Cyberpone by Lone Writer will be the next story I will review today.

This review will include spoilers. Do give this story a read before you proceed with reading this review. Please beware that this review will quote gore-filled scenes from the story; you have been warned!

Summary

In Detrot, the city of the technological future, you can become anyone or anything; if your body and soul can pay the price. What once was a beautiful night skyline of neon signs and skyscrapers is now a lawless battleground after the city’s economic crisis a few years back. Only through the support of multiple mega-corporations was Detrot saved from collapse.

Afterburner is just another citizen from this city of dreams. Just like everyone else he wakes up, eats a nutritious breakfast bowl of kibble and works his life away making his next bits. What does he do exactly? Well, he lies, robs and murders from the corporations for the people, like a true DJ. Afterburner dreams of burning the corporations that practically run the city to the ground and he’ll do whatever it takes to make them remember his name.

Content/Plot Analysis

Part 0: A Note

This story is currently incomplete and this review will only cover the first three chapters, the foreword inclusive.

This analysis will be split up into the following parts.

Part I: Foreword
Part II: Worldbuilding
Part IIIa: Characterisation: The First Glimpse
Part IIIb: Looking into Too Many Characters
Part IIIc: Looking into Characters: Insufficient Characterisation
Part IV: Motivations
Part Va: Fight Scenes: The First Glimpse
Part Vb: Fight Scenes: Descriptions
Part Vc: Fight Scenes: Pacing
Part Vd: Fight Scenes: Clarity
Part VI: Pacing: A General Glimpse
Part VII: Conclusion on the Content

Part I: Foreword

Intriguingly, the story begins with a foreword that was practically and entirely written in programming-speak. While this is certainly an unorthodox way of going about writing a foreword to introduce the atmosphere, world and character in which the story is set in, I could definitely understand why the author has done so; the lines of code in the foreword would be a way to showcase the importance of cybernetics in the story. Parsing through the code reveals various aspects of how the cybernetic software would be integrated into assisting the daily tasks and goals of the pony it is installed into. In fact, the code also reveals that the consciousness of the user would be influenced by the program, especially noting the vague philosophical questions printed into the user’s heads-up display when running the program.

While I acknowledge the aforementioned points, I, however, am of the opinion that the foreword should not be written in code. Firstly, let us begin with an observation, which does not affect my thoughts on this story. From a pragmatic standpoint, the foreword would draw a limited audience. To a typical reader who does not have great knowledge of programming language syntax and definitions, such as myself, it could be a challenge to parse and determine the meaning behind each line of code. Hence, the typical reader would have a challenge deciphering the link to who Afterburner was as a character, how the world the story set in was like and how these two could be connected, particularly in future chapters. It would be discouraging for these readers to continue reading the story, and even so, they would have a roadblock in understanding the nuances and foreshadowing provided by the code, if at all.

Now let’s consider readers who are competent in programming. Consulting a few friends who are more knowledgeable than me, they note that the code is, by and large, incoherent. It references libraries that it does not import or define, per se.

From a technical standpoint, this is not functional code. However, the more pressing concern I had for the foreword would be how, for even these learned individuals, they struggled to extract much from the lines with significant regard to the story, such as in the character of Afterburner, or the development of the world.

This brings me to the most salient point of my discussion which I had intended to discuss in this section — I do not see how the foreword would help to develop Afterburner well, or showcase the world around the main protagonist. I wished that the foreword would have done away with the copious lines of codes for a more simplistic view into Afterburner’s backstory, perhaps, or the world.

As most of the characters in the story are original characters, and the world is essentially foreign to the reader, I believe that the story could benefit more from exploring these aspects more directly, rather than going via a circuitous route to bring up Afterburner’s cybernetic program in multitudinous lines of code. I felt that the foreword was merely a conduit to showcase various references to other media outside of Cyberpunk.

The foreword could have been a convenient way to introduce the reader into building the world and the characters from the ground up and to get them invested into the story. Of course, although I will concede that writing the foreword in such a way would be an eye-catching way to start the story, it did not help introduce the aspects of the story substantially. The arcs explored by the foreword, which explored how the cybernetic program would alter Afterburner’s consciousness, were vague to describe how this meant to his character, motivations and the setting of the story in actuality.

Part II: Worldbuilding

As discussed, the worldbuilding in this piece would be fundamentally pertinent in the strength of its execution, for it would relate to the characters and their motivations in this world. However, I found that it was difficult for me to connect to the setting and breathe its atmosphere. In this section, let’s take a closer look at this, and for why this might be the case.

