11/5/12-11/15/12

Undying Love – Short Story (Droog (Deuce, Boxcars, Slick, Cans))

[The Midnight Crew were attacking The Felt’s mansion once again. But this time they were in a heaps more trouble than usual. The heist had been going on for three days.]

That’s a ridiculous length of time. Even hours would be an incredibly long, exhausting affair.

[It was like a war, all they could hear was gunshots and the odd explosion. Once in a while Deuce would jump up and throw a bomb at whatever Felts were out there or both him and Droog would fire a few shots.]

How would they still have those when they’ve been fighting for three days straight?

[“The Felt will be getting tired themselves soon. We can try make a run for it outside then.” Droog said.]

If they wanted to escape, why didn’t Deuce blow a hole in the wall instead of throwing his bombs?

[But Deuce was slow to get up and Cans grabbed him, wrapping his hand around him. Deuce struggled against Cans’ huge hand, grabbing at the two fingers that were around his neck like scissors, attempting to prise them apart. There was no hope of him getting away though unless Cans dropped him, which he wasn’t going to do.]

Why isn’t Droog shooting Cans in the face an option, especially when you just said he’s somehow still got bullets?

[“It’s not your fault.” Deuce choked out.]

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.

[“Oh.” He said. He did care, of course. He wasn’t that cold hearted. But from seeing nothing but death for 3 days and the actual shock of seeing Droog crying over him, he couldn’t say anything else.]

Write out numbers with letters.

Deuce is their only casualty, so no, he hasn’t spent three days seeing nothing but death. Besides, even if somehow those three days involved killing every last Felt but Cans, and several times over to fill up the time, Slick enjoys murdering them.

In general, the characterization here is really flat. There’s no sense this is a story about the Midnight Crew, just some people who are prone to deathbed confessions of love. And you really need to edit sense into the actual plot you have here, it’s a mess.

Black and Green (Slick, Snowman (Droog, Lord English))

The first and, at this rate, only person I know of to block me during this affair! Anyway, Snowman seems less insane in this one. Instead, she’s a victim!

This is one of those staple fanfic plots, and with good reason. Forcing characters together for an external reason is a great way to make them interact without it ending early because one walks off. In practice, it’s rarely done well – despite having that perfectly good excuse to keep them together despite personality conflicts, they tend to warp to fit each other. When they don’t, the author often goes in the other direction and has them snapping at each other over contrived nonsense.

Also hi there, everything I didn’t want out of the Lord English reveals.

The Adventures of 3:11 and Scratch (None)

[What happens is, Doli (the female Dave that will be portrayed in this mini-series) has been recruited to The Felt to replace 3 (Trace) and 11 (Matchsticks) because of her skill and mainly just those two because of the color of her eyes which is reasonably close in comparison to their respective colors.]

What? Why the hell.

[Now, she wears the felt suit and all with one red armband with the number 3 on it and then another white armband with a red stripe in the middle with an 11 on it. Both are on her left forearm.]

Ooooooooh, she’s a sue. Okay.

If you want to write about your own character, own up to it, try to make it fit into canon (each Felt member has a single ability, so one person can’t replace two), and learn that it is not and will never be important to meticulously explain the exact details of any outfit your character is wearing. If that’s important to you, you want to get into art, not fic.

[And now to talk more about Doc.

He’s a smoker.

Yes.

Even as a human, his skin is that of his original Homestuck cue-bally self.]

Is that meant to be linked in any way? Because smoking does not produce pure white unblemished perfectly smooth skin, you know.

The Adventures of 3:11 and Scratch Ch2 (FOC (Doc Scratch))

Good god this is awful.

Rise with the Moon (FOC (Dave, Slick))

I don’t really see any point to her knowing Dave.

[quickly grabbed her trusty sniper and handgun]

“Sniper” is generally the person wielding the gun, not short for the gun itself. Also, only her handgun would actually be of any use if she’s going out to investigate.

