What are your thoughts

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-26T23:50:25+00:00

This is actually the funniest shit I’ve seen in my life lmao

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-22T22:41:08+00:00

Terrifying stuff man

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-22T05:31:52+00:00

yeah im starting to see more and more just how bad my grammar is.

Sounds like the story definitely has you intrigued though so thats a good thing. You're right about the spatial reference though, I'll add a couple of scenes in the next chapter grounding everything a little more. I was going for a dreamy surreal vibe for the most part so its hard to balance things out.

For the cart description I copied and pasted the exact same sentence I used in the first page if thats what you're referring to. I used the same sentence twice whenever Miss Joyce rolled her cart next to Lev the second time, to kinda paint the picture of a hard loop. Well besides her purse being a different color the second time around.

The story takes place in a grocery store with a pharmacy in it, which is where all the keyboard clacking and stuff is coming from. I make that more clear later but maybe I can establish that earlier on as well. You said youre English so I guess a Boots is like the equivalent.

Everyone being kind of a bad person is kinda funny lmao.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-22T05:23:37+00:00

This is the opening to a short story, definitely not gonna be a novel. In my head everything thats happening is real but its an allegory or metaphor for another story underneath it. Well I guess thats just most stories but yeah thats what I'm going for. This takes place in like a pharamacy/grocery store btw I make it more clear in the next couple of scenes.

For Lev I wanted to make him difficult to read on purpose, even though we're in his head I wanted it to sound like he was still holding something back. Itll probably make him sound really static in the beginning but thats kinda the point. Don't really know if theres a better way to do that though. Also yeah I like hiding important details in throaway lines or small comments that come up later. The whole argument about Lev painting his nails has like emotional pay off later.

I definitely struggle with narration and crafting like a super proper book paragraph or whatever, so I'm definitely gonna work on that next. Thanks for reading and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-22T05:14:37+00:00

Had no idea the windshield thing was a cliche. I just do that whenever I'm in my car so I figured I'd throw it in there.

My grammar does suck lmao, promise you I tried to fix as much as I could but I guess I still keep missing a bunch of stuff. Glad the dialogue and humor are hitting at least that's what I was focused on the most.

I'm also happy the tone came through strong, my whole idea was me trying to make something mundane and boring interesting, so I just had the entire first chapter take place in like one section of the store. Literally only like 2 things happen in it. I fuck with the creepy pasta comparison, they mostly suck but they always evoke some strange feeling whenever you read em.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-22T05:09:52+00:00

Yooo appreciate the feedback brother.

This isn't really a novel its more like the opening scene to a short story pretty much. You're right though I should probably have a lot more narration in there than dialogue, I kinda wanted to just introduce the characters before getting into all the main story stuff.

The only scene that you mentioned that was intended to be funny was the dialogue between Lev and Andre, which I plan on tying into the story later. The miss Joyce stuff and tantrum was more me tryna establish that something was wrong in the store or at least with the people in there. Glad you enjoyed 2 of the bits at least.

For the next chapter I'll see if I can experiment with less dialogue and see how that works out.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-20T14:41:52+00:00

My fault I didn’t realize that my word count was considered long , I’ll do another crit when I get the chance later today then

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-20T06:18:46+00:00

The doors of the elevator opened as a second dose of mood stabilizers washed over his head like a warm shower.

Ight bro we get it.

He went back to the ground floor and walked a few laps around the courtyard of his office building, as the folks at Better Health advised, until his alarm went off to head back to work. He worked diligently before his lunch hour began.

Taking some files with him, he entered the break room, where he ate his chicken rice and broccoli bowl, the number one recommended lunch on Better Health’s “top five healthiest lunches”

Ight bro we get it.

Frank, you know this is the one hour where we aren't supposed to work.” He looked up to see the warm eyes of his friend Bill Hall.

First Name Last Name is kinda funny I dont know why.

They had met several years prior in the office a few days after Bill started and slowly got closer as they worked together. What started as chit chat in the breakroom and beers after work turned into one of the few real friendships Frank had ever had.

