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Hi. Titus the 92nd here. I wanted to sign up, didn't, so I thought I'd do some crits instead. Around these parts, fast crits and still good crits, right? Yoruichi I’m too lazy to go and check to see what it is you are working on, sorry. I don’t connect with this story, I don’t think it's the content, more the presentation. Lines like “His scream is the loudest noise that anyone has ever made in this open plan hot desk corporate coloured white collar torture box” just run on and don’t evoke any emotions in me, doesn’t make me picture anything, as I don’t know what corporate colored is (a lie, I suppose, as it's grey, it's always grey.) Maybe it's not the point of the story, but I’d like to know why she lost her marbles. Djinn quote:And you? Well, you never did have children. The place where they buried you becomes a field, and then a forest. Then the ocean rises up and covers it, and nobody could visit if they tried. Beautiful line. I hate it when somebody says “the ending wasn’t earned” but what I am going to tell you is that the ending wasn’t earned. Maybe I’m a bad reader, but I didn’t get the throughline of the story until the end, and I think that hurts it a little. If more attention could be drawn to the concept you're working with, perhaps by cutting some of the sequences to give yourself some more words to work with, then it’d be pretty great. Magnificent7 This crit was neither fast nor good, but here it is anyway. One of the things I thought when I first read your story was the line “Now however — especially in these earliest weeks of winter — the pond was black and vacant. Dark clouds blocked any real sunlight. Bare tree limbs extended skyward, their reflection on the water resembling long, emaciated fingers that reached for him” could easily have been moved up, or the intervening stuff be mostly cut. I think getting to this foreboding image quickly would better establish the story. You’ve got some nice bits that elicit a creepy vibe, such as the line about the exterminator, the cheap steak, ect. But it seems like there were two choices you had when writing this, one was to go full on ambiguous and never give a full reveal, and the other was to be more direct and full on horror. You chose the middle ground. Flerp Well, gently caress, that was depressing. “The snow is white as fat.” Reminds me of Fitzgerald’s lawns leaping over water fountains. Doesn’t make sense, but it works. Good show, I guess? But look, if the point is to be meaningful, then what is the meaning to all of this? Dead girl and crows sad, but sort of indifferent? If the point is to merely make me sad, well, congrats. Jay W. Friks So there's this entity, a being who has lived many different and varying lives, which is stuck on its karmic journey, ya? It can no longer be an individual, I get that, but what I don’t get is what it needed to ascend. Like, it appears to take over the Probe, but if that is the case what is it about the probe that helps the entity? Thranguy The opening reminds me so much of Arthur C. Clarke, not just because of Jupiter, but because of the bit about there being a generation of people who never knew of a sky with Jupiter in it (although Clarke turned it into a mini-sun.) But if you were going for that vibe, well done, and if not, well, well done anyway. If there is a crit I can provide its that the ending is a bit stuck on. I think, though obviously I could be wrong, but I think you were trying to have the entire story be exposition and as such it's all build up for that last bit, what she tells herself. Neat idea, but I found myself wondering why it ended there until I looked back over the story. Antivehicular People dance. I am told they are dressed up, but I do not know what a labrys is. The codpiece line is funny. But there is nothing to draw me in, make me interested in the events. Let's take a quick look at your 9:47 scene and how you use the omniscient narrator, okay? The last time we saw your title character, Kevin, he was dancing with Adrian. Now we have Kevin and Ron interacting with no idea where Adrian is. Clearly you want us to know Adrian is not around, as the tension is partly whether or not Kevin is softening to Ron’s advances, right? Here’s the thing, you had a chance to switch views - to step over to Adrian - and give the reader a sense of the, I dunno, geography. With an omniscient narrator you are free to do whatever you want - do you want to poetically float up to the clouds above the dancehall? Go for it! Or if you want to make for a more dynamic scene you could give us, the