Eventuality | Normality | Duality
“THE END IS HERE.”
A collective piercing scream, coupled with yet another heavy quake, threw Fixer out of his visions and right onto what could loosely be called the floor. He took precious time to recover from what he had just seen, the traumatizing images and thoughts sorted out in the ever growing portion of his mind. He had no time to waste. The end was there.
The world around him swirled and cried as corruption engulfed it, choking on its own liquefied insides, begging to be finished. The familiar sentiment resonated within the unicorn, and pushed him to get up to see what has happened. He needed an escape plan, and a route to Rationale.
It was only then that he had remembered about the Aberration that had chased him to that point.
It was screaming. Its scream was not something a creature like that would make.
- GET OFF, YOU LITTLE-
The screams came from below - Fixer could not say more, as he had forgone any assessment of the surroundings, dismissing any shapes and textures as meaningless. He had to save what little sanity remained for when it mattered. For what it was worth, the surface felt cool and flat, like glass.
- HOW CAN YOU?..
The dismissal of his surroundings cost Fixer. Trying to look in the direction where the thing must have been, he ended up vaulting over and crashing many meters down, as the fleeting floors gave way under the overwhelming noise. The fall should have killed him, but he barely felt any impact.
What he arrived to was an unlikely scenario to say the least.
- THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE, I AM-
His corruption vaporized matter at the touch of a claw and called on the coming dissolution. It was a passing thought from a much darker realm, but still enough to devour all that was ever good about what he knew.
The Aberration was writhing in agony and limping in circles, thrashing violently to throw off tens of miniature figures that clung to it.
- Detective.
- NO
- How… the…
- De- tec- tive!
Fixer simply stared for a short while. The distorted, towering figure screamed in agony as its purely immaterial, poisonous, wretched, wrong body was kicked, chewed and impaled by awkward creatures that could at best be described as miserable. Their shambling attacks never collided with the thick, blackened body, but nevertheless, the monster wailed in pain. It screamed as if it was being burned alive. The Victims, however, did not seem to mind being in direct proximity to something that undeniably foul.
To fit with Fixer’s thoughts, the surroundings changed accordingly and etched numerous question marks onto themselves.
- De… tec… tive.
The many Victims had caught the thing that could not be. They brought it to its knees, wailing and bleeding. No eyes to see. No guilt to understand.
One had eyes, though. She looked directly at him.
- Detective.
He looked back. Then, at the Aberration,
- It’s all going to be over soon.
- Detective.
He understood something important.
- I WON’T BE DENIED
Walking up to the straddled, distorted giant, held down by the small, mangled bodies, he went through all the rage and pain that he had caused.
For so long, he considered himself to be good. Normal. Responsible. It would be so convenient to blame Rationale for all he had done. It would be so convenient to blame this for what he had done.
It was, in the end, something that his own hatred had given birth to. He had lived for so little, but he had accumulated more than was enough. More than any of his kind ever should have.
He thought he knew which was right and which was wrong. In the end… it was all obsolete.
- YOU DON’T DARE
The Shard and its Aberration had haunted him for so long. The easy way out. Accept no wrongness on your part and do as you wish with no regard for the rest. Murder. Destroy. Fix. His dream, his ultimate desire. He wanted to make things better. That would never excuse what he had done.
Even now, it did the same. Drove him to push the blame on others. Blind himself. Become what he did become all times too often whenever the Shard crossed him. When it appeared ever so conveniently and offered an easy way, a better path, a route of chaos and madness. To fix that which was so indubitably erred.
- De… tec… tive?
Rationale never saw it. Himself for so long. Ultimately, he was the opposite, and yet the same. To him, all things were black and white - with him as the only representative of the latter. It made things easier. Easier to break down, deduce and conclude. Rational thought of his chosen kind. As long as it never put his own actions under question. Rationale would ignore that his other self bore murderous intent and hatred all along, such positive qualities in his twisted mind. He would assume to be superior and control the Orb, when in reality, reality itself had begun to flee. He would miss a hole in his own face to point out all that was wrong with the world.
