The Great Pretender by Sybil Dulcet - A man struggles to get a grip with who he in the real world and who he is online.  Short, Action, Comedy

Hi writer

I bet I will never see a protagonist by that name again in my lifetime  ;D

I weirdly enjoyed this to be honest, we are all aware of internet identities but this guy took it to the extreme, and I found his “exploits” comical.
I did wonder part way through, where this was going, and unfortunately it didn’t really go anywhere and just kind of ended, with a page to spare as well, ran out of time maybe?

Best of luck writer

Haha! Loved it.

The ending was a bit of an anti-climax but then you brought it back with the final image of the other guy.

KUNG-FU-A$$KICKER/GEZ
Fuck off, Mum, I’m working!

KUNG-FU-A$$KICKER’S MOTHER (O.S.)
Ok, sweetheart.

So funny his Mum's response.  ;D

No other quibbles.
Great job.

Ahoy Sybil Dulcet - My first Clueless critique ever! Don't worry it won't be harsh. I liked it. The ending was ho hum for me - I wanted a bit more punch. That's about it really. As I said I liked it so it's a short critique from me. Very good job. Best of Irish luck! :)_ghostie gal

Haha, this got a lotta giggles out of me!

The language is sadly spot on - I still love to play PlayStation online and sometimes get messages of that nature in return lol.

All the "imagine" scenes are well funny - love the dialogue used for Boyfriend#1.

Just having a character called KUNG-FU-A$$KICKER's MOTHER is funny lol.

Don't think you should have given Kung-fu-a$$kicker a name, I just like him known as Kung-fu-a$$kicker. But that's just me.

I think you can safely presume that I enjoyed this a lot.    

This was good. Felt real (in the character's warped mind, that is). Way too many extra characters, but I liked all their titles, i.e. Thai Boxer Man, etc. The heated texting/comments exchange felt authentic, so much so that I was rolling my eyes at it, haha.

I think it was really funny.  I was going to take a break from reading, then I saw your hero's name and had to keep going.  This is funny as h-e-double-toothpicks.  I loved it.  It reminds me of the IT crowd, where the Anonymous guy got rousted out by his mom and dad while he was saying threatening stuff online.  Awesome.

Yes, I agree with most of the comments above. i enjoyed the read and chuckled, but never guffawed, I swear. The ending was befitting for an incel.

Best of luck.

This was truly funny (language aside, but that's just me).  Then again, one of the things that was most humorous was the character's name!  You managed to get a lot of story into 5 pages - so great work with that.  Even after chuckling through the entire thing, I still managed to feel sadness for this guy - how many in real life live in a fantasy behind their computer screen?  Sorry, I digress.  Great short here, I can truly see how someone techy may want to grab this for production - hope I'm right about that  :)

Kathy

Funny!

Though not sure all of it was intentional ;-)

'bellend' - Brit writer?

Liked the fantasy elements of this, they'd be very funny if filmed.

Unfortunately it sort of just trailed off into the punchline we knew we'd get from the start.

Decent effort.

Had to think about this one for a little bit for commenting on it.  I knew the end punch line was coming and so it played into the stereotypical older guy still living at home in mom's basement playing video games, but that didn't stop my enjoyment of the story.   Sort a dream/fantasy sequence that gets interrupted by his competitor on the video game.

I think an actual fun twist would have been for us to see that it's either an attractive male or female that's the protagonist, and that they're actually doing okay for themselves - that would have definitely blown my concept of where it was actually headed.

Still, good job here.

You've instantly got me at the Bloodsport coaster. Great detail to start. (Kumite! Kumite!)

So, a neckbeard meme stretched out into a short film. Pretty funny. My main issue here is that the two big sequences don't really differ from each other in any meaningful way; these two fantasies tell us basically the same thing about our protagonist, rather than revealing different aspects of his fantasies and personality. If it's gonna be short and jokey, I'd stick to just one fantasy sequence (and a producer will thank you for that too, haha). If it's gonna be longer, I'd suggest making these two fantasy sequences have quite different meanings. And for the record, if you have room, three tends to be the magic number.

My other complaint would simply be the lack of surprise. This is all quite fun and funny, but it builds to a "reveal" that's basically what we would have assumed from the start. I think this would need a more unique perspective on our M&M-devouring friend to really stand out as a short.

But yeah, quick and funny and did make me laugh. Really did feel like a meme extended out into short form, which isn't a bad thing at all.

OK, so this one actively gave me a headache.

In some cases, however, I loved the dialogue.  "It's him! The handsome bastard."

Points are awarded to the author for pure manic energy, though I honestly had only the vaguest idea of what was going on, except for maybe the decent final reveal.

Hmm...

This is another one I'm not sure what to make of. Like Crazy Train it gets pretty manic pretty quick and I wasn't always sure what it was I'm meant to be seeing, so maybe that's something to consider if you do a rewrite.

Some pretty funny dialogue though. Wasn't sure how much of it was good, bad, or good in a bad way though if that makes sense?

Great choice of song though.

Good luck!

Two best lines: "It's him. The handsome bastard." and "Ok, sweetheart."

There's so much wrapped up in that second one...maybe the best line of dialogue in all the challenge scripts.

Enjoyed it.

Best,
Paul

I'm not a gamer, but the language used by the player is funny and likely spot-on. Great energy in this script. The fighting and commentary got a bit long. Like others, I was expecting the player to be someone other than a middle aged man-child. That seems like the most obvious choice.

Writer,

Your title was spot on. Lol.   Your main character was a legend in his own mind.   You got laughs out of me.  I knew a guy who read those kung fu magazines teaching you moves.   He never set foot in a martial studio in his life.   I hope and pray he never found himself in a situation where he tried what he learned in those magazines. Lol.    

Good job.

Didn't blow me away and I was a bit getting bored with the language... at first.
Once I saw what this guy was doing, it started to sink in that he was
indeed the Great Pretender. No real surprises and some repetition of
action. As he looks himself in the mirror, I just wanted to see him break
into a lame kung fu stance and throw some half-assed punches as he
is talking back-back his mum.
Made me think of that scene in the "Limey," where those warehouse bullies
are stomping on old Terence Stamp. One bully goes, "You come down here with
your big, dangerous gun. Yeah, we're quaking, we're quaking!"
Well, it was predictable, but spot on in a lot of ways.

I like original character names in that they make things memorable. I will never forget these. While I pretty much saw the ending coming, I had fun getting there.

Writer,

Wasn’t too thrilled here and it’s probably because knowing if the song is the one by The Platters, then I think I was expecting something totally different. Next, I think you took what could have been an entertaining scene and tried to turn it into a full story. Either way, lot of ass licking and not much story. Entertaining though!

Steve