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farlaIn a shocking turn of events, AooO has not melted under Yuletide. I'm not sure if I'll actually comment on any of the Yuletide proper fics when I'm done with Homestuck, because insane fest is insane, but there's some good stuff in there.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6559764/1/Land_of_the_Free
"The garages were frightening, like cages, with walls all around and no lights anywhere."
That description doesn't quite match "cage". "Cave", maybe, "cage" doesn't usually have solid wall. Or "cell". It'd also be nice to go more into detail here - because it's dark and scary looking, or did something in particular happen, like someone caught his father stealing and they had to run for it?
I think you're also going a bit too far explaining what's actually going on. With his mother, you don't need to highlight the bit about how he has no reason to disbelieve his father, just saying that all he remembers is one day she was gone works.
"Damian knew stealing was wrong. Stealing was when you took something from another person, something that didn't belong to you. He didn't realize that it was the same thing, when he and his father rummaged through parked cars and took the valuable things out. That had always been accompanied by an uneasy feeling of danger and guilt, but he didn't exactly know that it was wrong, or at least wouldn't have been able to explain why. "
And this doesn't feel like you've connected the pieces completely. I could see having some sort of hierarchy of theft, or being unclear, but I don't like his just having the sense of guilt without explanation. His dad is probably behaving like he's doing something wrong, which would be a good way to have mixed feelings - his father saying it's not bad, but acting guilty/like he expects anyone who sees them will be upset would probably result in a sense something's wrong but not exactly what it is.
"Distantly, he heard but didn't notice a shout"
I think I know what you mean here - that there was an audible shout, but he didn't pick it out of the background noise as having anything to do with him, or something around those lines. But it's not worded right. Something like "There was a distant shout, but Damien didn't pay any attention to it..." would be better, or going omniscient to "There was a distant shout, but Damien didn't hear it" if that's what you meant.
Yay, mobster TR! They're far more fun when they're full of violent psychopaths.
"pulling out—something. A ball. It was split into two colors, red and white. " Huh, how old is he? He hasn't seen one around before? Are they not in this area or what?
"The inhuman growling suddenly halted, and now there were only strained sobs and groans. "
Huh? Whose? His father seems definitely dead, and the guy doing it doesn't seem the sort to be making those sounds. Is this Damian? It doesn't quite fit with his feeling numb and shut off, and the description makes it sound like it's coming from outside him.
"So he didn't register the pounding footsteps and raised voices now echoing outside the car. "
"She had a noticeable accent, Japanese, but if Damian had been paying attention he would have been able to understand her words. "
So is this omniscient or limited? Your description up to this point seems to be limited, but then here it must be omniscient. But your narration of the conversation still sounds like it's third-limited, because you say things like "sounded bitter", not "was bitter", and since we've been in his head before now the narration reads like it's his impression of them.
I'm not really sure it's necessary he not hear the conversation, since he wouldn't make much sense of it and it seems he wouldn't act differently if he heard.
"said the first girl"
Also, random pet peeve, don't switch between "woman" and "girl". Generally don't switch epithets, when I hit this I looked back to see if there had been multiple girls introduced as well as the woman you identified as speaking originally.
"Especially not with a pokémon."
"Damian had never heard of Pokémon"
Inconsistent capitalization here. As I've said, strongly in favor of the former uncapitalized form being the one used.
Anyway, this is pretty interesting. There's a big jump between killing some guy and killing a kid, and it seems the rest of the group wasn't even okay with the first murder, so dealing with Damian isn't going to be simple. Presumably he's about to get dragged along with them because they don't know what else to do. Also, I just generally support criminals with weapons using them. It seems like this isn't standard issue pokeworld where there are pokemon everywhere - seems either they're really rare or restricted in area to Japan/the pokemon lands that are in the vicinity, either of which would be interesting to explore. And I'm curious what the box contains, though it might just be a macguffin.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/116227
Dark Night of the Soul
Ah, speculative fic. There's something about these I really like. The idea of the Derse kids turning on the Prospit is creepy, and the particular reason they did even more so. The idea that the kids' friendship could be undone is hard to believe, but that their friendship could make them feel they had to? That works. Evil is more selfish than cackling malice.
I wish you'd spent a bit more time on the setting, though. You do a good job with detail but it's very much centered around John. It's the side that's corrupted Dave, and more generally building up Derse for atmospheric reasons would help give the whole thing a darker feel.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/117155
Rag Doll
I love this fic. Apparently fandom is now generally in love with creepy perving Jack from this, but that isn't quite how I see him here, it's more he really is treating her like a possession - he wants to have her around but doesn't seem even able to view her as a person with her own opinions - it's like he knows on an intellectual level that people have those, but doesn't actually get it. When she does what he wants he's happy and when she doesn't he's mad, and it has nothing to do with if what he asked is something minor or something terrible. It's not just smiling he isn't used to, it's anything about relationships, and the few vaguely nice things he does manage just make it creepier. Their whole conversation on the ship feels like Jack is just happy - he certainly isn't under the impression she's happy with how things went and he seems more interested in free range gloating and lording it over his audience over trying to needle her in particular. He wants to chatter about something he's happy about with someone he's enjoying having around, and that they're miserable just doesn't register beyond that it's further validation. PM's right, when he calls her doll he means it. About the only positive thing that can be said for him is that it seems at points he'd like for her to be willing/friendly in an abstract sort of way, and even then he prefers keeping the ego trip of her hating him and having to follow his orders anyway. I can't quite decide if he'd keep her around if she somehow stopped hating him, or at least managed a convincing impression of not hating him.
