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Feb 5, 2024 11:49
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| # ? May 28, 2024 04:52 |
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In!
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Feb 6, 2024 08:01
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ok imma try to be in
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Feb 6, 2024 09:58
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 In.
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Feb 7, 2024 03:22
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hmmm in
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Feb 7, 2024 10:31
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In
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Feb 8, 2024 10:58
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Title: Elevation Words: 1496 Being chosen for elevation was an unparalleled honor. Notoriety aside, my village would receive double rations for five years, and for the next year would be the first choice for all contracts that go out to bid. I didn’t know how I was selected; Cleric Honeyhill said that it was the Bright Lady’s will. He was seated at his large writing desk, his back to the window so that the light would stream in and illuminate his work. “She picks among her own for elevation” he said, not even looking up from his book. Both my fathers were practically floating with pride. “We always knew you would accomplish greatness Dar.” Dad said, while Daddy hooked his arm around Dad’s waist in that way he always does when he’s being supportive. Daddy finally broke out of his reverie to actually look at me. “What’s wrong honey ham? You don’t look excited.” “Oh, it’s nothing.” I lied. “It just hasn’t hit me yet.” Truth be told, it was the last thing I wanted to do. Every year a girl was selected by the Bright Lady for elevation and every year they went off to the Grand Chancery where they were measured and recorded, homilies were sung, a feast was held and then… They were elevated. The Clerics would talk about it with the children all through the year. What an honor it was, how important it was, how much it mattered and how much the act of elevation would help the village. We all knew what it meant to everyone. We all wanted to be selected for elevation. Every year that our village wasn’t selected, everyone was despondent for a week. It was an honor, it was exciting, it was necessary. It was also terrifying. None of the girls ever came back. The following morning, I was sent to the sanctuary to be fitted for my elevation vestments. I selected an emerald green brocade dress with a pattern of flowers. I was to wear a crown of real flowers too, they asked what I would like. I picked peonies, Daddy’s favorite. Dad and Daddy were waiting for me as I walked home. They said that the entire village was coming out to celebrate my elevation. A whole entire party, just for me. I put on the proper face and looked excited. I hoped that I could sneak away soon Elder Felmar was wheeled out to the village square, and he sat next to me; body tired and frail, but eyes sharp and shining. “I know you will act with distinction and bring honor and prosperity to our village.” Everyone was silent as he spoke, his voice soft with age. “Everyone, please enjoy yourselves and remember that this celebration is for Dar.” There was light applause and everyone went over to the banquet tables, straining under the weight of food. Someone started a bonfire and after a few minutes, there was eating and dancing and music. My stomach had decided to do flips around lunchtime and I knew that if I ate anything it would make things worse; I sat in the chair they had brought out for me, attempting to look happy. Elder Felmar glanced over to me and dismissed his attendant. “Dar, you are doing an admirable job trying to hide your fear, but I can see it. You are worried about tomorrow.” It was not a question. I couldn’t trust my voice, so I just nodded. “This is a normal thing, Dar. Change can be frightening. Elevation is quite the change. You will see things you have never seen before, hear things you have never heard before. You will be in the presence of the Bright Lady herself. Steel yourself with the thought that hundreds have come before you in this endeavor and hundreds will follow you. You are doing exactly what you are meant to be doing.” His smile was thin, lopsided. “But Grandfather, what happens to the girls who are chosen?” “They are elevated,” was his only reply. I took a deep breath and beamed like the Bright Lady herself. “Of course Grandfather. I am just unused to all this attention. I will think about your words and I will do what I am meant to do.” Smiling this hard and this naturally was taking nearly all of my concentration. It worked though. He nodded and said “I know you will, child. I am very proud of you.” He snapped his fingers, and the attendant came back and wheeled him away. After the party, I laid in bed wide awake. There was too much to think about. In addition to all the worries I had, I still had to remember how to put on the vestments, the proper order of things to say and who to bow to and who to curtsy. I cursed the Bright Lady for selecting me at all. I did not want to be elevated. I wanted to stay in the village and ask Benly to dance and to build furniture like Dad and, and, and. My tears felt hot as they ran down my cheeks, past my ears and onto the pillow. I wept silently at the injustice but knew that my path was set, and there was no deviating. In the morning, I woke and with Daddy’s help, put the vestments on. They brought out the crown of Peonies and placed it carefully on my head, then pinned it in place. They both looked misty eyed as they complimented me. We walked to the transport disc together and before I approached, I gave them each one last bear hug. “I don’t want to go, I want to stay with you.” I whispered into Dad’s chest. He bent down low and spoke so that only I could hear. “I know you do honey ham. But you know as well as I do that this must be done. The Bright Lady wills it, and we can only obey. We will think of you always, and remember how much this brings to the village. You’re helping everyone.” I couldn’t trust myself not to cry, so I broke off the hug, put on my best fake smile and waved to everyone as I stepped onto the transport disc. There was a flash of pure white, and I was at the Grand Chancery. A lone Cleric stood by the disc. “Ah, there you are. Dar Purslane? Follow me please.” I blinked. This wasn’t what I expected. Where were the crowds? Where were the homilies? Where was the celebration? As I looked around the sparse stone halls of the Chancery, the Cleric walked two paces ahead of me, glancing at a clipboard, his heeled boots loud in the hall.. “You’re number three today, Dar. An auspicious number I’d say. It’s been at least a decade since your village had someone selected for elevation, so I’d say the Bright Lady is pleased. I struggled to keep up with him in my vestments, the swishing of the fabric loud in the silent hall. We came upon an anonymous stone door. “Now, please line up here.” He gestured for me to line up behind another girl my age, who wore a beautiful yellow dress. Her crown of flowers were roses. I leaned forward to the girl. “No talking please.” The Cleric looked up from his clipboard. “Spend your final moments contemplating the Bright Lady.” My final moments? What was he talking about? “Um, your holiness, just what is elevation?” I could feel the panic rising in my throat as I asked the question. “They talked about it often in school, but they never actually described, um, what happens.” Just then, the door in front of us opened, and I caught the scent. Blood. I knew it from when we’d slaughter animals for the winter. Immediately, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Something was wrong. The girl in front of me stepped through the door, and it slammed shut behind her. The Cleric looked up from his clipboard and sighed. With a gentle smile he put his arm on my shoulder. “Child, you will be brought before the Bright Lady to ensure the prosperity of your village and all of the land. Do not be frightened.” As he spoke these words, I felt a sting on my shoulder, and he lifted a hand, revealing a small gold needle on his finger. At my glance he smiled again and said “Just a little bit of grace from the Bright Lady to help you with your elevation.” I opened my mouth to yell, to scream, to run, but nothing happened. I was warm and comfortable, and my legs were glued to the floor. I turned back to the door, and I saw it undulate and swim as the warmth spread from my shoulders, down to my chest and to my arms and legs. The door opened, and I stepped through. I was elevated.
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Feb 9, 2024 16:42
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pennies and pounds and all that poo poo I guess
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Feb 9, 2024 17:05
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moooved
Fat Jesus fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Mar 12, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 02:53
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Judgment for Prompt 1 of Thunderdome Week 600DRED The judges have conferred and have come to a decision! In the interests of getting crits out and any editing done before Prompt 1 submissions close on February 15, results will be staggered per prompt. For prompt 1, which called for “guiding the reader down hidden trails into eerie landscapes, weird biotech gardens, creepy scifi cities, surreal forests, or secret magical places”, we had a number of well-written stories, many of which deserve to be submitted to Apex Magazine. But the Dome is less generous, and the blood throne less accommodating. The Saddest Rhino takes the win for The Food Truck At the Corner of The Street Where I Live that Everybody Says is Overrated But Eats at Anyway, which narrowly beat out the other contenders by virtue of a strong voice and a compelling narrative told entirely through monologue. Antivehicular earns an HM for A Walk Down Emberley Road, which we found the strongest narrative in this week’s apparent genre of not going home again. Finally, Yoruichi takes an HM for Welcome to Foxton, which has an excellent sense of place and an unnerving lurch into magic realism at the end. Crits to follow!
