Second person... I'm not a big fan, typically, but it gets a fair shot. Let's see.

A lot of assorted musings about how to pass the time as pure energy. Kinda bogs down a bit.

Aaaannd we have feghoot. A good one, I'll admit, but while the pun is strong, it's rather weak payoff for all the heavy language one had to slog through to get there.

So yeah, this shows really good skill and effort on the part of the author. The voice of the narrator feels definitely solid and consistent, using stylized psuedo-archaic language to great effect. But half the story is just this being musing about ways to surf on magnetic fields and other passtimes, which feels like most of it was added just to reach word count. Secondly, it hits the "Tesla was way smarter than Edison" cliche pretty hard. Third... well, it's a feghoot.

Overall, I think this would be better if shorter. I'll even allow the pun at the end as being workable, since it more or less fits "in universe" as it were. But the journey to get there is too long.

EDIT: I will add, if this were a pun/joke/feghoot contest, this would win by miles. It's one of the best I've seen in quite a while. But it's going middle of my slate most likely, as there are some pretty dang good (and sincere) stories this round.

Hmm, another slice of Americana. We need more of these. I'm half expecting a scifi/fantasy twist to happen though.

Feels weird to me, the kid that practically lives in the forest, and is even mapping it, and can identify trees by mere feel accidentally drops his most favorite macguffin (notebook) and doesn't notice? Then he gets lost so easily as well?

Abrupt scene change, ho!

Rubber is an insulator, not a "grounding" agent. The metal frame of the car redirects the energy around the passengers generally though, which is why a car is "safe" in a lightning storm.

And now it's the fantasy/magic twist, so not much "americana" at all. Oh well.

Okay, so... I don't know what the point of this story was. A weird thing happened and time travel lightning to recover a notebook for his younger self? What?

I'm with >>Monokeras on this one. Passing grade on the basics like voice and some of the descriptive details, but doesn't do anything for me as it doesn't make sense or explain much of anything.

Another potential for some simple americana?

The voices here feel a bit off. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the dialog just doesn't really sound natural to me. Maybe trying to hard to be "country" without getting it right?

So Dan has the same "rub the thigh" tick as his sister? Odd.

There's a lot of dialog about "what happened to mom?" that feels very repetitive and isn't advancing the story.

The narration keeps jarring me as to who is doing what. This is another thing I can't quite put a finger on, but I think it's that so many sentences basically have multiple subjects, and later clauses that show an action from the second person. Quite a few bits of dialog, especially starting paragraphs, aren't attributed to a speaker either, so it's only by inference later that the reader can place them. Ex:

"Maybe so, but that particular lil' hellion doesn't have a car or a licence. SHE can only get so far before I gotta haul her back." Sam rubbed her head while glaring at her brother, but he smiled blithely on, tipping his hat to Dad's point.

Sam does something directed AT her brother, then he reacts, then he ALSO does an action, directed at a third person. This is compounded by the fact that it was the father who was speaking to start the paragraph without attribution, yet, so he needs to be the initial subject to help "tag" the previous dialog.


Overall, this is a decent little bit of americana (yay!) that didn't go for some bigger twist or magic or whatever. My main complaints are what I've already mentioned, mostly the technical issues with things not reading smoothly, and that the pacing is a bit repetitive/slow. It could also use a good proof read, as there are many more minor technical errors as well.

Still though, a decent mid-tier entry.

>>Xepher
>>Not_A_Hat

Good luck to finalists!

This was more an exercise in prose than a true story. I wanted to have a go at writing a Socratic dialogue in 18th English and assess how good I was at it. That mostly succeeded I think, if what Xepher and others told me is anything to go by, so I’d take that as a positive takeaway.

Zeus tries to convince Franklin that his experiments are of no real use in order to protect his power, but that goal wasn’t emphasised enough and didn’t really come across. Semi-apologetically, the text was written in a couple of hours during a very disjointed weekend.

Thanks to Ran for pointing out how messed the hook of the first version was, following which I made last minute changes to improve it.

As I will probably skip next round, see you for Christmas now?

"I’m an off-grid solar retailer." Hey! I (until getting laid off recently) was deeply involved in solar. Let's nitpick! :-)

First off, if he's a retailer, then he should know the ins-and-outs of these forms, as he (or his company) would've had to do this for every install they've ever done. Literally one of the main reasons you pay these guys is so you don't have to figure out all the forms yourself.

“It's not about me!” he said, rising to his feet and gesticulating. “Global warming will affect everyone.”

That escalated quickly and unrealistically.

So, this has the same word-I-can't-remember as "Encounter at Farpoint" where the characters seem to exist only to be mouthpieces for competing philosophies or points of view. (EDIT: Monokeras reminded me, it's "Socratic dialogue") Here it's "I have to save the planet and this matters" vs. "How can you know what matters when everything is just so much luck?"

As other said, this just doesn't connect. The "human contact" bit doesn't engender any emotions for me, and on top of that, the earthquake is a bit of an anti-climax. As >>horizon notes, this conversation could've happened at the counter/desk. Or, just have some "minor" mishap occur (like a spilled drink) that causes them to eat lunch together.

Overall, this just doesn't gel for me. It's not bad, but doesn't really have a memorable payoff or message.

>>Monokeras
Umm, there's still like 32 minutes left for judging, so you shouldn't be revealing yourself or your authorship yet.

>>Xepher
Didn’t change anything :)

>>AndrewRogue
>>Not_A_Hat
Well, thanks to all two of you for actually commenting! (Really, what was up with this round and no one critiquing things?)

That aside, you both (and I, myself) make great points. This story needs a LOT of work. I wrote it in literally a five hour rush right at the deadline, and was a bit drunk by the end of it. I didn't even have time to do a single proofread/spellcheck even, and it shows. Ranking this myself (after I read it,) I would've only put it at 12th or so. I'll be curious to see how close I am on that mark after the results go up.

The overall problem is that this was (by nature of how I wrote it) little more than stream of consciousness. That I got even close to an actual "plot" feels good, and I really like some of the weird fever-dream-like imagery my brain slammed together in this, but it's a far, far cry from a coherent story.

On the "explain it" front, my concept was that, like the Dark/Mirror world in Zelda, the alternate "dimensions" overlaid the normal one, allowing corpsgirl couriers to bypass normal obstacles, including enemies, by jumping to different planes. The process being expensive was to justify why only couriers did it, instead of moving entire armies and fighting forces that way. It was also meant to be "obvious" (but it wasn't) that time flows consistently across jumps. If a jumper spends three days by their own clock before returning, three days will have passed in their original dimension. Time travel is just easier when you stick to that rule, but it also hides the fact that this is time (not plane) travel.

The "hook" about it being time travel (including to before the world had an atmosphere) instead of different dimensions needed to play a lot stronger than it did. I also needed to spend a LOT more time building rapport between Kira and her comrades, as well as her and Kedi later. >>Not_A_Hat is definitely right that Kira makes almost no real choices in her journey.

Bottom line, it was all too rushed, and my own fault for not just forcing myself to sit down and type sooner in the contest. If I ever come back to this, it probably needs to be a novella, with an interesting "magitech" style war story at the start, and the future city twist stuff coming near the end.

