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Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Thank you. I think it's important to investigate the psychology of a character in order to portray him or her properly; it's why Other M felt like such a slap in the face, because the Samus there did not feel at all like the Samus we had come to know from every other source. I honestly believe Bergman treats her with more respect, which is saying something. And very much, yes. I'm doing this as much to see if the techniques and methods I'm using to tell stories are working and why they work and, if they're not, where they fail. If you've got something, I'd love to hear it. -
Tomb Raider: Fat Man Chronicles, review and discussion thread.
HunterOpera replied to MorbidFantasy's topic in General
Interestingly enough, my contract work had to do with necromancy. The NDA doesn't specify that I can't mention that much, so yay! -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Regarding The Bergman Affair, a Guest said: Honestly, I'm surprised Samus hasn't broken physically yet, let alone emotionally/mentally. You're doing some cruel things to that woman's body and I don't see an end in sight. Is this a story where the hero ultimately loses? It's difficult to see any other outcome at this point. The rug is always being pulled from underneath Samus' feet. With each chapter there's the resigned feeling as a reader. I'm sure there's an argument that this torture, of both character and audience, has been overly prolonged. It can be really tiring to see Samus fail over and over and over again. I suppose in that regard the reader can certainly empathise with her situation, if that was your intent. I can only assume you know what you're doing though, judging by your commentary, so even though I'm frustrated by the present turn of events I'll be keeping an eye on this The one tenant from the Metroid franchise I completely refuse to break is that Samus has to win, and she has to do it by herself. The idea for this was to rant against Other M, because I despise that sorry excuse for a story in that game. It's character assassination of the highest order, and I loathe it. So, yes, she will ultimately win, and she's going to do win through sheer force of will. Promise. Everyone does have a breaking point, though, and Samus is certainly reaching hers. While she is capable of winning and does have a plan (that she came up with back in the Cave Arc), she is being sorely tested. The trick, for her, is in sticking to the plan, which actually requires some... well, you'll see. I don't want to give anything away. More Bergman Affair reviews, this time from DeathWings500: Oh come on, really ? We're back to this ? Did you change your mind since the answer you gave to my review on Hentai Foundry ? Because if this is the same kind of slave collar then I have to warn you that your readers SOD, including mine, won't take it well if Samus manage to free herself at this point. You've been doing TOO GOOD a job of breaking her for recovery to even look possible at this point. As a side note, you should really get around to updating the HF version of this story. AFF's interface is really clunky and annoying. And, previously: "I'm hoping for a turnabout. That is, Samus still get into sexy shenanigan but ultimately triumph. Other M has spawned so much Samus hate that I'm I'm well and truly sick of it by now, so I'm hoping this story won't end up as just another "Samus is broken and become a sex slave" story like so many other. Also, I enjoyed the beastiality much more then the training portion, that stuff is just boring to me." Samus is still winning. This is still going to be the happiest possible ending a story like this can have, and she is going to get out of this. The secret of her escape plan is... well, I'm not giving anything away, but it was laid out in the first few chapters and hinted at in the Cave Arc, and I'll be putting a final few hints in the next few chapters until the big finale. The end she is in sight. I'd love to update on HF, but I find the submission process infuriating. The loss of spacing drives me utterly insane, and it's pretty much the reason I keep updating here. I've been considering submitting to Ade's Cave, as well, simply because I like a couple of the fics there. Lastly, Lord-of-Altair said: These feminist man haters must be new to this site. I mean, they come on to a website that features stories of women getting raped by monsters or roasted alive by cannibal tribes, and they complain about a fictional female character they worship being sexualized? Those man hating feminists need to cream themselves over yaoi and shut their whiny hypocritical mouths. I mean, Samus is not a real person. SAMUS IS FICTIONAL. And even if Samus was real, she would want nothing to do with a bunch of bra burning fag hag man haters anyways. She has better things to do than burn bras and whine about how men suck. Sorry, I just had to get this out. I'm a feminist. By which I believe that men and women should be given equal opportunity, and that women are people possessed of agency and should be respected as such. I'm a big believer in equality as a whole, and women across the board tend to be treated horribly for really stupid reasons. It's 2016. We should be past this by now. Women mathematicians, scientists, and engineers helped devise the internet, helped get us into space, helped invent the modern world. That said, yeah, the warning is in the tags: BDSM, D/s, Humil, MC, Spank, Tent, Xeno, Beast, Abuse, BP, Oral. That's a direct copy/pasta. If someone reads that and clicks on it anyway and then is surprised by the content, well, stop reading. I'm not here to offend anyone - I am here to work out my kinks, experiment with some literary techniques, and hopefully entertain some people that are into the fantasy that I am providing, one where no one gets hurt. To your point? Samus is fictional. Given my understanding of the character, though, I'm pretty sure she's bisexual and she would very much be a feminist, too, although she probably doesn't think about it much. She was raised by bird people, and I imagine that the various hang-ups of her own species came as something of a shock to her, and probably contributed to her exit from the army and the Federation in general. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Regarding Hermione and the Bastet Collar, Midnight_Fairy said: I found this story disappointing. As a teacher, Severus should of done something to stop this abuse. I mostly skimmed the story, not really reading it. A story like this need better warnings. I'm not so sure Severus would care. Keep in mind that Neville - who watched his parents get tortured into insanity - still finds Severus to be the most horrifying thing in existence. Severus may be reformed, but he is not a good guy, or a good man. Also, at the point in which this story takes place, I'm not sure what Snape could do against Umbridge, or if he even knew what Umbridge was up to. He might have said something if he did know, or he might not have cared. As to the warnings, I'll try to be a little more explicit about what's happening in future. Sorry about that. Regarding Hermione and the Bastet Collar, Heather Williams said: N-not in front of the cats! That's just messed up. Poor kitties Yeah. Imagine if Crookshanks had seen what was going on... or Scabbers. Rats really can get anywhere. ... and now I have an idea for a sequel. Fantastic. -
Tomb Raider: Fat Man Chronicles, review and discussion thread.
HunterOpera replied to MorbidFantasy's topic in General
Really digging the psychology of the new chapters, especially with Mark and how the villains are weaving him into a trap for Lara's mind. Well done. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Next update on Bergman and Masque'd Hawk towards the end of April. I've been doing a visual novel to get back in the swing of things, and I should have a Tomb Raider thing up in early April (gonna try and keep that one short). Samus has a plan to get out of this; the trick is going to be in maintaining it, and then getting to that point. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Regarding the Bergman Affair, ngrey651 said: This is incredibly misogynistic towards a kick ass female character. It's insulting towards the original source material, it's essentially torture porn, and the motivations of the villains make absolutely no good sense. How would you feel if somebody else took characters that you personally created and had them tortured? This is a spit in the face of Samus. It's been nothing but 30 chapters of pissing all over her and putting her through the ringer for no good reason at all. What are you trying to show? That your villains are fucked up? We already got that! Let's not mince words: it is torture porn. This story is rife with pleasure used as a weapon to remove agency. It's kind of in the tags and it is very much the point of the story. I'm not saying that it's right, because it isn't. I'm not attempting to defend the logic or ethics in writing this - there are cases to be made for both, but they fall flat upon detailed examination. This is a story about rape, and trauma, the destruction of self, and a very visceral deconstruction of the themes that make up Samus as a character and Metroid as a franchise. It's not a happy story, but it is a fantasy that is heading towards as good an ending as a story like this can have. I dislike the argument of characters I've personally created being used in such a way, but not because I can't fathom it. I can. There are stories on this site and others that use characters I've created or had a hand in creating that are written totally out of character and, hey, more power to the people writing those stories. Everyone should have a chance to experiment with language and get their kinks out in a way that does not hurt anyone else. I get the argument and I understand why it's useful when dealing with people that do not consider the agency of other people; the catcalling in New York (or in general) comes to mind, and it is a good argument to make towards those who have problem seeing women as people for whatever reason. I acknowledge Samus as a character and agree that she is one of the most badass characters in her medium, Other M aside. The villains' motivations are based on their psychology, and maybe I'm not conveying that well enough or maybe it's the content that's distracting from what those motivations are. The crux of everything in the Bergman Affair is Melissa herself, a biological computer with a nigh incomprehensible personality based intelligence planted into the cloned body of human Samus Aran. I figure Melissa is maybe five or six years old, and while bright and capable, utterly lacking in true empathy or emotional maturity. There's a running theory that we (humans) can't remember the first year or so of our lives because our brains are busy making sense of the information that are senses give us; it's an explanation of why blind people can't make sense of visual input even after having their eyes fixed. We learn and evolve our processes based on that learning. Because she lacks that basic evolutionary step, Melissa is without sanity. She has access to information the rest of us can only dream about and an emotionally scarred attachment to a mother figure, and possibly a phobia of Samus due to her origins. She thinks she needs to defend herself from threats she can't really understand despite her intellect, and is desperate for safety and acceptance. It's why she wants her "mother," Madeline. She's also dealing with a body that looks like it's in it's late teens or early twenties, so on top of everything else she's got a massive hormonal disconnect and no previous understanding of what the things she's feeling are. She doesn't want to hurt her enemies, she wants to be loved, and she's too damaged to understand the difference between love and sex. Madeline just doesn't want to be imprisoned. That's her motivation. She was a high ranking science officer on a black operational science vessel. To say that she's guilty of war crimes would be an understatement, and she knew what she was getting into. Her attachment to Melissa was based on ideas of control rather than affection, which did come later - the question being, were those feelings authentic or a subtle (perhaps even unknowing) manipulation of Melissa using a psychic prowess she probably doesn't understand. Damara has a victim complex and blames both herself and Samus for everything that happened to her. Samus was her hero, Samus