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Feb 11, 2024 08:34
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Crits for Week #600 - Prompt 1: Apex / Strange Locations Antivehicular - Symmetry: It’s a neat idea that maybe needs exploring in a longer format, or some other note to really sell the story. Right now there’s an implicit tension in the narrative that doesn’t quite land — e.g., what happens when the symmetry is inevitably disrupted? How is symmetry maintained in a world where entropy exists? etc. This is the fancy brochure that belies something nastier, that I’d love to see explored further. beep-beep car is go - Memory Lane: First: I love the name Temerity Plague. I would read the sci-fi series she belongs to. This is a strong opening to a sci-fi/cyberpunkish narrative. The ending isn’t so much a conclusion as a hook to keep me reading. And I would keep reading, even if the conceit hinted at by the final line reminds me a bit too much of Altered Carbon. For the prompt, there’s also not a whole lot of time and detail spent on the place. Likely this was the result of trying to tell both the opening to a cyberpunk revenge yarn, while also describing a location alien to reader and character alike. Fat Jesus - Renewal: This was one of the weaker stories of this prompt, for me. There’s less detail spent on the place and setting, and too much time spent telling what results to a fairly pulpy take on ignorant, non-descript “natives” and a protagonist who outsmarts their “god”. The Saddest Rhino - The Food Truck At the Corner of The Street Where I Live that Everybody Says is Overrated But Eats at Anyway: Love this one. Strong voice, storytelling and sense of place entirely through dialogue. The Saddest Rhino - You are Not Benevolent: Nice sense of growing dread, but ultimately the voice just becomes a bit too much for this piece. The Saddest Rhino - gently caress Goddamn poo poo I Hate Haunted Highways So Much: Love the idea but ultimately doesn't work for me, the voice and tone feels a bit too inconsistent and it feels like, unlike Foodtruck with its fairly direct and focused narrative, this story tries to bring in too many elements for the haunted highway and it comes out a bit muddled. Armack - Waylaid by The Quarrell: I’m not sure I get the prompt adherence here, but I was invested in the story and its strange, otherworldly events — I just wish there was a bit more to it. I’m fairly certain I’m missing something, some significance that might make the story, but without that context it’s just unsatisfying. Sitting Here - BUSTED: Dispelling Five Myths About Integration: Strong sense of worldbuilding, and the punchline of "distributed biocomputing network" is perfect. Not sure the footnotes add to the piece — they’re a bit distracting during the read, and I’m not sure they pay off if you wait and read them at the end. Maybe this would work better in a longer piece that had more space for formal creativity. SurreptitiousMuffin - Residency VISA application form for Cuono 3 and Affiliated Systems: Sci-fi worldbuilding and impenetrable bureaucracy, two great flavours together at last! I really enjoyed this. I think opening with “compliance” and “neurophilitic” before seguing to “income” works, and sets the tone perfectly early on. The rest doesn’t quite climb to the same heights, and it toes the line of wearing out its welcome, but I think the absurdity of the language works without devolving into what could otherwise be a fairly on-the-nose lolrandom parody of bureaucracy. Anomalous Blowout - Long Weekend: Absolutely loved this, but it lives or dies by its reference, and maybe I’d rank it higher if it didn’t come in the wake of the recent Clarkesworld piece or all the subsequent Bluesky memes? sebmojo - I’m not really a tourist I’m more of a traveller: Enjoyed this, but not convinced the title and the story perfectly match: there's this sense of indictment of cultural appropriation etc that the story then takes in a much more interesting direction, so the title itself seems a bit on-the-nose. Yoruichi - Welcome to Foxton,: Excellent sense of place, fantastic lurch into magic realism at the end. What starts as a story with fantastic specificity—the near vertical stairs and solitary streetlight really setting the scene for a hostile environment—leans into a more magic realist escape, difficult choices, and a real sense of the character’s history. Solid work. Vinny Possum - The Thicket: This is a decent story, if a bit familiar. The opening is a bit confusing in terms of timeline—the shift from present to past implies the “we” are still together at the time of the story’s telling, but the ending implies the narrator is now alone, so the chronology gets muddled. Antivehicular - A Walk Down Emberley Road: Absolutely loved this, continuing an apparent weekly theme of how time changes everything. Opening is fantastic and the story builds off that premise. Minor critiques, because overall I thought this was lovely and would highly recommend you send it off: - I don’t love “enter none of them” followed immediately by an explanation of what awaits you there. The former line might work better if the consequences were left unsaid, as a sort of threat. Right now, the warning and subsequent explanation slow down the narrative somewhat. - “where you spent your first year” doesn’t quite work for me—there’s less to grab onto from that description, and while it’s easy to imagine a young couple’s first apartment with baby crib unceremoniosly jammed into a tiny bedroom, I can’t imagine it would have resonance for the narrator. Violet_Sky - Memories of a Birthday Party: Similar themes to the last, but don't work quite as well. Feels a bit too dream-like, without truly committing. I’m also a bit unclear about where exactly the setting is—you’re talking about pizza, and playgrounds, and birthday cake, so I can picture some sort of party space for hire, but I think it’s missing some specific details to work for someone like myself whose own birthday memories mostly involve bowling alleys and Daytona. Captain_Person - Kaboria-7 Black Hole Memorial: Finally, some science fiction! Neat premise told well, not revelatory but works. This feels like something that would work nicely in a longer piece, but as a standalone story I think there are a few too many details all vying for attention. My Shark Waifuu - Excerpt from "The Fish of A-Declercq Bay": This story’s full of character, and the tone and language work well at bringing the setting together. On a first read, I thought the transition between paragraphs was a bit jarring, and wondered if that was due to the “excerpt” being taken from two different parts of the original — but on checking, it seems that’s the same segue as the original. I think it worked better then because, in a longer piece, it works as a conclusion—whereas here, it feels a diversion. curlingiron - Welcome to the Omniveritas Museum of Extant Realism!: This is delightful but also possibly a bit too much. There’s a lot of details to love here—the “art is subjective” line, the idea of an existential anchor—but the frantic back-and-forth between jokes and straightforward narration mean there’s not enough time or space to really appreciate the details. cptn_dr - What to do in Asterism Delta: Neat premise, one of the more successful takes on tourism this week, feels like it's missing a sting though. The line about “now that all surface ylem is exhausted” almost works for that, but the effect is ruined a bit by the earlier assertion that Earth is one of the most lucrative sources remaining. Antivehicular - An Introduction to East Montane For Travelers: Love the inversion of the tourist brochure, the twisted logic behind the seemingly terrible tourist advice, and the implicit tension of the population controls. It’s this tension and unanswered question of what “by any means necessary” constitutes that drive this story beyond an admittedly neat premise, and elevate it above your first story this week which operates in a similar space. The Saddest Rhino - Even Gravity Can’t Bring Us Together: Liked the ending, but the rest of the story doesn't really deserve it. It all feels a bit one-note until a decent ending. The Saddest Rhino - Spoilers for Final Imaginary Friend in Hidden Stage and What I Learnt: As a kid who loved videogames but didn’t really have many, I spent a lot of time reading walkthroughs and guides in magazines for games I’d never played, as a way of experiencing at least part of the game. (I guess these days I’d just watch a Let’s Play.) This story reminded me strongly of those memories, and the sensation of reading a walkthrough that namedropped characters and enemies and places I had no real understanding of, but ultimately it’s a bit unsatisfying as it doesn’t really go anywhere beyond that.
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Feb 11, 2024 11:41
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derp posted:Week 601 - going under the knife There is No Ocean (1420 words) The door closes behind you. The ocean inside the cavern is all you can see. The faint light of the glow worms on the walls are flickering, shimmering. You can feel the cold damp of the cave, moisture wetting your face. The ocean lies still, waiting. You cannot tell how long it has been here for you. Little pockets of lights reflect off the water, trying to pierce through the black. Failing. You look up and there are less glow worms now, one by one, they are failing. Like stars disappearing off from the skies, ended by forces too far away from you, too distant for you to comprehend. Forces that haunt you without the need for feelings, for reasons, for purpose. They just do. When your brother killed that woman in these mountains, did he ever ask for your permission? He didn’t. He wouldn’t now, either. He just did. He just does. Mortal wound result of sharp object in the form of a knife at the C2 axis from the right. Death not immediate, caused by bleeding out. Suspect hastened the bleeding out process by pressing onto victim’s neck and chest with force, with victim’s back on the ground. You had been hoping he would have said, that bitch deserved it. She hit me, so she had to die. She rejected me, so she had to die. She laughed at me, so she had to die. But on the stand he did say, she deserved it. But he wouldn’t say why she did. She just did. It was ok, for her to die, like it was ok for one to swat a mosquito even if it was just sitting on the kitchen counter. He took his knife and pushed it into her neck then pushed her on to the ground and squeezed the blood and life out of her, because she was there, and he wanted to do it. You look back to where you walked in from and there are just the black rocks of the cavern, and they scratch your palm upon touch. The lights continue to dim. The hiker who pushed him off the cliff stood at the stand and said he did it without thought because of the knife your brother stabbed into the side of his abdomen and that it was fortunate your brother fell on the overhang and that he would have tried to help your brother if not for his friend saying their other companion was missing and he was lying, he was lying all of that was bullshit there was no way no reason for him to give a poo poo about your brother he was lying! His friend was loving lying! They found his girlfriend and she was there on the stand as well she did not loving “wander off” at three loving am there was no reason for her to go exploring in the middle of the night, there was no reason for them to loving nearly kill your brother! There was no reason for these two assholes to do a search for her! There was no reason for them to leave your brother to die! There was no reason for them to all run down the mountains with all their tents and things left there there was no reason for them to there was no reason for them to there was no reason for them to lie there was no reason for you to scream at them as they listened to the court ruling there was no reason for you to talk to the papers outside there was no reason for you to say to the camera pushed onto your face that justice would be served one day there was no reason for you to tell the big one who let your brother and his broken leg sit at a cliffside that you’d loving end him there was no reason for him to tell you he forgives you there was nothing to forgive There was nothing for him to forgive. There was nothing, there was nothing. There was nothing he would know! He would not have known! There was no way! You hid all your tracks, you used all the VPNs and you used all the IP vanishing tricks, you used computers in the lab and the library and the burner phones and you never use your own laptop, you left no traces, he would not have known, he would not have known what to forgive! He would not have known about the website you built pasting all his photos and real-world information! He could not know you posted on the forums his and his friends’ home addresses! He could not have known you were the one who added the words MURDERER to his Facebook profile photo! He could not have known it was you who was trying to ruin his life trying to make a claim that he was the one who killed the dead woman in the mountains trying to turn his life into a loving living hell trying to create all those fake evidence that the courts dismissed even the lawyer your family hired for your brother said was spurious at best, he could not have known “I am sorry. “I understand your anger. “Really, I do. “I will never fault you for it. “Please, take care.” There was no reason for him to be so good. The other two hikers told you to gently caress yourself. That was ok. You deserved that. You do not deserve his forgiveness. You do not deserve him. You deserve this. You are in the mountains that haunt you, your brother, the dead woman, the man who pushed him. Perhaps you and all of them are haunting the mountains too. The lights are fading. The glow worms are dying. The stars are blinking out. The ocean in the cavern of the mountains does not beckon. It merely waits. There is no reason for an ocean to be in the mountains. Yet, it waits. You have folded your clothes and placed them under your boots, your walking stick, your gloves. Your bag with barely anything left lies beside them. You have already thrown your phone and your wallet down the mountains the night before, ignoring the stares of your fellow climbers. You have already made sure there was nothing in your possession that could identify you. You have already closed the door in their faces, ignored their frantic cries for you to return to them. You have already told them. You deserve this. There is no reason for a ritual. You walk into the water. The cold of the ocean slithers through the skin of your toes up, creeping and crawling up your legs, the cold soaking and sucking itself into the fat and muscles of your flesh and then into your bones, and the cold flows up to your hips and your abdomens, like the one your brother stuck the knife into the hiker’s, and you think if this was how it felt, the cold steel striking against warm blood and bones. You wade in, you float down, you descend, you let the cold climb up your spine, one column at a time. The cold squirms into your kidneys, your liver, your lungs, your heart. Your heart is not a block of ice but a pulsing pound of flesh that threatens to be no more. The cold ascends. L3. L1. Th12. Th5. Th1. C7. C6. C5. C4. C3. C2. Mortal wound result of sharp If the cold could penetrate your body like scissors poking through fabric, the blood would flow out, staining the water red, and you could close your eyes and allowed the darkness to take you. But it does not. The ocean merely paints your blood with the cold. It does not have a reason to do anything. Only your face is above the water and you look up, at the very last glow worm trying, trying and living so hard against everything. The cold is part of you now. The cold does not have a reason to be. You are in the ocean, and the water laps, and the light fades out. Please, take care. “Take care,” you did not tell him. So, you tell him now. The ocean is. You sink. There is no reason to be otherwise. “Take care,” you say. And then the ocean spreads out into the open cold and the skies darkens into the uncaring void, and you have no reason to be, anymore.
