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Thunderdome Week 552: Secret Relationships alright let’s keep it real simple this week I’d like you to write me a story about two characters who are in a secret relationship. That’s it. Their relationship can, but does not have to, be romantic. If it is romantic, feel free to write about a secret throuple. Otherwise, the relationship should be known to only these two characters. (Whether that changes by the end of the story is up to you.) If you want a flash, I’ll give you something I’ve watched / read / listened to lately for inspiration. You’ve got 1500 words. No erotica, poetry, google docs &c. Signup deadline: Friday 11:59PM PST Submission deadline: Sunday 11:59PM PST judges rohan Beezus you? writers Strange Cares Idle Amalgam Chernobyl Princess Slightly Lions derp Thranguy Bad Seafood Violet_Sky rohan fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Mar 4, 2023 |
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Feb 28, 2023 23:41
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Week 551 Crits Violet Sky - Mermaid The opening paragraph jumps us in nice and quick but the focus is a bit muddy - we start on the rich girl, sure, but then we pan out to crowds and the state. Then, with a jerk, we’re dragged back in to focus on the PoV character. Minor pedantic point - I’d separate out the text of the note. It blends into the preceding text, particularly as you’re starting the two sentences almost identically: “I read the note …” -> “I saw you …”. I like your ending. It ties back into the opening metaphor of the mermaid and recontextualizes it in a very satisfying way. I think it would have been a bit stronger if you’d built up to the ending a bit more, though. As it is, the tension rises very slowly - Jack doesn’t actually do that much more, even if he is getting a bit obsessed - and the final jump to the body in the bathtub is a bit too sudden. Would this have worked better if there was something I could look back on later as a reason that Jack should have doubted Olive? Maybe. That line about the bathtub shouldn’t be hidden in the middle of a paragraph like that. There’s definitely a time and a place for hiding a shocking revelation in a larger body of text but it’s generally where you want the reader to almost miss it, in the same way that the character might almost miss it. Being confronted, front and centre, with a dead body up close isn’t that scenario. You could have done nothing more than separate it out onto a line by itself and it would have been stronger. A couple of lines of dialogue could do with clearer attribution - like the penultimate “Y-you told me to” - and there a few rough edges that dragged me out of the moment (ironically, “just then” did it for me - the preceding dialogue already had me in the immediate moment and going “just then” was jarring). Other than that, good work. Slightly Lions - A Tale of Two Guineas Given that this is a piratical yarn, I’m going to plunder a metaphor from you: your story is too low in the water. There’s too much going on - to say nothing of three separate viewpoints, which is a lot for 1,400 words - for the story to get very far. There’s not really enough time to develop the four separate scenes - high seas, judge’s chambers, docks, streets - into a coherent whole. We get some good characterisation out of our three viewpoint characters - Captain, Judge, Factor - and you do a good job of making it clear that they’ve got inner worlds, got schemes and plans and thoughts going on, but it’s all at such a distance. Forgoing names for titles is a fair choice but it limits intimacy. You tell us that the Captain is a competent pirate and you show him as a decent man, in his own way, but it’s not really enough for me to care about him or whether he lives or dies. What feels like the main conflict of the story - can the Judge avoid a riot? - is over and done with too quickly. Actually, that can be said for the previous conflict of “can the Captain outrun the Company ships?” too. There’s not enough development - just a rapid-fire “this happened then this happened then this happened”. Which is a pity because I really like the concept behind your closing paragraph. The Factor’s scheme is revealed a bit too late and explained a bit too clinically (plus a character’s backstory is not needed in the penultimate paragraph - I don’t care about the twist long-lost brothers revelation at this point) but I really like the symmetry of the beginning and ending. “There are many kinds of pirate” is a great final line. Trim a bit of the fat from the proverbial long pork and you’ve got a solid concept here. I think you’d benefit from stripping it back to one or two points of conflict and really building those out first. Pham Nuwen - Chinook Run I like your opening scene. I can’t really say much more about it. Some of the paragraphs that come after that feel a little unnecessary, save for flavour. I notice you’re right up against the word limit - if you had to, could you do a little trimming here? That said, you bring in the cave door quickly and my interest is instantly captured. The following paragraphs slowly ratchet up the tension with the mention of the dream and of Frank’s own impatience and by the time the next scene break rolls around and night falls I’m already thinking of The Enigma of Amigara Fault. Not in the “I’d rather be reading …” sense, either. Oh, involuntary cannibalism. FUN. The ending felt a bit rushed, if I’m honest. I realise it’s a tough thing to bring that sort of story to a satisfying conclusion but it needed … something. As mentioned above, if you were too pushed for words you could have cut a fair bit of the opener - basically everything until you get to the river could be condensed significantly if needed. It gives a good sense of time but not enough to justify the wordcount. Horror doesn’t need to be fully explained. There’s a good weight to “well, this hosed up thing happened and now I have to live with it and integrate it into my future life”. The impact just feels a little flat and generic in the final couple of paragraphs. Something specific to drive it home for Norman would really help - going to San Diego because it’s warm is a good start but not enough. Strange Cares - Seance I like your prose. You weave in just enough slang to give a flavour to the PoV character. The thing is, a lot of it is just flavour. Nothing between “Joe had been eating …” and “... between cuckoldings” adds anything else to the story. It’s a slightly amusing backstory, sure, but nothing significant that couldn’t be woven in more naturally elsewhere. And cutting back in with “Anyway, like I said …” really drives that sense of rambling home. After that, there are a few things you need to keep an eye out for. Repetition is one: “The easiest ones were on the suckers list” is followed only two sentences later by “They were the easy ones” and then “Easy money” shortly thereafter. And the thing is, even after that, a lot of this is still just setup. Nothing starts to actually happen until Sally arrives on the scene. Could this have been the story of the scam gang and how they got to where they are? Maybe but that didn’t feel like the focus. I checked: that’s over 1,000 words into a 1,948 word story. You could cut and condense and combine so much of that and still retain a clear sense of who the narrator is and what they’re up to. The actual action? It’s fun! I like Harry Houdini storming into the forefront of things like some pulp PI, fists swinging. There’s some good comedy there! But none of it’s driven by the PoV character, whose role in the story is “hide in a cupboard and then throw up”. I want to read Houdini’s story! I want to read about someone doing something - not a scammer that I have no sympathy for hiding in a cupboard. Your final line is a solid comedic beat. You can write some drat good sentences. I’m just not sure where the story was. FlippinPageman - Baudry’s Bandits You open on two core issues: the repetition of “deep in conversation with a woman in a gold dress covered in rose prints” and the fact that you’ve now got six named characters right off the bat. That’s a lot for a short story like this and it makes me think things are going to get cluttered. And here come more. To say nothing of named streets, cities, newspapers, stagecoaches … Naming something, particularly in short fiction, denotes it as important - and it seems like everything right now is important so my attention gets dragged everywhere at once. After that? A slick but very briefly described highjacking. You cut around a bit too much for it to flow smoothly - from the coach passing the cafe, back an hour to the digging of the trenches, forward to the horses tripping and then forward again to some indeterminate alley and point in time. Ending that first scene “The next day, the real work began” is a great hook but undercut slightly by the fact that nothing so far has particularly felt like work. You note a fair amount of setup but not much effort, if that makes sense? I’m definitely intrigued by where the plan is going but you keep cutting away to brief backstories and asides. The paragraph about the truth of the current omnibus? Good stuff but it felt like it was meant to be dialogue from the characters. I like the description of the new coach they’re building/converting but it’s maybe a bit indulgent for the wordcount. I have no idea what the line about the magnolias is supposed to refer to. I can’t help but love your ending. A cross-European Volkswagon Type 2 brigade, centuries before its time. It’s roughly executed - I have no idea which of the characters the man with sideburns is, nor the woman, and initially thought Nicollette was one of the gang that I’d just forgotten - but it’s a great concept. The