Eagle of the Forest Path

On 4/24/2017 at 6:28 PM, Robinski said:

On we go – more comments.

• “most importantly—quickly” – I worry about her judgement if she thinks this is the most important consideration. Being right (good judgement or deductive skills), must be the most important think, surely? I do like the purposeful opening to the chapter though.
  My reasoning here was that LC wants to work with PS on the big murder case, so she has to be fast with the small case he gave to get her out of the way. Her judgement is pretty solid, I think, it's her priorities that are a bit messed up.
• “solidly built veteran lictor” – I want this detail earlier, so I can picture him as we go.
  Will do.
• I’m enjoying the pace and the forward momentum; this feels like the right approach at the right time. Get the story moving, and the character doing stuff.
  Thanks.
• “The inside interior of the house was a mess” – more convincing and satisfying to use words that are more specific, I think.
  I'll consider that.
• “The crash had come from a cupboard detaching from the wall” – this tells me nothing about the impact, it doesn’t convey the violence of a cupboard full of stuff smashing to the floor and exploding into splinters (for example).
• “Mistress Clup…” – this is in use as her title, so should be capitalised.
  Okay, I'll try to remember that.
• “The smile must have worked as intended. The larger woman made chewing motions for a while before until she realized there was no other reasonable way to take response” – First, be more direct and positive, imprecise or indirect language is not satisfying. Secondly, I don’t think the grammar of the reaction is right. The woman takes the only reasonable course available.
  I'll review this.
• “she’d rather not have record Brom recorded as her first ever arrest” – more active and urgent to put this in the present.
  True, but she's not the one keeping her own record. I'll think on it.
• “a competitor, maybe?” – I believe this is a question.
  I intended it as a suggestion, but the line is kind of thin here.
• “All he does is go around and collect piss at night!” – Lol.
   Oy! It's an honest job, and someone needs to do it.
• “mister Clup” – again, Mister, I believe.
  Right.
• “It’s clear that mister Clup is already dealing with enough malice in his life” – Ooh, this is very unprofessional – I don’t think this is in character, is it?
  Hopefully I can fix that in 3.0, when I've firmed up LC's personality. 
• “she said as her patron ran up” – This word is very plain as the name of your ‘Gee whizz’ magical artefact. I would like it to feel more like part of a mythos and have a bespoke word of its own.
  I'll think about that. I'd have to find a good word that makes it clear that a patron is a type of Dhé, and not something separate.
• “So, because it’s another Dhe, cutting will work this time?” – Commas, need a couple here, for the pauses in the sentence.
  All right.
• “she informed her.” – confusing, need one name or other.
  Okay.
• “How are you two still married? Char my bones, just get a divorce already. Or next time I’m here it might be to solve a murder” – Per my earlier comment, this is super unprofessional and I likely to get Laur pulled up on a charge pretty darn quickly.
  It would, if there was such a thing as professional standards in the setting. There are societal reasons why this isn't much of an issue, mainly because B&BC are plebs, and therefore not likely to go file a complaint. I could have blocked that in, but that would have been a strange tangent, plus LC is not actively thinking about that.
• Supplemental; also, it seems to me that your female characters so far are all harridans, and I include Laur in that category, although she is not ‘old’ (yet).
  I'm embarrassed, but I hadn't actually noticed that. In my defense, similar descriptions also apply to most of my male characters.
• “she’d banished the Dhé” – Really? I didn’t get any sense of that; I thought the patron killed one rat. That was too easy.
  Right. I'll have to find a balance between showing repetitions of the rat-catching and making the chapter too long.
• “Well, it seems the case is closed” – Eh? What?! No, it’s not – she didn’t even investigate the culprit at all. That is not a closed case in any kind of police procedure I've seen on screen or read.
  Ah. I need to clarify that. The case isn't solved, but now that the Dhé is gone the characters can't really see the point of trying to find who summoned it.
  Anyway, it's on my issues list. I'll decide later how to fix it.
• “clutter-free except for a single, towering stack of files” – this is kind of cheating, I would drop ‘single’ which is misleading, even for only one word. I felt conned for no particular reason.
  I don't quite understand. But I'll give it a shot.