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Feb 11, 2024 14:47
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Shark dive 1294 words In the fields outside Marfanda we used to play a game. Some of the children would hide in the long grass, close to harvest, and we would circle the crop and sprint in to catch them. The sunwi in the south is thick with leaves, but light and pliable, so you could move through a field like you were cutting through water. If you came through to the other side without bumbling into someone, you'd try again until you did. We called it the shark dive. - Beneath the burning, splintering wood of the interceptor, the sea was boiling. Bright blue and pink outgassing turning the churn to abstract. The bow bladders barely kept the craft afloat, the stern port bladder was leaking and the stern starboard corner of Departing Under Moon Mountain Clouded was a jagged, smouldering mess dripping ash and molten metal. The explosion had torn Hoda and Midan to wet and blackened gristle. I tipped Clouded into a shallow dive, through the thick mist rising from the boiling sea, and my killers followed. They came on sleek craft, arcoform wings close to the hull as they dove. I could hear the sea, even through the roar of the air, the engines and the disintegrating craft behind me. I thew back the pitch lever and the back of Clouded sent a fine arcing spray into the mist as it struggled to stay in the air, the hunters spread their wings to brake, just as close to the surface and engaged their engines. We kept going for a while in that dulled roar, heat prickling and reddening my skin, before I flipped my craft sideways and turned. I knew the ocean like the streets of Marfanda, and even in the fog, I knew that the tall spires of Umjo Island was ahead, just minutes away. On the floor, next to the pilot's seat, Raheda stirred. - One afternoon, as the harvesters worked through the sunwi, my mother sat me down on a hill overlooking the vast fields and we shared tea. She told me about her time in the auxilliaries and the engineer's corps. Some stories she had told me before, and some she had saved. That is the harvest; you pace yourself and you share wisdom at a measured pace. The sower tells the field what the field has told the harvester and it cannot all happen at once. She did not want to tell a child about the forests of limbs or what the deep mountain oil did to human skin, but I was leaving soon and I was no longer a child. "I met a soldier after the campaign in Namhim who had his eyes taken from him," she said, "And for hours after it had happened he would just run towards the sounds of battle to find an end. Any kind of end. He did not swing his sword, did not cast his spear, for he feared to strike his comrades, but he would not lie down." She sipped her tea and closed her eyes, the sun glinting on the golden studs embedded in her cheekbones. Gold on black in the red afternoon. "Hours. For hours he did that in a battle more ferocious than any I've seen, but he did not fall, and we won the day." "Did he ever find an end?" I asked. She turned and smiled at me. "He was a baker when I met him. Could hear when the dough had too much salt by the sound it made by his kneading, or whether a loaf was done by the change of air flowing through the oven. He found his end, but that didn't mean it was over." - We'd left the boiling sea behind and the water below us rippled with our passing. Raheda sat up and spat blood. She clambered up to the seat besides me and stared at the mirrorcast images of our pursuers on the helm. "We can't keep this up," she said. "I know." She adjusted the port mirror with a small lever. "More diving in, at least four or five." "It's fine." She was angry then, furious. "We are bleeding blood, oil and sailcloth, the Clouded is gasping its last. It's fine?" A section of the hull ripped from the starboard side of the Clouded and the roar redoubled in its ferocity and madness. In the silence of the overwhelming cacophony I looked at her, smiled and moved my hand up to my head. Like a shark fin. - I could hear the grass brush against Hoda as he ran through the field. I stood still among the high grass, leaves tickling my ears, the comfortable pinpricks of earth and dried vegetation on my bare feet. I was still, and the sharks moved besides me. The sun burned my shaved head and the taste of my sweat was on my tongue. When Raheda caught me, she hit me hard, but that was the game. We switched places, and I ran out of the crop. For a minute or so, I circled, tried to listen for the small sounds you make when you try to be as quiet as you can. The fidgeting and the giggling and the excited breaths. I picked a direction, inhaled, and ran. I was always a little disappointed when I caught someone. The other children would hoot and holler in victory, but I would smile and look forward to getting caught, so that I could run again. For a long, exhilarating moment, I would be like a blind warrior, storming through a mist of sensation, hearing the pounding of my footsteps and feeling the sunwi snap me in the face. Like a thrown spear, my entire world the straight path. - When we reached the spires of Umjo, we had eight pursuers spread out behind us in the thick mist. The sandstone pillars emerged like a fist and I squeezed through a gap that was just a meter wider than Clouded was. The branches and vines of hana trees clinging to the sides of the spires whipcracked at the craft. Three of the eight pursuers persihed immediately, detonations thumping with a low bass through the fog. Four turned and climbed, and a single one followed us in. Raheda had crawled into the maintenance shaft behind the bridge and she would occasionally yell something about her efforts to make sure the engines didn't explode, but everything was lost in the roar. The tall face of Goheyo Tavan, a granite mountain in the middle of the spires of Umjo, whizzed past on our port side, and our pursuer clipped it with a wing, careened to the right and clipped a pillar there with the other wing before they twisted around and hit the jungle below in a dull fireball. A minute more and we were out the other side, over open sea. The remaining four killers were above us in a lose formation, barely visible in the thinner fog over the sea. Raheda crawled back out of the maintenance shaft. "They're still on us," she said. "But we're still alive." She looked at me, and her gaze turned to horror as I banked the craft around and back towards Umjo. "And I'm not done playing." - My mother had gone inside and the stars had come out. I sat on the hill with a forgotten, half full cup of tea beside me. The sunwi turned purple in the moonlight and the broken seed casings glittered like waves. A few hunderd meters away, a girl stood by a crop that was yet to be harvested, alone. For a minute or so she just stood there, breathing steadily, and then she sprinted into the tall grass and disappeared.
