Ebony and Ivories (PS (SS))

This is one of the many empty fics of the pairing where there’s a few pieces that match canon, but none of the people involved have anything to do with it. There’s a guy with one arm who’s upset he can’t play piano, and another guy trying to cheer him up.

Control (Droog (Slick))

This is written nicely, and I can see both of them acting like this.

He’ll be back. He always comes back after visiting his bitch.

This just doesn’t quite sound right, not like how Droog appears in canon or how he sounds in the rest of the fic. Too petty and jealous, maybe.

There’s often something off in how so many of the fics talk about Snowman. Stuff like referring to her as if she’s only relevant in what she is to Slick comes up a lot.

Ritual (Crowbar (Snowman, Die, Itchy, Trace, Doze))

I really like this. It’s interesting seeing both the ritual itself and how it’s getting altered/adapted/mangled by them, as well as how all the characters view it differently. And it’s surprisingly cute.

Also there’s something hilarious about Snowman’s smug satisfaction. And something satisfying about Itchy getting hurt.

Fuck the Universe (Snowman)

Hm. This is an interesting idea but some of the details seem off. Colds generally don’t have very strong symptoms and particularly they have mild to no fever in adults, while a hundred and four degrees is usually the upper limit of how high a fever can safely get and some actual global warming on at least the local scale doesn’t make sense – global warming is, well, global, and it has to do with more long-term/permanent changes anyway, this would seem to be more of a heat wave. (The fever thing would also be really dangerous – if her fever results in the temperature changing to that, then she’d heat up further, and you’d get a runaway effect fast.) Basically, if she’s this miserable it doesn’t seem like it’s just a common cold and the heat issue would probably need real treatment fast.

If the idea is carapaces don’t get sick before exile, so this is the first or one of the first times she’s been sick and her immune system is still crappy, it’d be good to make that clearer. Parts of this seem to be treating it like this is might be a new thing for her, and other parts like it’s standard and it’s just the universe-damaging that’s new.

One Hell of a Headache (Crowbar (Scratch, Stitch, Snowman, Die))

I’m not really sure what’s going on here? Apparently it’s Die’s fault they all have headaches, but not why he’s doing it. Plus whatever he’s doing when Crowbar catches him seems to be far more effective than the past ones, which is weird.

Also, it took me a while to figure out it was just everyone in the mansion, and not everyone in the city. “Everyone else” is rather vague, something more specific like “the rest of the Felt” would have avoided that.

What’s in a Name? (Bro (Doc Scratch))

…and people said the formspring rpers were terrible?

For some reason people are kudosing this. There’s something wrong with all of you.

An Attempt To Level Up To Newlywed Status (PI, SS, DD, HB, CD, PS, (HD, NB, AD))

The characters seem really OOC in this. And while the idea of Slick not knowing how to handle a wedding is an intriguing one, you never explain why he’s so anxious the first place when he doesn’t seem like the sort of person to care.

This fic is a perfect example of what’s so frustrating about a lot of these fics. Crack premises can make for really good fic if they explore the characters’ reactions to something so far off their normal range. And there’s little bits of this, but they’re swamped by a sea of lolkawiihusbando crack portrayal. You can’t change the characters to go with the premise. Then it’s just badfic.

Problem Sleuth: Be Incredibly Ill (PS (PI, SS))

You describe it all very well. I found the references to Slick distracting, though – when you brought him up, I was expecting him to show up or somehow impact the story, but he never does.

Another irritating thing people do is not really grasping how fanfic interacts with canon. Even if you ship a crack pair, and write about a crack pair a lot, you still shouldn’t shove a reference to them into a fanfic that has nothing to do with them as in the same offhand way you’d include a canon detail.

Rainy Mood (PS (SS))

This seems more like an original fiction short about two guys getting rained on.

you feel a little embarrassed, offering this humble abode to a guy with five apartments scattered across the city and all furnished with stuff costing collectively more than you make in a year.

