Nov 04, 2023
As soon as I started reading this, I had to check the word count. 1488, as I suspected – kissing the upper limit. I feel like you wasted a lot of words trying to set up a lot of the initial atmosphere, to the point where I had grown kind of inured – and subsequently bored – by all the depression. Not that the depression itself was bad, but there was really no variance in it and whilst you could argue (very tenaciously) that was intentional, that doesn't save it from being overly ample and ultimately dulling the message.
The dialogue was particularly jarring as well. It had this unnatural smartness to it, the kind anime villains espouse in that ever-so-cheesy tone. Assigning it to the already villain-coded teacher was just an unnecessary double-down and it only turned me off further.
And this double-down is really what breaks this story apart. I feel like something called "Mannequin's memories" (though the teacher refers to him as a marionette), something enamoured with the idea of otherness and of the blurry presence of the depressed soul – wouldn't need to hamfist its ideas. The gravity would come across in sparse, subtle touches, it would be implied more than outwardly stated, it would leave you thinking and meditating and would mark you, not merely present the information without anything more to it.
Be that as it may, I do think the prose makes apt use of its techniques. I think the short, cadences sentences and the way paragraphs build on this series of still images is very apt. Not only that, but some turns of phrases are really impressive, most notably the ending and the 'evaporated soul'. This blend ('machine'-language juxtaposed with 'soulful' language) would've been nicer to see across the entire composition.
Best of luck in the competition,
Bubbles.