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Feb 11, 2024 19:43
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Ten Steps 788 words "Ten." Oh gently caress this is it, he thinks to himself as he takes the first step. It is the hardest of his life and he almost has to think through the muscle movements: which to contract first, what to twitch next, how to push himself forward. As he puts his foot down it slides forward slightly on the gravel, the dry crunch mirrored a split-second later by the man he's cursed to kill. gently caress, he thinks again, come on, pull yourself together. Around him Sir Burrell’s garden is a warm burst of colour in the summer heat, reds and yellows deliberately layered to draw the eye but he ignores it all, keeping his face forward. A fly buzzes somewhere behind his neck and instead of swatting it away like he normally would he grips the pistol in his left hand tighter. It's so much lighter than I was expecting. And colder. "Nine." Sir Burrell takes this step just before he does. This time he doesn't slip, but the sound startles him, though he tries not to show it. He sounds confident. Does he sound confident? he asks himself. A quieter voice asks, are you? "Eight." These three steps have felt longer than the day leading up to them. He had rehearsed over and over what he was going to say, this grand speech about the damage done to his family, to his sister's reputation, but in the moment, when he had talked his way in and was face to face with Sir Burrell all he had managed was a measured, "for Alyssa." Then he punched him. I hope his face is still stinging, he thinks as he remembers just how satisfying it had felt to throw that punch. Years of buckling politely under the insults of others had sharpened his rage to a needle point, and to finally let loose had been ecstatic. "Seven." He's already moving forward as the next step is called out, feeling light on his feet. Twenty paces. He’s smirking now, although he doesn't realise it. He'll look about as big as a brandy bottle. Yeah, I can definitely hit that. Almost too easily. This confidence he has found is intoxicating. He imagines turning at the end, calm and collected as he takes aim. He imagines Sir Burrell buckling over, mortally wounded but not dead, not yet, but bleeding out slowly and, more importantly, painfully. "Six." What if he's faster? He hadn't considered this. He should have considered this, he should have prepared more, but he couldn't let the wound stand any longer. Too late for that, another voice, one dripping with derision tells him. Ahead blue and purple flowers sway gently in the breeze. "Five." Everything in his world has narrowed. All that remains is a voice calling steps and counting the measure of a life. Mine, or his? he thinks quietly. He's not even certain whoever is calling the steps has a body any longer—that instead something more primal has come to bear witness. That his cause is so just the entire world is holding its breath, waiting to see what happens next. That nothing at all between heaven and hell could possibly be as important as the potential now stretched out a dozen paces between these two men. "Four." The metal of the pistol is now warm against his hand. He imagines it continuing to heat with each step, as he pours his life into it until it is burning hot and with all that fire launches across to bury itself in Sir Burrell's chest. It would burn you too, the quiet voice tells him. It should, the other voice replies. "Three." The thoughts are coming too fast now, voices cutting themselves off as they compete for his attention. Two more steps—you shouldn't have come—too late to run now—you're hosed you're hosed you—remember to breath—you're hosed—I don't deserve this—you definitely deserve this—let them know—poo poo gently caress poo poo gently caress gently caress—he doesn't even care about—be strong—a mistake—she'll never—you're weak you're— I'm FINE! he screams inside his head, trying to drown out the voices, but especially that quieter one, the one that sounds like his sister. The one that says, I'm sorry. "Two." Another step. This is it. He blinks away the tears that are forming, not daring to look anywhere but forward. At the end of the garden, dappled in sunlight, is a bed of familiar blue flowers. Phacelia campanularia, he remembers. Desert bluebells. Just like her eyes. He smiles mournfully. A sign he's going to succeed? Or that he'll never see this colour again? "One." He takes a final step. Stands tall and proud. Shoulders tensed, arm steady. Please. "Fire!" He spins, and raises his arm. A finger twitches. There's a bang and—
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Feb 12, 2024 04:35
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Judgment for Prompts 2 & 3 of Thunderdome Week 600DRED The remaining results are in! Thanks all for your patience  For prompt 2, Flash Frontier are looking for stories on the theme of QUIET | MĀRIRE. This was a more open prompt than the first, and the stories reflected this with varying interpretations on the theme. First, Fat Jesus takes the week’s only loss for Primates, which was unpleasant to read, relied on cheap and inaccurate stereotypes, and didn’t adhere to the prompt whatsoever. On the upper ends of the scale, the two captains delivered strong stories which both earned HMs: cptn_dr for Anahera, a delightfully otherworldly event handled with the clinical detachment of the mundane to good effect; and Captain_Person for Rano Pano, the quiet dissolution of a relationship across years and continents all too familiar. Finally, the judges agreed that July 6th, 9:12 PM was far and away the best story for Prompt 2, and Antivehicular takes the win. … which brings us to prompt 3, in which Gooseberry Pie were looking for stories of exactly six sentences. Let’s cut right to it: Antivehicular takes a trifecta of mentions this week, earning an HM for Scene From A Fast-Casual Restaurant. Congratulations! May you have as much luck with your submissions. Finally, the winner of prompt 3 is All tires bring farmers all farmers bring dogs by Anomalous Blowout, which was beautiful and poetic. That’s all! Thanks to all who entered, and best of luck to all who submit!
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Feb 12, 2024 04:47
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Judgeburps for Week #600 Crits done in judgemode Godmother: Turning the semicolon to a comma and cutting ‘is’ would improve the flow of the first sentence. In general a solid little piece, probably high middle. Memories of a Birthday Party: I don't really like this one at all, though I can't easily put my finger on why. There's very little here, and the end line is a huge clunker. Lowish. Kaboria-7 Black Hole Memorial: This is functional, the sort of environmental storytelling that might have a place in a video game or the like, but there's not much actually going on beyond the uninterrogated cliché here. Middle? Residency VISA application form for Cuono 3 and Affiliated Systems: This is interesting but perhaps not fully baked. I don't know if the self-evaluation conceit works quite. Middle high Renewal: Another one that I don't care for. The opening sentence is a meandering mess, there is no coherent narrative present, and the ending is abrupt but uninteresting. Lowish. Welcome to Foxton,: This one is pretty neat, a nice little piece of dream logic, some reverse Quixote freeing the dragon rather than trying to slay. High middle. All tires bring farmers all farmers bring dogs: This is really good, strongly evocative, good balance of complexity and repetition. High group. False Fungus Friendship: Okay. Does some interesting things with pacing, but I think it doesn't quite fit enough into the form. Middleish. Even Gravity Can’t Bring Us Together: This is okay writing, nothing mindblowing or special, but fine. I'm not sure it fully hits either prompt. Middle Becalming: The opening sentence is a bit awkward. Going for four when the rule of three exists, and having the last one be, I don't know, too simple to fit the cadence but not simple enough to work like a punchline. Adding an adjective to the back rubs would help a little. Otherwise, a pretty nice little piece. High middle. Spoilers for Final Imaginary Friend in Hidden Stage and What I Learnt: I don't know, this is a little too real to be saying much of anything about anything. Middle. How is what you are doing right now better than what you were doing before?: This is okay, sort of new age affirmation-y without offering much new though. Middle. An Introduction to East Montane For Travelers: There's an interesting idea here, but I think you've let the word limit fool you into presenting it in a fairly boring and overly direct way. Middle-low Excerpt from "The Fish of A-Declercq Bay": Interesting ideas, but the tone of the piece shifts wildly several times, jarringly. Middle. Lungs: Powerful but also unclear; you have a personified water surface somehow able to indicate direction with eyes. Mid-high Rano Pano: Another nice one, solid emotional core and good sense imagery. Mid-high, maybe High Not from here: Functional but there isn't much substance; the prose is fairly basic and there's not enough to anchor the idea fully. Middle. Moonlit.: There's not quite enough here. We have hints of an alien world, but they're superficial, generic, like a procedural quest in a video game. Mid-low What to do in Asterism Delta: This is well executed but the premise (a cosmos where water is somehow rare) is hard to swallow. Middle-high Love Gone Wrong: A bit weak for the subject matter, would be improved by leaning harder into something. Mid-low Long Weekend: I want just a little more context for the kid and their (fading) importance to the festival. (The recent Omelas story that's making the rounds puts a quite dark idea of that in my head.) Okay but for that. Middle Primates: Bad, sort of like the worst kind of ethnic joke played serious and shifted in target. Very low. Family: Good execution of some long and loaded sentences, and an interesting idea behind them. I think the species-level narration makes it weaker than a single point of view would. Middle-high. I’m not really a tourist I’m more of a traveller: I like the idea behind this, I think, but I think it can be taken much further; it shouldn't just be wrong but fractally wrong. Middle-high Proof: Solid title game here, but I think this one is too opaque for its own good. Middle-low July 6th, 9:12 PM: Very solid. Not much motion but a very strongly described moment and almost as well-drawn character. High. Welcome to the Omniveritas Museum of Extant Realism!: The opening paragraph would probably work better without “in extreme cases”, the placement does the comedic work here. There are some good bits, but ultimately it's going for the same joke a few too many times. Low middle. The Thicket: I don't care for the second paragraph; describing in negatives is tough to make work. The tone of the start doesn't match up with the ending. Middle-low Anahera: I like this one quite a bit, the fallen angel as beached whale conceit just works. Middle-high. Scene From A Fast-Casual Restaurant: I really want her dialog to be in quotation marks, even if that means paragraph breaks. Solid short scene though, Middle-high Memory Lane: This, ah, does not very closely fit the prompt. It's a fragment of a story, without enough to justify the ending and without very much place-description at all. Lowish You are Not Benevolent: I'm not sure what's happening here. It has the structure of something that could be coherent, could work, but there's not enough in that structure really. Lowish A Walk Down Emberley Road: Creepy in a good way, does a good job with unease without cheap tricks. Highish. gently caress Goddamn poo poo I Hate Haunted Highways So Much: The voice is interesting and amusing but the stories aren't much better than the narrator thinks they are. Middle. Symmetry: So this is more about the idea than anything else, but the idea doesn't really work: the sameness of intersections means that the first bit is pointless. I want to know what happens at the edges, at the Bay, and maybe get more sense of menace or trap here. Moddle Another Sinner Laid to Rest: “Being as it were” is clunky and useless. If you must, “all things being equal” does more. But there's not too much notable here. Middle-low Prior Experience Not Required: This is a lot like the hivemind story, the same kind of conceit and structure. It works better here, maybe because it's short enough to let the twist work. Middle-high Late, Again: I feel like I should like this one more than I do. It has the sorts of things you need for this kind of story. But somehow it doesn't quite come together, the end doesn't quite make sense. Middle. Waylaid by The Quarrell: This doesn't really hit the prompt, more about a creature than a place. And, for that, it's okay, straining a bit at the size. Middle-high BUSTED: Dispelling Five Myths About Integration: This one sort of fails to commit fully to the bit; the footnotes grow more reasonable and less concerning as the piece progresses rather than the other way around. Middle. The Food Truck At the Corner of The Street Where I Live that Everybody Says is Overrated But Eats at Anyway: This is solid, a strong voice, a throughline that works, and plenty of place. High.
