[Winter Contest Entry 2015] The Verdict and The Chase

Dawn_of_Dark · 2015-12-30T19:21:46-01:00

Warning: this story deals with religions, mostly Christianity, some Islam and some Buddhism, and politics of all sorts. If you feel offended by these topics, please don't read on. It is a story written in the present but tell the future, treat it as kind of a fortune telling. Spoiler:As with my other contest entry, I'll provide a theme song. This time will be a playlist of absurd electronic, hip-hop, pop music video (that I listen to writing this story) for the equally absurd story. I'm usually a metal head. 1. Titanium (David Guetta ft. Sia) 2. Don't Look Down (Martin Garrix ft. Usher) 3. Club Can't Handle Me (Flo Rida ft. David Guetta) 4. International Love (Pitbull ft. Chris Brown) 5. Disturbia (Rihanna) The Verdict and The Chase It is the year of progress. It is 20XX, just like in those human-wannabe-laser-shooting-double-jumping-hyper-dashing-wall-grabbing-armor-equipping-weapons-robbing-robots-that-were-made-by-an-actual-human-who-fight-another-human-in-pursuit-of-co-existence-between-them games you used to play in your youth (those were the bombs. Haha, get it? †˜Bomb’. Hahahahaha). Humans utilize technologies to enrich their lives, bringing peace between themselves and with robots. Humans and aliens befriend each other, like those guys who fly around in big spaceships and make space-peace, space-diplomatic and space-interracial-love (that stuff is nastier than homosexuality). Humans have finally reached transcendence, by taking pills (hahaha, doing drugs, hahaha), uploading their brains onto supercomputers or making up intelligences (that’s nature’s job), much like every movies ever that star the-old-black-dude-with-the-awesome-voice (all †˜unequal’ African-Americans should grow a pair of vocal cords. All animals are equal, after all). This seems the future, doesn’t it? Hahahahaha. Guess again. Unlike equal animals, whose sole job is eating vegetables or meat, or a little of both, or a lot of both and other sole job is walking/running/being dragged to the slaughterhouses (why they make a incriminating word a part of another perfectly lawful word, I don’t understand) or crosshairs, humans are a violent species. Examples include everything in history books, children books or adult-oriented books (use videos, they have sounds, movements, cost money and most of the time are free). Some prime examples include 1914-1918 World War I, 1938-1945 World War II, 1789-1799 French Revolution, 1640–1660 English Revolution, the July 4th, 1776 American Declaration of Independence followed by the 1775–1783 American Revolutionary War and the following years of Americans and British-living-in-America celebrating the day by launching firecrackers, much like how they started the war (I still don’t know how the name of a continent, name of a guy actually, became the name of a nation), 1853-1856 Crimean War (personal favorite †˜holy war’, apart from the real †˜holy war’ involving transgender and bondage theme), 9/11, 2003-2011 Iraq War, ISIS and their 2015 French Bombing (which everybody cares), 2015 France bombing ISIS at Raqqa, Syria (which nobody cares), ISIS destroying thousands-years-old Islamic relics and temples (which nobody cares, but nobody likes Islam) and thousands of innocent Islamic people died (which nobody cares), 1948 WHO formation (ever heard of Pharma Bro?), 1945 UNESCO formation (arguably ISIS would not have destroyed those relics and temples if UNESCO hasn’t deemed them †˜valuables’), 1923 Interpol formation (I still see crimes on the news), 1945 United Nations establishment (humans haven’t stopped making wars), mechanical, electrical, detonation, transportation inventions, discovery of oil, technology and arm races between nations (the US and Soviet Union Cold War), display of military prowess, weapons of mass destruction of Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Northern, unpopular Korea for short) in 2009-2013 (great haircut, by the way). I can go on (I have) but you get the idea. Violence resides within humans’ inners. Scientific advancements were not for the sake of advancement. Take this simple man as our main character in this story. 60-something. A gray tee, black underwear, blue jeans and boots. Dark hair and nothing of particular interest on his face. By †˜nothing’ I mean he still has all of his normal facial features, not that he’s some kind of Faceless spiritual creature. He stops at a diner to grab lunch. He’s just the kind of everyman with a wage you meet any day. Except that he used to be the captain of the G.G.Entourage, that big spaceship which humans use to explore the Vast Unknown, Great Dark, Worlds Untouched or †˜outer space’, for the unpoetic sorts. He’s traveled across galaxies. Now he’s returned to Earth, a wretched place, by comparison. All alone. On the entire planet. Deserted. By himself. Without anyone else. No noble soul to offer a helping hand. No fetching wench to be had either. It’s recently come to my attention that †˜past’ humans thought that in the †˜future’, which is †˜now’, humans would collaborate and come to peace with alien species, envisioned in a Galactic Senate. It is a scenario so baffling, because, as in my earlier iteration, humans can’t live together. Wishful thinking, it was. It would be much more becoming if they’d thought up The Galactic Empire with a sole ruler. So the fact is that humans finally discovered an inhabited planet, after long years of searching, met with strange looking creatures (they don’t have legs or eyes or green skins, that’s serious lack of imagination and racist). However, humans had the issue of temperament, though the same could be said for the aliens. At least both parties had the same thing in mind, the displays of firecrackers of metaphor. Since military