indri | Concritathon

indri

Text pinched from

peasant_ and

deadsoul820.

This is my post for

peasant_'s Concritathon. Anyone who wants to give me public concrit for Descent is very welcome to do so here. Anyone who would rather send the concrit privately, my address is archaeoindri@yahoo.com.

According to the rules of the concritathon:

Concrit is Constructive Criticism. This means that it must point out at least one, preferably more, flaws in the story as well as at least one, preferably more, good points in the story. It must also be written so as to inform the author of your opinion without hurting their feelings.

Ta.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

girlguidejones.livejournal.com

Regarding various action sequences

Enjoyed the first fight scene with the vamps and the "elder". Very clear and easily pictured; especially the scene with the train. I could almost picture it as part of an actual episode, with neat-O choreography as Spike thinks on his feet and tricks the pursuers into the vaporizing sunlight.

General plot commentary

The German woman that Spike meets at the bar...either she is superfluous, or I totally missed what her significance was. To me, she seemed jammed in there with no real reason behind her existence. The story could have proceeded just as well with Spike finding his own place to stay, especially given how she departs without incident or further explanation later. Why? Did I miss something important about her?

There are several instances where Spike encounters humans -often bleeding- but even though he hasn't eaten there is little to no mention of his hunger other than the pig incident until near the end with the hotel keeper crushed by the chest. No temptation to drink from the dead or dying, no stomach rumblings- not even a self-disgust at thoughts of their blood or the hunger it causes. Either the reader has to believe that Spike isn't hungry -he hasn't eaten since the first day out of the cave, and his body is struggling for fuel to heal itself- or has to believe that it isn't integral enough for the storyteller to comment on. Neither seemed believable to me.

The section about the biker and the lake seemed a little contrived to me. For one, I'm not really sure why Spike is obsessed with following the vamp biker. It's stated that he'll bring more pursuers, but I felt like Spike would have been better served just putting miles between himself and the biker. After all, it's not as though it's a secret that he's *in* the country. Cloven-hoof guy would still have to find him. And I am also not sure why Spike would drive the car into the lake. The story seems clear that the biker is unsuspecting of Spike being in the car. It's just an anonymous Japanese car. Why not just force him into the lake (as he did) and stay on shore and wait for a drenched vamp to come crawling out and meet him with a stake? If the vamp is really rushing to report Spike's presence, he's gotta come out of the lake sometime, and Spike could easily run down a waterlogged vamp in the car.

Finding a hat-selling demon in a random sewer-tunnel also seemed a stretch to me.

Interesting cameo apparitions: Walsh, the Coal Bin Girl, Ford...

I am a bit confuzzled by the phone conversation between Spike and Dawn (unless he totally imagined it and I didn't get that, in which case ignore this part of my commentary). We know that Buffy took Dawn to Spike's while he was in Africa in hopes of leaving her in his protection. This was a big thing with her friends (understandably). But we hear Dawn putting the hate on Spike over the phone, saying "she knew". If that were true, then Feisty Dawn would never have stood for the trip to Spike's. The case could be made that Dawn went to Spikes, then found out the truth, and *then* Spike called afterward, but the time line seems a little convoluted in my head. Maybe that's just my head, and no one else's.

Other than that tiny niggle, the entire story fits perfectly into show canon, explaining how Spike physically got "out of Africa" and how he came to be so ensorcelled by FirstBuffy. Well done!

Favorite scenes

I really like the parts with Angelus, especially the line where he tells Spike "But she loved me". I could feel that punch in the gut.

"He breaks a branch from a nearby tree and plunges it into the biker's heart. The dust becomes mud on his boots and is washed away in the rain."

Wonderful imagery here- really liked the dust becoming mud.

"There's something wrong with me," he tells her. "There's been something wrong with me for a while."
"Years," she says. "But I'll fix it."

I love this. Clearly, Spike and First-Buffy are referring to two different "wrongnesses" inside him, at different ends of the spectrum. Great symmetry here.

