Sunday Carapaces, Part 38 (13 reviews, 11 stories)

Oh god I'm on page 523. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.


tavros and vriska reanact a scene from end of eva you know the one i mean (Tavros (Vriska, Boxcars, Terezi))

This seems more like "Shinji cosplays as Tavros". Tavros doesn't generally go on about how much he sucks, he just doesn't argue against it very well, and he really doesn't go along with what people tell him, that's why Vriska has to mindcontrol and lie to him to get him to do what she wants. Tavros isn't the strongest character, but he's weak in a completely different way than Shinji.

It's The Fic Where Bro And Lord English Make Out (Dirk (Dave, Lord English))

Huh. Your Dirk/Bro voice seems kind of shaky, but I liked the ramble about glitch pokemon, and the idea of them ending up on some fucked up glitch planet actually seems plausible once it's brought up. And the whole memory thing makes for a clever way to get the two together.

Deja Vu (DD (Boxcars, Condesce, Dirk))

it frustrates you that paper rationing means the better publications have had to shut their doors.

Why would paper rationing select for the crappiest one? Is it that this one would be running no matter what, but there's nothing left over for anyone else, or something else?

I really like your DD's narration, it's entertaining without going so far over the top it stops sounding like him.

Unhinged (Jack, DD, Rose, Dave, Davesprite, CD, OCs (John, Jade))

This is incredibly well done. You've managed to keep everyone in character with the cracky premise, and even develop them to great depth while still staying recognizable. And I really love your plotting as well - there's enough back and forth to keep things unpredictable and full of suspense, and Rose is incredibly clever without being unrealistically perfect or controlled in her plans. I like how you write the Crew a great deal as well, friends without losing the fact they're not good people.

I found the resistance OCs kind of lackluster, though - the bishop is bland and WP too over the top.

Untitled Homestuck Intermission fic (Jack, DD)

Nice to see this over here!

==> Be the Hemospectrum hating Seadweller (Orphaner Dualscar, MOC, FOC)

Pretty sure "hating" should be capitalized in your title.

"No...I get that. No...no Snakedad! It just doesn't make any sense! Howw can purple blood be more important than red blood? I mean...it's all blood but different colors."

You have to resist the urge to roll your eyes as the giant seasnake hisses about WHY blood color is so important and WHY purple is better than red (Something stupid about it being the color of royalty, who the fuck decided that? They could have easily chosen yellow or blue or red or another color.) and for the First Empress's sake WHY are you so thick?

This is really poor setup. No one says the color matters because someone decided it is. Purple matters because of what it means - Equius never says blue blood is better because it's blue, it's because he believes color has some connection to behavior. It doesn't matter if it's bullshit, that's the type that people believe while "the color of royalty" is tautological nonsense.

If your story's premise is that your character rejects the hemospectrum, you need to show him rejecting that, not a bizarro strawman version that only insane idiots could believe. Again, Equius gives a pretty good look at this. He handles the idea of a lowblood behaving in a way he thinks only higher bloods behave by building a blueblood robot for her ghost to inhabit. Most saner people, like your character, could just look at something similar with a friend of theirs and take it to mean the hemospectrum is bunk because it doesn't fit with what they see, rather than because blood color mattering is just inherently ridiculous.

Also, lusii don't talk.

Not being able to spend time wwith my friend just 'cause he has green blood is STUPID!"

There is also no sign the hemospectrum prevents trolls from mixing. There might be some stigma against really high/really low friendships, but if so it can't be much and even then, green is in the middle. If there was going to be an issue here, it'd just be the land/sea divide, and in that case the issue is that one of them has gills and the other doesn't. Being against that divide would actually be more original.

And now he's being bullied for not believing in the hemospectrum, something there's been no sign at all of in canon. The trolls seem to barely ever meet anyone else, yet somehow he's going to something just like a standard human school right down to talky bullies who think shoving people is the height of intimidation.

Be the Hemospectrum hating Seadweller Ch2

The Brownblood.

Shouldn't be capitalized.

