Still more Exalted fic
Mar. 23rd, 2010 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlahttp://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/1/Serpent_of_the_East
Wording is a bit awkward but I like the chatty tone.
"If a Dragon-Blooded asks which way the Anathema went, one tells them and then that person is rewarded with a pat on the head or better. Turn in your best friend, your sister, your uncle, or your mother to the Wyld hunt, and you are considered a local hero."
Getting a pat on the head as a reward is actually pretty disparaging and doesn't really fit with the idea that telling the truth is a great idea.
...someone who makes her living telling fortunes should have long ago figured out people don't like you telling them they're screwed. I don't think this even happens - when a fortune-teller says a bad thing is coming they follow it up with "and if you buy this trinket...", it's how they make money. If you couldn't change your fortune there wouldn't be much point in asking about it.
Still, things are happening at a nice pace, which is always good. She's obviously got to work on subtlety, though.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/2/Serpent_of_the_East
...okay, so the repetition last chapter was a nice frame. Repetition three times between individual paragraphs for an opening, that's more getting into redundant territory.
"She gratefully accepted a Jade Obol from the head of the village."
That's an awful lot, and it doesn't sound like this is a rich place. I mean, maybe they have that much money around that they can pay this, but having so much they've converted some to obals... especially when it appears they're not even near the Realm. (It might make sense if they'd been paid for some huge purchase with an obal, and hadn't found anything large enough to spend on, but then she should be referencing this instead of just being grateful for a payment.)
""It started when one of the villagers went into the forest. He came back really sick, and it just spread from there. We're about to start burning the bodies. Wouldn't want anyone crawling back up from the grave, you know?" "
This just serves to make the suddenly, zombies! scene next paragraph blah instead of shocking. (And if suddenly zombies! is so standard, it just begs the question of why they waited so long to start burning bodies. The scene itself works great, but the guard's matter of fact attitude undermines everything.
"Biyanca leaned against a boulder to gain her bearings and figure out where to start searching, and what, exactly, she was searching for. On the boulder's surface she noticed several palm-sized, black stone. Eight, to be exact. Two vertical rows of four in careful formation. Puzzled, the swept her hand along the boulder's surface to knock the stone from formation.
It didn't move, but it did change. All eight of them. At the same time. Even more puzzled, Biyanca left her hand to rest against the side of the stone and leaned forward for a closer look.
She yelped and lurched away as the all eight "rocks" changed again and the entire boulder rose from the ground, lifted by branches. She realized the "rocks" hadn't just changed. They had blinked. "
Cleverly done.
A nice fight - descriptive but not overlong.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/3/Serpent_of_the_East
He not only leaves her, but the hearthstone? And she just takes it and leaves, without actually fixing the whole forest thing (or was his walking off all that was needed or something?)
"She was running through an ally, breathing heavily. She was hurting. Dieing."
Well, so's her ally, I'd guess. Ouch.
"The man grinned at her. "Nice one. What're you doing around here?" he asked pleasantly.
"Just a humble traveler," she said, equally pleasant."
...okay. So she's been swinging around her OH HEY GUYS I'M A SOLAR superweapon a couple times, but largely in situations where no one really had time to think much about it. Here, she's just done so at the gate of a village in front of a Dragonblooded. And still nothing.
"My name is Peleps Deled."
…
"After settling her things in a room that was far too nice for a traveling storyteller"
Um, as she's apparently a traveler who gets paid by the obal, she should be able to afford pretty decent housing.
"For Exalted players, this is not the canon Peleps Deled monk man. This is horny DB man with Peleps Deled's name. :)"
HOW DID THIS SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/4/Serpent_of_the_East
So she's dreaming about an owl lunar mate, and then there's some owl following her around, and she doesn't put two and two together? Ick. This would have been a lot better if you'd brought up the present-day owl first (possibly in an earlier chapter, even) and the dream later, or else had her present-day mate have a new form. It'd be blunt enough with "past life dream of people who can turn into animals" + "so some random animal's following me".
Aside from that, this is a pretty good chapter. Both the dialogue and description feel quite natural.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/5/Serpent_of_the_East
Again good description, but first standing around while the solar in Lookshy was cut down and now leaving some poor guy here...she's really not much of a hero. She doesn't show any sign of sympathy or regret or even much acknowledgment beyond being glad it's not her.
And everyone is failing to kill her for some reason.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/6/Serpent_of_the_East
ACK. So he's a lion, and was just following her as a bird. So there isn't even the excuse of spirit shapes, it really was supposed to be hideously obvious.
Scene by scene the story's decent enough...but arg, the actual plot is not.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/7/Serpent_of_the_East
"Chosen of Muercury"
Why?
And I see the Sidereals barely had time to get on screen before sprinting for the nearest idiot ball. What, their only choice was to explain the freaky arrows honestly or lie about how they were sure the arrows were just a trick of the light? They can't say they don't know, or make up something about Dragonblooded, or anything? *Sidereals*.
At least her plan wasn't too terrible - if she'd actually thought up a way of escaping with it despite its weight I'd even upgrade that to "good".
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/8/Serpent_of_the_East
"It ends a bit abruptly, only because there's a loooooong chapter after it, and I didn't want to make this longer."
