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Post by bulldust on Mar 28, 2024 18:13:51 GMT
Moo, bitches, moo!
The Bulldog is bulldogging here and trying to just get through the day. It’s rough sometimes living in isolation.
The upsides are less fuckery by nosy neighbors and solar salesmen. The downsides are a complete lack of interpersonal interaction and that distinct feeling that nobody would even notice your absence.
Which brings me to this cap Self-Storage.
First off, the formatting messed with the Bullmeister because it uses italics instead of quotes for dialog. The Bulldude is used to that only being used for internal dialog, so it threw him a bunch. However, he persevered in reading this cap.
The cap is interesting, surreal, and unexpected. Normally, the Bullguy would be all “fuck this thinking cap”, but he’s pondering it, wondering how alone we all are and how we really don’t know what’s inside others. The Bull suspects the Fish will also feel the same, but that’s just a supposition. It took the Bulldude a couple of reads to appreciate this cap.
So, yeah. Send ‘er on up. Let’s see what the Monkey thinks.
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Post by sturgeon on Apr 5, 2024 15:55:59 GMT
A mysterious coworker locks her colleagues in a storage unit and challenges them to find out more about her, before turning the tables and revealing each to themselves. This is the kind of capital that leans into its mysteries; hyperreal; pompous; intriguing. Rocks on the floor called it "metaphysical forensics", which is a perfect description. (He is far, far from being a "dunce".)
For my own reasons, I will be critiquing mostly in bullet points today.
Pros:
- Cool voice (with admirably precise language and neatly observed metaphor). - Good hook (teambuilding event turns weird). - Subtle hints about the character of our protagonist ("Daydreaming about washing my hands over and over again"). - Subtle foreshadowing (with mention of detective work and Agatha Christie).
Cons:
- Dialogue, and lengthy monologue, is done in italics (distracting). - It's not always obvious who's talking (partly because we don't know how many of them there are or really who they are, and partly due to lack of clarity eg. who is talking about being INFJ after Britt interjects - Britt or Meagan?). - A large part of the narrative is reported by one of the characters (rather than being in-scene and/or dramatised).
I was sufficiently sucked in by this cap to root for it, but the ending had to be right for me to fall in love. Turns out the twist seems to be that the Sherlockian obsessive Meagan was talking about wasn't her mother, but herself. Then there's a denouement, with the narrator feeling roused from his solipsism by Meagan's bizarre revelations, and finding a brief moment of meaningful personal connection in the infinite void.
It's good, but is it great? I feel like... it could be. As it stands, I am tempted not to recommend it. But it does have something of the monkey about it, and I know that our glorious leader is prepared to offer an author a chance to polish up the right piece. So, in the end, I will vote Yes, in confidence that whatever time Rorschalk chooses to invest in this capital will not, at least, be wasted.
Needs some copyedits eg:
- varnished,. - The dialogue starting "No no no, this has got to be memories..." shouldn't have single quotes around it - what makes them tick - She had the palmist's morbid draw - partizan [this one might just be an American English thing] - when they know there mother’s face - mom should be capitalised when it's used as a name - Why is one of the people her mother found especially interesting or baffling "My own mother" - should that not say "Herself"?
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