So, that was kind of fun, I enjoyed the directness of it, and that things were happening. Thanks. Good pacing and getting stuck into some detection, however I ended up dissatisfied, for the reasons outlined, but from details that can be fixed easily enough, if you feel they are issues. To summarise, (1) Clup’s wife and the landlady feel very similar. The b*tching is entertaining, but beware of one note characters singing the same tune; Yeah, in the next version, I'll likely leave out the landlady entirely (2) Laur patron killing the Dhe was too easy, or maybe give more description of the Dhe chasing about and shredding; I'll fix that (3) there’s no way the case is closed, no way. ... spoilers  ...

Nice work though – it read very smoothly, I thought; I liked the style. Might consider nipping down to the hardware store and buying a bag of commas
All they had were semicolons. The store clerk suggested I cut them in half, but that was too much effort.

<R>

On 4/25/2017 at 1:14 AM, rdpulfer said:

- From the set-up, I expected Laurea to get a meaningless tasks, but instead she gets . . . an actual case? I was also surprised she considered it "amusing", when she seemed so dedicated to prove herself beforehand. Maybe this is an effort to make her seem overconfident.
Oh bother, I glossed over that. Is there something like Weekly Writer Syndrome? This was mentioned in previous versions/drafts. This case is as close as PS could get to giving her a pointless task. Without her patron Dhé, LC would have had to work her way through everyone BC knows and figure out who had strong enough motive to hire a Fury Priest. She finds it amusing because she's aware that PS is trying to keep her occupied elsewhere for as long as possible, but he picked the one case that she could 'finish' in a single day. 
I'll mark this as 'needs improvement'.

- I do like the bickering in the case itself - it does show why Laurea was what was obviously a reoccurring problem - and I like how she deals with the case.
... why Laurea was ... what... uhm, what? Sorry, but I can't figure out what that sentence means.

- And I liked the ending of the scene - although it seemed a tad predictable that it wouldn't be that easy to get what she wanted. 
Thanks. It is predictable, but I don't see a way to make it surprising here (and inevitable ) while still writing the story I have in mind.

On 4/26/2017 at 8:47 PM, Mandamon said:

Generally agree with @Robinski (per contract). Glad to see some action, but I also thought L's response was a bit unprofessional. I'll second the warning against having too many female caricatures without some solid personalities. This does start to develop L as competent, but she ends up solving the symptom, not the cause of the curse. Does she have any thoughts about what else might be required to actually solve the case?
She does, I'll need to expand on that.

Notes while reading:

pg 1: "With her patron perched atop her brand-new, blue, prefecture-issue palla"
--this sounds cool but I have no idea what it means. I can only imagine Probitus is sitting on her umbrella or something.
If that was it, it would so go on the cover! 
"His eyes barely flickered to the Dhé gracing her shoulder"
--Ah. patron demon, not patron employer. I assume palla is a robe of some sort?
A sash, goes around the waist and over the shoulder.

pg 1: "She made it all the way out of the quaestor’s offices before she couldn’t hold it anymore and her face relaxed into a wide smile."
--So...she's happy about it? the lips tightening and strained voice make me think this was a crap assignment. Or is she suppressing laughter?
The latter.

pg 2: "she doubted they were inherently sloppier than patricians. They should be less so, logically speaking, since a large portion of patrician homes were cleaned by pleb servants"
--meaning plebs clean for the patricians, so are good at it and do it all the time? I get that L is biased, but this logic isn't even sound.
Yeah, I'll just cut that second sentence. Thanks.

pg 3: "was no reasonable way to take"
--missing a word?
Oh dear! Yes indeed, a few words in fact: "... offense at that."

pg 5: "How are you two still married? Char my bones, just get a divorce already"
--Just to note, so far we've had a caricature of a grotesque landlady, and a caricature of an abusive, shrewish wife. Just be aware of what tropes you are calling forth.
I'm getting rid of the landlady, but I do need the wife for the plot.

7 hours ago, Robinski said:

Hey Eagle, glad to see the next part of your story. Let’s get cracking!

Let's!

Chapter 3

 

• “Prob was fairly content” – I like the opening description and his mood.

  Thanks.

• “He’d managed not thinking not to think about the scuppering Dhéonomist case for over an hour”.

  For grammar or because it reads better?

• “At least going up steps wasn’t” – this is repeated from two lines before, noticeably.

  Thanks for spotting that.

• “He was interrupted, however, by Rem, with a young woman of slightly above average height with in his wake” – sounds like Rem is a young women, suggest inserting ‘with’.

  Oh, I'd thought of putting "... by Rem, in his wake a ..." but your way is better (and takes less effort).

