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I enjoyed this, but felt that a lot more could have been said in regard to the plot. The idea was clever, but who is this man? We eventually learn his motivation, as simple as it is, but how is he able to keep on doing what he does? What makes him special? Why is he so determined to achieve his goal? How does being repeatedly killed not drive him insane? And why does God need a guard?
If he's been sitting in the tower since time immemorial, and doesn't need to leave, why does he make it accessible? He doesn't receive visitors, so why not completely destroy or block off the entrance, and prevent the risk of attack? That and the need of a guard stationed outside. Also, why is God so vulnerable? If he has the capacity to create all life, surely he can destroy also? I don't know if your version of God makes references to something that I'm unfamiliar with, but I'd assume that if we operated on Old Testament lore, we would have to assume that God (and his archangels), are capable of some pretty heavy destruction. The idea of a mortal, who will take thousands of attempts to kill Beylke, who is only an agent of God, killing the creator himself is a very tall order. In my mind, if Beylke were a tiger, God would be an apache helicopter made of adimantium. How many tries will it take to kill him? And unlike Beylke, can't God just erase his attacker?
The amount of questions the story raised in my head, whether some might have answers I'm missing because I'm silly or not, stopped me from being able to enjoy this as much as I wish I could have. As I've said, the ideas in the story are interesting, also, the action and dialogue both play out very nicely. The repetition mechanic the author used is well executed also, although I misread the third version at first and thought he had died of six stab wounds again, silly me.
This is an enjoyable fic, all in all, purely for the quality of the writing and storytelling, the narration, descriptions, dialogues, and many of the story elements are strong, the writer is definitely great at projecting a scene. If details had been added which served to answer some of my questions, and put my mind at rest over what I'm overthinking and what just sounds plain impossible, I would definitely read a longer version of this, consider me intrigued.
Thank you for giving me something enjoyable to read, it was good food for thought, and helped me to try and get my head into another universe for a while. Very much liked the author's writing style.
AAIQU
If he's been sitting in the tower since time immemorial, and doesn't need to leave, why does he make it accessible? He doesn't receive visitors, so why not completely destroy or block off the entrance, and prevent the risk of attack? That and the need of a guard stationed outside. Also, why is God so vulnerable? If he has the capacity to create all life, surely he can destroy also? I don't know if your version of God makes references to something that I'm unfamiliar with, but I'd assume that if we operated on Old Testament lore, we would have to assume that God (and his archangels), are capable of some pretty heavy destruction. The idea of a mortal, who will take thousands of attempts to kill Beylke, who is only an agent of God, killing the creator himself is a very tall order. In my mind, if Beylke were a tiger, God would be an apache helicopter made of adimantium. How many tries will it take to kill him? And unlike Beylke, can't God just erase his attacker?
The amount of questions the story raised in my head, whether some might have answers I'm missing because I'm silly or not, stopped me from being able to enjoy this as much as I wish I could have. As I've said, the ideas in the story are interesting, also, the action and dialogue both play out very nicely. The repetition mechanic the author used is well executed also, although I misread the third version at first and thought he had died of six stab wounds again, silly me.
This is an enjoyable fic, all in all, purely for the quality of the writing and storytelling, the narration, descriptions, dialogues, and many of the story elements are strong, the writer is definitely great at projecting a scene. If details had been added which served to answer some of my questions, and put my mind at rest over what I'm overthinking and what just sounds plain impossible, I would definitely read a longer version of this, consider me intrigued.
Thank you for giving me something enjoyable to read, it was good food for thought, and helped me to try and get my head into another universe for a while. Very much liked the author's writing style.
AAIQU
Hmm. You lean a little heavily on the limits of copy and paste here and I'm pretty sure I skipped over at least half of the story. Putting words on the page that I don't want to read and you don't want to write is bad form.
The eternal champion who fights all comers knows ahead of time that they will eventually fail. Be it to loose stone, a grain of sand in their eye or ill-timed sneeze.
Still I think it is pretty okay.
The eternal champion who fights all comers knows ahead of time that they will eventually fail. Be it to loose stone, a grain of sand in their eye or ill-timed sneeze.
Still I think it is pretty okay.
