My Soul is on Fire, reviewed by Hexillith

[Editor's note: This review was written externally and copied to the Mythos Review by its author.]

My Soul is on Fire is a blog by Acelegin, and can be read here. Its main Fear is the Dying Man.

This blog is interesting because it felt more like an action-adventure story than a horror story. It reminded me of a Japanese fighting game such as Soul Calibur, as it’s filled with superpowered characters fighting outlandish battles with one another. While I appreciate Fearblogs outside the horror genre, I felt that in this case the execution was sorely lacking.

My first major complaint is that the plot was very unstructured and didn’t keep my attention. It seemed to drag on and on without actually getting me invested in the story or characters, like I was listening to Estren say “…and then this happened, and then this, and then this, and then, and then, and then…” Details started to blur and I had to go back and reread parts on multiple occasions. I still can’t figure out exactly why Estren and HELLFIRE decided to look for Silvermist or who “future guy” is.

My second complaint is that that the characters all felt pretty much the same. HELLFIRE was the only one who stood out at all, and even then he didn’t feel quite consistent. Characters’ motives were often unclear. HELLFIRE seems to have an ulterior motive when it comes to finding the Godslayer, but why is Estren going along with him? And why is Amy sticking around? Supposedly Estren “owns” her, but the Game Master used to and she switched to Estren’s side over a bet. She could easily take off. The characters in this story felt like puppets rather than people, like they were only doing things because the plot demanded it.

I think My Soul is on Fire could have been an interesting blog if the execution had been better. I’m sure there are plenty of people who’d be interested in Fearblogs of this genre. I think the blog could have been improved if the author had paid more attention to his characters, who they were, and why they were doing what they were doing. The plot would have naturally become more interesting and engaging if I had been invested in the characters. Additionally, there are many typos throughout the blog that could have easily been caught with a bit of proofreading. This may seem like a minor thing, but I strongly believe that if such issues can be fixed, they should, as error-free prose makes a story seem more professional and improves flow.

All Roses Wilt, reviewed by NoFourthWall

For reference, All Roses Wilt was written by Acelegin and can be read here.

Before we perform our latest blog autopsy, we need to go into the background of this blog or else you'll have no clue what's happening in it.

You see awhile ago a Fear Mythos fan about his idea for a Fear, The Meetaldroid the Fear of weapons. Needless to say this idea didn't become a Fear but the writer of this blog didn't want the creators work to go to wast and the Meetaldroid was recreated as the Mercygivers, a bunch of weapons that rid their wielders of their emotions and force them to kill people.

That being said this was the first blog they were in. That's all that can be really said about this blog, the only thing it has going for it is that it's the first appearance of Mercygivers. Without this fact it feels extremely rushed and pointless. I can literally describe the blog as this:

The main protagonist Diana Rose gets bullied by the popular girls for (and this is in the characters own word) being ugly and fat, Diana finds sword in the woods and learns how to use sword, she kills the bullies, and then she runs to prevent the cops getting to her.

Yep that's all that happens folks. Now that said I think this idea has potential and it would have been interesting to see how the Mercygiver Diana got affects her mind over a period of time but it isn't done well. This blog would have been much better if we had gotten to know Diana more before the Mercygivers got dumped into the plot because really that is the biggest problem with this blog.

We know next to nothing about this character and she's rather unlikable. Yes she was treated like crap by them but I can't sympathize with her at all. Without character development someone that kills other characters is a villain. Diana is nothing more than a cold blooded killer!     

This is defiantly not one of Acelegin's better blogs, in fact out of all of them this one is probably the worst. The only reason I would recommend it is because Diana appears in Daniel and Friends and without this blog you'll be extremely confused as to who she is.

Daniel and Friends, reviewed by Malus

This reflects only my individual opinions and should not be taken as fact. I do not ask you to agree or disagree with me, and I definitely encourage you to form your own opinions about the blog.

Daniel and Friends

Author: Acelegin
Status: Ongoing
Fear(s): Several

Plot: 

The title is actually a fair summary of the plot. It’s about Daniel and his friends living within a world where eldritch abominations are after them. The reason why is still a mystery, but it has something to do with Daniel being special. Oh, and there’s something going on… some sort of Fear returning, and a Game Master. I haven’t read the other parts of the “Daniel-verse”, so I don’t know much about the Game Master.

