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Stuff and Reviews
...it's always disconcerting when someone's favoriting a lot of my stories and I'm getting the alerts one or two minutes apart. There are a couple that could possibly be read that fast but not all of them. I suppose it may be someone who already read them and decided today that they wanted to go through and add them all to their favorites list.
Also, started work on a grammar guide, because the category needs one.
Anyway.
So, remember what I said about feeling people should do the whole read/review thing in a category?
I've flipped through the Exalted fanfic already, but never seriously read through and reviewed them. Also, given the general amount of reviews any Exalted fanfic will get, reviewing all of them will give me such a disproportionate gotten/given ratio that I'll be able to bask in the rare glory of having done far more than was necessary. (Butterfly Wings used to has a positive ratio, but it's probably got around as many reviews as I gave by this point. And I can't review anything more because I don't want spoilers.)
Exalted canon, as may be gathered from my first post on the subject detailing all the things I've changed, is a mutable thing. If there was something similar in, say, Pokemon, I'd try to work within the edges of canon by shoring up empty spaces as counterpoints, rather than just replacing parts. This makes for a very different experience of reading, and also suggests one of the reasons fanfic is so popular: in fanfic, you can very easily get an idea of how well-constructed the story is by seeing where it's deviating from canon.
You can do something similar with standard realistic and historical fiction, which I think is part of the appeal. But if you don't want something set in our world? All bets are off.
Let's say you pick up a book. You can't tell if what's part of their setting or author incompetence right off the bat. So-and-so has powers that let them X. Is this part of a reasonable, thought out magic system? You'll have to keep reading until you get enough examples to tell, because you can only compare the story to itself. (I need to write up a number of reviews for some terrible fantasy I read/listened to.)
It makes for this hazy, frustrated feeling, where you think something looks like a bad idea, but you can't actually be certain unless you keep reading. The badficcer's motto, "Don't like don't read!" does have a grain of truth to it, in that it's easier to pick up on indicators about the quality of fanfic very early on and you'll very rarely find yourself in a situation where you can't decide until you reach the very end. (Conversely, it means their other motto, "it gets better next chapter!" is even less appropriate in this context.)
An addition issue: there are only around thirty Exalted fanfics around. This means I'm starting my reviews on stories almost a decade old. Many are by writers who only have one or two stories. As such, I'm not really going to comb through for errors for most but more discuss what I thought of the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/732735/1/Salvation
This is honestly pretty meh, more a generic fantasy piece reskinned to reference Exalted. Trembling, innocent girl is prisoner of evil guys, Hero shows up, Hero effortlessly beats them all, Hero gets trembling, grateful girl.
The idea there are readily available chains that can block essence use is kind of setting-breaking all by itself, since it'd mean they should just imprison Solars rather than playing an endless game of whack-a-mole.
And given the whole endless whack-a-mole elements, it'd have been a good idea to better develop how they managed to catch a Solar at the right time for the party - say, they'd all arrived for the party, the call had gone out for a Wyld Hunt, and they decided as a spur of the moment thing, possibly helped by being drunk, that it would be a good idea to bring her back for the party rather than kill her immediately. It also seems like you're saying the one who beat her is, by coincidence, the same guy getting the coming-of-age party, which is an extreme contrivance on top of all the other contrivance it would take just getting a Solar there at all.
"She would be put to death at that time, even as the Immaculates wanted to do it now, the House believed that certain prestige would be his if he could lay with one of these things and live"
You also have a lot of wording problems.
"The Anathema mainly kept her eyes downcast and tried to hide her shame, drawing away from the touches and caresses of the Dragon Blooded who treated her as if a caged tiger. They clucked in disappointment, she was honestly a pretty thing, in a thin sort of way. Her brown hair had been undone and was now held by a single golden clasp, along with being oiled, and it was her only sort of covering."
And why did she exalt, anyway? She's just a damsel in distress this whole time. You go on about how she's so supple earlier instead of saying she's bruised and bloody, so apparently she decided that after doing something so awesome the most awesome god in the world was impressed and gave her incredible power to go do even more awesome things, she should just meekly be chained up by a bunch of people intending to rape and kill her, and let them strip her naked and do her hair while they were at it. And her biggest issue will be how embarrassing the naked part is. Even after she's freed from the chains, she not only doesn't join the fight, she literally has to be carried off her rescuer.
"He that would dare was actually a young man at first glance."
Because after the skeeviness of having someone blessed with godlike powers be a useless damsel in distress, making her rescuer be a guy is a great idea.
