Word Count: 2271

Title:  Black Ink

Genre: Paranormal

Blurb:   Something so sinister can lurk in every drop of black liquid, it can seep into a whiteness of a canvas and turn it into such a nightmare, you'd shield your eyes.

But perhaps Peyton Jones liked it, liked the boy she was so obsessed with turn a gun on everyone's head and pull a trigger that might make her wonder if insanity was an art, a blessing, or a curse.

~~NEW SUMMARY~~

"Trust me, she knew who she was dancing with the entire time. She just chose to see the good in everybody. I personally don't think she should change that about herself. She wears strength and darkness equally well, the girl has always been half goddess, half hell."

       Mrs Jefferson said, as she looked down at the swirling shades of blue. she closed her eyes, greeting the one colour she most despised, and leapt from the chasm into the beckoning liquid below.

Status: Ongoing

~

Starting Points: 30

Cover: I like it! *Crickets chirp*

Yeah, there's nothing more for me to comment here. Except: I hate when things are good. I'm forced to be positive and give a compliment and everyone knows that is entirely less fun.

*Heavy metal screech* Yay to negativity!

Title: Goes with the theme of the dark and gritty boner going on here. I don't know if that constitutes as a good thing, but...but at least it's consistent? Yeah, no points lost.

Summary: Yikes. I feel like I've seen this in all of the Suicide Squad memes before and this
"boner for Darkness™" has grown into a weird and stale fetishization of evil, mental illness, and edgy-Hot Topic fuckfest. At least that's what this summary is giving me. The old and the new one, actually.

-The old one is a blur of cliches swirled in convincing purple prose (which in most cases, it's an amateur writer masturbating and spraying their jizz over their own work and smugly smiling as they take a puff of their Cuban cigar to say, "Do you like that? I know you do, you little bitch. Now spread those cheeks for these wannabe 19th century writer teas."), and I̶ ̶a̶l̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶s̶p̶r̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶e̶k̶s- it almost got me until I actually turned on my brain and realized how cringe it was. From the girl intrigued by "darkness", to "blending the lines of insanity with beauty" (??#%!), to a goddamn murderous mentally-ill boy that she's lovesick over and there we have it: Every fanfiction I've ever read (not every, but a great deal).

-Anyway, the new summary isn't an improvement at all. If you've seen the old summary, like I have, it only makes everything much more muddled, melodramatic, and ridiculous. The little monologue (correction *winks*) Mrs[.] Jefferson spouted before flailing her dramatic ass over the cliff is the most Twilight thing I've ever read/seen since...Twilight or that chemical vat scene in Suicide Squad. Also, I don't know why there is such a huge space between the dialogue and the dialogue tags...What's that about? You also forgot to capitalize "She".

-My point: None of these summaries did anything for me. (-5)

Plot: Girl who shops and bleeds Hot Topic falls in love with a Hot Topic boy and now the things are happening. Angst, and whatnot.

Opening thoughts:

*Sees "Reviews chapter"*

-Okay, so there's a lot of author masturbation still going on because...reasons. Reasons that I understand, but it doesn't make it any less obnoxious. (-1)

-Random observation: Every time there's a random, ugly, and basic quote posted for *Aesthetic*, there's a bunch of comments screeching about how great that quote just anal fisted them and how they need more. Calm down, you weirdos. I'm taking points away for this book/author encouraging this nonsense by partaking in this garbage trend. UPDATE: Oops, that was a quote from the main character and not some random poet, songwriter, established author/book, etc. Oh well, it's still weird that it's even there when we are about to read the thing (I'm assuming?).

-So anyway, the chapter begins in an art class where a bunch of artists are creating their own individual pieces. The pieces also have a purpose in this scene, which is to reveal something about each of the characters introduced (don't know if they are reoccurring characters or not, if not, then I just watched a writer eat their own ass. Our usual activities though so...moving on!), and the type of artist they are through descriptive visuals. Pretty neat! Kudos for having a different opening than a lot of books on here that I've read. (I'll let the clear character introductions slide.) I actually took the time to read the entirety of the chapter, without any interrupting commentary, since most of it is just description, and not much else. At first I was kind of impressed until it became obvious a Thesaurus became your best friend here, which isn't necessarily a problem...it's just apparent. Terribly apparent. Lord, I sound like my own critics.

-In summary: I hated this chapter. (What a twist!) Why you ask? Well, besides from finely conveying the physicality of their art throughout the scene by utilizing language and diction to reach that goal--this was far too heavy handed, ate its own ass, the main character comes off as a complete and utter snob that seems like she wants to be an art critic rather than an artist, and the ending was absolutely terrible. The most headassery thing ever, actually. It was like when Harley in Suicide Squad (I will never stop talking shit about that god awful movie) pretended to act like she was going to accept Enchantress's deal, but her tone was a dead give away she was bullshitting, the fucking camera already had panned to the ground to show Katana's sword, and SOMEHOW the movie acted as if the audience was still too stupid to see the obvious ending. God, fuck that movie!

-Luckily, the chapter wasn't exactly garbage--it was just corny as hell--so I'm still here. *Forces laughter*

-Unfortunately for me, the next chapter continues right after that "cliffhanger" and now I have to trudge through this scene. Still.

(-6)

Characters:

-Peyton Jones. Wannabe art critic that is easily becoming my least favorite person. She's more pretentious than I am, which is alarming. Quick! Someone shove a pack of Marlboros up her nostrils, a worn down book of poems by Charles Bukowski up her ass, and hope that keeps her busy! I would add Rumors by Fleetwood Mac into the mix, but then I would get cursed by Stevie Nicks herself, so I'll leave my queen(s) out of this. "Imagine by John Lennon" it is! (-3)

-Joseph. Peyton's wet Hot Topic dream--or should I say love-m a r e? *Crickets chirp* *Cries* (-1)

Dialogue: Author doesn't understand how dialogue tags are supposed to be punctuated, and now I have to refrain from crying. Why must you make me take off points for something so simple? Why?!

