syn's fiction repository

[Last Sinner]

That does leave the door open for a fellow soldier to get in the mix. That is something I can envisage.

[Last Sinner]

Should have known that was coming...What a mess...but a well scripted one. Only thing I'd warn you about, syn, is to make sure Alisa has some likeable qualities. Because she's beginning to get dangerously close to Shinji status...

Although I was distracted the entire time by the idea April is supposed to be an obvious name for someone with large breasts...that 'really' distracted me the whole time...

It was a decent effort but something felt less coherent about this part. Little things distracted me and then it got a bit too...contrived, maybe? I just didn't buy into some of the dialogue later in the piece.

One thing I notice about your writing style is that you heavily prefer narrative to dialogue. If you're going to do that, it can have an effect on pacing/mood. Make sure narrative has enough going on to make it interesting and that when you have dialogue, it is effective.


Overall, still a positive read. You're one of very few things that could distract me from my mega marathon of Galaxy Express 999, which I am now resuming.

[synaesthetic]

Well, I couldn't just have everything be wine and roses after a single confrontation. There's a lot more to dealing with serious trauma during childhood than just a lover's quarrel... and whatever came after that (I leave that for the readers to fill in).

This was an important step for Alisa--a step in the right direction, and it reveals a few things if you're paying close attention. Her mother's death isn't the only trauma she endured while she was a child.

Edit: "Miss April" is a gag referring to Playboy centerfold models, the Playmates... which are usually termed "Miss whatevermonth." I thought everyone would get that... I guess not? The other pilots and the marines call her that because she's rather busty and attractive.

[Last Sinner]

I have no issue with things getting serious or dreary. And yes, I did notice the other issue - it was quite obvious. I'm a person that empathises with people more than the average person. Still, I guess I get the feeling it will be quite a while before I actually truly empathise with Alisa's plight. But reading back in this thread, you mean that to be so. Fair enough.

As for Miss April...I honestly thought you were referring to a porn star or celebrity name that should have been obvious...So I kept expecting something else for the rest of that chapter...Hence why I felt out of whack reading this one...

[Kotohono]

I think that chapter had done a great job of further addressing and showing the depth of the Alisa's problems Syn . And I am curious about both cases of foreshadowing used shown here, I wonder when they'll come out later...

[Last Sinner]

I think you sold that chapter very well. Felt the vibe the whole way through. A good note to end on. You dropped hints halfway through and they flowed to what eventuated, setting up what should be some intense venting in the next installment.

You really like the word clandestine, don't you? You're the only person I've ever seen use it.

[DezoPenguin]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

Okay, then. As long as I'm supposed to find her unsympathetic, and I'm just not misinterpreting what you're doing with her, then I feel less guilty about it.

Honestly, I can understand where she's coming from, and I find her situation itself sympathetic. Some of the sympathy dies down when you realize that beyond, well, her high kill list and her relationship with Rin, a lot of it is something she brings on herself.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Most of it is her fault. If she wouldn't act like such a Jerkass all the time, and actually socialize, talk to people, not act all hermit-like and creepy... and you know, maybe let other people interact with Rin... then, well, she wouldn't have any problems!

And we'd also have no plot! So, she has to have issues, so we can have the character development later.

This is actually the first time I've really written a Jerkass protagonist, so I'm glad it's coming across correctly.

I'll be honest; so far, through "crossing over," I don't find Alisa to be a jerkass at all. If anything, she comes off as traumatized. That is, after the events of "the sweet hereafter," where she loses her family and her home to shocking violence, she withdraws into herself (some PTSD going on there, methinks), joins up in the military (revenge, no doubt), and ends up withdrawn and hiding from people. Honestly, I suspect that she spent so much time linked to Rin just as a way to insulate herself from human contact and relationships...only to have that constant link make Rin develop into, well, Rin. And now, of course, every single person she's interacted with except for Dr. Williams seems to take in on themselves to be a bigoted asshole, so it's not as if she has any motivation whatsoever to so much as talk to them. Blaming Alisa for not seeking out human relationships in the environment we're shown is like blaming a black person for not trying to get along with his neighbors where everyone else in town is a Klan member. The emotion I feel towards Alisa, more than anything, is pity; this is only emphasized by her breakdown in "crossing over" where it becomes so plain that she has nothing in her life other than Rin.