power and technology development is one and the same, space programs were still relevant, nations had to find more advanced-minded allies. That’s right, humans were not just at wars with extraterrestrial beings, perhaps equipped with better looking weapons which results as better functioning weapons, they were at wars with themselves at the same time, with inadequate weapons aiming at each other and at other space-races. Maybe the toothbrush-mustache-man was not so wrong (he also rocked the side-swept undercut way before footballers ever did). So our main character ventured into space, only to find when he comes back, through an escape-pod from a burning spaceship, humans (I’m sorry, nations) have flown to other planets since their floors were being wiped by the aliens (humans should have spent more money on janitors than on nukes). Although, he seems more relaxed than his island-stranded crewmates (they died off, by the way). This turn of event came about rather expectedly, anyway. After 2011-2018 Syrian Civil War, 2017-2023 Chinese Invasion (how does nobody see that coming), 2020-2025 World War III, 2032 Robot Breakout, 2033 Asia’s Merger, 2034 Asia’s Supreme Leader Assassination, 2036 World War IV, 2040 African Revolutionized Mechanibot revelation (completed with diamond finishes, too, fancy), 2050 Announcement of Biologically Mutated Humans, 2057 Angry Asia’s 100th Missile Test Drive, 2062 World War XII and 2080 Worlds War I, it seemed evident that humans were digging their own graves (tree-hugging hippies did have a point). It’s a marvelous feat, how they were able to squeeze eight World Wars into a mere twenty-six years period, even after considering Americans rebuilding New York City fairly shortly after wreckage upon wreckage and Chinese people building a skyscraper in nineteen days (and we know all about Chinese products). So humans left for other †˜unclaimed’ territories, like how they did in the early 17th - early 20th century. Some planets had not yet developed space weaponry, a situation that humans welcomed. Our captain began returning to Earth after his missions. He’s back to Earth, with little to himself, other than his faith in God. How I admire faith. It is the very embodiment of humans’ nature. Humans fear the unknown and desperation, and spiritual symbols of themselves give them believes in hope. It drives and gives them justification to their life choices (it certainly did to a certain footballer). Religion and science complement each other, even if they don’t seem so. Humans are guided by spirit and mind, seen and unseen force, things religion can’t imbue in believes and things science can’t explain in experiments. Both strive for enlightment. And humans certainly need faith if they want any hope surviving the upcoming 2082-2088 Worlds War II, 2087-2090 Kiman Threats, 2100 New Century Destruction, 2103-2206 Intergalactic Conflicts, 2208 Universal Peace Treaty, 2645 Recession of the Caskvyer Systems and the following Rebellion Outburst (people rebel when they are poor, it’s basic history), 2778 Re-establishment of the Republic, the 3000 New Millennium Celebrative Re-enactment of Wars and more to come, surely. It’s not wild predictions, but real events. Because I’m writing this to you as God, mortal. It makes so much sense now how I know what color is the main character’s underwear. It also makes sense that I know all about this realm and its five dimensions. I called myself Joejile, by the way. It’s very rude of mortals to call me names, like God, Jesus, Christ, Lord, Savior, and tons of others in reimagined, reincarnated or recreated versions. Mortals follow a collection of books called †˜The Bibles’, with just as many versions, said to have been passed down to instruct my teachings for humans. It’s strange, though, because in these writings, higher-up beings did not seem to like mortals that much (it’s true) and they were a bunch of nature-lovers (as in natural ways of things, like sexual preference or apples should remain uneaten, not like marijuana-smoking nature-love). Some even confuse me for whips-carrying women dressed in latex and dubbed them †˜goddesses’. Frightening, really. My Asian incarnations don’t usually dress properly or have thousands freakish mini-hands, which all have an eye to boost and most of the time have to be a vegan, nice way to worship your deity. New religions argue that I’m a robot. Why can’t I be a laid-back guy, eat whatever I fancy, black-colored (last time I check most people from Jerusalem are black) and into heavy metal music? Humans have to stereotype me into a last-millennium look and spread false things that †˜I said’. Then they blame me for their misfortunes. There are exceptions, of course, because every new era of kids needs to prove themselves better than the last, so they call the new hip †˜atheism’. It just so happened that I puppeteered these wars, and the atheists are blaming themselves, very nice of them. Call it a petty revenge against humans calling me names, plus it gets boring without things blowing up every now and then. Enough about myself, back to the main character. He ate three burgers. Now he heads for the library. Can’t go the mall alone. Interesting how this small Asian town appears largely untouched by the aliens, who seem only interested in big cities in America. He picks a book. †˜Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’. How tasteful. An adventure spirit, a descriptively omnipresent sense of danger and the marvels of underwater cities and submarines. Advanced and aerodynamically cool-looking spaceships can’t have the charm of a classic. Just like a classic Aston Martin (maybe a few more hundred years, spaceships will have their own †˜classical looks’). After visiting the library, he goes to a church and prays before heading back home. He reads