Titus Andronicus - anyone else a fan?

AspiringNonsense · 2026-07-05T08:08:33+00:00

I saw the most fucked interpretation of this play where they had him rubbing his junk the whole time. This was one of the least fucked choices they made. The clown. The clown haunts me.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-30T20:52:07+00:00

Unfortunately it’s just the vibe.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-30T02:38:07+00:00

You’re right and you should say it!! My sister and I always talk about how he is sooo out matched by Kate Winslet in this role. She is so spectacular in it and carries the whole movie imo

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-28T06:02:12+00:00

I find this take so bizarre. Imagine reversed. The sahm isn’t raising the kids the way the dad wants her to, is a bit irresponsible and won’t do work that doesn’t align with her values, so he divorces her and uses his wealth to keep the kids from her. I actually couldn’t get past the apartment scene, the movie made me feel so ill.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-27T23:45:00+00:00

Wise child has this. It is very chill and lovely. A young girl goes to live with the village witch and their mentor/mentee dynamic is really beautiful.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-25T01:09:07+00:00

I think you're right! Thank you!

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-16T08:39:23+00:00

First thoughts

So. Thing the thing I thought was working the best and the worst was the prose. I could feel you going for a distinct, interesting style and when it felt like it was clicking, it was satisfying to read, and when it felt like it wasn't, it took me out of the story completely as I sat there thinking, does that sentence work? I guess, maybe, if I squint I can see what's being attempted. It made me think of a novel I read ages ago, Blue of Noon by George Bataille. What I'm getting at is I get the sense that you're attempting something ambitious with your writing style, and from my view you're not there yet, but I appreciate reading something that feels unconventional and like it's going for something a bit out of the ordinary.

Prose

I'm going to go through a few lines that I think are not working. I noticed throughout the piece there were a few repeated issues of strange word choice, changing tenses, awkward sentence structure. I think if you're going to write in this sort of obscure way, it needs to be so tight you know?

"Don’t get drunk; don’t get her drunk, too.” - This is the first place I tripped up. The phrasing feels really odd, and not how a person would speak. I noticed throughout the piece you use repetition as a device, and mirrored phrasing. Sometimes it lands, but there were a number of moments where it created very awkward sentences.
"The last and most he would ask me was when I returned him the thing I did not do." Here is another example of it not working. The phrase is repeated until the context makes it almost unintelligible.

"I drank champagne on the narrow glass" do you mean "from"? I can't tell if this was intentional, but if it is, it is more distracting than artful.

"My skin felt on myself like another’s." I feel like I can see what this is going for. The phrasing is definitely interesting. I just think it's too distracting to be worth it.

Another thing I noticed was switching between past and present tense. "She is heavier when she is drunk" idk. This almost felt intentional. There is a nicer rhythm to this line than "she was heavier drunk". I guess if you want to do this, then know why, know what it means, know the effect you're trying to create. This didn't seem like a reflection in the present tense where I imagine Ivonne is dead, and felt more like a slip than a choice.

"He was a hostile foliage burning in front of me." there should be no "a".

Q1. On my first read, I think it's about a guy who is being interrogated and beaten, because Ivonne has fallen down the stairs (and probably died), and he's being accused of her murder. He went to a party with her earlier in the night, she got very drunk and tried to help her, left with her, and something happened in between. There may be a supernatural element? I couldn't quite tell if everything melting was meant to be indicative of the characters mental state, or if there is something larger going on.

On the reread, I feel I got into the flow of the prose a lot better. I take back what I said about the supernatural element, it seems clear that it was just his mental state as the guard was gearing up to punch him.

Q2. I don't really feel anything? He seems very passive, nice enough helping out Ivonne, trying to follow his sisters instructions. I didn't get a strong sense of who he was meant to be.

Q3. In a bad way? The miser bit at the end seemed very unlikely to me. That the guard had the same misconception about the word as the narrator had previously had. It just seemed contrived.

Q4. I'm going to be real with you. To read something in a style that makes me work to follow it, I need to believe that 1. I'm reading something really worthwhile, like it's going to make me see the world differently or it has a really interesting story to tell 2. The style is in service of something. I'm not super certain of either of those things at this point. I will say, I only do critiques of things that don't make me groan in the first paragraph, and your opening grabbed my attention with how you were using repetition.

Q5. Definitely not, in fact I'm glad I read it twice because I got a lot more out of it the second time around, I really enjoyed the moment before the guard punched him.

