Finished the fanfic, there were some issues but i ignored it or did not noticed it since I'm not a pro at writing stuffs. All in all it was a good read :)

Wow. Some of the comments are so long

Doug deserves to die

what is an amazing story and is it leexliily or Carlee

Keep Lee alive while he tries to find Clementine. Everyone needs to stay alive with him as well.

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh good chapterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I like your way of organizing the story good job.

Thangs that go bump in the night... Me...
-Sam B Dead Island XD

Loved this hope there more

Could you make a chapter were the group meet back up and they find ske reasort and that's were Ben is

You should make a chapter with Lee and the others come back and still has his arm back and more chapters because your chapters are awsome

And now it's time to finally wrap this whole thing up at last. Here comes the tenth and final part of this review.

Basically, I feel that this story was a nice idea in principle - altering certain events in order to produce a domino-like effect, one which could either act save or, indeed, DOOM extra lives - but there were far too many errors (both in terms of the fallout of certain events, and also the overall poor characterisation of the core cast members) for me to ever find it completely enjoyable.

I've listed most of these individual complaints/errors in the many reviews posted before this one, but it's safe to say that there were some relatively consistent themes to many of these errors:

1. Character deaths being prevented left, right and centre, whether this made sense for the given situation (or even the good of the overall plot) or not. Not only were there several characters who survived under impossible circumstances (from a more practical, in-universe stand point), but some of those characters also then went on to contribute barely ANYTHING to the story, making the decision to save them in the first place seem all the more bizarre. Why on earth you chose to save certain characters still remains a mystery to me, even now. And why you wouldn't have at least made more of an effort to have their continued survival to be altogether more plausible for the readers is honestly the biggest mystery of all!

2. Writing characters as you either wanted them to act, or NEEDED them to act, rather than you paying attention to and respecting their canon characterisation instead. Lee and Travis are two of the best examples of this (both of whom were almost completely rewritten to suit your own needs and wishes), while Lilly and Carley also suffered the relative ignominy of being transformed into no more than dim-witted love interests for the purpose of your love triangle shenanigans, rather than being intelligent, fully fleshed out characters in their own right. Now, certain sceptics might choose to claim that this isn't too much of a step down for Carley's character, but ... Lilly is another matter entirely. She is SUPPOSED to be a character who drives and alters the plot around her with her enormous (some would say overbearing) personality and vast skillset, but here her only plot relevance came in the form of being Lee's eventual love interest (for however long that lasted). She deserved better, frankly.

And if two of the main characters in the story (this being Lilly & Lee, who were both given more scene time than almost everyone else was, save for maybe Kenny) are out-of-character from the get-go, then this was always a disaster just waiting to happen really, wasn't it?

3. Everything following almost the EXACT same chain of events that it did in canon, despite there being anywhere between five-to-ten extra bodies on the scene to help out, at varying intervals. The Walking Dead is a story driven by its characters, in that most of the big events that end up happening (both the good AND the bad) are caused and resolved by the desperate people who are trying to survive the end of the world, rather than it actually being the fault of the undead monsters who stalk them.

And yet, despite having so many extra people on hand (some of whom had VERY large and important personality traits to contribute to the cause), hardly anything ever seemed to change. And THAT was my main issue with this story.

The title may be “Things Change”, but I feel that a more ACCURATE title would have been - “Things Stay the Same, Accept that Nearly Everyone Lives” - as that basically describes the base outline of the plot in a nutshell. The only thing that you “changed” in this story was the fate of several characters (without having it really impact anything of note), as well as the actual PERSONALITY of several others.

Rather than sitting down and intelligently plotting out how each surviving cast member would be likely alter future events, you instead needlessly added them to the already bloated roster, and had them drift off into the background, while events took the exact same course that they did in the main game.

That’s not good writing, man. That’s easy street. This story had a lot of potential which you COMPLETELY failed to tap into, and all of those extra cast members who survived/avoided their in-game deaths deserved better than you gave them, honestly. Without even needing to touch on the more “Hollywood” characters like Lilly, even the more subtle influence of characters like Katjaa should have impacted the plot in their own little way.

Alas, it wasn’t to be.

And on that note, that now concludes my ten-part review (ouch) for this story. Overall, I’d say that the story was quite average (either a 5 or 6 out of ten), but that it will be remembered in my mind for being a massively wasted opportunity to explore these characters (and the impacts that they can have on one another) in greater detail than the game itself did. Plus, it would have been nice if you’d chosen to include Lilly in this story, as opposed to that “Lilly” character who you decided to replace her with. ;)

I'll probably also post a review for some of your other stories in due course, so try and brace yourself for that, won't you?