Even if Rationale was right, that was not how Fixer would do things. Even if Fixer had only been a speck in the mind of Rationale’s for all these years.
He stared right into the cold, brightly radiating “eyes” of the Aberration that no longer threatened to diffuse him with a single touch. The etchings on the walls had turned into pictures of expanding, looming mushroom-shaped clouds.
He knew what to do with it.
- Welcome to Hell.
With a roar full of anguish and pain, Fixer stabbed it with his horn as hard as he possibly could, opening for it a path back to himself. They had to be complete, and they would be, whether he liked it or not. There was enough strength in him to suppress it.
For now.
---
- Shut up.
“Look who’s talking.”
- I said shut up.
“I’m not doing anything. It’s you.”
- I said, SHUT UP.
“It’s always just you.”
- Who?
“Does it matter?”
- No.
The rough salty liquid burned his throat once more, and pushed him to lean on the pulsating flesh that had by then nearly consumed the apartment. He stared at the mare in the moon and spat at her, his blackened spit barely landing a few meters off from him.
He never heard from him again. Not till the end.
He did not mind.
---
- Detective.
Breathing through clenched teeth, Fixer looked at the Victim leader, who had walked up to him, her cut throat gaping in the lifeless light.
- I know.
- Detective.
- Are you… sure?
He was not.
He looked at all the walking corpses that he had made out of guilt. They stared at him eyeless, twitching in place and wheezing. Still shaking after the absorption, he felt almost as if the Orb was back within him, punishing him for all he had done. Somewhat fairly so. Their missing eyes, however, radiated the same reverence as before.
That felt unfair. They never had to have done any of that. And they never had to do this.
- Detective, - the mare shook her head in rigid fashion, and looked behind Fixer, at the crowd of her followers.
- De- tec- tive.
- De… tec… tive?
- I have failed you.
- Detective.
- I wish I could make it up… but I know I won’t.
The Victim leader took a stifled breath, looking Fixer in the eyes. Hers were dead and never blinking, but he understood nonetheless.
She took out a glass shard, and sliced her throat.
A collective thud behind him confirmed that the rest did the same.
They did not want to weigh him down. They knew what would happen. They understood.
- I’m sorry. I’m so proud of you.
He looked at the reflections and watched the tears drop down on the mirrors below him. He knew what to do now. There was little time, but it would be enough.
Fixer looked up in the mirror to take one last look at his face, if only to reassure himself, and felt a lightning bolt strike down his spine.
- No. Wait a fuck… no. What-
His heart raced. He stammered and nearly tripped over his collection of sacrifices, wishing to escape the image, but there was no way.
The mirrors were everywhere. Everything was a mirror. They stared back at him, blank and confused.
- That’s not me. That’s… that’s not me.
Fixer knew something was horribly wrong when he realized what was making him feel afraid. Something as simple as the mirrors not showing him as he was. He knew for a dead, cold, fact, that nothing of this sort could hope to surprise him. His sanity was living on borrowed time, yes, but it had not gone out yet - he had adapted and took the impossibilities for granted.
He should not have been so scared.
- Who the… Who are you? Why are you not answering?
The reflection did not move. He wanted to run from it, but as he turned around, everything had become a mirror. All had turned into reflective glass, and all the glass was staring at him, drilling into the parts of his memory that emitted gut-retching sounds beyond definition.
He had been running for so long, he had gotten so far. He could not let this stop him. He was close. He could not let it.
He tried to imagine that it was not there, just rush through the solid glass walls and on to wherever Rationale may have been. It was all the more painful a realization when the unexpected happened, and he crashed right into one of the mirrors, marking it with a web of cracks. That was not to be considered normal.
- Why now? Why now of all times? What the fuck do you need?
“Remember.”
- What?
He was talking to himself.
“One who wants to remember the world into being can never do so when he does not remember himself.”
- The f-
He was definitely talking to himself. Rationale’s voice was different, a lower tonality, a more urban accent, forming out of nowhere, only there for him to accept it. This he knew he was thinking up himself.