[ Inside was some dort of pod.]

Proofreading is important. This story is a mess of errors.

[A tall, black man stepped out. He was strange. He was all black, but out-lined in white.]

The white outline is really obviously a drawing convention. You might as well say he was a black guy with weird patches of white all over him just because the art style shows white reflections.

[Using her ninja skills Dirk had taught her]

You don’t need to explain a character being competent as because Dirk taught her. Dirk certainly managed to figure it out on his own.

[He gasped and quickly spun around, but was met by the butt of Isabella’s sniper. He crumbled to the ground, knocked out. Isabella smirked and took hold of the body, hefting him over her shoulders. She began the long trek home.]

Okay, so let’s recap.

She has her gun out and aimed as soon as she sees the pod itself. Slick, seeing someone already aiming a weapon at him, pulls out a knife. Instead of waiting to see if he makes any move to actually attack her or doing anything else to indicate she’s got the gun for defense rather than because murder is fun, she cocks her gun, an incredibly aggressive thing to do…and he lowers his weapon. At which point she attacks the person who lowered his weapon for no reason and smashes his head in – head injuries are serious and there’s a good chance of accidentally killing the person. Also, she probably ruined her gun doing so.

I mean, if this is going to be shippy you’ve done a decent job of showing they probably share some interests in the violence and murder for no reason department, but that’s about it.

Also, a person who’s knocked out usually wakes up almost immediately. You’d have just enough time to tie them up. Anything longer and the possibility of serious brain damage and/or death starts turning into a certainty.

So either Slick is going to die along the way, never wake up again, or else well before she gets home he’s going to wake up being carried by some asshole who attacks people for no reason and show her back his stabs.

[Spades Slick woke up on something nice and soft, which he confirmed as a bed. He tried to move, but found out he was tied up by the arms and legs.]

Holy shit. Did Dave and Dirk realize they were friends with a vicious kidnapper?

And now they’re flirting. While Slick is tied hand and foot on her bed after she attacked and kidnapped him.

[“If I let you go, will you promise to not run away?”
Another list went through Slick’s head.
‘If I run, I could escape. Where will I go? Should I steal her stuff when I escape. Dammit, how did I even get here?’]

First, don’t use ‘ for thoughts, it’s too close to the ” used for spoken words. Second, why is Slick thinking about escaping and not murdering her as soon as he’s loose?

[The man was lying there, looking very peaceful, it made Isabella’s heart flutter. She blushed heavily and looked down. She looked up again and walked towards his bed. She hefted the man’s body into the bed properly, because half of him was off the bed.]

There’s been no sign so far that Slick is extremely worn out, which is what it’d take for him to collapse on a bed and not wake up when someone’s grabbing him. If you just want her to sneak in to stare at him creepily, that’d work, but once you add in actually shoving him about, you’re going to have to explain it.

[I never shall forget the night I made Six Rappers’ run, I didn’t have a knife, a blackjack, or a gun, I proved my self a hero at a very high degree, I ran from home, and six of them were running after me!]

I know the song’s a nice reference and all, but if you actually pay attention to what the character’s saying, it doesn’t have much to do with Slick.

Anyway. So, your character is a violent, creepy kidnapper! You need to embrace that more and also realize Slick won’t instantly be okay with this. If she’s forcing him to stay, he’s not going to be happy and she needs to be somehow able to keep him trapped rather than relying on asking nicely. Otherwise, you need him to have some other reason for staying – injuries, the fact her house is surrounded by deadly monsters only she can handle, etc. Or she could live on an island like Jade, that’d work.

Develop your character more. Why is she acting like this? Is she at all concerned about being attacked by Slick or is she doing stuff like knocking him out and tying him up solely because she doesn’t want him to leave? Does she have any idea that people generally don’t appreciate this and just doesn’t care, or is she delusional enough that she has no idea this is odd?

