All of which I write is my own opinion which could be extremely wrong or what-the, I am trying to make myself sound like a not-authority. It's just that, I know I like to get feedback so here's my feedback to you all. ... Well, except maybe this time, this time I maybe don't want feedback, not as serious feedback, anyway. But I'm pretty sure all the other authors do, sooooo.
Interesting world. It’s, of course, a style of world which I’ve seen before but that’d be hard to avoid at this point, but it was still executed with enough tension and mystery that I continued reading throughout the entry without losing said excitement. It wasn’t the most amazing thing I’ve ever read, I was a lot more interested in the world than the characters, but I consider this a pretty good entry. The one thing that bothers me considerably is really the ending, and I can’t blame you for that because that’s the friggin’ labour. Haha. Well, in any case. We didn’t learn if there was something more major at play or if this was just kids at an arcade or similar. Eh, wasn’t really needed.
Labour wise, there’s just one tiny detail. The labour specifies that, regardless of who betrays whom, both are placed in danger due to their actions. It’s minor, but unless we count that Sloth could have been countered by Ana when he went for the kill I don’t see the treachery putting him in any specific danger. … Oh, well!
… Pretty sure the first paragraph could have benefited of separating the description of things happening in the city and when we reached things that concerned the characters. I was getting dazed getting through the paragraph, when suddenly ‘woah, character’. Haha.
Alright. That was decent enough. I didn’t get all that excited as I read through it, but taking account what will happen after the events of the entry I’m pretty sure you accomplished the labour. Hm. Yeah, I don’t believe I have more to say.
Little Blue Riding Hood, eh? XD … Oh, my. My previous statement was more accurate than I thought it was. I just wrote that as soon as the blue cloak was mentioned. Hah.
It does appear that you suddenly changed into first-person for no specific reason. Maybe this was intentional, but if felt rather weird. … Nah, it doesn’t seem to have been intended, since it swaps back after. Eh.
Awww. Transformed into Sapphire. Lapis, eh? That’s adorable. XD
Alright. You clearly have a talent for the descriptive arts. Those paragraphs were a bit heavy, but I was intrigued enough to hang on anyway. I actually liked it better when they weren’t talking, hm, not entirely sure why. Maybe I didn’t find that the dialogue fit with the fairy-tale setting that had been presented. Though, otherwise I found your little twist on the story interesting, and it was open for many interesting developments. Quite a magical little tale. … But of course, the labour itself forced us to this relatively uninteresting ending. But well done, anyway~!
… Jedi, eh? Alright, let’s see.
… Dunno. I kind of like the Star Wars universe for being so clearly divided. If you’re going to create such a thing as a “Good Sith”, it makes me sincerely question what they’re fighting for to begin with. Besides that, I feel a Jedi should have been able to sense that he was about to be attacked, but the series itself has an occasion rather similar to this, so eh. Suppose he was emotionally compromised and unable to sense with the Force on that point. That’s certainly possible. Oh, well.
Hm. I do wonder a bit about how this entry relates to the labour. Let me examine the rules again. Did he require the AID of his mortal foe? I mean, I suppose he betrayed himself as well as the prisoner he was supposed to escort by attacking and thereby defying the way of the Jedi. I suppose he can’t really complete the escort of a prisoner without the prisoner, but is that the same as requiring his aid to undertake this journey? Eh, not my call to make.
Otherwise, nicely done. There’s nothing in the text itself I can complain on. It’s a stable piece of literature. Well written.
… Is that a twist on ‘Of Mice and Men’, by any chance? XD Alright, let’s see.
… You know, of all the things I did not expect to associate with one another, the story of two men seeking jobs at ranches dealing with deeply realistic issues and the bloody tale of Greek Mythology at war with these two very different characters meeting was probably among the least expected. XD
… It’s a bit depressing, reading these two characters’ somewhat interesting interactions, but due to knowing the labour I know something will have to happen. Oh, well…
Now that I’m done, I kind of feel that maybe the title was just a coincidence. Maybe. In any case. The entry was well written. I don’t even need to tell you that. The characters were interesting, the scenario fantastical, the possibilities exciting. … The ending was… … … *sigh* Oh, well. You know, when you build such an amazing scenario for a labour that has to end like this, it kind of feels like a waste, you know? Eh. I’m feeling kind of apathetic right now. Meh. Alright, onto the next.
… HAH! The mortal foe in question, was this dog? Well, after this, he certainly is! And yeah, his betrayal caused “peril” for both of them, that part is accomplished hands down. Not entirely sure Larry needed the dog’s aid with anything, but otherwise, a quite amusing way of accomplishing the requirements of this labour. Quite interesting. Though, those long paragraphs before this was leaving my already tired self yawning and with blurry eyes. Gosh, that took quite a bit to get through. But yes, the highlight of this is certainly how you chose to accomplish the labour. Nicely done. Haha.
