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im taking A Cold Freezin' Night (The Books) too
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Feb 12, 2016 09:12
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1443 words The Ocean’s Sorry, He Really Is ~archives~ flerp fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Feb 23, 2016 |
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Feb 15, 2016 05:33
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Interprompt: WikiHow Did This Happen? Everyone loves wikihow, you know, that site where you can learn how to take a courtesy pee, but what I like to thing about is how the gently caress did somebody think this was a good idea? Write me a story in 300 words that hopefully explains why someone wrote a Wikihow article. You can take a real one or you can make up your own like "How to Fall in Love With Bees" or something. Some inspiration: "How to Give Passive Aggressive Gifts for Christmas" "How to Be Okay with Having a Communist Friend" "How to Take a Shower" "How to Convince Your Parents to Let You Buy a Nice Looking Diary, Instead of a Spiral Notebook" "How to Live It up Before You're Twelve" and many more!
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Feb 15, 2016 09:11
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some drive-by crits since i read a few Sitting Here I thought this was super bad. I had like no clue what was going on whatsoever. You have a bunch of characters whose interactions make almost no sense, nothing to ground me into this world besides "guy looks into the mirror." There's some poo poo about likes and comments but they add to... I'm not really sure? I don't get the ending. gently caress, I don't get anything in this story. Your prose feels like, how do I describe it, like you had this big grand idea but your brain was struggling for a way to describe it so you threw it on the page and shrugged and said good enough. I don't see why I should care though, is the biggest problem. Everyone either felt petty, or nebulous, or like an rear end in a top hat. Combined with the prose that left me confused, I both don't get, nor do I want to look back further through your story to gleen some meaning from it, if it has any to begin with. Muffin I liked this for what it was, but I had the same kind of issue of why should I care? This guy hates his brother, or at least has a strained relationship with his brother, but the impact of the ending doesn't land because we don't ever feel the relationship. Now, I'm a brother, I have an older brother, and these feelings are something that I have personally, as well, but they still don't add up to anything because I don't get to understand them as people. Why is it so important that this guy comes to terms with his relationship and feelings about his brother? I'm not sure. Still, plot-wise, this was thin, but that wasn't the point. I think this would've worked better as a poem. I'm not quite sure I'd qualify it as a prose poem but tbh i dont even know what the criteria for a prose poem is sooooooooooo w/e. You got some cool stuff, and some of your manipulation of the language was alright, but things like "twooooo-enty-two" makes me imagine your character is about to break into a happy go lucky song, which doesn't quite fit the tone of despair and sadness. I think you over used tut-woo just a little too much that it became too repetitive without making it feel impactful. The "turnabout, fairplay etc." feels very weak to have it stand as a line alone, especially with the etc. making me think like, who the gently caress cares? Still, though, a lot of your descriptions and setting were fantastic and I think this would've worked better as either a poem or a prose poem. It just lacks the story edge, and doesn't quite make up for it in the description department. Still, it was a quick and easy read that showed finesse and skill on the technical level.
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Feb 16, 2016 09:35
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in 
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Feb 16, 2016 17:38
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i dont want a door but can i get a flash rule?
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Feb 18, 2016 19:06
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm4ScnLFcGg flash rule: Your story must take place on a planet other than Earth. 978 words The Fate of the Animals ~barkchives~ flerp fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Feb 23, 2016 |
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Feb 22, 2016 04:09
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Bad Seafood posted:Yeah, this is just not happening for me this week. I'm out. if you want a crit for fantasy week this is the place to be btw
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Feb 22, 2016 04:10
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story about duck dicks ducks have hosed up dicks. they're like corkscrews, like seriously, who the gently caress thought that was a good idea. also ducks rape each other. like, they evolved corkscrew dicks to make it easier to rape other ducks. jesus, if you think ducks are cool, i don't know man, you might have to reconsider. anyways please enjoy these duck facts. subscribe for more duck facts.
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Feb 22, 2016 18:13
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flerp posted:i will new deadline: February 29th, Midnight PST
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Feb 25, 2016 23:34
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sign ups closed
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Feb 27, 2016 07:25
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Entenzahn posted:ill be judge #3 but only if i get to be judge #2 and flerp is judge #3 instead of course you want to be #2 because youre a #2 (youre poo)
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Feb 29, 2016 07:20
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crit you for the thanks
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Feb 29, 2016 22:18
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in if titus gives me a word
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Mar 2, 2016 06:09
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flerp posted:in if titus gives me a word Culaccino (Italian) which means the stain left on a table from a cold glass of water.
