There's some good stuff but also some of it needs reigning in. A decent editor could really fix up this mess.
Put your money where your mouth is.
A little protip
GrafvonMoltke, a lot of criminal activity, such as money laundering, can be done discretely from a donut shop. The KKKops will never suspect their favourite place, and will ensure it's always protected from unsavoury characters. The possibilities are endless, you could be smuggling bootleg tuna fish cans and olive oil, do all kinds of VAT shenanigans - maybe even start up a window washing front for a private intelligence network. No one suspects the guy outside the window of having listening devices stashed in his buckets. Many opportunities overall for a struggling construction entrepeneur. You need to branch out. Diversify.
Interesting idea. I actually had some interesting plans already for the donut shop, as you shall see. Maybe I can combine that with this and see what crazy results ensue.
Vazha's post is quite lengthy, so I'll break it down a bit.
Didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Let me try and explain more in detail what my 2 cents worth of critique entails:
My feelings are very easily hurt and you should be more considerate!
Seriously though, don't worry about my feelings; you've already given me some great feedback that I think helped this chapter to be better.
The first half of the update is really good, brisk writing, with some excellent one-liners strewn about. The journalism bits were hilarious and also very, shall I say, codexian?
Some of my best work, definitely. It was an absolute ton of fun to write; I was giggling the whole time while writing it.
The second half feels kind of a padding to an already established narrative that I feel you are kind of unwilling to let go, and suffers in comparison to the fresh goodness that is the first half. Similarly, while exposition in the first half helps the forthcoming dialogue to be more impactful and nuanced, in the second half it's there for its own sake mostly.
I can see where you're going with this, and I agree reluctantly. What's interesting is that the parts you identify as weaker are the parts which I don't enjoy writing as much, so it's clear to me what the weaker parts are. This specific one I couldn't let go; it sets up me actually PLAYING THE GAME later. This is supposed to be an LP, and I would actually like to build something at some point. Otherwise it really will become just a cringe forum fanfic (yes, I know it is already, Maxie Cultists).
As for length, considering the fact that the only thing that ties the two halves is our main protagonist, I don't see why you couldn't have divided this long ass text into two, or maybe even three updates.
Now, this is where I must draw some contention. I know that in general the chapters are long and I have taken onboard the advice to write shorter updates more frequently. This update is a third of this chapter; to break it up further would be to create 6-9 updates per chapter, which to me seems a little too much. I do try to break up each part by creating separators between them; if it's not too much to ask, maybe you could all just try to remember which part you read and just come back to it later?
In general, a marked improvement as far as the FUN read rating is concerned. Some excellent suggestions too, from your readership (myself excluded ofc). Looking forward to the next chapter, keep up the good work!
I'm glad you enjoyed it in general, and yes there absolutely has been a lot of great suggestions which I will take on board. Except that Sloth guy, cause he can't cook.
PART 2 IS COMING! GET HYAEP!