Perhaps one reason why would be the insufficient development of the mega-corporations. From the story, we can see how one of the mega-corporations has been cruel to Afterburner. However, other than a few minor instances where the story has gone about describing various anecdotes by the oppressed on their evil deeds, it does not explicitly show what evil deeds the corporations were doing. Additionally, there was little on how mega-corporations had managed to spring up from the oblivion of economic collapse in this futuristic city, or their backstories. Hence, as the mega-corporations were integral to this world, the lack of development on these entities would make it difficult for the author to glean into the atmosphere of the story, or the oppression, hardship or cruelty faced by the populace in society.

On one hand, the author may be thinking of developing this later on in the story, and granted, this would help slowly ease the reader into the atmosphere of the setting. Unfortunately, I would argue that the story has already gone into significant depth and interaction with the world such that I find the development of the mega-corporations’ arc necessary. This would help better justify the antagonists’ and hence the protagonists’ motivations, which would carve into their characters’ personality. I think including a few instances of how cunning the mega-corporations were, how the mega-corporations would stop at nothing to achieve their capitalistic goals, or even the strength of the mega-corporation’s hand in the society of Detrot. The story did not tackle the extent of, for the lack of a simpler word, evil the mega-corporations brought to the city. Lacking this, the atmosphere was regrettably unidimensional.

Additionally, we lack much knowledge on how this “city of the future” would have a place in future Equestria or the future realm outside of Equestria. Was the “economic crisis” prevalent throughout the entirety of Equestria, or the surrounding lands? Was the “city of the future” the only settlement able to withstand the test of this disastrous “economic crisis”? If not, how wide was the reach of these mega-corporations throughout the surrounding lands? Moreover, what impacts did the mega-corporations have on the city exactly?

That brings up a point, though it is more of an observation than a piece of critique; I would question how a “mega-corporation” would be so powerful in this city. Just by relying on the pure consumer expenditure of “the city of the future”, they could actually grow to such monstrosities that would threaten the legitimacy of the governance of the city. I am curious to see how the story would explore this aspect of how and why they are so powerful, and the reach they have over the surrounding area.

Part IIIa: Characterisation: The First Glimpse

The first real glimpse we have into the characters of the story is at the very start of the first chapter, where Afterburner and his friends were in their vehicle driving to their desired location for a mission. There, the story begins with how they had different tastes for music playing from the radio.

I personally found this method of bringing out the personality of the characters in the story interesting. From the dialogue’s subtext in their respective reactions of distaste and otherwise of each individual’s preferences, one could glean the style and the way they carry themselves as a character. The usage of the slang into the dialogue also added a level of authenticity to the dialogue uttered by the respective characters. Similarly, the manner in which the different characters phrase and string their thoughts into words also helped build a character. Introducing the original characters, who are currently blank canvases, in such a way helped shape them up organically.

However, I wished that the story had gone into greater development to build their characters in such a way, though regrettably, there are various factors that held the story back in this department.

Part IIIb: Looking into Too Many Characters

One of the most important factors which hampered the characterisation of the story was the fact that there were simply too many characters for the reader to wrap their mind around.

Firstly, we have the protagonists, Afterburner and Hexadecimal, who are working together with Hardcase to get back on the mega-corporations, such as SomaTech, with the assistance of Crash Bug, in a mission given to them by Cornicle. Crash Bug’s part of the “Underground” which was the resistance against the mega-corporations, with affiliations to Gilded, Stitch, Alakdan, Sisu and more importantly, Vinyl Scratch and Sweet Melody. Cornicle’s the boss of another group, who was stationed at the “Wayward Pony'' who has affiliates Mountain Creek and a sub-group known as “the Jets”, consisting of Glazia and more. When Cornicle received the goods from Afterburner, SomaTech launched an attack with Live Wire, accompanied by Meltdown, killing Hardcase and nearly killing Afterburner, since the latter was repaired thanks to Quick Fix.

To get revenge on SomaTech’s Meltdown, the protagonists intend to strike a deal with Cornicle, but during the meeting, they are attacked by yet another group known as the Techno-Scorpions. In the chaos, the Detrot Police Department was also onsite. And essentially, to fulfil the protagonists’ side of the deal struck with Cornicle, they will employ the assistance of another group known as the “Blood Drinkers”.