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Mar 2, 2016 06:52
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ok yeah im going to post crits now Ignobel Award Crits Oh yeah one other thing, loving PROOFREAD YOU PIECES OF poo poo. Jesus christ, almost every story didn't proofread for some loving reason. I didn't call you out on your crits all the time but gently caress, make it seem like you put a little effort in your stories. What Knights Do Your characterization of Andrew felt like the most obvious strawman alternative medicine character. Your narrator was alright, and Cream was ok (besides for naming him Cream because of the prompt for whatever reason). Still, there’s something lacking in this, and I think it’s because you were like “I’m going to make a story about a doctor secretly vaccinating her nephew” but you didn’t take it a step further. That’s a good premise, but as a story as a whole? I think it can do more, since you can play into the brother and sister’s relationship, or the aunt/nephew relationship, and treat your antagonist as a human being rather than as a strawman. The prose isn’t awful. There’s some issues, like “it was pretty adorable” (telling). It’s just, I feel like you kind of settled with this. There’s more that can be done, that this story could actually be relatable, and if the brother acts like a real human being instead of a stereotype, you could use a subject matter and say more about life. You could make a statement on brother/sister relationships, what a father should do, how when people with two different goals with a child can affect that child, etc. etc. That could be interesting. Instead you gave me “Man, alternative medicine idiots are dumb, huh?” which, ehhh, doesn’t do enough. I feel that a lot of time you specifically trex play into stereotypes too much and when you avoid those stereotypes, your stories come out much better. Middle The Interview Wow, that’s a dull opening line. Man, people smiling warmly and a handshake. Man, oh man, I can’t wait to read this. Ok, so what’s the point of this first scene at all? Like, what information does this tell me that the title doesn’t already imply. You don’t advance plot, and character is a bit barebones for the interviewer (who don’t refer to by name at all yet). I don’t even get any insight into the narrator, who is probably supposed to be your protag. Ok, so for the first half of this story, I was confused, then the reveal comes and I sigh because it’s so played out and boring and I have no connection to your protag that I don’t care. Is this bad? Yes, probably. The prose is workmanlike, but there’s nothing to latch onto here, nor anything really else. The character is weak, and the whole plot is basically “guy got conditioned to murder people” and that’s… it. Like, I said above, the premise is there and you can do something with it, but you don’t. One, you expend probably about 500 words on the set-up. I don’t really care about that set-up. Maybe if the set-up established character, then that’d be okay. Like this guy needs to get a job and he tries to get a job but it doesn’t work out, hey, that could be interesting if I cared about him. But I don’t. Or, you could start at the end that you’ve got and try to show your character resisiting. Basically, you told the most boring parts of your stories. Great work! Lowish Middle Armadillo Proof-read. quote:Chadwick-" Lucette started to say but he cut her off. c’mon now. So, in the middle of the story, I had to reorient myself and get everything straight. Ok, so first of all, there’s two factions in some steampunk like world where there are airships. There’s Gildathere, who has a wife that says one thing then gets forgotten about. She’s part of the Valnorn Empire. Then, there’s Lucette, who’s part of the Unity. Valnorn are the bad asses, Unity are the bureaucrats, generic as poo poo. So, after getting my head straight around this, what is your story? People talk, some kind of alliance poo poo that I don’t care about because I don’t know the stakes, boring characters, then some kind of intrigue occurs. Oh, are they going to be betrayed? That might be interesting! Nope, it’s an armadillo, that issue is cleared nice and easy, then another conflict gets thrown in! Chadwick, who comes literally out of nowhere, is like yo im gonna fight you, then he dies. Apparently, that’s a good thing and it’s happily ever after. Except for Chadwick and the armadillo, who both died. Really, at the end of the day, your story was like 90% politics which is supremely boring with boring characters. Lowish Middle, maybe DM Chomper Hey, look at that, somebody took a premise and did something with it! Like, seriously, this is pretty ok overall. I don't like the ambiguity at the end, and that whole you gotta shook yourself to get the venom out makes like no sense unless I have the prompt in front of me. This just an extremely solid story, but I’m left feeling like there needs to be a bigger conclusion than just what you gave me. Your characters had some good stuff working together and things were happening and you took your premise of a talking snake and you did more with it rather 1000 words of “wow, that snake talks.” Good work. I think the improvement needs to come at the end. I feel that you forced in the prompt when the ending should be something different with more impact. It just lands flat, and if the ending landing, man, this could be something really good but yeah, that’s where this fails. I enjoyed this more than my other co-judges, so take that for what it is. Middle I Really Gotta Pee! I mean, you did it. You had a conflict, kind of a character, he did things to get his goal, and it made me laugh a couple times. This wasn’t bad, there’s some good lines, some good prose, and it was, at the end of the day, moderately entertaining. I mean, we both know this isn’t going to be anything bigger than what it is. It reminds me a lot of the week i judged with the making GBS threads yourself story that I HMed, but idk, this didn’t seem as powerful? Like the prose is borderline good, but… idk. It’s not terrible, and better than almost all the rest so far. Like, it’s a solid story, but it doesn’t do anything else or try to do anything else, which is alright. Just, not going to get it any higher than what it is. Middle Thou Shall Not Jesus, that was intense. Man, these last three stories have really stepped up the quality. I like how used the central gimmick as a constant influence on the character. He was forced to do these things, but it worked naturally and I believed it. It was cool. Your character was interesting placed in an interesting situation. I wish, a little bit, that the antagonist was a bit more nuanced and that the girl was more likable but ehh. Once again, this another story that takes a premise, but it expands on it, it tells a story with a premise rather than just a premise expanded over 1000 words. That beginning intro is p. bad though. Good prose too. Idk, overall, pretty strong. It works for the most part, but I wish there was a bit more nuance to these characters that made them feel more human and relatable. That’s what this story is missing. High middle. No poo poo drat guys, stop writing good stuff. Like, wow, things are working. This reminds me a little of The Things They Carried (nowhere near as good, though). It takes a premise, does more with it, blah blah blah, said this a million times already. The voice was strong, the prose was good, the story moved along really well, the pacing worked, overall, just a super solid story. There is something missing in it though. I think there needs to be a bit more connection with the rest of the character, rather than just giving us a role call in the middle of the story. Anyways, strong