Have God grant him eternal life and tie him to a post in his backyard. Problem solved.
You know, I'm generally fine with leaving the setting unexplained as long as the story told is intriguing and interesting enough, and this story was both. However, you keep rising too many question and in the end we barely get any answer.
We know nameless guy is going to keep coming no matter how many times he's defeated, but that's not a conclusion, it's barely a hook.
Ultimately, this is a great concept that leaves me wanting more but not in a good way.
You know, I'm generally fine with leaving the setting unexplained as long as the story told is intriguing and interesting enough, and this story was both. However, you keep rising too many question and in the end we barely get any answer.
We know nameless guy is going to keep coming no matter how many times he's defeated, but that's not a conclusion, it's barely a hook.
Ultimately, this is a great concept that leaves me wanting more but not in a good way.
Ah, deicide, a classic and something which quite obviously links to the prompt. It's a kind of story I usually like.
There's not much I can say about the technical aspect here. The writing is solid, the action sequences flow nicely and I could picture what was happening clearly, which is a big plus.
Now on to the criticism. The repetition of the first paragraphs became a bit off-putting. I understand why you did it, but I would prefer something different.
Now, let me put away my Tentatively Objective Critic hat and let me talk about a purely personal preference. For me the Killing God genre requires either a philosophical challenge or a path of personal discovery. In this case it was thematically a tangent to the story which is a nice action scene and tells us a bit about the guardian but not much else. This feels a bit like a missed occasion. Killing God is a powerful concept, and you didn't really use it. To be more effective we would need to know more about at least one of the characters, as to frame te action in a larger context.
Personal preferences aside, I liked what I saw even if I hoped for more. Thank you for having written it.
>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless
Killing God is a theme which, while not quite common, is pretty classical even if it started only relatively recently to appear in western works of fiction.
There's not much I can say about the technical aspect here. The writing is solid, the action sequences flow nicely and I could picture what was happening clearly, which is a big plus.
Now on to the criticism. The repetition of the first paragraphs became a bit off-putting. I understand why you did it, but I would prefer something different.
Now, let me put away my Tentatively Objective Critic hat and let me talk about a purely personal preference. For me the Killing God genre requires either a philosophical challenge or a path of personal discovery. In this case it was thematically a tangent to the story which is a nice action scene and tells us a bit about the guardian but not much else. This feels a bit like a missed occasion. Killing God is a powerful concept, and you didn't really use it. To be more effective we would need to know more about at least one of the characters, as to frame te action in a larger context.
Personal preferences aside, I liked what I saw even if I hoped for more. Thank you for having written it.
>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless
Killing God is a theme which, while not quite common, is pretty classical even if it started only relatively recently to appear in western works of fiction.
I'm torn. I'm torn between seeing the repetition as a lazy way to add more words and seeing it at meaningful tool to emphasize the idea of the story. But because the rest is pretty good, I'll give it the benefice of the doubt.
Aside from that, I won't add many things to what has already been said. The writing felt very vivid but the story left too many questions unanswered. The main question I have is: Does the man go back in time and keep his memory? Or, because he is the incarnation of the void, does his being make the guard forget she has already seen him before?
Aside from that, I won't add many things to what has already been said. The writing felt very vivid but the story left too many questions unanswered. The main question I have is: Does the man go back in time and keep his memory? Or, because he is the incarnation of the void, does his being make the guard forget she has already seen him before?
I feel like there should be a more elegant way to do that repetition. I can't see any benefits to how it's currently done. Personally, I'd probably have made the first one much shorter and only completely repeated it once, and then just overlapped the ends of the rest... or something like that, maybe?
While this is a decent character piece, at least from the guardian's side, it feels too padded with repetition and the fight scenes aren't doing enough to carry their weight, in my mind. Although the idea on display here is neat, a lot more could be done if those words were reclaimed - even if that's just to speed up the pacing and make it hit harder.
While this is a decent character piece, at least from the guardian's side, it feels too padded with repetition and the fight scenes aren't doing enough to carry their weight, in my mind. Although the idea on display here is neat, a lot more could be done if those words were reclaimed - even if that's just to speed up the pacing and make it hit harder.
