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I will judge
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Mar 25, 2023 03:14
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sure screw it i'm in and also  because of my delinquency recently and also flash please
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Mar 25, 2023 07:19
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BeefSupreme posted:sure screw it i'm in and also
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Mar 25, 2023 08:29
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Sign-ups are closed, but if you want to be sneaky and write a story anyway, your mandated flash is space goblins. Looking forward to reading all your stories!
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Mar 25, 2023 11:24
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The Eternal World Ceilidh 1449 words When I worked a 9-5, I'd dream of weekends, of time spent in the fresh air away from the air-conditioned open-plan taxi driving me straight to drink and an early grave. Now, I dream of that place. Spreadsheets dance as I sleep and I long for the cheap plastic keyboard, the hacking coughs and loud phone conversations. The interruptions, the anger of switching out of the flow of coding because Dave's got some trivial question that he'd know if he hadn't lied on his CV and my boss wasn't too stupid to spot it. I've not had that in a long time. * * * I wake up early, the sound of rain on my tent. I scowl and scoot down further in my sleeping bag. It's going to be one ofthose days. I don't need to check my poo poo, it's been long enough that my meagre possessions are burned into my mind. Twenty quid in notes and one pound seventy-three in change. A phone that gets no signal. Earplugs. Car keys. Half a pouch of tobacco, a full pack of blue Rizlas, a lighter, and enough weed for two satisfying joints. In my bag, a water bottle half-full of a potent mix of gin and tonic, a full bottle of Buckfast, and my rocar. The festival has been going on long enough that we've lost all sense of time; the weather changes and the world seems to pass as normal but every morning we wake up in our own tents or vans with the same stuff. Things change, but for us it's always Saturday at the World Ceilidh, originally a small Scottish music festival and now our entire world. My bones creak as I dress light; it's warm despite the rain but I still roll the first cigarette of the day before leaving my tent. My band's worked out a basic rota; this morning it's Andy's turn to make the coffee and host the half-dozen of us who haven't given up and started drinking already. I've seen corpses sleep deeper so it's going to be a couple of hours yet. Catherine and Gav are awake, so we gather by the river and smoke in amiable silence. It's hard to make conversation after what might be a year of the same day, but the band has more than just me who appreciate the quiet, before the screaming starts. It comes early this morning, the rain waking people up who freak out at another morning living in a straight-to-DVD Groundhog Day sequel. If they don't get a grip soon, the Audience will take care of them. If you don't at least pretend that it's just another day at the greatest party of the summer then they take you to the chill-out tent. You emerge with a smile like you're hosed on Mandy and for a while the endless repetition doesn't bother you. They don't steal your memories, they steal your ability to care. * * * After coffee, we head in to the festival proper. I get food from the bratwurst van; it's not the nicest on the site but if I don't vary things up I slip into a routine that's just as hypnotic as whatever happens in the chill-out tent. The rain eases and I buy a couple of hippy shirts and something I don't think I've read yet from among the second-hand books. The rain beats down on the canvas of the stalls. Doesn't matter how many days we've had like this, they still piss me off. At the edge of the site, past the longhouse, I look out over the steep hills. Time was, a few people would manage the walk in to the fenced-off site. The general attitude among the management held that anyone managing the ten-mile hike over several steep hills from the nearest public road was welcome. Claire and Nik have both tried it, slipping out when the Audience weren't looking. Thick mist occludes everything past the first circle of hills, and even with maps and compasses they got turned around and ended right back here. Jude tried taking her van and ramming through the closed gates, only to find that the roads now form one big loop. We're trapped in space as well as time, our memories the only thing that doesn't reset. I go see a friend play a solo set in the bar. She's mixing it up, trying out new material. It's good stuff, not yet polished but with definite potential. I see them watching. Half a dozen people in the crowd wearing round black sunglasses, who never quite finish their drinks. The Audience. They never miss a set. * * * Soon enough it's time for us to play. We've negotiated with the other bands that we'll get the main stage for the early afternoon. Sounds great, but after this long it's also a curse. More eyes on us. More of those unblinking stares. The band plays, twenty-five drummers belting our samba-reggae-punk. I give it my all. We used to switch up instruments to alleviate the boredom but now I stick with my rocar, playing as fast and as loud as I can. I'm shaking the thing not just from my shoulders or wrists but all the way down to my ankles, my whole body dancing like I'm possessed by the rhythm. In a way, I am. This is the only time I'm just in the moment, not preoccupied with everything else going on. Me, my shaker, and the music. We normally play 45-minute sets, but today it's twice that and as we finish the crowd goes wild. I hope the Audience don't mind, but the few I see as I stagger off-stage are cheering madly. My shirt's covered with a fine silver dust where my rocar's jingles have hit one another hard enough to shed tiny metal flakes. I gulp down half the bottle of gin and tonic, relying on my long-held delusion that it's rehydrating, then go to chill by one of the fires. The weather's finally eased. As I roll a big joint to take some of the edge off, I notice the others. Half a dozen people with the same weary resignation in their eyes as me --- though outwardly enjoying themselves, because otherwise the Audience will notice. A couple of those around the fire too. One asks for a poem in the slurred tones of someone already off their face. I give a hollow smile and recite a filthy limerick about the ornithophilic proclivities of the Bishop of Oxford. They laugh for a little too long, and hand over a fiver. That goes with me straight to the bar, where I nurse another pint as the weather gets worse again. * * * Bombskare put on their headline show. They don't have a choice, all the posters call it out. At least it means I can ignore the rain and just skank, fuelled by Bucky and good music. I know two thirds of my band will be in one of the bars, this being the one thing they didn't care about at the entire festival, but I don't care. On the stage, I see that they're recruited a handful of other musicians from bands playing in the festival. Must mean there's a few more performers in the chill-out tent. After that gig I drink, smoke, and talk the same bollocks with the same friends as we do every day. I find out from Claire that we have the closing set at 3am. She suggests heading back to the tents for a bunk-up, and I gladly agree. Pretty much everyone who wants to has hosed everyone else by this point; festival hookups are pretty much a given. We've done it enough that we know we're a good fit, but we haven't fallen into the trap of starting a full-on romance. With everyone corralled together, when they go south they get messy fast. As we lie there, recovering in a fug of sweat and hormones, we talk softly about what we miss from the real world. These are the only moments of true human connection, free from the feeling of constant repetition, but it's over too soon. We dress, and drag ourselves back over to the main bar tent, sharing a post-coital joint. We smile at one another. It could be worse. * * * I wake up late, my tent warmed by brilliant sunshine. I smile, and ease my way out of my sleeping bag. It's going to be one ofthose days.
