The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

[Terminal]

Dawn of the Final Day

24 Hours Remain

[Holmishire]

oh

right

Well, it's not like I've ever not written my short stories last minute. I SWEAR I'MMA DO DIS

[Dedonus]

Dawn of the Final Day

24 Hours Remain

@Terminal

Uses Ocarina of Time

---

Dawn of the First Day

288 Hours Remain

[Terminal]

Unfortunately, since time is not linear, you vanish from here now and there are now two of you there then, creating a temporal eigenstate wherein both of you participate in the contest simultaneously, but only in that timeplace. In this timeplace, you no longer exist, which means you are technically ineligible for the contest. So using the Ocarina of time has inadvertently doomed you to meet with a terrible fate.

[Dedonus]

@Terminal[quote@Terminal]Unfortunately, since time is not linear, you vanish from here now and there are now two of you there then, creating a temporal eigenstate wherein both of you participate in the contest simultaneously, but only in that timeplace. In this timeplace, you no longer exist, which means you are technically ineligible for the contest. So using the Ocarina of time has inadvertently doomed you to meet with a terrible fate.
[/quote]

That's not how it works in Majora's Mask. ;)

[Terminal]

@Terminal<Snipped quote by Terminal>

That's not how it works in Majora's Mask. ;)

@Dedonus

No, but that is how it works here. '-'

Have a moon.

[mdk]

Go around! Go around!

I miss Majora's Mask. Should've done "Looking at the moon is a good thing."

[Dedonus]

<Snipped quote by Dedonus>

No, but that is how it works here. '-'

Have a moon.

@Terminal

Bring it!

[Psyga315]

<Snipped quote by @Terminal>
Bring it!

@Dedonus

{assists}

[Gwynbleidd]

Got an hour left I believe! Almost done!!!

[Terminal]

Actually you still have six hours. The contest submission period ends at OBJECTIVE Midnight - I.E., only once the entire world and every timezone has experienced Midnight. Same thing was done last time specifically to give people as much time as possible to get their stuff in.

On that note: Due to shenanigans I am unable to remain online and monitor the thread until Objective Midnight. I can still read timestamps though, so toodles for now.

[Gwynbleidd]

Ah, I forgot. Well I'm nearly done so it will be done!

[Holmishire]

At last, I've submitted my entry—and it seems to be 10:45PM in Honolulu, so I believe that means I've made it in!

Can't wait to see what everyone's pulled together.

[mdk]

Reading through everything now. Particularly loved @Flagg's "Forbidden Knowledge Grace." Nice freakin' job!

[Terminal]

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen technical issues, the winning entries for the Second Labour cannot be appended to the Victory Archive at this time. More specifically, new posts cannot be made and the character limit is broken if I try to edit the new entries into the first post.

This issue will be rectified in due time. If necessary, I may just start splitting the Link in my signature into multiple parts in order to accommodate multiple victory threads (although I would prefer to avoid littering the forum with superfluous threads).

[Loksfjoer]

Thank you for picking my entry as one of the winning stories. I see I completely forgot to mention you could add my name to my story. I wrote 'Curiosity killed the cat'

Thanks for the feedback! I actually tried to incorporate previous feedback to use less comma's, which is probably why there are more abrupt stops. Maybe I overdid it and used too few comma's this time. I'll go over the story again to see what you saw.
A quick question though, a line break, is that when I press the enter key?

[Psyga315]

I should probably say that I was the one who wrote Too Much Power.

[PlatinumSkink]

What I think of the entries.

I will say, I am very curious to see what these entries have made of the labour. Since it was so much up to interpretation what the labour actually means.

Ultimate Power, Ultimately Powerless

… Hm. Yeah, that’s a direct result of gaining too esteemed a position. Though, could it really be called “Ultimate” if there isn’t even the power to stop such things? Then again, it IS the most powerful power that probably exists in that world, and hence would be the “ultimate”… … … Heh.

Well done writing, I believe. The story itself tells a story, but doesn’t have much emotions stored into it, which would perhaps be expected by a pair of formal letters. I am unsure what the maker of this had in mind, but I’d say that probably works. I’m unsure. It is probably the first thing anyone would think of when confronted with the current challenge. We’ll see.

