z

Young Writers Society


12+ Violence

Glorious Fantasy Ch.1: A New world

by MeatBunCat


No, no, no, no, no!

I forced my way through the branches, weeds, and spider webs. The fear of what was behind me pushing my thin legs faster than they should ever possibly go. The sound of breaking branches and growling beast telling me just how of a frenzy these monsters were in. I didn’t even do anything to them, why are they chasing me?! Suddenly tripping a tree branch slaps me in the face.

“Ow!” I scream, pushing back a sob. I want to cry, not because of the branch, but because of what's chasing me.

Why did I run into these things?

Why do they want to kill me!?

Why do they have to look like kittens!?

Four hours ago------------------->

Boring.

I uninstall another a mmo, a massively multiplayer online game, shifting around the internet for the next bit of fun. It’s not like I’m a game nerd, it’s that I'm focused.

Very focused.

When I was six, my parents said a boy should work hard in school. I was told get the best grades I could by my parents. So I did just that. I never played with friends, I never went out anywhere, I never did anything other than study and plan for various school test. I’m not exactly a genius or anything, but my perfect grades made people think I was.

Hard work pays off after all.

Then before I knew it eleven years passed and I turned sixteen,all of the other guys bragging around me about their latest girlfriend while I spent all of my life studying. I finally got sick of it and asked a girl out. Somehow she said yes, and my focus turned from studying that girl. I showered her with attention and kindness for a whole month before she got sick of how close I was and broke up with me.

My focus, my drive to put my all into one subject backfired on me. Unable to focus on studying and school work anymore, I convinced my parents into getting me a cat so that I wasn't totally alone, and then hid away in online gaming. I just wanted something different, a world that rewarded my focus in some sort of quick way.

Every popular online game I could think of, free or not, I played, each one for at least two weeks before I switched to the next, so focused and obsessed with each one that it only took that long to master them.Grindy games burned through so fast that I gave up on the popular and switched to the lesser known. I picked more and more obscure games, with more and more childish premises, until I came across a game called "Glorious Fantasy".

A pop up with a gaudy logo and catch line ‘Jump into a brand new you!’ and stolen artwork. I could tell it was stolen because the broken image of some scantily clad woman still had an artist water-mark on it. Obviously some virus. But there was some odd question that popped up with it, something that really got to me.

“Don’t you want something worthwhile to focus on?” It said in flashing comic sans.

I lied, it didn't get to me. I closed the pop-up and turned on an ad block program.

“Aren't you sick of being alone?” It popped up again, taunting me with even more stolen artwork and colorful text.

I closed it again.

“If you keep playing games like this, do you think your parents are going to respect you?” I closed it and switched to another ad block program.

“If you keep playing online games, do you think you’ll actually figure out what you’re missing?” I turned on several security programs, confident that I had accidentally picked up a virus or something.

“What’s your next obsession going to be? Why not click here and find something better?”

A fake game isn’t going to fix anything. I close the ad again.

“This isn’t a game.”

Then what are you trying to sell me?

“A chance.” I close the ad again.

Before I realized it, the pop up was changing as if in direct reply to my thoughts.

No ‘as if’ about it.

“Click me!”

It switched to simple Times New Roman font, the text was still painfully flashing, but it stopped reacting to my thoughts. I got the feeling that if I closed it now, then it would stop bothering me. But I couldn’t will myself to ignore it this time, and finally clicked the ad against my better judgment.

A new window opened up, showing me a screen resembling just about any MMO, probably using stolen assets. It was so clean and well put together that I wondered if this was directly stolen from a dead rpg, a role play game. A bunch of different fantasy races popped up, the standard races you see in any other fantasy rpg, but with weird names and a slightly dark back story. Half-Alvear for the Elves, Calvus for the dwarves, Decon for the gnomes, then the human race just in case someone wants to be boring. Since I tend to pick mages classes, I want to pick the elves, but according to some generic lore. Those were pretty much extinct thanks to some war, with the rest of the race hiding away or suffering in slavery. The Half-Alvear born out of that slavery. Freer than the pure-bloods of their race, but shunned.

Since I plan to play a mage, let's go with the Half-Alvear. Gender doesn't really matter, so on a coin-flip, I get female. After a few minutes, on a generic search engine I got the name, Avery, 'ruler of the elves' sounds pretty cool. It then listed a bunch of classes, but there was only two magic classes,mage and summoner.