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Mar 26, 2023 10:28
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Ironopalis 1328 words The cold wind swept in and stung me. I should have worn a coat, maybe some gloves, hat, ski mask, and a second coat. It was that kind of cold. I strode through the streets passing half feral kids as they played their ball games and almost got hit by 3 or 4 cars trying to make their way through the narrow streets. It’s always been grey around this time of year. The clouds threatened to rain any second now but I never minded. I had a simple but unenviable task. Catch the 37 bus, make it into town and meet my friend Maxx. As I approached the bus stop I felt myself experiencing that queasy sickly feeling of deja vu. I took a seat on the rigid bright red bus stop seat and rubbed my eyes to centre myself, tips of my fingers bright red already from the cold. I saw something in the corner of my eye. I managed to sit down without even noticing there was someone else at the bus stop. I gave him a look and the expected nod of silent solidarity that all bus patrons know well and I was ready to settle in for my journey on the good old unreliable 37 bus. Something ate away at me though. Everytime I looked at the other man there was just something off, a detail here, a piece of fluff there. Eventually I’d given up on the pretence of politeness and studied him properly. He felt familiar. Maybe he took this bus often? That’s what was going through my head at the time at least. I remember his dark brown hair, it was cut short but I could see it curling at the ends. He had striking green eyes with visible bags under them. His face was dotted with marks that signified some persistent acne at the very least. He was older, for certain. His ginger moustache and beard were well trimmed and maintained. Eventually he turned to face me. It made sense, I was staring afterall. He gave me a long look. He opened his mouth to speak but I didn’t hear a word. I fixated on his teeth and my eyes traced every one of them until I saw it. Two missing, bottom left. One tooth left on an island with nothing but gums surrounding it for what looked like forever. He was still talking but I didn’t hear any of it, my tongue traced along my own teeth and ran across that tooth on an island. My own island tooth in its sea of gums. Same tooth. What are the chances? I had only just remembered that he was still talking but I managed to snap out of it just in time. Just in time to look like an idiot, atleast. “Do you know what I mean?” were the first words I heard from the gruff scratchy voice of the older man. Was he annoyed? Maybe, I really wasn’t sure. It’s another case where I paid attention to the wrong thing, focused on the wrong elements. Eventually I managed to reply “Oh yeah, sure mate.” with an unconvincing tone of voice and even worse delivery. “D’ya werk then? D’ya?” he asked in the uncompromising dialect of my beloved hometown. “Yeah, just nights though” “Used t’ work nights me, oh yes. Terrible business. No social life, no chance of meeting anyone that isn’t completely loving offit like.” At the time I felt I was frozen in conversation with this man. A perfect superposition of strange and familiar. He continued “Mad the kind of shite you find yourself getting nostalgic for. Used to be buzzing to be out of this place and now when I walk ‘bout these streets I get that sickly sweet feeling. It’ll happen to you too lad.” “It already happens to me” I managed to retort between his lightning quick speeches that he managed to spit out. I got the sense he wasn’t going to stop or slow down any time soon. “Eeeeh aye? Canny lad like you, what do you have to be nostalgic for eh? Hardly even been alive kidda. Beaches do me in proper, I remember being a little lad, a tiny thing. In Majorca I didn’t even bother to check the flags I was so excited to run on off into the sea with my little board thing, whatever you call it.” He was really at it now, words thundering from his throat like he was going to smash all the windows in the bus stop with the pure force of his voice alone. “And there’s this big loving wave that hits me and I’m like yerfuckinjokinaryna? What’s going on there? I look up and I’m under the bloody water at this point and the surface is so loving far away and so I’m paddling, paddling like my little fookin legs are gonna fall right off if I don’t and I get up and I look and I’m proper dying like right?” “Right” I replied. That didn’t slow him down. “The beach is so far at this point it might as well be in fookin Scotland for all I know and so there I am swimming through these massive loving waves man, good thing I got that bloody gold certificate at skool right? Anyway I’m paddling off again and I finally reach the beach and realise I have this board strapped to my arms still. I fell to my knees and took the deepest breaths I’d ever had like.” He finally took a breath at the bus stop too. He was a kind of wheezy breather, they don’t call us Smoggies for nothing. “Then this radgie Spanish bastard came up to me screaming at me but I didn’t speak a word of Spanish so I’m just sat there listening to this proper fumin bloke going off on me and I’m about 10. That’s the part that really sticks in the memory of this big tan bloke just having chew with a ten year old. It was only about then I noticed the red flags on the beach. He gave a smile and I saw those missing teeth again. The 37 came and went. I looked at it and then I looked back to our man here and I stayed. I was feeling the feeling he spoke about. It was hitting me as hard as it had ever. “I’ve got another story” The man said albeit in a much calmer tone than when he was telling the last story. The look in his eyes was serious, almost cold. Not as cold as the wind blowing in and causing my skin to goosebump. He started again “This one was rough but I like to look back and remember it, this bald teacher spends all day winding me up. He got right under my skin, that's for sure, a real miserable kind of gadgie. All it takes is a moment to do something completely aka and ruin everything eh?” “I think I’ve heard this one before” I said, quietly. “Next you punch him and run off to a nearby railway bridge to stare at the tracks right?” “Aye” he said simply. “I don’t think I’ve told any people about that.” I said. I was feeling that feeling again. “I did, it helped.” It seemed he had finally lost his need to ramble. The cool air felt appropriate now. I felt the heat rising in my chest, the anger that I had felt on that day before I stared down at the railways tracks and contemplated if I had just ruined my life. “What are you doing here? Why now? What could possibly be so important about a stupid day and a bus stop that you are here infront of me reminding me of all this loving shite?” The old man smiled and said “It was just one of those days I knew I’d feel that feeling again.”
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Mar 26, 2023 16:14
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Wizard's Work 1438 words "Do you like my spellbooks?" said Xandara. He collected spellbooks, but could barely read the runes, and his attempts at performing their magick always ended with frustration and abandonment. "Yeah, your spellbooks are cool," I said, exhausted, for the third or fourth time that day. It was best, as a rule, to try to keep Xandara happy, to humor his constant requests for validation and praise, lest the demon find holes in his ego to slip through and conquer his mind. My task from the Council of Mages was clear: if the demon contained within Xandara managed to kill him, it would be loosed to wreak violence upon all of Talamaran. I and my fellow guardian wizards were to keep him alive at all costs and contained in the desolate mountain spire. The demon had taken control of Xandara two days prior, and again three days before that. Each time we rebound the demon inside that poor, cursed man, our manna and life-essence drained. But the demon did not tire, it did not weaken, it only hungered, and each day I reported for duty at the tower I felt less and less alive. "Jeb, can you come here for a second?" called Izrenda from the study a floor below. I gave a friendly nod to Xandara as I made my way to the spiral staircase, leaving him with Quistyn, a young, nervous wizard who'd only worked at the tower for a little over three weeks. "What's going on?" I said as I sat down. "Nothing," said Izrenda. She was an old sorceress who'd worked at the tower for as long as I'd been alive. "Just thought you'd like a cup of tea. You've had a long week." "Thank you," I said, wordlessly summoning the teacup from her hands to mine. "I really have." "You were at the tower for both incidents this week, I've heard," said Izrenda. "Both breaches, yeah," I said. "Had to hold a binding charm for five straight hours last Saturday. Don't think I even have the manna for the cast today." "Can I tell you something in confidence?" said Izrenda. "I'm starting to wonder if these are even demon breaches at all." "What do you mean?" I said. The demon was certainly real; it was a remnant of the curse placed on Xandara by his brother, the notorious shadow-wizard Zhadoh. This was known. "I mean, what if the demon's been with him so long that there isn't really a distinction between the man and the beast?" said Izrenda. "What if the demon doesn't need to enter Xandara's mind for him do its bidding? What if the real issue is that Xandara's just an rear end in a top hat?" "No," I said. "Xandara's soul is too gentle. Besides, how can the least talented mage I've ever seen control such powerful magick except by a demon's control?" "I'm just asking questions," said Izrenda. "He might act weak, and powerless, and childlike, but remember, this is Zhadoh's own brother we're talking about. Even if he's not good at controlling magick, the raw power is there." Suddenly, a loud, repetitive banging noise pounded from the floor above, followed closely by Quistyn shouting "HELP!" "Ancients be damned," I cursed. I really had to do this poo poo again? "Izrenda, go help Quistyn with the binding incantation, he's still pretty new at it. I'll ready the potion." Izrenda nodded, then ascended the staircase. I ran to the bubbling cauldron in the corner of the study and started to ladle its deep purple ooze into a flask, but as the banging and pounding continued from upstairs, my hands started to tremble. I had the courage to deal with this several times already. But did I have the courage to battle this demon and its accursed host time and time again, forever? I inhaled a deep, nasal breath and closed my eyes. I steadied my hands, corked the flask, and made my way to the stairs. "LET ME DIE!" shrieked Xandara, hovering to the ceiling then crashing down to the floor, over and over. Quistyn's pathetic binding charm barely even counted as magick, and Izrenda's steady, practiced