Thanks again for the feedback, and best of luck to both of you in the finals!

I think perhaps in a different round, in a different time and place, I could have appreciated the lightheartedness of this feghoot. In this particular round, however, where it seems the majority of stories took a long time to get started, this sort of meandering, almost directionless narrative immediately flipped the switch for me to mentally check out long before the punchline. I suppose this is in part due to the state in which I read the story, the tenth of fifteen stories in a row, but once the cat is out of the bag on this story, it does not get any more fulfilling when I reread it for review.

It is difficult for me to properly critique this entry because of this. I can't say I was invested in the proceedings of the story before I knew it was a feghoot, but that just may have been due to mental state at the time. Now knowing where the story goes, I can't say I'm invested upon a reread, but that sort of goes against the idea of a feghoot, which is to say it is a silly story that ends in a goof.

The ending line got a groan out of me. Not the "agh you got me with me this lame joke" groan, mind you, but more a defeated groan of frustration. If someone had been in the room with me, you likely could physically see my frown deepen to the point where it nearly fell off my face, much like Grinch from the animated television movie. I had suspected something was up—I had been wondering the whole time, "Hmm, where is the story here? Why is this going nowhere?"

And then I got my answer.

I don't really know what to say. Is it a success because it I couldn't figure it out before the final line? Is the fact that I feel my time has been wasted on a stupid one-liner stretched out to 2.2K words reflective of a successful feghoot? I mean if the intention was to get a laugh or a chuckle, it didn't succeed, but if it was there to blatantly waste my time or just a reaction from me, I guess it succeeded.

I feel like I should be coming away from this with a better mood. It might just be because of the weakness of the final punch line, but to me I just feel like a joke has been made at my expense. Like, instead of laughing along with the story and having a good time, I feel cheated and like someone just pulled a nasty prank at my expense. Not the "Let's Film a Silly Gag for Youtube" kind of prank, more like the "Let' Dump a Vat of Pig's Blood on Carrie at the Prom."

In order to improve this story, I wouldn't really know where to start. The most obvious point would be to cut this down to something much shorter. As >>Xepher says, this is a slog to get through. I get that you're barely over wordcount as is, but you really have to consider whether or not this sort of story can be expanded to its current length. I say absolutely not, but some people will disagree with me I guess. Improving hook and intrigue of the story would make it seem like it was attempting to tell a legitimate story as opposed to setting up the punchline for a joke, which I think would help accentuate the end note.

Additionally, cutting out everything that isn't a joke or necessary to advance the "story" further would probably help. Injecting some more humor in throughout would be useful as well. Not like "jokes" per se, but just some witticism or something.

I don't know.

You do what you want.

I'm just gonna stand over here.

Maybe read some stories.

I don't know.

>>horizon, >>Fenton

The Electroscope

Thanks for liking my art!

I was sure that someone would at least google it, but an electroscope is a real thing, and I took some pains to draw one accurately. These images in particular were my models: (1, 2) The gold foil leaves inside the jar spread apart when the metal plate at top encounters an electric charge, and the upright rods are a safety measure that discharges the foil if it spreads too far. The spark I show at the top is artistic license; the device does not require a visible charge to operate.

This whole piece was based on the visual pun of the spreading gold leaves and the legs of a leaping or suspended dancer. I did a freehand pencil sketch, intending to overlay it with clean lines in Illustrator, but I had no time to polish it, so I just scanned it into Photoshop and colorized it.

>>Fenton

Aaaaanndd, I’m not sure what this means.

Whether it’s an energetic charge (of dancing) or a sexual charge is something I wanted to leave ambiguous.

>>horizon
The "jar" was indeed supposed to be the top left black band, in addition to the bottom left black clouds (the jar is knocked over). As for the title, here is how I interpret "tangerine dream". It's a dream we all have within us, powerful and inspiring, but a dream we aren't often aware of. It's when this dream becomes too much "unsatisfied" that it starts manifesting its presence to our conscious.

For me, a lightning in a jar is something similar, it's a force of Nature that cannot be contained for long. It will inevitably go out sooner or later.

>>GroaningGreyAgony
Yes this is a picture of a lightning I took months ago. In fact, you are all looking at a Canadian lightning.

Here is another picture I've hesitated to submit instead of this one:
Pic

>>horizon, >>Filler, >>Fenton

Hel-LO! Anybody home?

My original concept for this one was to have a virtualized human form, represented by holographic projection in a glass dome, giving a little self-confident wave to its creator twice removed. Lack of time led me to this. I cast about looking for an interesting image for Adam to be viewing and selected Kamina-Dash as having the most appropriate Fuck-Yeah-Humanity spirit.

>>horizon

In hindsight, it would have made more sense to have the “in-goggles” view be goggle-shaped, though.

The original image was square and not much larger than I show it, so I didn’t have room to do that. Good thought, though.

>>Filler
I didn’t want to be too obvious about that. :)

>>Fenton

One subtext here is that, once we solve the mortality problem and take control of our perceived reality, what do we need a god for anymore? The more civilization insulates and frees us from the cares of the world, from random starvation and plagues and grinding toil, the less we see the need to thank unseen forces for deigning to deliver us from them.

L.H.O.O.Q. was actually one of the first French jokes I ever got when I was studying art.

>>Xepher
>>Cassius
>>AndrewRogue
>>Cold in Gardez
>>GroaningGreyAgony
Thank you everyone for spending time on my prose. I apologize for being unable to submit a story conforming to a higher standard, but nano has taken its toll on me, and I had many ideas that I wanted to get down on paper but that didn't all quite fit together as nicely as they needed to.

I think this piece has many similarities with "I Am Very Glad, Because I'm Finally Back Home" by Edward Khil in that it's appreciable both as a work of art despite its apparent meaninglessness and as a joke. As I said in chat, Wheel from DDLC was part of my inspiration. I also took elements from Impossible Even Now and Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's a mess. It might be meaningless. But it was fun to write, even if it was painful to read. This is also probably going to end up as the capstone of my NaNoWriMo attempt.

Thanks for the comments, folks!

There's a story here, but this isn't it. Originally, the whole thing was going to be about the kid trying to catch fireflies for the first time and catching this genie instead, so I spent most of the the first writing day trying to summon up the details of visiting my mom's family back in Earlville, IL decades ago. As the second day went along, though, the mom character got more interesting to me, and I decided halfway through to shift everything over and make it her story instead. It needs stuff cut and stuff added, and it just irks me no end that the piece ends with an observation from the genie rather than from Ann: in 1st person narration, I've always believed, we need to end solidly with that person.

I didn't manage to read let alone comment on most of the stories this time around, but I did note that more than a quarter of the stories entered--mine included--were written with a female 1st person narrator while I don't believe any of our actual authors are female this time around. Just found that interesting is all... :)

Good luck to the finalists! I'll try to get some more comments in before things wrap up next week.

Mike

Honestly, I don't have a lot new here to add that someone like Cass didn't. I will say, contrary to a lot of people here, I actually don't think going back and adding a lot would benefit you. The thin and fast narrative is another part of the appeal and also feeds into the messaging: not only is this a life that was lead in the passenger seat, but it also those years that do kinda go fast in a lifestyle that goes fast.

