And if That Don't Work ch10

[Sunshine Temple]

Chapter 10 Defects and Acquisitions Part 1 has been posted here

Read and enjoy.

[frice2000]

A couple of silent minutes passed. Then there was a heavy rumbling as the armored door in front of the train slid aside. Remotely controlled in Central Dogma, the train rumbled forward and stopped again.

Description of train moving bits are very monotonous for the start of a chapter. Does not make me that excited to keep reading. Really need to trim this down a bit.

"Awww, she's cooperating," Shinju pouted, fingering the grip

Surprising. Thought you'd be making them bond and have a friendship only for it to all end tragically.

"Targeting training and simulations."

commas

uranium mines,

How you'd have to go through solid rock? Not the easiest thing in the world to do.

The tiny blonde angel looked around

Too cutesy. They need more... otherworldly killerness. You're making them too childlike.

"Silence!" Kiko smacked the side of Toji's head.

Cute scene but it's dragging a little. Needs trimming.

"Least then I wouldn't have been the only guy."

Stop saying that! You're in a Sunshine Temple story you only doom yourself!

"What, would your job be easier if I were an angry robot or a crazy little girl?"

"Yes!" Zap. "There you are now a cute eight year old girl in a sundress."
So not long now huh?

Rei's smile while small was triumphant.

Nice subtle changes in her personality. She's becoming far more healthy like her this way.

Shinju
nodded. "Yup! But...."

Extra line break.

Rei unclipped the combat knife and scabbard she had slipped through

Ok but for the exchange previous to this one and the conversation with the angel this has been almost entirely filler. Filler's fine but this is long filler. You could've cut out entirely the scene of them walking along and mentioning the third child and just done it in flashback or mention here.

"Is that all there is to life?"

This line. Do more with it. Do more to them talking around it. Why did they all let this pass? Who said it? It's a big damn line and it's ignored for talking about Shinji? Annoying.

as father figures go... you could do worse.

'
The hell...? Mind control has to be.

"Yes, I know accreditation is half the battle, but needless

Again too long. Too much. Summary or cutting this whole scene down would be better. All this chapter has been thus far is dialogue scene after long dialogue scene. Last one was better since it had genuine emotion but you can't stick these in one after the other with nothing to spice things up. It makes this way too dry and I'm struggling to read through.

hero of Science, Professor Insana demands a menu!"

Intro him earlier. He'd at least bring something to this conversation and make it compelling to read, which it really wasn't.

Ritsuko sighed and smacked Insana on the back of the head. "What the hell is wrong with you!" the blonde scientist demanded.

"What?

Interest re-established. He makes all the dialogue far stronger and compelling. Comedy relief mixing in with plot elements you really should do that, too much of this is bland.

"Tokyo 3 is the true path forward. Governance by robots! Just and wise decisions will be made under the baleful unblinking watch of our metallic masters!

It is kind of depressing that even with the interrogation of the angel scene, this is BY FAR the best part of this chapter so far. Miles and miles ahead.

Ritsuko stepped into the Command Center. The sirens,

Before this point I honestly think you can cut out near 3/4 of what came before. I'm sorry to say but it's very bland. After this point you regain your usual flair and quality storytelling. I don't know what happened in the first part but it was not at all close to your standards.

in Cheyenne will clear that matter

Thor's Hammer and a reference to Cheyenne and Norad huh? Is that just a subtle Stargate nod or are you going somewhere with it?

Well I'd like to say that was good, but I really didn't enjoy it. The amount of filler was egregious. If there was lots of character developed contained therein that would've been fine but there really wasn't. You've got three scenes really that need to be in this seemingly, the rest feel way too bloated. Initial angel interrogation, character development with Rei and Shinju, and then the staging/battle scene. Everything else feels unnecessarily added. This needs a lot of cuts, more then half of the material in here really, and maybe you could combine what's coming into this for one chapter. Though the battle scenes and the discussion with Shinju, and Insana's stuff was top shelf, the rest was very hard to read through.

Unrelated note: Not sure if you saw it in the picture post thread but really think if you're tired of your avatar you could go with: clicky in it's place. First time I saw it I thought of your Return Ranma.

[Sunshine Temple]

Okay, did the small corrections and cleaned up the train scene.

Uploaded with ch10v1b

As for the rest.... I'm honestly very confused. There's scenes you say are cute and good at one part in the review and then you say are filler that should be cut later. As far as I can tell the middle of the chapter is too "talky" and that you think the Angel group scene (Scene 2) should be... cut? And maybe the scene after that and maybe the lunch scene before Insana shows up.

