Howdy. Abdiel. C&C. Grain of salt. Ikuzo.

"Christian Clark" <twh@operamail.com> wrote:

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Hues of Belligerence

That's a fancy, purplish way of describing colorful violence. Or re-titling shades of malice.

Oh, and apparently your fic is not word wrapped. This is weird, because 'Shades of Malice' was. I'm guessing you forgot, and sent in an unformatted prereader draft to the mail instead of a final one. Getting it wrapped should be a cinch since you already know how. So, um, get to it! :)

Chapter 1

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“Queen's Knight, f3.” 

Er, formatting problems. What was "”" originally? Suggest getting an ASCII solution for that pronto.

She looked up to her opponent and found only a mirror.  The mirror itself was not special, but the reflection was much different than the image presented to it.  The Belldandy in the mirror was encased in shadow, while the real one was shrouded in light.  

(getting flashbacks of Chobits)

After every move the reflection made on the dark side side

Repetition of the word 'side' there.

Time seemed to slow down as she reached forward and slowly removed the king from the board.  She had been defeated.  The instant she picked the piece up, she blinked and realized something had changed.

It seems to me that this is one of those mind-fuck dream sequences, to put things bluntly. Y'know, like the ones in (of course) Chobits and Evangelion, except Keiichi didn't hang himself on the ceiling while the young Bell smiles in morbid shock. Yes, I'm ranting.

She looked around to see herself in the darkness, while the reflection grinned triumphantly towards her from the light.  She felt constricted, like a set of chains was crushing her torso.  She had to get out of there, but the darkness felt thick as tar and rendered her immobile.

The prose is not flowery, purplish, or hammy. It even makes use of the 'human interest' to make it more appealing to the reader. Good.

A whispered, cruel chuckle caught her attention as she saw the reflection sitting casually in the light, reveling in newfound freedom.

Bantaro (Jubei-chan): Sou ka! I will now call her dark Belldandy!

The reflection had everything that was hers.  Her face, her skin, hair, everything.  

She even had her own little evil dimension Keiichi beside her.

Bantaro: Sou ka! I will now call him dark Keiichi!

But there was a clear difference in the eyes.  They were cold, cruel, and bitter.

This is simple yet effective prose. Very good.

And the other Belldandy made no effort to hide her spite when she hissed like a snake, “you lose... at last.”

I'm getting more formatting problems from my end over here. Oh, and suggest, "You lose... at last."

Belldandy's eyes shot open.  Her face was lightly covered in perspiration and her heart was beating twice as fast.  She looked up and realized that she had been dozing off while waiting for the rain to stop.  She never did that before, however.  Something was wrong.

She never did what? Sleep? Have nightmares of her opposite self? Or specifically not doze off every time it rains?

She was on her way back home when the storm had hit the neighborhood out of nowhere.  Seeking shelter from the rain, she found an alcove for a store that had been closed that day and knowing that the rain would be there for a little while, thought it best if she relaxed for a while.  She didn't expect to nod off and dream.

Yeah, since she usually ends up having some sort of important insight thingy a la the one she had in OMG movie. It's a prerequisite for any 'event of great importance' to have some sort of foreshadowing dream.

On instinct; 

Replace the semi-colon with a comma.

she raised her hands and summoned the wind to cast the pipes into a non-threatening directions.

I believe you meant "a non-threatening direction." 

With a sigh, she brought her hands down and joined the group of concerned peoples

Suggest: people

that had survived an incident that would be described miraculous.  It all happened so fast.  Upon closer inspection, there was something that didn't seem right.  Closing her eyes and feeling the ether in the air, she found nothing to see the cause of the accident.

"...she found nothing to see the cause of the accident" reads awkward. Suggest revising into "she found that magic couldn't have caused the accident" or... something.

>From the shadows, a figure watched Belldandy leave with a sigh of relief.  If the goddess wasn't there, then things would have gotten ugly very quickly.  Yet, it didn't and so there was nothing left to worry about.  With no other business here, the shadow retreated quickly.  The sooner it got out of the general vicinity, the better.

Foreshadowing galore, I see.

Watching from the safety of her room, Belldandy found herself entranced by the rain's steady roar.  As soothing as it was,

Roaring rain as soothing? Oxymoronic, I believe... and not in the good, stylistic way that I'm usually a sucker for. Suggest revising 'roar' or 'soothing'.

The seals on the Obsidian Seal were all in place and secure.  In her years of learning, her teacher had instructed her to never release that unless it was completely necessary.

Ah, speaking of the AMG movie...