The plot kicks off when Daniel and his friend, Tony (who has some sort of skill that allows him to find people), go off to find a missing kid… Yep, you know where this is going. They arrive at a house where this strong, creepy dude is hanging about. Daniel fights with him and eventually lures him off while Tony calls the police, they find the kid in the house, and Daniel comes back to tell them that the suspect just dropped dead. Well. Okay, interesting start. Oh, and later in that same post Daniel says that he saw a tall guy with a bald head dressed in black… Uh-oh. D:

And that’s when everything goes downhill for the characters. They start getting stalked by a lot of the Fears. I mean, holy crap. Daniel has the Archangel come after him, the Blind Man giving him some sort of sword, the Plague Doctor taking an interest in him, a Dying Man fragment being placed within him, the Smiling Man leaving flowers on Daniel’s bed, the Cold Boy meeting Daniel at least once, the Wooden Girl appearing at random points, the Slender Man stalking him, and finally there’s the Fear called Vision, some sort of dead or dormant Fear that appears to Daniel at points of the story. There's also the shenanigans that Tony gets up to later in the blog...

Pretty much, this entire –verse is cluttered with Fears. 

I’ve mentioned this before during my Fable of Fears review; if you’re going to have a lot of Fears in your blog, have them stand out, to actually affect the plot in a certain way. If they’re there solely to be a minor antagonist to the character, or to provide him an obstacle on his way to face the main antagonist, the Fears will quickly lose some of that terror that’s about them.

In fact, I’m not even sure if the blog is meant to be a horror blog. It’s like… Well, an action Fearblog. You’d think that with the Fears it’d retain some form of horror within it, but to me all I could see was epic fighting against the Fears and their servants. There was nothing that made me feel scared, or made me feel worried for the protagonists. If it doesn’t affect the character, if there isn’t some form of harm the antagonist can do to him, then it makes the Fear less scary and makes me start to get bored with the story. Another thing is that almost all of the Fears are made more… human. It’s just that vibe I got whenever a Fear appeared; they didn’t seem like some eldritch being that came to terrorize people. They seemed like comic book villains that show up every now and then to remind the protagonist that they're still there.

Another thing I noticed (very quickly, as a matter of fact) was the dialogue. It’s… strange. It doesn’t feel like people are actually talking to each other in a realistic manner. I also don't think that all of the conversations would have been remembered quite down to those details (which could be considered nitpicking, but I had the same gripe with The Mystic, as well).

The plot itself… Well, I know that something with a guy called the Game Master is going down, but that’s because of a few mentions of him within the blog and some posts on the forums. I honestly don’t know what all this is headed towards, or what goal Daniel has… Well, I guess there’s “Kill The Fears”? I don’t know. :| Blah, I'm so confused...

Characters:

The main criticism I have with almost all of the characters is that nothing happens with them. Almost at the very beginning we’re introduced to an Archive guy called Collector Tsu… and after a while, he just sort of fades into the background. I don’t know if he has his own blog or not, but it seems like he’s there for plot convenience when Daniel needs information on a new Fear (I’m looking at the HELLFIRE Wal-Mart segment on this one). Another character is Jane, who is… Well, I have no idea who she is. The only information given to us is that she’s stalked by the Cold Boy. Does she have her own blog?... If so, I guess it’s a nice cameo.

Daniel: He’s the main character of the blog and is somehow “special” to the Fears… So, pretty much every one of them is after him. The thing that irks me most about this character is that he’s very, very over-powered. I started to get a hint of it during the first few posts (where Daniel’s character pretty much says “I know martial arts, so I know how to fight”, which is strange, ‘cause I thought martial arts was more defense. Could be wrong, though). Then there was the fight with the Archangel, which was… Well… Not very believable. There has to be a certain level of build-up, something that makes people go “Yeah, I think this guy has a chance on killing the Fear!” – instead, it’s more like “Okay, I’ve got a week to prepare myself for a fight with an eldritch abomination.” I think the term I’m looking for here is “Marty Stu”, and this is probably the main reason why I don’t find the blog to be scary at all. We know Daniel isn’t going to be killed, much less majorly wounded, by one of the Fears and knowing that makes us less worried about him.

Tony: I’m guessing he’s Daniel’s best friend; he’s an amateur private detective that is able to sense where things are at.

… Okay. How does he do that? I don’t believe it’s explained within Daniel’s own blog, and since Tony was using that I doubt he has his own blog. So, how does he have this sixth sense? Why is it not brought up again later in the story? 

Other than this, I can’t really say much more about him. I don’t know a lot about his character.

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Right. I hope I wasn’t too critical of the blog. I’m not saying Daniel and Friends is bad, either; the grammar and spelling are good for the most part and the other Fears like Vision are really cool (in fact, I plan on introducing Vision within my own blog sometime next month). As a Fearblog, it’s not very scary… But it does have a lot of action in it, and if the action genre is what you like, I think you’ll find this one enjoyable. It pulls it off well, aside from the Marty Stu-ish traits that the main protagonist has about him. I hope that in the coming months the characters are fleshed out a bit more ‘cause I’d like to know a little more about them and their stories. Since the blog is ongoing, I’ll reserve judgment and give my best wishes to the creator.