Subject: Thanks for the review! (again)
Author:
Posted on: 2023-12-31 22:34:51 UTC
Your request for future installments to focus on Tanner will be granted! In fact, you've given me a more interesting idea for mission number 2 than what I had before.
I'll go back and clear up the action and typos at... some point. Maybe after I get the mission finished?
I reserve the right to make edits as I please though. Everyone, behold, the result of literally half a year and more of work, several years if you count older drafts, and several betas:
RC #21 Mission No. 1: Maximum Speed Dating!
...prologue, because I'm doing the rewrite trick and this thing is long.
Thank you, everyone, for helping me get this far. Especial thanks to Cal, whose advice I took, and Scape, whose style I aped. And all my friends here. You've been so good to me, so it's about time I returned the favor. Enjoy!
This whole hallucination scene is interesting, though I’m not certain I follow all of the symbolism, and I can’t really tell how much is really a conversation with his psyche aspects, and how much is just nonsense dream imagery. Is the palace a representation of where his mental aspects “live,” or is he remembering an actual event that occurred in a palace? And I’m guessing that “it” (“a sliver of it is what you need to hear”) is the unattributed voice Kaito has heard on occasion throughout this story? And I’m going to call it now: “it” is Kaito’s Guilt, isn’t it? He’s feeling guilty for something he did, possibly something that happened at this “palace,” and he’s been suppressing his feelings of guilt in order to pursue success and cultivate his self-centered interests. Also, has Kaito lost his quirk? The Inner Adult saying that Kaito is like his voters now gives me that impression.
And, oh dear, Naomi is discovering the drawbacks to being a flimsy cardboard cutout of a character now, isn’t she? I’m amused by her cringing at “her own” writing, and the horror of having no way out but to keep following the charade of the story. Again, quite intrigued to see how you resolve this!
—doctorlit, skulking about on the second page
I’m enjoying reading Act 2 much more than I did Act 1; you’ve improved noticeably between the two! Particularly in the realm of keeping the pacing of conversations going without long interruptions midway through. I was thinking the scene inside Kaito’s consciousness was dragging on a little too long, but honestly, Kaito’s mangled instruction/apology to Tanner at the end is a funny enough punchline that I wouldn’t change anything of the setup. I’m also glad to see that Kaito’s view of the Flowers as mafia bosses has been dispelled.
A very good line I liked: “Kaito sighed. Kaito sighed, and sighed, and panic left through his breath.” It communicates Kaito’s true emotional state of being close to a full-on panic attack, while also reinforcing how his ego leads him to lie to himself. (I’m only sighing. Repeatedly.) I also like that his collection of personality aspects refer to themselves as “Aspects of Kaito’s Psyche For The Prevention of Kaito’s Suffering.” Kaito really is so self-absorbed that his primary subconscious drive is to avoid anything negative getting directed at himself, with little empathy for others!
Up until part 8 here, I mostly thought Tanner was just a funny little guy, with his vague answers and physical clumsiness. It’s kind of sad to learn that his “pratfall” moments are intentional distractions to hide his own lack of confidence and fear. Honestly, both Tanner and Kaito stand to benefit a hell of a lot from sessions at FicPsych. Tanner lacks the confidence to confront Kaito’s ego, and Kaito lacks the empathy to give Tanner the support he needs, so they’re not going to be a big help to each other, if they don’t interact with other folks!
I’m very interested to see where Naomi’s arc is leading; how rare to see a Suvian in a PPC mission get a character arc! I love how you’ve made her aware of the distortions she’s caused through her narrative tampering: the band, the period, the Simpsons characters’ woodenness and lack of consistency. I especially like seeing her analyze her “relationship” with Ned, and question whether it can be real if it had to be scripted; plus, it implies there’s some canon-restoring value in simply reading the charges out, separate from the actual assassination. The in-universe justification for requiring the agents to read out charges has always been an arbitrary “it’s the rules,” so I like the implication here that the charges actually assist in restoring canon! But yeah, very interested to see where this plotline is leading Naomi in the end . . .
