Seracen wrote...
Oooh...I like that (the bitter and silent walk bit). I agree with you about resolving it for the most part in that scene, however, as the crew has far too much to worry about anyways.
Don't feel like destroying the friendship really, as I want to keep that intact. I just felt like the Virmire Survivors never tasted enough humble pie for backstabbing Shepard, so I figured I'd have them do it again and get burned for it!
Yeah, I'm a vindictive a-hole....
PS: it's funny scrolling through the logs, I keep thinking your posts are mine, and vice versa. Well, that's the consensus of fellow Geth for you! 
I'm with you on the Virmire Survivor. As much as I love ME2 (it's my favorite of the series), that scene on Horizon was frustrating because there was no option to reason with the VS--to say, "Hold on a minute. I was just going along with this until I can find a way out, but now look what's happening with the Collectors. Cerberus provided an opportunity to stop this, nothing more."
Also a minor disappointment was the lack of an option to call the VS an **** when he/she walked away at the end.
But anyway, yeah, the VS
does need another heapin' helping of humble pie.
hot_heart wrote...
Is EDI able to function/communicate simultaneously as the ship and the robot? Not that I want her to speak from two separate platforms at the same time (agh, headache), but whether she can be the voice of the ship while the body is off-ship. I'm leaning towards yes, to the best of my memory.
I'm late getting to this, but I think it wouldn't be a problem for her. The robot body is just a mobile platform that she's remote-piloting, if I'm not mistaken.
What would be amusing is if EDI and the robot are talking to two different people in close proximity to each other at the same time. Like, maybe Joker is having lunch in the mess hall and EDI-bot is sitting at the table, talking with him, and at the same time EDI is answering another crew member's question through a speaker on the wall....
Now that I could think about it, EDI could probably communicated quite easily with many crew members in separate rooms at the exact same time....
enayasoul wrote...
ftkerns wrote...
I tend to show characters in a relationship by showing their behavior around each other, how they talk to each other, etc. The above scene is about as close as I ever get to showing the characters having sex. The romance in their relationship is more about how they show affection for each other, how one worries when the other is in danger, showing them holding hands or walking on a beach together, or cuddling on the couch while watching a movie. When readers see stuff like that, they can infer the more intimate details of their relationship themselves.
Just my personal take on the subject. [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/smile.png[/smilie]
I wanted to emphasis the above as a great way to show characters in a relationship! It really should be more of this kind of stuff than having lots of sex scenes. Something to think about. [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/joyful.png[/smilie]
:happy: I can certainly understand why some want to see more of the sex itself, and it certainly has its place...but for me, their emotions for each other are what make it a worthwhile part of the story.
And on the subject of romance and sex in general...
As several others have said, sex shouldn't be the end-all and be-all of a relationship. There would naturally be some reasons for it to be somewhat important to the story in the Mass Effect setting because of aliens and interspecies relationships. At least, I can see various characters remarking on it. As I mentioned previously, human and a krogan becoming lovers would (as far as I can tell, at least) be unusual enough to merit a significant presence in the story, even if it's only a few characters talking about it. Like maybe someone talking to the human partner and saying, "What was it like? Come on, I'm curious! Mainly I'm wondering how you didn't end up in the hospital."
Heh. Some of my characters do talk about sex in rather frank terms, though. :innocent:
But like I said before, for my stories, I'm more interested in their emotions and how they interact in ways other than doin' it. I only went as far as having them figure out how to kiss...and I suppose showing them figuring out how to have sex might be worth exploring, though I doubt I'll go there. Though now that I think about it, if one were going for a humorous take on the subject, there could be a lot of "Ow! Ow! You're crushing my pelvis!" kind of stuff in the scene.
