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Post by Psycho on Oct 31, 2006 22:15:00 GMT -5
I loved the suspense in your story, The Scaredy Yurble. The ending wasn't really clear though. I'm pretty sure what happened was that Fear turned out to be just a little spardel, but the way it's written, it's also possible to think that the spardel just appeared too late, after the yurble was gone. I didn't really like the ending. It just seemed too cliched: a monster turns out to be something completely harmless. I loved the part about how Fear supposedly appeared differently to everyone who saw it. But the way you ended it really disappointed me. For one thing, how did the spardel's eyes glow? And were its eyes big enough to be described as 'large bulbous eyes'? And why didn't the yurble ever see its body? I'm sorry, I just really think the ending would have been better if you'd left out the spardel and just left questions about Fear unanswered. I wrote a short story called Changes of Heart. Could you review that? It's possible to think the Spardel arrived too late, but the descriptions of Fear were meant to coincide so much with the Spardel that one would have to believe the Spardel was there the entire time, trying to get the Yurble's attention. A common tendency of Fear is to exaggerate and distort reality. Heightened senses can also lead to heightened sense of imagination. The reason the Spardel was a black Spardel was to make it more believable that it could have been hidden by darkness. The original ending was written so the Yurble chose death-by-sandstorm rather than face "Fear". I feel that had the ending been left as it was, the irony may have been more tragic and thus more effective. I agree to some extent that the irony of a monster being harmless is used a lot, but our intent was to make it more original by simply increasing the degree of irony. As promised,
Changes of Heart
Just found it. Sorry. Ummmm, well, let's see. It's always interesting to see a new take on the rivalry between Jhudora and Illusen, though this is one that makes the two faeries seem a little more young and a bit juvenile. I'm not sure how I feel about Illusen jumping to conclusions about Jhudora but I guess you really can't take any risks around such a malicious dark faerie. I do like the way you portrayed Jhudora - she was downright nasty - so cold! It's a little apparent that you're accustomed to writing a series - the ending left me unsatisfied, leaves the reader hanging. It would segue really nicely into a sequel because I feel that the full meaning of the title hasn't yet been realized. I think "Changes of Heart" refers to the change in Illusen but the title seems to imply deeper depth of change than just simply becoming too preoccupied with a rival faerie. I would really encourage you to finish this story - really wrap it up - in perhaps a sequel. A few things that irked me: The continual mention of the lesser earth faeries. Granted, they don't strike me as the most likely to lose their tempers, but I can't imagine that they'd simply stand around and frown at Jhudora's taunting. Jhudora may be powerful but Illusen is just as powerful, if not more. I had to reread the first sentence over and over again before I understood it. Maybe I'm just slow, but I do think that "brought to her" is superfluous and unnecessarily complicates the sentence. In the second sentence, "dropped her hand" doesn't make sense to me because, as far as I know, she's already dropped her hand into her pocket and there's really no place farther for her hand to drop. Also, I didn't think these two sentences were necessary to the story and already repeated sentiments expressed before. There were a few other instances like that but not too many more. Overall this was a good story, and I did enjoy reading it. |
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Post by Psycho on Oct 31, 2006 22:38:08 GMT -5
Much thanks for your review, Wisdom. I always do look forward to reading your thoughts.
I'm sorry? What is an FI moment?
The beginning was more to establish the tragic figure. How could we have made it more apparent that he had started out strong but was worn down (like sand on a jagged rock) by the events over time? the general wear and tear of surviving each day? These aren't rhetorical questions; please answer them if you could.
Hmmm, this midwestern farm girl begs to differ. I don't live on a farm, but I've stayed at enough to make a contrary observation -
Most farm families rise together. The father may rise a tiny bit earlier than the rest, but he's not out of the house every morning for an entire morning. The family usually does their morning chores and routines together - things like milking the cows, collecting eggs, eating breakfast.
You're right about that. I don't like that sentence at all.
The effect was to cast a "cursed" sort of gloom over it. I can understand where you're coming from - perhaps we didn't emphasize the "cursedness" of that forest enough. I think we did make mention of how no living creatures still stirred in the forest, but I don't remember.
