Jumping on the Criticisms Bandwagon

In re-playing HR and RS I was beginning to regret some of the things I’d said about Zach and his writing, the scenes with JK are just… amazing, there’s simply no other way to describe it, when he writes personal scenes, character interactions, that sorta stuff he is an excellent writer. But his world building and his narrative editorials, at best are inconsistent and at worst are hamfisted and preachy (also what on earth does he think a drag queen is?)

It makes me mad honestly, because there’s so much potential for a truly astounding story

The same thing happened with Prodigal in HR3:

To me (as always, YMMV) the one scene that worked with PG in HR3 was a tiny little thing when you’re at the laboratory, and Constance just ordered that they kill Miss Artillery. When PG nearly panics and tells the MC ‘we have to find my mom and get out of here, posthaste!’ THAT was the one moment where it did feel as if the whole deal is actually affecting here, that it means something to her. All the other instances, where Sergi was pretty much shouting at the reader how bad PG feels etc didn’t manage that, because he told it instead of showing it. There he did show it. (only to ruin it with the scenes that followed.)
Similar with Kelly, I found a lot of it to be pure misery/inspiration porn, something that is just ableist, but I do agree that before being ‘cured’ (again, ableist if you look at it) there were more hits than misses than in other scenes.

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Ehh I’m not really talking about her illness, just the scenes where you’re being siblings are very nice and touching

Although I’m fully willing to concede this might be because my sister had a similar experience with brain cancer, so this hits a few personal twangs. Which also makes me quite angry, I’ve gone through much of what the MC has, at least in regards to caring for a sick sibling, and it didn’t make me bitter, it doesn’t make me want to try and change the world

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It’s what I meant:

The scenes were they are siblings and thus a bit more fleshed out, those work. But the moment thy are reduced back down to being fully defined by kelly using a wheelchair… this btw was something… In RS you are in a wheelchair at one point, and the narrative briefly notes how it makes you feel. Yet you don’t give up. Then OS comes with an entire chapter basically focusing how miserable and helpless you feel using a wheelchair, to the point that you won’t even object to your sister kidnapping you into a terrorist cult. (seriously, that is what it read like to me… you don’t not fight back because you are shocked about the reveal, but because you feel helpless in your wheelchair etc… wth

I am not looking forward to this terrorist part at all, it sounds absolutely awful and tone-deaf

especially considering that ani-powered are an allegory for actual groups of people

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Yeah. Worse yet, to me, is to underlying ableism. Cause the voiceless can easily be read as being a stand-in for various disabilities, PTSD, etc. Yet they are definitely the bad guys… unless of course the get cured and become beneficial to the MC

That irked me about the ending to RS, the voiceless are damaged, but they’re also mass murderers who kill ani-powered for being ani-powered, yet we’re supposed to be sympathetic to them almost, like no matter how disembodied or whatever they are, that doesn’t excuse murder

Agreed. But then OS came around and now you have to work with Culic and the narrative even acknowledges what a horribly bad not good idea letting him reach his goals is… yet it pushes you to agree with him and stuff. as talked about far further up. Why?

OS sounds like it needs a content patch that adds a path that lets you not be a terrorist, or at least adds motivation to work with them, like a reveal that they’re not actually terrorists and that’s just media and government manipulation and shapeshifters or something

I think I threw in my musings about how it could have went somewhere faaaar up. And I stand with that idea. I think it could have worked.

Ughhhh there’s just so much potential, but for some god-forsaken reason Zach won’t listen to criticism and doesn’t seem to understand not all his readers are sycophants or radical terrorists

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I can, again, only go from by my own experience as a writer, but I have acted and reacted like him in the past. (i still occasionally do that, but I’m working on it) It’s a state that is hard to grow out of. It’s easy to listen to praise and it makes one feel good, hands down.
But it’s hindering.

I hope he’ll grow.

I think his issue is that he has a headcanon and he doesn’t like to entertain ideas that are different to it

Likely. It’s been like that with me and quite a number of writers I know, so it might be similar/the same here.

Offtopic, but have you published a CoG or Hosted Game before? Or if not which one are you working on?

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psst

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I’m working on a massive update for that atm (see a recent post on that in the thread)

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Why’d the other thread get closed?

too many community flags. the platform does that automatically to give the mods time to look at it and clean up if necessary

Community flags? As in someone was flagging comments for… something?