From:

girlguidejones.livejournal.com

Some of the lines I liked

"It's almost calming, this level of incomprehensible noise, as none of it triggers any warning bells or memories he wants to avoid. He has, he reflects, killed very few people on lakebeds."

I liked this, and actually smiled when reading it. It also made me realize that it was the only smile I'd felt so far in the story. I don't know if it was your intent to have a uniformly dark story without humorous interjection, so I thought I'd mention it.

"Blades of grass stick up through the mud an inch from Spike's face. He realises that his knees have given out."

Again, nice imagery...unique way of showing a collapse to one's knees.

"Around one corner is the Chinese Slayer. She snarls, "I was the best night of your life!"

I like the twist in this. Usually when a woman makes this sort of declaration, she's been scorned and discarded by the man, and she's trying to remind him of what he'll never feel again. In this case, she's been completely erased by a man and is reminding him of what he'll never feel again. Interesting.

"When Spike was a boy, this place didn't count as a country. He remembers when Stanley found Livingstone on the shores of another lake. Of course, they had to name this one lake Victoria. Every bloody thing was named Victoria, except for the things that were named Albert. If he had the chance, he'd name everything Buffy. Buffybuffybuffybuffybuffybuffybuff."

I think this might be my favorite line of the story. Brava!

Overall summary

Very strong grammatically!

As I mentioned earlier, I felt this story slides smoothly into canon. I liked the end especially, finding out how it is that Spike initially encounters The First. Neat!

The overall tone and feel to the story was rather dry and reserved to me personally. Other than a couple of the incidents I mentioned above, it seemed like I was watching a sequence of events dispassionately, with no real stake in or emotional investment with a character for whom I would normally feel a great deal of...something.

There were a couple of parts I felt were "inserted" rather than natural progression of the story: Dawn/Spike call, car into the lake, German woman. Rather than feeling intrigued by these sections, I was distracted, trying to figure out "why" it was happening and/or what I was missing. I like mystery, foreshadowing, and hints...I don't like if I have to re-read a lot or spend time trying to figure out why I didn't "get" something. Again, this is only my perception. Other readers may enjoy these same segments!

I felt your [Spike's] remembrances of Angelus and Drusilla were especially strong and well-characterized, and enjoyed reading them.

There were several really strong visual images...Spike's initial struggle to walk out of the cave across the sand, the broad, cloven-hoofed elder, the two different rooms where Spike stays (and him smoking, wet and naked on the chair), the fight scene at the railroad tracks, the chicken-carrying woman on the bus...all wonderfully described and easily seen in the mind's eye.

There were a couple of instances where I truly felt connected with Spike and his story, and, fittingly, they were associated with the women he loved- how he felt about Drusilla, his stunned reaction to Dawn's comments, Angelus' stating that Buffy didn't love Spike, and Spike's wanting to name everything after Buffy. As a whole, however, I felt too distanced from what was happening to him to be emotionally connected to the tale. On the other hand, this more austere style of telling the tale is quite original compared to how we generally see Spike portrayed, and I think that others will probably find it very interesting.

I hope this is helpful in some small way. If you feel I have misinterpreted or misunderstood anything, or simply want to "rebut" to any of my comments, please feel free to do so. I am not very experienced in giving organized crit, so I can certainly improve. I am also not easily offended, so please let me know if you think I've gotten something completely wrong. Thanks for allowing me to read and critique your work- I enjoyed the experience!

From:

indri

The German woman -- I see what you mean. Noted.

You're quite right about my oversight regarding Spike's growing hunger. In an earlier draft he had eaten the pig, so I should have altered the text elsewhere when I changed this.

Spike driving the car into the water was an accident. Should be clearer.

Dawn found out about the AR after Villains but before Beneath You. Or at least, I presume that's why she threatens to set him alight should he touch Buffy (in BY). So I'm presuming here that Xander or someone has told her by the time she gets the call.

Thank you again for your comments. I'm sorry that my response here will come across as brief -- I'm running off in a minute to catch Serenity. I will use your comments to improve!