Rate the Story Game, número tres

7.8 The scene is macabre. But the description doesn't quite match the mood, I also feel like the dialog is... so out of place. I'm no big fan of 'psycho girls' and I was somewhat hoping for an explanation as to why this was happening.
- - -

Moving to Japan was the first kick on the face, a crooked nose and tied tongue forever marring my life. My dad escaped the American law if only by a day; and now we hid under the masses of squinty eyes and intellectual jargons. I was ten years old by then, and if my mother ever knew that running away was going to bring all this shit, she would’ve begged my father to do otherwise. Begging never got anywhere, but trying was like having a lick of salt in that hot desert we called hope.

The first thing I ever learned to say was ‘kuso’ and that never got me anywhere. No matter how hard I tried to learn the meaning behind those squiggly lines, the alphabet of English blinded me like a headlight to a deer. Hai, hai, hai; the mantra of my daily life, the true source of my current living state, the one and only word that kept me standing day after day.

The culture, to say the least, was out of my mind. I walked around shoeless and silent and the gossip was much worse than back home. I ate fish every. Fucking. Day. And the teachers would simply tell me the words I never learned, and they always fucked me over with new words every time I learned the old ones. It was terrible. And, perhaps, after another kick in the gut by destiny and cruelty and just the whole package of fuck ups. I adjusted to my new life.

- experimental uneverything.

9.5. It's so interesting I like this 'experimental' feel in a new place

-

Zeus detonates the sky with fulmination and thunder and electricity and I can hear Hera crying out, trying to relax him but he threatens her with a clenched fist of her own beautiful hair. I'm alone, all alone, palms against my ears holding my breath as Poseidon swallows me whole under a crushing wave. Tumbling beneath the water, cold and cutting, the tide pushes me onto the embankment. Cough cough cough water like cement stuck in my throat. I don't have much time so I gather my dress and broken pieces into my arms, running and running until I reach some kind of farm land spotted with old sod. And just like that Hephaestus sets the land ablaze, burning away crops and marking beaten tracks in the ground.

I have to sit. I need to rest these weary eyes and this tormented soul. Upon this ignited ground there is still hope, I can feel it pulsing on my withered fingertips. I can see it within the white-hot flames licking the horizon, dancing and jumping around on the land. It's hard to stay calm with destruction around, then I remember my family, gone. Cinders, fragments fanned into the air. I remember the stories my grandmother always told me about Aphrodite arising from simmering sea foam, the dismemberment of genitalia, Cronus Uranus Thalassa.

- ?

9. I like the "cough cough cough" without commas. It adds a sort of raw feeling. Broken pieces makes me wonder if they're pieces of herself that broke off or if it's just a metaphor.

---

"You'd tell me if you thought I was making a mistake, wouldn't you, Spin?" Ryan turned his eyes to his best friend, softly accusing him.

The younger boy hesitated, crossing and uncrossing his legs, closing the window on the computer, biting his bottom lip. "I don't think it's a mistake, necessarily. If anyone can make it work, y'know, it's you and Pete. It was just . . . quick. I mean, you told me two days before you were pregnant and then you call me and tell me to pick up Brendon because you need witnesses to your wedding."

"He was so happy. He cried when he asked, like tears in his eyes and shit." Ryan laughed, almost cynically. "We don't even sleep in the same room."

"Not all couples do."

"I don't know where the soup goes."

"Buy a labelmaker."

---learning to fall; chapter one.

7.8 I'm sure it works better as a whole, but there's nothing particularly engaging about the excerpt.

-

(hope for the flowers)

I caught your breath and held it in my palm. It fluttered against my skin and left little footprints of honey. [It had the most magnificent wings - they scintillated in my hand - and I feared it might escape] I should have let it go, but I didn't. So you died.

- Papilionoidea

11. You have the most amazing ability to pack an absolutely incredible amount of beauty into the tiniest bits of writing.

If there was an ideal time to visit the Atlantic City Boardwalk, this would be it.