arc could not hold Xandara by itself. "LET ME DIE SO IT CAN BE FREE!" "Hi, Xandara," I said sweetly, slowly approaching the writhing host. "I have your potion ready for you, it's going to make you feel so much better." Xandara's tongue shot out of his mouth, a hundred times its natural length, wrapped around the flask, then smashed it against the wall. "gently caress your stupid potion!" shouted Xandara, the 'gently caress' sounding like a desperate attempt to sound adult and cool. He started thrashing his forehead against the tower walls. Quistyn grabbed his shoulders, but Xandara pantomimed a flick, and Quistyn was launched through the window. Izrenda abandoned her binding charm and managed to land a stopping spell on Quistyn before he could disappear behind the horizon. He floated in the air a mile away, just a speck in my vision. "poo poo!" said Izrenda. "I've got to get to him before the spell wears off. Can you hold him by yourself for a sec?" "No!" I shouted. "Definitely not!" "I'll be back soon!" said Izrenda, scooping up a rug off the floor and soaring away on it towards Quistyn. As I turned to face Xandara, his bookshelf fell to the floor, and the books rose into the air and started darting towards his face. I drew the bind charm from within me, but my blood lacked the manna, and silver sparks sputtered impotently from my hand. Black tendrils emerged from Xandara's nostrils and wrapped around my chest. I felt my ribcage squeeze against my lungs and gasped for breath. Xandara's forehead had a huge, bleeding gash, and the blood formed into wretched hands which pulled the gash further apart, and the last spellbook flung itself towards his exposed skull. With my free hand, I grabbed the book. Silent Hymns of the Black Halo. One of my favorites. Whenever Xandara asked me if I liked his spellbooks, I always answered truthfully. His spellbook collection was loving lit. "Xandara…do you like this one?" I croaked, and the tendrils loosened ever so slightly. "Yeah," he said. "The rune calligraphy is really cool." One of the blood-hands extended to slap me in the face. "Uh-huh," I said, spitting out the blood. "It's First Era Kul-Kahdan. Can't think of a better source for elder spirit communion." "Right," said Xandara. The tendrils released me, jabbing me in the gut as they retracted. "Xandara, can you please control yourself?This poo poo sucks." "I know it does," said Xandara. He launched the bookshelf at me, and I knocked it away with a simple blast of pressure. "I'm sorry, Jeb." "I'm here for you, dude," I said. "We're gonna keep you safe." Izrenda returned on the carpet with Quistyn in tow. "Will you let Izrenda and Quistyn cast the binding charm?" I said. "I'll try." The silver beams burst from my co-wizards' palms and connected like lightning to Xandara's skull. Quistyn's was actually pretty good. Xandara's arms turned into immense serpents and lunged towards Izrenda and Quistyn's neck. "Hey! Focus on me!" I said, and the serpents turned towards me. I picked up another spellbook from the floor. Inheritances From Tricksters. "That one's really cool!" said Xandara as I levitated the serpents into a knot. "Yep," I said. "You can only draw mana from the runes when they're written in crayon, it slaps. Oh, is that Earthquake Roots? Where did you get that?" He was starting to return to baseline, but it would still take a good long while. When Xandara finally calmed down, I went down to the study to scribble out a scroll for the tower's Chief Wizard. As long as Izrenda had worked at the tower, she hadn't learned how to fill out an Incident Report. Quistyn was upstairs, pretending to like the spellbooks and telling Xandara how good of a job he did by calming down. I still didn't know how much of the breaches was the demon and how much was Xandara. I only knew that whatever was going on, Xandara hated it, and just wanted it to stop. As scary as it was for me, it was always a hundred times scarier for him. I had no idea if the same poo poo was going to happen tomorrow. It very well could, and I might be exhausted, stressed, and sometimes a little pissed, but one way or another I would be ready. I was a wizard, drat it, and I was good at my job.
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Mar 26, 2023 16:27
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Crafting the Heart 1213 words The spider was miffed, and for good reason. Her web was coated with sawdust and had caught nothing. This was a matter of feeding, and thus life and death. I whispered words of apology while a gentle breeze plucked the errant particles of wood from the strands and evaporated them. The spider thanked me with a twitch of her pedipalps before climbing in and waiting for prey. I stood there watching her, her watching me, until a voice broke into our private world. “Dad, why do we need a squared block? Can’t we just put it on the lathe?” I didn’t bother turning and instead shifted into Melinda’s least favorite activity: figure it out yourself. I said, “There must be a reason for it besides blind sadism.” I paused. “First principles.” A moment, then a bolt from the blue. “Of course! Squaring the circle. Otherwise, we’ll fail to maximize the potency of the wand…but if so, why don’t we just run this block through the jointer to get a flat edge?” I looked at her. She had worked up quite a sweat pushing the jack plane over the chunk to flatten one side. “Look at it. What’s distinctive about the wood?” She sighed, then peered at it. It took only seconds. “The grain…it’s straight and even, like it was etched into the wood with a ruler. But then it gathers into a bulb near this end.” “And so?” “Because the block’s irregularly shaped, the jointer would shave off the wood at an angle, and I’d lose the neatly patterned grain.” I went inside and returned to the garage with some ice water. “For when you need a break.” Her thanks was lost in the blur of the next couple of hours. Progressively smaller planes flew over the wood, rendering one side flat. She asked, “Is it true there were problems in the woods?” I looked up from the plane blade I had been sharpening. “Where’d you hear that?” “Neighborhood blog.” “Ahh, people are always seeing what they want to see. What did they say it was?” “A dryad, infuriated her tree was damaged.” I looked back down at my work before I sliced off my skin. “Heh, people’ll believe anything.” Some more planing, and she declared the surface flat and parallel to the grain, holding it out to me to examine. Smooth and true. Next came the electric planer to flatten the opposite side, the jointer to form a perpendicular side, and the planer again to form the fourth side. We drank some water. “Dad, I really appreciate you helping me make my first personal wand.” I nodded, waiting for the rest. “But I really want a staff.” “Staves are tricky things. You don’t so much make staves as find them. Sure, I’ve trimmed and burnished my staff since I found it way back when, but you can’t just make one out of any branch. You could say…they pick you.” I laughed. “Third-rate dad joke.” “No, no. It was a laugh of relief. I thought you were going to ask me why we weren’t making a rod. They’re too imperious, plus I don’t have the metalworking skill to create a high-quality one. I had to buy this piece.” I held up a crystal rest with a long screw on the back. “The wand’ll be weaker than if you crafted this piece, but that can’t be helped, and it won’t make very much difference overall.” She smiled, took the crystal rest from me, fastened it in the vise, put a runed chunk of pyrite in it, and bent the rest’s prongs over the pyrite. She moved over to the lathe to adjust it to receive the wooden block. “Sweetie, wait a moment. Let’s drill the hole to receive the crystal rest first. No point in carving the wand only to drill the hole at an angle and ruin all the work. Align their resonance first.” She opened the vise to accept the block. I moved to a part of the garage where I wouldn’t crash into anything when I fell. She fastened the block, bulbed grain up, and held the pyrite in the crystal rest against the block. She began the Latin chant. Before long, her pitch changed – she knew something was wrong – she looked back at me – I said, “Focus!” – she reached the climax of the ritual. Arcs of color and peals of sound erupted from the wood and filled the garage. One arc whipped toward me. I caught it neatly on my ring and absorbed it but flopped to the ground, facing away from Melinda. I opened my third eye and relocated it to the back of my neck, so I could watch what was happening. She was forming shields. Wrong! Make a single shield to hold off the assault, then neutralize the force within! The leshy had been a difficult foe, thoroughly corrupted and irredeemable, and I thought a branch from his tree would provide both the optimal material and the right store of innate power for a wand. But all that depended on Melinda handing the problem herself, else she would never have a real bond with the implement, and it wasn’t looking good. Sprays of light poured out of the block of wood and met various iridescent shields she had conjured. But a dark violet beam, like a vile creature’s pseudopod, snuck behind and under the workbench, moving along the ground, rising up behind her. drat it! I prepared the Word of Abjuration and readied my shout. I wanted to give her the chance to overcome the challenge; otherwise, who knew if she’d ever be ready again? Could I risk it? She began slashing and cutting the tentacle-like arcs. Wrong again! They weren’t grasping, they weren’t the threat, and severing them did nothing to stop them! I muttered the preliminaries to the Word, confident she could not hear them over the grating the corrupted magic made. The dark violet beam rose and struck like a serpent at the back of Melinda’s neck. I almost got the Word out before the attacker hit an invisible shield. She whirled and pressed the pyrite crystal into the end of the beam. In Latin, she chanted, «By my strength I negate thee, thou has no power over me, thy will is naught next to mine.» Five times she chanted this, and each time the beam faded more and more, until it disappeared and the sound dissipated. “You can get up now, Dad. Mom taught me how to relocate my third eye a while ago. Caught you peeking while watching for its sneak attack.” I picked myself up. “Not bad, sweetie. I was about to use the Word of Abjuration.” “Without your staff?” She whistled; a pause. “So, what was it?” “A leshy.” “You’re kidding me. You stopped a leshy – a corrupted one, I assume?” I held out my hand, and my staff flew into it from across the garage. “Your old man knows a thing or two.” She stood there, looking at me, her face unreadable. Then I said, “OK. Let’s drill this hole and get the block on the lathe.” I paused, took a breath. “When you’re done, I’ve got to rebuild the house’s eastern wards against the wilds. If you’re interested.”
