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Chairchucker posted:Hello I would like to request a location for a story, also here is horse. Your story takes place in a wildlife reserve.
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Feb 3, 2021 20:22
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Mercedes posted:I'm in. Gimme the horsey I can't belive you're making me do this, what am I your mum Here is your horse, which is actually Chairchucker's horse 
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Feb 3, 2021 20:48
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Yoruichi posted:
This episode is now in the archive with timestamps in case you are a narcissist and refuse to listen to discussion of anyone's story but your own.
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Feb 4, 2021 05:16
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Sign-ups are technically closed, but because of events beyond any of our ken there is one extra horse in the thread. The next person to sign-up gets toanoradian's horse, and the horse that person posts will go to whoever signs up after them. Time will reverse, rivers will flow uphill, etc.
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Feb 5, 2021 21:41
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 Sebmojo vs. Muffin 'who wrote the best Spaceman Jim' brawl judgement Oh dear, your stories seem to have gotten tangled up somehow, here let me help you. Good thing neither of you individually went over the word count or you would have been disqualified!! sebmojo posted:JIM SPACEMAN in an excerpt from ESCAPE FROM THE TERROR MINES OF ZORGO, book 2 in the SPIDERS OF REBIRTH, OF MARS cycle So as far as I can tell this is a story in which Spaceman Jim and his friends Moffin and Moijo go on a spaceship ride. Spaceman Jim is crying, so Moijo launches the spaceship, but this causes Moffin to have a fit and get goo on his glasses. Then they're attacked by Zeptoids. But then it transpires that Moijo and Spaceman Jim are both zeptorgs, and they remove their disguises and murder their erstwhile shipmate, Moffin. In the epilogue, we learn that Moffin may have eventually gotten his revenge, as their spaceship was actually a time machine, but he destroys himself in the process. Post-modern and surrealist, this story really pushes the boundaries of the science fiction genre. Spaceman Jim is somewhat overshadowed by the Moijo character, but Moffin really shone as the protagonist, overcoming as he does his initial fear and eventual vapourisation to sacrifice himself to destroy the Mojo the evil galactic mega titan. 6/10 SurreptitiousMuffin posted:JIM SPACEMAN in an excerpt from ESCAPE FROM THE TERROR MINES OF ZORGO, book 2 in the SPIDERS OF REBIRTH, OF MARS cycle In this story Spaceman Jim needs his spaceship to be in space, so his friend Moffin assists him by putting his penis in a hole in the spaceship. They are accompanied by Mojjo the Chimp, who is not really a chimpanzee. In space, Jim, Moffin and Moijo start to run out of oxygen, but Moffin solves the problem, presumably with his penis again, as this appears to be his go-to. Then they turn their attention to attacking their unnamed enemy's fortress, at which point Moijo reveals that he is actually both a chimpanzee and a zepton. This is the key turnaround moment for our protagonist. Moijo was initially painted as a sensitive character, for example, expressing his desire to cry openly. His emotions get the better of him when Moffin threatens to attack his home fortress, resulting in a rage-poo going in his eye. In the end, Moijo summons the strength of will to rise up against Moffin, but the story ends in tragedy, as Moffin reveals he has super-strength and obliterates both Moijo and Spaceman Jim. Given that Moijo is such an engaging and sympathetic character, it was a bold choice to end the story with the villian, Moffin, victorious. However, ultimately I think it was successful, and shows the contribution that tragedy can make to the science fiction oeuvre. 6/10 This is a difficult brawl to judge, as both stories took such different approaches to the prompt. While both strove to be "a Spaceman Jim story that is better than the other one's Spaceman Jim story," neither really succeeded, as the stories are actually about Moffin and Moijo respectively, with Jim Spaceman playing but a minor role. My final judgement is that you are both disqualified, the brawl is a draw, and sebmojo wins and also SurreptitiousMuffin wins, and that Spaceman Jim was the real winner on the day.
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Feb 6, 2021 03:52
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Submissions are closed. Your esteemed panel of judges...  ...and this guy...  ...will now deliberate.