The crowds were slim; mostly middle class, mid-western, mid-size families enjoying the last bits of sun and surf that the year had to offer. A few vendors were standing on the edges of the near deserted boardwalk, their voices too loud and brassy, Brooklyn and Jersey and Harlem accents ringing over the dim sounds of the crowd like crappy audio commentary on a cheap DVD - insert laugh track, pause for clang of bicycle hitting metal trash cans, faint vulgarities, laugh track again. The sun was bright, artificially bright, too strong for late September. It bothered the locals - made them antsy. The sea should be grey by now, not a shiny navy blue. It was unnatural, especially paired with the clash of vendor's voices, the din of the out-of-towners, the weird warmth of what should be the early autumn sun. It was strange, and strangely beautiful.

Fitting, thought Jackson Lutes. Fitting that today would be sunny.

The man, walking down the boardwalk at an easy pace, was tall and thin, with stark white hair and dark blue eyes that seemed just as out of place as the unseasonable ocean. At first glance, someone looking at Jackson Lutes would think he was older - elderly, even. But, upon closer inspection, you could see that he was fairly young, mid 40's at most. He liked that most people thought he was older (it was a bit of strange irony, looking so old when he'd always felt younger than most, and his hair was something he'd had since he was in his early 20's), so he left it as nature had intended - bright white, the color of notebook paper or hotel pillowcases or jumbo puffed marshmallows, just a few specks of what used to be a dark rich black left at the roots. Adding to his strange appearance were his clothes - mod, almost punk rock, lots of black and dark blues and reds. Mirrored sunglasses -aviators, no others would do- made him seem distant, cool, like some hipster bassist in a mod rock band or a visiting movie star from some foreign country.

He thought about that, smiling languidly as he thudded down the walkway, silver buckled motorcycle boots glinting in the sun.

October 19th, Original Novella

9.5. I love the description of Jackson, especially his hair. It paints a very intriguing picture of him, makes you want to know more about what makes him tick. My only quibble is It was strange, and strangely beautiful because the repetition of strange throws me off a little, but it's really wonderfully written all round.

---

Kevin’s just hammering the last nail into the sign above the shop – ‘JONAS’ it reads, in bright sparkly blue lettering that Kevin designed himself when Nick decided they needed a makeover – when the rickety old ladder they’ve had since forever wobbles precariously beneath him. He flails madly for a few moments, arms wind-milling at his sides like he’s trying to take flight, before he topples backwards, crashes into an unsuspecting passer-by and sends them both sprawling onto the pavement.

“What the fuck?” the unsuspecting passer-by grunts, and Kevin scrambles off him abruptly, dusting himself down and muttering apologies under his breath because the guy is actually kind of scary-looking, with messy dark hair and intense blue eyes that are currently screwed up into a scowl, and Kevin is kind of terrified that he might kill him. “You make a habit of just falling out of the sky like that?”

Kevin’s face flushes. “I didn’t fall out of the sky,” he points out, because it seems important that the stranger understands this, “I fell off a ladder. An old, rickety ladder that probably should have been replaced forever ago and I’m really, really sorry that I fell on you ‘cause it probably really hurt and-”

“Kid,” the guy says, holding up a hand to stem the flow of Kevin’s word vomit, “it’s fine, I’m fine. Nothing’s broken.” (Except my pride, Kevin thinks, heart sinking in his chest.) “It’s fine.”

And it’s probably true, nothing’s actually broken as such, for either party, but there’s this eggplant bruise purpling on the strange man’s forehead that’s making Kevin squirm with guilt. The guy frowns when he catches Kevin staring at him and feels his head, wincing when he presses too hard on the lump forming there.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Kevin says again, because he feels it warrants repeating when he literally fell on top of the guy. “Do you want ice for that or something?”

“Yeah,” the stranger says after a moment’s thought. “Yeah, ice would be nice.”

“Great,” Kevin says, relieved. “I can totally get you some ice without causing you any more bodily harm.”

-I really don't know.

nine

- -

I don’t know what the cure to you was. I know that he had something to play a part in it, but if he was the cure he was like chemotherapy, a long procedure that damaged me in the process. I don’t deny it didn’t help in the slightest. The end result with him though was good, I found someone who cared about me so much that it was unbelievable and a new aspect completely to me. But I’m slowly getting there.

