On one hand, the mere concept of this story is so, so cool. Well written MLAATR and Danny Phantom crossovers basically don’t exist, and to see one in the year of our lord 2021 is capital A awesome.
On the other hand, I’m not sure I like how 90% of the introductory chapters were spent establishing a conflict between Jenny and Danny, where Jenny is very much the aggressor, but have all wrongs and hard feelings resolved between them all of a sudden in that final 10%.
The reason I’m not a big fan of it is, honestly partly personal. Situations where a conflict is established, then suddenly resolved, tends to weaken my sense of naturalism in terms of character to character interactions. I can see all of this happening, just...not literal seconds after the two protagonist’s had a mall collapse on them, which in turn occurred after a large scale game of hare and hound dog between them both. It all feels kind of rushed.
The other, actually sensible reason I have some trouble with how Jenny and Danny were introduced to each other has to do with how stupidly important the first couple chapters are in establishing a reader’s understanding of who these people are and why we should care about what they’re up to.
Seriously, I don’t have the exact stats on me, but the strength of your first couple of chapters goes a long, long way in determining whether or not your work is successful or not. If your reader will drop your work, then it’s usually right here, just as everything’s starting to get going, that they make that choice.
While Danny was introduced in a way that makes him fairly sympathetic, I’m not sure I can say the same of Jenny: Her first appearance is from Danny’s point of view, where, from his perspective, she’s shooting him for no good reason, and completely refusing to listen to any explanation he might offer, and although the second chapter did give us Jenny’s own perspective, the revelation that she’s being as aggressive as she is because she just happened to be stressed that day, and wanted to take it out on someone/something really isn’t a good look.
This might’ve worked if it was say, an interaction between the MC and a future friend, a side character, or even a Frenemy, but when you try to introduce a main character by having them attack another main character, someone the audience has already been predisposed to care for, you run the risk of generating an image of the aggressor that is much more negative than strictly intended, which is what I feel happened here.
This is all aggravated by the romantic element intended for the work. Typically, one would expect the introduction of a romance, or even an action/romance, to demonstrate the compatibility of the author’s intended pairing, (which I recall you doing well in Fire and Ice, with that stellar scene between Danny meeting Ember as she played for herself on the guitar), which makes the decision to introduce the main couple as two persons in conflict somewhat confusing, especially since the conflict is one that seems like it’s not intended to be especially important to their relationship going foreword.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s totally possible to write a romance where the main pairing start off in conflict, the enemies to lovers tag exists for a reason, after all, I just get the feeling that it’s not the vibe you’re going for, which makes the choice to introduce both character via some short term, pointless conflict seemingly meant to mush them together at a pace faster than they would normally go even more awkward.
Overall, I really just kind of wish Jenny’s decision to attack had been a little more justified. I remember very little from MLAATR, (except that creepy fucking skin suit, ugh). like perhaps something has happened recently in cannon that could justifiably make her much less willing to listen to some strange, super-powered interloper. Alternatively, Danny could be slightly less justified, or justified seeming, like maybe he rammed into something expensive, important, or something Jenny personally valued in some way when he landed.
Even something as simple as having Jenny listen when Danny asks her to would go a long way towards making the two seem much more compatible, even if it means coming at the cost of a rad fight scene, I think the establishment of better interpersonal character dynamics would be worth it.
Off topic, but did I mention your fight scenes are super cool? Because they are super cool. I’m having some mad fight scene envy over here.
So yeah, I normally try to restrain myself when it comes to critique, no one likes to be a daisy downer, least of all for an author you like, but it seemed worth bringing up, at least once, as something to consider.
Thank you for reading, and writing, for that matter. For all the essay I just wrote, I really am a fan.
