I’m now on the bottom of page 46. fuck my life

(Edit: For anyone new, this bold format represents comments here to anyone reading it, in contrast to the reviews that go on the story. I use it for stories whose author asked me not to post comments on their work and sometimes for additional comments that have to do with a general trend and not a specific author.)

>Open Scrapbook
Chapter 1: Dr. Lalonde/GLaDOS (G) (Lalonde, Terezi, PM, Vriska, PM, Equius, Eridan, PM, Vriska, Tavros, Kanaya, Nepeta, Terezi, Karkat (GLaDOS Nepeta, Jack, John, Jack, Kanaya))

This is so adorable. I love GLaDOS and the dialogue between them even though only one’s speaking. (And it works surprisingly well with canon even after all this time has passed.)

Chapter 2: Nepeta/Terezi bloodplay (M)

Then in the next moment there’s an explosion of red, cherry-sweet and spiced with epinephrine, and she’s back to feeling she got the better deal after all.

The description throughout this is great. And the two of them are just perfect here, sweet and terrifying at once. I wish there was more of the two of them written.

Chapter 3: Stop Touching Me (Jack/PM, T)

Ah, the AU of AU. Such conflicting feelings. Such lovely writing, such pretty wording, such depressing everything. And Jack probably thinks he’s being nice or something because Jack is a creep and a terrible person who doesn’t understand other people.

Sometime, I’d love to see her in a Derse situation (working with or something) without all the badtouch power imbalance Jack to distract her, just all the beautiful It feels a bit like living in the memory-constructed world of a dream: at once familiar and strange, and wrong in more ways — more invisible, indefinable ways — than color. stuff.

Chapter 4: Scapegoat (Vriska, T)

He even gave his consent, practically. 

This phrase sums up everything about Vriska, doesn’t it?

And I like the whole concept of this as well, particularly given how she tries to use John to make up for all the other things she’s done.

Chapter 5: Jack/PM (T)

Perfect.

Chapter 6: >Equius: Troll Eridan (T)

CT:  D  —> Seadweller you will cease directing your 100d solicitations to Nepeta
CT:  D  —> The discrepancy in b100d is e%tremely improper
CT:  D  —> Also they are making her uncomfortable

This is so perfectly Equius. He’s a bigot but he’s also a good moirail!

CA:  shit thats the wwrong kink isnt it
CA:  hold on a moment i havve to consult my notes

And this is just hilarious. If only he’d been at least this on the ball with other people in canon, he could have maybe gotten laid before he died!

You should write about characters you hate forever ::::D

Chapter 7: Needs to be Done (Kanaya and PM, G)

All of this is adorable, but I think the sweetest thing is that Kanaya’s going through all this trouble just to make Terezi’s life easier when she wakes up. She’s such a good troll not-mom. And even though PM seems older, Kanaya’s definitely the more aware and self-confident of the two.

Plus, kid/carapace chats! And with the kid actually being concerned over some detail of the carapace’s life instead of the other way around only.

Chapter 8: Round Robin (various trolls, T)

Every single line of this is hilarious. The dialogue is hilarious, the file names are hilarious (of course Nepeta’s reaction is just that it’s full of the wrong ships!), the fact everything even just head-cocking is mightily done when dragons do it is hilarious. Also the idea Kanaya and Nepeta are writing fanfic together is so cute and I am deeply curious what they get up to together. And Karkat. The only sane one of the pack.

CG:  TO THAT END I AM SCHEDULING A MANDATORY ROMANTIC COMEDY MOVIE NIGHT FOR THIS TIME NEXT WEEK.
CG:  BE THERE.
CG:  AND FUCK YOU ALL.

Oh Karkat.

Measured Out By My Own Hand (SS (PS))

In which Problem Sue has the voice of an angel.

Also, in which Slick is full of witticisms. Let it not be said that the sueing is entirely one-sided.

A book elegantly bound (SS (PS))

Huh, interesting. I think you go a bit too far with the weird formatting, but it works for the most part. The exclamation marks make things sound ridiculous, though – it’s really, really hard to put those in narration and have it work. And the words themselves do a good job of conveying what’s going on without needing any extra emphasis.

The real weak point is that this isn’t really grounded in the characters. I was sort of expecting something from Scout referencing the unswitched setting where he’s the one with shadow powers, or some other thing that has to do with him being the flip of a pretty dark person. As it is it’s really more just the shadow power itself – the characters could be any shadow/normal pair. That side of it works quite well, but it’d be better if you made the characters more distinct.