stuff. Yeah, the biggest issue is I think, once again, that the word count kept you limited so much that it became difficult to relate and care about your narrator. It feels half baked, unsure of where it’s trying to go and exactly what direction it wants to go. High, Possible HM Moisture-Drive Long rear end Title Ok, dialogue story, with each line break being a response by someone else? Alright, let’s see if this works. Thanks for the lecture dad. This was boring trash that tried to be deep and interesting through a lovely metaphor of cereal. Christ, this was awful, I was falling asleep in the middle of this. That last paragraph had something but, gently caress, this was too boring for me to have mustered reading through it again to care. Like, seriously, if someone was reading this for something else, like, they wouldn’t get to the end because people don’t want to read this boring poo poo. When you go on and on about cereal, the reader asks, why? You can tell interesting stories, but this reminds me of that Timber story which I loving hated too because here’s your one sentence summary “dad lectures a kid about life through a strained metaphor of cereal.” Which, jesus christ, this was so loving boring. gently caress. Low, DM, possible loss. The Third Rule I don’t think this story will ever work in 1000 words. There’s a lot of information that you need to convey for me to fully understand this story. The stakes and players are loosely defined. There’s the Department for Restoring American Dignity, but I don’t want that entails, or what they do, and why that matters. Conversely, there’s a Resistance (who is supposed to be the good guys because the government are bad), but once again, I don’t know who they are or why they are resisting. Similarly, your main character’s motivations are odd. He’s somehow related to the government, but that isn’t explained all the way. There’s something about him being like a famous tabloid dude there to distract people, but is that it? And then why did he join the resistance? and how does this government know he’s working for them? There’s a lot of information that’s not fully explained and as such your story lacks any interest in me since I’m just saying “Ok, alright?” This needs to be more than 1000 words. Middle Lowish middle Autoerotic I… I… I just don’t know. I don’t like this. It feels very circular, repeating the whole “he touches his dick and then baseball facts” over and over again. It’s premise feels like a joke story, but the prose feels like it’s supposed to be serious, which I mean, I guess you could take this in a serious direction if you had the skill, but it doesn’t feel that way. I’m stuck between am I supposed to be like laughing or feeling bad for this guy, or what? The dialogue is pretty bad and boring, and I think the biggest thing is that, despite this story being about an OCD guy touching his dick all the time and thinking about baseball facts, this is still so boring. It’s just, so much talking and nothing really happening. He gets rejected like three times for whatever reason, like that doens’t even matter, and this just felt super aimlessly and directionless. Low, DM, possible loss. The Gourmand Shure? Shure????? jfc proofread. This was just to get to your last line, huh? Anyways, I predicted this was you KoL, mostly because of your main character’s personality. The issue does come from your main character. Since you take her perspective, and she has a very detached and cold personality, the world presented to us feels cold and uninteresting. I felt why don’t we get the perspective from the guy? His view of the world seemed a hell of a lot more interesting and engaging than this girl’s. Also, what’s even the story here? I mean, what the hell does the protag even do? She just watched most of the time. She didn’t actually do anything whatsoever in all of this. All of the things that happen are because of somebody else. WHY IS SHE THE PROTAG? Low Middle. The Miracle and the Sleeper I’m just going to make a list of issues. Good: I liked your characters Some of the kid speak was cute I love it when two loners get together and become buddies it makes me feel good inside Bad: Some (a lot?) of your kid speak was obnoxious/very much like a writer is trying to emulate how kids speak Lacking in action A lot of jumps in times that feel awkward Likewise, some of the blocking feels strange? like things just kind of occur. Something about the girl’s dad just gets dropped Why did the kid talk to her in the first place if he was so awkward? So, even with all those problems that should, in theory, bring you down hard. But, the subject matter was strong, and it made me go :3, and I loved that. That’s probably my personal bias, but whatever. Middle, but based on it’s weaknesses, I can still see this DMing. Home Economics There was a moment in this, near the middle, where I was enthralled. Something about it just felt amazing, and I was so into it. Basically, from “Last year he bought her a candygram..” to “...gummi peach rings” is just super strong. Unfortunately, the rest of the story doesn’t seem to be in service with it. Really, this story doesn’t feel like it’s in service of anything. The opening has the little brother (never named, I think), but then that’s dropped for a party, then there’s Olivia, but wait we’re back to the egg, and uhhhhhhhhh… what’s the point? It’s just too aimlessly, too scattered, to make me really engaged. I mean, the start is about two brothers (which btw im all for i love bro stories esp. one where they call each other shitheads), but then it was a party store then it was a getting high story then we loop back around to the beginning and…….. idk. It ended, predictably of course. “Oh man, he set up an egg that they had to take care of, I wonder if that would break.” Here’s the thing, though, that works if the story is focused on the brother relationship. The egg acts as the reason why the brothers have to get along, they learn a valuable lesson as they learn to work together, and the egg break but it’s w/e because grades are grades, but brothers are forever. Like, sure, that’s cliche as gently caress, but it works and it’s cute and it could work. Your story doesn’t do that. It muses on about something else then reaches back to it’s start for whatever reason. High middle Otara Millionhairs Club Unfinished, mostly boring though and I didn’t really know what was going on, and I really don’t want to read through this again to figure out what the hell was going on. Yeah, this was boring, but like, idk, I didn’t hate it so I didn’t want to DM it. Low, possible DM. City Service This had some moments, I’m not gonna lie. Like where the drunk mayor is singing in a tank, man that’s a good image. And then the mom climbing up the tank to take the mayor’s booze, that was cool too. But, overall, this once again felt like a premise rather than a story. Also, for some reason, you do that whole let me repeat this question but misunderstood that is just so ughhhhhh i hate that. Anyways, I feel like the story wasn’t sure what it wanted to do and that the narrator was just kind of dumb and boring. Like, idk, this wasn’t great, the protag felt stilted and uninteresting, and the whole conflict of “i have to stop my car from being destroyed” feels a bit disingenuous and uninteresting. Middle. Further Upstream Boring as poo poo. Just like how Moisture bullshit title felt like a dad lecturing me, this felt like I was in lecture learning about salmons and gently caress man, lecture is so loving boring sometimes. Like, they just talk and talk and they go on, and they say things like “wow, isn’t this interesting” as if it is and maybe to somebody it is, but look im a loving college student i just want to enjoy myself, you feel me? don’t