"While as children who feel they have free leave when the parents aren't around to discipline you, I am hear to say, however trite it may be, that playtime is over"
In addition to general wording issues, your dialogue is horribly awkward.
"The spear of fire flashed as quickly as the scales on the back of a hunting mospid, but it landed not on the breast of the boy, but instead stabbed through a slave, melting his body almost instantaneously. The boy seemed to have simply sidestepped the fire bolt, looking unimpressed at the display of power."
Incidentally, he's an utter prick.
...and now, having established the female exalt as utterly useless, the male exalt is able to insta-kill half a room full of Dragonblooded. Because heroism is so much more impressive when there's no risk whatsoever to the hero. Who'd want to read about a character who was brave enough to show up in the middle of a bunch of people with superpowers trained from childhood to kill him when we can hear about the guy who shows up to amble past bunch of people who can't even touch him? It's so much more interesting when there's nothing at stake at all.
"The Zenith made his way to the Twilight in chains, touching his staff to her bonds. The fell away with an unceremonious clink, and she proceeded to grab at his legs. He shushed and pushed her away, gently, and took off his sunburst emblazoned cloak, wrapping it around her for modesty. "Relax now child, you are in the arms of your people. They who are Chosen of the Unconquered Sun shall receive His Light in the darkest of pits, and His Light shall both blind and burn the foes of His Chosen," he told her, even as she could clearly be his older sister."
This is just depressing.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1157759/1/Remembrances_and_Futures
So given the date on this, it's safe to assume it's never going to get the rest of those chapters. Which is especially disappointing given that while the writing itself is decent, the chapter isn't much good - it's spending all its time setting up for later events, full of info-dump and references to things that haven't been fully explained.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1244327/1/Warrior_of_the_Sun
"Sup I'm Freeloader This is a awesome Exalted story about a Solar named Markus and well he's just awesome you'll see PLEASE PLEASE R&R this is my first story and well I need to know what this site likes well I see ya out there. "
Wow, the only way this could be a more ominous opening was if you'd added in a few misspellings.
...and indeed your punctuation seems to lacking in the story itself. Combined with mammoth paragraphs full of awkwardly worded description, and the result is something unreadable.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1281572/1/Chronicles_of_the_Exalted_Adventurers
::sigh:: And it's a list of Japanese honorifics and random words you'll be using. This kind of thing is bad enough in actual Japanese fandoms.
Dialogue is being punctuated wrong, should be using commas.
I suppose the reason you felt you needed to put in several paragraphs of setting information and summary was that you figured your readers weren't familiar with it, but it's still terribly awkward. Also kind of amusing how so far people's summaries of events seems to be "the solar exalts were awesome and everybody else was just jealous".
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1281572/2/Chronicles_of_the_Exalted_Adventurers
...almost the same Japanese again, only even more inaccurate now.
...pretty sure the spelling has always been Wylds, presumably for the reason that, at least in text, it makes it clearer. I mean, if you're talking about the Wilds overrunning you, it just means crops getting taken over by forest, not crops growing legs and marching on the village.
And more infodumpy stuff.
And now a random Dragonblood is joining up with strangers for no pay because they're adventurers. Oh, D&D, can nothing escape your shadow?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1281572/3/Chronicles_of_the_Exalted_Adventurers
""So what do you specialize in, Cleo? Are you a warrior? A mage?" Creed asked. "
You can almost hear the game designers sobbing in the corner.
""Are you serious? A jade is a year’s wages! It’s like 500 gold!" she said, astonished."
Except for the ones that hung themselves.
...and now it turns out everyone's showing up because they're paying a gold piece just to try out. Because somehow they not only are obscenely wealthy, but are so obscenely wealthy they don't even realize how much money normal people have.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/1/Pathways_to_Darkness
Wow, back in the days FFN let you do author note chapters. It's a shame people abused these, this actually works pretty well.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/2/Pathways_to_Darkness
Definitely an improvement over the last couple Exalted stories. A few grammar issues, mostly extra commas and not capitalizing words like "mother", but largely well written, and this is possibly the first fic that's written at a reasonable power level, rather than all-powerful or barely better than mortal. Backstory's a trifle wangsty, though - if she hates her family so much, and they killed her brother, and her sister ran away, and she's earning her own money, and she's spending most of her time on the streets anyway, well, why does she still live there?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/3/Pathways_to_Darkness
The potential Dragonblooded who ends up a Solar instead backstory. A bit stock, but pretty well executed. Still a number of grammar errors.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/4/Pathways_to_Darkness
...and now we're infodumpy.
