Issue 237 Reviews

[Tashni]

Yay! I got to make the thread! I'll try to put up a list of NTWFer entries, but let me know if I miss any of you!

Articles
Arranging a Neopian Expedition by lassie_nikki
ROCK ON Neopia by diva_esque

Short Stories
Tales from Cabin Eight: The Witch in the Woods by dan4884
Hopeless by Fip
The Story of a Huggy by brymax406 (Kirby)
Fast Food by undeadfortune
Silver Sky by rainbow_daydreamer

Comics
Notions and Nonsense: Bug Bite by pixiepuff & patjade
All Ears by Tdyans
And the Meepits Outgrabe by kittylin
Dragona's Socks by doughnut215
Tomb'd by tamia_silverwing
The Gallion Ranch by hakuryu_86 & pacmanite
Komik Releef: Juicy Mix-up by tashni (ME!!!)
Smelly Nelly by i_hate_backstabbers
Powered by Coltzan by ssjelitegirl
Shoyru Squadron: Agents of Faerie by the_darkjedi

New Series
None I saw.

Continued Series
Shad and Saura: The Old Neolodge: Part Three by ssjelitegirl
The Shoyru Tamer: Part Six by dragoncatcher_sammy
The Five Sacred Stones of Geraptiku: Part Two by dan4884
Return of the Double Agent: Part Five by shadowcristal & precious_katuch14

Okay, hope I got everyone! I'd love some reviews for my comic, "Komik Releef: Juicy Mix-up!"

[Tashni]

COMIC REVIEWS
Notions and Nonsense: Bug Bite by pixiepuff & patjade - Ha! What a cute little Pteri. That sounds like something one of my little cousins would say. The Pteri was drawn well, it looked very cute and innocent. The bug bite's size was good, too. It wasn't so small that you didn't notice, but it wasn't so big that you're like, "woah, what the heck is THAT?!" So, yeah, nice job both of you!

All Ears by tdyans - Hah, cute joke. Classic Lupe stuff, there. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the "all ears" art, but I suppose that IS the name of your comic. The biggest problem here is that it takes a while to figure out the species of your characters, which is obviously important to the joke of this comic. I know the one on the right is a Lupe, but is the one on the left a Moehog or an Ogrin?

And the Meepits Outgrabe by kittylin - I love the art! Love it! Love it! Love it! So cute. The joke was cute, too. That is SO something a puppy would do. The only problem I could see with the art is this: Why is the human (Kittylin?) sitting down with her arm around her chest when she's just come into the room and is upset with the Lupe?

Dragona's Socks by doughnut215 - Haha, good point. You did a very good job of showing that this comic is set at the Kadoatery without actually saying it. The joke was cute, too, moving from the "normal" apple, to the slighly gross mouldy potato, to the downright wierd magic smelly socks. A nicely executed comic.

The Gallion Ranch by pacmanite
Har har. Fun joke, I guess Sssidney WOULD be like that! Your art was nice, too. I really liked Sidney's expressions! Your plushie Krawk is good, too. Now that I think about it, a plushie pet would be harder to draw!

Tomb'd by betazoid_telepath & tamia_silverwing - Ooh, I like the art. It was all murky and dark and shadowy like I'd expect the tomb to be. This is a great comic simply because we've ALL felt this way about that dang tomb in Geraptiku. Nice work!

Powered by Coltzan by ssjelitegirl
- Huntress, this is why Shad and Saura are celebs. Wonderful art. I love the panel where you look up at the towering Shad, it has great impact. The joke is GREAT, I'd never thought of that explanation before, even though I HAVE wondered why my Neopet's hands glow blue a lot.

[Dream]

Reviews for the modified Silver Sky are welcome.

[fipples~]

Thanks for writing me down (Even though it's obvious because I'm a NTWFer xD)

Yeah, I'd like a few reviews, because I know that it's not a great story - it's my first short story, so I still have a lot of improvement to make.

[Deleted]

Reviews for The Story of a Huggy will get cookies. :3

[Belle]

I'll be doing reviews in a while. ^^

[nikki]

Any reviews for Arranging a Neopian Expedition are appreciated. It's an article ^^

[Huntress]

Now this is why I like those all-NTWF lists :3 I get reviews before I even see the issue (no, previewing doesn't count). Thanks, Tashni ^__^
The Shad and Saura Neolodge story is finished... now that I read it over, it feels a tiny bit rushed as I tried to make it as short as possible. No unnecessary blabbing, etc. Eh, nothing to change there anymore, there it is now and the one I'm writing next will be bigger, better and uncut x3 Those two have plenty of potential.