I will say that the narrative here (and, in a lot of ways, the characters) are fairly rote, which is always a bit of trick when deciding how to deal with it. How much do I reward successful application of old hate ideas versus how much I reward stretching but not necessarily reaching. This is a bit of the challenge of the writeoff after all: tried and true ideas are easier to deliver on in the shortened timeframe because they are less aspirational. And, of course, there is nothing wrong with well executed familiarity. But it helps to not be able to trace EVERYTHING. Still, I think when counterbalancing successful application vs failed reach, I think this story did well. There is something to be said for achieving what the story aims to do.

I enjoyed:

The story quite a bit--the character's voice, the odd but intriguing situation--right up to the last line. Because the word "Leyden" is pronounced with a long "i" sound in the first syllable, not a long "a" sound. Which means the pun doesn't work.

Maybe have the narrator mispronounce other words in a similar way throughout the story and have to be corrected by the listener? That way, we could have other smaller jokes leading up to the big one at the end.

Mike

Unfortunately I caught wind of this being a feghoot on accident, so I got kinda clued in to how this was going to end (they would never have been able to actually guess it - I didn't even know what a Leyden Jar was). Which... hoenstly kinda made the story a bit interminable, because I was mostly waiting for the punchline to arrive.

Ultimately, this sort of runs into the idea of the very interesting story narrated to you rather than experienced. Like, I'm interested in the story this elemental is telling, but I can't escape the feeling that I would much rather be reading that story than reading their account of it. You can sorta make this work sometimes with a sufficiently engaging narrator, but even that falls a bit flat here. The narrator is... fine. The voice is there and the tone reads, but I don't find myself particularly compelled by them.

And basically that is the heart of the problem. The punchline is immensely clever and entertaining, but everything else... just ends up feeling like it exists. It isn't bad, but it isn't particularly compelling either, and I really did find myself skimming a bit as I got further along. As is, I just really don't think this is a 2K story.

You know, like >>Monokeras mentions, for a story that spends a lot of time talking about its magic system, we actually don't really see it in effect. Like, given that it is apparently central to a lot of the conceits going on here there ought to be at least SOME demonstration of it somewhere, particularly since it'd lighten up on the exposition a bit.

Beyond that, Cass' review more or less covers anything I could think to say.

I do kind of wonder if the intention IS that this is a bad end (the fairy queen + the sudden reappearance of the sprites at the end feels a bit like Riina might be the one getting played here), but if that is the case, then the swerve is too hard and the foundation for that needs to be laid back a bit further.

I have so far come up with nothing beyond what >>Cassius & >>Xepher have to say. Gonna mull a bit more on this one.

Another really nice first draft:

You've got all the surface here, author, and now that you don't need to worry about fitting it into 8,000 words, you can put in all the depth the piece needs by focusing on the characters and how everything has affected them.

We get hints of that here and there, but right now, once the lovely cinematic writing starts fading from my swiss-cheese memory, I'm left asking myself, "What was that story about again?" And I'm not coming up with an answer unless it's "the universe is trying to kill you, so the best course of action is to beat it into submission before it can."

Now, if that's the story's point, then make it clearer. And if it's not the story's point, then make that clear. As I tend to say over and over, the difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction has to make sense. So give me a better idea of what it means to be a diplomat in a time when diplomacy isn't an option anyone is seriously considering since the only communication Earth has ever received from the stars is "death from above." Take the obvious 9/11 parallels you've already planted in the story and run with them: is there an equivalent to the isolationist rhetoric of the current U.S. administration, a "Make Earth Inhabitable Again" strain to popular thinking that Allie is pushing back against?

I also ended up with a lot of questions after the reveal at the end starting with the most basic and biological: how could Allie have been born 26 years ago? What is the relationship between parents and children when there's no actual birth process? Or is there a birth process and I just don't understand the reveal at the end?

Expand this, dig into it, and send it to Analog or Asimov's. That's my suggestion, at least. :)

Mike

My first reaction is that it was more a verbiage battery than a verbal battery. Really, the peppering of thaumababble detracted from that story. I don’t see the point in obfuscating the plot under a barrage of jargon, except if you try to pander to a specific audience, which I am not part of.

The core of the story seems to be a classic family fic where the two parents don’t agree on their child’s future. One wants “it” to be a writer, the other an “engineer” or a laboratory guinea pig. In any case, the two of them are pretty cardboard cut, and none makes a step towards the other during the fic, leading to the inevitable outcome.

The relationship between the bottled entity and the girl is the saving grace of that story. But for the rest, there’s nothing that knocked my socks off, and, as I said, the lingo used throughout the story put me off. Going to land pretty low on my slate. Sorry, author.

Oh boy, that's... that's quite the piece. Like, wow. Just... wow.

The ending really gives off the feeling of "Was it all worth it?" After all that time, and all the death, all the humans got out of it was a fractured planet.
And the Gliesiens? Well, even less of a planet.

The concept here is fine but the execution is flawed in many ways.

First off, remove that first paragraph. The hook is terrible. Instead of coaxing us into reading the rest of story, it looks like all we have to know is already written out, so we just could stop after those two sentences and be fine. Turns out this is not quite right, but almost.

You’d be fine beginning headlong into the second §

So, one the one hand we have those almost railroaded info-dumpy flashbacks to fill us in about the history of the war, and on the other hand we have a slice of life about two “something” (Allie and Gynnifr. The latter sounds Icelandic. I recognise the Greek element gyn- “woman” as the first element and -nif = fog? as the second +r for the nominative, unless it’s the Nordic form of Guinevere.) whose destinies seem to be already sealed and who, indeed, do not really evolve during the story. Those two threads intertwine rather artificially. It’s like water and oil stirred together. They coexist but won’t mix. None of what the characters do influences the war, and the war doesn’t influence what the characters do.Then we have a sort of muted question about the use of diplomacy, envisioned as a quaint concept in a sort of wistful way.

The war element is interesting. How to combat an enemy you know nothing of? Yet this problem is never really addressed. It’s not a conflict here. Instead, we are bluntly given the solution through an historical relation of it, which is very neutral and doesn’t really convey its paradoxical nature (we’re at war, but nothing happens short of very destructive, burst-like attacks). In a way, that war looks like a repeat of the famous “phoney war” phase of early WW2.

The question of diplomacy seems to be settled from the get-go, given the stubbornness of other civilisations to refuse communication (but see below).

The story is unnecessary obtuse about what the entities we follow really are. Clues are scattered here and there that they aren't biological anymore. They might be androids, or even totally disembodied entities that only exist as computer threads (I lean towards the latter), in which case one might wonder how their sentient behaviour is emulated (but maybe in a few years we’ll be able to recreate brain structure in computers. What is important for intelligence is not the substrate, but the way neurones react and are connected one another). In any case, they seem to live in a Matrix like environment and to have a reasonable control over the way their body appears to the others entities. The migration from carbon-based life forms to something else is what I think is alluded in a paragraph stating that the last attack resulted in a change that precipitated “human” victory. In that sense, the conclusion is already forgone, so once this paragraph is over, we already know the end for sure.

