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Leftovers
Eyes
Good opening. Plain and effective, it sketches out a realistic environmental and emotional landscape, the latter being its greatest strength. The protagonist's circumstances ring of verisimilitude, and the intrusion of the supernatural is properly jarring, if perhaps muted in its psychological impact; the missed calls notification is a well-chosen device that helps carry a lot of emotion in that direction when necessary. As the tale of a character who's insignificant/mundane in the grand scheme of things experiencing a short but life-altering brush with the plot/supernatural, it hits the right buttons competently. I would contend that it doesn't hit them as hard as it should to perform above the formulaic norm. While grading based on a story's scope/ambition is sometimes an unconscious decision, well-trodden scenarios visited with a personal flair/innovation, a subversion of expectations, or sheer excellence in a literary aspect clearly elevates that instance from being perfunctory exercises of a standard concept - or comparison fodder. What Eyes lacked is precisely such a standout quality; it is a well-written story rendered mundane by its content, that I didn't feel a lot about, whose continuation I don't care to see.
no. i/Fist = Hammer > Nail
An intriguing premise and destination, intent on painting in a piece of that vast, empty space on the map between Britain and Japan. Small details - the enforcer's creed, the many uses of runes - are the little things that sell the image and the piece's authenticity in the narrow TM fanfic sense. There are instances of wording that captures its object of depiction very well, with the abrupt dissociation from the familiar-turned-alien compared to hyper-awareness of one's own tongue fantastically on-point; but also some obscurity in the spatial transitions, even allowing for some degree of fuckery with bounded fields. Plotwise my impression is of a mirror image of Eyes: the unique ideas are in evidence but their execution is hasty, almost sloppy, and Bazett's underlying personal struggle is tied to the unfolding action almost in abstraction, its role to provide an instance of irony - that an extreme expression of the thing Bazett wants is stifled by ingrained performative qualities - and otherwise related in detachment; emotional conflict rendered matter-of-fact. If that was the intended effect, underscoring her estrangement from her own emotions, the narrative payoff is similarly muted. In short, it blew its load too quickly, and both the suspense of the mission and the exploration of the theme suffered for it; there is also the sense that even more can be made of the innovative setting. Still, interesting things happen in a memorable way. Did you happen to watch Netflix's Witcher recently?
Spinning Wheels [Fate/Zero AU - College/University] [Kayneth x Waver] [NSFW]
Memery is the final refuge of the desperate, and there was obviously some desperation involved in the writing process. Consequently there isn't much to say about it. Some nice looks into the mental spasms induced by perennial anxiety and funny parallels to situations in canon deliver the chuckles. As it stands it's less than incomplete - merely a prologue. One only hopes that when it gets to the porn Kayneth will be a power bottom. Finish it, you knob. Also did you miss that this should be Tsukihime?
Palingenetic Descension
There are hints of an intent to invoke a mythic mode of storytelling, which isn't specified by the prompt, that works out fairly well for the thematic. The vivid imagery in the temple segment strikes a fine cadence of alluring grotesqueness, sensuous and monstrous forms, and a red mist of demonic revelry suffusing it like an arthouse film's colour filter - the horror that provides a lot of that is similarly balanced. It is there that the spirit of the subject matter comes through best. The execution of the prompt's particulars felt rather abstract; if the aforementioned narrative mode was more fully embraced, vagueness in the specifics of the events would synergise more with their framing. Overall, I liked it more than I thought I would.
The Lost Branch
You attempt to portray, without exaggeration, something very difficult: to shake off the memes and depict what apprenticeship to Zelretch means, what his perspective looks like, and to give the man himself a new dimension while making sure his original one doesn't slip into parody. In this you succeed. The Zelretch we are shown has a depth and complexity of personality that allows for a rationalisation of his qualities - his formative experiences - to be traced. He has a strong sense of duty for a reason, his powers were developed to operate in specific ways, and he wasn't brought into the world a perfectly formed character. Revisiting one of his past 'failures' is an excellent way to depict this progression, in the youthful recklessness of a man with awesome power who hasn't yet realised the cost that it entails and the responsibility that he holds; accept my appreciative nod at the tribute to Lunatique in the framing device of a tale to a student as well. That I am unfamiliar with the crossover had no bearing at all on the experience, as the premise was laid out in clear enough terms - I imagine that delivering it in a way that didn't sound completely ridiculous was the most difficult part. There is a tasteful sprinkling of details and homages - lore that was or-would-be, in some other world/work - and a clear idea of what a world would look like to someone who has seen so many of them - seen in Zelretch identifying people by title or family name, which are more constant throughout worlds than individual identities. Exposition is handled well for the most part, excluding some heavy-handed, positively GDesque mentions of Alaya and the Throne in conversation, which must have shifted timelines from the tree where you are a prolific FFN author. In the same vein, I do not think the details about the other side of the crossover add anything to the whole; some things should only be alluded to, and a revelation of the cosmic thunderdome ought to drive the point home without the full scoop on the workings behind it. Still, a story about someone as powerful as Zelretch being pervaded by a sense of hopelessness as each failsafe measure comes up short and his powers prove inadequate should be commended. That you did this while skipping all the cool explosion-laden parts with the best textual justification for timesaving/laziness that I've seen doubly so. Good job, you made one of the deadliest prompts known to man work.