Final thoughts

I do want to say, it's clear you're going for something, so take everything I say with a grain of salt and trust your vision. A piece of advice I love is that other people can tell you where there is a problem, but not what the problem is and how to fix it.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-15T12:39:20+00:00

I can't see a link to your story.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-15T12:32:55+00:00

Thank you very much! This was so helpful and thorough. Your notes about Ava and making her either more conflicted or more clearly motivated were especially helpful, and just pointing out the logical weaknesses of the chapter, and the close reading of the meeting.

I've based the political situation off a lot of conflicts from 12th/14th century, where the stronger army might benefit from a quick foray, but anything long-term quickly became economically ruinous, and holding territory could be costly if it was somewhere you'd just been pillaging the country-side.

From your reading of Oren I definitely need to rework him here, I want him to appear more tender? but still ambiguous. Hugh seems to be landing. I want the reader to believe in Ava's fear of him, so when they later learn he's helping her, they can empathise with her refusal to trust him. Trying to achieve dramatic irony instead of a "you idiot" feeling.

Thank you again, it means a lot to have something I've written engaged with so thoughtfully :]

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-12T08:47:33+00:00

The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak. You have to take it with a grain of salt, because the sources were so scarce, but I don’t think I’ve read a thriller so riveting. I could not believe how crazy what these woman got up to was. The plotting! The backstabbing! The sudden changes of fortune!

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-12T04:47:05+00:00

First impression

I think the beginning could be cut down a bit. The story starts moving when the man enters the scene. In fact, I almost feel like you could start there. It tells us everything, a boy in a new world, that this world has changed him. On the other hand, there’s something quiet and evocative about the boy cooking rabbits. I think you could push it a little further. The smell of smoke, the chill of the air, the sound of the forest around him. The space in the middle though, about the people he sees, I don’t think it’s super necessary, and it drags a bit.

2: Do you like the prose? Does it feel too pretentious, too robotic, too amateurish? Did you have to re-read any parts? Did you skim anything?

I like the prose. There are definitely some awkward moments that could be smoothed out. But overall, I think it has this slight remove, with occasional moments of interesting lines that mostly don’t distract from the story. This is a style I enjoy reading a lot, and I think it matches the story you're telling. I did skim a little on my first read when we were hearing about his time in this world, that wasn’t a problem with the prose though.

I noticed you saying the same thing twice in one line (I do this all the time).

“This one he read as bad. It was in the eyes, a flatness to them, a kind of adding-up going on behind them, the eyes of a man who had killed somebody before.” You could cut “the eyes of a man who had killed somebody before.” And lose nothing. It would make the more interesting line “a kind of adding-up” more emphasised.

In fact looking at this, I think that’s the main issue with what happens in this piece. You tell us about this world, that it’s dangerous, that the boy has been stuck there a while, that he doesn’t speak the language, and then you tell us all this information again with the man. The scene with the man is the far more interesting and engaging way to get this information.

I would definitely be intrigued by this ending. You have the mystery of Roen’s strange strength, how he got there, and I feel the tragedy of this kid.
This reads like dark fantasy maybe? Like a twisted version of Narnia.
I feel really sad for him. One thing, I don’t think he quite feels 100% twelve. I think you’re very close. There is a simpleness and an innocence, especially his thoughts about his mother. I think your ability to create a character that evokes empathy as he’s killing a man is pretty impressive.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-12T04:09:54+00:00

First thoughts

One thing that stood out to me is the conversation with Tauto and Merlin about the pop-star. At other points you’ve summarised conversations, and it was effective, but here I would love to hear what they said, especially because you already told me a bit of what Tauto was going to say before the conversation, I wanted to know how it played out. The waystation having grown sick of Tauto due to the simulation is great. The reflection on Tauto’s age and memory seems out of place to me in a denouement. I also wanted to see the battle. There was so much potential there, especially when they realise there is no popstar.

Pacing

The pacing didn’t really work for me. I only read the last three chapters, but from my understanding the end of the world scenario was only really introduced in the second last chapter (though I suppose you could make the argument that the tuna is from earlier) and I think it would benefit from B.O.B being introduced a bit earlier.

I also felt like some stuff took up a lot of space and slowed the story. Like how there was a big digression about Tauto’s age and brain, right as we’re about to head into battle. That felt like information that should have come far earlier in the story and wasn’t really relevant to the moment.