Not really the best opening to the last chapter of the fic. I'd actually been sort of hoping this one might be either complete or at least stop at a good point like the other chapterfic, but I guess not.
Ah well. This was basically decent, though it really needed to be further adapted from roleplay account to narrative story. Bizarre spelling errors aside the actual writing was some of the better kind I've seen here so far. The characters individually were pretty flat, although their interactions were well done.
Wonder what was up with those arrows?
Fun fact! The author is the first I've heard back from. (The story was last updated January 07.) She took the whole thing quite well.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2687703/1/Wounded_Bird
:D This what a backstory should be.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2687703/2/Wounded_Bird
"Coins jangled on the cobblestone of the street as the person that had attempted to take them from Thrush's bowl jolted in shock."
"Blind Thrush began skimming the ground trying to recover as many coins as he could. "
"He was missing a little over one-fourth of what had been in the bowl before the thief's attempt. "
So...considering that his awesome anti-theft senses don't much help prevent his money from getting scattered and partially lost, why did he ever come up with the idea of keeping his money in a visible bowl next to him in the first place? I mean, is there any real advantage over just putting it directly in whatever bag he carries it in?
...and he's a super guitar player? I mean, it makes a lot of sense that he could pick out problems with music, but if he's an instant hit like this why's he fortune telling? You're not really clear about how much money he's getting beyond that it impresses the other players - obviously if he's getting more telling fortunes then the answer's obvious. The other option is that he doesn't like playing because of past trauma, but for one thing he probably also learned about fortune telling from his dead master and for another that didn't stop him from doing it just now.
The writing's okay, but plotwise pretty meh.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2687703/3/Wounded_Bird
Eek. So while I maintain my stance that if he's awesome with a guitar I don't see why he doesn't get money that way, I certainly can see why he wouldn't want to join up with this group, because wow are those ever not good dynamics. Unfortunately it seems like that's what he's doing.
More insight into his head would really help here - you're mostly just using the narration just far enough to make sure the story's described through a blind man's eyes (and doing a surprisingly good job of it so far) but not really getting any deeper in. If he's not intimidated by leader-guy, than the fact leader-guy is so obviously a bad leader who's already pissed off at him might not matter. If he likes friendly girl, then he might be going with them over that. Or maybe he wants to travel in a group period for some reason. But right now he's just hanging out being a cipher.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3699239/1/Origin_of_Language
My is it ever ironic that you don't know how to write dialogue properly. Punctuation, for example.
"This was spoken by She Who Lives in Her Name. The Primordial of definition, limits and hierarchy. It is off of her that they will base the gods off of."
Considering the gods, left to their own devices, promptly spend their time backstabbing superiors for promotion and then slacking off madly once they're in power, clearly they didn't base them off her enough.
Anyway, while the idea that language was the catalyst for everything is interesting, you don't go anywhere with it and the rest of this is painfully dull.
Oh, and it's cut off mid-sentence.
"Despite all odds humanity prospered in this age. Under the tutelage and command of the Dragon-Kings they learned much about Creation. It was this endless urge to understand and create that drew the attention of the Primordial's. Taking select groups they where imbued with the blood of a Primordial. In this manner the Lintha where born and given dominion of an island-continent. Many species"
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3703647/1/Shades_of_the_Loom
My, she's emo. Klutz, incestuous child rape, dead mom, lost exalt, with the angsty cherry on top that she blames herself for everything.
"Bent One Winged Angel did not look particularly impressed."
WAT.
"Navia looked down at herself and felt unworthy. She was not a particularly tall woman, not exceptional or athletic either. Sidereal training had toned and put muscle on a body that had always stayed thin on its own. Her luxuriously full red hair was her one pride and joy, a blanket of flame that caught the slightest breeze and fanned behind her in a pleasing way. She was also pleased than her murky brown eyes, her least favorite trait, had changed into the brilliant forest-emerald when her Exaltation had woken inside.
See? She was pretty, she'd always been told so, though of course all Golden Children were. Yet no matter how pleasing her appearance, she always disappointed people. If only she could make her Sifu happy. If only she could stop failing at everything. Even the scars on her arms attested her incompetence, a badge of shame that thankfully had gone unremarked on in the Bureau. She was glad no one noticed that a few were recent."
...because "she's pretty but she's going to keep wangsting about how she looks anyway" is new territory that definitely needed trailblazing.
"Sometimes she wished he would just yell at her or hit her like her father had and get it over with. At least then he would feel better and she would feel worse and maybe then she'd try hard enough to succeed at something."
So yeah, I'm calling sue.
...so she's a twenty year old golden child living a hundred years after the Usurpation? Or do you mean they trained her for eighty years before letting her into a department?
"Five years she'd been in Heaven and still that was hard to get used to."
Okay, that can't be it. Well, there's no rule against forward time travel. So she somehow got shunted into the future from the Usurpation, which was about the last time anybody was making golden kids.
"The Prophecy of the Pivot Child
Born from the Dragons, meant for the Sky,"
*Oh*, you're misusing golden child to mean any sort of half caste. She's a Dragonblooded kid. That explains the timeline, but takes away the idea the reason she's so whiny is Solar mindrape charms from Dad give her no choice in the matter. So she's honestly just like this.
