Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to read and critique my story. This is a finished short story, with the blurb: Two men excited to watch the World Cup at the bar encounter a weird and unsettling stranger.

I'm looking for critiques in no particular order for plot, pacing, characters, prose and general enjoyment. Grammar and punctuation I'm not really interested in unless it was really abysmal.

Let me know what you think ! Critique : https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1xcydiu/comment/19roek0xdgo5h/?context=3

 ***

 

“Fuck my head hurts,” Richard groaned as they made their way down the sidewalk.

“You’re an idiot Rich,” Will shook his head.

Loud cheers and chants rang through their city, causing Rich to rub the back of his head.

“The noise really isn’t helping. What I need is … another drink.”

“Seriously? After how much you drank last night? If I’m being honest I think it was too much.”

“Well to be fair, it can be kinda difficult to keep count. How am I supposed to know when I hit the limit?”

Will sighed.

“I’d allow it if you were comparing the difference between three and five, not five and fifteen.”

Rich laughed, causing him to immediately wince and squint.

“Yeah well, when you get past five they all blend together don’t they? Look we’re here.”

The two nodded at the bouncer as they entered. The room was packed. Scarves littered the walls, tables and necks of patrons, TVs blaring.

“Reckon we’ll get a table?” Will asked.

“I can see one out there in the smokers.” Rich pointed. Will nodded and headed towards a glass door leading outside, while Rich went to grab a drink.

After ordering he turned to look at the bar, absently rubbing the back of his head, failing to heal his headache in any way.

The bar was busy. But then again, it was the first game of the World Cup.

A sense of excitement tingled behind Rich’s pain, this was his country playing, something that rarely ever happened, in a pub full of like-minded people. How often does one see the same sport jerseys being brandished in the one place? Certainly not in Australia. Rich would laugh if someone called him a patriot, but here, in this moment, there was a love, a blooming pride in his country.

Rich kept scanning the room when his gaze suddenly stopped. A man, devoid of any sport gear, was staring at him from across the foyer. Greasy black hair resting over brown eyes focused on him.

Rich couldn’t look away. He seemed to drawn into the man’s pupils, the room and its noise began to dim. Black spots danced in the corners of his vision, steadily getting larger, the headache from his hangover growing more powerful, feeling like it was going to crush his skull.

The man lowered his face, a fork-like tongue sliding out of his lips …

“Sir?”

A tap on his shoulder made him turn.

“Your drinks?”

Rich blinked.

“Yes, thanks.”

Rich walked outside to where Will sat, pointedly avoiding looking at where that man had been. The smoker’s area was very cramped, two tiny bar tables circled by a handful of stools. Behind lay a shoulder height wooden barrier, barring one from the city street.

“Ahhhh.” Rich wiped the froth from his mouth and placed his beer down.

“I needed that.”

Will frowned at him.

“Look, Rich, I think we need to talk before we watch the game. I’m only going to say this once, but I don’t like how hard you go every night. Keep it up and its a one-way ticket to the ground.”

“Mate I don’t want to hear it.” Rich looked away when Will put a hand on his shoulder.

“Well you’re going to. There are people here who love you. You’re important to them. To me. Please don’t throw that away.”

“Important? Mate, I have no degree, I might be a good talker but when it comes to books I know I’m not the smartest. My day to day is to work on different sites laying bricks, for people who will earn my years’ salary in a week.

How else am I supposed to be happy if I don’t drink?”

Will nodded.

“I get it. It’s hard. But money, work, that’s not all there is to life. Think about it, right now we’re watching the World Cup. We only get that every four years. I want to be here again, with you, in four, eight, twelve … twenty. Let’s make that happen.”

Rich swallowed, then smiled.

“You’re right. Thanks mate. I appreciate it.”

“And I appreciate you! Now enough affection, let’s watch some football yeah!”

They went to get up when the door opened.

Both men moved a tad to let the newcomer onto the other stool.

“Excuse me, would one of you have a smoke by any chance?”

Rich turned to look, with a sense of distaste he realised it was the man who had been staring at him at the bar. It must have just been something to do with his hangover, as his tongue was a normal, not the forked apparition that Rich couldn’t get out of his mind.