And PM...she really falls down the rabbit hole by refusing exile. I'm not really sure which the braver choice is in this case, come to think of it. Simply going along with Jack is definitely the easier and eviler option, but the wasteland verses planning to backstab Jack is different. It's more an issue of risk and gain. Exile is accepting something terrible but avoiding anything worse, staying gives her a chance of making it through this and staying in the Medium at the cost of Jack murdering her. And a chance at revenge.
I have a lot of sympathy for wanting to do something and just not knowing what to do or how far to push it, and for all PM goes along with things in this, in that respect she does far better than I would. I'd probably rationalize it as not wanting to screw up everything I was working toward by taking a risk where I might try and fail, but not wanting to die would be a major factor. Also, I really like that she actually does change her mind and plans to run after warning people - in a lot of stories characters make brave decisions and hold onto them until the bitter end, as if it's something you only have to choose once and you're done. She tries, she sees she doesn't have any obvious opportunity in sight and she's going to be asked to do terrible things for as long as she's there, she reevaluates her choices.
It scares her, when she thinks about it, how little continuity there is between the person she was this time the day before and the person she is now.
And yet, even at the end you keep her so recognizably her, IC even in a fic that's all about her changing.
You do a great job of her mental state throughout this. She moves all the way between disconnected and terribly present. And her reasoning at various points is clear and understandable - at every step it makes sense she'd be doing that, even when it leads to her head-on attacking him after he's gained the fourth prototyping despite her original plan being made with the understanding she had no chance against him when he only had three.
And I'm glad of the ending. When I was first reading this I wasn't sure if the second-to-last part was the last, and you just hadn't remembered to fix the subject line. Everything just kept getting worse for her, and then next update things somehow managed to get even worse from there.
In conclusion, yay Winter Food And Presents Day. I watched an hour or so of FFXIII today, and found the girl and chick both pleasing.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6559764/1/Land_of_the_Free
"The garages were frightening, like cages, with walls all around and no lights anywhere."
That description doesn't quite match "cage". "Cave", maybe, "cage" doesn't usually have solid wall. Or "cell". It'd also be nice to go more into detail here - because it's dark and scary looking, or did something in particular happen, like someone caught his father stealing and they had to run for it?
I think you're also going a bit too far explaining what's actually going on. With his mother, you don't need to highlight the bit about how he has no reason to disbelieve his father, just saying that all he remembers is one day she was gone works.
"Damian knew stealing was wrong. Stealing was when you took something from another person, something that didn't belong to you. He didn't realize that it was the same thing, when he and his father rummaged through parked cars and took the valuable things out. That had always been accompanied by an uneasy feeling of danger and guilt, but he didn't exactly know that it was wrong, or at least wouldn't have been able to explain why. "
And this doesn't feel like you've connected the pieces completely. I could see having some sort of hierarchy of theft, or being unclear, but I don't like his just having the sense of guilt without explanation. His dad is probably behaving like he's doing something wrong, which would be a good way to have mixed feelings - his father saying it's not bad, but acting guilty/like he expects anyone who sees them will be upset would probably result in a sense something's wrong but not exactly what it is.
"Distantly, he heard but didn't notice a shout"
I think I know what you mean here - that there was an audible shout, but he didn't pick it out of the background noise as having anything to do with him, or something around those lines. But it's not worded right. Something like "There was a distant shout, but Damien didn't pay any attention to it..." would be better, or going omniscient to "There was a distant shout, but Damien didn't hear it" if that's what you meant.
Yay, mobster TR! They're far more fun when they're full of violent psychopaths.
"pulling out—something. A ball. It was split into two colors, red and white. " Huh, how old is he? He hasn't seen one around before? Are they not in this area or what?
"The inhuman growling suddenly halted, and now there were only strained sobs and groans. "
Huh? Whose? His father seems definitely dead, and the guy doing it doesn't seem the sort to be making those sounds. Is this Damian? It doesn't quite fit with his feeling numb and shut off, and the description makes it sound like it's coming from outside him.
