SF's "Write Your Butt Off!" Writing Competition XV - Voting Thread

[Magical Glace]

So... thoughts?

@Glaceon:

I like the concept of mixing the Tellius lore and the WW Hyrule and that WW is the only Zelda game I played. I thought it was cool to have the Hero of Winds and a Mage associated with wind come together.

I think I lost some context when considering Link's state of mind and why he had to kill Soren. I read the post where you talk about killing Malledus and that was thrown over my head reading the text. Still, I liked what I read and thought about it.

If WW is the only Zelda you've played, I'm kind of unsurprised that you didn't figure out the bit about Malledus, the villain from Spirit Tracks. I did mention him briefly (the bit about Link being front and center of defeating the demons in New Hyrule) but I admit I could have made it clearer to those who have not played the entire Adult Timeline (TWW, PH, ST). So sorry bout that.

Link's mental state is mostly worry regarding protecting his friend's new kingdom from some random idiot after the Triforce (because let's face it, SOMEONE is always going to try and find magic wish granting triangles) since he noticed he somehow regained it shortly after fighting Malledus. The logical conclusion he came to is someone managed to find wherever it went after TWW, and rather than run off to fight them, he should remain behind and guard what piece he has. He came to this plan due to the fact most Links (including himself) fall victim to "Villain lets third magic triangle just come to them and tries to take it". To ensure NO ONE somehow tells this guy where he (and therefore the Triforce of Courage) is, he decides to ensure no one finds it and lives to tell the tale.

So half him being worried and half him being kinda genre savvy.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Glaceon Armamentalist

[Dragoncat]

Not surprised at who voted for me. lol

Hey, what are friends for xD

I liked Glaceon's because it's an awesome crossover. Combining the great floods of both Tellius and Hyrule? Pure genius.

Maybe when we have a theme it'll be easier to pick.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Dragoncat

[Anacybele]

@Anacybele:

You're very strong with emotion and it's good. Your word choice, I agree with the others. Sometimes it doesn't fit and your phrasing can be off. (The "Believe me you" should be "Believe you me.")

Oh, glad to know that I do emotions so well! ^^ And yeah, I see how some of my wording choices could've been better. I could've sworn I originally heard that as "believe me you" though. Huh... But thanks! :)

[Vestige]

Minor tidbits and thoughts as I was reading through the entries:

[spoiler=Glaceon]

So, I understand the fact that you want to start off being all mysterious and what not, but the consistent use of non-specific personal pronouns is kind of jarring. Also, this sentence: "They left them their gift, and if they fought over it, be that as it may." doesn't seem grammatically correct. Your narrarator seems to change in the middle (or rather, towards the end) of the story. Why? The whole story is presented in third person, and then at the end it shifts to first person. As much as I can understand, this is some sort of fusion between the lore of Tellius and the LoZ games. But to be frank, there seems to be a lot of things, way too many, in fact, that just simply are not explained.

The passage of time is also cause for concern. It breaks the pacing when we're skipping around years, centuries, and more years all in one story. I think if you slowed down and fleshed things out, you'd have a much better story on your hands that someone, with or without knowledge of either series might be able to enjoy. For example, we're told of some demon attacking the land of the pirates, but that's like the only mention I can see of it?: "Two more years passed. The pirates had vanquished the demon that rose the year before, the boy, known to them as the “Hero of the Winds”, front and center of the victory. He was the queen of the chessboard, the most powerful piece." I think a story detailing this demon attack, and the collaboration between the pirates and Soren and the implications thereof would have been a lot more interesting. Also... I honestly don't understand why Soren gets killed by... whoever it was that killed him. (See what I mean? The whole non-specific pronoun thing can really confuse a reader. Try to stay away from that.

[spoiler=Anacybele]

The story starts off strong, I immediately know who I'm dealing with, and where I am in the story. This line: "They were young, aspiring warriors, bent on aiding those in need around them…for a fee, that is." Has you veering off from your tenses. It should be, "for a fee, that was". There's also some awkward phrasing scattered around, but, I think other people have touched upon that already. Overall the story wasn't bad. It was kind of uneventful though?

