3/8-3/16

Insomnia (SS (Karkat))

Hm. This is just really confused, because it’s not really Spades Slick dreaming of being Bec Noir, it’s human dad Spades Slick dreaming about a guy he really has nothing in common with, not even a shared past.

In another you’re floating in the emptiness of space, hovering there, when a woman appears, and then your gut twists when you see the grief and pain on her face, so like your own grief and pain, and in that moment you fall in love with this woman who lost everything, but gained everything, just as you did.

Also it’s not really grief and pain on her face, it’s rage, at him, for personally murdering or attempting to murder everything she had, twice over. Even Bec Noir probably has the presence of mind not to think it’s exactly the same situation.

Missed this one. It’s the usual issue of the invented to canon ratio in these fanfics being so horribly skewed.

Also, I think I figured out why people are so behind “Bec Blanche” when they used to be all for WV getting the ring because he had such a better claim to it. The female avenger in media is tied to family. Women don’t get revenge of their own until their entire family’s dead, and the murder of their family is also one of the only motivations they can have. That fits with the emphasis WV and sometimes AR take here, as if that’s the only reason she has to kill Bec Noir.

Destroy, She Said (Condesce (Dirk))

She’s not a figurehead. She’s not one Queen, isolated and bitter.

I’m not really sure why the standard Queen would be an isolated, bitter figurehead. She seems quite accessible, was certainly in charge of the place, and Derse is the winning side.

a fish princess

And why would the Condesce ever be considered a princess and not a queen? She was already a queen when she got there.

I like the studied cruelty of all this. She’s enjoying what she does but there’s also reasoning about how it’s to her advantage, which makes sense given how many rebellions she must have seen by now.

Defenders of New Prospit (John (Dave))

Your characterization seems really poor. John and Dave seem to be more like the standard archetype each one is, with all the bits that make them them sloughed off. John isn’t actually a flat happy go lucky superman type, and Dave isn’t actually a cool perfectly controlled guy, and he definitely can’t manage terse. John resenting Dave saving people when he screwed up seems particularly bad.

Defenders of New Prospit Ch3

So both of the girls are villains. Really?

Also contains shoehorned moirail Vriska to make it clear she’s totally not going to compete with the Johndave.

NB: Escape the City (NB (HD, WQ, BQ))

You’ve become more apt to protecting yourself

Apt at, not to.

it’s own

Its. No apostrophe when it’s possessive.

you’re group

Your. You’re=you are.

the woman in White

I understand why you’re trying to emphasize it, but it just looks clunky to capitalize. It’s fine as epithet if you don’t want to name them, and if you really want something more like a name go all the way, White/Black Queen works well enough in a setting with Nervous Broad and Hysterical Dame.

I really like how you describe all of them, and it’s interesting to see them teamed up together.

You Can’t Break Up The Midnight Crew (Slick (Hussie))

Once, the alien comes to you dressed in green. By then you’ve regained use of your metal hand, and you stab him for even coming near you with that disgusting color. He continues wearing it anyway.

The “once” doesn’t seem like it belongs there, unless “continues to wear” means he doesn’t immediately strip after being stabbed.

I like the feel of this, it’s a sort of slow grumbling unhappiness that fits well with him being at death’s door and not really able to muster the energy for more rage or to care much about what’s happening beyond that he doesn’t want to be alive in the first place.

Taikyoku

Yay, I’ve reached my fic again! …wait, that means it’s more than a year since I’ve updated. Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkk.

What Once Was Mine (SS, DD, GPI (PS, PI))

Well, that was hard to follow. Just specifically, stuff like The bony detective is utterly confused. doesn’t do anything to tell me which of the two bony detectives you’re referring to, to say nothing of the fact that being bony has nothing to do with anything else in the scene. In general, you’re just vague and all over the place, with lots of people reacting to stuff as being super important to very little explaining what it is that’s happening in the first place. And given the universe, corrupted Scout should just be Slick, not Scofflaw – plus, really, why would he give up himself for someone who tried to murder him and who he realized didn’t actually care about him? It’d make sense if it’d been Scout who decided it was necessary to shoot Scofflaw, but this makes no sense.

For DD and PI…’tis like a game for them. They can go from almost killin’ each other to just cuddling. For me…well th’ idea of fightin’ you isn’t that appealin’ anymore, not even when ya pull a heist and we go all crossfire.”

Also, Spades Slick is pretty much the incarnation of kismesis. It’s right in the name. Trying to say that DD is the one fine with tearing the other person apart but any version of SS would just want to cuddle doesn’t work.

It’s really interesting to see what happens with people writing fanfic of fanfic of fanfic of fanfic. On the other hand, the actual results aren’t interesting in any other way, which sucks.