failed to save her, ergo Samus failed her. She's also still in awe of Samus, but if Samus Aran herself breaks under the same treatment that broke her, well, then it's not Damara's fault that she broke. Vogl is just a greedy asshole. This is my first real attempt at writing erotica, and started off as an experiment - writing someone else's characters, playing and developing that mythology, and pushing the boundaries of good taste in a genre I'm utterly uncomfortable with. I've since grown comfortable with all of that, though I am uncertain what that says about me. There's a few things I didn't have any interest in crossing (vore, amputation), but everything else was fair game right from the start. All of which leaves me with a single question: I am not going out and actively getting people to read this or any of my other stories. I know they're for rarified tastes, hopefully of people that understand that this is a fantasy that can, should, and will never be placed into any sort of reality. The tags are right there, and if you've been reading from the beginning, you should know what you're getting into by now. If you don't like it, why are you still reading it? Look, I'm going to level with you: it's going to get worst before it picks up at the end. Not Ridley-worse, but worse in a while different way. If you're not digging it now, go no further. For those of you that are enjoying it, well, there's more to come. Next chapter should be up by the end of the weekend, or early next week. Thanks for reading! Glad you're digging it - anything that really grabs you about the story or the way it's written? Next chapter should be up late this weekend or early next week. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
... and this will teach me to check the forums more often. Sorry for the delay in response. I'm glad you're digging the psychology of the characters. It's tricky working with other people's ideas, so I've been experimenting with the themes of each and how they all sort of fit together before, well, ramping it off in the direction of porn with plot. There's a strong criticism about stories that feel like they're betraying the characters that are in them, and I'm trying to avoid that - hell, the narrative fail that was Other M was one of the reasons I started writing this in the first place. I'd kill to design an actual Metroid game, or even a fan edit of Other M. There's so much wasted potential... The psychic portion of Chozo science technology is a strong example of that. You could base an entire game around that alone, and they use it to weaken the protagonist moreso than they have already. So goddamn annoying. I plan on having a lot more fun with the psychic end of this, and sort of hinted at that way back in the Cave Arc. You're dead on about Samus' lust for revenge being her downfall here - you'll see that in the next chapter, which, again, I'm wrapping up now. I've got a pretty massive collection of Metroid theme artwork going, everything from DiD to sprite to epic bits of awesome. It's one of the more interesting aspects of the character and the franchise as a whole, is that it lends itself so well to pretty much any setting or set up provided the main themes are kept intact. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Regarding the Bergman Affair, Anon says: Ugh. Getting frustrated by this up and down ride. Damnit give Samus a break, will ya? Am/am not looking forward to what happens next. It's a tricky thing to walk, honestly - where does the line get drawn? How much is too much? One can only repeat the same basic events for so long before the get old, and I'm aware that there's a danger of repeating myself without adding anything new the longer this goes. I'm hoping that that the writing techniques i'm fiddling with help, and am pretty confident that the motivation and psychology of the next chapter (which should be posted in the next hour or so) should differentiate what is coming from what came before. Narrative whiplash is a horrible thing, but I like to think I'm keeping the themes and characters straight. There is an endgame, a definite plan to bring this story to a close, and it does end with a decisive Samus victory. Two more arcs past this one... Out of curiosity, what are you liking/not liking, and where do you think this is going? Where would you like it to go? -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Regarding Street Masters, Churn Says: Classy. You've given us a reason as to why this is happening. Now we just have wait and see what cool scenes you come up with. Looking forward to the sexy scenes! XD I've never been a fan of porn without plot. If I don't have a reason to care, well, why should I care? We'll see if I can actually find the time to develop this further; I've had a couple of people contact me about this and especially Bergman. I've (thankfully) got some vacation coming up about halfway through this month, so we'll see if I can (finally) get back to this and some other projects then. I've also been toying way too much with TechArts 3d Custom Girl, which is a magical piece of software for a non-artist with a basic grasp of art theory. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Three months later... the good news is I have a couple of weeks off coming up, which is nice. Been about a year since time off was a thing, so we'll see what that leads to. Maybe I can actually keep a deadline for this? -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Sorry for the delay - real life has been devouring my time like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I'm gonna do a short one-off to get a simple character deconstruction out of my head in preparation for more Bergman, then get on to Bergman and hopefully wrap up the Wreckage Arc before the end of May. It's been way too long since I've worked on Bergman, and I wanna get this up and moving again. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Thank you. It's something I tried to work into the narrative flow, so I'm glad that's been noticed. Every arc was designed to be an inversion of a Metroid trope/s. There's only a couple I'm not willing to bend: (1) that Samus is the only thing that beats Ridley, and (2) Samus always wins eventually. -
Tomb Raider: Fat Man Chronicles, review and discussion thread.