problem is, it feels like your story gets started only in the epilogue. Rohan - Knowing Your Place I’m reading and reading and have little to say except that “Vestigial cannons punctuate the bluestone above, shoring up the town’s military significance like Howcroft’s false leg.” is a great sentence/simile. And then I read the rest straight through. “Dense as the rest of him.” Goddamn. Your dialogue is quick and sharp. Your characters are vivid. Could you have trimmed some of the opening down a bit? Perhaps. Seems a very petty thing to point out at this point, though. If I had to offer more substantive criticism - and I really ought to try - I’d say that it’s a fairly safe story. You can see from fairly early on that the women are going to want to get revenge and fairly reliably assume that they’ll get it. I’d have liked to see a little more. Bad Seafood - Jewels in the Dark I had to re-read the opening a couple of times to pick up that Gabriella was impersonating her brother Nico. It made things a little bit confusing until that point. After that it was smooth sailing. You do a good job of dropping in things like the image of Nico bleeding out on the couch, or all the little details around Murdock that make him seem dangerous. The latter, in particular, does a fantastic job of raising the tension and we get a clear picture of what Gabriella has set out to do - and the dangers she faces - without having to state them outright. There are a couple of lines that I found a bit jarring - the sudden tense switch in “A piercing sensation was worming through her stomach”, for example - but otherwise it’s all pretty seamless. Strangely, the thing I keep coming back to is that a random guard shoots Gabriella. It doesn’t feel wrong, as such, just a little bit convenient - as though you know she’s got the drop on Murdock and Casper and you still need her to be bleeding out at the end. Still, that little detail by no means detracts from the story.
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Feb 28, 2023 23:55
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Mar 1, 2023 00:54
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Mar 1, 2023 03:10
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i will do it
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Mar 1, 2023 04:01
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In, flash me
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Mar 3, 2023 01:10
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Thranguy posted:In, flash me
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Mar 3, 2023 02:17
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I volunteer as judge tribute.
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Mar 3, 2023 23:27
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In.
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Mar 4, 2023 01:41
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Mar 4, 2023 03:54
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sign-ups are closed one judge spot still open
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Mar 4, 2023 10:41
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Deadlift 1245 words Fitness At Any Price. That’s what the sign says above the gym. That's what we offer here. A place for anyone to get in shape, flexible plans, flexible payments. A dream of equality in fitness. I remember when we hung the sign, all those years ago, me and Tony Garbanzo. It was the day we’d been dreamin’ about since we met at that illegal underground arm-wrestling tournament. We’d been high fiving and making flexes, watching the place come together. Then when our first customers started trickling in, that had been the limit, the main deal, the coming attraction. We’d had pumpos and pumpettes all building their bodies together. It was a utopia of flex. It didn’t last. We couldn’t compete with the gimmick gyms, the ones where you swung around a sword to get buff, or climbed up on rocks or did crossfit. A sliding price scale and all the nescafe you could drink just wasn’t in the same league. People left to get their meat tended somewhere they could post on their social media, places they could crank out a boast from. We had some holdouts, sure, but it was the kind of guys who were there because they lived up the street. Tony started taking his body real seriously around then. Pushing and pumping and chugging that protein mix to bulk it large, beef it huge. He’d get in before sunrise and lift until dusk. Like if he couldn’t control the world, at least he could control his muscles. And he got gains. He got massive. He beefed it supreme. But one fit guy ain’t enough to draw back customers. When he told people how he got so robusto, it was too much for them. No one wants a workout plan that just says “PAIN” every day of the week. Even then, no matter how vascular his body got, bulging out veins like a dracula’s wet dream, it was never enough for Tony. He started taking supplements, doing freaky switch-muscle plans, lifting and lifting and lifting, longer hours, better gains. Working himself till he dropped asleep on the weight bench, his arms still going as he dreamed of bigness. Until one morning I came into the gym, and Tony was lying dead on the floor. Coroner said it was a massive heart attack. Betrayed by the most important muscle there is. Our gym nearly closed after that. It’s hard enough running a place alone, let alone one where somebody worked themselves out to death. But I stuck it out. Stayed late, going over the books, coming up with new marketing plans like “kids workout free” or “bring your dog to gym day.” One night I was there all alone, cleaning dog crap outta the rowing machine. I’d turned off all the lights to save money, all except the ones right above me, so the rest of the gym was like a vast empty mouth around a little protein bar of light. When you’re wrist-deep in secondhand dog food, all by yourself, in this big dark chasm, your mind goes to a place. I was running on empty, wrung out from chasing dogs off of machines, and I was thinking about poor dead Tony and the look that twisted up his face lying there on the floor, like he was just disappointed his body had failed his gains. And that’s when I heard the CH-CHUNK. There, in the back of my mind. The same sound a loaded deadlift bar makes when you drop it on the ground. A ghost of a sound, almost not there at all. And it came again, over and over, getting louder and louder until it drowned out the hum of the fluorescents, till my head swam and my eyes glazed up like a couple of donuts on a conveyor belt. Until everything went black. I woke up sore a week later, bigger and buffer than I’d ever been in my life. I checked the security tapes and there I was, my body working out without me in it. Hitting the machines doing reps, cramming protein shakes, day and night. I tried to figure out what had happened. At first I thought I’d fugue’d, overwork and stress kicking me out of my head and letting my body take over. But the more I stared at those tapes, the less of myself I saw in there. It was like my body was working to a schedule where every hour was marked “PAIN”. So I went looking for other explanations. I asked around about people losing time. Met up with some weird old guys who smelled like onions, who gave me some crinkly books filled with diagrams and names and cases. And I started sticking around later and later in the gym at night, trying the thinking exercises from the crinkly books and listening close, as close as I could. Started making chalk circles, filling them with jerky, chanting weird old words and holding an image of Tony in my head as clear as I could. That’s how I found out that a demon is just an obsession detached from a way to chase it. When that circle filled up full of thick rolling darkness and out skimmed Tony’s voice demanding a way to bulk up, when I couldn’t distract him with anything else, any of the stuff that used to matter to him before he chased the swole dragon. He didn’t care. The only thing that he wanted was a body, any body, to fill and ride to bigness. It left me sweating like I’d run a 10k. But after that night, I knew how we were gonna save the gym. I started small at first. Invited Pete, one of the regulars who was having trouble making gains to stay after closing, to try out a special workout program. I had him sign a waiver, told him there might be some risks involved. He said it couldn’t be worse than crossfit. We shared a little laugh. Then I pushed him into the circle. Tony boiled up around him, streaming in through his mouth and nose and eyes, until the smoke had whirled its way into him. For a long minute, Pete just screamed. But once he stopped coughing and spluttering, his head dropped and his eyes closed down, light fading out of them like a pizza place shutting for the night. Then, up looked Tony, staring outta Pete’s eyes. He got up and walked out of the circle, jumping straight onto the machines. He went for rep after rep, not stopping, not pausing except to get protein loaded. I’d laid out a big blender full of shake for him, to make sure he didn’t have to stop for long. For seven long days, Pete’s body lifted and sweated and grunted, day and night, other gymgoers moving around him, getting spooked out when he didn’t stop to make small talk like usual. Exactly 214 hours after he started - the same number of hours as the number of pounds that Tony had weighed when his heart exploded - Pete went down like a ragdoll, muscles bulging all over his body. When he got up, he just stared at the big mirrors, gaping over how big he was, touching his new muscles and making poses to show off. He looked up at me, and he asked me, “How?” And I told him to tell his friends exactly what we offer here. “Fitness, at any price.”
