9 reviews

[farla]

Spectrum (PM (WV, AR, Jackspers))

I love how brilliantly inventive all the different moments are.

dark violent of those crooked Derse alleys

They're probably that too, but only violet's a color. It's nice to see how PM's view of Dersites shifts after WV but somewhat sad as well, since if it's not true but she thought it was, it's probably what most of them think on both sides, both seeing avoidance as unfriendliness.

Once she does wake, and she kills him before she’s even fully aware of what her body’s done. He bleeds out over the sand and she staggers back, unsure if he was attacking her or trying to wake her.

So on the one hand, she's pretty much lost it and possibly just killed some innocent person. On the other, she's not even mentioning carapace color. Ten steps backward, one step forward?

It's wheels don't work in the sand

Just its.

And a good end in the end, which is pretty decent considering. The survivors escaped, their new lives aren't bad ones... There's something funny about a jack-o-lanturn being the happy ending to this all.

Howling (Crowbar (Die))

Itchy Wants Coffee (Itchy (Doze))

Eh. This seems like just random hijinks. Most of the plot is Itchy trying to overcome the obstacle of the mansion being a mutating labyrinth, when canonically it's not at all one.

Checkmate (Vetenari (Doc Scratch))

How perfectly Vetenari. I admit I'm rather dubious of him actually being able to stop Doc Scratch, but even just cutting contact is a good step. Too many of the characters just keep listening to him even after they've realized he's untrustworthy, and then keep listening even after realizing that knowing he's untrustworthy doesn't mean you won't fall for his newest machinations.

Doc Scratch and the Unexpected Guest (Doc Scratch (Death))

Pretend (Snowman (HD))

Building Midnight (SS, DD, CD, HB)

A collection of drabbles

No, a drabble's a writing exercise of exactly a hundred words. There's lots of terms you could use for a short story but only one for something of precisely a hundred words.

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." If there's no speech verb in the break, you use a dash, like "Hi. This - " He looked around. "- is it."

looking as ‘capital’ as possible with their poor resources desert had to offer

Your sentences are also just very, very weirdly put together. Here, with the poor resources the desert had to offer" or just "with their poor resources" would work, but not what you've got. A lot of them have these kinds of errors. Try reading out loud or finding someone to beta read.

I like how you write the characters, and there can never be too much fanfiction of the group. But you really need to improve your grammar.

Universal Appeal (Snowman (PI))

Eh. Do we have a term for pairing two characters because why not? I'd say crack ship, but crack ships can be done with the author working hard to sell the pairing. This is more of the thrown together type.

Little Details (Jade (Bec Noir, Dave))

Well, that was disturbing but very well done.

Let Him Rest Here (SS (PS, Snowman, Crowbar))

One of the more convincing ones, I think. Maybe a bit too nice an ending, but there's too much depressing stuff as there is.

Chain (Jack (PM, BQ, WQ, AR, WV, DD, HB, CD, maybe someone else I don't want to check okay?))

Well this is really disturbing and stomach-turning, in the most complimentary way. There's a lot warring for most awful, but Jack's Nice Guy thing wins, I think. His attempts at being nice and his ongoing delusion this is some sort of relationship is somehow a lot worse than if he was just being outright sadistic from start to finish. He's just so fucked up. At least PM doesn't fall for it, but then she still has to go through everything else. And all the many, many horrible things going on in the background, and...

I suppose the ending is kind of hopeful, but I can't help wonder just how many people they're going to have to kill given it seems so much of Derse thought all of this was just fine. And given how similar the two sides often are, how much of Prospit would have been just as bad given the chance.

Stakeout (DD (CD))

And this is comparatively made of sweetness and light and possibly yellow butterflies or something. I like his comments on plans and Slick's problems with the concept. Droog really should have known better, though. This whole thing seems inevitable in a give-a-mouse-a-cookie sense.

Correction (PS (SS, AR))

And, to be fair, the Midnight Crew are a bunch of criminals. That's what they do. They run speakeasies and they corrupt the media and they stay up all night playing jazz. That's what Authority Regulator rants about. You just keep your head down and try not to disagree with him too much.

It's basically a poor woobie Slick story. I can see the appeal to downplaying Slick's tendencies toward bludgeoning people to death and lighting the corpses on fire, for the record, but it starts to be more of a problem when at the same time you make other characters harsher to persecute the newly decent version.

Never Have I Ever (Crowbar (Snowman, The Felt))

I'm amazed they're dumb enough to actually play this game, and then dumb enough again to do so with Itchy. And then to not kill Itchy.

Well, the two of them are cute together.

I Never (Crowbar (Snowman, Die, The Felt))

Continuing to play the game suggests they're all sharing a kink for that. Something related to masochism, humiliation and a desire for really awful mental images. Or in Itchy's case, apparently sitting in the laps of horrified people. It's utterly hilarious, though.

"My collection was nearly complete before I was exiled. However, someone kept stealing pieces from it." The tone of voice she uses says she knows exactly who it was.

I am really curious what exactly her collection involved and why Jack was stealing things out of it.

Nothing Out of the Ordinary (PS (SS))

PM (WV, AR, Jackspers)
Crowbar (Die)
Itchy (Doze)
Vetenari (Doc Scratch)
Doc Scratch (Death)
Snowman (HD)
SS, DD, CD, HD
Snowman (PI)
Jade (Bec Noir, Dave)
SS (PS, Snowman, Crowbar)
Jack (PM, BQ, WQ, AR, WV, DD, HB, CD, maybe someone else I don't want to check okay?)
DD (CD)
PS (SS, AR)
Crowbar (Snowman, The Felt)
Crowbar (Snowman, Die, The Felt)
PS (SS)

Four of sixteen. There seems to be a generally stable ratio here.

Comments

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

I kind of want to buy you a drink.

[farla.livejournal.com]

You should buy fandom a drink. Maybe if fandom drank more they would write more plot. It's so much easier reviewing plot.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

It's the plottiest one from this batch that most inspired that sentiment. After I read it, I was kind of fucked up for a week.

[farla.livejournal.com]

I already read it, so after starting into it and realizing that was a bad idea, I skimmed, then skipped to the end and tried to put my thoughts together.

Plotty stuff that isn't 90% oh god what why.