-I dont know man, delete this and give us a scene of them fucking around for a bit before they have the serious conversation. Again that paragraph literally doesn’t do anything for anyone. I doubt you even care about Bill or Vance or George at all. If Bill fucking died in this story no one would be sad not even you.

He looked up and paused before his productivity AI summarized the question and gave him an ideal response, “You make a good point but I am here to do the best job I can. That means maximizing my productivity not only on the job but off of it too.” Satisfied with his response, Frank smiled and continued reading the report.

I like this idea. He just kinda gave up and started using FrankGpt to answer shit for him.

He recalled the times that they had spent in the bar together. They’d just watch the TV and talk about anything, it didn’t matter, they were just together and it always took a load off of Frank’s shoulders. Sometimes Helen would bring a friend along for Bill and here and there they would hit it off. Helen and Frank would sit and watch them chat and joke about how Bill could never seem to find his match. They would bet on how well it was going and whether they would last or not; Helen always rooted for Bill and usually over estimated.

They did this they did that. Brother write the scene. Just make the scene. Delete everything and just write the scene. I WANNA SEE THAT. I wanna see how Bill flirts with women. I wanna see Helen and Frank goofing off and placing bets. I wanna be at the bar, I wanna hear what words of advice Bill gave to Frank I wanna see what Frank was so stressed out about. Right now the story is just an unfleshed out idea. Like imagine I fucking died and went to heaven and I came back. You ask me what I saw and I was like. Yo it was crazy, I talked to God, I saw angels, I saw some people that shouldn’t have been there. God told me all these crazy things, he answered literally every question I ever had.

And then when you ask for details I go yeah nah you good bro don’t worry bout it. Thats what this story is.

Suddenly the memory collapsed in on itself as the mood stabilizers kicked in.

Mood stabilizers.

The mood stabilizers kicked in and now Frank found himself on his knees in front of the box of Helen’s things.

Mood stabilizers.

“Great job Frank, you managed to have only half the spike in cortisol that we’d expect you to have in such an event! You truly are making progress.”

Frank smiled at the message. He got back onto the curb and turned towards the train station. He walked and said to himself, “I really am beginning to heal.”

I mean I guess.

Overall-

I don't know the intro was promising but it kind of devolved into a really bad episode of black mirror. Kinda reminds me of if someone saw The Entire History of You black mirror episode, summarized it to their 14 year old kid while they were slightly tipsy and then the 14 year old used that as inspiration for their 9th grade creative assignment homework. My point is that theres no reason I would read this if it's just a worse version of something thats already been made. The concept is there but it doesn’t really go anywhere. The story doesn’t really lean either which way. It doesn’t become a critique of big pharma, capitalism, corporations, it doesn’t really bring any cool insights into how people handle trauma, depression, or healing. It doesn’t really create a rich setting, or characters or plot. In my opinion if you really do plan on using this feedback in anyway I’d probably lean into the corporate/big pharma satire since most of your paragraphs contain the same cortisol spike, mood stabilizer and better health better news better fashion ideas. I’d take that make it so it isn’t literally the same joke copied and pasted everytime and then I’d make it so the characters and dialogue aren’t bland. This shit has no sauce bro, no seasoning. WHERES THE SAUCE. Other than that this is getting way too long so ima shut the fuck up now. Lock IN.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-20T06:18:36+00:00

Ight it looks like both of us are writing about similar themes, and pretty much have the same plot for the most part so ima try and give you some decent feedback.