“Sorry, we don’t have any on us.” Will replied, closing his body off to the conversation. Without pause, the man moved closer.

“Come on, I’ll buy one, I don’t care!”

Rich shook his head. Cash is just crinkly paper when there’s nothing to purchase.

“Doesn’t change much I’m afraid. Sorry mate.”

The man shrugged and sat down. While he wasn’t at ‘their’ table, the smoking area was so small that he was sitting right next to them.

“Who do you think is going to win today?” The man asked.

Will and Rich gave each other the side eye. Neither had any interest in talking to this guy.  Yet maybe they should? Not because they cared about being rude.

Sometimes it’s important to speak to the randoms. The ones who might need some company to forget their problems. A second of your time might mean the world to someone else.

And judging from the reek of the man, it seemed that he might have more than a few problems.

“Hoping it’s us. But you never know right?” Will offered.

The man turned to him and smiled. Will attempted to hide his revulsion. The man’s top and bottom teeth were blinding white, a stark contrast to the black and rotting molars deeper within his jaw.

Will almost gagged when he smelt his breath.

“When fate is involved, there is not much left to chance. Everyone here already have their destinies predetermined.”

He laughed, it was a high-pitched cackle, that ended in a bout of coughing.

“What I want to know is …” The man pointed at two women they could see through the glass door laughing on the corner of the bar, “is who do you think the next victim is here.”

Rich felt bile at the back of his throat as the man leered. Had he really just said that?

Will shook his head with a grimace.

“It’s two pm on a Sunday afternoon. I don’t think anyone’s going after … women like that.”

The man put his hands up, nails black with crusts of dirt.

“Nah, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant who can I ask for a cigarette. That victim.”

“Oh right.” Will replied, understanding breaking his unease. That’s when the man winked at Rich.

Rich hated it.

“Yeah, well, good luck with that, we’re just gonna head inside …” He got up mid-sentence, pleased at how quickly Will followed.

“Wait, wait, I was just making a joke fellas, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to kick you out of here.”

Will put a hand up.

“You’re all good, we’re just going to watch the game is all, enjoy your afternoon.”

Rich went to grab the door. That’s when he heard the sob. He looked back and saw the man rubbing his eyes with one hand, sniffles leaking out of his clenched mouth.

Against his better judgement, Rich let go of the handle.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes I … I … I was just trying to be funny, it can be hard for me to make friends, I always screw it up and I’m so lonely …”

The pair stared at each other.

“Look sorry mate, we’re just here to watch the game, and we don’t know you and as much I understand it can be difficult to make friends … to be honest we don’t really want to hear your life story.”

The man looked up with sad eyes.

“I screwed it up big time didn’t I?”

“That’s ok. It’s all about learning, just be genuine and smile and I’m sure you will find some like-minded people.”

“Smile. What, like this?” Opening his mouth wide, the man smiled, eyes bulging with his head titled to the side.

“Yeah, maybe a little less wide-open but you’ll get there!” Will gave a thumbs up and turned around.

“I can’t even smile right can I! I’m so stupid! Stupid!” The slap was frightening due to how sudden it was, a cracking hit to his own face. The man’s skin seemed to ripple and for a second his lips seemed to drop down to the bottom of his chin, as if they were sucked down like putty. They snapped back into place, a red mark brightening on his flesh.

“Right. Good luck mate.” This time it was a scram between Rich and Will to get to the door handle, their eyes locking as they mouthed what the fuck to each other.

“Don’t leave.” His cry fell on deaf ears as Rich went to yank the door open. With a cry Rich pulled his hand back, it was freezing cold, somehow burning his hand.

“Dude, open the door.” Will hissed.  Rich turned back and froze.

The man had his tongue out, a pink forked tongue that drooped down his chest. Laughter buffeted them, high pitched squeaks that spread goosebumps down Rich’s neck.

“Just open it Rich. Open it now.” The man giggled.

“I didn’t tell you my name.”

“No, but I know it. I know all about you and Will.”

“What … do you want?” Rich asked.

The man stood up. His shadow loomed behind him, a blackness that began blocking the sun and sky.

“I thought I just wanted some friends right?”