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Mar 27, 2023 04:22
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Week 555 Entry Summer's End 1,500 Words My tie-dye-stained fingers fumble for the key to my mom’s old van in my pocket; I push coins and tickets out of the way as I grab the key and throw it into the steering column. The sun isn’t ready to call it quits for the day, but I’m heading east, so it lights the way home for me just as it lit the way to camp this morning and the hundreds of summer mornings before it. There’s a short stack of triangular pizza slice boxes riding shotgun, and the smell of mozzarella and mushrooms is so pungent I can taste it. They’ve gone cold since lunch when I left them there, but the temptation to drive and eat is far too great. I open a box and happily chomp down with the faint smell of wet summer grass creeping through the windows as a garnish. I turn on some metal and head out, only noticing a flicker of purple in my rearview, something on the soccer field thousands of feet away. I turn onto Jones Rd and sigh as I leave the happiest place on earth for the night. ***** I pull into my driveway. The dark of the night is flirting with the sky. The smell of barbecue wafts over the house, and my adolescent appetite is unbothered by the two greasy slices of pizza it just consumed. I glide into the house and kick off my shoes in the mudroom. “Hi Danny,” my mom greets me from the kitchen. She’s mixing up a salad for everyone to ignore as she smiles at me. It’s the kind of smile I only get during the summer, warm and unbothered. “Hey, Ma,” I smile back. “Where’s dad?” I ask, noticing the unmanned grill through the window above the sink. “Oh, he had to take a call. Would you mind checking on the burgers and the chicken?” “No problem,” I say as I peck her cheek. The din of cicadas and treefrogs from our backyard treeline welcomes me to the deck. I grab a bottle of coke from the cooler next to it and crack it open on the grill tray. A belch of smoke and heat hits my face. Through it, however, I see another flicker of purple off in the treeline ***** The sun toasts my unprotected skin at the pool as Jasper, my favorite camper, pokes my bare foot with a pool noodle. “C’moooooooon Daaaaaaaaannyyyyyyyy, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.” I feign a nap on the poolside chair. Miles, my other favorite camper, paddles over to Jasper. “What’s taking so long?” He splashes Jasper in the face. “I don’t know,” whines Jasper. Jackie walks up behind me and yanks my Cubs hat off my head, and jumps into the pool with it. “You just gotta know how to get him started!” She yells. She smiles up big at me and swims away, with the bill of my hat between her teeth, easily my favorite camper. I bolt upright, launching my chair backward as I do, and shout ‘ANGRY DANNY ACTIVATE” and plunge into the pool to wreak havoc on the citizens of Dannyville. I’ve got Sonja perched on my right shoulder, and she’s about ready to get my signature move, ‘The Highrise.’ “Danny Thompson! So help me if you highrise me right now I’m going to call the fire department!” She shouts in confused glee. I toss her back and pound my chest. I’m distracted by my gloating fanfare and don’t realize that the rest of my campers have been waiting for this moment. They bombard me and finally, after the whole summer, manage to take me down and dunk their counselor. The whistle from the lifeguard tower pierces through the laughter and I look up to wave off Zach, the lifeguard, only to find a man in a black suit, with a black tie, sitting atop the chair. His eyes are purple, and they’re glowing bright enough to overcome the backlighting of the sun. I blink, and Purple Eyes is gone. Zach gives me the finger and shouts, “Get your tweens and your stupid pasty rear end outta my pool, Danny.” ***** I drop the kids off at art and accidentally swallow some sprite down the wrong pipe when Ash, the art teacher, says hi to me. She’s in college and is majoring in graphic design, and as far as I’m concerned, she’s absolutely perfect and is some league light years away from me. I compose myself and begin walking out of the class when Courtney runs up to me. “Danny, don’t forget I’ve got 5 tickets, so get me a soda on your break!” She runs up to me, as her braces catch the reflection of the light and temporarily blind me. “Aye, captain,” I say to her as I stuff her tickets in my pocket. “Only two days left until camp is over. Anybody else?” I call out to the rest of the bunk. They all shrug; most blew their tickets yesterday on extra bottles of tie-dye I brought in. Tickets are a little running game I play with them all over the summer to help ensure I earn as little money as possible in a job that already pays peanuts. My campers earn tickets for cracking good jokes, running back to where we just came from to get my water bottle, or doing something wickedly impressive in dodgeball, whatever. It’s just my bunks thing, and the other counselors hate me for it. I ain’t gonna apologize for being awesome, though. I burst open the school building's door and begin my quest to the 7-11. It’s just through the woods beyond the soccer field. The woods are thick, and by the time I get there, the sun is in exactly the wrong place, covered by just enough clouds that the woods are eerily dark, but at least it’s cool. I hear a crack behind me. I already know who it is before I turn around, and though his presence is discomforting, this doesn’t feel like it belongs in a horror movie. “How many tickets do you have in your pocket, Danny?” Purple Eyes asks me. “Not enough for whatever you’re selling, I’m guessing.” He smiles, and only after he does do I catch where I know his face from. He’s the director of the camp, but only kinda. He’s older and more haggard. The suit and tie conceal his identity a bit, but it’s definitely him, Randall. “What’s going on, Randall?" I ask. “You spooking around my house now acting all creepy?” “Ah, so you see Randall when you look at me, do you?” I shrug, “What do you mean? Isn’t that who you are?” “Afraid not,” it replies. “I’m whoever will crush you. So I suppose it’ll be Randall who will be doing that soon.” “Crush me?” He's upon me faster than I can realize, and his ethereal hand slips into my chest. It isn't painful, but it's certainly weird. "What are you--" He looks up at me, and his expression tells me this isn't the time for questions. I try to move away, but he shakes his head. After a few more seconds, he withdraws his hand. It's closed around something glowing orange. Something that's mine. "What is that?!" I ask. "You don't really have a name for it, but consider it something like your inner child." "And what, you're just taking it from me? Why the hell did you do that?" "Not taking, Dan, protecting. Maybe you'll get it back. Suffice it to say it'll be some time until you do." I believe him, I have to. He did just perform ghost surgery on me, after all. I can't imagine he'd bother lying to me. "When will I get it back?" I plead. "If you get it back, it'll be because you're ready. Ready to tend to it properly. Ready to listen." "I'm ready now. I don't get why you're doing this." "It's not your fault, Dan. This world does horrible things to people. You'll be doing what you need to to survive." I look up to ask another question, but he's gone. Flashes of the scenes where I noticed his presence appear before my eyes…. Man, is it getting late or something? I check my watch and realize I must have gotten distracted. I hoof it to 7-11 to get Courtney's soda. ***** I breathe in, and breathe out, trying my best to help. My partner grimaces at me. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Your breath is horrible, go away!” She says. I chuckle, remembering the warnings about what a partner might hear in the delivery room and not to take it personally. Minutes later, I become a father. They get my daughter all cleaned up and hand me her for the first time. We go to the window together. The sun will be up in a few minutes, and we’ll catch it together. As I kiss her forehead and look back up the window, a glint of orange catches my eye in the parking lot.
