thebrinkoftime

I think from the moment the reader's eyes trip over the egging and teepeeing in the last chapter, they know that this is coming and who will be the ones who help Cameron out, but this chapter is still excellent because it's such a vivid reminder of how a story is not simply the bare frame that makes its plot. Cameron's feelings during the chase, arrest, interrogation and night in jail are a joy to read about because we don't get bogged down into a marsh pit of "Woe is me!" overemotional internal dialogue and the leisurely way each event proceeds even though Cameron must be going through a whirlwind internally is another in a set of lovely contrasts this story builds up. It's almost as if the author is saying, "Bad things happen, you can either be swept into their flow and out the drain into the ocean, where you'll be drop of water imperceivable to most, or..." I'm looking forward to the obvious conflict of staying at the strict Christian bogeyman's house in the next chapter.

I really enjoyed the contrasts in this chapter. We get some foreshadowing when Cameron enjoys the sweet smell of the clean air on a moonlit night and this brings to him unbidden thoughts of Cole. Then later on, Cameron notices the rank smell of rotten food over at Matt's house. Cole shows up around the same time Cameron gets pulled into the principal's office, but Cameron feels more chastised by Cole, who doesn't say much. Just like last chapter, the author has a skill for detailed character portrayal without being obvious. Cameron is worried about being late to class, but has been ditching his homework lately. He wants to graduate and get out from his under his dad's lazy eye, but he wouldn't mind being a waiter forever. Compared to other gay-themed stories where the protagonist isn't out yet, it's also refreshing to see the big shift come along to his life so early in the story. It's not that I mind when a writer gives us chapters and chapters of set-up wherein we are immersed into the daily life of the protagonist before it changes, but that seems to be the rule and the exception fits in well here.

This story was a lot more compelling than the blase synopsis led me to believe. Cameron is an intricately constructed character. Somehow despite waking up drunk on a porch and having a quickie in a car behind a restaurant he doesn't come off as a loser, which I believe is entirely due to the writer's skill in portraying characters sensitively and with restraint. Josh and Kyle form out of the ether of Cameron's thoughts, and despite being born from Cameron's ether, seem fully formed. There are also two dead red herrings in this early chapter that add a side of ice cream to Cameron's apple pie, though I'm sure Cameron doesn't think it's very appetizing to sit next to dead fish.

I didn't vote, because I don't think I'll be participating, but I thought I would answer this anyway. Dystopian stories are the opposite of utopian stories, where of course, a utopia is basically paradise. You could say they are the pessimism to utopian optimisim. A dystopian setting envisions that in striving for a utopian society, in the future, people will error in some way and the whole thing will be perverted into a more horrible society than originally envisioned. These days I think a lot of confusion comes about when this word is used because people use it as a synonym for post-apocalyptic or dark future settings. In both settings, the characters live in a world that is far from any kind of ideal, and the outlook may look bleak. A post-apocalyptic setting is primarily imagining what a society looks like after a major catastrophe, so the two can overlap, but one major difference is since dystopias come about as an initiative toward an idealized future, their societies can often be portrayed as outwardly pleasant and inwardly unpleasant. Another major difference is that while settings of both tend to act as warnings to people living in present day, post-apocalyptic stories often concern themselves with characters who must deal with the bad decisions of the past and somehow the society they live in has been dragged somewhat back into the past, whereas dystopian stories often revolve around technology and a society of that story's present that is far different from the present time in which it was written. So the characters in a dystopian setting are usually trapped in the rules of a society that they must submit to now, whereas post-apocalyptic are about characters striving to correct a past mistake and where the anarchy resulting from that is usually a big theme. To give popular examples, the setting in the The Hunger Games might be considered a dystopia, whereas the setting in The Walking Dead might be considered post-apocalyptic (zombie stuff usually is). Lately, I've noticed a lot of people use dystopian to refer to a dark science fiction setting, whether it may be post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk or merely a bleak alien world. It seems it is slowly becoming a more broad term for a dim view of the future, as opposed to straight sci-fi, which need not necessarily even be about the future and certainly need not have a dark or critical view of it. I don't know which view of the word the people who voted for it are subscribing to, but I thought I'd throw that out there anyway.

