Hah. The good ol' chess-game with death, with a twist. You sure managed to raise quite the impressive atmosphere. There's quite an amount of minor typos that were slightly distracting, but I'm going to ignore those. It was somewhat obvious what was going on, considering the description that went into said queen and such. It kind of made Death appear to be an idiot rather than make the other individual seem like a genius. But still. I applaud the atmosphere.

I do wonder a little bit about the ”in turn for their good will” part of the challenge parameters, but eh! Nicely done. I like this one. Haha.

Holmishire, are you reading this? THIS is how you write a continuation of previous entries! This works just EXCELLENTLY as the start of its own entry, yet it also quite excellently makes references that make the remember EXACTLY what happened in the previous text! Granted, it's a little unfair since WiseDragonGirl's little universe here is so dang memorable, BUT STILL! Even if it hadn't read the previous entry, I still would have known exactly what was going on! You'd just have to have done THIS once for every entry you brought into your collective entry! … Which might have dragged it out a little longer than what would be comfortable, but with so many worlds coinciding, A BIT OF LENGTH IS T BE EXPECTED! XD

Phew. Yeah. Um, where was I? Oh, yeah, I was reviewing THIS entry. Alright. Excellent beginning, if I didn't make that clear. Now, let me read the rest of it.

Thorough. Classy. Brutally efficient and to the point. This is how you make a guy evil, intelligent and likable at the same time. Bravo. I'd say you got this in the bag. I have no criticism to give. Hahaha.

… Then again. I do have to wonder about the ”in turn for their good will” part of the labour. Hm. Eh. We'll see what happens. Haha.

I'm pretty proud of this. We'll see what the judges think. Haha.

… … … … …

Well. Um. Dunno about being used as a tool. I recognize that Albiorn killed the individual who saved his life, but... Due to lack of clarification at the end of it, I don't really know if this was truly someone's plot or not. What proof do we have that Ulfarr didn't attack in cold blood, and hence kind of had the shot that killed him coming? Now, it's entirely possible this was a plot by someone, but I have to mention that we don't really have any proof that this is necessarily the case. There were also a few notable typos in this story, and with this abrupt ending... Did you run out of time?

Still. Otherwise, I rather like the atmosphere you set up, here. I also like the characters. They're likable, with clear traits and intentions, and I always like that in a story. So I liked the story, despite the inevitable end it was approaching, which felt like it appeared way too quickly. Nicely done.

Love the style – you did a great job of complimenting the dark theme with tone and sentence structure. Imagery was, for the most part, spot-on (although there were spots here and there that I didn’t like – more on that later) – the grander scheme, the ethereal chess game of bones and death – I mean come on, that’s awesome. Descriptions of the moves left a little to be desired in terms of, like, a reader understanding what’s going on in the game – but the chess moves were never really the point, and not knowing precisely where every rook and bishop has landed on the board doesn’t take anything away from the story. The ‘rudimentary backbone of chess’ is actually a really clever thematic…. Uh…. thing, but you sorta glossed over it and didn’t play up the extra skeleton imagery, so it almost seems like a coincidence. That’s fine – when you’re writing well, the coincidental stuff tends to work out in your favor without you even really thinking about it. You were, and it did. Consider sticking to the skeleton image – instead of the bishop sneaking around to ‘strike at the heart of the formation,’ maybe the bishop strikes at its spine instead? Dunno. Stuff like that though – the point is you created a good image that fits in with the other story elements, and you could do a little more with it I guess but the point is that it was good.

Couple negative points jumped out. I can’t tell if they jumped out because of how much I liked the rest, or because of how jump-out-ish they were – just gonna list them off and let you be the judge. First, verb tense throughout feels a bit off. “A white tube being thrusted” hit me right away, and there’s some more awkward tense choices. Participles? Present participle I think? ANYWAY IT’S WEIRD, and weird is cool when it’s helping but I don’t think it’s helping. You also slip back and forth between past and present, which, again, cool if it’s happening for a reason but it just looks like a slip from here. Broadly speaking, the verb tense is a weak point – don’t think so much about how to FIX it, rather, think about what you want to do with it. I think that’s the level you’re at. A good level.