—doctorlit can’t blame Tanner for picking a cat as his disguise; after all, it’s right there in the song: ♪Everybody, everybody, everybody wants to be cat ♪
I’m amused by the running gag of Naomi running into Kaito in places he shouldn’t be and just kind of brushing it off. It makes sense, with her familiarity with The Simpsons, that she wouldn’t be bothered by characters in that universe being wacky and unrealistic. (Not realizing, of course, that Kaito isn’t really a resident of Springfield.)
I really loved the scene where Tanner tried to explain the cosmology of the PPC universe to Kaito, stumbling over more and more complex metaphors until finally giving up and just psychically zapping the info straight into Kaito’s head. (And I rather suspect that last effort failed anyway, since Kaito still seems quite lost!)
I feel like Kaito’s delaying of the assassination, and his general failure to grasp what missions are and how they work, is maybe getting drawn out a little too long. I know we’re only through “part 1” right now, but the fact that I know Kaito’s impression of the PPC as a hit squad that will punish him lethally isn’t accurate, makes it hard for me to have much empathy for his emotional state right now. The stakes he’s imagining aren’t really there, and it’s breaking my immersion in the story, and giving it an overly serious and anxious tone.
Typos:
First off, you’ve really got to double-check your superscripts and footnotes before you publish your links. A lot of the footnote numerals in this section haven’t been switched to superscript font, and there are some superscripts and footnotes that aren’t paired with anything. Obviously, no one can catch every error in their work, but I feel like most of these should have been caught on a second read-through.
Ned took Naomi to the couch and assured her he still liked him.
“her”
"Mhm," Kaito nodded.
Separate paragraphs for separate speakers.
Kaito stared at the cat that was his partner as it kneaded the ground to wipe the front off.
I’m not sure, but is that supposed to be “wipe the foam off”?
—doctorlit personality is composed only of “To-Do List,” “Perfectionism” and “Daydreaming”
I think I might need a break from writing for my mental health? It's getting pretty hard.
Usually, missions just have the word world already warped by the fic’s description, so it was cool that you showed Springfield actually morphing to accommodate the newly imposed narrative, especially with the generic hotel having to flip up and land on an existing building.
I like how Kaito uses his various inner voices to process what’s happening around him, both observing that Tanner was trying to teach him (though Kaito doesn’t seem very open to learning, all the same), and how he starts recognizing Naomi’s influence over the world on his own. The scene where Kaito finally realizes he’s literally inside a fanfiction is funny; I like both his and Tanner’s dialogue in that moment. Using the fic’s “zoom in” effect, in that final scene of chapter 3, was also a clever way to have Kaito learn how the read the Words!
I don’t get why Tanner laughs at the Suvian’s name being “Naomi Sanders.” Is that a reference to something?
You also do a good job of communicating which Simpsons character is which, despite Kaito not knowing the characters’ names. His narrative assessments of them are funny, especially his politician’s eye view of Homer as a “free vote.” I’m curious about that unlabeled voice in parentheses, that tried to get Kaito to apologize to Tanner. His conscience? Or his “true self” that’s underneath the controlling facades he developed as a politician?
typo list!
Kaito’s dialogue that starts with “It’s part of the wind now” ends with one of Tanner’s telepathic >s instead of a quotation mark.
In the line, “. . . up and down his face,3 growing louder, 3”, that first superscript should have been a 2.
“Lady Luck protects her from what she won’t protect you!”
I think stick another “from” at the end of the sentence? It’s a bit of an awkward construction; might flow better as “Lady Luck protects her, but not you!”
“DESTROY HER.1,2,3,4,5
1No.
??????????
“2Or ibuprofen. ~ Constitution”
The “2” is missing from the actual text before this footnote.
—doctorlit doesn’t have a cow, man
Whoops did not mean to post yet. ANYWAY "Naomi Sanders" is funny because the person she's trying to romance is Ned Flanders. Might have to go back and establish that...
. . . they would be Mr. and Mrs. Sanders-Flanders!