news on the Portalnet. “Humans Won Selva Colonies”, when was the last time the press written about their defeat anyway? Takes a shower, then he chats with his several groups of friends on other planets. What, did you think humans are not capable of keeping in touch through the light-years? They already developed a way to communicate through wormholes in 2014. He chose not to be †˜rescued’, not that his civilian friends have access to spaceships nor the Intergovernment cares much for one person. Such is his daily interplanetary routine. Is this a happy ending to weird fairy tales? I suppose it is, most authentic †˜fairy tales’, or folklores, don’t have much of even a bearable, not stomach-churning, ending. He seems to have a normal, educated and unbothered life, which is happier than getting married. He has the Net for his primitive needs and all bare necessities. Not everyone can have all they want. Some does. Like myself. I make most people †˜work’ for it. Few who achieve success pass the torches to unlikely successors, turning it into lawsuits that enlarge nothing but the lawyers’ and judges’ bank accounts and creditability. Then it downgrades to repeating circles of hardwork-and-layback. This is irritating, at the very least, for a creator, such as myself. Humans take too much pride in their intelligence and self-importance that they will stray from my designs. Such is the punishment for one species so insolent, always sinning. Yet people can be content, like this man, no desire for greater knowledge. Ignorance is bliss, so they say, and most agree. Except for a few souls, who will like to check out this ancient †˜link’ for all of the references of your world that I made as a courtesy to simplify an otherwise godly, wholly incomprehensible piece of writing. Author’s Notes: Word Count: 2000 words excluding the title. It seems I turn in a 2000-words entry every year. Spoiler:About Me: Hi, everybody, I did not want to make this an easy one for our fellow writer/competitor, so here I am, submitting this †˜story’ of mine. What’s a long time contestant if I were not to turn up this year as well. This is my fifth consecutive year already. I can’t believe I can prevail for so long. Kind of an achievement by itself already, because despite my hard-working-ness, I haven’t won once. But I come back to (hopefully) make a difference every year. About the Story: I would not call this a proper †˜story’, more like psychopathic ranting. It has everything to do with the theme, really. It’s hard to try to write a comedy with a straight face. I blame the theme. To be honest, I would not say I’m a loyal fan of leonard’s, our fair judge, usual style of approach for a story, some to hate and some to love, but geniuses are easily misunderstood. I have been exposed to do comedic writings times before, almost always write my class assignments in a sort of joking-ness (not that I’m not serious about the assignments, but it’s a wonder why they didn’t kick me out), and I have my different way of writing it (you can checkthis piece I post some time earlier this year). Having said that, I think this particular entry have more of the leonard’s tongue, sort of, I guess. I had a hard time coming up with an idea for the story, too. Having two themes, but it was almost a no-brainer to choose the †˜comedy’. You can tell after reading the story, is that I dealt with very highly sensitive subjects, with a somewhat distorted view. This is definitely not my kind of usual choice of more light-hearted things. A large amount (I would say the majority) of ideas presented in the piece is not my own subjective ideas, it is rather written for the sake’s of the contest only. I also reference a heck numbers of things that I did not count how many. It just comes naturally as appropriate as I was writing the story, presumably with the mindset of doing so. I don’t think I wrote two lines without referencing something. The subjects are whatever popped up during that line, be it history, sport, movie or whatever (but I wish I can deal with some science subjects here). I want to clarify some things below: 1. Despite clear reference to the Star Trek franchise, I’m not really a fan of it. It just seems easier to do a parody of it. Look for some Star Wars reference inside this piece though (love the new SW movie btw) 2. Presenting yourself as an ego-maniac is a big no-no in literature, but it is exactly what I did here. I want the narrator to be really full of himself and shows off a lot of his knowledge about everything. Some things I know profoundly, some just the scratch on the surfaces, so it can represent ignorance (which was also one thing I was going for with the narrator). You can point them out in the comment, and we can have a discussion about it. 3. On the note of referencing, I know most of the story are pieces of personal knowledge, but if you are unsure of what something means, I’m happy to clarify. Some are clearly written down, some are hidden. 4. I’m not a devout of any religion, that is to say I’m not presenting this as a hate/encouraging speech for any religion mentioned in the story. It’s purely fictional. But I’m interested in knowing more of religion too. 5. Originally, the part from “Take this simple man… footballers ever did)”, the third paragraph, I wanted to write them in old English style, the romanticized style in the 1800s-1900s, not the King James English, but opted out of it in fear not meeting the words limitation. You can still read some traces of it. As final note, wish you guys a happy holiday. I think this is the first piece I have submitted before the Dec 31st. As always, I hope I have more time to be more active on the forum (which I have never been able to), and leave your comments, as will I read your entries (if you’re a fellow competitor) and leave mine.

Pages 12

Sound of Destiny Inbetweener

8 years ago

I'll go ahead and get the more technical things out of the way. First of all, the formatting for this story is very unappealing. I held off reading this because the giant walls of text just made it very hard to sit through. Whether or not you did this intentionally to achieve a specific effect, you should be aware that it does make it a challenge to read.

Second, there are many grammatical errors that I spotted. Aside from that, there were also sentences that just didn't make sense to me or sounded really unnatural. I won't give examples because there are plenty of them and they're spread across the entire work. Just read it again slowly and I'm sure you'll spot some.

As a whole, I feel like this story lacks focus and proper direction. All the references that you jam in there honestly feel like an afterthought to me. Like you already had something there but decided to just throw in jokes and references that don't really relate well with what's being said. The humor in general is all over the place. Sometimes it's snarky but other times it's immature and while this does characterize the narrator, it makes it harder to identify his personality.

The "human" in the story didn't feel very relevant to the grand scheme of things either. You introduce him then ignore him for a while then bring him back in the end. He doesn't do anything significant and his situation didn't appear to add much to the story. To me, he just seems like a tool to make the "narrator is god" angle more impactful.

There were also so many parts that you could have trimmed down. We only have 2000 words so you need to make the best use of them as you can. Cut out all the fat and just leave the essentials, everything that needs to be there or that adds something significant to the story. When you throw too much fluff it just bogs down the flow and pacing of everything.

I think you had a lot to say in this piece but the manner in which you portray and convey this message didn't do it for me. Your message/theme got too muddied by your lack of a concrete focal point to string together every other element.

I wouldn't put too much weight on my opinion though. I wasn't really able to analyze this piece in great detail because it was too much of a challenge for me to read through it multiple times.

Sorry for being so negative. I didn't want to have to say so many mean things but since you went through the effort to make a long comment on my work, it's only fair that I do the same.

Either way, I wish you luck in the polls!

d(^_^)(^_^)d

8 years ago

Yeah, I explained somewhere above, which I'll summarize: 'Appearing like a ego-maniac is a big no-no in literature, but that is exactly the point here'. It doesn't work too well with everybody though.

Well, it's only really bad when we're forced to spend the whole story with the ego-maniac, and there's no one to give us relief from his crap.

It's also worth nothing that Bomberman came out about the same era as MegaMan. One of my favorite Bomberman game is "Bomberman Adventure", kind of a Bomberman RPG game on the GameBoy Advance. He was a robot of a professor in that game iirc.

I'd say Bomberman Hero on the N64 was my favorite.

RavenxSinon

8 years ago

Well first, I'll commend the effort you put into researching the facts that you stated in this work.

However, I think most of the other stuff I'll mention have already been said by the other people who commented before me.

1. I'm not really a fan of how you split the paragraphs. They just looked like a thick wall of text and it was kinda overwhelming and boring to read through.

2. Grammatical errors were present as well as some missing words. For instance: "This seems the future, doesn't it" at the end of the first paragraph. Some were alright as they weren't really obvious, but some were obvious enough that they could break the flow of reading.

3. There were some instances wherein the narrator was making some intellectual, mature jokes, while sometimes, he would make some overly childish ones, so it was sort of confusing to tell his real personality unless if you were going for something like the narrator being bipolar or something.

4. I feel like you could have done much more, even with the 2000 word limit. There were some parts that were just overkill with the amount of information they presented. By cutting off some of those parts, you can most likely add something more substantial to your "psychopathic ranting".

All in all, I can't say I enjoyed it too much. By the way, I'm sorry for my short comment to your work as opposed to your long comment on my work. I'm just really not good at voicing out my opinion.

Best of luck to all three of us in the poll!

Dawn_of_Dark

8 years ago

Sound of Destiny wrote...

Your review is unappealing to read.

Joke. I concede that even though I did that intentionally and I'm fully aware that readers will be reluctant to read walls of text, it did more harm than good. Even though I made it a rule to read everybody's entry in this contest, this is definitely going to be the last one that I will read.

Second, there are many grammatical errors that I spotted. Aside from that, there were also sentences that just didn't make sense to me or sounded really unnatural. I won't give examples because there are plenty of them and they're spread across the entire work. Just read it again slowly and I'm sure you'll spot some.

I'm not sure, I have looked it over many times before submitting and a few times after I do, too. Urgh, but it's too hard to spot your own errors, heh. It's easier to belittle someone else than yourself, it seems, hahaha.

As a whole, I feel like this story lacks focus and proper direction. All the references that you jam in there honestly feel like an afterthought to me. Like you already had something there but decided to just throw in jokes and references that don't really relate well with what's being said. The humor in general is all over the place. Sometimes it's snarky but other times it's immature and while this does characterize the narrator, it makes it harder to identify his personality.

Spoiler:

Whether it's a good thing or not, I can say for certain that every references you can read out in there, it's there now because it was initially there. I wrote this with a clear intention to have (weird-ass) humors, and when I was writing, these things just came out on the top of my head. I didn't write a super-serious essay exploring the humans' psychology then jam in stupid things to make it sound 'funny' and fit the contest theme.

In the defense of its point in the story though, I will say that this colorize the narrator as 'the main character' the way I wanted. This character, as you may have read in the previous comments, is first and foremost a 'God' and then a stuck-up asshole second. As a 'God', you can imagine that he can be whatever he wants and have whatever he wants and do whatever he wants. He knows everything, to explain how he seems to say random things in random occasions, he can say anything, simply nobody can stop him doing so. And as a certificated dickhead, I like to think it that he's snarky whenever he say something like he's passing judgement, with eyes of a higher being looking down on humans, and being immature when he's making fun of humans' foolishness. Sure, it can sound childish when he talked about humans smoking marijuana, and adults can justify it any way they want, at the very core of the subject, it is what it is.

It's fair that you don't like it. But it's the way I chose to write, and even now I don't think I would even change this aspect to a significant degree if I was to re-write this.

In retrospect, I would also say that the way this narrator making crude jokes reflect myself in real life. I don't usually show all of my personality sides to everybody I meet irl. At times, I can (pretend to) be stupid around my younger friends and do some seriously childish things, but at other times, I can talk and discuss for halves of hours about science or fashions or art with some of my older friends, whatever they fancy. I don't try to be serious with a specific group and I don't do stupid things in the vicinity of another group. Sometimes I pretend to be ignorant of something in order to learn more about the person/the thing I'm talking to/about. Few close friends say that I'm hard to read and fewer knows I write stuffs on a hentai site.