So, I’m not particularly impressed by the story, but I don’t think you counted on it to be impressing, and I think it does the job that was displayed in a way, so good job.

Too Much Power

Oh, hi, you. You really like this setting, huh. Heh.

I'm not all that impressed by this. Yeah, he gained too much power and blew up, and then his brother shows up and come up with a solution. This rid his powers for a while, and now they're like that. Hm, I wonder if I've become jaded? In any case, yeah. You did what the story informed you to do and it worked out. Nicely enough done. I didn't feel any emotions throughout the piece, not after it either, suppose it did its job. Suppose that's enough. Heh.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

... Hm. I have a bit of a problem with this. I mean, this is excellently written, you're pretty great at building this world for me and I am seriously confused as to if this was a character that already existed or if he was created along with the entry. Very well done. However, with regards to the labour, which I feel kind of forced to think from...

... He was unlucky. ... Or just supremely lucky at all other times. He defied the ancient superstitions by charting maps about the more threatening places in the world, I can get behind that. But... when we say "too much of a good thing", what are we talking about? His curiosity, or the amount of supposedly haunted places he visited? Either way, the end result is not a direct result. What happened was a result of someone who didn't believe in spirits venturing in to disprove them finding out they're real, essentially. Charting places people thought impassable due to unfortunate circumstances or dangers. There was nothing hinting that spirits would suddenly turn out to be real. He has an encyclopedias worth of proof that everyone's just scared, can we truly blame his curiosity for venturing into a forest? What he had too much of is actually experience. ... Eh, maybe that qualifies too. Hah. The story is excellently written, by the way. Wonderful portrayal of the character and the world. Very relatable. Thanks for writing. That's about that.

Thirteen Flat

... Well done. That efficiently turned my stomach. Too much of a good thing... Yeah, I believe that 's an accurate description of what just happened. There was a lot of sentimentality surrounding this piece, and it stirred a considerable amount of emotions. With the labour being what it is, what was going to happen was obvious, but the entry managed to maintain the state regardless. Flawless. Well done, sir. Well done.

Forbidden Knowledge Grace

Uh. So, uh... You very successfully built a mysterious atmosphere. This almost feels more vague than the first Blazblue game, and that was VAGUE. So... well, the atmosphere was pretty nicely done. It got a little bit boring for a while there, but the ending sure threw everything on fire. But, that said, this is quite clearly not the entire story. And, quite frankly, this doesn't quite stand on its own. I'm left confused, and you already know I am. In any case, um...

Too much of what? Knowledge? But... we didn't learn anything! ... And nothing bad really happened to anyone we learned about. Um. I quite frankly don't understand, which makes me wonder if I'm being an idiot. Oh, well.

Otherworld

Ah, uh... The labour was about "too much of a good thing"... But, uh... That's not good no matter how you cut it. That's bad. Extremely irreparably bad that will forever leave a bad mark on their history. It is only good in a certain jaded and twisted manner of perspective that is false no matter how you look at it. Though, suppose you took that extremely bad thing, and then went "too much" with that, instead. Which became extreme, and the writing well conveyed the extremely jaded individual perception along with the story. I'm just happy I'm not the judge for this because I'd have no idea how to judge this, because I can't call that a "good thing" no matter what I do, hence it couldn't possibly be "too much of a good thing". That's about that.

I Think, Therefore I am

... Hah. ... Too much telepathy, eh? Suppose that's one way to do it. I'd like to praise your sweeter scenes and the reveal scene. Those were pretty well-done. I know those were just introductory scenes for the thing that the entire labour is about, but I think they were more well done. They felt natural. The bad things... kind of just happened. I couldn't see a clear connection between the different stages of his negative transformation, nor did I get the feeling that he was particularly abusing his telepathic abilities. Felt more like it would have happened sooner or later regardless. Since I have a significant lack of understanding of how things happened, like how did she sense that he was in her mind and why he lost control, I'll just settle for saying- Well written! XD

And my response to what happened to my own entry...

