I finally finished reading the last chapter of this story. What can I say that I haven’t already said? I love the realistic dialog and characterization you’ve given each character.

I really liked the pacing you’ve taken with the John/Cameron dynamic, and that you haven’t fallen into the same rut that most fanfic writers have, which is overly humanizing Cameron just for the sake of making her relationship with John more like a story-book romance. The John/Derek relationship is great too. He’s sticking up for John more and more, which is nice to see. I kind of wish that Sarah and John got along a little better though. John seems to resent her quite a bit, but I guess he has his reasons, exemplified by such segments as the superb introspection on his discovery of the tape that showed her relinquishing parental rights to him while in Pescadaro.

I thought it was a bit crass of Sarah to take off after all the trauma of the day prior without even saying goodbye. She could very well be killed on the mission and she didn’t even seem to care that she’d be upsetting him. To me, it just makes Sarah look like a bitch and a terrible mother. I never got that vibe from her in the series, so I guess that would be one gripe of mine.

Oh, and you kinda glossed over what happened when Mike’s parent’s showed up. I know you covered what happened, but we didn’t get to experience the drama. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal to skip that part, since it really wasn’t *that* important to the story, but you used the idea of Mike’s father being “on his way over” as a way to build suspense throughout chapter 23, and then it just never happened.

I was quite surprised to see John ditch Cameron like he did, especially after were just starting to become closer. If anything, I was expecting him to take “flight” *with* her, so props to you for the surprise ending. Hmm... maybe the thought of becoming “close” to a machine is part of what drove John to say “fuck the world... I’m outta here!”

It has been a pleasure reading this story, and I look forward to plunging into “Away” next.

Regards.

Chapter 18:
This was an alright chapter. I liked the conversation between Ellison and Greta. The whole sequence with John waking up listening to his mother singing was, as you said, "meh". I did however like the Cameron POV stuff near the end. Cameron is jealous of Cheri? This could get interesting.

Chapter 19:
This was a good character building chapter for Mike. I don't have much else to say. John is starting to trust Mike, so that's good.

Chapter 20:
All hell breaks loose... again. Nice suspense in this chapter. Police stations shootouts, Russina informants, headshots, Terminator endos, and ... masturbation? Jesus Christ, Mike! At least find a bathroom! LOL. At first I thought he was having the hots for Cameron, and then seeing Cameron "Forsythe" in the interrogation room made him lose control, but later he talks about John being "so hot". Hmm... Mike is gay? or at least bi/curious?
I hope we learn soon about these hoards of bad-guy-commandos that keep ruining John's day. They seem to have endless supply of men, and don't have even the slightest fear of police or authority.

Chapter 22:
Sweet. A car chase. Not a whole lot to comment on, other than to say "good action writing". Action is always pretty tough for me to write, so I applaud people who can do it well.
And if the crash threw John through the windshield, I imagine Mike got pretty beat up by the steering wheel. That plus a gunshot wound... not looking good for the young resistance fighter.
Ellison is obviously starting to see the bigger picture, and bend the rules of his FBI authority to get to the bottom of what's going on. I like that. I hope John and co. can learn to cooperate with him soon. Would be good to have an ally g-man on the inside.
Nice tender moment between John and Cameron at the end too. Whether or not Cameron actually gets something out of a hug like that remains to be seen, but at least she knows it helps John, so she does it regardless.

My commentary for chapters 13, 14, 15 & 16

Chapter 13.

ugh.. another dream sequence. There seems to be two kinds of dream sequences. There's the kind where you know it's a dream right from the get-go, which is hard to read because you know that any relevance it will have is vague and metaphorical at best. Then there's the kind where it starts out seemingly real, then you eventually find out it's a dream. Those kind are bittersweet... I read it, get into the scene, start to feel anxious from the suspense, then BAM... I realize it's all just a dream and feel a little frustrated for having been duped. The scene with John in Pescadero was like that. I was thinking "wow.. this is cool and ironic. John is in the same place his mother was years ago... and with the same creepy orderly! Nice throwback to T2! What were they talking about? John's girlfriend? Cheri? Cameron? Someone new? John killed someone.. damn he's hardening up, maybe too much... ohh... wait... what's Sarah doing there?? oh, son of a... it's a dream."
Again... this is just a personal annoyance of mine, and not a slight to your writing in any way... and you did in fact have me going until Sarah showed up.

