User blog:EtherBot/Random Writer's Showcase: Jay Ten

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Mazel Tov!! And a very merry New Years to you as well!  (QUANZA!!!)  Welcome to my fourth-ish random-esque quasi-writer's almost-showcase. Where I sort of showcase the work of creepypasta "writers" I think are either really cool, notable, or somebody asked me to do them and I don't have a spine. Feel free to suggest any writers you think are worth a showcase either on my talk page or down in the comments, by the way.

Last time I showcased "A person on the internet says" and  you can read that showcase here 



Jay Ten joined July 27th 2014, and since then he's written six Pastas. Three of them are marked as "Slightly NSFW" and "NSFW" so for decency's sake I will be taking a look at the  other  three. But for your own sake, if you've got the time and are a big boy who wears the big boy trousers, go check them all out. His work is all weird and creepy but the three we'll be looking at are Reduntant Red,     The Brown Spot ,  and  The Woman in Red . Lot's of "Reds" and "Browns" huh?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:15.75pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Helvetica,sans-serif;">Read them up fast because from this point on, any and all sentences I say are  SPOILER POTENTIAL , and liable to ruin the stories involved.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:15.75pt;">' <span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Helvetica,sans-serif;border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">In Rogue One, Rook gets blown up in the third act* and, also, Darth Vader is secretly Luke Skywalkers DAD!!!  <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:22.5pt0in2.4pt;line-height:15.75pt;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Woman in Red ' <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:4.8pt0in6pt;line-height:15.75pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Helvetica,sans-serif;">So TWIR is written in the form of a person's digital diary entry. At first it's like "oh it's one of those stories" and I'd be lying if I said it didn't fall into the same potholes as other diary pastas. The story, as it is, is pretty well written. But it just isn't written in a way that believably evokes "diary" for me, although I'll admit this particular story feels far more original than some of the rest.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:4.8pt0in6pt;line-height:15.75pt;">It'd be remiss of me, by the way, to just write out any plot description here too because half the fun here is reading between the narrators lines and seeing if you can peice together the twist prematurely, which-as you may notice being a common theme across all of Jay Ten's work-won't be so easy. One thing he does particularly well is crafting plot twists that feel deserved as well as completely out of nowhere. That being said, the specifc plot twist in TWIR isn't as earth-shattering as some of the others, and a few of the plot twists aren't even really "plot twists" more than they are just...the plot going in a direction you don't expect. Nonetheless I can't say I've had more fun reading an obligatory number of stories from the same guy for this series (he definitely made it interesting) and this story was an absolute highlight. Weird and kind of gross, with plenty of unpleasant imagery like " I could feel and smell her hot, rancid breath flowing over my face. " how can you say no to that?

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The Brown Spot
I want you to go and read the brown spot before you finish this blog.

That's right, go on, I'll wait. It's written in a way that'd make it a quick investing read even if it wasn't very short for a pasta of it's kind. It has a premise so simple that you flat-out just wouldn't expect a story so ludicrous, humorous, and deeply creepy and unsettling as it is. You find yourself getting wrapped up in the dream-like logic, the narrator's disconnected prose, the strange train of events both sends chills up your spine and also makes you occasionally chuckle at the inherent strangeness present.

It's written in such a way that it almost feels like it was actually literally stripped right out of one your nightmares. A nightmare you forgot you even had, yet somehow in reading it you catch glimmers of other bizzare dreams you've had. It has a sort of plot that feels like a continuous flow of the worst most creepy events that almost seem undercut by some that almost seem campy. And before I move on, just go and read it.

Assuming you read it, I have a few specifc stray observations here. Firstly, I think it's both great for humor and horror that the hand dangling from the wall doesn't actually do anything apparently "Threatening"

It waves awkwardly and then flips him the bird, before disappearing. Weird and creepy, what's it's motivation? Is this hand dangerous or just sort of dropping in...no pun intended. Apparently, I can only assume, it's spread like a virus to the rest of his family which is just also great. As soon as the email's started showing up at the bottom I thought I had it pegged, I was like "Oh I see, his hands are charcole black now aren't they?" but instead they did the other thing which...I should have seen coming. My twist also played on the gross disease theme it already had with the whole "brown putrid spots" thing, but I should have guessed it'd actually spread like a disease, DUH DOY

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Redundant Red
So the name Redundant Red seems like a pretty obvious reference to a poem that I cannot remember the name of. I bring that up only because I invariably send messages to the RWS writers and jay ten if you're reading this, pal, I need to know what poem that was I can't remember. It's possible, of course, that it's just based on "Redundant" starting with "Red" and he noticed that personally and thought it sounded cool for a Pasta name, though I kind of have to doubt it because "Redundant Red" seems like a pretty irrelvant name for the pasta proper.

Anyway, enough of that. In Redundant Red, a demon sneaks intoa little girls room. I assume he's going to kill her or do something nastier, but before he gets a chance she dies by regular real world horror. The demon, dejectedly, goes back into hell and gets re-assigned to this other person. But then they commit suicide prompted by the death of that first girl. The demon doesn't know what to think! What an unfortunate turn of events for him.

I love this story, not exactly scary but deeply interesting and really humorous. It makes me laugh more than it makes me sweat in fear, but these are uncomfortable, dark, and morbid laughs. The imagery is great at being gross and making the demon seems straigh out of a cheesy 80's album cover too, which sells the story for me. I think it's especially fun how the story, sans the demon, would've been a pretty decent pasta on it's own. Maybe a bit stock an anti-climactic, but still hollow and disturbing. Adding the demon gives it the more visceral, Jay-Ten-Edge that you feel in his other stories.

Conclusion
If there's one thing that made Jay-Ten stand out to me, it was the resonant sense that he has a ton of fun writing his pastas. They're each a strange mix of nightmare disgusting imagery, unconventional plots, and an inate goofiness that makes them campy even as they terrify you. I'd be hard pressed to say I had more fun reading any other writer for the showcases, but then again I've only just begun.

Happy new years.

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 * It's ok, that wasn't really that important of a spoiler