You infected my mind and body straight away, you wormed your way into my bloodstream so with every beat I was even more infatuated with you. I’m not sure how you did it, maybe it was when our hands brushed against each other by accident, or when you fell asleep with your hand on my knee, or maybe it was within our first lot of eye contact. I was fooled by your sweet exterior, and now I can see how you will have done the same to so many girls before.

You’re an illness with irrational consequences. You’d be able to infect the body in so many ways and you made my mood into a ticking time bomb. One minute I could be smitten, my personality more soft than freshly cleaned laundry or the appearance of a cloud. A smile would be plastered across my face, and my pace would be almost a glide. This was the high.

The low came when you would distance yourself, but still pull on the heartstrings. With a click of a finger I could be at my lowest, tears streaming from my face and lack of emery to walk. Your presence stung, my blood hissed at one glance in my direction. I’d go from happy to angry, angry to sad, and then sad to determined to quit you and wash you out of my system. But it never worked.

- - Infection.

8.5

---

Her quaking hands tighten around his wrist, feeling for a pulse, a ripple, something. His blood soaks her clothes, standing out in bright crimson clumps. Her breath hitches in her throat as she finds the fruits of her labor.

Nothing. No pulse, no heartbeat, no breathing. Nothing.

Her other hand gently strokes over the blood-soaked hole in his chest, her fingers pale but slowly turning bright red. It was stupid of her to think that he could survive something like that.

The gun lies lazily off to the side, tossed carelessly, the once-black body now scarlet with his blood.

And at this moment, with his pulse gone, her fingers bloody, and the gun seemingly watching her from its place on the floor, it hits her.

She watched the only man she ever truly loved kill himself.

--I Mean This...

eight. i really love the present tense narrative here.

---

Pete didn't really smoke, but he had a pack of cigarettes stashed in the back of the freezer for situations such as these, when he didn't trust how many Xanax pills would end up in his hand. So now he was outside, out of view of the doors and windows, sucking on a Marlboro that burnt the back of his throat, most likely owing to the fact that it was probably six months old.

He could have cared less if it had just been about him. He'd dealt with that before. But Ryan was fortunate enough to not be such a desired piece of meat, with so few skeletons in his closet and the fact that he could close himself off so well from what people wanted (and what he was willing to give). Now both of them were going to be forced headfirst into the world of photographers and tabloid stories, if the phone calls from management were any indication.

"Must have been fucking crazy to think we could have a quiet pregnancy." Pete muttered, kicking out savagely at an object that wasn't there to take his anger.

"You shouldn't smoke," came Patrick's voice before the boy himself came into view. "I heard pregnant people get heightened senses, like dogs."

Pete grit his teeth, staring down the length of the cigarette before taking another drag. "Ryan probably wouldn't even care," he spat out bitterly. "It's not like I'm Brendon or Spencer or someone he actually gives a damn about."

---unposted chapter of learning to fall

8.5. Something about a desired piece of meat just doesn't sound right to me, doesn't sound like it fits. I like the dialogue, though, and the last line makes me want to hug Pete a lot, bless him.

---

Kevin’s just hammering the last nail into the sign above the shop – ‘JONAS’ it reads, in bright sparkly blue lettering that Kevin designed himself when Nick decided they needed a makeover – when the rickety old ladder they’ve had since forever wobbles precariously beneath him. He flails madly for a few moments, arms wind-milling at his sides like he’s trying to take flight, before he topples backwards, crashes into an unsuspecting passer-by and sends them both sprawling onto the pavement.

“What the fuck?” the unsuspecting passer-by grunts, and Kevin scrambles off him abruptly, dusting himself down and muttering apologies under his breath because the guy is actually kind of scary-looking, with messy dark hair and intense blue eyes that are currently screwed up into a scowl, and Kevin is kind of terrified that he might kill him. “You make a habit of just falling out of the sky like that?”

Kevin’s face flushes. “I didn’t fall out of the sky,” he points out, because it seems important that the stranger understands this, “I fell off a ladder. An old, rickety ladder that probably should have been replaced forever ago and I’m really, really sorry that I fell on you ‘cause it probably really hurt and-”

“Kid,” the guy says, holding up a hand to stem the flow of Kevin’s word vomit, “it’s fine, I’m fine. Nothing’s broken.” (Except my pride, Kevin thinks, heart sinking in his chest.) “It’s fine.”