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Feb 12, 2024 04:57
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Mostly He Just Floats 1483 words Uncle Ciaran looks too small in the hospital bed. A meteor, not a meteorite; doomed to burn up in the atmosphere. He grins. “Gie it tae me straight, nibling. Will A ever walk again?” Gran stifles my laugh with a look. “It’s not funny, Ciaran. What were you thinking? You could have been killed.” “But A wisnae. The ejector worked a charm. A’m fine. Christ, Maw, it’s you that was telling me tae get a hobby!” “I think what Mum was saying,” Mum says, “was you could take up painting, start a podcast, something sensible. Something you can still do.” “‘Still do’, aye?” “Aw Ciaran, you know I didn’t mean it like that-” “Good, cause it shaves twenty kilo aff the payload. Means more fuel in the boot. And asides, this wis the first time it went wrong.” “So you’ve been-” “How long have you-” “What do you do?” It’s me asking. “I mean… up there?” Mum puts a hand on my shoulder. “Anise, you’re encouraging him.” “Hah! They’re asking a real question, more like. Mechanic tae mechanic.” His eyes unfocus. “Nothin daft, Anise. Mostly A just float. Read a book, watch the world turnin, mibbe have a cheeky fag-” “Oh Ciaran,” says Gran, with all the force of an Saturn V. “As if fooling around with rockets wasn’t bad enough, you’re still smoking?” # I see the wreck of it as I drive us up to the house. It’s the Volvo he drove before the accident. She’s come down flat and hard, smashing through the garden fence and coming to rest in a divot of earth at the front door. It’s real, not one of the mad stories he used to tell a space-mad toddler. “See? Textbook landin, right on her wheels. Tell yer Gran when ye see her that A dinnae button up the back.” “Then why eject?” He coughs and unclips his seatbelt. “Can an auld husk no just dae it for the adventure? Go and get us the chair.” I pop open the boot and start unfolding it for him. “By the way,” he says from the front seat, “a wee ground rule.” “I’m twenty-four.” “In a month,” he says, “and dinnae think A dinnae appreciate ye. Sure ye’ve better things ye could be daein at yer age than mindin me. But if yer maw heard A’d let ye go in the garage A’d be brown breid, ai?” “Sorry?” “Ach, what’d they teach ye at that mechanic school? A’d be deid, Anise. There’s nothin in space half as dangerous as yer maw on the warpath.” I open his door and make to help him into the chair. “A’m guid,” he says, and grabs the nearest armrest with his left arm. “Been practicin.” He lifts himself up, bicep bulging, and quickly swaps arms. Then with a hand gripping both rests, he lowers himself in. “Piece a piss.” Hhe wheels towards the front door. He looks first at the ramp, and then at the remains of the orbital Volvo blocking it. Uncle Ciaran reaches out an arm and runs a hand over the bonnet, then sags. “Could ye… take us round the back, please? A’ll no fit by her.” # The house is almost as I remember it from school holidays gone by. The walls are covered in paper - ancient specs curling and yellow, agitprop posters in stark pastels, scribbled notes saying RECALIBRATE AEROBRAKE and TEST ABLATOR and BUY MILK!!!. Car parts scattered over the kitchen table, piled on musty plates. My spaceship drawings are still on the fridge, pinned by a medley of magnets. I reach out and touch one, gently flattening the creases. “You didn’t have to keep these, Uncle.” From the sofa, he shrugs. “Aye, right enough.” This spaceship is one of the last. It’s a big triangle with green fire roaring out the back - only so many crayon’s at Uncle Ciaran’s - and two square windows. In the front is Uncle Ciaran, smiling and waving ahead at something only he can see. Maybe the proud Martians, or the ever-squabbling clans of Saturn’s moons. In the back, head peeking over the edge, is someone who was once me. I draw my hand away. “I’ll need to get the Volvo moved,” I say, “so you can get out your own front door.” “Ach, A can handle her-” “I’m not saying you can’t, Uncle. I’m saying I’ll do it for you.” He’s silent for a moment. Then he draws a deep breath and releases it. “Ye’re a blessin, so ye are.” He lifts himself into the chair. “A’ll get ye a jack oot the garage.” As he rolls away, my eyes fall on the snapped easel behind the sofa. # It’s late by the time I get around to it. There’s a lot of little jobs needing doing - that’s how he always was, but now I can’t tell where disregarded ends and disheartened begins. So I do a few. By the time I’ve made the kitchen serviceable night has fallen and Uncle Ciaran is going to bed. “Dinnae keep yersel up cleanin ma mess, aright? And… be gentle with her.” “Yeah, Uncle. Night.” “See ye thamorra.” “Aye, thamorra,” I say to his retreating silhouette. A little later I head out to the wreck of the Volvo with the jack. I figure I can just lift her out of the hole she dug and pull back a few feet with my own car. Enough for the time being. Who do you call to take away a car-cum-rocket? I can’t imagine how much she must weigh with all that gear. But my car’s strong. They can handle it. Once I’ve got the Volvo lifted I cut back to get a chain from my bag. drat. Must’ve left it. And there’s only one place in this house where I might find one. And I’m twenty-four, in a month. # The garage is black as the night outside. I turn on my phone light and that’s when I see the second car, under a thick tarpaulin. It’s sad. Uncle Ciaran knows cars inside and out and having two around must be killing him: all that lost go. No wonder he did what he did with the Volvo. I make a note on the phone: talk to Uncle C about garage car. Maybe we can work on it together like we used to. Then after a quick rummage through boxes, I leave with a thick chain wrapped around my wrist. Once the chain’s secured I get in my car and put the foot down. The cars lurch backward like we’ve gone downhill. Behind me there’s a crash as another stretch of fence is smashed to toothpicks. The Volvo’s too light. Far too light. I get out of my car and walk over to the stricken space car, now a good twenty feet clear of the front door. I look underneath. No rocket nozzle. My hand searches for a button. I find it, push and the boot opens with a hydraulic wheeze. No fuel tank. “Aw, Uncle Ciaran…” I walk to the front and pop open the bonnet. It’s empty but for dust, fragments of chassis, and the space where an engine should be. # I open the garage door. The other car sits there brooding, like - she? they? he? - knows I’ve got wise. I whip off the cover. Oh, this one’s a jet black muscler: a monster straight out the seventies, all smooth lines and solid edges and power for power’s sake. Definitely an it. I go round the back and there’s the rocket nozzle alright, jutting out of a clean-cut hole through the boot where the license plate should be. I open the boot. There’s the fuel tank. It’s connected. I love my uncle, but I can’t ignore this. If he’s going to go again - so soon, so fast - he might kill himself after all. I’ll have to get it away from here. Aye, that’ll be it. I open the driver-side door. I slip inside and sit. There’s no pedals - of course there’s nae pedals, Uncle Ciaran’s got nae legs - and the dashboard is all buttons and levers, each with a label carefully scrawled underneath in spidery capitals. CLUTCH. ACCELERATOR. AEROBRAKE. ABLATOR. IGNITION. It’s awesome. I make sure to familiarise myself with all the features. Don’t want to press the wrong button while safely driving this to another location. AIRBAG, EJECTOR, CIGARETTE LIGHTER. I lift the sun visor and see a postit stuck to it. It reads: LAUNCH PROCEDURE 1. PARK ON FLAT SURFACE 2. ENGAGE LAUNCH ORIENTATION 3. HIT IGNITION P.S. LANDING INSTRUCTIONS OTHER SIDE P.P.S. DINNAE TELL YER MAW And for just a moment, I think I get it. Of course space is exciting and dangerous, especially when you go in a homemade rocket car; but, also, it’s somewhere that mostly you just float. I accelerate gently. The spaceship thrums in my bones. Mum’s going to kill me.
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Feb 12, 2024 07:24
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Archaeology 1308 words “There used to be a planet here,” said the Ootz Chromarch, her fur shimmering as she spoke. “Is that a threat?” I asked. They're difficult to read. We're speaking Gabb, and they've got an odd accent. An old accent. It's tough for nuance to come across. It's neither of our first languages. “No,” she said. “Just an observation. The arts of the First Ootz are lost to the fifth.” She stops the slight bobbing of her head and is suddenly still. “This is a threat: if you do not leave Ootz space when we have concluded our business, you will all die.” It's rough. We want to leave, with the rock. That's the mission, after all. Go to the Guttering Rings. Find a hunk of the ruins, an asteroid full of archeological metal at the maximum of what the Roanoke can haul and make our way to the new colony. But it may not be possible. - It was a rough transit. Rougher than usual. I'm one of the lucky ones, spent the thirty-three hours in the grey room. Full psychic shielding, minimum stimulus. Some people can sleep in the grey room, but not many. Not me. Still, the enforced boredom of the trip is easy compared to what Shela and the other pilots went through. They have to watch the chaos of lower space, to observe it so we don't stop existing, closing their eyes even to blink only in carefully scheduled shifts. A rough flight. Derrid had an episode near the middle. Went catatonic. Why we use a full complement of five pilots, even though you can do it with three. Or even one with the right drugs and disregard for long term health. And when we arrived, the first thing I did when I got out of the grey room, before the sleep shift, was to run the stars through the simulator. To calculate the time-slip. I ran the numbers twice, just to be completely sure. We had lost almost thirty years. - “We are not like you, you see,” said the Chromarch. “Everything that lives where water is liquid.” She waved her left arms vaguely. “Out there. One chemistry. Not us.” “Fascinating,” said Coniff. He's from science, the only one there who can speak Gabb. “There aren't many exceptions to the Galactic panspermia on record.” “But here we are. We were not-” she stops, correcting herself. “The cousins were not seeded. They were left behind. And our food would be like eating rocks or toxins to you. You could never live among us.” - The Roanoke is a colony ship. Designed to start a new human colony on an uninhabited, marginally habitable world. Ready to do it alone if we have to. A few percent more than the minimum viable population, about seventy of us. If we make sure no kid in the next generation has the same two parents and every kid in the one after that has a unique set of grandparents, and if we breed like rabbits in the meantime, the genetics end up being, well, not so bad. The hope is that we meet up with other ships and it doesn't need to be that severe, or that someone manages to send a sperm bank using spaces that doesn't tend to corrupt nonliving dense information, but we can't count on that. We may be the last colony ship out of Earth, and that starts seeming more likely every minute. Because lower space and most of the other spaces are going to close soon. If they haven't already. - “How can you pay us?” asked the Chronarch. “Credit in the Great Gabb Banks is a joke this near the Jubilee.” She was speaking English now. The Ootz pick up language quickly. “What do you want?” I asked. “Labor? Our ship can haul mass efficiently.” “You have given us your words,” she said. “You have more. Words, and stories made of them.” I agreed as quickly as I could, and she sensed my eagerness. “Value for value, that is the way,” she said. “But also, you do us a favor, taking away an empty homestead. We have too many. Far too many, and every little bit helps.” - Conniff constructed their history, made us understand. This system was a homeworld in the earliest days of the galaxy. Not the true ancients, who lived before there were stars, before there was matter. But the second civilizations. They lived, and built, and turned their planets into vast cities built with metals we can barely understand, let alone forge, and powered their cities with motes of void energy. And then they went away. Died, or ascended, or migrated. They were gone, is all that is known. They left behind wildlife. The cousins were the most successful species, a sort of hexagonal raccoon-rat. “And the Ootz evolved from them?” I asked. “The First Ootz evolved from them. And wiped out most of the other species. And then wiped themselves out in terrible wars. And then, hundreds of thousands of years later, the Second Ootz evolved from the cousins as well. And they learned from their predecessors, whose technology was not as far advanced as the ancients. And when they came to fight their wars they could harness the full power of the motes, and so their wars destroyed all the planets in the system but one. The Third Ootzs died destroying that one, but not before making habitats of the asteroid ruins. The Fourth Ootz lasted longest, spread over so many small homes, but they did manage to wipe themselves out as well, and it was millions of years before a population of cousins thrived enough to evolve sentience again. - One of the signs that lower space is closing soon is, of course, larger than usual timeslips. Timeslips are how the universe preserves causality despite faster than light travel. If someone would influence events in the wrong order, they get shifted forwards until that doesn't happen, and the biggest, most universal event that people could learn about in advance is when space travel stops working for a few thousand years. So we may be screwed. Our wormholes and q-tangles are still spooling out thirty years of data, have to finish receiving before we can send anything, and the next few bits at any time could be the bad news. We could just try the drive, of course, but nobody in science knows if that would just be a do-nothing click or a big boom or if we just disappear forever. - “No,” said the Chromarch. I had asked if we could establish our colony here, keep to our own rock, fully independent. It would be rough, all the early colony problems and us evolved for a lot more gravity than them. But it seemed doable. “There is the one Ootz Polity, and that is all there can be. If there are two, there will be war, and the best possible case is your destruction.” “The worst?” “All of ours, and another long wait until the Sixth Ootz rise. One polity. Growth just enough to match the need to grow, to keep governance by a single polity. There is no choice. If you cannot leave, you must die.” - The messages stopped. Most of the microwormholes collpased, as they will after decades of use, and the q-tangles destabilized. Not suddenly. According to their half-lives. There are a few left, squeezing out a bit or two an hour, too slow to be useful, probably abandoned on the other end. We try to find a message in them, but nothing emerges. The Ootz have been patient, but very soon we'll need a decision. The rock is docked and ready to haul, ready for me to order the pilots to their station and press the button and engage the lower space drive and find out what happens.
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Feb 12, 2024 08:58
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Submissions are closed
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Feb 12, 2024 16:22
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 601 RESULTS the judges have conferred and agreed! saddest rhino gets an HM for 'there is no ocean' and the winner is captain person, with 'ten steps'! welcome to the blood throne, enjoy your stay crits to be posted later tonight
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Feb 13, 2024 04:44
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Week 602: (Un)familiar Places I've got a couple of trips planned this year, returning to places I visit only every couple of years, if that. As a result I'm thinking a lot about what they will look like and if I can still find my way around. This week I want you to give me a story about once-familiar things. Places or people or things you used to know extremely well, but now feel different. Give me unsettling stories where the details are somehow just wrong . Flash rules will be available in the form of a random song lyric by Matt Berninger of the National, and will grant you a bonus 250 words. As usual, no fanfic, erotica, quote tags, gdocs, etc. Word limit: 1,250 (without flash rule) / 1,500 (with flash rule) Sign-up deadline: Friday 16 February at 11:59pm Pacific Time (US) Submissions deadline: Sunday 18 February at 11:59pm Pacific Time (US) Judges: Captain_Person cptn_dr ??? Travellers: derp Thranguy Toaster Beef The Saddest Rhino Black Griffon Slightly Lions Fat Jesus Captain_Person fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Feb 17, 2024 |
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Feb 13, 2024 06:38
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judgecrits for 601 The elevation by beep beep I appreciated the restraint in the world building in this one, this is all about the characters, the worries of Dar and her confusion and uncertainty about what will happen, and the helplessness of just going along the with the flow even though you feel you’re flowing toward something bad. Her parents don’t seem too worried at all, though, which i thought might be a clue. Over all I found the end to be a bit too predictable. Because the outcome was unknown to Dar, all her introspection was about ‘what will happen’ not about ‘will i die, what happens when i die’ which is fine, BUT the outcome of her dying seemed pretty obvious to me the reader. So, because it seemed so obvious, in the end I was expecting this leadup to be a bait and switch, and for something unexpected to happen, ie her not to be a sacrifice. I think this story might have been a good chance for you to give in to your desires for happy endings, and maybe the blood is actually from a bunch of animals slaughtered in order to cook her a big welcome feast or something. the universe in you by Fat jesus I believe this is about a machine that gains awareness, and decides to disobey his orders/programming, and has some thoughts about existence and consciousness and what it might mean to Be. I really liked those internal thoughts, they made the story, but as for what was actually happening in the story (who was doing what and why) i was mostly confused. I found the introspective parts to be very good, though, and i might steal some of these thoughts. there is no ocean by Saddest rhino Great prose here, i love the stream of consciousness and ‘you’ is always hard to pull off, but you did it. I love the setting of the cave and the ocean and the glowworms, it is grounded in reality and yet just weird enough to make the whole thing a surreal experience of questionable veracity. That ballance is really quite good. The last part of this, as ‘you’ go into the water, is just really expertly written, some great lines. Enjoyed this a lot. shark dive by Black griffon I really liked the structure of this story, the pairing of the childhood memories with the present day action worked very well. Also some great prose here, vivid descriptions. I only found it a bit hard to care about the action because it wasnt clear to me what the stakes were other than ‘don’t die’ which the character did not really seem worried about at all. it’s just a game to him, and winning (surviving) is just a thrill. This works great for the character but leaves all the action and explosions a little hollow. ten steps by Captain person This is great. I love the focus and the simplicity of the old fashioned duel, two guys about to shoot at each other, a simple scenario, but all the complexity and chaos going on inside this guy’s mind at each step leading up to the pivotal moment is expertly captured. This is basically exactly the kind of thing i wanted to read this week. I love the confidence and excitement slowly morphing into uncertainty and fear with each step, the realization that this could be the end, and it is coming right now, especially the final moment and wondering if this is the last time he’d see that color of blue. Very good. My only (very slight) complaint was that the voice felt a bit anachronistic at times, the idea of a duel with pistols in a garden is very 17th century, but the voice felt modern day to me. Very enjoyable read, contender for the win. mostly he just floats by Obliterati An aging and ailing uncle likes to build rocket cars so he can float in space for a while. A fun concept, but i felt the pivotal moment was over too quickly, i wanted to see more consideration of the risks, weighing the danger vs the fun, before the young guy decides to go for it, delay it and make me wonder if he’s going to tell mum, make me think for a moment he will, so that when he goes for it i can have that YES catharsis moment. Because that end was very cool, and the appeal of that car was palpable, but it seemed too easy for him to say go for it after all the talk and worry of the danger of it in the leadup. Fun characters, good read. archaeology by Thranguy: This is mostly a conversation between two characters about how one of them evolved, and is a lot of interesting backstory and world building, but i’m not entirely sure what the story is here, there is some kind of business deal in the end, an exchange of a ‘rock’ for some stories. I like the concept of paying for something with stories a lot. This is likely a matter of personal taste, but being thrown into these completely alien worlds with nothing familiar to latch onto, and only just enough time to get a vague sense of what is going on before the story is over, makes it very difficult for me to care about anything.
