Happy New Year from the Keepers!

by DeerInBacPac

Published December 31, 2017

18+ Language Mature Content

In ...

Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language and mature content.

AN - Theses are my characters from my novel, so heads up! Enjoy, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

Nayleth's POV

So, you guys are shit-heads at the moment. I thought while helping Griffin peal off J. She hasn't left him alone for two hours. Sully, on the other hand, was crying because I had taken his revolver (a gift from his father), to check it out. 

These two were horrible drunks. And before I go any further, let's explain. Full-metas (me and Griffin), can't get drunk. The drinking age and adulthood age in Intermudos is eighteen. J and Sully are eighteen. It's New Years eve. Got it? No? Don't care. 

"Sully, please, stop."  I hissed at him while watching him drag his feet, tears falling and his 2018 top-hat tilted to the left.

"Nat, let's just get them both some water, calm them down and in bed." Griffin sighed as we reached our room. J kept poking him, whistling off-key. 

I nodded in agreement, glad to be back at the room. I opened the door, Grim finally getting J off of Griffin and handing both J and Sully water. 

"Grim, you are a life saver, really. And dammit Sully, sit down to drink the water." I said while Sully danced around the room, no longer crying, his water spilling. Sully sat down on the ground, grinning drunkenly. 

Facepalming, I walked over to Sully. 

He slugged his water, scared I might take it, and then his eyes went droopy. J's did the same. Bed time for the drunks!

After me and Griffin tucked them into bed, Grim left, a party hat covered in silly spray atop his head. I guess he had some other people over. Looking at you, Elvis

"Would you mind making some cocoa? Please?" Griffin asked. 

"I thought you preferred coffee?" I replied. I bit my tounge, trying my best to not be sarcastic. 

"Yeah, w-well, I-I mean..." He stumbled on his words. I smiled, knowing I had caught him off-guard. 

I walked into the kitchen, Griffin following. He took out the cookies n' cream ice cream, grabbing all of our ice cream ingredients too. 

With the coffee brewing, I got to my cocoa. It had been too long since I felt relatively happy. 

I sighed, smoke curling around my nose. Sometimes I forget that that still happens, even when I am not in my form. 

Waving the smoke away, I set the drinks down and help Griffin with whipped-cream. He always struggled with the spray-cheese-canister-thing that it came in. 

"Give it," I said, holding out my hand. 

"Oh, can you deal with a drunken J? No? Didn't think so." 

"And can you work up the courage to kiss me? No? Didn't think so." I whispered and snagged the can. But then again, I couldn't work up the courage to kiss him either... 

"What did you say?!" Griffin asked, pouring chocolate syrup on his towering bowl of ice cream. 

"Nothing." I hastily awnsered and towered both of our sundaes with cheap whipped-cream. 

"Mmm-hmm." He loudly said as he added bluebug jelly to my sundae and I added cinnamon roll chunks to his. Our favorites. 

We sat down and the bar counter, I sighing.

"Why did you sigh?" Griffin asked.

"Because I need to breathe." I replyed and shoved a spoonful of ice cream into my mouth so I would stop being sarcastic. Fat chance though. 

Griffin snorted from laughing, whipped-cream flying from his nose. 

"Ah, Nat," Griffin started. "What would we do without you? What would I do without you?" 

"No idea. Start a farm? Marry some weird-ass woman who isn't as damn amazing as me?" 

Griffin smiled grimly, then scooped a big glob of whipped cream from his bowl. 

"No, don't do it. Gri-" I began but he beat me to it. Wiping of the sweet substance, I glared at him. Griffin just smirked in return. 

"Thanks..." I mumbled and rested my head on my arms. I just really wanted to sleep. But then again, I wanted to stay up till midnight. I had five minutes, maybe I could make it. 

Tick-tock. Thats what it felt like in my head. The waiting for things that I had no idea if they would ever arrive. 

Griffin ruffled my hair, surprising me, then grabbed both of our bowls. I watched as he cleaned the left over dishes, blowing the hair that kept falling into my face. 

Midnight. 

"Midnight." Griffin said, drying his hands with the dish towel. He walked over to me and then stopped. He looked at me, his brow furrowed in confusion. Shaking his head, he hugged me goodnight and went to bed. 

---

I sat in the hall, outside the door. My head was resting upon my arms, which were propped on top of my knees. A headache had arrived after Griffin went to bed and I couldn't focus. I hated this. I hated the fact that I was always such a fucking mess. I hated the fact that half the time I can't function and the fact that I just... that I just...

