Celestial Saga: Yoshiblue

[yoshiblue]

For me its stall and have nothing to work with later and hate myself, or get something down now so I at least have something to use later. So with some reluctance I either start at the start, middle or end of the chapter and go from there. Usually gets the ball moving enough.

[Zorafim]

When I don't feel like writing, my favorite trick is to make writing the most desirable option. When my two options are A) work on my story, or B) do some chores, suddenly writing looks a lot more appealing!

Well that's not going to work. The tool I use to write homes hundreds of worlds to delve into.

For me its stall and have nothing to work with later and hate myself, or get something down now so I at least have something to use later. So with some reluctance I either start at the start, middle or end of the chapter and go from there. Usually gets the ball moving enough.

That sounds more reasonable. Though I tend to lose motivation the longer I keep at something... Kinda like there's a hunger causing me to start it, and working on it sates it.
That could just be me being lazy.

[stukasa]

I've also used Yoshi's method before. If I don't feel like writing the part I'm at, sometimes I'll skip to a more interesting scene and come back to the other one later. Usually by that point I've committed enough effort into the chapter that I feel like finishing the rest.

[Zorafim]

April Fools on page 44

Spoiler!

I love this intro.

There's something subtle you do that conducts how I'm viewing the scene. I noticed it a few chapters ago, but it popped up again here.
"“No.” sharply replies an amused Yadira."

A quick and elegant choice of words, along with my understanding of the character, allows me to pose her in a way that would differ from my default reaction. I remember near the beginning of your writing you treated these sections kind of awkwardly, so it's great to see you gaining mastery over it.

I spotted some references!

Ha, Mario Party 3 music? That came as a surprise.
It's way more enjoyable than I expected.

I like this chapter. The detail work is spot on. Great mix of being in the moment, and moving forward.

Yeah, I think it's better than the stuff I read previously. Did you do anything special with it?

Extra b

Spoiler!

This is an amazing idea. Doing the same scene from two points of view.
Well, it's not quite that. The idea's still amazing. But it was definitely neat seeing something we missed from the first time around.

I love the ending here.

Extra Plus

Spoiler!

Aw, the youtube music was taken down...

This group was really good. I really enjoyed reading through them.

Next: Extra on April 11, 2017 on page 44

[yoshiblue]

Removed track in extra + is Golden Dog - Wandering Days.

Spoiler!

It was a strong idea and an idea I was really eager to write. I had a lot of fun writing it. I also spent more time on it than I usually would. Extra B coming after finishing A because I found it funny to have a bag of flour thrown at Yoshi Sr.'s face and wanted to expand upon it. I also remember not being satisfied with the word count so I fluffed it up with descriptions such as those. Think I spent the entire week going over it everyday.

[Zorafim]

Ah, that would explain it. The extra effort and enthusiasm showed.

I think details do a ton to make writing more interesting. You have to balance it of course, but if you can match it so that reading it isn't too much slower than watching it, then you can really add to a piece.

[Zorafim]

Extra on page 44, on april 11

Spoiler!

Rappies hail all the way back to Phantasy Star III. In fact, the last time I played that game, I got just far enough to be slaughtered by a pack of rappies. This was before I set my first save, so I had to start again from the beginning - including the intro. That was when I decided I didn't want to play it anymore.
Needless to say, I stopped feeling bad about attacking them after that.

Banthers were bosses that I thought were completely unfair to fight. Not only is the banther itself tough enough to challenge a group, but it comes with an additional enemy that's tough enough by itself? I think of my boss solo videos, banthers were the ones I had the most trouble with. In fact, I think I had to split my video in two because it's the only fight that went past 10 minutes.

This chapter was entertaining too. Though I guess I don't have much to say about it.

[yoshiblue]

It happens. It wasn't anything ground breaking and not much really goes on.

[Zorafim]

Extra on May 2

Spoiler!

Oh, I see what stukasa was saying about lyrics being distracting now. Even though it's in another language. How odd.

I expected the banther to be much more of a hassle than it was. Those things are terrifying in every way.
I actually honestly took a break from reading your story so the Banther theme could finish. I might hate most of PSO2's music, but their boss themes were on point.

A bit of a typo here, "A bully and a murder,"

Well this chapter is confusing. I don't know what to make of these sudden appearances. It looks like Yoshi knows about them, and it's obvious that at least one of them are rather controlling and deceptive.
But then, it's hard to make sense out of family feuds.

Yeah, code captures are too much of a pain. It was fun enough when it was first designed, but it eventually got to the point where monsters died a split second after the changeover to code capture appeared. And then, why spend minutes luring a boss to a capture point when you can just fail the code and move on to another code?
I guess stukasa studied up on this, since I just got finished reading up on a Code Capture plot point not too long ago. This is what I get for reading things out of order.

