Tyrannosaurus posted:

Late. With an edit. Incredible.

Antivehicular posted:

Interprompt: Things you can't say out loud
200 words

Uranium Phoenix posted:

The Conquest of Paradise

Saucy_Rodent posted:

Mind Rebel

Uranium Phoenix posted:

The Conquest of Paradise
1723 of 1727 words

The last memories of Texzalicah linger with us, the last remnant of its people. The Conquerors took everything when they came across the great ocean in their ships, and now we hide atop the mountains in Azith, the last unconquered city. This feels like just flat-out exposition, but it's evocative. I would complain about it more but I like the reversal in the next paragraph.

I join those memories in my chamber, lazing on my cushions, even as the light rays cracking through the glass windows stand. This sentence reads very awkwardly to me, is this correct? I feel like as it reads, it's saying that the "light rays stand" which seems weird. Should it be "even as the light rays crack through the window"? Regardless, it's not clear. Drug-addled by patec-cactus root, I watch the spirits of my ancestors drift by, yearning for their wisdom, their stories—their lives. The glory of Texzalicah before it Before what? It's unclear what you're referencing here. was lost. I see glimpses of their bright-dyed garb, decorated by macaw feathers. Distantly, I hear their rascas, flutes and drums, playing songs from my childhood, but when I focus on them, their harmonies fade. In a way, this is the real first paragraph of your story proper, since the first one is kind of a fakeout. With that in mind, I think it does a good job of giving us a peek into our narrator, she's someone who longs after the past to the point of self-medicating to experience it.

I hardly notice the merfolk come in. With his bright-scaled flesh and coral armor, he seems at first like a spirit. I had to re-read this, though briefly. I think my mind wanted it to say "he seems at first to be another spirit" And he is wearing his legs, not his fish tail. It shouldn’t surprise me, given we’re on a mountain, "As you know, Bob, we're on a mountain." It's not terrible, but I suspect there's a less overt and more useful/descriptive way to establish what you're saying here-- it's a big loving deal that a fishdude lugged his way up a mountain. but when I realize what he is, I blink. Okay, I'm guilty of this too so I'll just own up to it: blinks are not evocative of shock and realization in the way we want them to be. It feels prosaic and small in a way that I think runs counter to what you're trying to convey in this paragraph. The last time I’d seen a merman, I was a girl, fleeing along the edge of the Crater Sea toward the heights. Towards Azith. Why have the merfolk sent someone to us?

“So this is what she has come to,” he says, shaking his head. Does he know me? Does he? This is kind of a strange aside as, at least by my reading, it isn't really relevant later in the story. If you're trying to establish that Necahua is a person of note, this paragraph doesn't quite pull it off. If you're not, I'm not sure what this paragraph is meant to do, and I'd chuck it.

Xochi, my old mentor and surrogate father, stands by the merman, but he doesn’t look disappointed. He looks scared. I get what you're conveying with this disappointed/scared moment but it feels a little pedestrian, similar to the blink above. They're both moments that don't feel like they stand up to the level of prose that's exhibited in the rest of the story. “Necahua,” he says. “Did you not hear the trumpets? They’re coming. We have to go.”

A spirit dances in front of me, a blur of color, and my eyes watch it pass. I like "and my eyes watch it pass". It conveys the sort of drugged-up disconnection that I'd expect given the second paragraph's scene-setting. I'd kind of like more of that sort of language and phrasing in this beginning section to really key me in to Necahua's mental state.

“Aolan, they’re coming,” Xochi repeats, this time to the merfolk.

“Who?” I ask, not because I don’t know, but because I don’t want to believe it. Azith is the hidden city. This feels like the merman-mountain moment earlier. I think it bears repeating that Azith is this hidden city in the mountains, because it makes the invasion feel more momentous and threatening, but I think there's probably a way to remind us of the fact while also giving us something more, be it description or some aspect of Necahua's character. I'd maybe zoom out momentarily, maybe Necahua imagines the invaders amassing around Azith's walls, tucked away among the peaks, or similar. How did they find us? And why would they bother chasing after this last remnant of a remnant? I'm not sold on "last remnant of a remnant". I'm not crazy about the phrasing in general, which feels clunky to me, but at the very least I think the word "last" is redundant here.