Then Slick. How does Slick feel about a strange girl who can easily knock him out and overpower him? If this isn’t enraging him, why not? Does he think she’d be an asset? Is he too concussed at the moment to really think about this kind of thing?

Similar problem as the other story – here, it’s forcing an OC on the character and instead of embracing the conflict that should create, they happily play cards.

Unforeseen Consequences (Dave, Dirk (Jade, John, Jake, Jack Noir))

[He was smaller than your average 15 year old, born and raised Texas teenaged boy.

This was, of course, due to his premature delivery into this world at just 6 months in the womb. It didn’t really stifle is self confidence or anything; and due to years of strifing with his older brother, he knew he could easily take ANYONE who tried to pick a fight with him.]

Survival at 24 weeks is a minor miracle. Today with perfect care that’s at the limits of viability and plenty of doctors would advise against intensive care for ethical reasons. Those that do survive often have major physical problems, they’re not just smaller than their siblings. Unless this is taking place well in the future, at the time of Dave’s birth it’s more likely they wouldn’t even have tried to keep him alive.

I don’t think you realize just how bad premature birth is. Even being born at eight months rather than nine will cause developmental delays.

[“Damn these cramps,” Dave hissed.

That was another side effect of believed to be caused by his premature birth. Every month since he hit puberty, he’s been having these bad abdominal cramps. He’s gone to the doctor for it, and they just told him it was growing pains and sent him home with pain medication.

And just to be a male genital, Dirk started joking that he was PMSing.]

Uh, no, they’d have investigated the actual problem, because abdominal pain can mean something’s seriously wrong. Also, PMS stands for premenstrual syndrome, as in, prior to, which is why you look like a moron when try to use it as a clever synonym for a period.

Also, a kid who was born at six months would have had a battery of medical tests at the time, and been brought back to the hospital every time he coughed. Premature birth means premature organs and an immune system that collapses when faced with a stiff breeze.

[Dirk had heard if this guy named Jack Noir who could help them with their problem. But Noir was the last person you ever wanted to be business with. He was a notorious loan shark who had a bad reputation of getting his money back from his clients, one way or another. And they didn’t call him ‘Jack The Ripper’ for nothing.]

Why would he be going by Jack and not Slick if he’s the criminal version?

[So, FAR against his, and Jake’s, better judgement; he signed a $50,000 loan at 25% interest.]

That’s not even that bad. Credit cards charge more.

[Thankfully, over the past five years, Dirk did manage to save up the $50,000 to pay back the initial loan amount. Not over 100,000.]

Okay, so why was he such an idiot he didn’t think to try to pay down the loan at any point? The whole problem with interest is that it keeps being added on to the initial amount.

Also, shouldn’t that be more like three times the amount he borrowed, not just a bit over two times? And that’s assuming the interest isn’t being compounded regularly, which is standard for loan sharks.

[After giving him a stern lecture of this is exactly why they should have waited, Jake offered to pay the other $50,000+ debt. To which Dirk stubbornly refused him from doing so.]

Aside from what a mess your sentences are here, this is a terrible narrative decision. This means that there isn’t actually anything to worry about here. If at the end of the month Dirk’s extra jobs don’t provide enough money to pay off Jack, then Dirk can get the money from Jake and pay Jake back later. If he doesn’t and gets stabbed to death by Jack, that was entirely his choice. It’s like expecting me to feel concern about if some dumbass is going to fling himself into a shark tank, it’s not exactly some looming threat, it only happens by willful stupidity.

Also, given that apparently Dirk and Jake are joint owners of the nightclub that was funded with the money, why isn’t Jake paying the other half anyway?

[And ever since Dirk received that letter in the mail at the beginning over the month, he been working 3 extra jobs to cover the remaining debt himself. ]

And is the nightclub producing money or not? I mean, that’s kind of the idea of a loan. You take it out to do something now because you expect it to generate even more money. And if it’s not, they could always sell what they have to try to get the money that way.