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Feb 8, 2021 09:47
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 Week 444 Judgement Wow, judgement this week was an emotional journey. If you want to experience the highs, the lows, and the tortured decision-making with me, Curlingiron, and Sebmojo, you can listen to live judgement here. First, the bad news. Casual Encountess is DQ’d for being both late and over the word count. Also DQ’d for the sin of breaching the word limit, albeit accidentally, and despite writing one of, if not the, best story of the week, is Sparksbloom. The loss this week goes to Toanoradian, whose story was too confusing for any of the judges to fully understand. Lily Catts earns a DM for a bland character and unsatisfying resolution. Our picks for the top end were unanimous; what order they should go in was not. But we are all pleased to award HMs to Azza Bamboo and Simply Simon for high quality character work. And taking the win, because they wrote my personal favourite protagonist of the week, is Mercedes. We also decided that Puddles was the best horse. Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Feb 9, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 07:09
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Crits for week 444 Undead Empowerment by brotherly In this story we see an unemployed necromancer looking for work, using the Power of Positive Thinking and other very 90s self-help mantras. They convince someone (I found it very implausible btw that the woman watching the CCTV had the power to make hiring decisions) to give them a shot at getting a security job. They fail disastrously, raising a skeleton horde that destroys the store. They learn nothing from this experience. The end. Who was your protagonist? I was picturing a true Gen-Xer. Growing up in the 80s their Boomer parents told them they could be / have anything they wanted, if they put their mind to it, and they believed them. Gen-Xers have confidence, they have swagger. They also have little to no self-reflection and a stubbornly blinkered enthusiasm for creating tech start-ups that cause no end of problems. I would have liked to have been able to round out my image of your necromancer with more personal details. I know they have human remains at home but that’s obvious, because necromancer. What do they like? What are their personal quirks? What do they physically look like? A few small details would have gone a long way towards creating a fuller character. I thought the ending of the story let it down. I think you intended for your protagonist to remain stubbornly the same despite their total gently caress up, but showing them learning from this, or at least having a moment of reflection, even if they reject change, would have been more convincing. 6/10 Curio Shop by Idle Amalgam Good on you for rising to the challenge of your accidental double hellrules. I like this poem. It nicely evokes both the hopefulness and sadness of a curio shop. I can just imagine the sound the little bell over the door would make, and smell its warm dustiness. Given this is a poem, not a story, and it does not strictly speaking have a protagonist, you backed yourself into a bit of an impossible corner, prompt-wise. Nevertheless, you have given your curios personality, and their desire to be needed is very relatable. The fact that there is a mixture of items that are still in their original packaging and some that are “salvageable” is a nice detail. 6/10 Minotaur by Simply Simon Story-wise, I thought this was structured poorly - the first half is well-paced, but the fragmented flashback in the second half feels meandering, and the ending doesn’t tie back to the beginning very well. But, character-wise, I thought you did a very good job. Our poor protagonist is the sentient labyrinth, but he has convinced himself that he is just a normal guy doing a normal job. The repression of his true situation beneath his dry bureaucrat facade is disturbing, and makes us sympathetic towards this otherwise horrifying being. 7/10 Worth a Punt by Azza Bamboo This is interesting. It doesn’t have a clear arc, but I liked the description of these teenagers and their relationships. I particularly liked how kind Kassidy is to Lynn, despite seeming like a bit of a dirtbag in other respects. Her fearlessness in the face of a stupid bike stunt contrasts nicely with her concern about keeping her new shoes clean. The story gets off to a wobbly start, as it initially seems like the POV character is the mother, and some of the descriptions are a bit clunky. I had trouble picturing the quarry and the dirt ramp, for example. Overall, good job with the characters, but this needed another edit to make it a smoother read. 6.5/10 Putting the Fun in Contract by Mercedes Lol this was great. I giggled at “eldritch roomba” and “what in the micropenisy gently caress,” and chortled at the ending. But more importantly, I thoroughly enjoyed your demented protagonist. Kana is fabulous, I would 100% like to spend more time with this character. With a very deft hand you have created a fully fleshed out person, who is nasty (oh hi there guy being tortured) yet vulnerable (accidentally wears pyjamas to work), lazy and stubborn (gently caress you I am relaxing here) yet enthusiastic about her job (47 murders is a lot!), has friends (thank you for the jizz tea but I really must be going) but is also independent (I love you, endless void). This story succeeds at creating a convincing and memorable protagonist because you kept her character simple (she’s