Hey, A Young Girl’s Criminal Record author here. Ouch. But, uh, fair: 1.1 is garbage for (mostly) those reasons.
On a technical level: Yeah, the first few chapters are very rough. I'd written... maybe 10K words of fiction in my life before 1.1, mostly for school, and it really shows. I think I more or less got it figured out by 1.6 or 1.7. It's still not perfect, to be sure, but it's probably the aspect of the story that's seen the most improvement, to the point that since 1.X dialogue and prose are semi-regularly highlighted as strong points in reviews. At some point I really need to go back and rewrite at least 1.1-1.5, but of course my current audience would always rather I work on the next chapter.
Character-wise: Alec's personality isn't wrong directionally, I think, but his energy level is way too high. He's never had a big role in the story -- 1.1/1.2 contain about half his lines to-date -- but I still think I've gotten a much better handle on him by now. Taylor's ~50% too strident, which stays a problem for a while; an awkward setup for a conflict I only really got a handle on in 1.12/1.13. And I didn't really have a deep understanding what I was doing with her until 2.5 or maybe 2.8. She's just got a lot going on.
But I imagine the biggest issue is Lisa? Definitely the most off, which in my defense is partially intentional: Coil's already on the back foot since Echidna broke out of his main base and attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Powerful, unaffiliated capes literally dropping out of the sky seems like a perfect opportunity to hit him with something he couldn't possibly have anticipated. (Even Dinah's of limited usefulness, given he has to show her pictures of people to identify them.) So she's trying her best to be accommodating at least until she can set that up... But honestly, I didn't have the skill to pull something like that off when I wrote the chapter, so I don't think it really works even in context. Separately, her characterization is pretty off: too erratic, too sociopathic, and too careless, mainly, though I think those issues are more apparent in 1.2 and 1.5 than 1.1. She's the deuteragonist and I think her characterization has improved the most as the story has progressed; I'm certainly much happier with the voice I've found for her now. 1.8 is much closer to correct and it's pretty much settled by 2.3.
And perhaps you found the PRT's instant violence to be a little too much? Honestly, I never did quite enough to justify it in story, but the idea is that a lot more clones had managed to survive the Echidna response and they've been completely swamped with emergencies for the last few days. (Given the response time, the helicopter had to already be in flight, for one bit of evidence.) And they were already struggling to cope with their (somewhat different set of) Leviathan losses. It was a bad call but I hope somewhat understandable in context.
As for how closely my characterization matches canon? Well, it gets a lot closer, but I've ultimately concluded I'd rather prioritize writing a decent story over perfect canon accuracy. Not enormous departures, mind, and I'd always rather expand on areas WB left blank than alter the things he did write, but it still might be too much if it's really important to you. For example, I decided to run with the 'Miss Militia has perfect memory' fanon because it makes her much more capable -- the heroes need all the Thinker support they can get -- and has interesting character and plot implications, given the role I have in mind for her. That's probably the single biggest change I've made, for reference.
(And there's Tanya's characterization, which you didn't mention but has been pretty controversial over the course of the story. I think I had the clearest idea what I was doing with her out of everyone in 1.1, though some of the execution is embarrassingly crude. It's hard to discuss specifics given a few details that aren't meant to be clear just yet. I think it's about up-to-par (given my understanding of her character) by 1.7.)
The story has (somewhat unintentionally) ended up very character-focused, and I think everyone's gotten a lot deeper and more interesting as I've grown as a writer. Perhaps not entirely for the better, given how much introspection, planning, discussion, and analysis have choked out other aspects of the story. But still, I'm a lot happier with where it is now than where it was when I started out.
But of course it's up to you if you feel like engaging with these points or giving the story another chance. I found this post because I google the story's name occasionally, but I've read some of your other reviews and think we actually have pretty similar tastes. (Those are almost exactly my feelings on Zenith of Sorcery, for one. And unfortunately not far off on System Delenda Est. Though did you read Chasing Sunlight? Kind of a Sunless Skies/Gulliver's Travels thing. The world building is still a bit nonsensical, though probably above average for existential horror, but the episodic nature of a travel log format works well with his style, I think. And it's a lot more focused than either Paranoid Mage or System Delenda Est.) So I like to think you'd like my more recent chapters; or, at least, more than you liked 1.1. And, selfishly, I'd appreciate getting pointed towards things that I don't already know are problems, and it seems like you'd do a good job at that. Appreciate the feedback regardless.
