Allamorph

[FONT=Arial]You know, with the colored speech balloons, you'd think I'd have seen this coming. Man, poor Drizz'l can't get a break for [I]crap[/I]. But hooray for Three Mile Island scenes.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]If it's going to end up being an RP, it should really be in the Theater, right?[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]"It's got to be precise. Like, picking gnat-crap out of white rice precise." [I]?college band director[/I] "In honor of Lent this year I'm giving up Irony. Irony and Indian food." [I]?church music minister. (he only partakes of the one; guess which)[/I] "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'." ?[I]xkcd[/I][/FONT]

[QUOTE=Vicky][size=1]I never get tired of this... I think I won twice now XD! Epic.[/size][/QUOTE] [FONT=Arial]I see [I]someone's[/I] changed her tune. :)[/FONT]

[QUOTE][FONT="Arial"]... as long as you are stupid and corrupt and loud enough....[/FONT][/QUOTE] [FONT="Arial"]...and have enough money to finance it yourself.[/FONT]

[font=Arial]Critique to follow, in order of posting. Voting below.[/font] [center][hr][/center] Hmm. I like the approach. Nice schoolboy-dare segment taken by someone a tad too objective to enjoy the situation, with a touch of supernatural at the end. Good conceptualisation and sense of timing with information. Few format oddities. Basically all they amount to, though, is just knowing how to feel the flow of a sentence and how to separate how you hear it with how you know it's supposed to sound. Second paragraph: [QUOTE][i]All he had to do was find the back door where his friends would be waiting for him and get out.[/i][/QUOTE] This reads that Erin had to find a back door, and that his friends would be waiting there and get out. I feel you presented the information in the right order, but order of importance should outweigh order of presentation; the important bits in that statement are Erin's goals, and anything that interrupts them should be marked as such. [indent=1][i]All he had to do was find the back door, where his friends would be waiting for him, and get out.[/i][/indent] Like so. This way the reader knows that Erin is trying to trek through the house and get out again, and doesn't have to bother deducing that you meant them to know that. On a related note, perhaps you should have mentioned that Erin was trying to make his way [i]through[/i] the house? For a second I wasn't sure whether he was inside or outside the house; merely standing in an entrance and having something slam shut behind you does not mean you are either in the foyer looking in or on the front porch looking out. Got to specify. [QUOTE][i]Though he really didn't think anything [u]would[/u] happen.[/i][/QUOTE] Style note: stress the "think" instead of the "would"? I know what you were going for, and I say stuff that way myself sometimes. I just wonder which sounds better to the ear. [QUOTE][i]His parents had taught him better than to believe in silly ghost stories and just warned him not to go near the house as it was old and could fall apart over top of him at any moment.[/i][/QUOTE] First: break yourself of using the "...[b]as[/b] it was..." phrase right now. :p It's just too hokey�kinda like those ten-dollar words students drop haphazardly into every odd paper or so to show they have a vocabulary or something. "Since" or "because" (or "for", if you want am archaic feel to a particular piece) are much more common and easier to insert, and they feel less like fluff/filler and more like an actual explanation. Second: this is a run-on in disguise. Offending phrase is "and warned". Tense is wrong (had [just] warned], and once you put it right, you realise you actually need a comma before the 'and' there. [indent=1][i]His parents had taught him better than to believe in silly ghost stories, and had just warned him not to go near the house, since it was old and could fall apart over top of him at any moment.