02-19-2018, 11:24 PM
Supplementary After-the-fact-temporarily-open-thread-story-critique-powers..... go.
So. Family of Steel - Man on Fire.
I liked this a lot. The sentence structure wasn't always elegant, and words were occasionally misused - but none of that mattered much because good god damn, that story! Dem characters! That action!
Not having read the previous Family of Steel threads, I was a little bit lost at the start, and though the dynamic between Quickman and bubbleman was clear, I didn't get a super-clear feel for them as people. They felt a little flat, which at first put me off - but in light of the later exposition regarding the incomplete humanity of the robot masters, it totally works.
Even if the stylistic aspects were less polished than much of the Alex's later work, the structure of this is actually brilliant: it's set up as a straightforward megaman-esque crusading robot for justice meets elemental-themed evil robot on his grand tour to collect the powerups, but that's not what happens at all because (surprise) Protoman's not Megaman. The subversion when Heat Man defends his actions and Protoman backs down felt very real, and it made the ensuing tragedy of Heat Man's death extremely poignant.
Speaking of which: Cell Delta. I have no idea what this douchebag is from, but the tone struck by his presence in this thread was perfect. Not so much when Heat Man is talking about him, but the way the cyborg behaves when held in contrast to the genuine empathy between Protoman and Heat Man makes Cell Delta seem more like a machine than they do. His arrival cuts across what was otherwise turning out to be an unexpectedly cordial meeting like a beetle found floating in your morning orange-juice, and it's genuinely jarring. The brutality of the ensuing fight combined with his straight-up supervillain monologuing really brought it all together, and Heat Man finishing the fight and getting to be the hero as he died was just the icing on the cake. I feel like I understand present-Omniverse Protoman a little better now.
A note about the action - there was something remarkable going on here. I have a thing about word-choice, in particular the way a fight scene feels. The way this confrontation was written wouldn't typically have engaged me very much (much of it was very clinical - 'this happened. that happened'), but the presence and personalities of the characters came through so strongly and the violence being described was so hectic that it sucked me in regardless.
#HeatManNever4get
I'd recommend Protoman for a great bonus here without reservation.
So. Family of Steel - Man on Fire.
I liked this a lot. The sentence structure wasn't always elegant, and words were occasionally misused - but none of that mattered much because good god damn, that story! Dem characters! That action!
Not having read the previous Family of Steel threads, I was a little bit lost at the start, and though the dynamic between Quickman and bubbleman was clear, I didn't get a super-clear feel for them as people. They felt a little flat, which at first put me off - but in light of the later exposition regarding the incomplete humanity of the robot masters, it totally works.
Even if the stylistic aspects were less polished than much of the Alex's later work, the structure of this is actually brilliant: it's set up as a straightforward megaman-esque crusading robot for justice meets elemental-themed evil robot on his grand tour to collect the powerups, but that's not what happens at all because (surprise) Protoman's not Megaman. The subversion when Heat Man defends his actions and Protoman backs down felt very real, and it made the ensuing tragedy of Heat Man's death extremely poignant.
Speaking of which: Cell Delta. I have no idea what this douchebag is from, but the tone struck by his presence in this thread was perfect. Not so much when Heat Man is talking about him, but the way the cyborg behaves when held in contrast to the genuine empathy between Protoman and Heat Man makes Cell Delta seem more like a machine than they do. His arrival cuts across what was otherwise turning out to be an unexpectedly cordial meeting like a beetle found floating in your morning orange-juice, and it's genuinely jarring. The brutality of the ensuing fight combined with his straight-up supervillain monologuing really brought it all together, and Heat Man finishing the fight and getting to be the hero as he died was just the icing on the cake. I feel like I understand present-Omniverse Protoman a little better now.
A note about the action - there was something remarkable going on here. I have a thing about word-choice, in particular the way a fight scene feels. The way this confrontation was written wouldn't typically have engaged me very much (much of it was very clinical - 'this happened. that happened'), but the presence and personalities of the characters came through so strongly and the violence being described was so hectic that it sucked me in regardless.
#HeatManNever4get
I'd recommend Protoman for a great bonus here without reservation.