Next – this is a game of chess between death and a (victim?). That’s a fantastically interesting scenario. Maybe – only maybe – you should let that cat out of the bag earlier in the story. I get the sense that you knew all along this was a battle against literally Death, and maybe sorta overlooked the part where you bring the readers up to speed. COULD BE, you were holding the cards close to the chest deliberately, but the trouble with that is, when it’s finally spelled out, there isn’t a whole lot of payoff for the reader. I wasn’t held in suspense, wondering who was playing or for what – okay, maybe a little bit wondering those things, but not….. you see what I mean right? I’m gonna overstate it just to make the point, don’t hate me, but it’s almost like someone telling a joke and getting close to the punchline and then mentioning “oh by the way the horse is blue, that’s important, it’s a blue horse.” The timing of the revelation gives it the effect you want. In this case, I don’t see any reason why the revelation shouldn’t come right up in front. Could be wrong about that….. think on it.

I promised to mention weird imagery because on THAT account, it definitely only jumped out because of how strong the rest was. Okay. In a supernatural cosmic “danse macabre” with Death on a smoke-covered bone chessboard with dozens of human souls hanging in the balance, cheesy fries are kind of weird. Right? That’s…. does that sound out of place to anybody else? And again, weird, out-of-place stuff is fine if you’re doing something with it. I didn’t get that sense here. The accountant’s death sequence felt like a glaring break from your style in the rest of the story, and it didn’t, like…. If they sat and remarked about how random and merciless death could come for anyone (you did a LITTLE, and repeated it with the ‘accident’ overtones with the ex’s death, but didn’t really follow through all the way)….. well. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if cheesy fries are going to enter into a story like this, you wanna make damn sure you justify it completely! Cheesy fries. Okay, I’ve harped on that en….. CHEESY FRIES! Enough! Enough. I’m done.

So I spent a longer time complaining than I meant to. That always means I liked it. Always. I think you did this story near-complete justice with style and pacing and tone. A teensie bit sloppy in terms of….. well I hate the word ‘grammar’ in this context, but just syntax and structure in general, not quite firing on ALL cylinders, but you’re certainly firing on most of them. It’s a bit more plot-heavy than character-heavy – nevertheless your crafty lovestruck human still comes across as sort of twistedly-romantic and dark, and I think you really nailed him. All in all, I mean, I feel really good about you. This story is good stuff, in a way that totally means you’re a good writer.

@wisedragongirl
YES YES YES IT’S THE ODE TO KING HAN! YES! And the crypts!

Ahem.

Alright. Throwbacks aside, this is a neat little deception. It’s essentially straight-to-the-point, no beating around the bush – all evidence says I could use a little work on that front – and it wraps up in a bow without wasting any time. In other words, brilliant pacing. Characters were strong – maybe a little abrupt, but appropriate for the story.

The conflict, though….. hmmm, how to say this. It’s almost more like a summary of a conflict, than a conflict. Lemitsa screws Anthony over, Anthony gets mad, Anthony loses, straight to the aftermath. Which again – this story moved fast, you’re not wrong to move that whole affair right along and get back to Mikhal. That worked, because Lemitsa being a cold bastard is sort of the whole appeal, or a big part of the appeal anyway. I think part of the reason it works is that you’re drawing on established settings, so the stage is already set – but still it’s moving quickly enough that it’s not, you know, 100% awesome. It’s all over just as quick as it’s begun.

I feel like I’m running out of things to talk about, and maybe THAT’S something to talk about – it’s a bit threadbare, isn’t it? You didn’t do much in the telling of the story. We got to the point, we met the jerk, he did some things… It’s not thematically deep, it’s not full of any particular tone (that might be because I just finished Pawn takes King)…. Sort of just a “this happened” sort of story. Paced well, handled well, written well, but still. The deception and the damage were readily apparent, which should make it easy to tell if it clears the labor, and I’m not 100% sure – but I’ve been wrong like every time I try to guess, so I’ll make no such effort here, lol. Anyway it was an easy read and nicely done. Some solid strong points in a story without much room for strong points – TLDR pacing and characters good, detail and nuance didn’t really get a chance to play, but that’s life.

@platinumskink

I swear, you are having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.

