@shylarah Shy the post you're speaking of was made in reply to trial one of ttl 1. I'm not entering this time around. I'd assume that unless something I don't know about has changed I'm still judging.
Yep. Unless you want to enter /and/ judge, which is totally fine. I would need to get an additional judge, which will be harder now considering I am Quadruple Secret Banned from the chats - but doable.
EDIT: ACTUALLY IGNORE YHIS I JUST HAD A WONDERFUL IDEA!.
Also did you know it's possible to turn an entire chunk of text top all caps, no caps, or something approximating title case with the touch of a single button on the kindle? Because I did not until just now.
Objective Midnight Approaches, though a few hours remain yet. Submissions will likely not be posted until later, but I will still be using the stated submission deadline. All entries must be submitted by 6:00 A.M. -6 G.M.T. (Which should correspond to 6:00 A.M. for those of you in Flagland. You are welcome.)
β¦ Okay, perhaps reading these while agitated due to having but a limited amount of time to review due to irl business starting soon might have been a bad idea, I was losing patience already in the second paragraph. XD
But alright. That most certainly read like a mythological tale. Not sure a mythological tale would mention itself being a mythological tale, but otherwise, yeah. It sure wasnβt as heart-quenching as it could have been had we actually been down in-person and seen our main character interact, as we saw her but on a distance, but, yeah. It probably could make an interesting play.
While being sent to Tartarus kind of qualifies as dying, is she really dead if sheβs still plotting her revenge? Eh, Iβll leave those definitions to Terminal. In the end, I moderately liked it. Iβm somewhat satisfied. So. Nicely done, I take it.
Um. How on Earth does slicing your sisterβs throat make your heart pure? I understand that the feeling of regret somehow tainted his heart, but, how is the absence of regret pure? Is it a matter of interpretation here? Because I wouldnβt have called that pure! β¦ β¦ β¦ OH, WELL!
Interestingly written. I did spend most of it confused over the above matter, but eh, details. Weβll see what Terminal thinks.
Am currently imagining Viggo Mortensen. It fits.
β¦ Alright. That was pretty beautiful. Now then.
I am not entirely sure having a storyteller tell the story in-universe benefited all that much. I mean, I was interested in the story-tellerβs story, but each time it made a reference to the story-teller doing anything it took me out of his story somewhat. Still, it did give it a bit of a mystical feel, I suppose.
Anyways. I like this. It was a bit of tragically sweet, on par with what is expected of this labour. Nicely done.
Gah. Block of text. Excuse me, I am going to be dividing this myself, before even reading.
OK, there. So. Hm. Is he truly invulnerable if he was killed by a dagger? Anyways, yeah. You sure did make that read like one of those recounts of mythological events, so thatβs good, I suppose. Though, never really could enjoy those. Hah.
Eh. It was alright. Wasnβt particularly amazing or anything, it was alright. β¦ Yeah, thatβs all I have to say.
Ooooh. Interesting. I like it. You constantly had me on edge, wondering, is our character the old man or the hero heβs telling about? β¦ Turns out, you had it covered. How do you kill the invincible hero of legend? β¦ Kill the author who makes his story, and heβll be forever gone, of course. Nicely done. I really liked how the old man had an answer for each of the young manβs questions, it felt thought-out, regardless of what the audience thought. A proper fantastical story. Nice.
It did feel like there was an excessive amount of description at times, but eh, perhaps thatβs appreciated by some. Took me a while to get through the first paragraph. But, yes. In the end, excellently done.
Hmmm? Well. That was curious. So, sheβs raised from day one to be led by βFateββ¦ And the one who died at the end of the story was Fate, not her? Curious. Very curious. So in this story, Fate was some kind of supernatural being that manipulated everything for this one woman to save everythingβ¦ and she just defied it, and it died? Iβmβ¦ huh. Tyranny, referring to that Fate was controlling the world as its lordβ¦ heh. Curious. Yeah, thatβs pretty much all I have to say.
Occasionally, I was unsure who was speaking, even though Iβm pretty sure thereβs only one character that actually had any lines whatsoever. I got unsure if it was she answering or he continuing here and there.
Weβll see what Terminal thinks of this curious method of attempting accomplishing the goal. But as for from me, nicely written. It wasβ¦ curious.
Welp. Well, that was extremely simple. He sank like a stone. Yupp.
I do question a little, about the means of death. While the character is new, youβre using a >2000 year old existing legend to kill him. Does that count as new? Does that count as invulnerable? Eh, oh well. Iβll leave those details to Terminal. Haha.
... Well. That left me momentarily speechless. Hmm, what to sayβ¦
Nicely written, for starters. The episodic format was good for keeping me invested, made me wonder where weβd head next. It was slightly jarring how several decades passed in the third sentence after the deal, felt a little fast, I wanted to hear a bit more about the initial benefits. Then again, eh. We had a lot of time to cover. How he suddenly started conquering and killing felt a bit jarring as well, but heck, heβd been at it for a while at the time. It was a bit confusing how he suddenly appeared before himself, but thatβs fine. The ending was kinda sweet for being bittersweet. Oh, well.