""Shall we get on with it?" Sept Green sighed. "There's a lot to do and I don't want to spend all night..." he looked up as the Sun abruptly rose, chasing Luna from Her lead. "...all day arguing about it." "
I will give you credit that the whole Games of Divinity thing going on in the background is pretty fun.
ARG NO TIME TRAVEL. Especially not because of the loom, which is completely designed around enforcing causality, not tying it into a pretzel.
""Because the Pivot Child will be our daughter." "
Okay, so then she's the standard kind of golden child and we're back to the timeline mess. (Only no mindrape charms to explain the whining) Also, if destiny doesn't build around Sidereals, then it hardly matters if she's "destined to be the kid" or "destined to have the kid" because both are, you know, destinies.
"You see, I know only what I'm telling you now because when I was you, it is what I told myself. "
See, this kind of causality error is exactly what the loom is supposed to prevent.
"Someday, we will give birth to the Pivot Child. That Child is going to save Creation from the greatest snarl in the Tapestry imaginable "
You mean the greatest after THE TIME TRAVELER STANDING IN THE LOOM OF FATE TELLING HER PAST SELF SOMETHING SHE ONLY KNOWS BECAUSE IT'S WHAT SHE WAS TOLD AT THE TIME.
Okay, finally confirmed that she's a solar's kid, only to introduce bonus timeline WTFery in that apparently she set the Sidereals on her solar mother. Which had to be before age ten, because they'd have noticed a fellow Sid. (Frankly they should have noticed her anyway given how their exaltations work. Or else killed her for being a golden child on principle.) So she did this at, like, eight.
"the Child will be preserved, Navia. That is all that matters "
"It was up to her to bear the child who would save the world."
Oh, it's also annoying that female plotlines tend to revolve around how their very important work is having a kid who will then do the actual stuff. Seriously, why don't guys ever have to put up with this kind of plot?
And jesus now there's a third her actually pregnant with the kid because not only did there need to be extra time travel but it was vital to the story to get it confirmed in the first chapter of a long story that yeah, everything's going to work out exactly how it's supposed to.
About the only way this is redeemable at this point is if the whole thing is a massive mindfuck from someone else. And even there a lot is lost by the fact Navia acted like it was a reasonable sequence of events.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3703647/2/Shades_of_the_Loom
And I thought last chapter had causality violations. This one combines them with all the fun of a character talking to herself. Not to her older self, literally answering her own question because older self didn't answer, as if you just shoehorned the whole thing in because you were worried the reader might wonder. And on top of that you then lay out the prophesy in even more detail. Maybe next you could literally give her a checklist of exactly what she needs to do. Not that it'd matter, since oldest self has already stated the future has come to pass properly and can't be changed. So I guess the world is saved then, but for some reason there's more chapters of this.
Well, maybe it'll be about the actual pivotal child.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3703647/3/Shades_of_the_Loom
"Both of them carried field-issue jade rings that would be worth an absolute fortune from the Houses, if the Dragon-Blooded were capable of their manufacture. "
I wasn't aware things were only worth a fortune if you were able to make them yourself. Presumably you meant something like "aware of their existence".
Well, she's a lot more tolerable now that she's hypothetically competent, and I like the dialogue.
"They had just a hint of yellow, just a slight oddity to the pupil but telling in a literal way. The man had a Tell. Which meant, no matter how improbable it was on the Blessed Isle, that this killer was a Lunar."
Because moonsilver knives aren't a tipoff. And she's been a Sidereal for how many hundreds of years now?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3703647/6/Shades_of_the_Loom
And decidedly meh. Things never jell into a story rather than a series of events - possibly that's the result of you leaning so incredibly heavily on prophesy in the first place, and it's certainly not helped by the massive timeskips that render events even more disconnected than they already are. Never really clear why she can't just explain the whole pivot child business rather than hiding it, aside from the fact it forces her to kill people. But I'm still not even clear how the golden child timeline thing worked, so that's not surprising.
"Yezenjen would be given the best education a child could receive. Navia would become Iselsi Navia for one last time. She felt the prayer strip inscribed with the Ceasing to Exist Approach Charm beneath her dress and smiled to herself. It would not be pleasant for her but the child would be given the very best care possible."
And fittingly we return to the whole ambulatory womb subtext to round out the ending.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3777233/1/Heaven_Sent_Hawk
This is really well done. It's fast paced without skipping over anything, and at once both shows how hard what she's doing is and how she's able to do it anyway.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3777233/2/Heaven_Sent_Hawk
And a great finish followed by a truly fitting exaltation. (Bit about even Luna rarely seeing anything like it seems rather excessive, though - it smacks of trying to hammer in that this character is Special, rather than just letting what she did stand on its own.) And now there's a lunar who's going to take down the icewalkers, which should be a mess.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3979406/1/Oddysey
And huh, this is marked complete. Well. As a chapter of an unfinished story, it's pretty good. You do a great job at interweaving bits of backstory into the present rather than just resorting to a massive flashback, and the various references to things are intriguing - why the moonsilver, what's she looking for, all that. As something that's supposed to stand alone - well, it doesn't, so that's kind of where it falls down.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3988530/1/Taking_Flight
Well, I suppose that's better than working out the logistics of human/hawk sex, even if that's not legit beastman creation. Here, though, there's the standard disconnected feel of someone writing about characters that they know and are invested in, but haven't really put enough of that down in the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3991377/1/Hearts_Fortress
"She stiffened slightly as Grimnyr sat next to her, a subtle signal that he ignored. He had learned long ago that when Guardian was troubled, he had to pry the details out of her. Essence shimmered, and Grimnyr's grimcleaver Icefire lay across his lap.
