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 week 439: new year new me same blunderdome at the beginning of 2020, i went out of town to irving for a fighting game tournament where i hung out with a ton of friends in a crowded conference room yelling incoherently at dumb video games. sometimes, we dont know what's going to happen, how much the world has changed, until you really think back and realize "holy poo poo that was actually this year? i thought that was like five years ago?" in the spirit of 2020, as one final hurrah for this hell year, i want stories about transformations and transitions. physical, emotional, or whatever kind of change. people, time, and place changing. i want to see the world as people know it start out as one thing and then become something unrecognizeable at the end. the change can be big or small, but no matter, i want things to just be different. better or worse, up to you. but honestly, i am a little sick and tired of poo poo always getting worse. 2500 words, 4000 words with a  fri/sun 1159pm PST no google doc links, no poetry flash rules on request those who stay the same (because they are cool and handsome) me Yoruichi other judge 2 those who change Tree Bucket the moon is gone brotherly Sitting Here Weltlich the rocks are angryThranguy the grass whisper Staggy the air hardens Tyrannosaurus sebmojo flerp fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Jan 3, 2021 |
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Jan 1, 2021 02:04
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 09:53 |
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Staggy posted:In, flash me please (from the old thread) the air hardens
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Jan 1, 2021 02:10
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sign ups closed
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Jan 2, 2021 23:46
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subs closed
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Jan 4, 2021 17:54
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week 439 results i suppose it's my fault for asking you for stories about the world changing and not foreseeing that i would get sci-fi. so much sci-fi. omg pretty average but boring week. didnt make me want to die, but did make me want to take a nap the winner goes to tyrannosaurus for not writing sci-fi DM goes to tree bucket for trying to do way too much in not enough words loss goes to weltlich because i dont know who shakespeare is
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Overbearing parent New in town Iconic landmark Night of revelry Flashback 1224 words i tell you this to make it true flerp fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Jan 11, 2021 00:37
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week 439 Tree Bucket this story fails because of scope. you try to have an entire character’s history within 2500 words, which is extremely difficult, and here, it doesnt work. you’re trying to both craft a world that’s pretty out there while trying to tell a cohesive story spanning a long period of time, and you end up just being too constrained, where the world doesnt feel strong enough, the characters arent interesting enough, and the plot doesnt do enough. there’s just enough space for all of this individual pieces to work. i would, if you were trying to keep this in word count, to focus on a specific scene or moment and use that individual scene to explore the character and setting. i also have some general qualms, which the old guy is just an exposition dump, which felt really awkward and kinda unnecessary. there’s a few tense shifts in here as well. i also really dislike the libertarian weirdo character, since he feels extremely fake and like youre just trying to make fun of those types of people w/o really doing anything in the story. brotherly i like this concept, but i feel like the voice is kinda forced, trying to be this kinda like w/e sort of dude, which i think is fine, but the forced nature of makes it feel constructed, and not quite lands with the naturalistic feel that it should. however, i did enjoy the stuff about the dad and the parallel between the dad growing to like his afterlife and the real world kinda falling apart but the latter part was kinda weird because it was in the background and i couldnt quite put my finger on what it was or what it was really trying to do in the story. the relationship with the son and dad was pretty alright and felt realistic. however, my main issue is that the story doesnt quite fit together at the end. it doesnt really hit the final beat it needs to to bridge the entire concept into something bigger than “some stuff happened.” like, i see the parallels, i see what’s happening, but it never really culminates into making something bigger. Staggy this one is odd. its from a very distinct perspective, which is cool, but idk i cant find myself really pulled in. i think it has to do with the vagueness. its not really clear what these people are (aliens? robots?), what they want besides like world domination, and the character perspective of a grunt doesnt really help that. maybe thats the point, that, despite being an immortal, ever-respawning soldier, they wont ever know why they fight. but i dont think this lands from an alien perspective because i feel like i need to at least what theyre being told why theyre fighting when we get nothing. i also dont really get the ending? the soldier seems idk not happy about fighting, but relatively w/e about it, that him going like “im breaking free from the system” doesnt really line up with the rest of the story. like, it doesnt feel the character was ever trying to become free, and then all of a sudden he wants to? didnt land. Weltlich idk this one doesnt hit for me. i dont rly care about sci-fi stuff, and the world here is just like computers went crazy or w/e. but its not rly clear why or why theyre throwing literature at robots. i feel like thats probably some kind of literary reference, but also, im illiterate, so it doesnt land for me. its just, there’s not really anything