Hey, A Young Girl’s Criminal Record author here. Ouch. But, uh, fair: 1.1 is garbage for (mostly) those reasons.
On a technical level: Yeah, the first few chapters are very rough. I'd written... maybe 10K words of fiction in my life before 1.1, mostly for school, and it really shows. I think I more or less got it figured out by 1.6 or 1.7. It's still not perfect, to be sure, but it's probably the aspect of the story that's seen the most improvement, to the point that since 1.X dialogue and prose are semi-regularly highlighted as strong points in reviews. At some point I really need to go back and rewrite at least 1.1-1.5, but of course my current audience would always rather I work on the next chapter.
Character-wise: Alec's personality isn't wrong directionally, I think, but his energy level is way too high. He's never had a big role in the story -- 1.1/1.2 contain about half his lines to-date -- but I still think I've gotten a much better handle on him by now. Taylor's ~50% too strident, which stays a problem for a while; an awkward setup for a conflict I only really got a handle on in 1.12/1.13. And I didn't really have a deep understanding what I was doing with her until 2.5 or maybe 2.8. She's just got a lot going on.
But I imagine the biggest issue is Lisa? Definitely the most off, which in my defense is partially intentional: Coil's already on the back foot since Echidna broke out of his main base and attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Powerful, unaffiliated capes literally dropping out of the sky seems like a perfect opportunity to hit him with something he couldn't possibly have anticipated. (Even Dinah's of limited usefulness, given he has to show her pictures of people to identify them.) So she's trying her best to be accommodating at least until she can set that up... But honestly, I didn't have the skill to pull something like that off when I wrote the chapter, so I don't think it really works even in context. Separately, her characterization is pretty off: too erratic, too sociopathic, and too careless, mainly, though I think those issues are more apparent in 1.2 and 1.5 than 1.1. She's the deuteragonist and I think her characterization has improved the most as the story has progressed; I'm certainly much happier with the voice I've found for her now. 1.8 is much closer to correct and it's pretty much settled by 2.3.
And perhaps you found the PRT's instant violence to be a little too much? Honestly, I never did quite enough to justify it in story, but the idea is that a lot more clones had managed to survive the Echidna response and they've been completely swamped with emergencies for the last few days. (Given the response time, the helicopter had to already be in flight, for one bit of evidence.) And they were already struggling to cope with their (somewhat different set of) Leviathan losses. It was a bad call but I hope somewhat understandable in context.
As for how closely my characterization matches canon? Well, it gets a lot closer, but I've ultimately concluded I'd rather prioritize writing a decent story over perfect canon accuracy. Not enormous departures, mind, and I'd always rather expand on areas WB left blank than alter the things he did write, but it still might be too much if it's really important to you. For example, I decided to run with the 'Miss Militia has perfect memory' fanon because it makes her much more capable -- the heroes need all the Thinker support they can get -- and has interesting character and plot implications, given the role I have in mind for her. That's probably the single biggest change I've made, for reference.
(And there's Tanya's characterization, which you didn't mention but has been pretty controversial over the course of the story. I think I had the clearest idea what I was doing with her out of everyone in 1.1, though some of the execution is embarrassingly crude. It's hard to discuss specifics given a few details that aren't meant to be clear just yet. I think it's about up-to-par (given my understanding of her character) by 1.7.)
The story has (somewhat unintentionally) ended up very character-focused, and I think everyone's gotten a lot deeper and more interesting as I've grown as a writer. Perhaps not entirely for the better, given how much introspection, planning, discussion, and analysis have choked out other aspects of the story. But still, I'm a lot happier with where it is now than where it was when I started out.
But of course it's up to you if you feel like engaging with these points or giving the story another chance. I found this post because I google the story's name occasionally, but I've read some of your other reviews and think we actually have pretty similar tastes. (Those are almost exactly my feelings on Zenith of Sorcery, for one. And unfortunately not far off on System Delenda Est. Though did you read Chasing Sunlight? Kind of a Sunless Skies/Gulliver's Travels thing. The world building is still a bit nonsensical, though probably above average for existential horror, but the episodic nature of a travel log format works well with his style, I think. And it's a lot more focused than either Paranoid Mage or System Delenda Est.) So I like to think you'd like my more recent chapters; or, at least, more than you liked 1.1. And, selfishly, I'd appreciate getting pointed towards things that I don't already know are problems, and it seems like you'd do a good job at that. Appreciate the feedback regardless.