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Post by Loken on Feb 23, 2015 16:47:56 GMT -5
I like big walls of text too Mikey! I figure by the end of the story you'll want to make a post!
Seedy Leigh is the best OC character in the fic! Their really are not many but he's still the best. Mostly based on his name alone, but also his shady dealings and his big mean biker alias. I feel like him and Bakerly must be sworn enemies fighting from the shadows.
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Post by Dashe on Feb 23, 2015 17:18:37 GMT -5
The more I think about it the more I want to go back to Chapter 38 and rearrange it so Bakerly does come out as Vice Mayor before I send it to fAB to put on the site. He'd probably help a lot in getting everything smoothed over because Teisel keeps buying his baked goods.
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Post by Loken on Feb 23, 2015 17:39:56 GMT -5
In that case I would wager that Bakerly was opposed to Gonzo as well. Thats not based on anything, Im just casting him as the unknown hero here. The lone ray of justice on an island of corruption and negligence. Or perhaps he is an ordinary baker. What we can be sure of is that we know nothing.
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Post by Dashe on Feb 23, 2015 17:52:10 GMT -5
Bakerly's sense of justice could just depend on which side of the case has spent more money at the bakery!
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Aiyumi
Gorubeshu
Brazilian Kobun
Posts: 222
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Post by Aiyumi on Feb 26, 2015 19:47:58 GMT -5
One more vote for Bakerly as vice mayor. It'd make for a nice plot twist. We know that he's supposed to be the vice mayor character, but Teisel doesn't. It'd be interesting to see Teisel's reaction. While we're talking about favorite characters... My favorite character is one that arrived a bit late to the party, but left a bit too early . Whoever read my previous posts in this thread from December 25th 2014 onward might have noticed it, but my favorite PSTC character is Trigger, hands down! The contrast between his formality and his lack of understanding of Carbon culture makes him so adorable... Okay, I admit. I didn't completely get over Trigger's death. So I kind of convinced Dashe to cowrite an AU story with me involving him trying to help the Sparks-Casketts with their daily chores in the Flutter. It's available for reading over at the Interdimensional Library. But this time, it is not a crossover, which means that my annoying version of Trigger (who most people probably don't know) isn't there to ruin it . It's pure Press Start to Continue, but in an alternate universe where Trigger decided to live with the Carbons instead of taking Teisel to space. And... Yes. If people don't get convinced of how adorable PSTC Trigger is after reading this story, then... Well, I don't know what else to say.
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Post by Loken on Feb 26, 2015 21:06:54 GMT -5
Hey in my alternate PSTC world I would have Teisel convince Trigger to agree to talk to Roll before reinitializing the planet and then Roll would have shown him the error of his ways. Extreme cliche.
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Post by satoh on Apr 7, 2015 23:00:56 GMT -5
I have finished reading. I would like to preface this by saying I did enjoy it.
I enjoyed it, and it seemed fairly well written, save for a few too many uses of the highly colloquial term 'pegged,' which I had to look up, as I'd genuinely never heard or seen it used in that manner, and a missing comma that required me to reread a sentence four times before I understood its syntax.
However. There were places that could be improved. Please don't take offense, but I may get a bit terse with some of this. It's not to insult, but rather just to accurately describe how I feel about the issue.
And again, I did enjoy it overall.
There were many occasions where the story flat out broke setting. For the most part it was easy to pretend that this was all taking place in the same locale as the DASH series proper, but there were times when it was completely impossible to retain that idea. Overt references to the real world internet, cell phones, etc. There were a few misinterpretations of in-setting concepts as well. The sound of reaverbots spotting a digger is separate from the sound of the digger's gear notifying him of reaverbots. The double beep, is actually the reaverbot waking up. There is an alarm (accompanied by a strobe light on the HUD) that alerts of the presence of active enemies. (in the first one it was silent with a flashing light)
Characters. Tiesel for example. The story introduces him in an already altered form, and proceeds to almost immediately alter him even more, for seemingly no more reason than to shout "He is an old man now!" to us. Multiple parts of his personality were very well done. A few lines, I could genuinely hear him saying, however, a lot of it also seemed like it was there simply for the sake of reminding us that the character is not the same good ol' Tiesel we knew before. Late in the story, most of what happens around him just seems like rule of cool, for the sake of rule of cool. Just a little too much cool, a little too fast, and not at all cognizant of the fact that he's getting significant power creep. On a different note, Tiesel's PTSD was very well done. I can't speak on direct experience with hallucinatory PTSD, but I have known people with lesser magnitudes, and the fact that seemingly random things could set him off, and it wasn't always 100% negative, but rather included reliving positive moments, torturous for the sake of being lost, is somewhat accurate.
