5/26/2010 c33 6Devil's Playground
I'M STILL SUPER SAD. MY POOR MARCO. WAHH.

And Jack is dying too! D: Oh god! Poor Will, I don't know how he's going to be able to handle all of this... he already seems so broken down. Hopefully Pan can bring some life into him!

I really liked the descriptions of Will throughout this, especially at the beginning. Very vivid, and very chilling. He's so much different than the character we've all come to love, and it's heartbreaking. :(

And ah, Captain! Yay! I'm hoping he'll at least be able to talk to Jack before Jack dies. D: Great ending to the chapter. I like that it's all downhearted, but at the end there's a spark of hope.

5/26/2010 c28 The Saturday Storytellers
Ah, so Wolf had a son, and that son was a doctor. A nice touch. Again, I feel the scene should be lengthened, given a bit more weight. But again, the idea is lovely and hints at Wolf's usual good-time ways as a way of banishing the pain he must feel at missing his boy.

"Silent One had sat up and she was producing the most interesting variety of sounds..." There's nothing technically wrong with the word 'interesting' in this case, but it seems a strange choice of word given that it's a toddler grizzling.

"...barely sugar ..." 'barley'?

"...bouncing a giggling Silent One on her knee." 'his'?

On a side note, Silent One seems to be giggling a lot and making a lot of noise for someone who's meant to be silent.

""You're a bloody idiot," Wolf informed him. "Didn't I tell you before?"

"No," replied Will, standing up. "You told me I was a dumb-ass.""

Snappy bit of dialogue, there!

The 'bird with broken wings' comment is lovely, too.

Oh! So Silent One is Pan's daughter after all! My mistake.

I'm not quite getting the full gravity of this reunion between recovering mother and lovingly-but-clumsily-handled toddler. I think it could be beefed up some.

Will seems quite critical of himself whenever he shows emotion. He's had some trauma, that boy, I think.

- From We Return Reviews.

5/26/2010 c26 The Saturday Storytellers
The 'numbered' military men are an interesting idea. The lack of an actual name really depersonalises them. However, as more than one of them appears to be an active character, I wonder if you might be better off giving each one a distinguishing feature like a limp or a unique 'tash (the kind that could win those oddball competitions you hear about sometimes) just so the reader can go, 'oh yeah, it's him again. He had a chuckle behind Max's back last chapter, didn't he?)

"...the mask on his face disintegrated. He was Gleo again." Aha. So you've done it another way here. Again though, I wonder if making his number link to his name could be beneficial? Just a suggestion.

I like the way Gleo completely ignores the fact that they mentioned ghosts - whether he later intends to mock the idea or take to it with superstitious fear.

"Gleo averted his eye from their faces..." Does he only have one eye?

"No doubt the rebels were behind this, but how many of them were there?" This leaves me with an intriguing idea, and that is that the rebels are making use of a superstitious enemy. Just imagine the advantages if one was in that position!

I'll guess just for now that Captain and Number One/Max aren't the same person?

Wow, I'm worried about Silent One, what's going to become of her. It's good to see that, inamongst all the warring stuff in this story, there's the story of a little child too small even to understand what's going on around her.

And the fact that you (so far as I've seen) haven't shown Silent One's POV means that we can't know what's going on in her head.

"His body reacted violently to this..." I'm not quite sure how you mean 'reacted violently?

I don't see what mistake Will made in speaking, right at the end, though.

- From We Return Reviews.

5/22/2010 c32 6Devil's Playground
NO. NO. NO. MY BABY. D: D: D: D: D:

SDFJIDFSIJJSFDKSDF NOW I'M SAD. POOR LITTLE MARCO. NO. WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE HIM!

wahh...

Okay... aside from the fact that you RIPPED MY HEART OUT OF MY CHEST AND STEPPED ON IT... very good chapter. (wahh!) You had some really epic lines and great figurative language, it really helped with the atmosphere and the powerful emotion. I love the change in Max's attitude, and Will's reaction. And Marco's death (SOB!) was very well handled, too. I like that you gave him some final words, but it wasn't sappy or over-the-top. It seemed believable and I WAS SO SAD.

