11/24/11-12/21/11

The Two of Light and Dark (Kids, Guardians, Jack)

This isn’t really a story. It’s just a description of the setting.

A Jack on the Chessboard (Snowman (Jack, Doc Scratch))

[Now alone once more among bright quiet sands
hungry, thirsty, half dead on your knees and your hands
you weren’t bred for survival, you realise soon]

I’m really not sure where you get the idea the character bred to murder the heroes of the game is designed to be a weakling.

[he wants you to work, be his femme fatale]

A femme fatale is a woman who makes up for her lack of power by seducing the men who do have it and using them.

This is well enough written, but I really question why your headcanon amounts to that the person we only see giving orders and violently injuring people is pathetic and easily cowed.

If I may digress…

Sometimes, people will exaggerate how hard things are for their favorite character, or put them through things that are a lot worse than really makes sense in canon. But the recurring thing I see here with Snowman is that there isn’t the usually wallowing focus. Look here, for example: she’s half dead, but instead of focusing on how unfair that is, the subject switches to how she’s incapable. The next line is her intending to just lie down and die because of this fact. Similarly:

[as he leads you away you stay quiet as a mouse
not only from weakness, but out of respect
the power of this man’s more than you would expect]

The focus here isn’t on her, it’s on how bitch BETTER be respectful because HEY LOOK AT HOW GREAT HE IS HE’S REALLY GREAT WAY GREATER THAN SHE IS also remember how weak she is because boy is she ever.

Similarly, yesterday’s Queen is Dead character assassination knockoff didn’t focus on how miserable the queen was in exile without the people she was used to, or even much about how hard it was to survive. It made it both that she was an uppity bitch and that she was willing to degrade and humiliate herself because she was a weakling who needed help.

Compare this to Jack. Jack-centered fic is about how unfair the queen is, how much of a bitch she is. When it remembers he has negative traits, it glories them. If there’s Jack-fic that involves him begging others for help because he’s bred for stabbing, not survival, I haven’t seen it.

(Slick (PS, DD, Scratch))

Hm. It’s an interesting setup with plenty of potential for humor, but I feel like you didn’t really go anywhere with it. You have Slick waking up, listing off his bedmates, and that’s it.

Significance (Snowman (Slick))

[She had no name, had never known any sort of attachment. No real emotion other than pleasure, the sick joy of seeing redredred painting the nameless carapaces, their shells guarding nothing but a meaningless existence. They meant nothing.]

The Queen civilly gives PM directions and governs her side. Jack is the one motivated by nothing but the joy of splattering people across the scenery.

I had forgotten about the quality Snowman fic we get in this fandom. Maybe it’s a blessing AOOOOOOOO is all Sleuth all the time instead.

Trollhood (Doc Scratch)

[Many things could happen, maybe for the better]

Doc Scratch doesn’t actually care about “better” except in the sense of “better for English”. If this is a timeline that didn’t happen, it’s one that’s inferior to his purposes, and he really doesn’t care what the feelings of others are on the matter.

[This thirteenth troll is quite the loner. He hides up in his room all day with his lusus, a cast-out member of a high class. A royal blood, if you will.]

The cast already includes an empress-to-be, a royal seatroll, and the highest landdweller blood. Also, the missing spot on the color wheel where Karkat would fit if he wasn’t mutant is in the greens. Making this guy a royal despite all that sounds sueish already.

[He was a close friend of Sollux’s]

Also, Sollux is low caste and his friendships are all around the same area prior to meeting Feferi as part of the game.

Trollhood Ch3 (FOC)

[CU: !+ seems +ha+ your +!mel!nes are !n+er+w!ned w!+h ours, so ! +hough+ !’d make some fr!endly rela+!ons.]

Ugh. Neither of those two substitutions are particularly intuitive, so you really should have stuck with a single one, or else gone the Vriska route of having it be intermittent. ! alone would have been fine, it’s a vowel, it shows up plenty.

Also, there’s a reason the trolls didn’t start being helpful until the kids were reasonably into the game. It’s really not that interesting to just have one character telling another how to avoid problems.

10 Mini Fics (John, Dualscar, Doc Scratch, Dave, Karkat, Kanaya, Bec Noir, Bro (Mindfang, Snowman, Terezi, Feferi, Sollux, Eridan, PM)) (See this is why I think keeping track of which characters get the POV is relevant. Look at it.)

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.

[ “Karkat…” He murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘You can do this, Egbert…’ He told himself, taking a deep breath. “I don’t want to be your kismesis… I’d like to be your matesprit.”]

As he emphatically turned down either option in canon, the idea he’s already attached isn’t the best place to open. Better to show the change in option instead.

[ the other male]

Don’t overuse epithets.

[ Although a little voice in the back of Kanaya’s mind told her to approach him and try to get him to stop sulking. It wasn’t healthy…]

Kanaya loathes dealing with Eridan. Their first conversation is nothing but her telling him repeatedly that she doesn’t care about his bullshit and won’t help him.

[Not to mention that they needed him. He, though most of the trolls wouldn’t admit it, was one of their best fighters.]

No, he wasn’t. He got his ass handed to him by Sollux and is widely considered a joke by this point, including to her, which played a large part of her decision to give him the wands.

[Most of the trolls questioned Kanaya’s decision to teach the male white magic, but she stood by her decision…]

The decision that she thought it was funny and would shut him up and make him leave her alone for a while if she made a stupid joke weapon for him.

[Kanaya felt guilt and pity welling up in her, sighing softly. “Have you ever thought to look around? Maybe there is someone who feels flushed for you?” She asked, putting a hand on his cheek.]

She’s a lesbian. Also, she can’t stand him.

I think Kanaya/Eridan really is the worst pairing this fandom has. I mean, you’ve got your sticking gay people in straight relationships pairings and your shipping murderers with their victims pairings and your the murder is all a girl’s fault for not comforting Eridan pairings and your pairing Eridan with people who have made it clear they can’t stand being around him, but only Kanaya is all of them at once.

(Kids, Guardians, Jack)
Snowman (Jack, Doc Scratch)
Slick (PS, DD, Scratch)
Snowman (Slick)
Doc Scratch, FOC (Kids, Karkat)
John, Dualscar, Doc Scratch, Dave, Karkat, Kanaya, Bec Noir, Bro (Mindfang, Snowman, Terezi, Feferi, Sollux, Eridan, PM)


Three of six.

Author response post will likely be going up tomorrow – I only got one reply today so I’m holding off.

Page 172.

Wordcount: 5899