/Crit/ General Critique Thread

Truth is universal, and yet can be accessed to us mere mortals - is this a riddle or something? If so it's a pretty slimy one.

Here's a poem I wrote in a state of paralytic ennui:

If eyes would crack
I’d have them so,
and bore the gel
into a frame
to call my child who
gleams upon the world.

These artless walls
shine their dour
into my pending breath,
I grope for loud moments;
and yet these moments drip.
This limbless clock bawls into me:
“The world is running thin”
whilst noise speckles my mind -
skittering monochrome.

It divorces me
In bulges, growths
Come quick my child!
I hear neighbours
It swells, castrates me
to icy surrender.

I daren't submit
for public souls
shall sort me well,
yet Bile
rivers across my cheeks;
in viscous pigments.

Head Bells
ring,
and mull,
and gong
to diffuse monologues -
for this soliloquy is lies
He tells me lies!
The boldest lies!

But no forestall
you deft tricksters
I hear so well;
I murder you.
My child is born
so see him
brave the world!

Now hear me well
and hear me deep
you bastards of
inner mire:
I am my child
now see me
make my motions!

stopped reading at gauss rifle

Thanks for the constructive feedback, I'm learning so much
faggot

it is constructive, gauss rifle makes me think of steampunk, which is gay

there, that's better. gauss is sci-fi (xcom), anyways

Interesting read as I enjoy everything dragons. Seems you have some mathematical background but you half-assed the explanation a la Rick style.
It's rather pretentious but has some sort of fun charm, I dunno how to say it. Also, only one "rolled his eyes", we don't know who this characters are, where they are, nothing. Seems like you have an Idea of a two character dialogue and started there. I liked it nonetheless.

Posting mine in Spanish:

Entraron ambos al cuarto del sótano donde Daniel quedó de nuevo en sus pantaloncillos. Rachel le siguió y cerró la puerta. Colocó el pasador, y luego el cerrojo superior, después la llave de la chapa y terminó por el cerrojo inferior. Nadie podía entrar o salir de la habitación. Una habitación oscura, sin ventanas, iluminada por una pequeña lumbre a un costado de la cama. Era una habitación sombría y espeluznante, tal y como le gustaba tener al padre de Rachel. Cada vez que Daniel ponía un pie dentro los vellos de su cuerpo se enchinaban.

El joven inseguro encontró la cama dónde recostó su cuerpo, sobre un colchón viejo y maltratado. Apestaba a su verdadero olor. Logró atarse dos fuertes grilletes de la orilla de la cama a sus pies. Eran de metal, de uno muy duro, y frío. Rachel se acercó a Daniel y lo miró como siempre lo hacía antes del caer la noche; brazos cruzados, mirada caída y en sus ojos el noventa por ciento de odio irreconciliable. El otro diez de lástima y compasión. Se sujetó a un fuerte grillete del otro extremo de la cama a su brazo torpe, el izquierdo. Finalmente faltaba el derecho, mismo que la primera madre asistió por sujetar.

Se miraron a los ojos por última vez. El miedo de su hijo adoptivo se transmitía claramente a través de su iris azul. Rachel deseaba sentir empatía por el joven, pero su corazón sólo tenía cabida para el desprecio sin lógica ni razón. Y eso era lo que más le molestaba; Danny era víctima de un sufrimiento insoportable noche tras noche. Estaba maldecido a una vida feral encarcelamiento que nunca pidió. Y, aun así, jamás se quejaba como Rachel lo hacía. Su deseo de ayudar a las personas que lo rodeaban, actitud positiva y nobles intenciones le recordaba constantemente la terrible persona que se sentía.

Ella se acercó a Daniel y con breve vacilación, le besó los labios. Ejerciendo su derecho como primera madre por voluntad propia.

“Más vale que no mueras.”

Sin darle tiempo de una respuesta adecuada, colocó un bozal sobre su cara y bajó el cubre ojos. Danny aceleró su respiración.

El reloj marcó las seis de la tarde.

Y Rachel apagó el último rastro de luz.

All this shit sucks

School is dumb
School is stupid
I wish that I'd
Been shot by Cupid
In the upper register
Of my time
Among you all
In fact,
I have
Been led by leading to believe
That what they get
Together slightly
Pushed on me
Like letters fighting
But they possessing only ABC
Against the rest, surpassing Z

Luckily, from D-Z they work infrequently
Passing each in halls lit up
Pollinating me

So what
You've given me the notion that you give a fuck
Only so once you've held the rug I've forgotten how to jump
Impressive such is one who digs a rut and proceeds to fill it back up?
Back up.
Your blood is being sucked
And only once you give me some
Will you in illness donning mask of proper health get fucked.