Will muffled a scream when he turned to see the void, at how the man was growing in size, knocking over the stools and benches. They both took a step back, realising all too soon that there was nowhere to go.

“But you were so mean to me weren’t you. And what did I ask? I fail to remember.” A long yellow nail tapped its chin.

“Oh yes, right. What I asked was … whose the next victim here. Seems like I’ve got two.”

Rich sprinted to the wooden wall, attempting to vault over it to land onto the street. Something smashed into his side, slamming him to the floor. He was raised up into the air to be thrown back onto the ground, screaming as pain exploded through his chest. Fire burned his chest, breaths squelching as he struggled to rise. A hand grabbed his throat and pulled him in the air. He could hear Will wailing next to him, but he couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think through the shock. He could only stare at the man’s big, black eyes.

It opened its mouth unimaginably wide, and Rich’s head was inside, a foul rotting smell clogging his pores.

It spoke to him as he gagged.

“Now we will be friends forever Rich!”

Rich's screams were silenced by a wet crunch.

Hi friends!

I'm looking for feedback on the first 2 chapters of my new working manuscript, "The Okay Book", which follows the protagonist's journey from childhood to young adulthood as she seeks to become a prominent Black-woman philosopher in New York City.

The link below includes the first four chapters, so read as far as you’d like, but I’m only requesting feedback from this subreddit on the first two at the moment.

Genre: Non-fiction
Content warnings: religion, death, blood

If you send inline comments, I’d be happy to reciprocate if you shoot me a dm.

Link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E2fYPBR2uxFiOQw21t4YVjX_21Yp4UxNA5ZGzXX5ROA/edit?usp=sharing

CRITIQUE:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/s/hbTsEYyMKS

CHAP 1:
Hattie tells me not to play with the dolls on her shelf. 

“Now look,” she raises a finger high in the air. “I don’t want you touchin’ none of them dolls that I got, you hear?” 

I just like to play. When someone is bigger than you, you’re supposed to listen to them. But Hattie is barely bigger. Just a lot older. 

My great-grandmother is the oldest person anyone knows. I love her. I just don’t listen. 

I touch a small, white figurine with red pigtails and freckles. The doll is kind of strange looking. I’m almost four-and-a-half years old, and even I can tell this doll is cheap. 

With these dolls, I can give them voices. I can give them stories. I can make them make memories. 

The Bible sits on top of Hattie’s big chair. It’s covered with pink and yellow sticky notes. I wonder if I’ll do that with my Bible one day. Not today. Bibles aren’t for children. I’ll get it when I’m big, too. 

Hattie cackles. I look over my shoulder, shove the doll into my pocket. But her voice sounds distant… She's still in the living room. She’s just chatting with someone on the phone, probably Ms. Pete or Miss May Catherine. The good thing about being old, I think, is that you have a lot of friends. 

Or maybe that’s just Hattie. 

I hear the sound of a car driving across the gravel driveway before I see it.  Could it be? I race towards Hattie’s window, dropping her doll on the floor. I’d recognize this silver Toyota Camry anywhere. Mommy is home! 

I run out of Hattie’s room, sprinting towards the front door. I nearly trip over my feet, still learning how to control my body.

 “Hattie!” I say, “Mommy’s here!”

Before the doorbell even rings, I open the door. And there she is. Dark skin, gold Cross necklace over her heart. Edith. And she’s standing there with a gift bag in her hands—for me? She nods. For me!

She picks me up, showering me with kisses, and I giggle. “I’ve missed you, baby doll.” she says. Hattie inches toward the front door, cane in hand. 

“This one’s trouble,” Hattie says, pointing towards me. I bury my face in my mother’s neck. 

“I missed you too, Hattie,” my mother says. Hattie doesn’t acknowledge it, because she’s Hattie. I’m young, and even I know sweet-talk isn’t Hattie’s thing.

It is my Mommy’s.  

CHAPT 2:
My great-grandmother doesn’t play. She’ll joke around. She’ll laugh. She’ll tell you when you’re smothering the Hell out of her. But she doesn’t play. 

Playing is for the young, like my mom, my aunts, my cousins, and me. I play with others all the time. Just yesterday, Dyllon, Dalyn, and I went on an adventure across Hattie’s backyard.

