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Slay?
The CSS is okay but I would do better nowadays… I can't really be bothered to do anything about it though lol
Maybe I will fix the broken Meg Theme version here thoughhhhh
Good concept and character writing as always spec
You promised you'd take me there again some day… but you never did.
The timer is very cool, very immersive. The idea of being stuck inside the cocoon and still conscious is terrifying. +1
Absolute peak of a character he's going on my "hear me out" cake :D /j
HAHAHAHHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHHA
You weren't the first, you won't be the last. Glad you liked it :skullingmoji:
Long story short I was wondering whether you'd be curious to hear me out on a few silly headcanons I've made relating to Kirai in my AU
Also I'm going to create a human form for Kirai just for fun and prob fanart when I'm actually motivated to draw again💀
Point is whether you're interested enough in this to maybe DM me or smth and I could share some of my ideas/drawings I totally won't go on a whole rant about this OC trust 🙏
Go for it man lol
Idk if you know Ally but you are reminding me of them with these comments 💀💀💀💀 (THATS A POSITIVE THING—)
HELP I LITERALLY HAVE HER DMS AND I WAS TALKING ABOUT TPS WITH HER AND SPAMMING A BUNCH OF LORENZO PICS 😭
I'm also pretty sure that she exposed me the other day for the licorice headcanon I made of Kirai 💀
First, let me start with the positives. I enjoyed how Kirai itself was never directly shown in the first offset. The reader, along with the main character, gets glimpses of it, and that creates a far more effective atmosphere than the pre-rewrite iteration where it just rambles to the reader about the Pantheon and MetaTM. Secondly, I like how Kirai mostly restricts itself to nonverbal communication within offset two. It makes it more far more challenging to guess its intentions, and I like how the eldritch creature demands an apology like a wet cat. I do think it makes sense for Overseer-A to be nonplussed about screwed-up situations, though I believe putting himself in the same room as an unpredictable entity goes a bit too far. This also has the double-edged sword effect of decreasing the reader's fear for Kirai, because well, if the Overseer could stroll right up to the entity and be just fine, then that kinda takes some of the tension out of the whole scene.
In summary, you've gotten really well at handling the rule that horror is often best when it's kept at a distance rather than shoved into the reader's face, and I commend that. Unfortunately, there were a few things, primarily in the zeroth offset, that bugged me.
The tone of the page is cosmic/body horror. A whole host1 of elements on the main page compliment this, from the ever-present ticking of the timer to the frustrated flipping through columns of tabs to find what you're looking for. I usually dislike the use of tabs in articles for this very reason, but this page happens to use it to its advantage and deepen the sense of immersion, so hey? Regardless, I'll start listing the elements that I found to be incongruent with the article's tone, distracting me upon a first read:
1. The Treatment of Suicide
Self-explanatory here, but I felt like the depiction of suicidal impulses here was a bit shallow, and quickly forgotten by the plot. Especially in this case, the protagonist considers ending their own life to escape an incurable illness, a theme that likely rings resonant to many people in real life. I wish the decision was treated with more weight, as the researcher seems almost content to not have the chance to say their last words to their friends, a circumstance which I'm sure most people would respond to with a lot more distress.
Furthermore, our main character doesn't just briefly consider the (implied) protocol of self-termination; they almost go through with it. In the article, the switch in their demeanor is executed like this:
Just as you begin to tilt the bottle upward, you feel yourself freeze. You refuse to go out like this. To die with the absolute minimum of dignity. To die without even having tried to fight for your life.
Doesn't the M.E.G. keep records for this sort of thing? We have our database, sure, but not everything is included in there. Surely I can find something of use, right?
It seems like the attempt was brushed over rather quickly? I would've liked to see the protagonist display a bit more emotion at just having stared down death in the eye. Hands trembling, throat tight, etc. It doesn't have to be much nor drag down the plot, but just enough so that they feel more human and not purely a researcher that acts with complete rationality to prevent further casualties.