"Hah!" Rudolf sputtered, more bloody ooze dripping from the corners of his mouth. "You think you've got some bullshit against me, you cauldron of horse-cum? Nah, nah, not a fraction of a fraction you little cup of assgrease." a limp-wristed hand slid laggardly off his chest and thudded against the ground, revealing the dark-crimson torn frabric punctuated with a long, narrow, bleeding wound where flesh was exposed. His speech was degrading to a slurred and delirious form.
"No one's shit is fucked here, buddy. Not by a bit. You know what they call me in Solemia, right? They call me Averian---Averian Unum...Unum, you know?"
Timore's frowned stretched his lip and showed his teeth grinding against each other in fury.
"Oh. Oh, don't tell me you don't know what Unum means..."
He stayed silent and balled his hands into trembling and white-knuckled fists.
"You scrawny old fuck! It's Latin---Latin for 'one'! I'm just the first one, buddy! Just the FIRST one! Look at what I did to you! Yeah, you can regenerate it, but I chopped your fucking arm off!"
One of Timore's hands gripped the bubbling black stump where his arm formerly reposed, the frothy sable substance not besmirching his dark attire in the least though it dripped betwixt the valleys of his fingers.
"Just---just IMAGINE what Averian Duo will do to you, you seven buckets of mammoth piss. He will fucking annihilate you. OBLITERATE you. Don't think he'll be a hoity-toity pacifist Christ-kiddo like me. You're shit will get FUCKED. EVERYONE'S shit will be LEGENDARILY FUCKED. No one's shit will be saved from a good-ol' Averian dicking. Get ready to be sent...to the stars...buddy."

K

Reminded me of Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad, which you would definitely be into assuming you haven't read it already.

My Spanish is a little lacking to truly appreciate this but it's pretty interesting. Some critiques I would have is that you should show more and tell less (”Su deseo de ayudar a las personas que lo rodeaban, actitud positiva y nobles intenciones” is a good example), and that that 90%-10% phrasing is clunky as fuck.

Then a furrow of dustlight
Enters then barely crawls across the chambers
Just enough for us to make out
The Spanish dogs in formation
The pluming organ swells coiling around their tongues aloll
Held in the slow pulse of anticipation

And in the light their teeth and yours
Are the same shade of white
And I ache for the bite.

A sprout. A small plant child. That’s what he wanted, or what he thought he wanted. The light's intensity shifted gently and was finely perforated by the sway of the blinds. He looked through those uneven crevices to inspect this source. An encapsulated view of the outside led him to believe the light was rather ominous. Its invasion into uneven portions of visible landscape persistently irked him. Pulling back his noggin, he noticed the invasive iridescence housed with the dew of his soon-to-be flower. A flare of sound and color which momentarily crept along the ceiling brought him back to the neutral desk. It was far enough from the source to contain its own lights. The mauve chair clashed with the glow, but with his back always on it, it didn't matter. Its glow was instead plastered upon his face.

good poem but why are you dressed up like a sperm user?

“Fuck,” he says, in between debilitating, body wracking coughs. He finally manages to croak out, “That’s some good weed (1) .”
Whilst dragging his fingers through his dispersed ashy hair, he mindlessly sniffs at some nasal drip coming out. The mucous clotting in his right nostril, resisting the antagonization of gravity. He settles backwards into the large pseudo-suede armchair, letting it adjust to his asymmetrical architecture. The Smartmatter™ (2) creating a low atmospheric buzz as the seat morphs around his form.
Drugs are his own personal diabolatry, the amoral rite he comprehensively fulfills upon waking. Glassware, empty prescription bottles, lighters, and baggies with red cartoon mushrooms on them form a diminutive jungle atop his coffee table.
A mysterious high pitched moaning suddenly begins to gestate. “Fuck me Jerry, fuck me like you’ve never fucked before.” Jerry, our very own stoner, begins to write around in the chair, shoving his arms underneath himself digging into the chair which creates holes for him as it adjusts to his touch. Like some fucked up fever dream, soon he is plunging into his recliner elbow deep while the sexual wails continue to assault his ear drums.
“Where the FUCK is my god damn remote!”
Finally, after more plunging and thrusting, he finds the hard-black phallus of the device enveloped within the folds beneath him.
He pulls out and activates the singular large button, “MUTE IT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.”
The sexual requests continue and a feminine voice chimes in, “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
“MUTE!”

1: Weed, also known as “The Devil’s Lettuce,” is the pastime of the Unemployed, Unemployable, and Artists (What’s the difference between the three anyway?) everywhere.

2: Smartmatter™ was created by renowned entrepreneur Don Zizek in the year 2032, originally designed for use in Military Body Armor. However, Ikea quickly found a use for it in the form of self-assembling furniture. Gone are the days of unfathomable instructions designed by obsessive Swedes.

>the footnotes are correctly formatted in the original document

I lost my mind on the October 31st of my conception

Thank you for the sincere critique. On my defense, this was part of a literary excercise of 2k words writing. It shows MC being ovely friendly plus some more context on the mother, but in truth, I didn't bother to convince the reader on why the MC was good and she is suppose to feel bad. I'll work on that.
And the 90% thing is weak as fuck, holy shit. What was I thinking?

>look ma I just read hitchikers guide to the galaxy
I do kind of like the "dude, weed" note though, since it seems like the kind of thing Adams wouldn't write about in spite of having his style.

>The Smartmatter™ (2) creating a low atmospheric buzz as the seat morphs around his form.
Read all of your sentences in isolation. Either make the period before this a comma, or use a helping verb like "was". Also, "Morphs" should be "morphed".

>A mysterious high pitched moaning suddenly begins to gestate. “Fuck me Jerry, fuck me like you’ve never fucked before.”
I liked what came after but I read that quote in a flat, male voice.

Try writing without caps for practice (barring things like onomatopoeia). They read well enough for me because I shitpost constantly, but other people usually don't like them and you can usually find a way to make the text still sound right without them.

