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Closing Time
The red herrings leap asleep upstream of consciousness, cherry-silver scales gleamdreaming in the crystal waters. But Moss only flounders, swimswumming in the depths to keep head in air, splashing towards a shore that he banked on being in breach. Disregard his daring, he needs those herring for his darling, regarding the porpoise for which he was spent.
Dry land! To stand in sand that clung to coat no longer afloat, Moss tosses aside the river. Pushes past the ghast, a skeleton in fleshly disguise. Those eyes. He's never seen a dead stallion still alive and falling, but is this fellingon a skellow or a shadow? She said to beware and wary he is, aworry of the fields he strides, the stream arising behind to see the moon in bloom and—
--I can do it-- he promises without blemishes, pushes on to his goal but the sleeper slips somber. Wonder why? Tender memories or fearful fantasies, Moss misses the door but adores the missus mysterious. Serious or delirious, the fields feel fallow, shallower than the water but wetter than the wisdom he wants.
Moss cannot retreat a inch in changing niche to herd the figment fragments. Itching edges that puzzle into form, he trained for this in months amidst the shadows and slippery spirals of entanglement dangerously devoid of sense, fracturing fractals of fragmentary psychosis, flowing unflinchingly—
Moon.
Field.
Skeleton.
Stream.
Moss moves in tune with the mood of the mind, but the mystery remains. He is lost or the fish misplaced his keys. Isn't that always the ways? Skellington concurs. But are they concealed afield or seem astream? Bone's help is none, and hesitates is lost, self as much as stealth will allow. But if the keys are lost and he's are lost then together they found a new song, strong and long and—
Moss almost misses it again.
He has the keys. He ribs the jack for his empty stomach and lone bone gone is the skeleton key, of course. Such a sucker, remora's remorse for fairly failing to understand when this is foal's play for one with his goals. If only the fool was a foal, then this confusion would be conducing delusion. Instead a melange de trois of claws to give pause, leopard spotted but no door in sight.
Hello herring. Laughter brines from Moss's mouth. South to water, fish in fashion fulfills. Stand on the land, and salmon surround, but Moss lunges, plunges in the piscine stream. His key fits fittingly in the clique of lox, outfoxed. To open, a totem of things found in sea not ground, hoping to fall through them all. He's there, the big D.
...
A room of gloom.
The chaos swirls contained outside the circle.
Moss is on familiar ground, and in the center the certain sleeper he seeks.
--Discord-- he says --it's time to wake up--
Dry land! To stand in sand that clung to coat no longer afloat, Moss tosses aside the river. Pushes past the ghast, a skeleton in fleshly disguise. Those eyes. He's never seen a dead stallion still alive and falling, but is this fellingon a skellow or a shadow? She said to beware and wary he is, aworry of the fields he strides, the stream arising behind to see the moon in bloom and—
it's too dangerous. i should have done this myself
--I can do it-- he promises without blemishes, pushes on to his goal but the sleeper slips somber. Wonder why? Tender memories or fearful fantasies, Moss misses the door but adores the missus mysterious. Serious or delirious, the fields feel fallow, shallower than the water but wetter than the wisdom he wants.
you're losing yourself. come back while you still can
Moss cannot retreat a inch in changing niche to herd the figment fragments. Itching edges that puzzle into form, he trained for this in months amidst the shadows and slippery spirals of entanglement dangerously devoid of sense, fracturing fractals of fragmentary psychosis, flowing unflinchingly—
focus. remember what you've learned
Moon.
Field.
Skeleton.
Stream.
Moss moves in tune with the mood of the mind, but the mystery remains. He is lost or the fish misplaced his keys. Isn't that always the ways? Skellington concurs. But are they concealed afield or seem astream? Bone's help is none, and hesitates is lost, self as much as stealth will allow. But if the keys are lost and he's are lost then together they found a new song, strong and long and—
in front of you
Moss almost misses it again.
He has the keys. He ribs the jack for his empty stomach and lone bone gone is the skeleton key, of course. Such a sucker, remora's remorse for fairly failing to understand when this is foal's play for one with his goals. If only the fool was a foal, then this confusion would be conducing delusion. Instead a melange de trois of claws to give pause, leopard spotted but no door in sight.
Hello herring. Laughter brines from Moss's mouth. South to water, fish in fashion fulfills. Stand on the land, and salmon surround, but Moss lunges, plunges in the piscine stream. His key fits fittingly in the clique of lox, outfoxed. To open, a totem of things found in sea not ground, hoping to fall through them all. He's there, the big D.
...
A room of gloom.
The chaos swirls contained outside the circle.
Moss is on familiar ground, and in the center the certain sleeper he seeks.