Tron. While rarely appearing in the story, she was even so, just a bit one-note. Tron is generally soft(ish) around Tiesel and Bon, yet in almost every scene she appears, she is accosting him. Tron is proud and indomitable, and her most important act in the story is giving up. Tron's caustic personality usually only presents itself when she has a reason to be defensive about something, or competitive, or if someone's done something to purposely offend her. During the epilogue of DASH2, she actually seems to be getting along with Roll reasonably well until they start competing over what kind of parts to use. During MOTB, she actually rather seems to like Denise a lot, going so far as to call her a friend (only denying it when Tiesel says it aloud), and actually lets her take credit for capturing Loath and Glyde, saving her job(for a while anyway).
The bright bats. Aero. She was my favorite character in the whole story. She appeared the least. At almost uncountable numbers of intervals, I completely forgot she wasn't a total OC. Which in a way is both a benefit and a detriment. I didn't like the conceptual Aero at all, but this character I liked. However, like Tiesel, or rather more than him, she was too different from the lore, to believe. In terms of her actual personality, it seemed to be the most believable example of human study in the story, so you get some bonus points for that. (Also, I now have to borrow this character, with the addition of those mechanical arms she, incidentally, doesn't have.)
Max. He's a caring bro. That's all he has in terms of personality. He gets the most screentime of the gang, and we learn the least about him. In fact, the only thing we truly know, is that he has complete impunity with credit debt.
Pic. Second favorite in the group. His quirks were simple, but played well into his portrayal. Even though his quirks were sort of cliche, they weren't completely overused. However, we don't get to know him.
Grill. Fat guy with wrench. That's his whole role. Also, he seems to break physics at one point when he splices the engine of his bike onto Tiesel's, in the middle of a race, seemingly while riding parallel... without either of them losing their pace... His gluttony could have been more subtle. Characters state he is a massive glutton, and the narrative proceeds to tell us multiple times he is being a glutton. More scenes could have alluded to it without directly stating it, much like the mysteriously cheese cubes.
Russel. Renowned veteran digger with enough pure clout to have the guild officials cater to his whims, with a million collected rules for staying safe and succeeding at his profession, even to the point of conserving energy at all times... leaps without looking, breaks both legs.
Roll. One-trick ponytail. It almost seems like she was written in a very unfavorable light on purpose. She projects an air of stupidity and moneygrubbing well beyond the naivete she displays in the games. At several points she seemed genuinely malicious. Also, her comment about Tiesel having shot people was entirely out of place. He... actually hasn't. Not at any time we've seen anyway. At least not with any immediately lethal weaponry, or for that matter, at anyone that wasn't attacking him in kind. The bonnes do a lot of property damage and menacing, but we haven't ever seen them genuinely hurt anyone. Not to mention most weaponry on Terra seems to be less lethal than an ordinary earth pencil on a schoolbus to generally every carbon around... Moreover, Tiesel during all of the scenes not in a robot of some kind, seems a pretty mellow guy around other people. Its not beyond the realm of possibility that Roll could see him flip out, but given her portrayed empathy in the story (when she's not golddigging or ditzing) I can't imagine she really would have held it against him.
Art. Was he even really necessary? He seemed less relevant, and had fewer lines than Data's cactus. I suppose that may be true to character in a way, since most people never even meet him in proper plays of DASH...still, he did little more but add a superfluous newlywed divorce plot that lasted all of a paragraph, in the end.
