Ineptitude 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

This ought to be my credo since arriving here:

"Well, it looks as if there’s no getting out of this one. You’re going to have to write a story-game.

Whether through laziness, incompetence, or lack of interest, you were never considered among the greatest writers in the kingdom of Cystia, but you certainly aren't among the worst, when you do try. You’re pretty sure people like you too—at least some of them, and it’s not as if you haven’t contributed to the kingdom before."

Not really a credo. More like my scarlet letter....


And of course, I have been forcibly forced against my will with rough, uncaring yet strangely attractive masculine hands to join a contest. Like most noobs, I failed to present my burnt offering to Anoobis a few millennia ago I made the foolish mistake of asking a question in a contest thread, and subsequently was roped in. The shame I felt will live with me for all my days. Being in the Pit of SHAME, I mean. Anyway, I'm rambling. To the story!

As I was reading this, I got the distinct impression that the narrator (me, of course) is someone who fancies himself the protagonist of an anime. Certainly he is a god among men, and the moistening object of fascination to woman-kind. And, being a discord moderator, has the power to impress them. And woe to any foe who faces the might of my mighty katana... er, yeah.

So.... if you "rise up to greatness" you end up with being accused of posting loli images. These plebeians can't understand the difference between loli and hentai, smh. (not that I actually know shit about all that; I'm presently learning about how manga tend to be put together, but I do know enough to be aware that tentacles are a must in hentai).

Not going with that ending, though, because while I've been caught up in stupid shit on the internet instead of writing, NOT TODAY FRIENDS! Nope. Hitting that proverbial non-proverbial back button real quick.

After "pruning those branches" I end up where I tend to end up in real life: not winning, but also doing pretty well. I went two in a row in second before finally winning one. There are good writers here.

And so I've wasted a bunch of words mirroring the attitude of this storygame. And in fact, this game was mirroring me through the years, and all of us, really. I got to say, this was a good idea. No, there were no deep emotional moments, or sweat-drawing action, but it was a good hysterical look at the community. We've all been in these situations, I'm sure. We all want to write good stories (well, those of us who write, anyway), and if you're here long enough, you learn the slightly mad sense of humor. This story captured it.

So well done to Cricket. And for the record, this wasn't just copying Cystia's culture. This was a pretty creative project, so hats off. I'm not going to gush over it, because it doesn't really touch you in the feels or bring you some sort of great insight. But it is great to sometimes look in the mirror and not take yourself too seriously, and that's exactly what this storygame does.

Meta 4th wall breaking games that are primarily making fun of writing or the site can be hard to review. No wonder there’s no featured comments, this is a hard game to rate.

Let’s break this up into a strengths/weakness analysis, since there’s not a lot I can say about traditional story elements, since this is more of a meta story.

Also, I fear that trying to review Ineptitude 2:Electric Boogaloo as if it were a serious story is a futile endeavor, but I’ll try my best. But ultimately, this story’s rating doesn’t boil down to how well it was written or its characters, plot, or narrative, but rather how many lols were generated by the end. And with that kind of noble goal in mind, how can you possibly dislike this story?

Also, I hate to be that guy, but this story belongs in the Modern or Fan Fiction categories, as it’s not particularly family friendly. Just saying, but Ineptitude contains multiple sexual references to jacking off, references to sex and porn, contains profanity(“ew fuck off and write”), and has the word “fag” in it. Plus, it’s a pretty good fanfic of CYS since it has many relatable moments and references to storygames in it. I’m not saying the author shouldn’t do these things, particularly since in order to write a good story about CYS you can’t not say “lol fag” at least once, but at the same time, there is a risk of younger readers being exposed to sexual content when they may not be expecting it. Luckily though, the actual sexual content is rather tame, especially by CYS standards, so one could argue it could be “family friendly” compared to other CYS stories, but on its own, it should probably go into another category just to avoid any confusion.

STRENGTHS:

Strong Narrative Voice:

The charm of Ineptitude 2: Electric Boogaloo lies in its active narrative voice. Sometimes, when writing fiction, it is recommended that new writers avoid employing too strong or too active of a narrative voice, since they run the risk of overpowering the atmosphere, tone, or characters that the story is trying to set up. After all, these elements should stand on their own, and the reader should be given a chance to experience proper immersion without being hit over the head by an overly eager narrator.

But for the type of story that Cricket is trying to tell, utilizing a strong narrative voice is essential. It’s just like in the Gay and Depressed stories, like I couldn’t write “Gay and Depressed In Prison” without a strong narrative voice, the story would have bombed because it would have felt flat and impersonal. For the kind of humor that Cricket is trying to do here, having this kind of narrative voice is crucial.

I love how the narrator makes fun of us. There’s a disappointed, matter-of-fact tone that seems almost resigned. I found the rhetorical questions to be hilarious, and Cricket admirably utilizes this literary device several times through the narrative.

I also loved the 4th wall breaking jabs the narrator would make about how this story is ultimately self-referential, because I’m pretty sure Cricket wrote a story about rushing to meet a contest deadline with a shitpost story, while doing the EXACT. SAME. THING. But that’s actually the best part of this story, and the irony was delicious!

I loved the “woring” joke, and Cricket saying that she’s not going to fix that. That was a pretty good way to cover up a typo, and it was done quite flawlessly. Good work.

Humor

There’s a kind of understated humor that pervades the entire work, constantly bullying and making fun of the main character for their stupid life choices. The satire is stretched to an extreme, using hyperbole to create an almost artificially comical caricature of the common internet-obsessed basement dweller, a sort of hyper artificial exaggeration of what the denizens of this site are supposedly like.