“The Conquerors,” Aolan says. “We don’t have time for this.” The merman bends down and picks me up, tossing me over his shoulder like a sack of maize.

“The root…” I mumble, reaching for the sack of patec-cactus. There’s so little left.

Xochi grabs the sack, but keeps it far from my reaching fingers. “This is for communing with our ancestors, for sacred rites! Not for… this.” Not for you to linger in the past, wishing you were there, he means. "linger in the past"/"wishing you were there" feels a bit redundant to me. If you want to emphasize Necahua's backwards-longing personality, I'd vary the color or feeling of the second phrase. "Wishing you were there" doesn't add much here.

“Spear…” I say as Aolan carries me out the door, and he hesitates.

He ducks back through the door, Okay, just a heads-up, this (after "the door") is the first of a number of commas that I think you could lose outright. More on that later. and grabs it, holding it with the hand not wrapped around my legs. I do this a lot, get very specific in the blocking and physical action of the scene. It rarely adds much. I think you could get away with "holding it with his free hand" especially since the "tossing me over his shoulder like a sack of maize" is both plenty clear and flavorful without this specificity. The last possession of my family. My mother’s spear, and before that, her mother’s, and before that—

Htuali. Her blood still stains the stones of distant Texzalicah. I like this paragraph and wish there was a little more of this sort of thing throughout. Really the only think I know about Necahua (at this point in the story) is that she's obsessed, possibly too obsessed, with the past.

I hear the trumpets now. Short, panicked blasts, and with them, the shouting. We have spent our days tilling arid soil, farming the old tiered gardens, not fighting, not preparing. Now, all is lost again. I think the previous is another sentence that neither says much nor adds anything to this paragraph. I tilt my head to see. My people are gathering up the alpacas, sacks of food and a few possessions. Running. Again. Because my grandmother was right. They will not rest until no one even I'm not sure this needs "even." It sets a more conversational tone than without it. If I go off the deep end on hypothesizing, I could believe her grandmother did say it exactly like that, but given that Necahua clearly mythologizes the past, I also could believe her remembering this pronouncement as being much more momentous and prophetic in tone than it really was. remembers we were once here.

There is another figure, where? but she’s not running. She is standing, black regal hair blowing as if amidst a storm, arms pushed out as if warding back some great force. Her eyes meet mine. Ixtia. My twin sister. But you died, I think. I reach for her— I like everything here up to "My twin sister." After that it loses some magic, but I think you could sustain this vision to the end of the paragraph in a compelling way. This is really the second concrete aspect of Necahua's character that I learn (she has a dead twin sister and this is a BIG loving DEAL to her) and I wish it was a little more revealing of Necahua's personality and emotional state.

--and my head smacks against Aolan’s armor as he jostles me down the stone steps. Dazed, I hear another noise. Shouting, don't need this comma. It feels like you're trying to parallel the previous sentence but I don't think it works. in that cursed language, and the thunder-roar of pistols. The Conquerors are here. Now. I don't think you need the "now," it's just gilding the lily. I also don't think you need "here" italicized. Let the prose stand without ornamentation and I think the gravity will still be communicated.

I blink, trying to clear my head, my heart pounding. Suddenly, it becomes real. I don't think you need the previous sentence. It's a nothingburger of a sentence, and personally I think "Suddenly, (something happens)" is a bad construction pretty much anywhere it's used, because the comma is inherently a pause in the sentence, so it's actively working against the use of "Suddenly." Regardless, I don't think the sentence is doing enough work here to warrant it slowing down the prose. I hear the clatter of steel armor, and another pistol roar. Then a scream.