I haven't even read the commentary for this, but I'm willing to bet most of them zeroed in on that repetition being overdone, so I won't go near it beyond that.
The only real question I have is: what the heck is this guy? The devil? Or maybe some being beyond comprehension and emotion, playing with those of this world out of idle curiosity?
Anyhow, I like the story in a general sense, but the obvious flaw in repetition just kills it. Add to that a noticeable number of typos/grammatical errors and I'm looking elsewhere. With a little work, this could be something really worthwhile.
The only real question I have is: what the heck is this guy? The devil? Or maybe some being beyond comprehension and emotion, playing with those of this world out of idle curiosity?
Anyhow, I like the story in a general sense, but the obvious flaw in repetition just kills it. Add to that a noticeable number of typos/grammatical errors and I'm looking elsewhere. With a little work, this could be something really worthwhile.
Hm, can't say I agree with what the man is doing, but still a pretty good fic. Even if it does get to be a little repetitive.
Inevitability — A- — Nice start even if it’s not very hooky. And… time loop again. They seem to be popular, in a Doctor Strange kind of way. I’m surprised the guardian does not take the obvious response and simply cripple the man and bind him up for a few weeks/months/years. The large chunk of cut-and-paste makes it too tempting to skip forward, and that chunks the action up enough to break any suspension of disbelief. Still, it’s well written and could be polished down to a tighter story. Not bad at all.
This is one of those rare stories where I have to completely divorce my voting and my assessment, so I need to explain my voting before I get into my review.
There is a 291-word section which is, as near as I can tell, exactly copy-and-pasted into the story four more times after its initial appearance. That's 1,164 words out of the story's 2,394 which took no thought and just a few keypresses to create. Without them, the story would have been 1230 words long.
As such, I am putting this at the bottom of my slate. I feel that it meets the letter, but not the spirit, of the wordcount part of the contest rules.
This post is NOT a request for the story to be disqualified. I am NOT asking other readers to change their vote. Most importantly, I am not condemning the author for entering this However, despite this entry's quality, I personally do not feel it would be fair for me to rate any other stories below an entry without 2000 original, unique words.
I'm writing this purely to explain my decision, since the fact it was bottom-slated will be visible from the results page.
There is a 291-word section which is, as near as I can tell, exactly copy-and-pasted into the story four more times after its initial appearance. That's 1,164 words out of the story's 2,394 which took no thought and just a few keypresses to create. Without them, the story would have been 1230 words long.
As such, I am putting this at the bottom of my slate. I feel that it meets the letter, but not the spirit, of the wordcount part of the contest rules.
This post is NOT a request for the story to be disqualified. I am NOT asking other readers to change their vote. Most importantly, I am not condemning the author for entering this However, despite this entry's quality, I personally do not feel it would be fair for me to rate any other stories below an entry without 2000 original, unique words.
I'm writing this purely to explain my decision, since the fact it was bottom-slated will be visible from the results page.
As for my review. First, from a literary standpoint, I think the repetition was also a mistake. Kurt Vonnegut's first rule of writing is to "Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted". Forcing readers through an identical extended scene five times in a row is a waste of time. Coming in blindly to the story, we don't know whether there are any small but significant changes in the repeated text, which forces us to re-read and re-parse a scene that we've already read, only to discover that the exact same thing happened.
Abbreviate your repetitions. Skip forward to the end of the repeated section. Have things go slightly different as a case of deja vu creeps in. Do something different! Even if you are trying to get across the sense of being stuck in a time loop, there should be narrative forward motion, or else you lose the reader. So fix that.
... I might maybe have strong opinions on this, as the author of Hard Reset 2 and its time-loop madness. I would immodestly point to Chapter 4 as an example of a way to run through dozens of loops without getting the narrative mired down. The 2014 movie Edge of Tomorrow is also good about that.
to be fair, you're doing something here that most time-loop stories don't do: reacting to the changes from the perspective of someone who's not the looper. That's interesting, and very, very hard! (I speak from direct experience. Again: HR2, Opinions.) The dilemma is how to reconcile the fact that the reader has information that the protagonist doesn't -- since there can be no memories of the loop. This takes a good stab at it: Beylke's deductions feel plausible, and the audience views of the previous loops (modulo the repetition) work well to build up that sense of implausibility which gives her pause.