The rest of the chapter was good as well. I like the idea that Mike sort of had a "never meet your heroes" moment. This godlike person that he worshiped is just a regular kid.

uh oh... Cameron had a momentary relapse of "Terminate John Connor" mode.

John's disdain for Mike referring to Cameron as "it" tells me he's starting to think of her more as a person. Nice development there.

--

Chapter 14

John's having "impure thoughts" about that couch. heh.
This is once instance where I think a dream/hallucination/fantasy flies in under my "I hate dream sequences" radar. It wasn't too long, and it was more a product of John's conscious thought process than some magical, future-predicting subconscious dream.

--

Chapter 15

As you pointed out in your author's notes, you still need a "debriefing" session with Sarah, John, Derek, and Cameron. I loved the bit with Charlie and Sarah, but in terms of storytelling, I think there should have been something in between chapter 14 and 15. It took them a few minutes to drive from the church to Charlie's house, right? Realistically, wouldn't they have been discussing what the hell just happened? It's not like any of them were seriously wounded and dying (in which case they would have probably been too distracted to debrief).

--

Chapter 16

Nice "epilogue" chapter. Not a whole lot happened here, but it's nice to see things back to "normal". My only critique is that maybe this didn't need to be its own chapter. Like I said in the comment for chapter 15, this could have probably been covered in the car ride to Charlie's place. Not really a big deal. It works well the way you've written it too.
Funny little quip about Cameron and the pizza guy.

Maybe I'm just inattentive and missed something, but I didn't quite get what John mean by his last question to Derek. Was he supposed to be implying something? While Derek was waiting for Sarah? Waiting when? Something must have went over my head here. hmm...

I don't know if I'll review each and every chapter as I read through this story, but this one definitely deserves some praise. So much happened as well. I figured there would a little action, maybe a struggle with the Forsythe character, but I didn't expect the shit to hit the fan in an epic battle like it did, along with all the surprises along the way. To tell you the truth, up until this chapter I wasn’t all that into the plot. The writing was good, and I loved all the introspection into the characters, but it seemed like it was mainly kind of a ho-hum plot about investigating some guy possibly connected with Cyberdyne, John’s struggles in school and so on and so forth. This chapter unraveled a bunch of things and deepened the story a ton.

First big surprise: Human Cameron.
At first I just figured this was mostly a cameo appearance... sort of an Easter-egg. And taking in to consideration that this was probably written before "Allison From Palmdale", it was a nice little fun encounter to read, even if it was a bit convenient and contrived that she just happened to be a the same hotel where everything was going down...or so I thought at the time. Then it turns out that she's in on the whole ordeal, and possibly working for the Russians? I'm glad that she's not just some random girl that one day gets turned into a cyborg. Sounds like she actually has a purpose, and I can't wait to find out. I wonder if there will ever be a John/Human-Cameron confrontation...

Surprise #2:
Arnold freaking Schwarzenegger! Well... technically a T-800/101... even better! No fanfic is complete without a cameo of this guy/machine.

Surprise #3:
I definitely didn't expect Forsythe to be from the future, or at least know about it. I was guessing this would be Andy Goode v2.0, and to be honest, I didn’t really have much interest in him. But it seems like he's part of some group of extremists that hate humanity or something. Interesting twist.

Surprise #4:
Michael from school. Who's side is he on? He was holding John at gunpoint, but was afraid of the T-800. A third party? More reasons to keep reading.

All in all, a fantastic, action packed, nail-biter of a chapter. I can’t really come up with much to be critical about it. Even the things I complained about last chapter were much better... nothing seemed overly wordy, and the number of F-bombs (while probably just as frequent) seemed much better placed and appropriate considering the tone of the chapter. The action was well written. I find that action is tough to write without sounding monotonous. Yours action scenes read smoothly and vividly. The only thing I can maybe gripe about is the inclusion of musical lyrics. It’s very tempting to insert music into a story, since words can be poetic to what’s going on in the scene, or it can just set the mood for a scene, but it can also backfire on you and sort of get in the way of the rest of the text; especially when the reader hasn’t heard the song before.