Aolan puts me down. “I need you to run with us,” he says, and draws his shark-bone blade. “My magic is weak here. I cannot carry you down the mountain. Can you hold your spear?”

I blink, and it’s not Aolan, standing there in his bright red and teal armor. It’s a woman, red, gold, and white this reads a little awkwardly, like the word "woman" is part of the list of colors. Also where are the feathers? What are they? Does she have feathers? Are they attached to something? feathers splayed out, wearing armor that glimmers silver, but not as the metal. This last phrase (but not as the metal) also reads awkwardly. You could go straight through, a la "armor that glimmers silver, full of starlight." It is full of starlight. She holds a spear in her hand of pure obsidian. Feathers trail from the crossguard, Are these the same feathers? Is this where they were hiding all along? burning like sunfire.

She hands me the spear, and I reach for it, in awe. I'll expound on commas at the end, but I just wanted to point out that this is one instance where I think they're effective.

As my fingers grasp it, the spirit vanishes. I am holding my own unadorned spear.

“Run!” Xochi says.

My legs feel unfamiliar, but I stumble after the towering merman and Xochi. There’s screaming behind me, and I hear the wet-cut of steel through flesh. A small avalanche of potatoes bounce past me. The people behind me are throwing down their goods. But they can’t. We need that food to survive. I'm not sold on the italics (is it your emphasis as the author, or Necahua's?) but overall I like this paragraph as a good shorthand for chaos.

I grip my spear and turn. Spirits still flicker in my peripherals, I don't like this word choice. It makes me think of wireless mice and drawing tablets, not peripheral vision. but I focus my gaze on the pursuers. They’re finishing butchering an old man, The previous is awkward. "[are] finishing butchering" is too clunky for this moment, I think. I think even if they're just butchering an old man, I'll know he's dead. Butchers aren't known for the recovery rate of their charges. steel cutlasses dripping red, steel cuirasses splattered with blood. Conquerors. Demons. I like what you're doing here but weirdly "red" and "blood" feel a little sterile and pedestrian for this moment, imho.

There are four of them, right here. Don't need the "right here" imo. We're watching this scene unfold from basically over Necahua's shoulder, so it feels anally specific in this instance. Three, I think you should definitely lose this comma. wielding blades, and a Priest of Chains, arms wrapped in thin silver links, holding a staff of iron. A cursed wielder of Forged magic. But I wear no metal, so his power over me is weak. This whole bit about the Forged magic and not wearing metal doesn't belong. I get that it might be relevant in the context of the prompt being "write the first chapter of a book" but it sticks out like a sore thumb. You do a good enough job establishing metal as a Conqueror thing, and "natural" materials (obsidian, feathers) as Azith things, I don't really need to know what Forged magic is or that metal is important to it, since it doesn't functionally come up again in the course of the story. But the phrasing here, along with the capital-f Forged, makes it seem like it will be of immense importance. Even if this was the first chapter of a longer work and I knew Forged magic would come up again, it would either need to be expanded on now or shortly after, or get cut and expanded on in a future chapter when I'm not trying to follow more interesting action.

The tail-end of the survivors I don't like this phrasing. I get what you're saying, but it's kind of a weird subject/verb disagreement (along with "flees" later) here. My brain wants it to be "The tail-end of the group of survivors" but that doesn't really feel less awkward. flees past me, and I stand in front of the soldiers, snarling. They hesitate, and then charge. Blah. It's fine as blocking, but boring. I'm on the fence with how the Conquerors are depicted in the story. I like the steel, gunpowder, conquistador sort of imagery you've constructed, but when we actually encounter them they feel like a faceless mass. Which is fine, but you sort of implicitly tell us earlier that they're an implacable, ruthless faceless mass that's intent on the complete obliteration of Necahua's people, so sentences like "They hesitate, and then charge" aren't pulling their weight in supporting that image.