I don't have strong opinions on the motive reveal. It feels kind of orthogonal to your time-loop story. You might want to consider exploring how the looper got that way, if only because you could tie it in to his motives and thus both strengthen them and make the story feel a little more coherent.
Thematically, though, I think the loop approach and the way that you frame it is an excellent approach to the prompt. (Again, modulo the repeats; just assume that I'm reviewing the 1200-word story which doesn't include them.) The theme and title merge well. Although the worldbuilding dangles loose ends all over the place, it felt like everything that was needed for your theme was there, so this is pretty well self-contained.
The repetition, in short, feels by far like the major flaw and I wish I didn't have to ding the story so severely for it.
Tier: Almost There
Abbreviate your repetitions. Skip forward to the end of the repeated section. Have things go slightly different as a case of deja vu creeps in. Do something different! Even if you are trying to get across the sense of being stuck in a time loop, there should be narrative forward motion, or else you lose the reader. So fix that.
... I might maybe have strong opinions on this, as the author of Hard Reset 2 and its time-loop madness. I would immodestly point to Chapter 4 as an example of a way to run through dozens of loops without getting the narrative mired down. The 2014 movie Edge of Tomorrow is also good about that.
to be fair, you're doing something here that most time-loop stories don't do: reacting to the changes from the perspective of someone who's not the looper. That's interesting, and very, very hard! (I speak from direct experience. Again: HR2, Opinions.) The dilemma is how to reconcile the fact that the reader has information that the protagonist doesn't -- since there can be no memories of the loop. This takes a good stab at it: Beylke's deductions feel plausible, and the audience views of the previous loops (modulo the repetition) work well to build up that sense of implausibility which gives her pause.
I don't have strong opinions on the motive reveal. It feels kind of orthogonal to your time-loop story. You might want to consider exploring how the looper got that way, if only because you could tie it in to his motives and thus both strengthen them and make the story feel a little more coherent.
Thematically, though, I think the loop approach and the way that you frame it is an excellent approach to the prompt. (Again, modulo the repeats; just assume that I'm reviewing the 1200-word story which doesn't include them.) The theme and title merge well. Although the worldbuilding dangles loose ends all over the place, it felt like everything that was needed for your theme was there, so this is pretty well self-contained.
The repetition, in short, feels by far like the major flaw and I wish I didn't have to ding the story so severely for it.
Tier: Almost There
How ironic that this was inevitably dead last on my random review list. I knew what I was going to say about it when I first read it a couple days back, but didn't post then because I was curious to see just how long it would go without anyone else saying it. Seems like the answer is pretty long! But it's finally time, errybody outta the pool.
This scene is a reskinned retelling of the climax (well, one of the possible climaxes) of a popular video game from the last couple of years. For those who are curious, it's the final battle in the "Genocide" or "Bad Time" ending path of Undertale, along with some material from scenes before and after the fight.
I say reskin because it does change some surface elements, like the specific setting, characters and some dialogue, and shuffles just enough around that I wouldn't consider it plagiarism .. barely. The essential concept of the scene, along with the tone, emotional beats, storyboard and general character concepts - in other words, the good parts - are all straight from the game. Many specific details from the game also remain, some shuffled or slightly changed, but still very recognizable and in sufficient quantity to allow me no reasonable doubt that this could be a case of convergent evolution.
To cover a few of them:
- Remorseless timelooping attacker confronts highly skilled defender, dies many times but eventually overwhelms/will overwhelm defender by persistence and learning defender's responses
- Setting backdrop is distinctly religious, though not specifying any particular deity or faith
- Prefight description focusing on attacker's eyes and the "look" therein, repeated on every loop
- Defender decisively wins first loop with a preemptive, unexpected and very powerful blast of white-colored magical energy
- After the magical fire is dodged, defender unleashes fast and overwhelming melee attacks from multiple angles
- Attacker wields a plain dagger and attacks with single dramatic slashes
- Defender evades dagger slashes via teleportation, which also surprises the attacker on its first use
- Defender grows discouraged upon realizing what's going on, engaging in midfight banter and acknowledging that attacker will inevitably win
- Attacker outlasts defender's teleportation and lands a single dramatic slash that draws an emphasized line of red blood
- Attacker's victory will result in the total destruction and unmaking of the world
- Special descriptive emphasis on attacker smiling in the conclusion
Specific dialogue lines and concepts:
"What are you?"
