d just have smaller rooms.
[“You know it,” He offers Diamonds]
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “Hello.” she grinned. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category. Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s “Hi,” she said. “This is it.” not “Hi,” she said, “this is it.” or “Hi,” she said “this is it.” And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s “Hi. This,” she said, “is it.” The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks with thoughts.
Beyond that, these are decent but tend toward generic.
Ah, these have picked up. I particularly liked
[“Why is Slick always so mad?” He asked Boxcars once with a concerned frown. Hearts crouched down to Deuce’s level, and sighed slightly.
“That’s just who Slick is, and we should accept people who they are,” He assured the shorter Dersite. Deuce nodded a bit, confirming that he understood. Deuce paused, and then asked another question.
“Is Droog just like that too?” Deuce blinked up at Hearts. He laughed a bit.
“Nah, he just spends too much time around Slick and doesn’t get enough sleep.]
Homestuck: Next session (OCs (WQ, WK))
[ And I’m allowed to talk to him/her if I want to]
First off, the standard pronoun when you’re not sure of someone’s gender is “they”. Second, in the event someone had that special mix of grammatical obsession with grammatical ignorance and thought that was wrong, people can’t pronounce slashes, so in normal conversation it’s “him or her”. Third, the trolls willingly state their genders, so it isn’t some huge mystery.
[“What, Raito?”
“CarcinoGeneticist really doesn’t know what you’re talking about. The idea of sex is a foreign concept to him.”]
How would she know? And if she does know all about trolls, why hasn’t she explained the basics to her friend ages ago instead of just correcting him about individual points like this?
Also, the trolls do have some idea of what sex is, even if their version of it is very different.
[You also have RED EYES that let you see A PERSON’S NAME JUST BY LOOKING AT THEIR FACE. They also let you see HOW LONG THEY HAVE TO LIVE. ]
Considering how much of Sburb runs on predestination, this seems gamebreaking. Shihizuki would have noticed that almost everyone around him was destined to die at the same time, and then that this time was approaching. Then once inside the game, it’ll tell him if they’re all guaranteed to survive to the end. The shinigami thing works in Death’s Note because they distinguish between natural deaths and ones caused by the intervention of the notebook, so the people aware of other’s destinies are also the ones who can alter them.
Anyway. This is somewhat interesting but really, really slow. You’re spending a lot of time on setup when nothing different is actually happening. You’re fast-forwarding through a lot of it, so why include those parts in the first place?
The war doesn’t start upon player entry, it’s eternal. And also, because of that the White King shouldn’t be hanging out on Prospit.
[“And I am the White King,” the man said. He looked just like her, only a man. “You must have a few questions, but let us first explain. You are on a planet called Prospit, the opposite of Derse, and one of the two moons of Skaia. We are the only leaders on Prospit, and we are preparing for war with Derse. You and your friends were sent to help us win this war, and without you, we can not win.”
“But before you can be of any use to us, you and your friends need to get stronger,” the queen told him. “You will need to defeat your denizens, and come here while you are awake. When the black king and queen are defeated, you will have won the game and have created a new universe to rule.”]
Also, players don’t immediately wake up and then get the whole plot explained to them. Skaia loves its cryptic bullshit. Besides, if you’re going to just tell the characters what’s going on, what’s the point of writing a story? Characters should figure stuff out, not have it all handed to them.
[That’s a lot of chatting, but I hope it’s not too much… ]
I would have to say too much. You do pretty well at making the conversations unique, but they still go on and on and on without much point. You don’t need to actually show everyone explaining everything to everyone else, for example. An awful lot of this could stand to be trimmed.
And now more characters for some reason. Ones who are a lot more boring.
Evidence (Jack (Karkat))
[sumg]
Spellcheck.
And eh. This isn’t bad but there’s just not much here. You’re just repeating in slightly more drawn out form the joke the original writers made.
Broken Timeline (MOC (John))
[EB: me and rose already got me away, now i get you.]
This doesn’t make sense. Rose is desperate to play and very soon after desperate to escape the meteor fires. She expends a lot of effort on trying to get John’s disk back. If he had it, he’d use it to connect with her.