I think I'll review some stories this time aswell. Let's make it another looooong reviews board, guys...!

[Tashni]

Okay, I added "Silver Sky" and "Arranging a Neopian Expedition" to the list.

[Star]

Two brief short story reviews:

Hopeless by fip
This was a nice story. I suspected it'd be Fyora, but that may be because I recently submitted a story similar to this. I was expecting the ending but I was still surprised how abruptly it ended! But it was still good.

Fast Food by undeadfortune and jeffc_7227
Cute custom pic, by the way ^_^ It was a cute story too. I liked the random time intervals. I was slightly confused by the ending but it could be my tired mind. Billy was a cute character, but it was longer than I thought it'd be and perhaps a little too long? But that's my opinion. I have an attention span of a mouse.

More coming soon!

[Kaljinyu]

Shoyru Squadron is back, and Dark Jedi wastes NO TIME picking up from the last chapter!

This Shoyru Squadron mission is my favorite of them all. I personally never looked at NeoQuest as a virtual RPG. I always thought of it as a tabletop, untill I came across this. My pets would definitely play NeoQuest for Mac/PC/WhatevertheNeopianequivalentforcompsare.

Also, introducing a new character too! I can't wait to see how this Robotaine guy turns out.

[Nimras]

Well, I got some of the articles done. I'll have to do more later this week.

Dearest Sophie... by mistoffelees_cat
A very cute article, written in letter form by Sophie’s Meowclops. Since my computers still having some trouble with the flash games, I’m not sure if the things discussed in the article are from the game Sophie’s Stew (or whatever it’s called) or not. J:P Nimras is such a bad Neopian. My only real complaint about this article is the length of the first paragraph. Yes, Nimras the lover of long paragraphs thinks that this one really could have been cut into two. I feel dirty for saying that, given my advocating for longer paragraphs. I think I need to visit the showers now. – Okay, I’m back. The PS at the end was a nice touch too. The mental picture of a Meowclops mewing and this quill scribbling on its own… *grin*

Get Ready, Get Set, Get Shopping! by binkygirl999
A nice general over view of Half Price Day on the shops. I like the way this article is laid out, with the paragraph topic as a header, then with a more detailed explanation and examples below. It makes it much easier to follow than some of the other ways it could have been done. My restocking abilities rank around the ‘abysmal’ range, mainly because I just don’t keep up with the prices of most items. Sheer laziness on my part, I know. However, since today is the third, if I have time after I finish reviewing the articles I’ll think about giving it another go.

A Guide to Sophie’s Stew by the_biters
Another Sophie article, this time about the game. The point breakdown for what item is worth what in the pot vs. the Meowclops is nice to have laid out right in the beginning. The turning the game into a competition with Edna’s avatar was a nice touch too, not only placing it firmly in the proper world, but giving Sophie more personality throughout the article.

Game Avatars: The Easy Way by neo05021991
I am slightly disturbed by the article’s statement that those who don’t actively try very hard to get the game avatars are “just very impatient and don’t think very much of themselves where games are concerned, or probably not at all.” Mainly I don’t go for game avatars because I’ve used the same avatar for well over a year, and don’t really plan on changing it. Why play a game past the point of max NP? For those who do care about getting game avatars, though, this article does have some good tips. Especially the one about closing windows to improve your CPU’s response time. On a computer like mine, it doesn’t usually make much of a difference, but on an average family’s computer it can.

The Misunderstoods- Are They REALLY Evil? by shroomsrock101
This article kind of bounced around, I had to read many parts of it twice to follow the transitions. My other real bone to pick is the “sUpEr LeMoN gRaPe”s. *winces* It burns us, precious. It was a good overview on the histories of many of the non-heroes of Neopia. *grin* I liked how you stuck the Meepits right in between the Ghost Lupe and Lord Darigan. ( I just gave myself a very odd mental picture with that.)

[Deleted]

tashni said:

Dragona's Socks by doughnut215 - Haha, good point. You did a very good job of showing that this comic is set at the Kadoatery without actually saying it. The joke was cute, too, moving from the "normal" apple, to the slighly gross mouldy potato, to the downright wierd magic smelly socks. A nicely executed comic.

Thanks for the review =D That was my 10th publication, so I'm glad to hear someone enjoyed it ^_^

More reviews coming throughout the week, but exams are coming up, so ;-;

The Shoyru Tamer: Part Six

by dragoncatcher_sammy

I loved this series as a whole xDD This part was all dramaticy and tensionish and finale-like and all kinds of other made up words xD I liked the way you tied everything together, and how it flowed, and so on and so forth. Duel's little kiss at the end was so cute! Was kind of surprised that was allowed, but maybe the rules aren't as strongly enforced as I'd assumed, lol.