Anyhoo, the be-all, end-all thing. I've seen that come up a few times in readers' comments on my writing, though interestingly, I don't recall it ever being mentioned in comments on my ME fic. It's usually on the Transformers Prime ones I've written, for whatever reason. One of the things that made the idea of a Jack/Arcee relationship interesting was the fact that she doesn't have the right "parts" for them to take the relationship past a little (admittedly awkward) kissing and holding hands and very,
very careful hugging/cuddling. And the occasional long afternoon spent giving her a wash/wax/polish up on the helipad. One comment I got a few times was that Arcee needs to get certain "upgrades" or become human so they can have sex and thereby have a "real relationship."
Yes, someone used those exact words...as if a relationship isn't "real" unless the people involved are humping it out.
For me at least, the sex--if it ever happens--should happen because these people are in love. It's a result of the relationship, not the
reason the relationship exists. And even though things in this particular story have reached the point where sex is an option for them...long story short, she was severely damaged and started using a Pretender body as a mobile platform to stay in the fight until she's repaired, and because Pretenders were designed to mimic organic bodies in every way...well, you can see where that's going. But even though it's an option, they still haven't taken that step and likely won't for a long time. For one thing, they've agreed to wait
at least until he's eighteen, if not even longer.
And even if it happens eventually, I won't be writing any "lemon" scenes for the story. It's probably worth spending some prose time on the awkwardness of hugging or kissing someone who's sixteen feet tall and made of metal...showing them in the process of figuring it out...and while it'd be the same with a full-on sex scene, I'm probably never going there. (Another thing I'm not doing--turning Arcee into a human, or Jack into an Autobot. Stories that do that sort of thing always irritate me. Kind of misses the whole point of their being in a relationship in the first place. Therefore, the Pretender body is an exact duplicate of her own, just human size.)
Anyway, back on topic.
One last note on this whole thing that I'd like to mention here:
dpMeggers wrote...
Agree: Sex is definitely not the be all and end all in a relationship. Real people in a relationship do relationshippy things. How they speak to each other, how they act around each other, how they treat each other, hell even how they fight (especially how they fight) are all very important in showing the reader what kind of a relationship this is. And most relationships don't start with sex.
No wait. No relationship starts with sex. Even with a one night stand they have to meet first. Unless they're at an orgy maybe and they just sort of ... anyway this is a silly digression. Back to the point, no relationship starts with sex.
Absolutely. That's pretty much how I see it. Though I realize there's
one kinda-sorta exception in my ME fic. Without going into
too much background stuff, there's a couple (one a human male, the other a turian female) who got involved in the plot a few chapters ago. The turian (Valeria) was once a Spectre, but got fed up with certain things her fellow Spectres got up to, and didn't like the kind of person the job turned her into. She walked away from it, drifted for a while, and was approached by a
Fornax rep. She needed a steady income and figured, what the hell, it's worth a try. She ended up doing a scene with a random human (Irving), and they sort of "clicked." Started hanging out together outside of work, and gradually fell in love and got married.
But even so, they still had to meet first. Even if they jumped right into bed, it couldn't happen without someone at least introducing them first. And the sex was probably a lot better after they realized they loved each other.
I'm going on the idea that their vids and photo shoots became popular because of the emotional bond that developed--a certain passion that most of the other pairs/threesomes/whatever simply didn't have....
Seracen wrote...
So, my QOTD 1: how would you approach keeping all the characters straight for the audience?[/b]
There's always the staggered back and forth approach between chapters. There's doing straight storyline chapters, then moving to concurrent storyline chapters.
Hell, I may do an author's note, or a scene where Shep/Garrus reviews the crew list.
Most of the characters in mine are OCs, so...I'm not sure if that makes it easier or harder. I started off introducing them slowly, so hopefully that helped. In the first chapter, first scene, Lia'Vael had become so desperate to get away from the Citadel and continue her Pilgrimage that she hitched a ride to Illium and sold herself into indentured servitude. The next character introduced was Chula, who'd come to pick her up after her contract was bought. So, first it was the two of them getting to know each other...then Chula revealed that the ones who bought Lia were...a pair of geth platforms.