a devil and does devil-y things) yet gave her unique details (I love the snuggie and skull hat) and relatable flaws (I mean, not that relatable, I don’t have a giant ego, cough, cough). We get the right amount of physical description needed to picture her (thin, pale, long unkempt black hair). We know she’s a devil and has to respond to being summoned, but also that she used to work in a shop, which is just enough of a backstory to justify her determination to relax now that she has returned to the void. The whole tone of the story also adds characterisation; even when you are not directly describing the protagonist, you are still showing us how they look at the world and keeping us inside their head. Very nicely done, sir. 8/10 Closing In by sparksbloom What’s a CVS? Maybe it’s some sort of housing development, doesn’t matter. I enjoyed this story. The protagonist is a child with a strained relationship with her (single parent) mother, and the girl likes to escape into the neighbouring forest to act out her rich fantasy life. The relationship with the mother and the teasing at school felt very real, and I liked the moment of connection between mother and daughter at the end. This story didn’t totally grab me, I think because the protagonist is a child. This may be more of a matter of personal taste than the story itself, but I feel like, even though your protagonist is well drawn, she is a somewhat generic child and therefore not super memorable. To be honest I was more interested in the mother. You also went ~100 words over the word limit. Tut, tut. 7.5/10 The Opposite of Fire by Thranguy Thranguy, I feel like you just pitched me an extremely awesome movie. There is a lot going on in these 800 words. Unfortunately, I’m going to say too much, particularly in a week where the challenge was to focus on character. Madison is a bad-rear end, don’t get me wrong, but he’s just a hero in a wizard movie, and the narrator is just his equally bad-rear end girlfriend. I would love to read more about these two, which is good, but the problem is I don’t feel like there’s enough of them in this story. 6/10 That's Why I Didn't Give Up on Music by Lily Catts Wow Amy is a real cow. Andrea is a relatable but fairly generic character. She has been dumped. She is sad. She does a thing that gives her a confidence boost. She sees her ex for what she is. She feels better. The cello playing helps round this character out, but doesn’t make her particularly memorable. I’m afraid your dialogue is terrible. This isn’t how people talk. I don’t have any pithy advice to give here, but ask someone better than me in the discord.  5/10 Preventing Burnout by toanoradian A spy (?), whose real name is Minyak Panas and whose cover name is Intense Blaze (?), goes to a hospital to meet an injured compatriot, who he drags into a lift to avoid being overheard (?), before going to the room of a wounded enemy. But, the enemy is his brother, so instead of killing him he chooses to extinguish his own internal fire, and passes on out the floor. This was a more confusing read than it should have been. There are a lot of proofing errors, and it wasn’t clear what you meant by some of your made-up terms. “Grand Embers,” for example, seems to be something you can be, like a master wizard, something you can do to someone, and/or something you have. The story also felt muddled as to whether the focus was the relationship between Panas and Cinders, or Panas and his brother. You have three potentially strong characters here, but none of them really shone. Panas and Cinders in particular feel like generic grizzled spy types, and the brother doesn’t have much going on except a vague Darth Vader, “Panas, I am your brother,” vibe. 4.5/10 harder better faster deeper by crabrock In which a sinkhole laments that it is not a bigger sinkhole, a sinkhole so big it could swallow entire planets, but knows it will have to settle for the occasional toddler, for now. Good job giving personality to a puddle. But I found your character a little one-dimensional. Yes it has dreams but there’s not much going on besides being a sinkhole. 6.5/10 trash panda by Casual Encountess DQ’d for lateness and being over the word limit. This story starts with the protagonist successfully running an antique store, takes a detour through dumpster diving, and ends with them deciding, against their better judgement, to try and get back together with their ex. This felt like a meandering and slightly pointless journey, with these three aspects of your protagonist’s life not particularly connected. Despite stating that your protagonist feels regret about their poor decisions, they seem pretty happy throughout the story. She is proud that her window displays sell well, pleased with her dumpster diving prowess, and positive about her chances with Abby. While this is fine, it meant that your protagonist didn’t feel like she had a lot of depth. 5.5/10
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Feb 9, 2021 07:12
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In. Gimme a meme. You say you love me but I don't believe you.
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Feb 9, 2021 22:15
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Please don't ask me to do that; you know I couldn't refuse.  Hell-crossed Lovers 1000 words Archive. Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Feb 15, 2021 10:30
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Feb 16, 2021 22:11
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I also want a cat (how did this become cat week?)
