Reader Crits	Reader Crits GrodySpork I love all the attention to detail! All the little references, all the links between different parts of the fic and between the fic and the film. Apart from that, all I can really say is "...whoa". This is too bloody amazing. except, perhaps, for this: brown-eyed raven-haired mother I liked the way you repeated the way you started the first couple of chapters (with the speech and description thing), but I think that the description of the mother is a bit romanticised compared with how she is presented in the rest of it. Jayman thanks GS! nice point about the mother! i'll see what others think... and that's again for reading! edit ~ GS, i changed "raven-haired" to "dark-haired" to reduce the mom's romanticized image... thanks! Naidel alrighty then, i like this fic, even though it took me so bloody long to read. especially since my comp. had a little spac while i was reading it and kept trying to type random crap. i swear it's possesed. i like your discription, and knights technoir is a fabby brill name. tres bien. which brings me on too my next point. the details in this fic are great. the names especially bill and ted references. yay. there should be more. But seriously man, you are scaring me so much. i didn't even notice the writing on the neb, let alone the fact that it's a really appropriate bible quote. the minute detail is great but it implies some kind of boaderline personality syndrome, not that that's a bad thing... anyway great fic, but it must have taken so much time to write, let alone research. sorry i'm rambling... ~Naidel Jayman naidel - thanx! *smile* but no, i don't have the personality syndrome YET i found the bible quote along with neo's file info at: http://groups.msn.com/TheMatrixCommunity/matrixfacts.msnw yeah, tons of internet research. but would you believe i cranked it out in 9 days? i really don't mind the rambling, honesty tends to be so... i appreciate it. thanx again. Meridian I can't believe I haven't commented on this yet! I really love it. I mean, I'm totally jealous! All this material...how did you process it? I can't believe how seamlessly you've inserted all this obviously researched material and made it so effortless despite all the effort I know it must have taken. That's some awesome dedication. Especially the hacker part. I don't know if you're associated with that crowd at all, but you write it like an insider, completely believable, down to the jargon. A-maz-ing. It's what's missing from so many Matrix fics, from the movies, too, because it's a means to an end, a way to meet the characters and not much else, but you made it 'the life' (with all connotations that implies) and the center of the piece. Wow. Plus, it's so readable, and SINGABLE. Good lord, how many of my favorite bands did you cover in that? Aweeeeeeesome!!! ~loopy Merd Jayman thanx merd ~ yeah, i felt the hacking world was missing too... in fact, i'm working on another hacking-type fic, kind of building on this one. hope it doesn't take too long to write. you know, the research. and then i'll have my trilogy complete! *smile* Centaur On the whole, I really, really like this. I don't know that I've ever read another story that fleshes out Neo quite this well. The history that you give him is really plausible to me. I really like the series of vignettes, loosely connected; to be honest, though, I think the first few are maybe a little bit too loosely connected. Certain scenes -- like the one where he walks in on his roommate having sex on the couch -- I don't really understand why it's important to the rest of the story. That's not to say that I didn't like it -- I thought it was a good scene, sort of darkly funny, and I can definitely understand Tommy's frustration. But why did you include it in the story? Why does it matter? That's what I'm not sure I know. That's the challenge with this kind of story format, I think -- if you're going to write it in vignettes, you have to have a reason for including each vignette as well as some kind of thematic connection between them all or else it just feels random and disjointed. Hacking sequence: kickass, man. I love how you described it like a battle, a coordinated attack. I mean, I didn't have a CLUE what they were saying, but I read every word anyway just in case I might pick something up. Really, really good. The only thing in this fic that really puzzled me was the character of Katie DeVille and your portrayal of her. First off: in the sex scene, cut out all those "Ahhh"s. I know you're fond of them, and I like them in your other fic, but in this it really just makes the whole scene seem like a porn film. Leave them in once, maybe, but you don't need to include that many "Aaah"s. Really. If you write them in once and then say "she moaned" later, it's more subtle and it flows better and it reads a lot less like a porn film. ;) I'm emphasising this because I really feel that it undermines the quality of the rest of the section. All those "Aaah"s really, really, reallyreallyreally bothered me. I physically cringed reading them. Apart from that -- I mean, Katie intrigues me. She seems pretty fucking badass; it makes sense that the Resistance would recruit her, and