Zaxvo

Reviewed The Captain and his Beast.

Hey, it's Zaxvo from the SSCC! Your story has randomly been selected for a free review!So, for starters, I really enjoyed this. The setting as excellent, you set up the backstory magnificently, and I love the parallels to Moby Dick. The characters are wonderfully written and overall it's quite good.My only issues with the story are in the ending. Well, to be precise, I only have one complaint, and that is that the ending is too ambiguous. I'm referring tot he last three paragraphs, beginning with "That light was...wrong." That's not to say I would have liked it to be explained completely, but I've read that ending many times and I still don't really understand what happens. Perhaps I'm the only one, but it really doesn't make any sense to me, grammatically or semantically.For example: How does one gaze down at one's OWN corpse? And how does the creature burst forth from both the sea and the Captain's eyes, only for the Captain to cast himself into the sea? Does he throw himself into his own eyes? How does that work? I understand the Captain's probably dead, but what happened to the beast?So you can see that it has left me with a great many questions that it seems like you were trying to answer, but for some reason couldn't.Other than that, this is wonderfully written, and I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Eternity has been reviewed.

Hey, it's Zaxvo from the SSCC! Your story has randomly been selected for a free review!Well, you've addressed the science bits of it in your reply to The Onion Knight, so I won't touch that. However, I will come out and say that what really gets me is the whole "dumb luck" thing. Purely by chance it ended up on a planet with near-perfect conditions for life? Really?And it's not like the cargo container couldn't be programmed to seek out suitable planets, or anything like that. Because that's a perfectly good explanation that takes very little away from your story...except for the face that humanity is around due to dumb luck.But if you really wanted to make that point, there are easier ways to do so than to establish humanity's ancestors specifically setting out to ensure that humanity lives on. That isn't dumb luck; that's a post-apocalyptic last resort.On that note, I love the concept of a super advanced race of humans whose world would be destroyed...but if you wanted to use the tale to make a grand statement, why not have it so that somehow it was that human race who destroyed their world and wanted to make sure their race lives on. You could tie it into any number of the issues currently hitting us today, here on Earth -- for example, you could that issue X had gotten so bad that the only real solution was to reboot the entire race.The final complaint I have is when Evelyn mentions that some survivors could get off Iris via a rescue ship...if that's the case, why do they need to ensure that the human race lives on, in an entirely different dimension, tens of thousands of years later? And, sort of a minor point, why is she counting in Earth days if the Earth is still being formed?What I'm trying to say is, you've written an excellent story -- I love the characters, the futility, that sense of doom that's oh-so-amazingly pervasive throughout the entire tale -- but it's got the potential to be something really spectacular. But really, well done. It's excellently written and very captivating.

I must confess: since bionicle ended I haven't bought a single lego set. Including hero factory. Which makes me oh so lamentably ignorant of that head piece -- however did you do it? Is it an upside down HF helmet? Or is the helmet right side up, and you've just filled in the eye slit with tubing?Also, I love the top hat. It looks excellent. My only gripe with the "gentleman" theme you've chosen is that I sort of wish there was a monocle as well...

Wow. You've captured the look of samurai armor excellently. The Onua mask smack in the middle of his chest works wonders, and the rest of the armor, just the way it hangs, calls to mind classic bamboo armor of the samurai. Out of curiosity, did you do this just by memory, or did you google images of Samurai armor?I really love the construction on the arms, those look great. My only gripe is that I wish you could have found a way to incorporate a tad more silver into the build, but other than that, you've built an excellent recreation of the legendary samurai. Now onto the mythical ninja?

Not bad at all. Most of the build is fairly standard, it's very similar the generic Toa Iniki/Mahri/Phantoka/Glatorian builds, so I'll focus on the plasma cannon.It's well built and looks very elaborate and yet at the same time it's very elegant. I only have two suggestions. First, the pins and axles sticking out from the sides would look much better if they were shorter and didn't stick out so much.Secondly, that bright orange piece in the middle is very odd. I'd recommend replacing it with a silver one, if you've got that piece in silver.Lastly, and this has nothing to do with the actual moc itself, try to light your pictures better. As it is, these came out pretty dark, and it's easier for people to look at your creations and give feedback if they can see all the little details that went into the build.

bionicle, and bzpower, defined my childhood to me. It taught how to write, and how to invent and how to create and how to take photographs and how to deal with people over the internet and how to crawl for news and the pains of losing a friend and the joys of making new ones.I have fond memories of just before moving away from my old school, a friend convinced all fo the boys in our class to go on a wild goose chase...we each had assigned a kanohi, and they wanted to to help me get mine before I moved. Sadly, we could never mange to climb to the top of the tree that was bent in that particular shape, but still...great, now I feel old. And sad.

Am I allowed to build a bust? Say...shoulders up? How about chest up, to make it clear that he/she/it has got arms?

...And I've reviewed Duel.

A few quick grammar notes, just to get them out of the way before the main stuff:You use the word "chrematistic" which...actually sin't a word. Perhaps you were looking for "charismatic"?Also, "Duel" is one word...but your next sentence is "With those words".Just a few things to think about.Now, on to the story. I love Ajax's smug confidence. It's perfect. Honestly, in general, I really like the story. It's well written, the characters are good, and the dialogue is for the most part believable.But there are a bunch of small things that add up. First -- plot holes/unexplained things. Who said the first word, "Duel"? It can't have been any of the three characters -- people don't usually wait until one of them declares go to being fighting. Any why are these guys fighting to the death? Nothing is ever explained beyond the "Your charismatic ways will end" line -- but charisma, on its own, isn't necessarily a bad thing.And at the end, Ajax says he's the "best in the system" -- what system? Is this all computerized? Is it some sort of brutal rotation fight to the death on some outer rim planet?Lastly, while you are very descriptive, in places you're overly descriptive. Especially, the fight sequences; you don't need to go on and on and on about the battle. The structure of your sentences will convey the speed and sheer urgency of the fights, but only if you let them. But by writing out long sentences in long paragraphs describing every tiny detail, you slow those battles down. It's a bit like watching an entire movie in slow motion; it's good in short bursts, but it would ruin the overall effect when used too liberally.For example, near the end, you write this: Well, first, you don't need to mention that the slash is deadly, that's kind of obvious. Next, the phrasing "executed a...slash towards" is very awkward. Try "he slashed at". It's short, ore concise, and gets the exact same point across. On that note, take a moment and try and do a backhanded slash, right now. First you need to bring your arm across your body and only then can you actually slash. In concept it's cool, yeah, but in reality Kalten probably would use that particular move from that position. He'd probably just slash fronthand.The next sentence is very long; I'd cut in two and trim some of the description. And now the last bit is an excellent example of what I was referring to earlier; it's obvious that Kalten losing his arm would gasp in shock, so you don't need to say that flat out.Finally, the phrase "aided autotomy" is altogether slightly ridiculous, when you think about it. It's almost an oxymoron, in that "autotomy" means self-amputation and "aided" is pretty explicit in implying that there's someone else present. This phrase implies that Ajax pushed Kalten's sword down and then pushed that same sword up to cut off Kalten's arm. I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty hard to use someone else's sword to cut off the arm they're using to hold it at the moment, and so my initial understanding of the story was that Ajax forced Kalten's blade down, then slid his blade along that one to sever Kalten's arm with his own sword. To me that makes more sense, although I'd think he sever it near the wrist as opposed to the elbow. Anyhow, that's irrelevant, the point is that that bit was altogether too unclear, and a lack of clarity is the last thing you want in a fight scene.you want the reader to race through there, eagerly reading to get to the end, to eliminate his suspense. You don't want him/her to stop and think about the words that much; it's a frantic fight scene. Make the reader feel like they're there!So I've compiled those suggestions and this is how I'd write that paragraph. I feel like I might be forcing your style out of it, so if you read this and think to yourself "No, I'd never it THAT way." well then good for you. Keep building your style of writing, because it is deliciously and meticulously detailed. However, too much detail, or detail in the wrong places, can drag a story down. Your readers are not fools; don't feel like you need to tell them everything.I've criticized your story a lot and I just want you to know that these criticisms are directed towards minor points. Looking at the big picture, you've written an engaging and exciting piece of fanfiction; I'm just trying to help you make it better.

...and I've reviewed Honor, Bravey, Innocence. Not bad.

Hey, it's Zaxvo from the SSCC! Your story has been randomly selected for a free review!Firstly, some grammar stuff, just to get it out of the way:"it's" = "it is""its" is the possessive formYou confuse the two a fair bit.This sentence, from the fourth paragraph, is far too long."The small boy, barely more than a toddler, Hinath, and the girl, around seven or eight, Krisim, were orphans thanks to the Great Shadow War, in which the villagers were sent to battle the dark forces of Yonothia, the Nation of Exiled Ones, beings who, through the most despicable acts of sorcery, bonded themselves with The Other, the terrible sentient force which lays deep in The Outer Planes, seeking death and destruction to gorge itself upon."It's a massive run-on sentence, and honestly I would have opted to split it into two or even three parts. Another solution is -- and it's obvious you wanted to introduce a lot of background story here -- to "scatter" those bits and pieces into other sentences.The "or course" bit thebeggerpie mentioned is in the first sentence of the second-to-last section.The whole intro bit to Sagitar is another "info-dump", and you've got quite a few of these in different parts of your story. IT's quite representative of your style: telling, rather than showing. You like to tell the readers what's going on, when in fact it would be a lot more engaging for the readers to "see" what's happening. It's an abstract concept, so I'll give you an example.You say: "As Ayana approached the horror, she thrust her torch forward, infuriating the creature, causing it to writhe in fresh pain as it raked the ground around it with limbs and appendages which sprouted randomly from its unstable body"Well of course fire would cause to writhe in pain; that's what fire does. Instead, you could say: "As Ayana approached the horror, she thrust her torch forward, infuriating the creature. It writhed in fresh pain, raking the ground around it with randomly-sprouting limbs and appendages."You can split that into two sentences, and it's obvious to the reader what the cause was. In addition, it's fairly clear that it's body is getting unstable due to the random limbs, so you don't really need to mention that.In fact, you can do this same thing anytime you use the verb "causing" or "cause". Unless it's really not obvious, you should hold on using it and the readers will figure it out.That about summarizes all my complaints: you've got unnecessarily long sentences, or unnecessary information, or unnecessary description. Lot's of unnecessary stuff.However, don't let this make you think I didn't like your story. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, and you've built a great world out here to play in. The characters are deliciously varied, the magic and mythology is intriguing, and it's just generally very promising. I look forward to reading more of your work!

Just reviewed Christmas Time on Hope IV. I guess I'm 15 late; my apologies.

Hey, it's Zaxvo, from the SSCC! Your short story has been randomly selected for a free review!I liked the scifi adaptation of the classic Santa Claus story, however see the seeds of what could be a brilliant origin story here. It's obvious -- to me at least -- that you've set up the pilot Nick as a symbol of sort, representing, obviously, Saint Nick. However, to me, I feel the story would actually be better served if he was the inspiration of the classic myth. IT could be set up similar to Star Wars -- A long long time ago, there was a man named Nick who presents for all of the children on December 25th.I suppose my main issue with the tale as it's told -- and this is no fault of your work in any way, shape, ro form, it's more of an issue with the genre as a whole -- is the sheer overabundance of a reliance on "Christmas magic", as you put it. There's a sense that everything must turn out right in the end, merely because it's christmas. And, many times, things turn out ok when they have no right to do so when the protagonist has failed, or got outsmarted, or died, or whatever, and then poof! Magic! They have succeeded! And the hostiles, who previously wanted to kill you, are now friends, for pretty much no good reason whatsoever!Here's an example: They run into a small group of hostiles, at close range, and their enemies' aim was off? That's even worse than the stormtroopers :PYou started off not going this way; Nick was late, the Erpetos arrived and attacked for pretty much no reason at all, the space station was damaged, and things were going badly. Then out of the blue Nick returns, with a red spaceship, and he saves the day! Syrena, your protagonist, spends most of her time talking to people or watching others do the anything. At one part she clumsily tackles an Erpeto, but that's about it.Your dialogue, as a whole, is actually very good. There were one or two lines where it felt a bit forced, the easiest way to work that out is to read aloud your dialogue and figure out if it sounds corny or not.The world you've created, and described, is brilliant. It's my favorite part of the story. The Erpetos, with their glass spaceships and sail-style transport, just sound so intriguing. The characters are well written and very diverse.And your grammar was great.Before I go I want to apologize. Looking back over the review, I feel like I've attacked your story a bit too harshly, so please know this: I really did enjoy it, it was a good piece of writing, but I just wanted to point out the inherent issue I have with the christmas story genre. If that's what you were aiming for, well, well done. If not, well, awareness of a problem is the first step. I value a consistent and believable plot over anything else and so this issue irks me to no end.Overall, well done.