His mind had gone up in mutiny.
“Look at yourself.”
- I d-
“Straight ahead.”
He did. He looked at the one cracked mirror in a myriad of those intact, and felt his teeth grind together painfully as the picture sunk into his mind.
“Diamond in the rough.”
Light grey eyes. Confused. Dark hazel coat. Smooth. Dark br-
“Remember?”
Lightning-blue mane. Unmade. Short. Perked snout. Smooth. No scars.
Flank.
- How could I have forgotten.
Cracked pocket mirror.
---
How could they do this to him. He loved them so much, and now they were gone.
- Oh, sweet merciful FUCK, what have you DONE?!
- I- I- I overreacted, okay!?
How could they do this to him. He has never done anything to them. He has never done anything to anyone. Nothing that he meant. He loved them so much.
- Okay, explain to me, how the HELL are we supposed to explain this to the boss? Huh?
- I, I don’t know, maybe they slipped or somth-
This was a nice, kind world. Everyone was nice. He has never done anything to them. He loved them so much. Everything was fine.
- Right, sure. They fucking slipped, right into the fucking glass with their fucking throats. You’re a fucking genius. Fuck.
- Hey, watch the language!
- Go fuck yourself! We were explicitly told to SCARE them, you diamond in the fucking rough, S-C-A-R-E. They can’t pay the fucking debt when they’re DEAD!
- I said I overreacted!
He just got his cutiemark a few days ago. One of Dad’s mirrors broke, and he put it back together. He was going to continue the family tradition. They said he had a good eye for detail. Everything was fine.
- Oh, dear heavens, you’re a huge error of nature. Why do you DO this to me…
- Look, can we get out of here? I’m feeling kinda weird with all these mirrors around. Why do they even need so many?
- It’s a mirror shop, dumbass, what do you expect? Lamps and vests? Quills and sofas?
This was a nice world. It has always been. He loved them so much.
- Gah, hell… We need to clean this mess up. Drag these… unfortunates out, drown them in the river. Gives us some time before their kid comes back and finds out noone’s home.
- They have a kid?!
- Yeah, what’s so special?
- That’s… that’s fucked up. I mean, I just… I just offed his fucking folks, that’s fucked up.
- You know, I’ll never understand what your rationale was when you signed up.
- I thought we’d get to fix stuff… Like, you know…
- Shut up, I’m getting dumber by just listening to you. Just… don’t worry, we’ll fix everything. It’ll be fine. Don’t— Don’t you start puking just yet.
- Yeah… they’re fixed now.
And now they were gone.
They shuffled and dragged. The red trails followed them and he did not want them to go. It was so cold.
He sat paralyzed, staring into nothing through the small crack. He could not move. He could not cry. He could not understand. He could only think.
“Nothing is wrong.”
The whole world had gone wrong.
“Not really. That’s how it’s always been.”
He could not understand.
“Well, that’s because you’re an idiot for ever believing their lies. Nothing was ever good. You know that. You just see it now.”
An uncontrollable, twitching smirk stretched his lips out.
“Don’t worry now. It’s all going to be fine. We’ll fix everything. We know what to do. We’ll be a fixer. Think rationally. No more games. We’ll go somewhere where we’ll get to fix things. We’ll sign up and everything will be fine. They won’t be able to tell. We’ll work as a team. Nothing is wrong.”
“Where are they?”
“They’re alright. They’re fixed now.”
“Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong.”
He crawled through the crack in the wardrobe, sat there before like a broken puppet, and into the red pool.
Mirror Mender was no more.
---
- I…
He stood static, staring at himself.
- I’m… I’m…
At one point, he had finally begun to breathe again.
- Fuck me. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.
The Shadow’s roar of hunger woke him into action, bringing what little was able to recover into motion. The first thing he did was frantically check his mane, nearly plucking out a piece, and look at his flank.
The room shook and contorted in a stuttering flash as Fixer half-sobbed, half-laughed.
