Sutoratosu

-What you did best Your poetic language helps to paint a powerful scene, and it is obvious that meticulous detail has been put into every nook and cranny of the place. The setting feels like a living, breathing piece of scenery rather than a piece of still and static life, it immerses the reader in dripping fluidity, which does leagues of good for keeping their attention drawn to the narrative. Your formatting is kind to the eyes and does worlds of good making the piece far easier to read than if it had been jumbled into long paragraphs or lacked indentation or any line separation, as more than a few works I see nowaday unfortunately seem to be leaning more towards (It's unfortunate, that some don't realize that formatting is still an important part of a piece's narrative). In closing, you did quite the job of showing that there is some obvious- likely romantic -affection between the two main characters, through just the first person narration and what brief bits of dialogue there are as well as the body language. While we may not know terribly much about the characters in-depth personalities, motivations, etc, all the things that makes one humanized and relatable, that is alright; even great authors often need entire novel's worth of work in order to display such to an audience. But even so, the so fluid expressing of such a common emotion as love helps to alleviate the fact that, in truth, we have no idea going into the tale who these characters truly are or why we should care about them- their obvious love coupled with the care put into the language touches on an inner base human instinct, similar to the effect of Suspension of Disbelief- We as an audience want to care for the characters, even if at the present, we have no real logical reasoning why we should; just as we want to put our faith into a fictional realm and believe that, within the confines of the narrative at least, what is being told to us is true in some form, even if we no actual logical reasoning behind why we should put our faith into the world. -What you did terribly This is more personal opinion than anything else, but... the Unicorn which entered towards the ending section. While you may have succeeded in getting me as a reader to set aside my preliminary apathy and care for the characters, there wasn't enough present about the world itself to convince me that I should set aside my disbelief so completely as to not bat an eye at the overused trope of the Unicorn. IE- the exposition made me connect to the personas, but not the actual world itself. I was an outside observer, looking in on the cute banter of a young couple one moment, and a skeptic wondering where in gods holy name a unicorn of all creatures suddenly came from in this world I have been dropped into which holds little context or exposition for it's inner workings. That's the one and only thing I think you went wrong with in the piece- it feels like it is a scene plucked from the middle of novel or larger story. Now, if presented in chronological order in said novel, when I would've had born witness to ample exposition and groundwork in the beginning to familiarize myself with this world and accept the fact that yes, unicorns are present here, it's normal, there would have been no problem. But when the beast was dropped in like it was, coming at the call of the narrator, I as a reader felt as though the story had been immediately cheapened, and had gone from a scene of two star crossed lovers interacting to a page torn right from the annals of an old and cliched fairy tale book... especially when not only did the unicorn appear with little to no context they could exist here at all, but then started to even fly about as if it were a pegasus- a trait which, to my knowledge, is not commonly attributed to the traditional lore of a unicorn, and this in turn only made it feel like the story was further cheapened from what it had started out as. TLDR? It started out very good, but started to go down-hill for me as a reader when the Unicorn was brought in. Here's a short blurb from an original fantasy verse I'm currently working on- a very, very rough alpha draft of a prologue that thus far only Rose has seen. Like, it's literally almost the same as is originally written down in my prose journal (with a few grammatical edits made by Rose). Seriously, it is humanly impossible for me to impart upon you how utterly rough an idea this is- hence why I chose it instead of one of the countless RP posts I've made over the years. Yes, I know it's short, don't comment on how short it is, you're not doing me any favors by doing so. This is likely not going to be the final product, more an example to myself of the themes and tone I'm trying to set for the world and story, as well as the characters themselves and their dynamic.

I am most obviously the 2♤ yeah, it really twas nice while it lasted, wasn't it? BTW: I'm fully expecting you to go out there and kick everyone's asses next season

HE DID, OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE JORY ACTUALLY DID IT!! XD

*Raises hand* Yeah, sure, I think it would be interesting to see the homeland... cue the utter bitterness and resentment that only an Expatriate can feel

Sully "Uh-huh, that's the name, don't wear it out." He sounded about as enthusiastic about it as a child forced to watch paint dry on a wall... in the middle of a rain storm. As the chair stopped it's tipping and held there, perfectly balanced on only two legs like a bear taking watch, it became clear the glint in his eyes was nothing but the light of ennui. A shame, usually his pride lit like a star when people called him by that name, the one he had earned in the arena crushing his opponents dreams and tearing their mech's apart without mercy. The name he had proven he deserved time and time again; even against O beloved Sasha, the one person who mattered the most of all but still wasn't spared from the Monster's awakening. Yes, people feared the Monster, once they saw it's nature. They hated it, thought he was fucking crazy. Good, Solomon had always thought. Fear is an excellent weapon to have. Fear makes the foe hesitant, makes them falter. Hate complements fear. Hate opens the door to anger, and anger makes them sloppy, makes them easier to predict. Anger makes the battle easier to control, and if through his mere actions alone, he could wage enough psychological warfare to gain further control of the field, even if only for a few fleeting moments, then he would be satisfied. Mere fleeting moments were more than enough for sweet Ragnarok to drink her fill. "So, strider," He said, eyes still glinting with boredom "how'd your match go? You get someone interesting, or was it already over before it really began?"