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Mar 5, 2023 20:06
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A conversation with my sleep paralysis demon 600 words In the blackness of the night, I’m woken up by my sleep paralysis demon. He always comforts me with soothing sounds. “Ssh, it’s alright, don’t open your eyes. It’ll pass.” Gentle hands stroke my hair much like a parent would with a child. “You’ll wake up for real soon.” The sensation slowly fades and I wake in my own bed able to move again. I’m used to it. It’s nothing new. I’ve always been haunted by supernatural creatures ever since I was a little kid. This sleep paralysis demon has been around with me for a few months now. I call him Zeke cause I thought it would be ironic to call him something biblical. Zeke’s a great demon. He listens to all my woes and calms me down. The ability to see ghosts unsurprisingly doesn’t leave me with a lot of luck on the relationship side of life. Turns out people don’t like it when a ghost with a long tongue licks up their neck suddenly in the middle of dinner. However Zeke can drive all the ghosts away for a night. It's been only recently that I can get a peaceful night’s rest. I don’t want to tell anybody about Zeke for fear that my restfulness will go away. One night, I get into bed and see a shadowy hand. “Hello, Zeke.” I reach out and hold his hand. “What’s new in Hell?” Zeke chuckles. “Oh, the usual. Plenty of souls got tormented today. Probably lots more tonight as well. What about you, Taylor?” I sigh. “Work has been rather stressful when you keep trying to analyze artifacts for a museum and ghosts won’t shut up about them. I had one spirit tell me that one of the informational placards was inaccurate and that he was the one that discovered America! Then another spirit said that they discovered America and that caused the two of them to go whizzing around my head like hummingbirds! I had such a headache.” “I get what you mean,” says Zeke. “Hell always wants you to keep up with bureaucracy. There’s all these papers to fill out. I guess they want to make sure you’re tormenting souls properly but man, it's such a drag. I want to be nice to people, not mean to them. Too bad Hell doesn’t agree.” “Do demons ever get bored of being demonized?” I say. “Oh all the time.” Zeke says with a laugh. “And unfortunately it seems people like you are our favourite targets. “My momma told me I was born under a bad sign.” I laugh too. “You’re the first person that really gets me.” “You’re the only person that understands my need to talk to mortals in a way that Hell doesn’t.” Zeke’s shadow looms over me in a strangely protective way. A wave of calm washes over me as I yawn. “I suppose if you were human you could be a psychologist.” I joke. “I could talk to you and get a peaceful sleep and you could have all the humans to talk to.” “I do enjoy seeing the spectrum that is human emotion.” A small smile creeps across Zeke’s shadowy face. “Humans are such complex creatures, don’t you agree?” I nod and yawn once more, my eyes starting to close. “Mmm, I’m getting sleepy now. Shall we do our jobs now and save this conversation for tomorrow?” I give his hand one final squeeze as I drift off to sleep, knowing that I’ll have an episode tonight but Zeke will be there to comfort me. It’s part of our funny relationship after all.
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Mar 5, 2023 23:02
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crows, 1450w removed derp fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Mar 5, 2023 23:21
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Haunted 1213 Words In the archive Chernobyl Princess fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Jan 2, 2024 |
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Mar 6, 2023 03:26
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Rooks and Blackbirds 1483 words Late morning sunlight glittered on the surface of the Rade de Villefranche-sur-Mer turning the horizon to a haze of blue and gold. The warm breeze brought the smell of salt and of sand beginning to bake in the summer heat of southern France. Odette Delacroix sat on the patio of her rental home gloomily picking at the last of her palmier and coffee, dreading the end of the month and the return to Albany. After the long, sullen tension of her marriage’s death-throes the past three weeks had been a near-magical escape. Returning to the town her grandmother had left as a little girl had been like coming back to a home she’d never known. And too soon it would be over, back to the dreary, samey landscapes of upstate New York and an apartment that wore Michael’s absence like a missing tooth. Then, with a fluttering and a flash of black feathers, a crow landed on her table. It did an anxious little dance on the table rim, looked at her breakfast plate, and cocked its head inquisitively. She sighed and pushed the plate towards it. “Go ahead, little guy. At least one of us should have a good morning.” The crow repeated its little dance, pausing to gobble down bits of pastry, then cawed loudly and flew away. She checked her watch: it was time to clear breakfast away and go to the beach. She sunbathed, drank wine with a stranger, and generally felt better throughout the day. Her time in Villefranche-sur-Mer might be fleeting, but she was determined to enjoy it. As she had her night-time tea on the patio she saw on the table a sea-glass earring. A gift. The crow was back the next morning. She was pretty sure her pain-au-chocolate would kill it, so she tossed it some sunflower seeds leftover from the beach, which it ate happily and flew off. That night she got an old 2-franc coin. The next day she fed it a financier and got a polished blue stone. The third day was eggs for breakfast, so it was back to seeds. She heard a laugh from the street. A dark-haired young man with a large nose was watching her. She recognized him, he was