Day 7 Carapace Reviews (18)

3/22/12-4/1/12

I Owe You Everything (Slick (Doc Scratch))

[“Typical.” Slick said]

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.

This is unbelievably OOC. It honestly reads like it’s a fanfic for some other fandom and you changed the names. Not only do these characters have none of their canon traits, but you’ve then loaded them down with a bunch of new traits that actively contradict canon.

The Day He Died (Doc Scratch (Slick))

And this is even more OOC, somehow. I just really don’t get the point. If you wanted to do a fic about someone being blindsided by Slick’s death, mourning and eventually committing suicide, you have three other characters who all canonically do care about him and canonically can’t see the future in perfect accuracy so they’d already know Slick would die and exactly when.

What the fuck.

Let’s Play a Game (FOC (MOC))

Hm. Well, your writing is entertaining enough so far, and you’ve started with her getting the game, so things seem on track.

Let’s Play a Game Ch2

This is duller, and not just because you’ve repeated the conversation. Spending a lot of time on setup is going to be inevitably tedious because it’s something the reader already knows about. You want to hurry to the point your story is going in a different direction.

Ah, it’s just like home in pokefandom with OT fic.

Let’s Play a Game Ch3

[BA: my character dying is not a big deal
LM: no no no
LM: IT’S NOT A CHARACTER!
LM: it is you as an actual person and that’s how you play and theres a METEOR HEADING TO YOUR HOUSE AT THIS VERY MOMENT!]

So wait, they know the game lets you edit reality, because Adam offers to grab her server disk for her, but not that there isn’t a character and it’s just you in the game?

Hm, well, that was nicely sudden. Would probably have been better served by minimizing on the long conversation and question of how a character knows about the server issue without anyone else knowing. Put the focus on the maimed future dreamselves, that’s where it’s interesting.

Let’s Play a Game Ch4

That was rather minimal on actual content.

Let’s Play a Game Ch5

Yeah, getting pretty boring. You’re having characters tell each other things the reader knows and that apparently they don’t even think is all that big of a deal. If characters find nothing impressive about future selves popping in, and no one even finds their not finding it odd to be weird, then it’s harder to find it interesting to read about. Either drop meteors on their heads or go back to the person who’s got stuff happening.

Let’s Play a Game Ch6

Uh, did you miss Dave being perfectly alive when he jumped into Davesprite? There’s no need to kill her pet or future self in order for them to prototype.

The mirror’s an interesting item, though.

Let’s Play a Game Ch7

[“But… that never happened,” she said quietly.

But, if it never happened, then why did she remember it?]

Yeah, that’s not how their timeline stuff works. Altering the timeline dooms the future meddlers. Trolls can only bug people they were always going to bug otherwise. If a troll goes back in time, it’s to say, “Hey, at (time) I’ll be telling you I can do this and you’ll disbelieve me so I came here to tell you you’re an idiot.”

Let’s Play a Game Ch8 (FOC (BQ))

You actually got to Derse! These stories usually give up long before then. And for some reason the Black Queen’s killing her dreamers.

Well, anyway. It’s doubtful you’ll continue this, but it does have some interesting stuff going on. You should try to focus more on showing events rather than relying so much on pesterlog conversations about them – it’s far less interesting than what’s actually going on. You also should ask yourself how many characters you actually need – are the trolls actually doing anything here, or are they just here because Homestuck had them? And either make sure all your characters have interesting things going on, or else don’t give them all the same amount of screentime.

BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ BQ ::::D You would not believe how many damn stories are kingdom AUs about Derse and Prospit and Skaia and they’re just about the humans being in charge of some country.

Raindrops (Boxcars (Slick, Droog, Deuce))

[In that brisk and chilly,]

Think you dropped the word “night”.

Anyway, that was cute and you built up to it nicely.

Raindrops Ch2 (Quarters (Slick))

Hm. It’s a different take, but I didn’t find it that convincing. Slick is just too gleefully brutal for it to seem reasonable for any semi-moderate person to be regretful about killing him because they respect him as a survivor. Maybe if there was more of a sense Quarters respected Slick as a gang leader and fighter as well, and on a more aspired-to sort of level. It just seems like it should take a lot of respect for someone to be regretful about it.

Raindrops Ch3 (Doze (Itchy))

That’s an interesting idea for Doze. I wish you’d just stuck on exploring it instead of jumping directly into him also being in a relationship with Itchy – it’s a relationship that at once is pretty standard in fanfic and yet also not canonical enough it can be dropped in like it requires no explanation – it may not need much, but something.

I am apparently the only one in fandom to think this, but it’s tiresome whenever some fanfic idea ends up getting treated like it’s just how things always are. Sometimes fanon can be decent stuff, but it still needs to be properly supported.

My First Kiss Went a Little Like This (Clover (Felt, Deuce))

Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks. Also, a new speaker means you start a new paragraph.

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.

Also, this is generally riddled with errors. Proofread better and get a beta reader.

Facing the Truth (WV (Rose))

Hm, depressing. Also, really glad to see you have WV talking instead of making carapaces mute.

But, WV really doesn’t know much about what happened, and neither do they. All the people on the meteor can tell him is that PM appeared with only him, not what went on with the others. He’d only know as much as WQ told him in advance, because he was separated from them in the initial attack. That they’re all dead he may well be able to guess from the fact PM only took him with her, but he wouldn’t really know.

Facing the Truth Ch2

This doesn’t seem to be adding much. You say he has trouble getting along, but don’t really show it, and that he has more trouble with the trolls and prefers the humans, but not why the humans would be more tolerant of him than any of the trolls. It’s nice to see him restarting Can Town by the end, though.

Facing the Past (Bec Noir (Jack))

Hm, this is somewhat confusing. He seems to have just jumped to a new session, but the people there think he’s the Black King, or he actually is the Black King in role? You say he’s supposed to be on the battlefield and his counterpart is there, but stealing the Queen’s ring doesn’t make him the king.

Regardless, his interaction with his alt-self is nicely done.


Slick (Doc Scratch)
Doc Scratch (Slick)
FOC, MOC (BQ)
Boxcars (Slick, Droog, Deuce)
Quarters (Slick))
Doze (Itchy))
Clover (Felt, Deuce)
WV (Rose)
Bec Noir (Jack)

Page 136

Wordcount: 14069

2 Comments

  1. Ember says:

    “But, WV really doesn’t know much about what happened, and neither do
    they. All the people on the meteor can tell him is that PM appeared with
    only him, not what went on with the others.”

    PM didn’t actually appear at all:  she just sent him to them through the portal to the green sun in her body.  Rose’s powers would probably give her some information about her, however, since it’s likely she’ll be instrumental in their eventual victory.

    1. Farla says:

      Ah, right. There really needs to be some hyperdetailed summary of all events somewhere to refer back to.

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