Tara-taaaa.

So yeah this one was mine, and that was kind of obvious according to Cassius! Who also guessed me for No I'm Fine! So yeah, not that obvious, no matter what y'all say in the Writeoff Discord. Y'all more full of shit than me, AND THAT'S SAYING SOMETHING.

Anyway yeah no love this story. I was juggling two different stories for this prompt, because the whole thing about the glass mask ("It is a mask made out of glass. The point is not that it hides who you are. The point is that you are wearing it") made me think of an interpersonal drama sorta thing? But the whole idea also sounded gothic to me, and I'd been toying with writing something in that vein for a while.

So at like, 2am of the last day, I went 'aah fuck it just write both at the same time'. Bam. Seeing how I was going experimental already, I just threw everything at the story I'd been meaning to do for a while -- experiment with the narrative purposes of a chapter, as well as the aesthetic ones, this particular brand of perspective and framing device, a more extreme version of the "describe how things feel rather than how things look" thing... Just, just do everything at one. Fuck it.

Yeah this story is me firing on all cilinders and just having as much fun as possible. I genuinely like the story, though. I think it has heart! I'll keep working on it a bit and I might try to do something with it, because no kidding -- love it.

>>BlueChameleonVI >>Pascoite

Yeah, nobody liked this story. A lot of people in the Writeoff discord went 'oh god I hate this shit, it's my #1 but I don't like it'. CALL IT QUALITY.

I'm a bit surprised at how the ending wasn't clear? Pascoite got it right; Madeleine killed herself. Both because of the guilt of taking the only love Sylvia ever knew, and because that way, as the narrator says -- hey, maybe Sylvia will love her too. Fun for all the family.

That said -- the 'second person injections' were pretty much what >>Baal Bunny said. I wrote this while picturing simply a recording, and there's a voiceover of the main character now and then to gloss over the bits that take too long or are unneeded. I had a couple podcasts in mind while doing this; establishing that it's a recording a bit harder at the start would maybe make it clearer?

There are no dialogue tags per se, if you pick it up. There's never a "blahblah," Father Harrison says. There are injections, as in, the narrator interrupts dialogue to add a bit that is not seen in the recording -- mainly thoughts about who's talking or descriptions of body language.

(For the record -- I don't think "this should not be split into chapters because interviews aren't split into chapters" is totally fair? Seen a shitton of those, my man.)

Harley turning into Harvey is just me not knowing how to write -- that much is obvious I guess. Bleh.

Also like, the fucking lipstick. Which nobody got! And that's totally my fault. After posting it I picked up the main reason, I think? It was meant to be just another bit of surreal imagery. It's got no real plot significance, it's merely descriptive, to add to the air of weirdness. I mean, it has meaning, mind you, but it's all symbolic and shit?

Problem is, this is the only time the surreal imagery happens in-story, instead of being merely part of the narrator's monologue. It's diegetic symbolism, and that's why it looks so weird, while describing Sylvia's smile as wings spread against the back of a dead man is simply brushed off.

As per what it means, Father Harrison is portrayed in sensual imagery all through-out (he holds the cigarette like a lady and the smoke smells delicious! He's handsome! He's touching the main character constantly and eve hugs him!), to create a dichotomy both with himself (he's a priest, so sensuality shouldn't be associated to him) and against Sylvia, who through the whole story is explicitely described as disgusting, and the narrator almost has an episode trying to picture her fucking Gard.

So, lipstick. It implies that he's not fulfilling his vows and getting some action on the side -- and the fact that it's on his wrists evokes imagery of stigmata, and, like, holy stuff and all that. Only instead of blood, it's lipstick! I pictured it as kiss marks, but I didn't specify that, and that was another mistake -- it's clearer that way. Sensual stigmata, yes? Odd shit.

Him 'licking it' was just him kissing it back, really, only also coded to look like he's drinking blood. Blood of Christ, communion, you get me. Holy stuff and sex stuff mixed together so that they're one and the same. The fact that after he's licked it it looks like blood on his teeth is even more blatant, really.

So yeah that bit was just me not doing symbolism properly. There's nothing to "get", it's just adding to the oneiric idea of the whole story. Every character is flawed and has something going on 'n stuff. This is all very wanky, which is why I like it so much.


Also, gotta apologize to >>Pascoite here because the names mean absolutely nothing. I just went down a list of names from the Castlevania franchise to get a feel for gothic-sounding shit and then either mix-n-matched or made up shit that sounded right (Victor Monte in particular was all mine, 'cause I like how it sounds). Madeleine is only called Madeleine because I like how it's spelled 'Madeleine'. It looks like transliterated French! Hahah.

But yeah no that's you reading too much into it, mate. Names are random.


And I think that's it? That's all I've gotta say, right? Dunno if I missed anything. Uuuh.

The only other issue that might cause is that you're using a first-person narrator. That means this narrator is the one choosing to describe things this way. And this is very fancy language for a regular Joe to be using. I don't know anything about him yet. I don't know if this narrative style matches his personality. It may be a poor fit for him.

Well dang, double-daddy, literally the only thing you know of him is that he speaks like that. I've no idea why you would look at the character-establishing narration and immediately go "this is out of character". That's some assumin' there. It's very fancy for a regular Joe, so maybe he ain't a regular Joe, unno. His personality is his narrative style, on account on him being the narrator!

Originally I had like, more narrator shit going on -- HE EVEN HAD A NAME HOW CRAZY IS THAT -- but then I went, nah, that's fucking boring. What's interesting is everything else. Narrator is just there to narrate, and then the ending is caused by him, because you can't observe something gruesome without affecting it, or being affected by it.

Yaddah yaddah. Very wanky, I tell you. I'll try to edit this and sell it maybe. Would love that, though I unno if any publisher will see "me waxing poetic about how there's a hidden knife made of pearls hidden behind the lady's eyes" and not feel an overwhelming urge to shoot me in the spot.

