I'm feeling like shit today, so please bear with me as I give you these lackluster grades. (He says as he writes a metric-fuckton of comment stuff for Katie, X.x)
Writing for my grader:
http://www.mangaden.net/forum/showthread.php?37718-Week-280-Followed
Beaks - 145
So, uhm... Borderlands two, great game, right? Yeah, I know Will gave you some serious backlash on it already, but I do feel the need to reiterate that you really shouldn't need this. Anyway, with that out of the way, and looking at it objectively, I loved these two chapters. I loved them. The portrayal of Tsubaki quite seriously losing her mind was a very realistic touch, and something I can only applaud you on daring.
It shows character both in-character and out-of-character, keep it up!
Katie - 150 (chapters) + 59 (Finnyclab) + 150 (Nellaclab) + 250 (That big-ass collab) = 609
So, I'm kind of confused. Why did Adelaide let the Gardens disappear? Why is this even a thing, I wonder? I mean, honestly speaking,
was that really necessary? Lol. It felt really odd to me to have Adelaide just go, "WEWLP FUCK IT, I'M DONE." and just toss the place she wrecked into oblivion. That's not going to go unnoticed, I can assure you, because there's only really one means of letting something disappear completely, and that's through forbidden demon arts. There are currently three people known, or otherwise unknown, to do so. Sayis, Adelaide and the Kidoushuu. It will probably be tracked back to either of Sayis or Tedika, and then I dunno? I'm not sure this was as perfectly thought out as it could. I mean, unless you got permission of course. Because then, massive friggin' kudos to you. Holy shit that was awesome.
I do kind of wonder sometimes, though, what the thought process behind these plot points are. Especially since this is something that actually has an impact on pretty much the entirety of Soul Society, and just throwing the Gardens into oblivion is - in my book - a big no no, no matter how awesome it is, or no matter how you look at it. Might have to talk to Will on this one, see what he thinks. Maybe it's warranted, maybe it's not, I'm no kidou expert and certainly no kindou expert, but this did seem a bit excessive, if not super awesome.
The second chapter was a bit of a confusing transition because I didn't notice that it was kind of, sort of a flashback chapter? Anyway, I really liked this as it gives us some insight into Adelaide's past - something I feel too few people do these days. It was mostly clean, save for one error I did find: it is a function if sound judgment
I think you mean to say "it is a function of sound judgment" but honestly? That's not enough to detract points for.
Your collaboration with Finny was nice, and I do love the way you play on Adelaide's Britshness by calling her a "Leftenant". God I love that word so much. Then comes a weird transition, though. See, I figure if Adelaide said 'leftenant' I'd assume she'd be speaking in
English not Japanese, since leftenant is a very distinct British word. However, Picca went on to say she spoke Japanese, but that doesn't make any sense, since I don't think you can portray the difference between leftenant and lieutenant very well when speaking a language not English.
Confused as I am, I would like some clarification just so I can untangle this a bit better.
I'll admit that even though this collaboration was surprisingly cute, I was left a little bit disappointed after your opening turn, haha. Here I was, thinking you were setting this collab up for some great kidou practice, but, nope! Adelaide's buying pictures off of Piccabay! Slightly disappointing, but hella amusing. I am content.
Now, your ridiculously long collabs with both Nella and Kero. Why do you do this to me? D: Haha, man. For your collab with Nella, there were some weird errors - mostly with dialogue punctuation - that sort of stood out, but not really? Things like (“Hawaii is in America’s States,” Adelaide made a face, not really a fan of America.) where you put a comma after States, where you really should've used a period since 'Adelaide made a face' is not a manner of speaking, and you only really use a comma to end dialogue when the follow up is the manner of speech from the person speaking.
Other than that you had a rather strange one on tenses as well (It was important to the Briton that they enjoy this day, that this be a time she and Yuu remembered fondly.) Bam! Suddenly present tense. I don't know, it just reads hella awkward to me, especially the second half of the sentence - although I realize it probably isn't entirely
wrong.
I thought this was a cute collab, though, and I really do enjoy myself some nostalgia rushes from time to time. As such, it's nice to see old friends reminiscing, but also looking to the future. Oh, and having fun, of course. Can't have a nice relaxing day without having fun.
Now, for your humongous collab. Echo is kind of an oddball, isn't she? Cute, but an oddball. Not really sure what I think of her yet, but I'm sure that'll come with time. Now the content itself, I'm not really sure what the... purpose was of this collab? You know, other than collabing and doing a standard meet and greet in a non-standard way, that is. It was a good collab, and like Fan said it was a nice read, but there was just something that felt off about the fact that you wrote 10k words together. I expect more from a ten thousand word collaboration, because you have more time to be thorough about it.
On the whole I did get a bit teary-eyed at a few points 'cause the writing was kind of sweet at times, and then at other times it felt really silly, but I suppose that's what you get for writing so much. Things like that happen, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it.
I really liked your portrayal of Echo towards her family. She seems to be a bit caught between her knowing, and admitting they were wrong, and the fact that she kind of wanted them not to be wrong because they are inherently, as she views them, good people. This is one hell of a powerful internal struggle you can pull off here, and I applaud you for that.
Now, before I leave you, I did want to point one thing out for your partner: I get that dialogues are pretty much a go-crazy-go-hazy kind of deal and that you can really pull off basically everything, because that's how speech works, some people trip over the words because they mash them together. I do believe it can use some work, for instance, by adding little breaks in-between larger sentences, so as to give Ming some well deserved rest, because the way she rambles on now in your writing from time to time, it's a surprise she hasn't passed out from lack of oxygen yet - quite like this run-on of a sentence I just wrote.
So, I'm not saying "STAHP" because that would be wrong of me to do - not to mention that I'm not your grader - but one thing to consider is, as I said, putting in some additional breaks in-between her talking to make it seem like she actually pauses in-between certain sentences. Just a thought, though.
Overall, great collab, although I'll have to agree with Fan that the Adelaide bit felt pretty random. But hey. Stuff happens.