"The last time I interrogated someone, I used this axe," he said. A quick motion of his hand sent the blade Elsewhere again. "Since I happen to be fond of all of your limbs, I'll just ask: What's wrong?""
If you meant this as jokey banter, you really really need to signal that better, because I'm getting the impression he's a horrible abusive monster right here.
Anyway, if the last one was disconnected this is borderline incoherent. It opens talking about a perceived insult that's not actually said and spends the rest of the story making references to things that are never explained.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3993086/1/Common_Ground
This one isn't incoherent, but it's not really much of a story either. If it was an established character I suppose one could call it a character exploration, but that'd require you to properly establish her first, rather than just writing short bursts of scenes assuming everyone's already as familiar with the characters as you are.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3993092/1/Water_Riding
This is a complete scene, at least, but not quite an actual story. It's pretty good as that, but that doesn't really change that it belongs in something longer.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4494275/1/Jacks_Story
NEVER USE QUOTATION MARKS FOR THOUGHTS.
"Minutes later, he saw something shiny in an untouched corner of one of the rooms. Inspecting it further, he saw that it was some kind of large golden metallic rock."
Since found oricalchum is generally the remnants of something, not a naturally occurring ore (especially within ruins) this piece should really not look exactly the same as a rock, and of all people, you'd think a smith could tell the difference. It's not like it's vital to the storyline that he consistently think it's a rock and not a broken bit of a statue or whatever.
His consistent inability to identify oricalchum is a bit more damning, though. I mean, he's a smith, he should know metal.
"I need a sword of fine antiquity and supreme strength and heard that you were one of the finest Smiths in the city."
If you want to commission something of "fine antiquity" then you're pretty much out of luck no matter how skilled the smith is. Time doesn't work that way.
""If the Big Man wants a sword, I shall make him a sword". Regretting, only for a second, sacrificing what was to most assuredly be a great fortune"
Okay, if when you make a sword it's worth less than the materials you used, you're doing it wrong. Also, what the hell? It's really bad when your plot hinges on a character deciding to do something at random for no reason that is actively against his own interest. He has no reason not to make the guy a regular sword. He doesn't know what the metal is, so he has no reason to think it'd make a good sword, and doesn't know how to work the metal even if it could make a good sword, and even if he overcomes all that it's still not something to attempt when you've been commissioned to make a sword and need to get one done in reasonable time, without wasting a lot of extra time figuring out how to work some new metal.
Now, if he didn't have that commission and just decided to make a sword period because hey, smith, this whole sequence would make a lot more sense.
"Out of fear and great curiosity, the Satrap's underling stepped inside of the forge "
Okay, wait. I was assuming this was taking place over a reasonable amount of time, not a couple minutes. It's not a burger joint, you can't just stand there and wait for the guy to make you a fresh sword.
Anyway, yet another of these backstories that don't really manage the story part - they'd work as the opening to something longer, but they're all setup and not able to stand properly on their own.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4200534/1/Though_the_Rifts
Huh, this is pretty good. A lot depends on how the crossover ends up getting handled - how much of her magic transfers, for one thing - but it's an interesting twist on the standard person-falls-into-fantasy setting that preserves the usual issues of high and low tech meetin
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4200534/2/Though_the_Rifts
Hm, hit and miss. Both groups don't seem to have any real difficulties explaining the differences between their worlds, barring that bit with fairies - and honestly that was somewhat forced. Most noticeable with the gods business - it's explained like they're quite used to the idea that it's odd for a god to be several things at once. I guess it's sort of that neither side seems to be trying that hard at IC dialogue. The only issues come from things they don't bother to explain.
But the interplay when they're not infodumping at each other is quite good, the cat business especially.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4200534/3/Though_the_Rifts
Kind of middling. The courtship is kind of cute, but resolved rather quickly, and it's not clear where the story's going.
Incidentally, this one brings us into last year, as it was updated January 09.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5753339/1/25_Years_LaterFarewell_to_Buffy
[Chapter Review Exchange]
Your title is smushed. I assume you meant for there to be some other character that FFN ate, but least put a space there.
"rythym of feather and flight."
So yeah, spellcheck is important.
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.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
Also, you don't put a space between the opening quotation mark and the first word.
It's AWOL, caps, for Absence WithOut Leave.
"A slayer was never meant to live a long life. The constant mending and breaking of bones and other traumatic injuries took their toll upon mortal flesh."
Huh, I got the impression part of their powers was they were really durable and fast healers. Well, I suppose it's not unreasonable that long term effects could still build up. (It might be cleaner to link things more directly - fast healing causes accelerated aging or something.)
The details of this are nice - you don't describe Buffy directly, but still give the sense she's frail and old based on the setting around her. I'm not much of a fan of where-are-they-now/sendoff sorts of things, honestly - I tend not to invest much in characters - but this seems like a generally well done version. You really need to better proofread, though, your mechanics are pretty bad.
Wording is a bit awkward but I like the chatty tone.