And it’s probably true, nothing’s actually broken as such, for either party, but there’s this eggplant bruise purpling on the strange man’s forehead that’s making Kevin squirm with guilt. The guy frowns when he catches Kevin staring at him and feels his head, wincing when he presses too hard on the lump forming there.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Kevin says again, because he feels it warrants repeating when he literally fell on top of the guy. “Do you want ice for that or something?”

“Yeah,” the stranger says after a moment’s thought. “Yeah, ice would be nice.”

“Great,” Kevin says, relieved. “I can totally get you some ice without causing you any more bodily harm.”

-possibly titled Not the Kind With Wings.

7, it seems like a cute story though. If anything, the first sentence is what threw me off, there's so much going on all at once that it sort of drowns me.

---

What is normal?

There isn't quite a set definition of the world.

Everyone knows of it, this supposed normalcy, but no one can put a finger on what exactly it is.

Is it stalking your soul mate from dusk till dawn, positive that you're meant to be? Is it smashing your fist against someone's face, relishing on the adrenaline pumping in your veins and laughing as you go? Is it seducing your half-sister once wandering eyes are absent, trailing your hands across her delectable skin? Is it toying with men twice your age, tasting their blood on your tongue with a grin?

Or is it that one thing we share, the most normal thing, whether a person will admit it to themselves or not, because everyone has a secret.

- basic summary of Normal.

8. i like it as a summary quite a bit. the only thing is i tend to like more concrete summaries, personally.

---

Ryan looked at Patrick, really looked at him. He was Pete's best friend, had been for years. He understands Pete. And if he thought Ryan and Pete were alike then maybe he might understand the boy, too. Maybe. He took a deep breath, trying to untangle the words. But instead of saying them, he slipped into the water instead. His shirt stuck to his stomach and he thought he felt the baby flutter, but he could have been mistaken.

Patrick just watched him in silence until the sliding door open and Pete came out in jeans and no shirt, his chest still wet from his shower and his hair sticking up slightly in the back. It was dark out, the backyard illuminated by the glow of the blue pool lights and Pete looked like some sort of mage with his tattoos and piercing eyes fixed on Ryan's body. "Is chlorine bad for the baby?" he asked in a small voice, like he was embarrassed to even be wondering.

For that reason and that reason alone, Patrick didn't laugh at him. "No, Pete. Hot tubs are."

Ryan turned when he heard the voices and Pete's breathing seemed to hitch in his throat. He looked beautiful in the water, relaxed, his eyes slightly widened when he saw the way Pete was looking at him. "Hi," Ryan choked out, his voice unusually thick.

--from chapter one of learning to fall

9. Everything worked really well together and the simplicity in the writing was great. It wasn't too flowery and every sentence added to the story. There was one mistake though: "Patrick just watched him in silence until the sliding door open and Pete came out..." that should be 'opened'.

--
Brendon fumbled for his own clothes and stood up clumsily. He watched Ryan fold up the blanket quickly and lay it across the back of the couch before grabbing his jeans and pulling them back on. He turned and disappeared up the stairs.

Brendon lowered himself down onto the couch and sighed. The television remote sat on the coffee table in front of him. He turned the television on and rested his feet on the table. He looked over his shoulder when he heard Ryan clamber back down the stairs. The blanket from the guest room was thrown over his shoulder. Next, he would sit down on the couch and wrap the blanket around him and open whatever novel he was in the middle of.

He blew out the candles that were still burning. And then he did.

From And Then The Candle Went Out.

10. I love how this is really technical, yet you see the emotion in each actually without saying any of it.

---

The first time Ryan heard his words being sung by the boy with the other guitar, he thought he'd fallen down a well, so sudden was the swooping in his stomach. For a moment he thought he saw stars and and heard a woman laughing, but before it had really registered, he'd convinced himself it hadn't happened.

Brendon was the one who never liked to know, always wanted to be immature and innocent. But he always knew, regardless of his desires. He heard the words, felt them down to his bones, like they had somehow been etched there before he was born. It was the same way he felt the first time he kissed Ryan, like somehow their lips had been molded to fit each other's.