This is *cough cough* almost the longest entry in the group. It’s the longest one of yours I can remember off the top of my head. To be clear – length is not strength. Just being longer doesn’t make something better. That said…. Dude, the length was perfect, says this casual reader. The complex-ridiculous-ness of a genius slime colony worshipping the mighty god Adidas, the heartache after catastrophe….. wait do Ghinites have hearts? The simple-organ-ache after a catastrophe. Vows of tiny revenge. I mean come on. It’s brilliant. It’s possibly certifiably insane – but it’s brilliant.

If it weren’t so brilliant, there’s a lot of things I would complain about. Like, jumping from a lab room straight into an alien landscape was jarring and made me wonder all sorts of things – has @platinumskink finally lost it, for one? And lots of variations on that, but also some ‘uh what’s this doing here’ and ‘what the hell is supposed to be going on’ and ‘what’s a ghinite’ and ‘is that Adidas like the shoe or a plural of an adida or what?’ It turns out, though, that these were all the right questions. It wasn’t random at all – it was structured and paced and okay, maybe the structure was made of see-through goop and it was really weird, but jesus it was perfect. I mean bloody perfect. At every turn.

Alright. So story wise, I’ve got nothing to whine about. Surely I can poke holes in character development, right? Well….. KIND OF. I mean, Doctor Hogan is a fun villain, always a little creepy and blossoms into a genuine hateable guy. Aaron doesn’t get it, and I don’t like him because he never gets it, and at the end he’s like oh, I think I get it, I’ll be cool….. but that’s not really a weak point because, I mean, how in the hell would he have gotten it? So he actually rings pretty true – a little on the simple side, maybe, but nothing wrong with that. The Ghinite characters are one-dimensional I guess, but….. I mean….. they practically ARE one-dimensional, so come on. So if I was going to poke holes, the hole I’d try to poke is “There isn’t a whole lot of character development – any, maybe.” But there doesn’t need to be. Here. Other stories, less crazy stories, you’ll need that – but not here, honestly.

Writing-wise – I had my eye open, desperate for anything I could complain about. I remember spotting only two things. Well, three – one of them was the food-god Adidas, but that turned out to be awesome. First – when describing the Ghinites, you said something along the lines of ‘this would look creepy to a human.’ Don’t say that! Just describe it in a way that’s creepy to humans. On the one hand, showing is better than telling – but on a more (less?) practical level, Ghinites have no concept of how they might seem to humans, so that doesn’t make sense. Yes – in a story about cancer-curing slime creatures, I’m complaining about a description making sense. Deal with it. Second, there’s still that running tendency of yours to just leave thoughts from the narrator as things go along. I’m growing accustomed to it, it doesn’t necessarily bother me as much – but it’s still kinda sloppy to actually write out “Eh, suppose there’s nothing else to it, then?” Sounds like you ran out of things to say and wrote down the part where you ran out of things to say, and only then went on writing. Eh…… well I guess that’s it then, on to the conclusion.

I’m allowed to do that. I’m critiquing. You’re telling a story!

Bah. Well the point of saying ‘I only found two things to hate’ was that, look, there wasn’t much to hate in this entry. I mean core concept, if a person doesn’t like what you’re doing, you’re not gonna win them over – but damn it, you’re writing like you and it really feels like it’s….. uh…… gelling. So stick with that. And can I remark, too, that there are some objectively fantastic parts strewn about in this story – I’ll highlight one that I really liked.

any other Ghinite could easily recognize one another by the taste of the matter each was subconsciously giving off. And Akheria's in particular, was easily recognizable for being quite bitter.

Brilliant.

Okay. Okay. Moral is…… damn good job. I don’t know what to call this genre but you’re all over it like a pig in mud. It suits you exactly, and you suit it, and it’s…… it’s awesome.

@Holmishire

This was down to the deadline-wire, wasn’t it? See you built up a great backdrop for the werewolf story – excellent characters, excellent setting, excellent tone – and then sorta cashed it all in at once, because, I mean…. You HAD to, I imagine. It’s a shame. I’m really interested in the intrigue between these people, in, you know, what happens to this place. Because at the end of the day it’s not a story about a monster, it’s a story about PEOPLE, that’s the whole point of the werewolf – they’re human. Ulfarr is human. I didn’t get to see enough of him to really be satisfied.

