Just curious, what do you guys think of the story from your perspective?
It's really hard for me to look over my story and see it from the eyes of someone who doesn't know about all of the things happening in the background.
You see I can give either a "really short answer that doesn't really say
much" or I can give a needless long answer, there is no inbetween, for
me anyway.
…
I think we all know what type of answer I'll give:
Looking back on this after finishing writing all of this out I realize I might have gone a tad overboard. As it is closer to a review of the quest as a whole rather than just the story
Characters:
Una: Adorable, but not
just adorable. It is easy to build a "adorable" little sister and build on just that and have them be well loved but that isn't the case. You can see her clear trust issues in others (such as her clear hesitance to enter the pub), which bizarrely contrasts with how quickly she was to "ship" Cerys with Morgan. She clearly reads dark manga (Berserk was mentioned as something she has read), as well as hinting at darker thoughts (having said to Cerys that
everyone has thoughts of destroying the world or burning things sometimes). Faith in her sister surpasses rationality, but as we are closer to her mother figure than actual sister, and Cerys both saved her from a bad situation, and weathers ones just as bad or worse for Una, and Una knows this.
Overall a interesting mix of character traits that make her stand out from normal "adorable" characters.
Spirit of the Land (America): Honestly, a character that was incredibly useful to the narrative, and helpful. By dint of not being human, managed to get past the normal blocks that Cerys would have with trusting anyone, and did, of its own accord provide help because it could. Without Best Forest/Forest Bro (inaccurate names but I digress), Cerys would probably have not have been nearly as willing to trust Morgan. There would have been no precedent, and she would have been even more on edge. Protective of us and was willing to shield us forever if we wanted
before doing a favour to it. Hasn't really talked to anyone before us, well I understand how being one of Gaia's chosen, and needing help could have been a contributing factor, for such a friendly spirit, I am honestly curious as to the reasons it
didn't ever respond to other people's attempt to talk to it. As the last chapter has shown, has made a big enough impression that Cerys immediately calms down when she found out something else was a spirit, hence greatly made her more trusting of other spirits.
Valuable as a plot device, and as a friend to Cerys, and I dearly wish that we went the Miko route.
Morgan: I find her interesting in that she is a character that looking back has multiple points where she lied or deceived the main character, and yet is completely unhated for doing so. Any weariness from being around a character with such traits is non existent.
While I have pointed out these points before, I should probably extrapolate: She starts her first meeting with us, with Cerys being hostile towards her. Yet under pressure she manages to feign incomprehension of a slang from a country that she is often in (calling a flashlight a torch), to not implicate herself with the Clocktower and make it seem like she was American. She then lies to us outright by saying that she'd leave the area and not tell a soul about us. Despite having specifically sent to the area to check out and try to find the cause of the magical signal that was detected not
too far from there, and us being an awfully power being, and a definite contender for a being strong enough to actually trigger an alarm from that far away. This lie had Cerys thinking "you don't know if a person could sound more honest if they tried", hence a
very good liar.
There is no possible way that Morgan would avoid revealing the existence of truly dangerous magical creature with intentions unknown to Karen. Then once we reveal we are a magical girl, makes arrangments to follow us because we are
interesting and she follows
interesting things and interesting things always happens around magical girls. Yet that isn't
really why. It might be part of the reason but not the main reason. By now Morgan has realized that
we are her mission, and so follows us to observe. And really, she doesn't
follow us so much as lead us. She easily manipulates us to go to Karen subtly enough that Cerys doesn't really realize she is being lead and directed anywhere. And it is hard to blame Cerys for falling for it because of how many of the voters
didn't catch that at all, and just bit the plot hook. Morgan is
smooth.
She also lied scouting being her dream job and spending most of her free time being getting ready for more work, as seen by how hard she must have worked for her teaching degree at 16. Seeing how she was a shoe in and basically born into scouting, if it was her actual dream job there would be no need to work on getting a fall back like teaching, etc. This can be a sign of her not trusting Cerys enough to tell her about her past and true thoughts, but it can also be seen as specifically touting how enjoyable she finds her job because she doesn't want effect Cerys' opinion of the clocktower, and Morgan is quite frankly
the only reason why it was an even somewhat positive opinion in the first place. Telling her that it isn't her dream job, or what she had
really wanted to do, or anything like that might have really damaged that.
With Morgan currently off of any missions until Cerys is mentally stable, I somewhat wonder how much of each interaction is genuine, if there are any lies, what is
real and what
isn't, and yet I myself don't really feel any dislike for her.