• “He noted them flit to his carefully coiffed hair, freshly shaved jaw, and fashionable rings. – ‘flit’ is repeated. “freshly shaved jaw” – but he’s just had lunch.

  I'll replace a flit. He just had lunch right after going to the barber's, if it's the same day, I think a shave still qualifies as fresh. 

• “You should stay away from the gambling halls, girl. I can read the disapproval right on your face” – This makes no sense to me. If Laur went to the gambling halls, she would learn to hide her reactions. He should be suggesting she go gambling to learn how to hide her reactions.

  Ah, we had the same problem with "pissing upwind", didn't we? Sure, she might learn to hide her expressions, but not before losing a boatload of money. In Probitus' opinion, you should learn to keep a poker-face, then go out gambling.

• “my problem is that I have no desire to go through the tedious exercise of observing you to find out” – Boom, excellently snarky – I like it.

  Thank you.

• “she said with anxiety on her face” – this doesn’t sound like Laur.

  I guess it doesn't. I saw it as her just having gotten the good news that she got the mentor she desperately wanted, and now she's afraid he won't accept her. I'd be pretty anxious.

• Well, he certainly is a throwback, isn’t he? I think I might enjoy their sparring. I liked how she deadpanned his grossly offensive gender stereotyping.

  You know, he really isn't, but he does want her to think he is (in the hope she'll ask a different mentor). This time, Laurea's (lack of) reaction was actually planned.

• I enjoy Prob’s snarkiness, and Laur’s unending positivity (from what I remember) should be an excellent foil for this.

  Thanks, I'll keep that in mind going forward.

Chapter 4

 

• “she’d found a dismissive fop” – I don’t think so. Quirk is a dismissive fop (I know, I need to play it up more). Prob is dismissive, certainly, but dic.com says “noun. a man who is excessively vain and concerned about his dress, appearance, and manners.” – I don’t see Prob this way. From what you’ve said, he isn’t that bothered about his clothes, which are more functional now to suit his leg, and he doesn’t seem at all concerned about his manners.

  No matter what, a toga is not functional. He just doesn't have to bother anymore about functional attire, so he can indulge in fashion. I got the word slightly wrong with 'fop' (curse you, thesaurus.com!) but if you cut "and manners" from the definition you supplied, that's pretty much the image Laurea has of Probitus right then.

• “Finding out who her mentor was to would be had rendered”

  Okay.

• “She’d wildly been changing tack,” – Split infinitives, or Star Trek disease (To boldly go…) is something that I personally try to avoid, only because I think the more correct form sounds better, smoother, less noticeable. Dan Wells made the point on WE some time ago that going 100% one way or another on grammar ‘rules’ like this can make prose sound uniform, and therefore stilted, and that variation is more interesting. That seems fair to me, and I do now retain some split infinitives, but some sound more awkward than others, and I think this is one of them. So, looong way around to saying, personally, I think “She’d been changing tack wildly,” sounds much better, or rather much less awkward.

  Yeah, it does, thanks.

• “So Laur brooded as she descended one of Exed’s main stairwells” – I think you’re doing a good job of keeping us in the setting, up to a point. Every mention of ‘stair’ or ‘stairwell’ or ‘going up/down’ cements my feeling of the verticality of the place. This said, I little description would make this even stronger. What are the stairs made of, how do her feet sound on them – not long description, just a couple of words here on there. Secondly, Laur seems to lose heart very quickly, doubt, yes, but I would not have thought she would accept defeat so easily.

  I'll think about the additional description. I'm glad the verticality is coming across. In WX world-building terms, it's my Gee-whizz.
  Not to worry, Laurea's gonna bounce right back.

• “you daft bint” – lol. Okay, the landlady is a stereotype, but stereotypes exist because people like them. I think you’ve characterised her very well in a short space. I find myself wondering how she got so bitter. And you paint a convincing picture of her. Good job.

  Thank you.

• “termagant” – Aw, cool!!! I learned a new word!!

  You're welcome.

• “Mistress Praep” – Some of the names are tongue-twisters, but this is the most so. I’ve started skipping over it already.

  Yeah, I was gonna keep going to see if someone figured it out themselves, but it doesn't really matter anymore, so: these names actually have meanings. I "made" them all with google translate. Copona (lit. landlady) could do with a new last name, though. I'm thinking "Tenacior".