Unfortunately, owing to the multifarious groups, superabundant characters and widely extensive links between them, it was undoubtedly hard for the reader to understand them, especially coupled with the other factors I will discuss later. However, not detracting from this point, the number of sides and allegiances that each character had became difficult to keep track of. Each side has their own vested interests in their individual objectives and goals that relate to the others, which, when intertwined, dictate their motivations and characterisation. Hence, it was easy to lose track of each character, which side they were on, their allegiances, their uniqueness and more.

Part IIIc: Looking into Characters: Insufficient Characterisation

Due to the previous point, the story had little time or runway to develop the characters meaningfully. Certainly, we do get a better view of the main characters, namely Afterburner and Hexadecimal, but the remaining characters became of tertiary, or even quaternary significance.

One could see that the story had clear difficulty in working on the vast quantity of characters. Splitting the development of the “characterisation” aspect of the story between a huge pool of characters would mean that the characterisation of each would become diluted. Furthermore, the increase in the number of these characters drew the spotlight away from the main protagonists, which distracted the reader.

This is an especially pressing concern since the story devotes much of its plot to action-packed fight sequences. I will concede that it would be hard to portray much characterisation during a fight, which ultimately implies that the amount of room the author had to work with to build these characters up was limited.

It would be easy to say that the author should consider working on building the characters up more deeply, to show how they were different from each other. The more salient question I proffer, however, would be how.

A three-pronged strategy, pertaining to scrapping some of the fight scenes, cutting down the number of characters and elevating the development of each character, would be a potential method to do so.

The first prong concerns the balance between the characterisation and the action sequences in the story. This is especially crucial to the first and third chapters of the story. I would argue that the story had placed too much emphasis on developing the action-packed fight scenes, which were no doubt enjoyable, over the characterisation of even the main protagonists.

I felt that the characterisation of the protagonists should have taken a greater precedence in the first chapter. Acknowledging that these are original characters, I opine that there should be more done to develop them to make the reader empathise with them. I’m not against tossing them into a fight scene entirely, but I would recommend focusing more on their characters. This would help the reader connect into their motivations and experience their emotions more authentically. Hence, any loss or death of these characters would be more impactful.

Similarly, cutting down the number of characters would help give the author more leeway to develop each character and allow them more time to shine in the story or in dialogue, for example, to give readers subtle hints into their characters. This naturally leads to elevating the development of each character.

Part IV: Motivations

Afterburner’s motivation to get back on SomaTech makes logical sense, since he was robbed of his rights and identity while he was working there. It was also implied that his Kirin kind were systemically wiped off by the mega-corporations. It is henceforth unsurprising that Afterburner would rise up against all mega-corporations, more so SomaTech.

Hexadecimal’s motivations are more unclear, however. While we get more characterisation out of her, we are unaware of the precise relationship between Hexadecimal and Afterburner. It would be, for example, fallacious to think that she was in it for the money, since Afterburner did not transfer any part of the reward of fifty thousand bits from his account to hers. Being clueless to her motivations, I struggle to comprehend why would Hexadecimal even bother to work with Afterburner, particularly noting that their line of work was life-threatening. Did Hexadecimal believe in Afterburner’s cause, or the cause of the “Underground”?

As for the motivations of the remaining characters, due to the insufficient development gone into each of them, there was little one can get from the piece with regards to their motivations, except for a few of them, such as Cornicle.

Part Va: Fight Scenes: The First Gunshot

The product of conflicting motivations and ideologies between the protagonists and the antagonists meant that fight scenes were prevalent in the story. I personally enjoyed most of the fight scenes, mainly because it was interesting to see how Afterburner and the other cybernetic ponies took advantage of their cybernetic software and hardware.

On the contrary, I would argue that there were too many fights that were crammed into the story. I have already highlighted how the overemphasis on this could be detrimental to diverting the development of the story over the necessary characterisation earlier. Furthermore, the greater the number of fights in the story, the more the fights would weaken the impact each fight had on the reader’s attention.

Part Vb: Fight Scenes: Descriptions

In this section, let’s talk about how the story describes the overall fight scenes and the death of the characters. To do this, let’s pick up two examples to help illustrate my points, starting with —

Their head was instantly deleted, leaving only small black burn marks on the chair’s headrest. Hardcase was flung forcefully from the roof of the car and punched his cybernetic paw through the windshield, ripping out the zebra driver and tossing him away like an old banana peel. The body bounced across the pavement like a skipping stone until the zebra hit a light post with a very loud crack.