I find it fascinating. I really do. A character who has been caught in their lies, their deceits, made not simply for the main character's benefit, and yet no paranoia exists. For that reason alone, without going into any other character traits, Morgan is the most
interesting character for me so far, and I really do adore the mix of "obviously a friend" and "obviously lies to you and has had hidden agendas in some of her conversations with you".
Besides that, the personality that she shows is likable, and you have made me sufficiently interested in her family and backstory.
Karen: I like how she is a bit of a mastermind, her agelessness, how she is good at social but not
unbeatable, read you like a book levels, that makes it hard to
truly interact with people. There is much that is unknown about the character, that I am interested in.
That said, be it either from not quite as much screen time, that screen time being mostly through the lens of Cerys, or otherwise, she rates lowest for characters I am really engaged in out of any of the others on the list so far.
Samantha: Eh, somewhat interesting in the more subtle friction and misunderstanding between Cerys and her, and in helpfulness, but nothing has happened with her that
really built up my interest in the character or made me think "wow that is a well constructed character". Honestly, though we haven't really seen Samantha "off-clock" though, nor is Cerys really all that eager to interact with her in any way more than a professional manner, so it could be a matter of perspective.
Jeanne: I am withholding comment seeing how we have only had one scene with her. There are stuff to say, but I'd rather have a stronger grasp of the character before comment.
Cerys: The main character, shady past, but her thoughts aren't really dominated by it. Has her moments of fun internal thoughts. Despite her sword's name, and dark past, isn't "edgy" at all, which is appreciated. Trust issues abound, a girl who has went through much hardship, but has only rose up stronger for it. I love the mother/ daughter relationship with Una, and their interactions. Even though "we" are playing as her, she is a wonderfully distinct character from the players.
Overall a solid protagonist with a lot of narrative potential.
Plot
Honestly this is a bit hard to control as you have given us a lot of free reign.
Depends on how you look at it. Some might say it is slow, but on the other hand I see it as:
Book 1: Demon attack, introduction to the main characters, mistake resulting in military attack, Forest Bro, Morgan, escape from continent, join the clocktower
Book 2: Coming to terms with being in the clocktower, going on your first job, start to see what you truly signed up for, meeting new characters… etc.
Of a multi-book series. The plot content of "book 1" is something that I see as well paced in that light assuming that the series is going to span for much more than a trilogy. The amount of content for the first book isn't really bad, and is around 93k words so around what a book would be anyway. More than the first harry potter, but less than the hobbit.
Book 2 as it were is proceeding at a decent pace as well, no real issues.
So I see no issues in pacing, personally.
While there is not an outright "overarcing plot" to the story yet, the foreshadowing of demons and the Barrier weakening clearly shows where it is heading towards. Brings all of this into the perspective of preparing and getting ready for what is to come in the reader's mind.
Unlike
many readers I actually
liked the results of house turning on fire. While I can get that it wasn't done exactly in the way that was envisioned by the players, it gave a sense of immediate urgency and consequence over our heads that we didn't really have before. Sure Cerys had to leave before the mafia person came back, but as long as we left before that, once we got the black box, there was no real danger. No reason for anyone to
really try to stop us from boarding the train or going through the forest. No one that could really follow.
The military possibly being after us gave a sense of urgency and panic that wouldn't really exist as long as we had left town before the family came back.
It also worked as an excellent tool for rebuilding Cerys' ability to trust others.
If the Military
didn't go after Cerys then when meeting the Spirit of the land there would have been much less reason to be grateful (could hunt for food on our own, and in no immediate danger).
With them, The Spirit's Shelter and protection had more weight, with it saving them from what would have been an unwinnable situation when Cerys was barely conscious before going there. Without something as extreme, Cerys' trust issues probably wouldn't have been so easily penetrated, and she would have had much less reason narratively to even try to trust Morgan when she met her.
Overall it had an important part in shaping the narrative, and there wouldn't have really been any feelings of there being true stakes in our escape to Canada until we found out about the Light, and who knows if we'd even have stayed in the grove where we could actually communicate with the forest for long enough to know about them if we weren't waiting for the heat from the military to die down.
That said I will say I dislike how the backstory of Cerys and Una was revealed. It seemed a bit out of place, more because readers wanted to
know rather than because it was the right time. I at least, when I read it, got the impression that it was given then just because players were commenting on their lack of information, and found it a bit jarring.
It doesn't fit the escape scene, and while that might be handwaved by the forest relaxation, would one
really be thinking about the worst times of their lives while being effected by that type of aura of safety/security/relaxation?
There was also no narrative weight to the timing of the reveal either.
Honestly I would have preferred offhand comments and thoughts alluding to it over time (this alone given enough time could tell the whole story to an attentive reader), perhaps some proper flashbacks, and/or it only fully laid out when Cerys finally trusts someone enough to tell the story.
