March 19th, 2009 at 11:05pm
I think your writing is truly stunning.
- Cristina Scabbia:
- I offically have no chance of winning this contest.
It leaves me speechless.
That's all I can really say.
Affliction - Comments
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It leaves me speechless.
That's all I can really say.March 3rd, 2009 at 08:18pm -
I liked this. =]
There was a few spelling/grammar mistakes here and there, but overall it was really well written.March 2nd, 2009 at 01:48am -
I offically have no chance of winning this contest.
Bloody hell, Ruby, this was amazing! :omfg:
The only bad thing I have to say is that the layout was a little too dark in my opinion, the font wasn't bright enough for me to read so I'm on default layout.
I like the point of view of this. It's a mixture of first and second, in an odd way, and you're the only person whose stuff I've read that can pull it off like that. It's really stunning how you write and I wish that you'd believe it when people say that you are an amazing writer, because you really are. :cheese:
YOU ARE AN AMAZING WRITER!!!!!!!
I hope that helps you get that into your head. Anyhoos, feedback.
I’m staring in the mirror and your hiding in my eyes, cowering beneath the dilated black, the tightness of the pills cutting into my palm. I think "your" is meant to be "you're", but still, wow. The words "hiding in my eyes" were particularly bold, a really strong metaphor there. It really describes everything so well and "it" is cowering behind the black, suggesting that it wants to hide away from the world and never come back out.
Nothing will save us. Its like they're as one - the word "us" implies that they're in this together, that the "disease" (I don't like to call it a disease but I dunno what else to call it) is now just as much of them as they are. If that makes sense.
I had beauty. I had perfection laid out in front of me, just waiting to be tasted. Now it’s curdled, thick clumps of acrid material where the promise of sweetness used to linger. It's like, now this person has got this disorder (I prefer that word) nobody will ever want them again, and they've suddenly turned ugly and unwanted. They're all alone, apart from this thing inside of themself.
I grew old quickly but I’ll take you with me. Here, the person is saying that they're never going to embark into a relationship, they don't want to pass this curse onto anybody else. They're just going to suffer in silence, which makes me very sad.
Sorry this isn't as long as normal, but I guess that there's less to pick up on cause it's only 500 words. It was still amazing anyway.
Oh, and by the way.
YOUR WRITING IS FUCKING AMAZING! DON'T DOUBT IT! AND IF YOU EVER DO THEN I'LL KIDNAP ALED AND KEEP HIM SOMEWHERE WHERE YOU CAN NEVER FIND HIM.February 28th, 2009 at 03:45pm
Alright. It’s normally hard for me to give long reviews when there’s only 500 words, but the content in this is so rich that you’re welcome to stop reading if I go on and on and on about your vocabulary because my brain turns to mush when I read your work. I’ll also try not to rape the :cheese: emoticon so much, but I’m making no promises. :tehe:
I’m also sorry for leaving this so late. I didn’t mean to, I swear, I just had a lot of schoolwork to do. But I’m putting off Biology for tomorrow morning to get this to you. No need to feel guilty, it’s notes on variation in organisms and the most boring subject known to man that isn’t Physics. So I’d much rather be doing this. :cute:
I’m staring in the mirror and you're hiding in my eyes, cowering beneath the dilated black, the tightness of the pills cutting into my palm. What are you, part of me?- I loved the opening. Part of the reason I adored this piece so much was that the character was talking to the disease as if it were a person, and I’ve never read anything like that before. It added to the already outstanding originality of your work. I also like the idea of the affliction reaching every part of a person and even lurking in their pupils, the window to a person’s soul. It’s just mind-boggling. :cheese:
They cut down anything to bearable size and thrust it down my throat, give me another day, give me another week. Gift me with life teetering on the brink of extinction. I am sciences toy, to do with me what they see fit, to save what is only half human, half festering infection. They fight save the walking dead, already tagged up for the morgue with their glazed eyes and die-cast frowns. Blind to what we’ve become, Forging tests, measuring our discontent. Nothing will save us. Ahhh fucking hell. I hate quoting huge paragraphs but there is literally not one word of that I can’t comment on. :cheese: Firstly, the pragmatics of ‘they’ are interesting because ‘they’ could be anyone, but because of the semantics of disease and meds I assume ‘they’ are doctors. It’s such a distant way to refer to them and it really works because you get this feel the character loathes them. The next part, I am science’s toy etc etc reinforces this and I lurrrve the metaphorical aspect of that. This character is so pessimistic and it really fits, that they see the world as just carrying out tasks with no feeling – the doctors will save you because it is their job, and science/medial theory will try and prevent death but really there is no telling what will happen. The way they describe themselves as half human also adds to the dehumanisation of the person into this plagued being, who is almost taken over by disease. You really feel for them at this point and it’s like :cheese: (I’m not doing so well with leaving ol’ cheesy smiley alone, poor bugger.) The tagged up for the morgue part was actually one of my favourite parts of the whole piece, this person can see themselves dead and nothing’s going to prevent it. It’s actually quite scary and creepy, now I think about that. The next sentence also blew me away. Everything just makes me think so deeply – the doctors are trying to save a HIV sufferer by checking progress but really they aren’t measuring happiness, it’s how long until you die. Overall, it’s pretty
your took your chance to wallpaper my veins black with your disorder.Know what I’m gonna say to that? :yah :yah and another :yah. I thought I was fairly good at anatomical metaphors – honey, you’re the queen. :file: The use of the colour really drags the mood down (as if it already wasn’t sad enough, but you get which corpse I’m poking at) as black is associated with mourning, and this person will die soon. It’s like they’re already dead inside as well from this plague – don’t know whether that was intentional or I’m reading too far in, but that’s what I got from it.