Anyway, Solar philosophy teacher. Definitely a more unique sort of backstory, though it's a rather low-key position for someone in his power tier. I suppose one could argue that doing more would just bring the Wyld Hunt down on him, but it all seems rather suspect. Unless there's some particular reason this seems a good place to find fellow Exalts, like knowing that Dragonblooded's schools tend to produce most of the Solars in the area.
""Help me move these." Stream said as he tried to push some of the crates out of the way. "It took me and two friends to put them there, I can't move them on my own.""
This is some terrible planning for a secret escape route.
And my, he's disgustingly well informed. It's a lot more fun when people don't know the exact history.
"They are, as you should already know, creatures born from nearly pure Wyld energies."
Pretty bad case of "As you know, Bob" here. And you've got that nice author's note chapter where you could have put all this stuff, too.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/5/Pathways_to_Darkness
Getting much more interesting. The jump here is a bit hard to follow, since she's with her brother to start but it certainly doesn't seem like he's the same as the companion now.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/6/Pathways_to_Darkness
"However, today he was greeted with silence and deserted halls. Well, not deserted per se, the usual collection of servant and guards scrambled about the marble hallways, intent on their assigned duties "
This is rather interesting when juxtaposed with his later backpatting about how awesome he is because he treats servants like people.
"Nevertheless, even though he professed to have a weakness for beautiful woman, Caspian didn't like Mikala, or whatever her real name was, in the slightest."
Now, the thing here is, you go on to establish that she's been nothing but helpful to him, down to saving his life. Now, it's possible to still feel uncomfortable despite this, but normal, non-asshole people would generally still refer to a person like that as "liked" and feel confused and a bit guilty that for no reason they still felt mistrusting despite all the other person's done for them.
Here, you have him Just Knowing she's bad news from the start, continuing to Just Know he shouldn't trust her and that's it's okay to feel ungrateful and bitchy toward her as she keeps helping him, and still Just Knowing he shouldn't like her. Basically IC/OOC blurring. Even the bit about her being a Sidereal should still make him feel conflicted (or alternatively, having identified the source of his instinctive mistrust, consider putting it aside), not justify his bitchiness. People who aren't socipathic assholes feel bad about being mean and mistrustful toward people who've done nothing but help them, rather than throttling them at the drop of a hat.
Anyway, the full story here (failing to ever have the characters actually meet up, let alone reach the main plot) is a rather sobering warning. The individual chapters stand well enough as short character studies, but all the bits meant to lead to future events end up wasted which detracts from their overall quality.
Also, started work on a grammar guide, because the category needs one.
Anyway.
So, remember what I said about feeling people should do the whole read/review thing in a category?
I've flipped through the Exalted fanfic already, but never seriously read through and reviewed them. Also, given the general amount of reviews any Exalted fanfic will get, reviewing all of them will give me such a disproportionate gotten/given ratio that I'll be able to bask in the rare glory of having done far more than was necessary. (Butterfly Wings used to has a positive ratio, but it's probably got around as many reviews as I gave by this point. And I can't review anything more because I don't want spoilers.)
Exalted canon, as may be gathered from my first post on the subject detailing all the things I've changed, is a mutable thing. If there was something similar in, say, Pokemon, I'd try to work within the edges of canon by shoring up empty spaces as counterpoints, rather than just replacing parts. This makes for a very different experience of reading, and also suggests one of the reasons fanfic is so popular: in fanfic, you can very easily get an idea of how well-constructed the story is by seeing where it's deviating from canon.
You can do something similar with standard realistic and historical fiction, which I think is part of the appeal. But if you don't want something set in our world? All bets are off.
Let's say you pick up a book. You can't tell if what's part of their setting or author incompetence right off the bat. So-and-so has powers that let them X. Is this part of a reasonable, thought out magic system? You'll have to keep reading until you get enough examples to tell, because you can only compare the story to itself. (I need to write up a number of reviews for some terrible fantasy I read/listened to.)
It makes for this hazy, frustrated feeling, where you think something looks like a bad idea, but you can't actually be certain unless you keep reading. The badficcer's motto, "Don't like don't read!" does have a grain of truth to it, in that it's easier to pick up on indicators about the quality of fanfic very early on and you'll very rarely find yourself in a situation where you can't decide until you reach the very end. (Conversely, it means their other motto, "it gets better next chapter!" is even less appropriate in this context.)
An addition issue: there are only around thirty Exalted fanfics around. This means I'm starting my reviews on stories almost a decade old. Many are by writers who only have one or two stories. As such, I'm not really going to comb through for errors for most but more discuss what I thought of the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/732735/1/Salvation
This is honestly pretty meh, more a generic fantasy piece reskinned to reference Exalted. Trembling, innocent girl is prisoner of evil guys, Hero shows up, Hero effortlessly beats them all, Hero gets trembling, grateful girl.
