Ruby's Attempts at Storytelling, Critiques and thoughts please Options

[Ruby]

Normally I'd hate to self-promote my writing or my art blogs but I'm genuinely looking for some feedback on some short stories about my various characters.

Ruby's Shadowrun Stories

[bannockburn]

Good vocabulary and easy to read. Interesting stories too, especially the one with the free spirit and the twisted mage.
I would have liked to see some more description of the main characters. There are only a few tidbits, and it takes quite some time to realize that Kali is a mage, e.g., Taci is female and has a cyberarm, but nothing more and the only thing we know about Zeebo is that he's probably a troll shaman. Even a few throwaway keywords would help greatly with description and characterization.
The same goes for the location. I'm getting the impression from vocabulary, that Kali is located in London or another British sprawl, which would also fit her ethnic background. This is a good thing, because your writing encourages this association, but a confirmation and description of the environment would be equally helpful.

A few typos, but that's to be expected. No one can proofread their own work reliably (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

All in all I enjoyed the stories with Kali's Darkness being the best.
The snake & the chameleon has a lot of promise but needs a bit of fine tuning, IMO.

Specific comments on writing and spelling below:

Kali's Darkness: Burnout
Ares Alpha is an assault rifle, not holstered. Ares Predator?
'I think they were a shaman?' -> deliberate gender neutral singular they to emphasize the anonymity or a mistake?

Kinezumi's Past:
'energy drink' needs to be plural
Taci's reaction to Amarantha's story is first 'stunned' then immediately followed by a huge grin. I don't know anyone who'd react that way to a story about forced prostitution and becoming a hired killer.

The snake & the chameleon
Part 1: 'taped his horn' -> tapped?
Part 3: states that Zeebo is an ork, despite the horn he tapped? Did you mean the horn of the car? If so, a small description of the sound would be helpful in part 1.
Part 3: 'singlespider plant' -> space needed
Fernando is misspelled a few times, Fernado, Ferando. Mostly in the part where he interacts with Mr. Yama.

Rules & Fluff: Zeebo repeatedly assenses 'Fernando', but only 1 success is necessary to see if a person is awakened, while 2 are necessary to recognize an aura you have seen before. If you stay close to the rules, he would have immediately realized that 'Fernando' was magically active. If Fernando were an initiate with masking, Zeebo would need to be an initiate, too to break through the mask and he would realize that the mask was present.
Part 3 makes it seem as if Gabi is very inexperienced so having her be an initiate could be weird, but spontaneous self initiation is always a possibility, especially exhibiting the masking metamagical technique as a chameleon.

If the story is located in Chicago, it should be described more closely. Chi-Town is a feral city and the ambiance is very important there and could enhance the story.

Zeebo stating that he sicced a watcher on Fernando after the 2nd scam should be mentioned in the first part of the story, especially since he hadn't decided at this point to catch the scammer.
The blackmail seems unmotivated, especially after Snake having told Zeebo that Fernando will help him in the future ... Starting a relationship on blackmail doesn't usually engender trust or positive feelings and the trust dynamic between the blackmailer ('She could easily call the cops on him') and the blackmailed allowing him to cast spells on her seems off for that reason.
Zeebo also has a very patronizing tone towards her.

It is not explained why Gabi would go to college in an alternate identity.

Rules & Fluff: In part 2, Zeebo summons a spirit to open an astral gateway. He uses it to enter the apartment, but a) only free or great form (guidance) spirits get the astral gateway power and b) astral gateways don't work that way in the rules (or more precisely, astral rifts don't). The workings are a matter of interpretation, but it seems like Zeebo physically entered her apartment through the rift. If he just projected, he could easily just manifest without the need for an astral gateway at all, although Gabi would be unable to see the astral space.
Astral activities are also very dangerous in Chicago, due to lingering FAB-III bacteria strains and resulting mana ebbs often make it difficult.

[Ruby]

I'll try to be clearer about the characters appearances. I guess I just made a lot of assumptions since they're characters I've encountered or played in our games. Also, Kali & Taci both live in the Seattle Metroplex. Canyon Road is in Tacoma/Puyallup.

Response time!

Kali's Darkness: Burnout
I got Amar's & Kali's guns mixed up... (had to look back at her character sheet, she was the one with the alpha... also an adept and we have a house rule that adepts can experience magic loss too if they mess things up, not to mention her whole drug abuse) and yes, she was deliberately not remembering the gender of her first victim. (EDIT: Fixed things to make it clearer, especially the gun issue)

Kinezumi's Past: As for Taci/Kinezumi... she's kinda nuts. She was RPed as being unwaveringly optimistic and relatively unfazed by crazy shit. Cousin was forced to kill her way to freedom? Not a issue to her.

And as for The Snake & The Chameleon... I was worried about explaining too much for a lot things. Zeebo is suppose to be an ork, but I guess I was never clear about that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) The story was in part by my husband, he told me what he thought happened to his character (Gabi) and I wrote it. I should've been more clear that he shadowed into her apartment though the invisibility spell. As for why Gabi was going around disguising herself & going to college as such? She's a teen runaway who thought it would be easier going to college as a guy than a girl. Finally, I did call him out on them living in Chicago and he said "well maybe they're in an area that wasn't quarantined?"

I'll go back and tweak stuff so it makes more sense. Maybe for the Snake & Chameleon series I can say "Chicago area" or name some city nearby.

[bannockburn]

I see, cleared a lot of things up (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

For information about Chicago and outlying areas (yes, there are non-quarantined areas): see Feral Cities (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Ruby]

I'm still sifting through the Snake & Chameleon series, but I made it clearer in both of Kali's stories that she's from the Tacoma/Puyallup area. It won't be too hard to clarify things with Taci although I probably should slip in a narrative about her insane optimism. I'm also hoping to get a few drawings done for the stories, not whole comics mind you, but quick scenes kind of like how they had drawings in the old SR novels. I do have a comic planned but I'm working on the script first.

[bannockburn]

Good luck with that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[DMiller]

I enjoyed them all. Snake & Chameleon series is my favorite followed closely by Kali's story.

[Ruby]

Kinezumi didn't get much play time so her story is rather unrefined. She's become a reoccurring NPC for my game where she DJs at Club Penumbra on what I call "open stage" night between runs and building drones. All of the current stories have been refined as per Banncock's suggestions/critiques and now I'm working on another Snake & Chameleon tale, one of how and why the Chameleon came to be. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Ruby]

Been on a writing kick lately. Finished "The Snake & Chameleon" series (for now... til my husband bugs me to write about them more or I can think of more stories). Got TONS more on Kali. [LINK HERE] Critiques are welcome as usual.