[h2]Forsythe: [u]Uneasy Friendship[/u][/h2] [hider=Review] [i] “We’re going to a game of eight-ball and a toast to the fallen. I thought… that maybe you would like to join us.” she offered with a small smile. Esther’s grip on the door knob tightened.[/i] As you may be able to tell from the quote I selected, one of my favorite parts of this entry was the tension. It was palpable during Esther and Diamond’s conversation, which was nice to see. Soundtrack was relatively suitable, though it was a real tearjerker. This worked very well for the parts of the entry that were – as I mentioned above, tense and definitely hostile for both parties. BUT, it wasn’t too suitable towards the end of the entry, that being said it would be difficult without submitting two songs to do it at all, thusly I’m only deducting a half point. Okay so let’s get to the dialogue as I mentioned it was the [b][u]main[/u][/b] focus of this contest. At times, especially early on I felt like it was great. No grand soliloquys, rather to the point and effective uses of dialogue. However, towards the end it got a little cliche, but that might not be the right word. Perhaps things just got wrapped up a little too nicely for me. It seemed liked Esther was truly bitter about this idea that someone wanted to spread the word of her friends without having known them. This is a very personal wound. But one night of drinks and talking about them and any and all resentment seemed to fade away. I would’ve loved a lingering sentiment of some kind here, it would’ve felt just that little bit more human to me. However, that is a matter of opinion – not something you did necessarily wrong with the story so you’re not being marked down too harshly for it. All in all I believe you did a good job molding your entry to what I set before you, well done. 8/10 [/hider] [h2]Krayzikk: [u]Brochures, Dad – First Place[/u][/h2] [hider=Review] [i]And alone in the living room, Ben wasn’t sure it could ever be- *** “-repaired.” “What do you mean?” “This thing would take forever to get repaired. Look at it.” Daniel adjusted the overhead light illuminating the workbench, and indicated closely with the tip of a screwdriver. [/i] Pardon the length of that Favourite Quote, but hot damn effective transitions are the best area they not? So, let’s get down to it – first things first: soundtrack. Yeah, it was good – volume was pretty solid and pacing was good – never overtook the story or anything like that. Little fun part of that was it finished as I finished reading the entry which was cool. (I read slow get over it). No reason in my mind to deduct any points at this juncture, suitable song that was of good length, tone, volume and pacing – well done. So dialogue, dialogue, dialogue then. Basically, I loved it. It was really well done – you could tell these were people who knew enough about each other to hurt one another by mentioning things, but not enough about each other to predict what the other was saying. This is important due to the concept of this entry. It was stated that this had to be either the beginning or the ending of a relationship – that was known. [img]https://media.giphy.com/media/10hexADl3Kl6SY/giphy.gif[/img] Your characters managed to show depth through their voice, instead of voice of god over the shoulder thought narration and the sort and that was part of what I truly loved about this entry. Take the crafting scene, we immediately get the sense that Ben is frustrated and Daniel is passionate about his work. These are two contrasting things revealed about the characters one may think that is a bad thing, but I was not aiming for how poetically you could teach me the depth around your characters. I wanted realistic dialogue. Grimy, bumpy, doesn’t-quite-fit dialogue. And you gave me it. Be proud. 10/10[/hider] [h2]MULTI_MEDIA_MAN: [u]If It’s Love – Third Place[/u][/h2] [hider=Review] [i]“I did a lot of soul-searching, and I decided that I need to do this.” Taking a deep breath, Oswald smiled as he let go of his worries and dropped to a knee, pulling a long, slender box from his tuxedo pocket.[/i] Alright you bastard. Wanna know why that’s my favourite quote? Well let me tell you. I opened this entry and said the following things: “Man it’d be funny if ‘If it’s Love” was in reference to that Train song *sips wine and hums the song* “Aw man it’s about a couple in their senior year, they’re so happy – shit!” *Sips wine thinking their definitely gonna break up. Well Congratulations for proving me both right and wrong in the best ways. At first it seemed obvious to me – the title was ironic as it sounds like something happy but [i]clearly[/i] this was going to be a story about a break up. But then I read my favorite quote for the entry. [i]’They’re starting their relationship as husband and wife.’[/i] I said, as I opened up mother fucking Train’s If It’s love. You glorious, glorious bastard you. Soundtrack was awesome – as I never mentioned that it had to be playing for the whole song you will not be deducted for that, and the song itself actually really suits this story that is reminiscent of a (good) romcom. The dialogue. While there were some very slightly awkwardly worded portions (people’s emotions going flying, Oz specifically being told to calm down when I hadn’t realized he had clamed up, etc) I thought you did a really great job capturing the overall vibe of this happy go lucky entry. I had a blast reading it and even now writing this review I can’t think of what I want to criticize – but I’d feel as if I was short-changing you if I didn’t. Maybe a [i]bit[/i] more detail on the actual process of Oz freaking out about ‘how the fuck am I supposed to sleep when I’m proposing tomorrow.’ Kinda deal wouldn’t have harmed the story – but wasn’t required either. Really well done. 9.5/10 [/hider] [hider=For Write’s Eyes Only] [url= https://youtu.be/lDK9QqIzhwk?t=92]You are most definitely not Write. [/url][/hider] [h2]HereComesTheSnow: [u]Wasuremonogatari[/u][/h2] [hider=Review] My scroll buzzed. A message from Dawn. [i]>Hey Luke? >Yeah? >Thank you. In spite of myself, I smiled. Okay. Maybe it wasn’t.