ocs :handshake: ocs - you’re the same damn person

Sometimes the map shows that the vacuum has actually entered the non-existent space and is cleaning there, but obviously that's just the position tracking also screwing up, so it thinks it's somewhere far away and just maps it to the closest place it thinks exists.

The map keeps growing, though, and the vacuum's taking longer and longer to clean the whole house.

Eventually it's frustrating enough that you start setting aside time to watch it do the cleaning, so you can figure out what surface is confusing it and fix the problem.

Somehow the problem never happens when you're watching.

The vacuum seems more beaten up than you remember - scratches and small dents, nothing to stop it from working, but you're not sure where they came from.

Once, you look while it's cleaning and can't find it anywhere. The mobile app says it's cleaning the living room, but it's obviously not there. The app is often wrong, though, and when you hear it trundling around the dining room, which you just checked, you guess you must have just... missed it somehow?

When you empty its bin, there's strange, golden dust in it that you've never seen before.

You install a few cameras. Every time the vacuum malfunctions, it's always when it's behind something or in a dead zone between cameras. Even when you move the cameras. It's a different place every time.

Did you spill ketchup somewhere? There are desiccated flecks of brown and red in the vacuum bin.

You get a Bluetooth tracker - it's supposed to help you find your keys or your wallet if you misplace them - and you glue it to the vacuum.

That night, the vacuum has a new scrape on it, like it ran into something, and the tracker has been knocked off. You can't find it; the tracker app just says it's "out of range or turned off".

You look at your robotic vacuum. It's got more scratches and scrapes even than you remember from a few days ago. You check your camera footage and yeah, it's definitely gotten more beaten up. No footage of it running into anything, though.

One of the dents almost looks like a... bite mark? You must be imagining that.

You sit and think for a long time. You know it's just a machine; you know humans tend to anthropomorphize anything that moves (all the more so because of the googly eyes you attached when you got it), and you don't want to fall into that superstitious fallacy.

It's just a machine.

You look at the dents and cuts on its frame.

You sigh, turn off the cameras, and duct-tape a kitchen knife to the robot.

"Just don't scratch up the sofa." you mutter, feeling silly, and press the "clean now" button.

give that knife/sword fight survivor nerve damage. give the character who was shot in the gut a stoma. give that fire survivor lung damage and an oxygen cannula. give that leg injury survivor a cane. give that starvation survivor gastroparesis. give that spinal injury survivor a manual chair or powerchair.

But yeah like to be more constructive than just going "lol tumblr prose bad", really the issue in Large part that characterizes "tumblr prose" (which to be clear I don't think is a discrete thing and at most is a combination of several writing tendencies influenced by the medium of Online) comes down to the lack of real contrast in Any aspect of narrative construction, and an obsession with being quotable and constantly being at 100% of Going Hard (which go hand in hand).

In that post, the character voice is indistinct from that of the narration, and the characters quote one-liners that look Meaningful as excerpts and are borderline nonsensical as dialogue. There is no more than the faintest, most generic hints of characterization; these people exist as vague concepts to say deep words for the reader. The sentence length has little variation from its staccato beat, and so it is awkward to read and fails to complement the action or accomplish anything with the pacing (save for the slight slowdown when the torturer feels all that damp animal electricity). The timing is awkward and exaggeratedly dramatic. The description is a flowery kind of tryhard visceral and seems avoidant of describing anything too directly ("something dark and arterial" where there's nothing being accomplished by conveying uncertainty about what is currently gushing out of the injured character and the simple use of "blood splashed across the stones" would actually be 10x more effective), in a way that does disservice to what is supposed to be a torture scene, and leaves it weightless and ungrounded. In fairness to the people saying "this is good", that is MUCH easier to say when reading this fake excerpt as the standalone piece it actually is, but this kind of writing Cannot function in an actual narrative and is not what an excerpt from well constructed narrative fiction is going to look like basically ever.

