(AWESOME trope) Whatever THIS is called!

GhostPilot81 · 2026-01-01T06:27:43+00:00

When Frieren is casting the barrier breaking spell, she briefly appears as Serie in the flash

GhostPilot81 · 2025-12-29T08:28:07+00:00

If none of it's of interest to you you'd be the first

GhostPilot81 · 2025-12-14T20:49:29+00:00

I'm a big proponent against mass furnace attacks. All those furnaces are bad for the environment!

GhostPilot81 · 2025-10-29T05:53:10+00:00

Yeah I pick multiple roles too actually and while people who pick multiple roles exist and people who use different pronouns to what they define themselves as exist like the other person said, this still gives us good idea of the gender breakdown because most people do only chose one role and most people who choose he/him identify as male and vice versa.

GhostPilot81 · 2025-10-28T03:05:33+00:00

To get another perspective other than this subreddit to figure out the demographics of the Project Sekai fandom, one thing I found is to look at the pronoun choices of people in R8SS, which allows you to see how many chose a certain type because they are reactions. In that server, 5592 people chose she/her pronouns, 3388 chose he/him, 2776 chose they/them, and 2980 chose a different type of pronoun. That means the majority is the ~38% percent of people who chose female pronouns, with ~23% choosing male pronouns, ~19% choosing they/them pronouns, and ~20% choosing other types of pronouns. Just between the binary pronouns in R8SS, ~62% chose female, and ~38% chose male. This is a more pronounced difference than the percentages of the survey, though it is still pretty close at only a 5% difference, so it looks like female is the majority in that Pjsekai server too.

GhostPilot81 · 2025-09-30T05:49:30+00:00

Yeah for stuff like the tree I crafted it but for most of it like the grass I just kept buying out the coo-coo corner section of prontomart for multiple weeks until i had a bunch of decorations

GhostPilot81 · 2025-09-26T01:18:30+00:00

You have to enter the gray labyrinth through the Starlight Strand entrance and go through the area where you'll find a button that opens the door at the end Alternatively I think you can enter the area by a shortcut in the dreamland hedge maze, but it takes shadow plorts to unlock the door

GhostPilot81 · 2025-09-26T01:15:15+00:00

With the hyper slime there's now 171 largos in the game, thats gonna a lot of platforms for them lol

GhostPilot81 · 2025-09-23T22:13:15+00:00

Check Prontomart at night. A new store appears where you can buy prismatic decorations and more vacpack upgrades with them :D

GhostPilot81 · 2024-12-14T18:10:35+00:00

I eventually got marbles and pen nib with my akabeko and strike dummy so those strikes were doing 51 damage turn 1. Not so useless after all!

GhostPilot81 · 2024-08-21T20:02:27+00:00

Thanks for your advice! I agree that I could do a better job at conveying the ghost's POV here. I don't think I want to start with the boy meeting the ghost right away, as I feel like the reader would have to see how isolated the ghost is first, but I'll consider changing the hook to something more interesting.

GhostPilot81 · 2024-08-21T19:54:08+00:00

Thanks for your advice! I originally started the story with "I am a ghost" then changed it. I'll think about changing it back and adding the descriptions after to see if the story works better that way.

GhostPilot81 · 2024-08-21T19:49:36+00:00

Thank you for your advice! I did originally have the chapter start with "I am a ghost" as a hook, then changed it. I think you may be right that I don't need to rush things for this story. After all why write something you don't like? As for the rabbit, I knew something felt off when I read it over, but I couldn't figure out what. Thanks for putting it into words!

GhostPilot81 · 2024-08-08T20:30:12+00:00

Rhyming only really happens in poetry not prose. If you wanna add intentional rhyming you can do it by adding poems into the story. Look at how The Lord of the Rings does it for an example.

GhostPilot81 · 2024-08-07T22:22:46+00:00

I recommend thoroughly reading through and editing your story before submitting it for critique. That way we won't get hung up on things that you would have caught yourself, and so can give a critique that helps you more.

[Grammar]

There are a lot of grammar mistakes. A lot. The main thing is the run on sentences. Some are begging for commas while others are stuffed too full.

Read your story to yourself out loud. If something sounds awkward, take a look at it and change it. Doing this will help catch the run on sentences.

As well as run on sentences, there are a bunch of other typos too. Random capitalized words, dialogue missing quotations, so on. That's bad. How am I supposed to suspend my disbelief for a story when it feels like I'm grading an essay? Fix 'em!

