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Reviews for Sinners: Arc 2

By : Stormborn Apostle

From ANON - Max on August 10, 2008
@characterkiller (aka robo red)

it's the new (nigh overplayed but still great) song by Coldplay, Viva La Vida.

And I didn't listen to yours, but if it helps I don't have speakers on this computer (>:( ) so I can't listen to much of anything.
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From RoboRed on August 10, 2008
�Oh yeah, and RoboRed convinced me to kill someone. LOL, sorry bud, you have no idea what you unintentionally did.�

Splitting up my various reactions here�

1. *waves arms in air with stupid grin on face* I HELPED!!! ^_^
2. Oh�teh�noes�O_O
3. Zomg�I�m a murderer�;_;
4. Yess�Death, darkness, angst, tragedy...*evil grin* >:D

All these ending something like this:

- Omg, who is it!?!? What did I do to start this!?!? When did I say it!?!? Was it in arc 1 or 2 when I said it!?!? Must know more!!!

@ Max:
�Oh, and last anon: I actually thought of that song while I was thinking about Quiero :P Good stuff.�

What song is it again? I�m having a hard time sifting through the comments�

And did anyone give my song suggestion thingie a listen? Just out of curiosity� :/

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From Stormborn Apostle on August 10, 2008
Imasuky Lomae---The best editor I ever had was the head of the school newspaper I was in back in high school. Not only was she a damn good editor in technical terms, but she was down to earth and could always see exactly what tone I was trying to use. Plus she didn't rag on me for being too shy to pitch ads to people, lol. Sucks she was only there one year (though I was also fortunate enough to have her as my journalism teacher in freshman year).

Anon---Indeed. While the story has still relatively just begun, a few hundred pages of writing is not something I would want to re-do. That reminds me, I've started backing Sinners up in more places, in case AFF fails and my computer dies at the same time, lol.

Max---Heh. The end of the story is not going to be smooth and pretty. The source of the Shadow, chaos, is even stronger than the gods (including a certain quasi-omnipotent god born of order from that chaos), and as things fall apart, even some of those higher-order entities will be threatened. What's more, while Slash and Psymakio will become much stronger over the course of the story, neither will ever become anywhere near as powerful as gods, which means simply overpowering the Shadow will be impossible.

lolshit.

shadowed death657---Who knows where Jirachi is...

...and who says Jirachi isn't the one responsible for the curse in the first place? :-O
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From ANON - shadowed death657 on August 10, 2008
slash i must say i love your story but well lol killing off slash wow your evil but i also see how it could help for insance after slash dies you could have gardie try to find jirachi to bring him back, for a price of cource just a thought...
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From ANON - Max on August 09, 2008
Couple quick, really pointless things.

Through your last counterargument to Jack (I lol'd sometimes through that fight; "you can be my spellcheck.") You made quite a few quick snatches of plot be semi-revealed. One that gave me goosebumps was:

"the laws of reality begin to shatter and gods themselves fall dead from the sky."

Fuck dude. Keep writing, I need to see this.

Oh, and last anon: I actually thought of that song while I was thinking about Quiero :P Good stuff.
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From ANON - Anon on August 09, 2008
Here's a quick and random review. I love the story and it's characters. My five cents to all this "critique" stuff is that the general amount of people viewing this like it. Why change halfway(technically less) and potentially lose them all? On a happier side note, one of the previous reviews talked about matching songs and got me thinking. When I was reading the whole fantasy castle scene I couldn't stop hearing Viva La Vida by Coldplay. Just thought I'd speak my thoughts to an awesome writer.
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From Bishonen on August 09, 2008
I just want to say this in regards to editors I have one for all of my stories and she�s one of my biggest fans the fact that se enjoys my stories makes it so that she CAN improve my work when I was in school my writing teacher made us read and critique each others work the entire thing was awkward and un enjoyable for everyone most of us didn�t care for the story type or writing style of the others for example I only liked one of the stories I read but I did not insult the others I offered strictly technical advice such as changing the wording in places where it didn�t make sense

oh and I�, make a prediction Slash says he�ll start wrok of the new chapter Monday so I think it wil be done Saturday�..Next month

With Eternal Love, Imasuky Lomae
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From Stormborn Apostle on August 09, 2008
Perfect Purity---Thank you, lol.