The science here alternates between interesting concepts and widely unrealistic ones. For example, I doubt it is possible to fire a beam of iron dust, which is neutral, though many light-years without it being totally scattered. First, you have to accelerate them. Neutral particles cannot be accelerated by an electromagnetic field, so you would have to resort to a mechanical sort of collision, which produces all but a concentrated beam. A ionic beam, on the other hand, could be accelerated and focussed, but would probably be trapped or at least deflected by Earth’s magnetic field. Accelerating a large asteroid could be a much more practical solution, but that would require exquisite precision in ballistics, and I’m not even sure it’s possible over such distances, due to quantum fluctuations (Schrödinger’s inequality) which maybe insignificant at start, but would result in multi-thousand mile deviation at the other end.

That being said, I admire the imagination in display, especially the idea of stopping, even for a fraction of a second, nuclear fusion at the core of a star as a means to trigger a sort of nova phenomenon. Well done here, author.

So final question would be: do interstellar wars usher the demise of diplomacy? It’s a good riddle, but I fear it's only rhetorical. If ever we make contact with an alien civilisation, there’s about zero chance it’ll be on the same technological level as ours. We will either encounter a far more advanced civilisation, or people who still use flint tools. The first is much more likely. In which case, why would they decide to destroy us? It’s possible we are encircled with highly advanced civilisations that simply ignore us (and use means of communication we cannot detect yet. As a matter of fact, even “classical” spread spectrum radio transmissions look like noise if you don’t have the key to decipher them). As long as we are unable to venture out of our system, we’re of no threat to anyone else. The only reasonable reason why aliens would need to eradicate humanity would be Earth’s resources exploitation for their own benefit (that’s what “V” is about). But use of the mass destruction weapons listed here obviously bars this interpretation.

Also, what’s the point of diplomacy for entities that seem only to exist as objects of a computer program?

As many have said, this is a well-rounded entry. There aren't a whole lot of obvious flaws, outside the pacing of some major scenes, communication of setting information, and issues of characterization, but that comes with an unfortunate caveat. The caveat being that it also does not excel in any one particular aspect, which is unfortunate, because if it just a little more going for it, I think it would indisputably the favored story of the round.

In many respects, this is an average entry. Average prose with most descriptions being based on purely what is happening in the scene or what the characters are doing that does a decent job of communicating character mood, average dialogue that is for some reason is occasionally buried in the prose either due to oversight in formatting or simply poor scene construction, average characterization where the reader has enough information to get the gist the characters and their plights, but not quite enough to empathize with or understanding the specifics of their motivations, etc. Many ideas are borrowed from the Disney Princess movies, and it is sort of a straightforward adventure in the vein of that kind of story.

That being said, the formatting of this story is not very good. By formatting, I mean to say "paragraphing" and "scene construction." As I've mentioned earlier, the dialogue is buried—a lot. Not only does it make the dialogue itself a bit difficult to read, but also the surrounding prose. A lot of dialogue paragraphs open with an action, add the dialogue, and then have another action—and sometimes, there's another line of dialogue after that. Not only does this make the dialogue read as I mentioned, but is also dramatically slows down the pacing of what should otherwise be a rather brisk exchange.

I'm now going to give an example of this in action:

Zephyr threw back her head and laughed, the sound powerful enough to make me wince. She floated backwards, then flew about the room, circling the library and kicking up enough wind to knock down even more books. “You’re sorry, huh?” Zephyr said, floating in the middle of the room where I had carved the summoning circle. “Well, I appreciate the sentiment at least. I’m sure few of the Djinn bound by your family have received that minor conciliation. But destiny isn’t something nearly as solid as you seem to believe, Princess.”

See the narrative-dialogue-narrative-dialogue pattern I am talking about. The "You're sorry, huh" is completely buried underneath the long lines of narrative. It's hard to see, and more importantly, unaesthetic. Ideally you'd want to format this sort of dialogue like so:

Zephyr threw back her head and laughed, the sound powerful enough to make me wince. She floated backwards, then flew about the room, circling the library and kicking up enough wind to knock down even more books. (could maybe add more description)

“You’re sorry, huh?” Zephyr said, floating in the middle of the room where I had carved the summoning circle. “Well, I appreciate the sentiment at least. I’m sure few of the Djinn bound by your family have received that minor conciliation. But destiny isn’t something nearly as solid as you seem to believe, Princess.”

Another example is this behemoth of a paragraph:

I opened my mouth to retort that the royal family had been catching and binding ‘the wind’ for generations, but decided against it. Instead, I sighed. “When I was born, the Viziers brought me to the throne, and pricked my finger against the thorns on the back. My soul is bound to the throne. As was my mother. And so were my sisters, my competition to take my place should I fail. Only one of us can rule, after all.” An old legend about an exception to that flitted through my memory, but it wasn’t relevant. “If we leave the palace, whether voluntarily or by force, I should add, we die. It is our duty to stay here at the seat of this nation at all times.”

Again, very long lines of narrative that really should have been their own paragraph proceeding dialogue. This time there's a bit of narrative that is buried, the line about "an old legend", that is barely visible and easily mistaken for a piece of dialogue considering it is wedged between two very long pieces of dialogue.

Getting into the dialogue itself, there is a lot function over form here. I don't have an exact problem with how much exposition is in the story itself, but that it is mainly communicated through dialogue instead of the narrative. This results in very long-winded dialogue scenes in which one character explains to the important details about the setting, which would be okay if it weren't so drawn out or written in an identifiable voice. The majority of the dialogue is mostly explaining Amy's character or explaining what the characters have to do, and it is really sort of a drag to read if I'm being honest, because of the things I just mentioned: formatting, length, and lack of voice.

That last bit I think reflects the biggest personal problem I have with this story, is that in a story that is mostly dialogue, the two protagonists do not have identifiable voices. They have identifiable character actions (Zephyr more than Amy—Amy doesn't have much going for her), but this is never truly felt in how they speak. They both use the same verbiage, speaking rather formally, and don't really contrast with one another very well. It really seems like they're the same person. The narrative is really needed to sell these two people as being different characters, and if I suspect if you took out the narrative, you wouldn't have an idea who was speaking.

This in particular is why I think the romance angle fails. The characters don't really have any romantic chemistry together. Amy doesn't really ever have any moments where she's showing attraction to Zephyr outside of when they kiss, or really any moments of admiration of Zephyr at all, and Zephyr doesn't have any actions that indicate she is attracted to Amy. The inclusion of the romance aspect of this story seems like an afterthought.

So I'll discuss the "kiss" scene, since this was the topic of discussion in the Discord. It seems tonally inappropriate, not because of the lesbianism, but because of the blatant self-serving erotic purpose of it in the narrative, as if it were lifted from an exploitation movie. It really seems like the narrative itself seems to be a pretense in order to have them kiss.

To me it's similar to:

"Hey, so we have to complete this ritual. In order for it to work, you'll have to take off all your clothes, and I have to motorboat your tits."

"What? Is that really what the ritual specifies?"

"Yeah. it's the only way."

