Best Overall Writer

Discussion in '2013' started by Misty, Aug 29, 2013.

?

Read the samples before voting!

Poll closed Sep 5, 2013.
  1. Plums

    21.7%
  2. What?

    43.5%
  3. Saxima

    4.3%
  4. Styx

    4.3%
  5. Jiku Neon

    13.0%
  6. darkhorse D

    13.0%
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  1. Misty gimme kiss

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2006
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    Cisgender Female
    Location:
    alderaan
    6,590
    Cycle One: "Most" Nominations; Thread/Group Nominations
    Cycle Two: Writing, Video Editing, Art Nominations; Roleplaying Nominations
    Cycle Three: Best/Worst Nominations
    Cycle Four: General Nominations

    Vote away!

    Plums
    Under the ground, I built a blue silence -- safe from the sound of you distant stomping titans.


    There's no sound but the sea. Right now, he's digging. Ten years old, buck teeth poking from beneath the blanket of his lips. Sand swells between his fingernails. It's like an infection, trying to find its way inside him. But it's something he welcomes.

    His hands lunge backwards. Sand flies, plopping to the ground behind him as his hands scratch at the grond once more. The dichotomy of the sound, the scratch and the plop, is too familiar to him.

    He closes his eyes as he moves his hand back once more. The plop of the clothes to the ground behind the closed door. The scratch of his father's voice climbing up the stairs. Plop, scratch, plop, scartch. The boy's hands stop. This is where the noise kicks up. He begins to beat at the sand. It rattles beneath his palms.

    This is where his father walks up the stairs. The door shall open with a brief creak. His palms roll into fists. This is where the yelling should begin. His father should be heard first. The boy punches the sand with his right hand -- steady and forceful. After this, his sister's voice should rise. The boy gives a soft, yet swifter punch to the sand.

    They should continue like this for a few minutes. It should be about their mother. Pale skinned, frail; he doesn't remember much about her. The closest thing he can recall is the smell of her hair -- just like the beach. His sister should say she's tired of these clothes being pushed in her closet. Swift punch. The closet is her space, not the space for the shadow of a mother she barely got to see.

    His dad should raise his voice even higher. Forceful punch. He should say she should stop being selfish, that she should be glad pieces of her mother are there to look over her. That she should be glad that she can look at the clothes and see her mother, upbeat and healthy, in them. Forceful punch. At this point, he should shove them back in the girl's closet, and threaten her with punishment. The girl compies against her will, plopping onto her bed. His father should wallk down the stairs now, his eyes looking ahead but his attention falling back. What he doesn't say is that he shouldn't force her on his daughter; that he shouldn't force the shadow that haunts him every day onto someone else. He should say this, but he won't.

    The boy uncurls his fists. He looks into his hands for a moment. They're soft, notoriously so. His father tells him that his mother used to wrap his fingers in her hands. The boy smiles. He looks down into the sand, a hole waiting before him. He scoots into it, the shadows of the grains wrapping around him in an embrace. He shifts a bit. Where his father and sister push it away, he welcomes it. The shadow of his mother, entwining him. Whenever his father and sister fight, he comes down her to see her. She is the sand, the water -- a silence lost but never moving.

    "Mother, I'm home."
    Today, I am going to visit the beach once again. The breeze greets me with a light kiss to the cheek as I close the door behind me. The sun showers over me; the rays sprinkle my fair skin tan, and I bask in its oven glow. At first, it it is cold. It stings through my flesh. Then, it warms; my skin smarts beneath the quiet heat. It wraps me in its covers and keep me stuck to it. It is me, and I am it. Yet, the embrace is as temporary as time. The covers leave me, and I am left to myself once more.

    The sun says farewell, and the sky splits open to night. I continue to the beach, lead feet dragging themselves forward. I see the town rise and fall before my eyes. The broken down shops cling to the shadows. There are children running about, but I do not hear them. They are gone to me, foreign bodies invading my view. They will be a disease that plagues me, just like everything else that reminds me of her.

    By now, she has grown into a woman. She has little to no recollection of me. It pains me with each step through the minutes. With each mile I walk, with each hour that passes, she will be further gone. I remember it quite clear; one day, she was here, a sleeping angel in her cradle. I fell asleep in the shadow of my wife, the peace of the scene lulling me to sleep. When I next opened my eyes, the angel was gone and the shadow had fled.

    The pavement turns to sand beneath my feet. Water rises and falls on the shoreline. I bend over in the sand, my finger making lines in the earth. Even now, twenty years gone past, I still try to trace her cheekbones in the surface, trying to recapture the image in the throes of memory. Maybe if the image is preserved, she will return. Maybe the memory can give way to reality, and I would have the sleeping angel once more. I almost have her face, when my fingers spasms, and a line crosses through it. I kick and stomp through the sand. I am crying, I am lost. Memory is an embrace, and no more durable than time.