[But sometimes, a man has got to do what a man’s got to do if he’s going to provide for his family and keep them out of harms way. And with Noir’s repayment policy, ‘Pay us back, or we’ll take it back.’, and Dirk wasn’t about to find out exactly what the last part of that saying actually meant.

With Noir’s long and violent history, Dirk couldn’t afford to take any chances.]

Except for the part where he’s apparently taking a huge chance by refusing Jake’s help?

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.

[“That’ll be $15.44 kid,” the cab driver told Dave as they stopped out side of Noir’s place of business.

“Here’s a $20, keep the change,” Dave said handing the man the bill as he got out of the car.]

So I’m starting to grasp why Dirk has so much trouble, they’re just idiots about money. Dave can’t take a bus or bike or, apparently, even bother to retrieve his change from his unnecessarily expensive cab ride?

[“You. You give yourself to me for one night, and your brother’s debt will be completely taken care of,” Noir grinned, “That is my offer to you. Take it or leave it.”]

I’m pretty sure market value for fifteen year old boys is somewhere south of fifty thousand dollars. Why did Dirk even need that much, god.

If you’d made the initial amount more reasonable, and had Dirk pay off most of it but be unable to pay the last bit, this would work a lot better. It’s not like a loan shark would be any more reasonable if Dirk had most or even almost all of the money, if he’s short he’s short.

[ With his and Jake’s hard work, the place was fixed up in no time. And the first night they opened, the place was packed full and there was still a line outside the door. That club was arguably one of the greatest achievements in Dirk’s life.]

And yet somehow, not successful enough to pay back the loan or even generate enough capital they could get another loan out from more legitimate sources to pay off the first.

I sure hope everyone feels like idiots when Dave learns that Jake already had the money.

Unforeseen Consequences Ch2 (Dave, Dirk (Jack Noir))

[Dave wished to God that Noir had used a condom. But being that Dave WAS a virgin, and since Noir didn’t have anything, Noir saw no point in using one.]

You seem to be suggesting Jack would use a condom if he was carrying any STDs, out of, what, concern for others or something?

[“BRO! FOR THE LAST TIME I WASN’T RAPED!” Dave ran infront of the front door and screamed to the top of his lungs before he could finally get any sense through Dirk’s skull.]

No, he was pretty obviously raped. Now, I guess you could say Dave might not see it that way, but the fact Dirk goes from planning to kill Jack to fine when Dave clarifies that instead of being attacked, Jack just threatened to destroy the club to force Dave to have sex with him is really fucked up.

[After a few minutes of silence, Dave took eerie screech if silence between the two as brother’s shunning.]

This sentence is particularly nonsensical.

[He has never felt more proud of his little brother than right now. His little brother sacrificed himself to save everything that he had been working for. No words in the English language could ever truly express how gratefully Dirk felt to his little brother.

As Dirk felt pride for his little brother fill his chest, the feeling of disgust and anger weren’t far behind. He was disgusted and angry with himself. For even getting involved with Noir in the first place. If hadn’t had taken out that loan, then his baby brother, who will always be a baby in his eyes, wouldn’t have had to pay the price. Dirk would never forgive himself for that.]

But he apparently feels no guilt over the fact his friend was already willing to pay the debt off and this only happened because he refused for inscrutable reasons and kept everything a secret from Dave.

Unforeseen Consequences Ch3 (Dave (John, Jade, Rose))

[This had been going on for nearly 2 months now. Ever since his and Noir’s little “agreement”.

Wake up, run to bathroom or the nearest trashcan; get dressed, TRY to eat breakfast, and depending whether or not breakfast was successful, run to the bathroom for trashcan again; go to school, make another maybe two or three more trips to bathroom before the day was over with; go home and and eat everything in sight; go to sleep; and then in morning, start the whole ungodly process all over again.]

Look, I realize mpreg is inevitably going to be full of medical stupidity, but you could try, you know? We can start on the fact that there isn’t a magical switch that goes as soon as you get pregnant that makes you start throwing up all the time.