>>Anon Y Mous

Dang. I feel like you secretly despise your fic not-so-deep down inside you.

You kidding? That story is the closest I can get to public masturbation -- I adore it. I was just CLEVERLY HIDING MY IDENTITY, ya see.

And yeah, I feel ya, furniture sucks -- but that's why I said that another option is to reframe the way we see the picture so there is no need for a background. The problem is that this picture both wants to have one and doesn't want to, which is why it sits in that odd middle ground, I think.

This is one of the few art entries this round that focuses more on the background and the environment than on the characters -- and it looks really good!

It goes well with the story, too; in there, the feeling of isolation and slowly drifting away and going mad is the main focus of the story (at least conceptually; tonally it's more about a snarky narrator) so focusing harder on everything but the characters makes sense in that regard.

Cool water, by the way! It looks super good, extremely pretty -- I like the waves and the highlights on the right. The way all these tones mix together is particularly eye-candy-ish. Funnily enough, the sky is not as detailed as the sea, but I like the color palette. I keep thinking some pink or orange might go well in there? Though it would look kind of more dusk-ish that way.

The characters look okay, though the one on the right has a bit of a weird-looking hair. Still, definitely, the highlight of this picture is the water, and it looks extremely good. That alone gets my thumbs up, man. Nice one.

This one's easy to analyze. Phew.

So here's literally another fanart-ish picture, as in, it's literally something that happened (?) in the story, and the artist here went aight, here's how it looked like. Bam. Fucking A. Which means I don't have to wax poetic about how this means that and the framing means blahblah melancholy blahblah abstract representation of whatever.

Nah. Straight face here. Figure A: Tiff. Figure B: Magpie. Bam. Next thing.

So this one looks good! The drawings are nice, you can read the expression of Magpie rather well, and Tiff has -- well, she has hair, which is all we can see, but it's well-drawn hair. There's a clear contrast in their respective color palettes that I like a lot; likewise, when you look at it well, you see Tiff has rather long eyelashes, which gives her figure a little bit more character and emphasizes that she's a girl, I suppose.

However, all the detail that went into the faces clearly didn't go into Tiff's armor, which is less an actual armor and more a series of random shapes that kinda represent the abstract idea of a leather armor. Her shoulder is also either dislocated or weird, I'm afraid, and doesn't really fit her position at all. Magpie looks a bit better in that regard, but that's because we barely see anything but her head and hair -- nice hair, too, although it looks a tad strange near her forehead; I see what you're going for and it looks nice, but if you look at it too hard it looks like it's way too close to her head, or there are bold patches somewhere that we don't see due to perspective.

That's a bit of nitpicking, to be honest. Background suggests a river and some grass, I'm assuming, since we're looking down; it might be that they're on a very tall hill and the blue thing is the sky. Doesn't really matter; it's not the focus and so it's literally out of focus, and that serves the picture well. Trying to have a more defined background would take away from the main point of the picture, I think, if it has such vibrant colors, so having a green-and-blue blob was the best choice here.

It's well-drawn! But yeah, some details are a bit wonky here and there. That's my main takeaway here.


A little detail, though -- I'm fairly sure this didn't happen in the story proper? As in, it didn't even happen off-screen. The whole kiss scene was unplanned, and Tiff made it up on the spot; the characters never got around to like, practicing it, which is I think what is going on in the pic.

That doesn't really affect the picture of its execution, though, it's just me wondering out loud. Overall, nice work, artist! I like the hair a lot.

This one is really, really cool!

I do sense a Tim Burtonesque style to the characters, which fits the story rather well -- it's a dark halloweenesque story with like, horror elements (even if mostly it's melancholic). But what I really like here are the expressions in the characters. Madeleine over there looks like a sad delicate little figure, and I really dig how she looks either sad, or hopeful, or just awkward and lonely and human and mostly just really sad.

Which is like, hey, exactly how she is in the story, so props for that. And then Sylvia over there sitting looking like she doesn't know what 'blinking' means, and being overall creepy. The shadow is also a great detail, and also really Burtonesque. The pic has a lot of character, a lot of style, and I dig it. It feels really, really nice to look at, and creepy in that cool sorta way.

Only problem I really see with the picture is that anything past the characters -- which again, I really dig -- is kind of bare bones; there's nothing in the room but the table and the teacup. Granted, I looked back at the story and we get literally no description of anything in there aside from the characters, and even then that is flimsy as shit, so there's not a lot to take from the source material in that regard.

Still, some more detail, or at least something more artsy to avoid it looking like they're standing in a completely empty room with a random table in there (dunno, keep the background dark or something, or change the framing so we only see the characters and the shadow or whatnot) would've made this look more complete. As it stays, this looks like a great draft for a picture that isn't finished yet because it lacks a background; mind you, I understand that one can only do so much with the given amount of time, but in that case maybe reframing how you approach the picture from the start so you can do more with less would be a good idea?

Anyway: great characters, but anything that's not the characters sorta takes away from the pic. Really digging Madeleine over there, though, and I like how much we can infer from these characters just from one single picture. Great job in there, Author.

Boy, this one's complicated.

Aight so -- this is three pictures; I'm assuming you took them yourself, Author, or you found them somewhere or yaddah yaddah doens't matter. It depicts two characters related to the story and also Jack Skellington.

Not really sure why Jack is there? Skellington, I mean. Didn't appear in the story that I remember, although I guess his name IS Jack, and he also has a pumpkin as a head -- so he's somewhat related to Jack Pumpkinhead in that regard.

I don't really have much to say about this because, plain and simple, I have no idea what comment I can make. If this is an arts n crafts sorta thing and you yourself made these things, Author, then shit -- that's a cool scarecrow. I like how the background of each photo is different and sorta follows the palette of the character, and I like how they're all framed or zoomed-in in a way that makes them all roughly the same size.

