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13.07.2024

Due to the rule set, the number of featured comments from 1st of July until now: 1 (prior to the criteria set on length or author login)

A Magical Tail  written by adventurer

01.08.2024

I didn't realize I had two featured comments though I think one of them was counted by mistake (the featured comment on Zombie Apocalypse was on June not July so it doesn't count. Though I have recently had two comments featured so:

1. The Siberian written by Yummyfood (great potential, would love to read it's final version in the future)
2.  Blow Your House Down written by Bill Ingersoll (I'm going to try reading and reviewing the new entries before reading the big list of his works. So far I've enjoyed both this one and the sci-fi "Eyes on a Moon of Blindness").

03.08.2024

Blood in the King's Court written by Orange

08.08.2024

The End of Creation written by hetero_malk 

11.08.2024

Working on (Darius's advice on having Microsoft Word open when reading to take notes, has been helping a lot in keeping things organized and writing reviews):

1. Slaying the Scourge written by MiltonManThing - this review is taking more than it should due to some research I'm making on the Huns and Western Empire in general. Tbh one complaint/criticism: If you are going to use roman administration titles, at least explain them for the average reader.

2. Emperor's Fireworks written by PerforatedPenguin - this one is half-done. Will come back to it after finishing the first review

The Leaderboard

︵‿✧ Oasis of Overachievers ✧‿︵

Mystic_Warrior: 52
 Darius_Conwright: 23
 Benholman44: 17

𖠰 Forests of Frontrunners 𖠰

MiltonManThing: 7

Mrcrimsonclean: 6

Noor: 5

ᨒ Mountains of Mediocrity ᨒ

DireRyse: 3
Thfinalevent77: 3
Yummyfood: 3
Granolagoth: 2
Stargirl: 2
Zake: 2
RyboiTheLegend: 1
Suranna: 1

꩜ ‏Abyss of Apathy ꩜

Axxius: 0
DBNB: 0
Lallafa: 0
MrAce321: 0
Orange: 0
Petros: 0
Ravenic_Virtue: 0

﹖Unregistered ﹖

GeniusPancake: 2
Sent: 1
Thara: 1

Last edited: 31/9

(To Will and the mods, feel free to edit this leaderboard. And for any non-mod interested, the easiest way to spy on the competition is through the about us page, where you can see the recent comms for each order)

No worries! It'll be very inconvenient to have to click through all the different profiles at the end lol.

Alright, I'll add the past reviews to the leaderboard too.

Featured reviews:

   1. The Reign of Terror
​​​​​   2. A Tale of a White Lie
   3. The Boy Who Would Be Duke - The Journey to Agincourt
   4. DRIVE
   5. Mission Mindless
   6. Reborn
   7. Imagination
   8. Fake It 'Till You Make It
   9. Project Lovecraft
   10. A Hill to Die On
   11. Avarga
   12. Mission Sunshine
   13. How To Bring an End to Things?
   14. Terrorist
   15. Where the Clouds Want to Go
   16. The Sea of Legends
   17. Hues of Infection
   18. Legend
   19. Polaris
   20. Isaac's Sacrifice
   21. The Lonely Inn
   22. Just Another Saturday Night
   23. Jack the Bean Counter
   24. The Little Princess of the Forest
   25. The Song Binder
   26. Cradle & Cane
   27. Slaying the Scourge
   28. Emperor's Fireworks
   29. The Fury of the Forest
   30. Mute
   31. End of the World as You Know It
   32. The Hand with the Knife
   33. Blood in the King's Court
   34. Just a Regular Improv Class
   35. Momojiro
   36. Theriocide
   37. The Penguin Without Feet
   38. Crackas best get they pasty hands offa my rod!
   39. Nautilus
   40. Project Anafabula
   41. Those Ever-Grinding Teeth
   42. Gay and DepressedER!!!
   43. Moonlit Lands from Long Ago
   44. Anya's choice
   45. Siren
   46. Sixteen Words
   47. Altair-III : Search And Rescue
   48. Camp Massacre: 1990
   49. Camp Massacare: 1985
   50. The Knight of Gold
   51. Ignis and Aero
   52. In 3

Hopefully soon-to-be-featured reviews:

Featured Post Count: 7

A Zombie Apocalypse

Innkeeper

The End of Creation

Escape Velocity

End of the World as You Know It

Mute

Fury of the Forest

The review list: reviews I made. I'll just be reviewing the latest I haven't read yet. I'll avoid featured stories though, since I'm pretty sure that they will get plenty of comments in the future. 

Edit: For the sake of my own sanity, I'll compile a list of reviews I'll do. If you have any requests, I'll make sure to add them to the list! After I'm done with my list, I won't be doing any reviews anymore. Man, if someone is crazy enough to type even more reviews than that, then I'll give up. You can have that trophy. You know, if each review is about 1.000 words, that person would have typed 35.000 words, the length of a friggin novella. 

