The 2012 Fanfic Contest Entries Part 2: Action

[Brynhilde]

*Bryn falls to her knees and worships whoever wrote Rust*

[Hymn of Ragnarok]

Rust was.....good.

I liked all the fight scenes except for the final battle. I completely called the reveal halfway through the fic and was utterly unfazed when my guess was confirmed. While the previous fights flowed nice and smooth, for the most part, the last battle made less sense. I followed with it well enough, but while reading I kept have to suspend disbelief.

Spoilers for Rust

Some things kept bugging me. Little girl's powers? I nice touch, but they're more precognition than clairvoyence. Maybe a mix of the two, and I can sorta see arguments for both side, but it's a niggling detail that reared its ugly head after I finished reading.

Shinji becoming so powerful? Wait how? Gilgamesh's resources?

....Just roll with it.....

Shinji capturing and breaking Rin? Unpleasant to imagine, but it's the villain establishing moment. Can't dock points for doing the job well.

Shinji finding a way to keep Shirou from copying his sword? A feat only Ea has pulled off, and when Shirou copy reproduce Zelretch, at least with Archer's arm?

....Roll to suspend disbelief.....

Durandal, the unbreakable sword, being warped into an arrow?

Okay, this is another straight up nit pick on my part that occured after the story. I still like the scene, I like Durandal in general, but in hindsight it eats at me.

Make no mistake, I like Rust. It's a good story. It got me sucked in quickly, kept me to the end, and had good fight scenes. Especially the first fight scenes. It just requires some work on my part to really immerse myself. Compare that to Lunatique, where my reaction was mostly as follows:

Yes...


YES.....


YES! YES! YES!

GO GO GOGOGOGOGOGO!

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!


THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!


*ahem*

Yeah, Lunatique is still winning. It's not perfect, I can find a few things to nitpick, but for the most part I let them slide because Zelretch and Brunestad are so outrageously powerful and skilled. Might have been a spelling mistake too, can't remember.

[EXiku]

Oh my God...three days to finish Action (two spent on Bare Knuckle Brawler!)

Review - Sensitive Writers Beware (I do sincerely apologise for striking any nerves though)

Spoiler:

Lunatique

Spoiler:

Still my favourite; the events could almost be canon for me it was so awesome. The details; the exchange between characters...all just done to a nice degree where it didn't overpower me.


Just pure class in style. I could see this all playing out in my head and it was awesome - fluid and uninterrupted; just a current of images - a humbling experience to read something so well executed <3

Zelretch does this and that for a li'l while

Spoiler:

I was raised by the saying - if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all...


I found this story to be really jarring; I couldn't follow it and when I did figure it out I lost interest.


I'm sorry, but it was really poor and seemed to be more fuelled by crack than anything else. I mean some of the servant swaps didn't make sense and it was hard to visualise what was happening...

Nadir

Spoiler:

Pretty good. A little hard to follow at times - I tend to think action can be harder than humour to write sometimes - but pretty good.

Rust

Spoiler:

Such a strong/powerful opening...just my gosh I'd say it almost rivalled Lunatique with it's quality. Your writing really made me feel; it's quite emotive (felt a little overdone at times, but it's always a doozy choosing how much is enough)


Action scenes, again, a little hard to follow at times and unfortunately, I ended up predicting most of the story and found myself to be right each time. Certain aspects felt kind of uninspired - especially the villains (and yes, I figured out the big bad halfway through)


The climactic battle...I liked the trip (reminds me of some of my dreams) but not too hot on the pop culture references. Also, I couldn't help but feel that the battle was too overpowered - I get it's a personal choice.


I really liked it being an alternate Archer in a dystopian world (I have to disagree though - the man's do-able at any legal age )


I would also suggest using more than just a full stop to break up long speech paragraphs...

Shooting for the Stars

Spoiler:

I get what you were going for, but really...really found it hard to follow. Writing seemed too fast paced and jumped so much I got lost somewhere and somehow found my way out...


Also exclamation marks used outside of speech? Probably a personal choice, but I haven't read books that used it in action scenes...sounds almost like narration and that added to the disorientation.

Bare Knuckle Brawler

Spoiler:

TOO MUCH DETAIL! ;_;


That and too many long sentences without proper grammar use. Also, weird speech - some speech fragments had exclamation marks that didn't seem to fit, or gave the impression of over-dramatisation.


But the detail - either so much it became hard to follow or not enough. Some long descriptors could have been easily reduced without impacting the intensity of what was going on.


Reading this gave me flashbacks of how I used to write close to 8-10 years ago; especially with my DBZ fanfiction. I remember writing a scene almost exactly like the Satsuki/Ciel fight (for a DBZ fic) with the exact same reasoning behind it o.O

No Name Given

Spoiler:

Needed a bit more background. Action was a little easier to follow but couldn't make sense of what was happening and why.

That all said - Lunatique is my favourite with Rust in second (simply for the strong, emotive opening) and Nadir a close third.


I did find that there were the usual grammar/spelling errors and wrong words used. Perhaps I should have answered the pleas for beta readers...I just hesitate because I know my comments will grate on people.