(long narrative description about how sexy the woman is and how good titty motorboarding feels).

And maybe that's not what you intended, but that's really how it reads.

The pacing of the latter half of the story really goes too fast, ironic because the first half goes too slow. There needs to be a lot of rich set pieces, description of the crypt, a more dialogue and humanity between the mother and Amy, manipulation, doubt about Zephyr, etc. Maybe it's just because the story told was just too long, but it is really unfortunate that the majority of this story consists of setting up and explaining the pretext for the adventure, when the adventure itself is less than a third of the story. The entire crypt scene should be much more drawn out and feel much more substantial for both Amy and Zephyr than it does.

There are a plethora of ideas that would be excellent scenes in that of themselves if properly given life and fleshed out, but as it currently states, it sort of reads like a list of actions than an organic narrative. Everything is just sort of boring.

That's the curse of being average.

As a postscript, and to be fair, there’s another interesting aspect in this story: the continuity of self. Those entities, whoever they are, call themselves humans and finish something that’s been pioneered by their ancestors centuries ago. But despite claiming themselves humans, what are they really?

In that way, the war is lost for anyone.

I said I would come back to this, so I have come back to this. Very rare for me to actually do what I say I was going to do, but here I am.

This is an inconsistent entry, with peaks and valleys. In many ways, it is similar to Chode Mustard, where it is lacking in something substantial, but accommodates through other aspects. Like Chode Mustard, this story is about something, has good characterization, and isn't paced well (fight me >>AndrewRogue, Chode is not well paced).

This story is brimming with EMOTION, and I think the author hasn't quite figured out how to communicate EMOTION without devolving into melodrama. Everything is just a bit too SUPERCHARGED. The protagonist doesn't just kill the priest, SHE BURNS HIM ALIVE. The protagonist just doesn't feel regret she is IN A BOTTOMLESS PIT OF SIN. She unhooked a crucifix from a dead priest key-chain because SHE DOESN'T LIKE RELIGION.

One might say that these sorts of aspects are supposed to be perspectival, but the voice isn't consistent enough to be 100% certain. Particularly because of the first scene, which for the most part seems to be narrated by an older protagonist, as >>horizon notes. It seems that around the time of the gas station scene, the author decided his story was going in a different direction and forgot to change the preceding scene. I think this sort of melodramatic hypercharging of emotions could definitely work within the context of a teenaged girl protagonist, but the nature of the melodrama needs to be clearly communicated and demonstrated to the reader before it is observed, not after.

There are a couple of continuity errors that other people have pointed out. Although I wanted to bring up one that >>Xepher mentioned, about an "8-track cassette."

There's no such thing. There's an 8-track tape (or cartridge) or a compact cassette. It's highly likely that a compact cassette deck would be in a '91 Mustang, and is probably what the author intended, but the author should really have done his homework to make sure he was going to get the technical detail right if he was going to bother mentioning it.

>>Baal Bunny

I like this suggestion with the car. Obviously the car is supposed to be a metaphor for the priest himself, initially pristine and awe-inspiring, that decays over time. Communicating that through the car decaying internally rather than externally I think better solidifies the overall message—that the priest is someone who appears nice on the outside, but is rotten internally.

This is a revenge story, and I think all the components for it being a success are already in the story, but it just doesn't quite execute them in a clear manner. As far as I can tell, the overall story is supposed to be something in the veins of a movie like Blue Ruin, where an emotionally disturbed person who had been the victim of a traumatic event decides to get revenge on the person who victimized them, only to realize that getting revenge hasn't fixed their life, only made it worse.

The problem comes when these events are viewed out of order, and there's leaps in logic that the reader has to make in order to connect all these points together, particularly when we see the protagonist at the beginning (the chronological end) from her torturing the priest.

>>horizon
>>Monokeras
>>Xepher

It’s like sex to me.

Here we go again. I'll cut the debate short and just say that I will die on the hill defending the inclusion of this line, and I think it's important to the story as a whole. I don't think this line was accidental in its invocation of sexual imagery, either. The line just needs more context to establish the sentiment before directly making this comparison, or just make it less blatant that this is comparison being drawn. It is a particularly horrific statement and character moment, or at least, I think that's supposed to be read.

Tone is an important tightrope here, and I don't think the story quite balances along it. It's just a little too indulgent for the more quiet moments to be fully realized. It does not help that the final moment is rushed and not well paced, so it can't quite simmer down from the fiery death of the priest.

As others >>horizon, >>Baal Bunny, and >>Monokeras, have mentioned, there really is no reason to keep the fact that the priest is dead secret from the reader. The mystery of what happened with the priest and why the protagonist is running is really less interesting than sharing the head-space with a priest murderer planning to escape the police.

But this story has been discussed pretty extensively both in Discord and on here, so I don't really have much else to say other than I sort of liked it.

>>Cassius

Very rare for me to actually do what I say I was going to do, but here I am.

How perceptive :P :P :P

Interesting enough idea, although it is clearly aping a familiar conflict of science fiction and splicing it into the fantasy genre. Execution is really where this sort of falls apart, unfortunately, specifically characterization. >>AndrewRogue is the only person that has really mentioned this, but the biggest irritation of this story is Darth RKevan, the world's most unrepentant sack of shit.

I don't think him being a complete moronic dumbass is necessarily a poor choice of characterization. It is the context that causes him to be such a pain in the ass. Without getting too hyperbolic, Kevan is a plot device, force of nature antagonist. He is unbound by things like ethics, refuses to compromise in his beliefs even slightly, and completely self-centered. The problem arises when he is:

A. Married to the protagonist

B. Given a massive amount of screen-time.

The first point presents the issue of plausibility. Why is Anji married to this person? What does she see in him? Why is Kevan so unwilling to listen to anything his wife says, if he is supposedly so in love with her? Why does his obtuse hateful passion for Salek far exceed any passion he's ever shown his wife? It would have been a neat twist if Kevan was secretly a homosexual in a relationship with Salek the entire story and married Anji out of a sense of convenience or money, while intentionally trying to sabotage Anji to prevent her from stealing Salek's thunder.

Now this wouldn't be so bad, if the narrative was intentionally trying to cast Kevan as an abusive dickhead, and the consequences of his behavior to Anji were repeated established as being negative, but that's not really the case either. Additionally, his reasoning for being such a colossal dick is hard to believe. The stakes for him are never really established other than he might not get his big breakthrough, the consequences of which are not stated. This and his hatred-boner for Salek is so intense that he completely blind to anything Anji is saying.

Again, this is where context is important—and here comes my second point. In theory, Kevan's overtly 1-dimensional villainy is not such a cardinal sin. But in practice, when the story mostly consists of these two characters talking with each other, you get the impression that you're watching two people talk past each other for the entire story. It's frustrating. It's like being in a Facebook argument, where nothing gets resolved and each side just retreats to their respective corners until the next debate. If this was for a character that showed up for maybe one or two scenes, it would be fine, but the entire story is so excessive and unnecessary that it just seems like we're seeing the same argument five times. Especially since Anji never cuts through the bullshit and just tells Kevan the significance of No.

I can't understate how much this choice of format and presentation affects my overall enjoyment of this story.

