Reviews Schmeviews

[Balmafula]

Istvan x Vanessa OTP FOREV

[foxpen]

I know, right?! I have no idea who I'm going to vote for! I was hoping to get my audio readings up before the final vote was cast for week one but that didn't happen and I suck...

I don't even think I -can- vote, it's so close! Nobody really stands out as needing the boot. : /

[TNT]

bow chicka bow wow

Brown chicken brown cow! :P

[Poko]

Not As Safe:
Istvan
Noonahootin
Nyika
Poko
Zevka

Istvan, Noony, Ika and Zev...we have a new theme song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK0P1Bk8Cx4

[TNT]

And now this is begging to be watched. :D

[Noonahootin]

I will be singing that song for the next four hours, non-stop.

[Goragula]

Up Jumped the Devil - Goragula

Dear Goragula,

You are evil. I love you. Keep doing exactly what you're doing.

All the feels,
Tara

No, you're wrong. I'M JUST MISUNDERSTOOD. :goragula:

[TNT]

Wrexsoul!! That's what Wrexholm reminds me of. That was bugging me. Sorry, random. XD

Just keep telling yourself that, Toadfather. **pats** :)

[Nyika]

Tara! I know you've been working on other things but have you gotten a chance to read our posts? We'd love to hear your thoughts!

[TNT]

Yep, I'm all caught up. I just wanted to make sure I finished my more pressing writing for this before I went back to reviews. Don't worry, they're coming soon. :)

[TNT]

Frozen Flame - Nyika

I couldn't put my finger on it before, but there was something about Nyika that rubbed me the wrong way a bit. With this post, I've figured it out. She always seems to be the one who gets into a dangerous position and has to be saved by someone else. Mind you, I know people in real life who are this helpless, but she reads more like a 12-year-old lately. And I don't know how I feel about it always being Nyika needing saving, either. Seems a bit...needy for attention on the author's part. I don't know! Maybe that's just always how the plotting ends up.

Also...I found her sudden moment of all-knowingness at the end to be a bit twinkish. The "she was just sneaking around" bit in Goragula's post, while it was nice of him to try and cover that, didn't really make sense to me. It felt a lot like an afterthought, even if it wasn't meant to be. These creatures are all traveling together, clearly suspicious of each other...I just don't see them blurting out these huuuuuuge secrets that their lives are kind of dependent upon.

"Your mother was a dirty, filthy whore," Nyika said.

"Be quiet," growled Cookie.

Poko's face twisted as she rose to her feet, her body rigid and fangs bared. "You take that back."

Nyika turned to the ferret, lolling her head to hang at its side. "Oh, you don't believe me? Let me consult my crystal ball." Scooping a pawful of snow from the ground Nyika held it out before her, peering with intensity at the misshapen mass.

"Nyika," Zevka hissed. "Don't you dare."

Ignoring the pine marten's warning, Nyika pressed on. "I see ... I see a ferretmaid, a dancer in her prime. But what's this? Her mate has turned away from her. A new ferretmaid has caught his eye, younger and prettier, and he'd much rather play and tussle with her than spend time in the sheets with his aging mate."

Wouldn't that make her father the dirty, filthy whore? :P

Anyway, I'm sorry, but this post just wasn't really my cup of tea. Nyika seems to be stagnating. Her key role in this story so far seems to be getting hurt, being saved by the others, and having seer abilities when it's convenient. If she makes it to week three, I really want to see her branch out and maybe do the saving next time, rather than having to be saved.

Sorry, so much negative! I do really like your descriptions sometimes, and I thought it was funny when Risk flicked her nose. Like some people do with their pets. XP


The Righteous and the Wicked - Goragula

She?d know he would tear out her tongue with his own claws if he had to.

Err...claws? I'm fine with referring to his front legs as paws or hands, doesn't matter to me, but...toads def cannot haz clawz. ;)

Fiiiinally, someone who reacts to Istvan in a way other than, "LOL what a silly religious kook." I like the factions that are already starting to form. It's adding a lot of good tension to the story. Depending on voting, things could get very...awkward. At some point.