I had perfection laid out in front of me, just waiting to be tasted. Now it’s curdled, thick clumps of acrid material where the promise of sweetness used to linger. I can’t think of the right word to use but when abstract nouns are described as concrete nouns it makes me go all shuddery and :yah. Well it does when you do it, anyway. The image of something curdling is pretty gross, and its aperfect contrast to what the perfection used to look like. I also love the snippet of backstory here – any backstory is good backstory, and I applaud you for being able to fit it into a 500-word fic. I could hardly get it into my 600 one.
I hope your contentment lays in my ruin; I will curse you when you peel my limbs from life itself and choke me down into my casket. Okay, here comes another one: :cheese: I don’t even wanna cheapen this with words. I think you know from how many times I’ve told you that your brain is abnormally special and the physical image of this is so dramatic and twisted that it’s hard to picture. But that’s a good thing, because it makes me think. :weird I also think this part links to what I said earlier about the HIV being a person, because here the character is saying this disease has a motive to kill, claiming yet another victim for it’s own. I also really like the words ‘peel’ and ‘choke’ – so simple, yet in this context they fit really well and add immensely to imagery.
You ache for a new body, to seep the strength from new full bones with life still left in them, to leave this skeleton of mine at it’s last. I loved this too. The disease just wants out and I can really fit that when a person is dying – they’re weak and sometimes they’re bleeding internally or vomiting or coughing or having seizures and all of these things are like the infection wants to get out. It also makes the HIV seem more like an animal than a person here, like they’re some hungry carnivore. Brilliant. :cheese:
Organs made to rot and fester, food for the worms.:weird Superb use of kung-fu to destroy that old box. This really made me think too, about how every person is going to die and really we’re all going to decompose into the earth and will all be forgotten, eventually. The image of festering organs is also too gross to imagine. It’s actually disgusting, Ruby. :hand: But I’ll let you off cos it works so well.
I’ll murder you with my own collapse. Lock you in my inert heart and let you stagnate there. Love love love love love. This person’s now feeling vengeful and rightly so. The fact that he wants the virus to be locked in his heart suggests connotations of love, and his heart is all used up and dying now so they’ll be finished together. But I adore contrast so much and the hate vs love thing is so strong that it’s very poignant here, and I think hate might just be winning.
Indeed, as you whisper softly into my ear drum, your kind may be out their, to invade and silently coax anatomy’s into self destruction. Still you my dear can feel the press of the earth along with my sorry form. So I mutter my simple plans in cold reply, I whisper it to you, chapped lips singing with a saccharine smile as I force the capsules down my coarse oesophagus. A few precious word’s, formed and forced through closed teeth for only you, my dear dear affliction. Okay, last paragraph, and I know I’ve quoted it all again but I have slight OCD and can’t leave any valid comment out. :weird Again, the reinforcement of the affliction being a person is evident and it keeps the continuity alive, so well done on that. I read too many stories where the author starts out with or develops a concept and then forgets about it (guilty – I did that in my English coursework) but you obviously put time into this and knew exactly how the story would be told, and it’s consistent all the way through. I also love the fact that you say bodies will kill themselves, because often HIV is contracted through a person’s own fault ie sex, drugs etc. It makes me wonder how this person got the disease, because you never say. I wonder if all the anger towards the disease in this piece actually is directed at the person’s self, but they can’t bring themselves to blame themselves so they blame the disease? I think your character maybe should have watched Tom Fletcher’s (or Paul, as he calls himself =’] ) video on HIV protection and awareness. ‘Never, EVER share needles.’ – or so he says. If you haven’t watched this and have no idea what I’m on about, Tom presented a short HIV awareness video when he was younger and we watched it in Citezenship in year 11. It was the funniest lesson of my entire life, I shall never forget how hard I laughed. Youtube it, trust me. …:shifty I appear to have digressed slightly. Anyway, the ending was just :cheese:. It made my face fall off, as you would say (btw I’ve started using that saying everywhere, you’ve infected me. My mates think I’m bonkers). I loved the description of saccharine lips – I don’t know whether you intended to mean dry like starch or sweet like sugar – either way, it’s good. I also love the ‘dear dear affliction’ part right at the end, because it’s almost like this character has come to terms with the fact they’re dying and is accepting the HIV as part of them, s they’re calling it an endearment to make it easier on them? –shrug-
Anyhoo. I guess seeing as this is a review that I should try and give con-crit, but tbh I don’t have much. Your writing style is very sort of… direct, very monologuish, and this works so well that I don’t think you should add commas where I’d tell other people to put commas because it’d take away this lovely unique quality from your work. Your writing is saturated with emotion, you can just tell that it’s come straight from your heart and onto the page, any anyone who reads your stories properly and knows you as a person will be well aware of this fact. So I understand that sometimes you use overly long words to fit the tone but they just work as I’m completely overwhelmed by the whole combination and :yah. I think most of what you could improve on comes from lack of proofreading or too shallow proofreading (a/n it just took me twelve attempts to spell proofreading, and another six to spell twelve just then :tehe: I’m slightly hyper from lack of sleep, can you tell? :weird) as you tend to sometimes misspell words, use a small percentage of punctuation incorrectly and sometimes you muddle tenses and overall sentences up. But I shouldn’t worry about this if I were you – I’ll only be too glad to help you out if you like and this sort of thing comes with time and practise. I’m a grammar nazi, you don’t have to take any notice of me. :tehe:
But… yeah. I think this is the longest review I have EVER written (for a fic that’s probably 1/5 the length of it, anyway) and you can tell I just loved it. :cheese: It took me ages but I enjoyed doing it. :cute: Once again I’m sorry for the delay, sorry for all the :cheese:s and really well done. This is superb. Keep it up, honey! :arms:
xoxo