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Mar 27, 2023 04:46
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Ellipsis 687 words It is, it turns out, remarkably easy to become unstuck in time. The trauma of strategic bombing, it turns out, is massive overkill. As it were. All you really need is a bright light, the smell of sulfur, and the right attitude. And a bit of luck, I can't be sure if it's the good or bad kind required. At 1:46 PM on March 5th in the year of our lord 2016, these all came together for me. One minute I'm standing at a bus stop and the next I'm experiencing every instant of my life out of order. Work. School. Mealtime. Sleep, which takes some getting used to, sorting out moments that never happened but did in forgotten dreams. Time just before sleep, too. Watching television. And so much time in the bathroom. One after the other after the other. Then things smooth out. I find myself drawn to certain instants, minor mortification and regrets. The minutes after accidentally blurting a secret, or missing a joke. A person could get trapped like this forever, I think. It's very hard to remember that you have free will, too easy to do exactly what you remember doing in every instant. To hold off from shouting "Free will" until it's too late, the moment passed. I escaped the trap. That one, at least. I gathered myself, waited for the moment, and acted. It was February 15th, the year of our lord 1988, and when Su Hei handed me a late Valentine card (impersonal as can be, and just out of context) instead of politely thanking her I asked her out on a date. Out of character, I was hopelessly shy in those days. But I was riding myself, taking control of my awkward socially paralyzed brain. Nothing but a few pleasant outings came of it. Nothing much could have; it was our Senior years and we were both well committed to our colleges. But it was a change, and butterflies are real. Even a small change like this and in thirteen years you have President Gore taking the oath of office, you're working a completely different job in another part of the country with a different trail of failed and semi-successful relationships. 2016 came and went and I wondered if the other lifetime was just a weird extended dream. But five years past that was the accident, the hospital, and the smell of sulfur and I was back, now bouncing up and down two branches of a tree. It's limited, how much I can carry into a new life. An immediate decision, sure. But not so much more complicated memories. On the bright side, I get to experience books and movies for the first time, each time. But I can't memorize other people's unwritten books and steal credit for them, haven't yet found a million dollar idea I can get to early from where I start. The butterfly effect means I can't win a fair lottery with future knowledge. Maybe there's a fixed one that I could leech off of, but I haven't found it yet. Early on, I tried a lot of geopolitics stuff. Warning off disasters before they happen, tipping journalists about scandals early or warning the politicians. Trying to get to a better place. Thing is, it's surprisingly easy to make things worse. How does the meme go? If I had a nickel for each time there was a nuclear exchange in a timeline I've lived out, I'd have thirty-five cents. So far. And about half were when I wasn't even trying to make big changes. And another fifteen cents of nasty civil wars. So it's mostly just been living my best lives, as best I can. Following the thread of each missed connection or passed-up opportunity. Spending precious days with people I have lost and will lose again. I'm not sure how it all ever ends, if I can resist the call when the sulfur-smell hits, or stay in the unstuck state forever, or if I need to achieve enlightenment and break the wheel. For now, I'm taking it one life at a time.
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Mar 27, 2023 07:38
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Movies Are for Everyone 1241 words flash: all living things — people, plants, animals, birds — can talk It’s a difficult thing, watching movies with sunflowers. To start with, there’s the matter of the sun: the sunflowers love it. And I do not—or, at least, I do not like the sun when I’m trying to watch a movie. Not just because of the glare, but because of the immersion. I like to watch in a dark room. When you’re sitting in the sun, trying to watch a movie—what am I saying, you understand why. I don’t need to explain it to you. I tried to explain it to Denny and Jackson and Ellie—my sunflower friends—but they just couldn’t get on board. “We’re just too sad when the suns out, and we’re not in it, Mike! And then we’re too sad to enjoy the movie.” Okay, then, so I suggested night time—but that’s too sad, too. I tried to point out that the sun distracted them, as they’d often turn their faces to the sun while the movie was on, but no dice. I solved it, though. Built a little canopy outside with a cutout so they could be in the sun, and I wasn’t, and no glare on the screen. Not ideal, but good enough, and we got to watch our movies. Didn’t really have an answer for the sound issue. Being outside during the daytime and all, nobody’s trying to be quiet. Traffic, neighbors, little kids, it’s just not a great environment. We just watch everything with subtitles, it’s fine. Which leaves the question of what to watch. There was the obvious stuff: Curse of the Golden Flower, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Secret Garden. Not my favorites, but I thought they would like seeing themselves on screen. They did, for a bit, until Denny caught on and called me out. “Are you just picking movies with lots of flowers in them?” I said yeah, that I wanted to show them things they might like. “We’re not little kids, Mike,” Denny said. Understood, I said, and apologized. I should have known better, anyway. I found out they wanted to watch movies when I caught them craning as far as they possibly could to watch Singin’ in the Rain. It’s the movie that made me fall in love with movies, and I was trying to get my wife Abby to do the same. Don and Kathy and Cosmo were dancing and singing and prancing across the screen, and these three tall sunflowers were practically horizontal trying to get a glimpse. They asked me about it the next morning when I walked out in the garden. “Who was that tap dancing god?” Jackson asked. Gene Kelly, I replied, and they proceeded to tell me how much they loved the movie, and if they could move the TV so they could see better. They loved a movie about sound in movies without even hearing it: I was wrong to underestimate them. So we watched the good stuff. I started with some classics that I knew were good, to see what they did like. Rear Window: 3 thumbs up. Petals up? Leaves up? I’ll stick with thumbs. Pulp Fiction: Jackson and Ellie yes, Denny no. Goodfellas, Jaws, Jurassic Park, all obvious and undeniable yeses. Studio Ghibli got rave reviews across the board, no surprise—especially Nausicaä and Mononoke (the environmental ones, is my theory). Black and white films were a tougher sell. They didn’t really go for Casablanca or Seven Samurai, so I mostly stopped trying to show them the old movies. Only Ellie liked Cinema Paradiso, which surprised me, and none of them liked In the Mood for Love. That hurt a little bit. You’re probably wondering what my wife thought, now that I was spending all this time with The Sunflowers, and not her. And also, because of the large semi-permanent and permanently unsightly tent structure by her beautiful flower garden. And yeah, at first, I was a little irresponsible with my time, but who wouldn’t be? I was excited to share movies with my new movie friends. Listen, I love Abby with all my heart, so don’t go thinking this is something it’s not. It’s just, Abby is more of a Hallmark movies and Real Housewives kind of woman. So once I settled down and found a schedule for myself—the sunflowers are pretty flexible in theirs, as you can imagine—I think she was mostly relieved I don’t ask her to watch “my weird films” with her anymore. Frankly, our relationship has never been stronger. I know people say that all sorts of times, and usually it means the opposite. But I really mean it. Once I stopped trying to force her to analyze the deeper meanings of Stanley Kubrick films, she and I both relaxed. We had more fun doing the things we do share: surfing, concerts, local breweries, new recipes, books, etc. While I was watching movies with The Sunflowers, she was content to watch TV inside with Atticus. (That's our dog. I tried to watch movies with him, too, but Atticus Finch, he is not. His review of John Wick: the dog dies, 0/10. Okay, I guess I should have seen that coming. Same review for Terminator 2, and honestly, that's my fault. I forgot about the dog in that one.) We just watched Little Women a couple days ago. (Abby actually watched with us, too, and she liked that one. She loved the book, so I imagine she was predisposed.) I was a little nervous, of course, because it’s a personal favorite of mine, and sharing your favorite things is a fraught experience: if your friends don’t like the things you like, doesn’t that reflect on you, just the tiniest bit? I also believed the movie to be a great work of art. So if they didn’t like it… But I needn’t have been worried. I can trust The Sunflowers to be thoughtful even in their dislikes. Even though they didn’t like Casablanca, we had a great discussion. Ellie was fascinated by the film’s depiction of the intersection of nationalism and personal responsibility, despite being bored out of her mind. A movie can be both boring and interesting at the same time. They loved Little Women. Denny wishes it had “just like, at least, the tiniest bit of action.” Denny is the action hound. He likes breaking down movies, but he especially likes it when the movie also has explosions and punches. I mostly agree with him. Ellie is the intellectual of the bunch, and sometimes she’s too smart for me, but it’s a good influence—I always go research stuff after our chats. Jackson is the filmmaker of the crew, and he always notices things I don’t: framing, editing, color grading. I sometimes wonder if we can’t figure out a way to get a camera in his hands. Leaves. Petals. Whatever. Abby assures me that they’re not really dying, they’re just going dormant for the winter. They’re perennials, she says, and they'll be back next summer. I’m a little sad, and she can see that I’m sad, which I know because she offers to watch “one of your movies” with me, as she puts it. I appreciate the gesture. We’re watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid today. None of us have seen it. It’s supposed to be great. Denny will like it, for sure.