The idea there are readily available chains that can block essence use is kind of setting-breaking all by itself, since it'd mean they should just imprison Solars rather than playing an endless game of whack-a-mole.
And given the whole endless whack-a-mole elements, it'd have been a good idea to better develop how they managed to catch a Solar at the right time for the party - say, they'd all arrived for the party, the call had gone out for a Wyld Hunt, and they decided as a spur of the moment thing, possibly helped by being drunk, that it would be a good idea to bring her back for the party rather than kill her immediately. It also seems like you're saying the one who beat her is, by coincidence, the same guy getting the coming-of-age party, which is an extreme contrivance on top of all the other contrivance it would take just getting a Solar there at all.
"She would be put to death at that time, even as the Immaculates wanted to do it now, the House believed that certain prestige would be his if he could lay with one of these things and live"
You also have a lot of wording problems.
"The Anathema mainly kept her eyes downcast and tried to hide her shame, drawing away from the touches and caresses of the Dragon Blooded who treated her as if a caged tiger. They clucked in disappointment, she was honestly a pretty thing, in a thin sort of way. Her brown hair had been undone and was now held by a single golden clasp, along with being oiled, and it was her only sort of covering."
And why did she exalt, anyway? She's just a damsel in distress this whole time. You go on about how she's so supple earlier instead of saying she's bruised and bloody, so apparently she decided that after doing something so awesome the most awesome god in the world was impressed and gave her incredible power to go do even more awesome things, she should just meekly be chained up by a bunch of people intending to rape and kill her, and let them strip her naked and do her hair while they were at it. And her biggest issue will be how embarrassing the naked part is. Even after she's freed from the chains, she not only doesn't join the fight, she literally has to be carried off her rescuer.
"He that would dare was actually a young man at first glance."
Because after the skeeviness of having someone blessed with godlike powers be a useless damsel in distress, making her rescuer be a guy is a great idea.
"While as children who feel they have free leave when the parents aren't around to discipline you, I am hear to say, however trite it may be, that playtime is over"
In addition to general wording issues, your dialogue is horribly awkward.
"The spear of fire flashed as quickly as the scales on the back of a hunting mospid, but it landed not on the breast of the boy, but instead stabbed through a slave, melting his body almost instantaneously. The boy seemed to have simply sidestepped the fire bolt, looking unimpressed at the display of power."
Incidentally, he's an utter prick.
...and now, having established the female exalt as utterly useless, the male exalt is able to insta-kill half a room full of Dragonblooded. Because heroism is so much more impressive when there's no risk whatsoever to the hero. Who'd want to read about a character who was brave enough to show up in the middle of a bunch of people with superpowers trained from childhood to kill him when we can hear about the guy who shows up to amble past bunch of people who can't even touch him? It's so much more interesting when there's nothing at stake at all.
"The Zenith made his way to the Twilight in chains, touching his staff to her bonds. The fell away with an unceremonious clink, and she proceeded to grab at his legs. He shushed and pushed her away, gently, and took off his sunburst emblazoned cloak, wrapping it around her for modesty. "Relax now child, you are in the arms of your people. They who are Chosen of the Unconquered Sun shall receive His Light in the darkest of pits, and His Light shall both blind and burn the foes of His Chosen," he told her, even as she could clearly be his older sister."
This is just depressing.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1157759/1/Remembrances_and_Futures
So given the date on this, it's safe to assume it's never going to get the rest of those chapters. Which is especially disappointing given that while the writing itself is decent, the chapter isn't much good - it's spending all its time setting up for later events, full of info-dump and references to things that haven't been fully explained.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1244327/1/Warrior_of_the_Sun
"Sup I'm Freeloader This is a awesome Exalted story about a Solar named Markus and well he's just awesome you'll see PLEASE PLEASE R&R this is my first story and well I need to know what this site likes well I see ya out there. "
Wow, the only way this could be a more ominous opening was if you'd added in a few misspellings.
...and indeed your punctuation seems to lacking in the story itself. Combined with mammoth paragraphs full of awkwardly worded description, and the result is something unreadable.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1281572/1/Chronicles_of_the_Exalted_Adventurers
::sigh:: And it's a list of Japanese honorifics and random words you'll be using. This kind of thing is bad enough in actual Japanese fandoms.
Dialogue is being punctuated wrong, should be using commas.