From the excerpt above, one could clearly see that the zebra had died. The author has done a nice job in showing how Hardcase had managed to kill and fling the hapless zebra driver out of the vehicle and commandeer it in a swift series of actions. The similes helped to show how submissive and indifferent Hardcase was.

The question I have, however, would be on whether this death could have been sharpened. Much development had been devoted to show how this zebra driver, who was not a major character, had died in the story. I felt that the ideas within could have been compressed to help show how indifferent, fast and insignificant his death had been, and to help maintain the tempo ideal for a fight scene. This, in turn, would strive and maintain the tension of the atmosphere in which the reader would be attached to.

Carrying on —

My blades cut the sides of his organic face, drawing red blood. He punched my torso, sending me flying back at dangerous speeds. I slammed my mantis blades into the floor to slow my body down. Sparks flew and metal screeched as I stopped. I galloped as fast as my hooves would carry me at the creature. He brought up his right hoof and fired multiple rounds at me that I dodged with the assistance of my Celeritas spine. The bullets tore chucks of concrete from the floor as I closed the distance between the pony. No, not the pony. I closed the distance between me and it.

In this excerpt, Afterburner was fighting against a cyborg, which is designed to neutralise intruders. I actually liked the second part where Afterburner had to remind himself that he was fighting against a soulless slave, which suits the scene nicely. To accentuate this, I think that the author could consider paragraphing this to emphasise the depth of the meaning of each sentence, as shown below, for example.

...I dodged with the assistance of my Celeritas spine. The bullets tore chucks of concrete from the floor as I closed the distance between the pony.

No, not the pony.

I closed the distance between me and it.

However, my greater concern would be the first part of this excerpt. Notice how there was little to show how Afterburner had been physically or emotionally affected during the exchange of punches and slashes. There was little to see how much Afterburner had been incapacitated by the fight, and his fatigue. Thus, the impact of each punch or slash of a blade did not strive to foster any feeling for the wellbeing of the character in the reader.

The sequences came off to be rather mechanical, articulated in a list of movements. Noting that these are indeed live, breathing characters in the story, the influence of the environment and each other should be interwoven into these paragraphs.

I felt that the author should consider describing the impacts of the fight on either side more directly, and show other behavioural aspects and reflex actions as a result of fatigue. This would draw nicely into the context on how the fight was already unfair to begin with, because it was a fight between a machine and a cybernetic pony.

Part Vc: Fight Scenes: Pacing

Oftentimes, I felt that the pacing during the fight scenes was inconsistently inappropriate for the situation. Again, examples will play an integral role in this subsection, firstly —

I shook my head and then lunged at Live Wire. We clashed with sparks flying off our weapons; neither one of us gained an edge. Back and forth our blades went. I would cut his torso, he would cut my leg. He moved perfectly systematically against my aggression. Whenever I missed a strike, I was immediately punished with multiple cuts to the face and body. When he to miss, I would swing into the opening only to realize too late that he was faking it. The android couldn’t mess up. Only when I began using my crismon magic to asset the trajectory of my jabs, making them appear random, did I start landing more hits on his body.

Notwithstanding the spelling error, awkward punctuation and weird syntax, I feel that this excerpt would be an enlightening case study into the pacing.

The first aspect of this quote talks about the swiftness of the blades swishing and clashing in the air, which should have had a greater tempo to show how rapid the strokes were, and hence the energy in the fight. However, the length of the sentences in the first bits, especially that of the second sentence with the additional clause, slowed the pacing down. I would recommend that the author could exploit using shorter, sharper sentences that would allow for a seamless, and hence quicker read that would simulate the speed in which the scene would occur in reality.

The second aspect of this quote refers to how easily the android could take advantage of any conceivable weakness Afterburner had in his swordsmanship. Here, I found the pacing to be too fast, mainly because the sentence is telling the reader the consequences of what would happen when Afterburner had exposed a weakness to the robot. I felt that slowing this part down by showing the impact it would have on Afterburner directly and the extent of that impact in terms of the pain he would feel would have been better. Slowing this down would help show how drastic each blade cut was.