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Mar 27, 2023 08:32
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submissions are closed
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Mar 27, 2023 10:17
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TD 555 Judgment Thanks all who wrote a story this week! It was fun getting to know a little bit about each of you, and the standard was overall fairly high this week. One thing I learned is that you all seem to love stories about past selves and time loops and circular narratives etc etc. There were a few pieces that tackled this well this week! Unfortunately, with so much competition, one story didn’t stand up in comparison; and so Thranguy takes the loss for Ellipsis, a story which focused too much on time travel and not enough on showing us something real. On the upper end, BeefSupreme nabs the sole HM this week for Movies Are For Everyone, a charming little piece about a man sharing his hobby. Well done! Finally, the win goes to DigitalRaven, whose The Eternal World Ceilidh had a strong sense of character and place. Ascend the blood throne, DigitalRaven!
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Mar 28, 2023 00:19
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Crits: Week 555 Movies Are For Everyone by BeefSupreme Charming is the core word for this piece. You have a very strong start, I love the opening line and you set up the fun magical-realist conceit quickly and deftly. i immediately believe in the world of the story, it feels very natural here that plants and dogs should talk. I like the characterization of the sunflowers, and though I think that information should have been put earlier in the story, their different approaches to film appreciation is fun and well done. I just wish we got to see a little bit more of our narrator's approach to same. I think the narrator-character is a bit underdeveloped, which is a shame because the rest of the piece is lively and cute. Summer's End by Chili This was actually rated the highest for me. I absolutely adore your prose. It's rich and textured but not self-indulgent and perfectly captures the warm melancholy of late summer. The characterization of our narrator-protagonist is quick and clean, I immediatley feel like I know what he's about and like him immensely. I really like the immediate building of the central fantastic element, starting subtle and reaching crescendo at the confrontation with Purple Eyes. The problem of the piece is that confrontation. It gets bogged down cramming a lot of idea into a small space, and as a result we don't get to see any of what it means to lose this inner child. I don't need a lot here, I think we're all old enough to have experienced the grinding effect of daily life on our sense of wonder and contentment, but I need something to reify the metaphor. I think the denoument helps salvage that a bit, I just wish it didn't have to. Still, great piece. Crafting the Heart by Admiralty Flag The title is fitting, because you have a well-crafted sense of heart to this story, it's just the rest of it isn't up to snuff. The core relationship and father-daughter bonding activity is very warm and wholesome. Similarly the core activity of woodworking was well described: even if you get a little in the weeds with some of the tools and techniques your knowledge of and enthusiasm for the craft are impressive and infectious respectively. Unfortunately those core strengths aren't held up by the other elements. The urban fantasy stuf is... fine. I don't love it but I don't hate it. It exists and serves its purpose but adds very little. Your prose is a little clunky with some repititious word choice, and your big action scene at the end is muddled; I would have liked some better defined geography and stakes set up before the spells started flying. The parts of yourself that you brought to this were very strong, you just need to build up the framing elements to match. Ironopalis by ItohRespectArmy I really enjoyed the sense of place in this one. I'm a Neighborhood Guy and even with the sparse word budget you allowed I could very much feel the type of place you're evoking, both in the fridged bus stop and the Majorcan beach. I quite like the concept of time loops and meeting your future or past selves, so I enjoyed the fantastic-element-as-emotional-catharsis. Our protagonist is whistful but not self-pitying with a strong narrative voice. I don't have a lot to say about this other than that I liked it. Well done. Wizard's Work by Albatrossy Rodent This was a divisive one in the judgechat. It took me a few tries before I could really see what part of you you were bringing to this story. After rereading it and talking with the other judges I get the conceit of orderly work as seen through the lense of being Literal Wizards, and the sense of burnout being resisted by a genuine commitment to doing good with your work is a good emotional throughline that I liked. I just feel like the prose and the otherworld fantasy elements were very flat. There was nothing about them that was particularly special or intriguing, they were just there as a metaphor for metaphor's sake. I'm also not sure I like the use of modern colloquial speech, especially since it doesn't jive super well with the narration. It pulls me out of the fiction of the world, which is death for a secondary-world fantasy. I think if you'd spent less wordcount on spells and more on drawing out the central concept you'd have been on more solid footing. The Eternal World of Ceilidh by Digital Raven I loved this one. I'm a big sucker for time loop stories and this one is very well exectuted. It's got Vibes and it's got Atmosphere and those are things I love, especially in short fiction. The opening is very strong, bringing us into the drudgework of the cubicle farm and immediately throwing us out again into the bizzare. It really drives home how long our narrator has been trapped here, that professionally touching computers under flourescent lighting is preferable to jamming with your friends in a Scottish field. The Audience is an unnerving and sinister presence, even when they're barely there. I actually like that you don't focus on that element, and instead drill down on how it effects our central character and his friends. The mystery doesn't need to be solved, only experienced. Mysteries are cool, answers are boring. One could say that there's not much 'story' here, that not a lot happens, but I don't think that much needs to. It both reifies the basic concept of nothing much happening because you've already done everything thousands of times, and I also think that sometimes in short fiction you don't need a gripping plot, you can just provide a thoughtful study of character and surf the vibe. Ellipsis by Thranguy Now I know what I just said in the last crit, but all those things didn't quite work here. I don't know what you brought of yourself here, I really don't. It feels like you just wrote a time travel/loop story happening to a first person protagonist and called it a day. It's pure concept, and while that concept is intriguing and even delightful it feels like empty fluff. There's a lot you could have done, but you didn't, and it's not like you were threatened by the word count, you used less than half your budget. That said, the language itself was quite nice, and there were some good bits. I was quite tickled by the "35 cents of nuclear exchanges" line. You manage to communicate the core conceit well, including some if its rules and limitations, with remarkable economy, which is impressive, but you've given us a lot of bone with no meat on it.
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Mar 28, 2023 04:31
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WEEK 556: Lawyers, Guns, and Money https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2HH7J-Sx80 Not only is it one of Warren Zevon's best songs, it's a list of three good story ingredients. Let's throw'em in a pot and see what inedible garbage you can make! Your story this week must include lawyers, guns, and money in some form. The only limit is you can't play the prompt entirely straight: no hard-boiled crime/noir stories. Take these basics in hand like they're your daddy's nutsack and give them a good hard twist. You get 1000 words to start with. Brevity is the soul of wit, and if you can't be witty you can at least be brief. If you ask for a flash rule, I'll give you another Warren Zevon title to use in your story in addition to Lawyers, Guns, and Money. You can use this new one either directly or thematically. In return you get 500 bonus words (1500 total). If you ask for a Hellrule, you'll get the same 500-word bonus as a flash rule, but I'm going to pick out a song title from my entire music library to include, and it'll be a fucker. You don't get anything beyond that; this is Thunderdome, pain is its own reward. The usual rules apply about no erotica, no poetry, no google docs, etc. Signup deadline: Friday, 31st March at 11:59 PST Submission deadline: Sunday, 2nd March at 11:59 PST Judges DigitalRaven rohan My Shark Waifuu Entrants Pham Nuwen — The Indifference of Heaven Thranguy — Poor Pitiful Me steeltoedsneakers — Mr Blobby BeefSupreme — Grafting Haddock in the George FlippinPageman ItohRespectArmy flerp — Play it All Night Long derp sephiRoth IRA IShallRiseAgain Beefeater1980 DigitalRaven fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Mar 28, 2023 13:37
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Good prompt. In, with a flash, please!