"If a Dragon-Blooded asks which way the Anathema went, one tells them and then that person is rewarded with a pat on the head or better. Turn in your best friend, your sister, your uncle, or your mother to the Wyld hunt, and you are considered a local hero."
Getting a pat on the head as a reward is actually pretty disparaging and doesn't really fit with the idea that telling the truth is a great idea.
...someone who makes her living telling fortunes should have long ago figured out people don't like you telling them they're screwed. I don't think this even happens - when a fortune-teller says a bad thing is coming they follow it up with "and if you buy this trinket...", it's how they make money. If you couldn't change your fortune there wouldn't be much point in asking about it.
Still, things are happening at a nice pace, which is always good. She's obviously got to work on subtlety, though.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/2/Serpent_of_the_East
...okay, so the repetition last chapter was a nice frame. Repetition three times between individual paragraphs for an opening, that's more getting into redundant territory.
"She gratefully accepted a Jade Obol from the head of the village."
That's an awful lot, and it doesn't sound like this is a rich place. I mean, maybe they have that much money around that they can pay this, but having so much they've converted some to obals... especially when it appears they're not even near the Realm. (It might make sense if they'd been paid for some huge purchase with an obal, and hadn't found anything large enough to spend on, but then she should be referencing this instead of just being grateful for a payment.)
""It started when one of the villagers went into the forest. He came back really sick, and it just spread from there. We're about to start burning the bodies. Wouldn't want anyone crawling back up from the grave, you know?" "
This just serves to make the suddenly, zombies! scene next paragraph blah instead of shocking. (And if suddenly zombies! is so standard, it just begs the question of why they waited so long to start burning bodies. The scene itself works great, but the guard's matter of fact attitude undermines everything.
"Biyanca leaned against a boulder to gain her bearings and figure out where to start searching, and what, exactly, she was searching for. On the boulder's surface she noticed several palm-sized, black stone. Eight, to be exact. Two vertical rows of four in careful formation. Puzzled, the swept her hand along the boulder's surface to knock the stone from formation.
It didn't move, but it did change. All eight of them. At the same time. Even more puzzled, Biyanca left her hand to rest against the side of the stone and leaned forward for a closer look.
She yelped and lurched away as the all eight "rocks" changed again and the entire boulder rose from the ground, lifted by branches. She realized the "rocks" hadn't just changed. They had blinked. "
Cleverly done.
A nice fight - descriptive but not overlong.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/3/Serpent_of_the_East
He not only leaves her, but the hearthstone? And she just takes it and leaves, without actually fixing the whole forest thing (or was his walking off all that was needed or something?)
"She was running through an ally, breathing heavily. She was hurting. Dieing."
Well, so's her ally, I'd guess. Ouch.
"The man grinned at her. "Nice one. What're you doing around here?" he asked pleasantly.
"Just a humble traveler," she said, equally pleasant."
...okay. So she's been swinging around her OH HEY GUYS I'M A SOLAR superweapon a couple times, but largely in situations where no one really had time to think much about it. Here, she's just done so at the gate of a village in front of a Dragonblooded. And still nothing.
"My name is Peleps Deled."
…
"After settling her things in a room that was far too nice for a traveling storyteller"
Um, as she's apparently a traveler who gets paid by the obal, she should be able to afford pretty decent housing.
"For Exalted players, this is not the canon Peleps Deled monk man. This is horny DB man with Peleps Deled's name. :)"
HOW DID THIS SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/4/Serpent_of_the_East
So she's dreaming about an owl lunar mate, and then there's some owl following her around, and she doesn't put two and two together? Ick. This would have been a lot better if you'd brought up the present-day owl first (possibly in an earlier chapter, even) and the dream later, or else had her present-day mate have a new form. It'd be blunt enough with "past life dream of people who can turn into animals" + "so some random animal's following me".
Aside from that, this is a pretty good chapter. Both the dialogue and description feel quite natural.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/5/Serpent_of_the_East
Again good description, but first standing around while the solar in Lookshy was cut down and now leaving some poor guy here...she's really not much of a hero. She doesn't show any sign of sympathy or regret or even much acknowledgment beyond being glad it's not her.
And everyone is failing to kill her for some reason.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/6/Serpent_of_the_East
ACK. So he's a lion, and was just following her as a bird. So there isn't even the excuse of spirit shapes, it really was supposed to be hideously obvious.
Scene by scene the story's decent enough...but arg, the actual plot is not.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/7/Serpent_of_the_East
"Chosen of Muercury"
Why?
And I see the Sidereals barely had time to get on screen before sprinting for the nearest idiot ball. What, their only choice was to explain the freaky arrows honestly or lie about how they were sure the arrows were just a trick of the light? They can't say they don't know, or make up something about Dragonblooded, or anything? *Sidereals*.
At least her plan wasn't too terrible - if she'd actually thought up a way of escaping with it despite its weight I'd even upgrade that to "good".
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3032851/8/Serpent_of_the_East
"It ends a bit abruptly, only because there's a loooooong chapter after it, and I didn't want to make this longer."
Not really the best opening to the last chapter of the fic. I'd actually been sort of hoping this one might be either complete or at least stop at a good point like the other chapterfic, but I guess not.