Hey, I got smut

---

She stood on all fours. He relentlessly fucked her from behind, and she quietly reciprocated the action by bouncing against him. A few revolutions went by and she let out a tiny fart.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” she said, and he slapped her bouncing ass; “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry sorry sorry” -sorry for each apology that came before, as he wordlessly slapped the same spot the same way on every third thrust. Her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth snapped closed; she held her breath in, and from her hairy pink cunt she coughed and gulped and sputtered onto the dick inside of her, hanging a swinging net of slobber from her oozing orifice. She gasped for air and felt his hands move down her back and grab her shoulders. Aggressively his hips galloped her forward, face first into the mattress. He pounded her pinned frame as it’s mass jiggled around it; she bit the sheets between her lips and screamed and sobbed, screaming again as she felt the thud of his knuckles bruising the spot on her ass, scratching the itch. Instead of hitting it a second time, he caressed it, while using his other five fingers to claw at her doughy stomach. He slowed down once he felt her convulse, causing her to weep into the sheets for not having been finished off properly. Her vagina released one complete discharge as he slowly brought his dick’s last push to a halt, then her body went limp, ass hanging sadly around his penis, body too tingly to move, but not enough to be satisfied.

---
The rest is here; copy and paste into word for indentation: pastebin.com/ZHGM3v75

No shitpost ending this time. However, planning to end on a shitpost is a really good way to try and motivate yourself to work on immersion. Originally I planned to have her say "I need to pee" and have him respond with "You slut," which could sound cool if built up to properly but ultimately just be ironic and a dumb nonsequitor, then have the exchange paralleled when the man closes his laptop and leaves the fantasy, then hears "Here's your coffee" and responds with "You too" by mistake. The actual dialogue didn't flow out of me that way though, so I just left it. I probably won't turn it into one of those "ALL A DREAM" shitposts in the end, but I'm not sure how the last bit of dialogue I wrote fares though.

Actually I've never read Hitchhikers guide lol.

I've only seen the adaption but that was of little influence to my style.
I appreciate the input though, you're likely right about the caps, and also correct about the grammar issue.

So far I've done little editing, just tried to keep getting through the thick of it before I worry about that.

Back again with another story idea.

A jar cremation in space? I find this a bit odd. It's like how there's a bagpipe player in Star Trek at the funeral, even though they're advanced enough for warp travel. Reads well anyway.

Pretty funny to be honest. Have you more to share?

Fix a few typos. still needs polishing. You planning on self-publishing?
pastebin.com/jCs52K1A

Fix a few typos for you too.

“Fuck,” he says, in between debilitating, body-wracking coughs. He finally manages to croak out, “That’s some good weed (1) .”
Whilst dragging his fingers through his dispersed ashy hair, he mindlessly sniffs at some nasal drip coming out. The mucous clotting in his right nostril, resisting the antagonization of gravity. He settles back into the large pseudo-suede armchair, letting it adjust to his asymmetrical architecture. The Smartmatter™ (2) creating a low atmospheric buzz as the seat morphs around his form.
Drugs are his own personal diabolatry, the amoral rite he comprehensively fulfills upon waking. Glassware, empty prescription bottles, lighters, and baggies with red cartoon mushrooms on them form a diminutive jungle atop his coffee table.
A mysterious high pitched moaning suddenly begins to gestate. “Fuck me, Jerry, fuck me like you’ve never fucked before.” Jerry, our very own stoner, begins to write around in the chair, shoving his arms underneath himself digging into the chair which creates holes for him as it adjusts to his touch. Like some fucked up fever dream, soon he is plunging into his recliner elbow deep while the sexual wails continue to assault his eardrums.
“Where the FUCK is my god damn remote!”
Finally, after more plunging and thrusting, he finds the hard-black phallus of the device enveloped within the folds beneath him.
He pulls out and activates the singular large button, “MUTE IT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.”
The sexual requests continue and feminine voice chimes in, “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
“MUTE!”

1: Weed, also known as “The Devil’s Lettuce,” is the pastime of the Unemployed, Unemployable, and Artists (What’s the difference between the three anyway?) everywhere.

2: Smartmatter™ was created by renowned entrepreneur Don Zizek in the year 2032, originally designed for use in Military Body Armor. However, Ikea quickly found a use for it in the form of self-assembling furniture. Gone are the days of unfathomable instructions designed by obsessive Swedes.
Here's mine: pastebin.com/pYwnv7wC

Thinking of just writing a two p.o.v story instead of three.

> Pretty funny to be honest. Have you more to share?