I think this in fact is truer as a depiction of humans' nature, because I believe people have layers of personality. There's so much more in one person than it meet the eyes, and even more in the things they choose not to show. As an omnipotent being, this 'God' can be an open book or a closed one, whatever he wants to be. I'm at times disappointing to see characters in stories can be typically somewhat one-dimensional. It's perfectly understandable in reality if you have opposing interests in different subjects. Facts are stranger than fictions. So restricted in one traits can become monotony in characteristics, stretching too far can become no characteristics at all. Although, in my case, I believe he's being 'in his character', not the other way around.

The "human" in the story didn't feel very relevant to the grand scheme of things either. You introduce him then ignore him for a while then bring him back in the end. He doesn't do anything significant and his situation didn't appear to add much to the story. To me, he just seems like a tool to make the "narrator is god" angle more impactful.

The 'human' can use a bit more work, I agree. But the way he was introduced, then ignored, then brought back is also the way I chose it to be. Part of this is a supposedly twist on the conventional storytelling method, as this piece, the narrator is 'the main character' when talking in a third person perspective, and the 'human', the main character, is nowhere as important. Like you said, he was there to portray more about this 'God'. Whether that makes for good effects is another question. His situation is of course dire to himself, but not so interesting for the 'God', apparently. It's perfectly sensible if you can't like it.

There were also so many parts that you could have trimmed down. We only have 2000 words so you need to make the best use of them as you can. Cut out all the fat and just leave the essentials, everything that needs to be there or that adds something significant to the story. When you throw too much fluff it just bogs down the flow and pacing of everything.

I would argue that these are the essentials. Yes, they could have been trimmed down, and you could still get the idea, but I consciously chose to write them down, and I even cut out other things so that the 'fats' can remain. These 'fats' are my focus, not my tool to prove another point. As I said somewhere in the other comments, it is the idea of humans' stupidity that tires us all, or in another words, it is just as tiresome for him to list them out as for you to read it.

I think you had a lot to say in this piece but the manner in which you portray and convey this message didn't do it for me. Your message/theme got too muddied by your lack of a concrete focal point to string together every other element.

I believe I have a point in this one, but it's up to everyone's interpretations of their own experience.

I wouldn't put too much weight on my opinion though.

I would, I never take anything lightly. For me, it's always to the extreme of not doing it and doing it (or sink trying) to the perfection.

I wasn't really able to analyze this piece in great detail because it was too much of a challenge for me to read through it multiple times.

It's a real joy to me that anyone take their time to read it at all. Thank you.

To add one more point to the format, you can clearly read that this is a first-person narration. I can't say for other people, though I imagine everybody else would do the same, whenever I read a first-person story, I immerse myself as if I were the character. A figure with immense pride, in his head, this is what I imagine a dickhead will say. You can criticize me for keep saying 'this is for the characterization' without any thoughts about how detrimental it can be for readers' experiences, but I would say that dealing with an asshole is unpleasant in real life, just like this story.

Sorry for being so negative. I didn't want to have to say so many mean things but since you went through the effort to make a long comment on my work, it's only fair that I do the same.

Eh, that's ok. I can be way more negative to other people. What you call 'mean things' are 'constructive criticism' and I'm grateful that you really gave your thoughts into writing this for me.

Either way, I wish you luck in the polls!

Haha, thanks, but I can already see my fate.

I think you will like my last year's entry better than this, although the format is messed up since FAKKU remove some old options.

d(^_^)(^_^)d wrote...

I'd say Bomberman Hero on the N64 was my favorite.

Heh, I wish I had a N64, but my childhood was grown on a GBA.

RavenxSinon wrote...

Well first, I'll commend the effort you put into researching the facts that you stated in this work.

Most of them are my own knowledge, though it's true that I had a great time reading up on them whenever they came up when I wrote this.

However, I think most of the other stuff I'll mention have already been said by the other people who commented before me.

That's cool, meaning that I know the prime problems that don't work for the majority of readers.

1. I'm not really a fan of how you split the paragraphs. They just looked like a thick wall of text and it was kinda overwhelming and boring to read through.

Agree. But I will also try to explain my reasons behind this, which I have written above, if you will be so kind to scroll up.

Or not:

Spoiler:

In another words, I chose to do so because I thought it adds to the portrayal of the character as being obnoxious on purpose and is awfully informed about everything.

I have also written about it the the previous comments, if you want to read more about this.