    What?
    xxxxxFrom the chorus of the rain, the old man did not notice the girl pulling his sleeve.
    xxxxxHey, mister, mister, she cried, holding her umbrella tight as her boots splashed muddy water around the other graves.
    xxxxxMister, mister. Tinged with chords of innocence and warmth. But her voice fell on deaf ears, for the old man was too fixated on the one stone monolith that stood in front of him. And from the chorus of the rain, even this grave seemed precarious enough to topple at any moment; if he were to take his eyes off for a split second.
    xxxxxHey mister, mister.
    xxxxxThe man did not budge, and dug his face, wisened with the cracks of melancholy, deeper into his red scarf. His body was rigid, cold, and unfeeling. A statue that felt just as home in this cemetery as the other monuments to those that passed on. But this girl, she wouldn't stop. She wouldn't let up, and even if her voice was drowned out by the rain she would keep going and going. Hey mister, mister.

    xxxxxMister, she would ask. Mister, why do you look at that one grave all day? She would ask this, because every day she would see the old man in his familiar red scarf and black coat, clutching something in his shaking hand; she couldn't see it, she couldn't ever see it, but the fact that he struggled in simply holding it meant she knew it existed even if she couldn't see it. And this old man, all he would do is stand by the graves. He would stand by the one decaying grave; a piece forgotten by time, where the malicious winds washed away the inscription that proved a life had once existed, and the earth commanded its armies of moss to return the stone back to its home. The cracks on the stone were as numerous as the contours of his languid face. Where the old man was fixated on the grave, she was all-too fixated on the old man, in the sense of child-like inquisitiveness that dominated one's youngest years.

    xxxxxBut the rain, it was heavy today. She wouldn't let her chance so quickly get away, and today the child came prepared. She tugged and tugged on the old man's sleeve, and as he stood still as a statue, she scrunched up her face in dismay. Right. She turned away from the man, allowing the rain to hit her curly hair for just a moment. She reached inside her pocket with her small hand and brought out a red-and-white metal sphere. The rain hit the sphere with a noiseless intensity. The girl looked around just briefly, and brought the sphere to her forehead. It was the same, every day; the old man was the only one here.

    xxxxxShe turned back to the old man and yet again tried to pull on her sleeve. No, no dice, no change. So she went with her second plan, and moved closer to the old man. Her clear plastic umbrella touched the old man's old red canopy, sheltering them both from the rain just briefly. And with a wry smirk, she held out the red-and-white sphere.
    xxxxxTo her surprise, the old man moved.
    He turned his head just an inch, to gaze at the sphere. The rain was relentless against their umbrellas now, and the pitter-patter surrounded them as if a battle raged around them, but hidden from them; in the bushes, in the clouds, but never directly around them, an infinite distance away.
    xxxxxThe girl looked into his eyes. They were strained, as if working out the details of the sphere. Even in the rain, they shone brightly with flecks of dazzling light, and the old man's age gave them a telltale fade. Yet, this fade was strung together with a shadow of sadness and overarching regret that sat upon his shoulders with the weight of the Earth. But even in this, he continued to stare, and the girl watched with curiosity as these pensive eyes of his grew wide. His mouth tried to form words, and he spoke to himself in his mind, as his lips made slight movements and minute twitches that said nothing but explained enough.

    xxxxxSo she asked a question, but did not tug at his sleeve.

    xxxxxMister, she began. Mister.
    Do you remember?

    xxxxxThe old man snapped his gaze to meet her own with a lightning-bolt intensity. For that brief, fleeting moment in time, the girl felt the richness that once made this man whole. The experience, the challenges, and the feelings of success. The emotions, the despair, the sorrow, the heroism. The fickle nature of loss, and the deep roots of love. But the chorus of rain overtook it, and it too began to slowly fade from existence. The old man's mouth was frozen in time, slightly open and ajar, but it slowly began to descend into the subtle arch of a frown. It was not the frown of anger, that masked hate and fear, or the frown of depression, that masked the loneliness, but it was the frown of realization. The chorus of rain grew loud in his ears, and the wind blew coldly on his back. There was not another voice to be heard in the vast miles of this cemetery.

    xxxxxExcept the young girl's.

    xxxxxHe began to move his hand, the one he hid so well; the one that shook as it grasped something tightly. He brought it in front of him, close towards the girl and her sphere, and the girl's heart raced with a giddy jump of surprise and excitement. His movements were robotic and hollow, and what he held in his hand had seen better days.
    xxxxxThe old man's bony hand held a faded, red-and-white cap, patched in places, burnt in others. The girl felt the old man's wisdom engraved on the hat; it wasn't simply an accessory, but a part of the life that he once loved. And in the hat sat a small red-and-white sphere, almost identical to her own. The only difference was the small lightning bolt engraved above the sphere's white button. His hand shook, but it could have just been from the rain.
    xxxxxThe girl turned her gaze back to the old man, and noticed that his gaze broke off from hers. He seemed distracted, as if looking at something that lay beyond his simple reality, forgotten in time.

