farla | Two reviews, one requested

In Mercy Like the Tide

Hm.

This looks interesting, but I feel like you're relying too much on fanon. Particularly with Tavros - he and Equius have barely interacted in canon. Equius' preferences are for well-behaved, proper trolls, and for assertive ones, and he'd probably be too embarrassed to even want to interact with someone with blood as low as Tavros'. If anything the bidding war might be between Vriska and Eridan, given there's canon suggestion that he's pretty jealous.

And much of what's canon here is canon echos that don't make much sense. It seems a lot of the characters don't know each other, so how was Tavros crippled? Why is Vriska still missing an arm? Why is Sollux getting bought by an empress who doesn't know him?

Also, it seems like slavery is a new thing, but the characters are acting with a sort of background acceptance that seems more appropriate for a society where this is normal. Karkat's personally upset over it, but no one seems to think it's at all weird or novel.

Karkat sucks at reading lips but he's pretty sure he doesn't need to actually read them to guess what Sollux is saying right now: Top that, fuckass.

I mean, why is getting sold to the Empress' house something to be proud of? He's still a slave, just because his owner is wealthy and powerful doesn't mean he is. He may be scrubbing floors and being beaten. Cautiously hopeful, maybe, relieved he wasn't bought by someone who's planning to hunt him for fun certainly, but pride is a bit much to believe here.

It also feels cliche that slave owning is limited to the higher bloods, when it seems the whole idea didn't even exist until recently and there's no reason to put limits in when putting it in place. If Feferi's trying to stop as much culling as possible, letting anyone who's free bid would work much better. Lower bloods probably wouldn't be able to outbid anyone higher, or afford many, but they could afford someone who'd otherwise be culled. Especially when so many high bloods kill lower bloods on their own - you even have Karkat guessing one of the bluebloods is buying just for a future hunt, and Vriska could do the same to feed her lusus, so just giving them out to the highest classes won't necessarily reduce the normal death toll much. If anything, that'd make the most sense of a setup here - Feferi turns culling into slavery, and the deaths now come because a lot of highbloods kill their slaves, since she obviously can't ban them from the bidding.

I don't think this is bad, there's a lot of stuff you can do with a setup like this, and Karkat being sold to Eridan makes sense and it'd be interesting to see how that will go, when there's not much established about it - but a lot of this feels like it could have been thought out more and relied less on how things usually go.

Between the reply I got here and what happened when another story was criticized, I'm feeling disappointed in the fandom.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6873779/1/A_Whole_New_World

Honestly, this is rather dull. Your opening is about how much your character isn't interested in basketball, then that like every other middle school student ever, he's bored, unhappy, disliked by teachers, so much smarter than everyone, hates PE, resents those popular kids, etc. None of this matters. For no discernible reason, you have him manage a cool-looking shot and everyone thinks he's awesome for a while.

[Christina, the most beautiful girl in our grade called out a single sentence, but that sentence made all the difference. "Nice one, Anthony!" ]

No really, why does this matter?

Then his report card is all As, and still wondering why this matters. The narrative style is really irritating, he's saying a lot about absolutely nothing, trying to talk everything up as if it's big and dramatic when it really isn't.

[I'm 14]

Write out numbers with letters. You've been doing this, I don't know why you switched here but don't.

[being almost six feet tall ]

At fourteen? Do you realize just how few kids are that tall at fourteen, especially bearing in mind the majority of adult men aren't even six feet tall? And this from someone you're saying is "average build, average everything"?

[ It seems like my life was spiraling out of control, my un-jockiness had been lost when I made that basketball shot ]

Don't whine about good fortune and a single lucky shot isn't going to convince anyone he's a super athlete. And the bit about his mom being randomly inexplicably depressed seems forced and inexplicable, especially when he doesn't even react to it, so there's no point. It seems like it's just there as obvious foreshadowing.

Annnnnnnnd now he's singing Iroh's song seriously why? It's a terrible, gratuitous insertion.

[She gave me the classic mom look, the no-nonsense because I can and will ground you for life ]

You rely way, way too much on cliché. The whole of this reads as one after another. It's just strung-together references to how everyone knows school life and teenagerhood is. It's not particularly accurate and it's certainly not original.

[ I stepped carefully down the steps, weaving my way around the poor, the unfortunate, the druggies and some combinations of all three. I always felt bad for these people, lost in both mind and spirit with nothing to live for. I always avoided their gazes, their cries and pleas for help, because I didn't want these unfortunate people to see my pitying gaze. ]

...either you've never actually seen anyone like that and are working straight from cliché here, or you're a horrible person. Most people begging are not dispirited insane lumps who have nothing to live for. And seriously, what sort of asshole pretends refusing to make eye contact makes you a great sympathetic person?

Okay, so the bit with him knocking her off the platform is a bit rushed, but it works. You really should have started the story there, none of the preceding bit matters.