“Do you know about the S5 modal axiom? Let me tell you about the S5 modal axiom. It's the source of an immense amount of debate between theists and atheists, because among modal realists, the truth of the S5 modal axiom would necessitate the existence of God. However, the interesting thing about modal logic with and without this axiom is that a system with this axiom can tolerate a system without it, but not vice versa.”
“So you can like, what, daisy chain different systems of logic together?”
“Yes! Exactly so. You need to organize them in the correct way and make correct use of metalanguage, but it can be done. Now tell me, are you familiar with Newcomb's paradox?”
“That thing where an omniscient being puts a million dollars in one box and a thousand in the other, but only on the condition that a person takes only the million and not the extra thousand?”
“Yes! Exactly. Well, Newcomb's paradox is an excellent metaphor for the existence or non-existence of God. Psions are effectively a logic gate that allows you to select for the God you get. So it's an isomorphic relationship. At the same time God is deciding whether or not to put $1,000,000 in the box...” “You're deciding which God exists” “Bingo” “So wait, what's to stop me from selecting for the God who just lets me take both prizes?” “Nothing! Only that's not the significance of the experiment. That's the problem with literal metaphors, you see. It's very easy to get confused by them. You keep forgetting the implicit “WLOG” addendum, my dear boy”
“So when Nietzsche said 'God is dead'...”
“He was right!”
“And when someone else says 'God is love'?”
“They're right”
“But that's a contradiction?”
“Of course it's a contradiction. And everything follows from a contradiction. Since God is the prime mover and there is only one God, then on the basis of mathematical realism, God can only be contradiction!”
“But that's stupid. Why do mathematicians spend all their time trying to get rid of contradiction if contradiction is God?”
“Another fine contradiction, isn't it?”
“I guess?”

Hey, can I get some advice on this? So I just watched this video about a porn comic (that I've read multiple times before hearing about this) and it made some good points: youtu.be/3IcOx1u94mg

Specifically, the guy talks about this feeling of the humanization of characters, which can roughly be described as small interactions within the environment that raise the mood of an individual done in the midst of a mundane environment or situation. The guy talks about it in more concrete terms in the video and about how this feeling differs from other stuff, but an example that was brought to my mind was pic related. It's quaint and would be something I'd do if it got cold out.

My main question about this is its applicability in stories, since these examples happen primarily in visual media. In a scene multiple elements can be shown simultaneously and you don't feel obliged calling attention to it given that other aspects of the scene can be the main focus. But if you want to convey this with writing you have to give it its own sentence or actively draw attention towards it. It's less subtle than in comics or shows and, I think, loses some of its impact when transfered over to the written word. Can any of you recall any examples that say otherwise in what you've read? Moments that play out like this in other stories?

>Fix a few typos. still needs polishing.
Yeah, everything below the first part in my comment has only been read back over once. Was there a noticeable difference?

>You planning on self-publishing?
>planning
I have a larger genre fiction work I'm writing with the help of a professor that I may or may not include this in. Though they probably wouldn't want to look at this part themselves. Originally I planned to just jump over it between chapters or something, but then I painted myself into a corner where I actually needed one somewhere else, which would make jumping over this one and not the other look weird.

>pastebin.com/jCs52K1A
?
Why repaste? At first I thought there were typos fixed (which isn't something you need to do for me), but I pasted both copies into a diff checker and got zero differences.

---

>Here's mine: pastebin.com/pYwnv7wC
>too much of a strong word
Just say "too strong of a word". Even if you're trying to characterize the reader as inefficient, this is just overkill here.

>all the opposing group accomplished
"all the opposing group" sounds like one block term, like "all of the opposing group," but what you mean is to say that "all [the opposing group] accomplished," so you should probably put a "that" before "the opposing group" to divide it from "all." As it stands, partway through the sentence it sounds like you're saying "[all the opposing group] accomplished," as though they "all accomplished," when you're trying to say something more like "all that they accomplished was a meager blah blah and so and so".

>Saying AA would be [excessive] when CC was getting DD once the EE had commenced.
I would change "when" to "considering," and "had commenced" is confusing; can't you just say "at the start of EE" or something like "right out of the gates"?

>However, the interesting thing about modal logic with and without this axiom is that a system with this axiom can tolerate a system without it, but not vice versa.
What's interesting about this? I mean, it's the end-of-the-line at the moment but each of those popular axioms can tolerate all of the preceding ones; they're in a chain (though as I recall early on there's a fork which opens then closes back shut).

>So you can like, what, daisy chain different systems of logic together?
Oh, so you (the author) did get that. It's really weird that this character was able to deduce that in spite of only having just been told what S5 was; it didn't seem like anything the previous speaker had said would have conveyed how that worked (hence why I wasn't aware you were aware).

>“So when Nietzsche said 'God is dead'...”
>“He was right!”
>“And when someone else says 'God is love'?”
>“They're right”
This isn't exactly right. The necessitation stuff can be used to show that everything necessarily exists in the quantified existential sense, not that all claims are necessarily true. It's sometimes considered sleight of hand to a degree because it's kinda like saying "well, there could not exist any such thing such that it did not exist, therefore all things [which exist] exist". Cutting out the bracketed section sorta sounds like an overreach. Do bear in mind that I didn't actually throw in necessitation symbols in that string I made though, refer to pic related if you want fun things.

>there are other /anal/ytic fags in this thread and all I do is post smut and genre fiction
welp

I didn't watch the video yet (though I do recognize the comic).

More stuff can be done manually in visual media, but more stuff HAS to be done manually. For example, imagine if all those little gestures hadn't been in the comic. If you translated that version of the comic into words, a lot of them would pop up automatically, making it look better than the gutted version of the comic.

With drawing you're often going to use a line of action somewhere to imply the position of the rest of the body anyway. When you go to put the little things in you're, in a sense, drawing things which are already implied to be there. Even if you can draw these implications manually, you still need to do the same setup before PRIOR to making anything explicitly shown, which is the same as saying you need to do the setup before WITHOUT to making anything explicitly shown, like in writing.