interesting in this story. its honestly just a boring ww2 story where they sit in a foxhole waiting for things to happen, and then theyre saved by an outside force, and then the person mails a letter like that was supposed to be mean something? idk but seriously why are they throwing books at robots????? Tyrannosaurus this feels like brotherly’s, in the sense that the voice does feel rather forced here. there’s a few times where it lapses in genuine and good ways, especially near the end, but the beginning does feel super forced. this also feels a bit too forced in its political views. im not going to be that whole both sides sort of nerd, but in fiction, where you have free reign to control how your characters act, it feels just a little too much that the liberal sister is unequivocally good and the conservative mother a horrible person. i feel like you try to combat at the start by calling the sister annoying, but then she’s just super supportive and kind and understanding and then the mother murders her husband which you know might be playing your hand a little obviously. also, on the mother murdering the husband, that was a bad ending. i did enjoy the story for the most part besides the forced voice, as i thought it was a nice reconnecting story over some trauma. but then the main character sets up her own father to be killed and that was just not nice? i feel like you had that ending in mind from the start and thought hey thats cool, but it just feels so harsh of an end to what shouldve been a nice and cute conclusion Thranguy this one is like… what??? people find out somebody had a wedding, but actually, theres a fake news for everyone out there and it just ends up being like… so what? you just spend your time setting that up, but it doesnt really change anything. the people just end up laughing about it and being like welp i guess thats how the world works now, oh well. there’s also hints at a bigger, weirder world thats super restricted or w/e, but that also doesnt really make sense or seem to lead to anything different so i dont know why thats a thing except to add extra useless details that dont rly inform the story much. and then you try to culminate it into your last paragraph, but it doesnt work because your story wasnt really about trust. it was just about how people have fake news about themselves all over the place, but it wasnt about trying to figure out who to trust, so the last bit does not work at all. sebmojo i dont really get the list format since its just like counting every sentence but it does have the benefit of answering the occasional question i have reading stories about how many sentences there are in a story so maybe the list format was the right choice who can really say. but anyways this is pretty alright, but obv very light. it kinda starts out tongue and cheek, but then gets kinda serious, esp w/ the person saying they might not be saved and it was weird to say that, so they clearly were expecting to be saved, but theyre also talking about trolls, and idk getting kinda mixed signals here. it also just kinda ends, but idk how youre supposed to end a story like this where the whole world kinda just stops because the story kinda stops, which ig makes sense, not the most satisfying end but it fits together like youd expect, but maybe thats the problem, it kinda just hits the notes you expect and says thats enough and is that really enough?
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Jan 15, 2021 06:11
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Empty flerp fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 01:50
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in
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Jan 19, 2021 16:39
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just a few more minutes like this flerp fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Jan 25, 2021 01:28
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in flash
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Jan 26, 2021 00:16
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There was only one car left - now that's gone too Get It flerp fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Feb 1, 2021 06:22
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in emotion: jesus christ youre dumb as poo poo, i love you
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Feb 9, 2021 20:29
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do I like you, or do I want to BE you?? We Didn’t Drown flerp fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Feb 15, 2021 08:05
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in
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Feb 18, 2021 23:39
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so we keep on burning flerp fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Feb 21, 2021 04:30
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island of the god watchers
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Feb 23, 2021 16:06
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island of the god watchers 1500 words the thin line between now and later flerp fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Feb 28, 2021 23:37
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in article
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Mar 17, 2021 18:30
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https://scienceblog.com/509812/moisturizers-may-be-turning-your-skin-into-swiss-cheese/ Skin flerp fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Mar 22, 2021 05:56
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in
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Mar 22, 2021 23:36
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How a Transformer Fanfiction Made Me Gay flerp fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Mar 29, 2021 04:12
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in dragon fact
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Mar 29, 2021 14:47
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in what does an hour and a half of swimming get me?