Glad you like it. Hoenn is somewhat like the real world, but it's developed differently, and those differences can have profound impacts on society. Cars do not exist at all in Hoenn due to the rough and mostly-untamable terrain (although they may exist in Kanto, Johto, and Sinnoh; I don't visit those locations in Sinners, however); aircraft never developed at all. Medical technology is vastly superior to our own, mainly due to the rough nature of Pokemon battles. In the end, Hoenn is sort of a loose confederation of towns than a real country; while the Pokemon League rules the nation in name, it doesn't perform many administrative functions.

Pokemon League will show up in the future, both to deal with a certain trainer getting caught getting freaky with his Pokemon and to deal with the Rocket threat when they move their primary operations to Hoenn.

Yep, ten arcs. Some will be short (Arc 4, The King's Tomb, may only be a few chapters), some will be long. They may vary in tone...for example, Arc 5 will be told primarily from Psymakio's view, as opposed to the narrative currently following Slash more than her. I look forward to Arc 5 a lot, because Gardie is fun to write...although she won't be very happy or fun-seeking in Arc 5. Sigh.

I started the detailed outline for 24 today; production should begin Monday. :-D
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From Perfect Purity on August 09, 2008
Hey Slash, thought you might want to read something not half as long as the stuff you've had to deal with so far. ;)

Once again I am just floored at how amazing this story as a whole is. I love what you've done to, well, the entire world; hardly anything is as it is in the "real" world.

Hoo boy, ten arcs? Glad to hear it. I really hope you're able to see this massive tale through to the end.

Anxiously awaiting the next installment :3
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From Stormborn Apostle on August 09, 2008
Jack Nativity---Might as well end this night of pointless reviews with one final response, so we can finally put this mess to bed and get back to constructively helping the Sinners world develop.

Well, Jack, we can ignore your admitted dislike for Pokemon fanfiction...even your false claims that it wasn't behind your reviewing, despite an admitted desire to mock it and myself. We can pretend that you didn't want me to change the story for your own desires, despite claiming the needs for salvage and correction. If you wish, we can stick to your arrogant blindness, both about technical issues and in-universe issues, as to why you have failed to provide constructive criticism.

Your lack of knowledge has already proven that you can't help me beyond a spellcheck, from your incorrect predictions of events to assuming things were added simply to satisfy plot points. Once again I must remind you that you have absolutely no idea where the story is going, and all of your flawed assumptions are thus flawed due to your refusal to acknowledge that the story has not yet begun. Always in motion is the future. These people, even my harshest legitimate critics, see that, while you apparently do not.

For a new example, you assumed the Pearls are McGuffins since they're oft-referred to, chased by both protagonists and antagonists, but rarely seen or utilized for any purpose---thus far. You either have no clue what you're talking about, in which case either you're either misusing the use of the term or again have let your shortsightedness and impatience blind you. You have no damn clue what I plan to do with the Pearls, do you? It's almost like you assume that the story will end when the Pearls are found (which that is certainly incorrect). There are ten Arcs to the story, and if you assume that you know the future, plot-wise and character-wise, after Arc Two's midway point, lol, then you are no editor, good sir.

Even if we ignore your childish intentions to read a work solely to mock it (a half-step above Alpha Xi's page-stretching whines about his off-topic rants being deleted), you are a poor editor. Oh, you sound smart. You sound accomplished. But you know, I recognize the tone of your writing...it's the same tone I would take when I had to bullshit an essay test in middle school. Lots of looks-good stuff but little accuracy and substance.

Your misuse of terminology, which I'm sure must look pretty intelligent to the casual reader but is less effective against IB grads with journalism/literature backgrounds, does not help me. For the record, the Pearls are not McGuffins...but perhaps you should keep Chekhov's gun in mind in regards to them, though I doubt you'll still be reading by the time the gun goes off.

