Economy Class Boogie

[Menagerie of Voices]

The plan was almost flawless; a slice of brilliance, pure genius. The only thing that he’d not thought out was how fucking hard it was to ride one of these massive, hairy, stinking fat chickens, and how damn stubborn they were.

A massive cloud of dust was being flung up behind the remaining Squawkers, and Gunther – barely holding on, and with a prize winning expression of oh fuck! on his face, watched the ground get eaten up by those massive scaly claws beneath him.

Funfun, yes?

“Oh, piss off!” Came the mournful howl back.

All around them was chaos; some of the lizard people had gotten the same idea he had and had tried to catch a chicken for their own use to escape across the desert – but once Cinnamon materialized in front of half the flock on one of the larger caravan islands, it had been panic stations for everyone. There were birds everywhere fleeing over the rolling golden sands beneath the afternoon sun, their shadows criss-crossing weirdly and making Gunther feel dizzy. It was hard controlling his charges, Held together by old rope and their harnesses, harder still by the crowd that decided to follow them once they broke away from the main flock. Not so genius anymore – the cover was kind of cool, the destruction that followed? Kind of not.

A Squawker cut in front of the ever-expanding cloud of feathers and dust all around him, a shrieking lizard-man attached by its foot to the traces of the beast. He felt Cinnamon’s alarm before she even voiced it – very odd – and pulled hard on the loop of rope around the Squawker’s beak. The bird squalled, twisting it’s head this way and that but it followed Gunther’s directions, and just in time – the ground was suddenly boiling, and the hapless bird and lizard were suddenly gone in a puff of dirt.

That, dear friends, is the sound of several sphincters tightening in unison.

The second Squawker, tied to Gunther’s with a piece of rapidly fraying rope, tried to run forward despite it’s heavy load of loot and supplies, quite comical to say the least if it hadn’t been a life and death situation. Which it was; their cover was thinning out

“Isn’t there anything you can do to make them go after someone else?!”

Your birdies slower!

“I know! But can’t you-” That odd feeling again. This time Gunther found it easier to guide the bird away; breaking almost completely and hanging a tough right to glance a massive beak that was almost their collective grave. “NICE TO SEE YOU LISTENING TO ME, YOU STUPID BIRD.”

His stomach dropped as the Squawker – Stupid, he decided, the other one could be Idiot – hurtled down a dune that made the hills of home look like flat ground. This wasn’t going to end well – behind them the slope exploded again and he only just saw the shadow out of the corner of his eye – “OHGODOHGOD-” and he managed to drag both birds out of the way of the ten meter long slug of doom that came crashing down. Of course; since it’s prey was not underneath it, the creature gave a hapless moan as gravity kicked, plunged headfirst into the dirt and it’s body followed; a slow agonizing flip that would break the creature’s spine if it had one. It’s head out with an audible pop as the arc was completed, and Gunther caught it’s expression as it went rolling down the hill, complete disappointment and embarrassment. This was followed by an odd glngglngglng as the fat white sausage tumbled into the waiting jaws of the welcoming committee down the bottom who in turn was equally confused when it got a beakful of angry fellow-worm.

The pressure of Cinnamon at his shoulder was a surprising comfort, if a horrible surprise over the angry squealing below them. Sideways!

“On it.” Stupid was pulled up, eyes rolling in anger, but Idiot caught on and began to lead, putting on a fresh burst of speed to outrun their pursuers. With all this running – especially over shifting sands – Gunther knew it was only a matter of time before the birds were tired out, and after that…

The ground rumbled. His furry radar had dematerialized again and now continued to scan from the shoulder of Idiot, and Gunther looked over his shoulder to watch the rolling one burying itself in the sand along with – wait, the bottom one had gone. Which meant-

“Shit.” Unbidden, before Cinnamon could even warn him, Gunther pulled Stupid across the lowest part of the dune, heading up the next one. The panting and sweat beneath him was disgusting, disheartening and full of panic he didn’t want to feel, but two sandworms surfaced a moment where he’d been and a third where they’d planned to go, further up the ‘ravine’.