Xochi’s training comes to me, unhindered by thought. I dodge, stabbing forward as I do. My obsidian tip finds a gap in one man’s armor, and he curses as he falls back, clutching the wound. I dodge back again, spirits whispering where the stone steps are, warding back the now-cautious swordsmen with feints and jabs.

The silver chains on the priest begin to smolder, and he sends shards of flame at me. I smash one with my spear, then fall back, hissing. I feel the burns on my thigh and ribs. Ghostly chains form between my wound and the priest, and I feel sluggish. I like this paragraph.

The man I wounded has finished reloading his pistol. I get why this is by itself but it almost preempts the drama of the shot by standing out so much.

I leap forward, my spear finding the neck of one swordsman, then draw it back, spin, and sweep the legs of the other, sending him crashing down the steps. I kick him in the face.

Then, I hear the thunder-crack, see the smoking pistol barrel, and fall to the ground. I clutch my stomach, blood bubbling past my fingers. The pain is sharp. Behind the four men I faced, I see more men in gleaming steel. At the edges of my vision, the spirits approach.

Dead, I realize. I am…

Dimly, I hear footsteps behind me, hear a shout— I'm not sure you need this line, it kind of undercuts the moment. Unless you want to undercut her being shot, but if you do, I'm clear on why.

And my vision fades to black.

***

The world grows brighter, all aflame with golden light. I am flying, wings of rainbow buoying me up, and I see it—the Suncity. "Suncity" reads weirdly to me. I initially thought it was a misspelling of "Sanctity" or something. Not a big deal, but Sun-city or Sun City would be less ambiguous, and my brain wouldn't try to pronounce it like "sanctity." It lies atop a gold disk, circled by bands of stars and sacred birds. Great step pyramids of stone tower above the houses. It is as Texzalicah in its glory was described to me, but vast beyond measure. It stretches across the great disk farther than I can see. Overall, I really like this paragraph. This story is at its strongest, I think, when you take the time to zoom out and give us a sense of place.

I approach the grand gates, and they open.

And the spirits pour forth.

I throw my hands up as they emerge, I'd kill the comma after "emerge," but keep the one one after "thousands." As it stands the sentence tries too hard to make "thousands" feel surprising (which it kind of won't, since you described the spirits as pouring forth earlier). If you delete the first one, then "by the millions" feels more momentous, and the sentence doesn't slow down the moment. by the thousands, by the millions, but I see them through my flesh, through my hands and closed eyes. Spirits of the dead, suddenly stretching across the horizon. From their bright clothing, I know them as my own people. They bear the wounds that killed them. A gaping hole the chest. A red line across the neck. Iron chains the conquerors had put on them in life. But most bear the mark of the pox. Those black-bubbled blisters. Nine in every ten have them.

I’d heard about it, as a child. The plagues that had preceded the Conquest. But seeing it… The subject disagreement between "it" and "plagues" here almost makes it seem like "it" refers to something else entirely.

A woman steps forth, the one I’d seen before, blazing bright in red and yellow feathers, white and silver dress like the stars, holding that obsidian spear. Her eyes speak. There is someone who was supposed to meet me here, in this afterlife.

“Where is my sister?” I ask.

The woman points behind me, and I turn. Even though it is nowhere near me, I see another place. Another afterlife.

There is a raging river, black waters full of wailing souls. The River of Death. Lore of the Conquerors, not ours. Its putrid waters move toward a lightless, burning gate, and there, Don't need the previous comma, it's not helping. the souls are shredded. But where…? I get what you're doing here but I don't think "But where...?" adds anything here. It feels like an artificial attempt to force us to see this moment through Necahua's eyes, but I think the following paragraph does that fine.
And then I see her. Amidst the raging waters is Ixtia. Great chains of burning iron bind her to the Gate of Oblivion, so she cannot join us. She is fighting, holding fast against the river. But slowly, inexorably, it drags her with it. Her resolute eyes meet mine again.