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Apr 17, 2021 14:39
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90 minutes of swimming = 900 words 840 words Flowers at the End of the World flerp fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Week 449 r/relationship week crits this is a weird week and a very hard week to crit. i tried my best Chairchucker This is pretty fun, but I think it’s a bit one-note as a joke entry. It’s kind of funny, but it doesn’t do much else except play its rather obvious hand and then ends. There’s some decent gags with the egg laying and stuff, and it doesn’t out stay its welcome, but it doesn’t do much else. Azza Bamboo This is a tricky one. On one hand, I think this is meant to portray perhaps mental illness, or a distorted world view, in a rather serious way. On the other hand, it also feels like it is meant to mock the character and their issues. I usually try to assume the best of an author’s intention, so I feel like it’s the former and not the latter, but the feeling remains that the tone feels off. I don’t know if I’m supposed to necessarily feel bad for the protagonist, or the husband, or what. I don’t know if I’m supposed to laugh at the ridiculousness of the protag, or be unsettled about how distorted their view of the world is. The tone doesn’t quite land in either direction, so I feel confused about what I’m supposed to feel here. Mrenda This is pretty alright as an r/relationship post. Pranks are always a classic, and this has good escalation and the protag is v obv an rear end in a top hat, but I like the justification of “well yeah i did a lovely thing but it led to a good outcome so who can really say it was good or bad” like the dril drunk driving tweet. idk, this week im just gonna have to be comfortable saying, yeah this lands as an r/ post but it doesnt really do much else than that. not thats its a bad thing, just that its not remarkable. sry  Yoruichi This is similar to chairchuckers (i guess not in subject matter) in that its also a bit one-note joke entry. like haha clit annoyed about being ignored. its fine, but it still doesnt really do much outside of its joke, and it does start to drag because not really much happens. like, there’s some character stuff ig w/ the trying to get pregnant, but like, i dont really care. you already made it clear this is supposed to be goofy laugh time, this seriousness isnt gonna get me all the sudden interested. Chili This is a fun one. The title (v important for a r/ post imo) is a classic fake out where youre like wtf and then you get to the end and youre like oh okay that makes sense. and i think thats where this story excels. it gives a promise in a title (ok explain how the gently caress you ended up that there) and then you reach the end and all the pieces fall together. the v nice thing about this one though is its not hateful or awful, just that this seems to be a good solution for both of the character’s situations, and everyone seems relatively happy w/ the situation. too many times r/ posts are negative, and this one lands on the nice side of positive esp because the title makes you expect something stupid and/or bad to happen. Beezus Another silly story, but this one works a lil bit better than the ones before it. It has some fun in that the dark magician is like v obviously bad at hiding being a dark magician, and there’s a little bit of movement in the edit where the direction of the story changes. its still a lil too one-note for it be a real LOL of a story, but its good fun. a friendly penguin I don’t really get this one. Mostly w/ the monks and all the other stuff by the end of it. Is it supposed to be some kind of sacrifice? Idk. This is another kind of silly one, but the joke is just more dull than the rest and being pretty predictable. The only bit I really enjoyed was the end, where the princess contextualized the r/post as her talking to nobles. That was cute. Everything else was kinda meh. Baneling Butts Oh man, I loved this one. This is a fantastic r/post, with a great number of wtf moments and just hits all the right beats. The ridiculous title (v important) begs the question of “ok what? how?” and you build up the post enough to have the title make sense by the end. But there’s just so many great little moments in here. The narrator just nonchalantly saying “oh yeah i dumped by girlfriend for her mom, moved in with the mom, and kicked out my ex” is expert r/post stuff. There’s little gags of Junior (0m) and “me and junior (the literal baby) had no issue” with the protagonist using the literal baby to justify his position. This was the funniest story of the week imo, but i think some of the gags are a little on the nose and would have people in the thread saying “this is