Then the ground opened up, roaring and stinking like dead flesh.

Stupid and Idiot flew off in different directions, the cord was caught between the beak of the biggest sandworm he’d ever seen, and Gunther didn’t even have time to scream as Stupid went airborne, slapping against the pale, leathery side of the ugliest creature he’d ever seen. But the weight of not one but two Squawkers on the rope was enough to cut it against the razor-sharp beak above them, and Stupid opened it’s stubby wings as it fell, providing just enough of a soft landing to land safely. They reached the edge of the dune and sped off along the 'ridge'.

“Cinnamon!” His brain buzzed with confusion – his own – over this sudden need and hatred of the disappearance of his companion. A moment later he felt her, a silent reassurance – and allowed Stupid to do the driving. Big Momma was still in the air, and there was a satisfying wet smack as she, he, it, whatever the hell it was, rolled into the still-working-other three – all of which were still on, or half on the surface and completely unaware.

Eh, perhaps not. He spied a few seeker-eyeballs coming out from their mouths widening in terror as the sky was blacked out.

Their insides were apparently orange. Bright, ugly orange. A gust of wind made him want to hurl with the smell. Gunther turned away, terror written all over his sunburned features, and he winced as he heard the rumbling of the largest making it’s way back into the dirt, leaving a trail of slimy innards from the unfortunates who had been beneath it. One was still alive, he heard it screaming, half squished and half alive, writhing in agony. This turned out to be the saving grace – rather than chase hard-to-catch-moving-stuff, something stationary and screaming was easier – and unbidden, Stupid put it’s head down and managed to push itself that much faster to put the distance between the feeding frenzy. Good thing too. Apart from the unholy noise, guts were sent flying high in the air, slapping wetly against the sand behind them. Paranoia made Gunther feel for the back of his hood and shoulders, hoping like hell they'd missed.

Behind them some of the other birds – and possibly riders – had survived. For now Stupid and Idiot were slowing to an easier pace to maintain, and Cinnamon was actually hanging onto Idiot’s head traces, peering over it’s head with great interest, her ears pricked and whiskers bristling.

“Are we clear, Cinn’?” Cinn, sin, hahahahaohmygod the sun’s getting to me again.

Some follow, some not. Hungry-hungry.

“They can’t burrow through stone, can they?” Cinnamon shrugged at this mentally, and Gunther repeated the motion almost unconsciously. “We’ll take our chances. Keep an eye out for them if you can; uh, I don’t know how much power you have left…and make sure Idiot there doesn’t run away.”

Cinnamon glanced at him, tongue lolling in enjoyment, almost wagging her tail. Again, no words, just a firm affirmative before she turned back to watch the horizon.

I’m hallucinating. I have to be. I did not just do this.

Tightening his grip on the leather straps, he gave Stupid what he hoped was a nice pat on the side of the neck, pleased the creature hadn’t tried to take his head off yet with that massive beak, and slowed to a trot. As long as they kept going, there had to be an end to the desert somewhere. It could not go on forever. Right? Right. Science proved that. How else would they get storms over the mountains, storms were weather thingies and weather needed water and…

Shut up, think too loud! Can’t hear things!

“URGH.” Was the protest. It was accompanied by annoyed chirps from the two birds which amused Cinnamon no end.

:D :D :D

[Menagerie of Voices]

I'm not sure how rps are ended here, so sorry if I've got things a little bit weird. I'm just over excited and couldn't stop giggling D:

Our first chapter comes to an end at an ornate fireplace, and with the man seated in front of said fireplace in an incredibly over-stuffed armchair. Not much could be seen of him from the point of view of the lean and greasy-haired fellow in an ill-fitting suit of velour, but this was mostly because the fire was the only illumination in massive room. The crown on the crouching man’s head only made him look more pathetic – infrequent washing lead to dandruff which coated his shoulders with a light layer of snow, the crown itself kind of tarnished beneath the warm and friendly light of the fire. It was quite surreal actually.

