I'm sorry this took so long for me to get to. Yes! This is very helpful, and several points sparked great discussion with my other readers, such as initially thinking the protag was a woman. There was one other reader who did the same thing and finding out why was interesting.

The second half is posted [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/vt8gh9/3021_the_rtist_pt_22/?) if you'd like to finish it. No pressure - thanks for reading and leaving your thoughts on the beginning.

Dang. 

(Apologies writing on a mobile and scattered brain)

For me and compared to a lot of stuff I have read recently this is pretty tight. My brain is pretty scattered right now and hard to organize frame a response to this. 

I was getting that creep factor of Tracy Lett’s *Bug,* Ogawa’s *Memory Police,* and anticipating going somewhere much darker like Koja’s *The Cipher* or Ducournau’s *Raw.* All the while Lady Gaga was asking me to show her my [teeth](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PzvlqfFbfaM) … so hitting the right vibe. 

Problem? For every Oyeyemi’s *White is for Witching* there is a Stage’s *Baby Teeth* OR Bazterrica’s *Tender is the Flesh.* (Actually in terms of the most disturbing and well written of this plumb line is probably Murata’s *Earthlings*) So many of these works snag that beginning dive, but then fizzle out to sloppy, forays into a sort of self-indulgent bathos. 

I feel it’s hard to really give full feedback until I read the ending. There is a lot of great shad

No. I write the idea in my head first and figure out what to do with it later. Though I'm generally aware of publications that do stuff like this.

It's also such a long shot with each individual submission that I don't think it's worth getting married to any of them before an offer's on the table.

Cool cool cool, Re:market I meant like a specific mag or couple of mags you wanted to submit to?

Small literary journals. Nothing glamorous, but I got paid and was on the cover of one of them, and anything on the resume helps.

I am also working on my MFA portfolio, which this is a candidate for. I've stopped saying that when I post because I get a bunch of unsupported opinions about what MFA readers are/aren't looking for and it isn't helpful.

There is absolutely a target market for surreal, contemporary, literary horror. My most recent reads in that vein are Lennon's "Subdivision," Saunders's "Lincoln in the Bardo," Kasischke's "When a Stranger Approaches You." I'd even go so far as to include Murakami in that niche.

It may help for context while/if you read the first half here: I am a woman. This is about male gaze. It isn't catering to the male gaze.

So I’ll try to crit this later, but first a few questions:
Where did your stories land if I might ask?
Mfa applications? Or am I mixed up?
Is there a target market for this? I’m working on a comparative crit style like this:[link](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/u6x9i6/2729_tallymarks_nsfw/i5pnmlk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)

i meant the neighbor, why the neighbor would talk to him. that's where you lost me. 

in either case, that was my reaction, make of it what you will, including dismissing it whole-cloth

good luck!

Thanks for reading!

I'll respond to this fully tomorrow at work, but I did want to address one point you make.

I'm a woman, and this is written explicitly to explore how the internet allows young, vulnerable men to impose their fantasies and parasocial attachments onto women who don't know they exist. She is supposed to be a man's fantasy, which I (hopefully) turn inside-out in the second half.

EDITED to ask whether you know what ASMR is, because how people who do and don't know respond to the story is important to know.

first of all, congrats on getting your shit published!

\--alright, off we go:

1. Opening sentence can be stronger. the first 2 sentences would be stronger if combined in one punchier sentence. work on the opening sentence more. and kill the "even" it gives me a knee-jerk ugh reaction from the very start. The chicken breast was lovely, though, an excellent tactile detail, excellently close-thirded.
2. The second paragraph is confusing to me. Make it, "That's why I watch the videos" and keep the videos and rtist closer together, because now you mention the videos, go on to talk about nightmares while only tenuously linking them to the touch deprivation and the chicken, and by the time we're at rtist, it's confusing af. this second paragraph needs reworked.
3. Kill the now at the beginning of para 3: if you're watching her on your phone, you're not watching her yesterday or tomorrow.
4. I love how you mention that her teeth are all intact
5. .....

.................

so this is cool and

Yes! Saw you posted that earlier. Aiming to give in a read ahead of the weekend 🤙

You can see for yourself [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/vt8gh9/3021_the_rtist_pt_22/?), if you are so motivated! No pressure. The fact that you stayed up to finish the first half is a massive compliment in itself.

This was a fantastic read. Creepy and engaging. I was about to put my phone down for the night when I decided to click on your story, but I ended up reading the whole thing.

I liked the atmosphere of the night-owl type character, and the visceral descriptions of his living conditions. The whole story felt “fleshy” somehow. Probably due to your word choices. Leading with that description of the raw chicken, and then using a call-back on that chicken, was a good choice. 

I’m not a fan of ASMR, but I do find it creepy lol. Are you building up for the neighbor is going to end up being the Rtist?

The issues are noted for the next draft. You were not the first person to mention that the gender wasn't clear, so that's something I need to fix in the next draft. I also ended up trimming the UI stuff down. I was trying to show all the ways the site didn't work like a normal website, but honestly, after describing it as a flat black screen with a search box, I don't think much more is needed. 

If you are interested in finishing the story, either for fun or a review, I've just posted it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/vt8gh9/3021_the_rtist_pt_22/?). Thanks for your time on the first installation!

I was completely sucked into the story until I reached the descriptions of the website’s UI. This ruined the flow and jerked me out of the narrative. Most people reading a story about ASMR will be familiar with how one navigates to a website, uses a forum’s search function, etc. If a character was doing a load of laundry, you wouldn’t say “Bob reached into the hamper, which was sort of like a plastic bucket, but wider and with oblong holes cut into the sides, and grasped the first soiled item of clothing. He then inserted it into the opening of the heavy, immobile appliance which would, given an hour’s time or so, return his clothing clean but quite damp.” See how weird that sounds? You’d say “Bob started the washing machine.” I think you could cut about a page of descriptions down to 2-3 sentences.

That being said, you took something that I personally have absolutely zero interest in, and it somehow transfixed me. This is a story about some lonely, depressed person watching ASMR vide

You're writing on a level above me so I don't feel comfortable giving you a bankable critique. That being said, reading that without saying something feels criminal

That was creepy. Everything's gross, and there's something very wrong with the MC. The isolation. Those great descriptions. Yikes. 

>>!The Rtist interrupts my thoughts with the eponymous peach. She whispers her secrets to it, so quietly even the microphone can’t pick out the words. Drags her rose-colored nails over the peach’s surface. I imagine the skin rising in bumps to match my own. Her eyes are full of love for the little peach and I can’t breathe. She’s sitting on the edge of my bed, moonlight captured in her strawberry hair, the peach’s fragrant skin not just perfuming but purifying the air. I am warm and safe. She touches it to her lips and nuzzles its fuzzy flesh. I feel her against my neck, my flesh, everything warm and safe. 
She bites. !<

I had to stop and look away from the screen for a second at the bite 

Hello folks, been a while since I posted here last. Happy to say 2/3 of the short stories I've had critted here have been published, so I'm coming back with the first half of my slipstream short story [The Rtist](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q4FO9ySEPvHBBW4EEQGzfyQ-yNw75Lki9je5nCxGwPI/edit?usp=sharing).

This leans toward the horror element of slipstream but there's little to no outright gore. Reader discretion is advised.

Critiques: 

[[1981] Temple of Redemption ch2 pt2](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/vnp3hp/1981_temple_of_redemption_ch_2_part_2/iea4o9w/)

[[1601] Starved Vines pt1](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/vnp3hp/1981_temple_of_redemption_ch_2_part_2/iea4o9w/)

[3044] The Rtist - pt 1/2