[/i] Well, I got to say, this entry made me chuckle more than any of the other entries. It was a great mix of character development, humanity, pacing and overall personality. Let me tell you, this thing was just [i]dripping[/i] with personality. I’m glad you decided to stick with a first person lens as well as that was definitely much more suitable than anything else for this story. The soundtrack was sweet sounding – almost like a visual novel maybe? I assume it’s from the show that you’re referencing or something (I think it’s called monogatari?). Either way, it suited your quite well and although it was quite clearly much too short that’s the reason the YouTube looper exists so not much of an issue. I searched for myself to find a longer version of the song you chose and couldn’t find it. As such I will not deduct points. To the dialogue! So this entry was different in that it is written in first person – as such we are presented with the focal character’s train of thought much more than any other entry. So I am marking both that and the dialogue as they are written in a similar fashion. Firstly, the spoken dialogue. It was very well done, especially for Dawn. As we hear much, much less from her, there is an added sense of importance to every word she speaks. You handled that challenge very well – I felt like I knew exactly who she was by the end of the entry. To me though, the much more interesting part of this entry was the train of thought, as you may be able to tell from my favourite quote. The reason for this is that you managed to encapsulate a fully believable person through their train of thought. He contradicts himself, repeats things, questions things – it all felt completely and overwhelmingly human – which is exactly what was asked of you for this entry so congratulations, you did that in spades. All of your reveals felt natural and either suitable or humorous – so well done indeed. I didn’t see much wrong with this entry at all, though what I did was incredibly minor – so much so that I feel it isn’t worth bringing up. This was a very well written entry. My single, and completely solitary point of contention with the writing itself comes from the fact that this feels like a major moment in both characters’ relationship. However it didn’t come across to me as entirely the [b]beginning or end[/b] of that relationship. That being said, there is certainly an argument to be made about this part of their relationship being the beginning of a new found level of communication and trust and as such I am only going to deduct a single mark. 9/10 [/hider] [h2]Plank Sinatra: [u]Take Care – Second Place[/u][/h2] [hider=Review] [i]“Is Goodwitch still teaching?” “Don’t hit on Goodwitch, Lauren.” “I’m just sayin’—“ “Better men than us tried.” “I’m not a good man,” the younger Negasi purred playfully. [/i] I mentioned in Snow’s review that his entry did a great job of balancing the cheeky, cheesy humour with some playful lines here and there. But you really went all out on making me laugh my ass off. This entry was really funny and at the heart of that was truly the fact that it felt truly grounded in reality. Lauren and Sloan truly felt like they had a connection to the point that they need only half communicate. That is not a fault either, because I could tell you were doing it. Whether it was just Lauren groaning and Sloan knowing why, or Sloan subtly suggesting something and Lauren picking up on what it was and then naturally catching the reader up – it was natural. Soundtrack, first time to my knowledge that the soundtrack was part of the diegesis. That was a cool touch and as you described I played it low, worked with the story well enough but it did somewhat feel like it didn’t [i]Have[/i] to be there. Not a large irk in my mind, but one that overall did cost you a half mark. So dialogue. Dialogue, as I mentioned before was obviously the strongest part of this entry in my mind. I think you did a fabulous job of mixing comedy with real emotions, when Lauren says she’s at a loss for words and immediately begins to ramble it flows. When Sloan comes across as a goddam sentient boulder, and speaks in short sentences that are impactful to the story, it flow. Really, I have no complaints about the dialogue so I’m just going to leave it there. 9.5/10 [/hider] [h2]Onarax: [u]Farewells[/u][/h2] [hider=Review] [i]Yet no matter how gentle a harmony, it was incomplete without the melody.[/i] With the combination of all of the elements of this story working in tandem so well – I find it hard to believe you referred it as half-finished junk. Truly, this entry made me feel some shit man, it was really good. The song and ambience working together, perfectly well done. The song being non-diegetic and the ambience obviously being diegetic made for a nice scene in your head while you were reading. I was really impressed with this one. If I were to have any complaint about it, it would be the song’s length but again much like Snow’s entry I’m not docking marks for that at all so no worries there. The dialogue in this one was really, quite good. You came right out of the gates showing people new depths to everyone’s [s]least[/s] favourite pun-smith just by giving him a nickname. While I was reading I knew this entry was going to be the end of a relationship, which only served the melancholy that you were fostering through this entry. I think the only thing I would’ve liked a bit more, was it felt as though you had wanted to go more in depth in some places but due to time constraints couldn’t/didn’t. This isn’t a big deal by any stretch of the imagination, the entry was still incredibly well done. But I did feel that it impacted the entry in some ways. I say some ways mainly because I also felt like this was one of this pieces strength’s. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, I didn’t ask for the best possible story you could write, I specifically wanted realism. In real life, people don’t know what to say, hold things back, etc. This was present in this entry. However, while I do think it positively impacted the story I do not know how intentional this was due to your calling it ‘half-finished.’ So I ended up deciding to take off a half point, nothing much but not perfect. 9.5/10[/hider]