She had only done it once.  That was to rescue Megumi from an infection a few months ago.  Since that time, the Obsidian Seal was calm, but everyone once in a while,

but every once in a while

Leaning against the wall of her room, Belldandy started to wonder what it was exactly she had released.  It was a paradox that she couldn't perfectly describe.  She knew and didn't know what it was she had released to save Megumi.

There's redundancy in this paragraph. No need to emphasize Belldandy's ignorance of whatever she had released, you just need to mention it once.

Now, the burning from the seal was starting to become more obvious as the nerves in her lobe sparked to life with pain.  She held her head as the heat spread from her ear.  It became a splitting migraine as her head started to throb and her her eyesight started to grow fuzzy.  

get rid of the extra 'her'.

Hoping to quell the screaming, she leaped through the mirror, to the confusion of her sisters and Keiichi.  Their protests were drowned out by a single word repeated in accusing tones.

"VIOLATOR!"

Belldandy: Oh my! (washes the fic's mouth with soap)

What a weird thing to scream about. Why, the clown from Spawn is wreaking havoc in Heaven? 

Looking frantically for an entrance, Belldandy ran through the thickening darkness.  When her hands touched what felt like a wall made of the clay and rock, she followed it

Suggest: "followed its length" or something, because following a 'wall' conjures silly images of a walking wall.

With careful steps, she walked onto the dais and as she reached the central area, she heard the entryway shut loudly.  She whirled to the now invisible hallway and before she could even question as to where

'question as to where' is too superfluous. Suggest: 'ask where' or 'realize where'

Belldandy was about to step forward when a rumble threw her off balance and she fell to the ground as a pillar around her size sprouted from the ground.  She looked up to the pillar to see the liquid that was once the Obsidian Seal thin out into a string and crawl into and around the clay into a pattern she was familiar with.  Those were the Seals of Abolition.

Which is? What of it? What's the significance of these so-called Seals of Abolition? So the seals have a name... is it some obscure AMG reference that only the most rabid of AMG readers will understand? Will this be explained soon? 

Soon enough, the seals grew into a weaving around the pillar that could have resembled a person.

This sentence doesn't make sense. It must be caused by the 'weaving' word... is 'weaving' used as a verb or as a noun in the sentence? If it is a noun, could you not use another word to help the reader visualize more effectively what image you're trying to convey?

When the designs finally settled, the pillar shattered violently.  On instinct, Belldandy held her forearms in front of her self to shield her face from the many pieces.  When the last of the debris settled, she peeked through her arms to see an almost perfect replication of herself, cast in clay with rocky patches here and there.

While all this descriptive narration must be visually intriguing in a movie, it's not very effective in a piece of fiction. Actually, it sounds very much so like a carefully pieced description of the visual elements seen in the AMG movie. This fact I have a lot of problems with.

I mean, description upon description of these surreal events with sparse mention of character reaction (Belldandy was shocked, Belldandy looked on in horror, etc) can make for really dull reading. LOTR (the book, not the movie), bless its epic storyline, suffers the same over-descriptive prose over piddly details on props, costumes and stage design. If describing how the hairy feet of hobbits add to the story, by all means describe it. If not, then why go into detail with it?

Suggest adding a bit more 'significance' to the events in relevance to the plot. Have Belldandy cite the significance of the ever-changing facade of this ornamented room with the seals et al. If they don't have any significance to Belldandy at the time, then ask yourself why you should bother delving into these seemingly pointless events in detail? Go ahead and get to the point of this 'dream' already.

However, despite her care in silence, the cast came to life, threw its head back, and screamed.  It was the same accusing wail that she heard before she had lost consciousness.  It was a beautiful and horrifying song that created an all-consuming dissonance wherever it went.  Try as she may, she could not block out the sound as the cast was joined by a host of other voices to create a terrifying choir.

Still, I must digress that in spite of my criticism over most of your story flow, the 'beautiful and horrifying song' thing is wonderful imagery. I'm a sucker for these oxymoronic statements in prose.

The eyes were white.  They seemed hollow and devoid of intellect.  A wild animal given her form.  

Suggest: They seemed hollow and devoid of intellect; a wild animal given her form.

Or: They seemed hollow and devoid of intellect... a wild animal given her form.

Its icy cold breath creating small clouds of steam in the room and its mouth slack with a deep throat based growl.

Suggest: Its icy cold breath created...

She was in the middle of summoning Holy Bell when the cast screamed once more and threw her into the wall on the other side of the large room.

Suggest: "Belldandy was in the middle..." or "The goddess was in the middle..."

She hit the wall with a sickening crack and left an indent before she crumbled to the floor.

