Responses to the reviews of the Eight Labour. … And yes, for those who were wondering, the story is ”<untitled>” because the Narrator was never able to give it a name. XD

[hider=Polybius][quote=@Polybius]Whoah. Wow. That was like watching a disneyworld ride wearing muppet-glasses inside a film loosely based on a Hunter S. Thompson exploit. Thoroughly scarred. Thank you! 

I love the ending-glad all of this was going somewhere. I think you could maybe cut out some parts that aren't necessary and format the dialogue a little better to make it clear who is saying what. Maybe put the narrators voice in italics or vice-versa. All in all enjoyable and a fitting end. [/quote]

That's quite the sentence. I am very pleased to have caused this reaction. You're welcome, and thanks for making me smile. Haha. … And part of the idea was that the Narrator was writing everything as he wanted it and then never got the time to touch up on things, so the unclearness was actually intentional, but maybe that's a bad thing for something that I'm intending on actually forcing people to read... XD[/hider]

[hider=mdk][quote=@mdk]The good: My signature single-quotation-mark dialogue is gaining ground! This is one of those madly-specific entries which is so tailored to the contest that it fits very nicely here. More generally, you did a nice, consistent thing with paragraphs that had a predictable flow to them and drove the story, one of those 'form contributing to the total piece' things you seem to do pretty often lately. I know that specifically this version won't necessarily be much use in future efforts -- but the fact that you keep coming up with ways to organize your stories cleverly is remarkable. I am remarking. 

The work-on-its: It's hard to criticize the entry when it's designed this much for the contest at hand. I mean I can't fault you for messing up punctuation when your character kept interrupting, right? If the plot didn't make sense.... well that was the point, wasn't it? So I guess in your case, the 'thing to work on' is like..... I dunno, I wanna see something broader, something more conventional. Or just keep having fun. My objective when I'm doing these reviews is to help people improve -- but having fun is more important probably. Still if the generic 'writing improvement' thing is a goal, it would help to do more..... generic..... writing...... god that hurts to even type. Whatever.

Challenge-wise, despite your best purported efforts I think your character made you clear it, so good to go? [/quote]

XD … Well, yeah, using this as a basis of criticism would be a bit weird. Don't worry, this'll very likely be a one-time thing. As for generic writing, I did a LOT of it last labour, so I could go out of my way on this one, right? Haha. Thanks for the review~[/hider]

[hider=RomanAria][quote=@RomanAria]You have failed in the eighth labour.

So. I really enjoyed your story. Your grammar is, as ever, excellent, as is your sentence structure and variety. I will admit that the telling of this tale was quite confusing, how you would break in the middle of a paragraph and go to a different thought. I lost track of who was talking several times as well, and where The Narrator and The Character’s thoughts started and ended. I understand that it’s for design purposes but at the same time, on my first reading through I was hopelessly confused and even now my grasp of it is shaky. The balance between form and function might need to be reevaluated.

The reason I failed your entry, (though the above was a part of the consideration as well) was one specific line. You outright admit that the scenario is contrived, which goes against the challenge parameters. 'It's just you affecting their fates again in order to create a situation where you fight your creation in order to fulfill the requirements.' You deliberately picked a fight you couldn’t win, or you picked the fight and then did not destroy your character, to allow your character to beat you. I’m sorry, but I cannot allow your entry to pass.[/quote]

That... was a meta-joke that does not apply to the labour. It was a reference to that I'm writing a tale of me being beat and there's no way for me to beat myself if I'm not intentionally writing a tale about me being beaten, in the story itself I have no such power over the Creation. But you've already heard that.

Otherwise, I'm happy you enjoyed it. I intentionally left it pretty cluttered, yeah, as you said. I apologize for any side-effects this might have had, but it felt so true to the story to do it like that. Haha. Anyways. Thanks for the review.[/hider]

[hider=Terminal][quote=@Terminal]It totally seriously matters.

I will have you know, I read @mdk's review (after the fact) - and they actually brought up a pretty valid point. In terms of meta-context, you never got the opprotunity to polish up your own story since you were busy having your face ripped off. In that sense, your story is a masterpiece. Every minor typo, mispelled word, the awkward sentence structure and the disjointed narrative shifting between third and first person - would all have served to enhance the unerlying 'unfinished' aspect of the story. However, information contrary to that little gem of a theory exists. 

You have admittedly manufactured your opposition in the form of the Creation, including their powers and their commentary!

Or to put it as simply as possible - your story is not honest. It is certainly clever. It is definitely, definitely entertaining. But you did not adhere to the spirit of the challenge, and it is for that sole reason that you have failed.

Your grammar, spelling, and the overall structure of your narrative was much cleaner this time around - save for the jumbled and nonsensically arranged shift between first and third person perspective on the part of the narrator, as well as the confusing split between descriptive and verbal text. While I can understand that you did it for stylistic reasons and that the problem is intentional, ultimately the arrangement is more annoying than interesting. If you try experimenting with alternative formatting like this in the future, I would advise you to keep in mind one of the tenants of the challenge clarifications - you were not required to anthropomorphize yourself. By distancting your physical self from the dissonance in the narration taking place in the story, you might be able to create a more sophisticated effect that does not conflict with the personal perspective of the narrative. [/quote]

I don't understand what ”the spirit of the challenge” is. I was meta-joking about the fact that I can't actually write a story about me being beaten without intentionally writing a story about me being beaten. That was outside the story itself. In the story itself, I have no control over the Creation, meaning he beat me with me struggling against him with all my might in it. Minus the fleeing part. But you've already know that, but it's still pretty annoying that you've quoted that Challenge Parameter as if I didn't know it when [i][b]I MENTIONED IT IN THE ENTRY.[/b][/i] XD

Anyways. I was aware I didn't need to anthropomorphize myself, but when I got this idea for an entry, I kinda had to. Haha. Had I gotten another idea of how to have my creation could beat me, I'd maybe have left myself out of the main picture. But yes, people have stated that they got confused, so I suppose I totally succeeded wiith the intended clutteredness. I'll avoid it in the future, but I still consider it a total success for the intended purpose I left it. Teh-heh.

Otherwise, I'm rather happy you found it entertaining. I'm not entirely sure if I should see that use of the word ”masterpiece” as being honest or not, but I appreciate the word-choice. Not that I know how much difference there would be between my polished and unpolished texts. Haha. Thanks for the review. … I'll try to avoid stupid jokes in the future, I suppose.[/hider]