Soon out.

Ack! It looks like I slightly misjudged the character limit last time, doesn’t it? They really should tell you when you’ve exceeded that damn thing…

Anyway, continuing on from where I left on last message. These only a few characters left now, right?

* Mark was someone who, despite you electing to bend the fabric of reality in order to keep him alive (clearly he drank the Elixir of Life and is now completely immune to the effects of death … or did the group simply wish him back with the Dragon Balls?), didn’t actually have much of a role in the greater story. You tended to just forget about him altogether most of the time (which kinda shows how much of an impact he has as a character, really), but I suppose that he was portrayed well enough … during the few scenes where he was actually present, anyway. However, his jaw-dropping ability to live through such ridiculous circumstances (on top of somehow not getting killed throughout all of the shit that went down afterwards, despite him being almost completely incapable of independent movement), automatically drops his rating down several notches, I’m afraid. Put frankly, the man should have been dead several times over by now. 4/10

Vernon was also slightly hit and miss during his time in the story. You certainly captured SOME aspects of his character well (such as him not truly being an evil man at heart, despite the harshness of his eventual actions), but the hiccups during the scene with Lee, as well as the nonsense with the train, have both combined to knock hit rating down slightly. 6/10 … but it would have been higher, were it not for those two major screw-ups on your part.

I’ve already devoted more than enough text space to Lilly as it is (now that certainly sounds like a familiar sentence), but I’ll still do one final run-down of her character here, I think. She had quite simply the worst portrayal out of any character in the story. It got to the point during the later chapters when I was actually SURPRISED if you managed to nail her reaction or thoughts to any given situation. It almost seemed like you were trying your hardest to write her OUT-of-character at times. I’ve already covered most of my major gripes with her portrayal in my earlier reviews, and when all of these negatives are combined together, what exactly are we left with? … 3/10, I think, is just about fair. There WERE times during certain scenes when your portrayal of Lilly was relatively decent, so I feel that going any lower than that would be highly unfair on you. However, to ask me go any higher would also be pushing me too far. Literally, if you hadn’t told me the name of the character on a frequent basis, I would have probably mistaken her for an “OC” on multiple occasions, rather than her being the same Lilly that we see in the game.

So, I would probably say that your portrayal of the characters was average-to-above-average, on the whole. Some of them were quite well handled, while others were slightly more questionable ... and as for the others, well ... let's just say that I weep for them and leave it at that, shall we?

* Next on the agenda is your spelling and grammar. Now, this is something that you have gradually improved on over time, but I still think that you need to be a little more careful when checking your own work for errors. I actually tried counting the number of mistakes (including spelling, grammar, and even general sentence construction) as I went along, but eventually gave up after about chapter 6 or so. As I've said, you have definitely gotten slowly better over time, but ... I'm fairly sure that I could still open up your most recent update right now and find a handful of different errors littered about the piece, which is something you need to work on.

This may seem to be a little pernickety, but having (near) perfect spelling and grammar is almost a prerequisite when writing a story like this, be it a simple fan-fiction or not.

* Likewise, I think you need to try and expand your writing vocabulary a little. Now, this subject is quite easily my own greatest weakness as a writer, as I often choose to play it safe when it to sentence construction, rather than trying to be "flashy" and break the mold every now and then (as nearly all good writers do). And yet, despite this being by far my own biggest weakness, even I found myself lulled to sleep at times while reading your story.

You can't just get by with briefly describing whatever is happening during a scene at the time. Expand your horizons a little, and really try and paint a PICTURE for the readers. How does something look? How does something FEEL for the characters? Use abstract comparisons if you must. Granted, you weren’t quite at - “The brown dog said “Woof!” - stage at any point, but … you honestly came DAMN close to it on occasion.

I would also usually advise someone to delve deeper into the characters' mind-set at this point - and by that, I mean that you shouldn’t just describe what a character is feeling, but instead go one step further, and actually explore WHY they are feeling that way, in order to show the reader their internal struggles first hand. However, since you have occasionally displayed quite a limited understanding for some of the characters in this story, I'm not entirely sure if that would be wise advice to give on this occasion. I mean, I don't suppose that it can hurt your actual WRITING at all if you were beef up the characterisation a little bit (and would definitely help to draw the readers into a character's circumstances a little better), but ... it may just end up giving me even greater ammunition when it comes to any major mistakes that you make with their individual portrayals. ;P

Perhaps an actual mastery of the characters should come first, no? Then you can always work on delving deeper into their thoughts and feelings afterwards...