Thank you. You may, you may not know that Spardel. He doesn't belong to me - he is Fortune's creation (0_0 ohhh play on words!)
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Post by Psycho on Oct 31, 2006 23:14:28 GMT -5
Now... OMG SOMEONE REVIEW MINE. PLLLLLLZZZZZ! I'll review yours if you review mine. :3 (I'm having to resist doing reviews normally... I may give in and do some at the end of the week if I haven't gotten many reviews, but I want to try this system out for a little while. ^^) Well, honey, this system only works if only one person asks  If everyone were to use it, no one would be doing any reviews Bitten By Darkness - by Nut I really loved the development of the story. The entire portrayal of the process of becoming a vampire intrigued me and held me in my rapture. The descriptions in the beginning are incredibly detailed, but I can't say if that is such a great thing. While I realize that how Morr reacts to light is a recurring theme throughout the short story, I felt that the huge emphasis on "light" in the beginning was unnecessary and a little boring. It got a little tiresome reading the word "light" over and over again. The descriptions themselves were delightful and descriptive - I get the feeling that you may have spent a good amount of time simply observing light in your bedroom. I did mention the plot was impressive. I enjoyed watching Morr slowly develop into the vampire. There was a little bit of an enigma surrounding the actual event of being bitten; that I liked. However, it dissipated quickly as you continually hinted at it - what with the passages in the book and all. Sometimes I like leaving the reader int he dark (no pun intended) but that is just personal preference. You are capable of complex and sophisticated plot development - I think you need to transfer some of the sophistication into your sentence structure. The story seemed simple and uninteresting at first because you had a lot of short sentences, a lot of fragments. Some sentences had incomplete thoughts, even if they were complete grammatically. While I thought your writing can still be improved, I was still blown away by things like, That was my favorite passage out of the entire piece. Also, I noted that your writing improved as the story continued. Maybe you just need to be a little more thorough with your editing - I know a lot of the time I edit as I write and never go back to look over what I've already written. Overall a good story. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2006 0:02:59 GMT -5
I was a bit down after I read the story so some of it is lacking.
It's just one of those moments where you make your choice now or never and you won't regret the decision you make one way or the other because you just don't care anymore now and after.
This might be one of those show don't tell areas. Build up his character before the sandstorm. Show that he was once strong.
This son of farmers wasn't thinking of American midwestern, or American postindustrial (just an assumption) or American at all, but preindustrial America is close enough (unless you want to go to precolonial). Living on a farm without plumbing, pavement, electrical outlets, cars, and whathaveyou that you find in a city rather sticks. (But I'm a spoiled American who got to sleep in.) Doing your homework there is rather worse, but our experiences differ, and I wasn't thinking of the same thing. I was under the impression that the Neopian farms, perhaps bordering on the brightvale/meridell borders, were pre-everything, so there may be confusion there.
I took the no creatures thing as that they had left along with the farmers, that is he is living in the middle of a wasteland. It is first introduced through the memory of the Yurble. When he gets there, it's just the forest. Nothing is different, it's just that nothing lives there anymore. Furthermore, this part doesn't help the cursedness:
I'm pretty sure I remember something like that from somewhere, maybe a movie or book or something (not the Hound of Baskervilles or maybe it was).
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Post by Nimras on Nov 1, 2006 0:24:47 GMT -5
Aubrise and the Gebmid Mystery: Part One
by rookina
Oh…. Lost Desert and the Gebmids. *grin*
I am a little confused by your use of the apostrophe as quotation marks for thoughts. I guess I’m just too used to the British way of doing dialog, because I kept thinking it was emphasized speech. Once I figured out what you were doing though, it made sense.
It will be interesting to see where the rivalry between Aubrise and Sarina goes…
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Post by Nimras on Nov 1, 2006 0:29:09 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300] A Spooky Halloween, pt 4[/glow] by ghostkomorichu Squee! Love the Nightsteed costume!  I do have to ask what happened to the pumpkin Komo was carving in panel 1, that was still there for panel 3, that managed to be gone for the last panel. Poor Komo, he made it for at least 30 seconds… And I love how Tombstone has problems getting his pumpkin off in the last panel. |
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Post by Nimras on Nov 1, 2006 0:33:01 GMT -5
Being Eliv Thade Art by tristess by autoc007 Hee! What a cute idea. I love the confused expressions. 
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Post by Nimras on Nov 1, 2006 0:36:52 GMT -5
The Collarby ssjelitegirl Wow, VonRoo’s popular this month. I love VonRoo’s expression in the last panel -- I don’t think he was quite expecting to get a mouthful of spikes.
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Post by Nimras on Nov 1, 2006 0:39:25 GMT -5
Flapdoodle: Trick Or Treat!by obviousfakename *dies* Oddly, I think my favorite thing about this comic is the tiny picture of Bruno with his bag of candy at the bottom. Poor Lani… I hope she got candy too…
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Post by Nimras on Nov 1, 2006 0:42:39 GMT -5
Neopups Halloweenby coshi_dragonite  That’s making me think back on the vampire dressed teens I saw while taking my sister trick or treating tonight in a whole new way… The blue bubbles by the heads were a little … distracting. I know what they’re supposed to represent, but the bright colors seemed odd given the whole tone of the comic. …. *is not eating any candy tonight*
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Post by Nimras on Nov 1, 2006 0:44:51 GMT -5
Darkest Corner: Independence
by dark_elfa
Oh, nice job with the colored pencils.
I have to admit though; I have a hard time reading the font you used for the dialogue -- sometimes simpler really is better there.
I love the little Spooky Petpets everywhere, they really add to the effect there. ^^
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Post by Retired Blub on Nov 1, 2006 0:46:39 GMT -5
Nimras, I certainly don't mean to be rude, but when reviewing in the future, could you just add up all your reviews in a post or two? Adding new posts every 3 minutes seems a bit unnecessary and clutters the thread. I hope you understand.
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Post by Nimras on Nov 1, 2006 0:48:27 GMT -5
Life Improvised
by keng200
There’s nothing wrong with some recreational grave robbing -- especially when it can save a town that no one’s ever heard of before…
Love the “I blame the Meepits” headstone. ^^
I have to admit, it took me a second to realize that the Poogle was painted sketch -- at first I thought you’d forgotten to finish him! Whoops.
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Post by Nimras on Nov 1, 2006 0:52:04 GMT -5
Nimras, I certainly don't mean to be rude, but when reviewing in the future, could you just add up all your reviews in a post or two? Adding new posts every 3 minutes seems a bit unnecessary and clutters the thread. I hope you understand. One of my pet peeves is having to pick through a dozen other comments in a post and trying to figure out which ones are for my story -- if any. (Especially when my chances of getting a review are dependent on the other person seeing that I reviewed their story.) I'll think about doing comics all together in the future, since their reviews tend to be shorter and done quicker. I've had a couple people thank me for doing them separate though, because it makes it simpler for them. Probably just a case of a couple different preferences all on the same board. "Clutter" in my mind though is never a review -- it's when people beg for them without giving any of their own in the same post. |
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Post by Nimras on Nov 1, 2006 1:07:51 GMT -5
A Royal Halloween
by dark_goddess_rising
Aww, what an adorable pic!
Err, how can one have a ‘god’ time? I mean, hey, sign me up for that!
Poor Envysine, he’s got a near impossible job (can’t make someone happy if they don’t want to be after all) and a pretty legitimate fear for the consequences if he fails (no one wants the pound).
Very clever idea to use a book of (moderately) scary stories to cause Crealiana’s turn around; especially with making her a Haunted Woods denizen who would be familiar with the characters in the book. Though I do find it a little odd that someone who lives in the Haunted Woods would be scared of Halloween. I mean, they like… live in the holiday year round…
The ending is a nice touch --with her rambling with her grand plans for what she wants to do next year, and all of her previous fears completely forgotten.
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If everyone were to use it, no one would be doing any reviews 
That’s making me think back on the vampire dressed teens I saw while taking my sister trick or treating tonight in a whole new way…