Herr Mullen Reveiws at Random.

[Herr Mullen]

This is one I'm very fond of. I don't know when it was originally posted, but I don't think the author, Coyote V, is around anymore. Sadly, this is his only fiction, despite it being listed as the first in a series. So, Computer Troubles and Pleasent Suprises. Why do I love it so much? Well, despite being the first chaper of a series, it's fine as a stand alone, like The Hobbit.

Anyway, to the reveiw. It's a Matt Izzy coupling: that has my interest right there. Comparitively, that's a highly original choice. And that first paragraph encompasses everything everyone hates about computers in a nutshell.

This leads to an amusing turn of events with sporting apperatus. "Pain" was used twice in one sentence, which doesn't sound very good. Missed the apostrophe out of "Joe's", too. Oh, well. Proofread, dear authors, proofread.

Now, that first passage has established everything. It uses a cheerful and humourous outlook to tell the story: even the heel of Matt's temper is turned into a small joke. The story has atmosphere. Write that down.

Izzy is spot on, isn't he? Coyote is a dab hand and making him lovable. "I'm going to make it L33T." I hate that code, but I couldn't help but smile.

"His naked lover laughed slightly.
""One step at a time, please!""

That's contradictory. Always watch out for that. Also, I have have come to the conclusion that the Digital World is basicly a harem: everyone's so fast, it may as well be.

Further humour from Matt. I like this chap: the comedic work just has layers of style. It's all derived from the characters, and nothing impossible happens. Comedy is at it's finest within the realms of plausiblity, although a good serving of Python is always welcomed.

A return to an earlier incident in the story: the way it all ties together like this gives me the impression that the author's thought long and hard about the effects of every event that occurs in this story. There may not be many, but still. If this were applied to something on a grander scale, we could have an alright mystery author on our hands.

The sex scene looks awfully brief, but it's still of a quite good quality. No-one seems to think of foreplay in quite this way very often. This is the only time I've ever actually seen a positioning like this in any lemon: I daresay there are others, but this is the only one I've seen, and it's quite novel.

It's a good sex scene, with novelty, discription, and, to an extent, sensation, but it's too brief.

I'm also dissapointed we didn't get to see th other lemon scene.

One, final joke, before, like a dead cowboy, Coyote wonders of and leaves us all. Such a pitty: I'd rather like more from this fellow.

[Herr Mullen]

Hello, good evening, and welcome to another round of Pin the Grammar in the Sentence. In further delves into writing on the DaD, past and present (however Da Wolfe assures me I shall soon have a small team of mediums that will allow me to pop into the future, as well), today I shall be reveiwing, oh, I don't know, I'll pick a name at random... Dragoon.

Now, I've picked a single from the vast archives, and it's a Matt and Kari coupling. That's suprisingly original. Think about this, budding writers: TK likes Kari, but she dates her brother. There's a conflict point, right there. And Kari's brother is also Matt's best friend: if Matt ever treats her badly, then there's another possible conflict. That's two possible relationships to be explored, plus the original coupling. That can make for a very interesting story, indeed.

And let's not go into the possiblity of Davis forcing Ken into a rock band he just invented to impress Kari.

So, will the mounted cavilry take note and exploit these possibilies? Have I just opened a bag of sex without plot? Let's see what we have, here, and read on.

Ladies and gentlemen, Perfect Lovers.

One look is all it takes. Immediately, a dread that I have not felt since I was five, when a puppy chased me under a coffee table, decends upon me like the tablecloth as I attempted to hide myself from the short, barking creature. I see a block of text, which starts to space itself toward the end. Now, say it with me, class: "New speakers need new lines!" And indents don't hurt, either: left block is business ettiquette. At any other time, you use an indent. That's the "tab" button on most word processors.

Right. Onto the story itself. Maybe, just maybe, we'll be suprised, like a blimp entusiast watching his stocks plunge lower and lower into the firery depths of the capitalist equivilant of where bad people live when they're dead, allegidly.

Well, we have a point of conflict. I myself think the Hikari's much to honest just to ask once and accept Matt's decision. I think she'd press him. And I don't think Matt would act quite so rudely towards his best friend.

So, they kiss, and it's revealed that Kari's been around. That's a valaid interpritation of the TK, Kari and Davis triangle that makes for many good conflict points in lemon writing. Take note: many characters could be said to have dark sides. Authors can take advantage of this to create some interesting reads. See Wisemon's "You Don't Love Me Anymore", and, if you're up to it, "I Don't Care If You Love Me Anymore", the British version, which you can access by clicking on the big glasses below.

India? Where did that come from? It's more likely to by Kyoto, given the multiple ties in the series.

You can see the typos quite clearly by the poor context. Solution: proofread.

Another conflict point: Kari's virginity. It's all discussed and settled in two points of dialogue, but had it been extended into a story preluding the situation we currently find ourselves reading, then we could have had further fun.

"...But stopped himself making it last" needs a comma. Ten points where ever you put in missing punctuation correctly, by the way. We'll total up scores at the end of this round.

This is clearly a male writer. He has no idea how female physiology works: a lady will not have an orgasm from having something in her mouth. Ladies are much less volitile than men.

Sensations, fine, but here there's no real discriptive power that grips the reader into those sensations. Just vague words like "incredible feeling". Why not "The stirring, powerful sensation that hinted at a building climax, pulsing steadily in his hormonal centres"? Isn't that so much more impressive?

Remember: the things you do with words are more likely to thrill than the things your characters do with each other.

Any men reading this, remember that the female form is a beutiful thing. It has inspired countless artists, architects, and poets: to talk just of her areas using common slang is a discrace to their beauty. Complex literary constructs, pilliars of simmilie, archs of metaphor, and slightly veiled allusions to the actions and instruments being employed should be used. And don't restrict yourselves to the breasts, or the part where you put yourself: talk about her elbow. Explain the beauty of her knees. Craft her fingers in our minds, depict the small of her back; for heaven's sake, make us think of her skin. The most sexy parts of the body are not the bits that are actually sought or used, but the bits between. A floating pair of breasts and her delicacy just isn't sexy. How would it look if all those Greek sculpters had just spent all their time making sure the breasts looked good, and neglected her lower legs, or her earlobes? Sure, great bust, but that wouldn't rope anyone.

"Erotica is taking the duck's feather and playing it around her enterance: porn is just taking the whole duck and stuffing it streight up her." That's a rule to write by. Stroke her thighs, tickle her stomach, show us her midriff, depict us her sides. Build up to the scene, don't just say "He gets oral, she gets oral, then he impales her." That's obvious.

I like the rhyming dialogue at the end, there. That was a nice touch.

And thus we come crashing to the end of that round. To recap: talk about the entire body, and interesting stories are built on conflict.

[Herr Mullen]

Nate Hunter.

Let's Play the Game, shall we?

Now, Nate's a well established judge and runner of competitions. That means he has a clear idea of how this should go. So, for this one "Herr Mullen Reveies at Random" only, I'm going to drop my policy of refusing to numericly rate an author. I'm going to critisise and praise Nate through the use of his own rating system.

Have a pen and paper ready, and try to total Nate's Final score as we go along. We'll see who got closest to my total at the end of the round.

Let's begin on the angry train of reveiwing that rattles over the rails of author's thoughts and words, which lie hopelessly as the locomotive rushes over them with all the sencitivity of a cheetah as it mauls an antelope. Let's reveiw.

Right, there's some hint to a recent revalation within the Chosen ranks as to the exposure of Takeru and Hikari's relationship, however it could have been stressed more, maybe with the mention of some reactions. That first sentence fails to cut the mustard entirely. There should a comma between "her" and "now".

""Am I destined always to be lonely?"" That doesn't sound like the way Daisuke would speak. He'd say something like "I'm I gonna be lonely forever?" or "I can't believe no girl wants any of this!" He is quite arrogant, at times.

Veemon's first sentence needs a question mark. Daisuke's sudden perking up needs more exaduration. Like, "Daisuke suddenly sported a grin, from somewhere, and said "Hey! How about we go to the Digital World?"" He's got a lot of quirks. The thing we've got to tackle here is probably understatement. Nate's trying not to outright say it, but allow the reader's to interperate the character's mood with a small, inflatable paddling pool of thought, however it just doesn't work. It leaves the reader feeling slightly empty at the shallowness of the narrative.

"...Still visably depressed partner..." I thought he'd perked up when he'd suggested the Digital World? Did he perk up? Did I get it wrong? Or has he actualy come down again? Either his earlier emotions were not clearly expressed by the author, or he's used the wrong phrase, here.