"Honestly, I've lost count"
"Whatever it was you were looking for, I hope you found it."
"I've seen everything this world has to offer. So, now I want to know what happens when I kill God and unmake it."
"Nothing. Everything will cease to be"
"She was dead. It was only a matter of tries. And once she finally fell, that would be the end. There would be nothing left."
All the above are very close to lines from the game. They're rearranged in time and speaker (the attacker in the game is silent, and some are from material in other scenes rather than just this battle) but not in meaning.
Also of note is that the story here does not add anything of substance to the content and concepts in the game. The only notable new material is the Tower of God, and the implication that there is a God to reach and kill inside it, but sadly the story doesn't really go anywhere with this idea. Other than the stakes of failure (which are the same as in the game, God or no God) it doesn't matter what B-lady is guarding. We don't see her actual failure in this version, but it's implied, so... (note to author: would've been stronger without the last loop, actually. It's enough to keep it implied after slashing her cheek!)
Anyway, that all's just something to be aware of. Zero points for originality. Moving on!
I'm not a fan of the repeated blocks of text. As everyone else has mentioned, either the reader skips over them (in which case they're lazy padding that fudges the word count while adding nothing to the story) or reads them in detail every single time looking for possible differences (only to find that there are none and they've wasted their time doing so!) There are better ways to do this. Truncate them, or do include meaningful differences, or use openings that are different for the reader but not for the guardian.
... Yeah, I can't move on very much beyond that. Rest of the technical side's okay by me. More than okay, really, it's easy to read and easy to follow what's going on, and that's no small feat when writing fast and furious fantasy battles. Having the battle itself outlined for you doesn't help much there, so full marks to the author on that count. All the other content issues people are mentioning, like the lack of motive or identity for the attacker... well, those do come back to having taken these concepts in isolation from a more complete work.
What else can I say. Don't feel too ashamed by this, author. I think the creative process is all about recombination anyway, if you trace it back far enough everyone's ripping off something, and every other round here is My Little Pony fanfiction anyway so what's the problem with a bit of fanfic for something else? (Unless you were really just trying to sneak the concept past for a good rank without ever acknowledging your source, that's rather poor form, but I don't think that's what happened.)
A reskin like this is not necessarily a deal breaker for me, not as long as you do something with it or add something of your own. The deal breaker here is that this doesn't do anything new. It needs to go beyond a reskin to fantasy and a half-formed concept. I think that's probably where you wanted to add things, the Tower aspect makes me think of a certain Stephen King series, there's obvious potential there. But it didn't quite get there (out of time, maybe?) so for those reasons I can't rank it very highly. Thank you for participating, though. Please do not have a bad time!
.. also seriously no one else spotted this yet? Y'all gotta stop reading books and watching pone and play some mind rotting children's electronic entertainment, yo!
This scene is a reskinned retelling of the climax (well, one of the possible climaxes) of a popular video game from the last couple of years. For those who are curious, it's the final battle in the "Genocide" or "Bad Time" ending path of Undertale, along with some material from scenes before and after the fight.
I say reskin because it does change some surface elements, like the specific setting, characters and some dialogue, and shuffles just enough around that I wouldn't consider it plagiarism .. barely. The essential concept of the scene, along with the tone, emotional beats, storyboard and general character concepts - in other words, the good parts - are all straight from the game. Many specific details from the game also remain, some shuffled or slightly changed, but still very recognizable and in sufficient quantity to allow me no reasonable doubt that this could be a case of convergent evolution.