2. Grammatical errors were present as well as some missing words. For instance: "This seems the future, doesn't it" at the end of the first paragraph. Some were alright as they weren't really obvious, but some were obvious enough that they could break the flow of reading.

I will have to read it again to spot the grammatical errors you talk of.

With the "This seems the future, doesn't it?" part, I will argue that this sentence has perfectly acceptable grammars and structures, albeit it does not being used in modern American English. I have said in my footnote in the original post that there was paragraph I wanted to write in 1800-1900 French literature style, the kind of style you can read in translations of renown works of French authors of that time, namely Alexandre Dumas, père (The Count of Monte Cristo [1844], The Three Musketeers - [1844]), Victor Hugo (Les Misérables [1862], The Hunchback of Notre-Dame [1831]), and Jules Verne (Journey to the Center of the Earth [1864], Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea [1870], and Around the World in Eighty Days [1873]). I later decided against in fear of not having enough literature ability to do so. However, you can still read some sentences that I wrote and decided to keep it so.

Usually, you will adhere to a consistent style of writing of an era in order to uphold respect for the language. However, like many aspects of this piece, I want to portray this guy as a omnipotent being with unlimited knowledge and authority to do absolutely anything. So I guess you can say it's technically an error, but I will choose to stand by my decision.

3. There were some instances wherein the narrator was making some intellectual, mature jokes, while sometimes, he would make some overly childish ones, so it was sort of confusing to tell his real personality unless if you were going for something like the narrator being bipolar or something.

As said above:

Spoiler:

In the defense of its point in the story though, I will say that this colorize the narrator as 'the main character' the way I wanted. This character, as you may have read in the previous comments, is first and foremost a 'God' and then a stuck-up asshole second. As a 'God', you can imagine that he can be whatever he wants and have whatever he wants and do whatever he wants. He knows everything, to explain how he seems to say random things in random occasions, he can say anything, simply nobody can stop him doing so. And as a certificated dickhead, I like to think it that he's snarky whenever he say something like he's passing judgement, with eyes of a higher being looking down on humans, and being immature when he's making fun of humans' foolishness. Sure, it can sound childish when he talked about humans smoking marijuana, and adults can justify it any way they want, at the very core of the subject, it is what it is.

It's fair that you don't like it. But it's the way I chose to write, and even now I don't think I would even change this aspect to a significant degree if I was to re-write this.

In retrospect, I would also say that the way this narrator making crude jokes reflect myself in real life. I don't usually show all of my personality sides to everybody I meet irl. At times, I can (pretend to) be stupid around my younger friends and do some seriously childish things, but at other times, I can talk and discuss for halves of hours about science or fashions or art with some of my older friends, whatever they fancy. I don't try to be serious with a specific group and I don't do stupid things in the vicinity of another group. Sometimes I pretend to be ignorant of something in order to learn more about the person/the thing I'm talking to/about. Few close friends say that I'm hard to read and fewer knows I write stuffs on a hentai site.

I think this in fact is truer as a depiction of humans' nature, because I believe people have layers of personality. There's so much more in one person than it meet the eyes, and even more in the things they choose not to show. As an omnipotent being, this 'God' can be an open book or a closed one, whatever he wants to be. I'm at times disappointing to see characters in stories can be typically somewhat one-dimensional. It's perfectly understandable in reality if you have opposing interests in different subjects. Facts are stranger than fictions. So restricted in one traits can become monotony in characteristics, stretching too far can become no characteristics at all. Although, in my case, I believe he's being 'in his character', not the other way around.

4. I feel like you could have done much more, even with the 2000 word limit. There were some parts that were just overkill with the amount of information they presented. By cutting off some of those parts, you can most likely add something more substantial to your "psychopathic ranting".

It could have been more substantial. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the version I have posted here, but it was contented. However, I will defend my point in 'overkilling' (as above):

Spoiler:

All in all, I can't say I enjoyed it too much. By the way, I'm sorry for my short comment to your work as opposed to your long comment on my work. I'm just really not good at voicing out my opinion.

It's fair. I can't imagine liking this out of my own volition. That's not to say I don't appreciate my own effort.

In all honesty though, I must say that I did not spend as much on this piece as I should have, not as much as I did last year. So it didn't emerge as a fan-favorite after all. I'll try harder next year.

Best of luck to all three of us in the poll!

Haha, we all know the results already.