I picked mage, because of course I was planning to.

Then it gave me an incredibly in-depth character creator. Full modeling and everything with sliders all over the place.

Since I picked girl, might as well make a good one.

I spent three hours playing with sliders, and coloring wheels, until I finally made something I was happy with.

Long black hair with purple highlights framed a delicate yet serious face. Piercing amber eyes, set with a rebellious determination defined her expressions. Since she was meant to be a mage, I decided to give her the pale white skin of a shut-in, so white in fact that she almost seemed to glow. Finally, to set in as much as possible how little she could do beyond her magic I picked the scrawniest body I could, a lithe, willowy form; so slender that I doubt she could pick up more than the mage staff for her class.

Next, it showed me the usual stats and let me pick with twenty points what I wanted to focus on. Since I figured on a pure glass cannon I put ten into intelligence for magic, and ten into agility so that I could run away from enemies. Everything else I left at its default which was one point for strength, endurance, perception and luck. If the game isn’t completely empty I should have an easy enough time finding meat tanks to shield me.

Then came a focus, the game asked me what sort of magic I would prefer to focus on. Some were the standard, light, dark, fire, water. Some unique like lightning, wood, steel, and ice. Then one or two I have never seen in a game, such a gravity and sound.

Gravity seems cool enough, so I picked it.

Finally, it seemed like I reached the last pile of options.

“Everyone has a few gifts, what are yours?” It said, giving me an incredibly massive list of skills and advantages, and the option to pick three of them.

Beside that was something that said, “Everyone has a flaw, pick a few to get more gifts.”

After a few minutes shifting around I decided on the gifts, ‘multi-cast’ which lets me use multiple spells at once, ‘latent potential’ which means I get more stat bonuses as I play, and ‘flexibility’ which boost agility.

Looking into the flaws I decided on ‘emotional’, and ‘easily distracted’, two flaws that didn’t explain what they did game wise,but gave half a point towards another gift. Giving me room for the final gift, ‘quick thinking’ which boosted my intelligence stat.

Finally done, I pushed ‘finish’.

“Are you sure you are happy with your choice?” An ugly pop up says, clashing with the almost decent user interface.

I click yes.

“You will not be able to change your choices later.”

I probably won’t play for very long anyway, I click yes again.

“Are you sure?”

This game tried so hard to draw me in, yet it keeps stopping me, “Yes” I say out loud as I click the yes button on the screen.

“May you have a Glorious Fantasy.” Pops up, painfully colored Times New Roman text shoved into my face. Before I can close the pop-up, my vision blurs and I suddenly black out, a loud cracking noise deafening me.

I wake up to bird chirping, fresh chilled air, and an odd soft weight on my chest.

“Ugh.” As I groan, I hear a soft, cute voice in my ear. “What?” I say, the unknown voice echo’s back loud enough to drown out my own voice.

“Why are you-.” I stop talking, the voice stops with me as I quickly sit up. Nobodies around, I’m in a small field surrounded by a thick forest. A place so thick with life that seemed very similar to the forest I am used to, but far more colorful.

VR, virtual reality? I think to myself. Why would I think that? Because the only thing I recall doing before I woke up here was starting up that probably fake game. But I don’t have any VR equipment, and I didn’t download anything.

This is way too real.

I look down at my hands, the soft and delicate hands before me made my normal hands look like ugly slabs of meat.

I shift my eyes further down.

No, no, no, no.

I move a hand down to touch the new protrusion on my chest.

Squish.

So soft...

Ah, no, this is bad.

I can’t be-

Why am I crying?

I move my hands up and rub against soft features I’m not used to, tears I am not used to.

Sob.

Scared. No this might just be a dream. I pinch myself.

Ow.

It feels real.

Sob

No! I can’t cry. I stand up and almost fall down, my new height of 4’5 made me stumble my way almost into the strange forest. I need to find some water, that’s reflective, right?

I can’t accept my situation, so in a fit of self-delusion I stumble into the forest, while hardly able to control my own two feet I somehow avoid ever really tripping or falling, my eyes shifting around and processing things far faster than I ever did in the past.