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Feb 13, 2024 06:44
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im way behind again on novel words but what the hell put me in with a song lyric
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Feb 13, 2024 06:59
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In and flash
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Feb 13, 2024 07:37
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cptn_dr fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 13, 2024 08:15
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In, flash
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Feb 13, 2024 08:29
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derp posted:im way behind again on novel words but what the hell put me in with a song lyric It's a terrible love and I'm walking with spiders Thranguy posted:In and flash Like a note on the ankle of the last living pigeon cptn_dr posted:In and flash There's a science to walking through windows without you Toaster Beef posted:In, flash You in a Kentucky aquarium, talking to a shark in a corner
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Feb 13, 2024 08:37
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In and flash
The Saddest Rhino fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Feb 13, 2024 |
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Feb 13, 2024 09:05
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*Kramers through the door* Obvious? Predictable? PREDICTABLE?! I'll give you predictable! I'm calling you out derp! Brawl me! We'll see who is predictable.
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Feb 13, 2024 19:25
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you have challenged the WRONG guy, buddy you are ON get ready to rue this day there will be much ruing rue RUE! (i accept, if that wasnt clear)
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Feb 13, 2024 19:31
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The Saddest Rhino posted:In and flash Why did you listen to that man, that man's a balloon
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Feb 13, 2024 19:43
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beep-beep car is go posted:*Kramers through the door* derp posted:you have challenged the WRONG guy, buddy REGRET BRAWL Your protagonist has done something they regret terribly, but cannot remember. 999 words, 21 Feb high noon pst
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Feb 13, 2024 19:50
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well I can't stop now can I
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Feb 13, 2024 20:42
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Crits for Week #600 Prompts 2 & 3 beep-beep car is go - Moonlit.: This is a scene that would work better in a longer story. The blocking etc is all fine, but I don’t have enough context as to who the characters are or what they’re trying to achieve, so any tension falls a bit flat. It’s not till they get out at the end that I realise that’s what they were intending to do; until then, I was imagining more of a break-in / heist scenario, not a break-out / escape. a friendly penguin - Becalming: A lovely scene that feels real and lived-in, and there’s a lot of character details and concerns packed into a neat little scene. I would have liked to explore some of those a bit more — the uprooting of their life, in particular, is a bit confusing because I’d expect moving closer to the city would be better for special schooling, unless that’s a non-sequitur. I can’t quite tell if “will that change in five years” is a positive or negative thought, e.g., will their current environment get better, or will the city get worse? I think, when cleaning this up for submission, I’d also lean toward less directly stating “it’s quiet” — difficult since the repetition forms the throughline for the story, but seems a bit on-the-nose for the prompt. Fat Jesus - Another Sinner Laid to Rest: This felt like one sentence of story told over six, where the challenge wasn’t so much condensing something down to fit, but rather stretching it out to fill. I didn’t really get anything out of this story besides some vague vigilante justice. Chernobyl Princess - Godmother: I really enjoyed this. The language is lovely and the ending lands nicely, and there’s a good undercurrent of tension and menace through the piece. If anything it’s possibly a touch too familiar, dark fairytale by way of the Godfather, and I’m not sure that’s enough on its own. Black Griffon - Lungs: I’m not entirely sure what to make of this one, to be honest—in my judge notes I wrote that I “enjoyed the subtext”, but right now I’m not actually sure I could tell you what’s happening. I’m reading some kind of past tragedy, the “he” who meets your eyes a memory of someone who’d drowned years earlier, but I think there needs to be a bit more clarity for the emotion to fully resonate with the reader. It’s a bit of a struggle, otherwise, even if the language is quite lovely. kaom - Prior Experience Not Required: This needed some more escalation; I think it lands the tone and tension in the first line, but then doesn't take it anywhere unexpected. There were a few stories this week running on similar themes, and I think—maybe due to the enforced structure of the six-sentence story—the pacing is a bit off on this story, partly due to less variation in sentence length making the whole thing feel a bit slower. sebmojo - How is what you are doing right now better than what you were doing before?: Strong visual and tactile imagery, specificity of “use your thumb” elevates it from what could be too pat, sticks the landing. Sitting Here - Proof: I enjoyed the language in this, there’s a really strong sense of place and lovely detail, and while the sudden turn at the end works on a first read, there’s no revelation at the end to give a second reading more meaning. It’s lovely, but inscrutable. Anomalous Blowout - All tires bring farmers all farmers bring dogs: I’ll admit I didn’t love this piece on a first read, and now I’m not sure what past me was thinking, because reading (and re-reading, and re-reading) it now all I can offer is that it’s beautiful and perfect and lines like “it thought the hills rolled endless” are such great examples of flash fiction’s economy of language expertly wielded. kaom - False Fungus Friendship: I didn’t particularly enjoy the pacing in this one, though I can sort of see the cinematic jump-cut approach you were likely aiming for. I think it has the effect of making everything in the story feel a bit slight; you mention the dangerous fall but it seems more an afterthought than a sign that these mushrooms took effort and risk to acquire. Maybe this would work better as a single scene. Or if you elided the intermediate steps entirely and went straight to “At home, the mushrooms tumbled into a hot-oiled pan and then to her plate, her fork, her tongue” which reduces the jump cut of the middle (here I can’t help but be reminded of Aronofsky, which lends a different angle to this foraging) while maintaining a visual imagery of the mushrooms falling from the tree to her pan to her mouth, etc. Antivehicular - July 6th, 9:12 PM: I really enjoyed everything about this one. Even the title, which I initially found a bit inscrutable (save the helpful context clues that these were July 4 fireworks), re-inforces the theme of time that’s ever-present in the narrative; there’s a conflict here between the still quietude of this moment, and the encroaching march of time that can’t leave the gravel pit untouched forever. The contrast of time weathering mica smooth, to the hotels cropping up along the river, works well. Fat Jesus - Love Gone Wrong: I didn’t care much for this at all. Domestic violence would be a tricky subject to handle in a longer story, and here it just feels like shorthand, an easy way to establish the narrator’s character before she gets her revenge at the end. Nothing about this fit the theme. Antivehicular - Scene From A Fast-Casual Restaurant: This is short and effective, a whole lot of character expressed in what might well be the shortest story of the week. cptn_dr - Not from here: I think I like the idea of this story more than the story itself; it opens strongly, but the connective tissue through the rest of the story wears thin. Are the different paragraphs meaant to be separated by passing time? The use of “still” and “gone now, too” hint toward this, but it’s otherwise fairly oblique. Captain_Person - Late, Again: Another one that didn’t quite land for me, in this case I think because the ending’s trying to be a touch too clever and falls apart. He wants to be late to her funeral because … he’s at home with her and she’s still alive? It’s distracting from what’s otherwise quite a lovely little relationship study. Captain_Person - Rano Pano: This is solid, and uncomfortably relatable. There’s a universality to this experience that’s well served by the choice of second-person narration. On a first read, though, I was confused and taken out of the story by what I can only assume is a misplaced “her” in the second line. I’m also wondering if having someone “already lying in bed next to you” in the second paragraph happens too quickly for the story, and I’m a bit confused by “I pretend not to enjoy. I don’t see how it ends”. It’s a line that sounds good, but falls apart under interrogation; why are they pretending not to enjoy the movie? I mean, obviously they’re upset by this new development, but to me that feels like the narrator wouldn’t be able to enjoy the movie, or might feign enjoyment of the movie not to make things weird. I actually preferred an earlier intepretation I had, which is that it’s a movie “you” and the narrator have watched before, and the narrator secretly enjoys it because it reminds them of time spent together, even though it’s, like, a trashy 90s rom-com or something, and this is now a double-betrayal, in that the narrator’s losing that shared movie to somebody else … but that falls apart with “I don’t see how it ends”. Fat Jesus - Primates: I hated this story. I don’t know why you’ve chosen to frame the story as an ethnic joke that relies upon an ignorant, outdated portrayal of people on the spectrum, but there’s nothing to like about this piece. cptn_dr - Anahera: I love stories that take otherworldly events and focus on the mundane realities of response, volunteer firefighters and bystanders treating this with no more reverence than a shipwreck (or a beached whale, which I suspect is the analogue, though they probably usually involve fewer firefighters). The note about being only “three successful reassumptions since 2003” lands at the perfect place in the story, underscoring that this has all happened again, if perhaps not in this small town (poor Foxton, at least the angel missed the windmill). rivetz - Family: I dig the idea behind this, and love the sting at the end, but given this is (I think?) the longest story of the week, I can’t help but feel it would benefit from an editing pass to cut down the length of each sentence and help keep the pace high. quote:The
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Feb 14, 2024 03:06
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Alright I'm in. Flash me.
