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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rodrigo Istalindir" data-source="post: 3106194" data-attributes="member: 2810">Rodrigo IstalindirRoger:This is an interesting story, short and sweet.  The framing around the flashback is economical but effective, and the ending unexpected.  That's hard to do in such a short story, but here it's very well done.  The conversational tone in the flashback fits well and the prose flows nicely. The real drawback here is the brevity.  There's little depth to the characters, and little reason for the reader to develop any emotional interest in the story.  Eliminate Linda, and give Bill and Shane a deeper history -- siblings, college roommate, something -- and you'd achieve a stronger impact with the conclusion.Picture use is good.  The doctor in the beginning is kind of a throw-away, since the central element of the picture (the goggles) don't really play a part.  The mushrooms are a central element to the story, and using the color of the spots to tie in the name, etc., is a good touch.  The beach scene is off, though -- if the beach is 'pristine', what are the two umbrellas doing there?  The demon and bird use is clever.  You did a good job of setting up the hallucination with the story, and it doesn't feel forced, which is a common problem with dream type scenes in Ceramic DM.Linderel:Here we have an unlikely protagonist.  Shelly's lassitude is conveyed by the writing very effectively -- sitting heavily, smiles flitting, etc.  There is something about Shelly that strikes a chord - I think everyone has those days where they just want to lie on the sofa in their pajamas and ignore the world.   The setup is pretty good at establishing the characters.The rest of the story doesn't pan out, though.  There are tantalizing bits, but just when you think something significant is going to happen, things jump forward.  The childhood scene with the mushrooms, for example.  I kept waiting for that to factor into later events.  The parts describing Shelly's kidnapping and the actions of her attacker are well done, but there seems to be no overall method to the madness, as it were, no sense of motive.Picture use suffers from the same detachment, and an over-reliance on dreams.  Dreams, hallucinations, virtual reality, all these are permissible ways to use pictures in Ceramic DM, but they lack the impact of pictures that describe the here-and-now.  The glasses picture establishes Shelly's love of opera, but the rest of the story doesn't really make that important.  As mentioned, the mushroom picture and scene would have been more effective if there was some tie-in the present events.   The dream of the ocean and the demon-bird are throw-aways, with nothing to integrate it with the rest of the story.Linderel's story has some potential, and I was looking forward to a seeing how Shelly progressed, but the story seemed disjointed, and the pictures didn't serve to propel things forward.  Roger has an interesting little story, albeit a little short,  with a nice twist, and very good picture use.Judgment for RogermaxfieldjadenfoxRogerCardinal SinsA cure for cancer, and a drug trip gone horribly awry.Picture Use:Magnifying glasses, OK. Yes, they work in a n hospital setting, but I expected them to DO something. They are mentioned in passing but aren’t used. Beach, sets up the location, but once again, comes and goes quickly without having much impact. Mushrooms are the true inciting incident and I like to tie to the red bird picture. Red bird is used to good effect, comes up multiple times before the climax.Cannibalism is creepy. I’m guessing it was the mushrooms, not the human flesh that cured the tumor though, right? Right? I liked the O’Henry twist at the end. Seems like lots of CDM entries do that, but this is done nicely. The story telling style flows well and keeps active. Pretty cool.LinderelUntitledA depressed introvert, a kidnapping and a conversion.Picture Use:Picture use is pretty weak overall. The binoculars and their connection to opera were a good start, but I wanted more. Why did she love opera? Could it have shown up during her captivity? The red bird is used as a dream. A CDM no no. The mushrooms tie to the current mushroom soup, and in a longer story would be OK, but here they don’t advance the action or show much of Shelly’s character. The beach is also a dream or vision, which in the context of the story I could forgive if it tied to anything else… I think you missed some opportunities here. The story idea is a strong one, but the execution needed work. (Yes, I’m aware of the time constraints!) Shelly, as a character, grows, and that is good. I would have liked to see more about why she turned into this antisocial, apathetic person. The scene with the mushrooms would have been a good place to do this, and you started, but didn’t quite go far enough. Now, all that being said, I liked the overall flow of the story, and I was concerned with whether Shelly would get out, which means the character managed to be likeable despite her apathy. I think it has potential.Yeah, this is all too convenient, but I liked both of these stories. Both had issues, but both also had merits. Roger’s picture use was slightly better overall.  Judgment to Roger by a hair.Roger advances, 2-0.</blockquote>

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