If we're talking about America, I think teachers ought to earn more money and there should be more work put into making it seem like a more respectful position to have. You might think that would encourage laziness and perhaps so, but I think if teachers had the same amount of societal respect that doctors or (sometimes) lawyers garner, you'd see more enthusiasm for the job and a lot more competition to try and become a better teacher. From what I saw when I went there, a lot of teachers fell into teaching positions as a last resort or because they took majors in college where it wasn't feasible to do anything else. That's potentially very toxic -- you have a combination of teachers who don't really want to teach and some students who obviously need to be motivated to learn. Enthusiasm, a zest for the job accounts for a lot. I can't count how many teachers told me outright that they "can't stand" children. That's absurd! The children really can't be blamed too harshly when they have to deal with people like that. People say the teachers shouldn't have to do the parent's job of raising a child, and while I can respect that may be how Americans think even though I don't agree with it, the reality is that a major bulk of the day in the life of a child until they are an adult is spent in the company of teachers. Denying that they have an effect on how the child turns out seems stupid to me. On the other hand, monster parents who think their children can do no wrong and won't listen to a teacher who probably had a good idea in disciplining them aren't helping either. Bottom line: if you care about something or someone, it's a good chance you'll be able to relate to them or it. I couldn't stand when a teacher wouldn't treat me like a valid human being just because I was a child and no should have to. A teacher who can relate to what kids are thinking and approach them on a level they feel comfortable with, while still retaining their authority, is a professional who is worth their weight in gold.

Interesting, is your story going to be a one shot story or novella? Or will you be continuing into multiple chapters more like a novel? I think, for such an interesting idea, it would be a shame if it didn't get fully developed. Also, not just Death Note, but the equilibrium idea reminds me of Full Metal Alchemist.

I have a pretty funny story about this. I don't remember exactly when it was, so let's just say it was around the time when I was still trying to figure out what happens to the poor people trapped inside the TV when you turn it off. One day in a morals and values class at school, the teacher was going over what you should say to grown-ups who are doing things you don't like and somebody brought up smoking. We'd all seen the demonstration of the robot smoking five cigarettes. The teacher asked what you should say if somebody starts smoking around you. So I raised my hand and when the teacher called on me, I answered, "You should shoot them." Later that day, when my dad came to pick me up, my teacher talked to him about what I said. I distinctly remember getting a nasty look from him before he turned to the teacher, thanked her and nodded. Before we got home, he took me to a secluded area where nobody was around and took out his gun. He showed it to me and said, "Have you ever touched this or anything like it before?" I shook my head. "Good. Do you want to?" I shook my head. "Good. Are you ever going to touch a lethal weapon like this?" I shook my head. "Good, because if you ever even so much as come to think that touching one of these is cool, do you know what I'm going to do?" I shook my head. He took the gun and aimed it right between my eyes. "Do you know what I'm going to do?" I furiously nodded my head. "Good. That's settled. Now for smoking. Who's allowed to smoke?" "Grown-ups." "That's right. Why don't they smoke around kids?" "Because it's bad for us." "That's right too. Now then, when you overheard me saying I should shoot anyone who smokes around you or the other boys, who was I talking to?" "A grown-up." "Do you think grown-ups are allowed to talk like that?" I nodded. "That's right. Do you think kids are allowed to talk like that?" I shook my head. "When are you allowed to talk like that?" "When I'm a grown-up?" "Yup. Now until then, what do you think I'm going to do if I see you talking like that or smoking?" I was really, profoundly nervous. "S-s-shoot me?" My dad started laughing uncontrollably at the look on my face and stooped down and gave me a big kiss and looked into my eyes and said very slowly, "The reason you think that is because you're not an adult yet." He stood back up again and said to me, "Now you embarassed yourself, me and your family. What do you think I'm going to do about that?" I had no idea. He put the gun in his mouth. I started freaking out. I heard a loud crunching sound and when he took the gun out of his mouth, a good piece of the barrel was missing. I looked at him like he was Superman. "My dad just ate a gun!" I thought. He handed it to me and I looked at him like he had completely lost his mind. Hadn't he just told me I was never to so much as think it was alright to touch a gun? "Not this one, my dear little idiot boy--" my dad's term for us whenever we messed up (if you can read Japanese, 大好きなアホ君), "this one's chocolate. Have a bite."