After about ten minutes of stumbling around I finally find a small stream, while the water isn’t clear, it makes things all too clear to me. I see the pretty girl I made, while her features were obscured by mud and torn up old rags I could still see those sharp amber eyes on a cute face. I could even see a hint of red from crying.

I tried to smile a bit.

This is bad.

I couldn’t deny the sensation and smells and started sobbing again. Of course I would, what man wouldn’t cry at the loss of his manhood?

I’m not a crybaby.

I’m not.

Sob.

Unable to stand the sight of this new form anymore I turn around planning to figure out where I am. A low growl sounding in the direction I just looked away from. Monsters? I bolted out of panic while trying to call up some sort of menu. No luck. Some sort of tutorial. No luck. Don't spirited away stories usually have some sort of magical guide? I finally will myself to look back and almost stop.

Kittens!

Giant saber-toothed tabby kittens.

“Why is are they so cute?!” I involuntarily squeal out as I continue running away.

I have no idea how to use magic, and if my body is anything like those stats I set up, those things can kill me instantly and I am too weak to fight back. After half a minute of running, suffering all sorts of pains in the forest, I start gasping for breath.

Weak, why did I make myself so weak? I scream inside my mind, frustrated with my choices.

I want to stop but I know I’ll die instantly, so I push myself further into the forest, and into this new world.

----------------------------------------

Author's note: So many cats, this story will have so many cats that I can’t even. I cat-even.

So yeah, I’ve been reading gender-bender stuff for a long time, there is just something fun about reading the story of a guy learning girl problems. Along with that, those stories are just so fluffy that I wanna try it.

I hope you enjoyed my story! ^.^


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Wed Feb 01, 2017 1:38 am
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Carlito wrote a review...



Hello! Finally here as requested! :D

I really wasn't sure what to expect of this because fantasy is not my forte and I know very little about gaming. (I play Sims like there's no tomorrow and I crush MarioKart. That's my gaming :P) But this story weirdly worked for me.

Let's start with your opening.

I didn't start to feel engage until that final line about the monsters looking like kittens. That made me sit up a little and think hm. okay. Before that, it doesn't feel like anything fresh or different. I feel like I've seen lots of openings like this. Now, that alone isn't a killer. I think because you put your own spin on it right away, it doesn't end up being detrimental to you.

A few nit-picky things just in this opening:

The fear of what was behind me pushing my thin legs faster than they should ever possibly go.

"pushed" instead of "pushing". And I don't think you need "possibly". Adverbs can be useful, but usually just serve as filler (I'm so guilty of this :p), and here I think the sentence is fine without.

The sound of breaking branches and growling beast telling me just how of a frenzy these monsters were in.

"told" instead of "telling", and then I think you're missing a few words "just how much of a frenzy..."

Suddenly tripping a tree branch slaps me in the face.

"Tripping" here confused me. How about - "Tripping over a tree branch" or "A fallen tree branch..." or "I tripped over a tree branch and slapped myself in the face"
I'm not in love with any of those but the phrasing here sounds a bit funny to me.

I think the first little chunk after we go backwards in time is the weakest part of the chapter. I'm talking from "when I was six..." through "until I came across a game called Glorious Fantasy". All of this starts to feel very tell-y and info-dumpy. It's a lot of background information, and while it's sort of interesting and helps me get to know the character, it's not what I'm interested in right now. You have the whole novel to give me the backstory about his life and his gaming history - bring me right into the plot. Try to condense that information as much as possible into the most important elements and save the rest for later.

I thought the discovery of the game and him getting into the game with those interactive pop-up messages was super interesting and creative. It's actually a bit creepy the way the game seems to know him and know just what to say to get him in. I think the only thing I would like more of is his thoughts. I'll warn you now, I love me some thoughts and feelings and I want all the thoughts and feelings all the time :p I like the juxtaposition you have going about what the computer is saying versus what he does and that you broke that into lots of short paragraphs and lines. Try to add a little more about what's going through his mind and his thought process going from "this is dumb and probably a virus" to "oh what the heck imma click on it". How does he feel seeing these progressively personal messages popping up? If it were me I would be creeped.out. He seems unaffected and almost annoyed. Is that right?