"You're really in love with the concept of fate, aren't you?" Ryan asked. They were in the hotel, on one of the King-sized beds. Brendon was at the foot, working his way through a sub sandwich from the gas station down the street. Ryan was at the head, scribbling words into a notebook.

"Well, to some extent." Brendon said, reaching onto the floor for the plastic cup of soda he knew was down there. "I mean, I think we make our own destiny but someone has to help. Like why would someone give you all those words unless they knew you were going to use them?"

"I don't know." Ryan laughed. "Why would someone give you that ass when you hate to bottom?"

Brendon reached over and pushed at his leg, before succumbing to his own laughter. "Fate has a sense of humor, I guess."

--Children of a Lesser God; unposted/unfinished

9, 'he thought he saw stars and and heard a woman laughing, ' I love how naive and simplistic that is, like exactly what a sort of love is supposed to be like. The whole thing is rad but somethings a bit off for me but I do like it and i'm intrigued by the rest of the story line.

- - - - - -

The smell of sweat licks my senses as I jarr the door open with the point of my toe, the resulting subtle pain can't draw my eyes away from the source of the smooth aching noises. The slick backs, tied limbs, untidyly knotted together. Dale wearing the wiley grin of the wolf as he spotted me over the spike of a shoulder, biting down, sucking profanely at the flesh of the others neck, snapping capilleries and leaving me to feel the sting of the bruise. I, desperate for relief, flatten my eyes to the heaving form of his contemporary. On tight inspection the stranger has a network of tribal tattoos marring the olivey tone of his skin. Dark hair not utterly unlike mine. My near-twin from behind i suppose, the kind of guy maybe a friend of mine would catch by the arm, only to find themselves mistaken. It takes me a few solid minutes but I finally recoil, throwing myself away from the door the heady atmosphere now like acid touch teasing and scolding at every expanse of my skin. I count every step from that door to the kitchen but I just know he hasn't followed me. I put my ass in a chair, my head in my hands and give him ten minutes to get his shit together. He won't take too long before he comes to either gloat or grovel. I know these things about Dale, i'll be eating away at him up there. True to form in eight minutes theres the heard thumps of flat feet on dated floorboards. I know him better than anyone.

Dale sprawls clumsily into the room, his skin reeking of someone who wasn't me. He looks like life has just chewed him up and then projectile vomited him back into yesterday clothes. He tears at the orange juice lid, gulping it down, sparing me about half the bottle, how gracious. He doesn't have even the slightest grasp on nonchalant and I wanted to knock him out where he stands. Beat him black and blue in this stupid dated eighties kitchen. I fucking hate formica, it makes me think of my parents and all the pies my mum used to bake whilst my dad was out screwing her best friend. I decide to start the formal proceedings and I state what we both knew so well. 'You look like shit' I offered, glancing across his bedraggled form it was clear he was either drunk or stoned or strung the fuck out.

'I know, thanks'

'Nice boyfriend you got there,' I countered.

'Fuck you.'

'Watch out Dale or someone might go thinking your gay.'

'Fuck you Oz.'

'Then again most average joe straight guys, which you are of course, do have the tendency of fucking nameless blokes into their best friend mattress. Yeah course it's so typical... Get a grip man.' I spat it at him, barely keeping my voice from shaking.

'Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you'

The last syllable was just static to me, screaming it out at me all over again. He was so pliable now I could take him to angry and back within minutes. It was so sadistic but it filled a gap inside that he kept leaving wide open. Deepening gradually with each new progression he made into become a shell of anything near to my best friend. It was so warped. I only had to tug the strings and he danced like a marrionette, a perfect puppet carved in Dale's likeness. I half expected the real him to walk through those doors and have a good laugh with me at this poor impression of himself. Yet the door stayed closed and the doppleganger just stared me straight down. Neither of us knowing quite what move needed to be made next. Still i'm pretty sure I was the only one playing for checkmate in this game.

-- Jacket, Unposted, Chaptered

ten.

- -

Alcohol.

Pour it. Sip it. Down it. Spill it. Puke it.

Everyone I knew was fixated with destroying their liver, and leaving a foul taste in their breath the morning after. They thought drinking was the epitome of fun despite the wine stain on their parents cream carpet or the sick screaming to be cleaned. With a drink in your hand, there’s a limited amount of activities but the guaranteed embarrassment with every drink.