I imagine the zombie who wrote this using a big toddler's crayon on wrinkled paper and moaning in displeasure at his discrimination before sending it off to the reader editorial department at the local newspaper. While reading, I was reminded of vegans, though I couldn't tell you why. This musing on zombie society is amusing with many smile-inducing ideas, including a great first sentence, but the best part is the great laugh it ends on. I can just imagine the conversation at the zombie dinner table, "Wow, mom, this tastes great! Must've been gay! Can you pass the salt, Uncle Gwooooargh?" Your ideas remind of Warm Bodies, the Nicholas Hoult movie adapted from a novel, wherein a zombie falls in love with a human. In that story, there are two types of zombies, ones who have a vague memory of what it's like to be human and are more moral and try not to be so bad about eating humans, and a second type that has lost all memory of being human and are like feral undead animals. I'm not saying you jigged anything from that one, it's just a recommendation for anyone who wants to see a story with some similarities to the zombie society Kitt thought up.

As always, the pleasure in the details. The protagonist remembers Jason's tentative smile more than any other type of smile, which seems to suggest their relationship always tiptoed on a knife edge or that Jason was always walking between two worlds: his personal beliefs and those he thought the world wanted him to have. That's what the story's title means to me: It's like Jason crossed a certain boundary when he gave up his love for his career, a threshold anyone crosses when they decide that societal harmony comes before personal harmony. Once you cross that threshold, all of the dissonant melodies you left behind can't be re-arranged into a new rhythm, because you've left them behind to find their own new rhythm. Though not necessarily actors or stars, I've met people like this and they always seem to think you will remain stationary and unchanged for them to pick up whenever they please, like an old toy. But like an old toy, you can come back and play with it again perhaps, but the fun won't be the same it was when you were a child. Nevertheless, I don't come away with the impression that the protagonist is bitter or that Jason is so self-absorbed as to be unlikable and there are many other good details to soak up. I enjoyed all the references to Jason's manipulative facial and body gestures and how the protagonist teased Jason in the same way I imagine he had to wait for Jason to stop teasing him and make a decision back when they were together. A little bit of cute revenge! My favorite two details were Jason's crumpled hair underneath the baseball cap in the flashback and the way his eyes moved and took in the bench on the porch. I liked the reference to crumpled baseball hat hair because it reminds me that what we often like best about the people we come to love are their unique little imperfections. As well, it seemed to me that Jason's eyes taking in a bench, which is usually used to sit together with significant others in the same house, was his first clue that the protagonist's life hadn't been as frozen in time as he thought. That, and it's a pleasure to read such specific details that flesh out what makes these characters differ from all the many thousands we've encounted before. Specifically clever was the protagonist mentioning the renewal of his TV show first. After you've read the ending, it comes across as a tiny hint that the protagonist is telling Jason he's going to have to continue in the world he chose when he crossed the threshold. On that note, there were some areas that were a little disappointedly rote for such a short story, though I realize you didn't exactly write this over a space of five years in a peaceful vacation colony. The flashback about their break-up and the accompanying present day dialogue reads like something you'd see on a billion TV soap operas throughout time and space and I kind of wish, if it was necessary to have it be realistic dialogue we've heard a zillion times before, there were more idiosyncratic details to set it apart from the others. That and for a couple of descriptions -- like sinking into the cushions of the couch -- I feel like I've read the exact same words in an infinite number of other stories. These stand out because other descriptions -- particularly, the television turning off and Jason picking at his jeans -- are so vivid. Overall though, this was cleary meant as a straightforward story and it is a snappy, cute little snapshot of what's it is like to be two human men in the 21st century caught up in the horde of millions.