On another note, there is a problem with italics in the dialogue. The author needed to use more restraint in italicizing words for emphasis. There is just such an excess of italics that it becomes almost comical. The biggest perpetrator of this is of course, shitlord himself, Kevan. I'm not sure if it was the intent of the author simply to make Kevan seem like the most nefarious comic book villain ever or just that the author didn't trust the reader to infer the importance and tone of the dialogue, but it is a pretty massive detriment to Kevan's character and the story itself.

>>AndrewRogue
>>Xepher
>>Monokeras

I'm going to agree with all these fine folks. There's a plethora of Sci-Fi- and Fantasy Words that Sound Important and Add Flavor, but it is overdone, and ultimately is of little consequence to the ensuing story. It really seems the jargon is thrown out there to give the appearance of depth rather than actually construct it.

I probably would like this if it was substantially reworked to either change Kevan's role or minimized his screen-time, but as is, he truly is an albatross as >>AndrewRogue describes, denigrating an otherwise rather nice sci-fi fantasy story to an irritating read.

I have reviewed all the finalists. In total, this has amount to 8,129 words. I am very tired. I will not be doing this again. I would like to encourage more people to come forward next time and submit reviews on stories, as it is mostly the same three people giving feedback, and that shit takes a lot of work. I'm usually not one of those people—I just stepped up because nobody else was giving feedback, and god I do not know how they do this shit every round.

>>Fenton
I don't know if anyone cares about the answer, but since the round is almost over, the inspiration was I'm Going Slightly Mad-by Queen.

>>Cassius
I'm sorry I haven't had a chance yet to return myself, since I feel like I should clarify my original thoughts on the protagonist's sexuality that sparked the debate.

I do agree that it would be possible, perhaps even effective, to have Megan be a sexual person and "It's like sex to me" be a commentary on how she approaches it. I don't think the story is doing so as written, hence my comments about editing.

I'll point out that, aside from her commentary on the attractiveness-to-males of the attendant, the most relevant current evidence of her approach to sex is in her teenage flashback:

I’d like to see them lay hands on me now. I hide a kitchen knife alongside my thigh, underneath my skirt, in a makeshift holster. The priest hasn’t touched me since my first period, but I don’t put it above him to try at it again.

She carries around a knife to avoid not just the priest — but also others, the "them" talking about her behind her back — initiating any sexual contact against her. I'm reading that as pretty severely at odds with her appreciating sex.

And, again, the specific context of "It's like sex to me" is when she is literally face to face with her rapist, which prompts the question: sex with who? Are we supposed to believe she is thinking about sex in the abstract in this situation, rather than the specific sexual acts we're all but shown on-screen?

So, yeah, author, if you want to have Megan use that as a moment of reclaiming her sexuality, or even use it (as Cassius suggests) to illustrate her existing interest in sex, or whatever, go wild. But it's gonna require more lampshading, because right now the text as written is pointing in some very scattered and somewhat unfortunate directions.

tl;dr
> The line just needs more context to establish the sentiment before directly making this comparison
I don't think we're disagreeing as much as it sounds.

Apologies for my lack of presence for most of this round - I had a rather severe cold move from my head to my lungs to my bones. I'm feeling well enough to not need to filter the world through medication, though, so let's get a couple more reviews up before the bell rings.

There’s not much I can say here that hasn’t been said more eloquently above, so I’d like to zoom in on a couple of minor points. These minor points are ultimately what kept this story in my top three, though, so I feel they’re important.

The first is the existential debate between Allie and Gynnifr (an excellent name, by the way - it feels like a subtle implication that only the northernmost of Europeans survived the Crisis) while he’s building a model of the Mitsubishi Corsair. I like how the ending completely recontextualizes that exchange. As the conversation flows between them, Gynnifr is clearly wrong - physically building a model from scratch is inherently more real than summoning a virtual thing from the digital aether. But then we learn later that it’s all a lie - the metal he’s using to build the replica is as fake as the fully representative model she summons. Does this make her right, in that the ones and zeroes are as real as anything? Does our perspective in meatspace render them both wrong? Or is the Simulation Hypothesis real and nothing else is? Does it even matter? Who knows? But I think this juxtaposition is a neat way to explore the subject. Existential ennui for the win.

The second is that this story taught me something I find most distressing. At first I thought to chastise you for a glaring oversight - surely something you didn’t catch after a first draft, or something to that effect - but no. Your story isn’t broken. It is the world that is broken.

There is no tea in Svalbard.

I ran search after taxonomic search, and Camellia sinensis is nowhere to be found in the seed bank. Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, the friggin’ shoe black plant, is in there, but not tea.

We fought wars over this shit, Writer! WHY ARE WE NOT SAVING TEA?

The mind reels. But the fact that you somehow knew this, and included it as a relevant historical anecdote in your far-future sci-fi story, is the kind of attention to detail that scratches a particular itch of mine.

Final Thought: At least in the struggling post-apocalypse neo-cities I’ll be able to SHINE MY FUCKING SHOES

Goodness, Cassius is a tough act to follow.

There’s a lot to like in this story, Writer, but I’ll echo what’s been said already - nothing feels particularly fleshed out. From backstory to characterization to setting, there’s some hints at a good story, but nothing seems to stick.

Zephyr in particular seems weirdly voiced to me. A lot of this is tied to her use of contractions - it turns on and off for no apparent reason, and words like “yeah” and “huh” are added at odd times, too. And Amy fairs little better - I didn’t get much of a sense of her character at all, and her dialogue is often at odds with the formal speech used when she’s narrating.

The most nagging quibble I have is that there doesn’t seem to be a good reason for Zephyr to stick around after she takes off in the intro. “I still have business in this world” is a copout, and we both know it’s a copout. The thing is, it could be Zephyr handwaving Amy’s question when the truth is that Amy is interesting for some reason - some feeling of kinship, or a nagging thought left behind from something Amy said in the introduction, that Zephyr could later reference. As it stands, we have no idea what Amy may have said or done that piqued Zephyr’s curiosity, and as a result it feels more like it’s you, Writer, handwaving the reader’s question of why Zephyr came back.

Throughout the crypt scene we don’t get a real sense of the stakes involved with what Amy and Zephyr are trying to accomplish. Yes, freeing the djinn is a noble goal in and of itself, but what are they undoing in the process? Is it just a weird phylactery-by-proxy for the souls of the deceased, binding their ghosts to haunt the catacombs for eternity? To what end? Is it a cumulative power that can be tapped, as implied by the increasing light emitted from the freed djinn around Zephyr’s wrist as more are added? How is this power applied through governance? We get a vague hint from the clerk in the tower that Amy’s family rules with an iron fist, but the clerk’s deference could just as easily be explained by the fact that she’s talking to a freaking djinn as fear of any retribution from Amy or her family. Clearly her family is up to no good, what with all the soul binding, but without more context it just feels like evil for evil’s sake. And I’ll add my voice to the chorus saying that Amy’s interaction with her mother is way too rushed.

A little extra context would go a long way towards improving this story, Writer. As it stands, you have a good foundation to build on.

Final Thought: Would liked to have seen more of a whole new world.

