I wasnt' planning on doing comments but then i said, what the hell, the doznes of other things I need to do can wait.
Flowersisme - Babel and the bladie blah: Wasn't going to do one of these, but I had to mention that I got a chuckle at people telling me this wasn't my strongest story because I often look back on my old stuff and my early challenge stories were
awful. Going to echo what Alucard said, we're all here to get better and no one starts out great. Except for Mike, or so I'm told
Ashes - Interview with a magician: I don't think your usual style really gelled with this story. The beginning was a bit hard to follow with you doing things like ”My editor, he said, Something something something" where it takes the reader a second take to really understand what the sentence was trying to do. This is one of those cases of the most interesting part of the story being tossed in the background, which I get is the point to some extent, but I really enjoyed the story and mystery behind the magician and it never goes anywhere outside of the personal internal thoughts of the MC. There were a lot of good bits, I particularly liked the dream sequence, the old couple dancing (and the MC later dancing himself), and even though I don't think it worked, i did like what you were trying with the ending.
Nitewulf - Always the Wrong Girl: I thought your dialogues was pretty good throughout. I really liked the D-Dawg bit and all the various cues and descriptions outside of that dialogue too. I'd think a bit about how you handle scene transitions because often they would come and I'd find them jarring and get a little lost. The roughest one was in the beginning by far with Libby. There were fun bits throughout (I liked ”the fucker" gag) I just got more than a little lost as to what was going on.
Frexifox - To Have and To Keep: Great start, but I don't think you really needed to begin with ”Do you love me?" It gives it a very needless inmediares kinda feeling that doesn't work because you don't return from their first meeting to that initial scene (technically we do, but you have a line break and it comes back at a really awkward point that doesn't benefit the story). That outburst of ”Me!" seems very sudden and out of character for Sam(He struck me as more quiet and reserved, less shouty shout) and I don't quite know if that's on purpose or not? Everly didn't really react to it as something surprising, so I don't know? By the end, I
really enjoyed this. I super love that their love wasn't pure enough, and the form of pure love Sam chose was to be a cat loved by a child. I think that is such a great way to end it. I also really loved how you can see Everly's unhealthy obsession in her narration without anyone outright calling her out on it.
Ward - Livewire: You got me to care about baseball and while it is one of the sports I kinda like, I still really hate most sports. So mad props to you for accomplishing the impossible. I think what I liked most about it was the concept; its a really interesting idea of what goes on in the mind of a sports player on the verge or retirement. You really sold me on his life and the fear that exists in not knowing which game is his last. I think the best part for me was the bit about building a gym.
LaMagenta - Albatrosses Curse: This is tough to judge for me as a story. It's very on point with its style and it really does feel like I'm listening to some sailors tell this story below a deck or something. It has a sort of ramblyness a lot of spoke stories tend to have. While it's engaging to me, there are a lot of names to keep track of in quick order. But that criticism comes with its own problem because that's very much in they style this story is going for, and actually the quick names and events does help it. That said, i did lose track of who's who near the midpoint. Just a lot of characters in this story doing a lot of things. By the end of this, I really loved the style, just wished I didn't lose track as to what was going on. Also small thing: If Cutthroat is superstitious, why kill the bird? Is there superstition about taunting birds?
Charade - A Journal from the Ruins of Yeniseysk: Welcome back Charade! Really strong returning story too! I wasn't feeling this at the start tbh. But that's fine because it mirrors the MC own descent into madness. It starts off innocent, if a little arrogant, and the general progression into murder for his science (I love how you never outright say it, though you come close) is very natural. I also love the symetry you have between your beginning and ending. There was also a lot of damn fine writing. It didn't resonate with me enough for first though for some reason? Maybe because we don't exactly know what the device is, or the set up downstairs? I don't know.