I don't want you to take this as a negative review because it's really not, but if I was going to nitpick:

1) Still can't figure out what happened to the shoyrus. During the confrontation at the end with Jhudora, they all vanished, then some appeared, then vanished again, then they were all back? Re-read but still couldn't find anything else about that... It was the one thing about 'picturing' the battle that I found hard, I couldn't place the shoyrus.. Lol xD

2) Duel = evil, then Duel = good? Unless I read over it by mistake, there was no Duel-becomming-less-evil bit? Because I was kind of wondering how she stopped being evil. Like, she gave in to the evilness to defeat Jhudy, but then suddenly everything was fine again? Apologies if I missed this..

3) Why didn't Rae tell Sammy? Right at the start, you imply that Rae recognised Sammy, but she didn't recognise him because of his helmet. It's been a week since I read the first parts, but I don't think you ever mentioned why it had to be kept a secret?

I'm just being picky xDD I really enjoyed reading it, and I think that the whole concept was really original. It was certainly an interesting read

[Lex Luthor]

star said:

Two brief short story reviews:
Fast Food by undeadfortune and jeffc_7227
Cute custom pic, by the way ^_^ It was a cute story too. I liked the random time intervals. I was slightly confused by the ending but it could be my tired mind. Billy was a cute character, but it was longer than I thought it'd be and perhaps a little too long? But that's my opinion. I have an attention span of a mouse.

Thanks for the review, and it may be long for a short story, but I find most of my stories to be about 3,999 words long by their final copy

[Tashni]

SOME SHORT STORY REVIEWS

Hopeless by fip - You gave me a great sense of being trapped, and a guilty loathing of Feona. The only real problem is that you seemed to rush through it. I would have liked more of the Sweet Six, her math test, even Feona herself. And it would have been GREAT to actually see WHY she became faerie queen. As it is, it's just very rushed, and I wanted to see so much more because this was a really good piece!

The Story of a Huggy by brymax406 - Bouncy is so cute! He's got lots of spunk, and that comes across well. There were two problems with this short story. First, everything was told instead of shown. It's easy to do that when writing in 1st person, but you can still show. The second problem is that there was no objective/conflict/action. You had the alley Kads, but that was only briefly. The rest of the time Bouncy just wandered around and saw stuff.

Fast Food by undeadfortune - I LOVE THIS! Anyone who's ever had a job should read this. Or anyone who's planning on getting a job, for that matter. From the crazy rush hour to the customer who can't make up his mind, all of this is TOTALLY TRUE! The Techo who wanted his eaten shakes replaced was awesome. (Dude, I could tell you stories I doubt even you would believe. I've worked retail for about five years, and I HATE CHRISTMAS! There, I said it. [/rant]) Kim is SOOO funny. I've worked with girls like her. (Ooh! Story time for me! Completely true story here. I worked with a girl once. We were talking, and this girl who was born and raised and educated in California, and was in college, did NOT know that California was once a part of Mexico. She COULD NOT believe it. Then she was asked, "Haven't you ever noticed that all the cities around here have spanish names?" Then it all made sense to her. Did I mention she was studying to be a lawyer?) Anyway, back to your lovely story. It's zainy, the characters are all great! They're very well done stereotypes of the first job field. Mark is funny! (Why are all managers named Mark, or am I the only one to notice that?)

Aw, what a sweet ending! I like that it's open, and yet fulfilling at the same time. That is my absolute favorite kind of ending. DO A SEQUEL!!!

On a technical note:

"Why I'd say it'd be a honor to meet the fellow, since he built this fine establishment, but sadly, whenever I bring up the fact-" Rusty started, but was cut off by a sudden visit from an Aisha.

"Well how are we doing back here, boys?" the assistant manager interrupted, poking her head around the corner sideways, her long ears drooping towards the ground. "Well it's good to see you're hard at work, Bobby."

"Billy-" the Yurble started.

"Right, Brody," the Aisha corrected. "Anyways, I'm just doing my daily rounds. 'A' plus, plus for you two!" she finished, and gave visible thumbs ups in their direction.

"-That happens…" Rusty finished, and returned to his work.

By the time you got from the beginning of Rusty's interrupted sentence to the end of it, I forgot what he was saying! (Sad, I know, but true.) . . . (Can you tell I've had too much caffeine?)