But there's no real meaning I can get from this other than 'Look! It's them!' And, I mean. Look! It's them! But that's as far as I go. Not to say that this is a bad picture or anything, just that I'm drawing blanks over here. It's a cool arts n crafts depiction of the characters, but there's not a whole lotta analysis one can make, I'm afraid.

More #silicon art! Miller is rolling in his grave.

So this one is, I'm assuming, more Photoshop stuff. Picture with some effects and then overlaid over something something then add Pint Hello Word which is a famous sentence yaddah yaddah, simple stuff.

The idea, though, is what I like about this. We've seen a lot of interpretations of the story this round because #silicon has proven itself to be popular with the artists. I've been picking up which pictures give away the twist of the story (sort of) and which ones don't; this one is funny because it does both at once.

As in, there are no humans in the story! And this picture portrays humans and machines both, but it obviously mostly represents computers passing themselves as human, which is exactly what happens in the story. There are no actual humans in this picture, but one gets the feeling that there are, so like, ya get me. Clever shit. This feels like the kind of thing that you look at before reading the story (but knowing the plot, say, because you read the blurb on the cover), and go 'ah-hah'. Then you read the story, come back to this, and oh hey shit that was some nice foreshadowing.

So, cool-ass idea there!

Composition-wise: this is simple and works damn well. I don't know if I have a lot to say about it. It looks good, and there's nothing I would change if I had like, unlimited artistic skills and also Photoshop in my computer. I think it's as fine as it can ever be as-is, and I like the imagery behind it.

The 'Hello World' sentence is kind of pointless, though. I get the significance, but the picture works perfectly fine without it. That said, composition-wise, it does look better if there's text over there; I wonder if having something lifted from the story proper, or just the title of the fic, would've felt more relevant.

But overall, I really like this! It's a pretty damn good representation of what happens in the story. It also works as foreshadowing for the story itself, which is a really nice detail. So, good job.

So this one's a rather literal representation of the story, which is nice! The masks are clearly well-drawn, and they have a lot of character. This is a very fanart-ish pic, in that it's simply illustrating something that happens in the story, rather than trying to abstractly represent the story itself, like some other pictures this round.

That said, while the artistry in here is pretty good -- as in, the drawing is nice, and the artist knows how to draw faces and the masks are all cool (the one on the left is my favorite) -- I think the way the picture is composed is kind of simple?

The weird colorblob space above and below the picture makes me think that the artist just drew the masks and then did the background to sorta fill the pic with something, but there's a clear disconnect between both elements, faces and background, and it all looks a bit half-done. The way the heads are arranged is also weird; they're just side to side with no real sense to their order or the way they're placed.

I think this story would benefit a lot from a little more thought put into how it all looks as a whole, rather than focusing solely on the individual masks. Having the heads in V formation or playing with perspective, for example. The bigger picture, pun intended, of it all, kinda. As it is, this is just five illustrations of 'I think this is how X mask looks' put together.

So, very well-drawn if we go bit by bit, but I do think as a whole this didn't have a lot of thought put into it. Mind you, I like how everything is drawn, it's just that -- yeh, I think pictures like Blood on a Snowy Field, which have less polish in every little detail, but more attention to the big picture, are overall more effective than illustrations like this one.

Really cool-looking masks, though, so that's that. Real cool job in there, author; I just think a bit more perspective on how to tackle the picture from the start would have benefitted it massively.

I directly mentioned this one on the Writeoff discord channel when the gallery came out, 'cause I find that it works pretty well as a book cover for the story. Which is pretty fun!

So I'm guessing this is like, Photoshop stuff over a photograph. The effect is simple but works -- I like the effect of the story itself being in the picture; it emphasizes the whole 'book cover' feel of it.

That said, not much I can add for the picture. Colors are nice, a purple palette and all, although I think the title gives it a cheap feel. It reminds me of those covers you see on Amazon sometimes -- and they don't always look like the cream of the crop, if ya get me.

I'm assuming this is supposed to represent one of the participants on the chat, and the fact that her face is blurred signifies the whole 'hidden identity' thing; the story is about finding who's human after all, so she's hiding something. Adding to the book-cover feel of it all is that, unlike any other pic made out of this story (I think), this one doesn't give away the twist, i.e., that there are no actual humans in the story. Rather, this cover shows the opposite.

So it's a lying cover, but more than that, it's a cover that doesn't spoil the story. Which, in the end, is what book covers should do, so I don't actually think that's bad -- kinda see it like a plus, honestly.

Not much else to say. Colors look nice, effects look nice, but I think the title takes away from it. Neat, overall, though!

The picture does a pretty good job of emulating a certain feeling -- despair, sort of. Desperation? Breaking down, a dude screaming to the heavens. It's all blurry and weird-looking, abstract-ish, to emphasize the emotion of the piece rather than the realism of it.

Thing is, as effective the piece is at emulating despair -- and it is! -- it also makes me wonder if it fits the story that well? No I'm Fine sorta emphasizes quiet distress and the idea of evading the problem that's eating you inside, it's precisely about not screaming, but rather being skittish and reassuring yourself that you're fine no really you're fine.

(Pun, uh, not intended).

It's a fundamentally different feeling, is what I'm going for. Like, I guess you can say that this picture emulates what's going in the heart of the main character of the story -- sure, he's ignoring the problem, but to ignore something you need to first be aware that it exists. So he's lying to himself, right, when he says he's fine. So the truth is that he is not, and in fact he's quite desperate!

Bit of a reach tho. Like yeah I can see the point, but the story's focus is not on how he's REALLY despairing; the subtlety of it all is that we focus exclusively on the lie that the character tells himself to then infer what's really going on. This story avoids that and just goes, fuck it, here's him screaming because he's so fucked.