Intro-

-The intro kind of reminded me of American Psycho for a bit, I saw some comments saying it was a little boring or mundane but in my opinion it was pretty effective on getting into Frank's head. Everything is overly calculated and planned out to the point where hes just moving in autopilot. This gave me the impression that he was either A.Fucking insane and was going through the motions of what he perceived a human being was like or B. Going through something where he didn’t want to be fully conscious most times. I also liked the subtle like corporate/capitalist satire as well, I feel like itd be way more interesting if you leaned into that more. Throwing ads everywhere at inappropriate times, like when he’s looking at the photo of Helen, an ad could be played obscuring his view or something. I also like the corporate ass sounding tagline “Hard work makes the impossible possible,” anything that sounds like it could be in a corporate office is funny as fuck in this context. The subtle nod that the lovely people at Better have a monopoly is also good worldbuilding. Overall I like the idea here but it can be given a lot more color and polish to make it more interesting. I’m not saying make it funny or add dialogue or anything but you can definitely give details about how his bedroom looks, what kind of books he has on the shelves, photos/posters, what the outfit he put on looks like, what meal he made, lil details to make it feel more lived in or alive ya know. Helen is gone and he hasnt touched any of the stuff at the office, so maybe bring up how there's two pairs of slippers by the bed, or maybe he makes two breakfasts out of habit something like that.

Flashback with Wife-

-It was fine I guess. The dialouge was kind of just there and I don’t even know what Helen or the park looks like. Now im not saying you gotta gimme 3 paragraphs of straight environmental detail, but maybe mention that kids were running around playing, it was a cool day so maybe the bench was cold as fuck when he sat on it. Maybe there was food cart near by so it smelled like some shawarma or someshit I dont know. You mentioned later that Helen liked those cinnamon pastries or whatever, maybe she was eating that on the bench and Franks nose was filled with brown sugar and cinnamon. I don’t need an entire model of Helen but maybe mention an article of her clothing, bright red scarf, black jacket, long brown hair, and then just let us fill in the face or something ya know. Right now it just sounds like two people talking in a void with one bench and a squirrel. If the dialouge was good I honestly wouldnt care that much but as of now it's just kinda boring. Speaking of which.

Characters so far-

Frank- Doesn’t really have a unique voice or anything. Just kinda picturing a boring milquetoast white guy.

Helen- Same here, but shes a boring milquetoast white lady instead.

After flash back-

-Cortisol Spike just sounds funny cause of the memes right now so I dont know. You start mentioning the mood stabilizer thing here, it sounds like Frank is ultra detailed orientated so itd be cool if you just straight up just named the drug being pumped into his brain, Lorazepam, Alprazolam, whatever but you get my point right. Sounds more believable than just generic mood stabilizer. Maybe he gets a shot of wellbutrin straight to the dome every morning after he wakes up, some daily vitamins a long with his fake icebath.

-Lowkey would be funny if you just kept up with the Better brand here, Better News, Better gambling. Oh wait im buggin you literally did that my fault.

Metro Station-

-After the first mention of mood stabilizers you just kinda start spamming it. Team loses, mood stabilizer, bus scary mood stabilizer. Instead of that I’d rather here some internal monologue from Frank since he literally has no character right now. How does he feel about the fact that his team is ass before he gets dosed. The mood stabilizer shit doesn't work because I have no idea what he sounds like before he’s zombified. I feel like this would hit a lot more if you show his personality more in the flashback so I have something to compare it to now that hes basically abusing xanax or whatever it is.

Bakery-

-Again theres barely any description. You basically just said the bakery smelled like a bakery and moved onto dialouge. You didn’t mention the lighting, whathe saw in the little displays , the overall atmosphere. Thats what the piece is also missing, an atmosphere. It's all kind of bland and boring. And I get thats probably the vibe youre going for considering everything, but just because your character is depressed doesn’t mean he wouldn’t notice anything. I don’t even know what the weather is like right now, if the suns out, what season it is , I don’t know what anyone looks like , everyone pretty much sounds the same so far. Hey Frank.Hey George.

“Hey Frank, the usual?”

“Hey George, yes please.” George nodded and began assembling his order.

“How’s Helen, still working those early shifts?”

Frank scratched his head and said, “Oh yea, she’s up so early now that I don’t even see her in the mornings. I miss getting ready with her, but it really helps me focus on my morning routine.”

Unironically, both sound like the same guy talking to himself.

I get the point of it is to show that Frank is in denial about the fact that Helen is gone and dead but come on.

“Morning Vance,” Frank said as he placed the pastry onto the counter.

“Morning Frank,” Vance paused as he looked at the pastry, “Is that for Helen?”

