article a day day 15: a report on the history of ectoplasm + spirits by DrXOUBLE D/i forgot the discord name lol
this is the sort of article i hope to see more of in the future (either due to other people posting it or me getting around to my drafts lol) and something im glad i was able to crit when it was being developed. i do think there's still some rough parts (i ironed out some glaring grammar issues just now) that could use some work :/
its very systematic, and clinical kinda to a fault. this is more obvious in the beginning, where sentences are strung together without much cohesion and the paragraphs seem to be divided almost arbitrarily. ideas dont seem to lead into one another, which makes the article sort of jarring when it makes these sudden leaps and stops in the flow of information.
the best examples of this is the history section. its very strong imagery and well written, but then near the end it sort of goes off the rails. venus used to have life on it, alien remains on other worlds, and:
The telescope also made the discovery of the Dead Stars, also known as RPC-███. The Dead Stars are believed to be the remains of a previously gargantuan race of star sized organisms that roamed the universe during its early periods.
this is overboard and goes beyond the scope of the article. there is one canon and this presents a very different image of the universe that is most definitely incompatible with what other writers have in mind. there is no room for interpretation with this. either remove it and make it a separate article, or make it less explicit with the "gargantuan race of star sized organisms." that is not relevant to understanding ectoplasm.
We live in a dead universe with very little life remaining, but the universe is not silent. The souls of life long gone scream at us. Our universe is haunted.
this statement is not as much of a wham line as you were hoping for it to be, and it sounds kinda dumb. why would it be in this article? in universe, what purpose does it serve?
the "anomalies and spirits" section is wholly redundant and very poorly made. remove it, it serves no purpose.
i enjoyed reading this, but near the end it goes way off kilter and makes it very grating and I imagine very confusing for future audiences, especially new writers. im going to rate this 2 stars very hesitantly, because while it is a good article, the insertion of concepts that have massive implications for the ONE canon that risks overriding other authors makes it barely acceptable. i would lean into the "hypothetical" part more.
(account deleted)