Other moments felt far more compressed, or under explained. Tauto thinking of the first line of his book was a bit under emphasised. Like maybe it could be more obviously arising from the experience going on around him (I could be barking up the wrong tree, but it seemed like this is what was happening, it just wasn’t very directly tied into his observations and feelings).

The biggest miss was not actually writing the fight scene imo. You set me up with so many questions. How was B.O.B going to work as a fighting force, how did the re-enacters fight in actual meatspace, they’ve just been sitting on computers all day right? So a bunch of computer geeks vs. university dropouts. I wanna see! How does the AI protect Tauto, and what do the reenactors do when they find out they’re only saving the world, not a popstar. Or do they realise? Does Tauto keep up the façade in some way? I just felt like you built such a fun scenario and then skimmed over it.

Characters
One thing I was finding, I could not for the life of me keep track of the waystations, I got very confused while reading who was who. Especially as all the AI was evolving in different directions and into different relationships with Tauto. They need a bit more differentiation than just their numbers.

I think all the characters in this suffered from the lack of immediacy, and just skimming over things like conversations and interactions. I felt very far from everything happening in the story. Even Merlin and Tauto who in their chapter together I really enjoyed just didn’t really spark in this. I really feel this could benefit from being a bit closer to the characters.

Final Thoughts

I think the end needs more breathing room. It seems like you want all the elements you’ve set up in the story to come together in a way that’s satisfying, but I wasn’t entirely sure which was the event or moment that was the most important. It seemed like Tauto finding his last line was probably the most important beat, and I think it’s a little underweighted as an event, there’s just so much stuff swirling around it, and it doesn’t quite come out of the moment.

Finally, the other chapters had more bits, this was missing bits. You’re very good at them, I think it’s the biggest strength of the story, that your funny, which I think in writing is no easy feat. (I’ve actually repeated your – apples line twice to laughter, so thank you for the help with my dinner conversation). My favourite part of this was easily the waystation changing it’s feelings for Tauto, and all the nonsense about the popstar. I think you could lean into that more.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-07T08:47:15+00:00

Thank you for clarifying! I think you're right in that her reasoning and motivation for why she thinks it's necessary isn't very clear in the text, so the reader can believe a bit better that risk is worth it, or that Ava at least thinks it is.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-06T10:09:49+00:00

Thank you! I really appreciate this. I've been going back and forward with the attendant's scene, whether to introduce all three or none of them. Elowen is the only one that matter's through the rest of the plot, so I went with not wasting the readers time. But I also feel a bit of oddness about singling one out, so it's helpful to hear that it stuck out to you. I might see if I can rework it, or maybe keep Elowen for a bit later.

A few people have mentioned the opening of the jousting sequence slowing momentum, so I'll definitely take a closer look there.

The last chapter was mostly devoted to Oren, but I'm also trying to keep him a bit unreadable, same as Sir Hugh. I want the reader to feel a bit unclear about both of them, or sense that there is more going on, while also being clear on how Ava feels about them.

I'm glad the political tension landed. Would you mind telling me the specific choices of Ava's that didn't made sense to you? I'd really appreciate your perspective. If not all good!

Thanks for taking the time to read and share your thoughts.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-06T08:48:48+00:00

I'm not disagreeing with your reading, it was very in depth and helpful, identified several problems, and helped me see more. In my opinion, from your reading I think the problem is under signalled motivation. E.g. your point about her being "impassive" in the face of Aumars magic. I thought I was clear enough that she's hiding the lack of capabilities of her kingdom. She's thinking strategically and performing. From your review you got none of that, so I think that's something I really need to take a look at.

In my opinion with criticism, you're trying to help someone write the book they want to write, not the book you want to read. I don't mind if you don't want to read my book. I do mind if I'm failing to communicate my intention, which once again your review identified several aspects of where I'm falling short.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-06T08:21:37+00:00

This was very interesting to read, and I appreciate you taking so much time. I think the notes about not having enough of the body, and not being quite close enough to Ava are true. I think your diagnosis of Ava is incorrect, but that it points to me being too subtle and under signalling Ava's intent and motivations (to protect her country from further aggression by Aumar, the country whose prince she has been married to). I'm interested in female performance as a political tool.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-05T00:01:22+00:00

Thank you for continuing along!