[Rose took mental note of all of her friend’s strange symptoms. If she didn’t know any better, she would swear Dave really was pregnant.]

No, she doesn’t, because there are actual real illnesses that could cause that. Also, there’s the whole trauma of being raped issue.

[“Dave, I don’t know how to put this any other way, but you are experiencing the symptoms of a pregnant woman going through her first trimester,” even Rose couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of her mouth.]

I can understand her confusion, since those are not, actually, the symptoms of a pregnant woman going through her first trimester so much as an exaggerated list of every possible thing that could happen at any point during her trimester. I expect better of Rose than for her to get all her medical knowledge from trashy movies. Perhaps she’s possessed by something again.

Also, on a practical level, this stuff is caused by hormones, so Dave’s response to pregnancy should be unnaturally muted, not unnaturally exaggerated.

Unforeseen Consequences Ch4 (Dave, Dirk (Jack Noir))

[when we done your MRI,” the doctor went on, “we found a womb and a partial ovary that are connected to the anus through a fallopian tube.”]

It’s the “we done” that really makes it.

Anyway, nope! Fallopian tubes connect the ovaries to the womb, I’m not sure how one is somehow connected to three things at once and regardless, that means his womb should be a septic mess from bacteria – he’s almost certainly sterile from that – followed shortly by the rest of his internal organs, because you see, the ovaries aren’t actually latched into the other end of the fallopian tubes, they open into the body cavity.

If you want to go the secret womb route, just give him an actual vagina. You certainly made a point that Jack made a mess all over him, so it’s somewhat possible, and on balance, not any more impossible to miss than the fact they already missed the rest of this despite how much scrutiny he’d have been under as a baby.

[Here’s what I think happened. For some reason during that 9-11 week period, it took longer than normal for your, boy parts, to develop and it allowed partial female sex organs to grow. Now at about the 14th week, your boy parts were finally developed properly; but by that time also, you had already developed a womb and partial ovary that, as we now know, got connected to the anus through a fallopian tube.” the doctor concluded.]

It’s like you think it’s some sort of mystery how genitals develop, instead of hormones.

[“Well Mr. Strider, being that David is still early in his first trimester, it’s not too late for him to get an abortion. However, in his circumstances, I wouldn’t advice it. His immune system is done and the procedure would be risky for him, and he could easily catch an infection.”]

What? No. First, that early in pregnancy there’s options other than surgical abortions, second, he needs to have his uterus removed surgically as soon as possible anyway. The reason his immune system is so messed up is probably because his ass is spewing bacteria back into his body, and third, there’s no way he can safely give birth to the kid, so it’d going to have to get cut out either way, all waiting does is require a bigger hole.

(The fetus is doomed anyway – the uterus is designed to be a sterile environment, and his is hooked up to his ass.)

[What should he do? Should he give the doctor permission to do the abortion? ]

Dave is right there, why is Dirk the one talking like it’s his decision?

[“No,” Dave quietly said, “I won’t do it. I won’t have the abortion.”

“The fetus, the baby didn’t ask to be conceived the way it was; and it shouldn’t have to die because of the way it was brought into the world,” Dave spoke with the wisdom beyond his 15 years of life.]

Oh my god. I was not expecting the fic to get this bad.

I’ll stop now, nothing else is going to be able to top that.

What I don’t get is why no one ever seems interested in mpreg by way of actual intersex people. It’s never that they actually have a female body with superficially male characteristics on top, somehow it’s really vital that they have a functional penis and absolutely no vagina. Assginas only, vaginas are too gross.




Droog (Deuce, Boxcars, Slick, Cans)
Slick, Snowman (Droog, Lord English)
FOC (Doc Scratch)
FOC (Dave, Slick)
Dave, Dirk (Jake, John, Jade, Rose, Jack Noir)

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Wordcount: 45273