Cthulhu Loo

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: So...this is a decent enough piece here. I love how unique this manages to be here. Its certainly not something I've ever imagined before, but I do think that this at some parts went a little overboard so some slight smoothing out is required to properly enjoy it.

Anyway let's get right to it,

You can survive for three weeks without food, for a week without water and turn into a measly gremlin the next very day without a toilet. You’re reading a toilet monster, Dad. Never feed me after dark, ha, ha!

It all started when Ma got struck by one of her *BRILLIANT IDEAS* to change the entire pipe system in our house. Just after she flushed the lobsters’ shell down the drain, and they got stuck there for good, like getting back to the ocean wasn’t their most cherished dream before dying. The easiest way out was to invite a proper plumber, but that wasn’t in Ma’s horoscopes she reads every time she needs to do something PIPING. Instead, she invited our neighbour Mr Gardenzio even though he’s not a plumber but an ex-heavy-lift-boxer and also never gets my name right (he calls me Buster.) I have nothing against boxers and busters, Dad, but every time Mr Gardenzio comes by, my house smells of dogs, sounds like a rush hour, and I am a free errand boy.

OKay...well this is off to an interesting start here. It certainly gets your attention with the sheer craziness of the scene going on here. There's just this cartoonish flair of exaggeration flowing through this piece here and so far its proving to be pretty intriguing, we'll see where it goes I suppose.

He smashed all our pipes into dust and sent me to buy one thousand and one thingies I’VE NEVER KNOWN BEFORE EVEN EXISTED. I called Amazons and together we rumbled by the hardware stores like three lost kittens. Hecta asked, why would a boxer fix your pipes. I said, ”He re-qualified into a plumber after he retired.” But when we were back it turned out, he actually did not coz he’d just had a spontaneous duel with the toilet pan. And won. It cracked in two like pieces of the cosmic Yin and Yan that now will never get back together T_T

Then the ball got rolling...

Ma hit her stupendous fit about God punishing her for all her *MAGIC POWERS*. Mr Gardenzio went to have his tenth bucket of coffee and I was sent back shopping for a new toilet pan. Ma ordered one just like our dead old pal even if it was like, hundred years old and hardly flashed anything down. Whatever you put there surfed on the rips of running water and proudly plopped back on the bowl. Ma believes old things are better things, plus cheaper, and bought one from the Internet at a massive discount. I used all public toilets in the nearest cafes and officially declare I prefer new things. You simply push the button there and the poo vanishes as if by magic not waiting for you to PUSH IT MANUALLY.

Okay...well the craziness factor has escalated a little too much I think. You do manage to make some of these parts really funny but some of the imagery is a little bit overdone in places so I think you might need to go over this a tiny bit if you want this whole plumbing situation joke to actually work properly.

Anyway, the next day, I took Amazons to collect my new toilet coz Ma refused to pay for the delivery. At the shop, it turned out they didn’t even wrap it up. And it weighed a complete tone! I said, “What a chance to pump our Shaolin warrior power.” Agnieszka said, “Quite!” and took the plastic tank, like a princess. Hecta and I grabbed that anvil-like bum throne and kung-fu-dragged it along the streets sweating and panting like all proper warriors proper should. Met our Domestic Science teacher Mrs Jennings doing her shopping. She gasped as she saw us coming her way and lamented that we brought her bad luck with that empty vessel. It’s like having all thirteen black cats and a magpie crossing your path in one go. I thought an empty toilet can’t be worth luck than NO TILET AT HOME AT ALL. But then it turned out it WAS bad luck coz that bloody WC didn’t fit in anywhere. It had so a monstrous bowl it would serve giants with butts as big as shopping malls. Mr Gardenzio got ready to rematch it but Ma phoned the shop to blow their brains off for selling us a Cthulhu’s loo and sent us to get it hell outa the house and over a mile back. BACK. TO. THE. SHOP. I think Mrs Jennings had a heart attack when our paths crossed again.

Okay this is yet another one of those slightly crazy parts here for this particular piece. It once again seems to have a decent goal in mind there for starters but things just go a little too off the rails for it to quite work as intended.

We ordered a standard one now AND A DELIVERY SERVICE. But they will only bring it tomorrow. I’m a homeless kitten now, Dad. I have no personal closet, i.e., no territory to mark, no roots, no claims. Even monks have somewhere to pee, right? I’m a gipsy tumbleweed. I will sleep at Hecta’s tonight. Gotta do my business in the bushes till the rest of my life if Mr Gardenzio doesn’t box it all back together.

Write to you soon,

Your gremlin Skipper

Okayy so the ending there works out okay and I think you manage to balance that whole part well enough here. Overall things are looking alright here I think. Its a decent idea here for the story as a whole it just goes slightly too crazy at a couple of points.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

Overall: Overall, I think we're off to a good start here. It was a lovely read for the most part I think, there's a nice couple of layers of meaning hidden in there here and I think you've done a great job with that.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry

Hey there! Plume here, with a review!! And welcome to YWS!!

I though that this story was quite inventive! The structure was really fun, and was a great opportunity for you to really capture Skipper's voice. The plotline was also both normal and weird; I loved the little details you incorporated without telling the readers directly. It was so fun how the unrealistic elements were just casually included. It was a very unique piece of writing that I had a lot of fun reading.

One thing you did really nicely was conveying Skipper's voice. It totally sounded so realistic. They seem like a really cool character. I loved how you used punctuation to convey their tone, and their interactions with the neighbors/people in the neighborhood was quite fun to read about! I loved the realistic and relatable thoughts Skipper had about the other people. It was just a very fun read overall.

The one thing I would say is that it would probably benefit from some context. There are a lot of characters here, and since it seems like this is some sort of fantasy world, being thrust into it without any context was a little jarring. I was also a little confused at the start; it's a little unclear what Skipper means. I get that they're some sort of gremlin... are they a toilet gremlin? How did they become a toilet gremlin? I feel like those questions are brought up but not necessarily addressed in your letter, but I think it could be improved if you could.

Specifics

I thought an empty toilet can’t be worth luck than NO TILET AT HOME AT ALL.

Tiny thing here: you've misspelled "toilet" as "tilet."

Overall: nice work!! I think your writing voice was really great, and with a bit more context, I think this could be a really cool story! I hope to read more of your work on here soon! Until next time!!