Dyed brown. Lightning-blue roots. Cracked pocket mirror.
How could he never have checked.
His legs nearly crumbled under his insignificant weight, but somehow he had managed to keep himself straight.
- This is wrong. This is all so wrong.
There was just a bit left to go.
- Oh, this is all so fucked. How could I… how… Why?..
Fixer limped ahead.
The world gone wrong had undergone what had to have been its last transfusion. He could see Rationale in the distance, covered in what must have been blood, slouching against a miniature pyramid-like structure that Fixer had never seen before, and never cared to find out what it was. The blasted Orb floated on top of it, radiating cold electric light and spouting distorted imagery that would flood the horizon every half a second, before fading into the familiar black and white flickering layers.
- I’m so dumb. All of me. Me and you, we’re both idiots, Fixer. Just what the hell were we trying to accomplish?..
- Fuck you too.
All around them, nothing was making sense.
It was a crater-littered, blazing hot battlefield, freakishly painted as if it had been bombarded by a squadron of multicolored blood-filled dirigibles. It contained itself within a small portion of Fixer’s coffee table inside his apartment, which loomed gigantic all around them. In the corner of his eye, the unicorn could see six ponnequins stare at him from the dark, even though everything was so brightly lit his eyes hurt. To the sides of the pyramid, two poles with rusty chains on them upheld a sign that read “Hall of Fame”.
It did not have to make sense.
- You know… You know, I just… I fucked up. How could I fuck up so hard. Just… how. I thought I knew everything. Knew what to do. Had aces up my sleeves.
- And look how much good it did you.
Rationale was lying completely static, his immaterial body twisted and staring into the ceiling. It flickered as he spoke.
- I’ve played my cards. I LOST. I… I just never thought it’d be like this. That it would… that it would… overcome me. Like it did you. I… I saw all those things, Fixer. All those things. I’ve been to its home, Fixer.
The Shard-shaped hole in his face was still there, completely blank even as he flickered.
- I… We know right from wrong, don’t we, Fixer? Fixer. Rationale. Someone who fixes things that are wrong. Someone who pushes ahead to find things that are right. We know it, don’t we? We know wrong when we see it, do we?
Fixer stopped in front of Rationale, staring him in the eye despite knowing that it was pointless.
- We don’t. I thought we did. Equestria with its rainbow politics and senseless utopia… It was all so putrid and vile, wasn’t it? I hated it so much. I know you did, too, even when they pretended that you were important. It was such a shithole, Fixer. But now I’ve seen it. I’ve seen its home. We don’t know from wrong. It’s not like I imagined. I don’t want this anymore. You go and do WHATEVER you want. I’m out of moves.
And he cared about precisely nothing that Rationale thought. He knew it all so much better than his supposedly dominant half.
In all this, the one thing that was inmendably wrong was that which was thinking these thoughts.
- I need you to answer a few questions.
- You never wanted to listen. And I don’t get a choice. What a healthy relationship we have.
- What’s your flankmark?
- Pardon me?
- What’s your fucking flankmark?
- It’s a looking glass, Fixer. Fancy-looking, rectangular frame. With a crack on it. I have no idea why you’re asking. Typical detective flankmark, NOTHING special.
- Is there anything wrong with your face?
He would never remember that he was missing anything. In his mind, he never was… what he was. Rationale was born without the knowledge Fixer now had about their nature. That was the hole. A literal hole in his brain. And the Shard was all that would go wrong if you put it in.
- Look, I- You know what, fuck it, I don’t care why you’re asking this. NOTHING IS WRONG with my face. Or did you only now realize that the body we share is no Neon Lights? Shouldn’t have gotten shitfaced so much th—
- I’ve heard enough.
He scowled and stabbed the projection of Rationale with the shard from the mirror that showed him everything.
Frame Fixer was finally complete. All three broken parts of a soul that corrupted mirrors that dared reflect it.
An unbelievably loud screech that turned into a scream sounded off, first outside, and then inside. Nearly out of breath and time both, Fixer turned to the Orb. The guardian roared again. It was close.