Next chapter: Extra on May 16 on page 44

[Zorafim]

Extra on May 16 on page 44

Spoiler!

“Maaaaaaammaaaaaa,” she rudely gargles outside the room’s fern colored walls.
I loved this line

The two yoshis are very different. Bitol seems pretty calm and relaxed, while Yadira seems much more enthusiastic.

Ugh, this music makes me so jealous! I want to use instruments this lovely! Instead I have this screeching flute that I have to work with...

...can you make a sniper-gunslash? I always figured them as a short range weapon.

Hm. I'm starting to understand Bitol's and Sia's relationship better. They seem like water and fire to me, but Sia knows how to caress with those flames.
I love this scene between them. It really gives a great glimpse into their relationship. Heck, this whole chapter gives us a great view into how they live.

I love what you're doing with Sia in this chapter. You have a great mixture of mother and assassin. That scene of her killing someone right behind Yadira's back is really telling of her character.

Hm, there are a few awkward phrases you use in descriptions. Let me see if I can list them.

Spoiler!

...windowsill, sat Sia seemingly...,
it felt a bit awkward to me to phrase it that way instead of "Sia sat...". Not enough to break the story, but I felt a little hiccup in the flow.

Every time she holds the blade up in the air, she would put it back down...,
switching from present to past tense. This one didn't give me the same hiccup, but it did give a slight air of awkwardness.

In the process she puts on a very loving smile to show how welcoming she was towards her daughter.
This felt like over-explaining to me. If there's a way to show this without outright saying it, it would come off smoother. Maybe, "despite the interruption, she put on a welcoming smile for her."
I liked the sentence afterward. It felt like just the right amount of explaining. "This wasn’t the first time Yadira had entered like this. "

"The newearl of much fairer spins back"
This may have just been an overlooked typo?

"As Yadira lets go, and reaches down on the floor for something, Sia winces and places a hand over her ear."
I felt the wincing was too far delayed from the shouting. By the time I got to the wince, I had to look back to see what she was wincing at.
Maybe, put the wince at the beginning of that sentence, and then have a description after “What did I tell you about shouting in people’s ears?” to remind us. Though the second may be overkill.

“Hmm,” says a sly Sia, looking into the bag.
This is something I like. It's something quick that the reader will likely gloss over without thinking, but it adds a layer on top of the dialogue to give the reader a clearer picture of what's going on.

could be seen working
This is something you tend to do - and I think stukasa too - that I personally don't like. I can't quite put my finger on why, but I think it's because it feels like you're forcing us to look at what is phrased as a subtle thing.
I would prefer simply "was working with"
I feel like that's just an opinion though. I just kinda cringe when I see that phrasing.

The man, Bitol, stops for a moment.
I feel this is redundant. We get enough information with "Bitol". And I don't think it's beneficial to add "The man".
This is something I notice that I don't like that you add often. Instead of referring to a character by name, you refer to them by some descriptor. I do think it's a good idea to remind the reader of some details about the character (for instance, adding "teal haired" as you're introducing Bitol). But it's always felt awkward to me to refer to a character by that descriptor. Unless you're purposefully hiding information from the reader (The cloaked man slid out a dagger).

Pop music begins to softly play.
This feels awkward to me. I would do something closer to, "Pop music plays as the ship starts", maybe?

Since I'm going into writing details in this section, I may as well put here how much I loved the interaction between Sia and Yadira in the car. You had to bluntly show the subtleties of Sia's mannerisms, but that gave us just enough information to infer her state of mind. And bouncing that off of Yadira's oblivious nature was great.

a soft muffled gunshot was heard.
I don't know if I should be complaining about this snippet or not, but I would prefer "Yadira heard a muffled gunshot" or "a muffled gunshot fired". "was heard" seems awkward to me.




I'm not going over anything that the characters say, because to me, that's just how the characters act. For instance, Yadira has a lot of grammatical issues in her dialogue, and I wouldn't change a single one. I assume they're all intentional, since they add so much flavor to her.

All that being said, this seems much better than what you were putting out before your break. It's way more colorful. I think you're making better use out of descriptions, adding more details to give the reader a much better view into what's going on.
I feel like I'm able to comment on a lot more stuff this time around because of the color you were able to add.

Ha, I wasn't aware this was a mother's day special. No wonder. It fits perfectly for that.

Oh. I just thought Yadira was just childish. I didn't pick up that it was supposed to be an act.

Next: Extra on June 20 on page 45