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Posted (edited)

Tetsuro started at the noise.

He wasn't the only one. Their entire group had jumped and drew in towards each other as a chill ran through them.

"That wasn't an animal," Mizuki said, the quaver in her voice barely hidden. Sho stood before her, his focus fully on the jungle.

Tetsuro agreed, but couldn't bring himself to voice his agreement as he looked around, human eyes scanning the dense vegetation around them. There had been something inhuman in the noise that had reverberated across their senses and it didn't help that they'd been jittery since they'd gotten here about a week ago. They were hunting the past, and that meant going to the ancient places of the world, looking for evidence, looking for history. But the jungle was not a friendly place, not when you were used to cars and traffic and buildings and people. The noises were different. The presence was different and the entire feel was wrong.

The guides were adding to their edginess. Something was spooking the natives and it wasn't the jungle because they treated the plants and animals almost with a respectful affection. It was something else but language was proving to be a problem there. It wasn't enough to hinder their search for the past but the language barrier was great enough that they couldn't understand what the local guides were afraid of, only that they were afraid and that showed even now as they were huddled on the ground, hands out, almost on display, as if they were seeking to prove that they were unarmed, that they were harmless. About all that had been clear, was that their guides insisted that they not be armed and they'd been ostentatious in leaving behind their machetes back at their village. Something about the heat, and the hunter...

Agito rolled his eyes at the nervous tension he could feel. "I'll go," he said curtly before stalking off. As soon as he was out of sight he would bioboost and go exploring and find what had screamed. For him, it would be a nice diversion from the tedium of excavation.

With Agito gone the group tried to calm down. Tetsuro turned back to the stone they were excavating in their search for answers. They knew the recent history of Chronos, what they were looking for was the evidence of its existence in the past and for evidence of Alkanphel and from that evidence, hopefully information about his abilities. There was evidence. Chronos hadn't always been as secretive as they were now and in primitive societies the abilities of Alkanphel and Chronos were probably looked upon as godlike. For example, the stone they had just uncovered showed a type of Zoanoid they'd never seen before. It had spindly limbs and what looked to be four bones protruding from its back as well as a very long tail that was surmounted by a sharp looking blade. It looked almost human but had a vastly elongated head and the representation showed teeth, very sharp teeth. The artisan who had carved this relief had paid particular attention to the set of the mouth and the way the teeth could protrude. It was obviously a Zoanoid, but of a type that they had not seen.

Tetsuro passed a sweaty cloth over his forehead, before he re-tied it as best he could around his neck, seeking what small comfort there was through evaporation. It was so hot! He'd thought Tokyo was hot but it had nothing on the oppressive heat and humidity of this jungle. They were all soaked in perspiration that did little to cool them since the jungle itself was so wet. It helped though when the infrequent breeze found them but apart from that there was little relief from the heat and they all laboured under its oppression, panting with both altitude and the temperature.

The Zoanoid was interesting but it was not Alkanphel, though the presence of a Zoanoid carving was an indication that they may find something about the Supreme Zoalord in these ruins.

They just had to find it.

-----

Was asked to post this for some comments - not mine, though I do hope the author will finish though thoughts are appreciated.

Edited by Oberon
  • 1 month later...
Posted

Read over it a while back but couldn't think of what to suggest, then read it again. There are few things to do with cleaning up grammar and use of punctuation, as well redundancies. It's a pretty interesting snippet...

Would you prefer me to do a rewrite of the piece or just highlight examples of what my suggestions entail?

Posted

Read the entire thing. That's posted anyway. Cyblade was meant to have cleaned up the grammar and spelling errors... but oh well I guess one person can't get everything :D

Posted (edited)

Read the fic - it's an interesting premise.

Aside from some grammar-related edits, my suggestions for the sample paragraph still hold - mainly regarding:

Tetsuro agreed, but couldn't bring himself to voice his agreement as he looked around, human eyes scanning the dense vegetation around them. - I think the line just being Tetsuro couldn't bring himself to voice his agreement, as he looked around - human eyes scanning the dense vegetation around them. may have been enough?