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Mar 28, 2023 17:07
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Pham Nuwen posted:Good prompt. The Indifference of Heaven https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adHwtOLoVjE
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Mar 28, 2023 18:00
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In, flash
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Mar 28, 2023 19:09
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Thranguy posted:In, flash Poor Pitiful Me https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_TbfQPRgcS8
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Mar 28, 2023 21:53
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in. hmu with a hellrule pls
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Mar 29, 2023 00:22
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in and hellrule
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Mar 29, 2023 00:53
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In.
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Mar 29, 2023 00:55
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In.
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Mar 29, 2023 05:23
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Onehandclapping posted:I don't write much beyond shitposts, and I didn't read the prompt before writing this, but I was daydreaming in the kitchen, thought this was a neat idea for a story, hashed it out over two hours, then someone told me to post it here. Here's my story, edited the title because I read the formatting rules I don't know if this is a shitpost in itself or not, but lets apply New Criticism theory to this and eschew context for the time being. I will only be considering words after the title. As others have noted, reading the OP and entering a weekly comp is highly encouraged. "Tonight I Will Kill The Moon" by Onehandclapping Summary: Jerome stands with his girlfriend (a fact confirmed near the end of the piece) Gilly (short for Gilliam) in midsummer, looking up at the full moon. Jerome begins pointing at the moon, which apparently has a green healthbar, as in a video game. Gilly is not impressed, and seems mostly annoyed. Eventually, more symbols (crosshairs? ID tags?) appear near the moon. Jerome now seems confused (though in moments he appears not confused), and Gilly thinks it's an odd prank, and then Jerome pantomimes shooting the moon, and the moon disappears. Gilly is annoyed. The end. Response: This story is mostly confusing to me. I'll get into some of the mechanical and stylistic issues below, but as for the story itself, it doesn't work. The stakes are unclear: we don't know who these characters are, and their relationship is unclear until near the end of the story (even though I suspected they were romantically involved). Gilly seems to think the whole thing is a prank, which implies that Jerome is prone to this sort of behavior; he seems nonplussed by her accusation and plays the part at times. But it's confusing, because he flips between surprised and playful--at first, pointing out the oddness of the moon's healthbar, then being surprised by the extra symbols, then acting like he's going to shoot the moon, then being surprised again... Because of Jerome's back and forth reactions, I can't tell if this is something he expected, partially expected, or is completely surprised by. In a story where the main character apparently explodes the moon with finger guns, clarity of intent, reaction, and understanding would go along way toward wrestling with weirdness of the setup. I have no idea why the moon has a healthbar, or crosshairs, or a misspelled nametag, and your story doesn't give me any kind of answer to what that might mean. Normally, I would analyze a piece to try to wrest from it whatever underlying meaning exists, but I find myself unable to do so for this piece. Writing Feedback: There are a few mechanical issues at play throughout the piece. The first and most pressing is consistent misuse of commas, paired with strangely structured clauses. If you'd like a line crit, I'd be willing to do one and note some of the syntactical errors. There are also a number of recurring with punctuation and dialogue tags. You've also got some odd wording. "His companion continued her long, wide eyed stare" implies that she had been staring wide eyed already, but I don't believe that to be the case. "The offending green line" is an odd phrase, because its unclear why the line is offending. "Accomplice satelite [sic]" is also an odd choice of adjective; is the moon Jerome's accomplice? Or is the moon playing a trick? I also don't believe you have used "quietus" correctly. In general, I think a focus on clear syntax and storytelling would serve your work substantially. Lastly, not sure if you intentionally put quotation marks around your title, but it's an odd choice. If it is a quotation, is it from somewhere? Google indicates nothing major (except perhaps an oblique reference to Doctor Who?), and it doesn't appear in the work itself. Of course, it could answer the question as to what the hell is happening in the story, though it would leave me with more questions about Jerome and his intentions. Bonus Crit of Chili's Summer's End A nice little story about childhood lost and, eventually, regained (with the birth of a child, awww how sweet). I liked this story a decent amount. I immediately respect Danny's boyish, innocent immaturity and his cool camp counselor vibe. I found myself annoyed at the adults dragging him out of his youthfulness. I only really have a couple of criticisms, and the first is a critique I know I have given to you before and probably speaks more to my storytelling sensibilities more than anything: I think you oversell the confrontation between Danny and "Randall". Too much explanation of what's happening. I'd much prefer a more ethereal encounter, in which the exact same thing happens but Randall doesn't explicitly tell us that he has just snatched Danny's inner child. I think the colors and the action is enough for a perceptive reader to get it, and I think those words would be better spent doing what Slightly Lions said: showing us what Danny's life looks like in the mundanity of maturity. One little mechanical thing I noticed: the end of section two ends with "another flicker of purple off in the treeline", sans period. It's the second mention of the purple flicker, and at first I thought perhaps the missing period was intentional, and I actually kind of loved it--Danny's weird mystical experience was messing with the form of the story itself. Since that doesn't happen elsewhere, I doubt that was intentional, but if you're into playing with form (as I wish I was in my own writing, but as I appreciate deeply in other's writing) it might have been something interesting to explore.
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Mar 29, 2023 06:32
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steeltoedsneakers posted:in. Mr Blobby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNkgDJpcuwU
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Mar 29, 2023 15:50
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BeefSupreme posted:in and hellrule Grafting Haddock in the George https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBNpw6fkiAs
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Mar 29, 2023 15:51
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in flash
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Mar 29, 2023 17:47
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flerp posted:in flash Play it All Night Long https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W07dFdGadE
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Mar 29, 2023 20:10
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i am in
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Mar 30, 2023 19:48
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Ignore me.
DigitalRaven fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Mar 31, 2023 |
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Mar 31, 2023 09:34
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I will be in.
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Mar 31, 2023 21:47
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The signup deadline looms closer! If anyone wants to join the idiot on the Blood Throne in sitting in judgment over these poor saps, make yourselves known.
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Apr 1, 2023 02:05
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In.
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Apr 1, 2023 05:24
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In.
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Apr 1, 2023 06:43
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Signups are closed!
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Apr 1, 2023 10:08
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I will judge
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Apr 1, 2023 11:14
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Looking for one more judge!