And now they're demanding he kill some lowblood, even though there's never been any sign of troll society works this way. Why are they even going through all this trouble instead of killing him?

Be the Hemospectrum hating Seadweller Ch3

Option 1, you kill the Lowblood. You really don't want to do that. Not because of the killing part, you know you'll have to kill to get to adulthood and you have no problems with that. You just...don't want to have to kill for sport like so many Highbloods do, especially the Subjugglators.

Then I don't see what the problem is. This evidently falls into the class of "kill to get to adulthood", in that apparently doing this means they leave him be and standing there hesitating means they kill him now before he grows any older.

Also, really, stop capitalizing words everywhere.

...and his only other option is to try to run away with her? He's just been handed a weapon, he's entirely capable of turning around and stabbing one of the other trolls instead.

A single purple tear escapes from your eye and you whisper to her.

"I'm sorry...I'll make them pay..."

The Lowblood looks shocked, then smiles and nods before closing her eyes and dieing...

How ridiculous. Also, it's "dying".

Considering that colored tears are going to be rather noticeable, why do the bullies accept this and act approving? He's obviously even more of a pathetic excuse for a seatroll than they thought, it's just he's slightly more of a coward than he is a lowblood sympathizer.

...and how he's mutilating and killing their lusii in revenge? What the fuck. He's got a god weapon, he was entirely capable of killing them (in fact, entirely capable of defending himself back at the school - if he's too stupid to keep a weapon in his specibi, he deserves whatever happens).

I get the feeling this was all to explain why he's known as Orphaner, but he's a mirror Eridan, he presumably was doing it to feed the empress' lusus.

Be the Hemospectrum hating Seadweller Ch4

Your name is SOMADINA, you are now SIX SWEEPS old, and have been on the RUN for the last TWO SWEEPS ever since you MURDERED three Lusii.

You still enjoy to READ but haven't had the chance to collect any BOOKS lately since your existence has been NARROWED DOWN to SURVIVING. You've been traveling ON LAND since it would be easier for the DRONES to track a SEADWELLER in the WATER.

What? The trolls are fine with murder. Eridan got away with slaughtering lusii constantly and Vriska didn't get in any trouble killing Aradia's lusus. It's more likely the kids with dead lusii are the ones in trouble.

Finding water has been extremely difficult and has taken a toll on your body as a Seadweller needs two-times the amount of water a Landdweller does.

Actually ocean creatures don't need all that much water to function. Just because the sea is wet doesn't make it drinkable - getting useable water out of something with that much salt is a trial. If he's suffering, it'd be more likely because his skin is drying out due to seadwellers not handling low humidity well. He might also be having a lot of trouble retaining salt or trouble breathing if his lungs aren't up to doing all the work alone. And of course any traveling troll would be in danger of the sun.

Oh Gog!

Is a joke misspelling, not something characters who never interacted with the humans should be saying seriously.

You're name is THE DOLOROSA, or rather, that's your adult title.

It's "your", "you're" means "you are", and I'm pretty sure that's the title she gets after her kid dies, for obvious reasons.

Be the Hemospectrum hating Seadweller Ch5

The fourth voice has a cute lisp

UGH. And this after all his hatred of how the bullies talked. If you want to ship him with someone, have him actually meet them and show why they fit well together, don't just treat it as destined.

The second troll is a young female, possibly a couple sweeps younger than you. She has wild hair and scratched skin and is wearing clothes made from what looks to be the skin of a hoofbeast.

It really doesn't make any sense that a kid raised by Kanaya's ancestor would be acting the way Nepeta lives on her own.

The last troll is a really really really REALLY cute Yellowblood!

Seriously, no. If you want to portray this positively, having it just be a matter of telling the audience your character finds him super-attractive because is the wrong way of doing it. Wait for the other character to do something like actually have a conversation with him so there's some sense they click as people. Like if he was the one who stepped forward to reassure Somadina when he panicked, or when he started crying, that'd have been a great reason for Somadina to develop a crush on him.

There's also the whole bit the trolls have about their relationships being about pity, so while listing how pathetic Somadina looks works okay for explaining a crush from Irsa's view, Somadina doesn't seem to be seeing anything like that behind his own crush.

