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Yes thank you for commentary all!
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Oct 9, 2018 07:28
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Yoruichi posted:Sign-ups are closed. I'll do the thing
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Oct 13, 2018 06:52
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Week 323 crits Epilogue Gallery So, it's Pygmalion meeting her creator? Feels like a kind of self-congratulatory topic to write about, iono And then the twist ending is it was all secretly a super-double-story-within-a-story? I don't... get it. I mean, I understand the concept, by why? Why this story? It's too short for that ending to have any kind of impact like it seems to think it warrants. Dedicated To Gets better as it goes on. Has some nice touches in the middle, but the ending just kind of whiffs. I wasn't really there for the opening, either. I think the jarring shift in tone hurts—though admittedly it's a better tone than what the story opens with. Maybe the death should be foreshadowed more in the beginning? Red Letter Day Hmm. That opening is pretty indecipherable at first go. I'm not sure writing a story where you have to start over again once you finish to understand the opening is a great idea, but whatever, TD is pretty low-stakes. I found the narrator's affectations grating. Once I figured out what was going on, it seemed pretty obvious where the story was going... and then it went there. The end. I don't know, it feels like too simple of a story, like it deserves to be more like a 2-3 paragraph aside in something else, or a short poem or something, because it's too barebones to really support even this length. Also the resolution was trite and hackneyed, but that's fine because the story literally says it's fine to be trite and hackneyed sometimes, so gj shading a problem with the story rather than addressing it I guess? Leaving a Friend in Paradise This is probably my favorite of the stories so far. It seems like just the right length for its topic, short and sweet and describing just enough. Some of the :babble: at the top grates, but at least those quickly fall away. Huh, I didn't even see the footnote, since it wasn't in the archive. I think it's probably better without, though. We can google factoids if we need to. Dance of the Moon Jellies Eh. It's kind of interesting writing, but all the protoplasm protoplasm protoplasm repetition so much just leaves the feeling that everything in the world is all made from he same gray boring goo. So, mission accomplished, I... think? The ending is more interesting, at least. I just wish you had described the middle ballet/fight less monotonously. Hitchhiker I like this one. Definitely grew on me as it went on. Some of the tech-speak early on seems a bit off or odd, but the general structure and thrust of the story is good. I can see what Yoruichi is saying about not having much external conflict, but I thought it worked here to have it all be internal. A nice, quiet, introspective piece. Sons of Hróðvitnir Eh. This didn't really do anything for me. It explains too little of what's going on to convey the import of anything that happens. The ending especially lands like a dead fish, but it seems to be expecting the reader to go "whoa, that was awesome" for some reason. The whole thing just left me cold. Advent of the Star People Huh. I kind of like this one, even though it's kind of hazy on the details besides "aliens are regular visitors to a dive bar". It's lightweight, but nice enough. I think Yoruichi is right on with her suggestions. This feels like a pilot episode that could be expanded into a full story.