Data. Not really a flaw or anything, but I would have liked to see Tiesel be a lot more unnerved by Data's soullessly peppy demeanor.
Trigger. Cardboard villain. Was Data not saving all of his memories from the most recent 15 years of his life? Is my memory card a lie? I can see Trigger being a bit more succinct than Rock, a bit more like Juno. That I can grasp, but how quickly he face-heel turned gave me a bit of whiplash. I'm suing for medical costs.
On the tone. The DASH series generally tries to add dark tones to an overtly lighthearted romp... This seemed more like trying to force lighthearted romp into an deeply angsting tale about suicide, loss, and frailty. Some of what was cartoony in DASH was played as a straight plot point here. It's a bit strange.
All of it, I suppose, is to be expected, if you were just writing this because you wanted to have fun with the idea of characters you like, rather than trying to seriously fit into the existing world...which I gather is what you did. Most fanfiction is just that very thing, after all.
Other notes. Antifreeze(active ingredient ethylene glycol), is naturally sweet, due to being essentially a sugar alcohol derivative. (You mentioned researching it at one point, fruitlessly) Modern formulations may include artifical flavor... un-enhancers (extremely bitter)... to help prevent people and animals from ingesting it willingly. EG is used in many products, many of which are perfectly harmless, like fabrics. (though you shouldn't eat polyester either) It affects the nervous system, heart, and kidneys when ingested. If you accidentally ingest it, you may survive with immediate emergency medical care....try not to ingest it. Wikipedia has a comprehensive article.
I realize most of this is somewhat cynical, and generally has a negative tone, but I'll say this: If I didn't enjoy it more than its flaws, I wouldn't have bothered to give you a critique at all. If I didn't enjoy it even more than an averagely enjoyable fanfic, I wouldn't have critiqued at all. And honestly, I'm just a cynical fellow. Also its really hard to describe things that are done right... If I tried to give any more examples of things that were well done, I'd just end up saying "there... was a thing... it worked..." Try not to read any of this as "scathing" so much as "playfully descriptive" of the things that could be improved.
Seriously. I just read a 38 chapter fanfic that consisted mostly of devroom characters I either hated or never even met before. All 38. I hope you glean something useful out of my incessant ne'er-do-well rambling.
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Post by Dashe on Apr 8, 2015 11:07:45 GMT -5
Heh, you really don't have to worry about me flipping out at you. If you'd been reading the comments here you'd know that as far as art stuff's concerned, I prefer tough con-crit to outright silence any day of the week! More means more, you know? And you wrote a lot, so I'll write a lot and address as much as I can! I really want to know where that missing comma is, now. There are over 130,000 words in this thing and sifting through all of them to find it could very well take weeks. Since I already know you're just not into any kind of real world tech, I'll gloss over that, since we've had this discussion and it ended with me falling asleep due to its 2AM-esque nature. I remember reading something about the buzzer being an alarm in one of the manuals, but the Legends 1 manual really just calls it an alarm light. As far as practicality goes, having something on your armor light up when a Reaverbot is in the area seems awfully out of the way, like sticking the speedometer on your car somewhere under your seat. Does it ever explicitly say that the sound is coming from the Reaverbots directly? Yep, you got me! Be grateful I didn't make this into an MMO, then the power creep would absolutely cost you an arm and a leg. As far as when Tron actually appears, it's what, the one bit in the beginning when Teisel's having his flashback and then at the end in his head while Trigger's sedating him? Considering the first interaction is actually adapted from fiction she herself made up in the interest of creating tension for her secret self-insert romance fic about real people, I wouldn't quite say that counts. Which means yeah, Teisel has read that book enough times to hallucinate something she wrote, possibly because they'd gone to that restaurant a lot in their reality, too. Tron just giving up, though, is pretty much the whole point of the story. What would happen if, the one time Tron threw in the towel, it ended up being irreversible and