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Feb 17, 2021 10:08
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Une Conversation Avec Mon Père 790 words Archive Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Jan 6, 2022 |
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Feb 21, 2021 08:34
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Before someone asks, yes you can pick the same country/city as someone else, and if you can't decide I'll assign one for you.
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Feb 23, 2021 08:27
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Noah posted:In. Give me one. Orangutan surfing civilisation.
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Feb 23, 2021 08:34
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Sperglord Firecock posted:in, gimme a far off land CRATER AREA FORMER HOME OF TRACKING SITE
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Feb 23, 2021 20:13
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Sperglord Firecock posted:are the savage bat tribes involved You tell us 
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Feb 23, 2021 20:21
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Submissions are closed.
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Mar 1, 2021 09:11
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Oh for goodness sake. Fine, now submissions are closed.
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Mar 1, 2021 09:18
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 RESULTS Hello travellers to strange and wondrous lands. Lots of you fell into the same trap this week of getting all caught up in your worldbuilding and forgetting to give your protagonist any personality, desires, or in fact to have them take any meaningful actions at all. I guess this is our fault for finding you such a cool map to think about, but, it was only a month ago that I made you think about how you go about writing a convincing and memorable protagonist, so, *throws up hands in despair.* But, onto the results. brotherly is getting a new avatar for writing a boring story full of jargon that ended even worse than it started. There are no DMs. Sebmojo’s screams reached us from the MAD HOLE, and he earns an HM for a story that wasn’t winning material, but was carried by the quality of its prose and the thoughtful ending. Azza Bamboo also earns an HM for a story that was far from polished, but whose spinning wheel of murderous kanga rats will stick in at least one judge’s head for some time to come. flerp gets an HM for a story that we all found touching. Taking the win this week, with a story that had more emotional impact than all of the other entries this week combined, is crabrock. Welcome back to the throne.
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Mar 2, 2021 19:48
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Crits for week 447 Hemp Bonds by brotherly In the first section you establish the setting and introduce the protagonist, but you don’t tell us what he wants. The protagonist is just a cardboard-cutout company man, who sometimes thinks about leaving his job, but isn’t going to, and might be a bit of a dick. This is boring. Two hours of questioning to enter a compound is a really long time. I hate sloppy details like this. Stop and think about this for a moment. Your protagonist has watched two people approach a fence, and then two hours later goes and meets them. What was he doing this whole time? Did someone at least offer them a cup of tea?? If you questioned me for two hours - particularly if this involved standing outside the whole time - I’d be very tired and pissed off by the time I got past the gate. I am not enjoying all the finance jargon. You are overusing jargon to poor effect - you needed to pick a few specific terms to add colour to your setting, not just firehose nonsense at me. Oooh kay… so the Gorillas want books and movies and whatnot, and they therefore can trade after all? That’s nice, but I really don’t care. WHAT THE gently caress WHY DID GREGORY GET FLAYED? Wow that was an uncomfortably hard pivot from boring negotiations to horrifying violence. This is competently written but the protagonist is MIA. He (I’ve already forgotten his name) has very little personality, and no desires beyond those handed to him by his job. He doesn’t do anything that affects the plot and really may as well have not been there at all. This is a very common trap to fall into, particularly when writing fantasy or otherwise complex settings - people get all caught up with worldbuilding and whatnot and forget that what really makes a story engaging, particularly one this short, is getting inside the protagonist’s head and seeing how they feel about, and respond to, whatever challenge the world has thrown at them. 4.5/10 the thin line between now and later by flerp Godammit flerp why do you hate capitalised titles so much? This is sweet. It is a fairly generic story of familial rejection, but I don’t think stories need to be any less powerful just because their subject matter is well-trodden ground. What was missing for me in this story was agency from the protagonist. At his lowest point he hears the god talking from his drawer, and the god tells him what he needs to know to give him hope and strength to keep going. But he is very passive here - I think it would have been more satisfying to have him remember the god, and turn to it out of desperation or whatever - just so that it is his action that prompts the turnaround in the story, rather than a magic rock saving the day. 6.5/10 Spy Walks into a Bar by a friendly penguin Holy poo poo what a boring start. Protagonist stares at door, walks in, sits down. Papers are shuffled. You should have condensed this whole opening section into one scene-setting paragraph, and then deleted it, because scene-setting is generally unnecessary; just start the story. See? Look at the first three sentences of your second section - that would have made a way better opener. Ok so I’ve read the whole thing now, and while I enjoyed the ride, I found it a bit confusing, and the ending was lame. The idea of people travelling to the spirit realm to try and trick the gods, while the gods use spirits to manipulate the living, is pretty cool, but you needed to focus on your protagonist, give them some clear desires, to make this more engaging. 