I suppose the reason you felt you needed to put in several paragraphs of setting information and summary was that you figured your readers weren't familiar with it, but it's still terribly awkward. Also kind of amusing how so far people's summaries of events seems to be "the solar exalts were awesome and everybody else was just jealous".
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1281572/2/Chronicles_of_the_Exalted_Adventurers
...almost the same Japanese again, only even more inaccurate now.
...pretty sure the spelling has always been Wylds, presumably for the reason that, at least in text, it makes it clearer. I mean, if you're talking about the Wilds overrunning you, it just means crops getting taken over by forest, not crops growing legs and marching on the village.
And more infodumpy stuff.
And now a random Dragonblood is joining up with strangers for no pay because they're adventurers. Oh, D&D, can nothing escape your shadow?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1281572/3/Chronicles_of_the_Exalted_Adventurers
""So what do you specialize in, Cleo? Are you a warrior? A mage?" Creed asked. "
You can almost hear the game designers sobbing in the corner.
""Are you serious? A jade is a year’s wages! It’s like 500 gold!" she said, astonished."
Except for the ones that hung themselves.
...and now it turns out everyone's showing up because they're paying a gold piece just to try out. Because somehow they not only are obscenely wealthy, but are so obscenely wealthy they don't even realize how much money normal people have.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/1/Pathways_to_Darkness
Wow, back in the days FFN let you do author note chapters. It's a shame people abused these, this actually works pretty well.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/2/Pathways_to_Darkness
Definitely an improvement over the last couple Exalted stories. A few grammar issues, mostly extra commas and not capitalizing words like "mother", but largely well written, and this is possibly the first fic that's written at a reasonable power level, rather than all-powerful or barely better than mortal. Backstory's a trifle wangsty, though - if she hates her family so much, and they killed her brother, and her sister ran away, and she's earning her own money, and she's spending most of her time on the streets anyway, well, why does she still live there?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/3/Pathways_to_Darkness
The potential Dragonblooded who ends up a Solar instead backstory. A bit stock, but pretty well executed. Still a number of grammar errors.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/4/Pathways_to_Darkness
...and now we're infodumpy.
Anyway, Solar philosophy teacher. Definitely a more unique sort of backstory, though it's a rather low-key position for someone in his power tier. I suppose one could argue that doing more would just bring the Wyld Hunt down on him, but it all seems rather suspect. Unless there's some particular reason this seems a good place to find fellow Exalts, like knowing that Dragonblooded's schools tend to produce most of the Solars in the area.
""Help me move these." Stream said as he tried to push some of the crates out of the way. "It took me and two friends to put them there, I can't move them on my own.""
This is some terrible planning for a secret escape route.
And my, he's disgustingly well informed. It's a lot more fun when people don't know the exact history.
"They are, as you should already know, creatures born from nearly pure Wyld energies."
Pretty bad case of "As you know, Bob" here. And you've got that nice author's note chapter where you could have put all this stuff, too.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/5/Pathways_to_Darkness
Getting much more interesting. The jump here is a bit hard to follow, since she's with her brother to start but it certainly doesn't seem like he's the same as the companion now.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/768840/6/Pathways_to_Darkness
"However, today he was greeted with silence and deserted halls. Well, not deserted per se, the usual collection of servant and guards scrambled about the marble hallways, intent on their assigned duties "
This is rather interesting when juxtaposed with his later backpatting about how awesome he is because he treats servants like people.
"Nevertheless, even though he professed to have a weakness for beautiful woman, Caspian didn't like Mikala, or whatever her real name was, in the slightest."
Now, the thing here is, you go on to establish that she's been nothing but helpful to him, down to saving his life. Now, it's possible to still feel uncomfortable despite this, but normal, non-asshole people would generally still refer to a person like that as "liked" and feel confused and a bit guilty that for no reason they still felt mistrusting despite all the other person's done for them.
Here, you have him Just Knowing she's bad news from the start, continuing to Just Know he shouldn't trust her and that's it's okay to feel ungrateful and bitchy toward her as she keeps helping him, and still Just Knowing he shouldn't like her. Basically IC/OOC blurring. Even the bit about her being a Sidereal should still make him feel conflicted (or alternatively, having identified the source of his instinctive mistrust, consider putting it aside), not justify his bitchiness. People who aren't socipathic assholes feel bad about being mean and mistrustful toward people who've done nothing but help them, rather than throttling them at the drop of a hat.
Anyway, the full story here (failing to ever have the characters actually meet up, let alone reach the main plot) is a rather sobering warning. The individual chapters stand well enough as short character studies, but all the bits meant to lead to future events end up wasted which detracts from their overall quality.