Short and sweet. A delicious mint leaf whose flavour stays long after it is swallowed, dusted with aphids heavy in unexpected nectar honeysweet.
-Styg
What is life if not the contrast between what has been and what will become?
Recent Forum Posts
in discussion Per Page Discussion / Per page discussions » Library Card : Part Two
I already told you I love this, but I'll say it again.
Yipee! Cannot wait for this story to grow even more.
-Oli
Fires rage just below the surface of the ice.
in discussion Forum Discussion / Ideas and Advice » Crit Request: Pick Up The Pieces
Hello. I'm looking for general critique on a piece I'm working on. Thank you! :)
http://wanderers-sandbox-2.wikidot.com/vtipoman
in discussion Site Announcements and Proposals / Article Announcements » New Articles 5
https://wanderers-library.wikidot.com/wurlitzer
clown has been listening to american football
in discussion Per Page Discussion / Per page discussions » wurlitzer
coldpost
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in discussion Per Page Discussion / Per page discussions » Up Here
this hits me in my fascination with the spaces nobody thinks about, though i have no grasp on what's actually occurring in the text
in discussion Per Page Discussion / Per page discussions » Up Here
Thank you so much for taking a look. This mix of ideas has been sitting in my head for a while and the library had just the right vibes for it to flow out.
Huh! Weird little thing. I like it, but couldn't tell you why.
-Styg
What is life if not the contrast between what has been and what will become?
in discussion Site Announcements and Proposals / Article Announcements » New Articles 5
https://wanderers-library.wikidot.com/up-here
A poem about somewhere's dust.
in discussion Per Page Discussion / Per page discussions » Up Here
Look Up.
Please.
in discussion Site Announcements and Proposals / Article Announcements » Deletions
Deletions - 6/5/2023
As an ex-londoner, this really speaks to me. Other places are home to me now, but there's something about the big smoke that never leaves you. The way you describe the feeling of existing in something bigger than yourself and the relationship that we have with it is excellent.
in discussion Forum Discussion / Ideas and Advice » Crit Request: Echoes of Luncheon
I put everything together neatly and just need someone to double-check that everything looks okay!
[http://wanderers-sandbox.wikidot.com/disturbedaeons-luncheon]
in discussion Forum Discussion / Ideas and Advice » Crit Request: Tarnation (26 words)
Just giving a small crit, because you said that this was a "bit premature" but I wanted to check it out anyway. I'm also assuming this is in the same cannon as your first piece? Pretty sure Tallanner was mentioned in that
"It's two cities, West Port is Tallanner, the Bill is native Lhesz."
The first comma is a comma splice. Full stop would probably flow better
Drindhuss spits out the back of the caravan. "*Abdytteul.* Means *Gray Harbor*; even colonizers know their true colors."
Banger line, but if you mean to italicise with the asterixis, in CSS it's with two slashes, ie //lika dis// which results in dis.
Also I dislike semi-colons, but given the fact that I have been including random commas in my writing I really, really wouldn't trust me if I were me.
Also, a lot of worldbuilding terms are introduced in this first collapsible, none explained. I love conveying worldbuilding through inference, but for me that requires showing a term being used a few times in context, which this is- but there are just too many terms here. I got a bit lost. There are a few too many place names and I find it hard to relate the information given here to the rest of the story.
Something hot and sweet was in the air, carried by the ocean breeze from a pit fire.
Scent imagery! Something I need to use more. Then again I've been writing from the perspective of a character with no nose.
The birds know the higher image.
Ooh. What an interesting little story! More than dropping off worldbuilding (which it does better after the first collapsible, especially with the tone of the world), more than a simple story about "Humanity vs. Nature", this delivers an interesting little meditation on anthro-centrism in a fable-styled moral message after a very grounded, paired-down and gritty story about climbing a cliff to steal magic health potion poem bird eggs. My main problem with this is that the description doesn't always create a clear image, but I got most of the salient points pretty quickly, and to an extent that's just a feature of the form you have chosen for this- brevity at the expense of some clarity. Keeping reading resolves most of the confusion.
in discussion Forum Discussion / Ideas and Advice » Critique request: "A Culinary Experiment"
"But time was his greatest foe, an ever-present reminder of the challenge that lay before him."
As someone who cooks almost every day I concur with this sentence. Time is our greatest enemy.