But that’s very different from saying ‘it’s not good.’ It’s EXTREMELY good. The pace you set at the beginning? FLAWLESS. Carried on as we met the village and learned about the location a little more, about the personal conflicts and the human elements surrounding everything, and then like….. man, it’s a shame. I imagine you’re right there too – all I’m saying is I’m there with you. Tons of potential here that just couldn’t be tapped in time. Would love to see it.

Standing as it is, the story’s still plenty strong. Some of the significance is lost because of the compressed conclusion… I love what you did with language, I love the characters obviously, and just in general it really feels like everything you set out to do was perfect – and you totally would’ve been able to follow through on the potential, too, of that I’m certain. It really is just great stuff all around, cut short but not really diminished. Nature of the beast I guess. Still, I’ll give it the highest compliment I ever give – I care about these people and I want to know what happens next (slash, in the interim, since you had to sort of ‘jump the gun’ and hit that ending tragedy).

Labour 6, Fool's Dilemma: 1,541 words. (failed)
Labour 2, Swordmaster: 3,439 words. (failed)
Labour 8, <untitled>: 3,810 words. (failed)
Labour 4, The Right Decision: 5,244 words. (failed)
Labour 3, Little Guardian: 5,983 words. (passed)
Labour 9, Just Take A Stroll: 6,596 words.

... And after that...

Labour 1, The Deaths of Eima Illervin: 9,124 words. (passed (after appeal))
Labour 5, Apocalypse Maiden: 13,820 words. (passed)

And then...

Labour 7, Plutonian: 35,384 words. (passed (with warnings))

Yeeeeeaaaaah. XD

Hm, I'm detecting a pattern. XD

just take a stroll [+]

@platinumskink

I swear, you are having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.

This is *cough cough* almost the longest entry in the group. It’s the longest one of yours I can remember off the top of my head. To be clear – length is not strength. Just being longer doesn’t make something better. That said…. Dude, the length was perfect, says this casual reader. The complex-ridiculous-ness of a genius slime colony worshipping the mighty god Adidas, the heartache after catastrophe….. wait do Ghinites have hearts? The simple-organ-ache after a catastrophe. Vows of tiny revenge. I mean come on. It’s brilliant. It’s possibly certifiably insane – but it’s brilliant.

If it weren’t so brilliant, there’s a lot of things I would complain about. Like, jumping from a lab room straight into an alien landscape was jarring and made me wonder all sorts of things – has @platinumskink finally lost it, for one? And lots of variations on that, but also some ‘uh what’s this doing here’ and ‘what the hell is supposed to be going on’ and ‘what’s a ghinite’ and ‘is that Adidas like the shoe or a plural of an adida or what?’ It turns out, though, that these were all the right questions. It wasn’t random at all – it was structured and paced and okay, maybe the structure was made of see-through goop and it was really weird, but jesus it was perfect. I mean bloody perfect. At every turn.

Alright. So story wise, I’ve got nothing to whine about. Surely I can poke holes in character development, right? Well….. KIND OF. I mean, Doctor Hogan is a fun villain, always a little creepy and blossoms into a genuine hateable guy. Aaron doesn’t get it, and I don’t like him because he never gets it, and at the end he’s like oh, I think I get it, I’ll be cool….. but that’s not really a weak point because, I mean, how in the hell would he have gotten it? So he actually rings pretty true – a little on the simple side, maybe, but nothing wrong with that. The Ghinite characters are one-dimensional I guess, but….. I mean….. they practically ARE one-dimensional, so come on. So if I was going to poke holes, the hole I’d try to poke is “There isn’t a whole lot of character development – any, maybe.” But there doesn’t need to be. Here. Other stories, less crazy stories, you’ll need that – but not here, honestly.

Writing-wise – I had my eye open, desperate for anything I could complain about. I remember spotting only two things. Well, three – one of them was the food-god Adidas, but that turned out to be awesome. First – when describing the Ghinites, you said something along the lines of ‘this would look creepy to a human.’ Don’t say that! Just describe it in a way that’s creepy to humans. On the one hand, showing is better than telling – but on a more (less?) practical level, Ghinites have no concept of how they might seem to humans, so that doesn’t make sense. Yes – in a story about cancer-curing slime creatures, I’m complaining about a description making sense. Deal with it. Second, there’s still that running tendency of yours to just leave thoughts from the narrator as things go along. I’m growing accustomed to it, it doesn’t necessarily bother me as much – but it’s still kinda sloppy to actually write out “Eh, suppose there’s nothing else to it, then?” Sounds like you ran out of things to say and wrote down the part where you ran out of things to say, and only then went on writing. Eh…… well I guess that’s it then, on to the conclusion.