    xxxxxI remember.

    xxxxxThe girl was taken aback.
    xxxxxThe old man did not say anything else, but he continued to look through the ground, then turned his head to look straight through her. It was as if she didn't seem to exist to him. But this was her chance. The girl gripped her umbrella more tightly, and repeated the question that eluded her ever so much.

    xxxxxMister, why do you look at that grave all day? xxxxxHer question pierced the chorus of rain, and to the old man, it was as if the chorus grew silent.

    xxxxxHe turned away from the girl, and back to the grave, tightly gripping his hat and the sphere that lay dormant within it. The girl stepped back, giving the old man some space. He knelt down close to the unmarked grave, and laid his hat – and the sphere within it – by the base of the stone, allowing the hat to shelter the cold little sphere from the merciless rain. And his hand shook little, for the spell that gripped his soul had released itself to the winds.

    xxxxxI look at graves all day, he said.
    xxxxxI look at graves all day, he said, because if I were to take my eyes off for one second,

    xxxxxTime would forget you,


    xxxxxPikachu.
    Schrodinger's Knot

    Saxima
    Reflection
    Riku ponders on the events since he left Destiny Islands.

    Styx
    Access
    Killswitch

    There are tales to tell
    As implied by clenched teeth yellowed by silence and disbelief
    Sightings of well-dressed men feeding cough drops down a shaft
    To ascertain that the dust remains in place

    A brave intruder wandered into this oblivion
    Shedding their flashlight on prototypes of the apocalypse
    And even though their rope home was hatcheted
    Undead arms clawed their way to the surface…to live the hermit’s life
    Curiosity had broken the cat

    Therefore I say we detonate, become the dreaded emergency
    The belly of the ghast monster that had swallowed the bomb
    Will explode into a treasure trove of booming truth
    Our feet and fingers held upon the tissue flakes to keep them from re-fusing
    There are tales to tell, and we want to hear them

    Jiku Neon
    It's night
    Kira was furious with herself. Her fingers were bruised and bleeding from her most recent outburst against an unsuspecting wall. Hughes was still crying. He'd been crying for hours. The rest of the battle monks were performing the normal, dispassionate sending ceremony to ensure their fallen comrade wouldn't return as an evil spirit. The whole scene felt disgusting. Erica spat into the dirt hoping it'd clear the painful metallic tang from her mouth. Hoping that she'd somehow no longer feel if she did something. But other than that she remained stark still, staring out over the field.

    A rather ungraceful bellow from Kira. She'd managed to hurt herself again. Erica couldn't help but scoff slightly. Before she'd even taken another breath Kira was in front of her, incensed.

    “What is it?”

    “....”

    “You want to say, 'I told you so.'?” Kira snarled, more and more beastly with each passing day, this one. “You want to say that he should've just backed off like you?”

    “I don't see what you're so angry about.”

    “I--”

    “It's not like you just lost your first friend.” Erica continued calmly. “It's not like you get to tell his family that they'll be bur-- rather, they won't be able to even bury their only son. It's not like you got to hear the news from the people who swore he was going to be taught to survive. It's not like you were told that this was gonna be a cinch. It's not like you couldn't even be there for him. No... I don't see what you're so angry about.” With that Erica turned and began walking.

    “I'm sorry...” She heard someone saying-- no-- whispering, as she stalked off in silence. Even her footfalls felt light, like she might just float away.

    “Dead.” She heard her own voice express the idea, felt her own lips give it shape, but it seemed so foreign to her. “Tommy's dead.” That same feeling of disconnection from her own actions. There was nothing for it. Nothing that could be done now. Not that she could've ever made a difference. Not that she was even involved anymore. Erica sighed. She'd been walking aimlessly for a while by now and found herself on an unfamiliar street. She didn't recognize any of the roadsigns or storefronts. She'd normally have felt worried. Scared, even. But now there was nothing. She just took it in stride and kept walking. That's what legs are made for. Put one foot in front of the other and the body will follow, it's called walking. Do it faster and it's running. Before she knew it Erica was running. She still had no idea where she was. She still had no idea what she was doing or why she was doing it. She smiled. Another seemingly involuntary action. Same for the tears. She kept running through it all.

    What felt like miles and miles later she was out of breath, stopped and aching from her exertions, but she was in a familiar neighborhood.

    “Now's as bad a time as any.” She said aloud, her own thoughts being drowned out by her heaving breaths and pounding blood. Then she put her right foot in front of her left and then her left in front of her right and started walking to the nearest house. A house she'd been to many times before. Only those times she wasn't alone.