Having a Chat After a Fight is Perfectly in character for Danny. He chats DURING fights, and quite often tries to De-escalate, if he thinks he can. He's FREQUENTLY in situations where he's being attacked by someone he'd rather just talk to. (see; His parents, The Red Huntress, just to Name a Couple) So if Someone ELSE De-escalated the situation Voluntarily, instead of juwst trying to kick his head in, He'd be perfectly willing to form a Rapport. (In Situations where there's an Established Truce, Danny actually gets along fairly well with quite a few of his Rogue's Gallery (see the Christmas Episodes)) Doubly So Given The context that The person attacking him Thought They Were Protecting their town. He's Familiar with Being Attacked By Well Meaning People Trying To keep Their Town Safe. This One Actually Apologized For Doing That as Opposed to insisting that he's Evil Scum, which is more than he's ever gotten from any of the others. Dunno If It's Necessarily a "Natural" character interaction, but it matches with his character as established by Canon
XJ-9, For Her Part, made a snap decision based on Her previous experiences (When You have Supervillains thrown at you frequently, your first thought when spotting a guy who has caused property damage and can shoot lasers from his hands is going to be "new Supervillain" not "Oh, Super Hero Team Up Time, Yay") , then when New Evidence Presented itself in the form of Danny Trying To Save People, Realised she'd been wrong, Then Immediately Apologized. The entire Point of the Show is that While XJ-9 was Built As a Robot, Jenny is a person and, As a Person, Screws up, has bad days and makes bad calls because of them. And, like. She's a Superhero, who Tries to keep people Safe and Frequently fights folks trying to Destroy her hometown. Assuming the Guy who Caused a huge crater in a road and sent a bunch of citizens running away screaming Is someone Trying To Destroy her Hometown isn't A Particularly contrived Logical leap. it's barely a hop, honestly. Personally, I Think If She'd LISTENED when he'd Said "no Really I'm Not a Bad Guy, I Swear", THAT'S What I Would have found a Completely unnatural Reaction, Especially since he follows it up by Shooting a Beam At her a couple of seconds after saying that. We As The Readers, Familiar As We Are With Danny and having seen things from his perspective, Have every reason to believe that he's Innocent of all wrong doing, but like, If You Come Home Only to Find your house has been blown up and there's a guy standing in front of it holding a Bazooka, you're probably not gunna believe him when he says "This isn't what it looks like, I Swear"
(Also, Streets Are Expensive, Dude. Like, Filling a Crater, depending on Depth, can cost Upwards of a Half Million Dollars. Add to that the repair of any underground infrastructure, such as power cables and Water Pipes, and the fact that The Main Street would have to be closed down for Possibly Months (likely either also closing the Drivable portion of the street to cars or limiting traffic, thus causing a lot of people to have to reroute) and you're looking at a Fairly Sizable receipt on your repair bill. This Kinda thing tends to get glossed over and handwaved in Actiony Media, But, like, Collateral Damage has a Sizeable Pricetag. The Repair And Maintenance of Public Infrastructure is Hard Work and Skilled Labour!)
For Both of Them, This Sort of Thing is Normal. Super Powered Dog Fights, Being In Collapsing Buildings and Fighting Powerful Foes is just An Every Day Occurance in their lives. It's not rushed to introduce them to one another in this manner, any more than it would be rushed to introduce two characters in an office romance to one another on a shared commute to work. The Nature of the Narrative influences the Nature of the Relationship, and "Super Hero Team-up Starts With One Initially Mistaking another for a Villain" is a Pretty Common Occurance in the relevant genres of fiction.
Also, There really isn't a better way to introduce the two to one another. It serves Multiple purposes.
First; It provides a Reason for the two of them to actually meet in the first place. Assume The portal gently deposits Danny safely in the middle of a park, with no property damage or anything what so ever. Danny Goes "oh crud, where the hell am I?" Goes Un-Ghost, explroes like a Normal Person, Finds out where the Hell he Is, and uses THAT to find where the hell he SHOULD be And Then Tries To Go Home, Is probably Very Surprised when Amity Isn't There. Takes a Page from Danni's Book and Travels The World, Probably looking for a way home. Might eventually Get back to Tremorton Because XJ-9's Mother Is a Super science person and has a reputation as such, and would be an interesting fic in its own right, but There's "Slow Burn" and then there's "Romantic Leads don't meet one another until chapter 20".
