"Question + Question"
Theme is a slightly modified version of The Motherboard theme by LAN 2D that I made with help from
MisterFrown. Header image modified from the regular WL header.
How Did I Get Here? / Discussion
Forum
» Per Page Discussion / Per page discussions
» How Did I Get Here?
This is the discussion related to the wiki page How Did I Get Here?.
I'm conflicted on this. I was going to downvote until this piece picked itself up near the end and earned itself a novote instead. It has a very good sense of visceral imagery and the protagonist's tortured internal monologue, but in terms of story or reader engagement, it doesn't bring much substance to the table. By that, I mean it feels awkward and disjointed to read, and I'd imagine that's intentional, but it doesn't work. At least, I wasn't coaxed into it enough to make it work. This may very well be a matter of my own taste. Good on you for picking a duplicate prompt, though.
Personal ComboCon Reading Progress: #3
Echoing everything Spoddette has to say pretty much, I just didn't feel that grabbed by the contents of the story. The language is good though
I loved this! Gonna agree, then disagree, almost directly with Spoddet and Snackdragon here for a bit.
I was intensely grabbed by the sequence up until the end. I followed everything quite well, I think — your usage of dissociative language is superb. However, towards the end of the work it drifted away from the intensely personal dilemma and finding of selfhood and towards exploring the surroundings, which I was less hooked by. Further, and I should have said this earlier, the beginning bluetext zone is quite strikingly reminiscent — almost 1:1 — of Disco Elysium's starting dialogue. Those are quite minor nitpicks. The bigger nitpick, however, is that for the 80% of this work, you give us a slice of life experience of a person finding themselves, and then try to jam in as much packed plot as you can into the latter 20% until its ready to burst. I recommend committing to the atmospheric emotional work of thought and change! I wanted to see the resolution to that! Giving a suden plot at the end makes the work feel like it was actually supposed to be the lead-in to a different work altogether.
All that said, final thoughts: I adore this work to pieces. The taste of yellow is gorgeous, and your usage of odd spots of prose to hit the dirty room and mirror, and the quiet but heavily there body trying to die by suicide was impeccable — the work keeps on as though nothing is amiss, but my stomach dropped and it gave the whole next section a vastly grimmer sight. This work is profoundly delicious, and muddy, and chock-full of how it feels to be a person when your brain doesn't. Amazing.
Avocado smoothie with sweet milk as a lunch laced with LSD / 10.
-Styg
What is life if not the contrast between what has been and what will become?
Absolutely love the worldbuiling and settings and everything, but this isn't my personal cup of tea. Still, I can't deny that it's both well-written and made me feel something (as all good stories should)!
-THB
-T.H.B.
you do such a good job evoking feeling and imagery — it's all so immediate, so visceral, so bizarrely relatable in a liminal fashion — and your language, so precise and bold. the problem for me is all that emotional tension never really pays off. there isn't anything that hits all the notes the piece seems to be building towards; it ends in frustration, at least to me. and maybe you were going for that — certainly the narrator's experience is an exceedingly frustrating one — but it doesn't frustrate me in the good, feeling-it-in-my-heart way, rather in the way that i felt like the piece whiplashed into being the introductory segment for something longer that doesn't exist. novote for now but there's so much good in the way it's written and in the way so much of what you've created feels to read. thank you for posting it!
This is a really hard one! The language and prose at play here are phenomenal — they drip and flow and interleave and it's just a joy to read. So visceral, such strong imagery and sensation. The mastery of language here is really, really impressive. Seriously, massive credit there — in such a short space you have some of the most sticky, interesting prose I've seen out of this contest.
But I just can't get over how aimless it feels. It feels like the prologue to something — an intro to a much larger story. And it's a great prologue — it sets up our narrator, gives us some insight into what the fuck he has going on, and intrigues the shit out of me. But it's not like… a complete narrative. It's a trailer, a teaser. I feel teased; I do not feel satisfied or fulfilled.
I really can't decide how to vote — but either way, I really hope you expand this into something larger after the contest ends.
I gotta admit that I do feel similarly to its detractors: There's an excellent telling here, but not so much of a story. Now, that isn't necessarily bad, but the ending in particular I felt really weak. It didn't tell me anything, it didn't get me similarly to the other pieces of the story. It didn't feel like a conclusion of any sort. That being said, everything before is so solidly placed, and create this odd mystery that slowly unfurls to allow us to learn how they got to where they were that I can't help but upvote regardless. Solid work.
/forum/t-16760418/how-did-i-get-here#post-