Wait It Out (DD (PI))

It’s interesting to see the development of fanon characterization when people starting from no foundation instead of canon. It seems to mostly be built out of explaining why one character puts up with the other. In poor DD’s case, apparently twitchy out of control scatterbrained wimps are his personal catnip. I’m curious if there’s some connection to the formspring PM thing.

The Jealousy of Heinous Doxy OR Why To Not Get Drunk Around Your Boyfriend’s Lover/Business Associate (SS (HD))

Hm. This seems choppy. The story works, but it feels like some of the individual points don’t connect up quite right, so they’re just happening because they’re the next thing on a list.

Scout’s “or someone” suddenly making her realize it’s Scout is odd. I’d think either she’d recognize Scout’s face on her own midway through the conversation, or that she knew it was Scout the whole time but the mention of “someone” made her guess that something about Scout in particular was the problem when she hadn’t thought of it before. But it reads as him saying “someone” makes her realize it’s Scout, when the two things don’t have much connection. If it is supposed to be her knowing it’s Scout and just realizing he’s the problem, that doesn’t come across that well and you don’t quite show how she’s changing her mind.

And the bit about “working with one arm” just sounds so terribly forced as a metaphor, and is obviously just there as a lead-in to Scout getting his arm hacked off. I’d suggest something more natural/general and just have her choose to express it through that particular method (something about PS having his hands full, maybe?) or else make it more concrete and say PS had a limb broken because of the trouble Scout’s causing.

Also
“Well, that was quite the fall you just took, if I do say so myself,” she chuckles jovially,

If the verb you’re using isn’t supposed to be the way the dialogue would be said, it’s treated as a separate sentence. So it’d be “Well, that was quite the fall you just took, if I do say so myself.” She chuckles jovially,

sERRORburb (WQ, WV, PM (AR, Serenity, WK))

I like this – the descriptions of things are lovely and you do a great job of showing each one’s differing personality, as well as the strain they’re under, but it seems too clean and simplified.

There’s no reason why they can’t take anyone extra with them and have to kill and prototype them. (If they weren’t bringing dwellings because none of the places counted as a house and were entering the Medium alone that’d have made more sense.) And although it’s brought up the fact they’re creating another Battlefield seems glossed over – WV doesn’t want to go down there and try another revolution, neither Prospitian seems interested in just changing the war so white wins or even just getting in touch with their side, and generally they don’t seem to make any decisions based on it. And we know prototyped people are still pretty close to the original, so why is AR so okay with killing the black monarchy? He’s not a Prospitian or a rebel like WV.

And the fact they have exiles and don’t interact with the Battlefield…means they create a paradise for themselves only, apparently, and at the cost of exiling and killing unknown numbers of people.

This might have worked a bit better if their glitched version had some other species in place of carapaces, but even then, I find it hard to believe that people whose lives revolved around the clashing sides part of the game would be so willing to just be players.

The Last Surprise (PS (CD, HB, DD, SS))

CD goes to get PS so he can comfort SS after the eye-and-arm thing and PS thinks oh no my precious babby how will you stab now?

Look the endless “oh no the murderer will have more trouble murdering more people now” thing just starts to grate after a while, okay? It’s fine when it’s coming from, say, Droog, who doesn’t give a fuck about other people, but it’s fucking obnoxious when it keeps turning up in characters we’re also being told are good people.

Bad Trip (Die (Droog, Crowbar))

Droog is perfect and terrible, particularly the part where he’s casually chatting with Slick on the radio.

I like Die’s narration in this, it’s an interesting change of pace without going far enough to be confusing or annoying.

The Witch of Space (Despite tag, does not really involve carapaces.)

Uh. Your Karkat voice is really off, he just sounds like a generic asshole. Among other things, Karkat doesn’t use “bitch” all that much, and when he does it’s as as part of a larger figure of speech, not just calling Jade one. He tends to be elaborate and longwinded with his insults, as well as prone to insulting himself as well.