    She stood for several minutes at the door, almost waiting for someone to come and tell her she was wrong. No such luck. She reached out to knock and then withdrew her hand. She reached out and withdrew three times before the door opened. Tommy's mother had seen her.

    “Erica! You look awful! Has something happened?” She exclaimed.

    “Is your husband home?” Erica asked. Her voice as dead as her bleary eyes. With a moment's hesitation the middle aged woman answered that he was. Erica dropped head. “Can I come in?”

    http://kh-vids.net/threads/darunter.96119/#post-3977038

    darkhorse D
    At this very moment in the town of Ponyville, young Ned, nine years, twenty-seven weeks, six days and three minutes old, was chasing his dog Digby, aged three years, two weeks, six days, five hours and nine minutes, and not a minute older. As the two chased each other, Digby ran out into the nearby street and into the path of an oncoming flimflamobile. As Digby flew into the air, the, at first, playful look on the young earth pony’s face turned to one of grief and despair. He trotted to his once living friend and knelt beside his lifeless form. He stayed in that position for several moments, before reaching out to give his best and only friend, a goodbye pat. As soon as his hoof made contact with Digby, however, the deceased dog glowed with a golden light for a split second, and Digby jumped to his paws and ran off. This was the moment young Ned realized he wasn’t like the other foals. Nor was he like anyone else for that matter. Young Ned could touch dead things and bring them back to life. Meanwhile, in a nearby tree, a squirrel fell from it dead.
    _____________________________________________________________________________________
    Ned’s mother was in the kitchen, baking and swatting any flies that got too close to her pies. One of said flies, landed a little close to Ned. His touch was a gift given to him, but not by anyone in particular. There was no box, no instructions, no manufacturer’s warranty. It just was. To test it, while his mother had her back turned to him, putting a pie in the oven, he reached over to the fly and touched it. Like Digby earlier, the fly glowed a golden light and returned to what it had been doing earlier; buzzing around the freshly baked pies. The terms of use for his gift weren’t immediately clear, nor were they of immediate concern; young Ned was in love. Her name was Chuck. At this very moment the young unicorn was aged eight years, forty-two weeks, three hours and two minutes old. The young earth pony did not think of her as being born or hatched or conceived in any way; Chuck came ready made from the Play-Dough fun factory of life. In their imaginations, young Ned and the unicorn called Chuck conquered the world. In their dinosaur costumes they would stomp on the Play-Dough people, and the cardboard cities they built together. The Play-Dough people would run in terror and sometimes kill each other to get out of the way of the two foals.
    _____________________________________________________________________________________
    Long after their play date was over, young Ned, who was currently being cleaned up by his mother, remained under Chuck’s spell. Until a blood-vessel in his mother’s brain burst, killing her instantly. Young Ned didn’t notice this until he heard her hit the ground in front of him. Not thinking about what might happen, he trotted over to his mother and touched her. As with every other dead thing he had touched, she briefly gave off a golden glow, and then her eyes flickered open.
    “Must have slipped, clumsy me. Did the timer go off?” asked the now not dead mother. She went to the oven and removed the now baked pie, while Ned went to a seat at the table. Young Ned’s random gift that was came with a caveat or two. It was a gift that not only gave, it took. Just as the timer that was set goes off, Chuck’s father, who had been hosing the lawn outside his home, falls dead. Young Ned learned that he could only bring the dead back to life for one minute without consequences. Any longer and someone else had to die. As Ned made this connection, his mother glances out the window and drops the pie she is holding in shock. In the grand universal scheme of things, young Ned had traded his mother’s life, for Chuck’s father’s.
    _____________________________________________________________________________________
    “Come on Neddy, time for bed” said Ned’s mother, several hours later. Young Ned moves away from the window he’s been staring out of since the death of Chuck’s father, and climbs into bed. There was one more thing about touching dead things that young Ned didn’t know and he learned it in the most unfortunate way. As Ned’s mother tucked him in, she made the mistake of giving him a goodnight kiss on his forehead. The instant her lips came into contact with Ned’s skin, she glowed a light blue, and fell backwards, once again dead. Ned jumped out of bed, and tried to revive his mother again, touching her multiple times before he realized the awful truth about his gift. First touch: life! Second touch: dead, again, forever.
    _____________________________________________________________________________________