—doctorlit
Kaito is certainly a unique character. His history as a politician and persuasion power make him almost a deconstruction of a villain archetype, and there’s something enjoyable about seeing such a character out of their element and no longer in control. At the same time, Kaito’s arrogance and self-absorption make his narrative voice a difficult one to get behind, and his angry outbursts towards other PPC characters, while arguably justified, feel like they come more from a place of feeling insulted by inferiors, rather than defending himself among equals. I really just don’t enjoy reading Kaito; he’s too opposite to me, because I’ve learned to expect nothing to go my way, and to generally stay calm (unless I make a mistake, ha ha!). I guess I just don’t see the world the way he does, and it makes it hard for me to empathize with him.
There are also a couple of scenes where I couldn’t really follow the action well. When Kaito hears banging while he’s inside the bathroom, he moves to a door to wait for someone to enter, and I thought he was still in the bathroom. But then he opens the door, and he’s outside in a corridor, so he must have been standing at his RC’s door, The thing is, you never narrated him leaving the bathroom, so it feels like he kind of drifted through rooms magically there. It’s also really hard to follow what’s happening when the giant bird steps on Kaito and starts running through walls with him. I think it’s partly that you take so long to describe what the bird looks like, which does make sense, since Kaito doesn’t understand what’s happening right away either. But the effect of “suddenness” upon the reader gets hampered by Kaito’s hyperbolic rambling about it being “born specifically to torment him.” It slows the physical action of the scene down, so what should be a startling moment of slapstick violence (door breaks down, talons latch onto Kaito, Kaito gets pulled through multiple walls) is instead three paragraphs of metaphors and Kaito feeling victimized by the universe, with the actual actions being dispersed throughout. It gives the scene a kind of suspended feeling, where Kaito’s very thoughts seem to be slowing down time, and it feels like it’s working against the feeling you were trying to convey there?
I’m sorry, I didn’t want this review to be primarily negative, but I just didn’t vibe with this. Not that you have to make it vibe with me; I’m only one audience member here, and it’s good for all the different spin-offs to have different tones and styles. My thoughts just don’t really line up with Kaito’s well. Perhaps some entries in this spin-off will be written from Tanner’s viewpoint? I rather like him so far, though I doubt Building Maintenance agrees with me! I did like the little visual gag in the prologue’s heading where Tanner’s pen clearly ran out of ink midway through. Oh, one last thing, with all the swearing and the NSFW element to Kaito’s prayer, you should probably put a warning at the start of the chapters or the Board post so folks know what they’re opening, yeah?
So, ready for that list-of-typos thing I do with everybody?
“Prologue”
“Kaito was a powerful proponent of the paramounce of personal grooming.”
I’m not finding “paramounce” to be a word. Did you perhaps mean “paramountcy?”
In a footnote: “Hey, were at the end of the hall before...?”
I think you meant, “were we at”
The footnote that begins, “2Ow! Stop. Please,” doesn’t seem to be connected to the narrative with another “2,” at least not that I could find.
“. . . heard screams, curses, and other. vocalizations. he'd rather not . . .”
Some extra periods snuck in here!
“Chapter 1”
“The limin between sleep and wake.”
I’m not finding “limin” to be a word either. (Other than a French verb, that is.) “Limen”, maybe?
“. . . the SCKS had made less possible things happen for his torment . . .”
No typo here, I’m just curious what “SCKS” stands for. I assume that’s some group from My Hero Academia?
“. . . nice massage being administered to him the cracked, grainy sidewalk . . .”
I think “. . . to him by the . . .”
But guess what!? New words you taught me this week: “paramountcy” and “limen!”
—doctorlit gives Tanner some chicken crumble and a nice, hard-boiled egg
Your request for future installments to focus on Tanner will be granted! In fact, you've given me a more interesting idea for mission number 2 than what I had before.
I'll go back and clear up the action and typos at... some point. Maybe after I get the mission finished?
happy for ya Damian! can’t wait to read it eventually :]