I liked the way you walked us through the creation of his avatar/character person. It's a fine line because it's not particularly interesting and I'm not sure how you did it, but you found a way to keep my interest :) I appreciated that you mixed the gamer language with regular language so you would be able to connect with people that already know all of the lingo while also not isolating those of us that only play Sims :p I also felt drawn to the MC's rather disinterested affect throughout the whole experience - like he was putting thought into it while also being like meh i'm not going to play for very long so why put in a lot of effort.

I also think you do a nice job of keeping the suspense going with short sentences and paragraphs. I liked that when he actually entered the game world. The only thing I would maybe like more of is his internal monologue. What's his theory about what has happened? What are his fears? Does he have any sort of plan?

Overall, I'm very intrigued! I think you're doing a lot well already, writing wise, and I think you have an interesting plot brewing here. This reminds me of a manga I used to read many years ago about these kids that could go into a video game and they had to fight people and level up, but they could choose when they went in I think. I can't remember what it was called, but I'll look into that :) I think the gender thing is another really interesting element and I'm looking forward to seeing what you'll do with it.

I'm looking forward to reading on to see how you're going to develop this, but in the meantime let me know if you have any questions or if you would like feedback about something I didn't already mention! :D




MeatBunCat says...


Thank you for your detailed thoughts and suggestions, and i am happy to hear you like it so far~

I wanted to give you some idea about who he was, before the change, so I gave as much as I could before shoving off into all the cool parts. A person isn't just defined by how apathetic they might seem, and how focused they consider themselves. This is just a bit of him so you know how dramatic the change in character is when he/she goes through some stuff.



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Sun Jan 22, 2017 9:19 pm
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Lumi wrote a review...



Oy, this was a slow mother to read.

The issue really boils down to how INCREDIBLY linear the story is. Bottlenecked, even. The MC is told to study hard. He studies hard. He asks out the girl. Girl dumps him. He gets a cat. He gets into gaming. You see the pacing issue?

Take these events and, even if telling the past story from the voice of the elf, break it up into non-linear chunks so that we may more easily digest them. The pop-up sequence is nice--and it's a good segue into what's coming, but it also gets on-the-nose very quickly.

The time skips and tense shifts are sketchy and I'd nix them all completely, honestly.

I'm wary of where the narrative may go with the misogynistic implications of the "emotional" flaw. I mean. Flaw. You. Female > Flaw > Emotional =/= Disastrous storytelling in which world? I REALLY hope that it finds a way to turn around into some form of strength or conduit of narration. Otherwise, it's a very poor choice UNLESS we are later revealed that the MC is equally emotionally disastrous in real life.

THAT would work. But just for the sake of a genderbend? It's a terrible decision.

All the best,
Ty




MeatBunCat says...


I dunno what you mean by linear, unless you were expecting this to be a multi choice story.

The protagonist as a male showed next to no emotion (I tried to write him that way), and spent his entire intro dedicated to how focused of a person he was. Things he considered normal because of his gender. So I picked the flaws to break him away from that. I guess I should have phrased it differently though.

Also who ever said he was emotionally disastrous? In the first chapter at least his reactions have been pretty reasonable.

Beyond that, thank you for your thoughts.



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Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:16 pm
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shima wrote a review...



Well...it was weird, to say the least.

I liked it personally, but my favourite writer is Neil Gaiman so go figure.

The RPG angle was funny.
The main character was likeable, but that comes from my strong identification with him so once more - go figure.

I was quite surprised by the rather strange turn of events after the opening (expected it to continue as a fantasy story, not charge into the real life of a sad and most likely lonely guy), but it all worked out in the end. Sort of.

I am really intrigued by the premise, and honestly - it is one of the strangest things I ever read. (Take that as a compliment.) And I am the guy whose current book favourite is a novel about a talking dinosaur meeting a golem made out of paper.

I really want to know, how and why he got into this situation. µ

Also - cats. You went and made the cutest creatures on the planet into monsters. Love it.

The tension and the way it is all build up is done really well and it is nice that it takes its time with the whole setup. It would be like at the beginning of a movie with one scene and then the intro starts and the story continues, but now explaining how the lead got into that situation. I adore it when they do that, so it is quite natural that I also loved it here.

The fact that the character is genderbent is also quite interesting, not something you see a lot in stories. Bonus points (for diversity) here.