    “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me…” the minister droned. After a brief mourning period, young Ned’s father would hustle him off to boarding school, never to be seen again. Chuck would be fostered by aunts Sarah and Juliet Sparkle, renowned magic experts, they shared matching personality disorders, and a love for fine chocolate. At their respective parents funerals, busy with grief, curiosity and hormones, young Ned, and the unicorn named Chuck, had their first, and only kiss.
    _____________________________________________________________________________________
    After his mother’s death, Ned avoided social attachments, fearing what he’d do if someone else he loved died. And he became obsessed with pies. It’s nineteen years, thirty-four weeks, one day and fifty-nine minutes later, here-to-for known as now. Young Ned has become the Pie Maker, his talent for pie baking reflected in his cutie mark; three slices of various pies. He made his pies in a shop known as the Pie Hole in the heart of the Crystal Empire. The peaches never brown, the dead fruit in his hands becomes ripe with everlasting flavor as long as he only touches it once.
    _____________________________________________________________________________________
    “Every day I come in, I pick a pie, concentrate all my love on that pie, if I love it, someone else is gonna love it, and you know what? By the end of the day, I sold more of those pies than any other pie in shop.” The energetic young voice of Olive Snook could be heard talking to PI Emerson Cod, who was getting ready to make his order.
    “Yeah? What pie do you love today?” responds Cod.
    “Rhubarb”
    Cod nods and replies “I’ll stick with three plum. Al la mode.”
    Emerson Cod was the sole keeper of the Pie Maker’s secret. And this is how he came to be the sole keeper of the Pie Maker’s secret.
    _____________________________________________________________________________________
    A private investigator, Mr. Cod met the Pie Maker, when his Pie Hole was on the verge of financial ruin. Cod was chasing a suspect over the roofs of the buildings surrounding the Pie Hole, until eventually, the suspect made the grave mistake of trying to jump the large gap between the roof of the Pie Hole and another building. Cod’s suspect fell onto the dumpsters in the alleyway below, dying instantly, only to make contact with the Pie Maker, returning to life. A bit disorientated, the criminal made a run for it. He didn’t make it far though, since the Pie Maker, who was much faster than he looked, gave chase and returned him to the grave. Mr. Cod, after observing all this from the nearby rooftop, proposed a partnership; murders are much easier to solve when you can ask the victim who killed them. The Pie Maker reluctantly agreed.
    _____________________________________________________________________________________
    “I asked you not to use the word zombie, its disrespectful” the Pie Maker and Cod were in their usual booth, close to the door, discussing the business of murder as usual. “Stumbling around, squawking for brains, it’s not how they do. And undead, nopony wants to be un anything. Why begin a conversation on a negative, it’s like saying I don’t disagree, just say you agree.”
    Cod rolled his eyes. “Are you comfortable with living dead?”
    “You’re either living or you’re dead” the Pie Maker retorted. “When you’re living, you’re alive, when you’re dead, that’s what you are. But when you’re dead and then you’re not, you’re alive again. Can’t we say alive again? Doesn’t that sound nice?”
    “Sounds like you’re narcoleptic.”
    “I suffer from sudden and uncontrollable attacks of deep sleep?”
    “What’s the other one?”
    “Necrofilia”
    “Words that sound alike get mixed up in my head” said Cod, shrugging.
    The great ball of energy and randomness, that was known as Olive suddenly piped up, “Me too, I used to think masturbation meant chewing your food”
    The two in the booth just stared at Olive, as the smile she wore, ever so slowly fell from her face. “I don’t think that anymore.”
    “Can you lock the door behind you?” asks the Pie Maker.
    Olive stood there for only a moment, before taking off her apron, hooking it on a peg by the door, and left, locking the door behind her. Cod watched with a confused look on his face, wondering why the hell did she think masturbation was chewing your food?!? Composing himself, Cod turned back to the Pie Maker asking, “So you want in on this opportunity or not? A dog is involved.”
    Digby, who had been sleeping on the floor the whole time lifted his head at the word dog. The Pie Maker looked at Digby.
    “What kind of dog?” he asks.
    “Is gonna be a dead dog. Dead dog named Cantaloupe. They’re putting her down since she allegedly killed her owner.”
    “By allegedly…?”
    “Cantaloupe was framed. Somepony put a part of the victim in her mouth.”
    “Huh” the Pie Maker said pondering the implications of this statement.
    “Hey,” Cod pulls out a photo of the supposed murderer. “Docile as a kitten, says the family.”
    The Pie Maker examined the photo carefully, noting how the dog looked practically harmless.
    “Despite it being a Chow, the breed most likely turned on its owner?” the Pie Maker jokes
    “Hey, hey!” Cod exclaims. “That’s racial profiling.”
    The Pie Maker chuckles at this, as he takes a closer look at the dog.
    “Look here, if the dogs innocent, that means its murder, and that means theres a reward,” pressed Cod, grinning at the prospect of more cash in his wallet