Being able to have throwaway details shown explicitly without them having a whole sentance is useful, but there are a few advantages writing has. For example, say you've got some serial killer approaching, and as they reveal their face, the reader sees their own mother. Try doing that in a movie or something. Unless everyone has special goggles that plug into their brain and change the face of the actor accordingly, it's not gonna happen. Meanwhile, books can utilize each audience member as a distinct index and show them "their mother". And I'm not just saying "oh, subjective reader interpretation is great for filling in vague holes" or anything fruity like that; you can show people "their mother" 100% of the time, and it'll always be "their mother" whoever "they" is. That's a consistency you can't get with film.

I never really thought about the advantages of text like that before since it was such a given in the book.
>For example, imagine if all those little gestures hadn't been in the comic. If you translated that version of the comic into words, a lot of them would pop up automatically, making it look better than the gutted version of the comic.
I didn't get this, however. How would they pop up automatically if it's not in the text?

I mean, suppose a character runs a cold finger down someone's back. With the right context, you're probably going to be inclined to see their back arc (since that's what people do when you do that to them) and their elbows close (in with the line of action). Its pretty much the same as the first half of figure drawing, except you don't have to do the dirty work afterward (but also need to be more confident in what you had beforehand).

>crits 4 crits
They crouched into the command trench, soldiers sat motionless, eyes open, listening to the mil sec stream and comms, Impetere was yelling into them, “we have them right where we want them, just waiting on programing.”
Across Blone a network of computers and freelancers scraped together a real-time sensor scan of the entire perimeter of the palace, they constructed a fire solution targeting everyone inside and around it with the entire collection of deployed and networked weapons platforms in the area of operation. The bespoke barrage was set to begin in two minutes. Gluos racked the slide of his gun, closed his eyes and watched Eight as she sprinted forward.
Guns all around began to fire. Drones launched thousands of missiles while fighters launched pods of munitions from far above. They burst and sped toward the palace walls. Storms of spinning, heat seeking, anti-personnel mines struck the immediate interior of all openings of the palace detonating in cones of expanding flechettes.The sky and ground were now lit by muzzle flashes. Contrast with the first wave of shells, black specks speeding down like a curtain. A barrage of the most artillery ever used on Blone, hit and exploded all at once. Rather than slacking off the fire intensified. Small arms chattering to life.
They all rose, climbing into the open, spilling out of dugouts and buildings into a thick mass. Moving toward the flaming wall. It built to a heart racing crescendo. Blood streaming through chest and guts. Eyes blurring the space around. Craters, lines of horizontal light. Shells arced over shoulders. Light from explosions reached long before their crashing boom. Laughing wildly walking headlong into spectacular horizon. The firepower protecting them. As they all charged Imperetre yelled over and over, much to the mil sec stream’s amusement, ”and now Commodore Imperetre takes off his coat.”
Simultaneous screams and smiles as a crowd of entirely wild, rapturous faces lept forward. Hot air gusting past and back. Breaths sucked away as sound became a solid. Sustained pressuring piercing into unprotected eardrums. Now only legs, sprinting, flesh drunken off the chaos. Gluos was running with them in body armor covered in grenades and unholstered pistol. Grinning as he tucked his chin to his chest. Stealing glances at each other as they ran over uneven ground.

'Boxes'

Three sharp knocks brought Diane Honeydew out of her daydream and into a skip towards the door. The latch loosened, the handle twisted, the hinges squeaked. Peter’s lips met hers as arms protected her waist, before nestling next to her ear. “You ready?”. Sunshine decorated the apartment, a warm glow befriending the lonely room, which housed boxes made of cardboard and nothing more.

The couple sat on one each, laughing at the tedious and absurd procedure of moving home. A chestnut-brown hand slowly caressed the cardboard, home to a collection of teddy-bears that were once inseparable from the woman’s grasp. Sitting at the bottom of the box was a baby-blue bear, that had maintained most of its features throughout its two decades of ownership, save for an arm that had been chewed off entirely one angry afternoon. Black, pea-sized eyes, which were once spoken into with adoration and excitement, now stared lifelessly in the box, covered by a pink bear’s pair of buttocks.

Peter, who intended to merely lift the boxes from point a to point b, was now scavenging through them, hands eyes and nose busy at work to find the rectangular steel box Diane had hidden away. “Incense sticks” they both exclaimed as his hand emerged, the red container raised to the air. As a stick was burned, and Diane’s retention for object-placement questioned, smoke gently floated and circled the cardboard homes. A candle lived in one of them, wrapped in plastic, and would never burn and give birth to the senses like its neighbour outside. It was a gift, given by a mother whose heart triumphed where her mind had failed her and those who loved her. The mandala design which covered its surface would never lose its form, but instead would bring a quiet smile when admired from time to time.