Second; The Story isn't JUST Romance. There are plot threads Happening and narrative engines being revved. The Abruptness of Danny Being Suddenly In A Fight Helps get the Story Where It Needs To Go Succinctly (Danny And Jenny Meet, Check. Danny Has An Introduction to Someone Who Can potentially help Him Get Home, Check, Danny Gets Offered a Place To Stay check Pending, But Impending, (per Story summary) and an Impetus To Go To School (he's been tossed into another dimension, Lord knows I Wouldn't have bothered if it were me) and all that good stuff, but it also Draws Danny's And Thus We The Audience's Attention Away From Certain Things that happened in the last chapter that are Going to be relevant. (I'm Being Deliberately Vague for Spoiler reasons but Mouseover For Possible Spoilers)
Third; Pacing. If The Goal is Having Danny and Jenny having Sloppy Makeouts By Chapter 4, then yeah, this is a hella Abrupt meeting, for sure, But SK's Romances aren't Instant Gratification-y Things. It's not "Suddenly, We Are In Love Let's have babies By Chapter Five" type stuff, It tends to be Very Character Driven, Interaction Heavy and Development central and, while Facilitating the romance is the thrust and the goal of the plot, It Tends to take the back seat for the first couple of Arcs, developing slowly in the background. It's not the BEST first impression that the two of them could have left one one another, for sure, But Danny has both Given and Received worse first impressions with people he's ended up Friends and allies with.
Chances are it's going to take a little while for them to even consider one another friends, let alone for romance to worm its way into their relationship, and That's Fine. The Fic Has The Slow Burn Tag For A Reason
First off, thanks for putting some thought in your reply to my comment. The last person who responded to me when I did something like this simply called me a dick and refused to elaborate, so I really appreciate the obvious amount of care you've put into this.
Second off, I know this is off topic, but I really hope ScarabKnight's OK. My intent really was just to provide a different prospective and some light critique, not to make him/her go completely AWOL from both FF.net and Ao3 for a month straight. TBH I'm halfway to just giving up posting critique of any kind entirely. Either people get upset and refuse to listen, get upset and drop what they were doing entirely, or get upset and take it out on me, personally, for the crime of disagreeing with what they've done. I mean it when I say I'm a fan, and I mean it too, when I say I only post stuff like this with the intent to help.
I was raised to believe, from early on, the importance of reader's response and alternate viewpoints (even wrong ones,) as part of the author's path to improvement. The idea that criticism is to be mostly avoided is fundamentally alien to me, and I'm still sometimes harsher than I really mean to be.
In terms of responses, on one hand, I really hate drama, and would rather not go on and on in reply. On the other hand, I also don't want to convey disrespect by ignoring your reply or the effort you put into it. So it's my hope that you won't mind if I write a response that is more long than not.
I do want to say, right off, that I was free in admitting part of my disagreement in how the opening two chapters were handled was an issue of my own, personal preference. I simply prefer more naturalistic character interactions, especially when those character interactions have a romantic element to them, it was my own reader response that seemed worth sharing at the time. I still feel the turn from "we're enemies" to "stay at my house, person made of stuff I can't recognize and who I also just met," was a little too abrupt, even accounting for the personalities of those involved. My intent wasn't to imply there shouldn't be a fight, just that there should be a little more tension between the two parties, and maybe an extra chapter, to ease the change in relationship.
I actually agree that the nature of the narrative does strongly influence how characters relate to each other. I think where are beliefs diverge is how well the narrative accomplishes its goals in presenting Danny and Jenny as a good match as romantic partners. I believe it's pretty clear, and that we can both agree, that the primary goals, narritive-wise of these introductory chapters are 1) to introduce Danny and Jenny to each other 2) Compare their relative powersets, and 3) to contrive circumstances in such a way that they go from being at odds to being friendly. My main concern, the one I think the author could have improved upon, is #3 over there.
I'm aware that this story is not intended as a pure romance, and that action is as much the heart of the work as the relationships. This does not mean, however, that the standard conventions of romance as a genre do not or should not apply, and one of the most common, most effective romantic conventions that I know of is introducing the two leads in a way that highlights their compatibility over their differences. While this work is still in the early stages, and there's obviously plenty of room to grow, I maintain that there were better ways to get Danny and Jenny from point A to point B in a way that didn't spend most of its runtime showing how compatible the two aren't.
