Ice, Chapter Two

[farla]

Chapter Two of Ice is now up. The scene quality varies, so feel free to yell at me about some of the poorer ones.

I'm trying to figure out her eyes. Human eyes are able to move around a lot, but most animals don't have that, especially nocturnal ones. But if she's passing as human, she needs movable eyes. I've at least figured out that her iris is white. I'm not sure about her color vision either. Obviously she has it, but I can't decide how good it is.

Comments

Eyes? Not really the most important aspect. Vaugueness- much more important

[(Anonymous)]

I can't say I thought very much of the second chapter. It has a very disjoined feel and I found it quite difficult to summon the desire to keep reading it. Your overall idea for this fic may be good but this chapter drained any interest from it with ambigious and confusing sentences. You seemed to be trying very hard to try and presant Ice as someone who is different from everyone else rather than on making it like a story. For instance:
"She'd turned down the alley on a whim. Not because she'd seen anything interesting, not because there was anything about it that was special.

She hadn't done it out of a dislike for where she was going, an attempt to delay. She didn't do that. If she wanted to put something off, she would be equally able to stand still waiting. At this time, the idea of tricking oneself, of knowing but not knowing, of pretending and believing it, it was not something she was even aware of.

She had just turned down the alley because she had, just as she walked because she did and watched because she did and repeated because she did." Why feel the need to go into something like this with such detail? You need to try and put your point here much more conciesely with a better reason that just becuase she "did"

The man I presume is a teacher, someone who is just randomally violent to her? I find this hard to believe. I also find difficult to imagine someone ripping open someones arm with such comsumate ease and no pointy impliment and the same case goes for her biting into his throat. A throat is actually remarkably tough and this is why most animals, including the big cats choke their victims despite their sharp teeth and powerful jaws. She on the other hand has a little mouth with no noticable outsize teeth. Why feel the need to be so violent to the teacher and not to anyone else who she has disliked before. I also doubt that the school would just ignore a dead body. There would be police, paniks about wild dangerous animals and the school would be closed for a while.
Why did she kill the teacher and not the Pokemon or the boy? If she doesn't plan ahead, why be scared of the boy's father? Why did she decide to feed the Pokemon at all, no one had showed her doing it, why would she feel a need to try and help them?

You have a good idea but this chapter I feel needs to be extensively rewritten.

Re: Eyes? Not really the most important aspect. Vaugueness- much more important

[farla.livejournal.com]

You need to try and put your point here much more conciesely with a better reason that just because she "did"

I deliberately don't give her reason. I go on to describe that she's not doing it for any imaginable reason because that's important later. If I wanted to, I could just say she heard noise and investigated. I'm trying to make it very clear that she didn't hear anything and she didn't do it for any other reason she knows of, and it's supposed to be noticed by the reader like that.

someone who is just randomally violent to her?

Not random. The story mentions what causes it. Odd, yes, but not random.

I also find difficult to imagine someone ripping open someones arm with such comsumate ease

The child actually has pretty odd nails, as will be described later. She managed to break the tendons in one wrist, which, while hard, isn't impossible, especially if we assume she's somewhat stronger than a normal child her age and that she's lucky. It wasn't described as being easy, just what happened.

A throat is actually remarkably tough and this is why most animals, including the big cats choke their victims despite their sharp teeth and powerful jaws.

Actually, no, the throat is pretty fragile. See, most animals have thick skin and fur. Humans have neither. I also just checked this myself, so I'm quite sure. Human skin and flesh is quite fragile (speaking of big cats, severely injured lions, with broken jaws, will begin to hunt humans because they're the only thing that they can eat. We're the pudding of the animal world). Since she's not experienced in anatomy, it's not described if she's biting on the windpipe and crushing that, or if she bites through the arteries, but either one would work.

Why feel the need to be so violent to the teacher and not to anyone else who she has disliked before.

She's violent toward the teacher because he tries to kill her. Pretty simple, really.

I also doubt that the school would just ignore a dead body.

The school isn't ignoring the body, more hushing it up. See, there *would* be a panic, and they're trying to avoid that. If it was a child who'd died, there'd be a lot more happening, as, indeed, will be shown later. As it is, the adults are all on edge, but she doesn't notice much of it, so the story just mentions the adult are acting differently and as if there's something more important.

Why did she kill the teacher and not the Pokemon or the boy? If she doesn't plan ahead, why be scared of the boy's father? Why did she decide to feed the Pokemon at all, no one had showed her doing it, why would she feel a need to try and help them?

See, this I don't get. Each situation is different. She's not a robot and doesn't have just one single response. She's pretty intelligent - inexperienced and not really understanding what's going on, but pretty intelligent. She doesn't keep doing the same thing and she doesn't just defaultly try to kill everything. She also tries different things. If anything, she'd avoid doing the same thing twice.

She deals with the situations based on the situations. She's eaten, she's seen things eat, she knows they're thin as if they haven't eaten, she knows one of them is judging if it can eat her, so she can understand they want to eat. The teacher tries to kill her, and she doesn't want that to happen, so she kills him. So far, she's killed because she was told to (the rattata) and because she was attacked (the teacher).

And she's not scared of the boy's father, or if she is she doesn't see it that way. She was going to kill the boy because she felt he might cause people to notice her again. If doing that would make someone notice her, she'd cause what she wants to avoid, so she stopped. That's just one action ahead, a direct cause-and-effect thing, so I really wouldn't consider that planning. Planning in the sense the story mentions is a bit more thought out.