And I've reviewed Zombieland Christmas.

Hey, it's Zaxvo from the Short Stories Critics Club! Your short story has been randomly selected for a free review!I want to get out right away: you've done a fantastic job capturing some of the emotions and experiences that would likely be present in a theoretical zombie apocalypse scenario that you present the readers with. It's well structured, the characters are believable, and it just works. I particularly liked the twist with Sheldon being blind. That was well done...but at the same time, I find myself doubting that he could be so precise without his sight. Perhaps it's merely my reliance upon my eyesight, but whatever it is, it was a tad unbelievable to me.My biggest problem with your work here -- and sadly, this tends to be true for many Christmas/holiday stories -- is the ending, which felt overly abrupt and forced. One moment they three of them are panicking, and far apart, the next moment they're all together. You skip one of the most vital moments of the entire story, and it comes off as deus ex machina in place only to preserve the holiday spirit.Overall, it's a pretty good story, but that missing chunk of plot and the general overabundance of zombie tales nowadays aren't helping you stand out.

Reviewed.

Hey, it's Zaxvo here from the SSCC! First of all, Happy New Year!I'll start with the good news. Your last sentence is deliciously full of irony; it's beautiful. I love it.Your writing style is brilliant and your grammar is top notch.As for the bad news...I've got a fairly big problem with your story: it's got no conflict.Is the central conflict to put certavus in the asylum? Well the most obvious main character, Malum, plays a minor role in that and can't even tell us how it happened.Is it to figure out if it really is certavus? Well the reader is no closer to figuring it out at the end.Is it to improve the reputation of the asylum? The narrator describes it as incredibly shabby, and a random wild beast bursts in and steals their food. Not sold yet, sorry, not planning on putting the crazy uncle in the attic there.The point I'm trying to make is that you haven't really written a story, you've written a scene from something larger. Which is completely fine. In fact, it is even a great start to a story, just not a story in and of itself. I just want to clarify, that if you meant to write a story, well, you've got some revisions to make.Another, sort of connected problem, is that you've got a ton of red herrings all over the story. What did Jann and Ackar really talk about? What's the point of telling us that certavus tried to hunt down the zesk but then never mention him again in the chase? Why make them stay for the tour?Overall I really like your writing style, but I honestly don't see any conflict in the story. I can't identify a clear antagonist nor a clear protagonist.

Just reviewed Gold and Silver Remembrances.

Hey, it's Zaxvo from the Short Stories Critics Club! Your short story has been randomly selected for a free review!It's a bit odd, to review this right after ANOTHER SSCC review from last June, but whatever. It's a shame more people didn't review this, because you're not getting the responses that you deserve.As my peer commented above, your grammar and diction is impeccable. You've got a vast vocabulary and you dont hesitate to use it and it really says something about the protagonist, even if you didn't mean it to.Personally, I wish you would have explained a bit more why they separated -- sure, yeah they grew up, but that doesn't mean they necessarily grew apart. I've been a fan of Bionicle since early 2002, and yeah I've grown a lot since then, but I'm still a fan. Whether that makes me dysfunctional or not I'll leave to the proper psychologists (lol just kidding) but the point is that I never really grew apart from the fandom.And on top of that, I really really wish you would have explained a bit more why she left. To be honest, that short scene was the best segment of the story, because it was entirely believable and perfectly written. I can entirely believe that yes, too people who haven't spoken in a five years, then they see each other, would start out with an awkward conversation like that and then reminisce about the good times they had. Perfectly done -- and then it ends. Why? Se needs to go? That's that most terrible and non-explanatory and generic excuse in the history of storytelling. Give your readers bit a more in the way of explanation.Asides from those two plot points, the piece was well-written, exquisitely designed, and pitch perfect. That last line is particularly good -- it's got a note of finality but also a degree of satisfaction while also keeping the story open. Honestly, if all stories had endings like this, no one would complain about cash-grabbing sequels [in moves, books, tv, whatever], because they would all make perfect sense. So well done.