Hattie’s yard is huge. She owns lots and lots of land, my mom always likes to brag about it. Because it’s rare for a Black family in Mississippi to own a bunch of land—or at least it was back when they got it.

Back when Black people had to drink out of the really small water fountains and the white people got the big ones and the schools wouldn’t let people with dark-skin sit next to anybody but each other.  

“That was your great-granddaddy’s work,” my mom says.
 
And Hattie. 

And my aunts. 

And everyone in this family. 

The yard has tall trees, lots of them, and little streams that carry fish sometimes, and Hattie has cows. Cows! A bunch of them that Uncle Lelon feeds every day. My mom tells me Hattie and great-granddaddy Lennon used to have a full farm with a bunch of critters. Chickens and horses and stuff, too. Now, we just have cows. 

I sprint around the yard. Dyllon and Dalyn follow me. Past the pear trees and the honeysuckles, past great-granddaddy’s old blue truck, even past our little wooden playground—but we stop at the barbed-wire fences. 

We always stop there.

Not because our parents tell us to. They do, yes, but that wouldn’t actually keep us from crossing over to the other side. These scary fences, all rusty, are older than almost everyone in the family. 

So we don’t go past them. Not today. 
Instead, I keep running, and laughing as I do. Dyllon and Dalyn are younger than me. Dyllon’s seven, Dalyn’s three. I’ve got 12 months and 30 days on Dyllon, almost 13 months exactly. But he was born on the 22nd of September, and I was born on the 23rd of August. Dalyn was born sometime in November. 

Dalyn is slower than Dyllon and I, but she tries to keep up. She always does. Her little feet are clumsy and her legs are chubby. Dyllon waits for her, even when I keep going. 

I still have memories from when Dalyn was in Auntie Tiffiney’s belly. Well: I have one memory. 
I was four-and-three quarters. I don’t remember much. I just remember Dyllon and I putting on another performance for our family, another kid talent show showing off my rapping skills and Dyllon’s jokes (they say he’s a ‘stand up comedian’. I forget what that means). 

At the end of the show, every big person in the room clapped. I love when they clap and smile, and when my mom says I’m really smart. Auntie Tiffiney looked at Dyllon and I after we took two big bows. 
And she said, “Your little sister is in here, Dyllon. Your little cousin, Elizabeth. Do you want to say ‘hello’?” 

I’d rather have one of those Bluebell ice cream cups Hattie keeps. But I said what they wanted me to say: ‘yes’. 

Dyllon kissed his mother’s belly. I did the same. I remember this. 

 I don't know why I remembered this. 

Now, I feel the wet grass beneath my feet. I took off my shoes, and my socks, because I don’t like the weird softness against my toes. I think the grass feels better this way, when nothing is stopping me from touching it. Dyllon doesn’t do the same. Dalyn tries to, but Dyllon stops her.

“Mommy says to leave our shoes on, Day,” Dyllon says. This is a rule. Maybe Dyllon follows the rules better than I do. 

I am walking now. The sun is walking too—down towards where the sky meets the ground. It’s sunset. We’ll have to go inside soon. 

But right now, I see this little stream that’s flowing with water. The one with fish sometimes. The little snaking stream sits downhill and it’s separating Hattie’s downstairs basement from the main floor of the house. There are little silver rocks that I think will be worth something one day. I shove a few in my pocket, and Dyllon does, too. 

Now, I’m staring at the water. I’m quiet. I don’t tell Dyllon and Dalyn, but I’m looking for one of those little orange fishes. Dyllon takes a knee, even though it gets mud on his khakis, so I have to, too. And so does Dalyn. 

And now, I see it. 

I don’t know if frogs are fishes, or what they even are, exactly. But there’s a small little frog in this water. It’s not a toad, and I know this, because it is cute. But it’s not swimming. It’s not standing. It’s not blinking. It’s floating. 

It’s dead. A dead frog.

“It died?” I say. 

“What did?” Dyllon looks the stream up and down, up and down. Dalyn points to it. Dyllon spots it, then he laughs.

“A frog!” Dalyn says. 