If the 'crack' was louder than the bump, should there be an indent?

Despite the pain, she looked up to see the cast spasm violently several times before it settled and then stood upright.

Suggest finding a better word than 'cast'.

With fresh pain coursing through her, she shook her head to regain her equilibrium.  

Suggest: 'sense of balance' to replace 'equilibrium'. You've been doing so well so far with your simple yet descriptive prose that you don't need to complicate it with needlessly with vocab words.

Her head was pounding furiously as she staggered to her feet.  Using the wall for support, she noticed the breathing of the cast slowing to something more human.

Suggest: 'she noticed that the breathing of the cast slowed down to something more human.'

But I have to note that 'the breathing of the cast slowing to something more human' reads weird. What a funny way to describe human breathing rates. Breathing, whether fast or slow, isn't exclusively a human characteristic.

Suggest revising. The "cast's" breathing rate hasn't been described as 'inhumanly fast' before, so now it's kind of awkward to describe its (the breathing rate's) drop as human. I suggest scrapping this sentence and opting for another way to show that the cast was becoming more human-like, or adding a line describing the cast's inhuman breathing from the start.

A tense stand-off took place as Belldandy prepared Holy Bell for the upcoming confrontation, despite the pain slowing the process.

Suggest: though the pain slowed the process.

When the cast opened her eyes, Belldandy gasped.  There were pupils now... her pupils.  It was the reflection in her dream from earlier that day.  

Ah, so that's what you meant by 'cast'. I suggest using 'shadow', 'figure', 'apparition', or some other noun that doesn't conjure images of Bob Orton Junior clobbering a wrestler using his three-year old arm 'cast'. 

This was what she summoned when she released the Obsidian Seal?  It was familiar.  It even had a name, but she couldn't find it in her memory.

The cast discerned her confusion and frowned.

“You've forgotten... haven't you?”

Belldandy: Hai. I've been doing that a lot lately. Heaven loves to lock away parts of my memories until a plot point comes back to haunt me. I'm of the opinion they've been doing it a bit too much lately, though.

The voice was hers, but the inflection was much more dark and accompanied by a harsh bite.

but the inflection was darker...

I'm having problems over your decision to describe an inflection as 'dark'. Perhaps you should use a better adjective.

“Who... who are you?” Belldandy asked, scared of the answer.

“Who... am I?” the other Belldandy asked slowly, her anger started to show through her features.

“Who... am I?  WhO aM I?! WHO AM I?!”

(shrugs) The effect you're going for here doesn't quite work for me. The second 'Who am I?' conjures sounds of a young boy's cracking voice in puberty. Suggest going for a successive, "Who... am I? Who AM I? WHO AM I?!"

with every successive utterance, the other version of the goddess started to seethe with a primal rage and from her back, a pair of wings encased in metal emerged.

Arch-Angel: Apocalypse will die in my HANDS!

Before Belldandy could say anything, cold steel emerged from the casts

cast's

...but please, pick a better word than 'cast'.

hands and clamped over her throat in attempt to squeeze the life out of her. To her good fortune, Holy Bell had emerged and freed herself to sprint away to give herself some much needed room.

Too many 'to' words. Again, I suggest revising. I'm just too tired and sleepy now to think of any worthwhile suggestions.

The other Belldandy turned slowly to her and growled, “How dare you...”

Belldandy prepared a shield of gales to give her a much needed defense as the metal version of herself charged once more.  To her shock, the clay cast 

Is she made of clay or metal? Pick. If both, then clarify.

“i'M YoU!!  I'm YoUr sHaDoW, ViOlAtOr!!”

"...."

"WhAt?!?"

"Couldn't you have picked a better name than 'ViOlAtOr'?" Belldandy politely asked, unsure of how to react. She could have noted that her shadow's 'screen' name and speech pattern was strangely reminiscent of a group of Internet-neophyte America Online users messaging each other with Instant Messenger, but she was blissfully ignorant of such things.

"|=|_||< u |8i7C|-|0rZ!!!" Violator replied, reiterating the strange phrase multiple times in an endless loop of stupidity.

Keiichi, Urd, and Skuld looked on in worry as the mirror fluctuated violently with every few seconds.  All they heard was Belldandy's hurried pace to the bathroom and her rushed entry into the mirror.  Both of the remaining goddesses attempted to enter, but a vicious shock 

Your choice of words, again, is of suspect. Suggest using 'barrier' or 'the vicious shockwaves from an impregnable barrier' or something like that.

prevented either one from gaining entry.