5/10 A Tiger Can Change His Stripes by Nae Wow that was boring. Competently written - your prose is nice and clear and the dialogue felt natural - but this was just 1500 words of two rats talking about solving a case that I don’t care about. These characters were all cardboard cutouts, there was no tension (they get the information they need without encountering any challenges) and no emotional content (even hard-bitten detectives need to feel feelings to be interesting). 6/10 Bat Mission by Sperglord Firecock You’ve got lots of good action here, but what you’ve done is write an origin story for a crater, rather than tell us anything about Atra. Who is she? What does she want? What are the personal stakes for her for this mission? (Besides getting paid, that’s boring). If you’d given us a reason to root for the protagonist this could have been quite fun, but you didn’t, so it was dull. 5/10 Confessions of a Lion President: I Was a Teenage Content Creator by QuoProQuid This is fine, but that’s it. Just fine. I guess it’s kind of funny, but the jokes are all too obvious. It feels like you probably had fun writing it, so that’s good. 5/10 The Killers by Baneling Butts A family of killer whales tows a barge of stolen goods to a pirate market to sell. They barter with some lions and sell them some grenades. The protagonist in this story is a young whale, who has an interest in human goods. This pays off because he knows the grenades are valuable, and his grandmother approves. The end. And that’s it. That’s literally all that happens. So. Boring. If you’re thinking, “wait, that’s not fair, my story had pirate whales and lions and a distant war with the tigers and other cool poo poo it in, what more do you want from me so as to make it not boring?” then, the answer is: EMOTIONAL CONTENT. Make your protagonist an interesting character who feels feelings. Or, if you hate characters, then you need WAY MORE insane whale pirate action, not just this tedious interlude. 5/10 Vacancy - Assistant Production Operative by Azza Bamboo Boring start. Bones bones bones, lol. Lots of weird colon and semicolon use; what’s up with that? Wait, how on earth did their tails get tied together without them noticing? Ok, the imagine of the spinning wheel of kanga rats is funny, but this is very silly. And then it ends. I feel like I’m saying this in every crit now, but, your protagonist doesn’t really do anything in this story, except have a weird first day at work. 5/10 Phase Changes by Thranguy Thranguy, I think you got another crit recently that said your story was like the synopsis of a really awesome fantasy trilogy, and I’m afraid I think you’ve done it again. I would love to read the full series of novels about the adventures of this snow wizard; this synopsis makes it sound great. 6/10 Forever Young by crabrock This story is very emotionally raw, and you did an excellent job of conveying, and pulling me into, the horror and hopelessness of this sort of grief. I think it needed an edit to make it more punchy, as the beginning is a little slow to get going. There’s something about Annie’s jokey tone that doesn’t quite land, and seems out of place given the poignancy of her grief. I also thought from her tone and the way you describe her movements that she is a young woman, but then we learn she died in her 80s. But, on the other hand, tossing around jokes like this to avoid talking about something painful is exactly what people do, and, fair enough once you’re dead that you don’t have to be encumbered by your old lady body. I think again another edit pass would have served to just make sure your reader wasn’t confused. The ending landed beautifully. 7.5/10 New Dialect by steeltoedsneakers This is good - the setting is interesting, the prose is good, and the protagonist’s emotional state is clear and relatable - but, like some of the other stories this week, it fell a little flat for me because of the lack of action on the protagonist’s part. Actually, it’s almost exactly like flerp’s story, where some magical thing comes along to deliver hope to the protagonist, which is lovely and all, but not super meaty as a reading experience. 6/10 Oceans With No End by Noah This needed a proof read, e.g. the rogue apostrophe in “Kruiser’s,” and the prose is awkward in places. I liked it, and I thought Ken was a good character, but I got a little confused about exactly what was happening in the middle section. The main weakness in this story is the lack of action by the protagonist. This is a story about someone who has done something terrible, and now there is nothing he can do about it, so I realise that him not taking action is somewhat the point, but the whole “oh poo poo am I going to get arrested for murder” thing is resolved by a random third party event, which is fine but not super interesting to read. You should have focussed in more on his decision to distance himself from his former friends. 