It's very hard to square that level of trimming when you also declare that 3/4 to half of the chapter along with using words like bland, depressing, and filler. If it's bad it's bad. But I need a clearer idea on what where it is wrong.

Hyperbole doesn't help, unless you really think some scenes need to be totally cut, but I'm not sure on that.

I had a longer point by point response but I'm not sure if that won't just add to the confusion.

[frice2000]

There's scenes you say are cute and good

Just because a scene is cute and I liked part of it doesn't mean it isn't filler. You've done that a lot in most of your stories. I like some of the cutesy stuff yes (or I wouldn't like your stories in general), but you overdid not necessarily the cutesy in this chapter but fluff non-essential weapons chatter here immensely. Fluff is fine in moderation but a huge chunk of this chapter was completely fluff at the expense of anything else. And it got to be very hard to read through. If your goal is to tell a good story that's one thing, if your goal is to make us laugh a little and just have a fun puff piece that's something else. I thought you were going for the former but this chapter was overwhelmingly the latter.

But even then this doesn't fit into the fluff mold either. You had exposition, exposition, exposition. That's fine if there's a lot of character development therein but there really wasn't. I'm not sure what was happening, just soldiers, military jargon, and getting weapons. That's OK to a point, but a more pilot-centric approach with them dealing with the weapons when they receive them makes for a far more interesting story. Where there could have been character development we ran away rather abruptly. Again I'll give a more exact location below of where.

middle of the chapter is too "talky" and that you think the Angel group scene

Middle of the chapter is FAR too talky. You need to intersperse that with something, anything else. Insana offered excellent humor and made the talky interesting but barring his presence. It got very old. As to the angel group scene, no that doesn't need to be cut character development happened there. But that is a problem later, no character development and ultimately nothing of effect accomplished. I'll give a more detailed run of that below.


Before the quote below all a pretty good scene. Possibly ran a little long, but it was solid and needed.

"What's wrong?" Leli asked, leaning on the couch-back. The even younger Armi looked up with wide eyes.

The auburn-haired Angel idly waved where the map was. "We lost, Iry... Saha..." She sighed again.

This is a good scene, and there's some character development here but it goes too long. You can cut parts of the going to live with humanity aspects, and the overall strategy since we just had a discussion of that in the last scene. Don't need it twice from a different perspective.


From:

The Pilots left the locker room. Rei was first, followed by her sister

To:

Lev smirked.

Unneeded. Can have it mentioned in very rapid summary form when Shinju talks with Rei. There were cute aspects yes, but overall nothing essential, no great character development.


From:

Flins at her side, Shinju

To:

"Yeah, yeah, but so is making sure the people that do need to know are cleared for it."

Good scene. Discussion of is everything in their lives always going to revolve around fighting angels could be longer. Would make the discussion far more, and also shows those elements of Shinji that are still there and aren't simply buried inside of cute gothic Lolita girl. Also a great line to Rei for character development, and also a nice sisterly bonding moment. Sets up for them not being exactly loyal to NERV either. Even here though really could use some streamlining. The conversation kind of meandered all over the place. Maybe have Misato get home sooner and this can be consolidated nicely. Take out the bits about cleaning the knives and just clean up about 1/4 of it in general.


From:

Director Pavel Beria stepped into the restaurant's central dining room. Clad in dark wood paneling and highly polished hardwood flooring, containing deeply polished tables, glassware, and chandeliers, the large ornate room was much the same as the last time. However, instead of being full of various military, political, and scientific dignitaries the room was nearly empty.

to

The doors popped open and a man with tight blue gloves, silver and black spiraled goggles, and a long flapping lab coat scrambled towards the pair. He turned to the bartender. "The great hero of Science, Professor Insana demands a menu!"

Awful, awful, awful. Could barely read this took lots of breaks and even then, bad. Introduce Insana at the start of it with his humor and it becomes far more interesting and may salvage this but before he gets there this is garbage.

Shinju leaned back in the plug. Controlling her breathing

From here on story is fine.

[Sunshine Temple]

Thank you for your comments. Even if I do not agree with them I very-much appreciate the time and thought you've taken into them.

As always I consider such things in context with other commentary (here, irc, prereader, ffnet) and of course against my own views.

