This story is basically fine, and accomplishes what it wants to. But the ending twist isn't particularly shocking or new.

My bigger problem is more of a personal complaint: I found the attitude and perspective of the main character to be really boring. It's a certain kind of bitter/sarcastic/macho that I feel like I've seen so, so often before. Kind of the factory default of a character who's too cool to care about stuff, even in a life/death situation. That makes sense with the ending contextualization that perhaps pushes the impression over into the realm of 'sociopath' but... It's a character I immediately disliked, and that distanced me from actually caring at all about the story. Perhaps it works better for other readers.

I got a strong sense that the author had clear visions in their head for what was happening and who the characters were, but I found myself totally lost along the way.

It's hard to point to any one thing. At first I felt like this was my own fault in not understanding anything and getting constantly tripped up, though like the way Leroy is mentioned early on is much more like another student than the Principal. But even at the end, I just really am not sure what the story was actually about.

There's a lot of characters but I couldn't say precisely which each was, what their motivation would be. It's a sequence of things happening, and despite my best efforts I can't see the threads connecting anything. This very well might just be the result of writing something in a 3-day span, because I think the author knows what's intended, but it struggles to come across to me.

This is really quite good and compelling - the quickly established context left a mystery for the readers to also be working on as they progress through the story. Impressive usage of different voicing for different characters, too. I enjoyed it a lot.

Thanks, I hate it.

(This is a whole lot better than the gimmick would suggest, and I will probably rate it fairly highly but this isn't a story I wanted to read and I think I feel worse for having experienced it)

>>Cassius
"There's a moral here that has somewhat fallen out of favor in today's blithely positive society that shuns personal improvement and accountability."

I see. So spending years of your life becoming a brilliant physicist who does something truly, incredibly amazing doesn't involve any personal improvement or accountability. Good to know!

I think this is maybe another one of Horizon's examples where pieces of the story run completely counter what the author is trying to do. This whole story I found the 'pauper' character to be far more interesting, vibrant, and even happy than the 'princess' character, details about smell aside (because uh... a geeky t-shirt and frizzy hair are not exactly killer character flaws). I think there's an interesting story here, but it's actually the opposite of the one the author seems to be wanting to tell. Because from my perception of the interactions, the Princess is the one who seems kind of miserable and misanthropic; it feels like all the things she's doing to 'improve herself' and 'fit in' aren't making her a particularly fulfilled or satisfied person, they're just pushing her into the box that society expects her to conform to. Even in the little details--I have no doubt economics can be fascinating and fulfilling but without any further context it really feels like the major you pick for utility rather than interest. And 'this is why boys aren't interested in us' sounds like a super misguided way to frame your life around the wrong things.

So this is a story I wish was told from the Pauper's perspective, yes. And I also wish she'd tell the Princess to go fuck off, and instead have an awesome science adventure with people willing to value her for being herself.

(Given the minor points I cite, I am not totally convinced that the author wasn't trying to sneak in the message that the Princess is in the wrong, but if so, I don't think it came through exactly clearly enough. In a writeoff I think clarity is more important than subtlety)

>>Gba500
>Girlfriend

I liked this. I think the beginning is kind of florid in a way that the rest of the story isn't (and which the demon _really_ isn't) and so it feels a little tonally disjointed, but... as simple as your core plot turn is, I thought it hit home well. Which is a thing that a lot of other stories struggled to do.

Amusingly, I think this fic outsmarted itself.

I think you have the skeleton of a good story here, but the middle just gets very confusing very fast. I disagree with Monokeras in some ways... the problem is not that you have too much exposition, and I don't know that having a big fight scene is really the point. The thing is I still don't feel like I understand the basics of what's going on in one of these fights, and that's a problem. I think that's because it's hard to coherently describe the kind of fights you talk about, but sketching some more details would help. And the abrupt death of 1st protagonist is the worst part of it, coming out of nowhere it feels inexplicable rather than shocking.

If I were to try and write this idea, I would probably try to have the fight, and then use what's happening within the fight to explain how the fights work, having the exposition partitioned throughout rather than all coming before. But I just don't know that you can fit the complexity you're working with into a 750 word framework in a way that's elegant. In about double that word limit you'd be fine.