[spoiler=MisterIceTeaPeach]

The stories were cute, however I noticed there were some issues with wording and maybe tenses (wasn't looking too closely but I could definitely notice some things off here and there). It wasn't anything super distracting, but I would suggest reading over your works out loud in order to spot some of the errors yourself. Even if you're not familiar with grammar rules and such, often times your intuitive ear can spot many errors that you would not notice just glossing over with your eyes, and reading in your head. I wonder if you're comfortable with poetry at all? I think it would have been interesting to have seen some of the stories presented in a more poetic nature, but maybe that's just me. I have a slight penchant for flowery wording. :p

[spoiler=blah2127]

"Stevens mother earned the money in the family." Stevens, should be "Steven's". I think there are some other occasions where you are missing a possessive apostrophe in your words. I like the narrating style, as it's very reminiscent of my own, where the narrator will oftentimes interject between the story and address the reader directly. I must say, there's not really a lot of showing going on though, It's a lot of just "This is Steven, he did this and then. Then he went to a new school and he did some more of this and that". Why not slow down and give us a snippet of Steven's life? Such as: "a day in the life of Steven". How did Steven feel after he broke up with his first girlfriend? Sure it didn't last very long, but kids in middle school can be very melodramatic. Give us some interiority in Steven's life, and show us who he really is as a person. I feel like the basic premise of this story was just "this is Steven, then he died". Which, to be frank, is a story that could be told for anyone, and isn't really something unique. I could give you a biography of myself in the same vein, "This is Vestige. He writes on forums. One day he died, the end." Not very interesting, yeah? That's essentially what happened here, and it's kind of a shame.

There's a line in particular that stood out to me: "Unfortunately, he also made fun of a homosexual boy named Ted repeatedly. Did anyone ever find out? No .It is doubtful they would have cared, based on the attitude towards homosexuality at the time. Ted, however, would carry the bullying with him for the rest of his life. And so Steven made his first real impact on a person. Unfortunately, it was not positive." I read this line, and think that perhaps this is foreshadowing something else in the future, but really, it's a line that just gets dropped and is never ever mentioned in the story again. What's the point of saying this at all? Just to tell us Steven didn't like homosexual people? As a reader, I'm prone to sit down and ask myself, "okay, why the hell do I care if Steven didn't like homosexual people?". Well the answer is, I don't, because it's not a detail that's ever relevant again in the story. As cliche as it would have been, you could have done something like brought Ted back during Steven's time in the army and have them in the same regiment. And then it turns out that Ted saves Steven, and then Steven has a flashback to all those times he bullied Ted and realizes how he erred. Something like that.

[spoiler=Dragoncat]

Okay, this is just me personally, but I'm not very fond of the line: "Brr it’s colder than a witch’s titty outside!” I'm pretty sure "tits" or any variation thereof is not a real world, and if this was set in some sort of modern setting, I'd be willing to let it fly, but hearing about a titty, witch's or otherwise, in an FE setting is just jarring. "“How’s your parents?"" This should be: "How are your parents?" The conversations between the children was cute, and pretty believable so I liked that quite a bit. However, I do feel as though the ending came a bit too abruptly. Maybe it was the limit on the amount of words? But if not, I think it could be worked upon.

[spoiler=Snowy_One]

"The chill of the small chapel sent a chill up the spine of the priestess as she clung tightly to her healing staff" Very descriptive starting sentences. However, a chill sending up a chill is rather redundant? Change one of the words. This is not the only redundancy I can spot. The next sentence: "She was the head of her small chapel, though it didn't mean too much out here on the frontier." We known the chapel is small already, from the very first sentence. Why are you repeating it? And again, "They needed the calm. Now more than ever. More than ever." Repeating "more than ever" twice is unnecessary. "More openings, more foes, more sabers to rattle. Her prayers were needed now more than ever." Again, there is way too much repetition here. I don't know why, but it's not needed.

There's also some awkward phrasing going on. "One of the sisters, a young girl whom would not even be out of the schools of the nobles" Like, maybe it's just me, but I'm not quite sure what this is even supposed to mean. Also uhhhh, why did the mother stab the sister cleric? The sister said "lets imprison her", the head priestess said, "no lets not". And then the mother is like, "well shit, ima stab u anyway?" Unless she's absolutely fucking dumb, she should be able to grasp that she's in a foreign village that was kind enough to shelter her and her daughter. And that in mind, what's up with the bum guards not checking for weapons?

I think the premise of the story was a bit skewed. And while it held my interest in the beggining, I found myself far more intrigued by the war that was brewing outside the village walls, rather than the struggle of "do will imprison the refugees or not?". The "taint" wasn't really well explained I feel, and the final decision of the head priestess kind of flew over my head. Still the imagery was nice, and it was something that I found many prior stories to be lacking (though, I must add again, the repetition bogged down some of the potential. Try to vary your language rather than repeating things for "dramatic" effect, or what have you.)