[/i][/indent] If you use "since", comma before it. If you use "because", no comma. And no, I'm not sitting here dissecting your sentences and identifying each and every individual part. :p I can just feel how things are supposed to flow, and communication requires that I translate back into grammatical terms. Anyway. [QUOTE][i]However they didn't bother him so he didn't bother them. [/i][/QUOTE] Comma after "however". It's like using "regardless" or "despite their noise". Also, consider one before "so" as well. [QUOTE][i]He stepped up to the back door and began to turn the doorknob. He turned it all the way around and pushed against it but the door didn't open. It wasn't locked so he put all his strength into his next effort but it still didn't budge an inch.[/i][/QUOTE] This section just feels elementary. "He began to turn the doorknob. He turned it all the way around." "But the door didn't open. But it still didn't budge an inch." Avoid redundancy. [QUOTE][i]He knew his friends would try something dumb like this. As he turned back towards the main hall his heart skipped a beat when he heard a loud bang directly beneath him. Shortly following it was the angry hissing of a few cats so he just sighed, ignored it and continued his trek back to the front door.[/i][/QUOTE] This section is also odd. First, "had known" instead of "knew". Second, you've got actions taking place in the second sentence at the same time at two different times. "As he turned" and "when he heard" should be almost simultaneous, but you've got them separated by the emotional response. Fixing it demands a rearrangement of bits in the correct order. Should be *Erin turns to go back, *he hears a loud noise, *his heart jumps. Yes, this [i]does[/i] change the important part of the sentence from his heart jumping to the noise, but because you have the "As he turned" there, you've set up simultaneous action and thus you [i]have[/i] to make sure what caused the jump comes before the jump. Either that, or relegate the loud noise to a following sentence and write it as if he jumped at the noise before he realised what it was. [QUOTE][i]When he got home, his parents worriedly asked him when he had last seen them and what had happened the night before but he failed to produce any plausible explanation for them so they just told him to go and play in his room for a bit.[/i][/QUOTE] Another run-on. Play with it. What these bits boil down to, again, is a need to feel the flow of the story. You can't write like you're trying to pack as much information into a sentence as possible. It makes the story feel rushed and breathless. And judging from the attitude of the main character, that feel does not fit [i]his[/i] feel. He's calm (well, more than most for his age) and rational, not panicky or reactionary. Speaking of Erin, though, check that your description of environment lines up with his perceptions. You're telling the story through his eyes, even though you're not using his thoughts, and this means that if you describe a place as unsettling, Erin sees it as unsettling. I say this because at the beginning you described the house as intimidating, and yet I don't sense Erin sees it as at all intimidating. He obviously has no trouble navigating the house, since he doesn't bother either to look at it or to hurry through it�or at least you didn't indicate either. Along those lines, I don't think you played the part where Erin's friends might have been turned into cats well enough. From the way I felt the piece progressing, you were focusing more on Erin being unaffected by ghost tales or atmosphere, and then all of a sudden there's a loud noise and cat's hissing and what. I thought maybe a board broke under the house or something. Needed more foreboding for the concept to carry before we get to the end with Erin contemplating "what the evidence points to". We should get the clear impression something happened�and this should be done while staying behind Erin's eyes, no less, which means you'll have to work to find a way to pull it off. However, your story was concise and contained, with a definite resolution, and that was good. Good job. [center][hr]75[/hr][/center] Little bit of a tense mini-scene here. Action was good, playing from the character's