oh hey, i didn't notice there's discussion threads right on the site now. das cool

Good luck to everyone, gonna be my first writeoff in forever.

This is the most Majin Syeekoh story I've ever read. Well-written and absurd and fun.

This is a really cool concept!

Yeah, no. I tried reading this, but the writing is probably the lowest quality I've seen so far, with lots of telly language and just incorrect, awkward construction. If the opener wasn't so poor, it might have been more forgivable, but I'm afraid I couldn't get very far into this story. I had trouble following what was going on, and the ideas and characters here didn't really grab me either. The dialogue, too, seemed really forced, crude, and just generally clunky.

For example:

The next evening, when he came back, she was gone.

“Fuck! Click that fucking switching you moron,” Gary screamed to the doctor. “It’s already past 260! He’s gonna die!”

“I DID!” the medic yelled back. “He should’ve pressed his switch and gone up. What’s wrong with him?” He looked at the screen. 270 and counting up. “Wait, what’s this? What the fuck is he doing?”

This just doesn't feel like actual dialogue. It feels like bad dialogue from a bad movie. And I can't even really tell what they're trying to say? Like, argh. I'm having trouble even engaging with the events of the story because of this.

Sorry I don't have a more complete review for you, but this generally just needs a hell of a lot of work.

So yeah, this story was mine. The red light in the inspirational prompt picture combined with an idea seed I'd had for a few weeks and manifested into this strange, meat-punk(?) setting that you see before you. It took me until like 14 hours before the deadline to figure out the best way to write it, wrote the whole thing in 7 hours, then went to sleep.

It was a lot of fun. I think this story might actually be the best thing I've ever written, but apparently it wasn't up people's alley based on the results.

>>RB
Re: Skye's origins, I intended for it to be read as "she was so young when she came to Viscera that she doesn't remember what the Outside is like" thereby implying that she might as well have been born there. I guess I could have just said she was born in the meat and it would have had the same effect and been less confusing.

Re: her age, I mention in the text that it's been about three decades. So she's around 30.

>>Ranmilia
This comment I really don't like. I was never attempting to make the whole monster thing "make sense". It's not meant to be a hard sci-fi story. It's more like a fantasy setting that's slightly sci-fi-ish, if anything. And I don't see how the backstory "subtracts from the absurdity"? It's literally a giant monster dying onto a continent. Yes, it's absurd, because that's essentially the point. But even then, yeah, I can get your point. Maybe if the Outside wasn't mentioned at all, I could embrace how weird it is further, and that was one angle I considered taking with it when planning it.

It's the second half of this comment that I don't get at all. You're asking me to "explain less" so I can preserve the feeling of an absurd "B-movie" setting, as you described it, but then the things you actually want me to explain are just kind of... not really that important? Or at least explaining them would just detract from what I was trying to do, in my mind.

Are the zombies trying to restart Viscera's heart and bringing her back to life?

Yes, quite obviously.

Is there some sort of sporelike infection going on, spreading to the protagonist through the tear in her suit?

I purposefully didn't explain that. Up to you.

How did her parents get involved with whatever's going on?

See above.

What exactly is the extent of human civilization in Viscera, where are the boundaries and maps, what's known and unknown?

Why do you want to know? If it was important I would have put it in there, but I'm not going to explain it in a story when I don't need to.

Has no one else ever made the obvious connection between patients raving about heartbeat-like sounds and maybe something happening with Viscera's heart?

Maybe? Maybe they went down to explore and ended up in the same situation. Maybe Skye's mother mentioning of it in the story is the only instance of it. Maybe most people just do what Skye's dad did and disappear without a word. In any case this seems kinda nitpicky. Draw your own conclusions.

What are the rest of the eggheads doing, does Ego have no oversight or what?

Draw your own conclusions. If what the other Brainers were doing specifically is important beyond what I mentioned/implied, I would have mentioned it.

Why does Skye restart the heart???

I can answer this, too. But I'm not fucking going to. Figure it out based on the story.

In general, though, I do think that I messed up by not providing more information behind the characters and their relationship that makes what they're doing feel impactful. So I'll accept the general gist of what you were getting at as valid, but the actual specific things you want me to explain are just... ???

>>Fenton

Sorry you couldn't figure it out.

>>Baal Bunny

They need the suits because the deeper parts of the body necessitate them. If you aren't going down into the thick of it, you don't need them. I figured that was implied.

And how does the monster's blood flow if its heart isn't beating?

Good question.

And how is it that in thirty years, no one's ever thought, "Hey, maybe we should find the monster's heart and keep an eye on it"?

Maybe they did.

>>Scramblers and Shadows

Thank you! I do agree that this story definitely could have been more. I'm definitely considering turning this into a novel, or something, just because I felt like I didn't do the setting justice in this piece. And as above, I do agree that I could have given more background and weight to the characters and their relationships.

>>AndrewRogue

You definitely have a point re: the pulling in different directions. There's one or two big changes I think I'd make to this story as-is, and then if I had more time to write a longer story, there's definitely a couple things I would have included to provide that sense of the setting that you might have missed out on. The zombies were functional, but yeah, I know a better way I could have handled them for when I ever return to writing a story in this setting again.

Really big fan of this story. The concept is interesting and makes sense, the characters are well-defined within a short wordcount. The writing quality is a tiny bit spotty – the hook isn't great and is a bit overly telly and the dialogue is a little dry in places – but when the writer hits his stride, the back-and-forth is fantastic and the narration is really great.

In particular this part:

She always liked it rough. She needed it rough. He would be aching in the morning, but everything else that came after was rewarding. She was a particularly tranquil soul in her afterglow. Sometimes, she would giggle beneath his touch. Sometimes, she would even purr under his tender caresses as he would chuckle under hers.

Sometimes, she wouldn’t.

Good stuff, writer.

This was cute and clever and strongly in-character. Creative way to tell a story with a short wordcount, nice use of formatting. Good stuff.

Tbh though, I think >>UndomeTinwe 's comment might have swayed this story's position in my rankings, 'cause fucking hell Mel you made me lose my shit.

I was a big fan of the writing here, very stylish. Maybe a little too stylish if anything, because it took me a second read-through to fully get to grips with the train of logic going on here. Excellent use of an unreliable narrator. There are probably parts in the narration I would cut/change for readability but otherwise this is very high on my slate. Kudos, author.

I agree with Fenton in that I'm not sure it's superb as a prompt for an OF round, but I think the art itself is lovely, and I love that it's upside down, as if you could "fall" down into space. I think it's really neat.

This is a really neat photo. Very appropriate, and I like the clothes and the spilled booze in the bottom corner.