Ah well. This was basically decent, though it really needed to be further adapted from roleplay account to narrative story. Bizarre spelling errors aside the actual writing was some of the better kind I've seen here so far. The characters individually were pretty flat, although their interactions were well done.
Wonder what was up with those arrows?
Fun fact! The author is the first I've heard back from. (The story was last updated January 07.) She took the whole thing quite well.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2687703/1/Wounded_Bird
:D This what a backstory should be.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2687703/2/Wounded_Bird
"Coins jangled on the cobblestone of the street as the person that had attempted to take them from Thrush's bowl jolted in shock."
"Blind Thrush began skimming the ground trying to recover as many coins as he could. "
"He was missing a little over one-fourth of what had been in the bowl before the thief's attempt. "
So...considering that his awesome anti-theft senses don't much help prevent his money from getting scattered and partially lost, why did he ever come up with the idea of keeping his money in a visible bowl next to him in the first place? I mean, is there any real advantage over just putting it directly in whatever bag he carries it in?
...and he's a super guitar player? I mean, it makes a lot of sense that he could pick out problems with music, but if he's an instant hit like this why's he fortune telling? You're not really clear about how much money he's getting beyond that it impresses the other players - obviously if he's getting more telling fortunes then the answer's obvious. The other option is that he doesn't like playing because of past trauma, but for one thing he probably also learned about fortune telling from his dead master and for another that didn't stop him from doing it just now.
The writing's okay, but plotwise pretty meh.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2687703/3/Wounded_Bird
Eek. So while I maintain my stance that if he's awesome with a guitar I don't see why he doesn't get money that way, I certainly can see why he wouldn't want to join up with this group, because wow are those ever not good dynamics. Unfortunately it seems like that's what he's doing.
More insight into his head would really help here - you're mostly just using the narration just far enough to make sure the story's described through a blind man's eyes (and doing a surprisingly good job of it so far) but not really getting any deeper in. If he's not intimidated by leader-guy, than the fact leader-guy is so obviously a bad leader who's already pissed off at him might not matter. If he likes friendly girl, then he might be going with them over that. Or maybe he wants to travel in a group period for some reason. But right now he's just hanging out being a cipher.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3699239/1/Origin_of_Language
My is it ever ironic that you don't know how to write dialogue properly. Punctuation, for example.
"This was spoken by She Who Lives in Her Name. The Primordial of definition, limits and hierarchy. It is off of her that they will base the gods off of."
Considering the gods, left to their own devices, promptly spend their time backstabbing superiors for promotion and then slacking off madly once they're in power, clearly they didn't base them off her enough.
Anyway, while the idea that language was the catalyst for everything is interesting, you don't go anywhere with it and the rest of this is painfully dull.
Oh, and it's cut off mid-sentence.
"Despite all odds humanity prospered in this age. Under the tutelage and command of the Dragon-Kings they learned much about Creation. It was this endless urge to understand and create that drew the attention of the Primordial's. Taking select groups they where imbued with the blood of a Primordial. In this manner the Lintha where born and given dominion of an island-continent. Many species"
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3703647/1/Shades_of_the_Loom
My, she's emo. Klutz, incestuous child rape, dead mom, lost exalt, with the angsty cherry on top that she blames herself for everything.
"Bent One Winged Angel did not look particularly impressed."
WAT.
"Navia looked down at herself and felt unworthy. She was not a particularly tall woman, not exceptional or athletic either. Sidereal training had toned and put muscle on a body that had always stayed thin on its own. Her luxuriously full red hair was her one pride and joy, a blanket of flame that caught the slightest breeze and fanned behind her in a pleasing way. She was also pleased than her murky brown eyes, her least favorite trait, had changed into the brilliant forest-emerald when her Exaltation had woken inside.
See? She was pretty, she'd always been told so, though of course all Golden Children were. Yet no matter how pleasing her appearance, she always disappointed people. If only she could make her Sifu happy. If only she could stop failing at everything. Even the scars on her arms attested her incompetence, a badge of shame that thankfully had gone unremarked on in the Bureau. She was glad no one noticed that a few were recent."
...because "she's pretty but she's going to keep wangsting about how she looks anyway" is new territory that definitely needed trailblazing.
"Sometimes she wished he would just yell at her or hit her like her father had and get it over with. At least then he would feel better and she would feel worse and maybe then she'd try hard enough to succeed at something."
So yeah, I'm calling sue.
...so she's a twenty year old golden child living a hundred years after the Usurpation? Or do you mean they trained her for eighty years before letting her into a department?
"Five years she'd been in Heaven and still that was hard to get used to."
Okay, that can't be it. Well, there's no rule against forward time travel. So she somehow got shunted into the future from the Usurpation, which was about the last time anybody was making golden kids.
"The Prophecy of the Pivot Child
Born from the Dragons, meant for the Sky,"
*Oh*, you're misusing golden child to mean any sort of half caste. She's a Dragonblooded kid. That explains the timeline, but takes away the idea the reason she's so whiny is Solar mindrape charms from Dad give her no choice in the matter. So she's honestly just like this.
""Shall we get on with it?" Sept Green sighed. "There's a lot to do and I don't want to spend all night..." he looked up as the Sun abruptly rose, chasing Luna from Her lead. "...all day arguing about it." "
I will give you credit that the whole Games of Divinity thing going on in the background is pretty fun.