Slick is the sort of person who lives in a secret cramped hideout under a manhole cover with three other people. It’s not absolutely impossible that he could have classy apartments everywhere, but it’s somewhat unlikely.

Is that something Path is to blame for, or is this a case of convergent fanon evolution from the original starting assumption that Slick is somehow cool and suave?

Shadow Man (PS (BQ, PI, AD))

You keep flipping between second and third person. You should proofread better.

The memories of the few times when he hadn’t been able to meet her exacting orders were not pleasant— a month locked in a pitch-black, tiny cell; being chained to his desk for a week with no sustenance; private “counseling” sessions that went on for days at a time.

There’s really very little to suggest that Jack was treated that abusively by the queen, so it doesn’t make much sense for a flipped version. If there’s some reason for it, that’s fine, but it seems like PS, like Jack, already had a perfectly good motive of wanting to be the one in charge.

Being in the center of the Queen’s advisers and intelligence made it easy to find the perfect opportunity to take her down. You would have just exiled her— it would have been far more fun to imagine her knowing she lost it all because of you— but the Inventor had argued against that, saying it was safer for her to be dead.

The queens are really hard to take down. The two times we’ve seen Jack manage it, he either had a superweapon or it was a long, involved plot against a queen who had already put herself at a disadvantage, and in both cases it’s not clear whether killing or exiling her was a choice or a matter of it being the only option to remove her given the situation.

Also, this suggests that PI is smarter or else more convincing than DD in this respect, which seems weird. DD is the one really good at predicting exactly what people will do, and he’s almost certainly more persuasive.

It’s silly to say you built Midnight City, because it isn’t true in the least. You manipulated others to do it for you, making it a city where Dersites and Prospitans could live together after the war finally destroyed the old lands— and then you came in and organized the underworld of crime when the city was firmly established.

That’s an interesting idea for how things would work out differently with PS in charge rather than Slick. It’d be nice to see that develop.

…Well, it’s not as bad as that fic where PS got sick of the queen so he casually strangled her on a whim or anything, but I still really hate how it’s just assumed flipped PS could easily take her out.

“This is an alternate universe, i.e. free ground for artistic license. So canonically there may not be much evidence for Jack being abused by the queen, but there certainly isn’t much evidence that she didn’t, either.”

Arg.


Well, that goes a long way to explaining a lot of the problems I’m running into.

Nice Work If You Can Get It (PI, DD) Older one, looks like I missed it somehow.

You write PI’s rambling attention well, but Droog is badly OOC.

Why would Droog agree to a blind date, particularly one that involves getting stuck in a restaurant waiting and possibly getting stood up? Why would he drink a bottle of wine while waiting? Why would he be friendly and chuckling?

Of all the people fer Problem Sleuth ta fix me up with. What do ya know? Heh. Well, Pickle Inspector, I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure of formally introducin’ myself to you, so…” He held out a hand across the table to the spacey detective. “Droog. Diamonds Droog.”

Droog really shouldn’t sound like this. Honestly, the guy you’re writing here is closer to Slick.

You’ve also got numerous typos, mostly missing punctuation and uncapitalized words.

I think one part of the crossoververse problem is some people are far more interested in the Problem Sleuth part, and are just using the Homestuck characters because other people are.

Something Suitably Crass to Catch Your Attention (Droog (Slick, PS))

You write them drunk well, quite amusing without veering off into OOC. I particularly liked the card business.

PS (SS)
Droog (Slick)
Crowbar (Snowman, Die, Itchy, Trace, Doze)
Snowman
Crowbar (Scratch, Stitch, Snowman, Die)
Bro (Doc Scratch)
PI, SS, DD, HB, CD, PS, (HD, NB, AD)
PS (PI, SS)
PS (SS)
PS (BQ, PI, AD)
PI, DD
Droog (Slick, PS)

One of twelve. And we’ll probably be keeping that general ratio for a bit.

In other news, the Shiplympics is going again! And it looks like there’s going to be a lot of teams! Hopefully some carapace ships get in. Also, hopefully the large Eridan segment somehow doesn’t fuck up.