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Oct 16, 2018 06:41
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derp posted:i'll do it yeah, agreed
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Nov 13, 2018 07:22
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Last Shot 984 words He asked, and she answered. After reading the message, Chaser met her contact in a sealed shack; it was an old convenience store, all its goods now long gone. He said it’d be her last job. He always said that. It never was. But even now, even in days like these, she wouldn’t turn down the cash. “Hot out there,” she said. AC pumps whirred at the edge of the room, powered by the solar roof, already struggling to keep up so soon after sunrise. He nodded. “You know what they say. Sun’s dying; it’s only going to get worse. Soon even these machines will fail, and then… Well, I guess we’ll all have to live underground.” The red view-glass he wore over one eye ticked as he appraised her. Chaser hated small talk. “So, what’s the job, Mick?” “Something small, low-impact. We don’t want an uprising on our hands. You prepared to do something for your country?” Now, as she hung under the crenelation of a ramshackle wall assembled from scrap metal in the deep waste, Chaser wondered if she should have said no. Getting here had been the easy part; unfold the cricket walker and climb inside, cross the sands on the shadowed side of the dunes to stay cool, navigate around the crests to avoid sight of any patrols. The Children of the Sun stomped around half naked, their heads shaven, their torsos oozing and red, raw with layers of peeling skin. The darker skinned had some protection, but these days they too would burn, just a little more slowly. None of the Children avoided the sun during the day; being consigned to darkness was their worst punishment. They considered the pain a trial to be withstood. They wore their blisters with pride, recorded and tracked the growth of their melanomas. Adherents were lucky to live a decade. The shrine was an ugly misshapen thing, a pile of metal welded and bolted together in the middle of the Expanse. Chaser waited for the footsteps on the parapets above to clank away before pulling herself up and over the side. She stayed down, below the level of the wall, and quickly scanned around—no one in sight. She moved to the other side of the wall. Footsteps approached. Chaser whirled, raised a hidden pressure gun from inside one sleeve and fired a dart. The guard fell to the rampart floor with a meaty thud. His chest would burn on the hot metal. He’d probably like that. She considered dragging him out of the way, but his skin was a disgusting mess, and the smell was awful. She’d just act fast, instead. She looked over the lip of the wall, then jumped. The courtyard was largely empty, rough cracked yellow earth hammered flat by many bare feet, with some piles of rubble near the walls. Shards of broken mirrors and polished scrap metal hung at all levels of the inner walls. And in the center, under a plastic gazebo that probably came from a long-dead garden store, the roof panels between the slats replaced with clear Plexiglas, sat the prize. The Children’s sacred pool. The pool shone brilliantly, sending blinding light in every direction. It was a hole cut rough and jagged into the plastic floor of the gazebo. Quicksilver. God knows where the itchy freaks found the stuff—maybe looting some ancient factory—but they stored it here in the desert and seemed to worship in as a shrine. Chaser snapped a too-tight glove over one hand. They’d had to raid an old medical supply warehouse because this stuff was toxic, penetrated normal latex. She dipped a giant canister in the pool, let it drip from the sides, then screwed the top back on. She turned and peered around the fort. No one was visible in the courtyard. It felt wrong. It felt like a trap. Chaser ran for an overhanging ledge to grab onto and pull herself up, but she never got there. A hand, thick and stinking with burst pustules, burst from the pile of rubble beside the wall and grabbed her leg. “Hello there, little one,” cooed a head covered in scabs, leering at her from under the rubble. “A new sacrifice for the glory, yes?” Chaser was dimly aware of more figures approaching from the sides. “Not today—” Chaser tried to kick, mostly hit the scrap metal. The angle was too awkward to use her darts. She grabbed a large chunk of something that might have been a stove, once, and slammed it down on the head partly obscured under the metal, and again, and again, and the hand relaxed, and she kicked it away. She jumped for the overhanging lip of the wall. She made it, scrambled up the wall and over the side, and lay on the battlement, panting. More footsteps approached. She quickly dispatched the two guards and dropped down to the sand outside, where her carrier beetle had burrowed out of sight. Now it emerged, dust sifting from the joints of its six silver-gray legs. She climbed into the torso and it dashed out among the dunes. — “You got it.” Mick turned the canister over in his hands. “Don’t sound so shocked.” He rotated the frame on his red viewing glass. “Not at all, Chaser. I knew if anyone could, you would be able to do this.” “What’s it for, anyway?” “Hmm? Oh, it has some industrial uses. Makes some important compounds.” “And it’s a deadly poison.” “Yes. That’s why we’re being careful in the handling, hmm?” He handed the canister off to an underling who scurried away. “And maybe it will be used against the enemy, take the fight to them, hmm? That’s what you signed up for, isn’t it?” Chaser shuddered. “You’ve been paid. I’ll send for you again, if I need you.” Maybe he would. And maybe she wouldn’t answer.
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Nov 19, 2018 09:02
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Thank you Yoruichi and Thranguy!
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Nov 20, 2018 07:54
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:Can I break the "no fanfiction" rule if the story is about Zaurg? no one gives a poo poo about the rules
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Dec 5, 2018 05:32
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