“I was, ah…”

Greasy was shackled and held in a business-like way by a man who could be called a palace guard…if it wasn’t for the professionalism evident in the man’s movements. This was no guard that would be taken down by a prisoner complaining of stomach sickness, in an attempt to escape. This was certainly not a guard who would be fooled by a poorly disguised ‘washer woman’. And most certainly, this type of guard would not fight a hero one on one. No, as the sword was drawn, this kind of guard would bring out a crossbow. A shiny one with a nice heavy bolt, well taken care of as opposed to a lucky string breaking. This man was a professional; like every other ‘guard’ in the room.

“Look…”

Greasy sat there, looking meek and at the same time outraged in his manhandling up to this particular area. He’d been wondering when the boss would want a word with him about the whole whoops-somebody-escaped-tee-hee thing. He’d hoped it would be a discussion about the flogging of the elite Eisen Dragoon soldiers who had been at the heart of it (loyal dogs the lot of them, deserved to be whipped like dogs too!) but for some reason there’d been some kind of…mistake. Greasy, who’s name was in fact Daniel Marcus, was the newly appointed King of Raust. Not many people had argued with him at the time, because he’d had those special smart guards (perhaps too smart come to think of it) to help him out and make everything go smoothly and there had been a few burning houses, missing children, overturned apple carts and everything else that goes with a hostile take-over. And, yeah, the battle with the Dragoons. And a few hanger-ons. The military had been divided originally, but damn they could work together for a specific cause.

Best laid plans, mice and men, all that jazz.

“Um.” He tried again...but there was a reason why Marcus had never advanced beyond the station of Sergeant, apart from his poor hygiene, inability to follow instructions from people he didn’t like and generally get laid.

He sounded like a pussy.

The man across from him, curled up in pleasantly cut robes of linen and a few carefully placed gemstones sipped from his mug and continued to stare at the fire until his chest stirred to speak. “Daniel. Honestly. Shut up.” The tone was vaguely sweet – masculine but acting cute to get what he wanted. “I’m just a little bit disappointed in you right now, and your snivelling, well…it’s not going to win you any favours, you know what I mean?”

“I, ah, um, I’ll shut up now.”

“Please do. You just make yourself look like more of an idiot every time you try. Is this how you rule your state? Hell.” The man shifted his weight in the depths of his chair. “A little birdy has told me that your golden goose has flown the coop. Now I trusted you when you gave me that odd friend of yours, thinking you’d made the right choice…but you’ve been motivated for personal reasons, haven’t you.”

Marcus hunched his shoulders, looking down his beaky nose at the floor. “I…uh…” No point in lying, was there? “Yes.”

The man sighed. “Personal always messes things up, you know? It’s why I left the mainland. Why I came here. I thought to myself…thought…’these guys know how to make things work!’ and then I wind up with you…mostly because apart from that mad king of yours, you’re the only one who I could actually get to listen to me. And you gave me the ‘reason’ behind the coup de grace your little place had only…what is it, a week ago? Impressive.”

Dark brown eyes shifted around the room, and Marcus gulped.

“Only it turns out this charismatic fellow happens to be the chief of your military, your, aha, boss as it were. You didn’t tell me that. You said to me you could handle it. And so I gave him a little something to slow him down…he is a particularly deep reservoir, probably one of the deepest I’ve seen without training…and I trusted you, Daniel.”

“I’m sorry.” Came the whine.

The mug was put down – coffee, not wine – on top of the small table beside the armchair. There was a rustle of cloth as the man folded his legs – one knee over another, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. “I believe that, but only because you’re a few seconds away from wetting yourself. You let him get away; away from my eyes, away from yours, away from anyone who can take care of him should a Manifestation happen and things get out of control…which, according to my delicious network of Stones, has occurred, yet...he lived. Hah-hmm. Fascinating. That’s the only reason you and your country aren’t burning yet, Daniel. In the first glance, you’ve backed the wrong winner, but it looks like he might be in it for the long haul so you're off the hook for the moment. And if he’s trouble, maybe it’s good to let him run wild in the outside world…”

“But!” Marcus sat up; grunting a little in pain from both his shackles and the fact he now had a blade at his neck from the overzealous guard above him being just that little bit more careful. “Outside is a wasteland! Except for your country of course, he’ll be killed-”

“Considering the Eisen Dragoon unit displaced my guards, outrun your laughable army; I have no doubt that the man who helped them train, put them together and worked with them is in no danger except for a case of dysentery and homesickness. My network will know when he is in danger; what lies inside him will react, and if needs be, I will use my agents to track him down. But tell me this, would you really want him inside the border now? When we’re trying so hard to squash the people to follow me? Your king?”