Swordmaster Judgment reaction

... *sigh*

I honestly did not consider the epilogue part of the labour. It was a cleanup. I went for it in the aspect that he desired a good battle, but he got too much of a battle, tiring himself out which would eventually kill him. The only reason he did not die was because of the prince's own volition, otherwise his life would have been over. The labour part of the entry ended with his consciousness. But I suppose "could have died" is not sufficient. Had I killed him instead, would that have accomplished the labour? ... I think we can agree, however, that killing him would have made a much more pointless and therefore efficiently worse story. XD

"Lost nothing" is somewhat incorrect, he has lost his freedom and, eh, not enough, I suppose. It isn't exactly a reward, either, it is more of a "we have use of someone of your capability, how does this deal in which we don't immediately execute you sound?". Eh, that's about what I have on that. Suppose my entire choice of story was fundamentally flawed. Wonder what I could have picked that would have worked? I sincerely have no idea, right now.

I had this other idea of a witch of mine getting ultimate power, but in her ultimate boredom of having achieved everything she created an ultimate opponent that she lost control of which wiped out existence. I decided to scratch that because the opponent was a direct result of her actions because she was bored rather than her gaining too much power, and decided that wouldn't pass.

I had another idea where a warrior from the same world as my entry to the previous labour suddenly had all her problems (quite many and complex) solved overnight, which led to her completely disbelieving her fortune, believing she must be trapped in an illusion and therefore went mad and killed some people important to her thinking this was too good to be true, resulting instead in that when she realized that this was actually all real that she had ruined the fortune she had, forever, and now it would be too late to take it back and enjoy said fortune. ... I discarded that because... well, the one I now wrote sounded better, it was less advanced and would be easier for readers to understand. Less to explain. Wonder if that one had passed? I think it felt wrong that she didn't really have too much of a good thing, she just didn't take it well. Oh, well...

... "Omission of information"? Excuse me, what do you believe I use ellipses for? They don't omit information, they indicate pauses, hesitation, unsurety, slight delays, fading volume of tone and the like. I don't abuse ellipses, I use them. They're useful for efficiently conveying of the atmosphere and people's emotional state. Oh, well. In any case. I have no idea who Karel is. Still, thanks for praising the story and conveyed the things. Suppose I can still take the pride of having wrote something decent. Unless that's just you. Haha.

[Holmishire]

Yo, time for my little reveal!

I hadn't originally intended to go anonymous, but once I realized I'd forgotten a couple minutes after submitting, I decided to leave it as is anyways. Just curious to see how it would do.

I think, therefore* I am was mine entry. Some typoes will live on in eternal infamy.

Thank you for the praise I received, as well as the criticisms, @Terminal and @PlatinumSkink. The pacing is evidently what I need to work on next—it has always been my greatest challenge.

In a sense, this story is a result of me biting off more than I could chew—at least, initially.

Original plans

The initial focus of the story was going to be too many superpowers, with a cast of fledgling powered individuals struggling to come to grips with their new reality, and wrecking havoc in the city as a result. Each individual also had a subplot; too much of their specific superpower.

Eight supers had been developed, each with a meltdown for the ability.

But partway through the submission period, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to keep myself motivated enough to write that much in a week. So I took one character, the one who fit the theme best alone, and wrote exclusively about him.

Superpower analysis and deconstruction has always been an interest of mine. While this entry may not be my best, I did have a blast coming up with it!

[Psyga315]

Alright, I'm also gonna reveal what could have been.

The story I originally had in mind was not in the same Brothersverse setting. Instead, it was set in another setting. Something a little more similar to The Death of Nicholas Santos in which it's a crossover.

The basic gist was that, in a Last Temptation-style illusion, the main character winds up in an alternate reality where the love of his life was still alive. However, he is immediately made aware of the fact that he's in an illusion devised by the antagonist and that he's supposed to stop her and save the multiverse. However, it's hard to do so when you're constantly seeing the person you missed so much.

In the end, the main character leaves behind the burden of saving the multiverse in favor of living in the delusional world, much to his mentor's chagrin.