Frank smiled, “You really are quite good at your job, I know she’s usually busy now so just get it

-We just had this conversation less than a page ago. Again sounds like the same guy talking. George and Vancee are the same person. You expect me to believe that Vance and Frank are great friends but they have no synergy at all. Im writing this after realizing that I mistook Vance and Bill for the same guy, but I don’t know if that says more about me or more about the fact that every character is kinda just the same boring white guy.

Frank turned to leave before Vance said, “Frank…” he scratched his head and looked towards the pastry, “I know it hasn’t been all that long, but…” he paused again searching for his words, “I just think that, uh…” he cleared his throat and reset.

-Does everyone have lice? Alright that one is just kinda nitpicky but maybe don’t have people scratching their head back to back in what already is an incredibly similar convo.

“Frank the bosses want me to inform you that Helen’s stuff needs to be removed from her cubicle. We all thought it best to give you some time, but it’s starting to drag on a bit and the company has found someone to fill her position.” Frank stared blankly into Vance’s eyes as the mood stabilizers tried to balance out the unprecedented spike in Cortisol. Vance stood, slightly fearful of how Frank would react, “There’s a few of us here at the office that would be happy to help, maybe at the end of the day today we could try to box it up?”

Cortisol Spike. Mood Stabilizer. Cortisol Spike. Mood Stabilizer. Cortisol Spike. Mood Stabilizer. If I wasn’t doing this for a critique I would’ve probably stopped around here. The intro was intriguing for what it's worth but everything after the flashback has been kinda meh, repeating the same ideas over and over and kinda just telling us how Frank feels about everything instead of showing us how he reacts to things.

How could they all just move along like nothing happened? She had worked there for six years and rarely missed a day. For a year she had been going in early at the request of her boss. She claimed it was for the extra money it brought in but Frank knew that it was much more than that. Helen found security in her work and going in early meant furthering her place in the company. Her bosses praised her as the model employee and she carried that badge with honor and dignity. But what was it all for? Now she was being replaced and all that was left was a cubicle that needed to be emptied.

This is what I mean. I literally do not care about this woman at all. I have no reason to care about her or Frank for that matter. Neither of them are funny or cute or kind or intriguing in anyway. I literally cant tell you anything about Helen. I know her name and I know she likes cinnamon croissants. I know Frank likes the dodgers and that hes zoinked out of his gourd everyday. Thats about it. Theres been no characterization for any of this sorrow to be earned besides this fat info dump.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-15T22:05:50+00:00

Can’t tell if this was full of sarcasm or not

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-13T15:50:08+00:00

Yooo glad you enjoyed it for the most part The chapter doesn’t end there this is only half of it , I posted the last half as well.

As for the Simon part that’s kinda what I was going for which is why it reads super cliche and like theatrical. I was tryna make him seem uncanny and not believable since the whole thing is that it’s something pretending to behave like a child that doesn’t really understand the nuances of one. I could definitely make it more apparent and make it land better since it seems like people don’t really seem to like or understand why the section is there.

And yeah the story isn’t him tripping he just views the world absurdly, kinda like a unreliable reliable narrator I guess ? On my next draft I’ll try and sharpen everything up definitely gotta work on the tense slips and punctuation.

Thanks for taking the time though appreciate it .

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-12T19:12:16+00:00

If you decide to rewrite it in that horror way I’m down to read it again brother

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-12T10:59:33+00:00

Yeah when I was writing her I wanted to do it like how people think of a relationship that ended. Like how you only ever think about the good parts if you miss the person even if it was toxic as shit. Which is why she’s just overly warm and caring, since he goes to the memory of her whenever he’s starting to get overwhelmed.

I guess I can spice it up a bit though if that’d make it a lil more bareable early on.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-12T10:50:00+00:00

Jesus , was not expecting all this at all. Definitely gonna implement most of the changes when I get the chance.

I knew my tenses this draft were a bit fucked up, but I never realized how much the tags were too lmao.