I’m allowed to do that. I’m critiquing. You’re telling a story!

Bah. Well the point of saying ‘I only found two things to hate’ was that, look, there wasn’t much to hate in this entry. I mean core concept, if a person doesn’t like what you’re doing, you’re not gonna win them over – but damn it, you’re writing like you and it really feels like it’s….. uh…… gelling. So stick with that. And can I remark, too, that there are some objectively fantastic parts strewn about in this story – I’ll highlight one that I really liked.

<Snipped quote>

Brilliant.

Okay. Okay. Moral is…… damn good job. I don’t know what to call this genre but you’re all over it like a pig in mud. It suits you exactly, and you suit it, and it’s…… it’s awesome.

Oh, geesh. Can’t I give you a like, a laugh and a thank all rolled into one? No? Oh, too bad.

I’m very happy the entry had the intended effect on you. Yes, that switch was very much intentional, because, yes. You’ve outlined the reasons. I’m really happy it worked. Even if I totally fail the labour by any reason, I’m not totally satisfied with how my entry turned out thanks to knowing how you reacted to it~

And yes. I do need to get that out of my texts. I was actually avoiding writing comparisons to humans, but seems a few still leaked through. Probably because I wanted to enforce their aura, and there’s no easier way of enforcing an aura than to actually tell the readers what aura they’re supposed to feel. Guess I shouldn’t do that, huh. And, um. Cases where I write things like “Eh, suppose there was nothing else to it, then?” … That’s the thought of the character that we’re currently following. Not mine. I can’t really write their thoughts within speech, and putting it in italics feels like a waste because the thought isn’t important enough. It’s difficult to write “, Aaron thought” after such a line because it can disrupt the flow of the sentence, and it works weirdly with a questionmark. Eh, guess I’ll find a way to avoid it, then. Oh, well.

Thank you very much for the review. I’m really happy you took the time to write it, because I’ll likely return and read it once a month to smile happily to myself. But of course, there’s the future, too, so yeah~! I’ll keep doing what I do~! And yes, I enjoy writing out there things, so I am very happy to hear that it suits me~

Now, then. Speaking of things that suit the author… No, wait, that's not right. Pretty sure you could write anything and make it suit you. Haha.

… Can I just pause here while I’m reading and tell how much I DREAD the coming of whatever the subject of this labour is about? I just want this story to end blissfully happily, damn it! :(

Holy wow, this is getting intense.

“Lady,” he said, looking right into her visor without batting an eye, “at this moment you’ve got more firepower watching your back than the president.

Ptt- the-heh. I like that line. … Which makes me notice, there’s no closing quotation-marks. … Eh, details.



… Ooooh. So she heads out with Bunsen and becomes an unlikely duo that’ll fight crime together? He’s the unsuspected genius detective that’ll unearth all the plans of the criminals, she’s the cybernetic unintended super-soldier with a bone to pick with them, and together they’ll strike fear into the hearts of all the scum of the universe? I lllllllllllike it! Alright. Now, let me go on and start more properly commenting on your entry.

It’s great. You really caused me to care a lot about this girl, and really, REALLY made me want to see her succeed! You had a relatively small cast, but honestly, this is a good thing! Each one of the main souls got the attention and traits that was needed to make them feel like excellent additions, and the text is littered with the tiny little jokes that normal humans do to bring smiles to faces, and it WORKS! It makes it very entertaining to read, because all the characters feel so very much alive! So little was actually happening, but it was great to see the small improvements as they made their way towards getting her to become a functional part of society and such!