Marcus didn’t really have an answer to that. He couldn’t be sure why so many people with magic inside them needed to be used…magic wasn’t allowed, but it was common knowledge that sometimes people were born as proverbial magic dumps. Made grudging sense that Bellum was one of them. Prick.

“I enjoy working with you Marcus. Mostly because your pathetic attempts at ruling are so damn funny.” With a flourish the man brought out a black orb from the depths of his over-robe – made from the same material as Gunther’s stone, although he did not know it yet – and Marcus watched in amazement as it began to glow. A picture lay within it’s depths, the coming of night over a small camp on a rocky-ledge, two giant monster birds, and the man who was the source of all his problems, getting everything ready for the last leg of the journey – to the green forest above them-

The image was obscured. For a moment, Marcus thought he saw a flash of orange fur; a blur of violet or something.

“…Odd. There appears to be some interference. Never mind.” He gave the globe a gentle shake and the image reappeared, his voice taking on an affectionate tone. “I think he’ll make it through the night. But Dheathain waits over that ledge, beyond that forest, and it is far different to anything your people have experienced before. Just how good did you say he was, again? Nevermind. He may serve as entertainment as I may not need him when the time is ripe to pluck the fruits of my labour, Marcus. But then, I perhaps I will. It shall be…interesting to see how things develop, don’t you think?”

Daniel Marcus wasn’t sure. What he was sure of, in his black, twisted and selfish little heart, was that this meant he was going to have to work harder, and that was a pain in the arse. So the high-and-mighty-arseface might not need the bastard alive? Good-o. Marcus had only just begun to get into his position of power. The idea of Gunther Rustig Bellum, returning to the country, let alone the throne was rather sickening. And not going to happen.

-----------------------------------------> End Chapter One

Cinnamon's profile is here. I hope it's satisfactory! <-------

[Ataraxis]

Quest Judging
Economy Class Boogie

Good afternoon! I will be your judge today. A few words to open this: it was, overall, a rather enjoyable thread, though I think you’re aware that there are quite a number of things that didn’t go quite as well as you’d have hoped, and some things you can still improve on. In any case, let’s let the rubric talk! I’ll try and be brief and concise, for once.

STORY

Continuity ~ 5.5/10. You gave relevant information as to Gunther’s past in Raust, though it got very ambiguous at times. I think I got the idea that he was the king of Raust at some point (something I’ve ascertained after reading your profile) but for the life of me I can’t seem to find the passage that led me to think so. In general, this was a very foggy category for you, where information was given but in a manner that made the reader quirk his eyebrows, because he’s not sure whether you were being truthful or sarcastic.

Either way, you did give a good description of where he came from and what kind of place he was, and why he was out there in the Beyond. The whole part about being possessed was extremely unclear to me, since it felt like it just ‘happened’. Lastly, it was only after reading your profile that I understood how Cinnamon came to be. The ending was rather bewildering, though, and it was very hard to grasp the gist of it.

Setting ~ 5.5/10. You contributed to the setting in a very different way than what I usually read. You pay attention to the details, and a lot of them, using some particularly amusing, crass analogies that made them stand out a lot. My qualm, however, is that you used so much of it that any description sounded like a snide joke or a cynically sarcastic parody, which I felt was often overused. I sometimes had a hard time to situate Gunther and the NPCs when reading this quest, because of the non-linear, somewhat chaotic style you use.