perspective and noticing what he noticed if he noticed it was good. Bit short, and no real definite conclusion, but I think that was the intent. Couple of glitches. First was a pacing issue. [QUOTE][i]Kirk exploded out of the school doors. He had slid out of his classroom and bolted straight for the exit the second he spotted the man�s face. It was unforgettable; it�s rough lines, craggy like the surface of a boulder. A face riddled by the years rather than complimented by them. Kirk had also seen the man recognize his own face despite the great distance between them, from the second floor window to the sidewalk across the street. The flash of recognition was unmistakable. Petrified for a second, he was reminded of the urgency of the situation the moment the man began walking towards the school � towards Kirk.[/i][/QUOTE] First, I think you could justify placing that first sentence all by itself, and adding a bit more to it to give the reader a sense of the urgency Kirk feels. [i]"Kirk exploded out of the school doors, _________________ ."[/i] Something like that. Then, prioritise which information happens, so you don't feel like you're backtracking and making sure the reader knows bits in reverse. You said Kirk slid out of his seat the [i]second[/i] he saw the old man's face, but you also said he was [i]petrified[/i] for the same second. Make that agree and you'll be find. Second was the description. Feels clunky, and you also fell into the it's/its trap. Possessive "it" has no apostrophe; think "it is". In fact, it'd be good practice to mentally break up all your contractions as you're writing them so you can sense when they fit and when they don't. Anyway. I can't really tell you what I think is wrong with the section, but I can show you how I feel it wants to be written. [indent=1][i]It was unforgettable. Its rough lines, craggy like the surface of a boulder; its _______, ________; its ________, _________. A face riddled [b]with[/b] years rather than complimented by them.[/i][/indent] The feel you wanted for the initial description was great, but I feel it's usually better-feeling when done in threes. Either that, or say [i]"...unforgettable [b]with[/b] its rough lines...,"[/i] and then add the last bit on with a semicolon. Also, "riddled with years" was the first thing that occurred to me, but "ravaged by the years" works possibly better, I think. This whole section is a style call anyway; do with it how you see fit. Just do [u]something[/u] with it. :p [QUOTE][i]The area around the school was crowded for a few blocks so Kirk didn�t [immediately?] notice he was being followed [s]until the crowd became sparser[/s].[/i][/QUOTE] You already have that information present later, and the pacing there is better, so don't use it here. [QUOTE][i]As he came to the edge, he saw it � the fire escape ladder that had been left down.[/i][/QUOTE] It. It. Oh [i]come[/i] on! :p Surely you can feel how contrived that feels. "And then he saw it! That blinding light that had haunted him since childhood!" Or something. Blargh. Hokey! Augh. But seriously. That fire escape must be almost holy, like Jesus Christ descending from heaven to help poor Kirk to the roof. This sentence here is a perfect example of over-impact. You just made [i]too much[/i] of it, ya know? I felt so let down when [color=Red][b]IT[/b][/color] turned out to be just a fire escape. :p Oi. Other than that, really nice Bourne-esque chase scene. I noticed the reference to the laboratory, so I'm certain this section has more to it. Cliffhanger for space constraints, I'm assuming? Thresh it out and toss it up somewhere. [center][hr]75[/hr][/center] This is a really tough call, but less because of skill and more because I'm not quite sure who deserves it. For skill of execution, I prefer [color=DarkRed]Anomaly[/color], but for actually hitting the guidelines and submitting a concise story, [color=DarkRed]Lrb[/color] clearly has the upper hand. And I'm no Harvey Dent. Fortunately. Shaddup. Oh bugger. If only because "the Kid-Cat Turner" was the most unimaginative Bogeyman name ever, I vote [b]Anomaly[/b].