6/10 A Day For Black Salt by Antivehicular You use your weird setting to good effect to tell a simple story about grief and one last act of kindness. But, I think you spent too many words on background details (like the over-long description of mixing the black salt) and not enough on the characters and their relationship. This would have been more poignant if you’d shown us more of what the uncle meant to his nephew, and how his death was impacting him (beyond just, oh no now I have to inherit the shop). 6/10 You don't have to be, but it helps by sebmojo This is a great example of ‘lol, what?’ laced with seriousness, like a weird wobbly trifle that has so much sherry in it that after your third helping while round at your mate’s for dinner you realise that you might legitimately not be able to legally drive home, and you have to pause and have a serious think about your life decisions. This story works because, while it is light on details and even lighter on explanation as to wtf the MAD HOLE is, the details we do have are the ones that matter. The protagonist is lightly sketched and yet the fact that they hold onto their small dream despite their hopeless situation is very relatable. The prose is fun and the ridiculous tone provides a nice counterpoint to the heavy emotional note that it ends on. However, it feels like you only worked out where this was going halfway through writing it. You needed to go back and edit the beginning to properly telegraph your ending and tie the whole thing together. MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE STARTED EARLIER AND NOT WAITED UNTIL AFTER THE DEADLINE HAD PASSED TO POST. 7/10 The End of the Dream by Idle Amalgam DQ’d for lateness. Wow, another story that is all exposition and action sequence and zero character. What is with this week. At least it is the protagonist’s actions that drive the story forward in this one. The action sequences aren’t terribly written, the problem is more that that’s all there is to the story, so what should be exciting gets boring very quickly. 5/10
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Mar 2, 2021 19:58
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There was a duck sitting in his bucket. Me: Horse, why aren't you eating your dinner? Horse: WHY IS IT LOOKING AT ME? What does it want?? What issssss iiiiiiit? Oh god oh go-- WAIT! What's that?! Oh nevermind it's just another horse walking across a paddock a kilometer away, I'm amazed I can even see that far given I can't tell the different between a puddle and a deadly portal to another dimension - oh look horse food, yum... ARGH! It flapped! In my dinner! Am I going to DIE?! Why is this happeniiiiiiing~? I want to... I want to eat the yumyums... I can smell the molasses oh god the molasses I'm going to die aren't I, I'm going to starv-- GAH! IT MOVED! I'm going to die anyway maybe if I just put my nose in-- Duck: Quack quack motherfucker. Horse: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK And then he snapped his halter and hosed off up the farm and I had to go trudging all the way up the hill to get the silly bugger.
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Mar 3, 2021 02:49
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My Fault 860 words Archive Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Jan 6, 2022 |
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Mar 7, 2021 05:14
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If you're about to say, oi, Yoruichi, you didn't even sign up, then please consider: a) My sign-up post was written in invisible ink b) Everyone else knew I'd entered, you're the only one who didn't c) The judges are totally from the OG cabal so they're probably just hand the win to their mate Sitting Here like always, so who even cares d) gently caress you. Oh gently caress I'm supposed to have picked a nonsense sentence too. Urrrrgh, ok, here, this is the sentence that I absolutely chose in advance: Few, few the bird make her nest. Christ Allfuckingmightly I hope you're happy now.
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Mar 7, 2021 05:21
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Mar 11, 2021 09:07
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850 words Archive. Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Mar 13, 2021 06:13
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Sitting Here posted:Curlingiron gets an honorable mention in spite of not signing up for the week What the bloody hell is this? I pull this stunt, with panache, I might add, and I get a DQ, and then the very next week Ms Curling-no-sign-up-iron rocks up and gets an HM?? What. The. Actual. gently caress. Fight me, Curlingiron, you fire hazard of a hair accessory, you.
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Mar 17, 2021 09:09
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YoruichingIron Brawl This is my song pick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs The Pit 890 words Archive Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jan 6, 2022 |
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Apr 3, 2021 04:21
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Gossolix’s Happy Birthday 1320 words Archive Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jan 6, 2022 |
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Apr 5, 2021 07:13
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Archive.
Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Apr 12, 2021 05:54
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Results!! Posting on Crabrock's behalf because he is "working." Overall a very middle of the road week, with nothing we loved or hated. Sitting Here did an ock. Dear oh dear. Thranguy earns the loss for writing half a story. Should've walked more. Flerp and a friendly penguin get HMs for sweet, competently written stories. Somehow, Sebmojo wins.
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Apr 21, 2021 05:41
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Week 454 Crits The Lottery by Brotherly Too much set up, not enough heist. Should’ve spent more time focussed on the brothers and their doomed plan - build up some hope that they’re going to make it, so that the reader really feels it when they don’t. The ending could have been clearer about the consequences for the brothers - is the older one going to be stuck in jail forever, or should the reader feel like they’re going to be ok? 6/10 Cleaning Homes by tuyop I thought this was way too slow to get going - we don’t need all the chit chat about him finding this job. Just start with him arriving at the apartment. You needed to establish earlier that the thing that Vince wanted was to be reunited with his (dead?) mother, so that when the void-thing offers this to him, his choice to accept feels satisfying. The flashback to his master served to explain the situation but didn’t add much in terms of helping us understand Vince as a character, so it was a little boring to read. 6/10 Stomped Out by Azza Bamboo I didn’t really get what was happening here. There’s a rebellion or something, and some kings with funny names, and then some armies fight, and that’s the end? I think a big part of the problem is the beginning is confusing - you tell me someone gets hanged, and then becomes a side note, but then the story is actually about them, or is it about our sad king? Idk. 5/10 Puppets by a friendly penguin Ok this is weird and sort of adorable and sort of creepy. I think you needed to characterise Tristan more strongly for it to be a more satisfying read. Make me really want to root for the guy (and his worms). 6.5/10 Flowers at the End of the World by flerp This is sad, and bittersweet. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t find it engrossing, mostly I think because I didn’t get a strong sense of who the protag was, apart from that they have lost someone special. 7/10 The Hole in the Fence by sebmojo This isn’t bad, but nor is it good. I mean, it definitely isn’t bad, so it must be good(?), but it isn’t good good. Making real the very relatable feeling of seeing an empty lot and being unable for the life of you to remember what had been there was a cool idea, but I think the escalation at the end comes too abruptly, and gets to the ending too quickly. I think you could have taken a little bit more time to show us the protag’s relationship with his girlfriend, so that the implied loss of memories about her felt more poignant, rather than feeling rushed. 7/10 The Rite of Cleansing by Noah I found this confusing on my first read, and I tried to re-read it a couple of times, but still couldn’t really follow. It felt a bit like someone explaining the plot of a much more complicated story to me. 5/10 The Facility by Thranguy Ok this is a great set-up where is the rest? 5/10 The Sad Girl and the Luminous Abyssal Nothing by Sitting Here I was genuinely enjoying this until the self-flagellatory ock. You could have just stopped at the sentence before the ock and it would have been a strange and thought provoking vignette. If you wanted to write an ock story you should’ve made it hornier. 7, minus 5 points for making GBS threads on your ending for no good reason = 3/10.