Fandom will never outgrow the "omg he looks hot" method of showing romance, will it?

Be the Hemospectrum hating Seadweller Ch6

Oh christ so he's buddies with the two boys while not-Nepeta is raving madly about how much she hates him for completely unfair reasons based on the idea that for no reason her lusus was killed by them despite there being no sign that kind of thing happens normally. And despite being moirails with Irsa, you say he's too busy staring at Somadina's ass to pay attention to the fact she's upset, or her at all apparently. This is contrived and terrible.

It's been six chapters and so far the only connection to the Orphaner is they share blood color and a gun (and that's more of a hindrance than anything, since all it does is introduce plot holes where you have to try to explain why he doesn't use it). You haven't made any attempt to bridge the gap between canon and your AU here - to show how, if things were different, the Orphaner could have grown up to not care about the hemospectrum instead of being obsessed with it. There's also no sign of his having any interest in boats, or the military, or the empress, or grandiose plans, or wizards, or anything. You'd really have been better served to just have made him an OC purpleblood, and maybe developing him as your own OC would make him more well-rounded than the current version, which seems like you're expecting canon to do the work of filling in the character even when there's nothing connecting the two.

It'd also be a really good idea to have some degree of balance and moderation. Imarika distrusting him should be not crazily over the top and it shouldn't be just left to fester for perigrees instead of being talked about immediately - maybe they agree she's got a point about that he could be a spy or that it's suspicious for someone who seems to be on top would support them so they keep a close eye on him just in case, maybe they point out that hemospectrum equality means not hating the top as well as the bottom and she agrees to give him a chance prove that purplebloods can be good as well. And really, her moirail should not be ditching her.

God damn it. And neither the Handmaid nor the Condesce appeared.

Are there any of these that aren't Eridan-related and/or are actually good?

A Hard Day's Night (SS (PS))

This has hit the point where it'd take a microscope to make out canon in it.

Bitter Solitude (PS (PI, SS, MOC))

Ditto.

Roll of the Die (Die (Crowbar, DD))

Hm. Your voices don't seem that well done here, but I can't really put my finger on why. Too wordy or too casual maybe, and they all seem to have very similar ways of speaking.

Your DD was a good creepy sadist, though.

The final section seems overlong and with too much of a focus of Crowbar apologizing and reassuring Die with too little "we'll kill the bastard". They are heavily armed mobsters, after all.

Drawing Dead Ace of Trump

Another one I've done already! FFN carapace reviewing continues to very slightly pay off!

Shit, It's Valentine's (SS (Snowman))

Your spacing on this is really weird.

I'm not really sure why this is genderswapped since that doesn't seem to really be a factor. Is it just to make it so it's the guy bringing the girl things, or am I missing something?

You follow the damn things all the way to your kitchen. Waiting for you there is a huge fucking spade fashioned from broken 8-balls.

You might be a tad more appreciative of this romantic gesture if said gesture hadn’t gotten you up at three fucking a.m. and made a mess all over your fucking apartment.

Wouldn't be much of a black gesture in that case, would it?

And I'm not sure what's up with the heart card and question mark. It really doesn't seem like something Snowman would want or where there'd be any doubt, so, just more messing with Slick or something?

Really not sure what to make of this.

Tavros (Vriska, Boxcars, Terezi)
Dirk (Dave, Lord English)
DD (Boxcars, Condesce, Dirk)
Jack, DD, Rose, Dave, Davesprite, CD, OCs (John, Jade)
Not-Eridan, Signless, Not-Nepeta, Not-Sollux (OCs, Doloresa))
SS (PS)
PS (PI, SS, MOC)
SS (Snowman)

Two and a half of eight. It's times like this I wish I'd figured out some way to distinguish regular POVs from one that's just there so they can be a raving hateful bitch. Ah well. At least I'm not in a fandom where that's more than an occasional blip.

2/24/12 Only a bit more than a year behind.

Page 518 fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Also, there's been like a page and a half posted just in the time I've done these.