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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herremann the Wise" data-source="post: 4237185" data-attributes="member: 11300">Match Four / Berandor vs. AwayfarerARWINK’S JUDGMENTAwayfarer / Ernest Stibman as Penelope Dondelinger in The Other WorldAwayfarer’s story doesn’t quite work for me, largely because the arc of the story feels a little too familiar. Fussy Hollywood stars/starlets searching for meaning; people visiting another world fantastic worlds and finding themselves unable to get home until the vast evil is done; awkward and unlikely heroes who succeed and get the girl; all of these are classic movie and fantasy archetypes, and while Awayfarer does a great job of segueing them together I couldn’t quite get a handle on what makes this story *different* to all the others.  Thematically it’s a little loose and unsure of where it’s going, or at least how to make the theme resonate.That said, I do think the elements are there to give this story its own identity, but I don’t think they’re doing the job. The components of the story are acting independently, without relating to one-another, and thus they feel a little forced rather than building upon one-another to create a cohesive and unified whole. A prime example of this is the climactic scene, where Ernest mistakes the stilettos as the weapons for defeating the ogre. In a cross-dressing-star-turned-fantasy-hero-farce such as this the joke makes perfect sense, but as a reader it only seems like it’s happening because this is a cross-dressing-star-turned-fantasy-hero-farce rather than a natural mistake that Ernest should make due to his character. While some are going to be happy to take the joke as a joke, others (including me) are going to be alienated from the humor unless it’s been built-up through previous scenes and we can accept Ernest’s action within the context of his character and the theme of the story. A great way of doing this would be to continue playing the theme Ernest going for a “manly” solution (like his father would have) and failing; you set this up with the axe in the previous conflict with the ogres, where the brute-strength of wielding a weapon failed and it’s only Ernest’s improvisation that kills the beast.  This is Ernest’s chance to accept the Penelope Dondelinger aspect of his personality, to see the good it can do rather than the bad, to make a choice to become Penelope for the greater good, and the happenstance robs that choice of its impact.Berandor / Make a WishA solid and light-hearted story that makes great use of the scene-breaks to keep the tension high. It moves fast, skipping from scene to scene, telling the story and letting us appreciate the humour of a fairy-based reality TV show without letting the joke get old. My real complaint largely revolves around Bill – he seems to be a superfluous filler character at present, but he occupies a great deal of the narrative and the growing frustration Manny directs towards him doesn’t actually lead us anywhere. JudgmentI’m going to give the round to Berandor, but props to Awayfarer for his story - I always take it as a good sign when I have to work hard to figure out why a story doesn’t resonate with me, and it took me a long while to process why I wasn’t getting into Ernest’s story as much as I’d expected to. Both of these stories were full of light-hearted fun, but I think Berandor’s gets away with it a little better due to its focus and quick cuts.THE JUDGMENT OF HERREMANN THE WISEThe pictures for this match were a little jangled about. I really had trouble settling on these four, there were three other images that I kept on putting in and out before finally settling on what was actually presented. The first image of a... weird skinny person screamed ceramic DM to me but the rest were loosely selected. Awayfarer has given us a traditional adventure whilst Berandor has gone all reality TV in fantasy land... sort of.Now the beginning of Awayfarer’s story started well for me and this carried it to about the half way point – where Ernest meets Tarentia. From this point however, the story flattens out before finishing with a little excitement albeit without the strange twist I was kind of expecting. I think with more time, you could have sharpened  this section up a little, getting rid of some of the fat and leaving us with just the meat. In many ways, pacing is a writer’s best friend in this competition because it can cover up some of the weaker points that these short stories sometime have. By slowing the pace of development, you make the reader struggle through and so the hurdles for the characters become likewise hurdles for the reader (rather than satisfying packets of drama). Still, there was a lot about this story that I enjoyed. The concept of the story was engaging and the setup of the adventure to come was well done. All in all, a fine effort that you should be proud of.Berandor has taken the pictures and twisted them in a direction I did not expect – which was excellent. However, I could not help feeling a little let down as I thought there was more that could have been plumbed from the story’s great premise. Not wanting to compare this to a feature length film (but I will for the moment), “Groundhog Day” takes a bizarre premise and explores it from every possible angle in both amusing and profound ways. I thought you could have (or perhaps I was just left feeling that I hoped you could have) squeezed a little more juice out of your idea. You had a fantastic vehicle in the relationship between Manfred and Bill the cameraman that could have explored these concepts, but alas, this came up a little short. Again, given more time you might have done more I suppose, but what this amounted to was a little dissatisfaction on my part as a reader. Now while that was the negative part, I still cannot help but commend you on how well you framed the story. Whereas Awayfarer struggled with pacing, I think you nailed it showing that despite some weaker moments, the whole was delivered in a more focused, complete and satisfying way. And so I am left feeling that the two stories are pretty much equal at this point when I add everything up – neither story provided a knockout finish that would have normally split them. Image use from both was good without anything really standing out for me (except perhaps for Awayfarer’s Ernest/Penelope). I suppose I have to split the two on this and as such, my vote will go with Awayfarer for the slightly better picture use (but ever so slightly). A real tough one to judge. MALDUR’S JUDGMENTMatch 4 Berandor vs AwayfarerFairy quizshow, now here I thought I read it all...... nice work.Oddly enough, another story with cameras from awayfarer, though I feel it need some more work.Judgement: BerandorFINAL JUDGMENTBerandor advances with a 2-1 advantage. Congratulations to our competitors for haranguing these images into two good stories.</blockquote>

Verification