I wasn't born in 1995, but my memory starts around that time. Not being American or a native English speaker, a lot of these don't apply to me, but... Eminem and LL Cool J could show up at parents’ weekend. Why wouldn't they? As you can see in that embarassing country music collaboration earlier this year, LL Cool J is an irrelevant old man and hasn't Eminem always had a daughter? Also, what's parents' weekend? Is it like a senior citizen discount? They are the sharing generation, having shown tendencies to share everything, including possessions, no matter how personal. ??? This puzzles me. Why wouldn't you share something if somebody needs or wants it and you don't? Is this really so different? Do they mean internet sharing? GM means food that is Genetically Modified. This is American English, so...Gay Male, General Mills, Georgia on my Mind? What else would it stand for? As they started to crawl, so did the news across the bottom of the television screen. I'm not sure about before or after I learned to crawl, but I can't remember a time when this wasn't the case. It's not exactly high tech, is it? “Dude” has never had a negative tone. Has it ever had a negative tone? Their TV screens keep getting smaller as their parents’ screens grow ever larger. The first TV I ever owned was on my cell phone in high school, so yeah I guess, but my parents were never really into the "bigger is better" thing. Rites of passage have more to do with having their own cell phone and Skype accounts than with getting a driver’s license and car. I guess so. I got my first cell phone when I was 10 and I still have neither a driver's license, nor a car, nor do I want either. Skype can go suck a dick though. While they’ve grown up with a World Trade Organization, they have never known an Interstate Commerce Commission. Well, I remember thinking when it got hit, "The what?" I had no idea there was any such thing as a World Trade Organization before that infamous day. And yeah, I truly have no idea what the Interstate Commerce Commission was or is, though I'm assuming it was some sort of pre-World Trade Organization? Java has never been just a cup of coffee. I remember thinking, "Oh, so that's why it looks like a cup of coffee!" Olympic fever has always erupted every two years. Well, yeah? I thought the Olympics restarted around the turn of last century and the Winter Olympics alternating with Summer every two years has been a tradition since the Winter Olympics were invented? Their parents have always bemoaned the passing of precocious little Calvin and sarcastic stuffy Hobbes. Now wait a minute! I object! Everybody knows (and better love) Calvin and Hobbes! It has nothing to do with age! No kid should ever do without dinosaurs in F-15s, Spaceman Spiff or contemplative sled rides with Hobbes. Though I will admit, some of the strips I read as a kid made me scratch my head and now as I re-read them, I can understand them better. Smokers in California have always been searching for their special areas, which have been harder to find each year. They have never attended a concert in a smoke-filled arena. Eh? This isn't just in California! I mean, it's just common sense for it to work like this, isn't it? You have to protect people from insensitive jerks who would expose them to second-hand smoke. It isn't like we're in the 1930s and 40s where people weren't aware of just how bad it was for you. They may have been introduced to video games with a new Sony PlayStation left in their cribs by their moms. I'm not sure what the first video game I actually ever played was, but the first one I can remember is Ridge Racer. A Wiki has always been a cooperative web application rather than a shuttle bus in Hawaii. This seems kind of strange. Unless it was the name of some exotic bird, did Wiki ever really mean anything to the greater majority of people before Wikipedia? I can't imagine a Hawaiian shuttle bus was all that well-known. They have always been able to plug into USB ports I've seen older computers before, I've even used older computers before. The only thing I can remember is there was some place with a lot of holes for you to stick the mouse in. And then the really old computers, you couldn't use a mouse and were the keyboards stuck together with the computer...I don't remember. Now I feel weird. I feel certain there must been something out there, but what on earth did they do before USB when they wanted to plug something in? Their parents’ car CD player is soooooo ancient and embarrassing. I've never even heard of this. Though I've seen CD players in electronics stores before, and of course I've put a CD into a computer before, I've never owned one. I always feel like owning a CD player wouldn't be worth the money when you can just put it in the computer and rip MP3s from it. I imagine it's only really useful for DJs or musicians. They have always known that there are “five hundred and twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes in a year.” I cannot stand that song, or the musical it comes from. It makes me want to claw at things.

