Posted by MrMetroid 2 years ago Report

way late to comment, but going a bit retroactive for the sake of completionism ^_^;

Regarding the story, I gotta admit that so far I’m really liking the direction you’re going with the dreamscape-plot of IQ - possibly more than the actual show ( though I’ll admit being a vorephile might be influencing my opinion ^_^; ). the whole “prophecy” aspect feels like it might be Weiss subconscious attempting to subvert the Nightmare’s control with her own in a way that ‘Nega Weiss’ will listen to - from what I can tell, it seems like Weiss’ subconcious is aware enough of her situation to try working for an escape and know she needs help to do it… but, Weiss being Weiss, she’s being a stubborn perfectionist in doing it by corralling or controlling everyone around her. Starting with the brother who she views as a little creature flitting about peeking and prying into everything - she has a recognition of herself having shortcomings and a need of others’ skills or abilities to compensate, but it’s intermixed with her persnickety nature and and manifested as her literally “taking charge” in the most literal way.

Speaking of which, the vore-scene itself was rather short and simple, but it didn’t really bother me since it made a certain kind of sense - Dream-Whitley, being a bad and not someone Weiss really liked at this point in her life, was a smaller mouthful overall and not one she got any enjoyment from, so her rushing through it was believable. It also served to set up how Nega-Weiss’ stomach “functions” - that it has a “compression/hammerspace” principle, that it can be willed to digest rapidly, and that Weiss absorbs the traits of whatever she eats. and maybe I’m reading too much into it, but part of me wonders if the way her stomach works is based on nods to Weiss’ personality (i.e., her perfectionism translating to her dream-self’s stomach (A) not bloating or swelling out to any degree she’d consider grotesque, (B) being quick and efficient as she needs it to be, and (C) only giving her what she deems “necessary”, without “unnecessary” features like Dream-Whitley’s bat-like appearance).

I also liked how you’ve been writing the characters thus far - heck, I think they might even play a bit closer to the ones from the original series than IQ’s actual versions have done. Ruby’s naiveté and determination shine through with her desire to wanna trust Weiss, coupled with her tendency to kinda rely on “fly by the seat of her pants” risk-taking when it comes to her plans on what to do and sometimes having them backfire (like how her team’s Torchwick investigation in V2 spiraled into a highway chase XD). Yang and Blake are still both well-meaning but thoughtless in their courses of action - Yang in her gung-ho way, Blake in her quiet but determined way - by dream-diving after Ruby the moment things go wrong. Weiss herself has the enhanced haughtiness of her ‘nega’ self, but her other aspects seem to shine though as well - like her terse-but-noticeable patience with Ruby, or her awareness of Blake being more unpredictable compared to Yang’s straightforward nature, or her overly-harsh/misunderstood view of Whitley compared to her overt favoring the presence of the Kleins or Winter.

Now, for any actual critiques;
- I admit I think the intro’s a bit abrupt - nobody who hasn’t watched RWBY: Ice Queendom will likely know the context behind what the heck’s even going on right now (i.e., why Weiss is like this/who ’Nega-Weiss’ is, who Shion even is/how RBY got inside Weiss’ head, or who’s a dream and who’s real, etc). the introduction to the mystery-element you added into the story is easy enough to notice and get into (at least for me), but a lotta people who’ve watched RWBY might not yet have watched IQ yet, so I think the lack of a real introductory can be kinda jarring.
- I think my biggest gripe might just be connotations, speech-breaks and typos - there’s a few points that threw me off as to who was talking and who was replying in some conversations, and there’s at least one point where Dream-Whitley was referred to as “she” ( I almost thought the same was true Shion… but apparently there’s a division between RT and Shaft on whether Shion’s male or gender-neutral, so IDK for sure what the right pronouns for Shion even are ^_^;