    Jaws that bite on those much weaker
    Claws which reach to catch the seeker
    Of him whose glory reigns on high
    The Beast Below, the King of Lies

    He watches, pliding with eyes in two
    Ever watching he longs for you
    Beware the Beast who longs to rule
    Over mimsy lands, with ways most cruel

    The Beast’s disaster will not cease
    ‘Til the Lord above smoothes this crease
    A fate strung in prophetic verse
    His end draws near, and with him sin’s curse

    A curse borne through ancient mistake
    The end will be done when God spake
    To bridge the gap and gain a pass
    The price was paid, His blood on the grass

    The fiery lake awaits the Beast
    On Christ’s return he’ll lay in defeat
    While those who believed will prosper
    The Beast below will suffer on
     
  2. Amaury Legendary Hero

    Joined:
    Jan 15, 2007
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    Male
    Location:
    Ellensburg, WA
    1,692
    I vote for What?.

    I would vote for Plums if What? weren't in this poll.
     
  3. Technic☆Kitty Hmm

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2010
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    Male
    Location:
    Indiana, USA
    1,299
    Sorry Plumsy, I love your work and all but ... when I'm reading What?'s work, it's like I'm in a whole other world.

    I'd give you silver medal but Misty would probably take it away. :\
     
  4. Lauriam I hope I didn't keep you waiting...

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2009
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    Nonbinary she/he/it?
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    Wow, this was really hard. I had a very hard time trying to choose. In the end it was between What? and Saxima. I ended up voting for What?, because, even though I've never been into Pokemon, and I don't know anything about the fandom like, at all, the story still was amazing and well-written, and it actually made me miss Pikachu. Whom, I know nothing about. And his second story... wow. I'm truly speechless. All I know is I would pay good money (if I had it) to buy the story and finish it. But I really liked Saxima's story as well, I love introspective stories and Riku's always been a favorite of mine. :)
     
  5. Styx That's me inside your head.

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2008
    319
    First off, thanks for nominating me and thank you to whoever votes for me. Now then, on to the CnC...

    Plums
    Plums knows how to grab a reader's attention. There is a dreamy quality about his pieces, luring the reader further in. His entries share the characteristic of saying a lot (especially regarding character development) in relatively few words. The atmosphere is melancholic, without being whiny, and at times bittersweet. I very much like his writing style too. Plums makes his pieces come full circle and still manages to leave the door ajar for continuation. Classy.

    What?
    What? demonstrates a professional's level of skill in both pieces. He is eloquent and knows which elements a great story should contain. The twist in the first piece was clever and well-presented. The build-up in that piece was slow though, and certain fragments seemed to serve no purpose other than to delay the reveal at the end. While I understand that most people will be sucked in by his eloquence and sense of detail, it doesn't always work for me (by which I mean that it still works more often than not).

    Saxima
    Riku's concern and guilt are very realistically portrayed here. Saxima's story seamlessly fits into the actual Kingdom Hearts universe, and I'd go as to say that these extra details are something the story of Kingdom Hearts could use. There's not much to comment on story-wise, but I do like how human the character is portrayed.

    Styx (Yeah, reviewing my own work again.)
    Access could stand alone as an original story. Why the author turned it into a fanfic rather than simply being inspired by the source material is anyone's guess. Nevertheless, behind the premise of getting drunk and partying lies a decent story about deception and choices. Some of the dialogues are sharp and witty, especially near the end. The climax was more chaotic than the author would have liked, but is in turn more realistic than cinematic shootouts and deux ex machinae. There are elements of convenience (i.e. the memory wiper) and plot holes though, some inexcusable and some deliberately left to the reader's imagination. All in all, it's an attempt the author can be proud of, but not a masterpiece.
    Killswitch handles roughly the same themes and is therefore odd for a second entry. The imagery is vivid and the language eloquent, but it just seems like a typical case of trying too hard and ending up pretentious. Unlike some clever poems that seem to improve upon subsequent reads, you either dig Killswitch or you don't. There's no middle ground. A poem that caters to few, but which will probably be very much liked by those few.

    Jiku Neon
    Interactive stories are always a challenge, because you don't just need ideas for a single plotline, but for several at once. I didn't read through it all, but I'm giving Jiku Neon points for just being committed to it. The second fragment displays a very vivid writing style. It is passionate and powerful, and the piece has an ending that leaves me wondering what happens next (which I hadn't really encountered in this thread before). You get a good idea of what the characters are like, even if they don't develop much in this short extract. While I don't think these pieces are the best in this thread per se, Jiku Neon is without a doubt a very skilled writer.

    darkhorse D
    What the-? I don't have any idea what I just read. A cross-over is difficult to get right but very rewarding when it is done right. I, however, am not really convinced. The fragments are short, shorter than what good character development and drama need in my humble opinion. The tragedy is treated somewhat matter-of-factly here. I don't know if it was intentional, but I didn't really like it. Also, why does Ned disappear halfway through? It is a shame because his ability was an insanely interesting concept with lots of potential.
    Darkhorse D is, however, a very gifted poet. Bloody good rhymes. A piece with an epic ring to it, foreboding at one point and hopeful the next. I can only wonder why he wasn't nominated for Best Poet.

    Plums and What? can each have a half of the gold medal for all I care. Choices, however, need to be made. Therefore I base my decision on which pieces best invited me to read them. They belonged to Plums.
     