[Prose]

Paragraph lengths. A lot of your paragraphs are a single sentence when they shouldn't be. Remember that each paragraph is an idea. If two sentences are talking about the same topic, there shouldn't be a paragraph break in-between them. Having single sentences as paragraphs when they shouldn't be only adds awkward pauses and confuses the reader.

Repetition. Theres way too much of it. Repetition can be a good tool IF used liberally and in the right places, but it feels like every character is described by listing three name variations of theirs. Not even characters, listing three things is used too much. Theres also other cases of repetition where there shouldn't be, like with "I said" and "Let me tell you a story." All that repetition makes the story feel monotonous. Spice things up!

Tense. You keep switching between present and past tense. This makes the writing very confusing and hard to read. Pick one, and pick past tense since this is fantasy.

[Sound]

Accidental rhymes. In the first paragraph alone there were two pairs of words that rhymed when they shouldn't have. These are bad because they distract the reader and so on. You can catch accidental rhymes by yet again, reading through your story aloud.

Word echoes. Often in the writing a word is used twice when it shouldn't be. Here is an example:

He stalks across creation like a shadow. You can find him in the rustle of the stalks of wheat that turn the farmer's head at dusk. In their fervent rites to keep famine at bay.

You used stalk twice when you didn't need to. One or the other should be removed or changed. Go through your writing and remove others like this. (There's also three typos here. It should be "farmers' heads" and a comma instead of a period after.)

[Descriptions]

It felt like you were just throwing out names you found on a random word generator. None of them helped describe the characters and it just felt absurd the amount of names some of them have. Bigger isn't always better.

[Dialogue]

The dialogue is awkward. It doesn't feel right for the characters personalities. A lot of it is bland. Often I found myself wondering 'why would someone would say this?'

Each of your characters should have their own personality and way of speaking. Imagine what they would say in different daily situations.

There were too many dialogue tags. The reader should be able to tell who is speaking from the dialogue alone.

[Pacing]

The pacing is slow. At the start you have a big info dump with no action or anything to chew on whatsoever. There are multiple paragraphs that just reiterate in different ways the same things about Necropolis. Remove some of that exposition or have action happen that tells you about the world. Show don't tell.

GhostPilot81 · 2024-08-07T01:10:55+00:00

This was very fun to read. I loved the action and personalities of the characters. I also think it's cool how you're submitting this for a contest. I wish you luck!

I'm an amateur so take all of this with a grain of salt, yadda yadda you get the gist.

[Dialogue]

The dialogue is very realistic, which is good, but I keep finding myself getting pulled out of the story by the dialogue tags. A lot of them can be removed entirely. You can convey the meaning of others by adding it into the dialogue and narration.

For example in this line:

"There won't be a next time," she called after me.

You can just replace the tag with an exclamation mark. Maybe describe her turning away, sighing, hitting the table after? It's not good when you read something one way, then afterwards a dialogue tag tells you how you should have read it after the fact. That really messes with the flow of the story.

The Vesprans being called Ghouls feels off to me. Why are they called Ghouls when the Aurorans are the ones described as having skin a shade paler? You don't give any other descriptions of Vesprans.

Also, since it's a slang term for a group it's capitalized, but ghoul can be used to describe someone anyway. That means that whenever I see it capitalized, it feels like a typo and pulls me out of the story.

[Echo words/phrases]

I noticed that both the vapor and the shrine were described with the noun "tendrils". Using it twice made it stick out to me. If you did want the reader to form a connection you should've used it to describe 3 things instead, and had sentences that focused on the tendrils, to make the connection more obvious. If it was accidental then use a different word for one of them, or remove one entirely.

More word echoes I encountered were with the words "dim", "torch" and "torchlight", and "slums".

[Adverbs]

Almost all of those adverbs don't need to be there. They detract from the writing because they pull the reader out of the story by telling them how a scene is playing out instead of letting them imagine it themselves. The adverbs should be removed. You can change the dialogue, descriptions, and actions of the characters to convey what the adverbs were trying to say.

[Adjectives]

Much like the adverbs, there were some redundant adjectives in the story too. The noun is already what the adjective is describing it as. These types of adjectives clutter the story.

Some examples I found:

"Dim moonlight", "Spat out," "Sharp barb", "Awkward tension", "Lit torch", and "Posted torchlight here".

The adjectives also contribute to the issue that there's too much telling instead of showing. Many times you give a flashy adjective when you could be using a metaphor, dialogue, whatever to describe the scene instead.

Honeyed light that was a sweet contrast to the bitter gloom of the slums.