Your assumptions about the plot---not guesses, but assumptions, as though you can see the future of my work---are incorrect, making your claims about predictability and cliche to look somewhat...wrong. From orgies to babies to princes to hybrids, you missed them all, even those that were specifically spelled out. Either my story is unpredictable, you suck at predicting, or you have bad reading comprehension.

Your criticism of my characters is unfounded, despite your livejournal-eqsue tests to prove otherwise; according to you, my characters are too perfect and epic until they make a mistake that a perfect character wouldn't make...lolwut. Slash is perfect until getting his ass kicked, being defeated in a climactic Gym match, having sex in a war zone and getting his girl poisoned, losing control of his powers and killing pregnant women (after taunting them with food), and selling half his lifespan at the half-lie insisting of a crazy and corrupted god. But hey, I wish I had black hair and fap to Gardevoir, so he's self-insertion. Lulz.

Your sense of reality, both real and in-universe, are a little conflicted---you have no trouble believing in fire-breathing dragons, but cancer existing in the Pokemon world is silly? Castles made by gods are crazy but mortals converting life forms into computer data in a world without cars is reasonable? Gardevoir, a non-human, doesn't always act human with her submissiveness and obsession? Holy damn.

Your view of Sinners, and thus your ability to play editor, is flawed specifically because you cannot put yourself in this world. You can talk about how an editor can edit something they don't like, but very editors are capable enough to do so fairly and helpfully beyond grammar and packaging, and you, good sir, are not in their number. You look for predictability while ignoring that the Shadow is chaos. That there is a pre-ordained reason for the forces drawing together to confront the enemy won't mean a thing when the laws of reality begin to shatter and gods themselves fall dead from the sky. That Psymakio's last incarnation (more a spark than an ancestor or past life) was royalty does not make her royalty; neither does that same formula apply to Slash, and both would likely reject such titles if offered. In the end, all expectations, both within the story and without, will be broken specifically because their enemy is an entity of purest chaos, and when the prophesies fail and both magic and technology are rendered useless, what will happen then? Do you know, Jack? What cliche will happen then?

What would everyone say I told them that there's a pretty good chance, perhaps 60%, that this story will end with everyone dead? After all, my muse couldn't give a shit about happy endings.

Well, in any case, the girl in Arc 1's reviews who asked for Adult Baby stuff was more helpful than you. Imasuky, very early on, convinced me to go ahead and give Kiako a shape-shifty arm, something I originally decided against (and thus saved the Slash whip/Lombre sequence from the void). Ek and Rougia helped me work out a whole system of rules for Pokeballs, something which needed to be addressed and planned as early as possible but went unconsidered until they mentioned it. CrazyIvan made me jealous enough to continue writing my 20000+ word megachapters, leading me to realize that I liked them a lot. Everyone who incorrectly guessed that Silver was Lance lead me to consider adding Lance later in the story, and no matter how small his role is, it'll be cool.

Tai and Rougia helped shape the story massively, in more ways than I can list before sunrise. Hsda Mk. II convinced me to tweak my light/dark scale to be less strictly good/evil and more intent-based. Splenge got me to fill a text document with "rules on TM's", which will come in handy later.

Oh yeah, and RoboRed convinced me to kill someone. LOL, sorry bud, you have no idea what you unintentionally did.

Practically every single reviewer here has helped me, whether urging me to hurry up and update, tweak a previous chapter, re-write the rules for certain aspects of the world...countless things. All of them influenced me and thus own a part of this story.

But not you, Jack. You represent everything that cannot help Sinners---looking upon it a series of words instead of a world, ranting about plotlines and character models and other things with the self-assurance of Corphish on steroids. You see the story as I feared that I would after time...as something to be dissected, mercilessly cut and pasted into existence. You see Sinners the same way Kiako's creators saw him, and the end result is just as pitiable.