some sort of street merchant who made the rounds on Av. Georges Clemenceau. He grinned, baring a gold tooth. “If you want to get something good off him, I can help,” he said in heavily-accented English. “I see this bird around, he likes madeleines, the fancy kind with raspberry jam in them.” He proffered her a large cardboard box, “For you? Twenty Euro. He bring you something good, guarantee.” Odette sighed. She knew it was a rip, but the man seemed friendly and she wanted to treat her new feathered friend. She bought the box and tossed the crow one. That night, when she came home, a diamond ring glittered on the table. * The grime on the windows of the pawnshop off Rue Barillerie lent the early afternoon sunlight a grayish tinge as it shone off the silver ring. The old man who ran the place had skin the color of teak and a mustache like a push-broom. “Mademoiselle,” he said in a thick Punjabi accent “where did you get this piece?” Odette thought fast, ‘a crow gave it to me in exchange for pastries’ probably wouldn’t sound great. “My grandmother gave it to me. It’s been in our family for generations. I always thought it might be worth something, so when I came out here I thought I’d check.” “Mademoiselle,” said the man, “This is priceless. Unless I miss my guess this is a Mellerio maker’s mark. Judging from the purity of the silver, this ring is pre-Revolution.” Odette could feel her stomach flip. A pre-Revolution ring? That had to be worth tens of thousands, at minimum. With that she could stay in France for months, at least until her tourist visa ran out, maybe longer. “How on Earth did you get it past customs?” the man asked. Her stomach flipped again. “What do you mean? It’s my ring.” “The Cultural Ministry might disagree, mademoiselle. There are some strict laws about the handling of historic artifacts, especially ones of… dubious provenance.” She hadn’t thought of that. She didn’t even know France had a Cultural Ministry. “I feel privileged to have seen it, but you should not have brought this here. Very dangerous for you, could get your visa revoked. A shame, it would be worth a mint at auction.” “Well couldn’t I sell it here and not have to bring it back through customs? I could really use the money,” she said, panicky. “Weeelllll,” drawled the man, “Not officially, no. Not without impeccable paperwork. But… I know a man, a collector of ancien regime artifacts, and if he would offer less than 50,000 euro for it I’ll eat my hat.” 50,000 euro, the number seemed unimaginable. That was as much as she made in a year. “If you would like, I could arrange a meeting. It would take a few days to reach him and get the money together, of course. Say, Friday?” “Yes. Yes, absolutely. Tell him I can meet him any time.” She gave the old man her phone number and skipped back to the bus station, the ring in her pocket and a spring in her step. She’d have to reschedule her flight, but it didn’t matter. She’d never considered kissing a bird before, but if she saw that crow again she didn’t think she could resist. * Of course it couldn’t last. The next afternoon she left her house for the beach and saw a hunched man with a large boil on his chin putting up fliers, “Lost: Silver ring, antique. If found, call +01 84 29 11 43.” She walked over to him, dread building in her gut. “Excuse me, monsieur. You lost a ring?” “Oui,” he sniffled. “A family heirloom. I brought it out to polish and when I turned around it disappeared. It was the only hope I had. My sister, she needs an operation that the national insurance won’t cover. I had a buyer, he said he would give me 3,000 euro for it.” Odette perked up. The man had no idea what it was worth. She took the ring from her pocket and showed it to him. “My ring!” he cried. “Oh mademoiselle, you have saved my sister’s life!” “Well monsieur,” she said, “when I found it the other day I took a liking to it. How about I buy it off you? 3000 Euro, you said?” “I don’t know, mademoiselle. Jean-Claude, he’s an old friend. He wants it for his wife…” “5000,” Odette snapped, “I’ll give you 5000. I really like the ring.” She watched the resistance leave the man’s eyes and he nodded. They went to the ATM and she handed over the wad of colorful bills. He shook her hand vigorously as he thanked her. It was nice to do a good deed and get rich in the process. She was so elated she didn’t even notice she’d lost her watch. When she got home the crow was back on the patio. She set her purse down, went to the kitchen, and got him the whole box of madeleines. After she went inside the crow grabbed something from behind a bush and flew away. * Raul sat by his push-cart on Av Francoise peeling a false boil off his chin. Crowmez alighted next to him. “What’d you get, her wallet?” “Caw!” “Good work. The watch was a bust, cheap junk.” “Caw!” “Yeah, I know. Tourists.” He threw the boil in the bag with his other tools: a large false nose, a gold tooth cap, brown face paint, and a bushy false mustache. “Three in one job, that’s pretty good, yeah?” “Caw!” “I told you it wasn’t too complicated for a fiddle game.” He rifled through the wallet. American IDs were always worth something to Armand, and she’d had another 200 euro in there. Not a bad haul for the price of a glass ring and some stale pastries. He tossed the wallet and watch in the cash drawer of the cart and began pushing it towards the butcher’s on Rue de l'Eglise. Crowmez didn’t take his cut in cash. “To think, she was gonna cheat me out of more than forty grand. The nerve of some people. It’s enough to make you despair.” “Caw!” “I think when we go to Marseille we should try the Broken Wing scheme again.” “Caw! Caw!” “It is not demeaning. The pigeon drop’s an artform, my friend.” “Caw!” “Hey, language. I’m trying to keep you in sheep’s eyeballs over here and all I get is criticism.” The sun went down on the bay as they ambled towards the butchershop. Another good score for Raul and Crowmez, interspecies con artists.