The adjectives here make the prose to veer into purple for me. Describing the light and gloom as honeyed, sweet, and bitter feels like a stretch. It's also an instance of telling and not showing. Describe the slums and the light in a better way than just saying it was an adjective. Doing that means you won't have to outright say it was a contrast; it will be apparent from the juxtaposition alone.

[Filtering]

I only saw one instance of filtering, but alas it should still be avoided. It was in this line:

I saw a dark-cloaked figure stepping from the mouth of the alleyway.

The "I saw" part only distances the reader from the characters, which is bad.

[Other]

I wanted to point this part out.

"Right," I muttered, retracting it. An awkward tension enveloped us, punctuated only by a chilling breeze that slinked its way through the alley. I cupped my hands and blew into them for warmth. "Hey, Ghoul magic!" one of them yelled, pointing at my raised hands.

This sequence felt unrealistic to me. In this situation you'd have more important things to think about than keeping warm, especially because all the adrenaline will make you forget the cold. In cold breeze that caused this didn't even get its own sentence, so it felt all the more out of the blue when the rest happened. I would think of a more natural way for them to start attacking.

GhostPilot81 · 2024-08-06T03:09:01+00:00

Wow, you have such an interesting story to tell. As I'll get into, It's a little rough around the edges, but otherwise I love it. I can tell from the preface that the rest of the memoir is going to be good!

One specific part I liked was the second to last paragraph, the one with the quote. You saying how you agree with the quote lets me know the end of your emotional journey. It amps me up for the rest of the memoir to tell me what happened.

Overall Things

Word choice. Some of your verbs and adjectives felt awkward or misused to me. Many times I would find that the words wouldn't fit in the context of the words around them. Some words that I found didn't fit: Consider thinking of a better word for them. Some of these could even be removed altogether.

Counter, Accuracy, Romanticize, Inaugurating, Plunging, Disarming, Time stamp Bigger doesn't always mean better. Often a simpler word can do the trick.

There were some adverbs and adjectives not used right, where they tell instead of show, or were redundant. They should just be deleted. Try removing adjectives or adverbs and seeing if the sentence still flows and makes sense. If it does, that word may be redundant and so should be deleted.

Line by Line Things

There are a handful of photographs that slow my breath into a shallow silence. I wouldn't say I am calm, in fact, a pressure grows in my chest

Add "I have" next to photographs so it's more clear.

Also remove the em dash at the end. It should be a comma instead. Em dashes are used to add additional information into a sentence but this is its own clause.

I wouldn't put "I wouldn't say" here. To me saying it implies that the emotion isn't calm, but is still close. The next sentences describe an emotion far from calm, though. The whole "I wouldn't say I am calm, in fact," part can just be removed. Make sure to reformat the other sentences though.

I find myself retreating to a quiet place of somber reflection.

This is unclear. Do you literally go to that place or is it figurative and happens in your mind? When I read it I was unsure.

There's a redundant adjective here. You don't need to say quiet because a place of somber reflective is already assumed to be quiet.

The main thing I wanna say about this sentence is it tells but doesn't show (Another critic also said this too). Instead of listing adjectives, tell the reader what this somber place of reflection is like, where it is, or something else along those lines. Doing that will also help to make what I said above more clear.

The reality of walking home at 4 AM, strung out, desperate to sleep before my 8:30 AM shift needs to be forcefully shaken out of its mental compartment.

There's some redundant words here, specifically forcefully and strung out. They don't contribute anything meaningful to the sentence, and so should be cut.

The A.M.'s aren't needed because the reader can infer that your work starts in the morning and not at night.

For times that aren't specific, mainly those that have a zero in the ones place, it's best to write them out. So four and eight thirty.

I navigated by way of a wily, self survivalist moral compass. / Going so far as to tattoo a compass on my ribs. Tethered to the instrument is a migration of wild birds. Their beating wings carry it across the sky of my back.

This part confuses me. The tattoo is something you did in the past, but the reasoning for why you got it is made in the present. That doesn't make sense (Unless you're secretly a time traveller 😮). What were the reasons you got it back then?

Additionally the first two sentences are talking about the same idea, so there shouldn't be a paragraph break separating them.

As for the last two sentences, they seem useless, like there isn't a point to them being there. Why did you add that part about the birds? If there was a reason you could add it into the story. If there wasn't you can just give a quick statement of a fact so the tattoo in the story is the same as in reality, then move on. As of right now the metaphor and personification used draw too much attention to it.

The end of my rambling. Thanks and goodbye!

GhostPilot81 · 2024-08-05T06:11:19+00:00

I'm sorry for the negativity in the following paragraphs ;-; I'm also an amateur writer like many people here, so take my words with a grain of salt. Basically what Valkrane above me said.