If you’re adding another character, it’d make more sense to have Rose be the one bringing him in, or else have Dave or Jade connect to him while Rose is busy with John.
[CM: OK, so the thing made a log.]
The entry items tend to have a lot to do with the characters. This seems to be entirely random.
Broken Timeline Ch2 (MOC (Vriska, Dave))
[ “Eight exclaimation marks.” He noted ]
Spellcheck.
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “Hello.” she grinned. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category. Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s “Hi,” she said. “This is it.” not “Hi,” she said, “this is it.” or “Hi,” she said “this is it.” And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s “Hi. This,” she said, “is it.” The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks with thoughts.
Awake (John (WV))
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “Hello.” she grinned. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category. Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s “Hi,” she said. “This is it.” not “Hi,” she said, “this is it.” or “Hi,” she said “this is it.” And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s “Hi. This,” she said, “is it.” The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks with thoughts.
[ his dead Grandmother (though she was now part clown); and he had created a sweet rocket pack to advance the game, although he did have to put up with an annoying Troll in order to do it. ]
Neither of those words should be capitalized, also don’t use semicolons.
I don’t really see what hearing his exile has to do with this – John went through the gate because of a troll and really believed it was a great idea, so having one more thing slightly encourage him doesn’t matter much.
[Dersestuck is an AU centering around what may have happened if Jack Noir failed to murder the Black Queen. This means all who died after [S] Jack: Ascend are very much alive.]
[The golden city has fallen to Derse rule, and the heroes of two sessions seem defeated too. With a series of events the ruler of Derse took control of both worlds, but is looking into the darker areas of the unexplained, seeking more power.]
Uh. See, if you’re doing an AU showing how things could go in a different direction if one thing changes, you can’t then plop on a lot of additional changes. Why would the Black Queen involve herself in messing with another session? Why would she be looking for more power instead of just finishing the game and beating the players? How’d the two sessions even get linked in the first place if Jack never jumps sessions to destroy their door?
[the Humans and Trolls]
Don’t capitalize those, they’re not proper nouns.
[Paranoia has swept over Derse with the mostly undisclosed death of the Black King. ]
Why would he have been killed if Jack never goes on his murderspree?
[ The most chatter has been about the Archagent of Derse. He just disappeared, and people who knew what he was like figured he wouldn’t be one to call it quits.]
What he was like is hating his job and plotting regicide, so while perhaps the average carapace might find his disappearance odd, I can’t see why people who actually know the asshole would be baffled by it.
God damn it. And it sounded so interesting.
DERSESTUCK Ch2 (Rose, Terezi, Kanaya)
[ IHome./I]
Html is stripped. Doublecheck before posting.
[A few seconds pass, the other girl giving her a blank stare. (Or so she thinks, Terezi’s still wearing here shades)]
Aside from the fact that “here” should be “her”, Terezi doesn’t give people blank stares because Terezi is blind.
[We have no God Tiers yet]
Yes, they do, Vriska gets god tier midway through their game, so if they almost won, they almost won with a minimum of one god tier.
Droog (Slick, Boxcars, MOC)
PM (AR, WV)
Slick, Droog (Boxcars, Deuce)
Droog, Slick, Deuce, Boxcars
OCs (WQ, WK)
MOC (John, Vriska, Dave)
John (WV)
Rose, Terezi, Kanaya
Two of eight.
Actually a lot more stories that I skipped over because I already commented on them on AOOOOOOO. We’ll see how long that grace lasts me. Currently at page 191 from page 200. I need to get through just under seven pages a day to finish the category by the end of this month, so we’re currently on track – have to factor in that more stuff will be posted throughout the month, of course. If I somehow keep up my nine pages a day thing, I’d finish on the twenty-second with the current amount.
Can I take a minute to say how really depressing the current state of reviews is? When I reviewed yesterday, a lot of stories had one or no reviews in both categories. A lot of reviews was on the order of four. The same is true here. These are both really active fandoms judging by fic output, but people don’t review.
Current wordcount: 2153