reader, an idea of what's going on around these people. Who is Adrian dancing with, why is his shirt open, would showing us a glimpse of this add to the tension with Kevin and Ron? Tyrannosaurus I was going to be an rear end and say something about the puked a shrimp line (why isn’t it “puked up”?) But the only thing I want to say is that you don’t need most of your thoughts added in there, such as right after the shrimp like when you wrote: I’m 100% confident that I threw up, Mom. We were at the Olive Garden. The nice one. By the mall. “You’re just making up memories,” she repeats. She’s gotten a lot of legwork out of that lie. The bolded part doesn’t really need to exist, so if you want to strip out as much dialog or dialog like content as possible from this story you could still do some cutting. gently caress, the ending... I guess ignore what I just wrote as it does need to be there. Crabrock .. What? Sparksbloom: There isn’t a thing I would change, it strikes the tone beautifully, though I find it odd that it doesn’t follow a lot of the usual advice, ya know? Its carried by its tone and charm. Uranium Pheonix By the time I got to this story I thought “ugh, I want to stop reading now.” But you kept me interested. Quite depressing, which earns the ending, though at first I thought the man on the TV was the also boss. Maybe that would make the hypocrisy too obvious. Electric Owl ”She lets her vision lose centre, playing on herself the trick of relative projection: looking in from the mirror rather than the other way around.” What? I’m too stupid for this, quite literally, I do not know what relative projection is and the description does nothing to clarify it for me. I’m missing something in the story as well. I know it has to do with the Coyote bit, as Robin is a she at first, then Mr. Whitefeather at the end. Why the Coyote laughs, I am not sure. Sebmojo … What? Seriously though, Crabrock and Sebmojo, I don't know what to say to you guys. For different reasons. Seb, you tend to write dreamy stuff and this time loop/body switch fits right in, but if I want to make logical sense out of it then I'm at a loss. Crabby, I am not sure what the point of the story is. Things just kind of happen.
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Dec 4, 2017 19:49
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 07:53 |
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Thran, hook me up with some wikihow nonsense. 'Cause I'm in. Edit: I'll toxx if flerp promises to work in the camel falling in love with somebody. I want that story.
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Dec 6, 2017 00:46
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I'm  ing!
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Dec 6, 2017 13:42
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The Rut 1118 words. Prompt: Quell the voices of self-recrimination and How to make a glitter bomb His feet worried a rut into the snow dappled canvas of the soybean field. Thick flakes flumped by, too wet to stick to the cool earth, forming a patchwork of blanketed and bare furrows. They gave a satisfying crunch as he walked over them. His track, the staff had begun to call it Adam’s trail, led him through the field, in front of the tech’s station - they were techs here, not guards, he had to remind himself, this wasn’t prison - and around the back of the old brick chapel now called the Inn, up a small rise to the snow covered basketball court where the only tree on the entire compound stood. It was Adam’s favorite spot. Each time, in his trek, when he reached it, it was a revelation. A wide oak with arms stretching out to either side like some Ent slowly awakening from a centuries long rest. Every time Adam felt compelled to walk up to it, draw his fingers across its bark. There hadn’t been any trees where Adam had been, only concrete, steel, and dirt. The only green thing that grew inside the prison walls was the grass in front of the Lieutenants office. It was strange the things one missed while they were away, he reflected. There were the people, of course, the families and friends left behind to deal with the consequences, to face the sigma of being the wife and son of a convicted felon. It was their faces that loomed over him, his wife and child, like some personal Matterhorn he had to summit in order to be human again. But he didn’t talk about that. It went against the social contract between inmates, as everyone had haunted memories waiting for them back in the real world. They spoke instead of the simple pleasures of a traffic jam, how now they’d recline in