bore with salmon talk. also, there’s probably more to this story than salmon talk but I’m way too disinterested in this story to go any further depth into this because it is so loving dull that the thought of reading it again feels me with disinterest and I don’t want to go through that again, alright? all i remember was that the ending was horribly stupid and what the gently caress. Low, possible DM Splat I liked this the most this week. It elicit an actual emotional response from me, which no other story was capable of doing. When that guy said the girl was a retard, like, I was legit super angry and pissed. In that regards, this story did something nothing else did and that was make me care enough to make me feel something. I wish the ending had built up to something bigger, since I’m left feeling like there was something you were trying to say at the end, but I’m not quite sure what it is. I liked the ending in its imagery, but it’s point, it’s purpose, it’s lacking. Still, most other stories had issues with endings, and you made me care and have feelings for your characters so gw. Maybe it’s a vignette, but you know what, I don’t loving care. I had emotions while reading this story and that’s something you were only capable of doing so in my opinion, this deserved the win. Ent can go eat poo. High, HM, possible win
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Mar 2, 2016 07:06
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 Big Stories that End Brawl: Sitting Here vs. Grizzled Patriarch Before I start this, I have to say that sh had the clear advantage here. She's more experienced in writing longer form stuff as well as my personal bias lean more towards her then gp (as I'm generally one of the more critical people of gp's work). So, I just want to say that I thought both of these stories were very good. I think one edged out the other, but both of these stories worked well. Anyways, let me articulate some of my thoughts Sitting Here First, the themes. You took the big theme and ran away with it. Almost everything is big in this. Your main character is a goddess, the antagonist is a world-devouring monster, we travel through the galaxy, the whole scale of this epic and huge and expansive that you excelled in owning that aspect of the prompt. I also loved the moments where you made things small though, those little moments that bring us in. Like that opening scene was excellent in that it was so small and personal that when you jumped from the big stuff, I was still with you because you grounded me in that reality perfectly. The endings theme worked well too. The whole world-eater stuff obviously works into the ending, but also the remembering after the end, and how her memory gets muddled, that it becomes hard to remember at the end. In that aspect, the ending theme works, but not quite as strong as the big. But let's get to the ending, then. Now, I will say that ending image, how you wrapped everything up, with the mother and the world-eater, I loved that whole subversion. It worked perfectly and believably. I thought that was a great way to end it. But, that last part was the weakest part. Once we get introduced to Red and everything, I feel things get kind of glossed over and your hurrying to some kind of conclusion. It also felt like most of the tension kind of disappeared, since the world-eater was trapped so most of the stakes are kind of gone. There's this wrongness you keep pointing to, but I never actually feel it in the story. It's just said to be there, but it really isn't. But overall, this story was still excellent. The goddess felt a little too human, like how she thought and acted felt weird when I'd think that a goddess could act kind of human, but I feel like a goddess wouldn't act completely human. Idk, it's a weird nitpick that's kind of hard to articulate, but it's still there. What I found particularly impressive was at the end of the first scene, when she uses her divine power, I don't think you ever refer to her as a goddess, but I guess with the knowledge she has it makes me kind of believe that she's a goddess. But still, in a moment where I think if someone else had written this I'd be confused when she used divine power out of nowhere, here I believed it almost certainly. Just in the way she acted and how she treated the kids and what she knew, it just made it perfect sense. That's something I thought was super surprising. Grizzled Patriarch I'm not sure about this completely. I like this, since your natural knack for descriptions definitely makes this story an easy read with some good moments, but as a cohesive whole, it's lacking. I don't quite see where you worked with the big theme. Maybe the idea is kind of big, but idk, compared to sh's, it feels lacking in that regard. I'm not going to be a huge stickler and be like -10 points for not using my theme, but it's a bit disappointing esp. after how well sh did it. Though the ending theme is clearly present. Lover dies, there's an ending. Oh, and people don't die or be like weird ghost things, that's a thing about endings too. It works, it's there, it's cool, I like it. The biggest issue I have with this so it feels like a bunch of scattered ideas that don't fit all the way together. I had this really strange feelings when reading this like the main character just kind of accepts things really fast. "Oh, I guess I'm dead and a coyote ate my finger." Like, idk, I'd expect there to be more panic or disbelief or some different emotion rather than just a kind of blank description. Then ghosts show up and he starts talking to them like super nonchalantly. "Oh hey there ghost of one of my classmates, how's it hanging?" Like, I don't know, like I'm not sure if this is a well-established thing in this world, like you come back to life or something, but even then, I feel there would be more emotion in these moments even if this was expected. Plot points also seemed to be added and dropped for not a lot of reason. Like, the main plot was to bring her ashes to the village, but then he gets to the village and... uh, huh, ummmm, oh, oh, I know, ghosts. And they gamble their memories. It just feels a bit shoehorned in, some way to extend the plot further. It's a neat idea, but I think it needs to be more linked into the main objective of the main character. Like, he has to gamble his memories in order to get to where he needs to throw the ashes or something. The ashes stuff doesn't really come to anything, huh? Anyways, I have criticisms, which I think mostly come from your inexperience with writing longer form stuff and it feels a bit mean to be gushing all over sh and then get to yours and be like "oh man you did this and that and blah blah blah" but hopefully there's some useful stuff in here. Like I said, I don't think this is bad, it's actually quite good. There's well realized and interesting ideas with some great writing and a cool character, and with some work, and not a whole lot of work, I think this could shine. I feel that if you keep working on this longer stuff and putting in work to bring together your plot points, your ideas will start to gel with me more. Since most of the time I love your ideas, it's just that they get a little scattered. Everything in your story, especially in something this short, should be building up to something, and it feels that sometimes, each thing is building up to two different ideas and that doesn't work. The Results So yeah, if you read both crits this is kind of obvious, but whatever, these were both good and better than the other stories this week you jackasses. Sitting Here wins  . GP, keep at it with this stuff though, 'cause I think you can (and you do) do great work. Please commence with calling me biased and stupid (both true).