after coordinating that attack on Metacortex I'm betting she'd be good at coordinating an attack in the Matrix. But I wonder why all the devil imagery? Are we supposed to think she's evil? I don't know why we would. She doesn't seem to do anything evil. She seems pretty cool, actually, even if rather skanky. So why do you associate her with evil? I'm not saying that you SHOULDN'T associate her with evil, but rather that I think you should flesh it out and justify that association. My confusion with her is especially true in relation to your other fic. It seems, from this fic, that Neo's memory of Katie would be a positive one -- one that he wouldn't want to forget, and one that Trinity probably wouldn't want him to forget. Having read the other one before this one, I assumed before reading this that Katie was somehow satanic (especially because of her last name). I mean, really evil. I assumed she was someone who had really hurt Neo in his past life; a memory that haunted him, and thus a memory that Trinity would take away because it hurt him. I mean, I didn't read your other fic to be saying that Trinity was somehow picking and choosing which memories to 'remove,' but the fact is, she still removed it. And why would she remove Neo's memories of friends, and of this girl he liked? A jealous-girlfriend motive would be out-of-character for Trinity, I think. I mean, the loss of Katie is what set Neo looking for the Matrix. It seems that that would be a memory worth clinging to. So, yeah. Beef up Katie. You've got just enough in there for me to be intrigued and interested, but too little to keep me from being utterly confused. ;) If you wanted to, you could definitely add to this. I'd love to see you write some of the scenes that would fall between your last two sections, leading to Neo's actual unplugging. That'd be cool, man. Anyway, I've given all the con-crit that I have to offer. On the whole: very, very good fic. I really like it. Jayman centaur ~ thanx, i appreciate the crit! here are my responses: > the roommate sex ~ this was the final straw for tommy and his support of his "best" friend. this is where tommy begins his path as a lone soul. in the future he misses him (for a moment thinks levi is willie) and what he represents (childhood, etc.). > hacking scene ~ thanx, i really had fun writing that! > the katie sex scene ~ *smile* yeah, i'm fond of them, to add another more-graphic texture/layer to the overall fic. not just the normal everyday distance, but the intimate too-closeness as well. i admit, while flow is crucial to scenes like the hacking scene, other times, i tend to prefer texture/layer over flow. sometimes smooth flow makes it too palatable, too distant. > katie as devil ~ no, katie's personality wasn't supposed to be literally evil. she, her clothes, the downstairs basement "of hell", these were intended to be more symbolic, i.e. her role of leading tommy to the "dark side" or the hacking world. and i liked the juxtaposition of the "devil" imagery against the "trinity" imagery in the films. the "devil" keeping him in the matrix, while "trinity" leading him out of it. > relation to "the very thing" (TVT) fic ~ actually, the final section of TVT wasn't trinity's thoughts. this was the third-person omniscent perspective. in fact, i've been arguing with myself over how to write or rewrite that section. realistically, neo wouldn't forget katie, but i wanted him to forget the pain associated with her. but forgetting pain didn't seem as powerful as forgetting her totally. thoughts? here was my attempt to rewrite it, but i wanted to wait. what do you think? neo keeps the memory but forgets the pain: No pain. Without knowing it, Neo had forgotten the pain. Without realizing it, he had forgotten the painful emptiness of her disappearance. The emptiness of missing Katie. Missing her. Missing her eyes. Her lips. Her voice. No more pain. After all, the pain never happened. The emptiness never happened. None of them really happened. None of them really mattered. All that mattered was Trinity. Definitely Trinity. As she smiled at him, he smiled right back. so thanx again, i'd love to hear your suggestions for making the above items more clear. Zephyr Woot! I finally had time to read this. Really, this is awesome, Jayman. This is probably one of only 2 or 3 fics that attempt to flesh out Neo's past at all and succeed at it. Tomas Anderson just made sense to me. I'm so glad that other people have the ability to create a past for him b/c I honestly would have no clue where to start on my own. Specifics: the hacking scene was so kick-ass. I had no idea what was going on but it was a fun ride. Somehow I never associated hacking as being such an exhilerating group experience! That is one of my regrets as a Matrix fan/fanfic author - that I don't understand hacking at all. I think it's great that you put SO much research into this and wove it in seamlessly (loved the Bill and Ted jab!). I can't really think of anything I didn't like that wasn't already talked about (like the sex-borderline-porn noises...*cringe*). So now I'll go and read the next installment that seems to have stirred up so much debate! Keep up the good work, dude. =) ~Zeph