[spoiler=Farkas]

I thought it was a cute little story. Even without knowledge of Skyrim, I think you can read this as a story of a little kid who's ashamed of what he's done to his brother, and the steps he ends up taking (that raisin pie(?) though, good stuff) to remedy that. Some grammar issues that I noticed here and there, but honestly, it wasn't anything too glaring. You'd probably be able to polish it up if you ran it though a spell check or just gave it a reread. The descriptions and language were on point. And the story had a clear beginning and end, which was nice. And it wasn't just that, but I liked how it was self contained. Like, there wasn't some "behind the scenes" stuff you had to worry about. Pacing was on point. Overall a solid entry.

[spoiler=Loki]

"All that greeted her, was her own clothes and the shifting of her large collection of shoes." There's something that just strikes me as off about this sentence. It's possible that I'm wrong about this though, but shouldn't it be "All that greeted her, were her own clothes"? Since "was" indicates singularity, as though there was only one thing, and opposed to two+? I don't know. Again, I could be wrong.

"It's not the cat, for sure this time" should be "it wasn't". Otherwise, you're conflicting your tenses.

The conversation between Ian and Kristy was pretty believable so that was good. I also liked how you gave us Kristy's internal monologue from time to time. I always like when author's do that. My main gripe is this whole "noise" thing, that by and large went unresolved? If it wasn't the cat, as Kristy believes, than what was it? The story kind of just ends... and it kinda left me with a "that's it?" kind of feeling. I feel like there was some expansion that could have happened, and a more fulfilling ending to be had.

[spoiler=eclipse]

Your character seems to be talking to herself in this line: "Fingers under the box - check. Knees bent - check. Push up with your legs, while keeping one's back straight", I would have liked there to be some denotation between narration and the character talking to herself, to make the story easier to follow. Like, it's not difficult per se, but it's more a quality of life/formatting thing. I prefer italics personally, and I feel like this is one of those lines best put in italics.

"How did you know?" The bartender chuckled. Honestly, I think this is more formatting than anything else, but like, this makes it seem like the bartender is asking, "how did you know?" and then laughing afterwards. Separate the lines or something.

I silently wished calamity on whoever designed the shelves Good line. :)

So at first I thought this was set in a modern day hospital of some sort, but as it turns out it's not? Clever, I was not expecting that! (Yeah, as it turns out most hospitals probably don't have a "tavern" nearby but whatever...) The whole thing with the little girl who lost her brother was actually pretty sad, but I liked that the main character was able to, at least for a while, make the girl think contrary. Ignorance is certainly a bliss. Solid entry, and probably my favorite. Pacing was good. Characterization was good. Ending was good. Lots of good all around.

Voted for both Eclipse and Loki, with honorable mentions to Snowy and Farkas.

[Snowy_One]

Unless she's absolutely fucking dumb, she should be able to grasp that she's in a foreign village that was kind enough to shelter her and her daughter. And that in mind, what's up with the bum guards not checking for weapons?

It's a combination of multiple things. The mother is in a panic, afraid her child might have the taint, in a land that she may very well be at war with tomorrow, and the threat is making her not think rationally. She's terrified.

Also, the guards are not soldiers but rather a local militia without much training suddenly swarmed by more people than they could handle all while having lost their leader. Someone managing to have an unfound weapon on them is totally believable.

[eclipse]

@eclipse

I was in the Bio major for a time quit that for a planned veterinarian career; and, yep, got to be prepared for these kind of sights.

This one I really liked. I got a few ideas of what the stories could sum up to but I'd rather not say.

Sadly. . .I couldn't really do as much as I wanted to with the story. I saw the contest with something like four days to go, and felt like throwing something together.

Thanks~!

[spoiler=eclipse]

Your character seems to be talking to herself in this line: "Fingers under the box - check. Knees bent - check. Push up with your legs, while keeping one's back straight", I would have liked there to be some denotation between narration and the character talking to herself, to make the story easier to follow. Like, it's not difficult per se, but it's more a quality of life/formatting thing. I prefer italics personally, and I feel like this is one of those lines best put in italics.

"How did you know?" The bartender chuckled. Honestly, I think this is more formatting than anything else, but like, this makes it seem like the bartender is asking, "how did you know?" and then laughing afterwards. Separate the lines or something.