As it is, it is a backstory told to us at random without provocation, lacking some of the punch that it
could have had because of it.
While I get that as we are playing as the character, knowledge the character knows is important, but at the same time we are not
truly the character, and there was more than enough context cues to work off of without really leading us astray, and would have been ways to work that context into scenes where it is relevant.
I disliked how Cerys' first time being able to read a person's personality from magic was with Karen,
right when it was needed, unpracticed. It seems like it was far too convenient of a way to minimize the conflict that would have occurred between the characters, and stop it from going over the boiling point. If she had practiced at the ability at all before then it would make sense, but it is not like when she grabbed Morgan's magic and felt it in the beginning that she got any of Morgan's personality from it or anything. She seemed to go from being able to sense magic, but not able to read the person from it at all, to "easy reading of motivations for current actions and a good idea of who they are" really fast, without any trial and error.
Also worked as a way of informing the readers of Karen's true personality via telling, rather than showing through character interactions. Well there is quite frankly a time to "tell" narratively rather than show, I didn't feel this was it.
I understand
why you did so, and the logic behind it, since the relationship of Cerys and Una towards Karen would have been greatly frayed (and to a lesser extent the relationship between Cerys and Una towards Morgan).The leader/worker relationship of trust would be nigh nonexistent, and Cerys' budding friendship towards Morgan damaged. That doesn't mean that I have to particular like the manner of resolution.
Besides that, I found that the plot was handled well.
Prose:
You have a really strong grasp of how to write dialogue, balancing character action and body language well with it. Dialogue is kept interesting and doesn't really feel tedious to read through.
No purple prose, and a fine grasp of grammar. Though, and I hate to rag on the same part twice, the backstory reveal is actually a bit of a mess, since it changes from second person to third person to first person in the span of a few paragraphs. Something I was planning on mentioning when that chapter first came out then forgot about, honestly.
It's little moments like this that make you remember why you and Una are out here, on the run from the military and living house to house from other peoples food stocks. Really, when your teacher asked you what your job would be when you got older you didn't expect 'run away and be the best big sister' to actually come true. Thinking about that sends your into a bittersweet mood. All of the other kids were really nice, but they didn't seem to really get it.
And the teachers were even less helpful, whenever she brought up that her mother was drinking again or that she had started injecting herself with something new every other week they just smiled strangely and sent her to run along. Still, that was better than the response she got when she mentioned her father. Nervous smiles turned to scowls and being told to leave went to detention. It had taken me longer that I would admit to before I noticed why that was, because he knew people. Important people who could say 'silence' and make it happen.
I'd always known my father was someone you didn't want to be around when he'd been drinking, but I'd thought that was the same with everyone. It was only when I'd managed to stumble into a neighbours party and people were drinking without shouting in rage or smashing things left and right that I realised that I might have been slightly wrong. Nor had I really known that mothers wild mood swings were because she spent most of the day flooding her bloodstream with every chemical she could fit into a syringe.
When addressing Cerys it starts at you and your, switches to she and her, than continues as I, me, and my.
I rarely find myself bored with the prose, and it is often jammed with things too dissect if you look hard enough, but not explicitly spelled out.
You do a great job of showing action and intent without having characters spell it out.
Your text flows, and it is really rare to have that flow broken.
On the other hand the text isn't supremely evocative, as some are, but that is fine, and it is all in how you want the work to feel, and nothing
truly meant to be breathtaking has happened yet to really test your ability in that field.
Your prose is stronger than most overall, and better than mine, personally
.
Themes:
Honestly for me, discussing themes is a bit of a weak point.
Themes of Magical Girl, Looming darkness, Girl learning to depend on others, motherhood (Cerys to Una is basically one such relationship), Girl growing up, learning to trust again, friendship etcetera aren't really new, but they flow together well, and the text doesn't really contradict them.
I don't see any problems?
As a game:
I am a bit sad that the shop was changed to a more typical shop instead of what it was before. I found the previous version a novel concept, simultaneously weakening the value of xp in everyday circumstances but greatly increasing it when we were in dire straits, but I understand why a more typical shop was used.
The majority of the system is based off of Crystalwatcher's which is a pretty tight system overall, with interesting mechanics and interactions so no problems there.
I like the way that we discover magic through trial and error, and our abilities and themes as a magical girl overall.
Your updating schedule is timely and fast.
I like analyzing it, and love it when I get to notice something that no one else does.
There isn't really anything I
hate about it or else I wouldn't really be spending so much of my free time writing something thing that is around 2.9-3k words on it.
Ok maybe I would, but only if what I read was a complete disappointment or had a lot of promise then suddenly had that promise die
.