And he should be screamin', yeh, 'cause he's totally fucked. But the pic, effective as it is at emulating a certain feeling, and well-drawn as it is with that goal in mind, to me kind of misses the point the story is trying to make, and focuses on the opposite. So, great pic, but I ain't sure if it's the best pic to go with the story itself.

This is a photograph! Of a weird place! I think I can safely assume that this time.

So the story is -- as the title puts it -- about a crystal palace; the photograph tries to emulate it by depicting something that reminds the viewer of that place.

This is a bit of a tricky one. The story talks about a palace made of glass and sunlight doing rainbows and shit when it goes through the walls; the picture is of a building that is clearly not of glass. Like, at all. But the lighting is weird, and you can sorta see where the author is going.

Because, yeah, when you look at this it sorta reminds you of the crystal palace. It's the way it's lit, and the color white, and the darkness all around it. There's an air to it that reminds me of the story, and you kinda default to this sorta image when reading descriptions of the place.

So good job in finding a real world place that looks nothing like what the fic talked about -- but still makes me go 'oh yeah I kinda see it actually!' Not a small feat!

I know fuck-all about photography, though. I think the composition is nice? Feels like there's a lot of wasted space, though. I wonder if zooming in a bit more, or finding a different angle would've created a better effect. It's also kinda blurry, too, which does give it a bit of a weird air. Part of the course when you're trying to emulate a fantastical environment with a real life photograph, but it does distract me a bit.

Yo hey. This one's pretty much the total opposite of the previous one in the gallery, even though they're from the same story. Nice!

At first it took me a moment to notice that the picture created a face, but once I saw it I understood what the artist was going for -- it's a pretty clever idea! The fic is full of nutty weird imagery, and while this is not taken literally from it, it's in the same spirit.

So the ravens create her eyes and the blood on the snow creates her lips, which I think is exactly how the story defines Sylvia's smile. The trees sorta form the contorn of her face? But this is supposed to both look like a face and be a literal scene in a snowy field, so mostly I'm assuming they're just trees and that's it.

I like the idea a lot, and it does give that weird-ass feeling the story reaches with the strangest descriptions, so I dig it. That said, the crows vary in size and detail a lot, which is a bit distracting? And the composition is nice, but the tree on the right looks significantly worse than the one on the left.

I don't know enough about abstract art to know if that should matter or not, though. Like, I could very well tell you that having the birds be more homogeneous would help make the picture look more polished -- but, would it?

I mean, ultimately what this picture is going for (I think -- I hope?) is less a literal, photorealistic depiction of a particular image, and more to evoke a feeling. Much like the story that inspired it. It's strange and has dark imagery, it's black against white against red, and it depicts a human face that looks disturbing even if it's recognizable, because it doesn't really register as human.

The story's kinda gruesome, and this pic imitates that same gothic/dark/gross feeling pretty well. So, fuck it. I don't think having the birds be more photorealistic and similar to each other in detail and size would've helped the picture that much; if you picture this as drawn in that style it gives a completely different feeling. This pic tries to do one thing and does it pretty well; that's all that matters.

Holy shit.

Right, see, here's when not being an artist severely harms me, because I have no idea how one would go about painting this. Is this drawn by hand, is this a photoraph with effects...?

Look, no clue. Looks dope as hell, though. Which is, ultimately, all that matters.

I'm not gonna go crazy here trying to assume which character the pic represents because I'm not exactly sure if that matters. The story is a rather melancholic, dark-edgy story about two women, and this one could be either one of them. Not really the point.

I like the feeling this gives a lot! It's very dark with only white to highlight the woman, and so she blends into the shadows whenever she's not directly hit by the light coming out the... is that a window? I don't think it is because the shadow of the woman is cast over it, so I doubt the light is coming from there. Then again, it does hit her neck from that direction, so...?

I don't know a lot about shading. Whatever.

So the main feeling I got from the story was that of melancholy. It's all very demure, very sad, very dark. Very 'what happened in the past' and heartbreak and shit. This piece has an air similar to that. Woman alone, darkness around her... I do read her expression as a smile if I don't look too hard at it (if you do that it sort of blurs out and you don't know what you're seeing anymore), so it doesn't feel overly sad, but it does feel lonely.

The imagery of the fic is very bleak, and I'm assuming this picture tries to go after that with the high contrast. I like it! It feels like something that could very well be the cover of it.

I'm afraid I don't have a lot to say about this. Composition is nice, and your eyes get drawn to the woman's face automatically; the use of black and white gives this a noir/somber feeling, and overall it's very visually pleasant. You can picture this being something that happens in the story itself. Good job!

I like how someone -- Miller? -- said over the Discord chat that #silicon would get no art because it was too hard to illustrate. I like to think every single fucking artist in the Writeoff saw that and took it as a PERSONAL CHALLENGE because by far #silicon has had the most art.

That aside -- I like this one! It's a rather literal interpretation of the story, no? A series of characters, and the only thing that differenciates them is how they talk and act, and the fact that they're all computers. So, a series of monitors with different pictures, and that's your cover art. Pretty damn representative of the story, really.

Not one to know a lot about art, sadly, so take these commens as coming from a novice -- but I like the composition of the piece? It's just two rows of identical monitors facing each other, but the detail of there being more off-camera that we don't see implies an infinite number of them.

It's pretty romantic! In a way the story isn't, actually. The story more plays with the whole who's human-who's machine dilemma, while this is pure machine, so it feels colder.

The shadows are a bit weird? There's shading on the ground but not on the screens themselves, and the perspective is kinda wonky too, because it's just the same monitor copypasted again and again.

But ultimately I think the piece works pretty well. It's kinda abstract in that I think it's not supposed to represent a literal row of monitors, but rather the idea of computers talking to each other -- this, I don't know, sense of futility to it all? In the end this doesn't matter, it's just monitors passing time and breaking each other. But they're not unique, aside from what is inside, and you can clearly just substitute one for the other on a whim.