CRY.

5/21/2010 c30 Devil's Playground
One thing that I really love about this story is the complexity of the world you've created. I can tell that you've thought a lot into it. And unlike a lot of stories, when it comes to the war, you don't only show the glorious side and explore the warriors' side of it. You show how it affects both countries as a whole. I really love seeing that.

The village of women was very interesting. I love how they can hold their own in the midst of the fighting; it shows that Lillian isn't the only woman who's a real fighter.

And aah, Tomma is so cool! Yay! But aww, Jack was captured, and I doubt that will bode well for the poor bear. D:

As always, loved it! And I'm moving on to the next chapter now.

5/18/2010 c35 Tawny Owl
I’m holding back judgement on this because we don’t really know who killed jack or why yet, but it feels like a bit of an anticlimax that he’s dead this way. Like I said, I’m waiting to find out what’s really going on behind the scenes though.

Alive, but sure as hell not kicking – wicked line, very blunt and wolfish.

Captain is very interesting. And a bit like Jack (or Jack in the second draft) he doesn’t seem quite human. Or rather he believes in a higher purpose and that makes his reactions kind of odd to the mere mortals. He’s sad about the son dying that he hasn’t seen for how many years? Has to be quite a few, but he doesn’t let the grief control him. That’s sort of admirable, but strange because most people would have a bit of a howl and curse before they put a brave face on it. The man’s a puzzle. But from what we’ve seen of him already it is in character.

It did seem odd that there was no one else around to see Jack buried. But then I guess a whole legion of men suddenly appearing in the countryside would be a health ans safety risk from a secret resistance point of view. And they did all say good bye when he was in the cave.

There seems to be a need for scenery here too. Something bleak to match the mood. Are they burying them on a windy hill side? By the sea? How far away from the camp? Did they need horses or a cart to move the bodies? And do they leave a cairn or some other type of marker on the grave?

I liked that Wolf had to remember his manners before entering Pan’s room too. Urm, has Pan spoken to Will before now? It seems that given the way they parted when he came back all broken and sulky she wouldn’t have needed Wolf to ask her. If he’d said goodbye to me like that I think I would have demanded what the hell was going on before now. But then she has seemed easily distracted by other men before, and Wolf’s opinion that there was a family in the room already makes me think you’re setting her up to be a bit fickle.

On the other hand if War doesn’t at least try to sort himself out he’s not really helping matters, is he?

5/18/2010 c24 The Saturday Storytellers
To answer your A/N questions as best I can:

I haven't seen very much of Jack at all, but the little I have seen of him makes him feel legendary, and in a way untouchable. So... as far as I can say, yes, he's got that kind of godlike feel you seem to be going for.

Wolf... I haven't seen enough of him at all, and given his code name 'wolf' I don't get the impression of him being a comic relief. Perhaps his characterisation, once a reader gets used to it, is strong enough that it precedes his name. But I've not read enough of the story to see that yet and his rather impressive, spiritual/butch name is getting in the way of me seeing anything comic about him.

Now, onto the chapter.

Aww. I've no idea who this Black Dove is (apart from a bit of a teaser in your A/N questions, of course), but it sounds like he really cares about this Pan woman.

Ah, so you mention that the mysterious Black Dove is staying in an inn with his sick charge and a child. I've no kids of my own, but as far as I understand, one wants everything as comfortable and convenient as possible when a child is in one's care. So I like the realism of this, even though staying in an inn doesn't exactly make the Black Dove sound as mysterious as he might otherwise do.

In fact, if he's been set up as Mr. Mysterious, then his own undermining of his essential mystery feels good here - it shows just how good a heart there is at the centre of the man regardless of what acts he's performed before, and the depth of his love for both woman and child.

"She opened her eyes easily enough, but there were not seeing." Should that be 'they' were not seeing?

Ah, so is Silent One the child? And did Black Dove call her that? I ask because that's quite an odd name to give a child as opposed to her actual name (assuming BD knows it). So this would be a great chance to acquaint a new reader like me with the way BD's mind works. Does he tend to dub people in ways like this?