fake” which i mean yeah it is, but it doesnt land as believable. still fun so w/e. brotherly On the other hand, this is just a good story. It has a lot of nice elements to it. I’m a sucker for stories that have wacky premises, but play them straight and tragically. Like, the wife’s obsession with CPR dummies could be silly, but it just builds into an actual sad loss where the protag loses their wife, and probably wont ever get her back. It also isnt terribly outlandish, because the CPR dummy obsession could be seen as a metaphor for an obsession with safety and not trying to take any risk to the point of making your life so dull to avoid anything, which can make you feel like you lose the person because they wont do anything but be safe. The only real problem with this story is that it doesnt really fit as an r/post. There’s certain flourishes here, like the details of being licked in the face by the dogs, that wouldnt really fly in an r/post. This really just wants to be a story, which it should, because its a good story. Thranguy This one is okay. Idk, the gimmick doesnt really do much for me. It’s cute and okay, but it doesnt really hit a haha moment for me, and doesnt really commit enough to the time travel thing for me to go oh that was kind of clever. It just kinda did its thing. I think if it wanted to stand out, it needed to like actually push its ideas or make the characters more interesting or whatever. The pickle stuff was also kinda weird, I guess it worked as a way to justify the time travel stuff, but did that need justifying? Rhymes with Clue I didn’t like this when I first read this, but on reread, its actually pretty good and im glad it got an HM. the relationship with the brother is good and I like it, and its of a complicated nature. It really does just seem like the lady needs to dump her husband because he’s being a jerk and that her brother really is a cool dude. There’s some subtlety in her, too, with them maybe murdering the brother’s husband, which is cool to do and makes the story a bit more complicated. It’s pretty good stuff, and if i was in a better mood, mightve even pushed this to win since i think it does the best job of bridging the gap between a good story and a good r/post. sparksbloom This one is a bit different than all the other joke stories, in that the other jokes were about the premise, but this one is about how this idiot will not just divorce his wife. And its a pretty decent joke overall. It hits the classic r/post “what do i do? (but dont tell me divorce because thats not an option)” trope w/o saying it outloud. It has some fun escalation, and the ending maybe goes a bit over the top where it gets just a little too unbelievable, but this is still a fun time. crabrock I still want this one tagged as fanfiction because its like literally Transformers fanfiction but then again i wrote Transformers fanfiction so uh maybe i shouldnt say anything. Anyways, the crit. The problem with this is that there’s a lot of buildup but I wish it actually dealt with the Transformer in the room. It came up too late into the story, and felt like it was a story just to get to the Transformer reveal, but idk, it was sort of funny, but loses its appeal after the first time. And even then, it wasnt like, oh haha its a transformer, wow thats hilarious. it was like oh okay transformers, thats cool ig. idk i kinda wish it was a r/post of like “my husband left me for a transformer” that wouldve been cool. curlingiron butt stuff lol. thats pretty much the crit actually. this is the best pure joke story because it understands that it has one joke, and so it says i will spend 300 words telling this joke, and then leaves. but even then, i think it has little more than that, because it has bits of the narrator being self righteous over a dumb misunderstanding, butt stuff (lol), and then reddit ribbing into them for it. this is def the best joke story because its short and simple, but also has a few different beats that land well. toanoradian this one fits into another nice genre of r/relationship which is lovely people escalating situations for no real reason and then being like well im not that bad of a person. its not that bad, and i think the logic of “if my taste is so bad will you notice this poo poo in your food?” works alright, it just doesnt really create a lasting impression. the specificity in this piece feels weird and out of place. i cant quite tell if the details are supposed to be like wacky cute or wacky annoying. both of these characters kinda suck, but it works because the r/relationship genre of “please dont break up so you two dont make other regular people suffer” is a good one. but yeah, its decent, altho i dont know what the snail videos are supposed to make me think.