ARG NO TIME TRAVEL. Especially not because of the loom, which is completely designed around enforcing causality, not tying it into a pretzel.
""Because the Pivot Child will be our daughter." "
Okay, so then she's the standard kind of golden child and we're back to the timeline mess. (Only no mindrape charms to explain the whining) Also, if destiny doesn't build around Sidereals, then it hardly matters if she's "destined to be the kid" or "destined to have the kid" because both are, you know, destinies.
"You see, I know only what I'm telling you now because when I was you, it is what I told myself. "
See, this kind of causality error is exactly what the loom is supposed to prevent.
"Someday, we will give birth to the Pivot Child. That Child is going to save Creation from the greatest snarl in the Tapestry imaginable "
You mean the greatest after THE TIME TRAVELER STANDING IN THE LOOM OF FATE TELLING HER PAST SELF SOMETHING SHE ONLY KNOWS BECAUSE IT'S WHAT SHE WAS TOLD AT THE TIME.
Okay, finally confirmed that she's a solar's kid, only to introduce bonus timeline WTFery in that apparently she set the Sidereals on her solar mother. Which had to be before age ten, because they'd have noticed a fellow Sid. (Frankly they should have noticed her anyway given how their exaltations work. Or else killed her for being a golden child on principle.) So she did this at, like, eight.
"the Child will be preserved, Navia. That is all that matters "
"It was up to her to bear the child who would save the world."
Oh, it's also annoying that female plotlines tend to revolve around how their very important work is having a kid who will then do the actual stuff. Seriously, why don't guys ever have to put up with this kind of plot?
And jesus now there's a third her actually pregnant with the kid because not only did there need to be extra time travel but it was vital to the story to get it confirmed in the first chapter of a long story that yeah, everything's going to work out exactly how it's supposed to.
About the only way this is redeemable at this point is if the whole thing is a massive mindfuck from someone else. And even there a lot is lost by the fact Navia acted like it was a reasonable sequence of events.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3703647/2/Shades_of_the_Loom
And I thought last chapter had causality violations. This one combines them with all the fun of a character talking to herself. Not to her older self, literally answering her own question because older self didn't answer, as if you just shoehorned the whole thing in because you were worried the reader might wonder. And on top of that you then lay out the prophesy in even more detail. Maybe next you could literally give her a checklist of exactly what she needs to do. Not that it'd matter, since oldest self has already stated the future has come to pass properly and can't be changed. So I guess the world is saved then, but for some reason there's more chapters of this.
Well, maybe it'll be about the actual pivotal child.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3703647/3/Shades_of_the_Loom
"Both of them carried field-issue jade rings that would be worth an absolute fortune from the Houses, if the Dragon-Blooded were capable of their manufacture. "
I wasn't aware things were only worth a fortune if you were able to make them yourself. Presumably you meant something like "aware of their existence".
Well, she's a lot more tolerable now that she's hypothetically competent, and I like the dialogue.
"They had just a hint of yellow, just a slight oddity to the pupil but telling in a literal way. The man had a Tell. Which meant, no matter how improbable it was on the Blessed Isle, that this killer was a Lunar."
Because moonsilver knives aren't a tipoff. And she's been a Sidereal for how many hundreds of years now?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3703647/6/Shades_of_the_Loom
And decidedly meh. Things never jell into a story rather than a series of events - possibly that's the result of you leaning so incredibly heavily on prophesy in the first place, and it's certainly not helped by the massive timeskips that render events even more disconnected than they already are. Never really clear why she can't just explain the whole pivot child business rather than hiding it, aside from the fact it forces her to kill people. But I'm still not even clear how the golden child timeline thing worked, so that's not surprising.
"Yezenjen would be given the best education a child could receive. Navia would become Iselsi Navia for one last time. She felt the prayer strip inscribed with the Ceasing to Exist Approach Charm beneath her dress and smiled to herself. It would not be pleasant for her but the child would be given the very best care possible."
And fittingly we return to the whole ambulatory womb subtext to round out the ending.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3777233/1/Heaven_Sent_Hawk
This is really well done. It's fast paced without skipping over anything, and at once both shows how hard what she's doing is and how she's able to do it anyway.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3777233/2/Heaven_Sent_Hawk
And a great finish followed by a truly fitting exaltation. (Bit about even Luna rarely seeing anything like it seems rather excessive, though - it smacks of trying to hammer in that this character is Special, rather than just letting what she did stand on its own.) And now there's a lunar who's going to take down the icewalkers, which should be a mess.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3979406/1/Oddysey
And huh, this is marked complete. Well. As a chapter of an unfinished story, it's pretty good. You do a great job at interweaving bits of backstory into the present rather than just resorting to a massive flashback, and the various references to things are intriguing - why the moonsilver, what's she looking for, all that. As something that's supposed to stand alone - well, it doesn't, so that's kind of where it falls down.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3988530/1/Taking_Flight
Well, I suppose that's better than working out the logistics of human/hawk sex, even if that's not legit beastman creation. Here, though, there's the standard disconnected feel of someone writing about characters that they know and are invested in, but haven't really put enough of that down in the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3991377/1/Hearts_Fortress
"She stiffened slightly as Grimnyr sat next to her, a subtle signal that he ignored. He had learned long ago that when Guardian was troubled, he had to pry the details out of her. Essence shimmered, and Grimnyr's grimcleaver Icefire lay across his lap.