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Mar 2, 2016 07:39
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Some random crits from week 185 since I'm bored and read a few of the mentions just to see what was up. crabrock - Whispers I always do hate when I seem to be critical of winners in weeks I enter because it makes me look salty but this is still a good story, but I have a few issues with it. First of all, your antagonist makes no sense from pretty much the get-go. Ok, so this guy apparently is a professional, not like super nice, but you know, does his stuff. Then, he somehow sees her bank account (how, exactly? how does the protagonist even knows he saw it?) and then he's like "ok, time for me to be a big old dick bag." Like, if his motivation is to get all the money why the gently caress would he start acting like a dick all of a sudden? That seems counterproductive to his goal, doesn't it? Or at least, doesn't make the slightest sense. "Hmmm, yes, I will start treating this girl w/ a lot of money that I'm going to trick people into believing im going to marry like a piece of human trash even though before she even had money, I was treating her alright." That just makes no sense and in a story where the horror comes from realism, it really takes me out. Your antagonist can be horrible, but it doesn't feel real. It feels backward, like you were like "oh i need to make my antagonist a bad person so ok now he is" but that doesn't make sense. But yeah, besides that though, this works for the most part. The horror is real and interesting and story itself is cool with the prose being mostly strong. Something about the ending rubs me the wrong way, I wish for maybe something a bit more then just that, but idk, that just might be nitpicky. Your character was believable and strong, and that carried throughout the story, which kept it from getting dull. I feel like if you hammered out some of your logic issues, this could be much stronger. A deserved win, still. Blue Wher - Deliver Me From Fireflies The biggest issue here is relevance. Why does any of this poo poo matter, and what does this mean. The whole thing when you create a story about hallucinations and imaginations is that it sucks away all the tension. The horror here could be this uncertainty that the hallucinations are real, but well, they're kind of just explained away. Also, it feels hard to understand exactly what the important elements in a story. Readers have a sort of trust that when they start reading something and a writer brings something up, readers say "ok, this is important." When you give us a lot of scattered hallucinations, for the first few, I'm with you. But then I start to realize that these hallucinations, the minotaurs, the time skips, all of that, they're not really doing anything. They aren't specifically important. So now I'm just reading a bunch of scattered images that don't fit together, don't build up to anything, and I'm bored. So then you don't have a story. You technically have a conflict. Not a good one, but it's there. Wanting to go to sleep can work, if you made it more interesting, but other then that, not much happens. There's just hallucinations, hallucinations, fireflies, the end. Your protagonist doesn't do anything, doesn't work to achieve a specific goal, and worst of all, he's bland and lifeless. He's pretty much just a camera, something for us to look through, when that's not what I want. What I want is somebody I can relate to, somebody with a personality that I can root for, or at least be interested in. This man is just dull and I don't care for him. Muffin - The South Sea Shuffle What the gently caress? How do you spit out a lung, those things are pretty loving big and wouldn't really fit in your throat. And what, how does being on the fifth floor make vertigo more likely? Jesus christ, I said what the gently caress like five times while reading this. This was body horror in the most gratuitous and stupidest way possible. Like, your protag is bare bones and the little bits of her we make her really unlikable or like, completely unrepeatable whatsoever. It's just... nothing makes any sense in this poo poo. There's blood and guts and things falling and why the gently caress is there a twerking doctor and why did he fart and what the gently caress is all of this poo poo? Like, the doctor really makes no sense, and you bring up things like he swears he's not the devil (where the gently caress did that come from?). Like, I think you gave some details in the body horror and that's kind of cool, but like, there's nothing else to it. It's just blood and guts and eating hands and blah blah blah that this feels like a bad B-movie. But I mean, movies get away with it because theyre visual and can be really fun, but stories can't really get away with that as much. It just gets kind of stupid and incomprehensible. CANNIBAL GIRLS - Lingering Things You know what screams horror, 500 words of complaining about a husband and chocolate rain. Much like Blue Wher, where making fireflies scary is probably a near impossible task, I think making chocolate rain scary in the slightest is quite literally impossible. I mean, every time you reference the smell of it, it's positive and nice because it's loving chocolate. That doesn't work in horror. That's not to say you can't subvert chocolate and make it scary. I mean, a lot horror relies on taking something normal and twisting it in such a manner that it becomes perverted and strange. So you could, in essence, make a mundane thing like chocolate and spookify it. But, when it's literal chocolate rain that apparently has monsters for some reason? it just doesn't work. Like, even from a non-horror standpoint, I don't see the point in this. The beginning is dull musing and introspection, where I wasn't even sure she was actually going to rob a bank, and then some action near the end, but the big issue is how does "Robbing a bank because the husband wants to be a DJ" and "chocolate rain comes and has monster" correlate? I mean, in real life, a lot of things don't correlate, but in stories, they kind of have to. Because if you don't, this kind of thing happens where im like "wtf? why is any of this happening?" So maybe you can make a connection between these ideas. Maybe you can't. If you can't, then don't put these two ideas together. Thranguy - The Mob of Darts: An Oral History What's the story here? Who's the character? You know what, let's forget about those and ask ourselves the simple questions that should always be answered: What's entertaining about this? The concept itself is initially intriguing, what with paper planes being a tool used to murder people, but after that initial "oh, huh, that's kind of cool," it just devolves into kind of standard apocalypse fare, without anything new or intriguing that comes from it being caused by paper planes. Maybe the eyes thing is something kind of cool, but that gets swept under the rug really quick. It's just, past the concept, what is there? You don't have a character, or an arc, or really a story. Well, you kind of have a story, but it's just not that interesting. There's no real stakes at play because there's no character to latch onto, nothing to make me be invested into this world. I feel like, especially with horror, there has to be a character and interest in a character so as to make me care. Horror doesn't work if I don't