Author Topic: (feedback?) Parsee short  (Read 3419 times)

(feedback?) Parsee short
« on: March 20, 2011, 10:52:16 AM »
(it's already up on my dA, but it's not got much feedback so I was wondering if anyone would be willing to feedback on here?)

She was not always jealous.
Once, she was a young girl, shy, nice, quiet, with a couple of close friends. Round blue eyes, short blonde hair, pale skin (yet not as pale as later).
As time went on, she began to notice.
She began to notice that her friends were closer with each other than with her.

Small flecks of pale green began to show in her eyes.

As she began to get older, she noticed that her friends, and most of the other inhabitants of Gensokyo, were prettier than her.

The green grew.

She also began to notice that she was relatively flat-chested, whilst most others she saw- youkai or otherwise- were at a B or above. She noticed that her friends were taller and more graceful and more slender than her. She noticed that they were both in relationships.

Her eyes, by the time she had noticed all this, had turned a pale green. They still seemed blue most of the time... nobody noticed the change in color. But they noticed how she began to shrink into herself, her disposition darkening, how she had begun to isolate herself.
As she let the envy inside her stew, on her own, her now-green eyes intensified in color. She began to lose her innocent, childlike face and gained the sort of glower that only an envy-ridden person would have. The thoughts of self-insecurity, the feelings of inadequacy, the desperate longing for things she couldn't have, things that everyone else had, all bubbled around the flame of jealousy rooted in her chest. Her eyes darkened to a sinful emerald. She was halfway to becoming what would be one day known as "the Bridge princess, a youkai driven insane by her own jealousy".
She sat alone for many years, as her friends went out and had fun, experiencing many things.

She heard that they had won danmaku battles against that tengu reporter.
jealous.
She heard they got absolutely wasted at one of the feasts that the little oni threw and had a great time.
jealous.
She heard one of them was pregnant and the other was married.
jealous.
She looked at herself and saw how she was deteriorating.
"...jealous...".

The envy built up over many years, threatening to overflow and consume the youkai girl. She would spend most of her days growling to herself, her nails clawing at the flesh of her own legs and arms, burning up inside. Some days she would punch the walls, throw things, scream, cry. It didn't seem fair. She was so jealous she wondered if she would just wither up and die with nothing left to do.
One day, she left the dark room she had made herself and stepped into the crisp coolness of a midday in Fall. She squinted at the light, saw red-orange dead leaves fall to the floor, the melancholy death dance of the season. For the first time in hundreds of years, the green pigment receded. Her eyes returned to the same curious crystal-blue as that young child. Her jealousy and hate and anger and sadness had been momentarily forgotten, substituted for a look of wonder at this colorful world that she had isolated herself from for so long. The heavy feeling of jealousy shed, she felt much lighter, almost ghostly.

The lightness did not last long. She gradually came into full view of a danmaku battle between what seemed to be a red-white shrine maiden and that tengu reporter. The grace and speed that the two dodged each other's bullets with was amazing.
The jealousy came back. A slow trickle at first, that quickly snowballed into a tidal wave, slamming into her chest, on wave after another. She felt a familiar energy burning up in her hands as she quickly flew off. She felt the familiar burning in her chest. She couldn't control herself now. Her jealousy had completely taken over.

She took out some lowly youkai and fairies first. She slowly ascended until she ended up in the middle of the human village, sending large, bright green danmaku bullets at anything around her. She ended up killing children, animals, whole families, in her rage. She had sent most of the village scurrying off, screaming in terror, when she was challenged by what seemed to be a human, a young girl with brown hair and black twin cat tails, and a nine-tailed fox youkai.
She ended up taking the young black cat girl out easily, but had more trouble with the hakutaku and the other youkai. The battle took what seemed, to the terrified inhabitants of the human village, hours, but in reality only took an hour and a bit. The youkai, battered and burnt, fell unconsciously to the floor.

When she awoke, she found herself in a dark place again. Her room? No, it couldn't be her room. There were no smashed objects on the floor, broken mirrors on the wall. Looking around as her eyes readjusted to the gloom, she saw rocks.

A cave?

A ray of light illuminated some rocks. Following the beam, she found herself at the entrance of the cave. Even from where she stood, six feet away, she could feel the heat of the magic seal holding her in.
Banished to the underground...

(also, please tell me if I made any typos, even small ones. I wrote this up on dAsubmission rather than MSWord, so...)


in the end, a friend was all that was needed.

MayKissingDoveWyks

  • I can't stop being a perv!
Re: (feedback?) Parsee short
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2011, 12:50:35 AM »
This piece is exquisite, thought out and well-written.

If you do anymore, please do share!

slamming into her chest, on wave after another.
That's the only typo. :D

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
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  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
Re: (feedback?) Parsee short
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2011, 02:19:19 AM »
Hm...

First suggestion would be your formatting.  Standard paragraph formatting is always a good idea, unless you're doing something very intricate with text, like Xenophillia is.

Second, your pronouns get confused here and there.  For example:
"Her eyes, by the time she had noticed all this, had turned a pale green. They still seemed blue most of the time... nobody noticed the change in color. But they noticed how she began to shrink into herself, her disposition darkening, how she had begun to isolate herself."
Without a paragraph and sentence split here the "they"s get confused.

Thirdly you give away a little too much too quickly.  Hammering "jealous" over and over is a valid literary technique, and all your readers know you're speaking of Parsee.  But things like "the Bridge princess, a youkai driven insane by her own jealousy" up at the top just kill what tension your writing has built up.  It's uneeded detail.  Similarly speaking about "the sort of glower that only an envy-ridden person would have," is unneeded.  You get more mileage out of the glower itself.

Lastly you probably could have spaced out the ending a little better, explaining Parsee's feelings as she attacked each target group.  You'd worked at building up a Parsee with a lot of issues, and knowing whether they were resolved partially by violence or only made worse keeps the reader moving along.

It's a good first attempt, and hopefully what I said makes sense.  Please keep reading, and keep writing.