So here’s batch two of the Create A Story Tag reviews. Five more stories to be relentlessly judged by someone that thinks he knows better. Let’s read on.

Rain + Beach + Slice of Life

Kudos to Irina for picking the slice of life option. I know for a fact that it’s hard to write using that, and you can tell she struggled. Combined with the thousand word limit, she gets a gold star just for trying and nailing it. The story is pretty good, and I bet its working title must’ve been “2 years later” or something. That line smacked me out of nowhere and I couldn’t help but laugh. Her work runs like a literal script. Not like Leap who tried the LN approach, Irina’s is like a screenplay and I bet she enjoys those sorts of things. Plays and dramas or whatever, but I honestly thought she’d go anime with the slice of life option. Good job for defying expectations. I love this story. Once you start reading, you just can’t stop. The prose is easy to process, and you just kinda get a good enough mental picture of the scenario. Some things are left for the reader’s imagination though, and I think that’s a nice touch. It’s definitely one of the more unique and strongly composed stories in the collection.

I’d give this five stars and a drink, because Irina love those. Go check out the story as well. I don’t think there’s anyone that doesn’t know who Irina is, since she has a strong presence in our community. She does a lot of varied posts and her blog is full of fun people. Go say hi to her if you’re new here.

Dancing of Leaves

Luminous Goose (I’ll call him LG like that appliance brand) bravely used the Romance option along with Fall and Mountain. Unlike Rossiroad, he used “Fall” as a season here. And oh boy, where to start? I don’t want to sound harsh, because I admire people that try. As a teacher, getting a student to try something is a big goal. You can tell LG isn’t used to writing stories and he seems very self-conscious as he writes this. I’d imagine the thousand word limit must’ve been hard on him too. The story is very rough. Here’s a table and I’m putting a glass on that table.

“I’m gonna kick your ass (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻“

The writing is sloppy, the pacing is inconsistent and it’s just very rough. There’s a sentence where the story just pointed out that the dude will confess to the girl. Unlike Irina above, LG seems very conscious not to leave details out. However, the result is this very raw draft that was clearly crushed by a lot of factors. Is the story bad? Of course not. LG’s personality shines through. His awkward touches is apparent and his anime influences are pretty cool. I have no doubt he have crafted a much more detailed story in his head, but most seasoned writers know that transferring those thoughts to paper takes practice. I do get the intent of the story and the characters are pretty cute. I thought it was a lesbian story though, since the characters are named Kaede and Aiko. Sadly, Kaede is a guy.

┬──┬◡ﾉ(° -°ﾉ)

I’ll give this one three stars, and a solid A for the effort. LuminousGoose is currently going through a bunch of Junjo Ito works and he’s a braver man than I am for sure. Ito’s works legit creep me out. Check out his blog for more fun posts.

I was supposed to review Lina’s Fall+Sea+Tragedy story, but tinyuglyanimal seems to have be blipped out of existence. It’s a shame, but I figured I’d mention it here since this is a look at the ani-blogging landscape of last year and Lina was a part of it.

Alright, the same goes for WeeaBroDerek who crafted Romance with Fire and Mountain. Damn, that sounds like a fun story. Of course, it’s normal for people to come and go in the blogging scene. It’s even more normal to see the blogs still up and running but the place is now silent. I often follow blogs like those, and it is just depressing seeing passionate writers just abandon their writing. This is normal though, since blogging may not be the best medium for their creative outlet. Also, real life and stuff. Moving on.

Rebuilding Solace

Ospreyshire, reminds me of Worcestershire for some reason and also I’ll call him OP from this point on, crafted a story with Tragedy mixed with Rain and Mountain. OP really put a lot of effort on this. The world building is pretty great. I also sense the fantasy inspired take ala Lord of the Rings or something. I’m not well versed on it myself, but I just adore the names here. Sounds elf-like with a dab of Dungeons and Dragons. I also like the use of rain here, since his creativity shined through by giving us a deeper meaning to that word. Yes! I love that. This is really the aim of this CAST, to give people a chance to interpret things how they see fit. I had doubts that this story is in the thousand word limit, but it was nicely capped off at the end. Actually, the word limit kinda lends strength to this particular story, since you never really knew where it will go. One moment we were trying to understand why these characters are talking and then, bam, plots. Did I spoil it? I hope not.

This story is really good. The composition is amazing, and it’s definitely five stars. I know OP is one of the more underappreciated reviewers in our scene, so drop by his blog when you have the time. His obscure films reviews are really great.

A Short, Cold Break

First, I learned in Scott’s post that OP above has a book. That explains a lot. Secondly, he combined Fire with School and Slice of Life/Romance. Minus points for double dipping on the genre! I kid. I do like how there is a literal fire in a school to get this story going, and you can tell Scott writes like LG. He’s self-conscious, restricted by the word limit and he had trouble transferring thoughts to paper. I think he attempted to do some world building and character introduction, but the entire thing felt a bit awkward. Again, nothing wrong with that since not everyone has written a book like OP. Some of us aren’t used to coming up with original stories and you can expect us to stumble. The story lacked direction though and the things that happened in it are just odd. Again, I mean no disrespect but the characters suddenly huddled into groups of five for heat. The execution is very rough. I do like Scott’s awkwardness here. You can tell he is trying, and he even shaved some words in certain sentences to fit the limit. His effort is definitely felt here, and I admire that. His use of romance is certainly interesting and you can tell he struggled with the slice of life element. The writing is rough, but I really am proud of the honesty in the writing. Effort is hard to fake, and there is effort here.

This story gets three stars. On a side note, I started lewding Cathy in my mind for no reason. Scott also makes great reviews and his editorials are really interesting. Give them a read.

I was supposed to read and review Jen’s story here next. She runs the animehellzone site, but I can’t find her CAST story. After three dead links, my enthusiasm for this has shriveled so we’ll do the rest tomorrow. Technically, I’ve hit up seven stories but three of them are dead links. If you’ve migrated to a new site then you should do what Arthifis did. His old site redirects to the new one. Jen, I wanna read your story but that’s that. I can’t wait to see the rest of the dead links and also the stories still left.

Check out all the stories here: https://keikosanimeblog.wordpress.com/create-a-story/