* Now there is also something which I would actually like to PRAISE you for (shocking, I know) - your decision to eventually go with the pairings that you did.

However, before I do that, I would first like to make it clear that I am in no way praising you for the way that you HANDLED said pairings. I mean, for starters, Carley and Doug's relationship was built up very sloppily indeed, and was also needlessly delayed, for the sheer sake of you creating additional tension between Lee and Lilly. And Lee & Lilly themselves were honestly even WORSE - I don't believe that there was a single time (during a scene together) when I wouldn’t have considered at least one of them (or, more commonly, both of them) to have been acting out-of-character, and this naturally led to a lot of their pseudo-romantic interactions (I think that's a fair enough term to level at their relationship in this story) coming off in an entirely different way than they should have, when looking to the canon game for reference.

And yet, despite your unmitigated failure in that regard, I would still have to praise you for going with the pairings that you did. As I've said in previous reviews, I feel that Carley being paired with anyone other than Doug (when the man himself survives, of course) would have to be listed as quite a huge misstep in her overall characterisation, when looking at the way that Episode 1 ended between the pair of them. But even though the pairing of those two characters honestly does make far more sense for this story (if anything, you really should have paired them together sooner than you did), it is also an indisputable fact that Lee & Carley are a much more popular pairing (with the fans/readers) than Carley & Doug are.

One quick glance over your reviews tells me that quite a few interested readers were literally PLEADING with you to have Lee & Carley get together, from a very early stage in the writing, and yet you stuck to your guns regardless, and instead went with what was best for the actual characters (and the story as a whole), rather than giving in to fan demand. And that much, I must praise you for. It's not always easy to resist peer pressure under such circumstances, which is a fact that I understand all too well...

Of course, knowing you as I do, and understanding how stubborn you can be (often being unwilling to sway from your original position, no matter what), I suppose it's hardly surprising that you would choose to ignore the requests of your readers as well, is it? What has proven to be a positive attribute on this occasion has also proven to be a highly NEGATIVE attribute on many other occasions, so ... perhaps I should have thought twice about giving you any praise over this, hehe.

Either way, I genuinely believe that the main pairings you selected were the best ones all round, when considering the state of the overall plot. Does this mean that I believe the actual romantic interactions THEMSELVES were well handled? ... No. But it does at least give you some brownie points for having the right idea in the first place, even if the eventual execution of said idea wasn't the greatest...

...

You know what? I’ve got one more concluding paragraph yet to type, and not enough space to type it in, so … Screw it! Ten parts it is! One part for every two full chapters - you can't really say fairer than that, can you?

Question is, where do I even PUT this one? On Chapter 2, perhaps? ... Eh. That's works, I guess.

The final part is still to come, and should be much shorter than the others were, so ... be sure to look out for it, won't you?

Time for the final part of my review. This time I'll be talking about the story as a whole, rather than just focusing the individual errors and edits as I have done until now. However, as I’ve got a lot more to get through here than I originally thought (what else is new?), I’m actually going to have to split this into two different parts again, which would then make it nine full-length reviews for this story in total … wow. Talk about a goddamn marathon!

Problem is, I’ve run out of later chapters to post reviews for, so I’m going to have to post the first part of this for Chapter 1 (random, I know), and then post the final part for the Epilogue chapter, I think. Got it? … Good.

* First on the agenda is the dialogue. Now, the dialogue in this story was VERY hit and miss at times. I'm tempted to say that there were more misses than there were hits, but I'd say a fairer assessment would be that it was roughly a 50/50 split - sometimes the characters were portrayed just fine, while at other times they were so far out-of-character that they appeared to be entirely different people to the ones seen in the game. However, rather than analysing each and every character's original dialogue for this story (which would take FAR too long, as you've certainly captured some cast members better than you have others), I'm instead going to focus on one single aspect of the dialogue that kinda bugged me...

Swearing. Or the complete lack of it, rather.

Now, I've got no idea whether your decision not to include any swearing in this story has foundations in religion (probably), or whether it's just a personal preference, but ... the thing is ... whether you like to use swear words or not, it's an inescapable fact that a lot of these characters who you're attempting to portray DO like to swear ... A LOT, in the case of some of them. Therefore, you electing to have every single cast member use completely clean language at all times must already be listed as an error in their characterisation.

