10/01/12-10/02/12 I’ve reached October! Not that any of the stuff I reviewed for Halloween had carapaces, but still, it feels weird to be back here.
Intermission Minutes in Heaven girls only (FOC (Eggs))
The setup of this is lazy and the juxtaposition of childishness and sex in [Someone suggested they play ‘7 minutes in Heaven’ but with a twist. You had to spend the whole night with them.] is really bad. Seriously, if you’re adult enough to spend the night with a stranger, you’re adult enough not to be playing that.
Also, don’t capitalize random words.
Please stop making it obvious how young you are!
Intermission Minutes in Heaven girls only (FOC (Itchy))
[ But then it made you think about what a comedian had once said about when a girl likes someone they’re kind…but when a boy likes someone, they’ll do everything in their power to hurt them! That’s sort of what Itchy’s done to you. He’s thrown rocks at you, pushed you into a lamppost, and burned you. Your eyes widened. Oh shit…he does like me!]
No. That’s really not true. And not like one of those funny exaggerations not true, just not true.
[ You were a little shocked but knew somewhere deep down that it was supposed to happen. Your first kiss would be taken from you by a close friend. ]
Also, this phrasing is really, really creepy. She just got a kiss, and she thinks about it as someone taking something from her? And she doesn’t seem happy so much as resigned to something she didn’t want.
…and now she’s chastely going to sleep in his bed. Well, that’s a relief.
Candy red love (Jack (Karkat))
For god’s sake, SPELLCHECK.
[Jack thinks it’s one of the saddest thing he’s ever heard, how can a creature with so much potential, so much life, so many good aspects inside and out, hate himself so? How could any one want to punish such a beautiful troll? ]
Jack is horribly out of character here.
You seem to be trying to force him into the standard romantic mold. He can have an interest in Karkat, even a shippy interest, without it being expressed as Karkat being the most gorgeous thing to ever cross his path. That’d also allow you to fit this in better to canon narration we got of that scene.
[There eyes were locked and meaningful, bulging with pent up emotions from years of never seeing another creature with this colour blood]
Red blood was completely normal from Jack’s point of view, so you can’t say both are feeling this way, just Karkat. Also, get a beta reader, this is so full of errors it’s almost unintelligible.
[ I have searched Tumblr, I have searched , I have searched Deviantart, I have searched! But alas, I’m starting to suspect that I’m the only person in the whole world who actually ships Karkat and Jack.]
Try archiveofourown, there’s at least one there.
Well. That’s sure FFN for you.
Sand (Jack (Ms Paint))
[He thinks it to be the height of cruelty. As if everything else wasn’t awful enough – the war, the paperwork, the fucking outfits, and then that he should find her here.]
Jack is really not a nice guy. He’s not going to think the suffering of someone else is the worst thing imaginable, no matter how hot they are.
[He wonders who could exile such a sweet little thing]
Actually, every exile we’ve seen has been accidental or fleeing, and the only other thing we’ve heard of is Vriska making carapaces exile themselves, which would seem to be along similar lines. Jack may have been exiled under different circumstances, but that’d make him the exception, not the rule. For the most part, it doesn’t seem like people decide to exile someone.
[“Someone oughta rename you,” he notes.
“What?”
“You ain’t lookin’ so miserable,” Straggler continues. “Look at ya. Smilin’ under your mask.”]
That’s an incredibly controlling way of phrasing it – which I won’t say is impossible for him, but given you have her responding positively to this, it’d make more sense for him to say her name doesn’t fit or that she should change it, not that “someone” should change her name for her.
Thread (Slick, Ms Paint)
Slick may not be smooth but it’s a stretch to say he’d be bashful or unsure of himself like this. And everyone should know who he is, if not for what he did before exile, than for the fact he built the very city they live in.
[She asks him, and he splutters and flails a little before answering that no, he is not a spy, but a gangster, which is dashing in its own right, she thinks. Surely he isn’t a hardened criminal or anything like that. He’s a nice man who’s bought her a drink, and is remaining awfully flustered.
To think it’s for her sake is a little self-centered, but she hopes, a little. She finds him endearing.]
There is also no reason to think that Ms Paint is some blushing innocent. The fact she likes him when he’s spending his time repeatedly stabbing the person who saved his life and is trying to help him suggests she’s at least okay with that sort of thing and probably not that naive in general.
I hate this pairing so, so much.
When we see MP getting his tray ready? She’s the one interested in him. That’s something worth exploring! Why does she like him? Most of what we’re seeing from him at that time is murderous stabbings, so how much of that is what’s attracted her? Does Slick like her back and if so, how much of that is mutual love of knives?
Yet everyone shipping it? MP is just totally oblivious and naive. Usually she won’t even believe someone could be interested in her, which half the time sounds like it’s really the author refusing to believe it’s possible without a miracle or three. If she realizes Slick is an asshole, she just nags him to not be one and that’s the resolution, Slick not being himself any longer. And plenty of time she doesn’t because Slick already is a nice guy to make the ship work or inexplicably decides to change for her.