Reading through brickeens' response and your ensuing conversation, I have a fery drastic suggestion.Replace the red rahkshi head with the newer silver bits -- I think they started as shoulder pads on matoro mahri, if you know what I'm talking about.Then the pipes get swapped out for silver ones and the yellow accents become grey.And then, and this up to your discretion, you add in a touch more silver wherever.Obviously this is very drastic and it totally ruins the mostly red look at you were clearly going for, so it's up to you; this is just a humble suggestion from yours truly.As for the studs on the wings, I've got no other suggestion than flat panels. They're a little dull though, I feel like there's a vastly superior and more imaginative solution out there, I just can't think of it right now.Honestly though, this is brilliant. I was working on a similar vehicle earlier and I realized just how difficult it is to maintain a consisten vision through the whole thing, so kudos to you there.

I think the biggest problem with trying to do a team like this is that you run out of parts -- and you touched on this in the comments.Cilira, the blue one, looks fine from the waist down. Her torso is shaped like a T; thin from the waist up and then suddenly spreading out sharply for the shoulders. It doesn't really look that great, and initially I was going to pass on reviewing Cilira merely because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to offer any positive feedback. I looked at the others and then came back to Cilira and noticed that you've got an excellent bottom half of a Toa -- the top half was jsut so off I didn't actually notice it. I've tried using the Nuva armor on the legs, like that, before, but it always looked weird to me, so well done there. That's impressive (at least to me).Also, it feels like you've got to much black/grey and not enough color.Kerev suffers from similar problems to Cilira, but not as drastic. Here, his torso needs some more armor, it feels "raw" to me. And, he could do with a bit more color as well. The balance of color, in general, seems off to me. lots of black on the bototm, lots of grey in the middle, and lots of black on the top, with green interspersed throughout. I feel like the black and grey should be more evenly mixed, with more green throughout.And nice head, by the way. It certainly looks like the mask of a ninja.Asgage is wonderful. I especially like what you've done with the sword, it looks amazing. And although he hasn't got much color too him, it's in all the right places so I look at the armor and think, nope, he's colore,d the armor is just covering it up. In other words, the lack of color works fine here.Madar looks great as well, although here I think there are too many colors. Count them, you've got black, grey, orange, gunmetal, and trans orange. As a general rule of thumb, 3 is a good minimum, maybe 4 if you have too. 5 is almost always too much. I like the use of the rahkshi head in the torso, it looks wonderful. Actually, all of the torso is great; it's compact, flows well, and it works.Lastly, Ormont. He's my favorite one of the bunch, followed closely by Agage. No issues with color here, the al black approach looks marvelous. The shoulder cannon looks great and it just clicks together. Purely from a moc perspective, I wish he had two eyes...it would look a lot cleaner that way. I'm not going to fault you for it, however, because I can tell you've got solid stories around all of these so it's obvious you've got an artistic reason there.Overall, well done. The Ormont, Asgage and Madar are excellent, and then Kerev and Cilira are decent.One thing though: don't always feel like you absolutely have to go custom for the limbs or torsos. Custom is only impressive if you manage to make it look good, as in the case of Ormont, Asgage, and Madar.

Thanks Zarayna. Reviewed Darkness. sorry, I'm a tiny bit late on this one.

Hi, it's Zaxvo from the SSCC! Sorry, I'm a tad late with this. Well, first, I really enjoyed this. The mystery and suspense is well-written, and I was never really sure what was going to happen. Well done. One of the things about the plot that I didn't like was that, yes, I know you're going for a "fear of the unknown" concept, but at the same time, you can't hide any big details like that...I never really understood whether or not the killer came into the office from outside to retrieve the stone, or if the killer came FROM the stone itself. In terms of grammar, it's a general convention that when someone is speaking, the comma goes inside the the quotation marks, like so: Other than that your grammar was good. Overall, a good, intriguing story, well-written characters. I liked it. There's the issue with the quotations, but that's small, and then just the ending was a bit unclear, but in general, a great work of writing. By the way...was the stone meant to be the Makuta stone from the island Mata Nui? Or something else?