RoboRenee
Trans of gender
- Location
- FFXIV, probably
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Referring to people by titles was not something I had any problem with. It was actually an interesting element. The problem was having essentially zero grasp of what these people looked like. No description. What do the people look like? Well, Macgyver's younger than he was when he went in and still has his mullet. Probably, people took shots at his hair and I assumed that was what they meant. That's all I got aside from pronouns and guesses based on personality. Sometimes a bit of clothing. They have a boat. What does it look like? "She's a sweet little five-berth ship. Lots of furniture sewn out of cushions so nobody gets hurt when we get flung about in a storm, it's very cozy. Hardly needs any attention once her boiler's up, and keeps such a steady course." That's all we get, aside from a mention that it can't fight shit. It has a bridge and an engine, it's small, and it also appears to be a 'zubmarine' though this isn't mentioned until it just starts being able to go underwater. So, like, what does it look like? Dunno. What do the places look like? Dunno. Ruins, probably, because that's the only real detail we get. They dock at some sphinxes that are ruins and probably stolen by bats like the rest. So, probably ruins abound. But, like, are they built over? Repaired? Built around? People live all over the place, but in what? Fallen London is London. And old. And flammable. That's all I've got here. There's a Khan or a Khanate and they're kind of bad? Maybe? They just sort of show up at one point and the protagonists are vaguely opposed but that's like all I've got. There's some place that's sunnier than some other place and I guess I'm supposed to care?
Regarding vagueness? Again, I get the "shit's weird sit back and ride the ride" thing. That's basically Welcome to Nightvale's whole thing and that's great. But there was no explanation, no sense of stakes. No idea what anything looks like, what anything is, what anybody's doing. The Student is looking for enigmas for his thesis, and that is the whole storytelling engine as to why they're faffing about all over the place. How is this done? Dunno. What is an enigma? 33 chapters in and I have no idea, but there's a Searing one that MacGyver could find and show to people only that was a London enigma and therefore the wrong kind. These could be anything from trading cards to secrets of the universe for all I know. They're worth capitalizing and have a searing variant and aren't just anything mysterious. That's literally all I got. Googling it, it seems to be some sort of puzzle or maybe meta-puzzle the game has that it doesn't want people talking about. Maybe. I got directed to a game thing called 'Ambition: Enigma' which appears to be that, but a searing enigma is also some sort of item drop that's important for some stuff I guess. So I dunno. Which means that not only does the story not give any idea what this is or how it is important, but I literally could not turn to external sources to figure out what the fuck was even going on or why I should care. The only other hint of overplot is some sort of Operation Azimuth. Mentioned around ch10, but it took like 20 chapters to get even a hint of what that was. They need to steal an engine or something, that does something unclear. Goes to the stars, only I don't know how or why that matters to anything because all that background mentions of things like sunlight smuggling and mushrooms and a general impression of down and tunnels made me think they were underground only now space is a thing I guess. They are of course stealing it from someone unclear for someone unclear for reasons unclear. I kind of stopped caring because, again, MacGyver doesn't even remember his own name anymore and I still had no idea what was happening or why.
And as a MacGyver story, as mentioned, this is a miserable failure. MacGyver's the only character to appear and he basically just does engineer things. Sometimes he goes and talks innocent at people and this is amusing and strange to the other characters. Wahoo? He doesn't seem to have any kind of goal or motivation save to just wander around and write letters that don't matter because he's in a weird otherworld that is also in the past and can't get them to his friends. I'm just so eager to know what he does next. Maybe he'll work on the engine some more, or maybe he'll amuse people by being weird to them. He's just got so much going on.
33 chapters in and that's all I fucking have. And the Queen Victoria shit is from external sources. I don't know what anything or anyone looks like, I don't know where anything is, I don't know why they're going anywhere, and I don't know why I should care about any of it.
Research has revealed that Fallen London and Sunless Sea appear to be about exploration/discovery of weird creepy shit in a weird creepy world, but this fanfic doesn't have any sense of discovery. I don't know what any of this shit is and it doesn't want to tell me.