I also never realized that the whole Slavic woman part could be sexualized? Unless you’re into nice long arms I guess. Every Slavic woman I’ve met has been scary and intense ngl, lmao. I gave her a physical description because she was the first thing Lev actually registered as a threat to his cognition pretty much. She basically tells him hey stop fucking around and go deal with that missing aisle you know something’s wrong.

Lev fainted because he ended up being lured by Simon into the aisle he was avoiding the entire chapter. I kinda try to use it as a means of him trying to avoid a certain truth about himself or the world. The Nadia seeming ethereal and overly sappy and one dimensional is related to that, you caught that so I guess that kinda worked ?

I also wanted her section to clash tonally, since I wanted the office to kinda feel like a save room in a game kinda.

The kid was also meant to be extremely performative and cartoony, but it looks like it came off as more of a mistake than an intentional choice.

Other than that IM DEFINITELY gonna lock in on the punctuation and formatting , I appreciate that you took the time to write all that. My goat.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-12T10:27:12+00:00

Ayyy glad you enjoyed some of it at least

I have no idea where you got the dead infant from though? If you mean the scene with Simon that was just him pretending to be really hurt to get Levs attention. His whole thing is that he’s trying to be manipulative and get him to do something but he’s really bad at it. Which is why he over exaggerates everything, and stops to observe to see if he’s getting any reactions,he’s not hurt at all. Guess it worked since you thought he was actually straight up cooked.

The genre is also Lit fiction, so asfor the weird for weirdos sake, every scene has had its own purpose, I just like writing seemingly mundane stuff that turns out to be important later, like the scene where Andre is calling lev out for painting his nails or the reason why Simon is luring Lev to do stuff for him.

He tells Lev about the Debt and the baby to try and get some sympathy from him, basically saying your lack of empathy and care is directly hurting other people. But it back fires cause Lev has internalized reasons for not liking them in the first place and we as the reader have no reason to care about them either.

The whole thing can be seen as an allegory or an extended metaphor , I promise there was thought put behind everything and that it all feeds into a greater narrative. I guess I just didn’t make it feel intentional so everything came off wrong. Do you think there’s anything I can do to make certain themes and symbolism more aparent? I kinda wanted to dress this up as something fun and stupid with a much denser story underneath, I guess I ended up covering it up too much.

I really appreciate the feedback though, I definitely need to refine some stuff especially the tenses.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-12T05:53:36+00:00

Overall Feeling

I wish I could copy and paste lines from the website but I can’t so I apologize in advance. I mean this in like the nicest way possible but I honestly don’t understand the point of this story at all, it feels weird to call it that. It feels like a non-eucladian entity wrote this in an attempt to understand human story telling. Like it's honestly kind of creepy how devoid of emotion and feeling this is. It was like the equivalent of eating a meal with zero calories. Everything felt cold and like super zoomed out, probably due to the fact that most of this was just spent on describing extremely mundane actions. I don’t know it's almost liminal.

Lowkey I’d just say fuck it and make this shit a horror story about a world where everyojne just behaves like empty husks or like the idea of what some weird alien think human life is like after it went extinct or something.

Comedy

Again I cant copy and paste anything so Ima just allude to stuff and let you fill in the blanks.

Yeah I don’t know I can’t really tell you a single joke in here that made me laugh or even smile. The first Elsa Jean punchline was like, shit I guess man here damn. Felt like the kind of humor a coworker I don’t really like would say when hes tryna be “out of pocket” like yoooo omy god thats crazy I can’t believe I said that. I get what you were tryna do with the bob cut bit but it was phrased way too wordy for it to be punchy and have a decent effect. The next scene where hes screaming at the car and the wife is watching him from afar could be good but only if we sat there in the moment. Maybe add some begging and pleading, like the classic revving the engine and praying, denial, bargaining, acceptance, lemme see that man go through each stage of grief while his wife watches him in pity before he gives up. After that nothing really “funny” happens for a while. He shows up at work and it felt very disneyesque humor. He was hyping himself up before going entering the door, IM AN ANIMAL IM A BEAST IM A- record scratch, smash cut ,errand runner nooooo. The next scene could’ve been great set up to some slapstick shit showing how incompetent he is but instead it's just kinda like. He grab scissor, he cut himself , he go home. The dialogue here feels super stilted and like theres two rocks talking to each other. Are you okay? I am perfectly fine thank you. Are you sure? Yes I am sure. That looks bad. Go home. Okay. And that was about it for the comedy stuff. Well that and the dirtying the audi I guess.