completely ruining what was left of her family's life? It's not too implausible. She'd clearly never had a crush on someone before Mega Man. Having your first love die violently in a rocket crash isn't something I can relate to, in any case. It makes me wonder what kind of a fic might have happened if Tron made it through that night. It'd probably be a very different one. She's my favorite, too, and that's exactly why she appeared the second-least, after Grill. I've read a lot of things, and I can usually tell who the author's favorite characters are, and about ten times out of nine, it's someone I don't really care too much for. I wanted to avoid falling into that trap here and reined her in. I was actually worried that since I'd liked her so much, she'd come off as a Mary Sue, though most of that was from the (canon) dyed hair and pink eyes and daddy issues. I figured it would be preferable to have people reading about her and wanting to hear more, since if I were to find myself wanting to write a sequel, she'd be the most likely candidate for the new main character, than to write about her a bunch and have people just go, "Why does Dashe like her so much? Give it a rest!" A lot of her appeal, to me, comes from the fact that for the beginning half of the story, she's just chilling in the background, almost to the point where she comes off as the voice of reason, until she spills her guts halfway through the story. If you were to go back and re-evaluate some of the things she says back then knowing what you know about her now, they come off quite a bit differently. Here's a thing: Teisel's bit about how Aero sounds like Tron sometimes is actually a production joke turned into a plot point. I read somewhere that Aero's NA voice actress was likely Tara Platt, who voiced Tron in MvC3. And imagine if she HADN'T changed much from the description we got in the devroom. You'd have an absurdly chipper 23-year-old woman who can get pretty whiny when things don't go her way, who's been trying to be a spotter for ten years with no luck, who lives with parents with whom she doesn't get along, and who actively still isn't over a guy who isn't even in this story to the point where it actually influences her daily life. This Aero would probably also wear hats with ears on them in public. Go for it! I'd actually like to see some art of that! (Hell, if you can rig up a 3D model...) I'll admit part of the reason he gets so much screentime was because of how well he tested with my focus group. He's a cool bro. I'm surprised you didn't pick up on his difficulty with reading, though. He's dyslexic. He doesn't realize it, since the medical branch of Klickelan's government is run by Aero's mom. It took him five hours to get through seven chapters of Tron's writing, to the point where the second time around he had to get Pic to read the story aloud to him instead, and on that first trip to the library, he picked a book for Teisel based solely on length and the number of pictures he thought were in the book. It's not really a major plot point, though, so it's easy to miss. He's also really good with fashion and not too bad of a spotter once he gets into the swing of things. He may have been more of a secondary character, but I can say with about 95% certainty that he got more screentime here than he probably would have gotten in the real Legends 3 Prototype. Yeah, that's the role he has in the Mega Man wiki, too. He's also unusually conscious of rules and laws for a gang member. And often concerns himself with safety. And gay. Really, really gay. My headcanon for Legends involves male mechanics being the Terran equivalent of male hairdressers. I'm guessing this is one of the parts you read at 4AM, right? Teisel gets blown off of his motorhorse, Bonne-style, right there, and Grill hits the brakes once he catches up to where Teisel and the bike fell. Says so right in Chapter 14. It would not be physically possible for anyone to splice the engine from their bike onto another bike and continue to race. Aiyumi put a curse on him that I am absolutely positive came from the depths of hell Video Brinquedo headquarters. Bad Pixar knockoffs aside, if I didn't get rid of him somehow, Teisel wouldn't end up beating the final boss. I could have probably designed another boss Reaverbot and had Russell beat it down only to get caught in its blast, but...I really didn't feel like designing another Reaverbot. Reaverbot design doesn't really get me up in the morning. I'm surprised I managed to design the one in Chapter 16, really. Keep in mind that Roll hasn't actually seen Teisel raid a town for herself. Not even in the 