I’m not sure if I can say anything that the other reviews haven’t covered, but I’ll try.

I have to commend you on writing one of the best TSCC fanfictions out there. I just finished reading chapter 11 today, so I still have a long way to go. But from what I’ve read so far, I’d say that you’ve nailed the characterization of everyone in the story...especially Cameron. I don’t know... maybe I’m just a bit jaded from reading the overabundance of fluffy, Jameron-laden pablum this site, but it’s a breath of fresh air to read a fic where Cameron actually acts like a Terminator, with the vague shadow of possibly developing emotions. I believe this is how she was portrayed on the show, and you’ve captured that nicely.

Before I start offering criticisms I’ll qualify all of my statements by saying that your writing absolutely puts mine to shame, so everything I say is nothing more than a stone thrown through the walls of my shitty glass house.

I hate, hate, HATE dream sequences. Especially long ones. IMO, dream sequences are not part of reality, and therefore irrelevant to any story. If they are used as a tool to foreshadow, or give insight into a character's subconscious, that’s fine, but they don’t need to be five thousand words long to do so. In fact, a dream sequence being anything more than vague memories of the dreamer seems unrealistic to me. I guess this is more of a personal preference, and is not in any way criticizing your writing. Just something to think about.

Being overly wordy. This can be both good and bad. For example: when Derek slugged John in the stomach. I loved the description of how his entire train of thought was derailed and the only thing he could see or think of was the floor. The repetition of the word “floor” was great. But then you go on for another three paragraphs to describe the feeling and pain he’s experiencing. This is where I thought it was a bit much, and seemed exaggerated. I think something like this could be trimmed quite a bit and still have the same (or better) effect on the reader.

Also along the lines of too much emphasis, you overuse the expletive “fucking”. I think just about everyone had someone in their highschool that used that word in every other sentence, and reduced it to a nothing-word, rather than the ultimate adjective-amplifier that it should be. It’s one thing to have a character using profanity in dialog, but when used so often in the narration, it ends up sounding like “that guy”.

Example: "Of course," Cameron said. John fucking shuddered, and he was damned if he knew why.

It just seems totally unnecessary in that sentence.

Ok.. back to the things I like about the story.
I love how the simple misunderstanding of Derek’s affection for his nephew has snowballed into the tension that it has. Although I hope that they straighten things out soon, for both their sakes.

I love Derek and Sarah’s sort of love/hate dynamic. Derek mockingly saluting Sarah and patronizing her was fun to read. I would like to see more of the pseudo-comical love/hate relationship between Sarah and Cameron like we saw a few times in the first season of the show.

I love how John keeps comparing his feelings for Cheri to his supposed confused feelings toward Cameron. This is very realistic, and I think most fanfic authors get so overzealous wanting to write about John and Cameron that they forget that all other things being equal, John would likely choose to be with a human girl. That being said, I’m very much looking forward to “the talk” that John wants to have with Cameron.

I’ll say again, that while I have my nitpicks, for the most part I love your writing style and I love this fanfic.

Best regards.

John vs. the turkey! Great!

Commentary on Chapters One through Five.

Chapter One Commentary

Okay, he's my running commentary on the first chapter.

General Comments: I'm interested in knowing whether you consider your series to be a "filling in" of the gaps between episodes, or whether it's an actual AU that more or less follows the TSCC series? For example, is the story inevitably going to end (maybe not in your actual writing, but in the chronological sequence of events) with John in the basement of the Ziera Corp building, reading "IM SORRY JOHN . . . IM SORRY JOHN . . .," and then bubbling into the future with Weaver? Or does the story have the potential to fork away into AU territory?

Just curious, really. I see in "No Trespassing," that John and Cam seem to be ending their cold war, which follows what happened in the later half of the second season.

Anyway, on to the commentary.