"So he didn't register the pounding footsteps and raised voices now echoing outside the car. "
"She had a noticeable accent, Japanese, but if Damian had been paying attention he would have been able to understand her words. "
So is this omniscient or limited? Your description up to this point seems to be limited, but then here it must be omniscient. But your narration of the conversation still sounds like it's third-limited, because you say things like "sounded bitter", not "was bitter", and since we've been in his head before now the narration reads like it's his impression of them.
I'm not really sure it's necessary he not hear the conversation, since he wouldn't make much sense of it and it seems he wouldn't act differently if he heard.
"said the first girl"
Also, random pet peeve, don't switch between "woman" and "girl". Generally don't switch epithets, when I hit this I looked back to see if there had been multiple girls introduced as well as the woman you identified as speaking originally.
"Especially not with a pokémon."
"Damian had never heard of Pokémon"
Inconsistent capitalization here. As I've said, strongly in favor of the former uncapitalized form being the one used.
Anyway, this is pretty interesting. There's a big jump between killing some guy and killing a kid, and it seems the rest of the group wasn't even okay with the first murder, so dealing with Damian isn't going to be simple. Presumably he's about to get dragged along with them because they don't know what else to do. Also, I just generally support criminals with weapons using them. It seems like this isn't standard issue pokeworld where there are pokemon everywhere - seems either they're really rare or restricted in area to Japan/the pokemon lands that are in the vicinity, either of which would be interesting to explore. And I'm curious what the box contains, though it might just be a macguffin.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/116227
Dark Night of the Soul
Ah, speculative fic. There's something about these I really like. The idea of the Derse kids turning on the Prospit is creepy, and the particular reason they did even more so. The idea that the kids' friendship could be undone is hard to believe, but that their friendship could make them feel they had to? That works. Evil is more selfish than cackling malice.
I wish you'd spent a bit more time on the setting, though. You do a good job with detail but it's very much centered around John. It's the side that's corrupted Dave, and more generally building up Derse for atmospheric reasons would help give the whole thing a darker feel.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/117155
Rag Doll
I love this fic. Apparently fandom is now generally in love with creepy perving Jack from this, but that isn't quite how I see him here, it's more he really is treating her like a possession - he wants to have her around but doesn't seem even able to view her as a person with her own opinions - it's like he knows on an intellectual level that people have those, but doesn't actually get it. When she does what he wants he's happy and when she doesn't he's mad, and it has nothing to do with if what he asked is something minor or something terrible. It's not just smiling he isn't used to, it's anything about relationships, and the few vaguely nice things he does manage just make it creepier. Their whole conversation on the ship feels like Jack is just happy - he certainly isn't under the impression she's happy with how things went and he seems more interested in free range gloating and lording it over his audience over trying to needle her in particular. He wants to chatter about something he's happy about with someone he's enjoying having around, and that they're miserable just doesn't register beyond that it's further validation. PM's right, when he calls her doll he means it. About the only positive thing that can be said for him is that it seems at points he'd like for her to be willing/friendly in an abstract sort of way, and even then he prefers keeping the ego trip of her hating him and having to follow his orders anyway. I can't quite decide if he'd keep her around if she somehow stopped hating him, or at least managed a convincing impression of not hating him.
And PM...she really falls down the rabbit hole by refusing exile. I'm not really sure which the braver choice is in this case, come to think of it. Simply going along with Jack is definitely the easier and eviler option, but the wasteland verses planning to backstab Jack is different. It's more an issue of risk and gain. Exile is accepting something terrible but avoiding anything worse, staying gives her a chance of making it through this and staying in the Medium at the cost of Jack murdering her. And a chance at revenge.
I have a lot of sympathy for wanting to do something and just not knowing what to do or how far to push it, and for all PM goes along with things in this, in that respect she does far better than I would. I'd probably rationalize it as not wanting to screw up everything I was working toward by taking a risk where I might try and fail, but not wanting to die would be a major factor. Also, I really like that she actually does change her mind and plans to run after warning people - in a lot of stories characters make brave decisions and hold onto them until the bitter end, as if it's something you only have to choose once and you're done. She tries, she sees she doesn't have any obvious opportunity in sight and she's going to be asked to do terrible things for as long as she's there, she reevaluates her choices.
It scares her, when she thinks about it, how little continuity there is between the person she was this time the day before and the person she is now.
And yet, even at the end you keep her so recognizably her, IC even in a fic that's all about her changing.
You do a great job of her mental state throughout this. She moves all the way between disconnected and terribly present. And her reasoning at various points is clear and understandable - at every step it makes sense she'd be doing that, even when it leads to her head-on attacking him after he's gained the fourth prototyping despite her original plan being made with the understanding she had no chance against him when he only had three.
And I'm glad of the ending. When I was first reading this I wasn't sure if the second-to-last part was the last, and you just hadn't remembered to fix the subject line. Everything just kept getting worse for her, and then next update things somehow managed to get even worse from there.
In conclusion, yay Winter Food And Presents Day. I watched an hour or so of FFXIII today, and found the girl and chick both pleasing.