Aha it was me all along!

RECAP: I FUCKING HATE ARKANSAS, THE STORY


But anyone who knows anything about me could have easily guessed that. I wrote this story after driving around 24 hours from Texas to Michigan, and one of the places I went through was Arkansas. I found myself somewhat perplexed by >>horizon and >>Xepher's criticism that Arkansas doesn't resemble what I wrote, because, at least for a long stretch of I-40, it does. Now I do take some dramatic license, and there certainly are trees along I-40 (particularly after you pass Benton towards Little Rock, where I spent one awful night—I seriously undersell how terrible that town is), but the important part to me is that it certainly was how I described going from Texarkana. What is even more amusing to me, personally, is that is not the first time I've done that drive. I have trekked from Texas to Michigan approximately 9 times by car in my life.

I neglected to mention how shitty the roads are in Arkansas. They're abominations.

I fucking hate Arkansas.

>>Xepher

'91 Mustang is "old"? I was about to take offense, but then it's described with an 8-track player, so I have to assume this is an '81 or a '71. Let's go with '71, as that looks like a beast of a car, the '81 and '91 are hideous. NVM, it double's down on "90s cars."

This error is embarrassing because the '91 Mustang GT 5.0 Convertible with blue body and silver trim is a car I actually own. As I've stated in my own fake review >>Cassius, the error was the result of me conflating two different terms I was unfamiliar with, and I actually meant that it was a compact cassette deck.

I also take offense to your comment that it is an ugly model.

Also, as I note in my fake review, the story sort of hiccups at the point past the gas station. That is because the narrative was initially written to be from a male, twenty something, perspective, but I decided that a female perspective would be more interesting. I tried my best to realign the perspective, but obviously there were some oversights.

BUT WHAT WAS THIS STORY ABOUT?

>>Cassius

As far as I can tell, the overall story is supposed to be something in the veins of a movie like Blue Ruin, where an emotionally disturbed person who had been the victim of a traumatic event decides to get revenge on the person who victimized them, only to realize that getting revenge hasn't fixed their life, only made it worse.

Basically this. I often write stories with the initial premise of "Broken People Adjusting Poorly" as the premise. The narrative outline is supposed to be as such:

-We see the aftermath of the event, demonstrate to the audience that the person in question is not happy as the result of her life choices
-Detail the event
-Protagonist chooses to either take steps to resolve or not resolve problem
-End

There are some errors in communicating this framework, but the most important bit I think I failed to communicate is this dynamic:

Megan doesn't regret killing and torturing the priest. She feels good about doing it. She understands that this is a bad thing that she did and bad that she enjoyed it so much, but feels no regret for doing so—but ultimately she understands that killing the priest hasn't fixed any aspect of her life, and she is still miserable.

It's a complex feeling that really even as I've typed that up, I found difficult to adequately explain. I guess I was too distracted by making cute metaphors and utilizing reincorporation to get the more fundamental aspects of the story down pat.

Anyways, thanks for the reviews everyone.

>>Baal Bunny
>>Monokeras
>>horizon
>>Xepher
>>AndrewRogue

Congratulations to Oroboro for the gold, Icenrose for their first OF medal, and CiG for maintaining our scoreboard neck-and-neck dead heat! ^.^

Verbal Battery was, as I hinted, a less ambitious version of the story I had hoped to write. I ran out of time just as No really came into their own as a character, and the back half of the plot was supposed to be a deeper examination of free will vs. purpose/destiny in an MLP-esque sense, with No's nature as an elemental construct informing their desire to remain working with the project. In place of that actual plot, Kevan's jerkiness got amped way up to provide some sort of conflict, which didn't really work.

I don't know that I actually have that much to say about it in retrospective, but thank you all for the reviews, and happy Thanksgiving to our American and/or American-adjacent participants!

>>Cassius
I am usually among the people reviewing stories, but this round happened not in a good time for me (I didn't have time to submit anything). Moreover, I feel lately like I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes down to offer inputs on a story. Which is probably true.

So yeah, come to review, people, or else, my reviews will be the only thing you'll have. And you don't want that, I'm sure.

Chode Mustard - A Retrospective

Congrats to Oroboro on their first OF gold, and congrats to Cold in Gardez for another well-deserved medal!

I would never have guessed that a story this vulgar would be what would get me my first medal, but here we are. ^^ I’m glad that, for all its flaws, this story still resonated with so many of you. I had a hell of a lot of fun writing it.

About a week before this competition I went to a local rock concert to see a friend of a friend’s steampunk band. One of the openers was a hardcore band whose name escapes me now. For their sound check the front man belched into the mic and then made fart noises for another ten seconds before giving a thumbs up and saying, “Yeah man, sounds good to me.” Their set was about what you’d expect from a first impression like that, but I was struck by how much fun they were obviously having on stage. I didn’t really enjoy the sound that they created, but it was still an interesting experience. Once I realized that one of the interpretations of the prompt was fleeting success, often attributed to flash-in-the-pan bands, I thought about those fun loving idiots, and then thought, “What if someone who didn’t like hardcore music somehow found themselves in a band like that?” Chode Mustard pretty much wrote itself from there.

The fact that it wrote itself is to its detriment, as many of you pointed out both here and on Discord. This is one of the least ambitious stories this round, in that it treads over well-trodden ground and doesn’t do much to skew things in an interesting way, and I’ll cop to it. I tried to mitigate that through the ending, with Jay’s self reflection and desire to turn over a new leaf, but it doesn’t overcome the obvious and predictable demise of Tommy.

I got some truly excellent feedback this time around, so let me thank each of you in turn.

>>Monokeras
I wholeheartedly agree that there’s too big of a jump between some of these scenes, especially between the El Camino scene and the arena concert afterparty. There was originally a plan to include a scene there where they’re driving along in the El Camino and Miguel gets a text message telling them to turn on the radio, and that’s the first time they hear themselves on the college radio station. I wound up cutting it because I couldn’t make it gel tonally with the rest of the piece, but I think that may have been a mistake in hindsight. And I also agree that each of the shorter scenes could use a bit more bolstering to help even out the flow of the story.

I’m glad I taught you a couple new words. Just don’t teach them to your kids. ^^

>>Cassius
Referring to what you said on Discord, I was, indeed, very happy to have read this. Five hundred words on why the story is deeply flawed, and then a thousand words on why it should win, was a hell of a thing to read so early in the competition. I was pretty uncertain on whether I would even make the finals with this story until your post.

That said, you are absolutely correct on why this story is as skeletal as it is. Tommy’s death is the lowest note, I think. It’s no accident that it’s the shortest scene in the story. I knew while I was writing that his death was in service to the plot and nothing else, but I spent too much time trying to make the other scenes flow better and never got around to revising it. I should have had him drive through the front of a Guitar Center and impale himself on a Variax Shuriken display or something like that. It would have suited his character better, and been at least slightly less cliche than dying face-down in a pile of coke.

In addition to your feedback here, thank you for all you wrote for the other stories this round. I’ve learned quite a bit from your efforts, and I’ll be keeping it in mind in future rounds.