[ I readied myself to die, laughing on the inside at the irony that my mom had indeed been justified in thinking I wouldn't come home. ]

That's not what irony means at all.

[Without giving me a look, he said to me, "Isn't it beautiful?" He motioned to the sky, gesturing at a flock of odd birds. I had never seen birds that looked like them, asked, "What are those?" The weird man remained quiet before replying. ]

New speaker means you need a new paragraph.

["Have you ever wanted to break out of life's cycle? To never have to do what you always do? Never go to school? Never be forced to do homework? Live your life outside what people expect of you?" I looked at him with incredulity, because this thinking mirrored what I had been thinking for years.
I responded in a shaking voice, perturbed that the man had thought so similarly to me. "Yes. All the time! How did you know that I-"]

...because absolutely everyone, if they got the chance, would want to go do awesome stuff and not homework? You are really not super ultra special just because you feel dissatisfied with life sometimes. It's normal.

[ I flinched, seeing the scar that ran down his temple to his mouth, a fierce prize from a bloody battle. ]

How does he know that? There are plenty of ways people get scarred that don't involve battles.

The narration of this is just really, really flawed. You keep heaping on information the character shouldn't know and telling what everything means.

[ That one, simple word changed everything. My life would never be the same again. ]

Like this. You've already been beating me over the head with this the whole time, and now he's saying it YET AGAIN. I get it. You know, constantly talking as if everything's already finished is really not a great way to build suspense.

And it's all terribly flat. He doesn't seem to think about what's happening or what he's giving up - and no, "btw I'm giving up stuff but totally going to do it without second thoughts" doesn't count - he's going along with it because of course it wouldn't be much of a story if he didn't. But it's also not much of a story if it's just straight wish fulfillment where the character's not making any real sacrifice.

[The name struck a cord in me, kindling childhood memories. "Salamence. Where have I heard this?" ]

Knowing more than a character is generally less interesting and more frustrating, especially when there's no real point. He's obviously just going to gawp a while then get told pokemon exist. Also, really, "childhood memories"? Pokemon's been around a decade and a half and still going strong. Adults who don't give a fuck still know about it. People aren't going to just forget all about it.

[ The two pretty horses were on fire! I gasped and sat up, startled.
"Horsie on fire! Horsie on fire!" I yelled, pointing frantically at the burning ponies, who were completely oblivious to their dire situation.]

No really, watching him be stupid about stuff I already know is boring.

["This," he responded with a sigh and a gesture all around him. "This is the world of Pokémon." ]

And now mystery guy is literally repeating the opening speech.

[The man sighed, rubbing his head and saying, "Why is it that I always get the newbie? Frank always gets like the masters of the video games but NO, I get the guy who lived under a rock."]

Ugh, yeah, speaking of stuff I've seen, I've seen this too. Lampshade hanging that this makes no sense doesn't help, and frustrating a character isn't funny when I'm just as frustrated. There's a point and a plot here somewhere, surely? Can we get to that?

...I think I've said often enough my opinions on capitalization and unnecessary spaces, so you've presumably seen it already. Speaking of things I've said already...

[The ball rotated, once, twice, before popping open to reveal a floating figure, it's arms crossed. "Abraaaa" it said, before noticing my situation. "Braaa, bra"! it shouted ]

"Its" is the possessive, "it's" means "it is". Punctuation goes before the quotation mark, not after, and it isn't optional.

Also, your capitalization after dialogue is generally inconsistent, proofread better.

[The bipolar abra]

Let me just stop you there.

A character whose personality trait is that they don't have a personality but just do whatever you think is funny at the moment is not a character, it's just bad writing. And they are not actually bipolar if they do this, words do mean things.

Mechanically, this was rather hit and miss. You seem to know the rules but you're not using them consistently. You need to proofread better. consider a beta reader to help you out if you already are.

Plotwise, not good. This is not the standard OT fic, but it is the standard real-world-to-pokemon sort of setup. You need to pare down the unnecessary parts and figure out what matters and what doesn't - what was the point of the first half of the chapter in the real world, when all you said was "it's exactly like you'd expect in every single way"? What's the point of the chat with the mentor character, when all he ends up doing is saying he doesn't want to bother explaining and gives him a pokemon before kicking him off the dragon? I've finished this chapter and I still have no idea why anyone bothered bringing him to be a trainer. Your characterization seems to be stuck on comic relief. Comic relief tends to work badly in text even when it's used sparingly. Doing it to the exclusion of anything else means your characters aren't characters, just vehicles for dull banter. I have no idea what anyone's personality is or how they'd actually react to different situations.

This pretty much sums up why I don't even touch anything under the humor genre normally.

I'm wondering if it'd make sense to try to set up a similar review exchange thing on AOOO? It'd be pretty easy, make a collection for people to add stories they're willing to review exchange on, but given how dead it is over there and how hidden things like profiles are I'm not sure I could get anyone to notice.

Edit: Well, why not. Comment exchange is now up.

Two reviews, one requested

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