One of the platforms appears next (named Weyland, by one of the crew members).
Later, Quint and Dakka are introduced, and a bit later, the other geth (Yutani
). Then there's a brief period where Lia adjusts to her new situation, then one more crew member is introduced (human woman named Magnum). Then there's only a few minor characters who show up for a scene or two. And that's kind of how it progresses as more characters are introduced.
I have to admit, it seems I can't stop bringing new characters into the story. I come up with an idea that I think might be interesting, and just toss it in. Most recently, it was the characters of Valeria and Irving, and a subplot involving a hit-and-run performed by Elias Kelham on a turian (yep, one of the videos in the Shadow Broker DLC), and Irving's grandmother, a retired general who fought in the First Contact war, who witnessed it.
And before that, the crew met a new client, who needed them to transport some artifacts his husband found on Bekenstein, and ended up having to rescue him from a Cerberus squad....
Yeah, now that I've typed all that out, I realize it's more complicated than I thought it was.
Anyway...one thing I'm doing is trying to make them all very distinct, visually. While Lia looks pretty much as she did in ME2, Chula is very much an...unconventional quarian. Over her protective suit she wears a black duster, boots modified to fit her legs, and an outback hat, and carries a rather horrifying number of weapons concealed in her clothing.
(Completely badass picture here, for anyone who's curious:
http://fav.me/d55rrxn )
Dakka doesn't have any distinctive features aside from being fairly young, but I figure simply being a female krogan sets her apart nicely.
Magnum is automatically visually distinctive just because she's a bit of a BBW. In the Mass Effect games, everyone has the same body type, so I thought it'd be interesting to have a character who's got some extra weight on her. I'm having a bit of fun with the idea that a
lot of people are attracted to her because she doesn't look like everyone else. Also, she's the only biotic on the crew.
Anyway, those are just a few things off the top of my head on how I'm trying to keep all the characters straight....
Seracen wrote...
QOTD 2: Do you find it easier to kill off or manipulate characters that are OC, vs BW created characters?[/u]
I for one find it so, as I have no problem killing off those darlings; yet I am loath to murder any of the Normandy Crew we've known for the past 5 years.
On the other hand, I find it just as easy to write for either type.
I admit, I'd have a problem killing off characters whether they're BW's or mine. Part of it is because I get attached to them and would be horribly depressed if any of them died. And with my OCs, after putting so much time and thought into them, it'd be really difficult to kill any of them off. However, every now and then the story might develop in a way that one of them simply
has to go. Not just to show that war is dangerous, or to kill a character for the sake of killing one of them, or anything like that. But if the plot ever reaches a point where a character couldn't possibly survive what's currently happening...or if it's simply
right for the story to continue...then it has to be done.
And once my Freelancers characters have to start fighting the Reapers...well, I'll have to deal with that when it's time.
On the other hand, there's at least one BW character I'll have no problem killing off. Kai Leng.
I thought about having him stick around for a while and being a pain in the ass for the crew...but that would just make him look like a legitimate threat. Nope, he's got, like, three scenes in the current chapter-in-progress, then he gets removed from the gene pool.
hot_heart wrote...
Oh dear. While it's nice to hear people having a reaction to your story, I feel bad that this one has started giving certain readers a sick feeling. Might help if I clarify that I am not choosing any one ending from the game, but I don't want to reveal too much as to what I have planned.
I'm going to propose my own question-of-the-small-allocated-slot-of-the-morning-of-this-day: What is the 'strongest' reaction a reader has ever had to one of your stories? No holding back!
I've never had any hate mail...and I have to admit I was kind of taken aback by some of the intense reactions described here.
I've had a couple of rude comments, but nothing approaching the "I HATE YOU!" level. Most of the comments I get are along the lines of, "This is really good, I'm really enjoying this." Which is always nice.
And most of the criticisms have been constructive and helpful, and I've been able to use them to improve my writing, both with fanfiction and my original work.