May you learn how to read someday, so you can truly enjoy the art of storytelling and story reading. Goodbye, and good luck.
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From ANON - Jack Nativity on August 09, 2008
Slash, I hadn't expected a second poster to get in here, post a response (which apparently got deleted as I went from one refresh to the next) and then see a fast exchange of posts between you and him/her. Since it seems to have died out and your reply to me got "intercepted", shall we say, I might as well take a page from his/her book and do this before I change my mind. This is my last post to you, meant to explain what I was trying to do with my reviews through a number of observations and clarifications. I'll leave you alone to your own devices after I post it, so you might as well congratulate yourself now.

I kept saying it but you seemed to ignore it repeatedly: my reviews were not brought up by the human/Pokemon sex facet of your story's subject matter, but rather by your shortcomings as a writer. If that still eludes you and you think I should have just turned away as soon as I saw the "this story contains Pokemon porn" disclaimers, let me point out that editors and critics rarely ignore to review something just because they don't like a part of it.

Similarly, stating that what I have to tell you is worthless just because I am not here to enjoy your work and "get into" the world you've modified is working from a harmful and self-defeating view of art. Critics and editors do not have to enjoy a work in order to review it. Their purpose is to edit and critique, no more, no less. Actual enjoyment of the work, or learning to care for it, is not a priority or of any importance to the critic. You'll just stifle your own artistic growth if you keep turning away criticism that goes against the grain.

For all I care, you can continue writing in the style you're going for now. More power to you and all that. I just find it pathetic that you keep revisiting these old tropes (like "New powers as the plot demands") to inject in your story and not bothering to corrupt them to add variety to the plot. I roll my eyes every time I recognize another trope that you didn't mutate. Not because they're bad themselves, but rather because they all add up to something I've seen before.

Likewise, I never said that you had to change your style to please me: I said that you fall back on the EPIC (not the epic, understand the difference) instead of trying to work out some subtle and not-so-subtle changes on it. Or did you not notice I was actually praising you, however vaguely, for doing exactly that in this latest chapter?

Lastly, if I'm a troll... well, considering I wrote my reviews, acerbic tone and all, to force you to look at yourself and learn some basics of art, I'd say I was doing you a service, not trolling you. Pity you can't seem to understand that.

This concludes our exchanges, probably forever. Reply to this or don't, it's your call, but deleting it will only prove to me that you haven't learned a single thing from all of this, and that I shouldn't have used up my time to try and help you. Take that and my tone as you will. Goodbye, and good writing.
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From Stormborn Apostle on August 09, 2008
Alpha Xi---Sorry, I just assumed that the same moron was behind all the stupid comments.

I am indeed happy with my own writing style and my schools of thought. My temper was raised when the same pointless complaints were raised as though they were legitimate criticism---oh noes, I don't like epic, etc.. Such comments will be summarily dismissed, because they're not constructive any more than "I don't like Slash's hairstyle" would be. Complaining about the unchangeable, such as genre, is outright retarded. I wonder what they're expecting me to do...have Kiako get hit by a bus, Giovanni gets a stroke and loses the Pearls, the Shadow...suddenly dies!...and the protagonists move to Hawaii for the rest of the story? lolwut.

Valid criticism would include plot holes/gaps (Pokeballs and their stasis functions, as Ek brought up), characters acting or appearing out of character, sloppy writing (chapter five formerly coming off as preachy from the narrative instead of Slash, as someone on one of the chans mentioned), stuff like that. Those things can be improved upon---I mentioned the limited stasis functions of Pokeballs and their limits, elaborated on Psymakio's feelings over killing humans, re-wrote chapter five to make Slash's anti-Jirachian views more clear.

The problem with Jack's comments weren't that he didn't like epic stories or Pokemon fanfiction---it was that he viewed those opinions as something I needed to 'correct' in my story, something possible to change...a rather arrogant, closed-minded view that was compounded by outright stating that the concept of the story repulsed him. Like I said, I didn't like Jane Eyre, but if Bronte was alive, would I tell her that she needed to make it more exciting and adventurous and sex-filled just because I like those kinds of stories? Fuck no.

