Devil's Inquiry

Author's Note: This is a fun little submission I did for the 7 deadly sins contest. In lieu of all the serious submissions that will probably come in, I did a short comedic little bit. Enjoy!

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I don't really care about my brothers and what they do, its none of my concern, but if I have to pick which one I am closest to...

Oh man, why am I doing this again? Oh, that's right. My punishment for taking things too easy. Does this count towards my thousand words? It better, I don't want to do this anymore then you want to read this. 932 words left to go...damn.

OK! It would be Gluttony. He gets the Itis and joins me for a nice nap whenever he eats Caribbean. Though he does tend to roll and disturb me only an hour into an after dinner nap. At least I can share a bed with him without wondering what happened in it, aside from telltale crumbs of past meals. Lust on the other hand, he's always making a fuss over women. The others say he does more 'sleeping around' then me!

Which of my brothers I hate the most?

Easy. Wrath is the only one who attacks me and holds a grudge against everyone. Yesterday, he kicked me around for resting in his chair! He wasn't using it, but kicked me until I slinked out of it so he could 'think' in it. Dreadful bastard, only Greed and Pride actually like him and from what I overhear, it is a mutual alliance against that contemptuous brat Envy.

Though to be honest, I kind of like the squirt. He doesn't bother me at all! He is always trying to surpass Greed's fixations, whether it be his one of gold and money, or of beanie babies or whatever he simply must have. At the same time Envy is sucking up to Pride, trying to take that pompous ass down a peg. Though it seems to always backfire when Wrath gets to enjoy himself at Pride or Greed's suggestions.

Ha Ha! Take that, I answered your next question in my last one. Oh, you want to know about my sisters? Sure, inconvenience me some more will you! I'm taking a vacation after this, and I mean it.

Which of my sisters am I closest to?

You're kidding. I have nothing in common with them. Not even Temperance, and she is the most rational of the four of them! “All things in moderation.” My ass! It's too troublesome to try and be all happy happy work my ass off and take short break. I don't care for any of them.

Which of my sisters I hate the most? Oh, someone sure is not creative with their punishments after five thousand years of practice...

Justice. Are you sure she is really 'Good'? All I ever see is Wrath in female form waving a sword around. Waving that sword around and screaming at me for being lazy! Even Wrath won't cross her when she is PMSing. That says a LOT.

Which of my sisters I like the most?

Fortitude. Least she will protect me from time to time, but still gives me a mean look all too often.

Who would... WHOA! Hey, that is not my thing! I'll just repeat what Gluttony told me last night.

Gluttony and Sloth makes chastity a LOT easier. Only the likes of you would go so far as to plan the creation of new sins. Just because the Prudence and Lust plan backfired and wound up being the mother of all virtues doesn't mean the next time will result in more of us. Bad decisions like that put you down here. Remember falling on your ass, devvy-pookins?

408 words left to go. Screw it, I'm going to bed THEN I'll take my vacation. If this isn't good enough... then well... The rest will be:

The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada. The Devil wears Prada.

And likes it too. ~Sloth

(Mod Edit: Changed rating to PG-13, for language.)

Hey there man. I haven't seen you at all around these forums. Welcome to YWS and we hope you'll stay with us forever I'll be your reviewer for today.

The piece is OK on the whole, but two major issues actually detract from this piece: Show Vs Tell and the actual complexity of how you present the theme.

Ok firstly, show vs tell. Throughout the piece, you've pretty much told the reader the different scenes/ examples which relate to the different types of sins. There isn't any description or other any other language devices to help show the material, it's just presented in like a telly kind of diary format. This creates problems as it makes the humors rather predictable and spoils it for the reader.

My second point is the actual complexity of the ideas. They are actually pretty simple, since they relate so closely to the actual sins themselves. This piece was kinda like a dictionary definition of the seven sins of lust, only the information is told through info dumping. Since the piece does little to deviate from the baseline ideas of the seven sins of lust, the humors itself is also pretty...baseline too.

I hope this critique helped.

Andy.

Ooh-ohh! Someone taking a serious hammer to my work!

Not to be critical of your review, but the point of this was a tell rather then show story. Much like a standard questionnaire. Its satire and the point was to use the seven sins as though they were represented, and even the four heavenly virtues as they are represented. Justice with a sword. Prudence being the mother of all virtues. Gluttony suffering the Itis (remember Boondocks?) and falling asleep. It is by no means a serious short story, and the style is made to poke fun at the sins and their existence. Since Sloth is writing this, you expect it to be a literary masterpiece? He wants it done and over with, its too much work.

Sloth is simply writing what he is thinking, and it needs to be a thousand words. Baseline humor yes, but its not supposed to be serious or hard work. If I took this seriously and developed them all, it would be more then a thousand words. Even describing one sin in a short story will run into that bland aspect. Taking a serious look at this is fruitless, the fact it is not serious is part of the humor.

I decided to put it into the contest just cause it was a fun entry. If it makes someone chuckle, it did its job.

It was a good satire, but it seemed too wordy to be humorous for me. Yes, I know that it was supposed to be 1,000 words, but you said way way way too many things at once - and none of it was really described.

You say that it was supposed to be telling, not showing, but you still need to show at least a little - or else it is really hard to read your essay.

But overall, you did a great job with that essay.

KENPACHI MASAMUNE ACTUALLY POSTED SOMETHING OTHER THAN A HEARTLESS CRITIQUE! i'm shocked.

as for the story...i will...grudgingly say that...it was pretty funny. Your humor was pretty clever.

by the way kenpachi, you may want to take a quick peak at my sig.

I'm not rabid, I say yet again.

You did quite a nice attempt on a comedic approach however some petty things about it annoyed me. Take sloth for instance. If i wrote this, I wouldn't finish the thousand words policy at all. I'd end with the, "408 words left to go. Screw it, I'm going to bed. I'll finish this tomorrow....well, MIGHT."

But that's just me. YOU wrote it. hahaha.

Nonetheless it indeed was pretty humorous.

<3 JACE

This is quite good. I think that you may be a little confused about your virtues though. The four you talk about are the cardinal virtues. The heavanly virtues (of which there are seven) are;
Faith
Hope
Charity
Courage
Justice
Temperance
Wisdom

There are also seven contrary virtues which are the opposites of the deadly sins;
Humility
Kindness or Brotherly Love
Abstinence or Temperance
Chastity
Patience or Meekness
Liberality
Diligence
So either Sloth's sisters are the cardinal virtues or he should have seven sisters, not four.
Keep writing,
Bkwrm

I quite enjoyed this actually. I'm guessing you don't want a real critque. It was a fun, enjoyable piece, and I love the fact it was Sloth writing it. Nice job