HunterOpera replied to MorbidFantasy's topic in General
It's not spam and you have nothing to apologize for. You're asking for clarity and that's a good thing. To the best of my knowledge, a trolling post is one that lacks in any sort of substance and adds nothing to the conversation. It's taken from the fishing term "trolling," which is dragging a line behind a boat and hoping to grab a fish's attention. It's quite a boring way to fish. Likewise, trolling in terms of comment is dull because it derails the thread of conversation while adding nothing to it. It thrives on attacking the people on the thread and not the content of the thread or what the thread is about in anyway that makes the thread better. We all have flaws as writers. There's holes in our crafts. Having those pointed out is a good thing, because very few people can see their own flaws. Having the maturity to recognize those flaws when someone points them out is something every writer needs to develop in order to become professional. Observing that a comment lacks in critical analysis and is only looking to assault people is a thing that happens, and the term we've agreed on for someone that does that thing is "troll." Does that make sense? -
Tomb Raider: Fat Man Chronicles, review and discussion thread.
HunterOpera replied to MorbidFantasy's topic in General
I can't speak for MordbidFantasy, but I value criticism highly; it's the only way one grows as a writer, and the whole point of this for me is to experiment with form and style in a genre that I'm not overly comfortable with. One of the best pieces of criticism I ever got was from an editor who circled an entire page and wrote "this clearly made sense inside your head. Sadly, it makes sense nowhere else but it seems important - if you could maybe explain it, that'd be great." As writers, it's easy to get lost inside your head. We know our worlds, we know what we're trying to describe, and we know it a little too well for our own good. The trick, I think, is in bringing other people into the narrative by using emotion and sensory information conveyed through the perspective of a focal character. That's one of the reasons I jump around in my work, to give the reader a sense of what that character is experiencing and what that character knows. MorbidFantasy does a great job of this, generally, and his use of dialogue and psychology are a large part of what make his stories work. It's one of the things I admire about his writing. I'm not attempting to be a sycophant so much as sharing my thoughts on what I think another person is doing well, and I've expressed my thoughts on his few failings when they come up. I try to do the latter in a manner that addresses the writing and not the person, because I'd rather foster a talent and see it develop than just give off shrieking amounts of discord. Just sayin.' TheDaiLi and Bitamin were two other writers who really got the psychology of his characters and built a world that could believably exist within the world he was working in. Bitamin relied a little too heavily on physical descriptions of characters to drive his point home, and it was the weakest part of his craft. TheDaiLi has very few weaknesses other than his scathing hatred for his own work, which can be beneficial at driving one forward but only if one is capable of recognizing one's improvements. As far as mechanics go, I envy Empire-of-Dirt's gift for brevity and wish he or she would write more and more often. I love SlashySmiley's style and grasp on breaking a mind down and reshaping it into something else in a way that feels workable for the characters involved. MTL has a scary-good grasp on psychology and pacing, but tends to repeat certain actions within stories that can sometimes make them repetitive. I have a great deal of respect for those writers, and like the idea of shooting the shit with them and working out the finer points of style and technique. The strength of their writing (and I'm including MorbidFantasy here) lies in their ability to create a cohesive world and a sense of conflict based around psychology and sex, with the latter as a battleground for the former. Short version: criticism of writing good, personal attacks bad. -
Tomb Raider: Fat Man Chronicles, review and discussion thread.