[frice2000]

I think the disconnect we're having here is that you really want to focus on some rather minute themes repeatedly. You really enjoy in this story talking about weapons systems, which you intersperse with discussions with a sugary cute flare. While I myself enjoy discussion of weapon systems generally the impact they have in this story, and the Return in general are unwieldy and often inconsistent with the tone of the surrounding material. They slow things down and come out of nowhere. You talk about gun safety, training with said weapons, and such in such detail that often these points grind the story to a halt. In this chapter you had a rather long conversation of which I really disliked above...That more then anything soured me on the chapter. Now in the Return and your forgotten gem, but about half the time in Return you have either actual character development or humor to go along with those scenes so they're not totally out of place, even though they are 'weapon porn'. In this story in contrast, usually the weapon discussion and theory is front and center without that surrounding humor or connection to characters.

That's why the one conversation I marked as disliking so bad was so hard to read through there was nothing there of substance to the rest of the story. I could skip it, it wasn't seemingly important there was no weight to it. This story is the biggest offender of those you've written in that regard though you can see aspects of it in your other stories. I get that you like arms, armor, and ordinance but where your pre-readers seem to be failing, is not telling you that this can drag unless you intersperse it with other bits. For example, in this chapter alone when Shinju was sharpening her knives, you could've had a discussion there of what they were made of, how sharp they are, etc. While I didn't think it was particularly necessary it would've been very readable because the surrounding material is compelling. That is not the case for a lot of the other conversations in this story, and it's something you need to watch out for moving forward in these chapters.

As to the sugary cuteness that too is very present in most of your stories. That's just your style though and if you don't like it well you're likely not going to enjoy your stuff in general. However, this story crosses a line in that regard. I'm not a huge fan of a massive segment of this stories characters being a Lolita archetype. If it was just Shinju fine, but all the angels too? It's going over the top. Maybe it's that I'm not a fan of that kind of archetype at all, personally I find Nabiki in the Return to be immensely disturbing (which is sort of the point but it's not in the way you would desire), but having so many characters that fit that profile just makes the reading of this story awkward to me. If the angels became more adult as they grew up starting as cute little girls when they're babies but then developing into normal woman or teens I'd have less of a problem with it. But really I read them and I just think Ovallisk's from MSF stories and that's opening a whole other can of worms.

Maybe that's all something that your pre-readers and yourself greatly enjoy and thus no one's telling you to tone it back. But you need to watch out for it, it's taking over this story and it's not in a good way. It is fanfiction so I'm not telling you don't write what you enjoy. What I am saying is read with a different perspective here, as your pre-readers should be doing but are failing at. This chapter and story has problems from that angle and if you want it to be widely accessible you have to consider some of why that isn't the case right now. Really if your pre-reader group and IRC chatters has no problems with anything I've described here they are simply not diverse enough. I can understand you not caring, saying that you're just writing for your own enjoyment and that's fine, but I thought you did and wanted your stories to be more wide read then just a small segment of the Ranma fanfiction reading public. That is part of the reason why while your stories get a respectable amount of reviews on FFnet you aren't getting as many as the complexity, vision, and length of the stories deserve in comparison to some other writers on that site. You're focused too narrowly and it's a shame no one says dial it back. You are often a great writer, but frustratingly you often push too far and it brings you back down.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

I haven't noticed (or paid attention to) this in And If That Don't Work -- but it's getting really cumbersome in The Return. There's so much discussion of weapons and tactics, but the only real story advance in the latest chapter is the revelation that Ranma's eating habits are getting a bit out of hand. (Spot-welding the tradtional Ranma appetite onto human flesh is a bit worrisome. Makes her uncomfortably like the Eldritch Horrors she's supposed to be fighting.)

And where are the Senshi? A few paragraphs. It's almost like you've forgotten Sailor Blackstar is a Senshi.

[DCG]

Nya~

I really don't care much for the new start. It far to tell ish. All the "fluff" you wanted removed last time kept it from just looking like a bullet list.


Restarting with the train ride was fine, NGE does this seen often. Its the quite build up and visual candy of the peacefull area around them. Its something you should enjoy and remember. As it does get nuked to shit not far off...

Little bunny fu fu is dissapointed in your lack of respect for his lands.

Any way, Train opening was far better, to work in all the hefy details they could be laided out as shinju's eyes roam the base. With hefty details added in by miasko and kiko.

Yes this is gun porn, base building, tech fun. Fluff? Not a chance. Fluff would be them talking about the cubs losing for 30minets on the train ride.

[frice2000]

I really don't care much for the new start.