“WHAT THE F-”
- Want to do something good for once in your life?
“Nothing is wrong.”
- Snap the fuck out of it and answer. I just need one thing from you. I’ll do everything else myself.
“Fuck my shit fuck my shit fuck my shit fuck my shit.”
- I’m going to start losing it very soon. And we can’t have that. Hell knows what’ll happen.
“...”
- Hold it off as long as you can, and try not to disturb me. Everything will be fine.
“Not.”
- Then it’s a deal.
“Wait… what are you going to do?”
- The right thing. You don’t get to complain.
He took a deep breath and touched the Orb, feeling his legs lose contact with reality and turn immaterial.
Focus. Control.
Template. Back.
“This is stupid. You know it. I know you know it. I saw it in you. Why are you doing this?”
“You don’t get to decide. It’s working as intended. It has ALL been working as intended. You just decided you knew better.”
Conversion. Back.
“It’s ugly, it’s nowhere near as pretty as it paints itself to be, but we don’t get to destroy it just because we don’t like it. It’s not broken. It’s what it is. It’s not our world, it never was. It fit them. Not us.”
“It is all so ugly. We can just make one of our own, Fixer. We still can. We can escape this rainbow fantasy and avoid the engine of death, we can—”
“And I don’t have enough time or skill to do anything else. I've tried to fix something that wasn't broken and tore it all to shreds.”
Infraction. Ignore.
Fuel consumption. Start.
“We can be gods, Fixer. We can be our own gods. They don’t like gods in there, and you know what we are now, Fixer. You can’t seriously be going there again. It’s hopeless. We can’t go there.”
“Fixer isn't going anywhere.”
“What??? You—”
“why”
“Oh. Oh, fuck me, it’s starting. I… I... I hate you. Oh, heavens help me, I hate you so much. And you know what?”
Template. Confirmed.
“I… I am your Rationale. I have always been. We… we work as a team, don’t we, Frame Fixer? I’ll do this one. I’ll keep your marbles in. You’d better be grateful for that.”
Adaptation discrepancy. Load.
“Good luck.”
“It’s been nice knowing you.”
“Until next.”
Infraction. Ignore.
Fuel consumption. Complete.
Conversion. Start.
---
Rational thought could not have predicted it.
He awoke at the last moment, his pure conscience seeping through the cracks in the cage that the cursed Orb built for it, and screaming out as loud as it could.
How could he?
What has he done?
What was he doing?
What was he?
He looked at the world, falling apart color by color and tile by tile, and heard millions of screams pierce his soul in their dying, vengeful agony.
He looked at himself, an obscure, towering, bipedal figure, oozing toxic gas out of the holes it would call its eyes and mouth, a body made of the blackest black that shattered all that this once-peaceful once-world once stood for. He could not feel it. He only felt his mangled own.
The perfect Orb in front of him cracked down the middle, breaking the fabric of creation in half, but he could not hear it, nor feel the bloodstained pain from the shard that went through his head.
He heard only pain and the distorted, jumbled voices that he could not longer fix. He felt only despair, sorrow and guilt.
He was supposed to be a detective. He ended up being a monster.
He looked at it all from both the impossible eyes and the dead gaze from the wardrobe, discarded there by that which killed all that existed in his world.
The whole world had gone wrong.
His chest was about to burst, the intricate web of veins and organs engulfed in a pure radiance of unstoppable dissolution. His lungs were aflame, threatening to burn the flesh and rip the coat. He fled, he fled as far as he could, as far as his worthless being would carry him. His mind was like a pincushion - soft, yet laced with needles. He coughed out blood as his muscles strained, frictional between the unstoppable force that tore him from inside and the immovable object of the outside reality. His limbs felt like they were being turned inside and out, stretched and shrunk and again and again. Sweat matted his coat and mane, clinging to his body like a new layer of skin, as if to replace the one that burned and rippled, but would not come off.