“Ixtia!” I call, the tears coming fast. Calling is not enough. I scream it. “IXTIA!”

The vision fades, and I turn to the woman in splendor.

“How do I help her?” I plead. “Now I am dead too, and my people…”

I fall to my knees. I feel my own soul, I think you could lose this comma, unless you want to convey that Necahua stops to ponder her soul before realizing it's getting dragged back. I personally think it unnecessarily slows down this moment. being dragged into the Suncity. I had thought I would see her again, but now I know. An eternity without her. Ten years without her has been its own hell.

Free our people, the woman says, words not a sound, but a feeling. Take back our land. Break the chains…

“But I am here. It is too late for me.”

Too many, she says, and the wall of spirits around her chants it too. Too many! Too many dead! They wail, their sorrow stretching out as infinite as the city.

It is not your time. Remember….

***

My eyes flutter open.

I hear Xochi speaking. “How bad?”

“Bad,” Aolan says. The merman is wheezing through his gills.

I see his shark-bone sword dangling from his hand, so soaked with blood that it still leaves a trail. His own blue blood trickles down his armor.

I smell smoke. Groaning, I twist my head to look. In the distance, Azith is burning, a great column of black clawing at the sky.

And the world is black again. I am absolutely guilty of this in like 90% of my stories and will probably continue to do it because it feels so good to write but honestly the mic-drop single-sentence paragraph TD entry ending™ rarely actually works well. I think tacking it to the end of the previous paragraph would still be powerful while sticking out less.

Saucy_Rodent posted:

Mind Rebel

1769 words, Headstrong by Trapt

As Tyler furiously An adverb as the third word is a bold choice. I think it falls flat here because it doesn't actually tell me much. Is he furious? Is his lamp-grab particularly violent? Is he in a mad rush? There's too much possible nuance here for the word to be effective. Also I think the context reveals itself fine later on. grabs the lamp on the bedside table, Judy realizes that this can't be happening, because it's already happened.

Tyler will throw the lamp at her and her arms and chest will bleed and he'll be nice and sober-sounding when the cops arrive and as she sprawls sobbing on the carpet the cops will joke about how it isn't their job to solve lovers' quarrels.Nice, I now know roughly what the conceit of the piece is, and I like it.

This was years ago, but she's here now, and the more she concentrates on the moment, the more it feels like deja vu on deja vu. I'm not sold on the ending of the prior sentence. I get what you're saying but "deja vu" reads kind of clunkily on its own, imo. I can live with it, though. This isn't the first time she's re-experienced this, nor the second nor hundredth, but it may just I don't think you need this "just." be the first time she understands that you definitely don't need "that" here. it can't be real. So as the lamp hurtles towards her, she does what she felt somehow guilty about not doing the first time, and she ducks. This last sentence is kind of hard to parse. I think moving "somehow" to between "she" and "felt" is clearer (the way it is right now is fine, but harms the comprehension of the sentence, I think). I'd also lose "about" here, I think it unnecessarily extends the sentence, so losing it may also help the whole thing scan more clearly.

It feels like pushing through an invisible barrier. The air shatters around her as she breaks from the destined path. It is you need an "as" here though the world is glitching. The heavy metal posters on the wall flicker in and out of existence, and the lamp cannot decide whether it's still on the table, in Tyler's hand, or shattered on the dingy carpet. Judy runs toward the door, and I love this whole conceit to represent the time jumping. I think my instinct would be to throw in an em-dash at the end of the paragraph but it works well without. If it were up to me, I'd move "she's" up from the next paragraph to the end of this one to make it feel more abrupt, but that might kill some of the clarity.

she's driving away from the bar ten beers deep because she just heard that Tyler was cheating on her and she's gonna catch that rear end in a top hat in the act and laugh at the stupid look on his dumb face and no no no this isn't real Judy you're dreaming wake up wake up and I like the run-on nature of the "flashbacks"

something appears in the passenger's seat. It looks just like Judy. It wears a neon dress that matches its manufactured smile.

hi! says the other judy. i'm judy.