"The last time I interrogated someone, I used this axe," he said. A quick motion of his hand sent the blade Elsewhere again. "Since I happen to be fond of all of your limbs, I'll just ask: What's wrong?""
If you meant this as jokey banter, you really really need to signal that better, because I'm getting the impression he's a horrible abusive monster right here.
Anyway, if the last one was disconnected this is borderline incoherent. It opens talking about a perceived insult that's not actually said and spends the rest of the story making references to things that are never explained.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3993086/1/Common_Ground
This one isn't incoherent, but it's not really much of a story either. If it was an established character I suppose one could call it a character exploration, but that'd require you to properly establish her first, rather than just writing short bursts of scenes assuming everyone's already as familiar with the characters as you are.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3993092/1/Water_Riding
This is a complete scene, at least, but not quite an actual story. It's pretty good as that, but that doesn't really change that it belongs in something longer.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4494275/1/Jacks_Story
NEVER USE QUOTATION MARKS FOR THOUGHTS.
"Minutes later, he saw something shiny in an untouched corner of one of the rooms. Inspecting it further, he saw that it was some kind of large golden metallic rock."
Since found oricalchum is generally the remnants of something, not a naturally occurring ore (especially within ruins) this piece should really not look exactly the same as a rock, and of all people, you'd think a smith could tell the difference. It's not like it's vital to the storyline that he consistently think it's a rock and not a broken bit of a statue or whatever.
His consistent inability to identify oricalchum is a bit more damning, though. I mean, he's a smith, he should know metal.
"I need a sword of fine antiquity and supreme strength and heard that you were one of the finest Smiths in the city."
If you want to commission something of "fine antiquity" then you're pretty much out of luck no matter how skilled the smith is. Time doesn't work that way.
""If the Big Man wants a sword, I shall make him a sword". Regretting, only for a second, sacrificing what was to most assuredly be a great fortune"
Okay, if when you make a sword it's worth less than the materials you used, you're doing it wrong. Also, what the hell? It's really bad when your plot hinges on a character deciding to do something at random for no reason that is actively against his own interest. He has no reason not to make the guy a regular sword. He doesn't know what the metal is, so he has no reason to think it'd make a good sword, and doesn't know how to work the metal even if it could make a good sword, and even if he overcomes all that it's still not something to attempt when you've been commissioned to make a sword and need to get one done in reasonable time, without wasting a lot of extra time figuring out how to work some new metal.
Now, if he didn't have that commission and just decided to make a sword period because hey, smith, this whole sequence would make a lot more sense.
"Out of fear and great curiosity, the Satrap's underling stepped inside of the forge "
Okay, wait. I was assuming this was taking place over a reasonable amount of time, not a couple minutes. It's not a burger joint, you can't just stand there and wait for the guy to make you a fresh sword.
Anyway, yet another of these backstories that don't really manage the story part - they'd work as the opening to something longer, but they're all setup and not able to stand properly on their own.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4200534/1/Though_the_Rifts
Huh, this is pretty good. A lot depends on how the crossover ends up getting handled - how much of her magic transfers, for one thing - but it's an interesting twist on the standard person-falls-into-fantasy setting that preserves the usual issues of high and low tech meetin
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4200534/2/Though_the_Rifts
Hm, hit and miss. Both groups don't seem to have any real difficulties explaining the differences between their worlds, barring that bit with fairies - and honestly that was somewhat forced. Most noticeable with the gods business - it's explained like they're quite used to the idea that it's odd for a god to be several things at once. I guess it's sort of that neither side seems to be trying that hard at IC dialogue. The only issues come from things they don't bother to explain.
But the interplay when they're not infodumping at each other is quite good, the cat business especially.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4200534/3/Though_the_Rifts
Kind of middling. The courtship is kind of cute, but resolved rather quickly, and it's not clear where the story's going.
Incidentally, this one brings us into last year, as it was updated January 09.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5753339/1/25_Years_LaterFarewell_to_Buffy
[Chapter Review Exchange]
Your title is smushed. I assume you meant for there to be some other character that FFN ate, but least put a space there.
"rythym of feather and flight."
So yeah, spellcheck is important.
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.
Furthermore, if you're breaking up two complete sentences it's "Hi," he said. "This is it." not "Hi," he said, "this is it." or "Hi," he said "this is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." And if you're breaking up a sentence in the middle, it's "Hi. This," he said, "is it." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."
Also, you don't put a space between the opening quotation mark and the first word.
It's AWOL, caps, for Absence WithOut Leave.
"A slayer was never meant to live a long life. The constant mending and breaking of bones and other traumatic injuries took their toll upon mortal flesh."
Huh, I got the impression part of their powers was they were really durable and fast healers. Well, I suppose it's not unreasonable that long term effects could still build up. (It might be cleaner to link things more directly - fast healing causes accelerated aging or something.)
The details of this are nice - you don't describe Buffy directly, but still give the sense she's frail and old based on the setting around her. I'm not much of a fan of where-are-they-now/sendoff sorts of things, honestly - I tend not to invest much in characters - but this seems like a generally well done version. You really need to better proofread, though, your mechanics are pretty bad.