Beyond that, this just doesn’t seem all that interesting a merger. Jade would have a different association for “witch” in the daemon universe, could be interesting, but just having her then act out her version of witchhood isn’t – it’s predictable, there’s no conflict there. Jade not being able to use her powers because she hasn’t done that, or Jade spending her time trying to find a blighted area to tear herself from her daemon when she doesn’t need to, or even just Jade using the game as part of doing it (like the gates) or already being split and that’s why she had the title in the first place, all of those involve a new combination of sburb + daemon witch mechanics. This is just the regular setting with some witch named Jade.

Chapter 2: Going Grimdark

Hm. This one works a lot better, but it’s still rather plotless. Her daemon’s weird form would be a good sign of the fact she’s corrupted by horrorterrors…except she’s also turned grey, has an aura of shadows and she’s started speaking in tongues, so it’s comparatively subtle.

She wonders if Briar will be in this form on Derse. Perhaps he will still be able to shift, or perhaps he will take his true settled form.

See that strikes me as more interesting ground to explore. The game’s supposed to be about coming of age, and a daemon’s settling is the same thing. Are dreamselves more or less locked in than the regular selves?

Chapter 3: Seer: Descend

Darc withdrew from her nuzzling of Briar, a little, perturbed by the strangeness of the other daemons behaviour, how it echoed Rose’s so precisely. More like a shadow of Rose then a part of her, Darc thought for a moment, and the idea sent her back to John, turning into a ferret and curling around his neck, most of her body hidden by his blue hood.

This seems like the only point so far where daemons are changing anything instead of just being set dressing. In the books, daemons are able to communicate with each other and their interactions can reflect or influence the people they’re connected to. Is Briar unable to communicate like Rose is? Is the connection now one-way, so John poking Rose produces a change in Briar but Darc poking Briar doesn’t get any reaction from Rose? If his daemon is freaking out, why is John unaffected and still just being a cheerful derp?

Also:
 I can’t wait to see my Dad. 

If it’s not being used as a name, it doesn’t get capitalized.
Chapter 4: Davesprite

Ah. This one works well. The bee swarm daemon is has a nice wrongness to it, not over the top but still fundamentally not right.

All That Jazz (Slick (Snowman))

This is a bit slow getting started – I feel like you spend more time than you need explaining why Slick would be out, when I don’t think it’s that hard to believe he’d visit clubs other than his own.

People around him looked at him like he was some kind of asshole, disrupting the poor woman’s performance before she’d even begun! Slick cursed them inwardly as he stormed towards the backdoor exit.

Also, just like we can assume everyone knows Slick and Snowman, they probably know about the relationship between them. So if an angry guy with an eyepatch starts flipping tables when she appears on stage, they’ll probably look closer, realize it’s Slick, and go “oh, that again” and just be glad he’s leaving instead of lighting stuff on fire or stabbing things.

Anyway, I like Snowman’s mysteriousness/collectedness/smugness and Slick’s rage. I hope this is updated since it’s such a terrible point to leave off on – what did she give him? What’s going on?

Shadow of a Doubt (PS (PI, AD, HD, NB, SS))

This really seems like it’s original fiction. There’s nothing recognizable about the characters beyond the shared initials.

Tick Tick Squeak (DD (PI))

The whole mouse thing is clever, but it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the characters beyond the thirdhand connections like “DD is calm” and “PI likes puzzles”.

Dialogue is written as “Hello,” he said or “Hello!” he said, never “Hello.” He said or “Hello.” he said or “Hello,” He said or “Hello” he said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, in which case it’s written as “Hello.” He grinned, never “Hello,” he grinned or “Hello,” He 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.

Sex Doesn’t Matter (PS (AD, PI, DD, SS))

This is cute (and full of punching, always a nice bonus), and I like how you write everyone, Slick especially.

The resolution seems kind of rushed, though – PS rambling the first time because she figures Slick isn’t listening is one thing, but then afterward blurting out that she doesn’t want him to know she’s a woman really hard to believe.

Lalonde, Terezi, PM, Vriska, PM, Equius, Eridan, PM, Vriska, Tavros, Kanaya, Nepeta, Terezi, Karkat (GLaDOS Nepeta, Jack, John, Jack, Kanaya)
SS (PS)
SS (PS)
DD (PI)
SS (HD)
WQ, WV, PM (AR, Serenity, WK)
PS (CD, HB, DD, SS)
Die (Droog, Crowbar)
Slick (Snowman)
PS (PI, AD, HD, NB, SS)
DD (PI)
PS (AD, PI, DD, SS)

2 1/2 of 12.