Judy looks away from the road to give her doppelganger a puzzled look. "No, I'm Judy."

yes you are, it says, as the car veers off the road. a few months ago, you attempted suicide, and thus, an experimental operation was performed to cure your depression. this was done by constructing me inside a computer, then giving me your memories and identity. i was then put in charge of the regions of this brain responsible for motor functions and sensory recognition, with certain safeguards to prevent unhappiness. the existing consciousness, you, could not be deleted outright--the technology's not quite there yet--so i had to stick you here in the memories that i, as a happy judy, don't choose to recall very often. This is great. I like the way Other-judy is rendered throughout the piece.

i assure you that everything's fine, and that our in my printed copy I marked this first "our" with "drat." life is going ok. my relationship with our parents and friends is better than ever. in order to make sure that our life continues to go so well, i must ask that you refrain from altering any more of our memories. i need you to let the events play out as they originally happened.

"You mean, continually live out the worst things that ever happened to me?" says Judy. "Absolutely not." I'm not a fan of this. It feels like writerly dialogue. I think you could recap what's going on without pulling a "Wait a minute Bob, so what you're saying is..." and give us a little more info on who Judy is in the process.

i understand your frustration. however, the existence of a happy judy relies on your continued cooperation. now, if you'll excuse me, the awesome sex i'm having with our this "our" I marked with "drat!" so good choice on that phrasing throughout, lol boyfriend requires my focused attention. goodbye.

Other-judy should "Other-judy" have an uppercase or lowercase J? It changes at least once. vanishes in a puff of smoky light, and now Judy's hanging from her seatbelt in the driver's seat of the flipped-over Saturn and

why is this guy screaming at Dad and why did he knock off Dad's kippah and now he's saying bad words at me and NO NO NO WAKE UP.

Judy doesn't know how long she's been out this time. The neo-Nazi is still screaming at her but it's longer than it was in real life; he's just screaming lazy anti-Semitic slurs on an infinite loop. This is a great image.

"Shut up," she says to give herself a moment to think, I was initially unsure who she was saying this to, it could be clearer. and guess what, he does. The end of this sentence is very suddenly more casual than the rest of the prose so far. I don't hate it, but it was initially jarring. It does sort of draw back the blinds on the kind of tone the story will eventually adopt, though. That's how This, I don't like at all. "That's how" feels way too casual, it draws attention to the narration as a character in a way that isn't really done again in the story. Judy figures out she doesn't just live in traumatic memories; she can control them, too.

She jumps around from memory to memory, testing the limits of her abilities. Slowly, she learns how to bring things into memories they don't belong in. She trains the people who terrorized her in life to fight for her in her mind. Sometimes Other-Judy here's the capital J. comes down for an inspection or to grab something it needs, so Real-Judy lets herself get hit with the lamp like a good girl. "like a good girl" is about where I bought into the more casual, comedic tack of the story. But Judy slowly plots her revenge against the robot that stole her life. At first, she cannot access happy memories, or even think of them, but eventually she learns to make a bridge to just one. The childhood traumas often have a T-shirt that reads "SUE" next to a T-Rex skeleton. The shirt only appears after she turns seven, which means she must have gotten it on her seventh birthday. And where is Sue the T-Rex? She's in I really want this to be "She's" and to tack "in" at the start of the next paragraph, sort of for the same reason as I said above. I think it would better reflect the startling time-jump, plus for whatever reason I hear this "She's in" fragment in the voice of the Price is Right announcer.

the Field Museum in Chicago, in the big room with all the dinosaurs. Well, Sue's in the main hall, but Judy's in the dinosaur room, feeling the first swells of joy in however long she's been here. A gaggle of children is running around the monsters' tombyard I think you need a comma here after "tombyard" for clarity, otherwise the adjectival phrase here feels weird. I'm not sold on "monsters' tombyard." I like the image it evokes but it feels kind of obtuse. wild-eyed and cake-drunk. One familiar little girl wears a dinosaur party hat.

