First person to make a Team Fortress 2 joke loses.
I wanted more than three scenes, but the next one’s going to take some time to get just right, and I don’t have time tonight. I am very Game Distract’d. All the more reason to wrap the series up this month, as by the end of the month, I’ll have TWO MMORPGs to play, two sandbox games, and one more MMORPG next year. I have a vacation from writing well due to me, but first, I want to wrap things with anachronauts.
After that… I don’t want to leak too much, but right now, my ideas are leaning towards a slight return to darker form. Sadly, “Familiar Haunts” was already taken as a book title on Amazon, and although I could legally use it, I don’t wanna.
Oh, and sf05 scenes. The start of two the major threads leading up to the finale — How London Will Fight Back, and How Atlanta Will Fight Back. Hope you wanted more Astro Gal.
Ranneko says
Yeah, this year seems to have been a bumper crop of great games. I have deliberately held back on getting some because to make presents easier and also because Skyrim has taken at least an order of magnitude more time from me than I had expected.
Poor Carrie, she really has not held up that well. =(
Jen, Psycho Happy artist says
Skyrim sounds like huge fun and also a huge timesink according to everybody I know who’s playing it. Wow.
I’m sympathetic for Carrie, but personally I think Carrie’s holding up pretty well considering her adoptive parents are MIA and her just-rekindled boyfriend got murdered… plus her entire city is in danger of annihilation…
I mean, I’m impressed that she’s not catatonically building straw people again to replace everyone who’s missing.
Lirazel says
You don’t want to “leak” too much. I seeeeee.
Generally speaking, I’m liking this. Poor Bennie, having to drink bad whisky for the Cause…
Andrew Sacchetti says
The countdown at the beginning of the scenes is a bit scary.
I like seeing Benny at work, manipulating people and events. Always entertaining.
“Occupy Atlanta”…Cute.
I really like the return of O’Dare, and all of the Astro Gal stuff in general. Good character.
Could probably make a good comic herself.
“It’s my pee,” Carrie declared, with pride.”-Just like my two year old
They’re all going to die, Carrie’s gloomier whispers told her. More people I love, dying for me… -Harry Potter moment?
‘ll be Carrie Lane and I’ll punch the heck out of a giant flying saucer city while you’re covered in pee. – That is a great description of the plan. The plan, by the way, sounds clever and fun.
I like the tension that’s been in the recent scenes, setting the stage and players for the coming battle.
Planning for the delivery of the weapon, the massive coordinating, reminds me of the OLD V miniseries. I like the feel of resistance vs invaders here, but yours is much less cheesy, of course.
LoopyChew says
I feel ya. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations hasn’t even been opened yet since I got it after I received Skyrim. Thankfully I can proofread/copyedit away from my home with the Kindle/laptop combo, or else it’d NEVER get done.
And then Mass Effect next year, and I haven’t even stopped to think about Uncharted 3 or Arkham City THIS year..
Anyway, things to tweak:
He was secretly working for the people, while working with the Ascendancy to better oppressive them. He was an angel, but was once a devil.
1. “…to better oppress them.”
2. I feel like the latter sentence needs tweaking. The good/bad dichotomy doesn’t quite work on that one for some reason. Maybe add an “also” in there?
No pillars of salt, no raizing the silver cities of sin.
“razing”
The Ascendancy no dobut studied it extensively before delivering it
“doubt”
once I locate a wine chalace owned by Henry VIII
“chalice”
I’ve had a ridiculously long day tracking down rebel scum and rabble rousers through my network–
Hyphenate this.
despite being lower ranked
Hyphenate this.
a brick wall and some machine guns were not going to do jack against what was coming.
I’d use “wouldn’t” or at least “weren’t” instead of “were not” (seeing as “doing jack” is a colloquialism, it seems more appropriate to use a contraction) although “doing jack” is one of those phrases which I have problems with in general, because I always wonder if it’s considered a negative or not, and as such, would it be considered a double negative, yada yada yada. Anyway, that’s personal interjection, not definitive grammar.
when Carrie cleaned it out awhile ago with Barbara O’Dare
“a while”
She had weakened key parts of the building with a few well placed punches to do just that
Hyphenate.