>>Foehn
I think you're missing the implication at the end that Ed (Person A) is planning on pouring the canteen into the machinery, ruining the project. I don't feel like I totally understand the details with the canteen - possibly that Father Brown is paying Ed to sabotage it too?

That gives this slightly more of an arc, but it still feels like it's missing impact. A lot of setup, not a lot of payoff.

I will further note that the story does give the senator's reason for the filibuster:

“Senators, I stand before you to filibuster the budget resolution for fiscal year twenty-seventeen. I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded coast to coast that our constitution is important, that the lives of American citizens are sacred, that no american should be killed by a done on american soil without first being charged with a crime. I do not oppose for the person, I oppose for the principle.”

I think this is somewhat ill-placed in terms of coming up before the reader has a handle on what's happening. And the issue in question is important but feels less tangible/resonant/connected to the current bugbears of political focus. But it's there.

This is a tough one. For the author, I would expect that this kind of feedback must be frustrating, because no one seems to be really on the right wavelength. Unfortunately, that's partly because of the story itself. I think you've got some things working at cross-purposes here - with the story's title being the most egregious and setting up for a totally different experience than what your story actually provides.

For those not in America or less familiar with the oddities of our politics, the filibuster is a procedural detail where a speaker in Congress can take the floor and begin speaking, in order to delay a crucial vote or other action. As long as they hold the floor, no other action can concurrently take place. There are limits to this - you must continue speaking, you cannot take a break to eat or use the restroom, etc. As such, outside of a few exceptional cases where there are time limits, it's primarily a symbolic action, a kind of protest by a minority political actor who cannot change the outcome of a decision, only delay it and draw attention to its perceived injustice.

As such, there's the core of something here, about a person fighting an ultimately doomed struggle, limited by their own body, against political forces that are enacting something evil. Unfortunately, a lot of those pieces don't actually come through well. It's clear this is inspired by recent political events, but this doesn't use those particularly well. I feel like the author held back, trying to keep this from being too partisanly political, when really that might have saved it. It's an interesting concept, but one that fails to connect. (and boy, again, the title is truly awful and misleading)

So, uh, I write all this to let the writer at least know someone out there is trying to get what you're going for. I know I've certainly written stories that have had some kind of central misfire and then been immensely frustrated when no one else can get past it to see what I was trying to do. (if I am correctly interpreting you at least)

In contrast to most of the other readers, this worked perfectly well for me. I enjoyed the experience throughout, and while the payoff isn't revelatory, it fits in with your overall tone. This feels like a slice of life or more laid-back story that still has perspective and an arc and proper flow. Thank you for writing it.

A brief note:

Upon reflection, I realize that some of my reviews this time have been pretty harsh or negative, and as an author, I realize this kind of feedback is sometimes difficult to deal with. I want to pair my criticisms with the other half of the picture: Every story I read this round I felt confident was written by a serious, competent author. This hasn't always been the case - sometimes it's clear that the writer is someone just starting out, or in a learning phase, or writing for their own fun rather than for a broader audience.

That wasn't the case here. All the stories - and perhaps most of all the stories that I came down hard on - demonstrated real promise. Often my complaints come in direct relation to that promise. There's nothing quite as disappointing as a story that's on the verge of being really strong, but fails in one or two fundamental ways, or as an author who clearly has the skills but makes character or plot decisions that go against my own sensibilities. Story problems are the nature of a competition that requires works to be written in the span of a few days. I know for a fact that every story I have written here has also possessed notable confusions, omissions, and outright flaws, each of which that people rightly noted in their reviews.

At this point, and given my impressions of the authors and the community here, I find it most valuable to give direct, undiluted feedback. Sometimes this is more helpful than other times - in particular, I don't always 'get' the story in the manner it's meant to be received. Monokeras and Blazzing's stories, for instance, both function much better in a fuller context than as a standalone writeoff story. So, I wish to sincerely express the hope that my comments have not been discouraging, and further remark on the overall high level of quality of authors that we have here. Thank you all for your stories - I would gladly read further works from any of you.