So BD has to go and find help. Again, since you referred to him as mysterious, I wonder what kind of trouble he might have finding this help.

This first scene is simple yet compelling. Very nice way to start a chapter. So far, the main thing that I'm finding hard about the story is that I can't 'see' much of what's going on. I've no idea what the Black Dove looks like, or Pan, or the child, or what kind of quality this inn is. I can't see whether he's chosen a deserted inn that might, therefore, not be very good, or feel much sympathy with Pan's illness, or begin speculating on just what's wrong with her. Personally, I need more richness in the scenes - description so that I can see and feel what's happening in there. What you do, you do well. As I say, this scene and one or two others I've read before it are wonderfully emotionally engaging. I just feel that you might want to start, and keep, making little mentions of what your characters look like.

If it's any comfort, I had to do that with Academy. I wrote it and there was a lot of emotional stuff going on in the story, but what people kept on saying again and again was that they couldn't visualise the characters. So I added descriptions in the re-write, and have done with Happy. But I found that it's actually best to keep on making references to what the characters look like, as unobtrusively as possible. It keeps the 'look' of the characters fresh in the reader's mind, and I think it also does wonders for their being able to patch events and visual scenes together.

Anyway - soap box moment over!

Aha! Next scene, and I get to meet Jack! *rubs hands together*

Hmm, so Jack's quite the popular one. But this bit: "He had escaped from death; it was no easy feat." I'm not so sure about. Perhaps it was deliberate on your part, to have the people greeting him attribute his escape to himself. But anyone watching must have seen that *somebody else* rescued Jack. Jack certainly didn't shoot himself down. And yet, this sentence suggests the cheerers assume he must have had a trick up his own sleeve (the fact that Jack clearly has determined friends notwithstanding).

"The hall was overflowing with people." Is this the same hall in which Jack nearly died? Was it full of supporters after all, or did they chase the militia away, or did they hurry Jack himself to some other hall?

"A rebel had run into the middle of the hall, face white." I feel this is another instance where we need to have more description of this nameless rebel being silent in the middle of the crowd. At the moment it feels that Wolf prompts him too quickly.

Hmm. I'm not getting 'comic relief' off Wolf, not in this scene. He seems quite a sensible, efficient chap to me.

""You bloody fool!" screamed the one and only person who was not in awe of the fact by the fact Jack was alive." This sentence feels a bit off. Not quite sure why, but it needs tweaking.

"...his fingernails digging into his shoulders." 'Her' fingernails?

"He managed to find a clean cloth and wiped Lillian's face. " I'm not sure, quite yet, what to make of Jack and Lillian's relationship, but up until this sentence it could either have been that they're quite equal, or that he's the hero and she the timid little maiden. But the fact that he went off to risk his life without her blessing and then cleans her face makes her look pretty weak and feeble. Again, maybe you intend this, maybe not, but if she's as assertive as I hope she is then she'll have refused being mopped up like a child and would have insisted on cleaning her own face.

"She had those already and what she needed, was just a person to love her and for her to love back." Aha - this is telling. Fair enough.

""I can't stop myself. I'll hurt you, Lil." He was going crazy with desire. He had to sit on his hands to keep them to himself. "Go."" Ach, he does think he's a god. Unless he's got some unusual physical attributes, he's got nothing to worry about, hurting her-wise.

""Fuck me," she said, the tone of her voice giving no doubt on what she meant." Good girl, I hope she carries on being that assertive. I think she'll need to be.

"As always, Jack was the careful one while Lillian was the rough one." This doesn't feel like it quite fits with Jack's own image of 'Jack: god, Lillian: delicate maiden'.

"You think don't need friends." " You think 'you' don't need friends?

Again, you've succinctly got the raw emotion in these scenes, and the prelude to their lovemaking is just as powerful as anything else of yours I've read. A well-done chapter, this one. It just needs a bit of refining in some places, like I said.

- From We Return Reviews.

5/17/2010 c26 LilyWolfe
"Sir! There're ghosts 'ere," cried one of them."