I’m going to have to remember for the next original fic vs fanfic argument that people left to their own devices are way more derivative.

Signals (OCs)

Jegus formatting is a bitch.

I’d be more concerned about the fact the resulting mess is completely unreadable. I get that you tried sticking a darker background on to make the terrible font colors you picked more legible, but it just moved it from difficult to impossible to read. I had to highlight the whole thing to read it, so you might as well have just left the colors off entirely.

The plant thing and a guardian that eats them seems interesting, though.

Signals Ch4

This chapter is a duplicate of Ch3.

Signals Ch5

Huh. Well, the whole plant people thing was intriguing, particularly their uneasy acceptance of a creature that chows down on them, but you really don’t have much here. Telling stories through pesterlogs only is extremely limiting, and hearing about one character knowing the future is just plain boring – it’s established in canon that it’s real and it works, so there’s no suspense here and hearing characters argue about it is just tiresome.

Snow (Droog, Slick (Boxcars, Snowman))

“God damn it, Droog!” Slick resorted to banging on the windows, but could draw no more reaction from his friend. Eventually he had to move on.

Why not smash his way in? Even if he’s tried it before so he knows knows it wouldn’t help, I’d think he’d still smash one for the road if Droog won’t let him in. That’d probably better justify Droog having enough of a grudge to tell the others not to help him out either, too.

“Slick,” she said, and though there was no sharpness in her tone, it still shut him up, even after all these years. “You can’t deny the hilarity in it. Especially your assault on the poor news caster.”
“Yeah, yeah, real fucking funny.”
“Did you have to bite him?”

This is perfect though.

The snow bit is fun but mostly she’s just being way too nice here, and Slick similarly seems to prefer things that way for no clear reason. I could buy not being especially cruel or maybe hanging out civilly, but fetching him hot chocolate so they can kiss tenderly on the bench is way, way too much, and I really can’t see why Slick would sit passively for several minutes expecting her to bite and then accepting she’s not going to rather than just biting her right at the start.

Soothing (DD (PI, PS))

Hm, that was cute. I like the dynamic here, DD managing to still be in control despite the circumstances.

Throwback (PI (DD))

You know, I like how this is set up as a story, particularly how you used the dream bit, but it’s really got no connection to the characters it’s supposedly about.

Thank You Notes (DD (PI))

Seriously though why not original fiction? I mean, normally the answer is because the fanfiction gets more attention, but this is a tiny corner of fandom where it’s the same handful of people writing their own OOCverse together, so, why not?

Crack Fic: Godhead Diamonds Droog, Mobster Extraordinaire (DD (SS, CD, HB))

Diamonds Droog was not naturally a vocal person. When he spoke, it was normally brisk and concise. He didn’t mince words. So the idea that he would give a speech made the rest of the Crew groan in unison

Generally, concise people give concise speeches, so the reasoning here is backwards.

Droog seems to have swapped personalities with Slick.

I guess that’s the other half of the problem, that people pick certain characters and want to use them everywhere, even when it doesn’t fit. Earlier there was Scout who didn’t want to fight with his mobster husbando, here it’s Droog being a bossy egotistical asshole.

Life (Through The Eyes Of A Child) (femSS (PS, Karkat, DD, Sonhearst))

It’s interesting that female Scout gets to be more violent and supposedly assertive at the cost of it being completely defanged and ineffectual.

Scathed (DD (PI, PS, SS))

Hostage (DD, SS, PI, HB (PS, CD, Snowman, Crowbar, MOCs))

Decently plotted but again, really no connection to the characters.

The day the light of democracy went out (Serenity, WV)

yes I know that canonically Serenity is alive one year into the trip

I’d say the bigger issue is that she was also still alive on post-apocalyptic earth imbedded in a chunk of amber. Really doesn’t seem like she’s a regular firefly.

Anyway, this isn’t much of a story. Serenity is dying, WV is upset, Serenity dies. Nothing much happens and it doesn’t show anything new about them.

SS (Karkat)
Condesce (Dirk)
John, Jade, Rose (Dave, CD, AR)
NB (HD, WQ, BQ)
Slick (Hussie)
SS, DD, GPI (PS, PI)
OCs
Droog, Slick (Boxcars, Snowman)
DD (PI, PS)
PI (DD)
DD (PI)
DD (SS, CD, HB)
femSS (PS, Karkat, DD, Sonhearst)
DD (PI, PS, SS)
DD, SS, PI, HB (PS, CD, Snowman, Crowbar, MOCs)
Serenity, WV

Five and a half of sixteen.

Page 539.