  6. Glen Returned from the dead

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    What? absolutely blew me away with the style of writing here. The professionalism is evident in this one, and he most definitely knows what to write and how to write it!
     
  7. SoulboundAlchemist Gummi Ship Junkie

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    OK, let me set you straight on my crossover.
    1) The fragments are short because I'm trying to mimic the feel of Pushing Daisies as much as possible.
    2) The tragedy was supposed to be a lesson that he learned the hard way about his gift.
    and 3) Ned doesn't disappear; if you had read all of it (which I'm not too sure you did) you would know that I simply refer to Ned as 'The Pie Maker'. In a later chapter that I didn't add to my submission, and throughout the rest of the first story (I plan on writing a series of stories with this one being a foundation for the rest) he is referred to as 'Ned' while hes alone with Chuck (or Charlotte Sparkle), while the rest of the time he will be referred to as 'The Pie Maker'.

    I hope I was able to set you straight and that this helped in your understanding of my story. However, I will take this criticism to heart and try to avoid the mistakes you pointed out in future stories. Also, I must thank you for your kind words about my poem. I hope to find the inspiration to write another one as good as that one.[DOUBLEPOST=1377959289][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, for those of you who are interested in continuing to read the story, please follow the story at this link: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/109015/pushing-daisies-pielette
     
  8. Saxima [screams geometrically]

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    Oh, jesus christ. Thank you. I felt really embarrassed while reading it, but ahhh, it feels so great when someone actually critiques work and explains their thoughts. I wish I spared time to do the same for the others.

    Each of them had their good points, but I think, from the samples and previous endeavors, I'll vote for Ash. Really wonderful jobs, everyone.
     
  9. Jiku Neon Kingdom Keeper

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    Styx has reminded me of the drive I once had to help writers more dedicated than I achieve their goals. So I've written everyone a short critique and my final opinion of your current state of writing. It's not perfect by a long shot and my opinion is far from law, but I'm doing my part to help you where no one helped me while I was trying to improve all those years ago.

    Beachbound

    I want to start with the brass tacks and move into the finer subtleties later. First, you need to spell check. I found no fewer than four typographical errors in this piece, all of which were also caught by the spelling grammar check on LibreOffice. So look over things more carefully in the future. Second, you make use of present tense for a lot of the beginning but shift into a hypothetical voice part way through. No big, except you phase in and out of it. You need to work towards consistency. Something that should have been done doesn't elicit a real reaction. This might be a literary device you're trying to get at but in the end it just looks like a loose end where you messed up. It's not airtight and clean, so I feel the need to mention it. This '--' mark that you use should appear like this 'word-- word' not 'word -- word'. Not a big deal, but something that is a standard usage in auto-correct.

    Moving on to the more abstract things. Okay, it's a really intimate story about a family who all have their own ways of dealing with the passing of the mother. The son is correct and the father is incorrect. The sister is only there because she is. So the characters are flat and unimportant as individuals and this is a tonal/emotional piece. I can get with that. This doesn't move me at all, though. I thinks it's well enough written, but it's not something that you've made your own statement with, it's not something that you can't find elsewhere. I don't know how else to articulate my reasoning for lack of emotional response.

    Yesterday's Promise

    Brass tacks, then abstracts. First, no spelling or grammar errors in this one. Very good. You use a lot of unconventional and unusual constructions with your sentences. It's stuff I can't even call right or wrong, just weird. There is definitely some ambiguous phrasing at the beginning with the sun and breeze, but it's forgivable because the context fills in the gaps of your descriptions. For the most part, I just feel that your writing has all of these weird sentences because of what you've read and how you've been taught. It's probably only weird to me because of what I've read, though. Still you seem like you're trying a bit too hard to go for that eloquence that some people have a knack for and end up sounding stilted. The ending two paragraphs are great though.

    Alright, so the story you're telling. Again, vague and the characters don't matter. Good in its own sense, though not my cup of tea. The thing that makes this better than Beachbound is that it actually feels like something is being said here, not regurgitated. I don't know why because this also follows some pretty common themes, but hell if I know.

    Now, for my overall evaluation, I'm going to say you've grown a lot. I remember when I thought myself a better writer than you. It actually wasn't that many years ago. But now, I'd be an arrogant fool to think anything resembling it. I'm actually in ****ing awe. It's depressing in the sense that I'm being outgrown and left behind, but I knew that this would happen sometime. Seriously, good work.

    Forgotten By Time

    I don't see much of a point in critiquing this from a technical standpoint, since I basically have nothing to say. Far as brass tacks go, you get a by.