The use of "gotten" doesn't really suit writing outside of speech, so "arrived" would have been better.

There's a few more, but my main concern was the huge run-on sentence disguised as a paragraph. You need to break it up because there are too many comma's. I know published author's break this rule - I did too - but a paragraph isn't a long sentence.

Primeval is a time period and so refers to anything that has been around since the "dawn of time" or as far back as applicable, so it doesn't really lend itself to the anger Hk'Tak is experiencing...that would be more "Primitive/Primal"

It was not until he was reaching some of the more useless frequencies for this planet that he detected something. There was a smudge and it was overlaid over the area his kills had fallen. - "Overlaid" and "Over" right next to each other, when they mean the same thing...I would have written it as: It was not until he was reaching some of the more useless frequencies for this planet that he detected something - there were smudges overlaying the area where his kills had fallen.

Nonplussed, interestingly, doesn't mean what you assume it to be. I fell for the trap too, since it does sound like you're not bothered by whatever's happening - it actually means you're confused by something. I know it's being used increasingly in the US to mean the same as Nonchalant, so I guess it's down to your choice.

Bespoke is another word that doesn't mean what one may think. It actually means "Made to someone's order" as in "Bespoke Software".

A question regarding the Ancient Zoanoids - I'm bringing this up, mainly because I'm tackling the idea myself with my own Guyver fic in the works. How far back is the author referring to when saying "Ancient Zoanoids"? Fair enough, Cronos couldn't create Zoanoids like in the relief - they've been around for a few centuries/millenia...but who knows what the Creator's could have come out with...

A bit later on, Hk'Tak is mentioned to have forgotten that the Guyvers could fly...I don't remember reading that they had displayed that ability earlier.

When writing, the author needs to be careful not to write as they would speak, so while one may say "Should of" you're really saying, and thus should write, "Should have" or "Should've" - the latter example to be used in speech only, while the former is to be used in formal speech or as standard.

There were other points where there were redundancies in the writing - needless repetition of words (well, more than is necessary) to drive home a point/emphasise the seriousness of a situation. It needs a bit of work on the editing, otherwise it's good. However, this is something I've been suggesting to Steel on his WIP - if you have long bits of speech, or frequent uses of full-stops in them, you may consider breaking the speech up by throwing in some actions (to quote myself):

..."breaking up speech"...it's the full-stops you use in the middle of them. They throw me off and make me wonder if, perhaps, they're doing something at that point. I understand that your use of the "full-stop" serves to break up the sentence; either to provide a breather in an otherwise lengthy sentence, but also to help the reader understand the way something is said - the flow of it - like in natural speech. If you don't intend to break up speech with actions, then you can always use comma's; semi-colons or hyphens to help change/highlight stress and emphasis. The rules for their use in speech are the same as when in writing/reading - you may have noticed the way I use them when writing my posts...

I hope this has been of some help? Sorry if I'm sounding a bit brash or abrupt - I honestly don't mean to.

EDIT

Forgot to highlight that the author needs to maintain consistency, i.e. they switch between "ooman" and "Ooman" - I would stick with the latter, since he's referring to them as a species...

Edited by ErutanXiku
  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Your silence on the matter is making me nervous...:sad: You don't have to reply, but I was just wondering if you had any comments on this :/

Would it have been better if I put this on the author's FanFiction.net? I don't know why I didn't, strangely, it never occurred to me. I was in the mindset that you had asked for the feedback so I should report back to you...however, you did say that this wasn't your story...

Posted

My silence was due to the fact that I didn't visit here for a while and then when I do the 'view new posts' doesn't always work how it should.

I'll pass it on to the author.

Posted

Wow...that is weird o.O I've had that happen to me a few times too, but thought it was because I clicked the wrong part of the link or something :/

If the author happens to have any questions or comments, I'd be happy to help further - feel free to put them in contact with me or something. They can PM me on FF.net, if they like :)

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