10/07/12-10/26/12

Meteoric Musings (Rose)

The opening poem doesn’t seem to have a purpose.

[Why indeed?, thought Rose]

Don’t double up punctuation like this. Thoughts follow the same punctuation/capitalization rules as dialogue, no extra commas needed.

[ The average carapacian lived in a moral gray area, caring most for their livelihood; patriotism to their country was a far-off second.]

That’s not really morally grey.

[Only the queens and their advisers planned for and encouraged the war wholeheartedly. Only a few ill-positioned warmongers could cause all the damage in Skaia.]

And this seems far too simple and missing a lot of the predestination aspects. Both sides are set up to fight, it doesn’t make much sense to say it’s a couple people tricking the rest into it. On Prospit’s side, it’s hard to believe anyone would be encouraging the war when they know it’s doomed, they just don’t have any choice if they want to protect Skaia from Derse. On Derse’s side, evidently they really hate Bilious Slick and everything involved, so that’s their motive. That doesn’t mean everyone’s in lockstep with these ideas, but you seem to be trying to remove the black/white morality thing by pushing the responsibility onto as few people as possible and then making them evil.

You seem to be drawing a connection between the Derse/Prospit war and their own fight, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Those things are war, and then you describe that the players will soon be in a completely different sort of war, and…? It doesn’t seem to really go anywhere. What do her realizations about the Skaia war that’s fought in each session have to do with their own upcoming fight?

Second Chance (Caliborn, Calliope)

[For whatever reason, though, he had been given a second chance. Caliborn was no more. Now he was Calinn Borron, Lord of Time, red-blooded, and a bit less cruel.]

That’s not really how a second chance works. What you’re saying here is that Caliborn’s dead and a similar guy who differs in a couple ways is running around. For Caliborn to actually get a second chance, he needs to come to the realization that he should change, you can’t just say that now he’s a troll and his brain works differently so he decides to be nicer.

If you want to redeem Caliborn, you’ve got to show it happen. You could easily say that after being Lord English and finally dying anyway he might feel like reevaluating himself. And even then, he really shouldn’t be suddenly deciding he thinks trolls are awesome and his sister is even more awesome, it’s just too big of a jump. Maybe you could pull it off in a much longer story, but for a short one, you really only have room for him realizing that maybe the killing his sister and everyone else he could thing was a bad idea and he should try being a little more cooperative.

JACK: sleep (Jack (John))

Capital letters and proper punctuation aren’t optional. Also, paragraphing has rules. The goal is not to divide up your text into even blocks.

[who are you kidding? you just as weak and fragile as the trolls maybe even the humans. enough is enough just drop the act already.]

No, he isn’t.

Also, if Jack was so tired he was ready to just give up and die, all he needed to do was slow down enough for PM to catch him. He’s in the dreambubble because he’s trying to throw her off, so he certainly hasn’t given up.

[shit the kid’s just bawling now. “uh kid are you okay? I mean you’re not killing me here” just out of nowhere he just hugs you and you can feel his tears and snot get all over your chest, okay that’s just gross. at this point you just don’t know what to do, you just start rubbing his back. “uh hey, can you just stop crying or something?” wow jack, best way to console someone.]

There is absolutely no reason John would act like this. In the event he did, Jack would just kill him.

And as this is John’s dreamself, no, he can’t instantly fall asleep cuddling with Jack and still be there afterward.

If you really want friendly John/Jack fic, you’re better off setting it before Jack has murdered everything he can reach including John’s father.

JACK: sleep (Jack (PM))

[ok think jack how can you make her let go of that sword. out of impulse you kick it sending it out of reach into the abyss of space leaving both of you shocked. why couldn’t you do that two years ago?! who cares! you use the distraction to hit her with the handle of you sword like your life depended on it (it does by the way) having her pushed back by the force of the impact. you wait a few seconds before poking her with your sword. she seems knoc- OH MY GOD! she looks up and fiercely grabs your weapon. at this point very action you made was the adrenalin of fear. after punching her lights out, you make sure she’s knocked out…good. you grab her arm and take of the ring so she won’t be a problem in the future. you dispose the ring by throwing it in a random direction and you kick this bitch to the curb.]

Wow, I was wondering just how awful this fic would get and you have outdone my wildest expectations.

Fun fact: the review section includes someone threatening the author about how their story is breaking site rules…because it includes the word “you”. The rest is fine.

Little Sn0w (Slick (MC))

[Normally, those roaches that called themselves the Felt would have disrupted their peace and quiet and sped the night up pretty damn fast. But there hadn’t been ugly green hide or shameful horse shitting hair of them for a whole fucking week.]