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Mar 6, 2023 03:58
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The Pursuit of Power 1,257 Vilesh stood at the control center for his flying castle and looked at the villagers below through an opalescent scrying orb. Panic-stricken faces gazed upward at the sky uttering prayers to whatever gods cared to listen while Vilesh watched mercilessly, eager for the destruction to come. Kelezet and Melchior, Vilesh’s apprentices, looked at one another apprehensively as their master prepared to unleash a necrotic plague upon the land. Neither of them considered themselves to be heroes. They were apprenticed under an evil wizard after all, but both of them had the sense to know that they couldn’t rule a land with no people. That there would be no purpose in destroying everything. They winced as Vilesh’s pox-covered hand tugged at a lever on the console. A section of the floating castle unhinged, supported by lengths of chains that fed into gears and pulleys, and began raining down magically modified corpses onto the land. Vilesh cackled gleefully as he watched the bloated corpses explode against cobblestone and dirt sending waves of villagers fleeing to their homes. The corpses, in various states from the fall, began to reanimate, scrabbling onto uneven limbs so they could lurch at shocked villagers for a cannibalistic meal. Kelezet felt sick to his stomach, having always disdained the necromantic arts. Melchior studied the process dutifully. While Vilesh delighted himself with infesting the countryside, Kelezet began to plot. He made the sign of the horns and touched the pinky and index fingers to his temple forming a telepathic link with Melchior. Melchior registered the aetheric disturbance like the knocking at a door inside his mind and formed a triangle with his thumbs and index fingers that took on a faint green glow. “I do not respect you. I think the magic you enlist is vile and perverse, and I do not trust you in the slightest,” Kelezet said, “however, I believe it has become abundantly clear that the master has lost his wits to the unrelenting forces of chaos. I propose that we set aside our differences, however temporarily, to put the master to rest.” Melchior harrumphed, nearly breaking contact with Kelezet, but a glance in the direction of Vilesh did send shivers down his spine. “I do not seek your respect, and it is your insistence on maintaining the arcane traditions we sought to leave behind which will prevent you from ever attaining true power. I think you are weak, and a fool, but I agree. The master can no longer be trusted… I attempted to scan his mind recently, as I had done secretly in the past, and his thoughts are darker than usual, clouded with secrecy and intent. I fear he is planning something that may not be in our best interest,” Melchior said. Kelezet nodded as if Melchior had confirmed a longstanding suspicion then replied, “So it’s agreed then. We will forge an alliance of necessity.” “It is agreed.” Melchior said, before disconnecting the link between their minds, fearing that their master might overhear their traitorous thoughts. * * * Though Vilesh had many apprentices, none were as trusted as Kelezet and Melchior. Which was to say, none were as useful to him as they were, despite their sycophantic interest in him. He knew their rivalry would only make them more powerful, and that much more capable of hosting his own tremendous power. However, he found himself running out of time. His extended campaign against the unified southern fiefdoms had put an unexpected strain on his already diminished reserve of energy. He’d have to end his grooming of the wizards prematurely. Vilesh stepped onto his fortified stone balcony as the castle floated ominously above the clouds. The screaming had gone on long into the night as his pestilent horde of undead made their way through the countryside. He began his nightly ritual of supping on the souls of the recently departed, drawing on their life energy to keep his crumbling body kept together long enough for him to steal one of his apprentice’s bodies. When suddenly, a tiny imp hovered into view with a mischievous grin on its face. “I didn’t conjure you,” Villesh said confused, and the creature began spewing a gout of flame into his face in response. Villesh shrieked and stepped away, only protected from the assault by a network of protective spells he maintained, but hardly recharged due to the interruption, he found himself in a serious predicament. He opened his mouth and a vast amount of flies spilled out of his throat, coating the imp with their bodies. They needled their way into the corners of its eyes, into its nostrils, and even down its throat despite the imp’s protests with diminishing bursts of fire and the creature blinked back to whatever infernal domain it came from, unable to withstand the tide of vermin Vilesh unleashed upon it. He detected the next barrage before it struck its mark. A host of ethereal arrows plunked into the carpet beside him before fizzing away into nothing. Melchior nervously sat at the rear of the chamber in the shadows. The arrows were just a distraction. A multitude of magical serpents coiled up from the fabric of the carpet and sunk fangs into Vilesh’s withered flesh. Vilesh was immune to the pain but knew that lethal poison was coursing into his veins. Unfortunately for Melchior, he was immune to most poisons as well. Vilesh shot beams of dark energy from his eyes at the serpents who began to burn with a black flame until there was no trace of them except for an image of their writhing shadows. He gestured a withered hand at Melchior and a massive ethereal replica of it seized the apprentice wizard and began crushing him. Melchior screamed for Kelezet. Kelezet, cloaked in a spell of invisibility, had been engaged in a ritual to cast a banishing spell on their master. His familiar was sent back to whatever hell it had come from in a swarm of flies, but it wasn’t until Melchior was being crushed that Kelezet lost his focus. Only for a moment, but a moment was all Vilesh needed. Vilesh picked up the Kelezet’s aetheric signature and quickly fired a necrotic beam in his direction. Kelezet, caught off-guard, took the blast in his shoulder, and felt the fabric and flesh beneath it slough off his bone like wet paper. His arm fell useless to his side, but he blocked out the pain and continued through with the ritual. Vilesh had seconds to spare. The betrayal by his apprentices was something he truly had not anticipated. With the last of his life energy, just as Kelezet was preparing to banish him, he attempted to seize the mind of Melchior whom he had subdued. He channeled his essence through the ethereal hand that held Melchior and with a final squeeze of it, the wretched nails seemingly dug into Melchior’s body before releasing him. Vilesh looked wide-eyed at Kelezet and began to say something, but Kelezet was fixated on seeing the spell through. The light behind Vilesh’s sunken eyes faded and his body fell slack as his soul was sent to some other place. “We’ve done it,” Kelezet exclaimed as he began to reknit his flesh with the only holy cantrips he knew. “Why yes you have…” Melchior said, emerging from the shadows. Kelezet’s blood ran cold as he met Melchior’s eyes and saw the specter of their former master behind them. “You should begin to worry. Having your soul consumed hurts a great deal.” Vilesh said, approaching hungrily.
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Mar 6, 2023 06:36
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Alliance 595 words "It's not a bloodsport, mom," I said, pressing the envelope to my chest. She frowned. "It's not one of those other kinds, is it? Where one of you comes home with a husband and the other nineteen just get knocked up?" I sighed. "No, it's not one of those." Mom counted on her fingers. "You can't sing. You can't dance. You can barely boil an egg. That leaves bloodsport." She wrenched the letter out of my hands. "'The ultimate test of human fitness'. Hmph." I grabbed it back. "It's not," I said. "Do you have to sign a death waiver?" she said. "That doesn't mean anything. Nellie had to sign a waiver for the Trivia Drill." "Fine, fine," she said. "But when you get killed don't go crying back to me." That was seventeen days ago, seventeen days on the island, eating what we could gather or kill, kept up most nights by the buzzing of the mosquitos and camera drones. Nobody's died yet, as far as I know. But it's just a matter of time. Last time Barker and I had it out we both drew sticks, sharpened to nasty points, and Lemony had to keep us apart. The stakes are high. These days anyone can get a college degree and be overqualified to run a deep fryer or cash register. You want a real shot at a career, you need med school, law school, or a reality win. Maybe you can skate by with fan favorite. Maybe. That wasn't me, I wasn't a clown like Brian or an exhibitionist like Mitzi. I needed the win. I dream about death, here on the island. It's technically not an island, legally speaking. It only goes a few hundred feet down, then the foundation craft, and then the ocean. So it's legally a ship in international waters, flying the flag of a nation now completely submerged. There aren't many laws here that matter. The worst they can do is send you back home. So I dream about death. Not dying. Dealing. About the people I wish I had here with me. About a dozen names cross my mind, people I wouldn't mind cutting down if they were here. Nobody here is on my list. I didn't come here to make enemies. "It's that drive," said the CEO in his interview, when he announced that he'd be hiring from the reality green rooms rather than the campuses. "The willingness to do anything to secure that W. We can train everything else. We can't train that." The first, but not the last. Down to the wire, the final three, and it comes as a pure shock to Brian when Barker and I go from another standoff to pouncing on him without a word. We leave him bleeding as the drones summon a helicopter for medevac or corpse removal. I don't know which, won't find out until it hits the air. I wonder if the editors will tip their hand early, show Barker and I making our alliance on the first day, or leave it as a shock to the audience as much as it was to Brian. The terms hold still. Anything to make final two. Then a clean final challenge. The producers like that better anyhow. Bloody murder is fine for ratings in the mid-season, but finale time they want the course. I smile at Barker. He looks fine, something I've had to ignore all this time pretending to despise him. In another show we might have wound up together. The whistle blows, and I start running.
