I feel it necessary to say that I enjoyed all of these for different reasons, even though I feel some where closer to the mark than others; with that said the judging.
Three, while this slice of life was mildly entertaining, it didn’t meet the requirements of the prompt at all.
Shin, you do well at both internal and external dialogue, as well as providing your reader with enough visuals to get a basic sense of what is going on without overkill. Still, the theme of your narrative, while it allowed me to better understand the progression of your character from a philosophical perspective, and the steady evolution of his current moral code, in relation to his current ethical compass. It seemed to me though that Cavum Ira was a physical and psychological feature of Shinsou’s past self, rather than a separate psychological entity. In other words, the dream state seems more of a remembrance of who Shinsou was, and something that he doesn’t want to become again. If I’m wrong here, please correct me via PM, for my own edification. Thus, I feel that the narrative, however much I enjoyed it & felt that it added a bit more onto the understanding of Shinsou, I don’t feel that it was quite in line with the prompt.
Less, as I said with Shin above, in many respects applies to you. This was powerful post, rich in both narrative and description, but felt more related to a theme of forging friendship, than a story about seeing someone breaking a dear held ethical value. As is also true with shin, if you keep writing this way, I have no doubt that you will claim victory in this arena. As is also true with Shin, I look forward to hearing more from you in the future.
JDD, I could definitely hear improvement in this Vignette over previous ones. Your issues with run on sentences were not as much in evident as previous posts, congratulations on your improvement. I must point out however, that the word you want is “righteous,” not “richous “. You also use “ strange ship,” just a bit too often, changing it to “unknown”, “unnamed,” or “mysterious” at points would have made it less redundant. Still, I must admit that progress has been made, and despite some issues, you managed to make it abundantly clear that the captain believes that firing under a flag of truce is one of the blackest of sins.
Fez, I am always interested to see what moment under the shadow you will put your character through next, and I liked this for staying in that theme. There are two phrases here that I did have some small issue with: “The Salvarian’s blade hissed in its sheath, drawn to glare at the aggressive mob to outclass all their weapons”, I don’t know if glare is the right word here, if the blade is reflecting off the sunlight, then I’d describe it as dazzling the eye, since clearly it can’t be glare in the sense of an expression; the other statement, “…face saturated with rage”, saturated is not a word I’d have used here, mask of, a paragon of, perhaps, but not saturated. What I liked most here, was the feeling that your character felt that he had to do what he did, even if he took no joy from it.
Lorenor, while I don’t deny that I’ve not followed your character completely, and thus, don’t know about the defining event or events that have led to your character’s change from a worshiper of N’Jal, to his present allegiance, but despite that this was an interesting listen to. There were a few typographical errors I noticed however, which I want to point out: “Now there was a new set of dreams...ever since Sei Orlouge took him in and he'd undergone reformation with Ixian Knights, Lorenor was different”, there should be with the Ixian Knights; “to guide me. Lorenor looked at Memon, Simon and the third Unead whose name he did not yet know”, I believe the word you want here is undead; and lastly, “... Lorenor focused on his entier purpose that night “, I believe the word here is supposed to be entire, but am not sure. These weren’t major issues, and with the exception of the last one made me stop and wonder what was meant or take away from my enjoyment of the overall narrative.
SirArtemis, you’ve mentioned the dwarf before, in previous threads I’ve listened to, but this is the first time I’ve encountered him in a thread. He was, very much what I expected from those previous accounts. There were few mistakes in this post, I shall admit, the only one I noticed, was your changing of tenses with “truth is,” would should have been “Truth was” to be in past tense along with everything else.
Tobias, congratulations on killing the king of Salvir during the civil war, always wondered who was going to run with that idea. The only major issue I have with this post is in relation to clarity, if the bird was originally outside and then flies in, the window would have to be open. If the window is open why crash it when the bird is flying away, and how would the shards of an open glass window cut the king? Things to consider for next time, that’s all. Still it was an interesting listen to all the same
Gum, this was both succinct and clear. You explained everything nicely so that there were more-or-less no loose ends.
Ayithe, you used the reverse technique, or what is sometimes called the “watchers perspective,” well in this. I obtained features of both the girl in the herbalists shop and of Ayithe that I wouldn’t have obtained otherwise. It was also an entertaining listen through.
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First place Ayithe, second place Tobias, and third place Gum.
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