To cover a few of them:
- Remorseless timelooping attacker confronts highly skilled defender, dies many times but eventually overwhelms/will overwhelm defender by persistence and learning defender's responses
- Setting backdrop is distinctly religious, though not specifying any particular deity or faith
- Prefight description focusing on attacker's eyes and the "look" therein, repeated on every loop
- Defender decisively wins first loop with a preemptive, unexpected and very powerful blast of white-colored magical energy
- After the magical fire is dodged, defender unleashes fast and overwhelming melee attacks from multiple angles
- Attacker wields a plain dagger and attacks with single dramatic slashes
- Defender evades dagger slashes via teleportation, which also surprises the attacker on its first use
- Defender grows discouraged upon realizing what's going on, engaging in midfight banter and acknowledging that attacker will inevitably win
- Attacker outlasts defender's teleportation and lands a single dramatic slash that draws an emphasized line of red blood
- Attacker's victory will result in the total destruction and unmaking of the world
- Special descriptive emphasis on attacker smiling in the conclusion
Specific dialogue lines and concepts:
"What are you?"
"Honestly, I've lost count"
"Whatever it was you were looking for, I hope you found it."
"I've seen everything this world has to offer. So, now I want to know what happens when I kill God and unmake it."
"Nothing. Everything will cease to be"
"She was dead. It was only a matter of tries. And once she finally fell, that would be the end. There would be nothing left."
All the above are very close to lines from the game. They're rearranged in time and speaker (the attacker in the game is silent, and some are from material in other scenes rather than just this battle) but not in meaning.
Also of note is that the story here does not add anything of substance to the content and concepts in the game. The only notable new material is the Tower of God, and the implication that there is a God to reach and kill inside it, but sadly the story doesn't really go anywhere with this idea. Other than the stakes of failure (which are the same as in the game, God or no God) it doesn't matter what B-lady is guarding. We don't see her actual failure in this version, but it's implied, so... (note to author: would've been stronger without the last loop, actually. It's enough to keep it implied after slashing her cheek!)
Anyway, that all's just something to be aware of. Zero points for originality. Moving on!
I'm not a fan of the repeated blocks of text. As everyone else has mentioned, either the reader skips over them (in which case they're lazy padding that fudges the word count while adding nothing to the story) or reads them in detail every single time looking for possible differences (only to find that there are none and they've wasted their time doing so!) There are better ways to do this. Truncate them, or do include meaningful differences, or use openings that are different for the reader but not for the guardian.
... Yeah, I can't move on very much beyond that. Rest of the technical side's okay by me. More than okay, really, it's easy to read and easy to follow what's going on, and that's no small feat when writing fast and furious fantasy battles. Having the battle itself outlined for you doesn't help much there, so full marks to the author on that count. All the other content issues people are mentioning, like the lack of motive or identity for the attacker... well, those do come back to having taken these concepts in isolation from a more complete work.
What else can I say. Don't feel too ashamed by this, author. I think the creative process is all about recombination anyway, if you trace it back far enough everyone's ripping off something, and every other round here is My Little Pony fanfiction anyway so what's the problem with a bit of fanfic for something else? (Unless you were really just trying to sneak the concept past for a good rank without ever acknowledging your source, that's rather poor form, but I don't think that's what happened.)
A reskin like this is not necessarily a deal breaker for me, not as long as you do something with it or add something of your own. The deal breaker here is that this doesn't do anything new. It needs to go beyond a reskin to fantasy and a half-formed concept. I think that's probably where you wanted to add things, the Tower aspect makes me think of a certain Stephen King series, there's obvious potential there. But it didn't quite get there (out of time, maybe?) so for those reasons I can't rank it very highly. Thank you for participating, though. Please do not have a bad time!
.. also seriously no one else spotted this yet? Y'all gotta stop reading books and watching pone and play some mind rotting children's electronic entertainment, yo!
Yeah, I really don't have anything I can add to this that hasn't already been covered, particularly by >>Ranmilia. Hell, I even missed some of those overlaps. So, I suppose the only thing left to say is...
geeettttttt dunked on!!!
geeettttttt dunked on!!!
>>Ranmilia
Huh. Even as a fan of Undertale I didn't make that connection.
You make quite a plausible case, I'll grant you that. I'll be curious to hear from the author whether that was a specific influence, or whether this was a curious case of convergent evolution (similar to Seje Khai: c.f. >>horizon). But for me, the reason that it didn't ping as Undertaley to me despite all of the similarities was pretty simple ... personality-wise, Beylke just flat-out isn't Sans. Very much more so an Undyne.