their cars and turn up the radio, a smile on their faces. Or how reassuring it would be to pull a strand of a woman’s hair off of your clothes-- Two beams lit the court, cutting short Adam’s reverie. A low thrum of bass obscured the sound of a window opening on the epistle side of the Inn. Two men slipped out and slinked along the walls of the Inn, beneath the view of the cameras, and out next to what was once the southern transept, where once light blessed a stained glass window as the sun traced its course across the horizon. Now there was only cinder blocks. Adam was under the shadow of the tree and with the car lights on he was cloaked in darkness, able to watch but go unseen. He saw two women walk from the car and over to the men, waving bottles, carrying bags, and humming words like some siren’s song. *** It had been a month since Adam had last spoken to his wife. But he could still hear the line clicking, the message reminding them both of what they never forgot: This call was coming from inside a federal prison. “You’re not listening. Do you know what they’re parents are thinking? They’re thinking ‘is he like his father? Is he going to grow up to be a criminal too?’” Adam checked the payphone bank around him, to make sure he was alone. He gritted his teeth as the armored cord grinded against itself. “Do you even hear me, Adam?” “What do you want me to say? I’m here, I’m doing what I can. I’ve paid my debt, I’m getting on a plane tomorrow morning, babe, I’m coming home. So his friend’s parents are worried about me, so what? I’ll show them, and I’ll show you, I’m a changed man. Things are going to be different, I promise you. I’m never going to take you two for granted again.” She sighed on the other end of the line. “I’m just trying to tell you that things are different now.” “You’ve stood by me for fifty-one months, so what’s bringing this up now? Are you seeing someone? Did you gently caress somebody while I was away?” The other men had warned him about that, the vast majority of marriages didn’t survive incarceration. “Jesus, Adam. Do you even think you have the right to ask me that question?” “We’re still in this together, aren’t we? I mean, you drop this on me the night before I go to the halfway house, after years of support, after all this talk about the party we’re going to have when I come back, that Seth’s even making glitter bombs, and now this? What am I supposed to think?” She didn’t answer. “Don’t do this, not now. Not now.” “I’ve been alone all this time, Adam. Just me. Just me facing the world, our neighbors questioning looks, the loving PTA and their concerns, and all the while I’ve got to protect our son from all of the bullshit that you brought on us.” Her voice finally cracked, tears streaming across the line. “You can’t think you can just come walking back like nothings changed. You can’t.” “What’s changed?” He asked. He knew the answer; everything had changed. It was in everything they had chosen not to say over those fifty-one months. It was her and Seth’s, their son, perception of him, and Adam’s own self perception. Nobody would have thought he’d end up in prison, he worked too hard to show the world a clean image. But with the mask off and in hindsight it was all too obvious, as if it were predestined. He wondered, not for the first time, how’d he ever expect to look his son in the eyes again. *** Standing in the dark next to the oak tree, Adam looked up at the snowy sky. Do you worry that our son will end up like me, as I do? That there is a rot in my very DNA that can’t be cleansed? That you would all be better without me in your lives? When Adam was young there had been a boy in school who would hide in the cloakroom whenever he was overwhelmed and bang his head against the wall. Now, underneath the bare oak tree, Adam pressed a fist against his temple. He could hear the men and women in the blindspot of the Inn’s security system, schmoozing. They were gearing up for a fun night. The kind of night one wouldn’t remember the morning after. Adam let out a puff of steam, closed his eyes, then pushed himself off from the tree and into view of the car’s headlights. The couples froze, the basketball court grew quiet again, but Adam went back to worrying his rut. What’s changed? Everything.
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Dec 11, 2017 02:56
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So I lost last week and the worst thing that can happen if I do the hardcore challenge is that I DM? WELP...  Siddhartha Glutamate engaged for Hardcode mode of DIABLO II. .... poo poo, I did that wrong, didn't I?