5-island levels. She was connected to the system mostly when the Bonnes were trying to take down Mega Man directly, away from the scuffle, like with the Yosyonke train, the Balcon, and Flutter vs. Gesellschaft. What matters to her here is that he was shooting at Mega Man...who never kept any kind of log about his encounters with the Bonnes. Never mind that Mega Man isn't actually a person, per se. She's been about as focused on her loss about as much as Teisel's been focused on his. I included Art implicitly for the purpose of sinking any Teisel and Roll shipping that may have occurred. The only romance novel in this story is the one Tron wrote herself. Excessive shipping is actually not something I'm very fond of, despite what those pictures of Tron and Volnutt may insinuate, but it's something a lot of people spend a lot of time doing. Shipping two people who lost relatives in the same tragedy sounded way too easy and there had to be some kind of firewall for that, age gap be damned. I'm not sure what the obsession with it is, honestly. But yeah, Art and Roll do work it out and stay together. Your memory card was a lie like the pie! What I was trying to accomplish with the tone was more like an inversion of how a lot of fics seem to take a lighthearted thing and make it deeply depressing over time. Like you said, taking something that's deeply depressing from the start and having things get...well, not quite better, because you can't exactly fix profound grief, but less intolerably awful for the affected parties. The literary equivalent of grabbing an MML playmobil set, then grabbing a flamethrower, torching the whole thing, and kicking the parts around the room like you're godzilla, until you go back to play with the set again later and realize that you've melted and scorched a bunch of it beyond recognition, but still manage to have a good time playing with it in spite of the fact, instead of running to ebay to replace it right away. On the taste of antifreeze - if I lived in a country where medical bills weren't so ridiculous, I'd consider running some tests to determine the best way to actually describe its taste, but I don't, and can't afford to get my brother's stomach pumped a bunch of times. So thanks for that! My thoughts exactly. That's why I think a cynical review is way better than no review...and even a little better than one that's just "that was really awesome" because it actually talks about specifics, which is actually helpful. Not that I'd mind "that was really awesome" or anything, either. I'd take it over silence. I miiiiiight write it up for breaking the five-word rule, though.
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Post by satoh on Apr 8, 2015 13:43:03 GMT -5
I see the point about not turning new!aero into a mary sue. Perhaps it is her lack of screentime that keeps her from becoming the goldenchild, but even so, she's a very important part of the story. She's sort of the driving force behind many events...I'd like to give a comparison to a DASH character that had similar screentime... but... no DASH characters get significant screentime really. Not even Roll. Differences in format I guess.
On the point about shipping...Oh the irony. As creepy and admittedly distasteful even to me, there were points where I was starting to expect Aero/Tiesel to happen. You made me oldmanshipping. For shame.
Incidentally if I did borrow the character, I wouldn't be able to keep it Aero. You know me and character purity. At least you should by now. (that said, my headcanon Yuna and Sera have their share of... "quirks"...)
And I did pick up on Max's reading deficiency, but I payed it no mind since he was a little too often mentioned something of a fool. Illiteracy just seemed like a natural consequence of his high energy lo smerts living.
On the reaverbot beep sound, you can hear the volume change depending on distance. There's not a lot of good places to notice it, and it helps to have the sound coming through headphones.
Sharukurusu in Lake Jynn are one method, since they can walk away from you while cloaked, and when they turn around they beep since they see you. As I recall you may be able to notice it in the Main Gate's room-full-o-foo-roo. If you pass around the corner just right, you set off a chain reaction where they each wake up at a different time, and the beeps get quieter each time.
Also, in DASH2 the warning light makes a noise when it turns on. It sounds sort of like scrubbing the feet of a large table, covered with tiny silver bells, across a linoleum floor. Which may be impossible for you to actually imagine, but it is the best I could do.