I want to emphasize that I'm not expecting Jenny and Danny to get together in the next two or three chapters, far from it. What I'm trying to get across, really, is that this is more an issue of foreshadowing. When you want to prepare an audience for something that's coming later, you want to make sure that event is hinted at earlier in the work, a la Chekhov's gun. That way, the event, whatever it is, doesn't happen out of nowhere from an audience perspective, and makes more sense within the context of the narrative. Romance, ultimately, is just another story element, and needs to be set up and foreshadowed accordingly. Showing how well two characters work together platonically, either in combat or as friends, is a time tested way to show how well they might work together romantically some time in the future. While there is a little bit of this with Danny and Jenny working together to stop the mall from collapsing, it's overshadowed by how much fighting and refusing to listen to each other they do prior to that, making the prospect of future romance harder than it should be to believe in on the part of the reader.
The only other major element I want to address in regards to standard story construction is the issue of verisimilitude. Basically, the idea is that anything can happen in a story, no matter how absurd, as long as the character's reactions to it remain suitably realistic in regard to the context you've placed them in. My main concern with the story is not Danny forgiving Jenny, but rather, her ready acceptance of taking him into her home, no questions asked, and his easy willingness follow her there. Unlike say, the Red Huntress or even his own parents, Jenny is a stranger to Danny, just as Danny is an unknown factor to Jenny, in turn. As fundamentally kind as both characters are, I'm not sure it makes sense for one of them to invite the other into their most private space. It's not something a normal person would typically do for a stranger, and I'm not sure in the context of their brief meeting, most of which was one of conflict, Jenny would so easily offer up her home to him, any more than Danny, who has had to deal with the paranoia of entire government organizations out to get him (and Vlad, in all his fruitloopy glory) would so easily agree. The total lack of uncertainty of both parties towards the other kind of robs the sense of verisimilitude without something extra in terms of in-story set up to smooth it all out.
I have no idea about the ends and outs of road repair, but am more than willing to take your word for it in regards to the difficulty of cleanup, and that Jenny could reasonably be mad about it, as well. Perhaps even to the degree of being more justified than I thought in her initial anger towards Danny. I also acknowledge that the fight itself does do a good job of distracting us from certain Technus related plot threads in a way that was Damn smart on the part of Scarabknight, to the point where it didn't even cross my mind when I wrote my initial comment, so kudos for that.
*scratches head.* So yeah, um, I hope that cleared some things up. Mostly, I just hope the author comes back. Even if I don't agree with everything he does, or occasionally feel the need to voice those disagreements, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the work, or won't continue to read even if my thoughts on the matter are ignored entirely. In the end, the work belongs to the author, and it's their right to do as they please with it.
While I wish we could have been fans of the story together, rather than going at odds over it, but thanks again for reading and thinking about my posts. I hope you don't mind the longish reply, and that we can have a more amicable conversation one day, over future chapters of this story and more.
Ooooh, OK, you've hit the one note to get me to speak up - me going missing has nothing to do with you or this comment chain. I've just had a bad hit of depression and couldn't muster energy to respond full stop. I will get around to it eventually, although probably shorter as Magenta has hit many of the points I would have, but suffice to say I'm neither angry nor upset at you, just having Bad Brain times.
Although I will say perhaps try to make criticism more concise? I might have been able to get at least something back if the original comment wasn't intimidatingly long :P
Right, sorry, too many words is a long-standing issue of mine, sorta a combination of trying to explain my own explanations, and being whatever the writing equivalent of a dog that tries to shake its tail, but gets so excited it vibrates its whole body instead is. :/
While I’m glad I didn’t upset you, I am much less happy to hear real life is giving you such hell. I am a problem that can be solved using the hide comment function. Depression on the other hand is...less easy.
As I said in my wall of text above, it’s your fanfic, in the end, and you have a right to enjoy it however, so take your time, yeah? No pressure.
Is your depression getting any better or worse? Please tell me you are not thinking of "ending it all". :(
Take your time in getting better, but don't listen to your bad brain when it starts telling you to go hurt yourself. Ignore it, It'll go away like a scab.
Comment on Our Lives As Teenage Weirdos
Onus on Chapter 2 Tue 06 Apr 2021 02:32AM UTC
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MagentaMusings (Lordlyhour) on Chapter 2 Sun 09 May 2021 08:57AM UTC
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ScarabKnight on Chapter 2 Sun 09 May 2021 09:24PM UTC
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MrWar1 on Chapter 2 Sun 30 May 2021 01:33PM UTC
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