care. Hell, is this even horror? Like, maybe the concept is kind of horror, but like, it isn't really. It's just, there's no dread, no fear, no tension. Things happen, they occur, but I don't have any investment, anything that makes me jump out of my seat or feel really anything, least of all fear. Maybe it's kind of scary to imagine the world being take over by paper planes, but the story itself, not spooky, or entertaining, at all. ghost crow - Sensorium Honestly, compared to the other DMs, I'm not quite sure why this one was hit. I'm not saying that this was like a masterpiece or anything, but it had some neat concepts and ideas and they felt well articulated enough for me to good general feel for what you were getting at it. It was a bit too "Brave New World" for me, and it was really dumb to make your main character for some reason the creator of the Sensorium. Like, that doesn't really make sense, and it could've been more interesting to have the history of him be more personal rather than just that weird dumb revelation about being the creator. I thought the final scene didn't have the impact that you wanted, and it was really weird that he broke all his fingers for like, no reason but to just prove he felt no pain. Still, while it was world buildy, there was enough concepts and a bit of intrigue and character moments to make me feel like this was a story that was trying to do something interesting and had enough technical merit that it didn't completely fail. Still, the issue remains that this feels very derivative and not very unique as a story concept. The whole dystopia created by drugs and pleasure is done a lot, and maybe that's just because I love "Brave New World" but I feel like you have to take it in a really interesting and unique direction to avoid the comparisons. Similarly, your character was weak and the intrigue was odd and, now that I think about it, there's nothing your character really does. He sees a lady, she says some stuff, and he's like "huh?" and then the revelation comes not really because he wants to know, but just because it does. That overall hurts your story, since your character is passive and not completely interesting. Still, when I look at the other DMs, I think that this a story that had a goal in mind and the writer wrote in such a way that he got close to what he wanted it to be. It's not perfect, I wouldn't HM this anytime soon, but there's something there, something that made me have some interest rather than making me say "huh?" "what?" or "why the gently caress do I care?"
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Mar 5, 2016 09:37
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spectres of autism challenged me to a brawl because he has a fetish for being owned and i graciously accepted. now who's going to judge this?
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Mar 6, 2016 19:24
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sebmojo posted:
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Mar 6, 2016 19:44
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1094 words A Talk With the Dead Over a Glass of Cold Water flerp fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Mar 16, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 02:45
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in
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Mar 8, 2016 05:52
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S P E C T R E S B R A W L 749 words Potatoes Aren’t Like Gold at All A god was very cross one morning. He called down from the heaven, his voice booming and heavy, and I hear them when I was in the field. I dropped my potato and it landed deep into the dirt. “Where are the sacrifices?” the voice from the sky asked. The sunlight strengthened and gave the potatoes a golden gleam. I picked one up, and put it up in the air. “Does this work?” “Do not play with me mortal. One mere potato will not be enough.” I grabbed another potato and lifted it up. The heat seeped through my shirt. “Neither will two,” the voice said, his voice strained and annoyed. I put the potatoes into my sack and asked “Well then, how do many you want?” “I don’t want potatoes!” “Well, it’s all I got.” I reached down and grabbed the potato I dropped and wiped some of the dirt off it. Most people didn’t appreciate my potatoes. “Talk to your elders. We demand reverence.” I scratched my head. “That seems like a hassle.” “Do it, or your potatoes will not grow this season. Or any season.” I looked down towards the ground. All the potatoes shrunk into the ground like an army of moles had grabbed a hold of them. My field was empty and I held my potato sack deep to my chest. “Ok, ok, I’ll do it.” # “Mortals! I have control over the winds, over everything. Listen to me!” the voice boomed in the conference hall, but all the suited men were just staring at me. “I, uh, don’t think they can hear you,” I whispered to him. The mayor shifted and glared at me, thinking I was whispering to myself. I didn’t think explaining to him that I was talking to a god would make me any more sane looking. “Then you shall act as my envoy. Tell them I demand a sacrifice.” “What’s that specifically?” “Sir,” one of the men said, “Can you please leave? This is a private meeting.” “I demand gold.” “Sir, if you don’t leave, we’re going to have get security.” “That’s a bit…” I started. “Now, or the potatoes are gone!” I held my breath and looked out over the board room table. People were shifting in their seats, some biting down nervously on their fingernails. “Ummm, I’m here for uhhh, gold.” A couple of them blinked rapidly, then there was a shuffle as people leaned in next to each other. One guy in the back pulled out his phone and rushed to dial something. “Sir, we’ll get you all the gold you want,” he said, nervously grabbing at his shirt. “Just, wait here for a bit.” “Yes!” the voice boomed. “Penance! Finally, some respect for us.” I tried to smile, but the door slammed open and a security guard reached over and grabbed my wrist tight. “Let’s go,” he said, jerking me hard out of the room. “No, let him go. Bring me my gold!” the voiced echoed in the room and I gave me a splitting headache. # “We must go back,” The voice said. “Look,” I said, sitting over the edge of the sidewalk outside city hall. “I don’t think they’re going to listen to me.” “But, the potatoes, everything will stop growing!” “Well, most of our food is imported.” I rubbed my butt, sore from being thrown out. “Then I’ll stop growing all the food in the world.” “They still won’t listen to me. They’ll just call it like global warming or something.” The voice was silent for a while and it was nice not having a deep and heavy voice ringing in my ear. “I just miss having all that gold,” he said finally, but his voice was quieter and soft. “I’m sorry,” I said and it was kind of true. “I just wanted a beautiful pile of shimmering gold on a sunny day.” I remembered how my potatoes looked this morning. It was a bit of a stretch, but they looked a bit like gold, at least to me. “Well, I can’t really give you gold, but I got some potatoes.” “Mortal, you are very stupid,” he said, then he paused. “No one ever gave me gold,” he said finally. “Huh?” “If I killed them all, then how could they give me gold?” # I stacked up all the potatoes into a big mound. The sun was setting, and they didn’t look anything like gold, but it was good enough.