I silently wished calamity on whoever designed the shelves Good line. :)

So at first I thought this was set in a modern day hospital of some sort, but as it turns out it's not? Clever, I was not expecting that! (Yeah, as it turns out most hospitals probably don't have a "tavern" nearby but whatever...) The whole thing with the little girl who lost her brother was actually pretty sad, but I liked that the main character was able to, at least for a while, make the girl think contrary. Ignorance is certainly a bliss. Solid entry, and probably my favorite. Pacing was good. Characterization was good. Ending was good. Lots of good all around.

Main character's a dude.

Noted, thanks~! I really need to do a better job of editing my stuff. Didn't want to blatantly announce what world I was writing from, because my goal was to create something that someone who'd never seen that world could relate to.

[Vestige]

I... Uh... Okay. That flew over my head completely. Now the whole pretending to be the "older brother" and actually succeeding thing makes a lot more sense. It worked because he's actually a guy, go figure. I just chalked it up to the main character having a phenomenal vocal range or something. LOL.

[blah the Prussian]

@Vestiga:

First, thanks for your up front criticism. The story wasn't really supposed to be unique, because a part of it was to sort of point out that we aren't actually unique. There are a lot of details of Steven's life that are irrelevant, because that is how life turns out normally. The narrator is a more important character in this story than Steven is. Steven's life was never supposed to be shown, just told about, because that was all the arrestor cared of it. In hindsight, though, I could see how this could lead to a lack of engagement.

[Sunwoo]

The voting cycle is over. Here are the results of the final vote.

http://i.imgur.com/XsZuBwm.png

Because Loki Laufeyson and eclipse are tied in votes, we will go into a 24-hour tiebreaker round to decide which of the two will be the winner of this cycle.

[Snowy_One]

Can we at least find out what the next set-up will be so we can start planning?

[Sunwoo]

I'm not hosting next week; whoever wins will be. So once a winner is decided it'll be up to them to decide what the next setup or theme (or if it even has one) is going to be, so no I can't do anything about it.

[blah the Prussian]

Theres a problem with the voting. I always get an error message when I try to vote.

[Magical Glace]

The main character of Clipsey's story is male?!?

Theres a problem with the voting. I always get an error message when I try to vote.

Also this

Boron, completely delete the poll and save the OP with no Poll. THEN add the new poll by going to edit the OP again.

[eclipse]

I really need to name my main characters, but I can't think of a good one for him. . .

Due to time constraints (24-hour voting period), I'll take care of the poll. JUST THIS ONCE.

[Sunwoo]

Oops, I didn't realize that people were unable to vote. I'll try my best not to screw up the poll next time. Thanks to eclipse for fixing the poll for me!

[Anacybele]

I just voted.

And we still have a tie. Dang. xP

[blah the Prussian]

Nutanymuer!

[Snowy_One]

You could always just shoot one of them.

[Jedi]

The tie is currently broken.

[eclipse]

You could always just shoot one of them.

Or I could rig the poll

Regardless, I'm glad that everything's working as intended.

Edited April 3, 2015 by eclipse

[Sunwoo]

I got distracted ._.

Final votes are in! The winner of SF's "Write Your Butt Off!" competition cycle 1 is eclipse! Congratulations!

eclipse has until Monday to come up with and post a new prompt. Or if she feels that she would not rather host this week, then the next host will be Loki Laufeyson.

[eclipse]

I'm not sure whether hosting or writing's gonna take more time. Give me a few minutes to think about this!

EDIT: "A few minutes" = nearly an hour! I'll give hosting a shot. Please excuse any errors~!

Edited April 4, 2015 by eclipse

[Anacybele]

Alright, eager to know what kind of theme you come up with. :)

[eclipse]

Hey, I'm late. But I think I promised I'd tell y'all what exactly I wrote. My favorite critique was this:

Eclipse: The imagery in this one works very well. My only complaint is that the fantasy element wasn't really needed.

This told me that I'd succeeded in my intent - to write a fanfic that didn't read like one, especially to someone that had never played the game. Unfortunately, the fantasy element is necessary, as the setting for this story is Etrian Odyssey: Untold.

Thanks everyone~!

[Jedi]

I hope I can think of something for the next one, most of my story characters aren't disabled in a way.. But I have given it some thought.

EDIT: Realized wrong thread but lol it works here too

Edited April 7, 2015 by Jedi