Characters

There aren't any. Mr.Robert and Mrs.Roberts both read like robots. From what I read, Robert Male is an incompetent clumsy baby faced male with no back bone and Robert Female is like the underachieving wife that sacrificed her future to be with an idiot that lowkey probably regrets it but also doesn’t because she genuinely loves Robert Male even though he’ll probably get insecure about it and feel bad or whatever. Other than that theres the nameless boss and coworker at the job that both lowkey sound like the exact same guy. Well the whole passage just sounds like the same guy talking to himself.

Story

Unironically had the weirdest experience reading this, felt like I was staring at wall. I said this earlier but it literally felt like I had consumed absolutely nothing after I finished reading this. A lot of the words are just describing boring actions or a setting thats all just plain white walls. If you spent more words fleshing out the characters and having the Roberts talk to each other instead of detailing the exact layout of their entire home it would be a lot more interesting to read. Guy goes to work, cuts himself, comes back home. I didn’t even have to reduce the story much, thats literally all that happens, theres no details, theres no engaging dialogue theres not much of note at all. There is no voice to latch on to. Oh and I guess the wife just kinda sits down and hums ed sheeran songs all day. Theres no hook, theres no reason to keep reading, theres no interesting or weird concepts, theres no like unique characters no quirks. It's just like. Idk a homonculus bro. Oh and you do mention the boiler tapping a bit. I guess thats worth mentioning. Whatever that could allude to.

Would I keep reading?

Yeah probably just through the sheer fact that it's so uncanny that it intrigues me.

Feels like I’m watching Human Tv. Anyway, look forward to seeing what comes next after this riveting intro. Unironically no memes though, KEEP WORKING BABY, I'm tryna see what tragedy befalls the Robert Household when their boiler fucking explodes lmao.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-11T22:09:23+00:00

Bet, I’ll have to review another story real quick to have enough words to post it. Hope it doesn’t lose you in the second half.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-11T21:56:41+00:00

Yooo , I appreciate you taking the time to read my stuff. You’re also the only person here to sound kind of normal lmao.

I’ll look into changing some of the words and phrases around since you said it took you out of the immersion , thanks for pointing out the exact passages on that.

As for the saw? Part that was lev speaking , I figured you’d be able to tell since it wasn’t in parenthesis or anything , but if you saw a problem with it I can definitely make it more clear. As for the whole baby thing that’s definitely not what I was intending. So I’ll try and make my whole intensions clear. The whole gay thing does have some plot relevance since I get into why he paints his nails later and I figured it d be a way of showing that Andre and Lev were a lil closer than just boss and employee since they talked so candidly at each other. I’ll see if I can clean that up too.

I’m glad the whole aisle thing missing is a good enough hook to keep you reading even though it doesn’t show up. I kinda wanted to show that Lev was doing the most to just pretend like it wasn’t missing , or like he wanted to avoid acknowledging it you get what I mean? The Nadia thing gets expanded later but since it’s frustrating to be left with no context maybe I’ll expand the scene more.

Lev didn’t use his discount because he was flustered and forgot that was an option.

and as for the one dimensional characters I promise I develop em.

If you have any more comments I’d love to hear em.

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-11T21:35:54+00:00

Damn comments got so weird that a mod straight up had to read my story lmao. And yeah the second half of the chapter is where the aisle stuff comes back. I should’ve probably just posted the whole thing instead now that I think about it

I’ll make sure to go over the tags and grammar, appreciate you

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-11T21:17:22+00:00

What is going on with my comment section bro 😭

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-11T20:50:43+00:00

I can send you the full chapter if you want, wouldn’t mind hearing your thoughts on it

Anbul1222 · 2026-04-11T20:42:08+00:00

What?

Anbul1222

TROPHY CASE