My suggestion is to insert more neutral descriptions in your writing: simple things that don’t need to be backed by a joke or a witty comment, as that would improve your pacing and would not cheapen the effect of the other witty descriptions. Moreover, try and insert setting descriptions more consistently throughout your writing, instead of writing them in concentrated bursts. It helps remind the reader what the scenery is.

Pacing ~ 5.5/10. It took me a lot of time to read this, which is surprising as your style is the kind that’s read fast. The reasons for that is because you use punctuation incorrectly (semi-colons especially, and I’ve written guidelines as to how they should be used in the notes affixed to this judgment) and that you focused too much on making things as grungy as you could, while inserting countless contemporary references (I think I even saw a few memes and tropes around).

My suggestion for this is to focus more on having the story progress smoothly, because it sometimes felt as if the plot was on the backseat of the party van. Considering what actually happened in this thread, it is my belief you could have wrapped things up using posts almost twice as short, without affecting your comedic style – perhaps, even, improving it! Still, I had a lot of good chuckles when reading this, so you still did pretty good work. The ending felt a bit out of place, maybe because of the sudden transition.

CHARACTER

Dialogue ~ 6/10. Most of it was surreal, Gunther’s especially.The Gyararrggg11101!!!0one thing was especially… out of place. However, the lizard-folk had an interesting dialect, at times utterly incomprehensible for me but generally amusing to read. Cinnamon spoke like the usual summon-with-a-broken-English, but you did add a few perks to her lines that made her stand out more. The thing possessing Gunther went from formal to informal quite often, so I couldn’t really ever get a feel of his character through his speech. Basically, you do a fine job with NPCs (though it could help if you didn’t go overboard, sometimes) and Gunther is quite alright when you don’t exaggerate his speech. Try and tame things down a bit to see if the dialogue improves and gets more depth, unless your goal is to have your writing follow the genre of ‘comedic pastiche’.

Action ~ 5.5/10. The actions were generally believable, and you added a fair bit of realistic detail pertaining to walking across a desert and captivity by odd-folk. Blisters, burns, popping of aforementioned blisters, the growing need to take a dump, all of these things contributed to make this a very grungy story. Moreover, each character had little quirks that made them more well-rounded, like Bolgiff and what I think was his grandmother, and the bit with the cane.

Near the end, though, the whole berserk destruction of multiple wagons at once in six seconds made it pretty much a Deus Ex Machina (mysterious being intervenes and makes most things better by localized genocide). I guess it couldn’t be helped, but it might not be the best of ways to introduce this kind of character. I did enjoy the fact that the lizard-fold used charms to keep the sand worms at bay.

Persona ~ 7/10. You really did show a lot of Gunther’s personality, as wacky as it may be. He’s an anti-hero, that’s for sure, and perhaps a bit too genre-savvy for his own good, but that’s quite alright. Your other NPCs also exhibited interesting character traits (again, I would like to mention Bolgiff and Granny), and the younglings were also interestingly childish. It might have been over-the-top at times, but it was still good work.

WRITING STYLE

Technique ~ 6.5/10. I mentioned it before: you have a very non-linear, chaotic style. You’re able to make it work, most of the time. You use very original imagery and analogies, and you’re not afraid to go outside of the usual norms of writing to make your point. Unfortunately, it can tend to be excessive, since you sometimes focus on it so much it breaks the already tenuous progression of the story itself, and it sometimes makes it feel too much like a parody, like something we shouldn’t take seriously at all. It’s always good to add comedy and to relieve the tension, and I’m thankful you did that, but I have the impression that your goal wasn’t solely to give your readers a laugh. Basically, try and shift the balance back to the plot a bit, and you should end up with a great piece of writing next time.

Mechanics ~ 4/10. Simply put, the punctuation was painful to get through, until I forced my mind to read most of your semi-colons as commas. Every paragraph or so, there was an average of 2 semi-colons, and 80% of the time, they had no reason to be there. If I had actually recorded every instance of semi-colon misuse, I’d have filled about 2 extra pages on Word. That, added to the overabundance of it’s/its mistakes, brought you down to this score. To offset that, though, your spelling was pretty much impeccable, and I don’t remember seeing a typo anywhere – that’s what kept you from getting a 3 or 3.5, here.