Moving on —

A click sounded from the cyborg’s hoof. They looked down at their cyberware in anger, then rushed at me. I quickly ducked under the swing of the massive steel behemoth as I attempted to stab them in the chest. My right blade went through the plating and deep into their core. It didn’t faze the cyborg. They brought their hoof down hard, destroying my right forehoof. I stared in shock at the mess of wires, metal and gears. The cybernetic pony wrapped their right hoof around my neck; securing me in a tight grasp with their metal clamps. I tried cutting through the metal of the appendage. My left hoof blade was quickly ripped off in the middle of the action by the cyborg’s free hoof. A smile crossed the metallic monster’s face.

I think that paragraphing would help to streamline the series of actions in this paragraph, and introduce a little suspense and hope that the cyborg would be affected by Afterburner’s attack. One could also note the passive and almost indifferent attitude the reader could feel for the protagonist, because Afterburner seemed to be unaffected by all of this. Being a cybernetic pony, I wished that there would be some development of how the systems destroyed would affect him. Perhaps the failure of his systems, hampering his movement and power, et cetera.

Part Vd: Fight Scenes: Clarity

Before I wrap up this section, I would like to draw attention to the third chapter’s epic fight sequence. In a nutshell, when negotiating with Cornicle, the Techno-Scorpions attacked. Getting out of the “Wayward Pony”, Hexadecimal and Afterburner were caught in the crossfire thanks to more Techno-Scorpions and a zebra cyborg. Running, he lost Hexadecimal and was confronted by the police department, while the Techno-Scorpions were still attacking. In the end, Hexadecimal had managed to retrieve Afterburner from the pandemonium.

I had much difficulty in comprehending what exactly happened in this huge scene. The pacing here was rapid, and I found myself suddenly moving out of the “Wayward Pony” to a construction site and to more alien locations. The change in the environment sometimes came off as sudden, though I can definitely understand that there was little that the author could do to transit the protagonists into these locations to advance the plot, especially in a fast-paced setting.

The more crucial point I wish to note would be that the characters attacking Afterburner were numerous, and were introduced as fast as necessitated by the tempo of the scene. It hence became hard to keep account of all the characters that were attacking Afterburner, the Techno-Scorpions, the cyborg and the police. Being thrust into such settings described by the story made it difficult to parse what was going on. It was disconcerting to scroll through and be unable to understand the predicament that any of the characters were facing.

Part VI: Pacing: A General Glimpse

Overall, I found the pacing to be too fast. I have already considered how pacing was a factor in my analysis of the fight scenes, but I do wish to explore the pacing in Chapter 2. Again, as a result of the many characters introduced in “The Underground”, I felt that the author should have slowed the pacing down to introduce them more smoothly into the plot, and their respective relations to the others. Characters such as Sisu, Stitch and Alakdan were simply mentioned, though not elaborated on, for example.

Part VII: Conclusion on the Content

In a nutshell, the emphasis on fight scenes meant that most of the characters in the story were woefully underdeveloped. This made their presence in the action sequence rather inconsequential, since readers would not be able to empathise with the characters. For the characters who were sufficiently developed, the problem lies in the way the fight scenes were presented; the mismanagement of the tempo of the scenes and the indifference the characters had when being wounded meant that readers struggled to understand the gravity of the situation.

Limited by the fast pacing of the piece, the many characters fought for their own characteristic development that would differentiate them from the rest. Thus, the interactions between the characters and their dynamics in fight scenes were enigmatic and nebulous in nature.

Language

Technical errors were fairly common in this piece. Now, let’s take a good look at a few recommendations that I would like to make to the author.

“I’m sorry about them, it’s just…,” he paused, lifting a hoof.

“I’m sorry about them, it’s just…” he paused, lifting a hoof.

I held the door with my crismon magic and allowed them to pass first.

I held the door with my crimson magic and allowed them to pass first.

Hardcase grabbed her grey sleeveless denim jacket’s shoulder before she could touch the knob, “You just don’t know good music, niña.”

Hardcase grabbed her grey sleeveless denim jacket’s shoulder before she could touch the knob(.) “You just don’t know good music, niña.”

Hardcase gave a hearty laugh, “At least you understand good music, hombre!”

Hardcase gave a hearty laugh(.) “At least you understand good music, hombre!”

She was interupted by a robotic genderless voice, “The mission is mine now, skinsuit.”

She was interrupted by a robotic genderless voice, “The mission is mine now, skinsuit.”

We bounced a little off the ground as we zoomed off, escaping the SomeTech rats and drones.

We bounced a little off the ground as we zoomed off, escaping the SomaTech rats and drones.