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May 2, 2021 23:41
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in future
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May 5, 2021 16:42
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Andromeda, once 2.5 million light years distant If I could give you these stars... flerp fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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May 10, 2021 04:44
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give me a punk
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May 12, 2021 19:37
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atompunk the future is closer than you think flerp fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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May 17, 2021 06:13
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in also i will post crits for the week i judged before i post my entry this week
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Jun 1, 2021 17:01
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Week 459 crits SMEGMA_MAIL this is pretty boring. its not like, actively bad, i guess, but i dont really have a reason to care, and its just a boring protagonist getting boringly chased by some cops. theres no real reason to care, the protagonist doesnt have anything to him that makes me root for him, so there’s tension. he just seems to complain about how he shouldnt be doing crimes or w/e the larger problem with this story is that the protagonist himself just doesnt have anything that makes me care. he complains about being in the life of crime, but we dont have a reason for why he’s in it, why he joined it, besides it being easy money. thats not a compelling motivation that makes me care about the protagonist. the protagonist doesnt even necessarily need to be sympathetic, but he’s also not interesting. he doesnt have really any strong or fun character traits, or really have any clever ideas or decisions, so the story follows a pretty straight line with no bumps and no reason to care. Barnaby Profane cute in concept, but kinda dull in execution. dialogue is fun but like, i was waiting for something to really happen. there were a lot of extraneous details (did we need ALL of the family member names and what they were doing?), and the ending was pretty predictable. i wanted something more out of this, some kind of higher tension or something that would make me go oh no how are they gonna get out of this one? and then have like a little clever plan that gets them out. but nah, it was just some decent dialogue and a predictable. i really wanted to enjoy this story of a raccoon and crow thief friends, but its just too boring Taletel ugh i always hate making these stories lose because like, yes its bad, but its not really horrible just amateurish. anyways, first of all, youre doing dialogue wrong (from a technical standpoint). i highly recommend this link (this is how i learned to punctuate dialogue, after all) https://litreactor.com/columns/talk-it-out-how-to-punctuate-dialogue-in-your-prose Besides that, this is just really really really boring. it is terribly generic and cliche. its not terrible terrible, it just doesnt do anything that makes us interested in this story. like, the big question for stories like this, if youre going to jump into cliches, is what about your story is going to make up for the cliches. is your character going to be having a fun time romping through your cliches? thats fine, but this isnt very fun. is it gonna be a serious story, despite the cliches? thats what you seem to be trying to do, but the protagonist isnt compelling enough. we dont have a good enough reason to care about the protag here. similar to SMEGMA’s, the issue is that the character isnt sympathetic or fun enough for me to want to watch succeed. trex fun, energetic, does kind of lack a sort big pull in tho. i think my issue is that like, the story that’s being told is just “we hit people, and then we hit some more people.” again, i wanted to have more creative solutions in mind here. like i guess it is a lil fun to see a bunch of old people beat up bad guys, but idk, i did want something more than just punch everyone. however, unlike the previous stories, the character here at least was fun and had a nice voice that it was still more compelling than boring people. thranguy weird fantasy shift, action kinda just flowed through me and i didnt rly care. again, the problem lies in the character. he isnt actively boring, and there’s attempts to drive at a larger story w/ some of the other characters mentioned, but it feels perfunctory. its hard, because it feels like the fantasy shift is meant to be the big change-up in this story, but it happens pretty early and feels like it doesnt really change much? like, it feels like it should be bigger or meaningful, but the characters respond quickly and easily to it, and there doesnt seem to be much consequence to it. antiv this is a really neat and fun idea. i liked that the conflict here wasnt just violence which was a nice change of pace in this week. i liked nice friends skeletons with the twist being ah they were actually gonna kill him, but that was cool and fun and fits into the genre well imho. my only real problem (but it is a big problem) is that i wouldve liked the protag to weasel his way out of the situation rather than getting off because of a technicality he didnt know existed. like the protag just tells a few stories, and then the skeleton is like “i wouldve murdered u but u were boring at the start so nvm.” maybe wouldve been fun if the protag realized halfway through their story telling that they were gonna murder him and started just telling really stupid and boring stories and then he gets booed off the stage and leaves. idk spitballing ideas, but it wouldve been nice to see the character actually do something to get out of the situation rather than just be told to gently caress off. my shark waifuu pretty enjoyable tbh tbh. good energy, good concept, reasonably well executed altho the ghost motivation is kinda up in the air. the ghost motivation is the largest issue here, he just agrees to join up with the protag for no real reason. its a hard question, i know, and the motivation question was one you clearly handwaved away because like, how do you make a ghost cooperate? idk, but i feel like if you found the answer to this question, and made a really compelling reason for the ghost to work together, this could stand as a strong story. also, an editing pass to shorten it down would be for the best. some of the details feel extraneous. honestly, i probably shouldve proposed this as an hm, my bad lol. mojo ok but kinda bleh. this reminds me of “Dave” (which i still dont v much like even from when i judged it back in the day) where u set up a situation at the start and then lead to where they ended up there. i think it actually works better here, lol, but i still dont have much reason to care for the protagonist. he has a decent voice, but not really a strong motivation or a particularly fun-ness to him that it makes me want to keep reading. also, the story feels like two pieces shoved together. it starts with him almost falling off, and then the caravan, and i dont rly know why we need the almost falling off part. i think just having the caravan makes more sense, giving more time to flesh out that section since it seems under-written. the conclusion of it is just, they get attacked by a cat and like, i wouldve at least a lil bit more agency in the character causing the death of the caravan. he just kinda convinces them to maybe not kill him for a lil bit and gets lucky. idk, that just lead to me being satisfied. fles i didnt really judge this because i dont rly care for judging obvious non-finished products, but from what we have, its fine? its a little purple at the start, but the concept of a thief sneaking onto a ship is cool, and the character has a bit of personality in that they were called a bad thief or w/e. id like this to be actually finished, it probably wouldve been fine. hard to say if itd be good or bad because obv theres a big difference between unfinished and finished, but conceptually, this could work, and the prose and story work isnt egregious altho could be pared down w/ some editing.
