@holmishireLong one and you're good at this, so you get the while-reading-through complainy notes! Yay!
preludeSome odd word choices I'm not overly fond of.... cold from the floor 'tickling' her feet, marble 'cleaved' into a sphere shape, 'snot' in the middle of an otherwise-polite tone. Otherwise great -- not sure if the dramatic move at the end, where Celine becomes the new gatekeeper, was developed fully enough for my satisfaction. The whole thing just sorta happened and was over in an instant -- you had story to get to, makes sense, just noticing it's a little rushed here.
I'Tentative fingers' instead of 'slid her fingers tentatively' feels
ever so slightly awkward, but this isn't a real complaint. Solid through-and-through. Excellent building of tension and I'm happy to see these two again!
IIAgain the killing of Euryale just sort of
happens in an instant, no fanfare.... could be on purpose, I'm still fully engaged and loving it, just saying. Also the phrase 'you MESS with things you do not understand' sounds odd from ancient greeks, but 'meddle' would be pretty cliche, so *shrug*
III'They had chased them to this world' doesn't work, but I get what happened in just another second. Same for 'the second was not so unfortunate' -- there's just gotta be a better way to put that, maybe keeping the focus on Eira instead of the grafter?
IV"What she did now, however, that...." needs plus a 'was' or minus a 'what.' Then -- THIS happy ending was satisfying! Could've maybe been more so, with a little more time spent on inside Helene's surely-exploding mind, but it's a pretty solid ending anyway.
The good:
supremely well-crafted story, which I guess I ought to expect when YOU of all people combine literal months of effort into one twisting epic. The characters you've fleshed out so well in the past were reborn faithfully and employed cleverly. Celine's journey was compelling.
The work-on-its:
New character development was
somewhat lacking. I say SOMEWHAT because I was right there with Celine the whole way and loved every minute of it; I say 'lacking' because she didn't take me
all that far I guess, and the rest of the cast (specifically as they appeared in this story) did less. Mind you -- your months of other labors were not wasted, and the recurring cast members
absolutely carried the hell out of the story. With flying freakin' colors. This was more their story than Celine's, I think, and that's okay -- merely pointing out a thing is all. If you read the following-along-squawkings, you know I poked at some words. They really didn't take much if anything away from the story, but I'll poke them anyway. The one that I think matters more -- something you're really good at, actually -- is that the endings to each little sub-section of the adventure didn't have much weight. I've read your stuff. Your stuff resonates. This.... didn't? Usually. As a whole, as a single larger unit, it
essentially lives up to your awesome status-quo, it's just that each turning-of-the-page feels less significant than your typical work. Like if youre still writing a great sentence but the punctuation in the middles off somehow. Pretty much exactly like that.
AND ONE BONUS THING -- I'm still not clear on what The Ghost was after, or what things Celine is messing with that she doesn't understand, but I'm not complaining because now that I've read this, I get the sense I'll find out more in the future, and I want that.
CHALLENGE-WISE, this one (like mine I suppose) seems more interested in the storytelling than the labor parameters. I
think that 'the Ghost' is you/thenarrator/thecreator, and despite its best efforts Celine won her vengeance and the Ghost suffered a total failure. As a pure-writing effort, especially when taking into account the incorporated canon, this is one of the best so far. Bloody brilliant.
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