Clarity ~ 4.5/10. As I try to remember key points of this thread, my mind becomes mucked up by the sheer number of descriptions that detracted from the actual information you were trying to convey. At times, I read a paragraph and had absolutely no idea what you were trying to say, and it took me a lot of time to put things into context so that I could begin to understand. This is the bad side of a chaotic, non-linear style: if you do it too much, the reader has no idea what you’re referencing to, and when you add in too many contemporary idioms and expressions (Bat Country without a car, namely) you basically have high risk of losing your reader’s attention.

The best way to remedy this is to try and apply a modicum of organization prior to writing your post. Don’t plan it out fully, but just write out key points that you have to make explicitly clear, and then work around those points. Try and cut as much fluff as you can, too: I understand that sometimes, you may feel like you have to write a certain something, but in the end when there are 20 of those in a single post, you realize you might have gone a bit too far. What helps is to make a word document in which you record these awesome ideas, outlining their context and goal for future use in other threads.


MISCELLANEOUS

Wild Card ~ 6/10. Despite its many shortcomings, I think this quest deserves some praise. You’re a skilled writer, that’s a certainty, and you only need to focus on the important points more often to write a great story.

TOTAL ~ 56/100.

EXP Rewards

Gunther Rustig Bellum gains: 725 XP!


GP Rewards

Gunther Rustig Bellum gains: 120 GP!


Other Rewards

Gunther Rustig Bellum gains: A Mysterious Black Stone, Cinnamon, A Rusty Knife, Somebody Else’s Family Jewels, A Bad Sunburn and Two Silver Necklaces (pillaged from the caravans before he sped away: each costs 40 GP at most).

FINAL NOTES

Enjoy the lizard testicles! Yes, I know: so wrong and dirty.

Notes for Economy Class Boogie

pass on it’s water (1) its
life…lived (1) not a mistake, just nitpicking the formatting. It reads better if you put a space after an ellipse, like: “life… lived.” Feels less like you paused in the middle of a word.

Of course it wasn’t entirely smooth; and certainly wasn’t a basin, but this wedge (1) semi-colons aren’t used like that, but rather as alternatives for a period (when they’re not used to separate elements of a list containing internal punctuation). An easy way to remember when a semi-colon could generally be used is to say: “Can I replace it with a period, and have both clauses make sense on their own?” You can’t use a semi-colon before a coordinating conjunction like ‘and’ and ‘but’, but you can use a semi-colon before transitions (which are followed by a comma), like ‘however’, ‘in addition’, ‘therefore’, etc. This might seem like nitpicking, but it is very grating on the reader’s eyes to see punctuation pop up where it isn’t warranted. In this case, you could have just written “Of course it wasn’t entirely smooth, and it certainly wasn’t a basin, but this wedge”. You could also, for effect, write “Of course it wasn’t entirely smooth – and it certainly wasn’t a basin – but this wedge”.

Not even a breeze came through this stillness; to call up the sands and rustle the long dead trees that were dotted like sentinels, remainders of a forest that once grew on these blighted lands. They called it the Beyond; for nobody wanted to leave the protection Delphin Ridge gave; and in turn, (1) none of the semi colons are necessary. When you think your sentences are too long, it’s okay to break them down with periods.

continent Dheathain (1) of Dheathain
due to it’s outward (1) its
This was possibly a good thing; because nothing the Basin produced was very nice. (1) See above. Comma instead of semi-colon.
Their main export was war; their main import people (1) “Their main import was war, while their main import was people from…” Or “Their main important was war. Their main import? People from…”
came it’s way (1) its way
place could occur was (1) a place doesn’t occur unless you’re using some obscure English, and even then… “How such a place could come to be” might fit better here.

such an event occurred beyond human memory certainly, but even further before that of Draconian and Fae; which separated the few tribes of humans who made their lives there. (1) This was a very awkward sentence to read, be it semantically or syntaxically. Again, the semi-colon usage was incorrect, and the whole ‘beyond further before certainly” was quite an entanglement of words. A tip: semi-colons are not supposed to pop out willy-nilly. They’re there only to shorten the pause that would’ve been left by a period, or to make things better organized.

