Quote from Crank

Heh, may as well!

This is (the) Sparta(n) (Click to Show)

Alright, so first off, I'm glad to see you're still working on heavier emotions! Gotta keep hammering out the practice, but right now, it feels like the way you're jumping between them is a bit quick. Like, if I jump from happy to worried in an instant with little explanation, I'd gauge it akin to I completely forgot about a quiz and now it's suddenly being handed out. It'd bad, I'm not feeling great about it, but all and all, it's not so bad. On the flip side, if I'm happy because I'm rocking out to my favorite song, get into an accident that possibly killed someone, that's a much more serious fear which would need much more of an explanation. I can say I'm scared, sure, and that'd be accurate, but if that's the extent of it, it's hard to believe. Personally, I would've started with the shame and guilt. He can remember that he was angry at the time and hate himself for it, but if you don't want to go into every detail of why his master died and what led to those moments, a reference would be fine. Similarly, the master isn't described anything more than that. Murder and death are bad, but there isn't really much reason to feel for him. Why did Zack look at him like a parent? Why do his actions haunt him? He's a violent person, why does this haunt him? Similar deal when Hera appears. Again, I get that she killed his wife, but if this wasn't yesterday or last week, seeing the vivid sights that clearly haunt him would go a great way into making the mood match him. Retrospectively, I do realize you say what happened a bit, but if I summarize what happened in Borderlands 2, it's really going to take away from the shock of Roland's death, even if I stress how much of a dick Handsome Jack is. What was the worst part of the attack? Focus the most on that.

Next up, his mission has me a bit confused. Well, it being Hera's mission for him. Without Zack and Dante's intervention, it didn't really seem like things were going to spiral out of control. It seemed like Hera just wanted him to go bother people, in all honesty. Now, I don't mind that she's sending him to battle, but the risk didn't really fit. If I got married, my wife fucked another guy, gave birth to a damn superhero and I had Hera's wrath, it's not going to be a spar I'm sending him to. That fight would've been long out of control, and maybe I would've even had a hand in drawing the other two to the area. What motivates Hera? Wrath and jealousy. Does her mission support this, or if not, does it benefit her? If not, tweaks may be in order. Also as a little thing, having a character be some massive, impervious unavoidable threat sorta loses its danger when right after you describe her constant trying to kill him as 'annoying' and 'fun to thwart'. Makes her hard to take seriously as an antagonist.

Next thing I want to bring up are the rapid fire cuts you had in the beginning of the brawl. I know it's a pain to write, I felt it when I was doing, but one paragraph per perception feels choppy and hard to follow. It was a lot better after the initial bombardment, though. Other than that, the last thing I have for you are just keeping your speakers in separate paragraphs. You did it a lot of the time, but there was still a solid chunk where two people would be talking in the same one. Just makes it hard to follow.

Still a very enjoyable story though! I look forward to the next chapter!