To finish, I want to thank all of you to have read and given my your feedback, especially that I know it's a chore to read this story. I know I am vocal of my defense on this piece, but I also want you guys to know I take every little comments seriously and you guys have helped me to become a better overall writer.

Xenon FAKKU Writer

8 years ago

I like the concept of the work. The idea of a divine creator lamenting over the insignificance and malice that are destined of mankind. However, the tactics that you utilize to convey these points drag on for so long and need grammatical improvement. It doesn’t help that you heavily use parenthetical sentences to further convolute the already large sentences, but teetering at the edge of the word count also made to cut out important grammatical words just to keep some sentences concise, which is unfortunate. I liked the satire, it was very much in a style I feel that is similar to leonard, and so maybe he’ll appreciate it, but I have always been a connoisseur of proper English structure and consistency, and unfortunately I found the numerous errors contained within this piece an absolute slog to get through. I’m sorry about that, but it might be a side-effect of the informal literary voice and writing style that you adapted, and less to do with your actual skill in writing.

Below are images of the actual .docx file I marked up to showcase the numerous things I found issues with. I couldn't quote every instance because there just were too many, so hopefully this will be beneficial to you in showing the errors and how you can grow from here. If you have any questions about the marks I made, please ask me and I'll explain why I made them.

Disclaimer: For those unaware, the Track Changes mode in Word 2013 provides an efficient and handy method to review written material. The grey vertical line to the left of the written lines indicate a change edited in the corresponding horizontal written line. All font that is in red are direct changes to the original text. Words and letters that have strike-through are suggested removal and those with an underline are suggested additions. Comments, as you can see, highlight an appropriate area and are placed in the right-hand margin followed by a dotted line corresponding to the correct comment.

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leonard267 FAKKU Non-Writer

8 years ago

I have quite a lot of people to apologise to. Despite promising them that I would offer a review of their entries over a month ago, I have yet to find the time to do so. It is a bit difficult for me to pen this one especially because there is so much I would like to say about what you have wrote and I have so little time on my hands.

Nonetheless, I would divide my review into 3 parts. I might elaborate further should you respond to it:

1. Must be readable: It isn't.

I found it difficult to understand what you were trying to convey. If I can't understand the story, I certainly wouldn't pick it as my favourite entry. The better rated entries in my book has to meet that criteria.

It appears that you are trying to introduce some kind of setting to your 2000 word long monologue by explaining that it is sometime in the future and then it digresses to talking about historical events. This is repeated later when you introduced the main character then digressed to making obscure references to Star Trek and events that supposedly happen in the future.

I am fine with a bit of digressing provided that it has relevance to the story. However, I am left thinking that this is more about the author of the story giving his opinion (or his impressions) of historical (and non-historical) events. I have no idea what is going on, who to sympathise with or indeed what is the point you are driving at.

I think your entry might be made better if it either focused more on the main character and his exploits or become a complete monologue albeit with a clear thesis statement. (I couldn't tell if your thesis is about mocking mankind's efforts at building then destroying civilisations or laughing at the fact that the Earth destroyed itself through many world wars while our hero is colonising planets or whether I am right in interpreting your entry in these ways!)

I am not offended by the content of the entry but only because I fail to understand it!

2. Must be funny:
Let me credit you for coming up with possibly the only entry that put me on the verge of laughter. I was almost laughing not because of the story but I am laughing at the story. Why so, that leads me to my next point.

3. Must be written in leonard267's style:
Let me again credit you for coming up with the entry which I consider written in a manner that is closest to my style with all of the links, references that no one understands, the monologues and hard to follow lines. Then again, if you bothered to read my other reviews of the entries submitted, writing like me isn't exactly a good thing isn't it?

I did mention that one of the joys of hosting this competition is to make people write the way I write. While it is a bit disappointing that few entries were written similar to my style, at least I came across yours. I had a good taste of my own medicine reading your entry.

I told Xenon that I would like to nominate this entry for a "Dishonourable Mention" for being written the way it was written. I would have picked this entry as my favourite entry (that is why it deserved a mention) if I knew what is the entry about (which is why I called it "dishonourable")!

PS: I did promise that I would parody another contest entry you have written a year ago. I would like to do the same for this one. However, this seems to be a remote possibility now.

PPS: Why did you call it the Verdict and the Chase? Who is passing verdicts? Who is doing the chasing?

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