Survivors of shipwrecks, primal earth-speakers; lost princes and kings, they survived only amongst the prevalent magic that they shunned because of one anomaly; the Ridge. (1) Hm… “Survivors of shipwrecks, primal earth-speakers, lost princes and kings, they survived only amongst the prevalent magic that they shunned because of one anomaly: the Ridge.”

I’ve looked ahead to see how many more semi-colons there are. It seems you went trigger happy with them. I’m sure a number of them will be correct, but they are far outweighed by the incorrect uses. Please, I would advise you to read up on how to use a certain type of punctuation before using it in about every other paragraph – twice, even thrice. Your writing is very interesting, but because of this punctuation shaker we seem to have, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time on your first post alone, and there are 11 others. This cannot bode well for the Pacing score, or for Mechanics.

From now on, I won’t mention semi-colon mistakes anymore. Consider this a good reason to reread your posts and to review every point. Of course, don’t be afraid to edit: the button is there for that, and I myself abuse it on a daily basis.

for it’s cut-off state and it’s ignorance that allowed cancer into it’s heart. (1) its, its, its. The trick to this is to spin on your chair three times counter clockwise every time you type an apostrophe. After you’re done doing that, look at it and verify if it’s (see I just did it there) a contraction of “it is”. I’m actually being serious here, because many, many, MANY people have this problem. The best way to spot it is the moment you write it. Develop some sort of reflex every time you type an apostrophe, just to remind yourself to check out whether it’s (aha!) a contraction or a possessive pronoun (because I’ve seen “her’s” and” your’s” before – not pretty).

Raust and it’s surrounding (2) Do the boogie when you spot an apostrophe on a second read through your own posts, too.
some of it’s original paint (2) its

began it’s gentle drift (3) its
of the mountains and it's border (3) its
climbed onto it’s broken remains (3) its
identical wtf it’s moving (4) I’ve kept quiet about the colloquialisms and the highly informal writing, since it’s part of your style (and has, to this point, proven rather enjoyable), but I have to draw the line when you start using netspeak. A full ‘what the fuck it’s moving’ or even ‘Jesus Christ it’s a lion get in the car’ would have worked better (except for the Jesus Christ part, since that would only work if your character came from Earth and was Christian, though that doesn’t matter since I was kidding about the lions).

“GGYYARARRRRGHHHHH!!!11!ONE!!!11” (5) Hmmm. Mmhhhmmm.

old Volkswagon microbus (5) As far as anachronisms go, this one was entertaining. You should try to keep your imagery ‘period-relevant’ though, because the moment I see a Celine Dion reference, you’ll be getting the axe.

passer-bys (5) passers-by.
Bat Country and you have No Car.( 5) I should probably get the axe, you sevenfold bastard.
One of the ones who’d come in before was now a the door (6) at the door
it’s occupants frozen (7)its
becoming it’s robes fluttering (7) its
Gunther had lived in a world were magic did not exist. (7) where
with the ball of it’s thumb on it’s left ‘hand’. (7) its, its
at swiping at it’s long, dark grey (7) its
.). (8) I believe that, unless you write (a list of things that end with etc.), there should be no punctuation at the end of a parenthetical. It’s not very pretty to see things “like .).”, since it looks very redundant.
Trading off a little of it’s power to lash (9) its
On linking to it’s mind the demon (9) its
foolish as it’s host (9) its
it’s eyeballs darting (90 its
traced around it’s edges (9) its
Which it was; their cover was thinning out(11) missing a period
since it’s prey was not underneath it (11) its
and it’s body followed (11) its
It’s head out with an audible (11) its
Gunther caught it’s expression (11) its
peering over it’s (11) its
: D : D : D (11) … Smiley faces? Huh.
And you gave me the ‘reason’ behind the coup de grace your little(12) I’m not sure, but I think you meant “coup d’état”? “Coup de grace” is the final, killing strike.
A picture lay within it’s depths (12) its

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP added!