Kenny and Larry are renowned for swearing in practically every other sentence (sometimes with quite colourful and creative uses of said words, too), and even Lee himself has been known to be quite a casual user of the more common swear words in the English language. Now, you may not feel that cutting such language out of their vocabulary really effects their characters at all - I'd disagree, however, as it really makes Larry's angry rants, in particular, a lot less intimidating - but there are certain characters who DO become heavily affected by your decision to cut swearing out entirely - and two such characters are Lilly and Carley.

Both of these women tend not to swear too often in their usual, every day sentences (yes, even Lilly, believe it or not), and yet this becomes a COMPLETELY different story as soon as either of them becomes remotely flustered or irritated. Nearly every single swear word that Carley utters during the game comes as a direct result of her being aggravated by either something or someone (and often with immediate effect), and Lilly's usage of swear words tends to escalate the more and more enraged she becomes (as is common for most people, I think). A perfectly calm Lilly will hardly ever utter a swear word during casual conversation (unlike Kenny, for instance), while an angered or panicked Lilly will utter them much more frequently. And if someone manages to get Lilly REALLY pissed off? To the point of sending her into a fit of uncontrollable rage (such as siding against her in the meat locker, for instance)? Then she will start throwing swear words around almost as frequently as a machine gun fires bullets. When completely and totally enraged, Lilly even manages to put her father and Kenny to shame when it comes to swearing.

So, you see, swear words are actually an important part of these different characters’ personalities, which means that the complete removal of them really hurts the depth and scope of their characterisation. Even characters like Doug & Katjaa (who are usually more reserved when it comes to such language) have been known to throw the odd swear word around in times of strife, which IS an important part of who they are as people.

If your decision to cut swearing from the story is really to do with religious reasoning (as I suspect), then fair enough, but ... I'm FAIRLY sure that most famous Christian writers have been known to (and are also ALLOWED to, in the eyes of their peers) swear through the medium of writing. I mean, it's the sentiment that counts here, surely? And in this instance, it would be the characters who are swearing - not you personally.

It's something that you should perhaps take a look at, as swearing is actually a surprisingly important part of portraying TWD universe convincingly. Cutting it out entirely is a bit like trying to write a TWD story where you're adamantly against using the concept of zombies in any form. It's like ... well, that's not REALLY a proper TWD story then, is it? And it's the same when it comes to the swearing, too.

Just something for you to potentially think about.

* Characterisation in general. Now, I think you may have gotten the gist of how I feel about your portrayal of certain characters (*cough*Lilly*cough*) during my earlier reviews, but I thought that I'd just briefly touch on how I thought you handled each individual character within this story. Firstly, who did you handle relatively well?

Well, Kenny, for starters, was probably who I would nominate as your most accurate portrayal throughout the course of the story. I wouldn't say that he was PERFECT (there were a number of questionable moments, at least one of which I've already detailed for you here), but he was still a comfortable 8/10 for me during the bulk of the scenes that he was involved in - even the one which were written entirely by you. Had you chosen to delve a little deeper into Kenny's overall character (rather than just scratching the surface layer) and included the necessary swearing, then you'd probably have been looking at a 9/10 here, easily.

Molly was also pretty solid, for the short time that she was involved in this one. She wasn't FANTASTIC by any means, but you certainly captured her youthful wit and sense of humour quite well. However, where she was lacking was her character flaws - you simply didn't show enough of them, for me. Not only is Molly sometimes INFURIATINGLY sarcastic, but she is also quite shirty and needlessly defensive at times. Molly should always have a slightly negative “edge” to her character (just as Lilly should), but you had her acting almost completely laid back and cheerful throughout most of her time in the story. In other words, you captured her positive traits well, but neglected to show us her more negative ones. You also had her acting far too mature in comparison to the other women. Molly is a girl barely out of her teen years - she should not have been more versed in the ways of romance than two women who have got nearly an extra decade's worth of experience on her. 8/10

Larry was extremely hit and miss for me. At times you nailed him so fantastically with your original dialogue that it actually managed to produce a smile from me (not always an easy feat), whereas at other times I was left wondering where the hell you were even trying to go with his character. And, as I've said, the lack of swearing also hurt you here as well. 7/10