The complaints at the end about how he made himself weak were great and I think I am seeing a metaphor there for pre-game life of our main character and the way his choices have shaped him. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, could be not your initial purpose.

So- all in all, a lovely first chapter. Looking forward into reading more of your stories later on.




MeatBunCat says...


Thank you for the review and your thoughts!

So- all in all, a lovely first chapter. Looking forward into reading more of your stories later on.

Thank you! I hope this first chapter has drawn enough for your interest that you feel like reading more, even if you don't plan to review it.



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Fri Jan 20, 2017 8:53 pm
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Featherstone wrote a review...



As I promised, I finally came around to review. So hello and I'll start reviewing now!

First, I like how this starts: some normal kid being bored and then becoming a glass cannon. (this is why I don't mage. They just DIE SO EASILY without a party. For the most part, anyways). His own female glass cannon. LoL he just got wrecked.

Anyways, let's get started!

"Four hours ago------------------->" I would suggest changing it to something along the lines of "Four hours ago......" or "Four hours ago:" because those are a bit more well-used than the arrow. I might also change the wording to "Four hours prior" or something along those lines, but it's just personal preference.

This is a nitpick: "I just wanted something different,[ ]a world that rewarded my focus in some sort of quick way." There should be a space where the brackets are.

Another nitpick: "A pop up with a gaudy logo and catch line ‘Jump into a brand new you!’, and stolen artwork." No comma is necessary here.

"I lied, it didn’t get me, I closed the pop-up, and turned on an ad block program." This could be two sentences. Maybe something like: "I lied, it didn't get to me. I closed the pop-up and turned on an ad block program."

"A fake game isn’t going to fix anything.I close the ad again." Okay, this went from a thought to an action. Only the thought should be italicized. It also needs a space. So more like: "A fake game isn’t going to fix anything. I close the ad again."

"Since I tend to pick mages classes, I want to pick the elves, but according to some generic lore, those were pretty much extinct thanks to some war, with the rest of the race hiding away or suffering in slavery, the Half-Alvear born out of that slavery." This would be smoother if broken up into multiple sentences.

"Pops up, painfully colored times new roman text shoved into my face." Times New Roman should be capitalized as it is the name of a font (a proper noun). Again, maybe make this two sentences.

"Sob" should have a period.

Other than those nitpicks, it's good story. Keep writing, fellow nerd!

-Feather




MeatBunCat says...


Thank you for the error spots!



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Mon Jan 16, 2017 12:18 am
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Megrim wrote a review...



Hi! Here to review as requested. Going to type my thoughts as I read.

For starters, the tense is a little shifty. Past tense and present tense both make appearances in the opening paragraph. Seems like you're going more for present--watch out for sneaky tense slips.

The jump back in time to "four hours ago" is a big turn-off for me. It's soooo prevalent in tv, and I have too many bad associations from that. It's always *big exciting event!* to artificially pique interest, followed by *48 hours earlier back when nothing interesting was happening...* I'd suggest start where the story starts and move forward from there.

Sounds like this is a person who got sucked into a video game :)

There's a lot of backstory and telling here, about how he was raised and how he got good grades and asked a girl out, etc. I'd suggest cutting all this (maybe move it into a notes file), start with an actual scene of something happening, and dribble in pertinent info as it becomes relevant. A lot of this stuff can be shown rather than told, too. Eg we can see by his behaviour throughout the story that he's focused, and see through his interactions with people a lot of what he says about his family and friends. We can see how he goes through games quickly by having him finish one at the start of the scene, then move onto another. (My recommendation, after finishing the chapter--start with him finishing a game that he breezed through, and moving onto this new one, and use that as a way to show the facets about his personality that are infodumped in the beginning)

I love the series of popups. And naturally all the stolen artwork and other common cliches those knock-off games use! Hehehe.

Again the tense is shifting between past and present. It went more past-tense for a while, but now present tense is cropping up.

This is just personal taste, but it would be neat if the character wasn't white. I also don't think you need *quite* so specific a description--a pet peeve of mine, when authors focus a ton on hair and eyes and stuff right in chapter 1. It makes sense to have some, since he's using a character creator, but I'd stick to the essentials, and avoid over-the-top lines like "piercing amber eyes."

Sounds like he's going to have fun running around as an ACTUAL glass cannon with no one to protect him :P Not. Poor guy.