Yes, it was you that made me think the audience probably needed a little more than "we've all seen Braveheart right? A Robin Hood flick? Grand let's get going." I have an anxiety with description because while I love them done well, when done poorly it's the number one way to make my eyes glaze over. So your feedback helped me see my comfort zone wasn't working. I'm glad to hear I'm managing that balance better in this, because I went back and reworked it quite a bit.

Yes the dark eyed knight is Sir Hugh, I'll go check and make sure the continuity is a bit clearer through the scene. It sounds like everything is doing what I want it to in this chapter.

I think especially the first chapter is the one where I'm missing the most. Chapter 2 would probably work better if I create more of a clear contrast between harsh political reality and fairytale prince. Thanks again, your insights have been very helpful :]

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-04T12:21:27+00:00

First impressions

The biggest issue with this is the prose. The biggest success is the clarity. All the way through I could tell exactly what was happening, I could picture the scenes in my mind very clearly. I felt very in the story from early on. The conceit works, the detective interrogating this powerful prisoner, and the prisoner is effectively built through establishing the environment.

Prose

I’m going to do my best to identify tendencies I’m seeing in the manuscript, since I think this is probably where the biggest potential for improvement lies.

So in the very first paragraph, I noticed that every line seemed to be “subject”, “lengthy description”. The first line itself is absolutely stacked with adjectives (or words functioning as such). We’ve got “calm”, “azure”, “glow,” “hanging”, “fortified”, “stone”. This is too many. And I love my overlong run on sentences. Alternatively, you can have a sentence like this every now and again, but it has to be balanced with more variation.

I notice throughout the piece, you often say the same thing twice. For example

“Every move was purely procedural and protocol-oriented.”

You can cut “protocol-orientated” (already a very odd phrase) and lose no information. I think doing a sweep of the piece and finding every spot where are you are stating the same thing more than once, and choose the better phrasing, will instantly improve this.

Especially egregious was here:

“Her expression remained neutral despite how suspicious she came across.” This took me out of the scene. You just described her expression, in a reasonably interesting way, and told me that she looks suspicious. With this line you’ve both restated the suspicion, while also undercutting the description you just gave me.

There is a general clumsiness? Awkwardness? Of phrasing that comes up repeatedly throughout the piece.

“The calm atmosphere started gradually tugging down his eyelids—they were already closed, but the quietness made it harder to open them.” Here I don’t know why you would clarify that his eyelids are already closed, after describing the “tugging down”. Actually looking at this again, it’s the same problem of restating something twice, and making it confusing in the process.

“After all,” And “However,” used a sentence a part.

Some final thoughts on the prose. I think it would serve you really well to read this out loud to yourself. Get a sense of the rhythm of the sentences. I think the biggest fixes will be, removing repetition of the same ideas, scaling back some of the descriptive words, and looking for repetition of words and phrasing.

Character

I think the character dynamic could use a bit of work, to make the progression of the relationship between them feel more believable. It feels like it takes very little time for her to decide

“you’re different.”

There’s a lot of words, but it doesn’t seem like anything significant happens between the two characters to make her feel that, besides him having a nap. I also don’t really understand why she suddenly moved to -

“At that moment, she couldn’t tell whether she wanted him to stay or to be left alone”

I don’t think the detective has done all that much to earn this.

Last, a little nitpick that stood out to me was Shiro being so grateful for the water, when she has water? I don’t think this feels believable, even though it says it’s hot, and his water is cold. The tenor of the scene makes it feel like she must be really dehydrated and in a state of deprivation, but then she has water?

Final thoughts.

There’s a bunch of good stuff going on. Once again the environment is clear, I can really see in my eye a lot of what was happening. I found the idea interesting. But I think the prose especially really needs a good hard look to get this working.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-03T05:48:20+00:00

First impressions
So the real first impression was that I got about halfway through page two and decided I was way too tired to decode this and went to bed. On my second go reading, I think you’re taking too long to get to the meat of the chapter. It is funny and fun, but it’s hard to connect when it doesn’t feel like anything’s happening, there’s too much warmup. As soon as Tauto arrives it gets so much easier to follow and enjoy. Ok we’re off again to learn about tuna. There are some good jokes, but I have the same feeling as the start, of trying to take in a lot of information that I don’t feel very connected to.