Alright… So, this was my entry… And for most of the writing time, I had zero inspiration to write it and intended on skipping, because I didn’t have the pressure to complete all labours on account of already having failed a few… But then, the very night that was the last day of delivery, my mind suddenly was all like “HEY, IT’D BE EVEN WORSE TO NOT DELIVER ANYTHING AT ALL!” so I wrote this with very little inspiration and just the powerful desire to send something in. I… couldn’t proofread it, because I was collapsing in exhaustion at the time. I wanted it done as quickly as possible, but still with a resemblance of quality. I went back and forth, writing different parts of the story that I knew I needed in a strange order and I don’t know if it all connected in the end. Okay. Let me force myself to read through this and review it like I’ve reviewed the others.
… It’s hurried. More time should have been spent on the actual dilemma which the entry was named after. There’s a lot of exposition in the beginning, but it was needed to get out of the way for the scenario to make sense. As much as I had liked to do “show, don’t tell”, I didn’t feel it was important to the scenario and I didn’t want to make it longer than it needed to be. It ends very strangely, partly because I read through the rules of the labour and went “Oh, the betrayed foe must survive”, and had to add that last paragraph where it was supposed to just end with the line “Kill them both”. But… all in all, I’m happy to find it isn’t quite as much a complete disaster as I felt it was when I sent it in. Alright, let’s see what the judge thinks. Haha.
The scenario was based on the “Prisoner’s Dilemma”, except when I was done writing the story I was like “Wait, this isn’t the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ anymore, this is more like the ‘Fool’s Dilemma’. … Yeah, I’ll name the entry that.” … Yupp.
Firstly, impressive image which has been included into this hider. Now, let’s see if the story is as impressive.
I notably prefer when there’s a space between the lines. Like, the way I structure this opinion. Though, that may just be my own tastes.
… *gasp*… It certainly was. From the perspective of the labour, I have no idea which one of these I am supposed to be the “character” and which is to be the “mortal foe”, and I have even less idea of which one really betrayed the other first, if there even was a betrayal in this story. Really, felt like they held their alliance for as long as it was necessary. Whatever, I’ll leave that to the reviewer. My point, is that this was a very exciting experience that was as interesting as it suddenly turned intense towards the end.
Now, I don’t really feel like answering the poetic side of this entry, but can I just out and say how much I appreciate the thoroughly awesome battle they had towards the end, there? Seriously. I’d like to see that animated by someone with a budget. Man. I could so clearly see the amazing feats each magical combatant did one after another, my mind was animating the battle as it was going on. Now that, that was an experience. With somewhat interesting characters, a fantastic setting with allows mystical fighting like this to take place, and woah is the imagination soaring. I’m not sure if I’m one of the few who’d think this and everyone else would get lost in your text and lose track of what was happening or if my experience would be shared with anyone in the world who read it besides me, but in any case. Excellently done. That was quite the entry. And the fact you had a drawn image to compliment it, too. Wow. Nicely done. Haha.
@PlatinumSkink, the title was, indeed, coincidental. I'm pretty terrible at coming up with names for my stories, so I'll typically just go with whatever first passes through my head—in this case, it was actually a band name, though that hadn't crossed my mind at the time.
I've finished reading all the entries! Some good stuff in there. Anxiously awaiting the results.
IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER -- I really thought I butchered the end of the first paragraph. On first draft it was a little more long-winded, if you can believe that, and accidentally I got inside someone's head (I think it said 'Larry was happy,' and I wasn't having it). As soon as the thread went up I was like, hey, good thing I fixed thaooooOOH GOD NO THE PARAGRAPH.
But uh...... wow. Okay, so for sure space cowboys next time. Or at the very least, spacedogs and space-mailmen.
(Seriously though, thank you kindly!)
PSA -- some..... shall we say, odd things are happening with the launch of RPGC #7. I can't quite explain it. It appears that........ well, I don't want to alarm anybody. Just stand by.
I seem to have forgotten to say my name could be displayed yet again XD
@RyuHll thank you for your review of the alchemist. Commonly confused words seem to be a recurring problem for me. They sound the same and I pick the wrong one, probably because in many cases I don't know the difference or that it is one of those commonly confused words. I did read through my entry several time and let the MS Word spellchecker run, which didn't pick up on any mistakes. Could you, if you want to, point my mistakes out? I have a hard time picking them out myself, especially when a story is fresh in my mind.
I looked up the difference between divers and diverse and now know why it should have been diverse, but to complicate this example even more, divers is a proper Dutch word as well meaning diverse in English. This story is going to be a part of a bigger story and I hope eiter a RPGC or another labour will allow me to work on it. so far RPGC3, labour 3,4 and 5 were all written in the same universe and I like where this is going.
