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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3534432" data-attributes="member: 10079">Those are some very big compliments, thank you. I honestly worry about the combat a lot when I'm writing it, wondering if its too detailed. So it feels great to know that its working.As for the other things...lets see if I can help out a bit with it.Most all of Jyren's problems end up trailing back to losing Mare. I wouldn't really call it emo, as he has a very good reason for being so screwed up, but that's exactly what happened. He allowed himself to become so attached to one person, that losing them pretty much destroyed him. Tiresome? Maybe, but its just who he is. A great deal of all of this is him slowly finding a way PAST that, which is much easier said than done.Its not that he's stupid, either, but he has a habit of thinking with his heart before his brain can get a word in edgewise.  He's very, very idealistic and has a strong sense of right and wrong, and acts on that. In that sense, he's the polar opposite of Marix, who is the complete LACK of emotion. So all of his decisions are coated by that and it means he does far too many things that look dumb to everyone but make perfect sense to him.Marix IS better than him, purely in the sense of fighting skill. She was born and trained as a weapon to kill, then her clone got similar training...so you have two killers in ONE body. Jyren, though, is much more of a self-made person and so his skills are naturally inferior. His only real training was in piloting and a smattering of Special Ops that he ran from quickly, anyway. So its all being made up as he goes along. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But he usually manages to pull through when he needs to.To be truthful, she WAS the Darkwing and there really was nothing she could have done on that end. Mrrakesh are to Alraxians what Alraxians are to Humans...stronger, faster, and pretty much a hundred times more dangerous. The fact that she could fight one and survive says a great deal. And though that might not have been clear right away, things being hit now will start to shed more light on the Mrrakesh. Nine and Ket are both similar cases...with Nine, essentially, being an insane version of herself and not worried about a damned thing. By the time Marix is really dealing with Nine, she's worrying about Jyren and not the same old killer that Nine still is. Ket is better than her, though. He is, essentially, what she was: the best of the Tam'day'u, except that his time capture by the Mrrakesh made him bitter and (more) violent. For both Ket and Nine, its their anger and need for revenge that makes them so dangerous and powerful.As for the abuse on Alraxia...Marix took that because she's supposed to. Tam'day'u are inferior, supposedly. Cursed scum. She was raised like that, despite the feelings of her parents towards that. Her attitude changed completely there because that was how she knew it was supposed to be, and Faban didn't help the situation at all.It is a constant storytelling cliche that the good guys are out of their league, so that's really one reason it keeps popping up. But another is because these aren't the best of the best. Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie...they are the #1 group of Star Wars. Even at the time of this story, those four are out there doing thier thing and being heroes. Of course, they can't handle or even know about everything...so you get others stepping up. The idea, really, was that this is the second string, as it were, stepping up to deal with first string style problems.As for her anger at him for killing Ket...she didn't want to kill him. Marix had the chance to do that before, but stopped herself. She saw Ket as what she could have been, and started to actually want to find a way other than killing him, not that she had any ideas, to get out of the situation. And she probably wouldn't have been so angry with Jyren had he not let HIS anger take control of his actions.Remember, the Dark Side can make a person strong, but it can also make a person do something they wouldn't otherwise. While Marix, herself, has different beliefs in the Force, seeing Jyren's reaction was enough to make anyone angry. He very much crossed a line and, unlike others(say...Anakin Skywalker), his own fear of it didn't drive him farther INTO it, but AWAY from it.We have a near-suicidal human that, three years later, is STILL overly attached to the girl he loved and a trained assassin who was brought up where her earliest training was in rejecting her emotions. Its basically the couple from hell.The simple fact is that Jyren was still stuck in the past. Marix was his friend that helped keep him alive, and never would be anything because...because that's what Mare was. Jyren is the kind of person that probably should have been locked up in some mental hospital for years, to be honest.She wasn't really dishonest as much as just didn't have time to worry about it. As for the rest, and especially with the whole feelings thing...they're alien to her. They don't make sense, and, honestly, they're terrifying. Happiness, anger, and the other basic emotions aren't that bad. But when you get into something like love, well, its something competely different. There is such a strong attachment and vulnerability that goes with it that its like nothing Marix had ever experienced. She is so internal that having to open up, even though they share a link, it a lot to come to grips with.And a lot of it, for Marix especially, is having to say things. Words can't grasp concepts like love at all, and the only reason she really uses that word is because its the closest she can come up with even though its so far away from it. Their love for each other is extremely strong, but that, alone, makes it so much harder for someone like Marix to make any sense of. If not for the link, it probably wouldn't have worked out. Words aren't needed that way, even if Jyren gravitates towards them because that's his comfort zone.See page 7...end of Chap 211 and then 212. Course, there's all the events leading up to it, especially the whole "Three Full Moons" thing.But the best explanation is really:[sblock]But when she started for the door, she noticed that Jyren didn’t go anywhere. Stopping just two steps later, Shadow turned back around and asked what had to be asked, “What is it...?”At first, he just shrugged. Then, smart enough to remember the link provided at least some insight for her, Jyren gave in and asked an honest question, “Why couldn’t this have happened months ago instead of now when you have to just run off like this?”Ah. That. Carefully, Shadow walked back over to him and somewhat awkwardly drew him into a hug. She spoke in a quiet voice, “For one...we were children.”“Well, yeah but...” he trailed off, returning the hug as he tried his last fight against reality, “...I should have said something a long time ago.”“I should have, too,” Shadow admitted, pulling back a little to look him in the eyes, “But neither of us did. And besides, it might not have meant a thing then. You were still very caught up with Mare and I...well...I barely understand any of this right now, so I know it would have gone right over me before.”“So we get a few hours and then that’s it?” Jyren asked, voicing a thought that was as much hers as it was his own.But Shadow shrugged, “A few hours is better than not at all, right?”[/sblock]Not angry at all and its all good. I love reading what other people think on things, and, honestly, its an excuse for me to jump back and skim a few parts while diving back into Marix and Jyren's motivations. This has moved a bit past that time by now, and I have to admit, one of my favourite parts of all of this is the awkwardness of Jyren and Marix falling in love. Sure, it isn't ideal, but that's the point. These are two very screwed up people. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />On the stats end...give me a couple days and I'll see what I can find. Need to dig through old info and see. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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