[QUOTE=Rachmaninoff]You all can blame Allamorph for this one. [URL="http://www.jesterball.com/Animations/animeplotgenerator.html"][U]Anime Plot Generator[/U][/URL][/QUOTE] [FONT=Arial]"Magical dominatrixes go back in time with magical boys for freedom." Sounds like America, actually.[/FONT]

[quote name='Ravenstorture][color=darkgreen][font=garamond]3000+ users online at once is insane, I've never seen anything like that myself! Probably because I'm in the wrong timezone.[/font'][/color][/quote] [FONT=Arial]Yeah, those bots can be kinda hard to synch up your watch with.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]And that's not counting all the invisibubblies. I'd show you, but then you'd know.[/FONT]

[CENTER][IMG]http://www.marriedtothesea.com/030109/not-about-that.gif[/IMG][/CENTER]

[size=3][b]�Sub-commander, hold!�[/b] Gillam Tourney drew up short at his commander�s familiar voice, looking back down the corridor to wait. When Sauvage reached him, he fell quickly into stride. [b]�You did very well on your last assignment,�[/b] Sauvage said, shifting to his other hand the data pad he had been scanning a moment before. [b]�Sewall tells me we gleaned a good deal of useful intel, even with the time delay.�[/b] [b]�Thank you, sir,�[/b] said Gillam. [b] �To be honest, though, I�m the most surprised of all of us at the results. I mean, the Imperial was almost gushing information. Our audio analyst said he�d need at least another day for his team to extract everything from the recording and encode it in a more usable format.�[/b] Sauvage nodded. [b]�Plans for his transportation are being finalized now. Scorer should be out of our hands in the next week.�[/b] Gillam looked up. [b]�We�re releasing him, sir?�[/b] [b]�It�s really our only course of action,�[/b] replied Sauvage, nodding. [b] �Killing the man would not be in anyone�s best interests, and long-term confinement is not feasible by any decent standards. And of course I feel William wouldn�t approve of either,�[/b] he added. [b]�And yet we done nothing less questionable here,�[/b] Gillam murmured. Sauvage gave him a quizzical glance. [b]�Permission to speak freely, Sub-commander,�[/b] he prompted. Gillam sighed and clasped his hands behind his back. [b]�Frankly, sir,� [/b]he began after a moment, [b]�this assignment was one of the most morally shaky I�ve had in my entire career. I do not question orders regularly, sir�or else I wouldn�t be in this unit. But what I was witness to . . . what we put that man through was wrong.�[/b] Gillam shook his head. [b]�It�s not something I�m going to forget easily.�[/b] Sauvage nodded again. [b]�But you see nothing wrong with conventional interrogation techniques.�[/b] When Gillam didn�t answer, Sauvage continued. [b]�This is war, Sub-commander. Both sides are fighting because they believe what they believe is right. Both sides are going to make sacrifices to achieve victory, and those sacrifices are staggering. Some will make physical sacrifices, even including their lives. Some will make emotional, others spiritual. �Those of us at the top of the chain must make moral sacrifices. We don�t always wholly agree with what we decide to do, but we decide to do it because it must be done. You are reacting to seeing a man tear himself apart, but how many other men have been torn apartt forcibly to achieve the same end? �War is ugly, Sub-commander, and in the end the side that loses will be charged with war-crimes for all the sacrifices they were willing to make, while the side that wins will hide theirs away because their victory justified their crimes. It�s the same no matter how far back in history you go.�[/b] [b]�I guess,�[/b] said Gillam. [b] �Doesn�t make me feel any better about it, though.�[/b] [b]�Me neither,� [/b]Sauvage reassured. [b] �But these are my quarters; I�ll expect a full report from you shortly.�[/b] [b]�Yes, sir,�[/b] said Gillam, excusing himself. Sauvage stepped through the door to his room, and when it hissed shut behind him he brushed the panel for privacy. Touching two fingers to the side of his chrono, he let out a deep sigh; his outline began to shimmer, his appearance dissolving into pixels on the air as he pulled at the buttons of his uniform coat with one hand, the other reaching up behind his head. The coat was tossed haphazardly onto the room�s chair, and L�Arachel Salier shook her hair free of the constraining bun and collapsed backwards on the bed. Gillam had been right; the results of Scorer�s trial [i]had [/i]been amazing. Scorer had been placed in a secure room after being removed from the isolation tank, and she had been sitting beside him, watching him, when he first regained consciousness. It had taken a huge force of will to remind herself that the man who, for sheer joy at seeing another human being, had almost bowled her over by his violent embrace and who had wept uncontrollably on her shoulder for almost a quarter of an hour was the same man whose reputation was spread across the galaxy as the most sadistic interrogator in the Empire�s history. And it was slightly fitting, she supposed, that a man who had been made by being put through hell would need another hell to unmake him again. Whether or not he had deserved it was a call she would have to leave to William. L�Arachel couldn�t afford to waste time debating the ethics of her actions. Her sacrifice had already been made. She was two people. She remembered actually serving under Aldric. He had been well-acquainted with the original head of the Resistance, and the Black Ops division was his brainchild and his legacy. As his second aide, she had worked arduously to gain his trust, and was rewarded after a fashion by being placed in charge of several of his touchier projects�and by being the only person he came to with news of his impending death, aside from the CMO, who had been able to find no cure for the rare disease and whom he had also sworn to secrecy. She and Aldric had agreed that it was best for the unit if his face continued to lead them for a time, and it had been the CMO�s idea to use scans of Aldric�s body from the medical database and incorporate them into a portable holographic projector for L�Arachel. So Aldric Sauvage no longer numbered among the living, and two people in the entire galaxy knew of his passing. The only difficulty was that L�Arachel still had a life to maintain herself. Her initial assumption of Black Ops leadership had been extremely touch and go, and even though she now had a decent system to keep herself separated visually from Sauvage, her days often left her incredibly drained. Things would settle down in a little while, since the unit was splitting up on assignments until perhaps a month after Scorer�s delivery, so her artfulness would be restricted to a single ship until then. And of course Gillam would be taking the [i]Chevalier [/i]in a separate direction. L�Arachel rose and prepared for a quick shower before relaxing any further, but she couldn�t help feeling a small twinge at that last thought. Gillam had been another of her sacrifices.[/size]

[FONT=Arial]Well, that's all from me, guys. Heh. What'd you think of the big reveal? :p Oh, and Kathy, ma'am, probably the reason this bit has felt kind of familiar to you is because I pulled the concept straight from [U][I]The Cardinal of the Kremlin[/I][/U], one of Tom Clancy's novels. I encountered that technique for the first time in that book, and I remember being struck by how singularly effective it was, and how cruel it was at the same time. I had fun shaping this section. Thanks for giving me the opportunity.[/FONT]

[FONT="Arial"]I think I might have figured out what this thread is about. Is this kinda close?[/FONT] [CENTER][IMG]http://www.explosm.net/db/files/Comics/Rob/note.png[/IMG][/CENTER]

[FONT=Arial]Because of crossover spoilers: [spoiler]She's gone. Oh my gosh, she's gone. I feel like Cyclops and Wolverine in X2. ...wait. Could Yuuko be his [I]WIFE??[/I][/spoiler] ...I am utterly stunned.[/font]

[FONT=Arial]Holy crap, Fei Wong is doing something to Yuuko.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]I have no idea what any of you are talking about. :animedepr[/FONT]

[QUOTE=Dagger]Let's try to keep things in perspective. This is some seriously dumb ****, and dumb **** is eternal. People have done seriously dumb **** since the beginning of time or whatever. People will always do dumb ****. There is really no way to completely eradicate dumb **** from society--nor can I imagine that any society throughout history has succeeded in doing so. Things like oppression, pillaging, genocide, civil war, mass starvation--those, I would suggest, are symptoms of societal decay. But this? This is just an example of dumb ****. :whoops: ~Dagger~[/QUOTE] [FONT=Arial]If I have nothing else to say about this thread, let it be known that I want to hug [COLOR=DarkRed]Dagger[/COLOR] until she can't breathe now that I've read that post.[/FONT]

[CENTER][IMG]http://www.explosm.net/db/files/Comics/Matt/one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other.png[/IMG][/CENTER]

[CENTER][YOUTUBE]VrETzsTO3JY[/YOUTUBE][/CENTER] [FONT="Arial"]Dig it. [COLOR=#EDEDED]Ha ha ha 25 characters.[/COLOR][/FONT]

[quote name='Dagger']This brings up another question--what if I wanted to, say, switch a messy first draft of something for a perfect final draft? It's only words on paper, so assuming one overwrote to begin with (to make the final draft end up the same length or shorter, rather than longer), the material used wouldn't change.[/quote] [FONT=Arial]The key problem with human transmutation was always that the soul was an indefinable unless one applied another soul as a reactant. So here, how do you quantify creative effort, skill, and knowledge?[/FONT]

[quote name='chibi-master']Mistakes I make in the middle of a Kata...WAAAUGH!!!:animedepr That, or some of my classmates' seemingly infant-like intelligence levels.[/quote] [FONT=Arial]Kind of hard to fix those with equivalent exchange, bucko. Actually, I'd like to fix these Valentine's Day suckers going to seed on my desk into something far tastier. Like, say, however many Tootsie Pops I could get out of the material present, plus whatever extra I need from my old Chemistry notes. Should be enough atoms in there to get at least a quarter-bag. I mean, what else am I going to do with all these suckers?[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]A simpler way of looking at the intro/conclusion bit is a simple rephrasing; i.e. intro. ? "This is what I think,", conc. ? "Based on that, that's what I think". You're just reasserting your point so the reader remembers clearly what you talked about. [quote name='Drizzt Do'urden']The only thing I have to add is make sure your topic paragraph has a "wow" factor in it.[/quote] Eengh. With research papers, not so much. In papers where you're convincing someone of a point of view or presenting new and exciting information, this is a good effect to go for. But this is simply information and presentation. The risk you run when attempting to make your lead-in sound "Wow!"-ish is that you may end up sounding completely fake. Not that mundane is good, either. :p But this sure ain't no Super Shammy.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Sounds like you need a crash course in critical reading. Information on writing prompts are pretty much always vague. But by this point in your job training (I don't classify much post-secondary as education) you should be able to take a vague topic, which is really only a starting point, and home in on something more concrete by yourself. You also need to take things piecemeal. Information always comes first; you can't really write a paper without knowing what you're going to be using. Hit up some reputable computer hardware internet retailer sites, get the data. Check out some local stores, see what they have to offer. Then [I]before[/I] you make your chart, see what you can say about the data you have. What all types of drives are available? Are certain models of hard drive more accessible than others between the two? Who has the better variety, and why might this be? Really basic, simple items to look for. They're not even "questions you have to ask yourself", either; it's just observation and noticing trends and patterns that you can BS about. :p After you have some idea of what you can do with your data, [I]then[/I] make your chart to reflect that data. Reason for doing this here instead of first is that charts that actually help support the paper tend to be viewed and graded better than charts that are there to take up the one page. Speaking of, now all you have to do is write, say, three-fourths of a page about your findings. The more information you gathered and the more details/trends you notice (and can support by referencing the chart that shows said details/trends), the longer you can write. Hitting about the middle of the second page is a good spot to aim for, but since the requirement was 2-3 pages including one page for a chart, you only have to worry about one additional page of writing to fill the 2-page requirement. Basically, you'll need to spend some thought on it. You won't need to agonise over it, just figure out a direction based on your data and run. Once you get the data and understand what it says, the writing should be easy.[/FONT]

[quote name='Indi][COLOR="Indigo"][FONT="Arial"]If anything I find it sad that they have to use [I]probably[/I] just to pander to the die hard Christians out there. Though that is amusing in it's own way.[/FONT'][/COLOR][/quote] [FONT=Arial]They initially [URL="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,494825,00.html"][COLOR="Blue"]didn't[/COLOR][/URL]. [QUOTE][I][FONT="Arial"]The group's new ads are a variation on their original campaign launched in Washington, London and Spain, which read ? [B]"The Bad News Is God Doesn't Exist. The Good News Is You Don't Need Him."[/B][/FONT][/I][/QUOTE] Then again, theirs was the one that broke down fresh out of dry dock. :p Divine Humor +1[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]All y'all people so stuffy. :p "I'm not afraid of Friday the Thirteenth." "Friday the Thirteenth? Just another day." "Poo poo, what preposterous superstitions." "Harrumph!" Sound like a bunch of crotchety old English people. [I]*stares at Utah crew specifically*[/I] Of course it's a bunch of rubbish. So is All Hallows Eve. So is Santa. And I have friends thirty-odd years my senior still asking me what Santa brought me for Christmas, even though we all know better. I always felt that Rubbish existed to be played around with. Which reminds me. WE GOT ANOTHER ONE NEXT MONTH OMGZORZZZ And my youngest sister's birthday is that day. :naughty:[/FONT]