I'm not sure whether this post is considered too political for the forum, but my intention was simply to give curious people a little of my perspective on a society I know well, not debate politics. In the interest of giving some perspective, I thought I'd elaborate on this one. Outlawing sodomy only lasted for 8 years in Japan. It was instituted in 1872 and repealed later on. It hadn't been prior and wasn't ever reinstitued ever since. A lot of people get this image of Japan in that era as a country that was influenced by Western culture so completely that it modernized so quickly that it took all the bad traits as well, I would argue that really wasn't the case at all. Basically, there was so much infighting over what the future of Japan should entail that there are a lot of interesting things going on with the government that are rather shocking or seem ridiculous or impressive in hindsight. There were areas where the pre-War government was ridiculously progressive, especially in terms of equality and areas where they had some rather bone-headed decisions (one missive that almost got passed was the banning of our writing system and wholesale adoption of the alphabet, dodged a bullet there). So in our view of history, this 8-year-old law was kind of like Prohibition and more an example of, "What the hell were they thinking?" rather than any societal pressure toward gays. Apparently, even the people of that time thought that was ridiculous. As for today, the only real issue that gets in the way of gay marriage is legalizing doesn't hold much of an incentive for any of the many political parties here, despite a majority of them saying they have no issue with it and every single one publically stating that there should be equality in all forms for gays (I should use the term sexual minorities to be more accurate to what we call it over here, but whatever). It might have gotten a push a few years ago when a major shift in the ruling parties occured and politicians would have needed any kind of popularity they could find, but that was entirely swept away by the earthquake two years ago and the accompanying chaos it brought on this country, which hasn't been this politically volatile for around 40 years. If you ask a lot of gays who are well-versed in politics here, they all tend to agree -- and so do I -- that it's likely to get legalized as a part of some non-event update to marriage laws. The issue is almost entirely removed from the bigotry narrative I hear in other countries -- the issue is apathy.

Not to spoil your enthusiasm, hh5, but I think this video will help explain why some people are less enthused about One Direction: http://blip.tv/todds-pop-song-reviews/little-things-by-one-direction-a-pop-song-review-6551534

I've been reading this thread over the past few days, while I'm not sure I want to participate, two things came to mind as suggestions: 1) The talk about skills and points and such would, if I were interested in playing, kind of dampen my enthusiasm for joining. Reason being that there are dozens upon dozens of options, both table top, net-based and digital if I want that and I wouldn't think a forum-based anything here would compete. On the other hand, the obvious advantage of an RPG on a reader/writer's forum is that it can be very flexible in a way that games that use math can't be. So my suggestion would be to ditch the conventional idea of points and growth and try for an adjective based system. So, for example, you give each new player three adjectives to describe their character. They can choose to be an extremely smart and lithe bounty hunter, where extremely, smart and lithe are the three adjectives and they chose to sacrifice one adjective to modify the strength of another. Or a boisterous, hot, lecherous assassin, or an emotionally enlightened and sophisticated dilettante. Somebody in the game, maybe the DMs? PMs? Whatever you call them, maybe them, maybe some other member who shares the responsibility, keeps track of these attributes for each character. Furthermore, somebody can award an extra adjective to a player who has contributed something particularly well-written, creative, cooperative or otherwise provided an excellent addition to the community. This would be presented not based on any reliable metric, but vaguely awarded when applicable to help motivate people to give their best effort for the game. So the boisterous, hot, lecherous assassin can become a boisterous, uberhot, lecherous assassin or a boisterous, hot, lecherous, flexible assassin, or a boisterious, hot, lecherous assassin skilled at knifework. Something like that might easily go well with forum tags or signatures to remind other players really easily about what the other players are like and allow new players to enter and understand what's going on more quickly. Last, there would also be somebody, maybe the same people who manage everything else, maybe not, who can work in the opposite direction. That is, this person can take away an adjective from a character and perhaps does so at regular intervals to keep the narrative spicy. Stolen adjectives can be won back (i.e. the person in charge says, "Sasha Distan - proficiency at wolf transformation taken away by curse from the Wolf Gods," and that proficiency can be won back by Sasha Distan creating a narrative -- that maybe other characters can help should they choose to -- that sees the removal of the curse). Not sure if you would want this to be approved by some official or not. Or maybe stolen adjectives can also be replaced with new ones (maybe the lecherous assassin can become a monogamous assassin), by doing the same type of thing. And perhaps characters who have more adjectives or more extreme adjectives (incredibly > extremely > really > very and so on) get picked for stolen adjectives more often than characters who do not. Anyway, I'm not saying it should work like that, but something a little more easily trackable, fluid and less typically like every other RPG I've heard of, would make me prick up my ears. 2) I think you should either keep very heavy limits or completely ban the idea of using terminology akin to "like _____" where the blank is a copyrighted or otherwise well-known piece of entertainment meant for comparison. Not just in the RPG proper but the discussion of it. I think this only because it seems like a lot of potential players would be put off instantly if they saw discussion revolving "like so-and-so" no matter what the context. Also because if you're arguing about the rules, you ought to be using a level of expression that does not rely on easy comparisons and can forge through the abstract waters without them; I think active thought like this which cannot fall into easy definitions, and benefits the game being discussed.