Also, that’s coming back to bite someone in the ass if I’ve ever seen foreshadowing. Whether it’s the Ascendancy taking out the O’Daredevils as an ambush tactic or vice-versa, I’m not sure, but I can’t see this not coming back one way or another.
Would this be a good time to tell you I have a wick for an Astro Gal theme?
they had a tactician in their employ who had a hobby coming up with battle plans against imaginary enemies
Woo! Reinholds represent!
‘Freedom Wall’ President Waller?
He used to be called “The Wall.” I don’t know if people are tacking on “Freedom” out of sarcasm, or if it’s an inconsistency, but I figured I’d point that out.
The O’Dare’s have a long history in the military and law enforcement
No need for that second apostrophe. “O’Dares” is the proper plural.
since Officer Jenkins fell during a failed raid
But at least he got chicken, right? RIGHT?
A tiny amount of hope died in the room, much to Carrie’s obliviousness.
This cracked me up.
It’s sheer elegance in its simplicity!
As does any reference to The Middleman.
It’s not a terrible ideplan
Is that like a complisult or an explanabrag?
isn’t it better to fight alone? Even if you can’t win, at least then you’re the only one to die…
Eventually she’ll understand what Scout finally started picking up in the First Age: Self-sacrifice means the people you love are in greater danger, particularly in this situation.
“I… have no idea what my superhero name would be. ‘Eagles Dare’? ‘Who Dares Wins’? I’m not much of a punster–“
No, Barbara, you don’t come up with a superhero name based on your ACTUAL name.
I made a decision awhile ago about that
Looking forward to seeing more from everywhere!
Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne says
Good catches, all.
Ugh, It totally forgot about Arkham City. I JUST saved Mr. Freeze, so I’m not even that far into the game. And Mass Effect 3… jeez. I definitely need a LONG hiatus from writing after this, even if it’s going to hurt my readership and drop me from six readers to four.
LoopyChew says
I haven’t even put in an order for Arkham City or Uncharted 3, and I don’t see it happening anytime soon. :-|
And readership is probably only a problem with a saga like this because it is a saga. Once you start anew, you can get a fresh fanbase!
kamalloy says
I’m still here! I just slacked off on commenting once you moved from LJ to the new blog. ^^;
Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne says
I was worried that’d happen, but I really had to modernize and avoid the many DDOSes and outages LJ was getting. Hopefully the next writing project will be a “ground floor” affair and will get more readers who aren’t tied completely to livejournal.
HP says
I’m still reading too ! I just have nothing to say (except that I enjoy reading it very much)
Jen, Psycho Happy artist says
“for example” could use a colon:, unless it’s gone for artsy reasons.
“Across the seas” — multiple seas? Where are they, then?
“the only pure and immortal celestial” — so Chloe’s recognition of her angelic nature has left her still basically human, then. I haven’t heard a halo mentioned for her. And I’m surprised his halo is golden instead of steam-white.
Good scene-setting buildup before Carrie returns to HQ.
“tactician in their employ” — I think I remember this guy. From a bonus story, right? Nice ref. and it makes sense that they would save and commit to his plans considering that post-Pandora, clearly anything could happen. All bets of what’s realistic were off. … Hey, what are the chances that Hel contacted this guy / fed him info unknowingly? Hmm.
Yay big reveal in lead-lined box. XD
“dollar value menu string cheese!” — snrrkt!!
“train a ton of birds” — now now, nobody said train….
“I want to make sure Carrie’s okay.” — what could she possibly be worried about based on that last convo that would be detectable through urine? Seems odd to me. He definitely should test to make sure they wouldn’t get radiation burns or pH acid/base burns or whatnot.
Typo brigade: “better oppressive them”, dobut, chalace, “up of coffee”, sceme, ideplan
kamalloy says
Pregnancy test, maybe? It’s not an entirely unreasonable assumption on O’Dare’s part if she knew Carrie had been spending time with Ivan.
Jen Gagne, Psycho Happy artist says
I guess so. With Carrie’s parents out of the picture she might be wondering about that even though it wasn’t her business back when Carrie was dating Ivan before.
I dunno, it just seems odd to me. (Stefan, I know why you’re doing it, but maybe your original plan of having the medical tech just independently decide to run the full gamut of tests was the better approach.)