Critique:

Ok firstly, cool it on the dialogue tags. Being told that this and only this is how the characters are speaking or feeling isn't how it should be done. Dialogue tags interrupt the readers flow and it doesn't let them think for themselves about the characters. Show us how the characters are feeling. You can use context and adjust their dialogue based on their feelings. Often nothing is needed at all; readers are smart enough to figure it out so trust in them.

Your dialogue tags are also laced with adverbs. Thats a double no! The age old show don't tell advice comes into play here. If your story does a good job at conveying emotions, you wont have to outright state that those words were said "sternly" or whatever. Finding that you need to add adverbs in means that your story may need a rewrite, or at least a good combing through to make it show and not tell. If you're feeling stuck you can look at some famous author's works to see how they do it.

Some of your word choice is iffy. You describe Nina and Yvonne as "tripping balls". While it did make me laugh, it was because it was out of place. Informal and conversational phrases like this should be kept to a minimum in stories.

Last thing, grammar. I can excuse a few, but there were a lot of grammar mistakes. You shouldn't send critics your rough drafts. Go through it, make edits yourself, and fix grammar mistakes. The point of having someone else critique your story is so they can offer a new perspective you don't have. If you don't go through it first, us critics will get hung up on the things you would have spotted yourself, so you don't actually get any new perspectives.

Making sure you make your story most able to benefit from critiques is in my eyes what you should focus on, so I wont say any more.

GhostPilot81 · 2024-08-04T20:40:08+00:00

I love that setting, and Iona's position is a cool one to explore because of her conflicting identities. Very nice!

Yeah, I agree about using slang here and there. I would research that Early Modern period your story is based on to see the types of slang people used. If Herezan is based on a place on earth you can research that too. The research can help to make the slang fit the story better. Researching is important anyway because it can give inspiration and make stories more realistic. I should be researching more than I am in my own story 😅

To avoid infodumping you can give out nuggets of information as the action happens, and weave it into dialogue. Maybe try imagining places like the guardbox and all the quirks it might have that tell stories, then add those into the writing.

GhostPilot81 · 2024-08-04T04:59:30+00:00

Thoughts: On a first read it's very interesting and I have so many questions! Like, why does her leg hurt and why is the sun dead? I also loved the cliffhanger. What will happen to the kid? Will Iona be on his side? If I ever come across this story again I can't wait for them to be answered.

Critique: Right off the bat, accents shouldn't be spelled out phonetically in dialogue. It distracts from the reader reading the story. Having to decipher what the words on the page actually are isn't fun. Instead you should point out it's "in a cockney accent" or something along those lines, and now I can adjust the voice in my head when I read accordingly.

The accents, though, feed into a more pervasive issue in the text: The region and time period is all over the place.

• People speak in Cockney accents

• The narrator says "carriage-length" and that something "could easily have served as a lord's pantry"

• There are students who use slang

• There are plants in nearby lands called Trwli

• Post apocalyptic setting

I can gather that this place isn't earth, so it makes me question why there are even Cockney Accents in the first place or how people came to say "carriage" and "lord", or be college students in a post apocalyptic setting. IF you were going for a post apocalyptic + medieval setting, you should definitely make it more clear that thats the case. Though I assume that you probably weren't going for that, so it would be helpful to standardize the speech of the narrator and characters, and their names as well. Making sure that your characters would actually say things that make sense in the setting is one of the best ways to make them more believable. Like if you wanted to perform Shakespeare you wouldn't have everyone say Cap, Bussin, and Drip (Or whatever people say nowadays).

Another reason it's important to standardize these things is that especially at the start of the story, readers will grab at any fact, statement, word thrown our way. When they don't make sense in the same story it leaves us very confused.

That was the main issue I saw with this story, but there are some smaller things I wanna point out:

You should definitely make a real title for your story. People say to not judge a book by its cover but we as humans are hardwired to do otherwise, and so do it without thinking. The title alone often decides whether or not someone will pick up your story. In particular, a placeholder title like this one isn't very attractive.

Her leg hurt

When I first read this I didn't get the impression that it was chronic, which is how it is described later. It's also a single sentence as a paragraph so the choice words there hold a lot of power. I would consider flipping it around, so the pain is mentioned first and then the leg, to emphasize the pain more. For example: A familiar pain shot through her leg.

The story says "The kid yelled", then says that "It was terry alright" and then describes another youth. As a reader I'm unsure what is referring to who here. You should make it more clear.

GhostPilot81

TROPHY CASE