The story doesn’t hit you over the head with the humor, yet at the same time, it’s comically exaggerated to the point where you can’t help but laugh.

The various jokes do a good job of indirect characterization, giving us an idea of what the main character is like. This guy is an archetype, an everyman whose character traits are a sort of collective amalgamation of the various different stereotypes and memes(not talking about the internet’s definition of meme, rather the sociological definition which is meme:is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.)

The rushed nature of this story, the defiance, and the inappropriate humor makes this story truly unique. Only someone who’s been on the site for a while, and understands the subculture could make something like this. It’s a comfort to know that AI could never write something like Ineptitude, because if they tried, it would probably be some weak-sauce wannabe satire that would pale in comparison to the truly deranged, written at 4 am with 3 red bulls in Cricket while she’s playing a post apocalyptan video game and complaining of a headache., Ineptitude.

Branching

Each page is remarkably short, yet the branching is deployed pretty well. For such a short story, Cricket doesn’t skimp on the branching and there’s an admirable(well, admirable for the feverish, last minute rush that Cricket was in to write this thing) amount of branches you can play.

I loved how you get different experiences depending on whether you choose to push through or give up, or whether you voluntarily entered or were forced into joining.

There was a great variety of endings, from successfully publishing and somehow getting 3rd(mostly because all the other entries sucked balls, with only a few other good entries), getting SHAMED(the horror!), or hilariously enough, touching grass and realizing you don’t want no part of this stupid internet stuff.

Knowledge of CYStia/Relatability

I laughed several times while reading this. I thought this story did a great job portraying the complex cocktail of shame, fear, and reckless determination that one has when trying to finish a story last-minute for a contest. Having submitted “Falsely Accused: The Worst Prison in the Telenorian Kingdom” 1 minute before the deadline for Sherb’s Summer Contest, this story gave me PTSD!

From the references to Mizal’s “Love is for the birds”(You defend yourself against accusations of being a furry by declaring your story a satire full of political intrigue, but everyone just calls this story your furry romance.) to Madglee’s “A Day in hell”, this story game made me laugh with how it included these little asides to CYStian games. Also, there might be some CYStian memes and references that I missed because Cricket’s been here for far longer than I have, so there may be some inside jokes, but I did catch “lol fag”, and that one cracked me up.



WEAKNESSES:

Rushed Nature of the work

I feel like this one is kind of obvious. This is simultaneously a strength and a weakness, since the feverish writing before the deadline lends the story an air of authenticity, and helps ground it in the subject it's about, but at the same time, I’m sure it could be even funnier with more time and care taken. So that’s mainly my opinion on this story.

There were some typos, and grammatical mistakes, though surprisingly, far fewer than you would expect given the time frame Cricket wrote this in. There were also uneven line breaks that made reading the story a little more challenging than it should have been.


Inconsistent Pacing

I have been guilty of this sin myself in “Gay and Depressed In Prison”, and I felt this somewhat in Ineptitude. Pages vary in length, probably because they were written either 2 hours before the deadline, or 2 minutes before the deadline. This naturally resulted in some sections feeling abrupt or ending prematurely, and while it is a joke story, I do think that keeping all the stories the same length and having that planning would enhance the story out a great deal.

OVERALL IMPRESSION:

This story shouldn’t be graded on a structural level, since its authenticity, heart, humor, and strong narrative voice are its biggest draws. They do an excellent job in making this story work. Ultimately, this story works best if you’ve actually been in the position of procrastinating on a story, and as someone who has, I enjoyed it tremendously. I love the constant state of tension this story puts you in, the rushed writing gives the story that sense of tension, and I love how Cricket added a bunch of hilarious real life disruptions to metaphorically show the struggle of balancing writing something you love, working on a passion project, vs handling real life. I know that Cricket was probably super busy and she had a lot of stuff with college/grad school, so in a way this story almost represents the challenge of trying to do both, albeit with more humorous struggles thrown in for the sake of entertainment. The lol random humor was also quite well done, with random sentences about “the bipolar Spanish neighbor chasing some man down the street and yelling something about cojones “ cracking me up, because they just come out of nowhere and then never reappear again.

My favorite ending was writing 2 contest stories, in effect, pulling a Mystic and writing both Shackled Souls and White Bloodstained Snow, although Mystic did this feat with far more grace and elegance than the protagonist of Ineptitude.

I'm not going to give this one a numerical rating. But it was funny and I liked it, and I feel like that's enough.

In conclusion, how do I best sum up this review. Well, if you like CYS, then you’ll enjoy this story. And if not, then I got 2 words to say to you: lol fag.

(Also, how the fuck did I write 1660 words for a review on Ineptitude! The joke's on me, I guess, for trying to find some hidden deeper meaning in this story. And that's not a dig on our dear author, I would have the same reaction if someone wrote a 1660 word review on Gay and Depressed In Prison, some stories are better to just sit back and enjoy the lulz, rather than try and dissect for some sort of deeper meaning. Ok, shameless random word padding rant over, thanks for reading!)

IDK i don't know. what is the point of writing the comment here that doesn't do anything or maybe it does, wait what fine it is Kool 😀, nope I mean good

My favorite <3

This is like pg 13, not g.

This is no G.

Literally Perfect

I love this

Wrote a furry romance, how'd you know me so well?

Brilliant.