Doug was another hit and miss character. You captured his intelligence really well in the later chapters, but the way that you wrote and developed his romance with Carley was very awkward at times (I hardly think that Doug has the confidence to try and openly "compete" with Lee in a contest for Carley's affections, for instance). You spent so much time trying to write Carley into that silly little love triangle with Lilly & Lee that you actually forgot to factor Doug's growing feelings into the equation as well half the time. 7/10

Duck was hit and miss as well. You captured some aspects of his character really well - his energy and his imagination, for example (his positive traits, in other words), but fell drastically short when it came to the more negative aspects of his character - his over-exuberance and lack of forward thinking, plus his nervousness and tendency to shut down after the slightest shock or trauma. 7/10

Katjaa, Christa, Omid, Chuck and even little Clementine (surprisingly) didn't really receive enough originally written scenes for me to judge your portrayal of their characters either way, to be honest.

Travis was a complete re-write, it’s as simple as that (which wasn’t exactly a good thing, in my opinion). So, who knows how to even go about rating him for this? 1/10, maybe?

Ben's portrayal was decent enough to begin with, but then took a severe NOSEDIVE later on in the story. 5/10

Carley was decently portrayed during her non-romantic scenes (which were fairly limited in number), but was pretty horribly handled during actual romantic scenes themselves (which unfortunately made for the bulk of her entire character during this story), so she would also fail to receive a positive rating from me, I'm afraid. 5/10

Lee was the first character who I felt was handled REALLY poorly. You erased many of his existing character flaws from the main game, and also chose to have him be far more observant and alert to danger during the vast majority of edited scenes (and yet you didn’t even USE this positive change to effect the plot in any way, which was … slightly bizarre). Then you went and invented several new (rather irrelevant) flaws for his character instead (such as a complete inability to read romantic situations, despite having been married for some years prior to the apocalypse), which just didn’t make much sense to me at all. And to top it all off, you then gave him effective immortality by having him survive a fatal walker bite, so … 4/10, for me.

I’ll have to conclude t

Right, let's get back to this, shall we?

* ...Morphine-induced sleep was basically your go-to excuse every time that you forgot about Mark's existence, wasn't it? Haha! Well, I wasn't impressed the first time you did it, so I'm certainly not going to be convinced now.

* How convenient that the balcony of the attic room lasted just long enough this time around for you to be able kill off who you wanted to kill, hmm? I mean, in the canon game, the balcony was unhinged by the combined weights of Lee, Omid, Christa & Kenny alone, but here you had not only three of the aforementioned four people safely cross the divide, but also Lilly (tall, and probably heavier than she looks, due to muscle), Katjaa (overweight, and quite possibly heavier than Kenny is) and Travis ... not to mention Ben himself, of course. Any particular reason that the balcony was so much sturdier in your version, other than for plot convenience?

* Why did Larry not request a gun so that he could finish himself off? Or at least ask Lee to do it for him? Why would he deliberately choose to die in absolute agony, knowing fully well that he would then end up coming back as a walker (something which I'm certain that Larry would be keen to avoid at all costs)?

Also, if Larry's heart was indeed giving out (and he "couldn't feel anything") then he wouldn't have been able to fight in the way that you suggested he did. The heart is to the human body what an engine is to a car - it pumps the blood (our very life force) to all of the vital organs in our body. If an engine suddenly dies, then so does the car. Likewise, if someone's heart suddenly gives out on them, then so does their body. Even an incredibly powerful man like Larry (who possesses near-superhuman strength levels) would have been reduced to a weakened husk if his heart was giving out on him. Not even Larry's immense fighting spirit can defy the laws of his own biological make-up.

This was one of the only death scenes that you included in your entire story, and it was a very peculiar one indeed. It wasn't very well-written at all, I'm afraid.

* Yet again, you've misjudged Lilly's character here. Even in the meat locker, when she can blatantly be heard to be fighting back sobs, no tears actually run down Lilly's cheeks. Even during two of the most distressing events of her entire life (both that and the roadside scene), Lilly never actually cries in earnest during the entire game, despite clearly feeling an overwhelming sense of despair on both occasions. The whole point of Lilly using anger in said situations is to help her bypass this emotional "weakness" (breaking down in tears, in other words), yet here you've had her fly off the handle at both Lee & Ben (which is fair enough), only to have her then break down in tears anyway (not so good).

Her interaction with Lee here is very poor characterisation as well. One of the main reasons why Lilly isn't particularly interested in romance during the apocalypse, is because she doesn't want to leave herself emotionally vulnerable - she doesn't want to become dependent on another individual, in other words. Yet here, you've got Lilly clinging to Lee like some helpless child (already completely dependent on his love & support), which is EXACTLY the kind of relationship that she would desperately have been trying to avoid getting into.