It reflects a lot of very typical amateur writing issues that just about everyone has to grow out of (the minimal diversity in sentence length, simulated non-attention to scene pacing and timing), and issues common to fanfiction-influenced writing on social media (allergy to paragraph lengths of more than two sentences, little to no description of the characters or setting because, in fanfiction, the reader already knows their physical characteristics and mannerisms and it doesn't need to be lingered upon, Unlike In Original Fiction). But this particularly hits on an issue I think is semi-unique to narrative writing in the social media milieu, which is a focus on being quotable. This may not even be a conscious impulse at all But It's There. This kinda apparent terror of any moment not being as beautiful and hard hitting as possible (or for comedy, any moment not being A Joke). Everything "Goes Hard", so nothing actually does. A lot of "tumblr prose" type writing is less a narrative, more a string of quotes loosely assembled into narrative that vaguely gestures at things like Plot and Character. It substitutes depth for Suggestions of depth by utilizing stock symbolism without building it into the narrative, and by gesturing at weighty contexts without actually engaging with them. There can be little contrast or effective use of tone, pace, description when your story is a series of Hard Hitting Quotes.

I'm reading Watership Down right now and I think it's a great novel overall and can work as an example of how important it is to utilize contrast in your writing.

This segment is the lengthy first description of the titular down, which the rabbits are now encountering for the first time:

Adams is slowing the pace here to introduce us to the setting of the next segment of the book. The average sentence length is very long and keeps us lingering in the sensory detail, while still varied and thus smoothly readable. This new place is introduced by simultaneously conveying its physical description in vivid detail and conveying its feeling and character, and getting the most out of every described feature to do so. The thorn trees are "wind stunted". The air is "scented". The language takes on a very flowery character and heavily utilizes simile and metaphor. Woodland is "tumultuous with evening", sunlight filters through grass "like a wind" to the small creatures below, in contrast to laying "like a gold rind" on the hill when seen from a distance. This grandiose description is heavily functional and conveys both exhaustive physical detail and a feeling that this place is beautiful, awe inspiring to something like a rabbit, and full of life, though not without quiet hints of danger. It hits because Not Everything In The Book Is Described This Way. It means something that we're lingering like this and stopping to get a sense of this place on every possible level, and moving away from more direct, simple prose to convey the feeling of the place in depth.

This segment describes the rabbit Bigwig being found caught in a snare:

The prose here here has the opposite approach of the first excerpt. The language is concise, direct, and brutal. It only veers slightly away from the literal to describe Bigwig's voice as 'bubbling out' from his mouth, both conveying that the saliva and blood in his mouth is literally bubbling as he speaks, and implying the unsettling way his voice sounds as he's being strangled. The sentences are much shorter on the whole, as fit for the pacing of a tense and rapidly changing scene, and the pace closely complements the action - "There was a pause" not only conveys That There Was A Pause but interrupts the rhythm of this segment; the moment of uneasy stillness is echoed in the act of reading itself.

Like the command says "You Must Not Wet Your Hands With This Specific Substance", and there's one faction that has decided that since it's practically impossible to not ever touch the thing, your hands won't be touching it if you're wearing gloves. Another sect has decided that it doesn't count if you only handle the substance when it's frozen solid, so your hands don't get wet from touching it. A third one has figured out how to obtain or produce some substance that is essentially identical in every way, but has a slightly different chemical structure, so it's not the same substance.

We Have Enough Dead Friends By LENA OLEANDERSON Come over. The doors are open, my flat's a mess and so is my heart but the doors are always open. Come over. I will make soup probably from frozen but the important thing is we will both eat. You don't have to be dying, but if you are, or you feel like you are, or if living's been hard, call me, and I will show up. It doesn't have to be that bad, it doesn't have to be bad at all, but if it is, please call. Do you want me to do the groceries? Do you want me to mop the floors? Do you need to be held; you don't have to be dying to be held. If you want me to be there, I want to. I'm on the bathroom floor again, and breathing is hard, and eating's been hard, and sleeping, the world is a laden thing rolling around on my chest lately. Just being alive is heavy tonight, but we have enough dead friends. Come over.

the reviews are in... glad everyone's enjoying song of the worm