2. The Description of Kirai
Alright, so remember what I said about distance and fear of the unknown? The third tab, doubling as a proxy entity page, completely overloads the reader with information about Kirai. Not Abyssal Ooze, the dreaded substance that our main character can't bring themselves to prefer over death, just Kirai, who is a… guy with tentacles? The silhouette of the guy over the white backdrop forfeits the sense of mysteriousness allocated by placing it in a dark setting in offset one. It's like showing us a monster under broad daylight. Okay, disregarding the image for a moment, the clinical description itself brings up many details that I can't see being necessary in nor out of universe. The greatest offender of this phenomena was the snippet about the bangs, which thankfully no longer exist, but several similar sins remain. Why would the M.E.G. mention its height, or go to the lengths to estimate it, when they could just say it's around the height of a standard human (or its host, if it doesn't alter that portion of their anatomy)? Why would they mention details about its hair? Why its clothing, which suffers from the same irrelevance as its hair because it's not like Kirai wears anything strange or noteworthy. Most of all, this passage humanizes the entity, as something anthropomorphic, capable of style and perhaps capable of reason.
Please ditch the trench coat; I understand that's there for artists to muse-i-fy your dear entity, but it reeks of 'god oc' and harkens back to a bygone era of this website.
Okay, where were we? So, I personally dislike the aspect of it granting favors to wanderers. It doesn't connect to any other aspects of the entity, and it makes Kirai seem more amiable than I would've liked. I know that the M.E.G. claims that his deals demand a price, but since we don't really see the consequences of making a deal nor have details contributing to the horror, I don't think it fits in the article. Also, you mentioned that Kirai wanders. How does the environment react to its presence? Perhaps levels become quieter, like the departure of birds shortly before the arrival of an apex predator. Give us something to really sell that this thing is beyond human comprehension.
Lastly, if you feel the need to mention that the entity is well-spoken and charismatic, perhaps it would be of value mentioning that nothing it says is to be trusted and all efforts exerted by the entity towards socializing is in service of tricking wanderers into spreading its infection. I have no idea if this is the case in-universe, but I believe it's what the M.E.G. would write about a hostile organism.
3. Nitpicks
The protagonist under-reacts in a myriad of scenarios. I don't know about you, but an average person's first reaction to finding their fingers rotten and calcified would probably be to scream or at least try to wipe the ooze away on impulse (before remembering it's a bio-hazard). You could say that this protagonist in particular is much more professional and composed than most people, but this isn't established in their inner monologue, with the events of them forgetting to tie their shoelaces at the beginning suggesting the opposite.
I felt like the timer was too long for how brief offset zero was. For comparison, I finished the main page with nine minutes left on the clock. Puts a bit of a damper on the 'racing for your life thing'.
The use of my wikidot username in the second offset was more goofy than unsettling for me. Especially paired with the seriousness of the situation, 'we lost one of our team members, centurys-lute' just doesn't cut it.
Overall, I feel like this is really close to an upvote from me, and so much better in execution than its previous iteration.
-1
I think putting him in the same room as an unpredictable entity goes far
I would actually completely agree, but there is a reason for this that will be touched on in a future page. It will be released… idk probably by december 2026? Its gonna be like 10 offsets lmao
Once the reader gets more context to who Overseer Michael actually is in terms of both ability and personality/the second layer to his conversation with Kirai, it'll probably increase the tension during a read
Suicide quickly forgotten by the plot
This is intentional, and there are lines included as to why. Your hard-wired M.E.G. training is telling you "THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO." You don't really know why deep down, you're just going through the motions.
"Perhaps you needn't give up on hope"
"Such a shame it would be to stain these hallways…"
and most importantly,
"Stage one can last anywhere from 10 minutes to…/During this stage (stage 2) the subject's mind will slowly begin to fall into the clutches of entity 73…"
All of the contradictory back and forth lines/half-assing something as serious as suicide is the first warning sign that something is already wrong, and that Kirai has already made its way to your brain. The full "explanation" is included in the files portion so that once you get there you can go "oh I've already lost it"
the rest of this crit section is also explained by this so I'm not gonna repeat what I just said, it's supposed to feel off because xyz
You can say "well it doesn't do a good job of that either" but I don't think writing the page that way is a bad thing with this intention
Why would the M.E.G. mention its height, or go to the lengths to estimate it, when they could just say it's around the height of a standard human (or its host, if it doesn't alter that portion of their anatomy)? Why would they mention details about its hair? Why its clothing, which suffers from the same irrelevance as its hair because it's not like Kirai wears anything strange or noteworthy.
yeah fair I'll change that when I get home in 3 hours
EDIT: here's what I changed it to: "Upon completion of the infection process, the host body will be completely overwritten by that of Entity 73's complete manifestation: a being identifying itself as "Kirai." While slight deviations have been noted over time, Kirai is most consistently seen taking the form of a lean, androgynous humanoid. Its eyes glow with a dim, white light, and are the only part of its body not seeming to be made of Abyssal Ooze. Its body is semi-absorbent, and constantly ripples with motion on its exterior. More refined instances of Kirai can often be spotted manipulating this substance into mock forms of conventional clothing, in order to conceal the majority of its mass. It has been shown to frequently alter this body mass at will, ranging from manifesting additional tendril-like appendages, to expanding its body to push itself through permeable surfaces." new/changed lines are in bold.
