Reviewed [Oc/Be] Week 255 : Her Bodyguard - Feedback

[Shadowthread]

Please post any comments, critique, and other feedback here for [Oc/Be] Week 255 : Her Bodyguard by Shadowthread.

 

[Aelflead Kirastes]

The unlikely couple returns!
I'm glad to see another round of interaction between the power couple Spearlady Luxus and Kinchaa star Dante, and since I'm the FIRST to finish -I think- I'm dropping comments because procrastinating writing papers is way too easy.

You guys seem to be suffering from communication issues at least in some small part. In the very first exchange there are logical inconsistencies in the piece:

“So, are you going to go along with what the news are saying?” Dante asked of the spurii as they sat around the table in his apartment.

Aeria looked around, eyebrows only slightly raised, taking in the threadbare surroundings of the apartment. The contrast to the fine clothing that Dante had been wearing when they’d last been out on the town was marked, but she still kept any commentary to herself.

She paced in a circle around the room and then slowly sank down on the sofa, sticking her legs out in front of her as she looked up at Dante and knit her fingers together, resting them comfortably on her stomach. “Considering the fact that Terminus nearly got destroyed by a horde of demons, I’m not going to disbelieve it. I’ve seen things that made my skin crawl that I wouldn’t have believed in had I not seen them.”

I have to assume this is the very same scene and this is a small thing, but how is Aeria both sitting around the table in Dante's apartment, and simultaneously pacing a circle around the room, then stretching out on the sofa near it?

The way the scene is described in the opening paragraph it seems as though the couple has been sitting in the room for a while. Why then do your parts disagree on the reality of what's happening at this moment?

Mistakes like this are expected in threads with multiple people trying to write out actions all at once, but in a collab where you can work more easily together and decide on what's happening in a piece before hand it doesn't really make much sense that they would show up.

This one in particular could have been fixed by just mentioning that Aeria decided to stand up from where she had been originally sitting to stretch or something, and then continuing as written

Small thing right here but, when writing a large gap in time during a piece, some kind of indicator is useful. Simply telling the reader that a great deal of time has passed, a symbol, or even an extra long space will do:

”Well, let's get this over with, shall we?” Dante asked rhetorically from Aeria and led her out of the apartment as the duo headed towards the enlistment office.

The line was surprisingly long, but Aeria’s status as someone who’d served as part of the campaign at the Black Portal allowed them to move ahead to the priority group. Dante got looks since everyone recognized him from the kinchaa games, but no one said anything.

Unless the enlistment office is right outside of Dante's apartment, a page break right in between those two paragraphs would make that a little more clear and explain that they took a walk across the city to get to the office.

That said, the only major issue that I found in your piece was the one I made a big stink over at the top of this long mess. The rest of this was, as usual with these two, cheesy goodness that I pretty generally enjoyed. There were a few instances of what I thought were awkward phrasing or descriptions here and there but they were otherwise a non-issue. I'm curious to see how things unfold in the next installment after PMs as well as during them, so keep it up!