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Mar 13, 2016 07:06
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967 words story about a dog who can’t fall asleep on the barkchives flerp fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Mar 15, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 08:44
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random crits maybe some more later Anime was right This was pretty good. I don’t quite understand why or how this guy grabbed the moon.. Like, he takes the moon but then he wants to put it back up there so why’d he do it in the first place. It’s an interesting conflict and you do some interesting stuff but the plot isn’t all that engaging. I liked your character and was interested in him but the ending feels rather unearned. You tried to make your character change at the end, I appreciate that, but I don’t feel like change is warranted. Like, I don’t think “putting moon back up in the sky” equated to “now i’m interested in my mother” which is like he gained some empathy. The prose was pretty good, there were a few bits of vague word choices and weird phrases but overall, cool, but a bit weak on the plot + ending. I do think this was p. cool and interesting I just think this idea can be pushed farther. Trex I’m really not sure why this needs to be in present tense, especially when you have time skipping as well. There’s a fun tone in this but it also feels a lot like strawmanning which is really weird. Like, idk, the whole conversation about the beatles and what not feels like so obvious? Like that’s how i’d imagine someone who liked the beatle would imagine a conversation with someone who didn’t like them. It’s like a youtube comment chain but in dialogue, where I hate everyone involved. I don’t hate this, but the substance here, the whole “relationship gets torn apart because of a mixtape” gets overshadowed in the middle by you focusing on how much this guy doesnt like the beatle and thats just not right, i mean c’mon on. They’re like the best band ever so like, how does somebody not like them? That’s my problem here, you get distracted by your own wittiness and banter that you forget what your story is about or what my interest is. I don’t give a poo poo about your characters talking about the beatles, I want to know more about the relationship between vampires but I don’t really get it. I get some of it and some of it is told through the dialogue, but it really boils down to “guy who doesnt like new stuff gets mad at girlfriend who likes new stuff” and that’s kind of their personality in general. He’s old fashioned, she’s into the new stuff, how ever will they get along? They don’t really grow out of that. This is like a rom-com opening where the female lead gets mad at her boyfriend and then she meets the new guy who just totally gets her. It all feels very much done before. Except they’re vampires but that actually doesn’t mean anything. Like, there’s a few throwaway lines and also he turned into a wolf pup (that’s what vampires do????). I think that if it’s possible for me to say “what if these characters weren’t vampires” and still see the story working without major edits, you don’t push the concept far enough and is just there. Still, enjoyable to an extent and it feels like you had fun with it, but idk, wasn’t really my jam. Sitting Here For about half of this story I was like “wtf is the point?” Then the kiss happened and I was like “what? Ok????” God drat, I feel like that’s like a really weird thing people do is that they put a guy and a girl together and theyre like “THEY HAVE TO FALL IN LOVE THAT IS THE ONLY WAY” and it’s like this could work just fine, maybe even better, if they were just friends. I was like wtf, they know each other for like a day and they kiss already? It feels rushed and it also feels very unsure of what it’s trying to be. Sure, it’s supposed to be a love story but like there’s no real overarching conflict and it’s not really clear on where it’s going in the first place. It’s trying to say things about work and people moving in and out of life but it’s also trying to be a love story and also trying to be about a day in the life of an arcade worker but it never really reconciles them. As such, the whole poorly rendered crowd stuff feels tangential and the love story feels like it comes out of nowhere. I didn’t hate this though and I thought this had some cute moments but it felt unsure of what direction it wanted to go so it never really figured itself out.
