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Entry tags:
Reset Again, For Queen and Country, Dreamcatchers
http://archiveofourown.org/works/117225?view_full_work=true
Reset Again
I like the beginning of this. You set up a good alt mundane world and then drop the bombshell that his friends are prototyped imps, which says a lot about how John's head must be messed up. But it goes downhill when he returns to the game. The dialogue starts sounding more like it's explaining the concepts than that it's natural conversation, and is more like two people in a debate. And I'd have thought that once John was back in the game, seeing what was going on, he'd start to realize something was wrong about the world he'd been in and the story the voice told him about it, or that the rest would question what was going on. Instead it seems almost like his version ends up being taken at face value, but that it's just not good enough because they want to save Jade too.
And the idea killing himself would fix the timeline seems like it's implicitly agreeing that going through the seventh gate killed him, and Dave was right. If he needed to make it so he went through the gate and realized his potential, the solution would be knocking himself out and dragging past John through the gate.
I wish you'd had them more interested in investigating what happened - if what John was told was right, and the earth was rebuilt because he went through the gate (and that the earth is therefore through the gate), then they should want that to happen. If it isn't right, why is he there? What would happen if he did kill John? (I'm guessing that he was kept alive specifically to try to kill John for good when Dave tried to fix the timeline?)
http://archiveofourown.org/works/118184
For Queen and Country
This is interesting, and I find it kind of weird, actually. It starts off in an understandable manner, AU where PM ends up at the palace...
"We are the only living people here... did you notice? I realised you would understand this as soon as I saw you.
And then this hits and wow, weird. I do sort of wish we'd seen more of what WQ saw - when she's confessing what she knows, PM argues against it, so I wonder how she's different than the average carapace citizen, who we don't see as a point of comparison. (Which does work - they're the "only living people", and having them be the only characters fits with that.) But - is it that she can care, and anyone else would have just nodded and not thought much? Or is she acting like any other pawn at that moment, and it's why WQ gets so upset?
And the ending is a bit bittersweet but cute.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/119304
Dreamcatchers
I like her nightmare. We only ever see her at the battlefield, but she'd have seen what happened to Prospit even from there, and it makes more sense that it'd be what happened there, the loss of her whole planet, would hurt more than what she saw on her short stretch on Skaia, even if that would probably be enough for nightmares by itself.
And WV yelling at her to stop works so much better than him simply trying to be comforting - they're both caught up in their own heads and not reacting right to the actual events for the moment, and it's a good look the ways they're the same and how they differ. Their conversation is sad but adorable. I'm not sure if either of them really believes what she says about surviving yet, but maybe they will eventually.
Going to sleep without it was a little frightening, but not as frightening as the thought of what she could do with it if she woke up in the middle of the night when the fire had died and forgot where she was and who was with her.
And somehow this seems like the saddest thing in the fic, the possibility and the worry she has, especially after she's just thinking about how hard it is to believe she's kind.
Reset Again
I like the beginning of this. You set up a good alt mundane world and then drop the bombshell that his friends are prototyped imps, which says a lot about how John's head must be messed up. But it goes downhill when he returns to the game. The dialogue starts sounding more like it's explaining the concepts than that it's natural conversation, and is more like two people in a debate. And I'd have thought that once John was back in the game, seeing what was going on, he'd start to realize something was wrong about the world he'd been in and the story the voice told him about it, or that the rest would question what was going on. Instead it seems almost like his version ends up being taken at face value, but that it's just not good enough because they want to save Jade too.
And the idea killing himself would fix the timeline seems like it's implicitly agreeing that going through the seventh gate killed him, and Dave was right. If he needed to make it so he went through the gate and realized his potential, the solution would be knocking himself out and dragging past John through the gate.
I wish you'd had them more interested in investigating what happened - if what John was told was right, and the earth was rebuilt because he went through the gate (and that the earth is therefore through the gate), then they should want that to happen. If it isn't right, why is he there? What would happen if he did kill John? (I'm guessing that he was kept alive specifically to try to kill John for good when Dave tried to fix the timeline?)
http://archiveofourown.org/works/118184
For Queen and Country
This is interesting, and I find it kind of weird, actually. It starts off in an understandable manner, AU where PM ends up at the palace...
"We are the only living people here... did you notice? I realised you would understand this as soon as I saw you.
And then this hits and wow, weird. I do sort of wish we'd seen more of what WQ saw - when she's confessing what she knows, PM argues against it, so I wonder how she's different than the average carapace citizen, who we don't see as a point of comparison. (Which does work - they're the "only living people", and having them be the only characters fits with that.) But - is it that she can care, and anyone else would have just nodded and not thought much? Or is she acting like any other pawn at that moment, and it's why WQ gets so upset?
And the ending is a bit bittersweet but cute.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/119304
Dreamcatchers
I like her nightmare. We only ever see her at the battlefield, but she'd have seen what happened to Prospit even from there, and it makes more sense that it'd be what happened there, the loss of her whole planet, would hurt more than what she saw on her short stretch on Skaia, even if that would probably be enough for nightmares by itself.
And WV yelling at her to stop works so much better than him simply trying to be comforting - they're both caught up in their own heads and not reacting right to the actual events for the moment, and it's a good look the ways they're the same and how they differ. Their conversation is sad but adorable. I'm not sure if either of them really believes what she says about surviving yet, but maybe they will eventually.
Going to sleep without it was a little frightening, but not as frightening as the thought of what she could do with it if she woke up in the middle of the night when the fire had died and forgot where she was and who was with her.
And somehow this seems like the saddest thing in the fic, the possibility and the worry she has, especially after she's just thinking about how hard it is to believe she's kind.