(Relevant to our interests. also >>RogerDodger plz allow embedded images ;_;)
The fight just doesn't have the same resonance if it's not a last stand from someone who long ago realized the futility of it all and stepped up anyway because it's just that important. This refocuses on the moment of realization, and in so doing, feels like a quite different story.
Huh. Even as a fan of Undertale I didn't make that connection.
You make quite a plausible case, I'll grant you that. I'll be curious to hear from the author whether that was a specific influence, or whether this was a curious case of convergent evolution (similar to Seje Khai: c.f. >>horizon). But for me, the reason that it didn't ping as Undertaley to me despite all of the similarities was pretty simple ... personality-wise, Beylke just flat-out isn't Sans. Very much more so an Undyne.
(Relevant to our interests. also >>RogerDodger plz allow embedded images ;_;)
The fight just doesn't have the same resonance if it's not a last stand from someone who long ago realized the futility of it all and stepped up anyway because it's just that important. This refocuses on the moment of realization, and in so doing, feels like a quite different story.
It's a beautiful day outside.
Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming...
On days like these, authors like me... should be burning in hell.
Let's get that out of the way right off the bat, because this is kind of core to everything. Ran nailed me. This is heavily (shamelessly) based on Undertale (something I am -actually- surprised more people didn't call me out on). I'll try and spoiler tag anything directly related to the game, because, seriously, if you haven't played Undertale, you really, really should. It is an absolutely tremendous game and best experienced fresh, so do yourself a favor and go play it.
So yeah. Long story short, I've wanted to do something in the shape of the San's fight for a while because I like elements of the absolute horrifying helplessness of that boss fight. This writeoff, I was feeling sick, didn't have any focus, and the idea was wedged in my brain for varying reasons, so I threw up my hands and submitted to what I knew I was going to end up being distracted by.
There's not a lot to say here really that I won't cover addressing comments, so let's just get down to it.
>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless
Well, I think there is a very strong argument that our antagonist probably is just a little bit insane. :p
Anyhow, on the subject of God, this is one of those interesting cases of how I assume information would be interpreted vs what my words actually imply. The functional idea is that God has a guardian because God themself is helpless. Beylke is their arm, while God is more just the one who supports creation. That said, this isn't a particular well developed setting or anything, but that was the core idea. Unfortunately, using "God" kinda implies a lot of things, and well... Expectations are expectations!
And you are actually right about the third loop. I messed up when cleaning that section up. It -can- be read correctly, but I should have fixed it.
>>Obscure
There can be value in words the reader doesn't want to read (*waves a tiny House of Leaves flag*) but this might not be the time or format.
>>Zaid Val'Roa
I kind of disagree a little here? I feel the conclusion exists, but maybe I overplayed the hand here. As of the third repetition, Beylke's defeat is assured. It's less that he'll keep coming and more that she will lose. That said, there is a pretty solid argument that that is also a very unsatisfying conclusion!
>>Orbiting_kettle
Yeah, I generally agree here that I should have done more with something. I wrestled a bit with either giving a bit more insight into Beylke or the like, but I could fit it in comfortably with the format trick I was using, so I opted to pass on it. That was a mistake, methinks.
Speaking of the repetition, I think this is a good reminder that digital and physical presentation can be a bit awkward. I actually did put a little thought into the structure of the repeated paragraph so that it would be reasonably obvious how and where you could skip a bit (hence "The man stepped forward" being the first break, a short, easy to see sentence), but scrolling probably makes this stuff a -lot- harder to see. I wonder if this would have scored less objection if the pages were opposite facing so the early paragraphs were obviously identical. Might still not, but worth consideration.
>>Fenton
To be brutally honest, it is a little from Column A, little from Column B. I wanted to mess with the repeated tract idea for impact, so it made for a good concept to take a swing at on a round where I was feeling really low energy.
And for absolute clarity, he does maintain knowledge across every loop. He just experiments with varying his actions and keeping them the same to try and find a break in her abilities.
>>Not_A_Hat
Probably the right path. Not a lot to say. Pacing is indeed wonk as fuck in this story.