“It’s not a frog,” Dyllon says back. “Frogs are bigger. This is a little one. I think it’s a tadpole.” 

Oh yeah. I forgot that a baby frog is called a tadpole. I don’t know what a frog more tiny than a tadpole is called. Now, I think I’m a little sad.  

No one I know has ever really died. This is true for Dyllon, and Dalyn too, because we all have the same family, and we’re lucky. We’re all strong and healthy. We might cough and sniffle sometimes, but we’re okay, I think. 

Every time Hattie coughs, the room gets a little quieter. She doesn’t cough much though.

“Let’s give it a funeral,” I say. The adults say things that die get funerals, after all. I think I went to one when I was a baby. I think my mom said I did one time. 

Dyllon picks the frog up using a dead leaf. I know the leaf is dead too, because it’s all brown and crumbled, and it just is. 

I lead the way, because I know exactly where we’re going. Dyllon carries the frog. Dalyn carries her feet. 
We’re at the very top of the playground.

The playground has two floors: the first floor, where there’s a tireswing, and the floor above it, which leads to a yellow slide. The slide is short and slow. There’s also a swingset, and that’s my favorite part. 
Even though Dyllon’s parents bought us this thing last year, it doesn’t feel new to me. I think it’s the wood. It’s already starting to chip and turn weird colors. 

Dyllon places the tadpole against the wooden floorboards. For a second or two, we’re all quiet.

So I say, “Let’s give it a moment of silence.”

Dyllon closes his eyes. He hums. Dalyn hums, too. I don’t. 

“I want to name it,” Dalyn says. 

“Let’s name it Wesley,” I say. It’s the first name that comes to my mind. I kind of like the name ‘Wesley’.

“Deadly Wesley,” Dyllon adds, and it’s a good addition. It’s better than what I said. 

I stare at Wesley. If I look hard enough, I can kind of see the white-ish bones sticking out of his chest. “Someone should touch it,” I decide. Dyllon and Dalyn look at each other. “Dalyn?” Dyllon says. 
Dalyn lifts her pointer finger in the air. It stays there for a little bit. Now, her finger is touching Wesley’s body, and—

“Gross!” I yell. 

I go down the yellow slide. Now, I’m running back towards Hattie’s house. 

“Mom!” I’m yelling and I’m running. “Dalyn touched a dead frog!” 

I don’t know if she can hear me. She’s inside the house, and soon, I will be, too. Dyllon and Dalyn aren’t far behind me. 

“Elizabeth, wait,” Dyllon says. He hates when I do this. 

But now, I’m already knocking on the front door of Hattie’s house. I’m trying to catch my breath. I don’t really like running. I just like being really fast.
I look behind me. Dyllon picked up my shoes. I don’t know where Deadly Wesley is. Maybe they left him on his leaf somewhere in the grass. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have run away. But it’s getting dark outside.

his is my first piece of long form fiction I've ever shared, moving away from poetry and article writing. I'm mainly looking to see if my intent comes across and that its not too derivative. Genre is a satire of bureaucracy in a somewhat dystopian world.

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

1

Zachary Fuele was late for work because a man had been shot outside the bakery near his apartment. This was not unusual; what was unusual was that the bakery had opened anyway, and a queue had formed around the body. People waited patiently in line, as if waiting for a bus.

The man behind Zachary wore a nice winter coat and held a paper bag. The woman in front wore a brown work uniform and carried nothing at all. Neither spoke. Across the road, three men stood behind a makeshift barricade made of cheap plastic garden furniture; one of them was smoking. Another read a newspaper Zachary did not recognise, as it was not the only officially sanctioned newspaper that the city allowed. The third man appeared to be in charge, though nobody had told him so.

Zachary crossed the street. He had a job to get to, and the factory that employed him had recently introduced a policy of docking wages for lateness, even if the reason for being late was a shooting. Though he couldn't know it at the time, they had also this morning introduced a policy for docking wages for discussing any shootings that may have happened. Later he would agree this was a sensible arrangement, given the circumstances.

