3/22-3/28
Tick Tock Morning (Slick (Snowman))
I like the gritty miserable misanthropy of the opening, and the range of Snowman’s taunt – sticking a giant clock in his room is nicely extravagant in itself, but the knife through the bed adds a nice violent touch to things.
Noir (Slick (Droog, Deuce, Eridan? Snowman))
An alternate timeline in American history, where humans and Alternians live side-by-side.
I really don’t get why you’d turn half of them human instead of both or neither.
And eh. Deuce is probably nicer than the rest of the Crew, but he’s still happy to blow people up when it comes to it, so focusing instead on him being murdered on his way to bring them candy is a bit much.
For the first time in your life, you recall being disgusted by the act of murder, never did you think stabbing something would cause such distress.
Slick’s also a fan of beating people to death with his horse hitcher, which bears more similarity to someone crushed by a car and definitely would involve prolonged suffering. He’s a pretty terrible person, so while I could easily seem him upset over the death of his friend, it’s hard to believe him suddenly being horrified at the idea of murder itself and acting as if he has some moral code about killing cleanly.
(And given he’s so stabby, it’s extremely hard to believe he’s never seen troll blood before, unless they’re either newcomers to the area or normally segregated so their paths don’t cross.)
That purple-blooded motherfucker took your eye, jabbed his gray thumb right into the socket.
That Slick always gets somehow blinded, even when Snowman isn’t involved, is kind of overdone.
Well, that was nicely gory. I can’t tell if the ending is him actually dying or just passing out, though.
Tribute to Hunger and the Fallen Games (MOCs)
The man clenches the boys hand tighter, “Because this is ‘their’ sport.”
Boy’s, apostrophe for possessive, and you shouldn’t have a comma there. Dialogue is only part of the sentence if there’s a speech verb (said/replied/yelled) relating to how it’s being said in that sentence. Also, don’t think you should have the scare quotes in there.
“It’s their punishment…”, he trails off,
In addition, absolutely never double up your punctuation like this, and similarly, never put the punctuation outside of the quotes. If you’re using an ellipsis or an exclamation mark or whatever, it replaces the other punctuation.
His jacket, a gift from his father made of strong lether, decorated with many pockets, and dyed to a deep earthy green, is shifted below his shoulders reveling his black shirt.
This is just a terrible mess. Run spellcheck, google for grammar guidelines to get the basics, then find someone to beta read to help you clean up the rest.
Not technically within the mandate but I can’t resist a look at shitty Hunger Games fic.
Jack Noir the Silly Doggy (Jack)
It’s a thing.
Endgame (PM (Jack, WV, John))
I love how you describe things, particularly the terrible sense of emptiness.
The Odds Are Slim (Feferi (Meenah, Condesce, FOC))
This is so ridiculously OOC I don’t understand why you’re doing it.
I mean, it’s not just that Feferi is casually pondering executing her servant for being nervous, or that she’s apparently hero-worshipping the Condesce, but also she’s a spineless wimp who only does what she’s told, can barely think in front of the crowd, and believes that she’s absolutely doomed just because Meenah didn’t court sponsors politely, since she apparently has no actual faith in her own skills. And this in a game where half the people survive instead of only one.
Meanwhile, Meenah, the kid who actually is alt-Condesce and whose Alternian version is explicitly supposed to be who she dreamed of being, thinks the Condesce is an idiot and won’t go along with her plan?
And what little of the Condesce is just weird – she styles herself an empress because she actually is one, so making her someone who just insists on being called that and saying the girls are princesses doesn’t work at all. She absolutely doesn’t fit the idea of a hovering, impotent force.
Also, 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, in which 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.” And the same punctuation and capitalization applies to thoughts.
Riddle Me, Confound Me (Aradia (Doc Scratch, Dave))
Eh. This seems to be light on identifiable characterization. The characters don’t seem flat, but the traits you build them with are almost all invented, so they’re more OCs than anything. Aradia likes astrology, yeah. But she doesn’t seem to be cripplingly shy. I’m also really not sure why you thought Doc Scratch was a good choice for her loving dad given we’ve seen what he does to kids – the “doctor” angle alone seems pretty irrelevant since it really doesn’t seem to matter why she first sees Dave, just that it happens. And she does have her own canonical mother figure to draw on for humanstuck stuff.
People really need to stop doing this. It gets creepier every time.
One Night at Tinkerbull’s (Karkat, Vriska (Sollux, Aradia, Gamzee, Terezi))
This seems only dubiously connected to the characters. Karkat seems subdued and the rest seem like you’ve confused surface traits for personality – Sollux dating Aradia is really the least of things about either character. And while it may be a 1920s setting, it’s still awkward for the characters to be regressing to those relationship dynamics – why is it on Sollux to ask Aradia to marry him, as opposed to a criticism of both? And really, pulling Terezi into his lap?
And Vriska…
They had both been reveling in the high of their last massacre
Why is Vriska massacring people? When she did that in canon it was for a particular reason, and she never seemed that happy about it – being forced to confront her victims is even what set her off to attack Aradia. She’s certainly willing to kill and quick to harm others, but it’s not the end in itself. And she’s especially unwilling to kill people she considers friends, which presumably includes Nepeta given how they talk, so I can’t see her gleeful about a plan involving shooting Nepeta if they see her.
He was always a poor motherfucker
Also making Equius poor makes no sense. His whole thing is that he’s on the upper side of the hemospectrum but not at the top. It doesn’t even fit the situation properly! A kid near Gamzee’s social status would be best positioned to know Gamzee’s own family was rich and explain how Gamzee knows Equius will do whatever a superior tells him.
Just keeps going downhill from there. In the last chapter there’s Gamzee torturing Tavros by stabbing him in the legs, so it’s even stupid just dealing with the plot.
Death of a Friendship (Dirk, Dave (Jake, Lord English, Rose))
Nicely dismal, but it’s too long for something that’s just a scene with a predictable conclusion, and the extra pesterlog doesn’t really add anything either. Tightening it up would really help – the bit about keeping his shit together segueing into carrying a teacup was entertainingly inventive, but a lot of the rest is plain and predictable (do you really need him repeating over and over about it being his fault? Do you need Dirk to go on quite so long about how this isn’t Jake or that he’s alone?)
Slick (Snowman)
Slick (Droog, Deuce, Eridan? Snowman)
Jack
PM (Jack, WV, John)
Feferi (Meenah, Condesce, FOC)
Aradia (Doc Scratch, Dave)
Karkat, Vriska (Sollux, Aradia, Gamzee, Terezi)
Dirk, Dave (Jake, Lord English, Rose)
Two of eight.
Page 551.