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Mar 6, 2023 08:58
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Small Talk (574 words) I don’t want to know who you are. Not really. You don’t know me. I like it like that. We know so much about each other these days. I know so much my brain could burst. ASL? Miss me with that. You’re a voice without volume, a moment in time. Hemingway once said he doesn’t like being told what people look like when he’s reading a story. He wants to figure out who they are by what they do, how they talk, and what they talk about. I’m just here to talk, man, I don’t need your name. I’m not here to flirt. I just want to talk. Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to post yourself online? I could be anyone. Just let me be a thought. I’m tired of being human. I’ve been human all day. Humans have to wake up, brush their teeth, and go to work. Humans have stuff to do. Here we just exist. Ageless, stateless anonymity. Let me just exist, please. You can do it too. What’s your favorite song? Can you send a link? You saw them live in concert? That’s rad, I’ve gotta say. Mine? Here you go. Tell me what you think. Yeah, well, they’re pretty cool. I used to have a poster. Free-roaming thoughts, like bubbles in the air. Self-contained, transitory, never seen again. If we met in person we might not get along. Here and now the universe is talking to itself. You like anime? For real? What’s your favorite show? Really? Really? I liked the manga more. They tried to adapt it before the series finished. The director did his own thing and all his changes suck. Woah woah, wait. You liked the ending more? How could anybody think that? Now wait, you listen here. A difference of opinion. That’s all this really is. Just our opinions fighting, shorn of context, reputation. I’ve an ego, I’ll admit, though I see you’ve got one too. You’ve been typing for two minutes. Come on then, show your hand. Whatever it is, I can take it, cause we’ll never meet again. Even if we did, by sheer circumstance, would you even know it was me? You’re angry, I can tell. You’re angry with me. The real me. You don’t know my age, my race, my gender. You don’t know my country. You don’t know my life. You have no preconceived notions or baggage. I’m wrong because I’m wrong. Your opinion is pure. Seen any movies? Oh yeah? Me too. How about that ending? I didn’t see it coming. It’s all falling down. I’m overwhelmed, drowning in information. We’re powerless yet expected to care. Someone’s gotta do something. It’s all we talk about at work, this ever-present fear. Just for five minutes I’d like to forget. What else are you watching? Right now nothing else matters. I don’t need to think about burdens or bills. This conversation is all we are, and when it’s done so are we. Disposable media, just how I like it. Small, insignificant. Commiserate with me. Our opinions overlap; you and I become we. In this formless floating world, we aren’t humans, we are one. I can’t hide forever, nor do I intend to. I’m still an adult. I need to face the day. But it’s nice to be intangible, if only for an hour. Let me hide from you at least. TTYN.
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Mar 6, 2023 09:47
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submissions are closed
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Mar 6, 2023 10:10
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Late to say it, but I’m also judging.
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Mar 6, 2023 19:11
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Week 552 Judgment I’ll keep the results short this week, like a lot of the stories turned out. And, just like many of the stories, I can’t promise a satisfying conclusion. Let’s start on a high note by crowning the incoming blood Disappointingly, none of the other stories clambered above the rest to nab a HM. For the second time in recent memory, I’m declaring this another no loss week. … which is largely a matter of semantics, as one story only narrowly avoided that dubious honour. Idle Amalgam takes the DM for a story that was unfortunately wordy and honestly a bit more dull than you’d expect from its premise, but it was a complete story, and in a week where many entries missed that mark, it deserves some slight reprieve.
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Mar 7, 2023 08:57
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WEEK 553: PASTORAL WEEK or EVERYTHING GARDENS I've been in a permaculture design class for the last couple of months, so my mind is entirely filled with things like silvopasture systems, alternate economies, and other hippie poo poo. I'd like you all to enable this obsession with stories with characters out in the country. I don't mean in the wilderness or backwoods, I mean in areas of cultivation: fields, farms, and pastures, or their adjacent communities. If you'd like a flash, I will provide you with a principle of permaculture design and/or a picture of cool plants/sheep/chickens Word Count: 1500 words Signups Close: Friday 3/10 at midnight EST Entries Close: Sunday 3/12 at midnight EST, or, more practically, whenever I wake up on Monday morning No Erotica, Google Docs, Political Screeds, Fanfiction Judges: Chernobyl Princess Strange Cares ????? Entrants: Chairchucker: Use Edges and Value the Marginal Tibalt: picture of child stacking wood Rohan SlightlyLions: Observe and Interact flerp derp: picture of sheep FlippinPageman: Obtain a Yield IdleAmalgam: Gather and Store Energy Pham Nuwen: Design from Patterns to Details, picture of sprouting mushrooms Thranguy: Creatively Use and Respond to Change, picture of apple guild Windward Away: Use Small and Slow Solutions Chernobyl Princess fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Mar 9, 2023 |
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Mar 7, 2023 14:22
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Flash
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Mar 7, 2023 14:38
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I'm in, give me a cool picture.