HunterOpera replied to MorbidFantasy's topic in General
Try to ignore the trolls; the Lara you've built and the world she exists within is one of the better stories on this site, and one of the better representations of such I've come across, period. I continue to be a huge fan of your work, and tend to think that you're one of the most qualitative writers working around here. Certainly, Bergman wouldn't have happened without you, and your skill at building conflict in psycho-sexual situations is good enough to be studied. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Regarding the Bergman Affair, MorbidFantasy wrote: Still awaiting an update to this excellent fic. It seems as though Lara has seen the worst (Ridley's torture). I wonder if you're going to up the ante somehow or maybe focus on undoing the psychological indoctrination now, or keep it around as a lingering aftereffect. Would love to hear from you in the forums in any case. Cheers. The idea from here is to get into lingering psychological and psychic indoctrination, with physical reinforcement of a proscribed roll - provided that Damara, Melissa, and Madeline can recapture a very angry and capable Samus and protect themselves from suffering another Ridley incursion. We've also got to move back to Daibon and see what's going on with Keatan, Mia Xen, and all their friends. The worst part is that I've got the next few chapters skeletoned and haven't had time to flesh them out properly. I need to take a day and just write; I will try and be a little more active on the forums, though. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Sorry for the delay. Been working ninety hour weeks for the past couple months, and it's been driving me a little crazy(ier). Looking at updating soon, presumably after I have a chance to sleep. I miss sleep. -
Tomb Raider: Fat Man Chronicles, review and discussion thread.
HunterOpera replied to MorbidFantasy's topic in General
No one is going to mention honkus2, benja100, alyxcaptor, or neehko? All of them have done some pretty interesting stuff on deviantart using renders of Lara models. Honkus2 and benja100 especially craft some pretty interesting Lara comics. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
So am I. Melissa, Damara, and Madeline have to be in a position to do things to her first, but we'll get to that. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Nope, we're far from done. We're just starting this arc. I'd love to tell you how many chapters are left, but this story has taken on a life if it's own. It was only supposed to be twenty-four chapters long initially, but now I'll be lucky if I'm done by forty. It's doing all kinds of things I didn't expect, which is fun and lets me know I'm doing this properly. There's two arcs left after this one, and an outro/epilogue. That's what's planned. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Thanks; I've been trying to make sense of things within the Metroid universe and following things to their logical conclusions. The antagonists in particular were tricky, given that Samus has a tendency to obliterate whatever happens to be in her path, but I wanted to draw on characters that were already developed and follow their paths to logical conclusions, or the nearest thing I can think of. I like to think I'm treating the source material with respect, even if the characters are having a rough go of it. Ridley has no set background; all we really know is that he's immortal and older than Samus, with hints of him being older than maybe even the Chozo. We do know that he's pretty much evil and madness incarnate, and that he's happy to sacrifice the lives of those following him if it means he gets to kill more things. The idea of him being a malignant thought-virus came from Other M and is, I think, a better explanation of what he is than the idea of that Little Birdle thing they had running around. That game made so little sense... Melissa alone, as a concept, deserved so much more than what that game gave her. As for Brannigan, I knew I wanted to throw in a failed Hunter from the outset, and I remembered reading about him way back in Nintendo Power. He seemed a good fit, and I needed away for him to survive; in canon, he's actually fed to the Metroids after failing to capture and hold Samus. The idea of Melissa having some instinctual access to some of what Mother Brain knew, and remembering Brannigan because of it, became an idea that made him even more interesting as someone to pick up. Which brings us to Melissa. She's fascinating, tragic, and terrifying. Her insanity and inability to handle her sense, to say nothing of her intelligence, emotions, and psychic power, makes her one of the most fun characters to right in this whole saga. I'm as interested in seeing where she takes all this as you are; again, I have a general idea of where this is going, but it keeps flitting in all sorts of weird directions. It's good that this feels like a living, breathing world. Means I'm doing my job as a writer, which is the most important part of this exercise. The techniques I'm mucking about with here are working, which means they should work elsewhere. Over-description can kill a story damn quick, especially of physical acts. It's the emotional impact that I find has a greater pull on people, so I tend to aim for that - though there are times when dwelling on the physical makes for a more dramatic, and therefore better, approach. It's a difficult line to walk along, and I've ended up writing and re-writing entire scenes because of it. I need them to work and take the story in new directions, so I'm not just repeating myself endlessly. Length also becomes important. I try to keep these things short, like five to six hundred words per scene (which I'm failing at pretty