Ellri

Do I post in Free or Casual...?

You call them novel chapters just because some advanced posts go beyond 42 paragraphs? How rude, @NuttsnBolts.

RPGC #10: The Moon! -- Voting and Discussion

Review commentary

Okay, so all and all you did pretty well. The pacing in the first part was pretty good, which is usually pretty tricky for battle scenes. The plot itself was well rounded and moved into itself, and you have a style of writing that is absolutely approachable so that no effort has to be taken by the reader to translate it.

@Vilageidiotx

Thanks.

Criticism-wise, I have one thing to say that encapsulates the primary weakness; it feels like most of this is an outline for a novel rather than a stand-alone short story. If you imagine each scene as the gist of a chapter... yeh, this could easily expand into a novel. So after the first battle, it feels like you are rushing toward the end and perhaps neglecting the flesh of the story you are telling. There are also a few loose ends to note. A small one would be the relationship between Final-Form Mellin and Werek. With that it feels like you are trying to develop a plot point, where he likes her but she just isn't interested, but then it ends up not going anywhere so it sort of ends up feeling like you just wanted and excuse to describe her new boobs. The big one though is the moon. The situation with the moon is there, it is developed, and it is in the title, but it doesn't really do anything for the main plot.

@Vilageidiotx

Interesting. That might be true. We never had a precise ending in mind as we wrote. It was always "out there. Somewhere.". Given more time than we had at our disposal, we most definitely would've developed burgeoning plots further. The first battle and the section at "the Lord's" end shortly after it were both rewritten and given more flesh. Thus anything after that which wasn't fleshed out similarly would probably end up seeming more rushed.

The understanding of that post-transformation scene was fairly right. If we had developed it further, it would probably have either gone towards interest developing, or towards a firm rejection. Perhaps if we had gone deeper into each character and given them real life, they would've told us which it would be? While the intent never was as you said an "excuse to describe her new boobs", we suspect we failed at providing anything better in there, and seeing how he was male and she female, focus would fall on sexually dimorphic traits.

Same goes for the moon really. It didn't add anything to the main plot directly.

To go back to that first criticism though, there is a positive thing you can take from that. Being like the outline of a novel means that, if you want to take the effort, you could easily expand what you have and end up with a novel. It'd be a matter of tying things together and writing more, but you do have something there to work with.

@Vilageidiotx

Who knows? Maybe we should work further on this? even if it means scrapping the majority of the current text? We have a few concepts laying about that can be fitted in to better expand everything.

Thanks for taking the time to review, @Vilageidiotx.

We threw all our review commentaries into hiders so as to not flood the thread as much here.

RPGC #10: The Moon! -- Voting and Discussion

Review commentary

... Well, this certainly has the 'Ellri' vibe. Wonder if I feel that only from comparisons with one other entry or several? … Haha.

@platinumskink

Heh.

... Am I allowed to be somewhat disappointed in that she was merely an overwhelming show of force? I mean, yeah, the Settled sure had done great wrong to Nature, but somehow I felt there was a greater justice that was coming into play than... … … Oh, well...

@platinumskink

Aye. You are. With more time, she could've been much more. Maybe even we could've given the Settled more life? More justice from their point of view? Unfortunately we ran out of days to write.

I feel kind of conflicted. I can appreciate the world, though it's a version of the world of the likes I've seen before. Neither side is inherently bad, they're just living in the way they find natural, and with that they've both done great harm upon one another. I like the world and such. The first battle was a wonderful introduction to Mellin and really got things down for us. But, as it went on, there's a lot of things that slightly bother me. Each thing minor on its own, but there's so many of them.

@platinumskink

The settled were not meant to be “evil”. We had initially hoped to make both sides reflect both good and evil. That individuals can be evil, not entire societies / civilizations.

It felt rather jarring as you switched perspective very often. I want to feel connections to the character at hand, and with you switching so often made me never actually be able to attach myself before being pulled up by the roots again. It's really not a necessity for a story that we're attached anywhere, but do keep it in mind. Absolutely weirdest was when we actually had a conversation between the two leads, and the perspective kept switching between them...! Gosh.

@platinumskink

That might be true. We too did not truly get deeply into the characters. The whole had a rather impersonal point of view too. We struggled with figuring out how to do the dialogue bit. On one hand, we could've done a section of regular dialogue, but on the other we wanted to not break the general style. Neither option was good
enough, really.
Maybe next time we should explore having one character use “I”? See how we ganger tell a story from one angle without missing out on major elements being covered sufficiently for the reader?

The undertones you addressed at the time of her coming out of her shell to when she finally got dressed were uncomfortable to read, although I understand their presence. It was a beautiful scene, which then got me to feel awkward when those tones showed up. Just, er, just a detail.

@platinumskink

We guess this is the same section @Mchaggis described as “fetishisation”?
It was not without flaws, no. We did not want it to be sexualized, but did perhaps fail. It's hard to describe traits like the ones making Mellin different from humans without highlighting the sexually dimorphic traits as well as the ones making wolves different from humans.

Imagine how difficult it can be to write such even as you try to avoid those parts that fit “naturally” in there.

And, um, on a completely different matter. What did the moon do? Did it do anything? Sure, it started growing things on it with a separate spirit and such, and that's interesting, but... Did it impact the plot on land in any way? Did I just completely miss it? Did it have something to do with Mellin's transformation?

@platinumskink

Who knows? Maybe it ended up doing something? It certainly should do so post-story. After all, the moon did turn into a smaller version of the planet everyone was on. With more time to write, we might have been able to give it a direct role. Its change was mostly related to the title and the earliest WIP version of the story. There we had a prophecy involving the moon turning green.

I'm somewhat disappointed in that the rather mildly interesting yet unnamed Settled died just like that. In a story that feels like it was trying to show both sides of the story, Mellin's transition of alliance left the Settled side largely unrepresented. Can't really be represented by people without names, really. Oh, well.

@platinumskink

Naming him could’ve been relevant, yes. If we had written a more sexualized story, it might’ve involved him serving a female treeperson and perhaps undergoing a transformation? Might have been better if he had both been named and brought in earlier. Maybe even several like him, with some falling under the sway of the treefolk, while others were wiser and managed to run and fight back?

The last line confuses me. “Peace began to return to the land”? You just said that the Wildborn and their champion continued to raid the Settled, who were helpless to resist them. The sentence seems to imply that both sides agreed to mutual peace. But in this case, if peace did return like this, wouldn't that be more like “Wildborn reclaimed their peace by crushing any Settled that could disturb it”? Er. Anyway.

@platinumskink

This might have been an error of ours that snuck past editing. Chronologically, the continued raids occurred before this peace. It was thought to be a peace through the Settled losing the war.

It's a nice entry. I like the world, the people in it, and the concept of the Nature and looked forward to whatever you were doing with Mellin and the moon. … That just caused me to make a lot of comments about that which I had opinions about. Yeah. Haha. That's about that. Thank you for writing.

@platinumskink

Thanks for a thorough review and for reading.

RPGC #10: The Moon! -- Voting and Discussion

Well, time to review.

Maybe the moon made it?

Our utterly biased opinion says that most of these stories are far better than our own. The first one is a clear fit for the cheese theme. Pretty funny, if somewhat lacking in logic. Not the bit about the moon being cheese, but the fact that it did not melt during reentry.

Then there is that bit with the protagonist's vehement resistance to eating the cheese just evaporating. It feels like it is not sticking to his character. It was too sharp a turn.

Green Moon

Not going to cover our own story here.

The bamboo cutter's daughter

Again, a good story. A nice. Mix of other sources, but it left some things vague. Throughout reading, we were wondering when this was happening and how this world differed from the earth most people know.

The logic of that spin in orbit felt off. Why would they need to do that? Was that module in orbit already? If so, why send them up separately? If not, why not build it all without that extra risk?

Explaining the nation's better would’ve helped. And for a while we did wonder if the people were even humans or aliens all.

Still, a good story.

We had a name for it, once

Nice and short. Explains terraforming without using the word. What feels unexplained is the reasons for them not breathing "real" air previously. What also feels missing is how they got what they needed to terraform the moon. The water and soil and so forth.

The ending was very nice. A twist that explained many things for the story. Like why they were terraforming in the first place. It also showed why you could not use the word itself.

Where did they live while they made the moon habitable? On ships? In isolated structures on the moon?
How many survivors were there? How much of society lived on?

Still, good story.

Moonbeam

Good potential in this one, but the characters could’ve used more depth. They lacked... Life.

How did this Diana feel about taking up her mother’s divinity? Did she want it? She seemed more innocent than the typical goddess of the hunt. Would she not have noticed signs of divine heritage before? Perhaps prelediction for hobbies related to her future role?

Not as good as the ones above, but still good. Our biased opinion makes it better than our own anyways.

Moondoings

This one feels disconnected. There's a series of events that don't feel tied together properly. They're ok, but no more than that. We did not feel engaged by them.

Princess of the Moon

Poems. Not our forte. Sorry.

Uposatha

This one did not make sense to us. No introduction of who she was at the start, nor was it explained later.
Why should we care about her? What is the purpose of killing the rabbit?

Too many questions unanswered, there are.

Selenophobia

This one doesn't feel complete. He (Harry) is clearly conflicted. Both fears astrophysics/sciences/etc and wants to explore them. But she (Diana) is shallow. She isn't alive. What is she like? What brought the two together? How does she think? Why would they stay together if he's phobic of anything related to space? How would they even meet?

This would've been a great story if stretched out in length with the above questions answered. Right now things are too short-term. Too many events left with bare bones.

With his aptitude for sciences, it felt to us like he would either have done everything to keep his beloved from going to space, or if he wished her freedom of choice, done everything to ensure her safety.

It might have had less such unexplained conflicts if the space traveller was his son/daughter, simply as that would mean rebel against rebel or somesuch.

RPGC #10: The Moon! -- Voting and Discussion

Review commentary

Huh. Those errors must've slipped past us, @McHaggis. Could you provide examples of the error types so that we know where we need to fix later works? We guess from the Bold that its at least one "was/were". (if ya don't want to fill this place with such, don't hesitate to PM)

Thanks for the review.

The emphasis on nature vs. Nature is intentional, as the former is the word everyone knows, while the latter is essentially a name.
We were uncertain if the ending worked right as that was written with a different mindset than the rest (in some ways, more rushed), and we did our best not to make it "fetishy" as we did not aim for such. The PoV for transformed appearance is intended to be biological and clinical, rather than sexual, but of course some of that will depend on the reader seeing it the same way. If we had had a week or two extra of writing, we could probably avoided such better, including providing a better explanation for her transformation. Perhaps also the transformation for others.

We were at many points pondering how significant the transformation should be. Unfortunately she did not grow into a character that decided that firmly on her own. No doubt that was in part due to the very impersonal third person perspective. At one point we pondered switching away from it, but decided not to. At one point, we considered the transformation to merely be from Settled Human to Wildborn Human.

We also decided not to have the transformation finish up when it was "optimal" for the wildborn... It felt appropriate a while earlier than we put it, but that wouldn't have evoked the right sense of loss for them. Without true loss, a victory simply isn't as good.

The entire first battle was rewritten a few days ago. You don't want to see version 1. Trust us. It was terrible.

All in all, a good review. Thanks for reading our story.

RPGC #10: The Moon!

we'll see if we rework some parts over the next five-six hours or so. You never know what happens, after all. Can't hurt to consider it at least.

RPGC #10: The Moon!

Entry submitted. Towards the end the writing changed again. Probably due to our location changing. But its all good. Part of the plan and all. Nice and long.

Vampires, Modern/Realistic

We're too busy ourselves, @Wraithblade6... but we have one tip... add a link. Give prospective someones something to convince them to join.

RPGC #10: The Moon!

Well, in lieu of proper dice, the online roller gave us an 11, so we have an idea of where, but not everything. So hah, @Keyguyperson.

RPGC #10: The Moon!

Nah. We're not. We're still writing. Got plenty of time left to write and many words flowing out. This might actually be an entry that reaches the end without rushing it.