Anyway, I already touched on the random "btw there was someone eavesdropping" bit in Nyika's review, so...Otherwise, another solid post from Mr. Toad....Can you please name one of your posts "Mr. Toad's Wild Post"? I'll love you FOREVER. :P


In My Time of Dying, In the Evening, In the Light - Risk

Well, color me flummoxed. I really wasn't expecting you this week. Either the "action movie hero" stereotype was too much for people, or it's the curse of the funny character going first, or people were voting strategically and wanted to see the strongest character (physically) taken out first to make the story more interesting, or just...maybe the vote was too hard that everyone chose at random and enough people just happened to choose you. I really don't know! And you still won Best Overall Post in the secondary awards, which makes this outcome even more confusing! Huh. Your humor will be sorely missed.

"Hey, hey, hey, rainy face! Hey, proud warrior. Let the sun come out, you big bad hordebeast. You know, kitten, we all have permission to make mistakes. It's called learnin'."

I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW TO FEEL ABOUT THE HOT SHOTS!: PART DEUX REFERENCE THOUGH. TBH. :P

This post was fairly long, but it didn't really feel like it. It was good read. You did a great job of wrapping up Risk's character, and I felt like it built up a lot of tension and sadness all throughout, even with all the humor mixed in. It was a fitting end, a fighter going down fighting. I guess that's all I really have to say! Great job.


Interlude: Hope Still Flies - Tara

Worst. Post. Ever.

I'm totally voting for--oh.

[Balmafula]

Awww, poor Nyika ... It's not good when she's in a position of danger and weakness all the time, but then when she shows her inner power and strength, now she's a twink? Twink is a pretty harsh accusation for something that's not that bad - the knowledge of two fairly renown figures. I've been thinking about this lately.

Nyika could have made educated guesses based on prior knowledge and observation, and they reacted to them all the same. She's been shown as being clever, good at observing and reading others. Another theory is that she can see and hear the ghosts that surround Goragula and Risk. But does that make her twinkish? No, I don't think so. She knows, but she can't do anything about it, not even come outright and accuse Goragula to the others. Even if her power of foresight is real, the only ones close to believing her are Istvan, Zevka, and possibly Noonahootin. She could have also just potentially put herself in a lot of danger.  Nyika walks a thin tightrope between power and helplessnes.

And she blurted it out because she was angry and lashed out and wasn't thinking.

It was too late now; the wildcat's temper had run away from her, taking control of her tongue and leaving her mind to watch in horrified awe at the destructive wake that followed.

At any rate, I'm sure it will be explained. The way I saw it, the addition in Goragula's post was not a last minute thing or a coverup, but further proof that this was meant to happen and we'll be hearing more on it later.

Sorry, that was kind of a rant there, but it's just because I love Nyika! And I loved her post. It showed that she's NOT the pushover kitten that everybody was treating her as.

[TNT]

That's not what I meant. It all just seemed so...convenient. For her to know their identities. If they had all been talking about someone snooping around, why is this only surfacing now? Unless I've just missed it, until now there hasn't been any mention of someone eavesdropping on everyone. Even Goragula, in his post, was wondering the same thing. I guess it was meant to make Risk's departure easier? But I dunno. I just think there could have been far more...organic ways for his name to come out.