Some comments that were more specific, and which I got a particular kick out of:
"hey this looks interesting...Geth doing gender studies, a female Krogan hitting on a human, and a Quarian with clothing tastes from earth's old west...and the names of the Geth... yes, yes, YES!...very interesting"
"I had a O.O moment when the Geth Platform Yutani showed up... I just froze and reread the scene a few times before busting out laughing! It's kind of hard imagining a 'female' Geth Platform, and for some reason an image of a Geth with breasts just popped into my head."
"Screw Quint, I'd have sex with Dakka. I'd have a lot of sex with Dakka, like boat loads of sex with Dakka. She's my favorite character yet."
"Really enjoying the story so far. Especially the little relationship between the male human and the female krogan. Now if only there was a story with a male human/female turian relationship."
(
)
"Such a cruel cliff-hanger."
(
)
"Firefly in ME with a most entertaining crew. Quint and Dakka are just so cute as well."
That last one I find interesting because I've only seen two or three episodes of Firefly and just couldn't get into it. Also, I'm surprised at the number of people who are enjoying the Quint/Dakka pairing....
One more...
"Aw s***, that's not good. And how do you always manage to end chapters in ways that make me NEED the next one? Your writing is like crack, or indoctrination or something."
Heh. Anyway, that's about as "strong" as comments on my stuff usually gets. But I'm always happy to get through the day without seeing any hate mail or anything like that. There's enough hostility in real life, particularly at the job I used to have. Yikes.
I dunno, maybe it's just because I'm making an effort to write a
fun story, so there hasn't been a really intense reaction either positive or negative. I'm not trying to write the most profound thing ever, or anything like that. Just aiming for a fun adventure, for the most part. It'll get darker once the Reapers invade, but it'll never lose its sense of humor, and there'll always be a ray of hope.
dpMeggers wrote...
And now a request for assistance. That kissing advice I asked for a few pages back, I've finished the scene and I'd like a fresh set of eyes (or many, I'm not picky).
The context: two marines, both OCs, serving in the same platoon, illicit relationship, on a base, sneaking a little time for themselves. There's a bit of flirting before it happens and a bit of discussion about the relationship after.
The goal: get the above info across without sounding stilted, like it was written by a 12 year old or like it belongs in a cheesy romance novel.
Closing the distance between them, she flung her arms around his neck
and met his lips with her own. It was a breathless, desperate, clinging kiss. For
a few heartbeats R.J. closed his eyes, and let himself drown in the feeling of
her, his arms around her waist and back, pulling her closer, the scent of her
surrounding him, mint and antiseptic, the way her tongue ran tentatively over
his bottom lip sending prickles up his spine. Just a few heartbeats was all he
allowed himself before he broke off, resting his forehead on hers. It wasn’t
enough. It never was, but that was the price to be paid when your relationship
consisted of sneaking around after hours so that you didn’t end your career on
a charge.
Looks pretty good as-is. If you're looking to flesh it out a little, you might try to go into RJ's thoughts a bit more. Rather than saying, "It wasn't enough," etc.--maybe have RJ look into her eyes and think,
It's not enough. We need more than this.Then continue with the narration, "But that was the price to be paid..." etc. Maybe follow it up with another of RJ's thoughts about being stuck with this situation, about having to sneak around, holding himself back and reluctantly deciding,
We've taken too long already. We have to go. Damn it. Something like that.
And speaking of taking too long, I really didn't plan on this post being so long.
Onward...
Retour en haut
A person flipflopping. Food choices. (was intentional to bring humor but changed it... not so humorous and the implictions of Ori's parents not liking them. They are classy and rich so it was better that I changed it...) It's funny when I heard... "She wouldn't say that." haha. How does my sister know what Orianna would say? My sister doesn't know this person. (I barely know this person from the game... haha) My sister did explain and I agreed and changed it. She's(Orianna) not flip/flopping. I had Miranda stick to what the title represents. No second chances of her father ever changing the way he is. 