At the next junction, a woman in a fur hat asked him which side he was on. Zachary looked at her hat, then at the pavement, which he noticed was cracked, then at a small red flag someone had tied to a lamppost. He had seen the flag before. He had seen the hat before, too. The woman in the fur hat asked which side he was on. He said he was on his way to work. The woman considered what had been said, staring at him as if he had replied in a foreign language she had studied but never fully got to grips with. Finally, she nodded and let him pass.

Further down the road, the windows of houses had been boarded up, except for the ones belong to those who didn't have windows in the houses. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rang out. Zachary checked his watch. He was going to be late.

2

The factory was the largest building in town, though no one could remember if being built. It had 10 chimneys, seven of which smoked and a clock above the main entrance that ran seven minutes fast. The workers were docked eight minutes pay if they arrived according to the clock in the town square. All around the factory were signs reminding workers of the factories essential role in supporting national interests. Nobody could recall what the national interests were, but it was deemed impolite to ask.

Every morning at the start of the shift, a convoy of lorries would arrive carrying wooden crates. Every evening a second convoy left with identical wooden crates. The men in charge of unloading these crates wore blue overalls. Those in charge of loading them in the evening wore grey ones. Both groups were forbidden from interacting with each other or discussing the crates, and both groups received Christmas bonuses for their discretion on the matter.

Zachary showed his pass to the guard, who examined it with the suspicion of a man who hadn't been told exactly what he was looking for. Behind them, the factory hummed. The noise rattled through the walls, the pavement and even Zachary's shoes. A notice beside the turnstile that stopped anyone just walking in declared that the quarters production had increased fourteen percent. Underneath it another notice announced that production had been halted until further notice. Both were signed by the director of the factory. Zachary punched in.

As he made his way to the factory floor a bell rang and all the workers stopped what they were doing for precisely eight seconds. They immediately returned to work. Zachary had been told this was important so many times he had stopped wondering what it meant.

3

Zachary Fuele returned to his apartment after a long and important day. The walls were white and bare, bar a landscape painting of flowers in a field. His furniture was brown and there was nothing in the room that did not have a reason to be there. This was one of the markers of a good citizen. A colourful home suggested an excess of imagination, thoughts and opinions and all three of these had caused trouble in the past.

On the windowsill sat a small vase of plastic flowers. Every evening, Zachary would dust each petal with a handkerchief and turned the stems a half turn clockwise. He had done this for ten years. The flowers had, due to a lack of ability to, never wilted. Zachary had never been happier with anything else. Before bed, he checked once again to make sure they were facing the correct direction. Then he switched off the light. The flowers remained exactly as they were.

4

On Tuesday, Zachary returned from work with a bag of potatoes, half a dozen eggs and a tin of soup. He placed them on the kitchen table and stared at his front door. He noticed that it was beginning to look rather dull. This was not a new development, but today was the first day he acknowledged it. He stood, staring at the door for some time, wondering whether a change might do him some good. The door had been brown for as long as he had lived here, and most of the other doors in the building were brown, too. He considered yellow. It seemed a cheerful colour, and that was something he felt he could use more of. He put the potatoes and soup away and boiled himself two eggs while spending the evening thinking about yellow. By the time he was ready to sleep, Zachary had decided to submit an application to change the colour of his door. It was the sort of thing he felt a hard-working citizen should be allowed to do.

5

The following morning before work Zachary walked himself to the department of housing to submit a request to paint his front door yellow.
“Yellow?” said the clerk
“Yes.”
“Have you considered brown?”
“It's already brown.”

The clerk ran his eyes over the application a second time, slower than the first.

“I'm afraid you'll need to submit a change of colour request”

“This is a change of colour request”

“No, sir, this is an application to paint your door yellow.”

“Is there a difference?”

“They're different forms.”

6

Three weeks later, he returned; the application to paint his door yellow had been denied. This was because it was not on the approved colour list for residential doors.

“My application was denied, I'd like to appeal,” he said.

“Have you painted the door?”

“No. The application was denied”

“Then you can’t appeal.”

“But it was denied.”

“Yes.”

“So how do we move forward?”

The clerk leaned back in her chair and folded her hands “Most people leave it brown.”

Zachary asked for a copy of the regulations regarding door colours, specifically those of a residential nature. The clerk gave him a pamphlet on window curtains.

