On the character-thoughts thing -- I figured that was probably the case, but that made such a good example.......... anyway the trick is making sure the reader's got zero doubts, and there are many ways to skin that cat. Italics are nice and easy, for example -- or alternatively, just omit those thoughts entirely (what are they really adding?), or write up a character action that implies those thoughts. Maybe Aaron blinks and looks around then shrugs and walks inside?

But nevermind the one example, and don't sweat the whole idea too much -- it's just another tiny thing to keep in mind when you keep writing is all.

In order of simple answer to complicated:

1. Anyang is not Besk, he's an Arrested Development reference, lol... The message from Bunsen is supposed to be a joke/complaint about his boss.

2. The reason I hated the 'exposition scene' so much is, it really broke up the pace. You're right -- that scene has to happen, you HAVE to get all those impressions about Bunsen being remarkably competent and diligent and all that -- but he doesn't have to magically know everything, and he certainly doesn't have to preclude all the future investigations by just 'figuring it all out' in act one. Of course.... well he's not right about EVERYTHING, so stay tuned, but still. Anyway pacing is what really upsets me about it, personally -- I got done with it and I knew "man that's going to speed me right past a whole lot of character development" and I just stayed mad at it for the rest of the story, but I didn't have the time to go back and change anything -- hence all the references to how much I hated it. OH -- and the super-soldier aspect. That, I think, really needs to slow down. I want you wondering how the hell she managed to beat up those guys for a LOT longer.

3. Making Abyss make sense was part of the effort. To really bring it together, I'd want to get some of that super-sophisticated Abyss styling into the bigger story -- only some, but still, they really read like two completely unrelated pieces with similar villains. Also though -- this is only act one. I think Bunsen stole something from future installments by explaining the entire operation, and he's in trouble for that.

4. Comedy! When I went back and re-read it, there was a lot more comedy in the story than I remembered. It probably needs that. Brain-damaged rape victim therapy is a pretty dark subject and this thing NEEDED some laughs to keep it going. Glad the jokes are landing, and hey, you finished -- so it must've been enough for now anyway.

5. THE LABOR PART -- okay, so here's where it gets convoluted. Everybody is lying to everybody. Everybody is using everybody. They're all tools, and they all get hurt. The 'big one' is still Leon (crime chief) literally controlling Taina and making her a witless pawn -- puts her in this whole situation, she hurts all her friends and herself, and she can't do anything to him because he's dead. At the same time, Taina is using Tony, and Tony is using her, in their respective revenge plots. Doesn't work out super well for either of them, and they hurt Maggie and Al. Speaking of -- Al's using Taina to build his company, and it's all for the best of reasons, but in a way he's still kind of a dick -- ESPECIALLY at the end, when (and I'm not sure at all if this was clear enough) he shuts down her dream/memories before waking her up in their final scene. Which leaves Maggie -- who's basically innocent of all that deception crap, I guess, but I hate her the most lol. If you follow her carefully, she's super weak, she changes her mind all the time, and she's -- for a smart person -- pretty out-of-touch and dumb. She's good at that caring-hospital-nurse-ish sort of role, but once you take her outside that, she sucks at everything. So I beat her up a lot. She's betrayed by pretty much everyone and physically hurt, and if I get to keep going on this, you'll probably hear more about how she sucks in the future, because she's really not the kind of person that does well. Which is a shame, because she's got nothing BUT good will towards others.

SO ANYWAY somewhere in that web of lies, I think, are two or three labor-clearing manipulations. I hope. Man I really want this to win, lol.....

BUT! Thank you so much for suffering through that idunno let's just call it a Bible. That length was uncalled for, and I'm genuinely sorry for taking up so much of your reading/reviewing time -- I was pretty worried that it's going to damage the reviews for other entries, though for now at least it's working out for everyone. Glad you liked it. The best part of finishing Act One is, I mean.... this universe is finally ready for space cowboys. Dunno what's ahead, labor-wise, but believe that if an opportunity arises, we'll have us some zero-G gunslinging before too long oh who am I kidding it's entirely too long.....

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.

Ah yes, thank you for the insights. I always enjoy feedback on the writing.