It's a cold piece, in other words. Fits the story, though I do think it has a much more melancholic air than the story itself. That might be me reading too much into it? But, hey, I'm not an artist, so y'all have to do with me trying to interpret this as a story in purely visual form. That'll work.

Good job, author. I think this picture does a better job than the story itself at giving the story some emotional depth. Which is hard to do, when all you're looking at is a bunch of screens.

It's a little difficult to leave comments, sometimes -- especially when you look up and most of the things that were running through your mind while reading have already been said.

Because, yeh, I'm a little bit sorry here, Author, but I agree with the comments above. The characters need some fleshing out, you need to ground everything so we understand what is going on beforehand. Streamline the conflict and establish it properly, give every character a proper voice, what is up with them calling the principal by name, etc etc. Y'all have heard this before.

That said, a bit of a hopeful note: I have no idea if you're a newbie with a hell of an ambition or an experienced author who had to rush the story a bit, Author, but I can definitely see a lot of potential in here. Not necessarily in the story, but in the way you tackle scenes, or structure, or storytelling in general.

Which is a really good thing, is what I mean here -- sure, this story isn't the best this round, that's sadly a reality. But, this is also a story where you can clearly see the authorial intent, muddled as it is due to the execution.There are flaws but the flaws are mostly about polishing, about maybe having more time to flesh it out or a little more practice when it comes to the most practical side of writing.

But, the conflict? That's interesting. Lana is a go-getter, this creates a little bit of friction among her friends, even though she's not doing anything particularly harmful to anybody. Lily is the gossip girl and her relationship with Lana is weird. Kelsey is just sorta there but wants Lana to chill... there's a dynamic to explore there.

The way the story is structured, too -- Author, you clearly understand how hooks work, and the art of not revealing information unless it makes sense diegetically to create some organic mystery for the reader. At least conceptually; execution-wise the way in which we don't really know what the characters are talking about until so late in the story is not exactly smooth, but the idea is solid. Plant an abstract concept, explore relationships and characters, and slowly reveal what exactly the characters are dealing with once the reader is invested in them. That's a solid idea, and I can see it working very well, but it needs polish in here.

That's not the only example! There are bits and pieces all around that feel as if the author is aware why they should go there but doesn't exactly know how to make them fit. The sneak peek into Lana's daily life could be an exploration of her character and her surroundings, and also a clear way to establish that she's the main character -- it's just that as it stays it doesn't do enough to justify its inclusion in the story. The idea of the debate club being the place where the characters belong and shit like that is indeed very animesque (as Pascoite put it) but there's potential if you emphasize the idea of there being a sense of belonging, of teamwork and so on.

Like, the building blocks are all there, and if you rewrite this to make it clearer, give the characters more of a voice, and give the conflict a much stronger spotlight, this could be a very nice slice of life/coming to age story. The moral is interesting, because it says something that not many stories say -- mainly, ambition is good, and aiming for the best is great, but relax and stop to smell the roses now and then or else you'll alienate others around you; life is about balance. Shit like that.

So yeah. As it stays, the story is flawed, but don't be discouraged, Author. You clearly have a knack for this, you just need to polish a little more and know your priorities.

>>BlueChameleonVI

I think the issue is less fearing that you're a spambot and more the fact that right now, the Writeoff is going through a clear unbalance when it comes to stories submitted v. stories reviewed.

This is perfectly natural: we all have busy lives, reviewing a story and commenting takes time, and sometimes it can be a bit of a drag. But ultimately, a lower activity in the reviewing phase of the Writeoff is bad for the authors. It means less criticism, and a much lesser feeling of accomplishment -- we write because we want to be reviewed, not for the sake of it. The Writeoff is both a competition and a workshop.

The issue here then is that if you submit nine stories, you're hogging what little activity the Writeoff is having. A couple reviewers -- me included! -- tried to focus on the stories with three or less comments because it's legitimately unfair to see how others hog more attention than you when there's no real reason for it. It's not an issue of quality; some of the 'ignored' stories were actually some of the best ones in this round.

Adding to this is the fact that the ballot of each writer is randomized. If you write nine stories, that's eight slots in that random ballot that you're taking from other authors who might have only submitted one; you're taking votes from them, views from them, comments from them... Admitting that you do this, in part, because you like having more notifications is only proof of this, really. Those notifications are comments that don't go to the other participants.

If you want to submit more than one entry, by all means do so -- but then pull your weight. In all honesty: submitting nine stories, and then reviewing none, is a dick move. You're hogging attention and spamming the writeoff without adding your weight later. You significantly make the round worse for the less lucky writers. Again: Posh is a great example.

I don't think flash fiction is the best way to learn how to write. I think it's a way to hon skills that you get through practicing with more traditional stories -- but that's beside the point. What I'm saying is, there is something to talk about when it comes to the topic of submitting such a large number of entries, but I don't think it's your possible reputation as a spambot.

In other words: pull your weight. Review at least as many stories as you submit. Otherwise, plain and simple, It's not fair to other writers who don't have the time to write more than one entry, or who like to polish what they send so that it's as perfect as possible, instead of sending a number of entries and hoping for the best. This is making the Writeoff palpably less enjoyable for some, and I've heard people talking about seriously considering leaving the Writeoff for this kind of stuff.

I can and will both understand and defend your desire to get better, but you can't do that at the cost of other user's experiences, man.

Woo pulled out the hat trick. I officially own the Writeoff now. I'm the new Roger.

>>Dubs_Rewatcher
>>Hap

God FUCKING dammit, that meme reference was absolutely unintentional. I kept fiddling with that joke -- original was "Hahah, I'm going to die", but I thought it was a bit too dark for the Writeoff -- and I guess that I had the meme on the back of my head or something. I was absolutely not trying to reference anything, and it bothers me that I did so against my will. Mumble grumble.