I swung my head back and smacked it against the wall. Great, my headache just got worse. 

"What am I going to do with myself?" I whispered and got up, went back inside and layed down.

---

Griffins POV

I heard Nat hit her head against the wall, whispering to herself. She came into the room, laying down.  

I waited for her to fall asleep and got back up. 

Nayleth Drequinn, you are such a fantastic mess. I thought and kissed her on the forehead, brushing the piece of hair out her face that she was always annoyed by. 

"Happy New Year, Nat." I said aloud and crawled back into bed, falling asleep with the horrid thought that this year was going to be tough.

Comments & reviews · 4
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Evander
Review
Evander wrote a review Review · Jan 5, 2018

Hello, Flumadiddle!

I'm here for a quick review. Let me preface this with two things: One, it's been a while since I've written a review, so I might be a bit rusty on that front. Two, I have not read the other chapters in your novel. Here, I will be focusing on grammar, description, and what I thought about the short story as its own work. I might infer things about the work that could be wrong, so feel free to correct me should I make a mistake.

So, you guys are shit-heads at the moment. I thought while

Thoughts follow the same rules as quotes when it comes to punctuation, so that period should turn into a comma. Typically, whenever there is a dialogue tag, the sentence will end with a comma as opposed to a period.

The main reason I point this out is because a majority of the dialogue in this work ends with a period instead of a comma. In fact, in the very next instance of dialogue, the sentence is ended with a period instead of a comma! This is an easy fix.
Here's a quick Knowledge Base article on the subject for more information.

I thought while helping Griffin peal off J.

It took me a few rereads to figure out that Nayleth was pealing J off of Griffin and not doing something else. Given that the sentence is unclear, a quick fix is probably in order. I'd replace it with, "[...]while pealing J off of Griffin" or "[...]while helping Griffin peal a [clingy/sloppy/drunken] J off of himself." I will admit the latter fix is a bit clunky, but I hope it might be of some use. Especially since the actual sentence isn't really... descriptive about what J is doing to Griffin. Is J hugging Griffin and not letting go? Has she wrapped her arms around Griffin's legs? Is she sitting on Griffin? A few descriptive sentences would help really establish how truly drunk J is.

Sully, on the other hand, was crying because I had taken his revolver (a gift from his father), to check it out.

Was there any particular reason that Nayleth wanted to check out the revolver? It seems like a rather odd decision to specifically point out (and then bring reference to by mentioning if Sully was crying or not crying in later brief descriptions) and then never elaborate on it. I was sort of expecting the usage of Chekhov's gun, which is primarily the reason I bring it up.

These two were horrible drunks. And before I go any further, let's explain. Full-metas (me and Griffin), can't get drunk. The drinking age and adulthood age in Intermudos is eighteen. J and Sully are eighteen. It's New Years eve. Got it? No? Don't care.

This specific information dump feels out of place and kind of hostile towards the reader. The information in this paragraph could easily have been sprinkled here and there, whether it be through small actions or bits of self-referential dialogue. Perhaps Nayleth making a joke about how she was glad she couldn't get drunk and telling Griffin that she's glad that he's sober, or maybe even admonishing Sully and J for having way too much alcohol while adding in that they've only been legally allowed to drink for 4 months. Small things like that allow the natural flow of the story to continue and forgo the narrator telling the reader that she doesn't care if they understand.

I opened the door, Grim finally getting J off of Griffin and handing both J and Sully water.

Wait, so Nayleth hadn't managed to succeed earlier when attempting to help?

I'm noticing that a lot of description is sparse in this short story, which lends to some confusion. But even if there wasn't a fair bit of confusion in regards to action,
a little bit of description would still go a long way for setting atmosphere and tone.
This Knowledge Base article might be helpful in terms of showing and telling. And this other KB article on description might also prove useful.

"[...]And dammit Sully, sit down to drink the water."

A vocative comma is needed right before Sully's name.

"Grim, you are a life saver, really. And dammit Sully, sit down to drink the water." I said while Sully danced around the room, no longer crying, his water spilling. Sully sat down on the ground, grinning drunkenly.

Facepalming, I walked over to Sully.

Personally, I'd replace that last instance of Sully with "him", just to decrease the amount of repetition and to improve the flow.

After me and Griffin tucked them into bed,

For instances of me/myself/I followed by a second person accompanying the action, the correct pronoun would be the one that could stand on its own if the second person was removed. "After me tucked them into bed" doesn't make any sense, but "After I tucked them into bed" does make sense. Therefore, it'd be "After Griffin and I".

cookies n' cream

Minor criticism. Typically, it'd be "cookies 'n' cream" or "cookies 'n cream".