severely). I wanted to limit the chapters to fifteen hundred words to make them easier to read and easier to write, but Plot keeps happening and I keep having to balance out characterization with smut and action. Brevity is the soul of wit; I really don't want to waste anyone's time, but there's a lot of story to tell and a lot of things to keep balanced and flowing. It's actually kinda fun. It was important, I think, to give Samus a chance to fight again. That said, I think I still have the plot skeleton for Downfall somewhere. I might actually end up dusting that off and exploring it as a follow up to the Bergman Affair, if there's interest and if PornEater wouldn't mind. There's some other directions I could take that story in now, and it might be fun to write that out once this is done. We'll see. I'd agree that the moment of Melissa finally getting her hands on Samus being one of importance, and one worthy of exploration. We'll get to that, believe me, but this wasn't the time to do it. In terms of character, Melissa is worried about Ridley and needs to deal with the Hunter before she can put the things in place that she needs to keep him away. Out of character, I knew that Samus was going to get away and I didn't want to betray reader expectation. Anti-climaxes can be a rollicking good time, but I've got a few of those planned and we've had a few happen. Better to space them out, and make sure that those moments that should matter, do. As for all talk of psychic power in general, and Samus' control of the suit in particular, I reserve the right to laugh maniacally later. Really glad you're liking this. Your feedback is invaluable for the actual writing I'm currently doing. I'll try and get some more of this done when real life isn't completely insane (it is right now, but all in good ways); I'd like to at least be through this arc before the new year. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Thank you. It's nice to know when the stuff I'm experimenting with actually works, and it's massively helpful to me. I've always thought it's kind of important to get into a character's head when writing that character; I might not agree with the characters I'm writing, but they believe that what they're doing is right and if I can't get that across then I'm failing that character. I'm currently playing in someone else's sandbox, so it only seems fair to treat that sandbox with a certain amount of respect and decorum... which Other M failed to do. I'm glad that's coming across, too, because it means I'm doing my job as a writer. Porneater was a great writer and I miss him. We actually talked about that story way back when, and his leaving was actually one of the things that got me moving on Bergman. What portions do you think I'm rushing through or need more description of? I've been trying to keep this balanced, so if I'm letting stuff slide I'd like to know where so I can fix the problem. As to MB's psychic prowess, well, yes. She's already been assaulting Samus throughout the story - the Kaayes are basically transferring and amplifying her already terrifying power. Mother Brain could control the ecosystems of entire planets and tally the strategies and movements of entire starfleets. It stands to reason that MB's powers would be less than that, given that she's a flawed copy of Chozo engineering, but she'd still be comparable. But we'll get to that. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
I figure she needs to blow off some steam. Also, it's Metroid - Samus is the only thing capable of stopping Ridley, though there might by other things capable of slowing him down. I'm really hoping that whole thing with him worked. The desert arc was the halfway point - there's three arcs left, plus an epilogue. The woods are long past her, but Samus is still in a world of trouble and things are still going to go wrong for her. Melissa's got a whole whack of tricks up her sleeve still, and Samus is at a pretty massive disadvantage, but we'll get to that soon enough. As far as I can tell, Chozo technology has a psychic component that makes it largely unusable to non-Chozo. They used nano-technology powered by will to make their machines work, which makes the suit is a psychic projection shaped by technology. Think of the zerosuit as a fetish (in the occult sense) - something that looks harmless, but if energy is channeled through it properly it allows certain things to manifest. The thing manifested, in this case, is a suit of armor that can be improved with the application of other bits of dormant psy-technology. I very badly need coffee right now. If that doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll aim for a longer (and hopefully more coherent) explanation. and crafted through technology that lays dormant in the zerosuit until used. -
Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping
HunterOpera replied to HunterOpera's topic in General
Regarding Hermione Granger and the Bastet Collar, MorbidFantasy said: Just read the HP fic. Been putting it off because HP fanfics aren't part of my regular reads. But ended up enjoying your piece immensely. Especially liked the latest twist that had Ginny being more than meets the eye. Thanks, man. Was written as a favor to a friend, though it was fun to write and I might come back and write some more. The intention was to wrap it up with the fifth chapter and move on to other things - I've got that Street Fighter thing going (another favor), an idea for a fairly involved Utena story (massive fan of that anime), and some other small ideas on the backburner. I also have a lot of editing and proper writing to do; half a novel has to be replotted and I wanna have that done in the next few days, but after that I've got four days of semi-vacation. We'll see where that takes us.