Why the fuck even ship something if you’re going to do that?
Schoolstuck (Karkat (FOC))
Karkat is raised by a male lusus, who while bad-tempered still does a decent job of it, and they have a close bond. I’m really not sure how you got from that to an nasty mother who screams at him all the time and hits him.
[I stared at my numerous amounts of suits and name-brand clothes. I hated being so fucking rich. It was ridiculous.
See, I guess not having to worry about when or what I was going to eat for supper was nice, but the world had a full-of-shit idea. The decade I lived in considered “the money spectrum” to be one of the most important fucking things ever. If you had lots of money, you were important and popular and amazing, but if you didn’t, well…you were basically a nobody. The only thing that was more frowned upon than poor people were the rich-ass people who were once poor. Nobody liked it when the money spectrum was messed up by the overachieving peasants who decided to actually make a living. You’re only liked if your money-line is pure, as long as you come from a chain of rich people who just merely hand down the fortune. But, shit, if your parents actually WORKED to get their status? Well, fuck you then. And that’s where I’m at. My spot on the money spectrum is so looked down upon, so abnormal, that I could never bear to let anyone know.]
This is indescribably stupid.
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.
[“Well excuse me for wanting to enjoy my fucking Sunday by sleeping in. Who the hell gets up this early anyways?” I mumbled back, sitting down at the breakfast room table to eat my poorly-prepared oatmeal. My little baby sister Katree was eating some Cheerio’s and looking smugly at me. I gave her a glare in return.
“Karkat, DON’T MUMBLE. I can’t hear a word you’re saying! Speak the hell up!” ]
Karkat doesn’t mumble in the first place. His quirk is ALL CAPS, not sometimes all CAPS when he’s reminded.
Schoolstuck (Karkat (FOC, Hussie, Sollux))
[It was sealed with a stamped, lime green wax picture of a house. I opened it, ripping the seal unceremoniously to reach what was inside. There was, of course, a letter inside, so I pulled it out and opened it.
“‘Congratulations, Karkat Vantas!'” My voice trailed off for a moment as I read that first, bolded line. “Well, what the hell did I ‘win’ now…’You have been picked to be one of the twelve students to go to the special school run by Andrew Hussie! At the school you will take high school and even college-level classes to embrace your genius! You will start school Monday, September 10th, at our school in Georgia. Your flight has been prepared for you—your guardian should have received the tickets. Keep up the good work!'” Georgia? They must think I was pretty fucking smart if they were going to pay to send me all the way to there from California.
My eyes flicked up to my mom, who was looking rather pleased. Too pleased. “What the actual fuck did you do now, mom?” I yelled, raising my voice in anger. Who knows, she probably paid them an ass-load of money to send me off to that place. ]
You don’t seem to have any clear idea what’s actually going on here. Karkat first assumes that he’s been picked and the school is paying for tickets, then that his mother bought him the place in the school. The letter sounds as if it’s the announcement he can go to the school and you make a point of it being sealed, but his mother already knows all the details, so they would need to send a completely separate letter to her for no reason.
[Mr. Hussie started laughing. All of us turned back to him as he chuckled in a crazy manner. “Hehe, I like this kid. I can tell he’s going to get in a shitload of trouble someday, so I think I’ll give him an extra chance. Three expellings before he’s expelled!”]
Sollux dies when he tries to enter the medium. If you wanted to put a reference to his extra dreamself, a cleverer way would have been for him to be expelled for being annoying at the orientation right after being given that extra chance.
Schoolstuck (Karkat (Mr. Egbert, Ms Paint))
The fatherly letter thing is a decent idea, but the execution doesn’t really work. Karkat hasn’t actually done anything to be proud of yet and he hasn’t made any steps toward becoming an adult, he just was shoved onto a plane and brought to the place. Even if you assume that’ll happen now that he’s at the school, he personally has yet to accomplish anything.
[The bell rang to start the actual school day, so I grabbed my things and walked out of homeroom. I checked my schedule for the room number of Art, but there was nothing but the word ‘Art’ there. What the hell. How do they expect me to make it to the fucking class if there’s no way of me being able to discern where to go?]
There are only twelve students, so everyone should have the same classes. The reason schools have schedules like that is because they have more students than can fit in a single class. So where is everyone else? Either they’ve figured it out and he could follow them or they should all be asking the same question.
[ I turned a corner, and was greeted by a huge building that was paint-splattered horrendous colors. Could it be? I walked up to the door, pushing it open.
Inside, a rather short and pale lady greeted me.]
A gigantic building and one art class aren’t going to be the same thing.
FOC (Eggs, Itchy)
Jack (Karkat)
Slick, Ms Paint
Slick (Ms Paint)
Karkat (FOC, Hussie, Sollux, Mr. Egbert, Ms Paint)
Technically, two of five.
Page 39
Wordcount: 33634 Currently on track to hit 60,000.