That's because I didn't want this thread to become a debate. I feel rather strongly about showering before beddy time in the typical Japanese way, you know, shower in a place removed from the bath tub so the tub can remain clean, then soak in a bath or hot spring afterwards. Obviously, just like any courteous person, I clean up more frequently if necessary. Especially in the summer, I especially love those Gatsby face and body wipes that feel deliciously cold. They are a lifesaver at work or school. Also, I make sure not to turn on the air conditioner after a shower because I know it wrecks havoc with your body's internal temperature control and I don't want to sweat profusely at night. That last part is the the debate I got into before I started this thread. I think it's kind of na-na-na-nasty to go sleep dirty so to speak -- to grace the sheets of one's bed with the dirt of the day. But the debatee disagreed; this person argued that it's equally nasty not to clean off the sweat from sleep. I claimed different people sweat different amounts at night and if you're smart about it, it's a negligible amount that's about equal to that your body naturally sweats a bit throughout the day, though it isn't noticeable or bad enough to require immediate action. We went back and forth, and on and on. The argument materialized because I was telling him how I've been reading a lot of English writing lately and how I sometimes feel a little weirded out that the characters go to sleep without showering. I wonder if the opposite is true when people who are used to a morning shower culture (the Irish Springers, you could call them) read Japanese stories where the characters often don't shower when they wake up (the Sekken Densetsu, you might say). I realize of course that in first world countries, it's a moot point. Most people are clean enough where it really doesn't matter that much and it's more of a preference.

I personally like "gwarg" because it's so versatile. It could be an alien or an evil witch dying, somebody doing something completely disgusting or the incomprehensible beeping of a robot menace. Japanese has tons and tons of onomatopeia and it's a lot of fun to include it in writing. For a little breath of fresh air, here's some examples: Teku teku - One of my favorites because it's so specific, it is supposed to represent the likeness of walking, but not just ordinary, walking in contrast to not using a vehicle, in other words it's there to show the fortitude and perservance when you decide to get there by your own two feet. Odo odo - This is an expression for when you can't calm down because you're afraid or anxious about something. Kasa kasa - This is the sound of two dried out things scraping or moving against each others, like dried leaves or a dry hand brushing against denim. Gabatto - The motion of somebody getting up quickly or suddenly diving down and other such similar motions. Shittori - The feel of something soft and velvety, calm and quiet, like deliciously smooth chocolate cake or rich shampoo. Gito gito - The disgusting, sticky, gooey feel of grease and oil.

Ha ha, thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it! Of course you can post a link to the story wherever you like. I'd love to share the laughs to dog lovers! I'm glad you to hear you noticed all the tiny Easter Eggs I hid, because I put a lot of work into them! BTW, I hope you didn't stain anything with your wine!

Another review and thanks to you! I'm glad you enjoyed it! Especially since your excellent prompt was responsible for it! Yeah, I wasn't sure whether to put in what happened to Danny's real parents, because it could be a downer. But in a story that already stretches the limits of believability, I thought it would be a necessary explanation. Though I did think of the possibility that they submitted to this experiment -- then I thought better, because really dying of an OD is the kinder characterization, if you ask me.

