Some of this might be a bit short, Im pressed for time today.
Valhem: I think the last thing I read from you was some sort of Edgar Allen Poe-esque thing about a trio of men looting catacombs of artwork only to have things go awry? I recall thinking it was my favorite entry for that week, but youd gone like twice the word count and ate the DQ for it. It would have been my top pick if not for that. Now for this one
Im not familiar enough with Russian literature to pick up any obvious influences or inspirations. There wasnt a lot going on, which is understandable if this is the start of something longer. Subject matter wasnt really my thing, but what was there was written well enough to make me jealous.
xeris: The argument and observation about the use of flying/skies/birds in idioms and proverbs versus that of water and swimming was astute and interesting to chew over. But once you get beyond that factoid, it was pretty thin on substance. It was an interesting little vignette, though.
dangerbrynes: I think everyone else has covered the broad strokes of this one. The blocking of the action was good, but there were a bunch of technical issues. Page formatting, sentence structure, punctuation, verb tense changes, etc, all of which I would suggest addressing before we even talk about narrative. Not intended as a knock, but it needed some work to get into (dog)fighting shape.
Crunched: I liked the premise of this one, though the longer it went on it seemed to become less spirit of the deceased lives on in the life their passing fostered, and more Swamp Thing uses his plant powers to do shit. But what else could you have them do? Its a good idea, but is probably harder to execute once you put words to page than I would have anticipated going into it. I went for something high-concept this week too, though, and didnt turn out nearly so well.
Mike M: Like so many have pointed out, the central mystery of this story isnt something that could be answered in 2200 words. This was actually a premise I had written down as an idea for a book, which would certainly give it breathing room to explore everything. Only even in the case of it being a longer story, I still have no idea what the outcome is. Its just a cool idea that probably cant have a satisfying answer that can match what you can imagine, so I tried to play up the frustration to mixed results. I just had no way to end this, I rewrote the second half like three times with three completely different outcomes (originally I worked Agent Lee from the Status Quo in there, but it went nowhere). Still think its a cool idea.
Flowersisbritish: Again, Im late to the party on this one. I agree it needed an editing pass, and while youre doing better lately on the unusual similes, youve still got stuff like the little constellations slipping in there. I liked the delirious rants from the sister, but I started to fall off about when we got to the body of the father and the subsequent murder. That undermined things, somehow. The relationship between a brother and sister and their abusive parent gets pushed aside by gratuitous violence that wasnt really necessary when there were probably a whole host of ways that the ultimate outcome could have been reached. Oh, and getting in a physical description of someone by having them look at themselves in the mirror. Dont do that.
Tangent: My favorite part was when
Dandy Crocodile: Ah, yes, the afterlife-as-bureaucracy. This one never really took off for me (yuk yuk yuk), as it didnt seem that we ever really got past setting the stage. Okay, the guys died, and hes on a jetliner to the afterlife. Theres no real goals, motivation, or conflict, just some exposition (done through dialog instead of text dumping, so at least its got that going for it) that tees everything up for something more, but the swing never happens. Im just left with questions about what sort of budget constraints the afterlife would be subject to and why they would make use of a jet.
Ashes: Prefacing this with the fact that its a work of fiction sapped it of its potential impact. As a recalling of a chance encounter with someone in a bar that provided some measure of insight into certain matters, it would be interesting yarn that gives one pause to think. Knowing that it was cut from whole cloth rendered any profoundness its lessons may have imparted almost trite. It struck me as a naked emotional manipulation.
Cyan: I think the one thing that stuck out to me like a sore thumb is that the eagles attempted to get rid of the veil by themselves, and it was the bears that came up with the idea to work together immediately after. The structure of these sorts of things would usually have the bears attempting to accomplish it by themselves before the mutual realization that they need to work together. But its a minor nitpick.
Nezumi: Be careful what you wish for. Womp womp.
I'm sure that goes to show something or other.