This bit, ""Well," Yamato said. "I think I'll show up accepting Daisuke's invitation after a harsh fight with Jyou. Thanks for the heads up, too"," is worded really strangely. "I think I'll show up accepting Daisuke's invitation"? That sounds really, really odd. And that "...After a harsh fight with Jyou," pushes us deeper into the debths of confusion.

"Wearing" is repeated too much. Perhaps "donning" might have broken it up, a little?

We have this X-Files style time-space introduction at the begining of these two paragraphs. Okay, so we're now looking at this from Daisuke's veiw of a mission, but then it would probably be best if these introductions were kept in a uniform order.

The social plans Yamato alluded to on the phone come to pass, but I can't help thinking "What are they talking about?" because it wasn't properly stressed. Let that be a lesson to you, budding writers, that plot elements should be shown clearly.

Typo on "anbd". Spell check, and proofread. I suppose some things are still bound to slip through the net, though. Veemon needs either and exclaimation or a question mark when he's asking about dinner, to emphasise either his outrage, or dissapointment.

Getting 'round to the card game, Daisuke seems too direct. This is the trouble I have writing for him, actually: it's hard to write for characters you're the furthest from. Energetic, and with little tendendancy to ponder the bigger picture, Daisuke is as far from Nate Hunter and I than Moscow is from Rio. "Mild nature" wouldn't be seen escaping his mouth.

Why is everyone looking at Jun? Fladramon lost.

"Everyone looked shocked." Sure, obvious to the reader, gets your point across. However, discription through action (or, in this case, reaction) is always a lot more fun. Some one falling off a chair, gagging on their drink, or just laughing. It secures characterisation, and makes the reader feel more among real people, rather than reading about an imaginary group.

Ah, now here Sora's in character. I think she'd be a bit stronger, a tad more compassionate and thoughtful toward Daisuke, rather than desperately considering what this could possibly mean. However, she does take the natural reaction to Daisuke's admittion.

Yamato's covered that up very well, indeed. But, what, does Sora think he's bisexual? If he's with Jyou, then she'd be crying her eyes out about how stupid she'd been, not to read the signs and all that jazz.

The conclusion doesn't seem definate enough to end the chapter, I don't know why, it just doesn't.

Now, we come to the scoring.

Well, plotwise, I have to give at least a seven. It's well thought out, but not entirely well put across in places.

Character, I'm going to give a six. Daisuke's quite a way off, Sora's calmer, and I don't think Yamato, considering that he's faced down Devimon, Etemon, Miyotismon, and The Dark Masters alongside the rest of the Digidestined, would use the term "evil" quite so loosely as when he's talking about Sora.

Nate's perfectly fine of semantics. Just one or two slip ups, so I'll give him a nine.

Lemon isn't applicable. It's "I/A".

Writing-wise, there are no actual poetic or literary devices to highlight anything. I think it's deserving of a four, in that respect.

So, in total, that's thirty two out of fifty. Award yourself a point for matching each catergory, and a point if you got the same total. Esentially, I'm awarding points for thinking like me. That's really rather arrogant of me, now I think of it.

[Wisemon]

""Am I destined always to be lonely?"" That doesn't sound like the way Daisuke would speak. He'd say something like "I'm I gonna be lonely forever?" or "I can't believe no girl wants any of this!" He is quite arrogant, at times.

He's arrogant around others, but when he's alone, he's down-to-Earth and rather unconfident. Daisuke is not a one-dimensional character. What the writers tried to subtly imply is that Daisuke puts on a persona of arrogance and ignorance in order to live up to stereotypes that his peers would associate with athletes.

I liked "Play the Game." I don't think Nate left himself room to continue his series too far, and I'll agree that the story is lacking in advanced literary devices, but for what it is (lighthearted), it's above average.

[Herr Mullen]

""Am I destined always to be lonely?"" That doesn't sound like the way Daisuke would speak. He'd say something like "I'm I gonna be lonely forever?" or "I can't believe no girl wants any of this!" He is quite arrogant, at times.

He's arrogant around others, but when he's alone, he's down-to-Earth and rather unconfident. Daisuke is not a one-dimensional character. What the writers tried to subtly imply is that Daisuke puts on a persona of arrogance and ignorance in order to live up to stereotypes that his peers would associate with athletes.

I gave two examples for two different interpritations, but I didn't highlight it. There goes a point for my writing score.