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Post by Dashe on Apr 8, 2015 16:11:08 GMT -5
I see the point about not turning new!aero into a mary sue. Perhaps it is her lack of screentime that keeps her from becoming the goldenchild, but even so, she's a very important part of the story. She's sort of the driving force behind many events...I'd like to give a comparison to a DASH character that had similar screentime... but... no DASH characters get significant screentime really. Not even Roll. Differences in format I guess. Yuna came off like that to me. Not enough screentime, but clearly very plot-relevant. Great OTP there, Satoh. "You remind me of my dead sister." "You're almost old enough to be my dad, and you certainly look it." "Both of us are really messed up right now." "Yeah, you know what that means...LET'S DATE!" They make a great BroTP, but actually shipping them is pretty gross. She drinks coffee in the morning, she has awful parents, and she's pretty violent even though she tries to tone it down. She likes to keep her tragic backstory to herself. That's about all there is to her. She'd make for a better digger than a spotter, no question. Maybe if she'd tried to be Barrett's digging partner instead, she'd have had more success with him. Write that stuff down! It's the other way around. High-energy, low-smarts living is more like a natural consequence of his illiteracy. Interesting note about the beeps, I hadn't noticed that. Because I don't play the game with headphones. You've got to admit, it's pretty funny to see Teisel flipping out over the sound Roll's equipment makes and getting swarmed by a bunch of Reaverbots, though.
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Post by satoh on Apr 8, 2015 16:33:06 GMT -5
Yuna came off like that to me. Not enough screentime, but clearly very plot-relevant. Yes. As a consequence, those aforementioned "quirks" came up in my mind. Maybe I'll tell you about them elsewhere. I did imply "almost."I think she'd make an interesting digger or spotter, just not with all the baggage of being a formerly boring flat stereotype character earlier in her life. It may well feed into something I came up with recently.
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Post by HalcyonDays on Nov 12, 2015 5:07:01 GMT -5
This isn't the Mega Man Legends 3 you wanted, but life isn't always fair. I promised you. It's (more than) about time to get started on it. Anyways, I'm writing this as someone who, months ago, had gone a little more than halfway through the entirety of the story, but then had to put it on hold for a few I.R.L. things, and is restarting it again. Regardless, I LOVE what you've put into this. I can already see a lot of heart. I mean, even the artwork itself shows just how much effort you've put into all of this. Great job with the gradual fleshing out of Klickelan and its inhabitants, especially considering how sparse the official information we got from the development period. I almost forgot Bullbreath was an actual character, and not some OC you created, although Ossobuco and Brisket are some rather...interesting name choices. Wonder where you came up with those? Did the character portraits speak to you somehow, I wonder? A part of me wonders just how strong a bond the Brightbats, or any of these motorbike gangs really, have to be able to spend years upon years with each other, without splitting up. Maybe they just can't ever TRULY outgrow the lifestyle (I'm imagining those big burly dudes with the Harley's, maybe they're kind of like that). It's an interesting decision, depicting these characters from around a decade later than what we would've seen. It almost feels post-apocalyptic, in a sense. (Well, Legends technically IS a post-apocalyptic world, but what I really mean is the whole "years later" thing after the 'incident' both in your story, and with the I.R.L. cancellation thing.) The mood is left feeling rather wistful, with thoughts of, "Things could've been so different, if only..." In any case, Poor Teisel. I've read ahead so I know what's coming, but man. This whole thing just adds to the emptiness I feel when thinking about what could've been. What should've been. But thanks for the peek into "what ended up happening" from a well-fleshed perspective. Sorry I'm late!
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Post by Mikéy on Nov 12, 2015 18:19:44 GMT -5
I still remember what it was like when Dashe was putting up new chapters every week. When she put up Chapter 25, everybody was all " YOU SERIOUSLY KILLED TRON?!" in iScribble, and I don't recall what her reply was. I definitely think she essentially said we needed to just read it, despite its length. I ultimately ended up reading it through a "deal" of sorts with Dashe. It's puh-retty amazing, and I'm surprised she thought all of it up. For the Legends universe, it ended up being believable too. I'm sure you'll enjoy it Hal.