>>Skywriter
It's a great story! It just kept bothering me why I wasn't liking it as much as I should, 'cause I dug the execution a lot but it kept nagging me. I was like, mulling over this while in the shower. Getting shampoo all over me eyes and shit, so focused I was.

>>Skywriter
I think the issue (for me, at least) was less that Celestia was re-imagined as something different, or rather portrayed in an alternative way, and more that this difference that you're setting up doesn't really hold up long-term?

As in, the genre of exploring the hidden depths of a character or set of characters during a given scene is as old as fanfic itself, and taken as that, this story's good. But the problem is that we have seen more of Cadance after the wedding, and this interpretation of her relationship to Celestia/her own princesshood doesn't really... mesh well with that?

Like, I read this and I went oh hey, that's a cool reimagining of what Cadance was feeling when all this shit went down. But then you try to place this Cadance in the rest of the show -- that time she visited Twilight, the whole Crystal Empire thigamagig, how she's raising her daughter, etcetera -- and you don't get anything different. There's no sense of irony, or tragedy, or relief, or anything. Like, to give a shitty but easy example: if she spent the entire fic here going 'golly gee gosh I sure fucking hate children I hope Celestia doesn't force me to have one' we would think of Flurry Heart and go ah-hah, see, that puts everything under a new light.

But as it stands this one only works if Cadance's story, canonically, only goes all the way up to the wedding. As far as that goes, this reinterpretation is neat. But seeing how Cadance is ingrained in the mind of the reader as a character who, in the future, will certainly do a series of things that seemingly have nothing to do with this hidden depth you gave her -- it all ends in this kind of '...okay? So what?'-ish sorta feeling.

Story was well-written and stuff, but yeah,I think it was less OOC regarding Celestia alone and more a lack of perceived purpose to the alternative interpretation of the characters and relationships, when put in perspective. This doesn't feel like it's the same universe as the show, because we can't follow the logic trail that brings us to seasons 3 to 8. And because we're already feeling a modicum of disconnect because of that, Celestia sticks out harder (and is easier and more intuitive to point out as the 'main problem').

Or, uh, unno. My two cents. Been thinking a while why this story feels off, case you can't tell.

I think the main thing with this story is that its execution is both its main point and its main setback, beause you have two options here: either risk breaking immersion by stating exactly what is going on, or be as natural as possible when writing the monologue and risk the reader not really getting what is going on.

Because this is a monologue in the end, really, just a stylistic one. For what is worth, I really like this approach -- I've seen many a dramatic monologue before, especially during minific rounds, and this one is adding something new to the table. The easy way out here would have been to simply have Daring Do/Yearling talk to herself and have that be the entire story, but this goes and play with the execution to give it some freshness.

I like that! It shows a desire to push this particular genre to new places, which is what it kinda needs, to be honest. Dramatic self-pity monologues are like peanut butter: by the seventh scoop, you can feel your windpipe crushing itself in self-defense. This story at least adds some jam.

(God, I hate peanut butter so much).

Anyway, yeah, that's the positive. I also appreciate that this lacks as-you-know-isms -- or rather, the ones it has are at least natural enough not to break immersion. Problem is that the story ends up being rather confusing because, yeah, that execution that I just praised prevents you from describing anything, Author, and I think the story suffers in the readability area because of it.

So what I got was that the entire first third is Yearling talking to herself after getting all the rejection letters. Then, she smashes the bottles of cider in a hissy fit and tries to fix the novel up, which is why she moves to the whiteboard. Everything in cursive is what she's writing down; everything not in cursive is still her inner monologue, or the metaphorical little devil sitting on her shoulder. Then she starts writing on the back of the rejection letters for the last third, and that's why she's suddenly writting four-line paragraphs. Through all this, she's just talking to herself, or letting her own depression/biggest fears/self-doubt trashtalk her and her work, while her more conscious self is actively trying to fix whatever problem she's facing.

That's what I understand, however. Note how apparently nobody else seems to think this -- unless I'm misreading her comment, >>Trick_Question interprets it as Daring Do literally writing everything on the whiteboard, and switching styles to reply to herself. Likewise, >>CoffeeMinion suspects that this might be a more literal split in personality and there's some magic artifact or whatever affecting Yearling/Daring Do.

All this shit to say -- it's kind of hard to know what's going on, which is ultimately the biggest problem with this story. I like it for what it is, and for what it's trying to be, but I also don't know how to fix the obvious problems.

The most obvious thing I'd do here would be to move this out of the minific restriction of 750 words, and then amplify it. Let it breathe, add some narration instead of having it be all internal monologue, and properly set the stage to clear up any confusion and clarify meaning. Fair's fair: trying to have Daring explain the situation to the reader more blatantly ("Oh, so you are writing the words on the whiteboard while talking to yourself, now? That is so weird", shit like that) would be so awkward you'd definitely lose more than you can gain.

But as it stays, it's undeniable this is a bit complicated to parse. So yeah, obvious advise is to actually turn this into a proper story without the dramatic monologue/epistolary form, and just have narration explain what's going on while Daring Do battles her demons.

Only, y'know, if you do that you sorta lose what makes this story special, which is its formatting. So I kinda wonder if that's the right choice? Because doing that defeats the purpose of trying to add novelty to the self-pitying monologue (I think I might be biased against that genre? I keep referring to it like that and it certainly sniffs of negative connotations, that name) and you just end up with a story where Daring Do goes through a crisis.

Also, this sort of thing is fine for a short story, but a long story might suffer from lack of content unless you double down on the style. That I'd like to see; a heavily-stylized 2k story that deals with something as simple as self-doubt and how trying to get shit done is a solution but it's hard to do it can be really interesting. It also sounds really hard, but hey, I'm just throwing a glove here, you pick it up if you want to.