1. Revenge on the river God

2. Gatekeepers of boredom

3. The boy who would be duke 

4. Where the clouds want to go - 

5. Halloween Fright 

6. Avarga 

7.A hill to die on

8. drive

9. The Penguin Without Feet

10. The Lord of The Rings: The Sundered Kingdom - 

11.A Prayer for Destruction - 

12. The end of creation - 

13. Emperor's Fireworks 

14/ The Fury of the forest - 

15. End of the World as You Know It -

16. Cradle & Cane -

17. Slaying the Scourge - 

18. Mute - 

19. Blood in the King's Court - 

20. Escape Velocity -

21. Gunslinger - 

22. The village that was - 

23. Diplomat - DONE

THE LIST

23. The Schmorps

24. Planet Mopper

25. Siren

26. Safe

27. The Hand with the knife

28. Equator City

29. Polaris

30. Reborn

31. The Grand Pharaoh's Tomb

32. The Red Church

34. El Paso

35. Project Anafubala

I will kill everyone who dares to steal my trophy.

I'm right behind you my guy.

EDIT: Bust out the hacksaw and trash bags, cause my count is, at this time, in the lead.

Oh you wouldn't for long my dude. I will catch up to you faster than you are yeeted in the shame pit.

Ngl. I did enjoy your review of my oldest story. The only dispute I want to make is plenty of established writers use caps lock to show screaming.

Halloween Fright by benholman44 

It's admittedly low quality, as this was when I was first starting out as a writer. Better than some of the stories on here, but it's still rated lower than my more recent story you reviewed. 

If you'd like to review it though, go right ahead.

Did it :)

Reviews written:

1. How to Bring an End to Things?

2. Mute

I actually would prefer if you reviewed the Duke of Winslow since that was my most ambitious one so far. The lack of feedback makes me a bit sad.

Btw. I don't think you should read Cell's story unless you are very very into sister fucking.

I'd certainly appreciate the read for my story, but there's no pressure or rush. There are other, older stories on the site that do need and deserve more attention. Hope your studies go well.

In 3
The Ghost People

---

In Limbo:

---

Working On:

A Knight's Pursuit
The Red Church
The Grand Pharoh's Tomb

Featured Reviews 2/2

1. Hues of Infection
2. The Lord of the Rings: the Sundered Kingdom

Didn't realize I already had 2:

Music Murder

The Quest for Pegasus

The Foreigner

I shall begin following the new rules set forth by Mizal. No more clicking random!

My featured comments count is: 10

Siren

Dawnwood

The Boy Who Would Be Duke

The Sea of Legends

Where the Clouds Want to Go

The Tale of the Foolish Princess

American Outlaws: The James Gang

The Duke of Winslow

Undead Persona

Read My Stories or Die!

Finished reviews:

Uh Will? You just locked my post from further edits. I do appreciate the feedback and will continue my tally here.

Featured comments: 17 (see above)

A Hunted and Haunted Halloween

DRIVE

Dog Day

Through Time

De Milite Inprudente

Hunting the Ripper

Avarga

Finished reviews:

Uneasy Lies the Head

The Penguin Without Feet

Solstice

Imagination

American Outlaws: The Wild Bunch

American Outlaws: The Dillinger Gang

Winter, After The Harvest

The Schmorps

More finished reviews (back from hiatus)

Blow Your House Down

A Tale of a White Lie

14 July 2024
Featured comments: 0

Comments featured so far: 1

Lord of The Rings: The Sundered Kingdom Commended 7/14/24
 

I'm a fast reader and a lot of these stories I've already read.

The rules don't say I can only review stories I've never gone through before, after all.

Although to keep it interesting and avoid preconceived notions, some of them are ones I've never read before. Even the ones I have, I've used this contest as an opportunity to look at them with a more critical eye, and notice things I didn't before.

However, I AM quick at reading. I can and have read a 700  page novel in a timespan of 12 hours before.

Of the 6 stories I've read today, only two of them I'd read previously. And I still had to create detailed reviews which took time and thought.

In short, I'm a LOT better at reading than I am writing.

I can relate. Not being the type to usually leave reviews on stuff I read around here (3 reviews and more than 10 storygames read and rated, not counting the stories I read before creating an account). Good luck on getting the trophy, though Darius will come for your head if the previous reply is to be considered seriously.

Now that I'm finally finished with the hell called diploma thesis, I'll try to put some serious effort to writing reviews on the games I previously rated so I can try to increase the quality of the reviews.

Honestly that's the strategy I'm employing. And it does work. Another helpful tip is to find stories that have less than three featured reviews, so that you're not competing with others. 

Stay away from EndMaster's stories, he may be my favorite author, but his featured comments are novels in their own right. You could complete 3-5 featured comments on other stories in the time it would take you to write a featured comment for his.

Just for that, I'm going to read and write a review for one of EndMaster's stories. That's more in the spirit of this competition than staying away from an author's stories just because the other reviews are long.

Perhaps I will do that too. The Innkeeper is my favorite story and my childhood favorite. I think my previous review didn't make the cut, so it is time for a better one to replace it. 