@PlatinumSkinkThank you for your review. I already have ideas for the second part of the alchemist, but for the labour they weren't needed and I didn't have the time to add them to his story.
@Terminal Thank you very much for the review. This was a first time for me, and I appreciate the thoroughness of your review. I will definitely be joining the next contest here with everything you said in mind. Most of the errors in my story probably resulted from the fact that I wrote the story the day before the deadline (I found out about contests the day before), and I didn't even read over it before sending it in. I hope that next time I can weave a tale that is pleasing in both its structure and its story. Thanks again!
One wonders what Stheno was up to in the meantime.
Off hunting humans, probably. She is the most violent of the sisters.
I can recognize the shift in narrative density of which you speak—and while I probably wouldn't do that much differently, I also enjoyed Melas's alone time the most. I had actually originally planned on writing the whole thing from Euryale's perspective, but decided I liked Melas better.
Personally, I'm happy with everything up to and including the fight with the basalt-wolf. After that, I re-plotted the conclusion so many times—in large part due to the fact that changing the focal character also by necessity of the challenge forced me out of my intended conclusion—that I lost a bit of the passion I'd felt writing the earlier bits.
One change I'd definitely do in a rewrite is make the post-fight campsite scene far more triumphant, and move the mini-argument further out. Perhaps as they were leaving the caves, as I felt that bit was lacking. I'd also consider putting detail into the fight scene, but I reckon myself terrible at those. (I actually wrote a prologue from before Melas's fall, but it was so convoluted and unnecessary that I scrapped it.)
Why, no, of course this is not a subtle attempt by me to undermine your chances of winning the Eighth Labour (which you were already going to fail anyway). Why ask?
I must admit, this has me worried. How could experimenting ever hurt my chances?! Challenging myself is the whole point! D:
@RyuHll Oy, that’s unfaaaaaaaiiiiir. You got me to hope throughout the review and I was like ”Maybe I did it after all!” but then it ends with a fail. If I fail, tell me I do so in the beginning, and start talking positive things AFTERWARDS, as in to comfort me! XD
Yeah, I’m aware that it’s unpolished. Mostly because I never got myself to like the story I was writing, so I couldn’t get myself to be engaged in writing. But somehow, I just had to get it in. But, I wanted it to be a short story, so too much showing would have made the entry needlessly longer. The one and only scene that actually matters in the story is the place in the cell where Roland finally betrays Terran. So, adding too much of anything else… I didn’t want to do that. This guy was going to die, anyway, why take the effort to get to know him? Oh, well.
In any case. I did clear the challenge, so that’s nice, I suppose. Now I’ll just go on with my life, and look at the future. Thanks for the review.
Edit: Oh, your name was RyuHll, not RyuHill, meaning you're not gonna get a notification for this. ... ... My bad. Hah.
Alright, now with that out of the way, I’m going to say that I’ve already made the character whom I hope to write a story for in the Seventh Labour! It worked so spectacularly for Min, so now I have prepared a character I like and a world in which the character belongs, so I will be able to get engaged in writing an entry for this world and this character! Bring it on, in a couple of days!
… Of course, there is a possibility that the labour won’t fit the character/world at all, BUT IT WORKED SO WELL THE LAST TIME SO WHY THE HECK NOT!!?? XD
Edit: Yupp. Now I have documents describing the world, and a character living in said world. All I need is a scenario, and a labour. Bring it on.
Poking in here to announce a slight delay in the start of TTL#7. Still starting on the first of March, kind of, except it will be starting on Objective Midnight...for the NEXT day rather than the previous. Meaning that for all of you, there will be an extra six hours added to the Twelve Day clock. Woo. A scant few of you get an extra TWELVE hours. Woo hoo.
... *mumbles something about maybe I can use this world I've built for the Eight Labour, though somehow I doubt it'll be much happier, haha, I should have seen that one coming*...
I'm getting more and more curious about the 8th labour, but let me focus on the 7th first. Although, what's the point? Apparently I'm going to fail the 8th anyway :P
I'm getting more and more curious about the 8th labour, but let me focus on the 7th first. Although, what's the point? Apparently I'm going to fail the 8th anyway :P
My efforts to subconsciously ingrain the idea that it is impossible for you to clear the Eighth Labour have clearly worked. My mission is at its end.
I decided rather quickly that I'm writing way too long an entry. However, now I've decided to write this, so I'll be sticking to it to the end. If only for the satisfaction of actually finishing what I started...!
Oh, and for handing it in and possibly clearing the labour. Maybe. Just... just maybe. Haha.
I feel I should probably plan out scenarios that doesn't take as long to write in the future. So that I don't feel like I'm partaking in NaNoWriMo every time. Yikes. It shouldn't take this much of my time for just internet amusement. Sure, there's improving my skills as a writer, but this is...! XD