The initial paragraph of the library dream sequence has bit too much detail, I think. I know it's a dream, but if John's being shot at, he's not likely to be reading the spines of books and making note of the peculiar shade of red of the carpet. I'd think that sort of description would work better if John were noticing it *before* he heard the shooting. Otherwise the big block of text just seems to slow things down.

And the use of onomatopoeia seems a little silly, but then I use them too.

I like John's description of the endoskeleton. That seemed to stick out for me, for some reason. You give a lot of detail for the four prisoners; are these people anyone of importance?

Cameron trying to kill John. An eerily prophetic dream, especially since you wrote this months before S&D.

Dreams over. John's dead.

I actually laughed out loud when John pulled the blanket up to his neck when Cameron entered the room.

"Cameron wasn't going to shoot him. She was programmed to protect his life. The last thing she could do was stalk him and kill him."

More ironic foreshadowing.

Good John/Cameron interaction. Her dialog seemed spot on in character.

There were some unnecessary "was'es and hads" in the prose that could have had more lively verbs thrown in, but then I know I do the same thing too.

_
Chapter Two Commentary

"To the casual observer, they'd think John was overly sheltered, that his mom loved him too much to let him out of the house. In reality --John didn't consider her point of view-- she wanted to keep him wrapped in a box because of he'd become, not what he was."

I think you hit the nail on the head as to why John has so many neurosis.

Love the interaction between John, Sarah, and Cameron at the end. Poor John, feeling useless and left out like that. But I see what you mean when you say how my characters are all wrapped up in their own little worlds. The constant "everyone plotting against everyone else" of my fic is really dragging things down. Makes casual conversations and planning impossibly awkward. Hell, *I'm* growing tired of it! This *will* change, though. Well, maybe not for Kyle, that man's a lunatic through and through.

Anyway, back to your fic.

Is the man in the yellow hat one of the guys from the dream? No reason, but the description of "widow's peak" stood out. Maybe I'm looking too hard.

_
Chapter Three Commentary

John sure is worried about his mother leaving.

VERY good Jameron scene there. You perfectly capture the conflicting "aww" and creepiness. Her smiling and showing teeth was great, seeing as it's so unusual of her.

Interesting John/Derek scene. I guess Derek wouldn't have any sense of privacy. John acted like a brat about it, though.

"She scowled briefly at that as she walked in; blood didn't come out well in the laundry, as she'd unfortunately discovered a few hours after Derek had been shot by the Triple-Eight." --

Minor quibble: I think Sarah's known this for quite some time. *She's* been shot/cut-up before. I doubt the resilience of blood stains would be news to her.

Oh, looks like Sarah and Cam's road trip's been canceled.

Good chapter, though a bit short.

_
Chapter Four Commentary

Looks like this one's a bit longer

I like the confusion John has regarding Cameron's motives. And his workout. The show never seems to have him do this.

"he desperately needed his hair cut soon" -- Ha!

Tombstones with Cyrillic writing? In their backyard? Interesting. I assume this is a dream . . .

*Keeps reading* Maybe not. Someone dug them out of the yard?

Wow. The secretary at the high school is *rude.* Really rude. Unnaturally so, in my opinion.

So the school's holding a lecture on robotics, but they're afraid of another murder, so they're being intentionally misleading about the date to prevent a high attendance? You'd think they'd just cancel it.

Eric doesn't sound like a very good chess player. But then Sarah has been training John since he was six.

BTW: If the Russian (?) tombstones weren't a dream, it's odd that there's no follow up questions from John about it.

Good Cameron bit with Morris. I laughed, though the "0.12 percent" stuff thrown into her POVs always seems odd to me. The percentages couldn't possibly mean anything. Way too many variables to determine the actual likelihood of homicidal cafeteria workers. I know it's a typical "robo-speak" device used in many fics, but it's one I try to avoid. Nitpicky, I know.

"John was getting up and heading toward a table occupied by several men and women, student Cheri Westin, aged 16, sophomore grade among them. Cameron's HUD suddenly flashed "system anomaly." Seemingly of itself, Cameron's eyebrows had lowered considerably, her mouth had set itself into the ghost of a frown. She was glaring without having..."

Oh, Cameron's jealous of Cheri! That's an angle never touched upon in the show. Probably because Cheri only had like only three scenes total.