Ooooh gravity is a cool power!

I love the whole transition from finishing up the character creation, repeatedly (and frustratedly) clicking through the prompts, and suddenly having to adjust to his new body. This is a very fun start to the story. Honestly I don't think you need the mini-teaser at the beginning--this will do just fine for an opening.

Show vs tell surfaces again:

I can’t accept my situation, so in a fit of self-delusion I stumble


You can indicate denial and delusion easily by what the narrator thinks, focuses on, and rationalizes. You don't need to spell it out like this--readers are pretty good at picking up on little hints.

Ahh, I was totally expecting some kind of tutorial, but no such luck! That would be funny, but less tense, so probably better to just have him/her chased by monsters right away. Ah well.

This is SUPER fun I LOVE it. My main technique concern is that the tense is all over the place; in editing, I'd suggest pick one and go through with a fine-toothed comb to make sure it's consistent. My main content concern is about the gender swapping. I assume the MC was comfortable as a man, since it didn't mention otherwise, so this is going to be an interesting but delicate topic to explore. You'll want to be cautious to be sensitive about transgender and genderfluid issues. I think this makes for an exciting MC because of how it's going to force them to question gender and come to a new understanding about it, and about identity. Just be mindful not to lean too much on tropes and cliches, and remember that for a portion of your readers, these issues are super real, so make sure you treat it respectfully.

Can't wait to see what happens! See you in the next chapter.




MeatBunCat says...


Past tense and present tense both make appearances in the opening paragraph.

I'm bad with that >.<

Though it's intentional in the self reflection, the character is both thinking of the past, and doing things at the same time.

The jump back in time to "four hours ago" is a big turn-off for me.

I was copying something I see a lot in LN, I like the hint at what cool things might happen around the door. More so in the beginning, where all the boring explanations are going on.

This is just personal taste, but it would be neat if the character wasn't white.


There was a 50/50 shot at pure white and pure black. I dun care about that too much. So I flipped a coin on it. I just wanted a dramatic skin color.

Happy you liked what you read, and I will look into the things you mentioned. Thank you so much!



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Adler77 wrote a review...



I love this chapter! I was not expecting him to be in the game he played. I felt as if I could just see the MC setting up his character. As a gamer, I am familiar with the whole character creation thing. Also, I found myself internally screaming at the MC for making his character weak. He literally thought, you know what, I'll make my character only good at magic. Hahaha! I'll only play this game for 2 weeks. I was like, no, you don't hobble your character on purpose! I like that he haad no qualms about choosing a female character. And that it led to him being gender-bent, which I think would enrich this story.

The aspect of him mainly focusing on INT points and being a mage reminded me of two things. One, it reminded me of the manhwa The Gamer. Do you read The Gamer? In the sense of being in the game without any VR equipment reminds me of the anime/light novel Log Horizon.

The aspect of being able to choose 3 gifts from a range of options is somthing I have never come across before. It really interests me and really sets it apart from all the other gaming stories out there.

When the MC talked about himself, I found him sad, yet comical. The focus he is so used to putting into things backfired with a girl. That was funny. I like that you made cats cute, but deadly. A way to kickstart the chapter to get the readers attention. It certainly worked.

With this debut chapter, you've set my expectation that the rest of the story will continue to be great. Keep up the good work.




MeatBunCat says...


equipment reminds me of the anime/light novel Log Horizon


I love the Log Horizon light novel! Never heard of The Gamer before. What's it about?

The aspect of being able to choose 3 gifts from a range of options is something I have never come across before. It really interests me and really sets it apart from all the other gaming stories out there.


I saw it before in a video game, where you picked some advantages, and flaws, the bigger the flaws, the more advantages you have. I forget which game.

With this debut chapter, you've set my expectation that the rest of the story will continue to be great. Keep up the good work.


Happy you enjoyed it! I'll try to meet your expectations! ^.^



Adler77 says...


The Gamer is about this high-schooler who's power is The Gamer. A status point screen shows up; he can smarter by putting them into INT, wiser with WIS, stronger with STR, etc. I find myself screaming at him sometimes because he only puts points into INT. As you can imagine, he is a powerful mage with a lot of strong skills.



MeatBunCat says...


Ah, I'll look into that.

btw, do you wanna be alerted of later chapters since you seem interested?