Alternatively, add more shit to it so it fits a 1k-to-2k story structure a bit better. Don't fucking know what, though. I like the fact that she adds details about Daring Do's family -- which is also her own, by virtue of the book being autobiographical -- in such a cynic way. 'Add foreshadowing about the mother'. Maybe dwelling on that would create an interesting story: the way her parents affected her, the way she keeps using the things closest to her heart as two-dimensional characters for her books, the good ol' metaphor of the artist as a whore, selling themselves out for money, because what is art if not one's soul made physical? And what does it mean if you create art only to make a profit?

Etcetera, etcetera. There's a lot of potential here, is what I'm saying. So I find it interesting, n so on.

Ultimately: I think this story is good! I honestly don't think you can do better than this in 750 words. On if this should be 750 words to start with, I can't say -- that's the author's thing to decide. Adding more words would imply, by necessity, adding more things, and that might destroy the simplicity of it all, which some might argue that is the story's main asset.

Tell a simple story in a novel way: there's value in that. So, unno.

This one isn't in my ballot, but if it were, it would probably be top half. I think? If anything, for the lack of as-you-know-isms, because Jesus Christ, fuck those.



>>CoffeeMinion
Also, funnily enough, I think the structure of this story is the single most normal thing about it. Three arcs, clearly differenciated because there's a really big line break between all of them: internal struggle, battling it, and then defeating it. First it's just the monologue, then the whiteboard mumbojumbo, then writing on the back of the letters.

I'd say that's as traditional as you can get, and I appreciate how this is not just a rambling monologue, but an actual structured character arc with clear differenciation. I think you meant that the formatting is not that of a traditional story, rather.

Gah hah hah.

So, as I've been saying over in the Discord Chat, this story is absolutely a reference to Jorge Luis Borges' Libro de los Seres Imaginarios, which I guess in English is translated to Book of Imaginary Beasts. It's a book I actually own twice, and it was the first Borges book I ever read. It scared the shit out of me as a kid.

I'm so sure that this is a reference to that book, not so much for the title -- which is, like, a dead giveaway -- but for the structure, too. This is actually a very well put-together homage to that book, because what Borges does is to create a sort of dictionary of mythological beasts, all of them weird as hell, and explain them and their characteristics based on old legends and what pieces of literature accross the globe have said about them.

It reads exactly like this story, which is why I liked it so much. The idea of random facts about the Air Rays (as well as the way they're told) was the entire point of this thing.

Okay, I'm being a little bit fuzzy here, because I don't know if I'm squeeing over the book or over the story. This is gonna be a bit long, but hey, the author went and wrote a fic about the one book I'd marry if it were legally possible. They sorta deserve it.


Look, the quality of this story is hard to read. On the one hand, if it's supposed to simply be a "translation" of Borges to Equestria, with a completely new imaginary beast, then the story is impeccable. Details about how Air Rays are voracious based on a single line Gryphons say is a very Borges thing to do. The style is brought perfectly well, and on that basis alone, this story would be a perfect ten from my completely and utterly unbiased point of view.

However, if we take this as a story, things change a little. The thing about that book is that Borges made up the concept and created an entire dictionary you can look at random to read about some imaginary animals you'd probably never heard of (there's literally an entry that's just "an animal dreamed by Kafka", go figure) and then chuckle and go back to your business. It's a great book, don't get me wrong, but it's a weird one, and it definitely benefits from multiple entries.

Because when you have an entirely original concept and you play it out like that, the book actually becomes something extremely rewarding for the reader, based on novelty and ability to lose yourself alone. It's a strange kind of worldbuilding, so to speak. But that isn't exactly translated to this minific entry, even if it really does a good job in imitating Borges' style.

First of all, because it really doesn't do anything... new? With that? It's just an entry. It's also the single most basic interpretation of the picture you can think of, which does not exactly add points -- you literally went and wrote a dictionary entry of the title of that picture and submitted it. Sure, you went and chose the single best dictionary ever written, but it's still kind of dry.

This doesn't tell a story, is the thing. The book told a story because it was a series of entries; one, by itself, just sorta happens on its own. I like how it paints Air Rays, I love everything about this minific, but I also understand that this is not actually a story, it's, as Bachiavellian said, a random collection of facts about Air Rays.

That's in the end what the story wanted to be, and I get that -- so in that regard, well-done, Author. If you told me you wanted to post this in fimfic as part of a bigger anthology of imaginary animals, I would beg you to tell me so I can participate and write one or two entries too. But as it stands, this kind of thing needs a narrative to work; the readers don't know what they're supposed to expect, and it's easy to think this is leading up to something.


So tl;dr: this is a great homage to Borges, but that's all it is, really. It doesn't really add anything to that idea, it doesn't tell a story with the format, it doesn't particularly benefit from being a ponyfic... It's just doing exactly the same thing Borges did in 1981, but it lacks one of the things that made that book special -- mainly, the fact that it was a dictionary, that it was a SERIES of entries that built on each other to create an entire catalogue of stories and books.

This, alone, in the end is nothing but random tidbits that add up to nothing and are left floating. I'm glad this wasn't on my slate, because I would have had a really difficult time rating it. My first instinct is to immediately place it first, but analyzing it on its own? I don't know, it's a tricky one.

Fucking props on the writing and on the imagination it took to write shit like the Air Ray dying of heartbreak after witnessing the filly feeding a windroc, though. Those details I loved; it's just that this doesn't work as a single minific.

I'm not touching the 'Lol political correctness' thing because, look, I'm 100% sure it's just a joke and there's no real meaning behind it. I'm fairly sure the author didn't mean to, like, comment on the current state of language and the representation of minorities. They just saw that the picture had 'Daring Do and the Black Curse' as a title and went, heh. You can interpret that as racist if you want to. Hey there's a story there!