It's probably the self-reflection after the reviews that made you improve the way you think about, interact with or criticize people. I know a lot of other people who have had the same experience as you have and the only thing they've taken away from it is how awesome they are and how the rest of the world sucks for not agreeing with them. A lot of people have become worshippers of the almighty opinion and don't realize how fallible or flawed they can sometimes be. For my part, I would encourage you to still communicate your feelings honestly. If something got you so out of sorts to get into that fiasco in the first place, there's probably something valuable you can salvage out of your reaction. I think the trick might be to analyze why you felt that way and communicate that, rather than simply spray emotions like a cat marking their territory. Sometimes, especially for an established writer who has had more than one successful story, a harsh, but reasonable point of view is just the ticket they need to take their writing to the next level. Other times, you may feel like a particular work has a negative or destructive idea contained in the soul of its writing that you need to get off your chest or it will suffocate you. Positivity is important. No doubt that smiles and hugs and acceptance beats frowns and punches and rejection. But just like, in many cases, there would be no story without a problem to solve, reasonable negativity can be just as important. One galvanizing motive for my writing was a reaction to something I found appalling in somebody else's writing (none of it here, thankfully), so if you are planning to put into action your vague ideas for some writing purpose, turning your opinions on the rights and wrongs of storytelling into a story can be a great outlet. Your first post in this thread does show that you have a good set of skills and knowledge about writing to start from.

Friends, city folk, Lego enthusiasts, lend me your sneers! To shower in the morning or the night? That is the question! Whether tis nobler to the nose to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous BO at the breakfast table or when woken in the middle of the night, or take arms against a sea of dirt in the evening, and by opposing end them?

I don't know. I saw this video last week and my reaction was just, "Cute." I mean I don't mind at all, but a whopping 100% of that video doesn't apply to me. I was in the game before I graduated from college. It's not hard to do these days. I both love to eat nasty things while I write and can let the creativity flow without anything. It would have been smarter to point out that people don't realize that even though you may not be using your entire body, writing takes just as much energy as construction work or singing and dancing in a 2-hour concert and thus writers have different ways of dealing with those energy demands. I've used a typewriter before, but in my country the "true writer" writes by pen because penmanship is part of the art, but everyone has to submit to modern practices. *shrugs* It just kind of reminds me that the best comic humor can transcend borders, but a lot of lazy humor tends to come up with the excuse of, "You have to be ______" in order to get it. Speaking of lazy, the working writers thing is the laziest part of the humor -- of course there's a diversity in the way writers look, just like there is for any other job. It doesn't make for a good punch line. Some writers are loners while other prefer to interact with a community? Wow! You don't say? Obvious jokes work better when they're so obvious the way you pretend they're not is the ridiculous part. The first draft getting bank vs. confusing and needs work part is probably the only one that is really on the dot with respect to how crazily a writer can build up their self-confidence into over confidence as they write. The next one is confusing though, what writer cliche are they picking from here? I thought the more common perception was of the pretentious Starbucks poet who wears a beret and types away on his laptop? The idea of the writer's workshop as a stationary place began to die as technology made it easier for writers to work away from home, lamps, paper and flat writing surfaces, and I think even the thickest of the thick know this, so the joke completely falls flat. Now I'm not a fan of self-publishing at all, but that comparison between the writer's quaint bungalow and the poor guy writing in his car kind of misses the point completely. If you surveyed the living conditions of what are considered the greatest writers of all time, you'd get a lot of people writing in absolutely horrible conditions and getting slammed by the peers of their day. So...what is this? For maximum funny one would think you'd work backwards -- writing would allow you to purge your demons, instead your demons come and purge you. The last one isn't particularly offensive, it's just kind of "eh" because for the humor to work it has to invalidate the first part of the comparison and realizing that once you've been successful you have to do it again if you want to eat doesn't invalidate anything. In my experience it tends to give you strength, you think, "I did it once, I can do it again!" But it's all good, because the video ends with a nice and very true message that applies to every writer and one gets the feeling the point is to encourage people who are disillusioned about their career choice. It's kind of like a video about one popular conception of writing vs. another one. The reason they are both popular conceptions is that they both happen with alarming frequency. A lot of authors (good or bad) do have successful careers after they graduate and just as many get stuck in a rut. So on and so forth. The problem with the video's humor is that while I'm sure it's amusing to people who have no idea what writing is like and to the people who can relate, writers have such varied lives it's hard to make a video that would apply as a stereotype, because they've all but disappeared over the last century or so. If they wanted to go for accuracy, they might have had more luck with a video that compared the image of our idealized intellectuals like Hemingway and Woolf, and their actual lives. But it's Buzzfeed. I mean, this isn't the New Yorker or even Cracked. It's drive-in humor -- you get something quick and easy, but the quality of your food and the accuracy of your order is not guaranteed. I will maintain until the day I die that floppy, greasy, salty fries are my idea of gourmet desserts.