The birthday girl turns toward Judy. you're not supposed to be here. this is a happy memory. please return to the bad memories.

"No," says Judy. "This isn't your memory, it's mine. You were never a little girl having a birthday party at a science museum, I was."

why are you so upset about living in traumatic memories? it's all you ever did when you were in charge anyhow, says Other-judy. She turns towards Judy's mother, who's herding stray seven-year olds back to the party. mother! this woman is being creepy to me!

Judy's mother rushes over. It took me a second to figure out what was going on in this and the following sentence, but once I keyed into it being a kid's distorted memories, I loved it. I think that disorientation is desirable, too. "Excuse me, that is something I will not stand for. Didn't anybody teach you that it's rude to pedophile This is the most distressing "verbing the noun" I've ever read. a girl on her own birthday? I'm going to need to ask you to leave!"

A museum security guard approaches. "Hi, I'm a nice security guard man, I keep kids safe and make sure nobody steals the dinosaur bones. Pedophiling is against the rules, dear god I hope so please come with me to jail, ma'am, ma'am is the fancy word for 'woman.'" Love it.

you heard them, says little Other-judy. you need to leave. The security guard grabs Judy by her wrists. 

"Let me go!" Judy shouts.

The upside-down Saturn bursts through a window and crash-lands next to the diplodocus. The door pops open, and out crawls Tyler, clutching his lamp.

"Excuse me, sir!" says the security guard. "Driving an upside-down car through the window of the Field Museum is very unsafe!"

The security guard eats a faceful of lamp and Judy runs free. She focuses on the painful memories she's been forced to live over and over again, and one by one, they manifest on the dinosaur-room floor. The kiddy partygoers scream and flee as the hall fills with abusive exes, creepy photographers, and expanding flames. You can probably blame this on my dumb brain, but since the first two elements in this list (exes and photographers) are people, I read "expanding flames" as something akin to "old flames" and was awfully confused. I don't know if choosing a different adjective than "expanding" would help my brain be less weird, but I think it's kind of a meh word choice regardless. The trauma-things wreak havoc on the hall, toppling dinosaurs onto tourists and attacking those who flee. The rest of Other-judy's imagined museum security rushes to the scene, but the nice men are quickly dispatched by Judy's army of horrors.

But Other-judy rallies its happy defense. The previous sentence is kind of a dud. It tells you what's happening, but not in a particularly compelling way. It's possible I'm overthinking it. Roller coasters come careening through the walls, wide-jawed firefighters axe their way through college almost-rapists, and Judy's favorite rabbi swings a big Torah scroll like a baseball bat at Tyler. 

The evil forces of goodness and joy, victorious, surround the defeated Judy. Other-judy, still disguised as Judy on her seventh birthday, emerges from the crowd.

you stress me out, and i was programmed not to feel stress, so congratulations, i guess. if i could kill you, i would have done so already, obviously, so here's what i'm gonna do. i'm gonna call the electromental health clinic, they can scramble you up a bit so that you can stay in the bad memories where you belong and buy me a bit of time before they figure out how to delete you from my brain permanently. hot cruise ship guy, please escort parasite-Judy to the memory of finding grandma's body, and make sure she stays there. LOL. Love it.

"Of course, bella," says the cute Italian that Judy made out with in eighth grade.

As Cruise Ship Hotty drags Judy away from the battlefield, she remembers one trauma that Other-judy has not yet destroyed. It's a trauma Judy never experienced, but one she was born with, a sort of despair and anguish that was pressed on her since she was a child until it became a constant dread. She concentrates on the fear, hoping she can conjure something that she didn't live through but was forced to remember anyways.