>>PaulAsaran
Now the typos should be embarrassing! If I'm gonna shorten the word count effectively, I probably should make sure I get them right.
>>MLPmatthewl419
Thankies!
>>georg
Thank you kindly.
>>horizon
No harm, no foul. I expected that as a potential reaction. No real explanation needed. :p
That said, >>horizon and >>Ranmilia posted some things I'd like to respond to, but I don't actually have the time at the moment. I will try and get back to these a bit later.
Anyhow, with that out of the way, I have one thing left to say: stay determined, everyone!
And seriously go play Undertale.
Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming...
On days like these, authors like me... should be burning in hell.
Let's get that out of the way right off the bat, because this is kind of core to everything. Ran nailed me. This is heavily (shamelessly) based on Undertale (something I am -actually- surprised more people didn't call me out on). I'll try and spoiler tag anything directly related to the game, because, seriously, if you haven't played Undertale, you really, really should. It is an absolutely tremendous game and best experienced fresh, so do yourself a favor and go play it.
So yeah. Long story short, I've wanted to do something in the shape of the San's fight for a while because I like elements of the absolute horrifying helplessness of that boss fight. This writeoff, I was feeling sick, didn't have any focus, and the idea was wedged in my brain for varying reasons, so I threw up my hands and submitted to what I knew I was going to end up being distracted by.
There's not a lot to say here really that I won't cover addressing comments, so let's just get down to it.
>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless
Well, I think there is a very strong argument that our antagonist probably is just a little bit insane. :p
Anyhow, on the subject of God, this is one of those interesting cases of how I assume information would be interpreted vs what my words actually imply. The functional idea is that God has a guardian because God themself is helpless. Beylke is their arm, while God is more just the one who supports creation. That said, this isn't a particular well developed setting or anything, but that was the core idea. Unfortunately, using "God" kinda implies a lot of things, and well... Expectations are expectations!
And you are actually right about the third loop. I messed up when cleaning that section up. It -can- be read correctly, but I should have fixed it.
>>Obscure
There can be value in words the reader doesn't want to read (*waves a tiny House of Leaves flag*) but this might not be the time or format.
>>Zaid Val'Roa
I kind of disagree a little here? I feel the conclusion exists, but maybe I overplayed the hand here. As of the third repetition, Beylke's defeat is assured. It's less that he'll keep coming and more that she will lose. That said, there is a pretty solid argument that that is also a very unsatisfying conclusion!
>>Orbiting_kettle
Yeah, I generally agree here that I should have done more with something. I wrestled a bit with either giving a bit more insight into Beylke or the like, but I could fit it in comfortably with the format trick I was using, so I opted to pass on it. That was a mistake, methinks.
Speaking of the repetition, I think this is a good reminder that digital and physical presentation can be a bit awkward. I actually did put a little thought into the structure of the repeated paragraph so that it would be reasonably obvious how and where you could skip a bit (hence "The man stepped forward" being the first break, a short, easy to see sentence), but scrolling probably makes this stuff a -lot- harder to see. I wonder if this would have scored less objection if the pages were opposite facing so the early paragraphs were obviously identical. Might still not, but worth consideration.
>>Fenton
To be brutally honest, it is a little from Column A, little from Column B. I wanted to mess with the repeated tract idea for impact, so it made for a good concept to take a swing at on a round where I was feeling really low energy.
And for absolute clarity, he does maintain knowledge across every loop. He just experiments with varying his actions and keeping them the same to try and find a break in her abilities.
>>Not_A_Hat
Probably the right path. Not a lot to say. Pacing is indeed wonk as fuck in this story.
>>PaulAsaran
Now the typos should be embarrassing! If I'm gonna shorten the word count effectively, I probably should make sure I get them right.
>>MLPmatthewl419
Thankies!
>>georg
Thank you kindly.
>>horizon
No harm, no foul. I expected that as a potential reaction. No real explanation needed. :p
That said, >>horizon and >>Ranmilia posted some things I'd like to respond to, but I don't actually have the time at the moment. I will try and get back to these a bit later.
Anyhow, with that out of the way, I have one thing left to say: stay determined, everyone!
And seriously go play Undertale.