But largely, I will say that this entry satisfied me. It gave me something for the time I invested in it. And that, I feel is the most important thing for all things. Being momentarily speechless is what should be. Itβs a sign of beauty of the writing. So, to achieve that, well done.
β¦ β¦ β¦ Or perhaps it was a result of that I really, really need to eat right now and I couldnβt think because I was hungry. Eh. Iβm going to assume thatβs not it. Anyways! Well done. Now weβll see what Terminal thinks.
Once again, the judges have arrived at a matter of some contention in regards to our evaluations with some of the submissions. Hopefully we should have everything resolved soonβ’. Announcement of the winning entries is unfortunately being delayed.
The Final Hazard, however, is not. Expect the first IC post for it to be up today.
@Terminal yes hi I'm still here just buried in essays and exams but I will do my damnedest to get the things done tomorrow. Thank you all for your patience. (This whole "university" thing is far more time-consuming than I thought...)
@RomanAria It has a tendency to become like that, eh? ;)
Though, yes, getting done with the reviews here would be nice, but the university's important, too~! Good luck with getting your life in balance the way you want it~!
@Terminal yes hi I'm still here just buried in essays and exams but I will do my damnedest to get the things done tomorrow. Thank you all for your patience. (This whole "university" thing is far more time-consuming than I thought...)
Thank you for taking the time to write reviews ^_^
As much as it pains me to say this, I'm resigning my post as assistant judge. With school and my other real-life obligations I simply don't have time, as is likely evidenced by the fact that nearly a week after the review deadline I don't even have mine half-finished. I wish everyone the best of luck in future Labours and in all other endeavors. @Terminal
@The Grey Dust I'm still willing to do reviews, just not in the formal official capacity with formal official deadlines. I will also be staying on as RPGC admin. You're not losing me entirely, fear not.
The forum is giving me a great deal of trouble currently with application errors and lag, and so a few of the ancillary posts attached with the victory announcement - the archives and the news announcements - will be going up later today rather than immediately. Apologies.
I will freely admit it grated my nerves that you clearly anthropomorphized the seasons arbitrarily as anime-genre girls, and I was sort of relying on RomanAria to help and supply an objective viewpoint. In their absence, I shall attempt to set aside my misgivings and tell you what I liked about the story.
Firstly, I found the reasons supplied by the children as to why they enjoyed winter to be fairly well-reasoned and compelling. It is not a trend often seen in literature to frame winter as an ally of man, so that was actually a pleasant change for once. I also liked how you established and described Winter's motives for rebelling and attempting to prolong her existence - the setup for her defiance is expertly woven throughout the beginning and is indicative of excellent overall story-structure and planning. I will also say that this particular story, without question, is the single cleanest entry you have ever submitted. There are an odd few issues with awkward grammar, but they are few and far between.
Outstanding work overall. A bit cheesy and the caricatures are admittedly not to my taste, but I will still acknowledge what is evidently a splendid effort.
I will mention that I did not imagine them as anime-characters. My primary inspiration were the nymphs. Minor female nature deities. I had already decided to make use of gods in some way, so, yeah. Just the same way Zeus might be the God of Thunder I had Winter be... well, the Goddess of Winter, and then I just didn't come up with any clever names. Haha.
So, that aside, I am very happy you liked everything that actually mattered in the entry. XD
I mean, yeah, how they looked didn't matter in the slightest, that's just a skin which contains the body of the story, sooo, yeah. It's like the entry is a person which you said you liked as a person despite them looking ugly. So, I'm happy about that. Hahaha.
Also, yes. I like winter. Winter makes me so happy. Winter also made the most sense for the story I was imagining. So, proper research was made. I'm happy you found that a breath of fresh air~
And yes. About that cleanness and compliments about the planning. This time, for once, I actually got an idea I liked AHEAD OF TIME, sat down to plan and write it WITH PLENTY OF TIME TO GO, and had it finished NOT ON THE LAST SECOND so I could PROPERLY PROOFREAD IT an EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF TIMES. And what I got for that? RESULTS. I'm pretty happy right now~! :D
@Terminal Hm. I will admit I'm surprised in your choice of challenge accolade. I suspect my taste differs greatly from yours, which explains a lot about where our opinions have run counter to each other in the past. But for all that the hero wound up being more or less invulnerable, I'm surprised that it was permitted to have a character use gear to be invulnerable. It's not that the char is invulnerable, it's that they acquired nice gear. I hadn't thought that would be acceptable. Not a bad story, and certainly a clever way of ending it, but on the whole I felt like it was missing something, and I can't quite figure out what. *fidgets*