The Golden Sword
Another one that seems to have been written under the pressure of time, with pacing and flow suffering for it. Eschewed paragraphs, focus that flits manically all over the place, and a lack of narrative buffers that allow each element its time and space to sink in compose the picture of a rushed piece with little control over its own pace. If the intent was to depict a muggle being overcome with a sense of wonderment at the myriad displays of opulence and magic, it simply does not convey that effect, at least in its current formatting. Places, sights, introductions, thoughts on the present, thoughts on other things; this mass of information flies by without discernible rhyme and without coming together to create solid images about the setting or the characters, as it is not given enough space in between for the reader to process them, the transitions from one topic to the next perfunctory at best but mostly jarring. This is unfortunate especially because it undermines the descriptive flair that is liberally deployed throughout the piece - leaving none of the constituents introduced adequately, least of which the narrator/protagonist. An idea I would offer is to visualise the point of view as a camera that focuses/lingers on a specific sight/aspect of the world at a time, progressing according to the logic of movement in space; creating a more congruent experience of seeing the boat to share initial thoughts, entering and seeing the interior to establish the locus, meeting the people inside in a realistic/non-video-gamey talking-to-all-the-npcs way to set an introductory note for them and establish the premise through dialogue - all throughout you piece together a solid first image of the narrator. As you're dealing with OCs, assigning initial roles/traits for the reader to latch onto is important. Regardless, magic auctions are neat, and I'm down for Lei-Jun Lang and any insights about the Chinese magic order that she'd bring. This is ultimately another prologue, presumably aiming to go down the noir path of the prompt, and I would like to find out how it would develop.
Blood Circuit
Apropos of the preceding advice, this piece is very cinematic, as can be noticed in the very first scene, which very deliberately places its focus on audiovisual details - environmental shots, emphasised motions, tiny details in the physical world in full-blown zoom, all with a soundtrack playing in the background; downright traileresque. This is a mode that persists in all aspects of writing, the differentiation between them akin to shifting between cinematic techniques; following this trail of thought I would describe the genre at hand as stage drama with action thriller aspirations and an eclectic aesthetic debt. The primary specification is largely derived from the dialogue - the approach as well as the content - which I am finding difficult to describe; the closest I can get to feeling accurate is that the spoken lines are stark in structure, charged with the mood of a given scene, delivered with finality that all but implies the pause of deliberation before and after them, invoking rather than expressing. The flip side is that dramatic statements can also come off as the textual equivalent of 'rehearsed', which must also be tremendously unhelpful - think of it, if you will, in the context of the drama metaphor, affecting human interaction but building towards a greater effect than that of the content of dialogue on its interlocutors. The narrative structure, alternating from the finale in a good old-fashioned ascending boss rush punctuated by minion encounters which presents thrilling applications of the combat magus concept and the flashbacks establishing the backdrop of events and circumstances which led up to that point is a simple and effective method of ameliorating the cost of anchoring interpersonal relations and emotional responses on signifiers - sect unity and duty, betrayal, retribution - rather than organic development. The action is, again, excellent - an original imagining of magecraft's operation in China, the way it mingles with the muggle world, with a distinctive application of ye olde concept and a nice remembrance of qi being a thing - but the drama which lies at the heart of the piece is instantiated with a degree of style unequal to its substantiation. In human words, you key into the tenor of drama very well but there isn't enough substance to the drama for it to feel important, nor for the reader to feel much about it at all. The B-side scenes didn't do enough as character-establishing snapshots to provide a backbone to the action, telling the story in broad, impersonal strokes that relied too much on the aforementioned signifiers for investment in the human side of the drama to develop. Without distinct emotional attachments, the connections between the relationships that you lay down in the interludes and the aftermath of them being broken are left hanging, serving only to tie up the plot's cause and effect - not that the plot and its execution wasn't gratifying, quite the opposite, but I reckon criticism is more useful in a broader sense. In the spirit of nitpicking I would also note that placing the focus on the revenge story rather than the invocation of heroic spirits rendered the concept of ancestor channeling more of a cool feature of a story that didn't have the space or thematic disposition to dwell on it and follow the idea through; the way the prompt was executed - as a permutation of demi-Servants predicated, to my understanding, on ancestry - wasn't quite what I'd expected either. With the complaining quota fulfilled at great length, it should go without saying that I enjoyed this story quite a lot and am glad my prompt engendered its creation.
The Fourth!?
There are fundamental problems with the writing of this entry, such that I doubt a few ostentatious and vaguely condescending comments would rectify. Generally speaking, I would invite you to examine the other entries in this contest and replicate their descriptions of such things as the characters' thoughts and feelings, their surroundings, and the events that are occurring around them, even in the bare minimum of words, as that is a major factor of what constitutes good writing. It would also serve you well to acquire an understanding of tone and tonal consistency. I did not get the sense that this story aimed at anything less than a serious exploration of the prompt, yet it aims to pursue that by means of crack fanfiction. A workable definition of "serious" here would be "conforming to the internal logic and rules of the setting through realistic behaviour"; an example of "crack fanfiction" is Zelretch recruiting Shirou (why?) to go to the Root (how?) and record it (what?) with a camera (what??). Dialogue is also stilted at the best of times, disattached from the social dogma at worst; Rin talking about ＳＥＬＦＬＥＳＳＮＥＳＳ is not the behaviour of a human being. I'm not sure what remedy to recommend for writing realistic human dialogue; your best bet is probably copying other fanfics, or the VN, or other media, or talking to people and watching them talk in real life. The rest of the entry might as well not have been posted, seeing as it appears to be a final boss from some non-TM visual novel reading out a wiki article to Shirou offscreen before he noticed the effulgent aura of ＳＥＬＦＬＥＳＳＮＥＳＳ and offered to make him a god, thus triggering the total collapse of reality for all that I can tell. To say that it made no sense would undersell my incredulity at reading it. You essentially skipped telling any kind of story, and what you sent in as an entry was the equivalent of a skit transcribed on the phone during a toilet break. The prompt was technically fulfilled, though I'm sure no one was happy about it.
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