Drugs.

Roll it. Light it. Toke it. Line it. Snort it. Inhale. Exhale.

At first I was weary; there’s so many out of reach, all there to lead you into other worlds. You get the rush and the excitement the same as alcohol, but then you also have the self control and relaxation thrown in. Every experience is something different, you can go between the lines and cross every boundary. Instead of drowning yourself in booze and bile, you can float away from the world you knew to one of your very own.

- - Special K.
Unposted. I'm thinking of this as the prologue/first chapter? cc?

10. I really like how it's written. It's good

---

Ryan loved ballet. Not because of the way the dancers were able to move effortlessly and oh so beautifully; but because of how thin they were. Brendon thought he just loved the ballet like any other person did. He didn’t know that Ryan’s obsession had anything to do with anything other than dancing.

Ryan would find pictures of dancers and add them to the enormous collage that he had been forming for months on the inside of his closet door. Each morning when Ryan went to get his clothes for the door he would always take a moment to stare longingly at the flat stomachs, the long legs—sticks that emerged from the tulle of their tutus. Legs that were limber; legs that Ryan wanted. If only he could have the perfection that the ballerinas were able to obtain.

While Brendon was in the bathroom, Ryan would stand in front of the mirror in the bedroom before putting his shirt on and stand sideways, sucking in his stomach and admiring the way it looked. If only he could lose that weight. He pulled on his shirt. He looked at his legs—they didn’t even compare to the dancers’. He pulled on his jeans.

- uneverything

9. I love this. It's a different sort of feeling than you see in most eating disorder fics. It's an original concept.

---

The boy's eyes opened and he sat up in bed, his hands immediately going to his head, which was pounding from all the shots he'd done the night before. He was soaked in sweat and there was dried semen on the inside of his thigh. This has to stop, he told himself as he stumbled down the hallway to the bathroom, sinking onto the cool tile and pushing the toilet seat up, preparing himself for the vomit that was getting ready to come up.

Three wet dreams in a week and this was his second hangover in a row. Ever since he'd heard that fucking song he'd taken it as a personal challenge. How many bottles could he go through in a night before he passed out? He starts to notice empty bottles of gin.

He hadn't called Brendon yet. What was there to say except everything? He couldn't say everything.

---Between the Lines

nine.

- -

Alcohol.

Pour it. Sip it. Down it. Spill it. Puke it.

Everyone I knew was fixated with destroying their liver, and leaving a foul taste in their breath the morning after. They thought drinking was the epitome of fun despite the wine stain on their parents cream carpet or the sick screaming to be cleaned. With a drink in your hand, there’s a limited amount of activities but the guaranteed embarrassment with every drink.

Drugs.

Roll it. Light it. Toke it. Line it. Snort it. Inhale. Exhale.

At first I was weary; there’s so many out of reach, all there to lead you into other worlds. You get the rush and the excitement the same as alcohol, but then you also have the self control and relaxation thrown in. Every experience is something different, you can go between the lines and cross every boundary. Instead of drowning yourself in booze and bile, you can float away from the world you knew to one of your very own.

- - Special K.
Posted. Unsure though. CC?

nine. i like the short sentences.

---

"So, I heard the new song." Ryan's phone was pressed to his ear as he set the three frozen pizzas and bottle of vodka down in the check-out lane. "Just, uh, saying. So, call me when you get this? Drinks or something. Bye." He ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket and pulled out his wallet to give the cashier the ID they always asked for.

"How are you doing tonight?" the woman asked. She was in her early thirties, he'd guess, with dirty blonde hair and lipstick that didn't really match her skintone. But she was smiling so he spared her.

"Good. Yeah. Pretty quiet in here tonight?"

She agreed and he held out the twenty before she told him the total, shoving the change into his jacket pocket instead of his wallet. For the homeless guy outside.

It was too early for vodka. It wasn't even nine in the morning yet. Brendon would call him back and he wouldn't be able to drive if he started to drink already. Then again, if Brendon didn't call, he'd wait six hours not drinking. His phone rang as he was pulling into the driveway.

---Between the Lines