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Apr 21, 2021 10:42
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Go on then, hellrule me too
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Apr 22, 2021 00:12
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aE1zp3H2wI your characters believe in absolutely nothing, especially not love Unknowable 850 words Archive Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Jan 6, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2021 09:33
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I will take a line crit please
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Apr 27, 2021 11:23
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In
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Apr 30, 2021 04:54
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Susan tried hard to be a good manager 1370 words Archive Yoruichi fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Jan 6, 2022 |
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May 3, 2021 05:36
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you should catch up on crits before judging again
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May 6, 2021 09:40
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Week 458 crits SMEGMA_MAIL - Untitled So, I think the protagonist is a sort of eco-terrorist? And a surprisingly casual murderer. And then they die at the end? What sort of person was the protagonist? What were they feeling through this experience, apart from nervous? Did they get what they wanted in the end? And what happened to their Mom? 4/10 Brotherly - How to Change Stone into Bread Oh dear poor Cosimo. And poor Bryan. The first half of this story spends too much time with worldbuilding and set up, but once you actually got to the bit where the two characters were doing something things got sufficiently interesting that I cared about whether they were going to make it, even if how it was going to end was bleedingly obvious. 5/10 Simply Simon - The Faceless Artist That was surprisingly murdery. I think this story meandered too much. There is a lot of set up that doesn’t actually add to the story. It does serve to give us some insight into Jacques’ character, but as he’s a fairly generic downtrodden artist / love-struck fool I think you could have conveyed this much more quickly and directly. Instead of having him walking along on his way to meet CR, why not show him spraypainting an overpass or something more exciting, and have him daydream about CR and their upcoming plot at the same time? CR’s character was pretty flat, and the hard pivot to murder and betrayal felt unsatisfying as an ending, mostly I think because neither character seemed to have gotten anywhere. I mean, CR gets what he wants, but turns out he was always going to, so that’s not very interesting. 5/10 Tosk - Heaven's Door So we’ve got a sort of biopunk post-apocalyptic setting, some people who go on a quest to investigate a mysterious thingy, which turns out to be a library, and then one of them betrays the others? I’m afraid I found all the worldbuilding details hard going, and didn’t really get the ending. 5/10 Staggy - Warp and Weft People fighting against existential threats in vaguely post-apocalyptic settings seems to be a theme for this week, but this story is one of the better examples. Like some of the other stories this week, I felt you spent too many words on worldbuildy stuff that I didn’t actually care about, but I liked your two characters and felt drawn into their fear of being separated. I didn’t really get exactly what they’d done at the end, but I’m glad they found a way to stay together. 7/10 Sailor Viy - Dig Deep For Victory Oh dang this one is pretty good. Another story about someone fighting an existential threat in a vaguely post-apocalyptic setting, but this one doesn’t waste time with pointless world building, and focuses on the protagonist and their very human struggle. I liked how understated the horror of the whole situation is, and thought the ending landed perfectly. 8/10 Tyrannosaurus - Welcome Friends Open Oof, very good. Good characters, weird and interesting setting, great dialogue. I am a liiiiitle bit annoyed at the suspended ending, but I think it works. I kind of wish I could read this without thinking of the Matrix. 8/10 My Shark Waifuu - Underground Resistance Oh dear, that didn’t end well. There was a lot to like about this story. The action sequences were solid, if a bit long, the setting is interesting, and the characters are good. But they felt to me to be too willing to murder people, and then, given how murdery they’d been, the protag’s hesitation at the critical moment didn’t seem to fit. 6.5/10 Flerp - the future is closer than you think Two people living in a post-apocalyptic setting have connected with each other over the remnants of the internet, and support each other in the face of despair. Something something atoms, something something one of them is going to use nuclear power to get to the other?? This was some nice wordage, but I didn’t get the ending. 6/10 Pththya-lyi - Untitled Why is the title “untitled”? Are you too cool for titles? “I am a big strong boy,” is such a weird thing for a big strong boy to think. How old is the protagonist supposed to be? The dialogue and their inner monologue feel quite adult, but sentences like, “When you’re a child, adults are always doing strange-seeming things around you,” imply they’re quite young. And then we’ve got an explosion, and lots of death, and Grandma’s secret is revealed, but no one seems to experience any strong emotions as a result of this. This story felt bloodless, like it had all the right outlines for a good story but none of the emotional content. The protagonist goes from being slightly confused to less confused, which isn’t very interesting. 5/10 seaborgium - New Beginnings Awkward opening sentence. Would have been better to go with, “Clyde slammed open the door and then dropped his satchel…” As it is it sounds like the two actions happen at the same time, which doesn’t make sense. What’s going on with the no space between some paragraphs? Oh yay 200 words of worldbuilding. Who is the protagonist again…? Oh no, a rogue apostrophe! Two rogue apostrophes! Ffs and you’ve got extra full stops, and a missing full stop… Proof. Read. Your. poo poo. Blah blah blah something about spirit cages blah blah blah. Ok, final paragraph. That’s right, the protagonist is Clyde. Oh good, he’s worked something out and is now very happy. Jolly good. I wonder what sort of person Clyde was and whether this discovery, whatever it was, is going to make a difference to his life. I guess we’ll never know. 4/10 Dr. Kloctopussy - Cinderella...but with swords I lol’d. I liked the swords. I got confused at the part where her stepbrothers steal her swords, because I thought that was the actual fight, but then I realised it was before the fight. Adequately entertaining. 6.5/10
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May 19, 2021 01:11
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