That was so very nice of you to look, thank you! Unfortunately, what you found is not a prepaid card, it's pretty much a debit card that you use as a member of Suruga Bank, which I am not. You can get the VISA logo added to your bank card here, but in order to do that you need to have a steady salary job for at least a year and I'm afraid that's a big problem as I don't have that type of job. Thank you so much for trying though! I'll be sure to purchase Premium status if I find a way to do so!

Good short stories are like good songs. They have you repeating the best lines. In a song, you might hum them. But in a short story, you read them, sigh at how good they are, forget them and then find them again. And somewhere along the line they begin to hum in the subconscious recesses of your mind. That's why, after having read this first a couple of days ago, I waited until now to review it. I enjoyed remembering the lines. Specifically, I love this one: "Two deep blue eyes sat behind thick glasses like sapphires set in their sockets, lines creasing at the outer corner of his eyes." Listen up, budding writers! This is a prime example of how using a cliche can help your writing and not all cliches are inherently bad. How many times have we heard blue eyes compared to sapphires and eyes compared to jewels? Too many, I say. But here we have a rare specimen, indeed. This is a sentence that conveys so many things! My interpretation is that the owner of these eyes is a thinker, but he does not often voice his thoughts. He is a rock that does not move very often. This is suggested by repeating the color of his eyes. Normally, sapphire is all you need, but we get deep blue in addition and on top of that these eyes "sat" behind "thick" walls of glass, which are very apt words. The sapphire comparison gives us a hint as to the values of the narrator. He loves his guardians and values his dad's soul like a jewel. The eyes that stared at him in many different ways growing up. The eyes that trapped his gaze. Because we already heard something like this with the mother, we are prepared as readers to be drawn into this appraisal of the narrator's father. So when the later sentence comes that says his father is discerning and could ferret out half-truths, we are just not reading exposition, we are reading an echo of an excellent character portrayal that influences both sides. Finally, the lines creasing around the sapphires imply this man is old. No duh, you might say. Ah, but it's the beauty of the comparison. If this was an object with sapphires embedded in it and it had lines creased all around it, we might be concerned that the sapphires would soon fall out. That's a nasty image for eyes, you say? Yeah, perhaps, but it's also a hint that diamonds don't last forever and a really nice turn on another cliched depiction of old age. I could go on and on and on about so many other excellent sentences in this story. However, there is one sentence that irks me. One, that no matter I interpret it or re-read it or re-consider it, still makes me say, "Nope." It's this one: "Deep purple swathed her petite frame, coming to an end at her knees." The image I get, no matter how hard I try to correct it, is of the Purple People Eater doing unspeakable things to the late Jessica Tandy. I doubt that's the image the author was aiming for! But one bunk sentence hardly counts for anything when all the rest glitter like they do. In a novel, you can't always afford to have every sentence be royalty. But in a short story, you can't afford not to. And this is one of those short stories that proves how valuable polishing a sentence can be! Bravo!

A review! Thank you! I kept wondering if it was a little too imaginative and people would immediately push their back buttons once they got to that one crucial sentence, but it seems it worked out alright in the end.

So if it were two women instead of two men, it would be like some combination of a script to a Lifetime Movie and a Syfy Original? I am mean. If all a reader wants is what this book provides, more power to them. Exponentially even. But for me? A good premise is a terrible thing to waste. If somebody is going to take the time to flesh out a sci-fi or fantasy world, I want a little more oomph in my Oompa Loompas, if you know how and why I'm being mean.