It's not an author's job to change the themes of their work for others' approval; their job is to write what comes from their heart and share it with those who enjoy that kind of writing. Those people are the ones who understand the story's world and can offer helpful advice. If refusing a handful of demands to change my story from epic novel to a down-to-earth, more 'canonical' (not a good thing in the Pokemon world) work makes me a hack, so be it.

You do, however, make a good point. I should not have responded to it at all. I should have ignored all the pointless complaining...but I don't really have the heart to just outright delete someone's comments without saying why (hence why I eventually replied to you). I hoped that I could make the distinction between valid criticism and personal complaint clear. I've now done all that I can to make that clear, and if someone doesn't grasp that...perhaps I will indeed ignore them, at least if they've already been told about the difference, as you and everyone else up to this point has.

Adios.
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From ANON - Alpha Xi on August 09, 2008
A small addendum, because it's bugging me. I think it is absolutely pathetic that you feel the need to twist a valid point so that it can fit in your little box of believing your story is as close to perfect as is possible. "I want to know how things will turn out before they happen" is not even close to what I said. If you were a true writer you'd understand the difference between making sure the reader had sufficient clues to the progress of the story and flatly laying out the story for them. As I said, the measure is not making the reader go "did not see that coming" but to make them say that, go back, read it again, and feel like they should have picked up on it. It is THAT, not the twist itself, that makes a story fascinating.
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From ANON - Alpha Xi on August 09, 2008
For one, I was not the one to say anything about ED.

For two, if you're happy with the way you write, and proud of it, you really have no reason to even respond to what criticism you disagree with. If you like your writing exactly the way it is (as you seem to, apparently) that is fine. But it is the very fact that you feel the need to defend yourself that bothers me, as you lash out against anyone who doesn't open their review with "I liked it, but..."

If you summarily dismiss anyone who flatly didn't like your story and tells you why, you will always be what you are right now - a hack.
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From Stormborn Apostle on August 09, 2008
Alpha Xi---If you don't want to read Sinners, you shouldn't. If you don't think you can enjoy it, fine.

If, however, you actually read Sinners and considered it with an open mind (not a 'concept is repulsive but I'm bored' starting point, or a 'let's see what I don't like' intent), that would make your opinions on the story valid and potentially constructive, yes. The review pages have plenty of questions and complaints from people that have been considered, discussed, and sometimes worked into the story...because they were made by people who did read the story and did it with the intent to be entertained (they also amazingly managed to do it without being dicks).

However, good sir, if your intent is to complain about my use of a large, sweeping storylines, then I'm not interested; "I don't like the genre" is no more valid criticism than complaining about the font. People can hate it all they want, that's fine, I hated stuffy and boring Jane Eyre when I had to read it in school...but an author really doesn't have to give a shit what, say, action thriller fans think about their fantasy romance novel.

Neither am I interested if you don't like the interactive, perhaps indeed 'soap-opera-esque' style of a living work. So far the only complaints I've gotten about cliffhangers and surprises are that they're too long in resolution due to my slow updating; "I want to know how things will turn out before they happen" is not valid criticism. If someone wants that, they can watch the Pokemon anime. Ash and Brock and [insert this season's female lead] will be traveling to [insert name] town, where Team Rocket will attack Pikachu with crossdressing and giant robots until being BLASTED OFF AGAIN.

And lastly, I am not interested if you intend to spam the review space with spammy, page-stretching cries for attention whenever your previous pointless reviews are deleted for such nonsense. Should that happen again, good sir, I will delete anything you post here in the future, whether valid or not. Grow up. If that dismissal is a little too much and you want to write an ED article complaining about it, go ahead, I'd be honored (ED fan myself) and it would swing me a few more hits.

Like Quiero said, it's not possible to satisfy everyone. If you don't like Sinners, nothing is forcing you to read it or enjoy it. This ain't lit class, I ain't forcing anyone to read a fantasy romance epic that doesn't want to.

Simple as that.
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