It could no longer be mended. It was wrong. “Wrong, wrong, wrong”, he kept hearing it in his head. A broken, dissonant, screeching voice yelled the word at him. It was wrong. He thought it had silenced, but still it screamed. Half a dozen blood-curdling, existence-defying voices, laughed at him in their wails… They were wrong. Errors, misactions, wrongdoings, they did not belong. They could not. He only did what he had to, and now he no longer had a place there, where everything was wrong.
The thumping of blood in his ears obscured the sounds that chased him out of his own broken existence. Darkness dawned on his vision; his legs shook spasmodically. With a crude exhale, he gave up, his head meeting surface. He was not wrong: he could not be. If he was, his whole reality would not take it. Not as a matter of pride or sanity anymore - existence itself would have fallen apart if what he had done was wrong. But he could no longer fight. He felt his body giving way to gleaming thoughtlessness. So calming before. So terrifying now.
He had no other choice but to embrace it.
It was wrong. Grey and dead, it devoured all thought and matter, erasing that which once was.
And it had come for him.
He only wanted to sleep.
- De… tec… tive?
---
…
home?
---
…
---
…
why
---
…
---
…
WHY
---
…
---
- Hello? Hello, Mister, can you hear me?
So long.
- Oh dear goodness, he’s conscious again.
Blank.
- Please, can you take care of him for just a minute? I have to run and get Tenderheart.
- B-but...
Dry.
- Please understand, he would only move when you were nearby. None of us know what happened to him, or the others. As far as we know, you are the only thing that is keeping him afloat. Just look after him for a minute, alright? Just talk to him.
Breath. Light. Warm.
Something… warm.
- Umm… hello. I… I don’t know if you remember… or understand…
He did.
It hurt to nod. He had been lying still for so long.
- Oh. You… you’re at a hospital. We found you passed out at… at my doorstep. You were very, very sick. It’s… it’s been about three weeks since you last woke up. The doctors said it was a very bad fever. You… almost died. You’re better now, don’t worry.
Her voice was comforting.
His memory was blank.
- And, um… we don’t know who you are, where you came from, or why you came here. Everyone has been on edge ever since… It’s… It’s been very hard on all of us.
He had not opened his eyes in so long, he could barely see a thing.
- I, uh… I've been helping the doctors with you. My friends are suspicious about you, but I… I have a good feeling about you. You, um… you can trust me. My name is Fluttershy. Do you remember yours?
Did he?
He did.
- I…
That was the one thing he remembered.
- My name is Mirror Mender.
---
Never remember me.
“Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.” - G. O.
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Not bad.
There are moments of this story that really shine, I really do believe that some elements of the story were fantastically pulled off. The one thing that I think did the best was the psychological horror. Hit the nail right on the head with that one. Hooks were excellently used. Grammar was well done (with a exception of the quotation marks being used for something else, but you acknowledge, explained, and redirected that elsewhere), used and abused well. The character alterations with color was interesting as well.
For the negative. I really, really struggle with the difficulty it was to read. It wasn't that the plot was "too deep", or overly descriptive. But that I got really lost at times with what was going on, and where the main character was at. These times I would have to fight myself not to skim, but even then it was difficult to make sense of what -DEtEctiVe- was going on. Oh, and the word interrupts didn't help much with that. It was a distraction when good serious things were going down.
My suggestions to fix it are probably too large of an undertaking for you at this moment with the story completed. I would suggest the need to stick closer to the "Amnesia: Machine for Pigs" story line instead of borrowing segments. An actual machine producing Victims with Errors as the "guards" of it or something of the like. That'd eliminate a lot of the confusion. The other idea is to tell this story completely from first person, instead of third. I think that'd make the episodes of confusion and randomness function better, and more easily explained as character breakdown.
5203823
Well, I'm glad that it didn't go down all the way.
I have to admit, my intentional lack of clarity did get a little too far a few times. It isn't unlikely that I will eventually revise the chapters slightly - if only to move a few things around and add some clarification to the current events. I've done a lot of that to begin with (the original version was a complete and utter puzzle and never told you ANYTHING, on purpose), but I suppose that if I ever find the time, I could.