And thank you as well

Your story was genuinely something I enjoyed reading. I again didn't expect much coming into it, but yours did make my day. There were lots of clever things added. If it were fully finished and retained the same quality, I have no doubts that it could have been featured. 

It was definitely not completed and the ending was rushed for the deadline. I will be working on the second part of the story after the Crisis Competition. Stay tuned for the next episode.

On a separate note, thank you for reviewing my story. I got a little heated in my last comment because I felt that your comment was strange. I do feel like we should be giving attention to every author on this site without the need for recognition. I, myself, know that I'm not reviewing as many stories as I should, and it is good that you are pushing yourself to give a lot of stories here attention. I would still urge you as well to review at least one of EndMaster's stories whether or not you get the recognition from it. Hope there's no hard feelings.

You're totally fine. I actually applaud you for your stance, cause it did inspire me to end up reviewing one of his stories that I tend to ignore because it's different than most of his others. Because of this, I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. 

Thank you!

It's a pity that I can't do that due to my abysmal memory. For stories that were very memorable to me, I would have written a review once I have read it. Furthermore, if I were to read stories purely to review them, I read them at a slower pace as I'm constantly churning out notes and stuff. 

I will have more time in August to type up things so be prepared.

I look forward to reading them 

You should throw Holman and Darius in the Thunderdome.  

Two men enter, one man leaves.

I'm down with it, but I will be kinda busy these next two weeks. So this fight will have to take place in August.

Ben, you are a very lucky guy since my track record with the Thunderdome is very very bad. So the odds are in your favor. Then again, it would be kinda sad if you were to lose to a non native English speaker.

Imma go ahead and read the thunderdome threads before I decide. I'd be up for it though

Read the Thunderdomes. I'm down. In August is totally fine. My question is,  Also... if they're supposed to be sent to Darius, and I'm competing against Darius, isn't that kind of a conflict of interest? Any chance mine and his entries could be sent to Mizal to post anonymously or something?

Most lately are sent to Mizal, and especially when Darius is competing.

btw - you should vote in the current duel.  It is your duty as a cystian

On it. That's ThunderDome 13, correct?

Wizzy vs Raven - 13 was big and had brackets

Welp, I fucked it up slightly by replying to the first story, instead of where Mizal told us to vote. But other than that, did my job. And yeah, it was CLEARLY story B

Oh, I didn't even see this. Might as well. 

My featured comments: 

https://chooseyourstory.com/story/mission-mindless

https://chooseyourstory.com/story/project-lovecraft

I missread "the fury of the forest" For "the furry of the forest" Thinking wild blue had written some kind of mocking comedy.

Overall though they all have cool sounding plot lines, I'll try and review them all. 

Just reviewed mute! It's pretty good actually, I liked it. Just very short and maybe a bit rushed In all routes. The romance path is the best path. think I'll do escape velocity next. 

As it's now the second month of the contest, I've created a new and improved leaderboard! (Link for easier access).

Those of you in the Abyss of Apathy and Mountains of Mediocrity should really write a few more reviews. Think of the Abyss as lowercase shame. 

No problem, I just hope it'll incentivize others to write more reviews :)

my featured comments:

silver horn silver hooves
spell of slumber
the tale of the foolish princess

the end of the world as you know it

Custers last stand

Should be featured comments (in my non biased opinion):

The end of creation

@Axxius @DBNB @Lallafa @MrAce321 @Orange @Petros @Ravenic--- oh nevermind, she's banned

Just a reminder that you signed up for this. Why would you enter a featured review contest just to not write any featured reviews?

That's almost as bad as entering a storygame contest and not submitting! Or maybe worse, since it only takes about an hour and a half to review a short storygame.

Oh yeah contest.  I set my calendar to remind me to do one on the last day, September 31st.  As soon as that pings me, I will probably get started.

To any mod that sees this, could you please delete the unfeatured review in Camp Massacare: 1985? I accidentally pasted the wrong one over and can't delete it.

Edit: Okay, that should be all the reviews from me for this contest. I'm somewhat disappointed in myself since I had planned to write many, many more, but I'll save the post-contest textwall for another time.

For those who just received last-minute reviews, sorry if anything doesn't make sense; I should have added in the disclaimer that coherence is not guaranteed. It is currently very late/ early in the morning and I have spent the whole day working on readings for university, leaving little time to transform my review notes into (somewhat) properly written reviews. Still, I left for 20 days and not a single review was featured in that time frame, so someone needed to be the productive one here lol.

Yeah, full time job, a kid, and untreated ADHD can be a pretty erratic combination. I still think the Thunderdome would be a fun way to practice my writing skills in a competitive environment, so if Darius is unavailable I could take on a different challenger to get a feel for how it works?

Also, I'm gonna say it in advance: between writing more than twice as many reviews than the rest of us, and creating the new and improved leaderboard, Mystic definitely earned the #1 spot and the trophy.

I've been panicking over uni too (hence I might not be around as much as I would like), but my main motivation towards the end was eliminating the possibility that Darius was storing up reviews in secret. Either way, I can now say that I've accomplished my review resolutions!