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Jun 3, 2021 18:42
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865 words The End of Summer flerp fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Jun 6, 2021 22:51
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in flash
flerp fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Jun 15, 2021 |
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Jun 15, 2021 19:56
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Ride Swiftly, Dear Friends, and Meet Death with a Smile the dragon of death pets a dog flerp fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Jun 21, 2021 05:47
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Jun 22, 2021 21:18
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Week 463 crits first ten stories, will finish the rest later i actually have to write my entry this week LOL Dome Racer Alpha wow this is incredibly low effort, thats cool. P.P. weiner is a funny name tho. i almost, almost wanted to leave that as the whole crit, but nah, ill do something more real. im all for a comedy story, hard to do, but hey, if it works it works. and even this kind of bored, detached style of comedy can actually be pretty funny if done with a little bit of tact and care. it wont win any accolades in prestigious journals or w/e, but it can work and be a lot of fun. but this one just feels too lazy. it feels too intentionally bad for us to really laugh at the amateurishness of it. like the incidental lines of “this was concidential” and the like are to make us be like oh lol this is a bad writer, but it's too obvious that we both know youre a better, or more aware, writer than what youre portraying, so it doesnt actually make me go lol bad writer it makes me go oh ok you know this is bad. so yeah, my advice is get better at being bad if youre gonna try this kind of story out. P.P. weiner IS a funny name tho. Dome Racer Sigma this was really fun! its not like lol super funny, but it has a nice central premise and you execute it really well. both of the characters have nice, simple personalities that play off each other well. theres not much to really say here because this really executed its story well. i guess the only problem here is that it’s bit too much of a straight line. we can kind of see the trajectory of the story from the offset, big job, cool dragon, they become friends, the beats are rather obvious. the ending is fun and nice, but it does just kind of end. but overall, this is a fun premise executed with confidence and skill. it had a fun energy where it didnt take itself super seriously, but didnt lean too far into wacky like Mr. Alpha above you. Sitting Here i will read this… later Zearoth K wow, this is really neat. it has such a cool perspective, dark and awful, but it never falters from it. it is really starkly brutal which lends it a lot of strength, making it a really frightening perspective to be pushed into. i just love how blunt it is about its intentions and actions. it creates a really realistic portrayal of a monster, that it does feel like a creature that could manipulate humans for its own purposes, this is probably how it would view us. that it wouldnt be cackling evilly, or thinking of us as worms or w/e, but rather just saying yeah w/e, that girl will kill herself and he’ll be back and thats what it want. just, really well done on the perspective and getting me to be like oh man what a hosed up monster. my only issue here lies mostly in the setting. it is a bit difficult to really place ourselves in the setting of this story, especially in the beginning. i also dont really know what the creature looks like either, so my main difficulty in this story is visualization. i cant really see what is happening or where its happening, which pulls me out of the story a bit. i dont want all the internal politics to be explained, but i think having more concrete setting and character descriptions can help really place us inside the world, rather than having things sort of happen in this nebulous void. really good stuff tho. MockingQuantum this is an easy read but it doesnt quite land. the fantactism of the protagonist doesnt quite work, as i guess i dont really understand the goal. it does come a bit late in the story, in that it seems like Stefan just wanted to hang out with Star for a bit, but then it was actually because people were trying to use Star and cause it to burn up quicker. having that conflict come in earlier wouldve given the story more weight from the beginning, which mightve helped, but i dont think that wouldve solved the core issue. i think the larger issue is that Stefan just very obviously has no chance to affect change. its clear hes just a small player that has no way of actually preventing Star from being used and so his goal just obviously will never work out. im not sure how to exactly edit this story into a more powerful piece. it either needs to focus hard on Stefan’s psyche, on really trying to show and examine his desire to self-destruct with Star, or to focus the plot on a meaningful display of trying to save Star. im also, unfortunately, not a big fan of the ending line. switching