Then, of course, there came the ”gotta catch the criminals” part of it. That was great, too. I could get excited, wondering what was going to happen. The fact she also could kick ass made Taina all the more likable in an unexpected way. Who doesn’t like a chick that can kick ass? Especially when it was this unexpected! Haha! She really is genuinely likable. Pryce turning his back to the company orders brought a nice smile to my face. Oh, and that exposition? Sitting down with Bunsen and hearing all this? How you mixed in the fact about the previous entry and made it make sense? The fact that the entire story actually made sense? … I LOVE IT! Proved that Bunsen was the genuine article who had done his research for her sake, and made the final scene when she joined him SO MUCH GREATER than it would have been had he not been given that. Not to mention, how EXTREMELY WELL “Abyss”, which I read before this, actually worked as an introduction to this entry! It was very confusing on its own, but like this? Heck, prologues are SUPPOSED to be confusing, so the reader doesn’t start feeling at home before the story starts! And this entry eventually came to tying up the loose ends, EXACTLY in the way a story should eventually explain its prologue! I really, REALLY liked how you set this up!

So, there were a few misses. You seem not to have liked that scene as much as I did, since you COMMENTED ON IT THROUGHOUT THE ENTRY AFTER THAT. Yikes. I wouldn’t even have noticed that was the supposed exposition had you not been doing that. I was just imagining four pages of just paragraphs telling me of things happening around her in her life that was going to totally disconnect us from her. But, it all happened as she heard it. Show, don’t tell, was it? Well, you had Bunsen SHOWING the fruits of his labour! Very much different from just having had the narrator tell us, because now I still felt like I was deeply connected to the main character, because I learned of the things just as she did. What DID disconnect me, was when you strew strange references through the rest of the story. That was really, REALLY weird, but you hardly need me to tell you not to do that, so… XD

Alright, so the reveal about Anyang. I think that was a reveal.

“Real name Anyang. Associate fed up with his bullshit, existed as a pain in my ass for five years, refuses to vanish. FML.”

… Er. That was a reveal that he was Besk, right? But… Anyang wasn’t a lizard, was he? Er. I’m confused. So, that didn’t really work, I think. Had he had an operation, or something?

There was one part I got bored and had to put down the entry for a bit on. It was in that middle part when she just had Tony steal all the equipment and took the Maggie and Al to the festival. Looking at it now, it doesn’t look that difficult, but eh, I was tired after a lot of reading. Putting it down probably made me enjoy the last bit more. Haha.

The part where she left… I didn’t understand it. Alright, so she had continued trying to recover her memories. That, to me, is her choice. While I understand Maggie’s and Al’s anger… … … I suppose I just can’t really enjoy that part. Tony just vanished? What for? Sure, they might have thrown him out or something, but he couldn’t even see her? Wouldn’t take her calls? What for? I assume this is the point where the labour’s supposed to be being cleared, but, in that case, who has Taina been the tool of? The labour needs the character to be used by another character… which I can possibly see that it could be the case, but, it isn’t explained in the entry. Looks to me like this was very much on her own, not her being used by someone. Is this another case of you coming at the labour from an angle that I just can’t see, again? Will I go “OH! So THAT’S what was…!” once again? I don’t know. I’ll leave that to the judges.

But all in all… I really, REALLY liked this entry. The characters were amazingly life-like, I really started to honestly desire that this was going to become- *realization*- ah. That little thing just before the final part… the ones who used her via the labour was Maggie and Al, wasn’t it? But, the ones that they used her as a tool to unintentionally hurt… was herself? No, wait, does that even make sense? I, er, I THINK I’m reaching in the right direction, but I think I’m not entirely grasping it… Egh…

Well. In any case. I liked it. I like what you’re doing. This is amazing. Good job. The little details, like the Ramen-Ya and the police officer who jokingly asked her to marry him, the reference to Hitchhiker’s Guide and more, I love them, the entire piece feels so extremely alive. Well, maybe a bit less towards the end, but you get the point. I really like the thought of the crime-fighting duo of talented detective Bunsen and don’t-bloody-underestimate-her Taina. Not sure if that’s where you were going with it, but I like it. Haha. Gosh.

I also really liked the time-travelling pirates plot. I’m not entirely sure how the guy got caught after it, but eh, maybe that’s another side-plot. It’s the future. Maybe that was someone with a similar face. XD Eh, I’m sidetracked. I liked it, okay? I’ll leave the rest to Terminal. Nicely friggin’ done. Haha.