• I enjoy the nautical theme, the little details like the swears and the sea lamps; very effective. Nautical stuff is always effect, I think, because it has such cool-sounding terms. If anything, I think you could play it up slightly more. I hope there will be scenes at the docks, and warehouses and jetties and stuff – I love it. My story Waifs and Strays is set in such a setting.

  Ah, I'm actually planning to focus more on the festival, but there are a few scenes where I haven't figured out the location yet, so keep your fingers crossed.

• “ever-flowing stream of salt water gushing from a stonework lobster’s left claw” – This kind of little detail is just lovely.  This is how you do setting, imho.

  Thanks.

• “Now blessed with the power of sight” – this is a bit OTT, for me.

  Yeah, I was waxing too lyrical there.

• “A century ago her ancestors had often seated sat on a spire’s curiate council”

  Okay.

• Sorry, but the last paragraph is a grammatical car crash. Big run-on sentences, jumbled clauses, very hard to read. Also, it feels like a lot of new information at the end of the chapter, which makes me feel cut off mid-explanation when the chapter ends.

  I'll try to straighten out that sentence.

I enjoyed these chapters although, ultimately, there was almost no plot progress. Still, I feel that we have well and truly finished with the establishing chapters, and now can roll our sleeves up and get stuck into the investigation. More plot next time, please. Good work though.

Next time there will indeed be plot progress, though not in the investigation. Thanks.

<R>

On 4/10/2017 at 6:11 PM, Mandamon said:

Overall, I liked these chapters better than the previous ones. A little bit of info dumping in Ch 4, but not too much. I've noted where I saw it. Looking forward to more!
Thanks!

pg 1: "Remissus, a young woman of slightly above average height with in his wake."
--something missing. Also, this makes it sound like Remissus is the young woman.
Ah, I left in "with" in an editing SNAFU. Does it work better as "...Remissus, in his wake a young woman of slightly above average height."?

pg 2: "Laurea Celsior was going to be harder to get rid of than he’d hoped"
--don't know if Prob. has enough information to make this conclusion yet.
Probitus is supposed to be incredibly observant and very intelligent, he can reason things out from very little information. Or that's the idea. But he really should have more clues, though. 

Chapter 3: Nothing in particular stood out. We get some more insight on Prob's character, which is useful. At this length, it could either be a short chapter by itself, or tacked on to another chapter.

pg 3: "achieve this crucial step in her grand plan,"
--Still not convinced on this plotline. it's trying to force a law enforcement career path plan to be exciting, and I can tell you from experience--career path planning is anything but.
Haha, I guess not. It's probably because I've been forcing things a bit. Originally (very, very, very early concept), Laurea was supposed to be a lawyer with the intention to break into politics. That had other problems though.

pg 3: "boom hit her right in the gut"
--not familiar with this idiom.
It's from sailing. The boom is the pole at the bottom of a sail. When you tack (turn the ship so the wind hits it from the other side) the boom swings over the deck. If you aren't careful it could hit you (which tends to hurt a lot). This was an attempt at constructing an in-world nautical-themed idiom, but I was presupposing reader foreknowledge. Mea culpa.

pg 3: "At graduation..."
--this paragraph is more of the same. Lording it over academy classmates just makes L seem petty. If that's what you're going for, fine, but it makes her much less sympathetic.
I'd rather overconfident than petty, but I see your point.

pg 3: "The higher one went in a spire, the higher the class of resident..."
--I like this paragraph, but it's a bit of an infodump. It would be better to see the information given out a bit at a time, or in relation to something happening.
Gotcha.

pg 4: I like the landlady. Could be a bit over the top, but I still like it.

pg 4 Mode of speaking: not sure which part you mean. The italics? I was fine with it--just seemed like the landlady was emphasising things.

pg 6: Sea lamps: I like the detail. Could probably cut it down just a bit, but it didn't feel too infodumpy.
Thanks.

pg 6: 1B. I think this is alright.

pg 6: "However reduced her family might be at the moment, the Celsior family had once been great, and Laurea would see it great once more. If her plan worked; if she managed to convince Probitus Senector; if she…"
--Now, this works a lot better as a Grand Plan. There's a meaning behind it and a reason for her working so hard. Having some of this earlier would help.
A few version ago I had it in the first chapter with Laurea on the deck of a ship. But then I was starting off the book with naval gazing (been waiting ages to use that pun), it might actually work now that I've moved the first Laurea chapter to Ch2.

Pg 7: I remember the description of Aelura from the last time around. Still love it. One bit of confusion: it says she was last summoned over 80 years ago. Meaning before just now, or has L had her "summoned" her whole life?
The latter, she inherited Aelura from her father, who got it (her) from one of his parents. I can probably clear that up with a relatively small wording change.
Glad you like the description.

On 4/11/2017 at 7:16 PM, kais said:

Overall

These both felt like worldbuilding chapters without arcs, and that made it hard to stay invested. For your questions:

Questions:
- Chapter 3, concise or rushed?

I didn't find it rushed. Drawing it out would make it sag.

- The landlady, do I need to go deeper into how LC reacts to her?

The landlady came off as a caricature, and LC doesn't really react. Some information about WHY the landlady is like that, or at least more reactions, would be useful

- On page 4, I'm trying to convey a specific way of speaking, is it okay like this or would it be better with just descriptors in the dialogue tags?

I didn't mind it

- "1B", is it permissible to use the numeral in this situation?

I think so? Meh, leave it for an editor

- Sea-lamps, fun detail or TMI?

TMI. Suggest deleting the whole paragraph.

-There's some navel-gazing and info-dumping in Chapter 4. I think I managed to keep it to an acceptable amount, what do you think?

I think it wouldn't be so bad if the chapter arced. It was just starting to get interesting, and then didn't go anywhere.

 

This is definitely better than last time. Good work!
Thanks!

As I go

- 'an acceptable bistro lunch' isn't a particularly strong starting line to a chapter
Heh, I guess it isn't. Does tell you something about Probitus though, doesn't it?

- He noted them flit to his carefully coiffed hair, freshly shaved jaw, and fashionable rings.  This is sort of POV fail
I get that. I was trying to do too many things at once here: establish Probitus as highly observant, show that he's a bit of a peacock, make it clear that Laurea is disappointed that he spends so much effort on appearance, maybe some other things as well. I tried, I failed, I'll do better next time.

- why are we emphasizing 'leg' on page two?
Because of Probitus' limp. Remissus is more or less saying "You can't run, so have her do it for you."

- the dialogue on page two is pretty cliche and standard. Maybe punch it up some?
I'll try.

- page three: lot of summary, which detracts from any tension you may have been forming
I'll work on it.

- page four: 'old bag' is... questionably in your established POV here. Also a little tropish
Gotcha.

- page five: the landlady's anger doesn't seem real. I have no feel for her motivation and I'm not getting a lot of emotion back out of Laurea.

- Fortunately, the unaccommodating landlady: these adjectives before landlady are getting repetitive and drawing me out of the narrative
I can get rid of about half those adjectives immediately, the rest are probably for the 10% word cut at the end.

- Is the lamp lighting necessary worldbuilding? I feel like it is just taking up space, and I am anxious at this point for something to happen
Not necessary to the storyline, no. I got a bit overexcited. I'd finally found a way to light the insides of my spires without needing daylighting tunnels for every room or suffocating every resident with carbon monoxide on a regular basis.

- page seven is the first time I've been really drawn into the story
Sorry for taking so long.

- page seven: this ending doesn't really... end. I think you're missing the end point to your story arc here
There were some things that I needed to have, like introducing Aelura and explaining Laurea's motivation, so I didn't think about making this chapter an actual part of the story.

On 4/12/2017 at 4:40 AM, industrialistDragon said:

 

As I go...

 

Slow start to ch3, and some of the sentence structure is confusing. I had to reread the first part a few times just to parse out some of the sentences. 
I'll try to clean that up.

is Remissus a young woman? or are there two people? it is very unclear.
I'll reword that to make it clearer. Remissus(middle-aged man) is leading Laurea (young woman).

 

dialogue is pretty stilted through the early parts here. 
Sorry 'bout that.
 

I know i missed the first part of this story, but with all the focus on the Tony-esque guy in the previous chapter, I really thought he would be a more prominent character. He seems to have just vanished....  (But at least we now know where he got his steamroller approach from -- that police captain or whatever just rolled right over P)
Hah! Janus (the DiNotzo) will be coming back in a later chapter, I thought having him in here would just distract from Laurea vs Probitus. Remissus rolling over Probitus does have the nice (for my plot) side-effect of causing some resentment (or general negative feeling) towards Laurea, which is the dynamic I need at this point.

 

Overuse of semicolons alert! Some of the semicolons in this section (I counted 10) need to be upgraded to colons or em-dashes, or broken out into separate sentences entirely.
Alright, I'll take a look at that.
 

I really feel... nothing for this P character.  Granted, I missed his entrance chapter, but from what's here, he feels like a basically unchanged cardboard version of a Gruff Older Detective
Yeah, I really didn't do enough to differentiate him from that. I thought about doing a gender swap, but figured it wouldn't really change the character that much.

 

L's introspection in this first part feels less like the self-recrimination I think you're aiming for and more like foisting the blame for her hubris off on her old classmates, and I still have no clue what this "grand plan" of hers is that's she's always on about.
Aha, I didn't think of looking at it like that. And I've just gotten an idea of how I might work "the Plan" into her first appearance.

 

I agree with @kais, the landlady is a caricature and a stereotype, and not a good one at that. The landlady worries me. Using her appearance to indicate her seemingly random bad temper ... it's not a great thing to do to anyone, much less a female elderly character. Playing the "Old people are ugly, let's laugh at their frightening appearance" card is common for a cheap laugh, but it's not a particularly good writing decision, and it never sits well with me.  (Yes, I have a very hard time watching sitcoms). 

I understand why you read it like that, I just want to assure you that I didn't want to say "Old people are ugly", well, not entirely. I was shooting for "people who can't admit they're getting old and desperately try to cover it up". Basically, I was poking fun at Donald Trump's spray-on tan.

 

Other than some more appearance-related name-calling, L doesn't react to the abuse, either, which also sounds an off note, And it occurs to me just now that this is yet a third (fourth?) character who rolls right over L, with little or no attention paid to her reactions or opinions. People can ignore each other, yes, but there also needs to be interaction and reaction to others' behaviors to make them believable as people... 
I'll attempt to turn that up.

 

I really liked the sea-lamps! It's little details like these that make a world feel grounded and lived-in. You did a good job of incorporating their workings into an actual plot-based description and monologue, too. 
Thanks! FYI they "work" because of Sea Sparkles, but turned up to eleven.

 

L's thoughts about her family's fall from grace are more like what an internal monologue should be -- they kept my interest and laid out a bunch of information in a way that is consistent with her character. I'd've really liked something more like this in her first chapter, though -- or at least a smidge of it! just -- something! -- to give a bit of context to all her "plan" talk. 
It originally was, in switching stuff around, it got worse than the previous version. How stupid is that?

 

This line about A seems to imply that L is over 80 years old... 

Now this I have to straight-up disagree with. I believe the inclusion of "It appeared that..." ought to suffice to make it clear that Laurea wasn't there.

 

Overall, these chapters feel disjointed from the one I read before. We spent an entire chapter following L to get to the police office, but when we arrive, we switch POVs to someone who doesn't care what it looks like, how important it is, or anything else about this thing we've spent pages and pages anticipating.  and then,  it's a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am quickie and we're out of the office so fast I feel like I had a bit of whiplash.  Do we really need to see this meeting from P's POV? Does it somehow add to the story in some way that staying with L, watching her dreams crumble like wet plaster around her, wouldn't? Don't I even get time for a cigarette? 

Sorry, no tobacco on this planet. I was afraid of doing too many Laurea chapters one after the other (ch5 is also Laurea). I had no idea you were anticipating the office, but thanks for the suggestion. Actually it'll be a good exercise for me, writing the same scene from different POVs, I might even do a Remissus version as well.

 

I'm a bit worried about your secondary characters as well. So far, other than L (and we could debate L's level of tropishness), almost all of your characters have been pretty textbook cutout tropes and stereotypes. Tropes and stereotypes aren't bad per se, but if you use nothing but tropes and insert them whole cloth into your setting without putting your own spin on them,  it makes your protagonists appear flat, and your world feel shallow.  I know they're not (they're really not!) but when all they have to bounce off of are cardboard people, well... I mean, not even Will Smith and Margot Robie could save Suicide Squad, y'know?  Don't be Suicide Squad. K?
Characters are hard for me. All I can say is I'll put more effort into them, though the results are anyone's guess.

But I won't be Suicide Squad, I promise. (Actually I shouldn't promise, since I haven't seen it. So, who knows, I might be.)

 

(but even with the issues, I still want to see what happens next, so keep at it! )  
I will, thanks.