perspective to Star is a neat trick, but i find myself not quite believing the happiness, and i feel like it makes the ending just too obviously hopeful. i feel like keeping Star distant as a difficult to understand intelligence keeps it from getting a bit too saccharine. Sailor Viy dog story!!!! but also its really cool. i like the slow build up to revealing its a dog, good word choices there. its also a pretty fun and cool perspective, and i like it when dog/animal voices get big and grandiose, it really helps create the feeling of a strange perspective. i will say, it does get a tad purple at times. the purple-ness does work and i understand the point of it, it just goes overboard sometimes. i do also like that the dog very clearly thinks in this kind of language because of how dramatic the owner is. the ending is nice and bittersweet, and the cruelty of the master and the acceptance by the dog is pretty sad, which is good, i liked that. it is a sad little piece, that maybe pulls on the heartstring a lil too unfairly because dog dying, but the unique perspective and oddity of the dreamscape stuff keeps it from feeling like an obvious ploy to make the reader sad. i do have some wonders about the goal of the dream climbing, but i think those answers would require a push into the master’s psyche, which, for the purposes of this piece, i wouldnt want a shift into. Chairchucker yup this is a chucker story. it has decently fun energy and dialogue, but it feels like it takes a while to get going. i cant help to compare this to dome racer sigma’s, which i think really understood what it wanted to do and where it wanted to go, and this feels like its trying to find the story within its premise. thus the conflict of the bullies shows up a bit late, finn’s relationship with michael is just kinda there and not really explored much, and whisper’s magic music playing just shows up (and why wasnt she able to do that earlier?), so it all feels a lil slapdash. tuyop i liked the slow reveal of it not being the actual literal end of the world, but that it was a wildfire that forced humans to evacuate. made it especially sad to see the dog be abandoned, nice that they picked him back up, but still sad. however, i find the prose here to be weak. its a strange feeling, but it suffers from having a very dry sort of tone. there’s a lot of details, not all of them pertinent, that makes the story feel slow. there’s not a lot of energy, as the raccoon does want food, but that conflict doesnt feel like a large driving force. i also feels like the tension isnt quite there, the animals seem oblivious to the fire until it's right at their front door. its not a bad story, but it doesnt draw in the reader. the plot itself is a bit basic, so while this story isnt bad, it doesnt really have much going for itself Barnaby Profane i remember bobo and ferrs and i remember being disappointed in their last outing, so hopefully this is better. ok that was fun and light, better than the first time. it does overly rely on its dialogue though, wouldve liked more tangible moments or actions happening. its good and fun dialogue, sure, but the dinosaur just seeing feathers and going oh ok cool is a lil too easy. i did very much like the crow having a magic crystal and i was like ok he’s going to do a magic ritual that is just like, flying somewhere, but it was actually magic and they actually went back in time, and it was fun then for them to go back to the dinosaurs as an ancestor to crows. the premise itself was good, but the story felt just a tad too easy and simple and while the dialogue was good, it kinda relied on being a little long and overwrought, which cut into the word count, which then kept the plot from really being much more than a decent conversation. Staggy another fun story, and it has a good relationship sketched out between the gnome and the dragon. its adversarial but has a nice, fun ending. the actual relationship is sketched a little thin at times, because while its clear that the gnome has to make food for the dragon, it does feel like the rules arent quite clear, like why the gnome cant leave or what caused this. maybe that info isnt pertinent, but it does make it feel a little too constructed, but maybe im just looking for things to complain about. it does have the feel of a strong writer who knows how to put words together into a plot, but it ends up missing that sort of something that really pulls the reader in. oddly, i feel like its too clean. all the pieces fit together too nicely. it has a nice fable-like tone to it, but it lacks the messiness that can help elevate to technically good but not very remarkable, to whoa okay thats good. i also do feel like the tension, of trying to defeat the dragon, doesnt quite land for me since the gnome himself doesnt seem especially likable that the defeat of the dragon does really matter to me.
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Jun 27, 2021 20:40
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 1173 words The Pull of the Moon flerp fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Jun 27, 2021 23:34
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