I had the absolute hardest time centering myself in this story. I kept rereading the beginning trying to figure things out, but the context hints threw me in all sorts of directions. Pickpockets, "merciless hagglers, the pleas of rag-wearing vagrants, and the shoves of over-privileged gentry," knives and revolvers to hold up an elaborate art auction - that all makes me think something Victorian. But mixed in you have electricity and modern conveniences. And then later there's monoculars and flash bombs and special contacts. And the candle fighting section and robes and all speaks to some kind of exotic or supernatural piece. I'm seriously lost in all this - even after reading the whole thing I only have the vaguest sense of your setting.

Don't be coy, particularly up front. Start with Jimmy reflecting on the job, make that clear that he's here for this sort of thing from the start, not buried in the middle of the story. Sometimes a little exposition is what a reader needs, particularly when you're basically doing exposition anyways, just scattered throughout. I do appreciate that you're much better in laying the groundwork for Jimmy wanting to leave, planting the seeds of Roy's callousness throughout. The end is by far the most effective element of the whole piece, and by that point I would totally be interested in where we're going from here. But then again, I don't really get any sense of what it is exactly that he's leaving either.

This could either be a reasonably sharp minific, extensively cutting and focusing on that kind of poignant end. Or it could be a nice start to something bigger, also with extensive cutting and rearranging some things so it's more comprehensible. In between the two, it unfortunately struggles.

This is super heavy-handed and yet I don't even know that I get any point at the end. AIs are bad, I guess?

There's nothing here that rises to challenge me or engage me. There's no sense of real world, no recognition of deeper implications of the rise of AI - the lack of need for lawyers is probably less because they can do the job and more because there's no more reason to have a legal system, I'd guess. Certainly the fact that there's universal basic income means politics is very very different from anything we've known. And god, why would anyone want to be a bureaucrat, when they could just not, and take money, and do whatever they want (including melting their brain I guess).

And on that crucial note, the device of 'perfect' books that practically hypnotize you feels incredibly shallow and alien. I suspect that I'm supposed to feel sad or regretful but it all feels so patently unrealistic that I almost find it funny instead? The protagonist certainly never seems to care. I wish this had been about Lacy instead; clearly there are people out there still writing books and going about their business being interesting characters. It definitely isn't the main character.

This is less of a story and more like the very very early stages of a thought experiment, with all the sophistication of your friend at the bar turning to say 'hey, what if computers could write books.' Clearly the author can write just fine, but this story seems like a spectacular misfire that grates against all of my sensibilities.

I kept feeling like this was taking place in a more modern setting than it actually does, but I think this is maybe more my fault than the author's. Still, particular parts (throwing a ball for the dog, sneaking him cookies under the table, owner's wife petting the neighbor's dog) feel a little anachronistic. In this context, unless the owner is rich (and if he's drowning a sack of kittens to not feed them, he's not; also what?? why not just let them run wild and eat the many presumable rats), it doesn't make sense for the dog to not have some functional purpose. A sense of that would be nice. Why not have the dog having helped hunt with his owner before? Or herding sheep (that he now wants to just eat)? All of the actual objects and window-dressing are medieval-ish, but the way the people interact with the dogs feels distinctly modern.

But you have a nice story arc that establishes information, builds upon it, and successfully pays off at the end. The central conceit is rather clever, too, once that's made clear. (Though the section discussing the 'Ersatzwolf' nameis maybe sliiightly too subtle - I didn't get the point until a reread) I think it would only take a marginal amount of rewording to improve this significantly, preventing me or readers like me from getting pulled out of the flow.

Is snow really that cold? I think you're really overstating the pain and terror from catching a snowflake, or else it's something way different than any other snowflake I've ever seen.

I'll disagree with CiG: I found the ending to work somewhat better but the interaction with the farmers to be a little stilted in a way that didn't seem to accomplish much for me. (The last line in particular though does kill it)

The problem for me is there's a lot of setup here though that doesn't actually seem to meaningfully pay off. The cloak is great... but what's the point? I don't really feel like I know the point of any of this at all, other than a look at humans adapted to living on a weird planet. And did the only living to be 30 actually come into play anywhere other than the exposition at the end? It doesn't necessarily strike me that a society of this sort in a harsh environment would have people living for ages even on Earth.

Rimis himself basically meanders through a day; if there was more going on, if he had some kind of compelling problem or stakes (perhaps if he really cared about the Dragon Cloak and was struggling to properly mend it), the turn to winter at the end might actually mean something - make it more clear that things are changing in a big way that's really going to make a difference and prevent him from accomplishing his goals, perhaps. I think that's what this story is missing.

