Congrats mate! Good job on earning the 004 spot! TRUE POGCHAMP :pogger: :gachiBASS:
RPC-004 / Discussion
Forum
» Hidden / Per page discussions
» RPC-004
This is the discussion related to the wiki page RPC-004.
I don't understand this otherworldly language
blabbo
That's dedication to a persona schtick, I give him that…
I'm sorry, I have to lowvote this.
I get that the characters here aren't exactly poets themselves, so can be said to make sense that the poetry that is their primary form of communication is just… fucking bad. Loose and inconsistent connection to rhyme scheme, meter all over the place when it's present. It sounds like it was just written super quickly and then not edited later. It might be theoretically justifiable in-universe, but it's still actively painful to read.
The interactions between the characters seems a little overwrought too. Unnamed Criminal #1 is just fucking creepy, Jenny is just emo to the point of having no other definable personality, and…that's it. Almost the whole piece is filled with their expressions of feeling, and it just doesn't really build to much.
1/5. If the poetry was better, and the characters were more interesting, and the mechanism by which they interacted was better defined1, it might alter my opinion. But as is, there's just nothing here that works for me.
Footnotes
1. the statement "[t]he fluid will begin to spill off the page until only a small amount is left in the form of words" doesn't really express to me what exactly the fluid is doing; is it "forming" words on the page? is it scooting across the surface like a hydrophobic solution and making big bubble letters at each other? Does it work if someone's just holding one of the books in the air? Do they have to be on the same surface?
(account deleted)As I’ve already said on Discord, the Containment Protocols and Description lack necessary detail and they give information to the reader in a very weird, clunky order. The poetry was also subpar, with repetition of words and rhyming words with themselves in a few places.
Overall, this was a mediocre article.
First article I have read here, and I can safely say I liked it. Good job comrade.
This deserves more +5 ratings. I was not around for this contest but I can see why this won.
The dedication to consistently interestingly bad poetry throughout is commendable for its follow-through but it’s not more than a novelty lacking serious depth or substance.
Such is life in the Soviet Union
This is a really cool idea, having two people communicate via poetry on paper. There's a storyline contained in a formal article, something which i'm still struggling to do effectively.
The story appears to be about someone who traps Jenny inside of a book, or something like that, so she can only talk and live from inside that book. The trapper themselves also seem to have trapped themselves inside a book. Given that the trapper rhymes on purpose, and Jenny rhymes without wanting to, it might make more sense that the text from the trapper is more cryptic, smooth and overall 'nicer' to read. While definitely cryptic in some places, there are times where the trapper's lines are clunky and don't read smoothly. On the other hand, Jenny might speak in a less 'smooth' style, with lines that awkwardly rhyme only because she is forced to.
It's a +4 right now, but if the poetry was changed more to reflect the natures of the characters, this article would have an easy +5 from me.
Sincerely, 24ayn5
article a day day 8: rpc-004 by logangreenjeans
logan insists this sucks. 'waaaaaaaa' he says… 'this article sucks'. I disgaree. i like this artilce an awful lot…
first: i love how instead of the words just being written, the books leak ink until what remains dry in the form of the words. while the concept of someone being stuck in a book has been done before, this visual element really stands out
second: conprocs need work. other people have said this… im saying this: expand. what are they supposed to do when the books ink besides just respond? give more details…
third: i dont like the missing poster. its obnoxiously large and doesnt contribute an awful lot to the actual story… could be made smaller or replace with text. o. her name is jenny? oh. well.
foruth: the poetry. you love self deprication but i actually kind of like the poetry. lines like 'I'm afraid I'll now never "see you later,"' are actually pretty good? i think you sell yourself short here so you can make it seem "unrecoverable" and have an excuse to not fix it. LOSER!! you can make it better. LOSER!! youre capable of it ❤️❤️L OSER!!
this is my truth,
the book you're reading is the proof,
its name is jenny,
and so was mine.
this is good PLEASE just keep working on this. ILL work on this fi you let me!!
rating: 4 stars… mainly because i think this was unfairly rated in the past. honestly itd be more of a three… may need a reupload too..
I came here after seeing Butter's review on the Discord and just generally wanting to read more articles. I'm glad I checked this one out, because even though it could use a lot of work, it was still a good read.
The clinical writing is pretty decent. My biggest complaint about that part is the repeated insistence that the writing has "no memetic properties." If there were ever any point in which the writing gained memetic properties, then this would be awkward but understandable, but as it is it's just bizarre.
Additionally, the description of how RPC-004-1 "describes anomalous events and criminal acts" doesn't really work either way: If it's supposed to contribute to the narrative, it's an odd and early introduction to something that we'll find out soon enough anyway. If it's supposed to be realistic as a document, its description is way too vague to be useful to anyone.
I don't like to be a snob about "removing unnecessary details", but the first addendum with the wanted poster kind of fell under that category. It does add visual flair and an image though, so I'm not exactly sure how to feel about it.
However, the "poetry" is this article's biggest weakness. I thought it wouldn't trouble me at all, seeing as I am a man of little taste…
Girl behind the counter,
of true love I am a doubter
…but could you at least make the syllables match up occasionally? Even though it's not bound by any real rules of poetry, the rhymes are still obnoxiously forced.
Leaving Jenny's pages more awkward would be a cute touch, but that would still take skill and elegance of its own. I think that deliberately making her rhyme words with themselves on occasion would be one good compromise for this, but I'm no poet.
There are a few parts that I do like, though I have to look past the generally poor writing to appreciate them. I like the poet's tone of voice; it complements the romantic and abstract tone of the article while still making him a somewhat grounded character. Plus, "I'm afraid I'll now never 'see you later'" is one of the only lines in the article that has a legitimately pleasing flow.
Jenny's pages seemed kind of rushed to me in general (I know what rushed writing looks like from personal experience), but the final four lines of Jenny's last poem were absolutely a highlight of "sickly beautiful confic" writing. And this bit at the end, from the poet, is wonderfully dark yet charming:
I've grown tired now,
although first I will take a bow,
we've put on quite a show,
for these strangers we do not know,
and with that I bid adieu
Honestly, I wish the article ended on that instead of the retort from Jenny. It would be more tonally consistent to end with "the book closing on her", so to speak.
In the end, I give this article a 3/5. I feel kind of sad in doing so; it wouldn't even need a complete rewrite to be great, but the issues in this article are glaring in its current form.
/forum/t-11822418/rpc-004#post-