Also, I'm calling bullshit on Lee being so easily able to restrain an enraged and emotionally-distraught Lilly. It took both Lee AND Vernon's best efforts to restrain an enraged Kenny during the game, and Kenny does not appear to possess quite as much physical power as Lilly apparently does. It took absolutely every ounce of strength that Lee had to restrain Lilly in the meat locker (for just the few short seconds needed for Kenny to bring the saltlick down), and that was when Lilly was feeling sickly and weakened, having just thrown up her guts mere moments earlier. But here? ... Yeah, there's no way in hell that Lee alone would have been enough to hold her back like that. Yet again, you're SEVERELY underestimated Lilly's physical power ... presumably because she's a woman, right? I mean, given that you've also had her SLAPPING people during this fic (despite her being a military-trained combatant), that would seem to be the most reasonable explanation, no?

* ...Why exactly would Lilly suddenly bump into Lee like that? I mean, Lilly is neither clumsy NOR careless, so ... was there any particular reason for that? Kenny caused Lee to drop the radio in canon because he rather foolishly patted him hard on the back in front of a large, gaping hole, but under no circumstances would Lilly be that stupid. This seems like yet more convenient writing to me - altering the characters in order suit your own personal needs.

* As referenced by my point in the review-before-last, you've made Ben have far too much courage in this story. Ben, while harmless and well-intentioned in his own right, is still a complete coward at heart. You'll notice that he is still desperately asking Lee & Kenny to rescue him in canon, despite not even particularly wanting to live anymore? People can't just up and change their true nature so easily. Ben's courage has its limits, and confessing his crimes to Lilly’s face (arguably his most feared companion) and jumping down into a walker-infested building to save someone who he barely knows (as he did during the last chapter) are two actions which are already well and truly surpassing those limits.

Kenny was willing to sacrifice himself in canon because he felt bad over all of the harm that his actions had caused, and also because a large part of him didn't really want to live on anymore, after he had suffered through the loss of his family (as I tried to explain to you over a year ago now, and as was then confirmed in several dialogue options during season 2 of the game). However, you have to remember that Ben is not Kenny. You can't just shove Ben into Kenny's shoes whenever it suits you, any more than you can shove Katjaa into Lilly's shoes (for example). Poor characterisation yet again here, I'm afraid.

We'll save the rather ridiculous fact that you actually had Ben SURVIVE this nonsense for if (or when) I decide to review the sequel, shall we?

* Time for the big one - Lee somehow surviving his bite in this fic. Just as you have done with the likes of Mark & Larry, you've once again had Lee miraculously survive in circumstances where he was completely and utterly screwed. Using the whole "snake venom" excuse with Doug is all well and good, but you're failing to recognise that such logic only holds up if you were to act on the bite fast enough. To get from the mansion to the fallout shelter in the sewers would have taken Lee at LEAST half an hour, at which point any attempt to amputate the infected area would already have become meaningless. Just as it was in the game, the attempts by Lilly and the others to save Lee's life should have come far too late in this story.

Now, if you had allowed Doug come up with his idea while Lee was still at the mansion, THEN you could have potentially done something with this. After all, Lilly and Carley had apparently already discovered the meat cleaver hidden in the kitchen drawer (which the group REALLY should have found much sooner in the game, especially as they were actively looking for weapons at one point) and, when combined with the medical supplies obtained from Crawford (presumably including bandages and such), as well as the presence of a pseudo-doctor within the group (in Katjaa), this could potentially have acted as a combination of factors capable of preventing Lee's death.

As it was, you passed up on this opportunity entirely, and instead had things play out exactly as they did in-canon ... only with drastically different results (for some reason). Poor writing again? ... Yep. You bet your ass it was. Just as with Mark & Larry in your story, Lee was a dead man walking, as soon as he set off from the mansion alone, without letting the others first deal with his infected arm.

"Things Change"? Nope. Yet again, the only thing that changed here was the result (but not the actual build-up), which unfortunately made the whole thing both immersion-breaking and entirely unrealistic.

Hmm... You know what? I'm actually going to have to post one final part after this, I think. Kind of my way of "tying the whole thing together", y'know? I've covered most of the major errors (as well as some of the limited positives) in this fic already, but I've still got several broader, slightly more sweeping statements to make about the story as a whole. That should come next time, so ... look forward to it ... I guess? ;)