John kicked someone's ass. Cool.

Cheri's overprotective boyfriend? I'm interested in where this is going.

Michael Oxferod . . . Michael . . . Mike.

Oh.

Not Cheri's boyfriend, then, I guess?

Heh, I didn't know Mike was around since FiR.

Anyway, good chapter. I like how you're tying Cheri into the story. In the series the writers evidently wished her into the cornfield.

_
Chapter Five Commentary

You do the high school environment very well. I think I've sort of forgotten how annoying most teenagers can be.

Cameron timed her restroom break quite well. Good ears, she has.

"He'd known her for less than a month . . . "

Hmm. You said it was February in Ch4, which means that somewhere around nine months pass between now and "What He Beheld" (November 14th, 2007). I guess that gives you a lot of leeway for between-the-episode adventures.

Now reading John and Cam's interaction. You do a good Cameron.

Aww. Jealous Cam.

I like how you're laying on the theme of jealousy with both John/Mike/Cheri and John/Cameron. Nice pseudo-love triangle there.

John's in dreamland again . . .

"(Dreams are exactly what they are: fantasy worlds you create out of your subconscious, which are indiscernible from reality when they are actually happening. Therefore it didn't occur to John that this, too, was a dream,)"

Thank you for explaining, Mr. Narrator. I didn't know that about dreams . . .

Interesting dream sequence. It's odd how John sees the HKs in his dreams, even though he's never seen them before and (presumably) no one has described them before.

*Sarkassian's* traders? Hmm . . .

And the soldier's the second figure from the dream. Interesting. And *green* eyes? Kyle? Something tells me these may be something more than dreams. Maybe.

For some reason, I think Cheri may be from the future, along with Mike. Though I have no idea why Mike would punch John. I'm assuming he knows who John is, anyway.

Anyway, I like where this going. I'll post another review sometime later. Now, I'm going to start on my new chapter.

Sucks that the show's canceled. You're not going to quit writing because of that, are you?

im enjoying this story for the most part, but i have to ask, is john ever gunna stop acting like a total headcase and a wimp?

In some places I found this story disturbing and painful to read. Congratulations with that, it makes much more of an impact that a lot of the other stories out there. The reactions of the characters were very visceral and made everything seem much more real. I liked it, in that it did make me feel uncomfortable and confused.

Great story. It sucked away the greater amount of free time for the past few days.

You fight scenes are great. Your John characterization was amazing. One of the best fanfics of any genre I've read.

This is really good. I'm only on the second chapter, but so far this is probably one of the best TSCC fan fictions I've ever read. Now, I actually haven't read that many fics mind you, but still, it's really good none-the-less.

You have an excellent grasp of John's character, and your prose really emphasizes the stress he feels. He's got a lot of issues, and this comes across readily to the reader.

The other characters, especially Cameron, are spot on. I think you've crafted a very realistic portrayal of the Connors' life between episodes.

The dream sequence in chapter one was good, though there were a few typos (not that I don't have them myself), but I think, with a little bit of revision, it could be made tighter. The opening paragraph bordered on rambling, I thought, but then again, it was a dream. I guess it's a case of too much description breaking up the flow of the action.

It was fun to read though. It's hard to believe you're only 19.

In any event, I'm glad you've introduced me to this story. I'll post more comments after I read a few more chapters.

Well... Wow... I just read your story. It was amazing. You had us all right in the action and heads of each character and scene. When I got to the end I actually groaned. Saying NO this can not be it. I am not hoping you have already writen the second part. I'm off to look for "Away"

Hey, I'm enjoying this. It's really well thought out and in character. It's too bad I didn't catch it while you were first posting it. It feels strange reviewing something when you've already moved on. The only thing that bugged me about this chapter is that you misspelled Dimitri. (The cyrillic writing) If someone already told you about that sorry.

Nice start, I thought it was really judgment day in the beginning and was kinda hoping (cause it'd be interesting to read) but yeah good story so far.

Very good, well written story. Thought John's character was a little more panicked than canon has shown, but all in all, the characterizations were fairly well done.

I enjoyed this. Look forward to getting onto the sequel in a bit.