At first, from the very beginning paragraphs I suddenly wondered if this was going to be SunsetShimmerxTwilightSparkle shipping but twisted around and genderbent to file the serial numbers off. And I was kind of really into that?

I think your symbolic names works; the floating perspective totally doesn't. I think you need to more carefully consider how you're doing that, because it just comes off as super confused and confusing until the point where the narrator explicitly says they've been trying to get into Jack's head. I also find both of them to be a little too toxic; I feel like there needs to be a better way to get at why they wind up getting close, and maybe more extension of that friendship so it feels meaningful. And part of that... the very ending felt particularly problematic and overdramatic - in part because I don't think the friendship got filled out enough, and the relationship with Ruby did either. It needs to feel like a really, really, really big betrayal to justify that level of immediate intensification.

But, uh: the subtext here is that Sol is gay for Jack, right? Like that's the only thing that really makes sense and makes this compelling to me. (As an aside, I think the paragraph about winning at the very end detracts from this understanding, but... hm.)

I don't know quite what to say. I think in some ways this is a total mess, but it also captured my attention in a huge way, even though I distinctly hated parts as I went (possibly the ending most of all). Yet the fact that you are in fact generating emotion indicates you're doing something right.

I feel like this story falls just short at the finish line. I had to think about it a long time and talk with someone else briefly to really feel certain about the ending, which I don't think is the author's intention.

What actually happened is something along these lines, right?: Ezekiel cast the list with all his grudges for the tomb. Then his sons fought over the privilege to keep it polished (and weren't necessarily nice people themselves) but in essence polished the words right off the slab. Finally, the grandkids, who had begun to work together and be reasonable human beings, realized what had happened, but also realized that it was better to leave those things gone. And now it serves as an object lesson for the family.

It's a difficult thing to present this backstory in an incremental way while remaining compelling, but I think you're just slightly too subtle for me in sections of that. Not everything seems to be pulling in the same direction thematically as well - in particular the reference to the father struck me as really distracting. He's a rich guy trying to bring an oil well to a poor, developing country to 'help the people,' but is blown up by 'criminals'? That seems... really complicated, if not outright problematic, and immediately caused me to start seeing the main characters' implicit acceptance of such a simple narrative to indicate a certain kind of privilege or obliviousness that the rest of the moral is trying to undercut. It just feels a little too complicated to all fit in.

I think you've got some interesting thoughts here, and a compelling central device as a parable, but this if anything suffers from being too long, with a lot of scene-setting and less important elements that muddy the main thrust of the message.

Heh. 'Story version of a fun D&D campaign' usually signals 'not particularly interesting' to me.

Fortunately, this story rose above that. I don't know that I was ever hit with a big 'wow' moment, but I appreciated the sense of purpose, clear stakes, deliberate construction of characters, etc. There's an arc, there's a challenge that's overcome, connected with growth/change in a relationship between the major figures, it's nice! I think you could have done a little more with the lord and his appreciative people - I really liked that element, and it was the one part of the 'job' that was otherwise kind of perfunctory.

As one potential suggestion: why have the ghost be so transparent (no pun intended) and thoroughly described in exposition? I think you could have the potential to develop the theme of honor and responsibility to your people better. What if the ghost's nature is only revealed as it arrives, more directly causing the Lord to reckon with the past of his ancestors, and reevaluate his rigidity of honor? As it is, the ghost is literally a 'boss' who's there to show up and then get defeated after a tough battle. Granted, I don't know if you can do any of this without compromising the clarity and effectiveness of your central story. That's always the hard thing.

As it is, this is still pretty highly ranked for me, as it coheres better than much of the others I've read thusfar.

The author here has a surplus of imagination and a flair for gritty description. It's unfortunate that the result is pretty incomprehensible.

I'm sure the major observation is not unexpected: this isn't a story. It's maybe the first chapter of a story (or honestly, a better second chapter; I don't think there's any particularly graceful transition for the reader into the amount of sci-fantasy jargon that this story is loaded with). But even beyond that, there's a lot of characters and a lot of action but everyone's motives are completely opaque. I can't get a foothold anywhere. The middle scene with Barr is particularly egregious. Even for a character that the author might be wanting the audience to hate, I don't think you want me hating them in this kind of way (I.E. nails on a chalkboard, please just have them fall down a hole and never return).