    So as to the abstracts. I can't say it's original and I can't say I liked the end. It's fanfiction, and that makes it predictable. You followed the formula here. You made it seem like you were building up a separate story and scene all your own then, “BAM!” goes the reference and we're locked into a preset universe and it becomes pretty obvious where it's going. It's not bad. It's good. I just don't like when you can tell the ending so easily and when you throw away your own exposition in favor of a dependency on the audience. It's a good piece with a lot of emotion, you just ended up killing it for me by making it Pokemon. Good work though.

    What a read that was. One typo found. No grammar errors of note. Gonna make the same convention comment that I made to Plums about the '--' sign.

    Schrödinger's Knot

    Onward, then. Very good. You almost had me here. You really did do something good here. It's probably the best single piece in the thread. But there are flaws that I'd like to point out and reasoning for why you didn't get my vote. The narrator. Classy fellow and all, but he's not entirely consistent. Normally, he's using far more standard English. Suddenly, he'll break into some colloquial speech. Why? There's literally no discernible reason for him to shift. Either you make it clear later or you're just throwing in the colloquialisms haphazardly and making it look sloppier than it needs to be. You also spend a lot of words (read: 4000+) to do not very much story telling. Okay, word economy isn't the most important thing in the world, but the point remains, you should be aware that you've spent four pages to say, “The world is connected by more than just the internet. B likes old stuff in spite of herself. There is something wrong in this world. Our narrator is a stalker.” So I liked this a lot but it's at the point where it needs some fine tuning to be truly great.

    I don't need to tell you that you're better at writing than me. That much should be obvious to a lobotomized chihuahua. So I won't, I'll just tell you that I don't feel like giving you my vote for best for two reasons. You already are shoe in to win it and you're only perfect on the technical side. You still need to refine yourself and develop an identity as a writer. You need more personality and soul in it. As it is, it feels like a mass of skills and ideas, not a finished work. So forgive me for holding that against you.

    Reflection

    Alright, brass tacks. We've got magnanimous used out of context. You use it the same way some would use generous when they're going for something like, “Generous portions.” Basically, you seem to mean a lot of something. That's not how magnanimous works. It's a subtle difference between the two words and their respective meanings. I also would not have used generous. I'd have gone for something like 'abundant' to show the amount or 'palpable' to show the intensity. That just makes more sense to me. So think on word choice more thoroughly, it may not sound good but a word only works if its meaning is correct and that should trump all other factors. Meaning is what words convey. Other than that, you're good on the technical front.

    I don't really like fanfiction and this one is clearly depending on the source material. It's not a bad thing per se, but I have a lot against it. You do a good job fleshing out emotions that Square decided to kind of pass over and making it a poignant piece. I know you're a good writer already and this just shows it off a little more. I'd really have liked to see an original work though.

    Overall, you're good, I can't even tell you what I think is wrong really. I just know that there are things here that I like better. Much love though. You deserve so much more play in the polls and in the hearts and minds of the public.

    Sorry pal, I've already said all I want to on Access and I believe I've read Killswitch and possibly even critiqued it to the best of my meager abilities as well.

    My final vote does go to you, though. It was mostly Access and that got me. It resonates with me on a certain level and really covers everything that I think a full and finished work should be. I know it may seem like a copout now, but I just voted this way because of how I felt at the time.

    Pushing Daisies: Pie-lette (My Little Pony and Pushing Daisies crossover)

    Brass tacks. You need to use spellcheck and make sure your sentences make sense before you roll it out. The biggest problem I see here is that you never, vary your sentences. You write very, very monotonously. It's consistent pretty much throughout that you just say everything in the most matter of fact possible voice, sparing no effort for nuance or tonality. You just say what happened and let it go. That's boring. That's not a good thing to do. Summarily, check spelling and grammar with the computer, yourself and a friend; and more importantly, vary your sentences and give yourself a cadence to work with. You want to not put us to sleep.

    Abstracts. I don't like it one little bit. It's not just the writing style. Your characters are empty husks with no true distinctions other than name until the very, very end where you give character interaction token service. Your series of events are disjoint and your transitions abrupt. Your conveyance of emotion is nil. You have characters dying left and right and it has this matter of fact tone that doesn't lend itself to making the reader care. There may be some redeeming quality here, but I can't find it.

    The Beast Below

    I'm terrible at judging poetry. I think you did fine. Learn to use spellcheck.

    At the end of the day, you're the only person I didn't consider voting for. You're better than the majority of writers I've seen on this site in the past but if your prose is any indication, you don't belong on this poll. I don't know how much of a writer you are since I've seen everyone else for multiple years and you for only this thread so I can't judge if this is because you're only just starting to get serious or some other reason, but I strongly encourage you to put in more time and get more outside criticism. I say all of this at the risk of sounding like a horrible prick, but I feel like you probably need to hear this from someone.
     
  10. Styx That's me inside your head.

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    Sep 16, 2008
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    Yes, I read it all, but not as thorougly as I should have apparently. You can disregard the comment about Ned disappearing, and I apologize for the mix-up.
     
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