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Feb 14, 2024 17:03
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Slightly Lions posted:Alright I'm in. Flash me. You and your sister live in a lemonworld Anyone want to help judge?
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Feb 14, 2024 20:05
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sebmojo posted:
Words: 995 Title: Rear Guard. Newly elevated Grand Magus Gregory Baxster sat at the head table, trying not to look as bored as he felt. This whole soiree is for him, after all. The mayor of Birchwood declared a feast day and celebration in his name. He’s currently giving the introductory speech welcoming everyone. As soon as the applause dies down, the assembled guests tuck into their meal. The ebb and flow of conversation is punctuated by the noise of forks and knives skittering off plates. Gregory looks down at his meal and sighs. He’s not hungry, but makes a show of pushing his food around. “Quite the event, eh?” The Mayor elbows Gregory in what he thought was a gentle way after tucking into his own plate. “Just think, all this for you, my boy.” “Yes, thank you, your honor.” Gregory puts on his best fake smile. His cheeks ache. “You didn’t have to.” “No no, it was nothing! You saving all of us, that’s the real work! I still can’t believe how you managed it.” “To be honest your honor, I’m still working that out myself.” “Nonsense! It’s just stress. I’m sure you’ll recall soon enough and all will be well.” Without waiting for an answer, the mayor turns back to his meal. That’s just it though, Gregory has no idea what he did. His last memory was standing on the ramparts of the Alexandrian Walls, the very outer walls of Birchwood, nearly pissing himself in fear at the sight of the invading army. The next thing he remembers, he was on his back, in the dirt, absolutely covered in mud; the entire attacking army destroyed and routed. When he was discovered, he was hoisted aloft and carried back into the city with cheers. He must have done something truly terrible. After he could stand it no longer, Gregory left the table and started to mingle. He walked around with a fake smile on his face, accepting everyone’s accolades and thanks. The words bounced off of him and were reflected back upon the people who absorbed them and walked away feeling pleased. It was incredibly wearying. After the flesh was pressed and he was spoken at by the movers and shakers in the city, he retired to the bar in the rear, and ordered a strong drink. “Here you are, Grand Magus, a brandy double.” The bartender placed a delicate silk napkin upon the lacquered wooden bartop with a flourish, before placing the cut crystal glass down. It was utterly silent. Gregory lifted the glass, and gestured a salute to the bartender before taking a sip. Dry and hot, the brandy slid down his throat gratefully. He tipped the glass further and downed the entire drink in an entirely unmagelike manner and placed the empty upon the napkin. “Another, if you could be so kind.” “Of course, my lord.” Two brandies later, Gregory felt someone sit next to him. “Ah, Gregory, how good to finally see you,” the voice purred. He turned. Her red dress was well tailored, tight fitting, and had a slit entirely too high up her legs. Her curly black hair was piled high on her head, the sides shorn nearly to her skin, revealing tattoos of runes and whorls around her ears. She wore a positively massive blood red ruby on a gold chain that hung in her decolletage. Her tan skin shone in the magical lighting of the hall. Gregory always felt inferior when speaking to Helena. She was so effortlessly magical, it always seemed like she was humoring him. “G-good evening Helena.” Gregory swallowed and tried not to blush. Holding a conversation with her without leering was going to take most of his concentration after three brandies in short succession. Helena smiled and leaned in. She must have noticed his look. “Gregory, I simply must know, what was it like?” “What was what like?” She giggled. “The transformation, silly. I had never seen anyone undergo such a complete and utter transformation before. To be honest, I had no idea that you had that kind of power. I had you pegged as a mid level research scholar at best. You never struck me as a warcaster.” Gregory hung his head, his nerves forgotten. “Oh Helena, I have no idea. I have no memory of it! I don’t even know what I transformed into, let alone how I did it.” Helena leaned back, her eyes widening. Her posture immediately changed from femme fatale to scholar as her interest grew. “You did it innately? Gregory, that's amazing. I don’t think we’ve had an innate caster in a century.” He lips pursed as she thought. “That does explain the form you took a little more though. It was… unorthodox.” Gregory glanced to the left, and then the right. The bartender was ignoring them, cleaning up glasses at the far end of the bar, and the crowd had thinned considerably. “Helena… can you tell me… what I did?” She looks at him strangely. Gregory meets her gaze; she blushes, and turns away. “If you really don’t know, and aren’t playing a prank, I will tell you.” She takes Gregory’s brandy glass and tosses the contents back and places the glass on the counter. “Gregory, you turned into… an rear end, thirty stories tall.” “You mean, like a donkey?” “No, I don’t mean like a donkey, Gregory.” “I turned into an rear end?” She nods, solemnly. “You did. And then you released such a torrent of… poo poo that you drowned fully half the invaders and the rest bolted in fear.” Gregory felt weak. He started to shake, and grabbed onto the bar with both hands so as to not fall off his barstool. “You’re telling me that I saved everyone, the whole of Birchwood, using heretofore powers of innate casting that I have never known before, by turning into a gigantic rear end and making GBS threads upon the invading army?” Helena nods. “It was original at least.”
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Feb 15, 2024 20:35
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REGRET BRAWL the cold The cold wakes me and I see her reading via flashlight beam, one hand shining the light, the other holding my journal as she sits on her cot across from me. Steamy breath obscures her face but for her black eyes gleaming in the reflected beam. I don’t move, I lay there watching. The cold has always slowed my thoughts, and it takes time for awareness to permeate. She is reading my journal. There is more in those pages than polar bear sightings and sketches, much more. I scroll back to the moments before we extinguished the lamp, I sat here on this cot while she persisted in reviewing the day’s footage. I sat here cross-legged, bent over the journal that now perches in her slender hand. I was writing... Outside, the wind howls and snow makes soft brushing sounds like fingers secretly caressing the tent. I lay still. The fog of breath that obscures her face thickens and thins like a pulse, and at its thin moments I see that her cheeks are blushing (but the cold always causes such things) and her eyes dart left right, left right, left right. She has not turned a page, she reads the same page repeatedly, and it begins to sink in, all the possible things she could be reading. I cannot tell at what point the journal is open. There is no way to guess. A lightness like falling warms my gut. Her name is written many times in those pages, in many contexts. When spending weeks isolated with a person it’s impossible not to have thoughts about them, and I am one who writes my thoughts. Many such thoughts could easily be misunderstood. A lock of hair is tickling my nose, but I dare not move. She is reading, it’s bad enough, each moment that her eyes bore into that page a sickening warmth swells in my stomach, the need to urinate warms me as her black and silent eyes absorb everything, irrevocably seeing things which cannot be unseen. It’s bad enough already, but for her to know that I know--that would be unbearable, to live through the endless minutes with that knowledge hovering between us, unbearable. Wind presses on the tent and flurries of snow swish past in the dark, out where polar bears roam, six individual bears that we’ve so far documented, all with four-inch curved black claws that could slash through these walls like paper. I think about trying to blow away the lock of hair that is resting on my nose, but I won’t risk making a sound. Then she moves, her forefinger lifts, bends, slides between the sheets, presses softly, turns over the page. As the page turns I see for an instant, circled in the beam of light, a certain sketch I drew of her, and I remember suddenly and clearly what I wrote on the page opposite, the detailed and specific scenario I described that day perhaps a week ago, and my face burns so hot I fear she might feel the heat. And has she opened to that page at random, or has she been reading all night, reading right from the start, page after page of descriptions, scenes and thoughts not meant for anyone but me, and all just idle fantasies, not real desires, only placed on the page as a kind of exorcism. But how could I ever explain something like that? Her slender finger moves again, up, in, out, and another page turns over. I feel a sudden boiling urge to leap up and snatch the journal, to yank my mind free from her devouring eyes, but how could I? How could I explain, how would she react, how could we go on, how... The only possible way forward is to pretend it never happened. If she puts down the journal and goes to sleep and neither of us knows that the other knows, if we can both carry it separately and act like nothing’s changed, that’s the only way, the only way... The flashlight clicks off and everything is black. The wind seems louder in the dark, I hear the snow like a pattering of insects on the tent, I imagine the groaning and snuffling of a bear out there, somewhere, plodding through the drifts. My eyes slowly adjust to the dark and I see her outline. She is sitting, staring. My journal lays closed on the cot next to her. She is staring, at me? I cant make out her face in the dark, only her outline. Just go to sleep, just go to sleep, I will her to lay down, just lay down so this can be over, but instead she gets up and takes the few steps between us and stands at the edge of my bed. My heart pounds in my throat and my ears ring, my face burns as I imagine she must be looking down at me, looking right at me in the dark, and I squint my eyes, peering only through my lashes at her legs right next to me. She is returning the journal, I suddenly realize, and relief floods me for a moment, she must be about to reach down and slip it back under my pillow. But the journal is still there on her cot. I see its shape in the dark, its weight pressing down the blankets. Then weight presses down on my cot, and soft heat slips under my blankets and presses against me, an arm snakes over me and a hand is hot on my back, breath on my neck. I know if I open my eyes I will see her eyes and be devoured by them. I can’t lay still for much longer. She presses against me. I can’t keep still, I have to say something, I have to... I feel her lips on me
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Feb 15, 2024 21:17
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cptn_dr posted:
I retract this, and will instead judge.
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Feb 16, 2024 01:24
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yeah I'm in I guess
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Feb 17, 2024 02:56
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