--Discord-- he says --it's time to wake up--
I have no idea what I just read.
Obviously, it's something relating to Discord, and I like the atmosphere of chaos in that regard. This would be a good way to represent his inner monologue in some story! Is this, here, a story, though? I... don't know. Is "Moss" another character? Is this referencing some specific events in the show or fandom? (If so, there's no way I'm getting it, so be it.)
Being in a pony mini round, unfortunately, may be hurting this, because I just can't justify taking an hour to try and puzzle out everything in this one entry and try and figure out whether it's deeply meaningful layered encoded puzzle-story, or just fluffy nonsense Discordism. Too many other entries waiting.
I enjoyed the language, twas a fun ride. Couldn't get into the story, or even figure out if there was one, though. Possibly I'll revisit this later. Thanks for writing though!
Obviously, it's something relating to Discord, and I like the atmosphere of chaos in that regard. This would be a good way to represent his inner monologue in some story! Is this, here, a story, though? I... don't know. Is "Moss" another character? Is this referencing some specific events in the show or fandom? (If so, there's no way I'm getting it, so be it.)
Being in a pony mini round, unfortunately, may be hurting this, because I just can't justify taking an hour to try and puzzle out everything in this one entry and try and figure out whether it's deeply meaningful layered encoded puzzle-story, or just fluffy nonsense Discordism. Too many other entries waiting.
I enjoyed the language, twas a fun ride. Couldn't get into the story, or even figure out if there was one, though. Possibly I'll revisit this later. Thanks for writing though!
Not being able to type is really annoying me today. I would like to write a longer a post on why this almost works for me, but I can't.
Dictation software it is!
Long story short, I had trouble with the narration in this one, because it seems to be moving between easy to read and difficult to read too quickly. The alliteration in particular gives this prose a form of flow, almost, that seems like it should streamline everything, but only ends up making me trip harder when I run across words like "swimswumming" or "porpoise". Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the pacing of your sentences is actually lumpy - some ideas are spread smoothly out across several words, while others attempts to pack multiple ideas into one word. As such, I keep stumbling from one mode of thought to the other, and it was giving me problems as I read.
Moreover, the form-over-function style that this work seems to take is obscuring the action going on behind the words. I have some idea that this is about releasing Discord from some sort of prison, but I can't actually say for sure if that's really the case.
I've never been much for pretty prose for its own sake, and the plot behind it is sparse enough it's not holding my attention on its own. As such, I really didn't find this one particularly immersive, although there's definitely some skill and effort put into the wordsmithing.
Thank you for writing!
Dictation software it is!
Long story short, I had trouble with the narration in this one, because it seems to be moving between easy to read and difficult to read too quickly. The alliteration in particular gives this prose a form of flow, almost, that seems like it should streamline everything, but only ends up making me trip harder when I run across words like "swimswumming" or "porpoise". Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the pacing of your sentences is actually lumpy - some ideas are spread smoothly out across several words, while others attempts to pack multiple ideas into one word. As such, I keep stumbling from one mode of thought to the other, and it was giving me problems as I read.
Moreover, the form-over-function style that this work seems to take is obscuring the action going on behind the words. I have some idea that this is about releasing Discord from some sort of prison, but I can't actually say for sure if that's really the case.
I've never been much for pretty prose for its own sake, and the plot behind it is sparse enough it's not holding my attention on its own. As such, I really didn't find this one particularly immersive, although there's definitely some skill and effort put into the wordsmithing.
Thank you for writing!
Didn't I just ramble about the Writeoff being unfair to more complex pieces?
The prose reads super well and is fun to read at a visceral level, but when I compare to something like Pinkamena's Wake where I also got some immediate enjoyment out of the actual narrative, this feels lacking. Not to say that this doesn't necessarily have a compelling narrative, it just lacks a compelling narrative that is accessible to me in the period of time which I've allotted myself to deal with this particular fic at this time.
The prose reads super well and is fun to read at a visceral level, but when I compare to something like Pinkamena's Wake where I also got some immediate enjoyment out of the actual narrative, this feels lacking. Not to say that this doesn't necessarily have a compelling narrative, it just lacks a compelling narrative that is accessible to me in the period of time which I've allotted myself to deal with this particular fic at this time.
Genre: Crossover where Moss from The I.T. Crowd takes hallucinogens with Discord and has a bad trip?
Thoughts: At first blush this looks like Pinkamena's Wake II: Electric Scootaloo, but the center-aligned lines give it a creepy, almost horror vibe, which could serve as a strong differentiator. The problem (at least for me) is that I can't puzzle out the meaning of it all. The story seems to fixate on "Moss" but I'll be darned if I know what it's talking about there. I want to know! Ideally the obscurity of the narrative should help by giving us a whirl of mental images to accompany the story, whereas right now it doesn't coalesce into a meaningful part of the story.