Dongs Macabre - refuel: Welcome to the writing challenges. Hope you stick around because this wasn't bad. I have two bits of general advice. One, try and begin lines with dialogue with the dialogue, and then break it up with an action or a chuckle or whatever (you only really needed to do that in the beginning though, the rest was fine), and second bit is feel free to experiment a bunch. Be super descriptive, be sparse, spread out your wings and find what style you have the most fun with. Some more specific stuff for your story: a lot of your MC's central motivations revolve around the invasion of Lishi, but we don't know anything about it outside of it has a yellow sky(which apparently isn't even normal there). Its tough to form an emotional attachment when we don't know about a place, and thus can't emphasize with the MC's motivations. You could try simply adding more descriptions of Lishi, telling stories about the MC's history in Lishi, or even have him do a little side adventure in Lishi to let us get an idea of what the people living there were like. Hope you keep writing!
CoffeeExpress - A New Hope: I'm giving you props for pushing this out. I know that can be super tough, but good job on persevering and finishing this up. I'll keep this light with one vital bit of advice. Breaking up your paragraphs with multiple bits of dialogue will do wonders for your readability. You've got good ideas in here, just, like you said, a bit messy.
Tangent - Personal Best: Kay so I started reading this after all the Black Mirror talk and holy crap the unintended parallels are astounding. Which is a good thing because Black Mirror is nothing but good ideas which means you're obviously a good idea person
I really loved how the technology here is used in an (awkward) date. I love how the conflict between her and the device and the device progressively freaking out more and more for not handling this date in the ”Optimal" way. I was smiling most of the way through (especially the chemistry bit, that part was delightful). I wasn't fond of your ending though. The score depletion seemed horrifyingly quick, and her attitude once it went below 80 felt like a total character flip.
Alucard - Ageless Wonders: You are proving to be very good at these fantasy romps. Everything in this was good, from the writing to the dialogue to the actions. I know I said this before, but your stories feel like good classic fantasy adventures. There were a couple things that did irk me though. It was very obvious how the stone worked to me, as the reader, the moment the necromancer started talking in riddles, and thus a little frustrating how it took the MC longer than me to figure out something as obvious as the stone taking life to extend it. Though i didn't realize it require two people to touch, or that specifically the younger one dies. That bit of detail was good, and I did like the necromancer suddenly killing her at the end.
Chodi - A Fools Errand: Like Alucard said, a lot of really good and clear action. Usually stuff that relies entirely on actions like your later half run the high risk of dragging but you did a really good job of avoiding it. Like everyone said, it's a shame you didn't have a chance to finish this, but hey sometimes we come up with eyes that don't fit into our rather tight word counts. I know I've been there.
Mike M - Mythos Down: Mike, this is all fine and dandy, but when are you going to answer Tangent's important question? Did you draw that sexy turtle or not? Anyways, the story: I feel like, even though you did a good job of introducing the ideas, you need a pretty familiar knowledge of Lovecraft to appreciate this. Without it, it is easy to get lost. I'm more than somewhat familiar with Lovecraft and even I got a bit lost in all of your lore and world building. When this started, I was not quite expecting Starship Troopers meets Lovecraft, but ya know? It kinda works? In a universe where humans are constantly at prey to the mere
sight of old gods, there is a weird satisfaction in blowing them to shit with the message ”We are not to be fucked with."
Cyan - Channeling: That brief description of Kiki's room is really strong. This is kind of weird, but this doesn't feel rushed at all, and because it doesn't feel rushed it feels very careful, and because it feels very careful, all of your dialogues and descriptions are landing a lot better than your recent stories. That said, still some hang ups. For example: even though their both students, why is Kiki explaining Aether exhaustion? Shouldn't Maya know about it? This is going to be a weird comment, but follow me for a second: I think this would work a lot better in first person. A lot of your narration is very personable to Maya ("Kiki's.... just trying to help.") and I think if it was in first person, then that would help put us into Maya's headspace even better and flow a lot smoother with your personable narrations. Just a thought.
Votes!!!:
1. Fexifox
2. Charade
3. Ward (It was a huge toss up between you and Charade)
Hm: Tangent. This was going to place my second (maybe even my first) but that ending really didn't work for me.