"The dish existed only in his imagination, a symphony of textures and tastes that had yet to be birthed into the physical world." Yeah this line js even better. Your grasp of prose is increasing- its great ti watch.
Yeah I truly have no notes. This is a fantastic piece that perfectly captures the feeling of cooking g something new. Your use of words is exquisite, your pacing genuinely fantastic. I love this piece deeply and would argue we should, at some point, collab on a cooking piece. Post it. Or I will find you.
in discussion Per Page Discussion / Per page discussions » Caminero
It's okay Din, now that I'm on it, the hub has oficially 3 world cups and a monthly inflation rate of 300%
in discussion Per Page Discussion / Per page discussions » Library Card : Part Two
Delicious. Adore that description of the sea and its castoff. Plot coming along. Wonderful to see Uncy again, as I have missed it dearly. Delectable and straightforward with spots of high flavour: a buttery cookie with dense chocolate-cream chips.
-Styg
What is life if not the contrast between what has been and what will become?
in discussion Forum Discussion / Ideas and Advice » Crit request: Ocular Haze, Part VII: An Awakening in Parts
First I will address your concerns, and then below that I have my thoughts as I went through the piece the first time.
The description isn't something you should be too worried about; this being new to both the protagonist and the reader is a good way of introducing the concept, so the body horror plays out in real time. Character development seems to switch from on to off, where she's at first sobbing for her pitiful existence and then flippantly embracing the new technological nightmare of her body. I think as much as a world might embrace cybernetic limb replacement, anybody going from organic life to prosthetic Frankenstein's monster might deal with it in a more personal way. And I love when dialect is reflected in prose, though there are some conjunctions that are difficult to parse without slowing down and imitating a statistical British Male in my head lol.
Here is a play-by-play of my reading through:
The first thing I'd like to highlight it the absolutely dour attitude of this piece, the body horror element makes me intrigued to go back and read more retrospectively.
"He had made her feel needed. Made her feel powerful. Made her feel like she belonged in the world.
Made her, into a tool." — I can see the intended reading here with how the punctuation is highlighting different lengths of pauses, but the first three sentences should probably just be one separated by commas and the last sentence without the punctuation at all, but that's all only if you care about spag. I think punctuation is better when used creatively anyhow, and I appreciate your use of it, though I would hope to see more of it with the British Male dialect setting the stage for an overall creative voice.
The line "Scabs didn’t think he even thought about how he dealt with people on a conscious level." is a touch awkward in that one character is thinking what another character might think, which both reads as somewhat clumsy and confusing.
"Had he enjoyed, what he did?" Here again I can see your loyalty to the way language sounds in dialogue, but the comma does incite a different kind of pause. Maybe play around with what grammatical punctuation you want to use to indicate different lengths of pauses, because it's something that's worth keeping through edits.
I really like your use of technical language to describe the in-world objects like an "eighty-charge" bomb and a lens with "intermediary precision", it works best when it connects to something the reader can actually picture, like is indicated with the red poster. I think more grounding imagery would help elevate the reader to the height this story speaks at with regard to worldbuilding.
"Nothing happened.
“I still can’t s-” started Scabs, then a shimmering image appeared…" I think the vision you have of this scene is very clear, and it reads almost like a script with the beats in place, but it somewhat disrupts the flow of the surrounding text for a moment that seems to want to be translated to television.
"…then a shimmering image appeared in her brain and she cried out as her occipital lobe started receiving nauseating input from something it was not designed to and every muscle in her body spasmed as she temporarily lost control of her brain impulses." - This is a very long statement with a lot of qualifiers, which can be tough to chew, especially when the moment seems to be brief. If an image clicks on and it burns, the length of the statement used to inform the reader will get across how quickly it occurs. Getting from one end of a sentence to the other takes as much time as you want to give to it, so use those moments concisely. Warning labels aren't very long for a reason. DANGER!
"The right, however, terminated in a dark steel cap, from which emerged a skeletal arm terminating in her familiar but clearly mismatched casting hand." - Right here I think you would benefit from eliminating the double use of "terminate" and looking into anterior versus posterior as anatomical vocabulary. It would help give a clearer image and give the scene another note of medical malpractice.
omg thank you Styg!!
Yeah I didn't know it was a thing either, until I saw a South China post about him and did some reading on Wikipedia. Apparently he's really popular in Hong Kong and a lot of people put up shrines to him.