I realize I'm being quite harsh here, particularly since there's a strong sense of style and a generally solid (if inconsistent) tone. But even in the context of a larger story, I think you need to reconsider how to structure your plot and introduce your characters in ways that are relatable, or at least tolerable. In the span of 5,000 words, I should ideally have a sense of what's going on, what the stakes are, who the actors are. Instead this is just a succession of vividly shocking but empty moments.

This is pretty alright!

I think the ambiguity of text doesn't quite pull as much weight as you would like it to, when it comes to the abominations. I get that they're supposed to be indescribable, but I didn't understand quite how horrible or aberrant until much later on in the story. As such, the main character fleeing seemed just patently callous, rather than understandable. And his emotional turnaround also seemed to come a little too fast. Finally, the actual plot of the story is fairly rote; I was never particularly surprised, outside of the appearance of the parents, and even that was built up so much that I expected it to be... more.

But you've got a good core here, and you accomplish the goals of the story in a consistent manner. I appreciate that! If you did some work on either the pacing & details of the parents arriving/flight afterwards, a lot more might fall into place.

Boy, this is another thing that seems fine, even generally well-written, but absolutely not for me.

There's so much detail here, but... Very little happens. And not just in the sense that this is a slice of life. I mean the first hint we have of what conflict/theme you're interested in comes... 1700 words into the story? This story's hook isn't just dull or buried a little. It's melted away in the core of the earth. By the time I feel like I'm supposed to be getting important things, my eyes are skimming the paragraphs. It doesn't help as well that the perspective is floating pretty freely from concrete things that Peter's doing, to his reflections, to exposition about his past, leaving me unanchored into the scenes.

I felt very disappointed here: the author clearly has skill, but they also seem unconcerned that they are (inadvertently) wasting my time.

This is genuinely excellent, albeit very heavy. The level of detail and specificity completely works and never feels awkward or inaccurate. I don't think there's anything I would change--top of my slate, thus far.

I'm of very mixed feelings on this story. There's a lot of work put in, and there's also some strong turns of phrase and a fairly propulsive plot, but nothing hangs together right.

Most crucially, the characters drove me crazy--they're such a collection of crudely drawn outlines filled in with smarmy tics that it makes the experience of reading insufferable. (And not only Sam; Alan is just as bad in a different way. The other characters-Evie, Sarah, Norton-are just cutouts for plot purposes) Mainly, no one ever feels like a real person-a guy like Sam would really be into Pokemon Go? Alan would really make any of the decisions he makes? That's part of it, too: I feel like the story wants me to sympathize with Alan but he is also a selfish dick, even if it's hard see that when he's in the orbit of the blazing sun of dickishness that Sam is. If the story had risen to the level of farce, all this might have worked, but the bedroom scene and the saxophone bit didn't pay off in any satisfying way.

I wish I knew how to offer constructive advice: I can see lots of pieces here, and some of the individual bits of writing are great, but they all add up to a story that left me completely cold. Still, humor is subjective, so perhaps this strikes others better than it did me.

Huh, a Westworld fanfic?

In many ways, this is perfectly functional, and has some nice touches (the laugh, for one, and the face polymorphism that you set up early and then utilize in your twist). It's those that elevate a kind of weak plot concept, but you also are hurt by the fact that this is basically all exposition. And it's all exposition that on the surface says 'nothing's gone wrong,' which to a reader says 'everything's about to go pear-shaped.' And then it does. And the androids that the Director was worried about killing everyone end up killing everyone. That's where it really falls apart for me. Plus, I was expecting some element of the Chatty Kathy nature to come through in what happens, maybe treating the people like toddlers in some horrifying way, but it's fairly generic death.

This wouldn't be as objectionable except literally the only things that happen in the story (as opposed to just being discussed) are in the final paragraphs. If the twist was particularly original, it'd cover for that. But it's not, and there's no satisfying sense of action or character that would create an alternate reason for it to be compelling. I'm not sure exactly what to recommend. If you focused more on Tracy doing things, rather than talking about having done them, maybe that would help. Particularly as it'd allow you the room to have a slow burn of tension as the Cathy grows more ambiguously motivated. But then, that's sort of a different story, too.