-Excerpt: {"He's merely a normal boy with unique assessments of this world, you don't generally need to detach him in a constrainment all of you are stuck in. Just because he enjoys his way of creating art, it doesn't mean all of you need to approach him with distaste."}

*Sneers* I concur, "I eat my own scabs" Peyton.

-Also, this line doesn't make sense and needs to be re-worded ASAP: "...you don't generally need to detach him in a constrainment all of you are stuck in." "Detach" is used improperly (swap it out for "attach"), "generally" doesn't need to be added at all, and I'm wincing in result of its use. (Plus, switch out "a" for "the", and swap out "all of you" for "you all",OR, simply insert "the" in front of "all".)

(-2)

Inconsistencies:

-Someone kill me. I am pretty sure everyone in this damn art studio isn't playing show-and-tell and wouldn't be so immersed into this Joseph-guy's obsession with charcoal black, who is stuck in 2007's emo phase. Fuck off! Everyone in this art class/studio mess!

-I don't care how much "Dare I say, it was breath-taking" Headass-Peyton tries to convince me that this douche's art is otherworldly, when all I'm getting is a wagon of second-hand embarrassment.

-Chapter one's horrible ending:

*Ugly Joseph goes to wash his ugly brushes, while Ugly Peyton washes hers*

{ "A dark grey pair of sneakers stand beside me, and another paintbrush is thudded into the great pail of mitigating feelings. I watched in expectation, pondering what colour would include into the quality of vivacity.

As the brush plunges in. The water turns black."}

*Blinks for ten minutes*

-Do you see, folks? This is what happens when you use a thesaurus without using a dictionary afterwards. First of all, what the fuck does "what colour would include into the quality of vivacity" even mean, bro? Do you know? Because I'm sure everyone who read it, and thought it was pretty prose didn't even question it. This is in fact, yarger jarber. The fine art of gibberish. Anyway, that isn't even my problem with this. It can easily be fixed if you just re-write the sentence, but I had to make a whole thing about it because I'm me. It's the fact that foreskin-Peyton expected another color other than fucking black that we ALL saw Joseph-jibble dick paint with for like five minutes with the "darkest of coal, the darkest of black"?! Like what the fuck? Am I the only one who was flabbergasted that this line was treated with such false-grandeur and actual sincere suspense?! What did her ass expect? Fucking turquoise?! If that was the color then, wow, would I have been surprised by the (kind of corny) juxtaposition, that would only exist for the sake of metaphors, but still! (-5)

Likes/Dislikes:

-Funnily enough, I'm listening to Fleetwood Mac's Tango in the Night at the moment (hence, their name drop earlier on), and it's helping me continue this book, so thank them. *Dances in a field of flowers to Seven Wonders*

-How much times you used "loaded" in this chapter. I hate that I noticed it, and now i'm wondering if I'm the only one who saw it's aggressive presence every time, sticking the birdy at me. Fuck off, "loaded", fuck right off.

-This lacks soul. Everything that I have been exposed to seems to be at face value (ironic since everything is a metaphor), and is only serving me a mood board that I didn't ask for. I came for a story, but in return got "sad and arty" aesthetics.

-Sure, I can see that these characters are never actually talking about the thing they are referencing, and everything has a double-meaning--but that may just be the problem. It's almost grating to read at times because how forcefully the metaphors, analogies, and "deep-rooted" contexts are being given to us. Sometimes being a bit more straightforward can give your writing the realism it needs.

-This hallow room's air is suffocated by abrasive relations, eye-gouging similitudes, and incessant parallels that I can no longer intake, for this room resides within a mock-Gothic ruin, and an impending axe we cannot evade.

-That has got to be the most well-worded joke/metaphor I have ever made in this book, and I can't stop laughing at my iconic-ness. Someone bathe me in melted caramel as punishment.

(-5)

Grammar/Punctuation issues:

-Excerpt: "She murmurs while[...]" Uh, I don't know what's going on here but it seems like she's having a heart murmur with that lack of elaboration? What is she murmuring? I don't know something about this is annoying me, or maybe I'm just trying to be picky. Who knows! Anyway, it's still bothering me.

-Correction: "The hues on my palette looked melanchol[ic]..."

(-3)

My Takeaway:

-From what I've read, I can tell this book is a bunch of jargon. That's the easiest way to explain it. My writing kind of suffered from this too because I always had too much to say, too many ideas I wanted to illiterate, with no breathing space for the reader--so of course everything went to shit for my book (at least in my eyes). I won't say that for yours because I hardly read it, but I can say that I didn't enjoy this. I also will tell you to slow and calm down. Why? Well, because everyone gets it, you have your ways around words (compared to others on wattpad at least). I applaud you for that!--but can you write realistic characters that can say actual human things, and aren't constantly speaking in riddles? Can you display a scene that doesn't feel like a caricature of the word "angst"? Add a period after "Mrs" (American sensibilities for the win because everything is about us, of course!)? Stop using "loaded" and "black" so much? When you master all of this, you will ascend to a higher level of consciousness and our civilization will finally become a Type 1 civilization!

Why/When I stopped reading: Two days ago, I just never finished this damn review. It's here now, and it metamorphosed into some...thing.

Gummy Bears or Dust: You get................................................................

*Drums rolls*

Dust (both because I couldn't resist, also, I've been laughing for a good twenty minutes. Help!). In the only form that seemed to make sense.

*Chants along to Caroline by Fleetwood Mac*