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Dec 14, 2017 07:30
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“I said ‘moo.’” It was all that Frank heard before a pair of fingerless gloved hands shoved him, knocking him to the ground. Frank’s violin case, clutched between his hooves, slipped from his grip and crashed open on the cobblestones. People laughed, though whether due to the man’s words or Frank’s fall, neither Frank nor his son, Daniel, could tell. But to Daniel it appeared as if every face on the street, humans and bovine alike, held a mocking gaze. The mere sight of Frank, in Daniel’s mind, seemed to inspire revulsion everywhere he went. It was due to his stoop shoulders, small horns, ground down to almost nubs, and the spotted white and black pattern of the common dairy cow. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Frank said as he wrestled with his violin. “Who are you apologizing to?” Daniel asked as he lent his father a trotter. “That man just rolled right over you, he should be apologizing to you, Pa!” It was an old argument, it always made his blood boil to see his father allow himself to be treated like cattle. Yet Daniel did nothing, instead he told himself that his father never changed. *** It was the longest night of the year, and once upon a time Daniel could recall his mother, Celeste, dragging Frank outside to join the town’s festivities. The three of them, hooves hooked together, lighting candles as they went door to door, sharing a glass of honeyed milk with their neighbors. In those days, with his mother there to spur them into action, they would make their way to the town square where music was played and everyone sang and danced in the street, fighting back against the winter gloom with life and love. But it had been years since then. After his mother had died the life and love of Daniel’s early childhood, well, it had died too. Never again did Frank go outside for the festivities, and so there was no more dancing or singing in the streets for Daniel either. Then, when he was older, Daniel had gone to university. It was then that Frank had decided to get a violin. Every year when Daniel returned home for winter break he had been puzzled by the sight of the musical instrument. Which he never once saw or heard his father play. *** Frank looked up at his son with watery eyes. “You don’t need to stay with me, Danny. You should go, you’re a young Bull, and there are plenty of cows out tonight huh?” Frank smiled. “No,” Daniel said. “I’m not a…” Bull, he thought. I’m not a bull, I’m cattle, just like you. But instead he said, “I’m not in a mood for any of that. Besides, it's too crowded.” Frank looked at the ground, he was standing now, violin case once more saddled between his front trotters. “You know I met your mother at a dance? It was just after the war.” “I know, Pa.” “She always said I brought music to her life, but, Danny, your mother was wrong. She brought music to mine.” Daniel grew impatient and took a few steps away from his father, heading down the street in the direction toward their house. “Uh huh.” “It's important, Danny. You will understand some day.” Daniel caught his own reflection in a candle lit window. He saw the same small horns, though his were never ground down, and the same common patterning as his father, albeit with more of his mother’s coloring. He was nothing special, just cattle. He frowned and saw his father looking at him from behind. A twinkle had formed in Frank’s eyes. “Would you like me to play for you, son?” “No, dad, don’t be absurd,” Daniel said, though he wanted to tell him that cattle can’t play the Violin, after all they didn’t have any fingers. But his father was already kneeling down and pulling back out his violin from its case. Somehow, with obvious practice, he fitted the neck of the violin in between the two segments of his trotters’ hooves, and similarly held the bow. Daniel was dumbstruck by the sight, never before had he seen any bovine hold a violin let alone attempt to play one. But without any hesitation his father slid the bow across the violin's strings. It made a godawful sound, like that of quarreling cats. People, human and bovine, stopped dead in their tracks and stared at the particular sight of a bull with a violin nested against its neck. Daniel could feel blood rushing to his face, but then, gradually a tune became apparent. It was simple, one note at a time, warbling here and there, but it gained in confidence as it progressed. It wasn’t the prettiest of tunes, but it had something resembling a melody. And so people gathered, man and bovine, with smiles on their faces. A group of calves hooked hooves together and danced in a circle. And then, here and there in the crowd, Man and Cow, Woman and Bull, danced together. “Pa,” Daniel said. “Will you play me another?” The moral of the story is: There is always hope.
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Dec 18, 2017 09:02
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Goddamnit, wrong button. Story title was: For All The Cows Word count was: 860. Game was Diablo II. Siddhartha Glutamate fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Dec 18, 2017 |
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Dec 18, 2017 09:04
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 07:53 |
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I was so hoping there would be another Merman Christmas! Count me in with this fella:  Yoruichi posted:Siddhartha Glutamate: For All The Cows Yoruichi, say what you will about my writing, sir, but stop whatever the gently caress it is you are doing RIGHT NOW and install Diablo II. Once that's done get Wirt's leg and combine it with a Town Portal scroll in the Horadric cube. Then you will have your answer, and one of the best video game experiences, in, like, ever. Ta. flerp posted:yes i knew this was going to be the prompt and yes im in of course im in how am i not in? and im Holy-moley this Merman was made for you, Flerp.
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Dec 19, 2017 09:15
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