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Post by Dashe on Nov 12, 2015 23:25:01 GMT -5
Oh awesome! You're the first person to follow through on one of those in this fandom in a good long while! This deserves a Brian Boitano Follow-Up Award for sure! Especially since it didn't involve bribery of any kind. That's a plus. Ossobuco and Brisket are some rather...interesting name choices. Wonder where you came up with those? Did the character portraits speak to you somehow, I wonder? It was more like the gang name spoke to me. Ossobuco and brisket are both cuts of beef. Anyway, thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Did you finish the whole thing or are you *just* picking up again now? And if you're just picking it up again, how far along are you? When she put up Chapter 25, everybody was all " YOU SERIOUSLY KILLED TRON?!" in iScribble, and I don't recall what her reply was. I definitely think she essentially said we needed to just read it, despite its length. It was more like, "If you think that's a recent occurrence then obviously you haven't read any of this at all." Then MLT was all, "So Tron dying isn't a spoiler? That's totally a spoiler."
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Post by fAB on Apr 1, 2016 0:40:20 GMT -5
Yes, Dashe , I have finally followed through on this! Hopefully you've seen my chapter by chapter Likes, so you're not busy dying of shock as you read this. Well, it was quite a ride to take, no doubt about it. 38 chapters and 40+ images, wow. Between my general distaste for fan fiction and the fact that I never really dug the whole Bright Bats concept during the MML3 thing, your ability to tell an interesting story and maintain a certain level of quality had to work overtime to keep me caring, and I think overall you succeeded. Well done! I won't be giving a chapter by chapter blow, but here's a few things that stood out to me. WritingThe writing felt pretty solid from the start and remained consistent in all the ways that matter. I think I only noticed 4 errors in the whole thing, and I think they were all cases where 1-or-2-letter words were missing from a sentence. Wish I'd kept track of them for you now... Anyway, kudos in this department. If I could make one suggestion, it would be to work on your dialogue tags. In my own efforts to improve as a writer, I've seen numerous sources advise simply using "said" instead of other adjectives like "exclaimed" or "grumbled" that break flow and should already be clear through context (I lost count on how many times someone "articulated"). Also, (and I notice this as well because I also used to do it frequently), you have places where the dialogue tag is an action, such as ["Beats me," he shrugged.] where obviously a shrug can't produce speech. AeroIn a sort of undefinable way, I felt like there was a lot of your own personality leaking into this character at times... Probably just me, but I thought I'd throw it out there. Biggest ComplaintDefinitely chapters 34 & 35. I don't know if it's just the type of fiction I'm drawn to, but I feel like I've seen/read way too many things that take temporary side branches into alternate realities or more commonly dreams. By default, I don't like it. I hate the feeling of knowing that what I'm reading isn't really happening in the story, that I've been sidetracked while the afflicted character catches up with what I already know, that actual progress has been halted, etc. Still, I try not to pass immediate judgment on these things because for every 9 that do it wrong, there's 1 that does it right. I put chapters 34 & 35 over with the wrong, because I felt like I got nothing out of it. There was some fun and it explored some new ideas, but nothing advanced. Even up to the last moment when Teisel knew it was all fake, I kept waiting for him to ask Tron if it would be all right for him to finish her book--that would have been something--but he didn't even do that. Just my personal pet peeve, of course. TLT references were fun, though. Favorite AspectEveryone remembers the Bonnes and the Casketts, the ruins with their reaverbots, islands on an ocean of endless water, the heroic blue hero who saves the world... These things make up the spirit of the Legends series, but there's something more abstract that isn't given enough credit, and that's the whole that's greater than the sum of all the tiny parts. It's best felt when you run around to say goodbye to everyone at the end of MML1, and you know you helped this person, and saved that one, and so on. All the little things that might have been forgotten amid the grand adventure are brought to mind, and you feel connected to the entire island. I think this was the sort of feeling you captured best of all, in the tiny bits of this and that and random NPC interactions. The crowning moment came after the museum heist, with Max and Troy helping Russell in the ruins, Grill developing parts with Roll and Art, and all the while Teisel and company are having an all-out police confrontation, only to have the two rebel rider gangs of prominence end up on the scene and lend a helping hand. At that point it felt like all of Klickelan was connected in a way that transcended prior interactions leading up the moment. Definitely a highlight!
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