In all honest it was for a bit of an experimental writing. Stylistically I've always enshewed perfect attention to tenses. Making it grammatically painful I suppose, but my usage of loose tenses is my attempt to blur a bit of what is happening when. Something I should probably work on but I enjoy giving a soft sense of letting the reader decide exactly when and where something occurs in which sequence. Sort of like painting a Monet, as up close it looks very blurry. I'll try to be stricter, but I figured that in this "limbo café" time had no meaning.

Yes, death's reveal was completely thrown under the bridge. Because it was supposed to be. I aimed to start off the story with ambiguity as to who the reader is supposed to be following and eventually Death narrates towards the end there as it becomes more personal. I attempted to have the reader literally step into death's shoes, taking his arrogance and pride as the tale progressively concentrates on "I" rather than "you" as the narration changes between some paragraphs. An experimental procedure I tried. Hopefully it worked, but I tried to embody the convolutions of plot it the structure of the tale itself. Hence why so late a revelation, yet the reader should already see it coming a mile away since it's been done before.

Also yes, CHEESY FRIES. Somewhat of a glaring break from style for a reason. I sought to do an abrupt left-field for the reader to stop and back for a moment to consider if it is indeed the same story or not. Very choppy, less flowing. Abrupt even, as I tried to just "inject" something into the story as if it did not belong there. If this was your response I think I did pretty well for myself. And again the story was not focused on these vignettes. Although I had originally planned for more exchanges, I decided two deaths would give enough of a glimpse into the nature of the game. Plus I'm not the writers of final destination, hence I cannot adequately describe 7 deaths and do the screen play for each in twelve days :C Defacto, in full disclosure, I wrote this in about 70 minutes give or take, over the course of 7 days. 10 minutes of writing per day before I got distracted and/or guilted with other rp writing I needed to do.

Although thank you for the review it has certainly been most helpful. I'll probably try to set aside 3 days for proofing to check for syntax errors. I'll run it through a parser and see if I get any errors. :)

Ah yes, thank you. I promised Terminal something out of Seventh Seal. And yes, the idea was that Death's Hubris made him overlook a trap which he had used himself early in the game. The Pawn being taken by Death's bishop early was a reminder that the bishop could skewer you from an angle, coming in when you least expected it. Which was how the checkmate was won. Death focused too much on the queen, that is to make the man suffer in "classical chess" in having to sacrifice his friends lives to save his own. Supposed at least until the man outwits death twice. I wished to leave the ending ambiguous, enough. Hopefully the reader either took it that the man is reunited in the end with his "queen" in death, or that he had successfully outwitted death (although the death was also to serve as a memento mori, how the man was saved from choking on his food, but suffered heart attack immediately after).

Both reviewers for Act One pretty much hit the same notes, notes are fair. She never lacked agency at any point *within the actual story*, with the exception of harmless flashbacks, and that sounds like a killer. Two stretchy arguments if I may -- One, the Tony/Taina arrangement of mutual exploitation might count -- but it's definitely a stretch, so I'm not worrying about it. Two and even stretchier -- the instigating events, and by extension everything that happens ever, only happens because of what Leon did to her brain. But again -- stretchiest stretch of all stretches. Meh. I'm disappointed -- really wanted to pass!!!! But ah well.

I cut a subplot for time that would've absolutely maybe cleared the challenge. In it, Taina would remember a past monologue from Leon explaining how everything is Reager Corps' fault. Later she'd have a different dream and discover that Pryce -- the kindly Reager dude who helped the company -- was involved in her past, though she'd be unclear about his exact role. Then either she or Tony would go murder Pryce, only to later discover that Leon was essentially lying, Pryce's involvement was innocent, and her certainty about his guilt was a product of the old Reager drive/conditioning stuff or whatever. Didn't have time to walk down that path, and story-wise I wanted to focus on the company characters anyway, so Pryce just sorta vanished from the story altogether. I wanna get him back in it...... meh. Sounds like by choosing to act, even as a product of bad or incomplete information, that might've disqualified it anyway.

Well in any case, congratulations to literally everybody else! Thoroughly enjoyed reading each piece.