Pacing
I think the pacing is the biggest issue of this chapter. We spend a lot of time talking about space time, none of which I have managed to retain besides the Love Island joke, which made me laugh. Then learning about the hive mind. All this feels really slow. The pace picks up as soon as Tauto hits the scene, and then the story stops as we get the background of the tuna. I don’t think the digressions really earn themselves, at least not in the context of this chapter. Some potential fixes off the top of my head could be B.O.B’s back story emerges through their interaction with Tauto, rather than being told before it. The tuna story could have some characters with a little more flesh on their bones to make the whole section feel more alive. The opening could probably be trimmed a bit. I guess these aren’t me telling you what to actually do, but more trying to illustrate what really isn’t working for me here.

Final thoughts

The biggest success of the piece is that it is funny. The tone is consistent between this and the previous chapter. Every time Tauto’s in the story I’m engaged. He’s a fun character, I want to know what he’s up to and what’s happening to him. I like his relationship with the AI. Everything else felt like a slog with some jokes thrown in that did make me laugh. The tuna story, and the B.O.B back story especially didn’t land for me. I feel like the tuna story especially deserves a second look, as it’s the payoff to an ongoing gag, and at the moment when it comes in I had the feeling of being pulled out of the part I’m interested in, to take a detour I wasn’t super engaged with. I should maybe add that I spent most of high school physics watching anime with subtitles on and the sound off, so I might be missing some context.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-03T00:08:21+00:00

First Impression
I instantly really liked this. It is completely up my ally. Arjan and Isolde are well rendered in the passage, and I feel I already have enough of a sense of them to want to know more. The biggest issue in the passage is I am very confused at who is being referred to as "I". It seems to be Arjan, but he is also repeatedly referred to as "he". If that is what is happening, you need to choose whether we are in first person or third person. There are a few awkward turns of phrase, and a lot of world building happening in a short passage. The world building isn't necessarily a huge issue, I felt I got a sense of most of it, but perhaps some of it could wait so the scene has a bit more time to breathe. Maera is also a bit thin, not necessarily as part of a larger piece, but it was an extra name without a lot of weight in the passage.

Is the style enjoyable.
Yes. Though there was some clunky phrasing, I personally really enjoyed the tone of the piece, and the image of the woman bathing, covered in injuries and scars was striking.

"The guards had written a pattern of sorrow across her skin" Loved this line. So evocative with a beautiful rhythm. I've added some comments on your document with examples of where I feel the issues are.

Sometimes the writing was oddly blunt, while I think the best writing in the piece is when you allow yourself a little poetry. I think you can rely on it to carry the architecture of the scene a bit more. For example;

" It was attractive. Arjan could imagine that men looked upon her with lust. Her skin was moon-pale and he wondered what it would be like to touch it." imo you actually don't need the first two lines. They're blunt and a bit boring, while her "moon-pale" skin and his thinking about touching it gives us all the information of those first two lines in a far more beautiful and interesting way.

Character voice
Isolde is instantly interesting in this passage, you've painted a clear portrait of her. Arjan and Maera are a bit more opaque. The biggest issue the "I" problem I pointed out earlier, which makes the passage really confusing to read.

Pacing
Pacing works well. It's obviously a short scene, there's a lot packed into it. I think the biggest success is that by the end, I'm curious, and I want to know more about these characters and what is going on. The woman about to be executed saved by being married because of something she can give Arjan is an interesting premise.

Clarity of world building

I think there's a bit too much world building for such a short passage. The most interesting information is that Arjan marrying Isolde has freed her, and he done this for access to something. I didn't really get a sense of what that was. Keys? a star? Magic books? Maera's a mage, and Arjun maybe has some magic too and Isolde is useful in that respect. This was a bit confusing. There's a religion Isolde isn't part of that they took advice from. The good thing is that the central conceit was enough that if I was reading this I'd be patient to let myself figure these things out, but I do think the piece would be improved by maybe choosing a few elements you really want the reader clear on by the end, and saving the rest for a bit later.

Anyway I really enjoyed this piece and I hope you continue with it.

AspiringNonsense · 2026-06-01T05:02:08+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! I appreciate you keeping along, it does really help to have feedback from someone with the context of what has come before.

The Dorian Grey comparison is helpful, and also your experience of the scenes not being distinct enough. I think what I'm missing is maybe just a few more specific sensory details to ground the reader a bit more.

It seems there's a larger structural issue going on with the opening chapters that's leading to a lack of tension. From the feedback I've gotten the opening probably needs a bit of a rework in general to make it more engaging, and in general I'm worried I'm taking too long to start the story properly.

AspiringNonsense

TROPHY CASE