Halloween 2021 Feedback Thread

I haven’t read through all the stories yet (that isn’t mine) but I’m pretty happy with the stories that have been submitted! 

Through reading and skimming, I can see that we’ve all have our own idea of how to implement the theme of this workshop. It’s great to see this kind of variation in stories!

I also hope you people out there can/will consider leaving a comment or two about your thoughts on the stories? Author’s is fueled by compliments and constructive criticism!

Rise of the Phoenix:  Thank-you I enjoyed all the characters!  Poor Greg, I do hope he survives so we learn more about him.  Eric and Sarah are fun together.  I liked their dialogue.  I also of course enjoyed the transformation of Sarah and discovery of her new found powers and your descriptive writing.  It left me wanting more.  The dark super woman is also very appealing.  Looking forward to more development of her and the epic scuffle that is sure to come soon. 

Witchy Halloween:  This is one of the more creative ways I’ve seen of introducing two unknown characters and getting them talking quicky and dealing with story exposition while keeping it…  …uh…  …natural.  Sure she’s unnatural ~ but it works ~ maybe because there are some women kind of like Laura out there.  I even like how Jeremy keeps letting his suspension of disbelief come and go it makes it even more fun for the reader to get sucked in.  The jump to merged bodies was a chapter change shock.  Looking forward to seeing what you do with that.  You’ve set the stage for the different places that will be disarmed and I can see fun chapter(s) for each.  Nice work. 

Halloween Treat:  As always Ace takes a classic story and classic characters and puts his own twist on things while respecting the established characters.  I think you should have written alternate universe/annual stories for DC.  “Yes, thanks to you Superwoman.” Made me smile. 

Dark Star Rising:  Thanks for sharing this fun story to you packed a lot of fun into!  You made Lucy relatable with her dispatch of the frat boys and her departure from the party was fun to read and I enjoyed your tie into Halloween the most.  Half the party goers running screaming and half standing and screaming sounds about right, I liked that!  Looking forward to more about Jane the most.  I hope you don’t leave us all hanging.

Thanks to all the authors for contributing these stories and your time.  I enjoyed them all for their differences and creativity.

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Rise of the Phoenix:  Thank-you I enjoyed all the characters!  Poor Greg, I do hope he survives so we learn more about him.  Eric and Sarah are fun together.  I liked their dialogue.  I also of course enjoyed the transformation of Sarah and discovery of her new found powers and your descriptive writing.  It left me wanting more.  The dark super woman is also very appealing.  Looking forward to more development of her and the epic scuffle that is sure to come soon. 
 

Thank you! 
I swear, there is a lot more going on than what is here, but I really didn’t have the time to write it all down! When I get done with Part 2, then my plan is to merge the two parts and add all the things I’ve originally wanted to add (while getting another editor to look the story over so it can be enhanced more.)
Hopefully I can then also make the story a bit more “Halloween”-ish. I seem to have forgotten to mention that it happened at that time of the year in the story!

A Witchy Halloween
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This would have worked much better as a Prequel or origin story of sorts which is really a waste. Too little action, too much world-building to draw me in at the get-go. Chapters 1 and 4 are almost only dialogues. That said Chapter 4 is an awesome cliffhanger that leaves me wanting more. The dialogues in Chapter 1 are particularly draggy with all the 'witchy ways'. The mystery shrouding the witchy ways sort of backfired on me. Chapter 2 introduced a whole slew of exciting characters with glimpses into some of their feats and promises lots of potential - a very good world-building move and in fact, it's the chapter that drew me in into this world. Quite disappointed however that only Diana got into the action in later Chapters. Hope to see more of the rest in the coming parts. Chapter 3 also fails to shine - just a typical origin moment.

This story might be the most grammatically accurate interpretation of 'Becoming the Costume'. That said, I would much rather read more about someone who 'Has Become the Costume'.

Dark Star Rising

Nice lift of Marvel's The Watcher into your multiverse's very own The Observer. The epilogue makes me anticipate to read more about what's going to happen in this universe as well as in other universes in this multiverse. Might be nice for the Jane who will be gaining powers to not be from the same universe. Perhaps even take time to explore how this universe turned into a dystopic future under Lucy's indomitable reign. Maybe even let Jane fail to stop Lucy first. Or even perhaps find a way to let Lucy threaten the entire multiverse so much that The Observer need to intervene and assemble other superpowered females in other universes to unite against Dark Star. (Pardon the blatant plagiarism from Marvel's What If.)
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I always love this scene and felt it was in character for Dark Star: Let someone think they can escape only to cut off their means of escape at the very last moment (perhaps by Super Speed, Telekinesis or even Mind Control). They never had a glimpse of what seems remotely like a chance, not even to escape. Perhaps we could even have this said someone perform some incredible feats/powers just before he/she is shown to have never stood a chance against Dark Star. 

Halloween Treat

Well, gender-bending.. IMO, this concept is a hit or a miss. Mainstream readers are unlikely to appreciate gender-bending whereas I personally would have prefer gender-bending done a certain way (not too sure whether it was a hit for the rest of the community). IMHO, Halloween Treat is almost a hit which nevertheless is still a miss.