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Mar 7, 2023 17:09
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CRITS FOR WEEK 552: Fast crits slash judgeburps, really. No author names because I read and crit these in judgemode so they're not in my notes. I know who you are, though. Deadlift TONY GARBANZO LMAO It's giving Brad Neely and I'm here for it. Message me to redeem your dramatic reading where I do my best Brad Neely impression. I loving loved this but am confused as to why there were so many demons this week. The callback worked for me. Your humor worked for me. Everything worked for me, I was cry-laughing. This was my nomination for HM but the other judges made good points about this story's problems. Writing is subjective and this was an example of a story that only seemed to work for me, but boy did it work. A conversation with my sleep paralysis demon Yes I do indeed see that Hell and demons are a theme this week. I wanted to like this more than I did and I think the dialogue is the reason why. It's not bad by any stretch, but it seemed... I don't know... meh? And I get that that's sort of where they are in this relationship, but I wish this conversation had been more compelling. crows, Oh please no not a wall of text. Ugh FINE. gently caress, where are my glasses Alright, I see what you're doing, and I appreciate the commitment to it. I can also appreciate an unhinged narrator and the progression, but this wasn't SO good that I could look past the labor required to summit word mountain. Haunted The strongest of the lot. Solid start, but got a little lost in pronouns in your second chunk of prose. Yeah, I'm intrigued. This introduced a world and situation I was extremely compelled by. I wanted more, but I think you did a commendable job within the word limit. Rooks and Blackbirds Crows are garbage disposals, it would destroy that pastry. That said, I thought this was pretty good. Nice language and flavor throughout. The last scene feels disconnected from the rest but I did like the secret relationship. The Pursuit of Power I wish you had cut the first paragraph entirely because your second is a far stronger opening. Thunderdome taught me that this is almost always true for stories here, and yours is no exception. I liked what you were setting up in the first scene, but then things just got so wordy with prose that couldn't quite carry me though, so I lost interest. Alliance Hah, I like this opening line. Let's see if the rest delivers. Aaaand okay, it feels like there's a setup missing here. Or maybe the ordering of information is what isn't doing it for me. Okay, I enjoy this and the pace of it, but this whole thing ended up being the setup to the story I WANT to read. It does not stand on its own as a story. Small Talk I don't know who this is, but they have me kind of on edge. There's an authenticity in this voice that very successful captures the online mentality. But this was just barely a story. Your voice was very strong and your prose moved at a nice clip, but this ended up being too light on things happening for me. Beezus fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Mar 7, 2023 |
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Mar 7, 2023 19:02
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test post
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Mar 7, 2023 20:19
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Week 552 Critlings Strange Cares - Deadlift: I didn't care for the voice in this much at all, and it's a pretty silly story, so there wasn't a whole lot to recommend it, if I'm being honest. BUT it is more or less a complete story (since SOMETHING changed from the beginning of the story, at least), which puts it ahead of many stories this week, so there's that anyway. Violet_Sky - A conversation with my sleep paralysis demon: Cute but more of a vignette than anything. I would have liked to hear more about your characters generally, and I thought Zeke felt a little underdeveloped. I'm not sure why you made this so short, when you really could have used the words to put some more life (and some actual character arcs) into this. I wouldn't have minded seeing the relationship deepen a bit, either. derp - crows,: I actually kind of enjoyed this, as weird as it was. Would have liked to know more about the narrator, but the parts that were there were interesting enough. Your stylistic choices were pretty out there, and I'm not entirely convinced they were necessary, but they didn't take me out of the story (vignette, really) entirely, so I'll give you a pass. I WILL say however, that zero IS evenly divisible by two, just not vice-versa. :P Chernobyl Princess - Haunted: Good language and an interesting world I felt like you gave a good view of. My only real complaint was that it felt like your ending should have been the beginning of a longer piece, and it kind of undercut the one choice Kit actually makes in this. Slightly Lions - Rooks and Blackbirds: I really liked your language in this, it was very evocative and well-crafted (well, outside of your opening which felt like you were trying to cram as many French things in as you could). I do think the ending was very weak, and you painted Odette so sympathetically at the beginning that her abrupt shift to greedy jerk didn't sit well with me. I think maybe I was supposed to feel like she deserved her comeuppance somehow, but I just felt bad for her/mad at her for trying to cheat the old dude. Still, this was an actual complete story, and that combined with the strength of your prose made me like this more than a lot of this week. Idle Amalgam - The Pursuit of Power: I didn't mind this too much, but the ending feels pretty boring for how eventful it is. I think you needed to do more to set up your characters to make me care about them before you started killing them off. The world here you've sketched is interesting, but I had no emotional investment in anything happening, and it weakened the story significantly. Decent prose, just pretty blah. Thranguy - Alliance: Kind of interesting, but felt more like 99% world building/social commentary and 1% story. It's not a bad premise, but I feel like I've seen it done before and better, especially given that the parts that should have been the meatiest (your actual relationship and the events of the game) read like an episode summary. Please give me more information/reasons to care about your unnamed MC (:/) and Barker. Bad Seafood - Small Talk: This piece had a very strong voice and sense of time/place, but I think it just didn't work for me for personal reasons. It's more of a meditation on online interactions than a story per se, and I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if there was some kind of change over the course of the narrative. It didn't have to be a big one, but I would like so see some sort of progression of character to elevate this from a snapshot of a certain kind of online interaction to something I felt like I could really invest in. I do know a few people mentioned they really enjoyed it, and Rohan really appreciated the voice, but I think for me certain parts of it just happened to evoke some less pleasant conversations I've had, and given that the voice was the main draw of the piece, I just couldn't really connect. Still, very strong prose and good character work.
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Mar 7, 2023 20:28
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Ope. Nevermind. I'm sorry. I forgot I was traveling this weekend. Like the prompt though! Dicere fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Mar 7, 2023 |
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Mar 7, 2023 22:03
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in
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Mar 7, 2023 22:03
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IN, flash me
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Mar 7, 2023 22:47
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in
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Mar 7, 2023 23:15
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i would like a picture
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Mar 8, 2023 00:37
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Chairchucker posted:Flash Principle 11: Use Edges and Value the Marginal Tibalt posted:I'm in, give me a cool picture.  Slightly Lions posted:IN, flash me Principle 1: Observe and Interact derp posted:i would like a picture 
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Mar 8, 2023 02:36
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Crits for Week #551 Crits done in judgemode Jewels in the Dark: Does the opener really do anything? This looks like a classic 'cut your first paragraph' situation. The second isn't great either, disembodied dialog that can't belong to Nico or Gabriella. Lots of characters piling on quickly. The idea that Gabriella is pretending to be Nico comes out eventually, but awkwardly. Making that clear right off would be a better use of that first paragraph; it's not a big twist, no need to be coy about it. Sort of serviceable revenge yarn, but does it really hit the decade that well? Baudry's Bandits: Here the opener sets a scene well enough, and establishes a character if not any conflict or action. Repeating a long phrase like 'deep in conversation with a woman in a good dress covered in rose prints' feels like an editing error. 2:00 o'clock is redundant. Prose is generally awkward throughout, and I'm not sure I can get behind the ending. Does solidly hit the decade though. Seance: Strong opener, maybe a little to heavy on the voice and period. Paragraph 3 sentence 2 is a bit of a monster. But the paragraph on the whole is nice. The whole thing is, really. It's mostly carried by the voice but the voice is strong enough to carry it. A Tale of Two Guineas: Is that the song from the ride? The opening sets the stage well enough. Present tense can be tricky, and you slip at least once. I don't buy the ending conceit, that a single pirate affected the economy so directly and predictably. But it's generally an okay story. Chinook Run: The opener isn't bad, but doesn't really grab the reader. There's a disconnect between the parts of this, the idyllic slice of life and the cannibal horror ends. They don't really compliment each other at all. And the narrator is a bit too passive to carry either end. Mermaid: Fairly good opener. But this story doesn't really work. Not enough buildup to the ending, not enough agency for the protagonist. There's the core of a noir tale here, but just that, only a core. What I think would help is to heighten the irony earlier on, either letting the reader in on things earlier or by having the narrative present p.o.v. drop a few hints, something like that. Knowing Your Place: The opening doesn't seem to do much, looking at it in isolation, but it does draw the reader in. This is another good one, a stronger revenge yarn than the steampunk one.