I agree, it's an above average peice, and a bit of fun if you're looking for a shorter, less serious series to follow, rather than the many epics we seem to have. I should've said that, really. I didn't put myself across too well, that time. Actually, the last two reveiws have both failed to put across my recommendation. Those two both took me longer to do, so I suppose I must have lost sight of my conclusion, focusing too much on what went right and what went wrong. Ah, well: I'll make sure I give a real, personal impression of the story, next time.

[Nate Hunter]

I don't think Nate left himself room to continue his series too far, and I'll agree that the story is lacking in advanced literary devices, but for what it is (lighthearted), it's above average.

Thank you, that is what I was going for. I wanted to avoid making the reader think too heavily, and I didn't intend this to go past two, maybe three, chapters, all a bit shorter than my normal caliber -- my standard chapter aims for around 9 pages at the minimum, I'm looking at 5-7 for Play the Game. The culmination will be a DaiSora lemon scene, after the game is over, but in the same chapter that ends it.

[Herr Mullen]

And so we move onto the second page of this modern equivilant of the stocks. The poor author trapped whilst I hurl tomatos his way this time, is Devil.

I'm going to be looking at the first chapter of his Smart Davis series, entitled Chapter One.

No indent. Woe for the indent. He is lost. No matter, let's have a look at the writing itself. He'd given us a simple opening: "It all started after the digidestend defeated Melomyotismon and got back to earth. Davis started to think about how he was acting and made a major decision." Earth needs a capital, as it is a place. Now, two questions pop to mind, which are the things to real us inward and down into the text: firstly, what was he thinking about, and secondly, what was his conclusion? Let's find out.

Who is Soda, and what does he own? The apostrophe is used to indicate ownership and missing letters. The "s" itself shouldn't even be at the end of "soda": it's like "sheep", or "ninja". It's both the singular and plural of the word. This coming from a chap who says "pop".

Why would she flinch? "Oh, my, an unfammilier tone! I'll go into the corner, and cower until it goes away!"

Davis would have been bottling these sort of feelings up for years, if you used this backstory. He wouldn't just burst into tears. He'd be thoughtful, more than anything. Does anyone else think he'd be more likely to go to Ken?

Gaps where we're still in the same passage! Bad formating. Ah, well: at least all the dialogue isn't just on one line.

Has Gatomon returned to Myotismon's service? She'd never say anything like that. And Tai wouldn't, either: he lead the Digidetined, he put up with Izzy, Joe and Matt. All of them would drive a persona like the one applied to Tai here to beat Joe about the head with Izzy's laptop.

Here the break is justified.

"Across", not "a cross". The difference is one is a noun.

Davis is taking this a little too hard. I don't think Yolei (as her name is really spelt) would close the shop. That would deduct from family profits. Ladies use purces, not wallets.

There's a Digimon in the real world, and they don't even care. It's just attacked them, is only unconcious (I'm assuming), and they've just left it there. Also, Davis would not be out of breath. It's a jump, not a marthon.

Gatomon was a fantastic villian in her time, so I don't know why she's such a bumbling incompitent here. She wouldn't attack Davis. Is she channeling the spirit of Ladydevimon, or something?

Nice coupling: that's unexpected. Someone write something dedicated to those two. There could be so many potential conflict points: Hikari moping after TK, Tai mad at TK for making Hikari so upset (possibly), and Davis annoyed because it's his sister, and sisters don't really have sex. They're like parents, in that respect.

I've spotted several out of context "Theres". Remember: "There" means "Over there!", it's a place. "They're" is a contraction of "They are", and "Their" is possive. "Davis and TK played with their little rubber duckie".

What's "a black"? Black's an adjective, not a noun. Proofread, please!

Really poor wording with all these "excepts".

For someone who's apparently a genius, Davis is really, really stupid. So is Devimon. But it's good to see Devimon as a villian, again: he was in the Dark Whirlpool, but he didn't really do anything.

It just struck me that there's no grammar except question marks at the end of speach.

Davis gets a fantastic line when he returns. That's the highlight of the entire story.

Why doesn't he have pneumonia as well? He's just fallen into the freezing ocean.

Fair, damnation, fair! Here's a huge lesson to authors: stay awake during English lessons at school.

"Tight" isn't how a lady would discribe Davis's backside: it's more how TK would discribe it. Or Ken.

Well, hurrah. What an ending. Parties, stories, ice-cream and jelly.