They all turned to her rising form in joy until they noticed there were a few notable things different than the Belldandy they all knew.  There was a scowl that seemed out of place on her face, her markings had changed slightly, and her eyes were a earthy brown, as opposed to Belldandy's sky blue.

Ah. Nice plot point. Dark Belldandy replacing Belldandy, I mean. Too bad you had to meander to and fro descriptions and awkward noun choices to get to this point.

With a voice that sounded like Belldandy's, but with a much harsher tone, she said “under my authority as a Judicator, the violator has been incarcerated.”

incarcerated

Both Skuld and Keiichi gaped in confusion and shock at what they just heard.

Keiichi spoke up in confusion.  “Wait a minute.  Violator?  What's that supposed to mean?”

That's what I'd like to know. 

...Nice. You got even this reader intrigued, at the very least. I hope the payoff in the next chapter won't disappoint. I also hope the significance of this name isn't as lame as the significance of one's nom-de-net in Instant Messenger. But with a name like violator, the meaning is kind of straightforward... 9_9

The goddess using Belldandy's body turned to Urd and frowned.  “Glad to know that at least someone still remembers.”

Oh, and if you didn't noticed, lots of ”. I'm guessing they're 'smart quotes'. Have these revised as well.

The other two occupants turned to each other and then to Urd and  'Belldandy'.  There was a noticeable malice in their gazes, almost like a pair of scorpions waiting for the first blow to fall.  The standstill came to a close when 'Belldandy' turned to Keiichi with a hard stare.

When Keiichi locked eyes with her, he realized he was seeing a complete stranger and wondered whom it was.  As though she picked up on his thought, she answered in a condescending tone, “Greetings, mortal.  I am Verthandi Nohlin; Judicator.”

Verthandi: I not only violate, I 'judicate.'

So which one are you? Violator or Judicator?

Verthandi: I have many names, among them are "cast", "shadow", "'Belldandy'" (note the quotation marks), "Violator", "ViOlAtOr!!”", "Judicator", "Judge Judy", "Mary Sue Anderson," "Gene Nohlin"...

I'm not sure that I like the name thingies you have here. I take back what I said about 'looking forward to the meaning of the name violator'... She has so many names it wouldn't matter.

End of Chapter 1

Hmmm. What a short chapter. In essence, this is usually the length of a prologue if it were up to me. It's not that I'm criticizing your chaptering methods, I'm just stating a fact. This seems more like a ficlet than a fic. It promises to be somewhat a very interesting read, but as of now that's all there is to it... a promise of something interesting.

I cannot emphasize it enough... have this fic word wrapped. 

Right now, it reads like a framework or a storyboard, and not quite like an actual story. Think of what you have written here as a skeleton. Now that you've got the shape, you want to go back over it and flesh it out with details on the upcoming chapters. So, in general, this is not a bad story. Then again, it's not a great story, either...
why wasn't it great? I'm not sure if it's just my current depressed mood (my precious CD Burner got burned out, so to speak... *whine*), or the fact that the plot points, IMO, have drowned out any kind of sympathy I may have for the characters, but I just can't have fun with the story. Sure, it's full of... plot and story, and I love that in a fic, but still it read a bit too clinically to me. But maybe it's just me and my current morose mood. Or maybe it's because of the morose mood Lenten Season. Fact is, it's a nice read, but not a "OMGWTFBBQ" kind of read, if you know what I mean.

If it's not just the mood, then I think it's because this little snippet of a chapter was missing something. I've mentioned this in other C&Cs before, and I'll mention it again... Human interest. Many things were happening to Bell and Bell was reacting in kind to the events, but the events were the ones dictating the pace, not the characters which should react to it. Let the characters tell the story through their eyes, and maybe the fic will become far more humanely interesting, and less mediocre. Human interest is what makes humanoid aliens in sci-fi 'good, relatable and real' and the non-humanoid aliens 'abominable, detached, and evil.'

But I won't preemptively judge a fic because of its first chapter. It has potential, and that's what's important. After all... C'mon, an evil Bell! What's _not_ interesting about that? That's cool.

Thanks go out to Dev, Chan Wei Lik, and Elisteran for looking over the first draft, pointing out the mistakes and setting me straight on a few things.  Now, I finally think I got something to work with.

It's nice to have prereaders. They get rid of all those pesky brain-fart spelling and grammar mistakes, which makes for a cleaner fic. Hooray for prereaders!

Oh, and do keep on writing. Make use of whatever corrections suits your fancy and ignore the rest, these are strictly my opinion after all. I also apologize for any spelling and grammar mistakes my C&C has made. It'd be ironic for a correction to need a correction, but we're all only human. (shrugs)

Ja ne!
Abdiel


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