Not sure what exactly that refers to. Give me an example if you can.
I just don't like first person very much. I find it kind of purposedly edgy. Third person allows you to be disconnected, which is, in some ways, good.
As for the other suggestion... well, I'll just have to pass on that. The core idea of this had always been that it's the same universe, but a completely separate story, and that there are many ways in which monsters can be created - and that the definition of that is very vague. For what it's worth, I also just like the idea that everything that had been happening is the result of Fixer's broken psyche interacting with a sentient world creation tool. I find that it makes my work a bit more unique, rather than descending further down the crossover road. Besides, if I were to do that, it'd have lost the effective independency it has.
In any case, I thank you for the effort you put into reading through all of it. Now, I know that this is no excuse, but this was my first completed fanfic, so I suppose I will get better with time. One thing is for sure, I am NOT doing that much format screw anymore, it's ludicrously difficult to put into text.
5203878
The "Detective" call out got tiring after a while. Times when the Victims were speaking or someone was and some important note of understanding was trying to be sent. Best example was this ending segment with them.
That's agreed on, but for different reasons. I never mind editing for first person, but I find the story so lacking because we're only getting a single person's input on it. I find third to be better because it gives you freedom to expand the story by introducing different perspectives.
Ah. I've assumed something like that. From my viewpoint, it slowly developed into dark, morbid comedy, what with how they can only say a single word... and yet they're having a conversation with it, and we can only assume what it's about from Fixer's thoughts and words. I admit, the mileage varies extensively, so it's no surprise you found it grating after a while.
Originally, they were supposed to finally speak in the end, but... that just felt cheesy. So I stuck with it to the end. It's original if nothing else.
Also, about single person, Rationale's nature and existence would have been uncovered WAY sooner if it was in first person. Frame Fixer knew from the beginning, but didn't understand - and the sheer amount of things that would need to be obfuscated in the narrative... it'd have been even more confusing. So it'd have gotten rid of the buildup to Rationale, from the portraits to the words in his head. And, for one last thing, since, well, I suppose it's not too much to ask, any general thought on the very ending? That'd probably need a spoiler tag, but still.
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Well, that's good to know. I assumed I was less than successful with the rather obvious expected "horror" part of the Amnesia crossover thing, most people just find it strange and/or intriguing more than anything else. I wonder if I go on to ruin the feeling in the chapters to follow. Let me know, I guess.
Hey-o. Scribblestick here from WRITE to do reviewer-type-stuff. So, let's get started!
As of right now, I've read the first three chapters. I've never played Amnesia, but since you're going for the game's atmosphere and not tying in any of its plot points, I should be OK there. The general style of your story is different that what I usually read, so I may not be quite the audience you're looking for, but despite that, I found things here to enjoy.
First off, the atmosphere. It's creepy. It's confusing, but not frustratingly so for the most part. I did catch myself getting lost during the third chapter, but for the most part, leaving your reader in the dark is precisely what you want to do with this kind of story. It really helped me get into Fixer's head and experience what he was experiencing, which is the whole point. I actually found myself feeling accomplished when I put some pieces together. So good job on that.
Your unique use of conventions and mechanics was a bit hit-and-miss for me. I like the idea of indicating thoughts and dialogue differently than normal, as it adds to the not-OK atmosphere, but in practice, it was confusing at times when you had multiple characters talking. Sometimes I could figure out who said what based on how you wrote their dialogue, but other times it wasn't so easy. I'm afraid I can't point to a specific instance, though I remember the conversation in chapter 2 that begins:
being one of the more difficult ones to follow.
On the other hand, I liked your use of colors and different font sizes, as this added to the atmosphere in general and the specific moments in which they were used. Normally these things annoy me, so good job for getting them to work in your favor.
You asked if this story made me feel anything in particular. I guess I can go with lost, confused, desperate, frightened and uneasy. These feelings matched the character's feelings at any given moment, for the most part, which I think was your goal.