A box shook and swayed from side to side in Diane’s trembling hands, as she stubbornly walked away from Peter’s teasing of her overestimation of its weight. Its contents neither clinked nor clattered as they were carried to the car’s open boot; filled to the brim, the box was keeper to the monuments of a teenage girl’s life. CD’s lined the bottom half of the box, all of them soul and RnB, and every tenth album performed by a man. Dog-eared, spine-worn poetry books rested on top, each one written by a sad soul whom wished only to be sadder, as to give them adequate writing material. Finally, a scrapbook lay beneath the flaps, littered with moments from an adolescent’s chaotic blossoming, frozen in time.
The car grumbled as it took the woman, and the objects she chose to define her, away from where they had all felt safe. Safe against the rage and the disgust, safe from the despair and the numb-nakedness, safe with the contentment, and safe with the indifference. His hand laid on top of hers as she was lost outside the window, lulled by the noiseless rhythm of passing streetlamps.

Boxes here

I really enjoyed this! I personally find the second half a lot stronger than the first, but the dialogue is good nonetheless. I'd like to read more.

Boxes here

This is fantastic. Really great balance between personal observation, and sci-fi elements. Great job!

Too lazy for an in depth crit.
Acceptable, but not good. you're using "as" and subordinate clauses way too often. Learn to use periods. They won't kill off the flow of the reading as much as you seem to think they will.

>Three sharp knocks brought Diane Honeydew out of her daydream and into a skip towards the door. The latch loosened, the handle twisted, the hinges squeaked. Peter’s lips met hers as arms protected her waist, before nestling next to her ear. “You ready?”. Sunshine decorated the apartment, a warm glow befriending the lonely room, which housed boxes made of cardboard and nothing more.

Three sharp knocks brought Diane Honeydew out of her daydream and into a skip towards the door. The latch loosened, handle twisted, hinges squeaked. Peter’s lips met hers as arms protected her waist, before nestling next to her ear. “You ready?” Sunshine decorated the apartment, a warm glow in the lonely room, which housed boxes made of cardboard and nothing more.

I cleaned up the first para, a big mistake was the period after the question mark. Its not needed. Also many unnecessary >thes

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate the honesty. I'll do better the next time around. Could you give me an example of a subordinate clause I was using? I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure.

Thanks for giving it a read, I appreciate it. Grammar is not my strong suit, so I'll definitely keep an eye out for periods.

>Three sharp knocks
I feel like I've read an essay which started off this way before, in coursework or something. Asking only because I'm curious.

>Peter, who intended to merely lift the boxes from point a to point b, was now scavenging through them, hands eyes and nose busy at work to find the rectangular steel box Diane had hidden away.
Could just as easily be turned into
Peter's original intention was to merely lift the boxes from point A to point B, but now he found himself scavenging through them busily. His hands, eyes, and nose all worked to find the rectangular steel box Diane had hidden away.

Or something like that, idk. Basically you're unintentionally making the action read way more passively than it should.

Ah yes I get what you mean now. Run-on sentences have been my crutch for quite some time, I really need to pull back on using it so much. Thanks!

This one's mine if you want to take a gander.

I just gave it a read there. I like how the intensity is maintained by detailing objects and actions in each sentence with immediacy. What I mean by this is that there isn't an elongated, existential reflection every third sentence; you're getting straight to the point of what's going on. I can imagine this being placed within a novel as an extended peak of expository info. Also the grammar (at least from my knowledge) seemed to be on point, so good job!

nigga you dropped this poem in its own thread and it was shit then, and it's still shit now, pls stop peddling your dream journal and lrn2write

At 1st glance, a nice saturnalian romp, but goalless, ultimately limp (dick & wristed), but maybe—maybe—there's a concept in their somewhere worth saving.

Could use some more blending of the 'senses'. And maybe some fresher syntax. But hey, u do u.

At 1st glance, a nice saturnalian romp, but goalless, ultimately limp (dick & wristed), but maybe—maybe—there's a concept in there somewhere worth saving.

Could use some more blending of the 'senses'. And maybe some fresher syntax. But hey, u do u.

Of all the holy candlelit Burroughs -
Obscene fountains careening in tandem -
Pearl beaches of shocking obscurity -
Motherless dumpsters and grease traps dripping smegma -
She picks right now
to place and mock this
iteration with past horror
and future fancies.

This is bad. Do you have some ideas why?

Asking for a friend. And I'll follow up if you answer.

the images are schizophrenic, not in a good way.
Sibilance in the wrong places

Pure meme-level writing. Lots of stenciled nonsense. I bet you could make something fresh if you blended all the army shit into the last dream you remember & actually make something original.

Could you elaborate more on the limp wristed critique? Coz, I was really trying to get emotion across.

If you read it aloud, you'd catch most of the cringe. Also I think you want em-dashes, not hyphens.

'body wracking' → 'body-wracking' (or if you're a McCarthyite: bodywracking)

Is your writing daring? Is it square? Is it a sun for our eye? A rock? Obviously your writing style needs full on holystoning—I mean, thank god this is anonymous.

I'm saying that you're falling short of the kaleidoscopic polyrythms you were aiming for & we were hoping for. Far afield, friend.

rate my new sxe hit

pizza and video games are all i want pizza and video games are all i need i dont need no books read cause books they're really lame when i eat pizza and play video games i feel like a runaway train when i eat pizza and play video games i feel like a fizzing brain if you dont give me pizza and video games ill turn you into a bloody stain if you dont give me pizza and video games ill piss in your lane when i eat pizza and play video games i feel like a semen stain when i eat pizza and play video games i feel like a somebody

haha im gonna le psychoanalyze u!!!!!!!

They're pretty cool.

