>[Countdown to requirements reveal]
https://countingdownto.com/?c=7337477

Basically: 1 week to write; 1 week to write about what we wrote & to vote.

This is silly, i'm going to make my own writing competition, with blackjack and hookers.

My ass is ready lads

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~Requirements~

Character: Uses a mode of transportation.

Theme: Trust/Mistrust.

>[Countdown to submission deadline]
https://countingdownto.com/?c=7337588

bump

bumo

bump

God bless voice-to-text; 97% of the time on this was spent revising the prose lol

The Brass Must
https://rentry.co/qqr6zr3h

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https://rentry.co/p3mei8y4

>>25511011
Is your use of an AI image a tacit admission of the state of these threads?

https://rentry.co/rf9iv4vd

Do you accept submissions written in verse? Thought it would be fun to combine English poetry with Greek aesthetics and a Japanese form. Whether it's any good is a different matter...
Admittedly the first stanza already existed in my mind and a samsung notes document somewhere, but this thread is what sparked me to finally expand on it.
I've never posted in these threads before desu; I guess I'll read the other two entries and then go to bed.
Goodnight, anonymous.

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>ineptia didn't review my /wibac/ submission

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>>25515443
>>ineptia didn't review my /wibac/ submission
Which one? (I wish I could have done them all.)

>>25514886
>Is your use of an AI image a tacit admission of the state of these threads?
NTA, but that’s a crop of Ferris Olston from episode 9 of “Tomo-chan is a Girl!”

>>25515095
>Do you accept submissions written in verse?
Of course! And what a cool technique!
Do you find it easier to write within such strict parameters? As, like, a way to keep your thoughts more focused / locked in place?
To me, verse is almost like solving a crossword puzzle—once I’ve got something that fits, I feel allowed to simply move on, not having to go back and pump/deflate/re-pump ideas.

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>>25514886
>Is your use of an AI image a tacit admission of the state of these threads?
Whoops, ignore >>25515902. Thought you we addressing someone else.
Here, a public-domain photo taken 4 years ago:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harbor_20s_at_the_starting_line_by_Don_Ramey_Logan.jpg

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>>25515912
>a public-domain photo
*a some-rights-reserved photo

>>25515912
Even if you are not a sailor and know nothing about sailing, all those boats having no crew should be a fairly big give away. There are at least a dozen major issues with that photo, it is AI.

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>>25517025
>Even if you are not a sailor and know nothing about sailing, all those boats having no crew should be a fairly big give away. There are at least a dozen major issues with that photo, it is AI.
And there are at least a dozen more efficient ways to prove you wrong (outside of just ignoring the bait), but I’ve always wanted to say this: ENHANCE!

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>>25515902
>Do you find it easier to write within such strict parameters? As, like, a way to keep your thoughts more focused / locked in place?
Yes, but also no, but also yes. I tend to oscillate between prose and verse for similar reasons to what you've stated. Keeps me from mistreating either form, except when I do.
I also like verse because it permits me to write like a fuckwit.
...more of one.

I feel like this could use some more editing but it's making me too sad lol
https://rentry.co/rmew6ktr

>>25515912
Public domain is just AI generated but the AI is humanity.

>>25510633
Hey ineptia, I wanted to answer your critique for last month but the thread got archived before I could. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I appreciate your time for always writing thoughtful things to say. And that the Pulp Fiction reference was intentional. Oh well. I thought it would be kinda funny to have some metafiction.
>>25517368
This is crazy but the story I'm thinking about writing is surprisingly similar to this. But I genuinely thought about it as an idea before I read this.

>>25518237
>This is crazy but the story I'm thinking about writing is surprisingly similar to this. But I genuinely thought about it as an idea before I read this.
Hah, neat! Could be interesting to see different takes on the same concept if you still wanna go ahead with it

>>25518901
I'll write what I had in mind without altering anything in light of your story. They'll still end up different no doubt but if anyone were to read it without seeing these comments before they could end up thinking I took inspiration from you for sure.

83 hours left.

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>story I have going is 20 pages long
God damn I hate being a speedwriter, I forget to check the length.
Back to square one. Had a dope reference to the Flannan Isle poem/mystery too, what a shame.

bump

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>>25518237
>Hey ineptia, I wanted to answer your critique for last month but the thread got archived before I could. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I appreciate your time for always writing thoughtful things to say.
You’re as kind as you are talented. I just wish it was on an “always” basis.
>And [that] reference was intentional. Oh well. I thought it would be kinda funny to have some metafiction.
Oh it was funny. But it kinda took me out, muddling a period piece with a modern-day quote.
In a past submission I actually had a character say the Xi meme, ‘Do nothing; win,’ but I felt justified because the settting was today, and, hey, maybe he’s privy to this reference (I’ll let the reader decide for themself).
But there’s no way a soldier in WWII could know that movie quote; and if it is just coincidental word choice, what it accomplishes comedy-wise doesn’t make up for how much it busts in regard to illusion & tone, especially after a conversation containing
>To be killed here is our fate and when we are killed our aim and destiny will be accomplished.
In “Moana” when Maui says “it’s called tweeting,” yeah, it’s a jarring, distracts-from-the-setting reference, but seriousness (read: verisimilitude) isn’t what that crowd’s going in for—again, you emulated the EXACT dog-tag layout for when your story takes place.
I’m bloviating past my point here, but bending everything more into place, maybe a reference to a movie one of them (most likely the English-speaker) has seen?