Oh, and thanks for your addendum on how even one note characters can-

*puts on shades*

-strike a chord.

YEEEEEAAAAAAH

I’ll see myself out.

>>Xepher
I blame Google and Urban Dictionary for “Chode” instead of “Choad” - from the way they describe, the spellings were interchangeable. I didn’t realize chode was an archaic past tense for chide, so thank you for teaching me something. ^^ And also for teaching me that Subnormality is also a webcomic! I really liked those animated shorts that Cracked put out, so I’m looking forward to digging through the archive.

I’m sorry the character interactions left a bad taste in your mouth - I was drawing from the well of my time as a roadie for a friend of mine’s band back in college, and, well, that’s kinda how they acted with one another. You’re right, though, it does come off as stereotypical at times. It doesn’t help that when my friends and I get a little tipsy, we tend to use swear words more like punctuation than anything else. Something to work on, for sure. Thanks for your feedback!

>>Not_A_Hat
You’re absolutely right, the middle needs more to it. As I said earlier, there’s a scene in the middle that was undoubtedly a high point for the band, the first time they hear themselves on the radio. I cut it because I wanted Jay’s later reflection on how he didn’t have that much fun to not ring hollow. Still, I could have added more to the penultimate scene to make it more obvious how far gone the halcyon days are.

I’m glad you liked the story! Thank you for leaving your feedback. ^^

>>AndrewRogue
I’m glad you liked the pacing. If I ever return to it, I probably won’t add much to the scenes themselves, just to keep things moving along at a pretty good clip. I do think adding that scene between El Camino and afterparty would be necessary, though. Speaking from experience, the first time you hear yourself on the radio is something that sticks with you, so it still fits with the highlight reel approach to memory. Thank you for your thoughts!



All in all, I had a lot of fun writing this story, and I’m immensely pleased with winning my first medal on top of it. I’ll see you all next round! ^^

Cass, you make my life so hard sometimes. You know how hard it is to talk around stuff when you do shit like that. :p

Anyhow, that was a good review and it deserves a good retrospective. So let's do this. Originally I'd had a different idea rolodex card I'd been considering for this round, but I felt the connection was too loose. Then I got a bit of the field of fireflies idea stuck in my head, as well as a sharp contrast between a field full of them and an empty one. I liked the idea and I had another setting concept in mind that fit the idea nicely, so away we went.

I ended up having to sprint most of this story out on Sunday (I really need to get better at using Friday and Saturday), which was a pain in the ass. I am not a fast writer, so kicking out 6K words or so in a single day fucking sucked. It also meant I was working very fast with minimal time to think about plot of plan scenes, which led to things getting a bit messy.

So let's talk about the big bugaboo here: the ending.

The ending is not actually intended as... optimistic? It is intended almost exactly as stated by Cass that this is going to lead to war that will end very badly. To put it bluntly, Riina got played by the sprites, who decided to use her as a weapon. The end is about the conclusions of cycles of oppression and violence not leading to reasonable and rational solutions, but rather petty violence and anger erupting and leading to either violent revolution or total destruction. Riina frying Deniel as she did is a Bad Thing (TM). So, if you didn't get that... I don't actually blame you because that was an eleventh hour swerve and I had no opportunity to hint more at that in earlier scenes.

Yes, let it be said now that you are 100% correct Cass in that what you imagined as the point of the story was largely my original ending. The true idea was Riina rejects the sprite offer out of fear, Deniel was going to be aware of Per's bullshit, attempt to put him down, promise Riina some good shit for her cooperation, Riina goes back to enlist the sprite's help, she does a little havoc, Per stops from her outright murder and she agrees to trust in him for the moment... that things could be improved (and she might have to go into hiding 'cause what she did was big taboo). Also not the best plan, but closer to what you saw built up.

However, Ran was looking through a good chunk of the story before I finished and made the solid point that A- I had actions repeat too much, and B- if you actually look at it, the appearance of the sprite queen is immensely convenient and her entire discussion with Riina reads honestly a bit like she's the one pulling strings here. And after thinking about it for a bit, I decided he was right. The negative end here, the corrupted wish as it were, made more sense to me.

Of course, at this point, it was like midnight and my daughter makes me get up at around 7am or so and I still had to actually write the ending and clean up a couple more things. So, NO TIME FOR FIXES. I actually hoped the reveal of a bunch of sprites suddenly and Riina's parting thoughts (implying they were going to do more of this bonding and that the sprites had been waiting for this moment - also a happy accident of structure in that Per's statements earlier re: Sprites could both imply that Deniel was selling them on the side OR that they weren't being found for reasons) would better convey the swerve, but it is really hard to fight against 9/10ths of the story being built towards a different end concept!

Overall, I do like the idea, although I'm a bit unsure how to clean up the story. C'est la vie, I suppose. Onto more specific commentary!

>>Cassius I just wanted it stated that I do not make up names, particularly by adding letters. Riina is an Estonian name. That said, still probably not the best choice for the reasons stated, but sometimes you just gotta pick a name and go.

Yeah, I had a serious problem with having to write myself into the story. I wanted to keep the first scene still (possibly against better judgment), but I was just out of time to readjust scenes 2 and 3 to find a better starting point. And honestly, 1 probably isn't good enough either, but so it goes.

Deniel's portrayal was an issue because I was trying to softhand what was effectively evil colonial leader and avoid him being too puppy eating, but it ended up backfiring for the most part.

Per and Riina stuff was great. Per was a bit of a late addition to my plotting when I decided I wanted to try and make a more balanced look at things. The leadership is not so heartless as to completely abandon people, there are those who care, and provide a means of legitimacy to whatever Riina does: as long as she didn't push it too far, he could theoretically cover for her. It allowed for a conflict between her and Deniel to not have to be pure MIGHT MAKES RIGHT, but rather that might too must be tempered by some help form authority. Of course, then I swerved and didn't have time to really build in the idea of Riina's powerful rejections of this because she is angry and... hm, it is a dumb word to use in the context of colonial oppression, but we'll say petulant... about things and how Per has in many ways come too late.

You should ask Ran about Riina and Per OTP. He offered me some interesting insight during editing. :p

>>Xepher Now see, this is interesting because it is a bit of an opposite take on Cass' views re: the ending... but more wrong because it is very anti-FiM in the intended final message. Setting aside death of the author and such, what do you think of the revealed info?

And yeah. I suck at sensory work. Seriously, go look at anything I've written and you'll see I kinda avoid it like the plague. Which is bad. I keep meaning to practice more of it because I am weak at it, but places like the Writeoff make me just fall back to old certainties. It is a bad habit.

>>Fenton I'm sensing a pattern to my failures here. ^_~

>>Monokeras That first sentence is very classic "Andrew changed his mind about structuring a sentence and just failed to fix the whole thing." Second is indeed a bit more of a quirk to the way I write sometimes.

You raise a really interesting point in that I forgot to have Deniel do any actual magic. There were several points where I had intended it, but I kept shifting around my decisions to the point where I never actually engaged the magic system at any point besides a very brief flash at the end. Whoops!

>>Not_A_Hat See above for ending stuff.

Just coming back to this months later to say I still love it. Write more like it, Dolfeus.