The window read a chilly 60 degrees fahrenheit.

The window read a chilly 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

“I thought Kirins were supposed to be intelligent. I guess your kind is better at lying,” He laughed.

“I thought Kirins were supposed to be intelligent. I guess your kind is better at lying,” he laughed.

“I’m glad your eyesight hasn’t failed you yet, Wick”

“I’m glad your eyesight hasn’t failed you yet, Wick(.)”

Stance

While I must undeniably give credit for the creativity of building and shaping this new world, the flaws pertaining to the story’s characters, worldbuilding and action sequences could not be ignored. This story has interesting premises and a captivating environment, though I felt that the execution of the aforementioned points had much to be desired.

Content/Plot: 3.5/10
Flow/Communication: 3/10
Language/Readability: 5/10
Overall: 3.8/10

<For archive purposes: 3.8/10>

7518190
Thank you for the review, but I do have a retort for one of your larger points.

I did enjoy your analyst of characters. It was in depth and insightful, but I believe you overanalyzed. You stated that these some characters don't have enough character development but did stop and wonder why? A lot of the character you listed are heavy side character to fill the world with different personalities and beliefs. The corpos I always planned on getting into later. Now moving on to the main two...

Afterburner and Hexadecimal characterization is not only built through scenes of reaction but the action scenes as well. Could you not argue that you understood the feeling of wanting to get payback for your friend after watching them die before your eyes. He's not thinking anymore. He's acting which could be argue as robotic but that's kind of the point. All the little talking and particular style they have are they to construct them. It may not be convoyed in the best possible way but completely brushing away the development through actions isn't fair.

Again thanks for the review.

You stated that these some characters don't have enough character development but did stop and wonder why?

If they're not important characters, why make them distinctive enough to catch the reader's eye? Stories work on a condensed version of Dunbar's Number. Every time you add a named character, you fill the amount of things that readers can actively remember, and introducing new characters or institutions over that cap just shoves other things out of memory. It isn't even a matter of highlighting key players at a certain point, but a matter of keeping track of everything.

Afterburner and Hexadecimal characterization is not only built through scenes of reaction but the action scenes as well.

Part of the complaint is that the action scenes are excessive, the pacing is all over the place - both in terms of being too slow and too fast - and have enough extraneous content that they're confusing. Ergo, trying to build character through them means that insight into the character's actions is schizophrenic and muddled with non-germane details, and that an excessive amount of action scenes means that the tool is being relied on too much. There isn't anything wrong with building characters "conventionally," since conventions generally exist for a reason.

He's acting which could be argue as robotic but that's kind of the point.

if a character acts apathetic, the audience is going to assume they're apathetic unless given a reason to assume otherwise. Most books, shows, movies, etc. either make this a deliberate choice (painting a character as apathetic at first and building them up later) or use it as a sharp contrast from their prior behavior to highlight the importance of a situation. What he's saying is that the characters aren't given enough time to breathe for the latter to be plausible, so arguing the character is supposed to demonstrate emotion through something when there isn't enough of a character there to demonstrate emotion or an emotion shift .

Again, this guy wrote a long-ass review which took a lot of time, and if time is money it means that the review cost a bunch of dosh. Complaining about something you asked for and were given for free really doesn't look good on your part. 😐

7518246
I don't think a formal complaint is gonna look bad on my part. I didn't assault the reviewer. I just stated that I believe it was overanalyzed. Nothing more, nothing less.

7518231
You could argue that the "lack of characterisation" was to show how indifferent this character was, or perhaps how emotionless the character was. Perhaps they were intended to be insignificant. For the first point, I will say that one could be more active in showing that, instead of leaving the readers guessing over the personality and characteristic traits. This naturally leads to the second point; the varying level of development on each character, when exemplified, would be able to show which character was more important to note for the reader.

As for how Afterburner and Hexadecimal were supposed to be shaped up via action sequences, I think that the logic behind the following excerpt would not be unique to Afterburner and Hexadecimal.

Could you not argue that you understood the feeling of wanting to get payback for your friend after watching them die before your eyes. He's not thinking anymore. He's acting which could be argue as robotic but that's kind of the point.

This would be applicable to any character, especially in a gang-filled world like CyberPone. And owing to the length and frequency of fights, the characterisation of even the two main protagonists had been relegated to the back seat, especially in the third chapter.

Thank you for clarifying your doubts!