Lady Seraphina

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Mon Capitaine

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Kaithas I can't believe you didn't call the contest "The Next Generation"

What would Picard say.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Hm. Semblances can be hereditary.

@harinezumikouken

Well semblances are based on personality so only if your character's kid is almost exactly the same as Shiri then yes but I don't think creating a clone will win you any points.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

No the two guys in third get equal credits and one of us gets bumped out of the running.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Write

I missed the word "third" when I was reading. I happens sometimes when I read things quickly. So the final paragraph read:

"Without further ado, our place entries are thusly... Two people! A tie between the lovely @Abillioncats and @Krayzikk,"

Reading it like that there wasn't anything to indicate if you'd started with first place or third. My bad.

Also regarding the quote I made a couple of spelling mistakes. It should read:

"Sapphire's usual clothes were also gone along with the bracelets that used to hold her most treasured weapons."

Instead of what is there right now.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Prince of Seraphs – Paid in Blood

- Music included was touching, and it worked well, though I didn't love that it was a collection of pieces, small complaint though.

- I would say that this pieces greatest strength right up until time freezes is its pace. The way you handled each piece of new information you threw at me was well thought out and skillful so I commend you on that.

- You actually made me forget, for about thirty seconds, that Sapphire was going to die. So well done on that.

- Now one small nitpicking kind of issue I had with it, knowing how drowning works, I’m pretty sure the body couldn’t suffocate itself to death even if it thought it was drowning. I say this because typically speaking humans don’t die of suffocation when they dry drown or wet drown. So there’s that, but I didn’t really have a problem with this. It’s RWBY not science.

- The idea of an execution is original, and the idea that she wants to end the cycle of violence and be a martyr was somewhat less so. I liked the idea all the same, but as soon as time froze I knew and there was a suggestion of escape, I felt like I knew exactly what was going to happen.

- I like the way you handled the side characters in this story, be it Sapphire’s team, her family, or Nathaniel Rakim. You gave each one the amount of attention they warranted and that felt really good. Most issues I have with this story are nitpicky to say the least.

- "'This will never end and it has to. I don't want die,' her breathe came in uneven gasps as she spoke those last words 'but I don't want you to die because of me. This will keep you safe.'" This segment as important as it was felt confusing and awkwardly worded. I didn’t really understand why Sapphire thought Rakim would just stop killing hunters after her. But alas, the word count is ever present and whatnot.

- All in all, I know you struggled with the word count and I think you rose to the challenge rather well. Congratulations on another great entry.

@Write

Mildly offended that I didn't get a favorite quote.

Regarding the music, I essentially typed melancholy music into YouTube and after sorting through a dozen pieces found this one. I played it as I was reading my entree and thought it worked well. Then I listened to an extra three or four minutes of it cause I wasn't sure how fast you read. All in all I only listened to the first ten minutes or so, right up till the point were there was whispered talking in the background. I didn't hear the entire thing so if there were problems with it after that my apologies.

Perhaps I worded it badly but the idea was that Sapphire's perception semblance had advanced to the point where she could control a person's entire reality if she had time, contact and could keep her focus and could kill a person in this manner. It might have been better to say she'd made him so fearful that his heart stopped or she made him think he was in a vacuum so he stopped breathing but it was what it was. How he died was not as important as the fact that Sapphire killed him with Aura.

I realize that the idea of Sapphire having the chance to escape and choosing not to cause she believed her death would serve some purpose isn't exactly original but I thought it gave more meaning to it than if she'd simply been executed for a crime she committed. Perhaps it would have been better if her family had come to her in the last moments before her execution to say goodbye (some sort of astral projection semblance) and she'd had to reassure them that there was nothing they could do but I thought this would hit the emotional soft spot harder.

With regards to why she was willing to die I think I failed to make this clear (could have been fixed if I'd had another five hundred words, just saying) but it wasn't that Sapphire believed that her death would somehow stop Rakim's vendetta, it was that she believed if she died it would keep her family out of there cross hairs. Cecily's semblance is the ability to recall anything she sees in perfect detail, she's an artist so it comes in handy. It's not widely known that Cecily has an active aura so she's not in the public's eye, Demetra and Janus are both registered but they are in this time paragons of the hunter community, Rakim doesn't have anything even remotely to accuse them with. If Sapphire had escaped with them the rest of the Rode family would be the first people that Rakim looked into and even if they had nothing to do with it her escape would have given him enough probable cause to tear her entire family apart and quite possibly have them executed as well.

Also this didn't get mentioned in the story but Demetra has a one year old child who Sapphire knew would have suffered without a mother should Rakim target the rest of the Rode family.

There were some elements that I was forced to omit due to the word limit. Originally I had planned to have Sapphire's brother present as well, he having been found some five years earlier. Sapphire was also supposed to have a son that came to the prison (I believe you met him in a previous entree: Demetri Rode). I had wanted to expand a little on how Janus' life had changed and how he was a better man and a better father then when Sapphire was little (would have made the moment when Sapphire said "I forgive you" more impactful).

As a last little thing, Demetra's semblance is that she is empathic, she is able to sense and feel the emotions of all those around her (at present day it's uncontrolled and she has a lot of issues related to it) in this future time however this power has evolved to include the ability to absorb the emotions of others, strengthing herself. I wanted a moment at the end where Sapphire reaches out her hand to her baby sister and says "please". They both know what she wants and even though Sapphire knows how much it pains Demetra every time she takes something from someone else she asks anyways. Demetra touches her hand and drains her fear of dying so she can go to rest in peace.

I really wanted that moment in there but it was about a hundred words and everything else was absolutely necessary to the story.

As an aside if I got this right, Abillioncats and Krayzikk for first, both getting second place credits. I won third and Crimmy won forth. Did I get that right?

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Hey Write how's that judging coming?

Also when are we going to have a family day at Beacon? Perhaps after this mission we should have a timeskip of a couple of weeks or a month to show how our character's are really settling into Beacon.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

In one of my campaign's we sort of just turned on each other. First while we were fighting these two dragons that were sort of kicking our asses one of our group, Mao decided that he liked the dragons more than he liked us so he started fighting with the monsters. He shot one of our people in the stomach. She was a fellow rouge and a friend of my character, because of some previous story thing she was pregnant and due to some very nasty critical failures she ended up losing the baby and becoming paralyzed. Then my character Hadrian and Mao had an intense fight the end of which saw us both unconscious. While we were out our resident wizard cast a spell so that when we came to we couldn't harm each other (the paralyzed girl had to get a new character) so we continued on like that for awhile, until we ended up trapped in a labyrinth. The spirit of the labyrinth offered to show us the way out but instead of accepting Mao tried to use an ancient ceremonial staff to seal her away and steal her powers. She staying in the staff for about a turn before it shattered at which point she melted two of our group (including Mao) she tried to afterwards (and a number of very intense apologies that could have gotten us killed had they failed) the spirit felt bad so agreed to revive our the two dead characters. She failed to fix the first one and managed to reconstitute Mao as a one pound blob of flesh that for the rest of the campaign scooted around the floor bashing into things.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

*raptor screech*

Meanwhile I have about 1,400 words in reserve and can't think of a single one to add.

@Guess Who

Yes Guess Who you fail at life. I'm sorry it had to come out this way.

If you want more to add talk a bit more about Robert's very happy life and why we should sad that he's dead. Give us more details about his kids and grandkids or his marriage. Make it sound sappy and sweet. That's my advice to you.

Unlikely Heroes

BlessedWrath (Weaver)

I'm not sure he's even revealed that name to Sam yet. For all she knows, he's just some Wall Street psycho who enjoys scaring the piss out of random teenagers.