Okay, where were we? So, I personally dislike the aspect of it granting favors to wanderers. It doesn't connect to any other aspects of the entity, and it makes Kirai seem more amiable than I would've liked. I know that the M.E.G. claims that his deals demand a price, but since we don't really see the consequences of making a deal nor have details contributing to the horror, I don't think it fits in the article.
This comment just makes no sense to me. "Deal with the devil" is a very common trope used to its best extent in cosmic horror, which is what this page tries to be. There are countless examples of this, most notable being Nyralathotep, which is one of Kirai's inspirations in the first place. Once again, the negative connotations of these deals WILL be shown, but as always, you can't drop your entire story in one place. This page is the introduction to the idea of Kirai— and the full explanation of what exactly it IS will come, just not in one piece. Loredumping everything in one page just isn't a good way to do slow burn horror cough cough do you hear that mickey cough cough
(this will also answer how it relates to the rest of the entity— it is here for a reason. )
Basically, I don't see how this makes him amiable in ANY sense of the word, if anything it just makes Kirai even more unsettling because now you know that this guy is also trying to manipulate you, and you still don't know why
and finding out that "why" will be an essential component of the cosmic horror payoff later, you don't go crazy from seeing the monster, you go crazy from seeing things from the monster's perspective. This is kinda shown in the last offset with all the shaky text and stuff but that part is kind of mid so yeah ig you could complain abt that too
Kirai wanders…
Yeah I'll put a part in about that actually in abt 3 hours
EDIT: I added a whole section within that tab, I'm not going to paste it here but yeah
perhaps it would be worth mentioning nothing is to be trusted
Lute my friend
I literally did that
It is in the page
What do you want from me :sob:
I'll put more responses here but I have to go rn
Edit #1: More responses
Ok im back
the protagonist under-reacts
Again, that's intentional, and sort of part of the whole "Kirai is starting to influence you and keep you down" thing. The reason why "you" flip your shit in the last offset is because Kirai has been temporarily pulled off of you— that "wall" blocking everything from being fully "realized" is no longer there. It'd be like getting a cavity filled and suddenly the numbing agent wears off all at once, while they're still drilling into your enamel.
timer
It is literally impossible to make an interactive page fit the speed of the reader unless you have scrolling text (which would be impossible to do and keep the format here)
I gave it extra time because compared to the first iteration of this page (the shit one) it's almost 4x as long. Besides, in crit I still had people needing to refresh multiple times even WITH the 13 minute timer.
so I'm going to nitpick your nitpick by saying that trying to critique the narrative impact of something completely unrelated to the writing, simply because you yourself were not part of the group that change was meant to assist, is a total nothingburger from a feedback standpoint.
I get what you're saying, but you can't really say "having subtitles on a movie made it worse because it was a distraction from the immersion of the visuals." Yeah it's true, but also like… you can't really *not* do that.
The page is meant to black out when you finish reading the first offset. The average time it took people was around 13 minutes. You can't blame the author or the page for adhering to something other readers needed
This is a lot of yap for something I could have said in one sentence, but I swear to god, the amount of comments I get from people on other pages about "the text was too slow so your page is bad" or "the text was too fast so the page is bad" is gonna make me crash out. I HAD SOMEONE TELL ME "THE TEXT GOES TOO SLOW WHEN I PUT IT ON THE SLOWEST SETTING." MY BROTHER IN CHRIST. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN. DO YOU BLAME THE STOVE FOR BEING TOO HOT WHEN YOU TOUCH THE BURNER? But yeah you're not as bad as that because there is still a point to your comment, but like…. auegh. tangent over
username in second offset
If "you" are the "victim" in the initial page and first offset, how else would you suggest I reflect "you" once I switch to third person for the final part of the story?
I mean I suppose I could just give "you" a name there, but that kinda feels like a non-solution
really close to an upvote
Out of pure curiosity and nothing else, why did you choose to downvote if it was truly "very close to an upvote?"
wouldn't that be prime "novote" justification? Idk Im getting mixed signals maybe Im reading too far into it but yeah