I don't think she's a PUSHOVER, per se, but she just seems to constantly be a Damsel in Distress. I LIKE the moments when she's a mopey teenager feeling sorry for herself, because that's what a lot of teenagers do. I think she can still do that without purposely putting her into situations that require the others to react with chivalry or pity. Teenagers can overreact a lot. You can still have plenty of theatrics without making the other characters fuss and fawn over her (to be fair, though, there wasn't much fawning going on when she was in "Seer" Mode, but then, she wasn't being saved at the time). Nyika is cute, and (correct me if I'm wrong) I think the author knows that and is making that one of their main selling points of the character. Cute is nice. I like cute. I have no problems with cute. You have adequately established the cute, Nyika! Cute alone probably won't win you a contest, though. 'S all I'm saying. :)

[Goragula]

Frozen Flame - Nyika
Also...I found her sudden moment of all-knowingness at the end to be a bit twinkish. The "she was just sneaking around" bit in Goragula's post, while it was nice of him to try and cover that, didn't really make sense to me. It felt a lot like an afterthought, even if it wasn't meant to be. These creatures are all traveling together, clearly suspicious of each other...I just don't see them blurting out these huuuuuuge secrets that their lives are kind of dependent upon.

I know Risk and Balmafula have already responded to this, but I just thought I'd add my two cents here. I just want to defend Nyika!

I didn't put in the thing about Nyika sneaking around as an afterthought - it was something we discussed beforehand, and she asked me to cover it in my post as that it would make the most sense in the story for it to come there. If it came across as last minute and sort of rushed, that that's probably the fault of my writing. I wanted it to be a sort of throwaway comment from Gashrock, because as a character she never seems to get too riled up about anything, but I see in retrospect how it looks like a sort of hasty explanation on my behalf.

Risk already said in 'Hots on For Nowhere' that Gashrock and the rest of the troupe knew who he was, so it's very easy that Nyika could have heard one of them talking about it. As for Goragula, well, obviously he'd never mention who he was to anybody on the trip - but Nyika's a medium. She knows a lot of people who have lost loved ones. And Goragula's responsible for a lot of lost loved ones. The connection is pretty easy to make!

The Righteous and the Wicked - Goragula

"She?d know he would tear out her tongue with his own claws if he had to."
Err...claws? I'm fine with referring to his front legs as paws or hands, doesn't matter to me, but...toads def cannot haz clawz. ;)

I'm going to go ahead and defend myself on this one, because after there'd already been one discussion about the whole paws/hands thing (which I thought was nitpicky already, but whatever) I wanted to make sure the next time I did it, I got it right.

Yes, I am aware that toads don't literally have claws. I meant claws to mean his fingers. I'd already said that I was going to use paws from now on to be more Redwally, so 'fingers' would be incongruous with that. I suppose I could have said 'digits' - but ... "He'd tear out her tongue with his own digits?" It sounds awful! That word is so horribly neutral. Not befitting at all for all the gory goodness of tearing out tongues.

"He'd tear out her tongue with his own paws," is just disgustingly cutesy.

I used claws because of the sound and image of it. Claws imply something savage, ugly, and designed for killing. I wanted to emphasize how brutal the act actually is, and I would have used the exact same wording if I were talking about a human character. I guess I could have found another way to phrase it that didn't mention it at all - but really, do I have to spend the entire competition worrying about the wording of the rather inconsequential details of amphibian anatomy? Seriously, does anybody actually care? It's a story about talking animals. Realism has already taken a rather hefty blow.

Gah ... I'm sorry, that sounded so ranty. I really do appreciate that you're reading and especially that you're reviewing! I just don't want to look like I haven't taken on board what people have already said to me, so I wanted to explain it.

[TNT]

I will just say this: Having run six (and a half, technically) contests, written in seven, judged apps in about ten, read and reviewed a good bunch...Yeah, I would say I know a little bit about collaborative writing. Let's just say that this was not a good thing to wake up to this morning. Threw my whole day off kilter. No, I do not think you are idiots, either.

The fact is that I can't deal with this kind of response to reviews that I feel I have sugar-coated a LOT to spare feelings. If what you want are all positive comments, and no critiques, I can't give you that. It would be irresponsible to me as a writer. So, if anyone would still like reviews, PM me. I apparently can't review without hitting a nerve and giving off the impression that I'm better than everyone else, so I just won't bother. It'll be easier for us all.