Adler77 says...


yes. how would that happen?



MeatBunCat says...


When I put a post on my wall about a new chapter, I would go @Adler77 in some [spoilers], and you would find a notification for that post.

Though for now, I will just say I did like chapter 2 and 3 already if you didn't notice and wanna read them.



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Pentavalence wrote a review...



Hey! Pentavalence here.

Okay, this is a pretty interesting story. Right off you have giant evil kittens and a thought-reading game, which is a fascinating concept. Here are a couple things you could work on:

"I didn’t even do anything to them, why are they chasing me?! Suddenly tripping a tree branch slaps me in the face" are pretty weak sentences. Since they're in your opening paragraph, you definitely want them to be stronger.

I do like the idea of a mind-reading ad for a game, but wouldn't a normal person be a little freaked out? And why did it suddenly stop reading his mind?

Also, you do a lot of telling and not showing when it comes to the part where the protag customizes his character. A lot of that can be cut to a few sentences: focus on the character's looks, weaknesses, thought process, flaws.

I love the genderbend concept, but be careful not to accidentally put anything sexist in there.

All in all, a decent, funny beginning :)

-Penta




MeatBunCat says...


I love the genderbend concept, but be careful not to accidentally put anything sexist in there.


Huh, while I am sure I could be sexist, would anyone ever call a girl sexist? Maybe if I write in some meat headed men?

Thank you for the review!



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Sat Jan 07, 2017 11:33 am
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Zoom wrote a review...



I forced my way through the branches, weeds, and spider webs. The fear of what was behind me forcing my thin legs faster than they should ever possibly go. Loud growls echoed through the trees, the sound of breaking branches telling me just how of a frenzy these monsters were in.


Try not to repeat similar words (forced/forcing), and alliteration (breaking branches) – both can impact the flow of your writing in a bad way. Also “loud” is a weak adjective – either drop it or use a stronger one. Also I’d personally start a new sentence after “trees” or substitute the comma for “and”, because “loud growls echoed through the trees” is an independent clause and doesn’t need to be joined with another sentence.

I didn’t even do anything to them, why are they chasing me?!


Why is the last part bold? No emphasis is needed here. You’re already chosen to use extra punctuation at the end with the exclamation point. Besides, use italics to create emphasis, not bold.

A tree branch slapped me in the face.


The way this is phrased makes it seem as if the branch did this intentionally. .

“Ow!” I scream out to hold back a sob.


I’m not sure how screaming prevents a sob. Again the phrasing was slightly off here and therefore created confusion.

Why do they have to look like kittens!?


Haha. I like this revelation at the end, it serves as a good hook as well because I see we’re going back in time as we read on.

It’s not like I’m a game nerd, it’s that I am focused.


This sentence doesn’t flow well because you use the contraction “I’m” but then go on to say “I am”. It’s inconsistent.

When I was six, my parents said a boy should work hard in school, I was told get the best grades I could by my parents.


I assumed your protagonist was female. You should look into that. ***after reading on I discovered that your protagonist WAS female at the beginning, so actually, good job!***

I lied, it didn’t get me, I closed the popup, and turned on an ad block program.


It’s about this point that my attention started to wander. I can sense this will all be integral to the story however you should think about streamlining this, because reading about a student surfing the internet is a little tedious.

“Aren't you sick of being alone?” It popped up again, taunting me with even more stolen artwork and colorful text.


Twice you have said stolen artwork, but what does it look like?

I closed it out again.


You have a tendency to use the word “out” in strange places, where it isn’t needed.

A new window opened up, showing me a screen resembling just about any MMO, probably using stolen assets. It was so clean and well put together that I wondered if this was directly stolen from a dead rpg.


I know what an MMO and RPG is however some people won’t, so you might want to consider saying the full title the first time and then use the acronym.

The Elk are a Orc equivalent, green-skinned barbarians who love power over anything else, with oddly cute women. So different that they might be mistaken for a whole different race. Pretty much what anyone would expect out of am MMO, they are at war with everyone, but too disjointed to really be anything other than an annoyance.


All of these race descriptions are very off-putting. Consider how important they are, and how likely people will read them.

I spent three hours playing with sliders, and coloring wheels, until I finally made something I was happy with.


Hahaha this is literally me playing any RPG. You should keep this part.

