Aug 06, 2023
ugh I thought I'd find other chonky comments here but apparently not. gonna have to be that bitch.
anyway I liked :3
Ok but fr, first thing's first, I like the way you start chapters a lot. It's not something I usually care about or pay attention to, yet you managed to pull this off over and over again. Is it late enough in the contest to say your chapter openings are my favorite from the literal hundreds of stories I've read at this point or is that too controversial¿ anyway
You've mentioned that ppl have said the main character doesn't have much personality or smth, or maybe that was my demons, but either way, I disagree. Moreso, he seems like a quiet, but rebellious spirit, which is always a delight to see because of how rare it is compared to the Farm Boy(TM) that's spunky and hot-blooded and yearning for more, or the stoic, detached em cee who is too cool to care or wtv. I like him a lot. If anything, Alicia seems like THE spunky hot-blooded (former?) heroine, and it's a cool contrast. I can't say much about anyone else because they're either NPCs to further the plot or Chiyo, who I feel I still know nothing about. That's fine, though. It's obvious that her time to shine will come soon.
I'll have to agree that the narration makes him feel like an uke, and not like, a nitro+chiral uke, but that of a kickstarter indie VN someone's mom funded. There's too many 'was' and 'were', and for what? Chop those off. Why does he say 'I saw sitting' instead of 'I sat?'. Weak ass mf. They didn't do; they were always doing. Which reminds me, I noticed several times that two different ideas --> WERE <-- separated by a comma instead of a period or the much superior elitist intellectual semicolon. So it's like.
I -->WAS<-- sitting on the bench, Chiyo farted and I cried.
Instead of:
I -->>>>>SAT<<<<<-- on a bench. Chiyo farted and I cried.
idk, might be stylistic but I don't really see why you'd do that so often. I'm not a native English speaker and my tests always flop so nitpicking on grammar is ironic at best, but shit would've been keeping me awake at night if I hadn't mentioned it so... I had to...
I think it's the ukeness that makes the story seem distant, the mc personalityless (?) (cringe opinion btw like how can ppl be so wrong). When he mentions how he's never going to go back, it's mentioned so off-handedly that even when he highlights how he doesn't care because he 'saw their true colors' it still feels kind of lulzy. So he's indifferent to his hometown because they want to get rid of a presence they genuinely believe is dangerous? the neervvee
Ok but seriously his underreactions would make me think he's a Stoic em cee if not for him constantly mentioninh he Yearns For More, or him jumping to save a girl after a (presumably) unseen epiphany which indicates a more rebellious side. Like I said before, part of why I like him a lot is because of this dichotomy, but at some point I began to wonder if it was intentional or not, just because of how disjointed his reactions seem to be, almost like he's the plot's uke instead of Chiyo's.
Lukewarm take: characters should move the plot, and not the other way around. Objectively speaking, it was mr. mc that deviated the events of ch1 enough to 'make his own story' so to say, but his actions after feels like someone gave him a script so he'd get out of there and Finish The Arch. That's the thing.
I think the sequence of events by themselves are very good and engaging and the characters are interesting so long as I don't see the strings you use to move them. It's nothing a revision can't fix and yadda yadda personal taste yadda yadda different writing styles.
And just to be symmetric (idk if I mispelled that idc) I like your chapter endings very much as well, especially this one. I forgot the mc had strings for a moment. *insert words of encouragement here*
tl;dr be more homophobic
![Nanang's Official Cover - 19 August 2023 [Art By: Jean] produced at Garong Studio](https://honeyfeed-novel-images.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/novel_image/file/12376/cover_thumb_c2c31fde-0078-4010-a46f-a15ac09d401b.jpg)