That said -- yeah, bit rude to the artist, mate. Unless you yourself are the artist? Otherwise, bro. Not that cool tbh.

Also, I love >>Miller Minus to death, but I disagree with:

But all that aside. If I look past the concept and the talking heads strategy, I see excellent dialogue. None of it is awkward or contrived or anything. It's a perfectly believable conversation, with even some fun quips, and with some more info about the body language of these two, it would be more engaging.

Sorry, author, but I think the dialogue is distinctly stilted, which is what got me out of the story. The most obvious, on-the-nose example of this is the fact that the characters keep repeating each other's names in ways that feel kind of awkward?

And like, I get why -- this is all-dialogue, so you do need to remind the readers who's talking. Problem is... Why not lose the talking heads, then? You legit lose more than you gain. The dialogue is awkward because of it, the lack of anything but the dialogue makes it feel stilted and unnatural, there's not enough quibble to really sell the thing as an interesting conversation per-se, and -- and I'm sorry that this happened cause, again, this was super probably an accident -- the topic and the way in which it's handled comes off as a bit... insensitive? Funnily enough?

So yeah, this didn't do it for me, Author. I feel kinda annoyed at myself for not really pointing out exactly why I find the dialogue stilted; it's a vague thing, and I'd need to really dig into this and find out the why. Don't really have enough time to come with specifics if I wanna read everything else in the little time I have -- but the names are a clear example.

My advice: lose the talking heads, maybe add some conflict (unno, regarding the use of pyramids or whatever), add some more description, make us care. The fact that both characters have the same voicing also makes it lose points IMO, because they really talk the same, and I have no idea what kind of character Red is. It's just a blank slate, and in a fic that's literally based on characters talking to each other, voicing is crucial.

>>Cassius
YEAH.

YOU TELL 'EM.

>>Monokeras

I suspect the choice you made was not fully innocent. Write about children is like writing about foals in pony rounds, it’s a good way to earn general appreciation.

Funnily enough, this didn't even cross my mind when writing. I was kinda lost and had no idea what to do with the prompt, so I just thought about something unwolfish that could howl in the night -- a kid -- and then I thought of some kind of story with a moral I liked that I could tell.

I kept going back to how as a kid I was scared of the dark, but when I was taking care of my little brother, who was ALSO scared of the dark, I would suddenly stop caring. So I just went, eh, fuck it, that's an idea. Not the most original, but I certainly was not expecting people to think that its main purpose was it being cute. I like writing children, so I just wrote that -- the cute factor was kind of an accident.

>>Dubs_Rewatcher

Yeah I pretty much agree with this. I posted this because why the fuck not, but I'm not super happy with this entry, I think it's really bland. I took it as an exercise -- tell an entire story in 750 words and make it so it doesn't feel like you're rushing -- and a way to practice a kind of voicing I enjoy. The plot and the idea behind the story are IMO nothing to write home about.

Thanks to those who liked it, tho. Y'all legit.

As for your title... I'm not seeing how it's related to the piece aside from that line at the end. Am I missing a deeper connection?

Nah you're not missing anything. I finished it, had no idea what to call it, and I just went for the first sentence I could find that sounded good. The title means nothing per se.

>>Baal Bunny
Shit that is actually pretty cute a concept, especially if it's mentioned at the start -- 'he didn't say Mommy, he said Mom, beause that sounded more grownup/that's what Dad called her' -- but then he slips back to 'Mommy' and the narration doesn't call attention to it.

Now I'm iffed I didn't think of that myself. Dang.

>>Haze
I agree that the ending is what makes the story; at the start it sounds a bit -- sorry, Author -- generic: woe is me, never enough, ain't life hard, etcetera.

But then it gets going, and the ending has sonority and it's not something I've seen before much. This story to me it's a clear example of "lower half of the ballot" (not on my slate, though, Author, so at least I ain't draggin you down, woohoo, we all win) because it has some ideas going on but i do think it needs polish yet to shine for real.

Structure is a bit wonky? The ending makes the story but it comes a bit late so it feels tacked on. This is a story in the form of abstract rambling, but precisely because of that you can't make it too rambly; as Haze said above, if the start is too wild and scattered, many might shrug it off.

I recommend sticking to one idea and developing it, and it alone -- give the story more thematic consistency. As it stays, in 750 words you mention dying, not being alone, not being enough, and thr poem. It's a bit scattered, as I said. I like the ending and the subtle tone switch it does, but I think what comes right before that needs to be a bit grounded.

>>Haze
>>aconcernedparent
I think the word you gotta use is not "gore" or "bloody" but more like "disturbing", IMO. "Grotesque". The story I honestly like a lot, but it IS an example of using disturbing imagery for the sake of a metaphor.

It's a bit of a fuzzy thing, to differenciate what counts as "too much" and what does not in these cases. It's about tone, I think, and focus, and details. This one isn't bloody, but it's super clear that the author was going for a visceral tone/imagery for the fic. Metaphorical, but it IS supposed to make you cringe, or flinch, or suck air through your teeth. It's supposed to disturb you. It's disturbing to make a point.

It makes the point well? But I guess it toes the line too much for it to work within the rules of the writeoff. I do think calling this more disturbing than a story where a lot of people die is not hypocritical, it's just taking tone into consideration. I'm sorry for the author cause being told you did what you wanted to do TOO WELL and that is somehow bad must suck, but -- take it as a compliment, I guess?

In a perfect world this would pass to finals cause on concept and execution alone it certainly deserves it. But, rules are rules, and this competition works within certain restrictions. Shame, but you can't shoot the messenger, especially when -- sad as it is -- the messenger has a point.

I do say, this is not gore. This is disturbing surrealism. Different beast altogether, but still not PG-13.