Anywho, just wanted to leave some thoughts before I go on vacation for the rest of the week. I hope this helps. If you have any questions or complains, feel free to contact me directly or the good folks over at WRITE.
Good luck! ~Scribs
5418392 Alright, I'm quite glad that I got a reply. I'm also glad that the story, at least at the start, resonates well enough with a less included reader. The rest of my improvizations seem to have worked out nicely as well. As for the dialogue bit you provided and, quite likely, the rest that you refer to - the flashbacks have no dialogue tags. It was done intentionally, to emphasize the scarcity of the ecollection.
As for questions of my own, I'd like to ask if there'll be something to follow up on the remaining eight chapters. Things to develop rather drastically over their course. In either case, Merry Christmas to you, and thanks again.
5418533 I can definitely take a look at that, though it may take some time. At any rate, best of luck!
This story is a wrestling match with the mind, but it doesn't insult my intelligence, nor does it pretend to be smarter than it is, since it lets you think what you want about what it all means. Conceptually, there's no flaw in it, even if it is difficult to comprehend at times. The writing could have been simplified a little, plus you really could have cut down on the constant fainting and mentions of "his sanity falling apart" (that can only happen once, you don't just blunt it like a pencil and sharpen it back again).
I know I usually leave longer comments, especially on a story this long, but I will refrain from a lengthier critique and whatnot because we shall discuss things in the open at another time.
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Eeesh... Well, I won't try to argue with you. My reasoning for it was that as the story went on, it would become incredibly messy if there wasn't an even more distinct method of separating spoken lines from inner ones. I honestly tried drafts where I used quotation marks for everything, and drafts where I had inners be plain italics. Both looked awful to me, so I ended up sticking with this. For what it's worth, it's what the EQD pre-readers singled out as (apparently) the main reason the story isn't getting featured. Since currently I can't dedicate my time to fixing this one, it'll stay that way for a while...
If that makes it any better, from Chapter 5 onwards it's a lot more digestable. Setting up this sort of story proved to be a challenge, and it's very common for people to just give up at around 3 or 4.
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Thus far I still see no reason to do things this way. Not only does it look bad, it makes it easy to miss when things are being said out loud – I don't know how many times already I had to stop and look back to make sure I was reading a paragraph correctly, which is a perfect way to kill the mood and immersion. Even so, I'm enjoying the story so far.
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Another part of the reason is that (and I'm not using that as an excuse) I'm not from an English-speaking country. And, well, uh... Using dashes for spoken dialogue in literature is kind of common in here. I never thought to check if it was different anywhere else. Apparently, it's not exactly common in most real countries. Still, the reason I never changed it was that my personal opinion on the matter happened to be that without them, it looked like an even bigger mess.
And I guess I'm doing something right so far.
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I wonder what it is. So far, the only thing that might be the problem... at least, from my perspective... is what is actually going to happen. Uh-oh, I guess.
And here's a piece of advice for aspiring optimists: no matter what happens, it will never get better.
This was an excellent dive into madness and my review on Monday will say as much. My only question: now that the world has been 'righted,' what happened to the Orb?
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Well, that didn't go as badly as expected at a point. I'd ask you what it was that you feared would happen, but I suppose you'll mention that in the review, and I can wait.
As for the Orb... What it was is partly up to interpretation. The definite part is "an alien intelligence stuck where it doesn't belong and not liking it". I have my own explanation for it, which I left a few clues for, but it's still interpretative. As for whether it's still there or not... Once again, the very very very last bit exists to make it interpretative, but my personal opinion on the matter is that no, it isn't. It's... dead, if these things can die.
And now for something that I feel convincted to put into a spoiler tag: you really shouldn't concern yourself with what Twilight's actions caused or did not cause. I'm not sure if you meant exactly what you said there, but something I'd like to point out is that none of the Errors really are the M6. They are gone. The Errors are... well... grotesque reimaginings of the M6 based on a certain somebody's ill thoughts.
You can has review!