There's really only one point of genuine criticism I've had so far, so I might as well mention it now:

Spoiler for Single-topic mini-rant:

the bit about the culture where females in the military are expected to have large families. I can understand how that would develop in the general culture: the population is being stripped down by war and civilians would be encouraged to help keep up the numbers. And that would, I think, be emphasized even more among military families who see what they're fighting for on a daily basis and therefore can't insulate themselves from the reality of war. But the idea that front-line combat troops should be intentionally taking themselves out of service via pregnancy and motherhood (somebody has to be raising these kids once they're born, and while that might be a stay-at-home civilian father there's nothing in the setting to suggest that's a common arrangement). For a fighter pilot to get pregnant essentially makes her a casualty of war in the same way as if she was injured in battle and had to rehab. Therefore, the line comes off less as a piece of cultural exposition and more as an way to flag for the readers, "Warning! Protagonist will experience anti-gay bigotry!" and further serves to distract from the fact that it's Alisa's relationship with her "blue box" that's the much more compelling issue.

That said, I love the dynamic between the characters and the questions of transhumanism (Rin actually comes off as the most "human"--or, at least, what we'd like to think of as constitutes being human--of the characters in the series thus far) and atypical relationships being raised. Alisa is a sufficiently damaged protagonist that her ace-pilot skills seem not like a "oh, look, the hero is so special!" ability but rather a symptom of her pathology (indeed, you seem to be implying that they actually are--in the sense that what makes her so good is her relationship with Rin that leads to superior synchronization between pilot and spacecraft, which as I mentioned in VM is my suspicion for why Admiral Thomas is having Alisa and Rin monitored and prevented Reynolds from interfering: she's being used as the prototype for a new paradigm for how pilots will be trained and expected to live). And, as everybody else has said thus far, Rin is a darling.

[synaesthetic]

Alternate character interpretation is always welcome. You're not the only one who sees her as traumatized and understand her behavior based upon that--there are other readers who have expressed the same opinion.

I have done my best to avoid Mary Suedom with any of my characters, though I may have failed to prevent Rin from becoming a Moery Sue. It's easy to understand Alisa's point of view, even though it's largely illogical. What she does is "weird" but not necessarily "bad." Further reading will tell you that--the AIs are not commonly developed to Rin's level because it requires a lot of effort and it's not always successful at increasing the pilot's operational efficiency. What Alisa did with Rin is something of an anomaly, both behaviorally and from a technical standpoint... but if it could be exploited... that's an interesting question, there.

As to your rant, I see your point It wasn't my intention to make it appear as if the military expects females to drop out of active duty just to have children. I was only trying to highlight the issue that puts Alisa in bad odor--it's not Rin's expressed gender and Alisa's obvious attraction to girls that's the issue here, but the fact that she's not attracted to someone that can produce offspring. It's less "being gay is bad" and more "being attached to what most everyone considers a very smart computer, and avoiding contact with other humans, is bad."

Which, in a way, it is bad, but nobody is expecting their frontline troops--especially not Alisa, who has more confirmed kills than any other two pilots put together--to stop killing the Gray to go be a mother. What's expected is that female soldiers bear children after their service is ended, and it's wink-wink-nudge-nudge if they get pregnant while in service. The Alliance will take care of them if it happens, by moving them out of a combat position and giving them a regular nine-to-five job so they can raise a family.

I appreciate the feedback! I really wish I could get more feedback, to be honest. While praise and accolades are nice, it's criticism that helps me make this story better. This is very beta version stuff here, and the complete project will look very different I'm sure. You fine folks are just my beta testers, so please, give me more feedback.

[synaesthetic]

Wow, lots of cleanup work to do here.

The story has changed quite a bit in the intervening two years since I first started this project! Lots of interesting developments and changes to the plot, even if the basic premise remains mostly the same.

The "version 0.1" rough draft is complete. If anyone's interested in beta reading, please contact me. However, with the story's completion, it will not be freely available outside of test readers since I'm planning to publish it as an eBook on Amazon's Kindle Store.

I will select a few excerpts and place at the beginning of the thread once I have some time. I'm doing a final read-through right now to fix any glaring inconsistencies or continuity errors before I start sending out copies to the test readers.

Thanks for all your support.

EDIT: I'm looking for artists to get a really nice cover made for Binary System. Please send me a PM if you're an artist and you're interested in giving it a shot! I can't pay you anything, but I'm sure we can work something out!