[Suzerain of Sheol]

Originally Posted by Quiet Man Cometh

Commenting before I forget. :). I read through the first part. Has it changed at all since last time?

Not significantly, no.

Only a couple comments to make so far, mostly having to do with word choice or syntax. "Phantom of hope" comes off to my ear as a bit funny. Not entirely sure why. I get the sentiment, but somehow the word "phantom" doesn't feel right to me.

Maybe you could explain more. I'm not really sure what the problem would be, it seems a pretty straight-forward metaphor to me. Now I'm feeling dense for not seeing what's wrong with it.

The word "imperil" also comes off to me as unneccessary and clunky but that falls into personal taste. It strikes me as an attempt to sound lofty which is redundant since Xavier's speech already accomplishes that pretty well.

Again, not quite seeing what you mean. I mean, it feels to me like something that makes perfect sense for him to say. You're suggesting replacing it with something like "threaten"? That would, to me, be out of character for him, as he's been cultivating this austere persona for years (to the point where's actually convinced himself that he's more than human) and everyone around him buys into it and no one ever steps up to tell him he's a self-centered, delusional idiot.

Two sentence fragments show up at the end of a couple paragraphs that I think could also be changed to fit more in with the writing. The first is the line "If the world could but lay down its arms." That can be taken two ways, as either a statement or a question depending on context so it doesn't work well for me in a fragmented form.

Um... help me here. I don't see what other context this could be taken in. I'm seriously feeling dense, the stuff you're pointing out just isn't even registering on my self-critiquing radar, which is normally hyperactive.

I think it would work better attached via comma to the preceeding sentence. That way there's no ambiguity behind the statement.

Again, I'm not sure what ambiguity it presents as it is. Plus, the intention was to separate the thought in her narration slightly, i.e. it isn't one continuous thought to her.

"As they had never been hung to before" also feels to me like it's floating to no real effect in the narrative, and that it would work better adding onto the previous sentence rather than as a fragment by itself. It feels homeless as it is so far.

I guess I can see what you mean about this one, but you have to keep in mind how deeply from Amilia's perspective this is being narrated. That line is her reaction to what he's saying. The only thing I can think of to do it differently is add a short reference to her looking at his swords, followed by that thought in italics.

One grammatical kink:"Destiny call us home" needs either a comma after "Destiny" or an 's' after "call."

That isn't a kink, it's a mistake. :p

Thank you for spotting that.

Okay, that's it for now. It's smoother than I recall reading before. I don't I read past that part so the rest will be new.

I don't think I changed much besides editing a word here or there. I'm curious to see what you think of the rest.

Cheers. :)

You too. Thanks for the comments. Hope I don't sound belligerent up there. I'm always up for some fun self-flagellation, but I'm just having a hard time understanding where you're coming from.

EDIT: Riiight, one more thing...you know those ellipses early on? Yeaaaaah...

You shut up about those!

:p

Seriously, though, that's likely a holdover from the game, where I have only dialogue and visuals to work with, I can't convey the nuances of a conversation, so... cue ellipses every time someone trails off or pauses.

Edit: Oh, and I find it slightly ironic that the sort of things I said I was glossing over as being too nitpicky when reviewing yours are all you commented on about mine. :p Stop picking my nits, you pedant!

:D

(Also, just looked up the meaning of that word. Eew. I hate English sometimes.)