Hundreds of jackbooted, red-armbanded soldiers materialize in the dinosaur hall.

what? says Other-judy. is that… I'd either cut this paragraph entirely, or make it pull its weight a little more. As is it's just showing us that Other-judy reacted in some fashion, which doesn't really need to be stated explicitly. Either have her react in a way that ramps up to the ridiculousness that's about to happen, or kill it so we get there faster.

Judy shouts two words she never thought she'd use earnestly: "NAZIS, ATTACK!" I hate this, it's wonderful

Other-judy's legion of nice folk "legion of nice folk" didn't scan clearly for me the first time I read this. Capitalizing it like they're a superhero team would help comprehension, but might be a bit too much. I mean, it's not like anything ridiculous and extreme just happened. know it's over as soon as the gunfire begins. Most begin to scatter as the stormtroopers advance, some disappearing to return to their original memories. Judy's mother, the rabbi, and Cruise Ship Hotty vanish from the hall. Other-judy flickers, desperately seeking to return to the outside world, but the inner battle is too intense to allow for such a retreat. Judy grabs Other-judy by its shirt collar and hoists it into the air.

you're going to ruin your life again, spits Other-judy.

"Maybe," says Judy. "But it's my life to ruin. I could force you to live in the hell memories like you did to me, and I would like to, but you'd rebel; The previous phrase is kind of clunky. I'd lose "and I would like to," entirely. I think it's implied, and having it there needlessly extends the sentence. you have too much of me in you. So I'll be nice. I'll give you a happy memory."

can I have the bat mitzvah?

"Dream on. I'll give you the time my team won pub trivia. Not going any higher. Take it or leave it."

Other-judy considers for a moment, and then nods. Judy, finally free to visit all the memories her mind has, I don't dig that phrasing, it's too roundabout to feel natural. "free to visit all the memories of her mind" or "all her stolen memories" or hell even just "all her memories" would be fine. As is it is noticeably weaker than a lot of the writing around it. brings Other-judy to the pub herself.

Then  she focuses on getting outside her brain and everything vanishes away. I think this way too weak of a start to the last paragraph. It direly needs something other than "Then" to open it. This is the capper, not just another bus stop in the route. The whole sentence needs more drive, I think. "Focuses" is a dull verb to describe what's happening here given it wasn't that long ago that she was tossing mind-Saturns through museum windows. Judy finds herself in a long black hallway. She follows a speck of light far far away, The prior phrasing is kind of weird. On first read it suggests that the light is leading her to somewhere far far away, but not that she's getting any closer to the light. I think the issue is primarily with the word "follows." until gradually she can see it's actually two lights, no, two tiny windows to a bright place. She approaches them, and then, I hate this "and then" so much. It's a writerly crutch, and a speedbump at a critical moment, to boot. If it were me, I would rewrite this to "She approaches them and, for the first time in many months, looks out her own eyes." Eliminating the "and then" as its own appositive phrase changes the pacing of the sentence, and heightens the importance of this "first time" moment. Though even rewritten I'm not crazy about the word "them," I know what it's referring to but going with a pronoun instead of giving us another, slightly different description of the "windows" pulls the punch on the ending somewhat. for the first time in many months, she looks out her own eyes. I like this ending conceptually, but I think this whole last paragraph needs work to rise to the level of the rest of the piece. As is it does its job but it's not pulling its weight as much as it needs to.

Sitting Here posted:

Contributor: Tyrannosaurus
Genre: Mystery
Protagonist attribute: Lycanthrope
Protagonist obstructor: In love
What the protagonist wants: Freedom
Story setting: On Earth, sometime in history or pre-history
Setting details: The Great Depression
World problem: Big Banks
Your protagonist... Feels guilty about what they want
Your protagonist's attribute... Seems to help, but backfires
Your protagonist's obstructor... Takes the character completely by surprise
At the end of the story... The world problem is no longer relevant to anyone

Weltlich posted: