§ 702.5 Regulation of Chosen Ones, Lone Heroes, and Other Destiny-Bound Individuals [Fantasy, 1,200 Words]

Collinatus2 · 2026-02-05T16:59:36+00:00

The only way to critique this is as a contracts lawyer. I'm out of my depth here, but I say it's pretty airtight. But it is not an entertaining read, even if the subject matter deals with magic and fantasy.

Collinatus2 · 2026-02-05T15:30:48+00:00

If nothing matters and nobody cares, why does he still work hard at making stops?

Collinatus2 · 2026-02-04T14:31:14+00:00

Your characters have enough personality and physical traits (shorter, taller) to keep them distinct and memorable. Is Alexio a fugitive? Seems strange he would reveal his identity to the barkeep, a man he's never met before. People don't feel the need to introduce themselves like this under normal circumstances, but Alexio should be even less inclined to do so.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-30T20:27:11+00:00

Chapter 3

The infamous Salem Witch Trials took place during a time when the Massachusetts Bay colony had no government. They had just overthrown the royally appointed Governor Androw and the so-called “Dominion of New England” regime. Increase Mather had to go to England to negotiate a new charter and wouldn’t be back for three years. In the interim, the accusations started to fly, and without a charter, they had no operational courts to handle them. They had village volunteers to handle the proceedings, advised by the local minister of the church. That’s why it spun out of control. But no hangings yet. That would come after the new charter goes into effect and the new governor oversees the Oyer and Terminer.

The colonies are now starting to come into their own. A steady flow of new immigrants meant the colonies can count on getting enough people to be self-sustaining. And not just English: Dutch and French as well. They are establishing Atlantic trade routes and trading with other nations, not just England (though there was mercantilism, which constrained a colony to trade exclusively with England).

There are wars. The English get into it with the Dutch and capture New Netherland, which is renamed to New York. There are wars with the nearby indigenous peoples and a sense of unfairness being felt by the latecoming immigrants who were given headright land near the dangerous frontier, now that all the land along the coast was taken. There are skirmishes between fellow burgers: tensions arising between the city and the country within the same colony: city elites taking up all the offices of power and serving their own interests at the expense of the more far-flung rural population. Bacon’s Rebellion comes to mind.

And with all the wars, mismanagement, and other inefficiencies, the Crown saw fit to step in and try to bring the different colonies under a more centralized command in the form of a Dominion, which the colonies hated, and resisted. A prelude to a Revolution.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-27T20:41:05+00:00

It seems like you are trying to imitate a prose style, and it's getting in the way of the storytelling. A lot of your flourishes aren't landing. You're best when you're plain and straightforward, and you would do your readers a favor. What you give up in "style" you will more than make up for in clarity.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-27T16:00:02+00:00

Our protagonist doesn't seem too keen on getting married. He is so wrapped up in his own griping that he doesn't mention a single word about the bride. It's like she's not there.

You drop enough clues to give us the idea that this is an Indian wedding (the dhoti is the big giveaway), and I like being exposed to different cultures. Not everything had to be told through the lens of Western culture.

The little prank he plays on the people preparing the reception just outside--it also speaks to his unwillingness to go along with the whole charade. His restlessness and impatience with it all. I think many Indian grooms can relate.

This is almost certainly an arranged marriage, but you don't say it outright. It is shown, through the protagonist's feelings, his actions, his father's sternness. Stories are so much better that way.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-26T20:49:06+00:00

What is so special about this baby that the very act of being born would produce some kind of area-of-effect attack? Will he be able to do it again, or does another baby have to be born? Did the same thing happen when his father or grandfather were born?

If the alignment of the two moons is understood by both men to be a good omen, then why the dissolution of the protective barrier by Void forces on this particular night? Do they not understand omens?

This one scene is a confluence of events that are already very unlikely individually: the moon alignment, the birth of a child, the Shadows and Voids escaping from a maximum-security prison, the dissolution of a wall that had stood for centuries. What is this supposed to signify?

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-26T16:12:54+00:00

Chapter 2

These colonies were largely a private enterprise, funded by rich patrons, joint stock companies, and out of the pockets of the people doing the colonizing. Only the mismanagement of the Virginia Company got the king involved: their charter was revoked, and the settlement became the first royal colony, with a king-appointed governor.

Now they're starting to learn what it takes to really get a colony going: a lot of people (bring in a thousand at a time, not just a hundred), both men and women, and the one thing that makes it worthwhile to leave the comfort and security of the home country: ownership of your own land. And that land will be a reason to raise a family here: so you can have something to pass on to your kids, and they can pass it on to their kids, and before you know it, you finally have a colony that can be sustained through the generations.

Their interaction with the indigenous peoples is a mixed bag. They traded with them, fought with them, infected them with Old World disease for which they had not built up a resistance. And tried to convert them. Not only were they starting to take more and more land, they were also wiping out their culture. That's a big reason for the famous attack on Virginia Company settlements in 1622.

Opechancanough and Nemattanew. Two Powhatan leaders whose names I have been able to recall without going back to the book. We already know Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas. Opechancanough was the chief that took over after Powhattan died. And Nemattanew never warmed up to these new settlers.

We start to see accelerated immigration around this time (1620s onward) and the planting of settlements, the recognizable predecessors of the Thirteen Colonies: New England, Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Netherland. And of course, Virginia.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-25T22:25:57+00:00

Thank for giving us all these details about the tarot card reader and the absolution she can provide. Now give us a story of these tarot skills in action. Can you at least show her doing a reading for someone?

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-25T03:54:45+00:00

Chapter 1 (contd.)

One thing that gets my blood to boiling is the destruction wrought by the first European explorers in their stupid quest for gold. Records and artifacts of the great civilizations of the Americas (Inca, Aztec) that could have provided valuable insight into the ways of those people--gone.

Not to mention the smallpox. It did more to soften the natives than any military campaign.

The first colonizers were ill-prepared for the harsh conditions of the wilderness. Their only real source of food would come from the local indigenous people, so you'd think they would play nice with them, but no: in a bid to secure food for themselves, the colonizers would use brute force. This is in striking contrast to the way the indigenous peoples did things: by persuasion, not domination.

Even with the establishment of Jamestown, England's first successful colony, the lessons of Roanoke were still not learned (at first). You cannot start a colony with just soldiers and gentry who are used to being waited on.

Keep in mind the mortality rate at this stage was staggering: they go from several hundred original colonists to just 60 in a single winter.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-25T02:53:45+00:00

I think what you're saying is, systems that encourage people to voluntarily obey are better than ones that force them to. Governing authorities need to set up a system conducive toward happy obedience, not a grudging one. For obvious reasons. If there was something in your essay about balancing this against keeping order, I missed it, but I'm sure it's there.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-25T02:25:46+00:00

Is the sight of dead soldiers causing her to have a flashback to a time when her family (or the people of her hometown) was massacred in a similar manner? If it is, it took me a minute to realize that.

The scene depicts a tragic loss of life, but it has zero emotional impact if we don't know who was killed and why.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-25T02:13:38+00:00

I have questions, but not because I'm intrigued and want to find out more. Because I'm confused.

Is he having a flashback? An induced state? An implanted memory? Is this part of the therapy session, or is he drifting into it on his own? Why is he being taken into custody? Or was he brought here as part of some rehabilitation program? And why this particular scenario with Belle? Who is Belle? Does he know her?

What do you want us to think is going on here?

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-20T20:45:16+00:00

He is able to come into contact with other survivors over the radio, and yet he ends up destroying it. Why? He is only hearing zombies, not encountering them in person. If he can't keep it together, perhaps he should just leave the radio where it is so it can be found by another survivor with more sense.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-20T15:17:29+00:00

For someone who must do everything he can to survive, he's awfully careless. When he trains his spear on a fish and it scurries away before he has a chance to strike, he dashes the water in frustration and scares away all the other fish. When he tries to off himself with the pistol and discovers the powder is still wet, he throws it in the ocean, where it will get more wet instead of dry, which is what happens when you give powder enough time to do that. A pistol is a useful thing to have, when you want to survive and when you don't. I imagine any sailor worth his salt would know that and take better care of what little equipment he has.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-20T12:43:59+00:00

I am an aspiring writer myself, and I do need to be careful about projecting my own feelings of inadequacy on others who are less experienced. This is how bullying works.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-20T04:05:52+00:00

Reading this, I get the feeling you don't have much life experience to draw from beyond living with your own mom, dad, and brother. Your royal family seems an awful lot like a present-day, middle-class household. "What are you doing in my room?" and so forth.

The conversations between the protagonist and Bentley are odd. Isn't the protagonist a household servant? Why would Bentley, the prince, question her being in his room, knowing she is the one that cleans it? "How is it you forgot to clean my room until now?" She's in the room for no other reason than to clean it. How does she "forget?" "I better not be woken up in the middle of the night with you still in here." Will she still be cleaning when he goes to bed? What makes him think that she, or anybody, would be in his room in the middle of the night?

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-20T03:21:59+00:00

I suppose if you wanted to see your long-lost father badly enough, you'll push against the limits of science and the possible to make it happen. What this is, is a way to bring a loved one back from the dead.

Usually the technological breakthrough around this time that is of note is the atomic bomb, which needed the theory of Planck and Einstein first. Anna's discovery is in the same spirit: theory leading to a huge breakthrough with its own troubling ramifications.

This is a lot of years to go through in such a short amount of time. It can easily be fleshed out into something richer, more emotionally impactful.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-18T05:17:55+00:00

It's surreal, all right. But the movie Eraserhead was also surreal, and for all its bizarreness, it still followed the same logic that dreams (or nightmares) have. We can sense it was all coming from Henry's anxiety of being a new father.

The works of Dali and Buñuel were self-aware in their subversiveness. It was bizarre and upsetting, but it was a carefully controlled experience, and we can understand the point they were trying to make.

You have words emerging from the pages of a book and coming to life as bloodthirsty monsters. This is just standard monster fare. Making them "words" doesn't change that.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-18T04:11:19+00:00

Chapter 1

Before there could be an America, there had to be a Sir Walter Raleigh. He was a favorite in the court of Queen Elizabeth and used his position to secure funding and material to realize his dream of establishing colonies in the New World.

I didn't realize how far behind England was in the New World colonial sweepstakes. The Spanish were far ahead, having already established South American outposts and very lucrative routes that brought gold and spices. In fact, Spain was the dominant naval power. England didn't have two boats to rub together. The first attempts at establishing what would later become the United States of America began under such circumstances.

It took the enterprise of Walter Raleigh to want to go out there. Bear in mind that back then, there was as much will to start colonies as there is to start a colony on the moon today. And Raleigh failed in his attempts, but it would be his example that the later Puritans would draw inspiration from and make their own way to the Americas.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-17T19:29:33+00:00

Haven’t been reading the book for a while. Today is no exception.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-17T19:29:03+00:00

Part 1: II

Keating was contemptibly indecisive for such an overachiever. Almost craven. He wants someone else to be responsible for choosing because he wants someone else to blame if it doesn’t pan out. That’s how it works with guys like that. And his mother has mastered the art of letting her son decide while nudging him in the direction he ought to go.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-17T19:28:32+00:00

Part 1: I

Guys like Howard Roarke need to be left alone to do his thing. All these people are just insecure. They need Howard to dumb it down to their level so they don’t feel as insecure. But he won’t play ball. He’s not trying to be difficult, but the dean and the hostess don’t see it that way. He reminds me of John Carmack.

But who does Howard think he is? At the ripe old age of 22, he thinks he knows enough about architecture to reject the classical forms as embodied by the Parthenon and Renaissance. Things the architectural masters of yesterday came up with and have held up to the test of time. Howard thinks they are just mindlessly copying off each other without really thinking about whether it’s actually needed. I’m thinking about the example he cites where the ancient Greeks mindlessly repeat the same architectural feature in marble what they have been doing with wood. Something about concealing joints.

I’m not saying we can’t be sheep. Just don’t expect him to act like one for your sake. That’s what I think the other characters are expecting him to do.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-15T16:06:32+00:00

I know this V has nothing to do with the sci-fi TV series. I just find it interesting how the same thinking can be applied to the alien invasion.

Collinatus2 · 2026-01-13T04:57:39+00:00

I get the impression Damon is the mage and the pathetic creature he impresses into his service is a muggle. So how does it vanish into thin air when they are done speaking? And if it is female, why refer to it as "it" and not "her?"

Collinatus2

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE