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"Patella"

6 years ago
The following is an attempt at a creative writing essay. Please offer "valuable" criticism.

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I stared into her iridescent blue eyes. I found myself lost in them entirely. I made a mental note of how the surface area of her iris is approximately 3.14159 times the square of the radius minus the area of the pupil, for which I applied the same formula. In otherwords, absolutely perfect. I frowned a little when I realized that the radius of her pupil was in a state of flux, widening and constricting at unpredicatable intervals, thus altering the surface area. But this isn't a 2-D world, and I dismissed the thought entirely until my mind began to calculate the volume of her eyes instead until the thought of verifying the thickness of her retina chased that thought away as well.

"Do you like soccer?", she asked.

"Absolutely not," I answered.

"I play soccer on the weekends," she went on without reaction. "You might think it's funny, but I really want to go out and get am Official World Cup soccer ball after this. Would you mind?" She leaned over to me from her side of the bench and placed a hand on my knee casually, just ablove the hem of my shorts. Her hand felt understandably cool against my skin since the hand is farther away from the core of the body and thusly channels less of the body heat in comparison to a blood vessel dense area such as the leg, not to mention, I was already reradiating heat in that area due to exposure to insolation.

I couldn't help but to laugh. "Soccer ball," I responded. "Ball!" And began to laugh a little louder. Her hand still lingered at my knee.

"What's so funny?" she asked. Her brow furrowed slightly as if I was making fun of her passion. Her pink lips pucker tensely, as if in a mockery of emotional wounding.

"It's not a ball!" I subsequently revealed after much snickering. "It's an Archimedean Solid! More specifically, a truncated icosahedron." Her fingers massaged my thigh now and her chest heaved in a sigh, noiselessly. "Ball," I said again and shook my head both condescendingly and knowingly.

"Can we go get one?" she asked, almost nervously. "They are made different than the ones they used to make. Fewer panels."

"Sure," I said after a moment of pause. I knew that fewer panels meant that the ball traveled through the air with less resistance, thus making them not only "faster", but with a less predictable pitch and yaw in the air depending on how the player applied punctuated force to the game item based on momentum and where on the solid it was struck. Vector force also plays a role as does the laminate of the "ball" and the air pressure inside. Only later did I try to puzzle out if barometric pressure played a significant or incidental factor in the act, but at this moment, all I could concern myself with was the lazy moving hand that traced my inner thigh, back to my kneecap, and back again to my thigh. Patella.

She scooted closer to me and rested her head on my shoulder. "Let's sit here for just a moment anyhow. We'll go in a bit."

This was a perfect day, I reflected. It was autumnal equinox, visibility was good, humidity around 40%, and winds from the SSW at variable speeds from 5 to 10 miles per hour.

"Patella"

6 years ago
Is this how all your dates go?

"Patella"

6 years ago
All 0 of them, yes. I can only wish my thighs were smooth enough to caress.

"Patella"

6 years ago
Commended by EndMaster on 12/27/2017 1:33:06 AM
Ask and you shall receive. Besides, this is great procrastination territory, though the writing is a bit short for one of my really long, time-wasting reviews. But hey, I was just about to start working on my story, and BAM I happened to see this, so here I am. Remember, you asked for the review. This is really just the consciousness of my mind as a read through the words on the page. I’m not saying my thoughts are better or that yours are wrong, it’s just what I’m thinking. And as always, this is likely worth exactly what you paid for it.

“iridescent blue eyes?” Who talks like that? Does anyone really think that when they look into someone’s eyes? And what does that really, really mean, anyway? I mean, doesn’t iridescent mean more than one color and shifting colors? So does that mean they flow from navy blue to baby blue or something? Yeah, that just seems like too much. I mean “blue eyes” might be too weak, but making them iridescent is pretty strong…well, unless this is a fantasy setting and those are magical eyes or something, in which case this makes perfect sense. Okay, on to the next sentence!

First two sentences are a bit choppy, I might combine them into one sentence, starting with the second. But then with the math geek stuff? I mean I get it, but sheesh. And when the guy started to calculate the volumes, I realized this wasn’t a guy who was in love, it was a math geek who just happened to be looking in a direction that had a girl’s eyes in that direction. The way he listed those thoughts, I’m not sure he knows what to do with a girl OTHER than start calculating mathematical equations related to only the things he can see. Good luck with calculating her weight and letting her know that you did it.

Typo: “am” instead of “an” Official World Cup Soccer Ball.

She put her hand just above the hem of my shorts. Hmmm… I’m trying to figure out the setting. My mind was going to a soccer field because of the conversation. I was picturing the two of them sitting on a bench on the side of a soccer field, and then she reached over…hey, wait! She plays on weekends, and him not at all. Now I wonder where they are sitting and what kind of shorts he has on. Are they basketball “shorts” that go to your ankles? Are they running shorts that barely cover anything? Well, he’s a math geek, so I’m trying to picture boring, math geek shorts. I can’t picture anything. I’m thinking real math geeks don’t wear shorts. Oh well.

Wait, her hand was on his skin. Yet it was above the hem of his shorts. Now I’m really confused as to what kind of shorts those are. Could they be jeans shorts with all the tears in them? Yeah, not likely for a math geek. Is he feeling her hand through the shorts? No, it was pretty clear “against my skin.” I’m not really sure what’s going on now. I’m just going to go on reading without thinking too much about that part.

“insolation?” Okay, I guess this isn’t just a math geek. It’s a serious geek. And with the non-reaction to the female advances here, I’m going with “special” geek – as in autistic geek who apparently the girl has decided that she likes. I’m not sure she realizes this isn’t going anywhere, but we’ll see.

Laughter about “ball” (and the potential for elementary school reactions to “ball”) and the non-reaction to her hand and the description of the ball, yeah, this is epic-level autistic geekdom going on here, apparently. But she’s still bugging him. Is he rich? Maybe he’s built or created something in part due to his advanced brain skills and he’s loaded, and that’s why she wants him to buy her something.

So who knows if my thoughts were what was intended, but that’s what I thought as I read through it. Seems reasonable pacing, no other errors, and you can see the perceptions I had of the story. At the end I get the feeling that he has no clue that the girl is there, so I’m not sure why he was concerned with the hand moving up and down his leg. As oblivious as he appears to be to the female in general, that seemed a bit off, especially because just a moment later he was back to his calculations of the world. If this is going in a direction where she’s going to be doing physical things to him, and/or if he’s worried about that, I would think that might distract him a bit more. On the other hand, if he’s not worried about it, I would think he wouldn’t really notice that hand at all, much less being “concerned” with it.

Hope that helps!

"Patella"

6 years ago
I was confused at the part where he called it an essay and unsure how to critique it at that point tbh. Is it supposed to be complete, and also is it supposed to be an essay, because it just seems like the intro to a story about a turbo autist (and for that it works).

"Patella"

6 years ago

Lol, this... this is good...

Reminds me of Data from ST.

~Melly~

"Patella"

6 years ago

"Patella"

6 years ago

I love Ode to Spot.  (Then again, I just love Star Trek in general...)

"Patella"

6 years ago

Star Trek>Star Wars 

Go on everyone, boo me!

"Patella"

6 years ago
I'm more of a Trek fan but I always thought it was a weird thing to compare them since they have completely different themes and purposes and one of them has been a hit or miss thing with hundreds of hours of screen time and dozens of different writers while the other exists as a handful of movies and some animated spin offs.

The core fanbase for Star Wars had exactly three movies to build off of as their only source for decades, while Trek fans got to pick and choose which also changes the dynamic.

I guess Star Wars I'd consider of better quality percentage-wise since even the worst of it is just kind of meh compared to the depths Trek sometimes plumbed, even though I think more hours of quality Trek do exist.

"Patella"

6 years ago

That is very true, thank you for the insight!

"Patella"

6 years ago

I've been saying that for a long time.  Despite both having 'Star' as the first word, followed by a relatively short second word, and taking place in space, they have very little in common.  

One is an epic style story which largely focuses on good vs evil.  The other is exploring the human condition and society by juxtaposing it with interesting technology and fantastical races.  I really don't see why people compare them, or why liking one means you can't like the other.  I'm baffled.

"Patella"

6 years ago

That was my impression as well.  The overly technical and literal way the character reacted was very much like Data.  Not saying that's what he was trying to write, but some people are very literal.

"Patella"

6 years ago
Like Data = turbo autist, yes.