Why are they unable to do anything but wait for the Felt to show up?

[A quick run-over of the following article indicated that in the five days the Crew had been waiting for the Felt to stage some sort of ambush, they’d been busy wreaking havoc on the town. ]

Well, I guess that’s sort of an answer but it’s really only moving the question over to “why were they waiting for an ambush?”

This would probably work better if there was a better reason for their inactivity – maybe injuries that had only just healed up, and then hearing the Felt did something prompts Slick to rush back out early.

It’s Snowman, not Sn0wman. The replaced O is just something people did to emphasize it because in canon it’s a different color, it really shouldn’t be treated as the actual spelling and looks stupid.

[Slick’s rage skipped for an instant, just long enough for the idea to sink in. “What the hell kind of name is ‘Little Sn0w’?” he snapped. Droog shrugged.

“I’d guess that it’s because Sn0wman herself trained the new kid,” he inferred. ]

First, when writing dialogue, group actions with the speaker. Dialogue is still following the basic rules of paragraphing, which is that a paragraph is a single subject. “Droog shrugged” here is the same basic subject matter as Droog speaking, while a separate subject from Slick speaking.

Second, use said. It’s a nice, barely noticeable speech tag. Stuff like “inferred” should almost never be used.

Third, they shouldn’t know this. The nickname means some connection to Snowman, but just because you decided the backstory for your character would be that she’s trained by Snowman doesn’t mean it’s obvious to anyone else that’s the case. Her nickname could mean she looks like Snowman, or has similar powers, or is Snowman’s kid, or is an alternate timeline Snowman, or some other weird thing because the Felt are weird. Droog shouldn’t sound so certain – he should be saying at least two options here. If you want Droog to know it’s the training thing, then you need Little Snow or someone else on the team to have bragged she’s trained by Snowman to someone who passed it on to the newspapers.

Overall, though, I like how you’re writing the gang. Slick’s unending rage comes through particularly well.

Little Sn0w Ch2 (Slick (MC, Crowbar, Matchsticks, Cans, Ms Paint))

[The action had come to a standstill, the attention of both sides attracted to a trail of gun smoke spiraling out of the darkness. Slick only knew one woman who could so easily cease the fighting in any room. He gritted his teeth, bracing himself to come face-to-face once again with the one person he hated more than anyone else.]

Snowman doesn’t exactly cause fighting to cease. They stopped their firefight because using guns is a bad idea due to ricochet issues. Also, unless the new person has the same powers, even that wouldn’t apply to her.

[ While the rest of the Crew tried figuring out why the hell the Felt would recruit a whiteshell,]

…why wouldn’t they? I mean, maybe they’d be confused why Snowman personally would be working with a Prospitian, but the rest of the Felt aren’t even carapaces, why would shell color matter to them?

Anyway, Ms Paint! It’s about time she shot people.

Little Sn0w Ch3 (Ms Paint (Snowman))

[“He…didn’t seem to remember me too well,” she admitted. Her eyes didn’t meet Sn0w’s, though she could feel the questioning glance that had been turned her way. “I mean…well, he remembered me, but not all that fondly.” Her voice got quieter as she muttered the last part. “He said he’d stick a knife in whoever called themselves your friend.”]

I’m not sure why she expected differently when she’s joined the gang opposing his. From the way she behaved last chapter I thought they must have had some falling out, because she seemed to be pretty antagonistic.

[And anyway, she had known Slick so long ago…and it wasn’t as though he was the one who had taken her in, taught her how to defend herself in this violent world, gave her something to do with her life. That title belonged to Sn0wman, and Ms. Paint had every intention of helping Sn0wman with her designs as best as she could, red feelings notwithstanding.]

Hoping she actually sticks to this, it’d be really depressing for her to end up betraying the person who actually helped her in favor of the violent asshole who’s willing to kill her.

[ A smile formed on her face; whatever he was doing, no doubt it was angry and consuming all of his time and attention.
That tendency was something she loved about him.]

I suppose if she doesn’t mind him getting enraged over the fact they’re in conflict, she could probably balance her job and crush. What makes the feelings red and not black in that case, though?

This is pretty well done so far but probably going to go in a bad direction. Particularly ominous: “Ms. Paint just nodded again. Sn0wman was right; she was almost always right.” I really can’t shake the feeling it’ll end with the two enemies and probably trying to kill each other.

Rose
Caliborn, Calliope
Jack, John (Jade, PM)
Slick, Ms Paint (MC, Cans, Quarters, Matchsticks, Snowman)

Three of four.

Page 25

Wordcount:39410