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Mar 8, 2023 10:26
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Crits for Week #552 Strange Cares - Deadlift: Working out every day isn’t conducive to muscle growth. You need rest days for your muscles to recover! (Yes, that is my objection to the logic in this story.) I think the title, and the ominous “at any price”, indicated this story would go darker places than it ultimately did. What we have is a fairly silly story, albeit one that’s decently written with a consistent voice. There are some great lines in here (I do like “a workout plan where every day just says ‘PAIN’”), but the whole story being basically a recollection without any sort of framing device just meant there’s a lot of the narrator expounding on events without too much in the way of stakes or tension for the reader to latch onto. “any price” promises some brutal twist that the story doesn’t really deliver, unfortunately. Was there a secret relationship? I’m going for not really — it doesn’t really seem like Tony Garbanzo is here for anything but lifting weights, so it’s not really a two-way relationship. Violet_Sky - A conversation with my sleep paralysis demon: This is cute but ultimately a bit insubstantial. I think there’s more you could do with this idea than you’ve done here, and you had the words to do more this week. The protagonist can see ghosts, and that’s destroying any chance of romance? There’s a demon that’s disenchanted with working in literal hell because of the paperwork? These are great ideas that deserve more airtime than this fairly safe little scene offers. Was there a secret relationship? Halfway there for me, I think … perhaps there needed to be some acknowledgement from Zeke that he’s putting his neck out by treating Taylor so nicely. Surely this goes against some underworld protocol? derp - crows,: I want to like this more than I do. I get what you’re after with the voice and it suits the character perfectly, but ultimately this story is asking a lot of the reader and I’m not convinced the payoff is worth it. I was expecting the details of Mr Darling’s “horrifying” death to come into relief at some point, and the eventual realisation that Mrs Darling was asleep in front of a bonfire feels loaded with a symbolism or meaning that isn’t really captured. Was the bonfire the taxidermied birds? I’m basing this purely on an oblique reference to feathers near the fire, but you’ve established there are plenty of birds around anyway, and why did she leave the one unburned? Was there a secret relationship? I’m going with a no on this one; I can maybe get the intention of a one-sided relationship, but that’s not really what I’m here for. Chernobyl Princess - Haunted: This is solid, and gave me basically everything I was after this week. Secrets! Stakes! Cops investigating thaumaturgic surges! There’s a lovely story here about difficult choices being made and the importance of different relationships; perhaps you’re piling it on a bit thick with Kit having a wife and a newborn child to lose if he continues trying to investigate his brother’s death, but I’m here for the baby playing peek-a-boo with a literal ghost. There’s also a very silly story here about cops threatening families with exorcists if they don’t stop reaching beyond the veil. I like both. Only one of those stories ends on a satisfying note, though; I’m keen to read the continuing adventures of Kit and Matty solving crimes. Was there a secret relationship? Absolutely, at the end. Slightly Lions - Rooks and Blackbirds: This is a technically competent story about a sympathetic protagonist who has a clear motivation, with some nice tension and escalation of stakes, and an actual ending. But I’m relegating it to the soggy middle because the story is needlessly mean-spirited and the sudden turn at the end left me very annoyed. When you spend half the story making us feel for Odette and her desire to stay in her grandmother’s village, we want to see her succeed. Yes, we’ll be disappointed when she tries to cheat the man out of the ring’s apparent worth, but there’s a chance there for the event to act as character growth for her, and we’ll see how she responds to being scammed at the end, as a sort of retribution. … but when you end by focusing suddenly on the scam artist, and immediately pivot to making him the sympathetic hero, the whiplash doesn’t work at all for me and I feel, oddly enough, cheated. Worse, the ending after this reveal just follows some fairly predictable beats and ends with the clanger of “Crowmez” which is up there with ol’ Tony Garbanzo as terrible names from this week. I’m not saying you can’t write a story where the sympathetic protagonist turns out to be a bit of a poo poo, who ends up getting their comeuppance. But, as above, this would have worked better if we’d spent more time in her POV, and saw how she reacted and changed after this. Right now the shift is too abrupt, and the character I’ve spent the story getting to know is abandoned at the pivotal moment. You can write. I think it says a lot that I was invested enough in Odette’s motivations to feel cheated at the end. This was almost there, but fell apart at the end. Was there a secret relationship? Yep, I’ll give you that. Idle Amalgam - The Pursuit of Power: The idea here is decent. Two henchmen realising their villainous boss is actually going too far and planning to usurp him? I’m into it. There’s plenty of scope for tension and intrigue, and the initial animosity between the two henchmen is handled well; I can see why Vilesh wouldn’t anticipate their ganging up on him. The problem is that everything is just a bit too wordy, and I can’t get invested in the action scenes because a) they’re fairly passive, with a lot of description and not a whole lot of agency from the characters, and b) I don’t really know the rules or the limits of this fantasy world. You go from introducing ethereal arrows to magical serpents to beams of dark energy to giant hands to … what next? There’s no real sense of tension because at any point either of the characters could pull something else out of some dark void to get out of whatever danger they’re in. Is the ending, with “Vilesh” looking wide-eyed and about to speak, meant to imply Vilesh traded places with Melchior and that Kelezet ended up killing his ally? That’s a delightfully horrifying twist that doesn’t really come across on first read. Was there a secret relationship? Yep, this story handled this quite well. Thranguy - Alliance: The start of this is very strong. You’re already setting up the themes of secrecy and tension I was looking for this week. But everything following feels too abbreviated, and I’m never entirely sure on the stakes at play here. Is it literally a life-or-death competition? How dystopic is this future with reality shows filmed in international waters? When you say “the CEO”, is it just one of many, or the sole CEO of some future monopolising conglomerate who controls everything? I can draw connections from some of these references, but they mostly feel like vague hints that don’t get explored. And then it’s over, pretty much as soon as it’s started. There’s a whole story waiting to be told here—a story, admittedly, told a dozen times over, but I’m convinced there’s meat left on this “surprise alliance” bone. What we have isn’t bad, I just wish there’d been more of the same secrecy and tension carried through from that first conversation. Was there a secret relationship? Technically, sure, but it was only really introduced in the second-to-last paragraph. Bad Seafood - Small Talk: I liked this going in, I liked the confidence of taking this voice and running with it. I can absolutely see how it would grate and I’m not sure the story could have gone on for much longer without becoming irritating; honestly, even now it’s probably overstaying its welcome by a few paragraphs. Probably the one change I’d suggest is the ending. I feel it turns too earnest, which maybe might have worked better if there was something glib at the end, to reinforce the hollowness of the interactions, the refusal to truly connect. I’m sitting here wondering if moving the “how about that ending? I didn’t see it coming” line to the end would be the best or worst idea… Was there a secret relationship? Soooort of? I guess it’s more about the concept than anything else.
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Mar 8, 2023 12:00
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In. Flash please.
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Mar 8, 2023 16:27
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FlippinPageman posted:In. Flash please. 3. Obtain a Yield
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Mar 8, 2023 17:21
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