>“But I don’t want to die in Belgium mate”.
>Friedhelm chuckled and stared towards the American lines.
“Too handsome for an unmarked grave?”
“"I always look well when I'm near death"…
>…They must be getting bored now. Come on.”

I’ve never seen “Camille” (1937), but I found the quote on this site:
>https://www.filmsite.org/moments00.html

Doesn’t the exchange come off as more of an actual joke now? A nice palate cleanser between gallows-y courses, and not some halfway-salient pop-culture quip?
And putting the quote INSIDE its own quotes not only makes it unambiguous that it’s a reference and not your own line, but also invites the reader to search it themselves, seeing where it could originate from.
I don’t know what you would call this…past-the-page characterization? How in researching this esoteric line you know what kind of movies this guy likes? And how this moment calls for a reference to it? I think that’s kinda cool, letting the reader uncover such secrets.
The last thing I’ll say is that the way I’ve written it here: It’s a character-driven, intentional reference; not some coincidence or authorial shoe-horn—giving the characters the reference-making agency is so much richer to read.
Shame we won’t read how >>25520887 constructed theirs (but we could!—/lwc/ has no word limit, by the way), but references are such interesting devices that I’m glad I had fun thinking about them here.

bump

>>25523165
I agree with your take overall though for what I did end up doing I almost want to excuse it because my take is that not only is it metafiction in the sense of referencing some movie, but that it works too well imo. These two Germans are literally pretending to be Americans, that's the character they're playing. And with the "they must be getting bored now" line I also was being a bit playful—they are in the middle of a war zone and they're talking about Greek mythology. It's like, get on with the story! So not only are they larping as American soldiers but there's also the metafiction in one of them acknowleding, "hey, let's get into our role as characters in a war story and jump into some action". Though apparently from what I remember in your critique that part was the apex of the story that came too early so maybe the whole thing was too silly considering the narrative's ambience I went with as a whole.

>>25510633
Thoughtless as always, contemptible in many respects, though none of this dissuades from his conversation. The words are wasted on her and yet each syllable is treated as gospel, cling to it and hope for meaning. Apart from the sound of train engines pulsating and volumes of track underneath thumping rhythmically, there is little being received by this girl in ways of noise, only his voice which is doing so well in righting wrongs which seemed unforgivable mere moments ago. It all is so sensible when put like that, of course he must do such and such; what else could he have possibly done?

Suddenly, she regains herself; the urge to resist is back amongst the foremost emotions. Then, just as suddenly, she questions it. It didn’t have time to breathe before the abortion, a breath of defiance quashed by her own loyalty to this sound and unquestioned reason pouring forth from this bastion of logic in a world of hysterical imps. How in seconds those plans to breach the gate and storm the walls flounder into passive docile cowardice.

Cowardice? Surely it is only reason that she would follow his train(!) of thought. Must she view it as defeat, perhaps see it as a joyful conversion to the more benevolent side. Wait a minute. What was that he said? Isn’t there something she’s forgetting, something that he’s done. Something that warrants such a conversation on this 14:10 service to Norwich? She recollects and the thought floods the senses. No words of wisdom shall now drown the perceptible anger spreading in red lines across the twisted skin of her face. Even he realises that he shouldn’t have mentioned that name. After doing so well, poor lad. Ah well, more’s the pity.

5 submissions so far -- 17 hours left

https://rentry.co/vfo4hopo
Went with something quite different from what I usually write, but soon after seeing the themes I got the idea to write this so I just went with it.

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Hey, all

So if you were around for last month’s /wibac/, you’ll know I actually had to postpone making the poll (and therefore extend the deadline) due to events beyond my control.
https://warosu.org/lit/thread/25480729#p25496754

Unfortunately that’s gonna have to be the case again this month for /lwc/, sorry—things should go back to normal in 24 hours, so the new deadline will be then:

>[New countdown to submission deadline]
https://countingdownto.com/?c=7350960

If you were thinking of participating, but thought you’d be short on time, here’s your chance.

bump

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Much appreciation to our six entrants this month.
The poll closes Friday—anyone can vote, but try to write a critique first (especially if you’re an author!)

~Competition~

>kerghan !3YkhrcksDA — The Brass Must
https://rentry.co/qqr6zr3h

>fractool !WFUuJh75cU — Fake Earthling
https://rentry.co/p3mei8y4

>(der dumme Idiot) !GH8ZbCzvNM — Twin Triremes
https://rentry.co/rf9iv4vd

>Bran !SzEUY8OZKQ — Inn for a Penny
https://rentry.co/rmew6ktr

>prima @h7uMG6ts — “Thoughtless as always”
>>25524698

>je ne sais !9TLyaBkQRA —Matthew
https://rentry.co/vfo4hopo

~Voting~

https://strawpoll.com/1MnwkaARxn7

>[countdown to voting deadline]
https://countingdownto.com/?c=7352140

bump

voted.


gonna share my thoughts during the week.

bump

>>25524698
Lemme know if this sounds right: It's man and a woman on a 30-45 minute train ride arguing about some shit and the woman character is about to argue back but the man character is so persuasive she doesn't argue back as much anymore until he says some name and she gets set off again?

The religious metaphor thing you're kinda doing with using the word gospel and conversion is kinda funny. We can't hear the words, just the woman's head, but it imagined they were arguing about some bitch he was talking to and she caught him. It would be funny if she was his sister or something.

Hmmmm now that I think of it, you're kinda doing a train analogy too with the train of thought thing and the train stuff going into the background I guess she's legit an airhead who isn't thinking in that analysis.
Also there's kinda of rythmic thing with the words, it almost feels like the takaka takaka of a train rolling along tracks when you read it out loud, dunno if you meant that intentionally or nah.

Anyway that was cool.

90 hours left to vote

Okay, I’m gonna do my part and contribute some feedback this time, pls4gib if I’m just a dumdum

>>25513741
The description of food was so delicious that it genuinely compelled me to treat myself to a fry-up for breakfast the morning I read it, good lord. The prose and descriptions in general are really strong and evocative.
My only problem (and this could be a skill issue on my part) is that I have basically no idea what’s going on in the story lmao. But I loved reading it.

>>25514877
On the other end of the spectrum (heh) this was an easy to follow story with great humour and character details, while the prose feels a little bland. It fits the matter-of-factness of the protagonist really well, I just feel like it'd hit harder if it were in first person, giving a sense of retroactive intimacy once we understand why she's like this.

>>25515095
I know little about poetry, so take this with a grain of salt:
The last line of the first two stanzas rhyme with each other, but then none of the others do, which upsets the little man in my brain who’s responsible for pattern recognition.
The first stanza also has just beautiful rhythm and alliteration. It’d be too much to expect that to be kept up for the entire poem when it's already conceptually ambitious, but it does stand out in a way that’s a little jarring. Cool concept and narrative though.

>>25524698
I think it’s a neat idea to take a scene that lends itself to a dialogue and counter-intuitively tell it via dense literary prose instead, poeticising the emotional beats with minimal information.
I did find the first two sentences a little disorienting and wonder if they’re really needed (or needed in that spot) when the third sets the scene beautifully and invites us into the train’s hypnotic rhythm. I also wonder if his mistake/her realisation could have been accompanied by a development in the train journey to keep the metaphor more of an active participant in the story (eg interrupting the rhythm by coming to an unexpected stop/delay, or being jarred by the loud interruption of another train passing/sounding its horn etc). But I suppose calling out what train they’re on is also a way of cutting through the poeticism with some matter-of-fact mundanity.

>>25525728
The 'little kid characterisation' details (like him picking up on the term 'license plate' and naming the horse My-Horse) are fucking adorable and on point.
The stream of consciousness also flows well, and is kind of 'frustrating' in an effective way where I’m like "Little man, are you okay? Forget about the tadpoles for a minute and tell me where you are." There's an interesting interplay between his sense of helplessness due to a lack of understanding, and my sense of helplessness due to understanding but being unable to intervene, with the first person narration putting us 'not quite in conversation.'

bump

Voted.

Was going to provide feedback, but I've been under a vile haze or vertigo this whole week (worse than usual) and it's been hard enough reading words, let alone writing them down. I had a diatrite against the Celtic language prepared in my head and everything...
I'll do it when and if I feel better, and if and when I remember, if I don't forget.

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>>25511011
>Character: Uses a mode of transportation.
>Theme: Trust/Mistrust.

Voted

>>25535443
kek

>>25513741
descriptions and similes are schizophrenic to the point that each sentence feels like riding a mechanical rodeo bull. some are good but all are weird. "voices climbed over voices" is a favorite. and so many garden path sentences. paragraph seven and eight (starting with "michael was the first to hurl his question...") seem a bit undercooked; short sentences and vigorous verbs to convey a sense of freneticism, but it doesnt work here in my opinion. style shift too abrupt? not entirely clear why they are so intent of finding rené, especially since arthur doesnt even recognize the name at first.

>>25517025
if you knew a thing about sailing you'd know that the crew usually sits on the windward side, the one obscured by the sails, to counterbalance the heeling

>>25514877
too much fluff, no need to give a comprehensive list of clothing items for example and the conversation with the waitress feels like filler. dialogue is very monotonous, and i know thats part of the premise but the other characters have to pick up the slack to still make the story engaging. it would also differentiate saoirse more from the other characters. characterize the other characters harder, you mention the waitress's ipad twice for example. a lot of redundant narration, e.g. "pulled up to the house and stopped the car". nice premise and strong ending.

>>25517368
very good job keeping the story compelling even though the pov is extremely limited. a bit too much focus on the choking imo, it almost felt like a red herring for some kind of medical issue. love how the ending recontextualizes the whole story, a dog might be the ultimate unreliable narrator.

>>25524698
reminds me a lot of virginia woolf for some reason, even though it isnt exactly her style. some phrases feel a bit halting, specifically "volumes of track" and "she recollects and the thought floods the senses", but its nothing major. very strong focus on sounds and voices, which is cool. the exclamation point in train of thought was a bit unnecessary, though lol. enjoyable read overall.

>>25525728
prose flows well. a bit inconsistent how he casually uses quite advanced phrases sometimes, but i suppose thats how kids are. the "fetching timber" quest feels a bit weird, unless its meant to be an excuse? you probably dont wanna make the horse pull each individual log all the way home, and what can you do with a few freshly cut logs that require you to go "fetch" them? timeline is also a bit muddled because i got the impression that he was already watching the tadpoles, but then ended without a real conclusion, which made it feel a bit pointless.

>>25515095
commendable effort with the verse, the homer reference is a clever conceit. i would tighten it up a bit more by striking a few of the weaker stanzas (5 & 8 imo). punctuation is a bit excessive as well.

>>25513741
pretty good i liked it. dialogue is good and the prose is interesting. a little hard for me to follow sometimes until i stopped speed reading and figured out what the ending was about. So let me get this straight some dude is on a ship and his friend tells him to look for a guy and they can't find him until the end where they realize he wasn't wearing a hat.
Cool reveal at the end. Prose was very interesting.

>>25525728
This was interesting. The kid MC is very cute as are his thoughts but I don't really get the plot. I mean is the kid just abandoned or did something happen to the dad or something? Probably but I didn't notice any clues or maybe im not looking hard enough idk but i liked reading it.

>>25515095
Cool. Very topical might i add but the crown of haikus (i think that's what it's called when you do sonnets in a sequence like this) is audacious. Athens Vs Samos though hmmmmm it's been 6 years since i read the thucitiddies history of the pello war in undergrad so i forgot the context here.

>>25517368
This was cool and sad. Very interesting trying to piece together the human understanding from the dog's understanding like her name is penny but she thinks her name is no which is kind of dark because you kinda get why this dog is just getting abandoned. no clue why it's not being put up for adoption though but it's cool. very unique viewpoint.

>>25513741
Nigga who tf is rene????

>>25538188
I'm sorry for commenting so quickly I should've read "Fake Earthling" first.

>>25514877
Give me a reason to care about the characters you dunce!!! I read your story and there is no substance to wet my tongue and so I scrape it on the hardtack that you packed so scrupulously dense that I develop boils because I am hungry for something, I do assure you. But your story isn't even just devoid of nutrition, it is actually entirely indigestible. I hated the twist and it was "modern" and trite. Please rethink ever writing a sentence of dialogue ever again.

P.S.
Instead of using an Indian gobble-dee-gook name, Sao-ricefield-nigga, give me something I can pronounce instead of twisting my tongue into a gruesome pretzel of muscly slaver.

>>25538243
its an irish name, you subliterate retard

>>25517368
EXCELLENT!
It is obvious that someone should have written a story about a dog when the theme is "trust/mistrust." What better to write about than the creature that trusts us unceasingly given we are home to them? Well written, and I imagine Penny is drowned in the cacophony of yelps, cries, and howls of the other dogs all futilely beseeching their abandoners to return. It would make a good children's story, simple and touching.

>>25538243
i just started writing fiction so im sitll learning but good to know.

next month ill try to limit my character names to a single vowel or less.

i was trying to copy that ernest hemmingway hills look like elephants short story with the dude and the knocked up chick trying to talk around the topic but yeah this was the result.

7 votes so far!
Only 17 hours left until the poll closes.

>>25537458
>a bit too much focus on the choking imo, it almost felt like a red herring for some kind of medical issue.
Good note, yeah, that was probably what I found trickiest to convey from an oblivious dog's perspective while still trying to be clear about what was happening (which is just that she's pulling on her lead/leash, because she's learned to associate pulling harder with getting to something interesting and doesn't know any better). Definitely something I’ll be trying to rework for clarity and maybe trim down if I do another draft.

>love how the ending recontextualizes the whole story, a dog might be the ultimate unreliable narrator.
I wasn't sure how that aspect was going to land, whether it'd feel like dramatic irony throughout or like a twist ending, so good to hear it still kept your attention without knowing where it was going.

>>25537830
>you kinda get why this dog is just getting abandoned. no clue why it's not being put up for adoption though but it's cool. very unique viewpoint.
Hopefully it's not as bad these days with stricter laws and more awareness, but when I was growing up, the 'puppy-mill to pound' pipeline was terrible, which is basically what the story's about. Puppies would be unethically raised en masse for profit (sometimes in cramped cages with wire mesh floors that were bad for their paws, which is what Penny's flashback was about), and then they'd be sold to oblivious families with no guidance or temperament matching, often bought on a whim. Within a year, their cute, sleepy puppy grows into a bigger, crazier young dog and they're completely unprepared. So pounds and shelters would end up full of these untrained young dogs whose owners treated it like an issue of buyer's remorse rather than a responsibility to a dependant animal. Then the dogs are stuck in an environment that only makes them crazier due to the constant stressful noise and lack of exercise/interaction. And no one wants to adopt a yappy nutcase, so they end up euthanised to make room for the next batch of goners.
Like, Penny's a handful, but she's not actually stupid or even disobedient. She's always observing, doing what seems to make sense, and wanting to do the right thing, even if she mostly gets it wrong. She was quite trainable, but she had to figure out a lot for herself because her family didn't understand how to teach her, unknowingly letting bad habits form and making things worse until they just gave up, with her ending up back in a similar place to where she started with little hope of a decent life. Sad. Many such cases. That was the intent, at least.
tl;dr irresponsible pet ownership.
(Sorry for the wall of text, I love dogs lol)

>>25538301
>It would make a good children's story
Haha, it did cross my mind to possibly flesh it out as some middle-grade fiction, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I was too sad to keep working on it before the deadline, I hesitate to subject children to it lol. We’ll see.

>>25513741
I read this three times since at first I think I had the same feeling of cluelessness as >>25533339 but that could simply be on me. Anyway, I mostly like how you wrote this though some phrases just ended up too strange imo, or some similes don't work too well. The first paragraph reads rather weirdly to me. Why would he be tempted to scream? Of joy? This sentence
>the tears breaking loose from his narrow eyes might have worn a stranger color; so far had they drifted from the grief that usually sends them down a face.
also reads strangely to me.
Here also
>coats piled high as churches, shirts the color of yolk or ember, boots climbing to riding heights, trousers pinched close where ankle meets shadow, and faces: some bearded whole to the chest, some baring only lip-hair drawn thin to a point.
I'm not sure the similes and metaphors hit very well here. Though this is mostly personal taste to be honest. I will say though the description of food was very well done.
I'm not sure how well the themes wRere developed here as well. So "René" at the end is actually not him and an impostor?
>>>25514877
This story imo is kind of the opposite of the first. The writing style is not bad, but to me it seems blander than the first. The theme is more well defined though in a pretty straightforward way that doesn't leave much up to interpretation, which is fine if that was intentional. To me though it doesn't create a more powerful story or more interesting characters. Maybe what could've helped more was further developing the dynamism between Saoirse's and Jackie's relationship.
>>>25515095
I read almost no poetry but I really enjoyed this. I should correct that but idk, I feel like I can't get that much into it. So for that reason I also can't really say much else about this. But I like the ending, very sweet.
>>25517368
I enjoyed this one, as much as you can enjoy a story like this. Best theme development imo. To use the voice of a dog to showcase trust and mistrust worked quite powerfully. With beings like dogs who most seem to trust blindly any person, it ends up being the more heartbreaking when that trust is broken with its owners. I think you also did a very well job with showing and not telling about the troubled dynamic in the relationship of Penny and the family, especially the whole "Pennyc'mere" vs the dog thinking its name is "No". She hears that so often she thinks it's her name, brutal. I think I failed a bit with that in my story, though to be honest I don't think what else I could've done to have the kid show more about his troubled family situation rather than just saying it.

>>25524698
I think I also got a bit filtered by this one, I think I'll go with what >>25531872 said. But I will say that there is something rather hypnotic about how it's written so good job on that. The most thoughtful thing I have to say is that when you mention the abortion it made think almost immediately of this as a type of sequel to Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" but they're in the UK, not Spain. Maybe it's spiritually its sequel.

>>25537830
I might've underwritten which could cause that confusion but basically it's a story about a mentally deficient kid being abandoned by his parents. The biggest inspiration was Juan Rulfo's short story "Macario". I didn't want to make his speech too explicitly belonging to a person with a disability but I think with how I wrote him it just sounds like a normal little kid so maybe I failed there. But if you read Rulfo's story he didn't write him so explicitly disabled either so that's what I was going for.
Here's the story if you're interested
https://www.thecommononline.org/macario/
By the way, this is a translation obviously but the whole thing lacking any paragraphs is accurate to the original. I almost thought about doing the same but I decided people would hate it so I chose to structure it normally.

Voted.

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~/lwc/ Sept 2026 Top 3~
>1st, Bran !SzEUY8OZKQ — Inn for a Penny
>2nd, prima @h7uMG6ts — “Thoughtless as always”
>3rd, kerghan !3YkhrcksDA — The Brass Must

~Shy of the Podium~
>Tied for 4th, fractool !WFUuJh75cU — Fake Earthling
>Tied for 4th, (der dumme Idiot) !GH8ZbCzvNM — Twin Triremes
>Tied for 4th, je ne sais !9TLyaBkQRA — Matthew

To see who voted what, go here and scroll down:
https://strawpoll.com/1MnwkaARxn7/results

Freak’n sweet stories, everyone; and the critiques so far have been overwhelmingly thoughtful.
Thanks for making this event something really special. Can’t wait for the next one.
I’ll write some critiques this weekend.

>[countdown to /lwc/ Oct 2026]
https://countingdownto.com/w4/display/event-name-iu8y

>/wibac/ Sept 2026
>>25538506

>>25539607
>I don't think what else I could've done to have the kid show more about his troubled family situation rather than just saying it.
Yeah, it'd be a lot tougher with a human protagonist. You can play around a lot more with a dog's misconceptions because there's such a huge gap in communication and concepts.

>>25539676
I definitely missed the fact that he was disabled, I just figured it was a case of a family having an extra mouth to feed that they couldn't afford, and presumed his sister must be old enough to at least be of help while he's still very dependant.
Something that could have been a subtle tip off might have been to have him refer to his sister as his "little sister" in contrast to noticeably more advanced behaviour, maybe bemoaning that he can't be as helpful as she is.
You could even bring the broader family situation into it. Maybe have him talk about how his little sister has started school or is helping with some more advanced task, with him asking his parents when he gets to do the same, only to get a strange/emotional response, where Matthew doesn't understand it but the reader can intuit that the parents are coming to grips with the reality of caring for him for the rest of his life, as exposition on his disability and set up for the decision to abandon him. Just a thought.
It's definitely a challenging scenario to write, with there being few other characters to contrast him against and him also still being a kid, making it extra hard to signal whether his behaviour is age-appropriate or delayed.

>>25540664
Those are some good suggestions, it never would've ocurred to me to include things like that. I think that could least nudged the reader towards that conclusion without being so explicit.

bump

>>25517368
This was heartbreaking to read. I will disagree and think the choking is a good idea for the mode of transport being her leash. It's always interesting how you can learn of a family dynamic, and their problem with being incapable of raising a dog like her, through an unusual perspective and the blind trust of No is apparent, making the scene with the car ride all the more sad once you realize where they end up. Congratulations on the win.

If this thread gets pruned, I’ll post my thoughts on all the stories in next month’s.

>>25534663
>I've been under a vile haze or vertigo this whole week (worse than usual)
Hope you’re doing well.

whatever happened to yodo

>>25545306
No idea. I just remember they chose ineptia to carry the fire.

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>>25513741
>against a cheek already curved with smiling,
Use “by smiling”—“with smiling” is ablative of means, but “by smiling” is ablative of agent.
You already seperated a piece of Arthur’s anatomy, “a cheek” (and later on “a face”), so keep it up and give his act of “smiling” itself agency, being the thing that PERFORMS the curving; not just the thing THROUGH WHICH the curving happens.
And another word on “face”: You used it 5 times; 4 in the first two paragraphs.
>the whole of him drifting somewhere between the glass and the sky it opened onto.
“onto which it opened”—I’m not a fan of the whole “Don’t end a sentence on a preposition”-rule, but the prose and the era of your piece are so sophisticated that not writing it this way makes it seem like you skipped a shirt button.
>sleep in there was a thin membrane, and those kept within it would have broken through it at the smallest sound.
So they’re on a ship and Arthur’s beholding the sky through an open window…
Aren’t there always sounds going on in ships like these? Especially through an open window above the sea?
I’m just saying I don’t buy how Arthur’s stifled yawping could actually wake folks subject to all these creaks and leaks.
>Arthur watched still the rest awake in the vessel,
I love the donning-their-clothes descriptions that come after this line; I just wish you spared a word for the lighting?
Since the people below are sleeping, we think it’s night, but Arthur reveals later that it’s noon, and we have to infer that these sleeping folks are the night crew?
If you just said upfront that he’s looking at the “the [night or day] sky,” it would make everything a lot clearer.
>They sat, and the table opened like a mouth that has waited all season.
To me, the food ekphrasis that follows is an echo of the donning-their-clothes description—flavors of experience and humanity.
>the flight was already tearing the sky…dumped at their destination
Oh! So they’re on an airship? Like a blimp?! Forget everything I said before about the sea, but I hope you realize the true nature of this craft is not very clearly communicated.
>Michel spat out a frantic yes!
It’s almost a symptom of cabin fever, this “Searching for Godot.”
Stuck in the doldrums (subject to the others’ “talk”) so long that to find René is to uncover buried treasure.
>Michel spat…Arthur spat
You get one.
>CLANG! broke over them: from above, unmistakably, since nothing below could have birthed it. It reached the dining hall too, and the ones outside, all at once, a hundred faces tilting skyward, some sharp with suspicion; some slack with fear.
Now I’m sure it’s a blimp!

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>>25513741
>>25546188
>Michel had barely tasted the relief of finding this stranger who became his friend before some idle part of him turned to the question of the vanished hat.
So Renè is a blimp saboteur? He’s the one causing the CLANGs?
Hilarious how Michel’s fixation is so severe that he doesn’t even register this.
Through an Apollonian-vs.-Dionysian lens, the “wine-drinkers” represent the latter; Arthur & Michel the former.
The duo are concerned about finding one particular person with one specific wardrobe-color combo and name, so much so that Michel scrutinizes the abscence of the top hat, René not being exactly how he envisioned him; everyone else on the blimp is content is their crowded flood of colors and talk, apathetic to names and faces—only when they sense collective danger do they stir, and as a crowd!
Arthur was even scolded at the beginning for introspecting, for islanding himself away from everyone else, being awake while the rest slept.
He didn’t know Michel’s name at first, but learned it eventually!

It took many reads, but I was able to appreciate your piece.
Very dream-like.
In my mind, the blimp explodes when the story ends—gaseous discussions disappear completely after a single match has been struck.
Apollonian 1; Dionysian 0.
I just think there are things you could have done better to make that experience easier to achieve for other readers, if the other reviews you’ve gotten are a good gauge.

M(ichele) A(rthur) R(ené) = MAR
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mar#Verb
All good food must go bad, right? Et in Arcadia ego, and all that.

>The Brass Must
Don’t get the title.
I plugged it into an anagram generator though (pic related)—surely I’m on the right track?
https://wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=the+brass+must&t=500&a=n
Joking aside, perhaps your speaking to the inexorability of it all, how the “headmasters” (the brass?) MUST defend the dazy haze of unknowning, or something.
Again, very dream-like piece.

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>>25514877
>bathing half of the booth in blinding sunlight. On the darker half of the table sat Saoirse,
Dang, it’s all right there at the beginning, isn’t it? Being on the spectrum, and on the bleaker half of it.
>a cream colored sweater
“cream-colored”
>medium-short haired woman
“medium short-haired”

This is your description of Saoirse:
>Sitting in the shadow made her wavy red hair look darker than it was. She wore a cream colored sweater that went down to her thighs and a pair of blue jeans that flared out around her lower calves, obscuring the upper part of her black combat boots.
And here’s Jackie:
>Jackie wore an oversized black hoodie with some metal band’s garish logo on it. Her black work skirt went down to her knees, and the white collar of her button-up shirt peeked from her hoodie’s neckline. Her calves were bare down to her shins, where she wore a simple pair of white athletic socks and running shoes.
Love the intentional paralells/contrasts, right down to the “calves” (though I would have found a different word the second time).
Saoirse wearing white and sitting in the dark; Jackie wearing black and sitting in the light—it’s a great visual, a solid scene.

>“I referred to his mum as the dead lady at her funeral,” Saoirse said.
“…as ‘the dead lady’ at her funeral”
Place the single quotes around the actual words she’s saying she said.
More than taking us back to that moment, it makes the designation that more visually prickly.
>“This thing’s starting to become an old piece of shit,” Jackie complained, “Had to replace the fucking break pads a bit ago. Can’t tell you how fun that was.”
Getting chewed out at work, her boyfriend crowding her car with junk, and all this complaining—normally hanging out with someone with so many probs would be a hassle, but when you’re going through deep, existential issues like Saoirse, hearing crap like this can actually feel pretty great.
In an “everyone’s got problems” sort of way? Or how it’s nice just to hear someone worked up over something trivial you’re not stressing about.
On the surface it’s a simple dynamic, but you only get there through a bunch of internalized complexity.

>>25514877
>>25546351
>“I dunno, a psychopath or a sociopath or something?” Jackie asked, “Sorry dude.”
You’re successfully radicalizing me against society. Innocent faux pas like those shouldn’t trigger labels like these.
Meursault’s case in “The Stranger” was the epitome of this—not the shooting on the shore, but the not-crying at his own mother’s funeral.
He wasn’t harming anyone, emotionally or physically, by being his authentic self in that moment; he was merely offending society as a whole.
In Saoirse’s case, she definitely hurt her boyfriend with the words she chose, but she was trying to do a good thing:
>“He told me earlier he loved edgy jokes.”
The conflict is communication breakdown—if the boyfriend knew her intentions (and her blindspots), everything would be okay.
Unfortunately, she can’t find a good answer to
>How to tell a partner you have ASD?
and the phone getting tossed in the closet is where she might as well be herself.
In my mind, the answer to that question is stories like this one—“representation” has its merits, but having X in Y story isn’t enough: The characters have to ask the right questions, and only solve them just enough for the reader to pick it up from where they left off.

I halfway agree with >>25533339 on
>I just feel like it'd hit harder if it were in first person
Because I think what you’ve written so far is good, but we never really get to fully peek inside the MC’s mind.
It’s all dialogue and action; no thoughts, and that can be okay, but doing that throughout in a piece like this is gliding when you could be flying.
So—and I’m borrowing from one of my own stories here—maybe have her fall asleep after she throws the phone and have a dream? Which you can continue narrating objectively?
A nightmare solidifying her worst fears? Maybe seeing everyone talking and getting along, and then she says something ungraceful and they all turn on her?
Perhaps you could make good on your title, and have the MC become an alien!
Eh, might as well share it because the parallels between your story and mine feel so strong:
https://warosu.org/lit/thread/24986102#p24996609

Hunting down that image from “Tomo-chan is a Girl,” which I’ve never seen, I gathered enough about it that parts seem pretty pertinent to your story?

Lastly, you supremely underutilized the waitress!
If you’re prose is all objective, then slide away from the MC for a sec and focus on the waitress, giving a line about how she’s squinting funny at the MC from across the resturant, “double-checking” her, or something.
This would tell us that the MC really does give this vibe that offputs people—as it’s written, the waitress & the MC interact like well-oiled gears (there’s no friction!).

Lot of heart in this one, but I felt you could have taken bigger swings—I’m never going to meet these characters again, after all, so I want more of an impact, more to think and re-think about.

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>>25515095
>She’s full this one too—
Insulate “this one” with commas.
>Both sides…fight…this eve…After all: why not? It’s not like either side’s got a knowable future.
I’d dispute this—while every other detail you included transported me back to antiquity, like that food critic in “Ratatouille,” reading about the abscence of a “knowable future” is the hair in the meal.
You got the Gods & forces of nature covered, but you blindspotted oracles: One of the Ancient Greek’s cultural cornerstones.
It would be more appropriate to say:

“After all: why not?
Each side’s oracles have got
/Knowable/ futures”

(Nixing the “A” in the third line to appease the haiku; up to you if the italics of “Knowable” stay)

>Wading water like it’s wine
>On a dizzy sea.
And I thought “The Brass Must” was Apollonian-vs.-Dionysian?
Your poem is downright didactic in that respect.
You keep telling us how the Sea (and Heaven & the Air) don’t “care” about the different factions’ names or plights.
How, by the end, the erstwhile beligerents just want to party and revel together, surrendering themselves, in a way, to the Dionysian wine one which they tread twine.
The sun (Apollo) was present for “the morning’s attacks,” but now is his counterpart’s time—“to fight in his name this eve”(maybe “fight” should be in italics?).
And the dialogue at the end—you don’t say who’s Athens and who’s Samos, because it doesn’t matter; they might as well as be “twins.”
This melting away of identities, getting tossed by natural forces and going with the flow (“Leave thy fates to Zephyrus?”) is what wine-drinking and Dionysus is all about, and you not only nailed the subject matter, did achieved it through a literary/poetic effect.
The AAB/CCB and AAB/CCD rhyme schemes give such a woozy effect tipping of those haiku lines.
So much so that I barely noticed the deviations >>25533339 pointed out.

>We’ll pick them back up
>Anon. Until then,
You’re a master enjamber, yo—injecting these ectopic beats into the rhythm and somehow making me more calm as they’re experienced.

>‘Euhoi!’
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euoi#Interjection
Wow, you really did your homework.

The ONLY quibble I can cast is that it might be too short?
That to really max-out the “melting” effect, you needed to start (or allude) to more Apollonian scenes earlier on.
Mayble like individual soldiers bandaging their wounds, or counting casualties—moments where sharp ideas and individuality reign supreme.
And you can include all this with your established format: Just take it easy on the enjambments and use longer, whole-line-covering words that seem more serious (“coagulation” & “hemiplegia” for 5-syllables; “unassailability” & “memorialization” for 7-).
Or, write a little prologue in prose setting the scene, naming individuals who took part in the battle.
Give the exact time and place, so we can forget it!