If I just had him shrugged, it doesn’t feel like the readers would have gotten to delve as deeply into the character. I like to put the reader into the heads of the characters, which means hearing their reasoning for their every move. … Anyway, yes. I will keep this in mind.

… I must say, I feel a little bit discouraged since you seem to have a lot more of a negative impression on your own cast than I got from reading. I mean, I pretty much just felt they were a cozy lovable family throughout 75% of the entry. Tony had a revenge plot? I never caught that. I never really saw Al as being a male thing, either. And I… quite like Maggie. She’s a sweet person. At least to me. … Oh, well.

It did feel like this was more intended to be the main story than that this was setting up for another story, I will admit. If this was just the first couple of chapters in a book, then it would probably have felt like it went too quickly. But, now when I read it as the main story, it felt perfect. Hm. Oh, well!

Just Take A Stroll [+]

Pass

Lacks the use of "" for conversation and instead uses the singular apostrophes. Possess several errors in grammar and a misspelling of the word maneuvering. While the story itself is good, the way it is written makes for a bit lackluster read. Commas placed in certain areas weren't needed and other areas where they should have been.

I totally read that wrong first and read it as “I’m not judging it. I’m passing it on to Terminal.” XD

No idea how to make a story that isn’t a lackluster read. Guess I’ll just say that “Since I can’t do better than this, this is good enough!”

Also, that word is hell. Partly because I use it so much, partly because I never spell it correctly on the first try. Anyways.

Thanks for the review~

Just Take a Stroll [+]

The usual smattering of inappropriate punctuation, but nearly no typos of note nor misplaced words. The most serious technical issue with the entry is, as Mag Lev indicated, your use of apostrophes rather than quotation marks to denote speech - which might be handwaved solely for stylistic reasons.

As far as the actual stories go, in some areas your your descriptive passages are simply amazing and wholly engaging. The identifying the Humans via their shoe markings, the inability to even perceive the rest of the Human body above roughly ankle-height - brilliant, small details that lend the story a significant degree of charm. In other areas however, your descriptions fall short - in particular I was disappointed with your summation of the Ghinites' civilization and city, which was essentially described as 'lots of goo.'

Perhaps the most criminal example of that might be your description of the pad Akheria was reading near the start, which was almost literally described as 'a plate of goo with goo indentations for reading.' Are these creatures blind? WAre the indentations a different color, or is there some form of electromagnetic perception going on? I have no idea. If I had to guess I would say you got a bit caught up in the novelty of the concept and so were unable to wholly elaborate upon the nuance of the setting. My recommendation in this case is simply to use multiple variations upon a same theme if you find yourself constantly describing several details or elements with uniform or else highly simplified natures.

Allow me to just accept the inappropriate punctuation, because I don’t know where it is or how to fix it. Hah.

… Well, the whole city IS a whole load of goo. It’s all composed of the same kind of material, which is produced by their own bodies, which result in the technology they have. And, um, on the pad, the indents are clearly visible, and they’re certainly not blind, I described them as having eyes… It wasn’t an important element. It was just… their kind of report. I actually HAD more description of said pad, but I cut it out because it wasn’t important. Er. Anyways. What do you mean with “multiple variations upon a same theme”? Sounds very useful, but I don’t understand what you mean.

Thank you very much for the review. I am very happy that you found parts good enough to use such nice words to describe them~! It makes me smile a lot~!

Allow me to just go and produce two books from two of my favorite authors. Lesse here. “The Diamond Throne” by David Eddings and “The Reality Dysfunction” by Peter F. Hamilton. Lesse, if I can find a random line of dialog in them… No, wait, that doesn’t matter. What DOES matter, is that both of them use the style of dialogue that I used in this entry. Due to this, I’ve always been under the impression that that’s how real authors typed dialogue. Since then, I’ve read more, and seen a rather balanced mix. But, um, yeah. I felt like using the style of the authors that I looked up to, without really knowing the rules for the style.

Besides that… I refuse to think that David Eddings and Peter F. Hamilton are somehow both wrong in their choices of how they present dialogue. XD

Not to say the other style isn’t right, too. I just, well, wanted to try to do it that way. Yeah.