The original started off describing the railway and interchanges more then the city. Then tunnels...I'm sorry but how was that better? How was that showing the beauty of the city and people they were protecting? Now if they were in a car driving along and seeing people living their normal everyday lives, the birds in the air, fresh air, etc. yes. But inside a train in a tunnel how was that accomplished?

Yes this is gun porn, base building, tech fun. Fluff? Not a chance.

Fluff is something with little consequence to the rest of the story. Endlessly talking about tech being built is without consequence. Showing us the new tech and saying, "This is what it can do shiver in fear at our new ultra-destructive invention", that is something else. What we have is talking to say we're going to eventually show us the new weapon...And that part of it I don't care to read and you've just bloated up the story with very boring exchanges.

Also I sincerely hope when you deliver C&C to him as a pre-reader it's slightly more comprehensible then that. Took me a long time to make sense of what you posted.

[Dartz]

Personally, I like a bit of fluff.... especially in serial format stories like this. Again, that's just a preference of mine, but I always find things like that interesting because they can help give a flavour for the world.

And filler isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if you want a perticular structure to the story.

[DCG]

Nya~

talking about tech being built is without consequence.

Wait what? Its a tech story, you have noticed right? From the titles, to the actors, to the hidden hints.

There's a lot of work going on to fit in mind fule for the techy leaned readers. None of that is fluff

[frice2000]

I guess we have a very different perspective on what the point of the story is. Yes, technology is what the initial bit of the story focused on that's what made this go off in it's own direction.

I do not however, read this for that development I read it for the characters. I like seeing the neat weapon system and seeing the nukes and other inventions in action to a point. Let me make a analogy with a relatively simple story from a recent came Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. One of the neatest scenes from that game was the AC-130 stage. There was some tech porn in that sure what with showing the weapon sizes and what they were capable of. But before that AC-130 was used we didn't talk at length about it's development, where it was built, the training of it's pilots, etc. Now if the story had focused around that gunship to the expense of anything else some of that would've been fine. But it didn't so we were introduced to it briefly and then had joy in seeing it kick ass, in relation to how the main characters related with it. You see the correlation?

[Sunshine Temple]

After considering the advice of DCG in chat I've reversed the opening back to how it was before.

It seems to flow better and be less "Tell". Uploaded with V1c

[Cheb]

I got engrossed in reading and forgot to fish for typos. Sorry.

However sympathetic the angels could be, after this attack I'm firmly on the humanity side. It's good one of the smarter ones got removed from the game. Or should I say "her infiltration was successful"? Ominous.

The capitals may not be industrial centers (though in many cases they are). But being nexuses of university networks and housing many research facilities... That was a heavy blow against science.

So this time the angel was stopped by nukes. I fear to even think what these did to Tokyo 3 environment How much radiation-proof are the evas? And their flesh?

P.S.

, personally I find Nabiki in the Return to be immensely disturbing

I still think TheReturn lost a lot more than it gained in converting her. But thanks to this, and to ranma's feeding scene, I'm finally getting a grasp of the word "disturbing" which doesn't translate well.
The angels are fine as they are.

[Sunshine Temple]

Cheb
I got engrossed in reading and forgot to fish for typos. Sorry.

[No prob, shows that they weren't glaring enough to draw you out.

However sympathetic the angels could be, after this attack I'm firmly on the humanity side. It's good one of the smarter ones got removed from the game. Or should I say "her infiltration was successful"? Ominous.

[Hehehee.

The capitals may not be industrial centers (though in many cases they are). But being nexuses of university networks and housing many research facilities... That was a heavy blow against science.

[Heavy but could have been worse, especially if Iry's plan had been used.
[But yes, consider for example where Asuka/Kiko studied.

So this time the angel was stopped by nukes. I fear to even think what these did to Tokyo 3 environment How much radiation-proof are the evas? And their flesh?

[Heh... not quite dead...
[They were high altitude which reduces the fallout (which is irradiated dust) and why ground burst is even more messy.


P.S.

, personally I find Nabiki in the Return to be immensely disturbing

I still think TheReturn lost a lot more than it gained in converting her. But thanks to this, and to ranma's feeding scene, I'm finally getting a grasp of the word "disturbing" which doesn't translate well.

[Really? It doesn't have a clear translation.
[That's fascinating. What are some of the approximate translations?

The angels are fine as they are.

[Heh. Problem is that Mikki started the ball rolling on them and Pandora's box has been opened, and other clichés.

[For example Armi's very slow development is something Iry finds disturbing.

[Thanks for commenting.