I hate to not reward the creativity that went into this, though. I very much think there's untapped potential in this one.
Tier: Needs Work
Thoughts: At first blush this looks like Pinkamena's Wake II: Electric Scootaloo, but the center-aligned lines give it a creepy, almost horror vibe, which could serve as a strong differentiator. The problem (at least for me) is that I can't puzzle out the meaning of it all. The story seems to fixate on "Moss" but I'll be darned if I know what it's talking about there. I want to know! Ideally the obscurity of the narrative should help by giving us a whirl of mental images to accompany the story, whereas right now it doesn't coalesce into a meaningful part of the story.
I hate to not reward the creativity that went into this, though. I very much think there's untapped potential in this one.
Tier: Needs Work
I enjoyed the prose. It had a strong style, and I'll bet it would sound good spoken aloud.
Discord was an appropriate entity to have such a fraught dream. I liked the repeated motif, though I never saw any deeper meaning to them; if they had any symbolism, I missed it.
In general, the writing was nice, and it showed a kind of neat journey, but I never understood the reason for waking him up. If I knew that, then the rest of the story would have more meaning.
Discord was an appropriate entity to have such a fraught dream. I liked the repeated motif, though I never saw any deeper meaning to them; if they had any symbolism, I missed it.
In general, the writing was nice, and it showed a kind of neat journey, but I never understood the reason for waking him up. If I knew that, then the rest of the story would have more meaning.
Great stuff. I'm not aware of whether this follows a particular author's style or not, but I recently (for experimentation with depression) tested edible marijuana with Morning Sun and had WAY too much. The experience was almost precisely like this read, getting lost in thoughts forming eddies that made it difficult to progress from one point to the next (talking was almost impossible). (It was still nothing compared to ketamine.)
Anyhoo, the only part of this that seems lacking to me is the identification of Moss, the warning female, and the stallion-figure. It reads to me as though somepony is trying to wake Discord and has to travel through his dreams to do it, but it isn't clear when this is happening relative to the times Discord has awoken in the show. I need a more to go on at the end to have a sense of whom I'm rooting for, and that feels like a flaw in a slain sane word-waning broad bird brushstroke, imbued and viewed in this nude joke review. :trollestia-bestia:
Anyhoo, the only part of this that seems lacking to me is the identification of Moss, the warning female, and the stallion-figure. It reads to me as though somepony is trying to wake Discord and has to travel through his dreams to do it, but it isn't clear when this is happening relative to the times Discord has awoken in the show. I need a more to go on at the end to have a sense of whom I'm rooting for, and that feels like a flaw in a slain sane word-waning broad bird brushstroke, imbued and viewed in this nude joke review. :trollestia-bestia:
Addendum: the title you chose may negatively impact how I rate the story. :ajbemused:
Couldn’t stomach that.
Sorry.
I mean I could go for cryptic prose, but what I get of the plot should be captivating enough to make me go ahead, like Lunna’s Ache. Here I didn’t feel enough invested to keep reading and trying to figure out what was going on.
The reward wasn’t worth the challenge.
Besides, I’d like to raise another point: this sort of piece is a torture to non-native speakers, because for each fancy word you can’t help but wondering if that’s not an obscure word you’re not aware of and open a dictionary to find out it doesn’t exist. This makes the process of reading such piece slow tedious and somehow painful.
Sorry.
I mean I could go for cryptic prose, but what I get of the plot should be captivating enough to make me go ahead, like Lunna’s Ache. Here I didn’t feel enough invested to keep reading and trying to figure out what was going on.
The reward wasn’t worth the challenge.
Besides, I’d like to raise another point: this sort of piece is a torture to non-native speakers, because for each fancy word you can’t help but wondering if that’s not an obscure word you’re not aware of and open a dictionary to find out it doesn’t exist. This makes the process of reading such piece slow tedious and somehow painful.
This ended up around the middle of my list, primarily because I do get what it is doing, and it actually does it, but it feels remarkably impenetrable in doing so, and I'm not sure that the impenetrability is ultimately beneficial to the piece over something else that could achieve the same purpose but be less annoying to read.
I am sorry. I tried, I think I even get the gist, but this is still beyond my capabilities. I suppose it depends on my own horrid pronunciation, but I can't really get into the flow of it.
I will abstain on this one.
Still, looking at the other comments it seems I am the odd one out here, so you can discount my opinion on your entry.
I will abstain on this one.
Still, looking at the other comments it seems I am the odd one out here, so you can discount my opinion on your entry.