LiamRomK 2023-12-24 12:01:37

I hate the way NG doesn't allow indentations at the start of paragraphs :/

Remi-le-Oduen 2024-01-10 11:46:02

A good story, the witch got what she deserves. I found it somewhat strange at first that people of a relatively small community betrayed one of them so easily, but second thoughts, yep, it definitely happens. Maybe it would be more convincing I'd it was shown that the witch pacified them with gold first ro make the rest overlook what was done to a child, and only after that started to turn the rest into beasts.

JAMRIOT 2024-01-12 01:19:46

Absolutely excellent work, thank you for participating! This is one of the most impressive works I've seen someone do, when it comes to having stakes behind a character and really getting a feel for the world presented. With so little, you were able to tell us so much about the village, their way of life, and particularly the main character's family's occupation.

I particularly liked how you were able to so vibrantly express the world, the creatures, and the feelings of the character as a beast (especially of his hibernation) without ever coming off even slightly as pretentious or sanctimonious. I have been giving suggestions/critiques to most pieces I've read, but there's really not much for me to offer here, considering the time and word count limitations imposed by the Writer's Jam. Overall, this is a very engaging piece and was a joy to read! Stay tuned for winner announcements very soon on my Newgrounds and Discord! Thanks again for participating!

Intrapath 2024-02-17 00:08:36

First off, it was really cool to learn some new weathery words from this story, like clement and gelidity!

Considering the phrase "razor-sharp fangs" was used a few times to describe the witch's teeth, for a while, I thought there might be a twist that she was a shape shifter herself. Makes sense that if she could do it to others, she could do it to herself (without consequences), right?

The twists that were there grabbed me, though. I thought the protagonist's slumber was just hibernation until I saw that years had gone by, and it was impactful to see that everyone else had turned into animals by the time he got back to the village.

By the end, I took the story's metaphor/meaning a few ways, and wondered why the protagonist regained most of their humanity in all that time that had passed and not the rest; was it because of his long slumber or was it the fact he traveled far from home and away from the witch's influence? Did the witch turn people back into animals if they started to recover? It made me think of the phrase "you can't heal in the same place you got sick". Though it didn't seem like the villagers intended for any of what occured to happen, they did welcome the witch into their home, effectively making it a place of illness... Which itself might say something about letting your guard down around charismatic outsiders.

The only part that bothers me is that it felt a little too easy for the protagonist to kill the witch; it was hard for me to believe that all the animals in the village, after all that time, hadn't killed her (or at least maimed her). Then again, maybe the protagonist regaining most of their humanity gave them the clarity they needed to confront her in a way the others couldn't.