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Mar 15, 2016 04:05
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im in to get my 9th dm
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Mar 15, 2016 04:14
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FreudianSlippers Killer-of-Lawyers and Carl Killer Miller here is a line by line for each of your guy's last entries. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YW3pry7fm43dAe9kBMl0y8Twxnuxe4Xz2w7S3QT96Jg/edit?usp=sharing
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Mar 16, 2016 23:07
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Sitting Here posted:mojo post the brawl results
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Mar 18, 2016 22:51
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Sitting Here posted:post the crits
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Mar 20, 2016 08:17
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hi can u 2 kiss already? thanks e: its for my fanfic
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Mar 21, 2016 03:20
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word count: 1148 rule: your knight may not work during the three great praying hours of the day A Lying Prayer flerp fucked around with this message at 01:45 on May 30, 2016 |
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Mar 21, 2016 07:41
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in to really get my 9th dm
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Mar 22, 2016 01:49
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Sitting Here posted:dear thunderdome, the thing you said was good, is actually bad hosed up if true
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Mar 23, 2016 15:40
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crit for grizzled's story reading reactions - intro - boring world building thing that can be summed up as "nerd kids like to LARP." legit if i was reading this just for my own enjoyment I don't think I would continue. second scene - narrator apparently has a brother who's at war, sends him sand (wtf?), shoehorns in prompt for no real reason, and prediction that the brother is going to die. third scene - bad thing happens to Nate but wait, who the gently caress is Nate? I don't know. I don't care. here I would've definitely had stopped reading if I was reading for myself because you bring up Nate, who is apparently important, in the third scene because ?????? and you know what, if he's so important, why is he showing up in the third scene? wasting my time. then they fight. i dont know why. the characters dont know why. i assume you dont know why either. they just do. final scene - ending lands with a splat, where you skip over anything interesting that couldve happened after the fight into "oh well that's over with, time to give some droll exposition about nothing in particular." Crit - I don't see why I should care. Like, I really don't. Kids like to LARP and want to go to college. One kid gets in, another one doesn't, they're mad and they fight for some reason and the end. It's not that this is bad, but it feels very unsure of what it's trying to do. Each scene is disconnected from the rest and they don't lead into the next. Ok, kids like to larp, oh wait now there's brother at war that never comes up again, oh now there's a car accident and the kid cant get in, then they fight and oh wait there's no resolution to that fight because you skip over what would actually be interesting for a reader and would maybe show some nuance to these characters. I don't feel like I know these kids at all. The narrator is just a camera and Nate doesn't say much and only gets mad and punches the narrator but that doesnt give me any depth of character. im going to try and describe them as best as I can. Nate has a mom who gets in a car accident and punches the narrator for some reason. The narrator has a brother and gets punched by Nate for some reason even though he tried being nice. They both like to LARP. That's about the extent of their characters. and jesus man, that ending is so loving stupid. "ok, let me just jump a few years ahead and reflect on this story." you know that thing where we say "hey if you look at a story as if it happened in the past it loses it's impact"? That's what happens here. All that introspection is meaningless because there's no action, there's no impact. It's meaningless because it doesn't do anything for the narrator. He's like "welp, my old friend's gone and i kind of miss him" and that's it. The issue that bothers me is that it meanders about. It just keeps talking about different things and ideas and it's like what the gently caress is your point? What are you trying to do? Because, based off of what I thought was the most interesting, it was the Nate and narrator conflict. So, why is there anything else? Why is there that dull opening paragraph? Why is there that brother? Why is there that poo poo show of an ending? You used about 600 words on poo poo I do not care about. That means you had about 600 words to describe an actual interesting conflict that could've been cool but you just don't have enough time. you don't give me enough character from nate and the narrator to make feel any impact from this. it feels like you just put a different ideas and said "oh dear god reader i cant think of how to use these ideas so im just going to throw these all at you and hope one of them is good." also, if even your characters dont know why things are going on, neither does the reader. also another crit for J.A.B.C Man, this story was so boring. I tried to line crit this first time through and I got about halfway, saw the I had to mousewheel again, and just stopped trying to line crit it. The intro is awful. It is so boring and uninteresting and has like nothing to do with the main story. Maybe if this was like, a super long story, that intro could work if you put something interesting in it (your descriptions were very dull and boring). the big issue is that everything in this is soooooooo cliche. Like, when I think of a knight story, this is just kind of immediately what I think of. Your knight's characterized decently, where has a particular trait w/r/t food, which is cool, but the kind is blank and uninteresting and the assassins are generic. Then the story continues predictably. Knight hears assassin trying to poison king, tells the king the plan, the king says nah i dont believe you, knight then says eat the poisoned food, thus ousting the assassins. That's like, the most obvious assassination plot in the world. Also, man, that ending feels very out of character. "Yes, I am a chivalrous knight upholding honor for my king, let's poison the assassin." I mean, I bet real knights were total assholes irl but were not really talking irl are we? there's no surprises and so if you don't have anything interesting to say, then why are you even saying anything?
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Mar 23, 2016 16:54
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Carl Killer Miller posted:Opening sentence for an honorable mention that almost took the week. The story opens with a guy having god-acid reflux and his friend Joey deciding to fix it with a big ol hug. Joey hugs his way all over that story! also quote by the head judge "you [me, who wrote the story] were very close from dming" and "if i was in a bad mood flerp would've dmed" so no, i wasnt close to taking it unless like four other people died or something stupid. also god that story has so many loving typos im the goddamned worst, ty for reminding me carl.
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Mar 23, 2016 17:10
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Sitting Here posted:one of you sharts step up and help the man judge youre not my mom
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Mar 28, 2016 00:20
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yeah but everyone does that anyways 
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Mar 28, 2016 01:13
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Djeser posted:more people own broenheim than a major corporation who? also here's my entry The Three flerp fucked around with this message at 01:45 on May 30, 2016 |
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Mar 28, 2016 02:34
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Khris Kruel posted:I humbly accept my loss and blame the fact I had never read a time travel fiction story and wanted to see what I could do. please do
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Mar 29, 2016 03:19
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 09:35 |
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yeah im in and also flashing myself: no dogs
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Mar 29, 2016 04:34
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