He took out the cookies n' cream ice cream, grabbing all of our ice cream ingredients too.

Milk, vanilla extract, salt, eggs, and custard? Although, since he's grabbing cookies 'n' cream ice cream, I would imagine he wouldn't need ingredients to go along with that. Perhaps "toppings" would be a good replacement to "ingredients".

Sometimes I forget that that still happens, even when I am not in my form.

Waving the smoke away, I set the drinks down and help Griffin with whipped-cream.

He always struggled with the spray-cheese-canister-thing that it came in.

The two words highlighted in red are in present tense and this story takes place in the past.
The words highlighted in blue -- whipped cream -- actually doesn't have a hyphen between the two words in most uses.
The description highlighted in purple isn't incorrect, but it's a clunky way of describing the object. It's a stylistic choice on your end, however just saying aerosol can might work instead. Especially since, according to my research, sprayable whipped cream came before sprayable cheese.
Also, wouldn't it be steam instead of smoke?

Griffin smiled grimly, then scooped a big glob of whipped cream from his bowl.

"No, don't do it. Gri-" I began but he beat me to it. Wiping of the sweet substance, I glared at him.

Was there any particular reason to skip over the action where Griffin throws whipped cream onto Nat? I don't really see one and it causes the transition to be clunky and odd.

The last POV switch was a bit sudden and I'm not really sure if it's justifiable, given the fact that Griffin is only the POV character for four lines. Also, while the relation between Nat feeling like she's a total mess and Griffin loving her for the mess she that she is is sweet, I'm still not sure if that completely justifies the POV switch. I feel as if most of the action done by Griffin in his section could have easily been heard or felt by Nat (except for his inner thoughts, of course).

This work might really benefit from a redrafting and some minor grammar editing, with rewriting a few sections here and there. I'm still not entirely sure of the... purpose of this short story. What Nayleth is struggling with is never defined and is vague, and the rest of the story is pretty much filler. While no action needs to be had for a short story to be fulfilling, some insight and some feeling as if the characters were in a different spot from where they began would be nice.

I really do hope that you keep on writing! If you have any questions, then feel free to let me know. If you have any comments or concerns or if you feel like I've gotten anything wrong, then feel free to let me know. I'd love to hear from you.

-C

User avatar
Carlymillie
Review
Carlymillie wrote a review Review · Dec 31, 2017

Carly Here; (Last Reviews for the year):

@Flumaddidle I don't know if you saw my Comment on the YWS 2017 YEAR BOOK , but like I said there, you are that New comer that blew my mind away and now, now you are just that awesome person that keeps wowing me and I keep looking out for your works. Anyhoo, happy new year in a few hours! Millie is just here for a short review.

Review:
First your paragraphs: Your writing was nice, but then too many paragraphs. you rated your story 18+ but you used a format like you wrote for a children's playhouse. Your diction was fine! Perfecto! I feel like those much paragraphs should occur only when there is a convo between the characters. Okay maybe, it could be the format you were provided with? dunno
But after a chat, and then you want to dive back into description, you follow the last character's paragraph and Start up after the full stop..For instance:

***"Marry someone less annoying" Griffin said Grinning.

"Arrghh, typical you I guess" Alicia replied. Alicia's eyes moved to the cup over the counter. She stared at it like she had some supernatural strength........****

Generally, you did just fine. I liked your sense of humor, it wasn't over the top, and it wasn't forced either.
Thanks from a very sleepy head, for reading this very bleak review!! Hope I helped.

Thank you! The first part, omfg Millie!!! It just made my day so much better! Thank you thank you thank you!!!

Anytime! Anytime!!! Happy New year!!!!!! like I'm here already!!

User avatar
DeerInBacPac
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DeerInBacPac commented Comment · Dec 31, 2017

@WhosabellCanWrite @woahhitherepal

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DeerInBacPac
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DeerInBacPac commented Comment · Dec 31, 2017

@DemonGoddess @LordTachanka @DarkPandemonium @Irislillygray @Steggy @jimss23 @WhosabellCanWrite @LadyLizz

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE KEEPERS and maybe a drunk Sully and J ALSO I DID THIS REALLY QUICKLY AND FOR FUN SO MIND THE GRAMMAR AND SUCH IT NOT REALLY SERIOUS BUT STILL.

mind taking me off your list?



If I see an American in real life or a kiwi in a blockbuster, it feels surreal and weird, and like a funny trip.
— SirenCymbaline the Kiwi