IMVHO, for gender bending to work for me, 3 elements are needed:- a vastly superior being exerting her will to genderbend a vastly inferior being against his will (note the pronouns of the wills) - the futile struggle and eventual succumbence of the vastly inferior male- the euphoric discovery that being female is indeed vastly superior in every way

I think you hit point 3 squarely for the gender-bending of Jimmy-Kimmy and even made it better with Kimmy eventually stealing Mxy's powers. This is definitely one of your best moves plot-wise but it feels too easy for Kimmy. Some level of plotting, effort and perhaps some insight into the motivation and deliberation of Jimmy would really drive home point 3 even more.

​​​​Deciding to both genderbend and agebend Clark is a miss however (although it shows how powerful Kimmy is). The underage nature of new Clark limits a lot of potential when the very nature of a vastly inferior male is bent against his will could have led to him discovering the vast superiority in every way of being female.

Points 1 and 2 however is quite off tangent according to my taste.
1. The first vastly superior being is a male (Mxy). Could have been a hit for the 2nd gender-bending but it missed points 2 and 3 completely.
2. Time was given for Jimmy to struggle and indeed he did. It is still a miss though as the struggle is just not enough. More exposition into his mental struggle and his eventual succumbence as he realises there is nothing he can do to resist the will of the vastly superior being would have made this a great hit. There wasn't time given for Clark to struggle but still some exposition on his mental struggle during the gender-bending would be good as well.  

Rise of the Phoenix: Part 1

What can I say? The Dark Phoenix Saga is easily my favourite comic book arc. My favourite scene is certainly how easy it was for Dark Phoenix to utterly defeat the Imperial Guard right after they completely defeated the X-Men who is already rather powerful in their own right. The difference in power levels is phenomenal and I think there is no better way to slowly establish the extreme powers of Dark Phoenix than what Rjjt456 has done. The field concept of having the effect intensifying close to the epicenter is ingeniously handled: geeky bits of appetising pseudoscience that quickly gives way back to the main course of action and feats I've come to look forward to so much.
A tastefully well-calibrated description of how sexy the heroine without being excessively graphic. Check.
A heroine who keeps breaking limits as to what she can do and probably eventually discovering there is nothing she can't do. Check.
Lots of superpowered individuals who probably will get defeated easily by the heroine and perhaps even the villainess. Check.
An evil supervillainess who probably enjoys the gap in power over anyone and everyone she meets until she faces our heroine. Check.
​​​​​​​Great story! 

Dressed for the Occasion

Just a special mention here for anyone interested in the theme but have not read this. Great writing by HarmonyMotion. He probably had lots of time to polish this up though. This is not qualified for the workshop but fits the theme squarely. This may also be the culprit for raising my expectation of this theme to such a high level.
Undressed for the Occasion is the NSFW (evident from the title perhaps) sequel if the first part hooked you on. You can only find it in DeviantArt though.

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Rise of the Phoenix: Part 1

What can I say? The Dark Phoenix Saga is easily my favourite comic book arc. My favourite scene is certainly how easy it was for Dark Phoenix to utterly defeat the Imperial Guard right after they completely defeated the X-Men who is already rather powerful in their own right. The difference in power levels is phenomenal and I think there is no better way to slowly establish the extreme powers of Dark Phoenix than what Rjjt456 has done. The field concept of having the effect intensifying close to the epicenter is ingeniously handled: geeky bits of appetising pseudoscience that quickly gives way back to the main course of action and feats I've come to look forward to so much.
A tastefully well-calibrated description of how sexy the heroine without being excessively graphic. Check.
A heroine who keeps breaking limits as to what she can do and probably eventually discovering there is nothing she can't do. Check.
Lots of superpowered individuals who probably will get defeated easily by the heroine and perhaps even the villainess. Check.
An evil supervillainess who probably enjoys the gap in power over anyone and everyone she meets until she faces our heroine. Check.
Great story! 
 

​​​​​​​Wow, thank you! I don't know what to say about this! I genuinely think that the story could be better, but I'm definitely happy with how it turned out (it was written in the span of 48 hours!)

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Dressed for the Occasion

Just a special mention here for anyone interested in the theme but have not read this. Great writing by HarmonyMotion. He probably had lots of time to polish this up though. This is not qualified for the workshop but fits the theme squarely. This may also be the culprit for raising my expectation of this theme to such a high level.
Undressed for the Occasion is the NSFW (evident from the title perhaps) sequel if the first part hooked you on. You can only find it in DeviantArt though.
 

I just want to mention that i was the one that commissioned the story to begin with, but HaMo did make it become incredible!

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Dressed for the Occasion

Just a special mention here for anyone interested in the theme but have not read this. Great writing by HarmonyMotion. He probably had lots of time to polish this up though. This is not qualified for the workshop but fits the theme squarely. This may also be the culprit for raising my expectation of this theme to such a high level.
Undressed for the Occasion is the NSFW (evident from the title perhaps) sequel if the first part hooked you on. You can only find it in DeviantArt though.
 

Wow, thanks for the shout out! That was my first ever commission, written in just under a week I think! Funny, I did joke about entering it for this contest, but I was told no 

That was a great review!  You were absolutely right.  I had 7 weeks to do this, but with A week to go, I had all of ONE chapter written.  I had to go to Vegas with my wife for one of her meetings so I brought my good computer with me and I knuckled down and pounded out the story.  I had planned  for 8-10,000 words, but ended up around 4,300.  Just getting lazy in my old age.  I think 2 to 3000 more words would have made it better for you.