10/10
This would bring a tear to Joyce's eye

Groundless & boring. Mene, mene, tekel, maybe this isn't your "thing". Honestly, you're probably just in the wrong place ;^)

holy shit I love this

Gotta love the pathetic virgin millennial subtext. The echoes of cowardly, yet necessary & dutiful suicide are quite instructive. Don't do it—get to the doctor and get some of those mass murder SSRIs.

Jeez we get it, you were bullied in school...

You sound like you've spent a lot of time watching The Disney Channel. Also, this website is 18+.

I'm back ()

Fixed an "it's" that was supposed to be an "its," improved some things, but didn't actually move forward.

I crit that analytic story sorta. I mean, I guess I talked more about the subject than the text, but whatever. Also crit some thing about Mia, and I responded to a thing about a porn comic.

pastebin.com/rS4WqjPp

Bouncing between including this in something and making it an independant thing, or perhaps going on with it like I said in my previous post with the "You too" thing. I could maybe have the protagonist write more escalated smut each chapter or something, but that's probably been done.

In my latest dream, I’m
trying to write a poem,
and can’t. Too tired, a sickly-
sweet, heavy thing in my
blood drags me
down, into a spinning
centrifuge. Whatever it is,
paints the walls of my brain
white. [When he died, it is said
that he painted the walls with his
brains and like anything with
style, that painting was sold].
I know that this thing in my
blood is undoing me, and I want it
out. But so much can be
concealed in a drop of blood, and I
don’t know where to look.

It is easier to undo me than to
put me
back together--a
seed grows into a plant, an
embryo is born and forever
barred from its mother’s
womb, and a bullet never
travels backward, into the
casing, the wound channel
refilling, sealing
miraculously. Once the
paint is on the
wall, it takes more
energy to get it off. The new
realtor assigned to that
apartment has it painted
over, but there is still a
trace of something in the
air, dense and
Saturnian.
Suicide, they tell you, is a
permanent solution to a
temporary problem. Entropy is not
temporary, however, but is a
terminal illness. My body’s
debt accumulates rapidly, and what was
left of me becomes sucked into that centri-
fuge, separating from itself.

I have a thermodynamic debt,
I am becoming a purely negative
entity. Blood cells fold inside-out,
all to repay my original sin. Sleeping is
swimming in something heavier than
water, something that is vulnerable to
contamination with something stickier
than itself.
My cells suicide, they
phase themselves out, a T-4 program
built for the weak. I don’t go easily.
I am too weak to live, but too
strong or full of myself to leave
without pulling something with me, sucking
the energy out of the
room.

are those real rorschach blots bro? I heard they try to keep em under wraps

best poem on this thread

It's sxe you psychobabbler

jackass

The dream is at the end

>excerpt from a sequel to my first publication i am currently working on

The spot light cast out the darkness veiling Sheanne’s face. Her pale make-up begins to melt around her blue eyes. She looks down at her small feet clothed in red bedazzled slippers. They reflect the light in a thousand little spots throughout the house. She looks back up towards the audience and starts:
“Well, I think that it wasn't enough to just want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em - and it's that - if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard.”
The house lights turn on. Sheanne’s posture becomes slack. Her smile turns with her as she walks back-stage into the dressing room.
“Okay kiddos! It’s Nine-thirty! Go change and come take a seat for notes. It’ll be quick I promise!”
The rest of the cast follows into their respective dressing rooms.
Sheanne sits on the counter and peels Dorothy off her body. The rest of the young ladies, envious of Sheanne’s little feet, stammer in one-by-one. They talk amongst themselves of their plans and of their grievances. Meanwhile Dorothy is cast into a dresser and Sheanne walks back into the house without uttering a word to the munchkins. Their gaze follows her until they are sure she can no longer hear them.

*self-published :' ^)

his wife left him

this sucks

behold: my inspiration
youtube.com/watch?v=SPzFDo2Q9sM

I wanted to share my opinion about something but seems like im too exhausted to focus.
I hope what I'm posting right now is not too terrible.

“The Drowning”

The last breath. Water closing in over me,
the overwhelming fear of what is to be.

Lungs overflowing, bloodshot eyes open in panic,
desperate and pointless struggle of muscles.
Suddenly nothing, I hear how the sea rustles.
What was it on the surface that made me so manic?

I don’t remember. Memories washed away by the tide.
They mean nothing in heart of this domain,
sheer nothingness took over the reign.
Yet, is it regret that I feel and cannot put aside?

A slender, black shadow arrives in my sight,
the details appear, I think I once knew this face.
It comes closer and locks me in a firm embrace,
pulls and drags me towards the bright light.

“Leave me!” my soul shrieks with no sound.
I try to kick and scratch with my nails,
not even a twitch of my effort prevails,
no way to stop the living by the drowned.

Finally, we emerge, a cruel hit of the sand.
Unspeakable anguish drips off my mind,
for I have lost the peace of the blind,
forcibly made to look once more at the land.

The colours and sounds strike like a thunder,
I stare at the beach and the sky with wonder.
I taste the air and feel the stones with my palm,
the salty smell of the breeze makes me calm.

So sweet and marvelous, the world above the waves.
How could I have ever been one of the marine slaves?

I really like this

You have a ABBA rhyming structure, but for some reason your last 4 line stanza uses an AABB one.

I don't like some of your choices for making words rhyme, it gives the impression that you thought of the word first and made the text leading up to it. (Panic and Manic being the worst offender in my opinion)

Some minor changes I would make are

A slender, black shadow arrives in my sight,
the details appear, I think I once knew this face.
It comes closer and locks me in a firm embrace,
pulls and drags me towards the bright light.

A slender, black creature polluting my sight.
It's form envelops, familiarity faced;
Those features and feelings my being embraced,
pulled with it howling towards it's light.
The poem could use some work, but the concept is OK, there's no glaring problems with it, but it doesn't stand out.

Same guy, forgot to post my own work.

Broken souls,
Are drawn to me.
Broken's all,
we'll ever be.
Spend our lives,
Among the whole.
Why must they,
Hate broken souls?

Maybe soon,
My soul will grow.
When broken,
It never shows.
Far too gone
I'm just a hole.
All that's left;
A broken soul.

Not alone,
But still denied.
A kinship,
To feel inside.
Life must take,
It's solemn toll.
Life delights,
In broken souls.

Same guy here as It's pretty constructive, thank you. The change of ABBA to AABB was made to disciminate between the state of being drowned and alive again. I myself am not completely happy with some rhymes and made some text for a word once or twice in the text. The stanza you changed is actually one of those I'm happy with, your version changed the meaning a bit too so I wouldn't apply that.

Enough about me though, let's talk about yours.

I really like the first stanza, in particular the 1-4 lines. I somehow feel like you lost the flow somewhere around "It never shows.Far too gone" and couldn't get it back for the rest of the piece. I'm not saying that the latter part is worse, but definitely different and I preferred the beggining. In general it's pretty minimalistic and I dig that.

Have a stanza before the ABBA pattern appears and that distinction would be more apparent

And in regards to mine I actually had the first stanza written out for the longest time, unable to make a second or third, not sure what you mean by flow however, maybe the tone just changed.

Title: Superfluous
pastebin.com/YaCgS9ti
Should I give up?

I don't like it honestly, the talk of broken souls is rather vague. It's an appeal to ontology but it doesn't appear to make a comment on anything regarding the nature of a soul, just that it remains broken. Just appears as a set of emo platitudes. Structurally sound, content-wise not my style. Sorry.

I use souls in referring to people, not their spiritual soul. I wrote the poem during a point in my life where everyone seemed to be opening up their frailties to me, confiding in me.
I realized how much these people are hurt.
It's supposed to question the nature of loneliness, and why for some people no matter what they do they can never succeed.

I do appreciate the input however.

On your work however, I'm probably not the best to judge that type of writing.
My main complaint however (if I had to give one) Is that it's too set in current trends, meaning it will be dated way too quickly.
You could re-write it to make it a bit more vague on what the person is reading, there's a fine line on having a work being "of it's time" and dated.

...

Yr clearly missing the tools to create worthwhile prose—but worse!—completely blind to the fauna that need to be hunted in order to lay and weave a world worth wasting time with >%(

>Should I give up?
R u running a race?

Behind the surface structure of yr whirring, glittering net of prose is—what I sense—a mind of clear & subtle & crushing intellect.

The universe rages against our routine
To be is to seize evanescent subversion
The clockwork of chaos will spite the serene

The birds and the bees think to rest is obscene
They know idle hands are the devil’s diversion
The universe rages against their routine

The mountains believe that their future’s foreseen
That rock and that stone won't give into conversion
The clockwork of chaos will spite the serene

Off rivers, exhausted, does daylight now wean
The bank has bleed dry and now fears its dispersion
The universe rages against its routine

In order to live we must now contravene
Fight back against nature’s unending perversion
The universe rages against our routine
The clockwork of chaos will spite the serene

...

My veins are heavy,
filled with lead and
ice, burning with the
sharp tongue of dense
metals.
The flame that
cannot be quenched
is a demonic flame--
that which is eternal
is unnatural. The smell
of formaldehyde
accompanies. Dust
lays on all the surfaces
in the house. You could
say I’m scared, but it’s simply a
sensation, cold water where my
heart should be, slower
pumps as I walk toward
it. The metal is dull, the
wood worn. The wood is
like all the wood in the
house. My heart slows
as I walk toward it.
There’s a whine in the
air, cutting electric. But
so’s everything. I don’t
know what means any-
thing, when to react,
where I am. Looking at
the gun, I have a weary
feeling. I know that this
is a trap. I taste gunpowder
in my mouth, and images
flash through my mind
like choppy video. I tried
suicide once, or more,
and it didn’t work.
Like a videogame that
sets you back levels,
wipes your memory.

Each dream gets colder and
colder, night by
night. It takes a pronounced
effort to remember them.
There’s a will to
will. Mine is gone, or
dormant. This dream
flashes quickly in the
theater at the back of
my skull. Something
about the lithium
created at the end of the
beginning of the universe.
I was an alchemist. I was
trying to figure out a way
to survive off that,
grinning like an
athlete.

another one. take a guess at who I am if you value problem solving.

Are you realistic?
Or caught up in some idea
cyclically thinking your way
to finally boarding the train
But alas!
After years of incubation
in your old age
The realization comes:

In the end you take stock in a beginning
when at the start
you focused too heavily
much too heavily
on the end

the whole thing is garbage.