My veiw on this story is that the pretence is like something out of one of those "Archie" comics. It might be possible to do, but not like this. The charcters are distorted, and grammar and spelling is a huge issue. So is the writer's ability to write a good fight. Either the narrator has been kidnapped, or he's lost all ability to discribe things. Can we have some metaphor in there, please?

[UnknownH]

Isn't this that same fic that was on the DHZ where davis was a total power whore and got way too much power?

[Herr Mullen]

I have no idea. I didn't look.

[Herr Mullen]

Welcome back to the column that leaves so many singing "Just You Wait, Mr. Mullen!" This evening, I'm being slightly unauthodox and reveiwing someone who isn't actually on this site. How bad of me.

But, who am I to deny you the pleasures of new reading material simply because the author isn't one of us (yet)?

I present Whipped, by Aphrael, from Slashfiction.net. It's a Ken and Daisuke lemon that contains a whip.

It gives me shivers.

It sarts with a dream. This is just perfect lemon. You know immediately that you've come to the right place. Spelling and grammar is perfect, however, due to the site's formatting there's far too mch whitespace and no indent. Ken is dead on: his thoughts are perfectly phrased. The streightfoward, no metaphor style that I can never seem to do style is a class act. The author forfils all the W Questions in her first passage. What's brillient is the character involved: even the Christmas cards are in character. Miyako makes me titter.

The direction the author chooses to take Ken here is not out of character. I think everyone in Digimon could be said to have at least two sides. Iori could be a rightious paladin, so bold and noble in his morality and his strive for a good life, or he could be an uptight, self rightious little git who ruins everyone's fun. The same goes for Ken when he discovers his whip, here: I'd expect him to recall the Kaizer, and to lament on what an evil person he was. However, he could have gotten over that after his adventures, or he could simply rate Daisuke higher on his priorities list than hating himself. It appears that he's done the former, although he does wonder why he ever kept the thing.

Minomon is so great.

This is the odd one: "Ken wasn't gay". That's hard to understand, however it has been proven that all people can feel attraction to their own gender. However, Ken's infatuation goes beyond the usual boundries of these attractions, which usually result in regretted one night stands.

Bah, who cares? It's a satisfactory plot device and gets us a good sex scene. Come on, let's go.

Daisuke is explored from Ken's veiw. Friends tend to do this: make theories on why each other are the way they are, and such. Ken himself probably would have some leaning toward this fetish: goodness knows his Kaizer costume was a step away from either a tracksuit or bondage gear.

The repeated theme of sex with Ken's errection throughout the passage is fantasticly good build up to the climax of the story. My dears, it is foreplay leading to an eventual literary and literal orgasm.

Daisuke and Jun work together so well, here. The exchange between them and Chibimon is pure, unadultered fun. Women are great for this sort of thing: they have tremendous insight into how and why each character would operate. Never have I heard a woman roll their eyes and say "Men! I'll never understand them!" and this is because they do. Gentlemen, the women in your lives will know you best. The smart ones, anyway.

Returning to the topic at hand, when Daisuke suddenly feels his control shift, he gets very nervous. Concidering that he saves the day every time toward the end of the series (I've heard it called "The Sailor Daisuke Effect"), I can imagine it would feel unnatural to him for things to be out of his control, especially with loyal friends like Ken and Chibimon.

Daisuke and Ken are toying with us every step of the way. I tell you, it's the way women think.

I do love these characterisations. Someone send this girl some chocolate, although I don't know where the cousin's nightclub comes from, it's just a plot device.

The way Ken toys with Daisuke is cruel. That part actually chilled me a little. He becomes such a predator: mind games galore. It's all really nasty, but goodness is it ever hot.

Frued said that the most frightening thing is the uncanny, so for Ken to change from his kind and sencible self, but not quite becoming a sadistic Kaizer, insted opting for politeness and a soft sort of tone is frightening in some way.

This a rare thing I have talked about elsewhere: dialogue in sex scenes. I'm certain that it all stems from a woman's expectations of want and need when being made love to, but the way it's written is so powerful in its expression it's fasinating to read.

Daisuke's reaction to Ken is brillient. The reader is manipulated the entire way through this scene with a masterful use of strings.

What a fantastic closer to the peice. In fact, the entire thing has pushed me into awarding this story the second "Herr Mullen Hurrah!"

Hurrah!