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Apr 1, 2023 23:08
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DigitalRaven posted:Looking for one more judge! I'll judge this week too
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Apr 1, 2023 23:44
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The Bacchanalia 955 Words I cannot believe I agreed to this. It is mortifying to be sitting here at The Bacchanalia in Mayfair. I’m half expecting to be turfed out if they catch onto the little scheme my friends have cooked up for me. “Oh he’s a delightful sportsman, you’ll adore him Alfie” they nattered on in their perfectly practised little voices. I’m almost angry enough that I can’t appreciate the glorious marble statues carved above my head. It does humble a man to find out what it’s like to live from the POV for an ant when he’s eating his dinner. The whole place is the kind of decadence I used to doodle about in my notebooks at school. This place is like Greco-Roman Disneyland and I’m sitting here balling my fists up because I am on a bloody blind date. The finest wine, food, atmosphere and a stranger to come in and ruin it for me. I worked hard for this. I scraped and clawed and sacrificed, oh lord I sacrificed to experience this kind of place. I’m pretty sure I could slit the throat of at least two waiters and if I tipped enough they’d probably thank me for my custom. Half the other patrons are politicians, oligarchs, murderers and such but I repeat myself. I’m not unfamiliar with such types. The same kind I see in the dock week in week out are the same that I see carefully slide out the chair for their wives or escorts or mistresses at this type of place. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like to judge but I do and it’s not like I can turn it off. Once you have the eye you have it, you see things. I don’t expect a film director to want to go down and watch the latest Guy Ritchie fare with me, we both know it’s garbage but he can’t unsee every little string connecting the poo poo to the flies. So here I am on my blind date and he’s late. There’s a hundred different paths to take from this one but I’m working on limited information so let’s jump to some conclusions. The way I see it he probably just isn’t that bothered. It’s a blind date and he’s probably been told as much about me as I have about him, so he thinks I’m the only gay barrister stupid enough to not bother getting a beard. That isn’t fair of me is it? Well alright. He could be unlucky, maybe he’s in a brutal car crash that just ended his sporting career in his prime. Then I’ll feel really bad for wanting one of these massive statues to turn me into a pile of gore if that bloody maitre d’ walks over to me and asks in the most polite way what the gently caress exactly I am doing here. It’s all bloody “Yes sirs” until you’re waiting for some useless bastard to walk in the door. I’m half tempted to start scratching my nails into this lovely mahogany table just to feel something. You turn thirty and suddenly a pair of socks and a funny card isn’t enough. Reservation at the fuuuuucking Bacchanalia. It’s not like I can’t have a good time, I should be a great laugh at this point as I rush into my fifth gin and tonic. They’re all married and suddenly I’m a bloody “singleton” whatever that means. It’s not even like I’m repressed, I did as much coke and had as much bad sex as half those idiots in Uni but they all converted to Catholicism and I focused on my career, investments, health and all the other shite you’re meant to prioritise. Apparently that makes me a catch but loving hell it just makes me feel lonely. What exactly is the point of having the Mercedes, the big house, the ISA that is doing quite nicely thank you very much and so on and so forth? I flip open my phone and stare at it, I should just text Oliver and own up to the fact he was right and I should’ve spent more time doing coke and less time staring at textbooks. Where’s all this dark come from? Looking up I see that some bloke is standing there blocking all those big gaudy chandeliers and their terrible lights. There’s a pause for a second, a beat. “Alfie?” he asks and now I’m processing, how quickly could I kill him? He has the height on me for sure, a few inches. I could jump the table, smash his head into it and jam my glass into his throat. Too much to lose sadly so politeness is the order of the night. “The very same, it’s good to meet you finally” I say with my best smile normally saved for senile judges. “I am so sorry for being late. I’m Thomas but most call me Tom. Someone jumped on the tracks and it turned into a whole scene” he said. I was doing it again though. He was too thin to be a rugby player, thank god. He took the tube so less chance of him being a footballer of any note and I can only assume my friends are cruel enough to match me up with someone actually talented. “So, what is it you do?” I ask innocently. I can see why my friends chose him though, he is so blonde. Sharp cheekbones, all defined features. He might be a model for one of these statues I’ve been glaring at. “Well usually I’m a shooting instructor but I also compete in competitions. If I’m lucky I’ll qualify for the next Olympics” He said, very soft spoken. gently caress it, at least he’s a straight shooter.
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Apr 2, 2023 23:25
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| # ? May 29, 2024 17:45 |
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Make Some Noise! (accidentally posted with the wrong formatting, edited to fix that and not for content) 996 Words “This is going to end their careers,” Joyce said. “And yours, Greg.” “It’s going to make our careers,” said Greg, his lenses tombstone-white in the control room’s glow. “Have it your way,” Joyce said. “All of you will be in court before the end of the week.” “You can go watch from backstage if you want,” Greg said, a sneer in his voice. The technicians around him frowned and sweated as the lights of the Talonhurst Stadiadrome died down. Joyce figured saving lives and her job was worth one more try, so she zoomed into the brief on her phone and approached Gregg from the side. “The order states–” “Private property,” Greg snapped. “Plus, everyone here’s an adult who’s signed a waiver. You know it doesn’t matter if they haven’t read the T’s and C’s. Darren, cue VO 1.” Joyce did not sigh or groan. Instead, she pulled up a chair and faced the big screen while her mind whirred. There had to be a way. The prerecorded shrieks condemning all ye scum who did not silence ye phones burbled into silence. The gates of hell were opening. A new age was arriving. At least she’d still get a commission. Not to mention a front-row seat. * * * * * “YE HOPELESS WASTES, YE SPAWN OF SPUTUM, PREPARE TO DIE! HERE COMES-” The cries of Skogg the Unholy Herald were drowned out by ecstatic explosions and cheers. One by one, the prosthetic-laden members of MEAT NEBULA emerged from a curtain of gore-colored sparks. First came Plaguetopus, a gnarled kraken-man whose tentacles strangled stomach-emptying thrums from a bass shaped like an infected harpoon. Next was Devildactyl, the Demon Queen of Drums, a winged fiend with claws, wings, and a T-rex head, who swooped down to her kit from above and unleashed an energetic fill so fast it broke her left stick. Two criss-crossing guitar lines rang out as the spiny body and bulbous, blood-red eyes of Untulus Spikefucker rose from beneath the stage, with Deletia the Living Corruption, a giant amoeba, by his side. All the preceding excitement was forgotten as the Faceless Knight himself, Baron Skinripper (or “Rip,” as the chant went) rode out in corn syrup-drenched plate armor on a pantomime horse of bones. As his steed reared, the Baron cupped his gauntleted hands around his skull mouth and let out a ferocious growl-scream. By the time the crowd settled down, the band had nearly finished their signature opener, “Worms With SharpTeeth.” Then came “Boiled Bones” and “Walking Nightmare” and their timely anthem in support of ranked-choice voting, “gently caress Off and Die.” And then Rip made his big announcement. “Sit thine ASSES DOWN!” he bellowed. “You are all DOOMED to see us here in Talonhurst! For tonight, we have brought an INSTRUMENT of DEATH! Bring out…the RIPPER’S RAY!” Two roadies in head-to-toe leather bodysuits pushed out a crude wooden cart. In it sat the Ray, clearly a product of a different planet than MEAT NEBULA’s own (which was the planet Waranus, according to the band’s wiki). It was remarkably plain and unready for its closeup, looking more like a science class telescope than a doomsday weapon. Over the next few days, an 11-second zoomed-in video of Plaguetopus, shrugging nonchalantly as the Ray emerged, would garner over 90 million views. * * * * * “Cavalry’s here,” said ex-Sgt. Delios, his voice echoing down the hall. “Thank God, Chuck,” said Joyce. “They’re about to fire.” “No one else would do this,” said Delios without slowing his stride. “You’re lucky I saw your post. And that I’m retired and don’t give a poo poo.” “All you have to do is stop Ri-uh, Mr. Barker from turning it on,” she said. “I’ll help you with any legal consequences.” “Much obliged, ma’am.” They entered the elevator to the stage. Purely out of habit, Joyce thumbed open the PDF of the dossier on Project Death Throes, the work of the late physicist Geri Barker. She had developed the device for Spurner Labs, who was now paying Joyce’s firm to get it back, or at least prevent its use. Upon her death, Dr. Barker left the prototype to her son, Lance Barker, aka Baron Skinripper, giving him full rights and ownership. This machine was capable of manipulating high volumes of inorganic gasses, allowing for- The elevator stopped. Delios exited. Joyce stood still, reading and re-reading. At the edge of the stage, her hands grabbed the old man just as he reached for his holster. * * * * * “I heareth thee not, foul mucus! I said…if you want us to UNLEASH COMPLETE DESTRUCTION…” Rip’s exact directions were yet more words lost in the maelstrom of screams and declarations of loyalty. With a chivalrous flourish, he lowered the beaklike visor of his helmet, signaled to the band, and produced a tablet from the satchel around his waist. He had to jab at it a few times before the Ray lit up, a bright green light emanating through the audience. For the only time that night, the entire Stadiadrome was as quiet as the moon. * * * * * Two months later, Lance Barker appeared as the keynote speaker at the UN’s Climate Change Conference. His entrance, in business casual and without makeup or armor, garnered a ten minute standing ovation. Before he could even speak, the head of the World Science Forum described him as “the greatest hero of science since Louis Pasteur.” MEAT NEBULA was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Jule G. Charney Award, the Breakthrough Prize, and the Medal of Freedom. The Ripper’s Ray was TIME Person of the Year. Six months later, international scientists confirmed that the Ray had indeed restored more than a quarter of the ozone layer, with ocean temperatures returning to their lowest since 1990. Forecasts predicted that continued use of the Ray would fully reverse the effects of climate change within 10 years. By that December, MEAT NEBULA’s album sales had plummeted. Their tour had been canceled. They do birthday parties now. FlippinPageman fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Apr 3, 2023 |
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Apr 3, 2023 01:03
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