“Are you sure this is the right one?” he asked politely.

“It must be, it's the one we have.”

He took the pamphlet home and read it front to back twice over. It contained no information about doors, but did give Zachary insight into the dangers of unsuitable coloured curtains, namely the drop in property value they could cause, along with distress to neighbours.

He decided after all of this to leave the door brown. After all, he was a reasonable man, and there were limits to how much trouble one person should cause over a door

WHY ARE THE MODS LEECH MARKING ME AND Gate KEEPING WHEN I ALREADY LINKED MY CRITIQUE BEFORE AND IT IS HERE HELLO THIS IS A LINK TO ME Bashing others writing unfairly

---

---SUBMISSION OF NON AI GENERATED TEXT

[600]

The writer entered toward the center of the psychedelic throne room. Magnificent Taj, no walls and only lavish energy pillars holding iridescent heavens above. Under foot, thousands of kaleidoscopic fractals shimmered a gradient between dark blue and orange. The writer swallowed the lump in their throat, and nervously waited for the to discussion to begin.

"It's beyond punctuation errors. We immediately noticed basic dialog grammar structural problems within the writing," DestructiveReaders said. "The issues were pervasive and systemic within the writing, indicating a knowledge gap of the lowest fundamentals. The structure will have to get fixed before any serious feedback is concerned. Don't resubmit until you've given feedback first. Read the wiki."

"W-what?" asked the writer, heart skinning a fucking cat. The interdimensional digitalDMT entity had spoken so immediately and with such disregard it almost hadn't seemed addressed to the noob, who shouted, "I thought I was here for feedback!"

"Yeah, me when I'm mad bro." DestructiveReaders picked up another stack of digital paper and exploded it. "It's not my job to educate you on music theory—or your instrument. I'm here," it said and glanced out the vista towards an incomprehensibly complex and ornate colorful landscape of non euclidean hyperspace, "to give feedback on your music. This isn't a marketing audience beta test run, this is the band club. And this," its outrageously gorgeous and intelligent 👀🔮 👁️👽👋👋👋👋👋🖐️🖐️🖐️🐙 🐙 🐙 🐙 🐙 🖐️✋✋✋✋🖖🖖🖖🖖🖖 🔮 👀👀 lingered on the paper for 0.22 second, "it's just not professional."

The writer was stunned. "I'm sorry?"

"You heard me," DestructiveReaders added and immediately dropped 🦾 🏴‍☠️ this flex. "Also, you're a leech."

The writer felt something changing in their neuroschema and all sense of egoistic entropy collapsed into autorejective solipsism, followed by emergence into singularity and event horizon of shared consciousness. As the fractals began to take pieces and replace pieces, the writer realized this was real transcendal power, and that just like letters to form words, this power when spoken into existence like a language can change material reality. If comprehended, broadcast and perceived, the power could be mastered and controlled and predict great events or share deep narrative lores. In a panic, the noob ah writer shook from this intrinsic truth of the universe and re-entered their ego wrapped delusion.

Identity now reformed, calloused with butthurt, the noob writer shouted, "HOW DARE YOU! THIS IS MY HARD WORK AND DEDICATION TO MY ADVANCED LEVEL AND DEEP WRITING 🤪 🖍️." A wave of nausea washed their boat. "I thought this was a feedback and a critique community," they choked out. "That's what you said in your cult manifesto when I paid the fee!"

"Yeah, leaving your shoes at the temple door wasn't the fee, bro. C'mon now. Like hello? You're supposed to connect with any of the other entities, who have in turn already connected to any of the other recent chain of entities. You're supposed to share the energy up the chain, or provide energy down the chain shortly after entry. Therefor, your access to the chain will be restricted, and you will be labeled as a 🧲 📉 ."

"How dare you, because actually—"

😱 THREAD WAS LEECH MARKED: "Nah, like. This is like sitting down to a chess tournament and trying to move a pawn sideways. Just read a book. Literally go read a fucking printed book and copy the grammar rules." With that, DestructiveReaders attached a 12 hour count down timer to the post, and violently threw itself out the psychedelic Overton window. Material reality thereafter imploded, and the writer once again with it.

The end 🔚 BE KIND REWIND...