I look down at my hands, the soft and delicate hands before me made my normal hands look like ugly slabs of meat.


I liked this description, and the humour was just right.

I shift my eyes further down.

No, no, no, no.


Haha, this was funny, good job.

***

Final comments

1) this story suffered most because of how long/tedious the internet surfing was, and how long it took to get into the game. I skipped over a lot of it. I don't even read every character bio when I play games myself, and on that note -- if I did want to read about somebody playing a game I would play a game myself. You should definitely consider trimming a lot of this story so far, as it is very off-putting.

2) Not a massive deal but it's very annoying that the space between each paragraph is huge. I simply copy and pasted it into Word and reduced the spaces, however most people wont do that and will probably just not read this altogether. I guarantee you that people have opened this thread and exited immediately after seeing the spaces. Also, on a similar note, there were more typos than what I would normally expect, so try to proof read a lot more before posting.

3) You said in your author's note that you enjoy gender-benders. I didn't know about this genre, so thanks for enlightening me. That was actually a point I was going to make, this concept is fun to read about and a very relevant topic to approach, so very well selected on your part. I wonder how you will deal with this subject matter so I'm definitely motivated to read on. I'll keep an eye out!

Zoom




MeatBunCat says...


but it's very annoying that the space between each paragraph is huge.


Following your suggestions I will see about mashing things up. I've been reading so many light novels that space everything out that I got into the habit of doing that myself. Should probably stop doing that. But I swear that it wasn't this spaced out when I pasted it in. I don't even know why it did that, and didn't even notice.

I would play a game myself.


I just wanted a facilitator for getting to the new world. I picked online games since I thought people would find the transition easier. I don't really like stories that are set in a environment that the reader knows for a fact are fake. Where nothing matters. Other then the opening, and a few occasional game like concepts, everything else will be pretty real and flow naturally. I hope anyway.

I know what an MMO and RPG is however some people won%u2019t, so you might want to consider saying the full title the first time and then use the acronym.

Agreed!

All of these race descriptions are very off-putting. Consider how important they are, and how likely people will read them.


How much of a summery do you think I can get away with or do you think I can just mention there are other races and leave explaining that for later when it's reliant to the plot?

I%u2019m not sure how screaming prevents a sob. Again the phrasing was slightly off here and therefore created confusion.


Good point! I don't even remember writing that...


Thank you for your review and all of your helpful thoughts!



Zoom says...


You're welcome!

I know what you mean about the spaces, that why I was personally so forgiving and fixed it myself so I could read on. I think this website isn't very format friendly . . .

As for the character bios, I think your protagonist should skip to the race they normally use and then only include that bio. Then as you said, when they encounter other races, the traits of those races can unfold naturally in the story. You have good instincts because you immediately found a great way of resolving this.



MeatBunCat says...


Dang it! I keep editing it, it looks fine, but when I hit publish it creates these massive spaces again!

Otherwise edited a bit based on your suggestions, and switched all the race exposition into something short, but not sure how I can really help with the drifting focus as far as the web browsing, I tried to keep things as short as possible. Any advice? Please and thank you!



MeatBunCat says...


I'll take the silence as a sign I pushed you too far for info. Sorry!



Zoom says...


Oh sorry, I didn't ignore this on purpose. The spaces between paragraphs now look fine btw.

As for the internet surfing part, my only suggestion is to trim a lot of it out. The parts leading up to the game were too tedious and there isn't really a way to dress it up better, the content itself is boring. People want to get to the meat of the story and will most likely skip over information that doesn't impact the story. The parts about tweaking the character appearance and the bio was important to the story, and the way you built up how the game was almost reacting to thoughts was important, but everything else could be removed or trimmed. :)



MeatBunCat says...


Huh, I figured I trimmed most of that out already, beside the summery of how his life was working out, it goes straight into the all known game text. I wanted to at least give a basic idea about how this guy lived before the gender-swap.

Oh! Since you seemed interested in reading more, do you want me alert you when the next chapter comes out?



Zoom says...


Of course, I am very very interested in this genre and you have executed humour very well this far so definitely count me in. Please do tag me in further posts!



MeatBunCat says...


Yay, my first fan!



Zoom says...


Haha definitely! First of many!




The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
— Marcel Proust