Solomon No alcohol, no desire to speak further with his digital slave, and the start of the show was taking longer than he expected. Sully felt the boredom beginning to crush his poor, sober soul like a diver caught in a trench, somewhere deep in the ocean, screaming and flailing in an endless expanse of abyss knowing the fact that no one could hear their cries yet holding out hope they were wrong. How long was this thing going to take anyway? Then he saw it. The bit of movement, in his periphery just a few chairs away. With all the speed and quick reflex of a cat, his ember-amber eyes instantly snapped and focused on the anomaly as if sizing it up, like a predator does whilst stalking prey. It was dim in here, but nowhere near dark enough for him to need the goggles perched atop his head; his eyes did just fine making out the features of the girl cowering in her seat on their own. Muscles relaxed, the eyes lost their focus. This obvious introvert was no threat. Sully turned his attention back to the ceiling, again leaning back on the chair's hind legs out of boredom, just as he had before. It seemed like it was over... until he stopped the chair mid tilt and again gazed at her. "You're the one called 'Strider', aren't you?" There was no hostility, no macho aggression, no intimidation. It was just a simple question, as nonchalant as one could possibly be. Though there was something about the coloration of his eyes... the way they glinted in the dimness of this space. Whether it was mere reflection of the low light, or of some deeper machination in the mind laying beyond them, was hard to tell.

Bunch of goddamned Minors and their piddly-ass kiddy drinks... It actually turned out a bit better than I thought. Go figure.

Solomon- Attend Black Idols Concert (2 Points) "Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?" He couldn't help but grip the bridge of his nose as he clenched both eyes, taking a single breath as he stood there before the bar. Food hadn't really interested him. Nor had checking up on Revenant; if anything was wrong, Asmo would've alerted him immediately. Wasn't even like those few scorch marks warranted much worrying anyway. The concert had seemed like the best deal out of all of them, he had thought. At least he could just sit in the backrow trying to get hammered, try to pass the few hours from now until they reached the next stop. Maybe even set a new personal record for how long he held out before he started to feel the buzz. "But of course.... there's no fucking alcohol anywhere... now that I think about it, how many of the others looked a bit young?" At least half, from the brief glances he'd stolen back at the Bear's Throne. Too many of em looked barely out of their teens, infact. "God damn it. You kids are killing me. 'Don't bring your flask,' Asmo said. 'You probably won't even need it,' Asmo said-" "You don't." The AI broke in. "You're wrong." "Fine, let's say you brought it then, and discovered that the bar is bare of anything intoxicating, just as it is now. A flask only holds so much. The way you drink, like the stuff is watered down to almost no AC percentage, it be gone before very long at all. What would you have done then? Either way, you'd still be liquor-less eventually. Trying to get drunk is a futile endeavor, regardless which path you had chosen." "But how could you be so sure they wouldn't have anything?" Sully's eyes narrowed in suspicion, though his lips remained pressed. No point looking crazy outside the battlefield, after all. Asmodeus was silent for a moment. Then as if the line of inquiry had never been posed: "Go find your seat Sully. It's going to start soon." Before he could say anything the AI fled his mind, just as quickly as he had swooped in. Sully could've called him back, of course. Asmodeus may have relatively free reign whenever he wasn't actively paying attention to it, but if his heart so willed it, the machine could easily become nothing more than a digital slave. Even when Asmo did things like take control of the suit or hell, even lock him out completely like the last match, it was only because that on some level, Sully always gave the illusion of choice. Because Sully didn't like to play the part of a slave master. Even mere illusions had their uses, however fleeting. He could hear the words of his father, even now after these years "You're too much like you're damn mother, kid...and here I had hoped you'd take after me instead." Indeed he was. Indeed he was...except he for one didn't intend to run out on his family someday. "Well, whatever," He sighed, heading for the very back row. "I guess I'll live. For now. Let's see how good this chick really is though. Black Idol, wasn't it? Isn't she the same one Sasha has gushed about a few times?"